Shit was fucking everywhere.

Delirious, not having a bag anywhere on his person, had no way of cleaning it up whatsoever, and so he took one disgusted glance at the lumpy coffee stain, screwed his face up, and cleared his throat to force the vomit back down. Raising an eyebrow, he turned his head to stare at the creature sitting next to him and found the dog violently wagging her tail at him. With her tongue sticking out and her figure looking ready to pounce, she stared up at him with absolute glee unmatched by any purer cinnamon rolls.

Giggling like a madman, he spoke, "That's fucking disgusting, Winona."

Winona responded with a simple bark that almost made him smile in delight. Tapping his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Delirious turned around to scan his surroundings, surprisingly finding no current observers in the otherwise very busy marketplace. The pile of shits fumes flew up into the air, which caused a bit of a problem for Delirious. Told to wait outside while Applejack and Apple Bloom got groceries, he couldn't exactly just leave, but he wasn't exactly immune to the distinct smell of dog poop.

Scratching the back of his neck and then coughing into the hoof, Delirious blinked.

Winona barked up at him again.

Taking a glance back at the Jolly Roger Grocery Store, Delirious frowned, shrugged, and simply proclaimed, "Ah fuck it." Pulling his left foreleg, he jerked his head out toward the marketplace stands and said, "C'mon Winona." Tugging her leash softly, Delirious led the Border Collie across the grassy road, making sure to keep checking at his behind to make sure that Winona was neither sniffing it, nor shitting on the ground by it again. The last thing he wanted was to be falsely accused of public indecency or whatever the hell it was.

Thinking about this caused him to look back at Winona, thankfully finding her following him closely behind his rear, head fanning around to stare at everything the market had to offer. Delirious raised a brow, knowing that this couldn't be the first time she'd seen it. Trotting through the grass, he tugged Winona alongside him, rewarded with the pitter patter of her paws in the dirt. Suddenly, Delirious stopped, his hooves tapping the ground out of sync with one another as he nervously pranced about. Groaning all the while, he swept his head back to the grocery store and back to the marketplace.

His stomach chose to rumble at that time, and Winona barked.

He glared.

"Fuck."

Licking his lips, he turned tail and began to walk back to the store with his hooves dragging through the dirt.

And once again he stopped.

He growled, bearing his teeth and grinding them against one another in a blanco embrace. Winona, not realizing his frustration, ran up to him and began to paw at his side. Looking down at her, his frown softened a tad, only to reappear in a slightly different form. Narrowing his eyes, he looked from one destination to the other, drew his head back, and allowed his ears to flatten against the side of his head. Groaning once again, Delirious fell to his haunches and crossed his arms. Winona walked over to his side and stared at him with glee.

Flattening his lips, Delirious raised his hoof to scratch his ass. Wait. Raising the appendage, he gave it a single, hard glimpse before lowering it to find the Collie looking at him intently. Blowing air out of his nose, Delirious thought for a while, fussing inside his head. Finally, with one fell swoop, he raised the leg, brought the leash close to his face, and unclipped it from Winona's collar. Placing the leash by his side, Delirious waved a hoof at the dog, "Alright. Pick a side."

Winona turned her head left, and then turned her head right.

Without even a second more of observation, Winona chose left, and began to walk toward the grocery store with a spring in her step. Delirious glowered, but got off his ass and followed the dog back to the side of the building. Sitting back down next to the front doors, Winona watched as Delirious joined her, his back sliding down the brick wall as he rubbed his face with both hooves. Settling down on the grass, he looked at Winona, who placed her front paws on Delirious' front hooves. Laughing, Delirious patted the dog's head, receiving a happy bark in response.

Thinking, the Pegasus moved his right side up off the ground, a hoof reaching to his crotch. Coming back out, Delirious raised the granola bar into the air, waving it around as if it were a bag of ricin. Winona, understandably, was fuckin' happy about it. Unwrapping the bar's covering, he held it out for her. Quickly snatching it from his grasp, Winona began to feast on her treat. Smiling, and chuckling, Delirious watched the dog go wild with it.

He froze.

"Oh shit that was chocolate."

Getting up from his spot, he reached a hoof out to grab the now-apparent cyanide from the dog's jaw, only successful with a small chunk left covered with crinkling plastic. Biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood, Delirious threw his hooves into the sides of Winona's face, turning her eyes his way. Releasing his right leg's grasp, he jabbed it into the dog's mouth to retrieve the candy bar, snarling all the while, "Let the fuck go goddammit!"

Pulling, he yanked his leg back with enough force to break it. Looking down at its end, he found nothing on the ground next to him. He swallowed a lump down his throat, then rubbed his shoulder to soften the dulling pain resounding across it. He hissed audibly like a venomous snake, rolling up his nonexistent sleeves before marching over to the still-feasting dog. Calmly placing one hoof on Winona's back, he snaked the other one past her nose to confuse her. Confused, she looked that way.

Delirious sprang into action. Swiftly bringing the distraction back to his front, he proceeded to grab at Winona's jaw, opening it with a flail of his hoof. Bringing the hoof up with gusto, he shoved it down the Collie's gullet in an attempt to rid her of the poison currently on its way to her stomach.

It was at that moment that a swishing of doors took place in Delirious' world, and a voice shouted out for him.

"Delirious! The hay you doin' ta Winona?"

Delirious' eyes shrunk to mere pinpricks, and, swiftly, he rose to his hooves to face the music. Walking up to him were Applejack and Apple Bloom, their saddlebags bulging with what Delirious assumed to be groceries. Looking up at the mare, he listened as she spoke to him. "Delirious, ya mind tellin' me what was happenin' here?"

Though she bore a rather serious tone, Delirious felt that it wasn't genuine. She'd crack soon enough, if he didn't first. Scratching the back of his neck, he spoke, "Uh, she smelled somethin' on my fuckin' hand." Ignoring the confused brow from Apple Bloom, he began to speak but was interrupted by a laugh to his left.

"What, did y'all have peanut butter or somethin' on there? Winona can't help 'erself around that stuff." Looking down at the Border Collie, Applejack pursed her lips and cooed, "Ain't that right Winona? Ain't that right." Mussing up Winona's fur with an orange hoof, Applejack rose back to her prior position with a smile on her face. "Alrighty then! C'mon y'all, we've gotta get back to the apple stand. Apple Bloom?" The filly looked up at her sister with a curious look. "You go ahead. Ah'll walk with Delirious here so he doesn't get lost today."

"Why's tha..." Trailing off as Apple Bloom sped off, he quickly joined Applejack's side to resume his question, "Uh, why's that?"

Applejack cocked an eyebrow, "Why's what now?"

"Why's Apple Bloom headin' off by herself like that?"

"Oh!" Applejack chuckled, "Ah told 'er before Ah headed to the welcomin' party that Ah thought she could finally handle the apple cart by herself. You shoulda seen how fast she flew off the first time Ah told her. Think she mighta beaten her morning record this time though! Look through the crowd, Sugarcube," she said, leaning to her right and pointing down the road they were traversing, "she's already there."

Following the mare's movement, he indeed found the yellow filly proudly standing behind the counter. Waving a hoof around, she looked to already be attracting customers. Beginning to walk into the large, bustling crowd of the market, Delirious and Applejack scooted closer to on another, sharing a look as they realized there was no way they'd be able to hold a decent conversation amidst all the noise. Instead, they shared a smile and walked down the pathway toward the apple cart.

With Applejack's saddlebags rubbing against his wings in the most uncomfortable way, the noon-high sun's heat beating down on him, and the ponies surrounding him softly brushing past him, Delirious would have found it very annoying and stressful had it not been for the mare next to him. Grunting as a green Earth pony slightly shoved him out of the way, Delirious turned his head and snarled nastily as he continued walking. Not looking where he was going, he soon bumped into somebody, and turned around to shout at them.

A yellow mare stared at him, her jaw slack in surprise as she presumably gasped from the contact. Quickly, her mouth formed into a smile, and she beamed, "Oh, hello Delirious! Nice seeing you here!"

Thankfully able to hear her as the ponies around them headed elsewhere in the marketplace, Delirious raised a hoof to answer, but was once again interrupted as Applejack found her way back to his side. Grinning wildly, she exclaimed, "Howdy Fluttershy! Ah thought y'all were still at the party!"

"Oh, I was, but Twilight said that we were starting to run out of bananas, so I thought I'd go back to my cottage because I thought I still had some on the counter, but I didn't find any," Delirious groaned. Applejack kicked him in the side as Fluttershy finished, "so I came here to buy some more!"

"Well, just make sure that whatever ya do, ya don't buy 'em from Banana Split."

"Oh, I won't–"

Another voice came from behind Fluttershy, one that sounded oddly familiar to Delirious.

"Oh Fluttershy, you won't believe what I just found back there by the blanket shop! Did you know that they sell pretzels covered in chocolate?!"

Delirious stopped.

The figure hovering next to Fluttershy halted.

Delirious blinked.

The figure blinked in kind.

Fluttershy's face lit up.

"Oh there you are, Discord! I thought you went back to the cottage, I was going to surprise you with some soup tonight, but I guess since you're still here it... isn't really a surprise anymore..."

Discord narrowed his eyes, almost glaring at the blue Pegasus before him. Flinging a claw full of chocolate pretzels into his mouth, he chewed them deafeningly before asking one simple question.

"And who could you be?"

Author's Notes:

I'll make sure the next chapter isn't so short. Sorry about that!