Apprentice of Chaos

by Wing Dancer

Chaos always finds a way -- Prologue

In the fields of green, just outside Ponyville, Lazy Afternoon was honing his special talent – resting. It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining in all its glory, a gentle breeze pet the colt’s brown mane and cooled the skin under his tan fur. Two butterflies danced around the pony, looking to land on one of the nearby flowers. A family of birds was tending to their chicks. Afternoon felt relaxed and without a care in the world.

And then night came. The sun got shoved aside by the moon, pushing it beneath the horizon. Yeah, that tended to happen quite frequently as of late. Ever since cotton candy clouds begun showering ponyvillians with chocolate milk rain and some of the bunnies decided to stampede through the village on their elongated, horse-like legs, things just got weirder and weirder.

Lazy afternoon did his fair share of panicking way back in Ponyville. He ran and screamed like any other reasonable pony; blind luck lead him out of the maze of twisted buildings and hazardous events, such as roads turning into streams of slippery soap water or previously inanimate objects jumping around, bumping into everypony.

A few hours later he came to accept this new state of things – away from anything that could scare or potentially prank him, there weren’t that many things that changed. The sudden shifts in daytime were a bother, but nothing the colt couldn’t handle. Sometimes stray clouds of cotton would loom over him, pouring down chocolate milk (the drink he sincerely hated), but one could get used to that too. What really mattered was that he could rest more or less like he did before, eyes closed and body sprawled on the cushy grass… Which hopefully didn’t change to pillows or blankets just yet.

* * *

Lazy Afternoon was in the middle of an important nap when he felt something tickle his nose. Dismissing it as a ladybug or some other insect resting, he didn’t even bother to open his eyes. The pestering sensation however kept prodding the tip of his muzzle. The bug must’ve been jumping up and down – it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to the colt if the bugs decided it was high time for payback for all those years of being stomped on.

Lazy had a great supply of patience, but even such an ample source runs dry if one exploits it too much. The bug was doing just that, hopping on his nose like mad. The colt finally made an effort to swat the annoyance and to his surprise, his hoof bumped against something solid. It had fur. That couldn’t be right.

Opening his eyes was the first mistake Afternoon made. He yelled in horror and started off in a random direction with speed that would startle his former P.E. teacher. The second mistake was looking back at the creature that woke him up – it wasn’t there anymore. Instead, it appeared on his path, causing him to collide against its snake-like body. A pair of golden mismatched eyes looked down on the terrified pony, supplemented by a smile that revealed an oversized tooth.

Lazy couldn’t help but stare at the creature that so abruptly assaulted him. It had body parts of all sorts of creatures – the mix didn’t look hideous, come to think of, but it did put the colt’s head into a spin. The thing cocked its head, putting a lion’s paw to its chin.

“Hmmm… Not quite what I had expected. I see what you did there,” said the creature in a smooth voice, pointing a finger and winking at something only it could see. “But I guess I’ll just play along. Khekhem. Hello and welcome to Discordopolis! Or was it Discordia? Oh, never mind, we’ll work on the name later. I’m your host, Discord! Prince of Chaos, Spirit of Disharmony, Prankster Extraordinaire!” With each title the dragon-pony creature struck poses that were probably supposed to show its magnificence.

“By now you are probably thinking to yourself – Why in the world this charming, powerful, awesome and fantastic draconequus is gracing me, a simple and lowly pony, with his presence? Well, don’t hurt your head over that – you would never guess anyway! That is the beauty of it! And the exact reason I am here!”

Lazy’s panicked mind was beginning to clear a bit – the creature didn’t seem to want to hurt him. It kept on babbling something about Chaos, laughing at its own words or gesticulating wildly.

“So, all things considered, you have been chosen as my apprentice, my student, the Herald of Chaos itself! Isn’t that a great honor? What’s with that face? It is a thing to be happy about! It couldn’t be just anypony… Well, it could, but I guess it was supposed to be you.” Discord looked at his wrist where out of nowhere a small hourglass appeared. “Oh my, look at the time. I’ll be late! We can’t have Twilight Sparkle and her friends wait for me! I wish I could stay and chat more, but I guess we’ll have plenty of time for that later on. With all the honors and glory and so on and so forth… By the power of Almighty Chaos! You have the poweeeeeer!”

As the dragon-thing snapped its fingers, lightning struck from the skies, one bolt zapping Lazy Afternoon straight in the face. It didn’t hurt and the sensation was strange, to say the least -- nonetheless it caused the colt to pass out.

“See you again soon, my young student,” snickered Discord, observing the smoking pony as he lay unconscious. “It really is getting late. Time to go!”

And with a snap of his fingers, the draconequus vanished.

* * *

Lazy Afternoon felt a tingling on his nose. Probably a ladybug decided to rest on his muzzle… Wait…

The colt bolted to a standing position, head frantically twisting and turning, looking for the creature that previously zapped him with lightning. It was nowhere to be seen, thankfully. And Ponyville looked a lot better than before – no pink clouds, solid dirt roads, and ponies travelling peacefully… Just how long was he asleep? And what happened?

Best way to find out was to go back to town. Cautiously at first, the stallion entered the outskirts which looked quite normal. Houses were like they should be, nothing was jumping around and not a single stampeding bunny in sight.

“Excuse me, but… Why is everything okay in here?” Lazy asked a passing by pony.

“Oh, didn’t you hear? A bunch of ponies straightened things up. They used some kind of magic on a dragon thingy and poof! Things are normal again. And not a moment too soon!” the mare smiled and trotted on her merry way.

“Dragon thingy? So it wasn’t a dream?” the colt looked around slightly bewildered. “The draco-something… What did it say? What was its name again…?”

“Discord.”

“Yes, Discord! How did you…” as Lazy turned around, he found himself face to face with the dragon-pony.

Needless to say, the ponies in the vicinity got startled when Afternoon jumped up at least three feet high, freaked out and ran for the hills. He ran as fast as he could for as long as his legs would carry him. In his panic, he didn’t even notice when he left Ponyville, darted past a small cottage on the edge of Everfree and straight into the forest itself.

He finally tripped over some root. Landing face first in the dirt, he left quite an impressive skid mark before stopping. His was fighting for breath and too afraid to open his eyes.

“Now now, where in sweet Chaos are you going to, hmm?”

All Lazy Afternoon managed to do was yelp.

Comments

[FlutterShay]

I would love to live in Discord's version of Ponyville. Better yet, I'd want Discord's power.
GIVE ME YOUR POWER!

[The Mirage]

This is great!

[Aiovas]

This is going to be good

[DrMedic]

This I give to you

[Crimson Doom]

Now this is an interesting idea. Chosen as Discord's herald... but not inherently chaotic. I am intrigued... let the chaos begin... Hehehehehehehahahahahahahahah! (Why don't we have Discord emoticons?)