A/N: Back at it once again! This Fall was rough on me for reasons which hopefully won't continue- thank you as always for your patience and interest in this fever dream.

Chapter 12

There had been those among the inhabitants of Middle-Earth, and indeed the other lands of Arda, who had made the radical claim that Sauron was not receptive to criticism about his works. This vocal minority, who indeed became much smaller in number whenever Sauron turned his attention toward them, were obviously incorrect. The Great Optimizer and rightful Lord of the Earth was not above having the immaculate fruits of his labor critiqued, but the simple fact was that of the two entities in existence who were actually qualified to do so, one embodied the very concept of craftsmanship and the other was his (allegedly) omnipotent Creator. Sauron was secure in the knowledge that, if either of these individuals had been willing to offer their opinions about the products of his Art in the ages since their estrangement, they would certainly have showered him with the praise and validation that he so richly deserved.

…Not that he had any particular need for their approval, of course.

In any case, the eagle did not pay the slightest mind to the worm claiming that they were flying incorrectly, because its opinion on the matter meant, without the slightest exaggeration, nothing.

"Wow!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie cheerfully. "This is awful!"

An unfamiliar and highly unpleasant cold sensation began spreading from the base of Sauron's neck as he watched his supposed tutor in the culinary arts gargle and spit out a glass of water with far more vigor than was strictly necessary.

"Impossible," he chided with far more patience than he truly had for this farce. The Maia gently stirred the contents of the cast iron pot sitting on top of Pinkie Pie's stove, breaking the crusty brownish-gray film that had developed on the surface to reveal the pinkish-yellow of the slick yet tacky semi-solid within, releasing the smell of…

…The smell was not important.

"I specifically developed this nutrient gruel to meet my dietary needs as comprehensively as possible, with four percent surplus even," Sauron lectured, holding up and sharply tapping Twilight's heavily annotated binder for emphasis. "Three pints and a gallon of water daily will sustain me indefinitely with minimal preparation. Here, look at the math." He handed her the sheaf of paper full of equations that he had copied down for the mare's benefit. Sauron did not often need something as cumbersome as evidence to persuade people toward his ends, but the sooner he satisfied the ponies' impertinent concern for his health the sooner he could get back to rescuing them from their feckless self-determination.

Pinkie Pie took his proofs with a grave nod and inexplicably donned a pair of comically thick-rimmed glasses attached to bushy false brows, a wispy mustache and a distinctly Mannish nose that brought Sauron's train of thought to a screeching halt. He'd found no mention of Men, nor Elves or Dwarves for that matter, in any of Twilight's books, and Sauron had searched very hard indeed for any thread within this cosmic oubliette he'd been tossed in that could lead back to beloved Arda.

Another of the Dreamlord's lukewarm japes? Wash his hands of me indeed, he thought bitterly.

Although, noticing with something resembling resigned dismay that the papers that Pinkie Pie was reading through with laudable focus and many affirmative noises were being held upside-down, she was probably just mad.

"Hmm, hmm, quite right, indubitably. Okie dokie lokie!" She cried at length, slapping the sheaf of papers down onto her kitchen counter with an air of finality. "That's one hideously, horribly healthy meal you've got there! One last thing before you pass, though." Pinkie Pie dipped a spoon into the gruel, breaking the surface with a brittle cracking sound and scooping out an oily gelatinous lump that quivered slightly as she held it out to him. "Swallow it."

Good, one more trivial formality and he could go do something that mattered. Sauron shoved the spoon in his mouth and resolutely ignored the meaningless sensory input-

Body, what are you doing? Yes, I know, just do as you're told. Wait, no, that isn't allowed. I forbid it. Cease. CEASE!

Pinkie Pie patted him on the back consolingly as the immortal spirit vomited into the kitchen sink, seething with rage at his indignity and helplessness.

"Holy moly, I didn't think you'd actually do it. Anyway, this is why you don't try to engineer food. That's how cafeterias happen!" she declared in a serious tone, handing him a glass of water, which Sauron promptly gargled and spat out, reasoning that his dignity today had already fallen well past the benchmark of such crudity.

"What do you propose, then?" he asked, smothering his useless feelings with the weight of long practice, for it was clear enough that the creature had used his own initiative against him, deliberately allowing him to fail so that he would be more amenable to her instruction. It was not a technique he had ever favored, for it glorified failure and was therefore deeply degenerate. When Sauron taught, and teach he did far more than his foes knew or wanted to believe, he disdained such coyness and saw to it that his students made no mistakes to begin with.

Would you have been receptive to such strict dictation directed toward yourself? Sauron did not know from where that thought sprang, nor which was worse; that his handlers would patronize him with a high-handed sending like a gullible mortal in prayer or that such doubts would arise from his own mind unbidden.

In answer Pinkie Pie tossed him a hard chunky root node, loathsome in its asymmetry (thanks Melkor). "Behold, the majestic potato! Revel in the power of its unlimited potential!" she cried, affecting a particularly flamboyant tone.

All in all, Sauron found that he very much disliked Pinkie Pie, though for reasons that had little to do with her being a criminal mastermind. She was loud, disorganized, unpredictable, and her never-ending tide of japes seemed to consider 'randomness' a suitable substitute for actually being clever. Nevertheless, he had to acknowledge that the mare knew her craft well, frivolous though it was.

The next few hours were frustrating but productive, for it happened that this seemingly ignoble vegetable could account for a considerable part of his coerced diet, supplemented at need with cheeses, hardy fruits, and what greens could best weather the never-sufficiently-damned curse of entropy when bought in bulk.

Moreover, Sauron came to, if not appreciate, but at least reluctantly accept that there was an art of sorts to the preparation of foodstuffs, arbitrary and inconsequential as it was. Fried, sliced, shredded, baked, boiled, mashed, stewed; many and varied were the ways that the crude products of nature could be rendered palatable, and truth be told the process of reorganizing and refining these raw materials into superior forms fundamentally appealed to Sauron's nature, like some sort of bastard smith-craft.

By the noon hour he had at last demonstrated proficiency to Pinkie Pie's satisfaction, and such was his relief at the loosening of his bonds that he did not protest overmuch when she insisted on a 'bonus' lesson on waffle-craft.

"Treat yo' self!" she had declared with an air of quotation, and as Sauron delicately bit into the square of hardened wheat and dairy-lather, he felt no great need to dispute her. Why should he not reward himself for weathering this latest nonsense? Indeed, why should he not embrace the odd indulgence for its own sake? He deserved better than to commit every scrap of his time and energy to the benefit of the ungrateful and the ignorant, and if the occasional display of selfishness would bind the locals closer to him through some backwards logic then all the better.

That was not to say that Sauron could not gain some practical advantages from this diversion. "I must admit that I'm rather impressed by your cooking expertise, Miss Pie," he commented lightly over a cup of milk tea, having listened to the mare's surprisingly nuanced explanation of how the added lipids changed how his body processed the caffeine. "I would be very interested to learn how you might make use of more exotic ingredients."

As a master of what passed for the criminal underbelly here in Ponyville, one that seemed to operate with Twilight's tacit approval given her place in the princess's cabal, there was little doubt that Pinkie Pie's alchemical lore which lent itself so well to her cover as a humble baker would also be useful for trafficking in more illicit goods.

Forbidden herbs, poisons, rare acids, poisons, explosive chemicals, poisons… Oh yes, Sauron suspected that there were many things that one of her proclivities could help him with for the right coin.

Pinkie Pie delicately set her cup down on the table with a soft clink and gave him a knowing smirk. "Ah, I see that you're a pony of culture as well. Interested in sampling a few of my spices?"

Finally, familiar territory. "By all means, lead on."

Furtively glancing around for any unwanted observers, Pinkie Pie led him into a small larder crowded with sacks of flour, sugar, and various forms of produce, quickly closing the door behind them, leaving them in darkness save for the small jar of fireflies the mare had brought along.

"I trust that you can be discrete about this?" the mare whispered, fixing him with what she must have imagined was an intimidating look, her face cast in shadows by the dim greenish light.

"But of course," Sauron lied easily, as if he could possibly let such potent blackmail material lay fallow and unused. What was she going to do, run to her damned unnatural Princesses with tears in her eyes to report how that dastardly rapscallion Iron Ember had threatened to show everyone her cache of illegal substances? The smile on the ancient spirit's face became less feigned from having imagined such a thing.

Pinkie Pie nodded grimly and turned to climb on top of a large barrel in the corner and reach up to retrieve a soot-blackened key hidden on a barely noticeable ledge near the ceiling. Climbing down, she then rolled the barrel onto its side and wiped away a layer of dirt where it once stood to reveal a keyhole in the floor. Locking the key in place, she turned it turned it twice sunwise and thrice widdershins, removed it and waited until hearing a quiet click beneath them before inserting the key again and repeating the pattern in reverse, which opened a trapdoor hidden in the floorboards with the faint whir of gears. Taking a moment to appreciate the contraption, Sauron followed his guide down a creaking ladder into a tunnel roughly carved into the bedrock, and the two of them soon came to a reinforced iron door looming out of the darkness, without any hinges or handles to be seen.

Motioning him to step back, Pinkie Pie put down their light and carefully positioned herself on a grid of white tiles imbedded in the floor, each of them flashing with a soft pale light as she touched them. The bizarre creature took a deep breath and began hopping and skipping back and forth on the tiles with an intense focus, each movement fluid and precise as she triggered each tile with what Sauron intimated was a specific order and timing based on the mare's staccato humming. As Pinkie Pie finished the process by walking backwards in a curious sliding motion and flipping forward to stand on her front limbs, the tiles all flashed a luminous green and the iron door sank into the floor with a rumble to reveal the dark room beyond.

"Just how did you acquire such an elaborate puzzle lock?" Sauron asked with genuine curiosity as he followed her inside. Were there dedicated wrights who built such things? How great was the demand for them? Did the local sneaks have ways to circumvent them?

"Don't think about it too much," Pinkie Pie replied dismissively, holding the jar of fireflies aloft. "Now, behold!"

All around him in the small chamber Sauron saw shelves upon shelves of glass jars reflecting the golden-green light, each of them filled with an array of liquids, powders, leaves, and fungi that would put any apothecary to shame. "Quite an impressive collection, Miss Pie."

"Yeppers, if you want it I've got it," the crime lord boasted shamelessly. "You got anything in mind? C'mon now, chief, pick your poison!"

Disposing with pretenses, then? Very well. "Perhaps you could recommend something exotic, something most Ponies wouldn't expect."

Pinkie Pie grinned and tapped her nose meaningfully. "Oh, I've got just the thing." She reached toward one of the shelves and retrieved a jar filled with a fine dark brown powder. "Authentic Saddle Arabian cinnamon, not the kind of thing you can just pick up at the general store, if you follow me?"

Cinnamon… That was not a toxin that Sauron recalled ever hearing of, smuggled from a foreign principality no less. "I'm certain there is quite a story about how you acquired such a find," he fished innocently, hoping for any clues that he could use to tract down her contacts. Subverting a smuggling ring would be very useful to his purposes, not only for the acquisition of illicit wealth and rare goods, but also for the infrastructure to operate beneath the notice of royal law and thus his jailors.

"Mmm, let's just say I know a gal who knows a Griffin who knows a guy, and leave it at that," Pinkie Pie deflected coyly, though with more detail than she really should have. From what admittedly little he knew of Griffins they were not frequent visitors to this region, which should make tracking down any exceptions relatively simple.

"Now, this 'cinnamon', what does it do exactly?" Sauron asked. Subtle, slow-acting toxins would serve him best here, the sort that could be mistaken for some other ailment so as to help cover his tracks. A heart attack while sleeping was a simple tragedy, but leaking blood from the eyes and mouth minutes after eating was the sort of thing that made people suspicious.

"It can add a bit of a zingy kick to desserts, though I find it pairs especially well with hot chocolate and ice cream!"

"Yes, yes, but what does it do? What kind of effects can one expect from ingesting it?" Sauron prompted, his patience already worn thin that day from the cooking lessons.

"You wanna find out for yourself?" Pinkie Pie replied slyly, producing a small spoon from her apron and dipping it into the powder before extending it towards him. "Free sample."

Am I being challenged?More fool her, he had more resolve than every creature in this bastard echo of Creation put together. He who had faced the frenzied tantrums of Melkor, the vindictive wrath of the Valar, and even the breaking of the world itself would not be intimidated by something as pedestrian as poison. Sauron put the spoon in his mouth once again, this time prepared for what he would face.

The taste was very strong to his disappointment, acrid and slightly bitter, and it was a very poor poison that was so easily noticed upon the tongue. The taste was strangely familiar, though, and it took him a moment to place it upon some of the confections that Pie had brought to his welcoming party.

"Pinkie, this is just spice!" Sauron accused, thoroughly underwhelmed.

The beast giggled at his put-upon expression. "Of course it is, you silly goose! What else would I keep in my spice closet?"

I am no goose, horse-thing. He repressed the urge to huff irritably. "I presume that they must be quite difficult to obtain, then." Smuggling was still useful, even if, in typical Pony fashion, it was not being used to its full potential. That would change, of course, once he-

"Nope," said Pinkie Pie, popping the 'p' sound obnoxiously. "You can get most of these pretty cheap in the bigger cities, even if the local stores don't usually stock them."

Sauron felt a dull ache begin to spread from his temples as he ground his teeth. "So the secrecy, the evasiveness, the security measures, it's all an affectation?"

Was she even breaking any laws?!

"Yeah! You know, for funsies! Say, have your eyes always glowed in the dark? It's spooky, I like it!"

Ignoring that last part for now, Sauron asked the question that he truly wished he didn't have to. "You're just a baker, aren't you?"

"Certainly not! I'm also a licensed clown," she replied haughtily, putting a red ball on her nose and squeezing it to produce a sound like a poorly made trumpet.

"….I am going home now, thank you."

He did not make it two steps into the street outside before the wellspring of disappointment that was Pinkie Pie called after him. "Hold on a sec, can you do me a favor?"

Forcing himself to unclench his jaw into a smile, Sauron turned around to face her, the practicality of people owing him things winning out over his personal annoyance. "Why, of course!"

The wretched mare foisted a sweet-smelling basket onto him, covered with a white cloth. "Radical, you're a lifesaver! Please take these to Fluttershy before they get cold- she wouldn't complain if they did but my professional pride can't allow it!"

Sauron mentally snorted at the thought of this creature having anything remotely resembling pride. "Very well, then. Fluttershy- she is a beast-tamer of sorts, yes? I believe Rarity has mentioned her."

"Oh yeah, wow, you've been here for, like, weeks and you haven't even met her yet, what's up with that?" Pinkie Pie babbled. "You should probably introduce yourself while you're there, then!"

Taking his leave as quickly as he could, Sauron pondered what uses he might wring out of this apparent recluse. Equestria apparently had more than its fair share of dangerous wildlife, such as winged amalgamations of lion and scorpion, and that was besides the many birds and scurrying things that could be turned to spy-work. Yes, this Fluttershy could definitely be a useful resource to collect.

Within minutes of entering the eaves of the forest, it became very apparent that Pinkie Pie was as inept at giving directions as she was adept at testing his patience. After passing the same lightning-riven oak the third time Sauron began considering the merits of climbing one of these pieces of green kindling to regain his bearings, only to be interrupted by a loud rustling in the undergrowth and a thick fanged muzzle poked out of the leaves to sniff at him inquisitively.

As the creature emerged into the clearing Sauron breathed a sigh of relief that it was merely a bear instead of a large stray dog as he had feared. He then stiffened in alarm at the fact that it was a bear. While the beast lumbered closer, still sniffing the sweet smell of his package, Sauron considered his options. Large and muscular though it was, he could probably shatter its skull with the hammer that he kept on his person at all times, but while cathartic he was not confident that his fragile meat-shell would go undamaged. Flight would be worse than useless without knowing where to find shelter, and surrendering the food would damage his opportunities and his pride could not tolerate the thought of capitulating to a simple bandit.

There might be another option, however. Even leaving aside skin-changers and their associates, Middle-Earth had been filled with beasts and birds with some vestige of intelligence, usually a relic of bored Elvish hobbyists meddling with their ancestors at some point. The presence of this Fluttershy creature and the generally broken state of nature in Equestria could mean that a similar situation was not impossible.

"…Greetings, bear," said Sauron, feeling a little silly despite himself. "Do you know where I might find the being known as 'Fluttershy'?" The brute perked its ears at the name and lolled its slobbering tongue at him before moving back toward the bushes, turning around and beckoning with an outstretched paw.

That was easy, thought Sauron as he followed the beast through the undergrowth, its tremendous bulk leaving a wide though winding path behind it. A few minutes later he and his unlikely guide emerged from the forest eaves and stepped onto a well-trod path leading to a bridge over a small creek. Beyond the bridge was a cottage of sorts that resembled the meeting of a Silvan flet and what his spies had reported of the halfling's underground dwellings, the building merging almost seamlessly with a large tree such that one could scarcely tell where one ended and the other began.

The bear cheerfully trundled across the bridge and led Sauron right to the front door, pounding its forepaw against the wood in imitation of a knock before moving aside. "Oh, I'll be right there!" a soft voice called from inside, and Sauron took the opportunity to put on the right face and body language to help make the hermit be at ease with him.

The door cracked open and the pink-maned yellow pegasus he'd encountered at the market weeks ago, the changeling, peered out at him timidly before its eyes widened and it fully opened the door.

"A-ah, hello there. You're Ember, right? Rarity's friend?" the insect stuttered awkwardly.

"Indeed, it's good to meet you, Miss Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie asked me to deliver these to you," Sauron replied with a cheerful smile as he screamed internally.

They. Were. EVERYWHERE, he seethed as the shapeshifter thanked the bear for guiding him and passed it a honey cake, having apparently retained the original's affinity for beasts along with their appearance. Just when Sauron thought the thing couldn't get any more brazen, he felt that horrible crawling vertigo that he remembered so well from their first encounter, and it took all of his careful self-control not to break the foul parasite's neck on the spot. Did it think him some kind of drooling simpleton, to not notice it feeding on his energy right in front of him?!

Before he could abjure the insolent beast, however, he began to notice that the wave of nausea and disorientation washing over him was not coming from Fluttershy, but from behind her.

"Aww, would you look who it is," a mocking, nasally voice grated from inside the cottage. "Did your mommy Rarity tell you to go play outside with the other kids?"

With no small amount of dread, Sauron peered past Fluttershy into the cottage in order to catch sight of the creature within.

It was, without a doubt, the most hideous monstrosity that he had ever seen. Mismatched and asymmetrical in every conceivable way, its long serpentine body seemed to be stitched together from the castoffs of a dozen random animals arranged in as unaesthetic and suboptimal a way as possible. Its aberrant form, together with its infuriatingly smarmy tone and expression, would have been reason enough to earn Sauron's disgust and enmity. Worse, far, far worse, was the way that the Music, the very story and substance of Creation, was warped and decayed by the abomination's mere presence into a profane and blasphemous discord. Even Melkor's bombastic yowling had themes and structure, at the very least a damned melody! This thing was just melting it all into noise!

"Now, now, be nice to our new friend, Discord!" Fluttershy scolded it as if it were an errant puppy rather than a stain on the fabric of reality. Sauron felt sick to his stomach.

"Oh, don't worry," it mewled back, fixing him with a gleeful snaggle-toothed grin. "I'm sure we'll get along wonderfully."

Sauron scrambled to vomit into a nearby bush.

A/N: It took me some trial and error to figure out how to write Pinkie Pie, but I like to think that I got close enough. I'm very excited to finally write Discord and introduce his place in the fic. He is definitely my favorite character, and stumbling into clips of him is actually what persuaded me to give MLP a chance after being thoroughly pushed away by elements of the fandom during its heyday.

Looking back at Friendship is Magic now that it's finished, I wouldn't say it's one of my absolute favorite series, but I definitely enjoyed it quite a bit. Aside from the high production values and often clever writing, it manages to strike the balance of being intelligent without being cynical, something that can be quite hard to find and that I definitely needed at the time.

I plan to continue writing this fic until its planned conclusion, even with the current glacial update speed, and I tip my hat to all of you who have stayed with me from the beginning and all those who have picked it up over time despite my slowness in writing. I greatly look forward to sharing more with you.