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The Steadfast Sky

by TheGreyPotter

Chapter 3: III : Luna

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The Steadfast Sky : Chapter 3
The Grey Potter
http://cosmicponyfanfiction.blogspot.com/

~Luna~

I think for a second there everyone went just a little bit crazy. And by everyone, I mean my sister. This was a moment of hypocrisy for Celestia. She was the one who told me not to judge weird looking ponies by their appearance, and now she was treating poor Discord like the bad guy here.

You know, I’m going to tell her that.

“What have you done with my sister?!” Celestia yelled, magically holding Discord aloft, over the loft’s railing.

“What do you mean, what have I done?” Discord piped up in his funny voice. I guess it’s not funny right now, though, being scared and stuff.

“Celestia, I’m right here.” I stride toward her, using the walk she taught me to show I was serious. “And you’re hurting my friend.”

“Luna, dearest.” Celestia looked down at me, wearing her most serious and dire face. She pulled Discord to us magically, not paying attention to him. He would have bonked his head on the railing if he didn’t see it coming and duck. Upwards. “Do you even know what this is?”

“He’s not a ‘this,’ he’s Discord.”

Discord waved. I think he was nervous, which makes sense. Being manhandled can’t be the most fun thing ever. Celestia gave him a sideways glance.

“Do you even know what Discord is, Luna?”

“A Pony?”

“No. He’s not a pony,” Celestia said.

“Really? Huh.”

“Actually, I’m a Draconequus,” Discord clarified, “But that’s like a pony. I think.” Celestia just looked at Discord silently. “I guess I don’t really know.” More silent treatment. She does that sometimes. It makes her look so cool and imposing, but really, she’s just thinking too hard. “Can you put me down now, please? Celestia, right?”

“I don’t trust you,” my sister replied, “I don’t know what you are or what you’re doing here. What if you tried to hurt us?”

“Oh, that’s easy!” I pipe in, “If he was going to hurt us, he could’ve done that ages ago! We were playing Princess when you came in. Well, Prince and Princess.” Now I was getting my sister’s cold stare. But I knew how to deal with it. “So, Discord fell out of my window and hid in my toybox—“

“Luna, dearest,” my sister sighed, “You need to learn how to be more distrustful of strange things like this.”

“And you need to be more trustful of them,” I retorted, “This entire time Discord has been hanging upside down and not trying to escape or hurt you or anything, even though being upside down must make all the blood go all funny in his head.” Discord looked confused for a second, then tried to appear dramatic, flailing his arm across his face in pretend woe. “When he dropped out of my window, he was scared and confused, and probably had the ability to hurt me a lot with those pointy claws. Or just escape through the window again. But instead he played Princess with me.” I nodded like I had won, but with my sister, there is no such thing. She sighed. ‘It’s been a long day,’ she would usually say.

“Playing Princess is not the ultimate answer of whether or not someone can be trusted, Luna.” I opened my mouth to try again, but whinier, but instead she set Discord down on his four feet. He didn’t run away, though the way he was looking around I think he wanted to. “Discord. I am sorry for treating you like I did. May you please tell me why you decided to sneak into our house and play games with my sister?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to play games at first. Like Luna said, I was so scared!” he bobbed his head dramatically again, yellow eyes jokingly huge, “Out there, it’s so scary! All the big shadows making ponies just vanish, I panicked, had to get inside somewhere, where I knew they couldn’t find me. I don’t want to go out there again!”

“Of course…” Celestia turned and began walking downstairs. “Discord, you may spend the night here, but when it becomes day, you need to get home, alright?” She stopped, “Oh, would you like to join us for dinner?”

“Sure!”

I nudged him with my nose, and he gave me back a blank stare “You’re supposed to say ‘thank you!’”

“Oh, right! Thank you, um, Dearest Celestia!” He stood on his hind legs and did a bow with a flourish of his hands. My sister nodded, though I don’t think she was paying attention. She walked downstairs, leaving me and Discord behind.

“This is going to be so cool!” I shout, “We’re going to have a slumber party! I haven’t had one of those in, I dunno, a long time.”

“Slumber party? A party where you sleep?” He adopted a thinking pose, eyeing the ceiling. “Well, never done that before. Sounds fun!”

I whinnied excitedly. I guess I wasn’t that excited. But after so many weeks of just playing with Celestia, mildest and most controlling of all the pony baronesses, something weird like this was great! Discord just looked at me with a sideways head, like a puppy. What was there to be a puppy about?

“No shouting in the house, Luna!” Celestia shouted from downstairs. “Now do you two want to eat or not?”

Discord seemed excited about dinner until he saw what we were eating. When we all got settled on the foyer floor, Celestia offered him hay. He said he ate earlier, though it was pretty clear that he didn’t. I didn’t blame him, hay was pretty boring, if filling. Celestia offered to sugar my hay with oats, like usual, but I offered them to Discord instead. He seemed pretty grateful.

“Luna, you need to chew more. You don’t want to get sick, do you?”

“Farry,” I said through a mouthful of hay being chewed super slowly.

“So Discord,” Celestia began, “I’ve never seen a Draconequus before. Are you from around here?”

Discord immediately shoved a handful of oats in his mouth, “Thath m… h’ng ‘n.” He took a few minutes to chew on those oats before gasping for breath and declaring “Underground!”

“Underground?”

“Yeah, underneath the city. Tons of tunnels and stuff, it’s pretty dreary. I thought, if I came to the surface, maybe things wouldn’t be so depressing. But its… well… I have a question. Do you ponies like all this stone everywhere?”

“No. It’s absolutely awful,” my sister replied instantly. She loved talking about how bad it was here.

“Good, because I think it’s just as dreary as the Underground.” Discord continued, “Dark. Rocks. The same deal. I mean, why live here, like this?”

“I don’t know, I can’t read the Shadow Stallion’s mind.”

“The Shadow Stallion?!” Discord drew back, crossing his arms across his body, dramatically aghast. I laughed through my mouthful of hay. “You mean that he’s here too? Oh, he’s been, been oppressing the Draconequus for so many years! Practically making us into underground slaves!”

“Of course he’s here. Didn’t you notice all of his banners around town?”

“Different colors, in the underground. Since it’s so dark all the time.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

Discord held a sort of normal adult conversation with my sister. She spoke with him as if he was an equal, not downtalk like she usually does with me. With only a little more conversation, Discord and my sister instantly bonded over how much they hated it in Canterbury. I’ve heard ‘Canterbury is dark and dreary’ enough times from my sister to get sick of it, but Discord kept bringing up something different. He called the city boring, and I felt that was right. But he also talked about the Shadow Stallion. Celestia always avoids talking about him. It was kind’ve weird to hear Discord tell stories about him.

After dinner, the night went by really fast. Maybe too fast. Discord and I played pretend until Celestia came upstairs to put us to bed. I wasn’t sleepy, but as a good sister, I let myself be tucked in. It had been months since I was allowed to sleep in my own bed. Celestia’s been needing me near her at night. She wasn’t sleeping right when she was in her own room. Discord settled into my toybox, and things were quiet for a very small time.

“Luna,” Discord spoke up, “You’re pretty cool. And your sister too, once she stops flipping out.”

“Thanks!”

“Are all ponies this nice?”

“I dunno. My sister says there’s lots of mean ponies and I should be careful around ones I don’t know. But all the ponies I’ve met have been really nice. Except maybe Emerald Shine, she’s a jerkface.”

“What kind of stuff do you do?”

“Whatcha mean by that?”

“Y’know… stuff. What do you do all day, if you sleep at night?”

“Well, I go to school where I learn how to be ‘a proper baroness’ like my sister wants. Basically I learn how to walk nice and levitate stuff all dainty like. My sister works at a bakery, and sometimes, she brings home sweets and stuff. Like cupcakes and tarts and rollover and things like that.”

“I’ve never had any of those.”

“Well, they’re really, really tasty! Maybe she’ll get us a few someday.”

“So… I can come back?”

“Sure! I’d love to play with you again!”

Discord went quiet again, probably tired. But I had something I needed to ask him.

“Hey Discord, why were you lying at dinner?”

“What? I wasn’t lying.”

“Well you were doing all those actor-y poses. You were talking all funny, like you do during pretend. I thought you were telling a story.”

“Not… really?”

“Then why did you behave like that?”

He didn’t answer, and I was thinking of poking in his box. I prepared my night vision spell, but eventually, he spoke up again.

“Sometimes acting, and lying, makes things easier to explain.”

“Really? I always fumble around with lies, it makes things so confusing. I think being honest is much easier!”

“I guess so.”

Things got quiet again. I was drifting off to sleep. A few minutes later, I heard a little scraping sound, my window opening. I didn’t hear anything else the rest of the night.

Next Chapter: IV : Discord Estimated time remaining: 22 Hours, 24 Minutes
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