Are you starting to feel restless?  Do you need more from your ponies than the typical tales you see repeated in the show?  As the protagonist of today’s story will tell you, you’re not alone.

Games
[Slice-of-Life] • 13,391 words

Twilight asks Discord for a game of chess. Discord agrees – in order to make a point.

And in order to ask Twilight to complete one simple task.

FROM THE CURATORS: This story starts with an idea that’s oddly rare in the fandom — Discord is an embarrassingly intelligent being who has no inherent stake in chaos, he’s merely driven to extremes by boredom — and then it ups the stakes by taking that idea to a logical extreme, deconstructing his defeats and posing Twilight the challenge that drives the remainder of the story.  “This is a marvelous take on Discord, up there with Diary of a Pliant Tyrant. I would go so far as to call him sympathetic,” Present Perfect said.  

But it earned its feature for more than its excellent Discord character study.  “The series of encounters with the Mane Six feels remarkably authentic,” Horizon said.  Chris added, “There was a logical reason for him to visit each of them in turn, and none of their appearances felt gratuitous.  Also, I liked how short those chapters were — I didn’t need more than a taste of each.”  

And the story sealed the deal by closing strong.  “My biggest worry in the opening chapters was that the author was going to hit me with something expectedly unexpected and I wasn’t going to be able to buy that a real, workable solution had been found,” Bradel said. “But the ending was a solid payoff for the setup … and the author nicely foreshadowed it.”  Horizon agreed: “The ample foreshadowing all points in one direction, but the delightful epilogue turns it from obvious to clever.”

Read on for our author interview, in which CCC discusses subtle surprises, earned endings, and Earth’s Equestria.
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