The wind blew silently through the trees of what would one day be called the Everfree Forest. Branches rustled, and a single leaf floated down, silently, lazily, to land on the ground below.
It was crushed under the hooves of a pony running faster than he had ever run in his entire life, faster than he would have believed possible. As a pegasus, he had rarely used his legs any more than necessary, and desperately wanted to take to the air, to use his powerful wings to pick up the pace.
But to do so would be to increase the chances of him being caught, and that was a risk he wasn't willing to take. So he ran, and tried to push his tired body to its limits, fighting exhaustion at every step.
Storm Feather, as the pegasus was called, was once a soldier, serving loyally in the Equestrian military. But now he fled from the country he once defended, and sought refuge from its new rulers. Gone was the glorious land where he was born and raised; now, the rule of tyrants and fear had turned it into a horrific shadow of what it once was.
As he ran, he started to notice things about the forest that were... out of place. Trees were bent into unnatural shapes, bushes and shrubs had bizarre colors and patterns, and the animals were either too small, or several times larger than was normal. While he had initially assumed that he was simply running into another part of the forest with different wildlife, the changes kept getting stranger and stranger as time went on.
As he slowed down to better investigate the oddities, he was suddenly hit in the face with a pie. Now, having a pie thrown in a pony's face was generally a pretty good way to surprise them. But being hit by a flying dessert became far more unsettling when there was no one around to throw it.
While initially startled, Storm Feather quickly reached the conclusion that the pie didn't taste all that bad, even if he couldn't identify the flavor. But he knew for certain that there wasn't anypony nearby that could have launched the projectile, and there were no hoofsteps, no rustling leaves, no sounds at all to indicate that an individual was fleeing the crime-scene. The event seemed completely unnatural, and illogical; pies didn't just randomly fly through the air on a whim.
Storm Feather smiled. He was getting close.
He continued to run, even faster this time, propelled by excitement and anticipation, rather than panic and fear. And he kept running, feeling almost weightless, knowing that he would soon reach his goal.
He eventually found himself in a clearing. It was a complete mess.
Every oddity he had been noticing before was once again present, but this time full blown. Some of the trees were twisted like pretzels, there were bushes with polka-dots on them, and he was almost certain that rabbits weren't supposed to have legs that were five feet long.
And there, sitting in the middle of it all, was the crowning piece of confusion, the Spirit of Chaos himself: Discord.
The spirit spotted Storm Feather hanging around the edge of the clearing, and beckoned him over with one of his hands. "Hello, my little pegasus. Tell me, what exactly is your name?"
"Storm Feather, sir." He gave a stiff military salute as he answered.
"Oh, no need to be so formal here." The spirit's goofy grin was contagious, and Storm soon found himself smiling as well. "Just call me Discord. Or Dissy. Or Disco."
"Alright, si- Discord." Storm Feather had to spend a moment resetting his military training. "I... heard that you were offering safe haven here?"
"Yeah, from THEM..." At the mention of "THEM," Discord looked considerably less pleased. The Spirit of Chaos may have had some pretty unpredictable motives, and acted accordingly (most of the time), but he absolutely hated anybody that would try to take away the freedom of others. After all, without freedom, how could there be chaos?
Discord let out a sigh, his face falling even further, as he spoke again. "But I probably won't be able to keep this place 'safe' for much longer."
"The Elements of Harmony?"
"Yes. Those." At this point, the spirit's face seemed to become distorted and twisted, he was frowning so hard. Maybe it did.
After all, everypony had heard the stories, and Storm Feather himself knew the truth. The Elements were made specifically for the purpose of defeating Discord, and they were in the princesses' possession. Now, even the god of chaos could fall.
Discord's face reflected his somber attitude, once more holding to the look of someone who had accepted the end. "If those are used against me, then it will be all over. There will be nothing else to stop them from taking over, no one else to stand against them." He let out another sigh.
"Well, that might not be completely true..." Storm Feather was kicking at the dirt as he spoke up, somewhat embarrassed.
"What do you mean?" To say that Discord found this statement intriguing would have been the understatement of the decade.
"Well, I heard... I mean, they're only rumors, but... they say that somepony else is standing up to the princesses. They say that he took one of the greatest symbols of their power, one of their favorite trophies, and stole it from right under their noses.
"They say that the Crystal Empire is now ruled by a king of shadows and fear."