The Rein of the Evil

After a while, the train finally reached Griffinstone Station.

Discord never came back, so Twilight assumed that it would be fine to get off the train herself. She looked around for a bit, but didn’t find anything noticeable. Only mountains. So many mountains.

“Is this supposed to be the prison?” she wondered aloud, “Well there’s not much here.” as she said that, she glanced up. There it was.

“Griffinstone?” she wondered. It looked awful. It was overwhelming to take it in, but from what Twilight could gather, part of the floor was checkered, many of the trees holding up the houses had strange colors ranging from red to purple, so many houses were upside down, and there were a few pink clouds here and there.

“What the…” she started. She wondered if she should make a break for it and run away, but quickly remembered the plan. Funnily enough, now she wanted to find the prison for the sake of the plan. She took a few steps forward before a letter appeared in front of her. It read:

Dear Twilight,

Hi.

Sincerely, Discord

P.S. I trust you can make it to Griffinstone alone. Excuse my lack of hospitality, I just don’t feel like giving you the tour right now because I’m kind of busy. Also I didn’t even want to do this, so can you blame me? Anyways, when you get to Griffinstone, just do me a favor and look for the obvious sign with your face. I left you a surprise there.

Twilight felt annoyed. She looked up at the daunting mountain, and began her long traverse to Griffinstone.

Twilight hauled herself up the last mountain. Finally, her destination was in sight. There it was, in all of its glory. All around her were griffons in seemingly bad moods. She looked around until she saw it: a wooden canvas with a terribly made painting of her on it. Beneath the canvas was a wooden box. She approached the canvas and read the sign:

OPEN THIS BOX

Do I have a choice? She wondered while inspecting the box. She reached towards it and lightly tapped the top. It immediately flung open, and a handful of metal bars sprang out and surrounded her.

This must be the prison! At least this is all going according to plan, she consoled herself.

From out of the box, Discord sprung out with a wide smile. “I take it you’ve gotten quite acquainted with your new home.” he chuckled.

“Uhm sure.” she huffed, “But is this really it?”

“What? What more could there possibly be?” he challenged her, “Did you really want some grand parade just for you going to prison?”

“Erm, no, but I think that you could come up with something more exciting than a normal prison. Maybe I could be sentenced to community service?” she suggested.

“What? Your sentence is PRISON!” he said, placing extra emphasis on the “prison” part, “Not community service.”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t think you were such a sucker for the rules, I can relate! I just love rules, they make everything fun, afterall, what fun is there in making no sense?” Twilight was rambling, but from the look on Discord’s face, she knew her words were starting to get to him.

“I’ll show you who’s the sucker!” and with a snap of his fingers, the prison around Twilight fell, “Ok here’s the deal, you are going to help me with a few errands around town.”

“What kind of errands?” Twilight asked, feeling a bit worried.

“I need to meet my chaos quota,” he replied, “just follow me.”

Twilight decided to comply, and followed him as he led her towards one of the griffin's houses.

“See that griffon in there?” he gestured towards a griffon with white head feathers, “She’s been kind of lonely lately. I say we pay her a friendly visit”

The griffin, who was walking grumpily, did look rather lonely. In fact, everyone there did. Wow, Discord must have done a number on these citizens, she thought.

“Ok, here’s what you’re going to do,” Discord started, “take this wooden marionette, and give it to her.”

“Oh, is that all?” smiled Twilight. She grabbed the doll and started trotting over to the girl.

“Come right back when you're done!” Discord shouted after her.

“Alright then…” she came face to face with the griffin, “Uhh, take this,” she handed her the marionette.

The griffin sighed, “From Discord?” she whispered.

“Well, yes.” Twilight replied.

“Ugh, hey, just so you know, this reaction is totally fake,” she said in a rather monotone voice, taking the marionette from Twilight's hooves.

Suddenly, the doll grew 16 feet, and began flailing around like a ragdoll. “Woah! This is insane!” The griffin suddenly exclaimed in a very surprised voice, “It just doesn’t make any sense! I’m outta here” she turned to leave but paused, glancing back at Twilight, “Name’s Gilda by the way,” then, she took off.

Twilight returned to where Discord was. “So, was it everything you hoped for?” she asked.

Discord didn’t reply, only staring off in the direction where Gilda disappeared. He slowly turned his head towards Twilight. After a long pause, he finally muttered a disappointed “No”.

Twilight hesitated, “Well, you’ll get 'em next time, I guess.”

Discord turned to face her, “No, I won’t.” he said grimly, “people here are never surprised anymore. Everyone here is just… I don’t know, dead inside? It’s just an integral part of the culture… Honestly, it’s made me lose a lot of my motivation to even try bothering them.”

“Oh, well… Have you ever considered… maybe instead of bothering them… you could try and cheer them up.”

Discord gave Twilight a look of bewilderment “Uhm, yeah I’ve tried! Me showing up should be enough!”

Twilight wondered if he was actually this delusional or if it was just a facade. “It doesn’t look that way to me,” she countered.

Discord sighed, “Ok lackey, what do you propose I do to get a sense of excitement around here?”

“Well, I could show you. Oh, but it would be impossible with these rocks on my horn,” Twilight did her best to put on an innocent look, “They block my magic in case you didn’t know, and without my magic, I just can’t bring happiness, excitement, or any sense of chaos around here.”
She put on a frown which she hoped appeared genuine.

Discord huffed and thought for a few seconds. “Ok, you know what? I don’t think the boss will mind if I just…” he reached his hand and grabbed twilight's horn off her head. He then took a bite out of the rocks like they were rock candy. “There we go,” he dusted the rest of the rocks off and put Twilight's horn back on her head.

“Oh… thanks,” Twilight said sheepishly, staring at her poor horn, “Uhm, by any chance is there a sink around here?”

A sink fell from the sky, right in front of Twilight. “Thanks”

Twilight, with her sharp mind, quickly formulated a plan.

"Alright, hear me out..."