Bitter Medicine

Discord continued to rejoice with the recent victory that he had held over the very Elements of Harmony themselves. However, the more he indulged himself in the triumphant feeling, the more boring it became. The joy of his well-earned win was losing its appeal rather quickly, much to his disappointment. It was already sitting into him, and he hated anything 'sitting' in or around him. He had to keep things moving, even his thoughts or any events that took place near him, in order to remain interested.

Just as he was about to discard the whole victory off his mind and be on the go again, he got a great idea that was sure to shake things up.

"Perhaps I should pay somepony another visit. It seems to be turning into a rather interesting routine... So to speak." He chuckled and vanished after he turned some more buildings of the town into ice cream and marshmallows. He obviously did nothing to help the ponies that had become buried and trapped in the excessive piles of the desserts and sweets.

~~~

He headed back to Canterlot and searched around the palace for Celestia. Finding her in a study room that he didn't quite recognize, he turned invisible and entered. He gave his voice an echo as he spoke, for good effect, like usual. "That is certainly much mail, what you have there, dear."

Celestia glared around and stood on guard immediately. "What do you want now, Discord? And what did you do with Luna this time?!" If Discord was around and Luna was not, that couldn't mean anything good. "You'd better not hurt her."

He laughed at her caution and seriousness. "Oh, come now, Celestia. Don't over-think things like you always do! She's fine, she just... went to cool herself." He chuckled, then stood before Celestia. "Let's cut to the chase, shall we? I don't feel like dragging on the conversation."

Celestia turned away from him. "Good, because I don't feel like talking to you."

Discord smiled and ignored her as he continued. "We both know that we can't destroy each other. You don't have your Elements, and I simply don't don't have the wish for it. So why have I come here before I turn Ponyville into the new Chaos Capital of the World?" He smirked and looked down at her. "It's very simple. I've come here because I really want to know something that... Perhaps neither of us have thought about for a thousand years. A real interesting thought, indeed. I bet you're gonna like it."

Celestia glanced at him cautiously. "Just what is it, Discord? I told you, I really am not in the mood to discuss anything with someone like-"

Discord covered her mouth with his paw as he frowned a bit. He spoke with firmness in his voice, as if he was scolding her. "Celestia. Let me talk or I'll hypnotize you silent."

Celestia glared at him. She grew angry at his very nerve; to mention something like that in such a careless manner... Her glare intensified, but she remained silent. You...!

"That's better. Now, you can talk after I've asked my little question." He let her go and spoke casually. "Was there ever a chance for us to, you know, be truly together?" He looked up at her curiously. His tone turned just a bit graver, but still remained calm.

She blinked with surprise and stepped away from him. She actually was not expecting that sort of question. "Wh-Why..." She took a moment to compose herself. "Why would you want to know something like that? Why now? It's... It's pointless."

She turned away from him and continued to send the letters away. As she did, she also tried to ignore Discord. However, she knew her attempts would be futile. What with Discord being the menacing element that he was, and... Him having that attitude of his (which, over time, she would have everypony know, she had convinced herself was complete and absolutely obnoxious, not 'cute' and 'funny', as she so foolishly and naively had deemed it when she was younger). None of those details ever failed to call for her attention, and effectively distracted her from her task in a matter of seconds.

Her concentration was disrupted further when she thought she had felt Discord's presence approaching her some more. No, she thought. He wouldn't. She did not turn back as she debated in her mind and tried to continue her task with the letters. Evenhe would not have that kind of shameless nerve-

She yelped with surprise as Discord proved her judgment of him wrong yet again and suddenly, and quite shamelessly indeed, held her shoulders and brushed his tail against her body. "Wha-" She blushed and glared at him again as he leaned his head closer to hers, snickering all the while. "D-Discord! Get your claws off me this instant!"

"Oh, don't play coy. You sure enjoyed that, didn't you?"

She struggled against him. Secretly, she hoped she would land a hoof somewhere on his face. It would serve him right for being so rude and improper. "Let me go!"

"Oh, fine then, you prissy princess." He laughed a bit as he wrapped his body around her and held her closer. When she started to protest, he silenced her with his paw and a smug smirk of satisfaction. "Well, hey. You never said anything about this, so don't complain. It's not like it hurts you either, Tia."

"Let me go! You really do have some awful nerve, you! Daring to do something like this...!" She glared down at his body as her horn started to glow. She did not get to cast her spell, though, as Discord dropped her on the floor, which he had lifted her from by a couple of feet.

Discord grimaced and shook his head with distaste. "Ugh, all the time that has passed in this world really hasn't done you well at all, Tia. You sound just like Luna."

Celestia still blushed a bit as she gave Discord a flustered and angry glare. "Not only did you become evil and completely indifferent to others... You turned shameless and indecent, too?! I really don't like bringing up my high position, Discord, but your disrespect towards royalty figures certainly does reach the limits!"

Discord rolled his eyes and glanced up as she angrily nagged him.

"Why would I ever think of anything regarding you in at any time?!" She huffed out a breath and then inhaled deeply to calm down. "...If anything, all I may have thought of concerning you would be how peaceful and happy the kingdom has become since you were sealed away."

He raised an eyebrow and gave her another satisfied smirk that irritated her more. Ah, so she did think about me. He slid next to her and grabbed one of the letters from the pile in front of her. He looked it as he spoke. "Come now, surely there could have been a chance, Tia. Don't avoid the subject."

"Don't call me that!"

He grinned at her, delighted with her annoyance and exasperation. "Tell me. If I was not a monster, but rather a handsome stallion... Would you have loved me more back then? Would that fit your standards so that you'd accept me and give me all your heart?" He disappeared and reappeared sitting on one of the couches in the room. He wore reading glasses as he chuckled and skimmed through the letter.

"...I told you before and I will only confirm it now. Your appearance. Did not. Matter to me." She stepped forward to confront him. "The fact that you had no name, that you seemed bizarre, that you had strange ways and sense of humor, and were completely different from others did not matter to me! After all, was I not the one who accepted and even enjoyed most of what you did?!"

She looked out the window sadly. "It was... It was what you did for others that did matter... What you did for Luna, for our kingdom, what you did for me... The good things that we could have done together, what you could have brought to everypony..."

Discord glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. Well, who says I would've brought anypony anything good? That's the whole reason you two sealed me away! He frowned a bit and looked away from her without giving her a reply or comment to her speech.

She stared ahead as she continued to speak. Her voice had dropped to a very serious and low tone as her eyes hardened. "But it's not like you gave any of that a second thought, is it? I don't understand why you're even bringing it up now, as it hardly matters anymore. It was more than a thousand years ago, and you were the first to make his eager decision about it."

He seemed as though he had not been listening to anything she said at all. He turned to look back at her with a clueless, bored expression. "Was it really me the one who did that? Not the way I remember it, Tia."

Her voice raised for a bit as her temper flared just for a brief moment. "Oh, it most definitely was, Discord. It was all you. We gave you a chance, but you never hesitated to ignore it and cast us aside to embrace your chaos!" She glanced down as her eyes and her voice filled with quiet hurt. "Cast us aside like we never were of any worth to you... Like the time we spent and the friendship we made meant nothing..."

Discord sighed annoyedly. "Oh, you've always been SUCH a drama queen, it gets so old and boring! At least in that you share a very high position, you and Luna both. Exaggerating things is another very well practiced and perfected talent of yours, Celestia. You truly misunderstood things and have stood on your martyrized pedestal for more than a thousand years. It's time somebody clears that awful misunderstanding and mistake of yours. Your exaggerations are pointless, for I never-"

Celestia firmly interrupted him in the middle of his denial rant. "Should I quote you on it, then? I remember that time all too well. As well as the time when you manipulated me into fighting my own sister, Discord, using nothing but my feelings. My feelings foryou!" Her voice had risen by degrees as she grew more upset with the questions and statements that she steadily threw at him. She had even gotten closer to him as she spoke to confront him better.

He approached her as well with an indignant and annoyed expression. He the letter away as he glared at her when he stood in front of her.

He was not about to let her win that argument. She had no reason to accuse him of anything, like she was always the entity of Perfection itself. Sure, he'd made a mistake, a youthful mistake, by taking such drastic measures back in the day to ensure friendship and love that only he had been foolish enough to believe in. It had only been a ruse that had been played in his mind all along, but regardless of that, he had tried hard to keep it. And in the effort to fight for whom he thought were friends,he had 'endangered' the peace of the princesses' kingdom.

Well, his careless mistake clearly was never forgotten. To top it off, it had enabled the princesses to forever victimize themselves and put him as a tyrant, when all he had tried to do was dispel the organized, ordered lies and control upon the princesses that would have kept all of them away. Granted, he was wrong when he decided to fight hard for his 'friendship'. For a pair of spoiled, judgmental, close minded princesses that did not deserve nearly a bit of his efforts, and never would.

But, as time passed, Celestia had made plenty of big mistakes herself. Mistakes that had endangered the kingdom as much as his had. Mistakes that had cost her close friends and a sister (much to his glee; his prediction had been all too accurate. Shows the Sun Princess right for doubting and accusing him of lies).

He wasn't about to let her judge him and dump all the bad and terrible instances of Equestria on HIM while she got away with a squeaky-clean, false image. If they were to get dirty, it would be BOTH of them that were thrown into the muck of their actions.

He hissed and he glared at Celestia.

"You think I could forgive that you made me fight my own sister?!"

"Oh, you fought her anyway, and not only that, but you banished her as well! Quite a crude punishment for the Heroine of the Crystal Empire, if you ask me. I wasn't wrong, you know. All you were left during all this time was that dumb little phoenix bird. Philomena, right? I wonder, did she ever say anything about the punishment you gave Luna? Or did she remain quiet and suck up to you so you wouldn't banish her to some other star or planet?"

Celestia growled a bit. She lowered her head a bit before raising her voice again. "Stop it. You have no right to judge me on that, you were long gone by then! You have no idea what happened, what we had to go through, what I had to face!" She nearly sobbed as she glared aside. "It was... It was horrible... And there was NO other way..."

Discord raised an eyebrow. He remained unmoved by the pain of her memories. "Really? Oh, poor, poor you. The horror, it must have been SO overwhelming. I suppose the Elements of Harmony acted on their own to seal her away in the moon, then. Since you were so emotionally broken and exhausted."

Celestia felt as though she could hit him. "Since when do you care enough about Luna to reproach me for the measures I had to take to save the kingdom?! You don't care about her, you never did! Luna adored you, Discord, but that was something else you failed to see! So full of yourself and your ridiculous chaos-"

"Do not insult it!"

"Yes, I insult it! Do you want to know why?! Because THAT was what drifted us apart! The madness of it! Chaos was the reason we had to seal you away, as we lost you to it!"

Discord growled a bit and glared at her, but Celestia cut him off before he had a chance to reply.

"Luna was shattered when that happened. Nothing was ever the same for either one of us. I thought I had carried the hardest of the burden on my own, as I loved you, but... I was wrong." She looked down sadly. "...She loved you in another way. She loved you as a best friend and an older brother. All of these affections were obviously far too good for someone like you to deserve them, but did that matter?"

She shook her head to answer her own bitter question. "Luna only grew more susceptible to loneliness... To the saddening fact that she was born and fated to control the Moon and Night, both which... were, never going to be as joyful and lively as day, by nature..."

She sighed heavily. "She only grew more depressed and sensible when she saw the kingdom 'drift away' during her beloved night, until Nightmare Moon convinced her that they would all turn their backs on the night and abandon her. Perhaps even try to kill her one day..." She gave Discord a resentful look that made him back away and, for a second, seem uncomfortable. "Just like her very best friend had tried to do."

Discord rolled his eyes and fidgeted with his body to try to slide her dark comment off. He also mocked her with dramatic gestures. "Oh, boo-hoo, poor Luna! Sure, pin all her depression and insecurity on me, why don't you! I'm always the one to blame!"

Celestia was going to say something, but he interrupted her as well. "Bah! Luna was old enough to beat me, wasn't she? She was such a big filly, strong enough to summon those Elements of Harmony along with you. Well, then she was a big filly to be mature about the night and deal with it! If you guys teamed up so well to end me, then you should have just worked it out together, Sun Princess! She just acted like the attention hoarder that she is and let her drama get the best of her, that's all."

Celestia hissed at Discord's indifference. "You...!" She finally lost her composure and physically attacked him. She jumped at him with as much speed as she could manage and even threw out her right hoof.

Discord smirked as he quickly dodged her hoof, then pinned her against the wall with his tail. "Not bad for a princess." He patted her cheek with his paw after he defeated her. "This is surprising. Finally lost it, Princess Celestia? Oh, such a disgrace! The Sun Princess fighting with brawl and physical blows like such a commoner, completely flustered. Yet here I am, hardly breaking a sweat. How unethical of you."

She tried to move her head away from his paw as she gave him the most hateful glare that she could summon. "Animal!" She bellowed, trying with all honesty to buck him with her hind hooves.

He hissed at her as his eyes glowed a bit. "You mind your language, now. Should I take it upon myself to teach you noble etiquette from the beginning, princess?"

Celestia groaned as her eyes glowed as well. Her body began to relax. She grunted when Discord let her slide down to the floor. She pushed herself up and held her spinning head. "What... What did you do to me...?" She glared at him wearily. "Y-You better not have...!"

He shook his head dismissively. "Oh, don't worry, Celestia. I don't like repetitions, so I wouldn't even dream of hypnotizing you as I did before. It would no longer be amusing, since you'd fall for it in record time."

She groaned again as she tried to get proper control of her body. "Don't be so sure of yourself, Discord...!"

"All I did was slow your horses down a bit. I don't want this conversation to become as violent as it just did, so I simply stunned you. If you try a stunt like that again, though..." He leaned closer to her, touching her neck. "I WILL make you submissive at once, as much as I don't like redos."

She looked down at the floor. She tried to summon the violent anger that had consumed her earlier, but due to Discord's spell, she found that she could not. Instead, she resigned to pick up where she'd left off before she lost her mind. "We... Everything could have turned out so well for all of us, Discord... If only..."

He scoffed and lifted her head with his paw. "Please! As much as SOME of us don't like it, we both knew the truth, Celestia. We were, are, good and evil. What would the subjects say of us? 'The sweet, good, fair Princess Celestia, lover of a Chaos monster'. Not very pleasant, is it?"

She grunted a bit as she struggled to compose herself so that she could attack him again. Perhaps not physically, of course, but magic would always do. He would not best her. She was going to prove that even without the Elements of Harmony, Princess Celestia was not a force to be reckoned with.

But the more she tried to get her bearings and concentration, the more disoriented she felt, and the more numb her body got from his spell earlier. She had no choice but to calm herself down as he watched her. But the spell did nothing to dull the intensity of the glare in her eyes, which she directed right at him.

He sighed and shook his head as he turned around. "But perhaps you're right, and we should not think about this anymore. I've spent far too long in this pointless chatter, and I just don't have anymore time! I have a world to wreak." He started to float into the air again.

Celestia smiled wryly as she still glared at him. "Is that really all you came here to do? Just gloat around and talk about the past that we both detest?" She turned away from him, leaving behind her a cold, tense feeling that struck Discord like a direct, sharp arrow. "You have a much lower character than I thought."

He gave her a look as he endured her remarks, He stood firm when she stepped before him for a confrontation. "Discord, I will be damned if I let you get away with this."

He smirked at her. "Save it, Celestia, you have already been defeated. Why don't you simply accept that fact with what little dignity and pride you have left?" Somehow he felt he was coming up short, and that idea revolted and enraged him. It meant Celestia was getting the better of him, and leaving him in the dust.

This time she ignored him to continue her speech. "And here I thought you would have more of a backbone by now, after so many years, but not so much has changed. You still approach me with nothing but taunts and mockery. I was half expecting you to try to hypnotize me again, instead of your little numbing spell."

He glared at her over his shoulder, then turned around to face her again. "I said stop it. You don't know when to lose and stand down, do you? And you call yourself a princess."

Celestia laughed dryly. "Oh, how rich. As soon as you don't like where the talk is headed, you want it to stop. You're the one who brought it up. Then again..." She walked past him, back to the desk where the letters were piled. "I suppose it is to expect of you, even after thousands of years. You are still the coward, liar, unfeeling, egocentric, little-male that you were then, and you will continue to be so as long as you shall live, Discord."

"That-"

"A coward that refuses to confront the feelings that he is so curious about, just so he can do wrong over a land that has never bothered him, to creatures that never did him any harm. You cowardly set aside your own interests to be a pawn of wrongness."

"Why, you-you have some nerve, too! Now listen-"

She glared at him coldly and made him back away. "You are still a creature that willnever be complete, even among all his chaos. A creature that, as of the moment, I am hardly remotely interested in anymore. Your wickedness will be consumed, Discord... And I will very much enjoy that moment. For at last all your evil will be gone. Your pitiful existence will finally know peace." She sent another letter.

Discord blinked and remained frozen. He stared down at her with shocked eyes. Underneath his glare, Celestia could see actual hurt, for just a second. He had been surprised and... could it be that he was actually hurt by the taste of his own medicine that she had given him to try? The sharp, cutting edge of accusations and insulting irony seemed to have gotten to him.

For one second, Celestia's hardened determination to push and pressure him as hard as he pressured her dissolved. Her glare softened as she stared at the unbelievable reaction that she seemed to have found in his eyes. She frowned in confusion and disbelief as, for that second, she watched her cold words rip through him as painfully as they had ripped her on the inside.

What have I done...? I didn't...

It all lasted a second, that fleeting, uncharacteristic moment of shocked silence between the bitter enemies. Whatever the princess may have felt or done next during their suspended moment of... comprehension, was interrupted when she saw the fearsome rage welling in his eyes. It was nothing she had expected, quite contrary to what she had, once again, naively believed to be something positive and regretful in him.

He snarled and quickly grabbed her as she gasped. He held her securely in his claws. He lowered his head to whisper in a low, dangerously taunting tone. "You might want to think about your next choice of words carefully, my dear. Things are a bit more intense than they were back then, what with us being older and more powerful and all. Wouldn't you say?" He growled as he stood quite close to her.

Celestia glared up at him and tried to pull away without fear. She had been wrong about that hesitation and 'hurt' that she thought she had seen a second ago. She growled as well and struggled away from him with disgust and anger on her face. "Let... me...!"

He let out a cutting laugh that actually hurt her nearly as much as she, in truth, had hurt him. "And just so you know... I don't need to drown in sorrow for my past deeds." He stretched out his arms as he gave her a shameless grin. "To which, might I add, I hold no remorse whatsoever!"

Celestia's horn glowed dimly as he laughed again.

"No, no need for those pathetic measures that you princesses are so fond of. Luna is already doing the drowning for me." Before Celestia could give him any kind of verbal or magical response, he disappeared into Ponyville to continue his master plan.

Celestia gritted her teeth as she swallowed her seething anger. The light in her horn vanished and she turned back to her desk. "Concentrate. Concentrate hard, now. Calm down!"

She quickly sent the rest of the Friendship Letters away, hardly taking a moment to pause between them. She wanted to be over with them quickly so she could go search for her sister.

"Discord, you WILL be defeated this time, I assure you. Just like before..." She hissed under her breath.

She growled and cried out with frustration as she found herself crying, unable to stop. She couldn't force or dismiss the pain in her heart that the whole wretched conversation had brought to her. She sobbed lightly, and loathed herself for every tear that she shed.

There was no use for her to cry like that, it was absolutely worthless. Shameful, even. She knew that. At that moment, more than ever, Celestia was sure that Discord never suffered with the pain that she was tortured with. She could assure anyone that while she was, for some irrational reason, doubled over and broken with the result of their confrontation, Discord was away, laughing his chaos out upon Equestria.

Discord the King and Lord of Chaos had never returned her feelings, and he never would. She was crying over something that never existed, that only she was foolish enough to feel, and worst of all, keep dimly lit and alive in her heart for all that time.

Phew! Geez, that was a bit exhausting. I DO get a little too much into the scenes to get the best in them, you know... As John De Lancie said... "For a character like that to work, you must be perfect." I really want you guys to appreciate the whole scenes and mood that is going on in the chapters, so I act it out and stuff like that, like I was a voice actor or something.

Celestia, Discord... Get a ROOM, you two! Boy, was this intense! In the beginning I didn't actually plan it to be so stuffy and tense, but then I got the amazing idea of having Celestia finally let out her sharp, nasty side with the only creature nasty enough to have the privilege to see it without succumbing into tears or shock (too much). I wanted to have Celestia score some points for a cutting sharp-tongue irony master for once. And boy, did she hit a point. Admit it, Discord, you were bested there and hardly had a comeback.

So sad, what their little love story became (or did it? Who knows...! ^^ ). Reduced to cutting at each other by throwing their past deeds and pains and truths at one another. Oh, so many songs came to my head while improvising and editing this. Mainly Whitney Houston's 'Didn't We Almost Have It All' and 'All At Once'. 'Somebody That I Used To Know'. 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now'. 'I Hate You, Then I Love You'. Etc. Hmm. Frighteningly fitting songs.

I just HAD to comment on this one with my best opinion, and I feel like you should, too! It deserves it! I haven't done a confrontation quite like this one in a while, with any characters of mine. I'm delightful and pleased, to say the least, with the results, with the feeling that it gives to the reader. Or maybe I'm just exaggerating and overreacting because it's the first intense confrontation scene between lovers that I've written in a while. Okay, author's comment off, keep on with the story.