Even before his eyes opened, Nix began his checklist of things stallions—’Fuck you, pony language!’—of things hoo- hyoo- hyoo-mahn- human! He began running through his checklist of things human males do upon waking before even opening their eyes. There was actually just one thing on the list. He tried reaching down to relieve an itch below his waist, but his right arm didn’t respond. He grumbled crankily to himself and opened his eyes slowly, wincing at the light as he fought off the urge to go back to sleep.

As his eyes grudgingly accustomed themselves to his annoyingly bright surroundings, he quickly surmised he was in a hospital room. He turned his head to look with a disappointed glare at his right arm, it being woefully lacking in the task of scratching the itch in his nether regions. Unfortunately, it appeared to be absent, and in its place was an excess of white bandages blanketing his entire upper torso.

’Oh, right. It got evaporated into ash. Somewhere, some colt is on his way to school, and a scorched part of my fucking arm is sneaking its way into his nose right now. And he’s sneezing. Sneezing out my arm. And the sneezing fit is so violent he’s stuck on the side of the road for several minutes, making him late for school. He’ll get reprimanded by the teacher when he arrives, only he’s been a bit lax with completing his homework, so his tardiness will be the final straw and a letter will be sent home to his parents. They’ll get into an argument over who’s to blame for their colt failing at school, culminating in their eventual divorce, which will devastate the poor thing. He’ll grow up torn between the conflicting ideals of his separated parents, and as a young stallion will be completely incapable of responding rationally to the world around him, leading him to drown his anxieties in drugs and cheap mares. One day, 30 years from now, he’ll wander into this castle in a drug-induced haze, all hope in his life lost, and he’ll stagger up to Tia and clock her right in the jaw with an unwashed carrot, and she’ll turn him into a pasty splat on the floor of her throne room then and there. And it will be your fault, Right Arm.’

“That pony will die a terrible death, suicide by princess, all because you couldn’t be assed to be here to scratch my balls, you ungrateful bastard of a right arm,” he slurred, pointing at the space where his right arm should be and still trying to wake up. He gazed dumbly at his left hand’s accusatory finger. “Oh...”

He began relieving the itch before a polite cough interrupted his blissful revery. His embarrassed gaze shot to the sound. Princess Celestia sat patiently to the left of his bed, one of her eyebrows quirking so high it aspired to join her sun in the day’s sky. He stared at her for a second, before uttering a relieved sigh. “Oh, good, it’s only you.” He continued his furious attack on the itch between his legs.

“You know, my hospitals do have salves and medicines for certain afflictions brought about by extensive licentiousness,” she stated bluntly.

“Ah, no, I’m good,” Nix responded, having finally quelled the irritation and removing his hand. He looked at it for a second and wished Tia were sitting a bit closer, before brushing it off on his bedsheets. “It’s fairly normal for my kind to have a good scratch in the morning. The males, anyway.”

“Are you positive? I’m sure I could have a few mare orderlies assist in the relief of your-”

“IT WASN’T THAT KIND OF ITCH!” Nix stared at the white princess in revulsion, before she let out a measured chuckle.

“Oh, so now you have a sense of humor. Wonder how much of this clusterfuck could have been avoided had you possessed such levity over a goddamn carrot.”

“I am very, very sorry about my overreaction to your arrival and your subsequent, innocent faux pas. I thought you a very old enemy of mine and my sister’s.” She seemed sincere.

He tried to wave off her apology dismissively, but lacking his dominant arm, he mostly just twitched on his bed. Celestia took on a concerned look and moved to help him, but he shot an annoyed glare her way and she stopped, her head drooping slightly.

"You know, I found you cradling my sister in a crater on the ground. You had suffered extensive injuries whereas she was mostly unharmed. I just wanted to thank you, and also offer my sympathies over the loss of your arm." The gaze she leveled was the most gracious she could muster.

"Extensive injuries? Oh, you mean this?" he gesticulated to his ruined right side before poking it with his left hand, white fire momentarily consuming half his body. As the flames faded, his scorched bandages dissolved into ash floating through the air, and he brought a serious gaze upon his newly restored, uplifted right palm. "Though my sacrifices were great in my heroic salvation of your sister," he said with an air of immense gravity, suddenly clenching his right hand into a fist and meeting Celestia’s eyes, "I was only performing my duty, and I gave of myself freely, knowing I'm goddamn immortal and that even if I failed I would have survived and still been really awesome. Such is the extent of my selflessness." He even managed to fake eyes quivering with manly tears towards the end.

“Oh, bravo,” a flat voice echoed plainly through the room, accompanied by the clockwork clopping of hooves upon the ground. Nix regarded the blue Guard-Captain at the door to his hospital room flatly. “Truly a performance worthy of Equestria’s greatest court jester.” His clopping ceased.

“Princess Celestia?” Nix asked, managing to correctly remember her name even as he leveled a look of quivering innocence her way.

“Yes, Nix?” she asked gently.

“Shouldn’t we check those tiles there for a heartbeat? I’m pretty sure Hannibal Lecter over there just killed them with his shocking display of applause.” Nix frowned sorrowfully, and pointed to the one underneath Glancing Shock’s left foot. “That one there is married to one of the pillars your guard used to turn my jaw into jelly. I imagine it should at least be notified of the death of its spouse. Bonus points if you get Dancie out there to speak at the wake.” A voice outside the door uttered an embarrassed eep! before Ridge Dancer peeked her head through the door.

“Honestly,” Nix sighed, “the amount of violence in your world frightens me. I pine for the more innocent realities I’ve visited. Like the one where I blew up an entire planet.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “My sister has told me of your many exploits. That didn’t happen.”

Nix grinned at her. “Oh, it most certainly did. There I was, floating in the orbit of this one colonized planet, taking swigs from a bottle of cheap vodka. All the inhabitants were grouchy and single-minded, and they annoyed the crap outta me, but I could tolerate ‘em with enough vodka. But then! Horror of horrors! My vodka ran out! A quick scan of the planet revealed I had imbibed the last of their backwards society’s booze, and in a furious rage, I smote them like an angry god bereft of delicious alcohol, cackling madly with glee as I wiped out a million years of civilization. Perfectly reasonable for me to do so, too. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and sugar had ceased to exist, Tia?

“Anyway, all the realities I visited after that were quick to proffer copious amounts of happy-juice after I told them of my rage. Speakin’ of which, got any beer?”

The smell of ozone overwhelmed Nix’s nose as one corner of the room wavered and a blue, electric explosion momentarily shook the other ponies out of their flustered shock—all except the blue Guard-Captain whose name currently escaped Nix, who simply allowed his blank gaze to wander from Nix to the outburst of magic. Luna stood in the center of a blackened circle on the ground, her head lowered and her eyes piercing Nix with an annoyed glare. “Bullshit,” she uttered simply, before her left hoof immediately shot to her mouth.

Nix gawked mockingly and pointed at her, “Language! You said the Soulmeld spell was incomplete, you have no excuse for adopting my barbarous tongue. Also, fuck fuckity fuck-fuck-McFuckerson.”

“Language aside,” Celestia interjected diplomatically, regarding Nix with a skeptical glance, “I’m inclined to agree with my sister’s rebuttal.”

“Nay, Sister, the foul ape speaks the truth. He truly destroyed an entire planet, and all its inhabitants.”

Celestia stared at her sister with a look of horror.

“Every living thing had been corrupted by an evil shadow, and had died inside long ago. He saw one monstrous shell of a creature that reminded him of his little sister, and in an act of kindness, released the entire world from its curse. Only he laughed not; his cheeks had already pruned from his immense sobbing insodoing-”

“I have no idea what you’re blabbing about, Lu-”

“-‘Twas akin to a throng of a thousand weeping school-fillies, all loosing their sorrows at once upon his face-”

“-but I’m pretty sure I still hate you and I regret ever hugging you.”

Glancing Shock’s mouth sputtered but somehow managed to twist out a mangled, “You what?!”

“Easy there,” Nix comforted. “I promise I only molested your Night Princess in my dreams, and it was a total accident. My heart belongs solely to you, blue-pony-whose-name-I-can’t-be-assed-to-remember, even if you stabbed me a couple hundred times.” Arcs of electricity began to shoot through the Guard-Captain’s primary feathers even as the glazed look in his eyes wavered.

Princess Celestia’s eyes shot wildly between the three other ponies in the room as things spiralled out of control, before she leveled her mind and stated with every ounce of her authority, “That’s quite enough. All of you.”

“Oh, God, she’s threatening me again!” Nix continued. “Save me, Swordspony!” He immediately leapt from his bed and dove behind the confused blue pegasus, grabbing his wings and spreading them out like a shield between himself and the two princesses. The lightning fluttered wildly between the pegasus’s wings with reckless abandon, and rather than attempting to subdue the rampaging alien, he focused on an interesting spot on the hospital floor’s tiles. A deep red blush painted his cheeks.

“My, my, we have underestimated thy forwardness,” Luna teased. “We must have missed your memories of erogenous pegasus anatomy.”

“Ero-what?” Nix asked confusedly, trying to summon Twilight’s vocabulary from his memories but instead only remembering the time he slapped a king across the face with an ice cream sandwich. He glanced at Swordspony and caught his embarrassed look. Nix manipulated his wings randomly, and each motion seemed to send the Guard-Captain into deeper throes of shame, his face reddening to a darker shade of red with each of Nix’s confused acts of wing-puppetry.

“P-please don’t touch my wings. Please,” the blue pegasus pleaded in a whisper quieter than a feather hitting the ground.

“P-pervert!” Ridge Dancer exclaimed, leveling an accusatory hoof at Nix.

Nix dropped the Guard-Captain’s wings, but they continued jutting out from his sides stiffly. The human ran a hand through his blonde hair, his gaze wandering dumbly to the other ponies in the room. “I don’t get it.”

A weaselly laugh echoed from seemingly everywhere around him, before its owner’s voice piped up, “So you’ve assaulted a princess with health food, temporarily took a piece of another princess’s soul, destroyed numerous sections of Canterlot Castle, and now molest the Guard-Captain himself? Oh, such chaos, it’s simply glorious!”

Nix sensed motion to his right and whipped his head to the source. Bright yellow eyes with red irises matched his icy blue gaze. The grey face of a dragon peered at him over his right shoulder, its head crowned by a deer antler on one side and the horn of a goat on the other. The creature flashed a lopsided smile that emphasized his single, oversized fang, and his equine ears fluttered contentedly. “You, I like!”

Recognition flickered through Nix’s eyes as one of Luna’s memories surfaced briefly. ’Discord!’

“Although, mah boy, I’d have gone about things a bit diff-” the dragonequus was unable to finish his sentence as a pale, hairless fist interjected rudely, pummeling his face and sending him flying through the outer wall of the hospital.

Tendrils of lightning danced along Nix’s arms and his eyes flared with light blue flames. “Everyone get out of here, now! I’ll hold him off for as long as I can while you evacuate the hospital!”

Celestia sighed. A ghost of a smile danced across Luna’s lips. Glancing Shock merely stared blankly at a nearby wall, his gaze intermittently flicking to the arcs of electricity along Nix’s upper limbs. Ridge Dancer’s brain appeared to have seized up as she gawked at the serpent-shaped hole in the wall.

“Or don’t?” Nix’s lifeforce fizzled out. “Seriously, someone expla-” He was cutoff by something big and red smashing into his face. He flew across the room and bounced off the wall like a ragdoll. He stopped himself from impacting face-first into the ground with both hands before bouncing up to face his opponent. Discord danced in place on the other side of the room, now wearing shorts and an oversized pair of boxing gloves. He shuffled his feet as he sent out a few practice jabs, his head held low behind his fists.

“Come on, Boss! Lemme at ‘im! Lemme at ‘im!”

“Discord, that’s quite enough,” Celestia warned menacingly. She was having trouble wielding her disapproving gaze on both the human and the dragonequus at the same time.

“Tch, fine,” Discord muttered, crossing his arms in consternation, “but he started it.” He snapped his fingers—err, his boxing glove?— and his shorts and gloves disappeared. “I coulda been a contender,” he sighed morosely before plopping down on the ground next to Ridge Dancer and resting a bear’s paw on her back. She stared at him in terror. “Heya, toots!” He winked at her. Her jaw stammered in quiet dismay. Discord lifted his bird’s claw and regarded the back of his fingers arrogantly. “Yes, I have that effect on mares. Right, Tia?” He smiled sweetly, the mirth in his yellow eyes more than drowning out his grin.

Celestia’s eyes narrowed, but she maintained her composure. “Discord, please remove your paw from my guard.”

Discord sighed, and removed his appendage. He glanced down at Ridge Dancer and put his bird’s claw up to his head, his thumb near his ear and his pinkie near his mouth. ‘Call me,’ he mouthed silently, winking again. Ridge Dancer tremored violently before zipping away from the crazed dragonequus. She huddled behind Nix, holding on to his shin with a deathgrip.

“What the fu-?”

“You’re scarier than he is, s-save me!” she stammered out, staring at Nix with pleading eyes. Glancing Shock’s eyebrow twitched, and he leveled a passionless glare her way.

Nix shook his foot with a look of mild disgust on his face, trying to dislodge her. She dragged across the ground with the motion. Nix shifted his gaze to Glancing Shock. “Hey, Swordspony? I know controlling yourself is hard enough, but you think you can at least manage your guards for once?”

Glancing Shock stared at him blankly. “My distaste for my guard’s actions is outweighed by the personal discomfort it causes you. Ridge Dancer, please continue your attempts to apprehend the alien’s leg,” he replied in monotone.

“Y-yessir!” she exclaimed, squinting her eyes shut and squeezing his leg harder. Discord’s grin continued to widen.

“Hate you,” Nix muttered in a low voice. “Hate all of you.”

Celestia cleared her throat loudly. Glancing Shock immediately stood at attention, and Ridge Dancer snapped her head in the direction of the white alicorn. Discord snapped his fingers and disappeared, reappearing instantly with his mismatched arms wrapped around Nix’s other leg. “S-save me, Phoenix!” he cried sarcastically, his yellow eyes quivering with feigned emotion. “She’s scarier than you are,” he added in a whisper.

”ENOUGH!!!” Luna shouted using the booming hammer of the Royal Canterlot Voice. Everyone staggered from the force of the volume, and the hospital room’s window cracked.

Nix recovered first. “Really, another broken window? Didn’t we shatter enough of them to sate your bloodlust-” he stopped abruptly, remembering the explosion. He turned slowly to Princess Celestia, a grave expression suddenly chiseled across his face. “How many...? How many died?”

“None,” she replied with open relief.

“And injured? How many did I...did I hurt?” All pretense of mischief had evaporated from Nix’s demeanor as he remembered the destruction of the tower. Luna tossed him a sympathetic gaze, but he was too focused on Celestia’s eyes to notice.

“A few dozen of my ponies suffered minor injuries, nothing serious. A half dozen were...more seriously injured. They’re here in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.”

“Oh,” Nix mused, his eyes dropping to the floor as he stared blankly into the distance. “Your hospital has an ICU?” he asked errantly.

“Well, yes,” Celestia replied hesitantly, not quite sure where Nix was going with the tangent but still wanting to distract him from his actions, and those of her sister. “The floor below this houses all the serious medical cases we have in Canterlot.”

“Cool beans, Cakebeard.” He abruptly abandoned his maudlin air and flashed her a smug grin, his eyes glowing brightly before he blurred out of existence, licks of blue flame tracing across the floor to the room’s exit before winking out.

“Shall I go after him, Princess?” Glancing Shock queried lazily.

“Not yet,” Celestia responded with a slight smile. “I have certain matters which I must attend to, and I'm sure my sister would like to finally get some rest. You three are to remain here for no less than 15 minutes, then you are to locate Nix.”

“And what then?” Ridge Dancer asked.

“Bring him to the throne room. It’s high time I introduce him to the Canterlot nobility,” she smiled slightly, nodding to Princess Luna, before they both disappeared in the bright flash of a teleportation spell.

Discord stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Hmm, how odd of them,” he wondered aloud before a prescient smirk crept onto his face. He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a similar flare of light.

“Well, then, Ridge Dancer,” the light blue Guard-Captain said mildly, passively wiping a lock of blue and white hair from his amber eyes, “mind telling me where you learned how to detain a bipedal creature by embracing its leg?” He sat down and stared at her expectantly.

The princesses gone and her competence called into question, the bright green unicorn abandoned all pretense of meekness and stood at attention. “Sir!” she saluted sharply, before proceeding to explain to her superior the reasoning behind her actions. What little reasoning there was, anyway. She was beginning to regret becoming a guardpony for the umpteenth time this week.

Glancing Shock merely regarded her explanation dully, the seconds ticking away in his brain.

“Art thou certain this is the best course of action, sister?” Luna asked, eyeing her sister oddly as they cantered down the palace halls towards the throne room. It was unlike Celestia to merely pass an open threat—like the one Nix posed—to her subordinates. ’Unless they possess the Elements of Harmony,’ a sudden thought flashed across her mind before she quashed it.

“Absolutely, Lulu.” Celestia smiled knowingly to her sister. “Everything that’s gone wrong in the last two weeks has resulted from our own actions, has it not?” Luna frowned, but couldn’t disagree with her white-coated sister. “From what you have told me of Nix’s memories, he possesses an odd sense of honor that drives him to protect the weak, much as his own sister protected him as a child, and in spite of his distaste for their weakness. Since his childhood, those holding positions of authority, be they his own parents or rulers on worlds he’s visited, have abused their authority to the detriment of those beneath them. As such, he rankles under the yoke of their control and is spurred instead to act against against them. For better or worse, he deeply distrusts those possessing power, so much so that he slew the creator of his very existence for its offenses against his fellow creations.”

They rounded a corner, drawing closer to the throne. Luna mulled over her sister’s words. “Is that not reason enough to monitor him more closely? If he regains his full power...”

“You possess his memories, Lulu. What do you think?”

Luna snorted. “The ape is more likely to come across a pony that reminds him of one of his sisters, and be brought to tears, than he is to bring harm upon innocent civilians. Unless those he feels fall under his purview come under threat, in which case...” She looked outside a nearby window, its glass recently replaced after the incident a week ago, and examined the reconstruction of her tower in the distance.

“Is he so different than us, then?” Celestia questioned.

“...but, sooner or later, be it the next second or years from now, the true memory of the death of his sisters at his own hands will surface,” Luna uttered quietly, unable to hide the melancholy in her voice. “The very thing that has given him purpose the last millennia will vanish, and the despair will corrupt him. Acquainted though we are with tragedy, even we don’t know how he might respond.”

Celestia paused at the junction just before the throne room’s doors, outside of the hearing range of the guards posted there. Luna halted and turned, regarding her sister with dread seriousness. Celestia matched her sister’s expression. “I believe I do,” she said simply. Luna shot her a querying look.

“Do you remember how long we remained in the Grove? No, no, of course you don’t. Not even I remember that, and I am your senior by several centuries, at the very least. Our years are counted by the millennia that passed since its disruption.” Luna cast her eyes downward, but Celestia threw a comforting wing over her midnight blue sister and drew her close. “It was no mistake that you eventually shattered its harmony. I believe it was Father and Mother’s intent from the very start. I believe the birth of our little ponies was meant to give us purpose in their absence, salves for the wounds of our loneliness.”

Luna met Celestia’s gaze evenly. “We...I, too, possess such thoughts, and have since well before our Soulmeld. Perfect as it was, the Grove was...stagnate. We could not stand idly by, hoofing the ground. ‘Twas unbearable.”

“And so you didn’t, and it was through your actions that I came to understand that I was no more capable of quiescence than you. With all my heart, I love all my little ponies, and this place has become more a home than some idyllic cluster of trees, no matter how blissful it may have been. I cannot imagine what I would do were I stripped of my subjects, my home, my...my own sister.” She forced herself to meet Luna's eyes. "Were they all taken from me in an instant, I doubt even banishment to the sun would be sufficient punishment for what I might do at their loss."

"Sister, thou art the most intelligent, reasonable pony of this world, save for myself." Luna paused, shooting her sister an amused smile. "Dost thou truly believe thee would be driven to madness were thee stricken of thy surroundings?"

"I do, Luna," she uttered quietly, her whispering tone belying the churning of molten metal in her voice. "I really do. Can you really say any different?"

“I...I can,” Luna muttered quietly. "Having tasted madness and solitude once, I could never imbibe its crazed, sorrowful swill again." Celestia’s eyes softened and she nuzzled her sister. Luna eyed her sister sadly, “But we know well enough our own history. We both know full well how a being such as Nix might react were he abused of his one hope.” Luna quieted.

“All too well, Luna,” Celestia responded, bringing herself to her full height and exuding a regal bearing before she continued her trot to the throne room doors. She placed one hoof on them and stopped, turning her head towards her sister. “I gave him some measure of freedom because of his distrust of authority, but that's simply a temporary measure, and doesn't address the issue of his memories. If he suddenly realizes that he has no home to return to...then I hope he may have since realized he has another, one a bit closer than his previous life." Her tone suddenly hardened. "However, even if our worst fears come to pass and Nix is consumed by despair...we awoke Discord for a reason, in spite of the hardship his reformation may have caused.” She pushed the door open and walked with majestic grace towards her throne, a throng of nobles kneeling before her as she officially opened her court for the day, the mid-morning sun already spilling through the hall's stained glass windows.

Luna stood in quiet thought for a second, before turning from the court and cantering in the direction of her own chambers. She was exhausted; she had stayed awake for five days perusing Nix’s dreams, waiting for him to exit the Soulmeld spell. As her mind warmly welcomed thoughts of sleep, she frowned inwardly. This was her home, and she wouldn’t trade it for anything. She thought she could convince Nix of the same truth in time, but she hedged her bets on a different group of her subjects that resided in Ponyville instead.

’Ohnononono! I’ll be demoted if he escapes! And I’m just a Private! What’s lower than a Private?’

Ridge Dancer stopped her galloping and held a lime green hoof to her chin, interrupted by the thought. The words ‘magic kindergarten’ hit her like a train, and her eyes widened in sudden pyrophobic fear as she renewed her sprint down the halls of the hospital, sending harried glances through the door of each room as she zoomed past.

It had been 30 minutes since Guard-Captain Glancing Shock had interrupted his lecture on propriety mid-sentence and ordered her to begin her search for Nix. She could have sworn that his words were punctuated by the clicking of the hospital room clock’s second hand, but when the Guard-Captain requested something, you didn’t leave his queries unanswered. Her chest heaved violently as she struggled to gasp air, her manic pace outstripping her martial training. ’An earth pony would be laughing at my stamina right now,’ she reprimanded herself, redoubling her drive to maintain her pace, before light giggling from one of the doors interrupted her thoughts. She slammed her hooves to the ground even as her horn fired up, increasing the coefficient of friction of the floor. She skidded to a halt outside one of the hospital rooms, her hooves smoking lightly after her sudden stop. She crept up to the edge of the door as the laughter continued.

“And it was then that the brave knight Phoenix slew the evil Queen Marble, presenting her fiery orange mane to the kind Princess Petal as a reward for his service. And Princess Petal ruled the kingdom for many a decade after, a kind and generous ruler.” More giggling ensued. Ridge Dancer recognized Nix’s voice immediately, but approached the threshold of the door cautiously. She peeked around the edge, and saw the human sitting on the edge of the room’s bed, his hands in his lap and a stupid grin on his face. His attention seemed focused on the bed’s occupant, a young orange filly with a yellow mane whose features were outshined by the wide smile on her face. The young pony fell into giggles again before she was overcome by a fit of coughing. She drew the bed’s blankets closer to her neck before shooting a funny glance towards the human.

“I dunno,” she said. “Princesses don’t get sick like me. And I’m just Wind Petal, not a princess!”

“Pfft,” Nix waved a hand dismissively. “Of course they do, Princess Petal. They just get better after a while.”

The filly stopped her cheerful laughter and gazed awkwardly at her hooves. “But the doctors say I won’t get better, and I don’t think I’d be very good at ballroom dances. I’m still dizzy. I wish I wasn’t always dizzy. They say it’s because of the tumor...”

“Dizzy? Tumor?!” Nix’s voice was steeped in mock confusion. “Afflicting my hallowed princess? I think not, my liege-lord!” He patted her head roughly; the earth filly merely smiled patiently.

She looked at him with wide eyes. “Do you think you can come back and tell me more stories. Before...before I-”

He leapt from the bed. “Princess Petal, I’ve so many tales to spin that I’d be remiss if I didn’t. So many stories, in fact,” he paused in apparent thought, his hand on his chin, “that I don’t know if I have the time to tell you. Unless...” His hand shot out to the young orange filly, russling her hair again.

She giggled, her eyes closed in glee. “That tickles!” She didn’t see the white flame playing about her head even as she started to feel a little bit better. She looked up at the weird alien through her now-tousled mane. “I...I guess don’t feel as dizzy now.”

“But of course not, my dear Wind Petal!” Nix bowed deeply before her bed, a small smile on his face. “A nice princess always gets better!” She tittered again. Nix rested his hand momentarily on the filly’s head, using a subtle expression of his lifeforce to ensure he had wiped out all traces of her illness. “But let’s find a nice doctor to double check, okay?”

“Okay!” she nodded cheerfully.

“Well, that was quite heart-warming. Alright, ape, time to go.” Glancing Shock passed by Ridge Dancer, still crouched outside the room, without a passing glance. Nix swung his gaze lazily towards the light blue pegasus, a smile splitting across his face.

“Princess Petal, it’s the captain of the guard, come to persecute me! Please save me!” Nix jumped over the bed and peeked his eyes over the top at Glancing Shock. The filly immediately burst from underneath her covers and stood defiantly on the bed, glaring at the Guard-Captain.

“Captain, I am Princess Petal, and you stand down right now!” she pouted, pawing one hoof across the bedsheets in an open challenge.

“P-princess?! My goodness, I had no idea!” Glancing Shock immediately prostrated himself on the ground. “Please, forgive me!”

The filly glared down her nose at the pegasus, before her resolve faltered and she looked off to the side. “O-okay. So long as you promise to play nice!”

“Of course, my princess,” a funny tone intermingled with the light blue pony’s monotone evenness. “If I may be so bold, may I borrow your knight for a bit? A terrible creature has appeared at the outskirts of your kingdom, and only he has the power to protect your ponies.”

The orange filly glanced questioningly at Nix, still half-hidden behind the bed. Nix immediately stood and waved his arm melodramatically. “But of course! A knight will always lay his life on the line for his princess and her ponies!”

Wind Petal looked between the pegasus and the funny alien that had been telling her stories for the last half hour, and smiled. “Okay, go ahead. You just have to promise to visit me in Ponyville! Your Princess demands it!”

Nix’s mouth gaped in shock. “What manner of knight would I be if I wouldn’t even visit my own princess?!” She giggled again, and with a last ruffle of her mane, Nix joined Glancing Shock outside of her hospital room.

“You know, it’s funny,” the Guard-Captain said mildly. “While Ridge Dancer here ran around blindly, I checked up on every patient that had been injured in your...incident. And yet none of them remained injured.”

“Huh,” Nix pondered. “And here I was telling a small filly tall tales the entire time I’ve been missing. Discord’s magic sure is weird, right?” He smiled smugly at Glancing Shock. The pegasus merely shook his head and cantered down the hall. “Follow me,” he commanded.

Nix trudged along behind him, navigating the labyrinthine hallways towards the exit. Ridge Dancer fell in beside him, an odd look across her face. After some thought, she leaned her head towards his ear and whispered, “That was very sweet of you.”

Nix put on a false smile, his gaze still focused in front of him. “Tell anyone about it and I’ll beat you to death with your own limbs, Dancie,” he whispered back. Her gait halted, but she shook her head and let out a wry snort before catching up with the human and her superior officer.

Author's Notes:

Yeah. You know that one thing I do, where I think a chapter is going to end in one spot but then I write too many words and decide to make multiple chapters out of my rambling? You know, how my planned 4k words for chapter 3 turned into ~17k words for chapters 3, 4, and 5? Yeah, that thing?

It’s happening again. Just so you know. But yay, more chapters for everyone! Cheers!