Discord breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank heavens, Meredith, you frightened me. You’d best not get me riled up like that. Celestia only knows what I could do on edge...”
Discord paused, and lifted his paw to his chin and begin to stroke and fondle his little beard in thought. “Come to think of it, I haven’t payed a visit to my dear friend Princess Celestia in some time. Do you feel like doing that today, Meredith?”
Meredith lay balanced against Discord, as before.
“You’re right, you’re right. Best to show up tomorrow. We have things we must attend to today. Yes, I do think that would be splendid.” Discord took the mop by the handle and moved it over to balance against his thinking tree. Taking a moment of pause, the draconequus surveyed his surroundings.
He was in his home sweet home—the little grotto in which Discord had taken to be his own once his reformation was complete. It was not a large place, but it was his place. Nice and cozy, if he did say so himself; absolutely brimming with strange flora and fauna, most of which he had created himself.
His thinking tree was his most prized piece: the thick, scratchy blue bark, the long, drooping branches that ended in fluffy blue leaves speckled with tiny red and yellow blossoms, the way the branches and trunk were grown to create perfect lounging areas. The tree was essentially his bedroom.
“Ah yes, my lovely,” Discord said to Meredith. “My thinking tree is quite a beauty. I know you love how the wood scratches against your handle...” Discord took Meredith’s handle in his paw and grated it against the wood, a few blue fibers rubbing off onto the mop. Discord sighed deeply, nearing a guttural moan in sonic consistency, and rubbing his own chest. His eyes fell to a half lid, and his mouth ajar, tongue sliding out like a sloppy snake.
Blinking hard, Discord pulled himself out of the trance. “O-Oh dear, I’m quite sorry Meredith. I don’t know what came over me, honestly...”
Meredith, being a mop, said nothing.
“I love my thinking tree almost as much as life itself, but...” Discord rest his paw on the wood, shivering as the pleasantly unpleasant feel of the bark against his skin sank into him. “I could never love it more than you, my sweet.”
Discord took Meredith gently in his talon, and brought her up to him, hugging her closely to his body. He placed a single kiss on the tip of her handle, and came back up with a splinter in his lip.
“Oh, that was rather devious of me, wasn’t it, my sweet?” Discord said with a devilish chuckle following close behind. “I’m sorry that I had to partake in that way, just around you... I simply cannot contain myself.”
The mop hung rigid in the crook of Discord’s arm.
“Oh, don’t try and kid me, Meredith, I can see that blush bepainting your shaft,” Discord chided, taking his paw from the thinking tree and running it up and down the wooden handle of the mop.
Discord placed the mop in his grasp, and hopped down the little hill in which the thinking tree was situated on. “What shall we do today, Meredith? Make plans for our visit to Celestia tomorrow? Clean up the grotto a bit? Make a mess of a small town?”
Discord trailed off, and put his ear to Meredith's handle. “What? You’d like to dance?” Discord grinned down at the mop, and stroked the handle gently. “Oh, of course my dear; you know I could never say no...”
Discord placed her carefully between two rocks, ensuring that she stayed upright as he hopped down to a large slab of stone, next to which a record player with a few stacks of vinyls beside it lay on the end of a shattered piller. The top of the grotto, the rift that lead to the outside world, was stationed right above the slab, so light filtered in, chock full of dust, and tinted a very faint yellow.
Discord extended his paw to Meredith while snapping his talon, causing her to float into his grasp, while the needle lifted and a vinyl disk slid into place. “Shall we, dearest?”
Discord took Meredith in his paw and talon, and kissed her once on the handle.
“Allow me to steal one more, m’lady,” he said, letting the needle drop to hit the record. With another snap of his talon, the record player sparked to life, and the vinyl disk began to spin.
The sound of a piano being plunked jauntily began to flow from the record player, and Discord smiled down sweetly at the mop. “You lead, or I?”
The mop sat silent in Discord’s grasp.
“Oh, hush.” Discord waved his paw and giggled. “You’d do just fine! But if you insist. I never have a problem with being the lead...”
Discord grasped Meredith firmly, and slowly swayed with her as a baritone sax kicked in. He didn't stay swaying for long, however; soon, he was swinging across the slab, Meredith following, the music echoing across the grotto. Drums playfully stammered in, setting substance to the tune. Now, there was a beat, and Discord picked up to it accordingly.
Popping back and forth from behind Meredith, Discord’s hooves clattered across the stone as the jazzy tunes sashayed in the air around he and Meredith. He jumped away from Meredith, and began to tap dance, beating his hoof against the slab and adding a clickity-clack, clickity-clack that meshed perfectly with the music.
“Now! Meredith! Show me what you’re made of!” he hollered, grinning expectantly at the mop.
Meredith stood there, suspended upright for a moment, before falling victim to the treacheries of gravity, and fell sideways.
Discord’s wings shot out, and the spirit of chaos lept across the slab, dipping down just in time to grab his love before her handle would have clattered against the stone. He slid on his back, clutching her tightly to his chest, and placed his hooves on the floor. His wings erected, and he pushed the two of them back upright.
The music had changed. Gone was the jazzy track, having ended at about the same time Discord had collided with the floor in order to save Meredith. Now, it was a slower, more ethereal song... a slow dance.
Discord looked down at Meredith with a soft smile, his eyes lowering to a half-lid. “I’d never let you tarnish yourself against the stone, my love. No nicks, no chips, no slivers amiss...”
Discord snapped his talon above his head, and the light emanated from the crack changed to a light blue, casting the whole floor in a romantic shade. A disco ball hovered in the air about fifteen feet above them, reflecting light and casting what looked like thousands of distant stars all across the dance floor.
“Oh, my sweet, sweet...” Discord breathed, before bringing up the handle to his lips. He bowed down with her, the song’s strings wavering and wobbling in his ears. Discord smiled around the kiss, rubbing Meredith’s wooden shaft gently with his paw and talon. Unable to contain it any longer, he let his tongue escape, the long, snake-like mouth muscle wrapping around the shaft in earnest, stroking and caressing the handle.
He pulled away, his tongue unwrapping from Meredith with a wet slurp. Wiping his mouth of any excess saliva, he grinned sultrily down at his lover. “Oh, you do know how to please me, Meredith. Tell me, where did you learn to kiss like that?”
Discord paused for a moment, before laughing loudly. “Oh, Meredith, you card! I should have known. A lady never tells, does she? No kiss and tell here, no kiss and tell here...”
The music had changed again, messy guitars and droning that sounded oddly like a vacuum cleaner emerging from the sonic soup. Discord hummed along with the droning, swaying softly with Meredith as he did so.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you Meredith, quite honestly...” Discord admitted, a few piercing notes slicing their way into the song. “I am... not what you would describe as a ‘popular’ draconequus, no, not at all...” he took a deep breath, and gazed down into the eyes of his reflection on Meredith’s polished handle. “Why, if it were not for you, I would hazard to say that I would have gone completely mad ages ago...”
Meredith, still a mop, said nothing.
Discord chuckled weakly, his eyes watering a bit. “One could even say you made a softy out of me... well, no, that would have been Fluttershy’s doing, I suppose.”
Discord gave Meredith a stern look. “Oh, don’t start that mess, please. You know Fluttershy and I are just good friends, and that’s all! I owe her a lot, but romanticism... that’s something I could not achieve with her. Nor do I care to do so!” he added hastily. “You know that you’re the only one for me, my dearest Meredith.”
Discord grinned deviously and raised his eyebrows a few times at Meredith. “But I can see how you’d be afraid I’d be stealing mares to be with me. I am rather handsome... why, I remember a time when I could hardly walk down the street without them throwing themselves at me! Of course, I was exuding an aura of powerful male hormones... got a few stallions when I walked past The Cherry Pit...”
Discord coughed, and swung Meredith into his arms again as the song began to peak a crescendo. He carried the two of them out into the center of the dance floor, twirling and spinning and smiling. “But of course, you remain to be my one and only! Everything else in the past... it’s just that! It’s been only us, it is now only us, and it will continue to be only us! Meredith, my one and only, I love you!”
Discord tossed the mop up into the air, where it spun and spiraled a few times. Discord dropped to one knee, and stretched out his arms into a cradling position, grinning widely. Meredith fell enatly on her side into his arms, and Discord kissed her once more as the song drew to a close.
“It’s a personal mix record, so it only has three songs on it, I’m afraid,” Discord said to Meredith as he walked over to the record player, mop in arm. “I know, I know. I’m trying to find the time to bolster it, but... I just can’t seemingly find any! It’s strange, when you’re free of all things, time just leaps at you, but the instant you get busy...” Discord flipped his paw over, and an hourglass appeared. He held it, lifted it above his head, and threw it against the dance floor, where it shattered, scattering the sand all about. “Poof. Like a madman smashing an hourglass.”
Discord cackled loudly, and turned off the record play with a quick flick of his wrist.
“Oh, so many things...” Discord moaned, sauntering towards the hill which lead to the thinking tree. “I’ve got to trim the eelgrass, water the subterranean sunflowers, feed the jabberwocky and the skittering horror... not to mention get ready to see Celestia tomorrow!”
Discord heaved a long sigh, and turned to look at Meredith. “I’m glad I have you to ground me, though, my lovely. I don’t think I could bear to do this all alone...”
He began to hop, and then skip, up the hill to the thinking tree, Meredith bouncing behind him. Discord always made sure to take extra care not to let her slap against the rocks, however, lifting her up high and then not letting her fall all the way back down.
“I know it must sound an awful lot like I am repeating myself,” he said as the tree came within spitting distance. “And I must be, I simply must be... but I want to drill it into you, you know? I want to let it become fact, our love...”
Discord leaned Meredith against the thinking tree, and let out a deep groan, clutching his forehead with his paw. “Oh, the issues, the tasks, the responsibilities! To be young and free and properly chaotic again! Without a care in the world...”
He sat down beside Meredith. “Oh, sometimes this reformations seems more like a burden, a curse, more than a blessing.”
Discord paused for a moment, then slapped himself rather hard across the face. “What am I saying? Meredith, don’t let me speak so ungratefully again! I may be the spirit of chaos, but that’s no excuse for being selfish and bratty! Fluttershy did me a great service, yes she did, and to just...”
Discord swallowed hard. “I have truly gone soft, haven’t I? But... I suppose I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Discord turned to the mop and smiled shakily. “Come now, dearest! Let’s take our mind off of all of this for just a while. I think we’re due for a nice little treat, a good way to spend the night...”
Discord’s words rung around the little grotto, echoing off the farthest walls. Meredith lay against the thinking tree, unmoving.
With a small flash of light, Discord appeared next to Meredith, and grinned down at her. “I prepared us the most magnificent of feasts for us, my dear! Well,” he paused, casting his glance to the side. “I may be exaggerating a tad, but it really is quite marvelous.”
Meredith remained a mop, and did not answer Discord.
“Come now!” Discord clutched Meredith by her handle, lifting the yarned bottom off of the ground as he hopped down the hill, in the direction of the dance floor. Indeed, that is where he and Meredith ended up—yet, it was a dance floor no longer. The stone slab that had once been used for the sickest of grooves and grinds had been redone to include a table, adorned with a white, lacy tablecloth. A manner of platters and plates had been placed about the surface, and an ornate, if somewhat battered, candelabra stood in the center. The whole table was bathed in the yellowish light from before, the blue tint from their earlier dance escapades having finally worn off.
Discord placed Meredith at one end of the table, and strode over to the other side, taking a seat in his chair. Both of the chairs were worse for wear: Discord’s cushion was spilling stuffing and split at the seams, while the back looked as though someone had taken an axe to it a few times, and Meredith’s seemed to have suffered considerable fire damage sometime recently.
“Dig in, darling,” Discord said with a little bow. Meredith did not move from her place.
Discord himself grasped a fork in his paw and a knife in his hand, and looked down at his plate, licking his lips. A small pile of paper, lightly dusted with powdered glass, and a pile of pebbles greeted his gaze.
“Ah yes, my favorite: Pica Delight!” Discord extended his tongue in a manner most frogs would be proud of seeing, and grasped a pebble, flinging it into his mouth. His fork plunged into the first few pages stacked on his plate, and bits of the powdered glass slid from them as he took a great bite of his meal.
“Mmm!” Discord closed his eyes and smiled in satisfaction, the dry, flavorless paper taste being subtly accented by the grating, painful bits of powdered glass. “Simply to die for! Meredith, you must try some!”
Meredith did nothing at first, but due to the angle at which Discord had placed her, she soon slipped forward and lay propped against the table.
Discord cocked a scraggly eyebrow. “Dearest? Are you alright? You haven’t even touched your Siltchalk Friccise!”
The spirit of chaos rose from his seat, and glided gently along through the air until he came to rest beside his love. Gently, he propped her back up proper, and cast a glance at the mix of silt and crushed chalk that he had spent making earlier. It sat there in a little blob-like mound on the center of her plate, appearing very out of place with the fine china it was placed upon, even if the dish was significantly chipped.
“Come now, don’t be like this,” Discord scolded gently. “I spent upside twenty-five minutes perfectly balancing the sit-to-chalk ratio! Proud efforts went into this, Meredith, and I won’t stand to see you waste it.”
As Meredith, being a mop, continued her refusal in eating Discord’s meal, his brow began to gradually knit together. “Meredith, just try it. I promise you it will be quite the delicacy.”
He turned to look at the Siltchalk Friccise. With a tentative, shaking paw, Discord grasped a small, dripping pawful. The grinding, rough, sand-like texture sent the hairs rising on his arm, yet this did nothing to deter Discord from shoving the paw into his mouth, and consuming the meal with a small moan, his eyes half lidded and a single rivulet of drool leaking from the side of his mouth.
“There you go...” Discord said softly one he had swallowed the mixture. “Quite the delight, wouldn’t you say?” He reached down and grabbed another portion, stuffing it into his mouth. His began to speak to Meredith again, his words punctuated ever so often by a food-related moan.
“Mmghf! Good to see you—gnah—eating, my dear! I couldn’t bear to see you—mmm—grow weak and pale from malnourishment.”
After the plate had been fully consumed, Discord walked back over to his own meal, taking one more piece of paper and lazily stuffing it into his mouth before letting loose a groan and clutching his stomach.
“Oh! I-I... I don’t know what’s come over me, lovely. Seeing you eat... it almost seems as though it filled me! I can’t take another bite, even if I tried...”
Discord burped loudly, and covered his mouth with his talon, blushing. “Oh heavens to pansies, I’m quite sorry... hardly of a good composure for me to be acting of this way...” Rubbing his stomach again, Discord licked his lips.
“But it seems as though I’ve been freed for dessert...” Discord chuckled and extended his talon, beckoning towards the candelabra, which surrendered one of its candles at Discord’s evocation. The candle shot across the table, and into Discord’s open palm. The draconequus sized the object up for a moment, before taking a hearty bite and moaning in pleasure.
“Mmm... such a divine texture... the candlecake is truly a delicacy befitting of the Princesses themselves! A pity so few partake... in these unknown pleasures...”
Discord took another thoughtful bite of the candle, before setting his gaze across the table at Meredith. “I’m sorry my dear, would you like one?”
Meredith lay silent.
Discord snorted, and rolled his eyes, smiling playfully. “Oh, hardly my dear. You are far from fat! Why, you’re thin as a rail! Or a handle, at any rate...”
Discord took another bite of his candle, nearly finished with it. “You’re beautiful either way, my darling, never mistake that.” Swallowing the bite and popping the rest in his mouth, Discord continued with, “Speaking of the Princesses, what do you think I should wear tomorrow? It’s been a little while since I’ve seen Celestia, and I want to make a little impression on her. It’s not often I get to show off.”
Silence greeted Discord from the other side of the table.
“Ah yes, I do look dashing in the suit, do I not? I wore it to one of the formal balls in Canterlot quite some time ago, just a half-year after my reformation, in fact. That will no doubt show off my better side...” Discord glanced at his reflection in a platter cover, distorted and warped by the rounded surface. “But then again... do I even have a bad side? I think not, my dear lady, I think not...”
Discord turned his gaze over to Meredith, and smilerd sultrily. “And, of course, my dearest... I shudder at the mere thought of even considering you to have a bad side...”
The draconequus rose from his seat once more, but instead of floating over, he walked with great purpose across the ground, his mismatch hooves tap... tap... tapping across the stone slab as he went. He licked his lips with his serpentine tongue once more, but it was a different kind of hunger that drove him to do so. His eyes shone bright with a keen lust, one that only a certain lover of his could satiate.
“Oh, dearest Meredith, your handle shine in the sparkling sunlight...” he drawled as his paw and talon brushed against her, rubbing it up and down gently. “Why, it’s a miracle I’ve contained myself so long. If I... if I may...”
He bowed his head to her, and kissed her deeply, tongue escaping and wrapping around her like a creeping, constricting worm. Discord lifted her up, bringing Meredith tight to his chest, and venturing a paw down to the screw. He paused, pulling himself away just as he reached the yarn.
“M-May I?” he asked in a quiet voice, his body trembling slightly as he did so.
There was no response.
“I love you.”
Discord plunged his paw into the yarn, and let out a small gasp. His searching appendage crept through the tangled mess down below, and the blush on his face intensified as he went deeper.
“Am I being gentle enough, my darling? Am I going too fast?” His whispers were faster than his normal speech, which had been eschewed the entire dinner in favor of a more gallant tone. “I want you to love this as much as I do...”
Meredith, a slightly fondled mop, but a mop nonetheless, did not respond.
“Oh, I knew you’d love it...” Discord breathed, kissing her yet again. Carefully, slowly, he brought the mess of yarn to his crotch.
Lights burst and crackled in front of Discord’s vision. He stroked Meredith’s shaft with his talon as he pressed her forward again his crotch with his paw, eyelids fluttering. He could feel himself pressing into her, the tickling tendrils of the yarn pleasing him in ways he previously thought impossible.
“Oh, darling, you... you...” Discord was gasping and panting, unable to even form simple words. His hips began to buck as he thrust forward, his mind slipping away to dwell in the realm of carnal lust. “I have waited... so long for you to say yes... my sweetest...”
He stopped, and punched the air above the table, causing a shockwave to emanate from his fist. The blast knocked and blew back everything on the table, sending dishes and “foodstuffs” alike clattering to the far end of the table or into the stone slab. Discord hopped up into the table, Meredith still entangled around his crotch, and lay down, kissing his beloved once more.
As his thrusts increased, his tail twitched and flicked around, swatting the candelabra off the table. It snaked up to Meredith, and curled around the shaft of her handle, stroking it just as his talon did. Discord’s paw still ran over the fibers of her yarn, and he buried himself deeper within her with every thrust.
“Oh, my love!” His cries rang around the grotto, just as they had before. A single leaf fell from the thinking tree and fluttered to the ground beside it.
Discord did not know how long he kept it up. Time had begun to slip away from him just as he had first engaged with Meredith, and he was completely lost by the time his cry had shaken the grotto. He was a machine, a beast... a mechanical beast, meant only to deliver pure love and pleasure to his beloved. He drove himself into her, again and again, his gasps and groans and cries of ecstasy echoing around, creating a cacophony of pleasure. At one point, he could almost swear he was harmonizing with himself.
He was rapidly approaching the point of no return, and he embraced it with everything he had. With a final, piercing cry, he flung himself over the edge, and gave his all to Meredith. A torrent of love erupted, and the two of them lay on the table, soaked in sweat and seed.
“I...” Discord finally managed to say after a few long minutes of sharp panting. “I loved that... more than I can describe. Was it just as good for you as... it was for me?”
Meredith dripped slightly.
Discord gave her a tender hug. “Oh, I knew you would... we can read each other so well, can’t we, you and I? It’s as if... we’ve become one.”
Discord yawned widely, his snaggletooth fang glinting in the sunlight that illuminated the place where their love had been so thoroughly consummated. “L-Let us drift away, dearest. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, with the Princess.”
Discord closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, cuddling his beloved Meredith in the warm sunlight.
Discord awoke, still cradling Meredith in his arms. A dull pain in his side alerted him to his current presence on the floor. He had yanked the cloth off from the table in his sleep, and it lay entangled about his legs.
Yawning loudly, he gently moved Meredith to the side of him, and whipped the tablecloth off of him, causing it to disappear as he did so. He smiled down at Meredith, reaching his paw over to gently caress her handle.
“Sleep well, my love? I, for one, had the most fabulous rest. A dream full of rusty taps and trip through the most wonderful meat locked filled my night...” Discord sighed dreamily, his paw sliding further down Meredith’s shaft. “And... I think you were there!”
Discord’s brow furrowed slightly, his paw continue to creep further down the mop. “Yes, yes you were... you were there, my dearest, I met you riding on a tap of the most glorious rust...” Discord’s paw had moved down to the screw, but it was clenching up now as he did so. His eyes were wide and haunted, almost as if he were gazing into the face of some sort of unknown horror that he could not place. The air around him began to shimmer, and the sound of static filled his ears as—
Discord pulled his paw away from Meredith, which had become entangled in her yarn. “Oh dear, Meredith, you’re a bit of a mess. This won’t do, will it? No, not at all. Come with me, my sweet; we’ll get you cleaned up.
Discord sat with Meredith on the far end of his grotto, where a crack in the wall spilled a small stream of water down into a little pool. Strange, white bulrush plants and phosphorescent lilypads populated the edge and top of the pool, while sightless crayfish and cave fish swam in the depths. Even a few small, grey carnivorous frogs lurked by the edge, licking their slimy lips as they contemplated their next meal.
“Oh Meredith, sometimes I think that you keep yourself unwashed just so I’ll have the excuse to wash you myself!” Discord said with a chuckle, snuggling up against her.
Meredith said nothing.
“Of course, I don’t mind...” Discord said, lifting Meredith up by her handle and slowly pushing her yarn towards the little waterfall. “I always enjoy giving a nice, sensual massage, to make sure you’re as clean as we can get you...”
Discord pressed Meredith into the water, and nodded as he saw the water carry away the evidence of her soiled state. “Oh, you dirty, dirty girl...”
Discord moved his paw down into the mess of yarn, rubbing it through thoroughly and with much dedication. He would pause, taking extra care to run his paw over each individual strand of yarn to clear at anything left behind from last night’s sensual extravaganza.
“Now now, Meredith, don’t be complaining; I know that it’s painstaking, but you want to look your best for the Princess, don’t you? How can you expect to show off if you’ve got the residue of a night’s passion tangle within your yarn?”
The sound of water splashing against her yarn was the only sound that came from Meredith.
“I know this is a poor excuse for the chaos I was once proud to call my own, but I feel like I am... taking a new direction. Maturing, as it was,” Discord explained, removing Meredith from the stream and examining her water-engorged, dripping fibers. “A more subtle mess, if you will. It’s a challenge: cause strife and unrest through carefully placed shows and actions, instead of running in with my usual bravado. This may sting a bit, beloved.”
Discord took his paw and grasped Meredith’s yarn, and squeezed hard on it, slightly dirty water pouring from within his first and into the rock below. “Sure, there’s less of a show, but isn’t it time for my act to stand down for just a moment? Let others satiate the audience, and then come back brighter and bigger than ever. It’s strategy, Meredith, something I’ve forgone for far too long. Think of the things that could come from intelligent chaos!”
Discord pulled his paw away, and looked over the efforts of his wringing. “Yes, you look quite marvelous, quite marvelous indeed. I think you alone will be setting the blush of jealous on Celestia’s face.”
Discord leaned Meredith up against the cave wall, and closed his eyes. Bringing his arms up, he snapped both his paw and talon, and in a moment, he was standing there in his chosen attire. The suit was mostly unremarkable—simply being a black suit that was modified to fit his body.
“The simplicity is key,” Discord said to Meredith, knowingly. “Were it flashy? Entertaining, but not a winner. Subtlety, you must remember, subtly...”
Meredith, a mop, gave no response.
“You don’t need to hide it from me, Meredith,” Discord chided. “I can tell you’re impressed. And Yes, I agree—I do look dashing.”
Discord took Meredith by the handle, and lifted her freshly cleaned yarn off of the ground. “Shall we head off, dearest?”
Discord sauntered across the grotto, back towards where the dance-floor-turned-dining area was. The table had been removed, as had the chair and all evidence of last night’s meal. The pile of rocks with the stacks of vinyls and the gramophone had also been removed.For all intents and purposes, it was simply a stone slab at this point.
Discord stepped right into the center of the yellow light that filtered down into his grotto. “Ready to head up?” he asked the mop in his grasp.
Meredith did not answer.
“Alrighty! Next stop... beautiful Canterlot Gardens!
Discord kicked off against the stone, and stretched his wings out. The two of them soared through the air, approaching the crag upon which the only entrance to the grotto could be found. It wasn’t a long climb, but the anticipation mounting within Discord made it seem to him as though he and Meredith were gliding through molasses.
When the rock reached an arm’s reach away, Discord reached out his talon, which was not holding Meredith, and grasped the rocky ledge before him. His legs swung down and braced themselves against the curve of the ceiling, and his hooves settled between grooves to give him strong foundations.
Discord hoisted himself up, and squinted against the light pouring in from the outside. It was much brighter here.
“Almost there, Meredith... out first sojourn out from the grotto in far too long, the sun almost blinds me...”
Discord could now find stable footing, able to crouch as he crawled towards the lip of the cave. He gently placed Meredith out, careful to keep her yarn above the ground through levitation brought on by a snap of his talon, and he crawled over the last bit of rock into the outside world.
The sun beat down on the landscape before them—but then again, so did the moon. The sun was frozen in the sky on its way down west, but still in a height one would associate with the strong afternoon. The moon was on the opposite side, in the east, climbing up. The whole orb was visible, yet looked strange and dull in the golden sky that had come when the day met the night.
The ground was golden too, but that was the most pleasing thing about it. Bare of any vegetation, the landscape before Discord and Meredith was scorched and blasted, the dry clay and dirt cracked and infertile. Rocks jutted up here and there, but for the most part, it was an empty expanse that stretched across to a ledge that once overlooked Equestria.
To Discord’s right was the largest piece of scenery that deviated from the wasteland. Looking as though someone had carelessly crushed it underhoof, as one might to an anthill, the whole palace was simply sun (and moon) baked marble. The glorious towers, the great halls, the rooms and parapets and stained glassed windows were all laying in a heap that one could vaguely attributed to the approximate size of Canterlot Palace.
“Ah, just as I remember it!” Discord said with a grin. “I swear, you go away for a little while, expecting things to change, but... nothing happens!” He chuckled and rolled his eyes. “And the princesses wonder why I feel such a burning desire to liven things up with a bit of chaos.”
Discord clicked his tongue, and beckoned with his talon. “Come, Meredith! Let’s not keep the Princess waiting.”
He took long strides towards the crumbled ruins of the palace, Meredith floating behind him.
Discord hummed to himself a jaunty little tune as he skipped over a crumbled piller, Meredith floating right along beside him.
“I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen such splendor before, Meredith,” Discord said, stroking one of the few pieces of the palace that was still standing upright. It only stood about six feet high, just a little bit shorter than Discord himself. “This is a mighty palace where everything concerning Equestria since the banishing of Nightmare Moon took place. I might have even tried to acquire it myself, were I still back in my conquesting days.” Discord chuckled to himself.
“Oh!” he paused in his stride, Meredith stopping behind him. “Before we head inside, I need to show you something... something you’ve likely never seen before.”
Discord turned 180-degrees on his hooves, and started to walk across the barren ground towards the ledge that he had passed by before. The dirt crunched and crackled under his feet, any water that had once been there having been sapped ages ago by the relentless beating of the sun and moon.
“I hope you don’t think I’m treating you like a rube, my dearest,” Discord said, walking ever closer to the ledge. “I just know you come from a sheltered life, and, well... I want to show you things in the world that you’ve never seen before.”
Discord stepped to the very edge of the ledge, and brought Meredith floating next to him. “And here’s the first sight of the day to amaze you, my lovely: Canterlot!”
Stretched out before them was where one could assume a city had once stood. Now, there was only a large stretch of a mountainside covered in sand and dust; large mounds, vast dunes, with the occasional ruin jutting out from them. The ever present cracked, barren earth reared its red-golden clay face where the sand and dust did not pile up, and the only movement was the occasional guest of dry wind.
The rest of the view was obscured by a noxious, brown-yellow haze that stretched over the entire landscape from the edge of the ruins of Canterlot onward, only stopping once it reached the sky, which was a deep, cobalt blue.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Discord sighed happily. “That’s all of Equestria, my sweetest. The green, rolling hills, the grey, cutting mountains, the brilliant blue seas, the dark, lush forests...” Discord smiling and pointed off at the haze. “And look! There’s Ponyville! Oh, I’ve had some great memories there... I gained my first friends there.”
Discord paused, his eyes growing vacant. The haze shimmered and shifted, and the loud static drone started again, getting louder and louder—
“But, as beautiful as it is, I won’t bore you with scenery the entire day,” Discord promised Meredith. “Come! Let us pay a visit to the Princess! No use in dirtying a suit for nothing...”
Discord took Meredith by the handle, and lead her back the way they had come. She was still floating, as to not scuff her yarn on the dirt below. Discord resumed humming his tone from earlier, adding a whistle here and there.
“I must say, Meredith, I feel like a changed spirit,” he said to the mop as they stepped over a pile of dirty, smashed glass. “I used to never find the beauty in simple things, ones that everyone takes for granted, but looking over that scenic view... it stirred something inside me. Could this be a part of my maturity? Am I more of a hopeless romantic than I first thought?” The draconequus chuckled to himself, and tickled Meredith’s shaft with his talon. “Who know, my love, who know...”
They were now standing where three section of the palace wall had once met each other; now, the far left wall had been nearly completely obliterated, a craggy, few-inch-tall line being the only evidence that a wall had once ever stood there. The two other walls were in various states of erosion, but each stood about four to five feet on average. Discord was scanning these walls when he stepped in something that clacked against his hooves loudly.
“Oh, pardon me,” Discord said, stepping to the side. Below him lay the bleached bones of a small form; they had obviously once belonged to a pony, and they looked oddly proportioned indeed. The head was a little bigger than usual, and the legs were short.
“Ah, the little foals are so hard to avoid,” Discord said, looking down at the bones. “Always getting under hoof! Well, run along, youngster, there’s nothing to see here. Just a draconequus and his lovely partner!”
Discord waited a few moments, and then looked around, as if checking to see if the foal was still there. Quickly, he darted his head forward and planted a kiss on Meredith’s shaft.
“Oh, hush. You’re just as skittish of showing public display as I am.”
Discord and Meredith walked over the shortest wall, into a place where many columns and stone support systems lay knocked over and vertical, crumbling into dust upon the blighted earth. He was not paying attention to the ruins here, however; what was more of interest to him was what lay before him within the ruins.
“Ah!” Discord called out gleefully, rushing across the dusty earth. “A piano! Come, Meredith, I’ll play you a little tune! I’ve had one stuck in my head for quite some time, as you could probably gather from my humming...”
The spirit of chaos walked up to the piano, which was strangely intact compared to... essentially everything else he had encountered. The bones of what was once most likely a composer lay slouched over the piano, still seated on the bench where he had perished.
“Sorry chap, it’s my turn to take stage,” Discord said to the skeleton, pushing it off the bench to the earth below, where it crumbled apart. “Let me show you, Meredith. There may only be a few spectators, but I shall give them a show nonetheless!”
Discord cracked his paw and talon together, wiggled his finger-like appendages on either one, and set them to work on the keys, plunking out the tune in his head. As the piano spilled music, just as well as it should have when it was new, Discord began to pick up on the melody, and before long he had broken out into song.
“Oh, when the dreary life below
Inside my lovely little grotto
Becomes a bit too much for us to bear
I move my hooves
Into stone grooves
And take us out for some fresh air!
Oh, my dear,
You should have no fear
Of pride or prejudices
Ponies here
Don’t care if relations are strange or queer
They find it best if everyone’s left to their own devices!
So my sweet,
Wouldn’t it be neat!
To have a lovely time?
We’ll drink and partake
And a leg we’ll shake
And soon we’ll have downed all the wine!
The earth will split at the seams
Monsters escape from fevered dreams
The gods of old escape and unfold
AND THE MOON AND SUN SHALL BATHE TOGETHER IN THE SKY—”
Discord’s singing had devolved to screaming at that point, and none of the keys he was hitting made any sense of a tune. The static had returned to him, and the droning in his ears were too much to bear.
Discord paused, removing his paw and talon from the keys. The static had died down, and all he could hear now was his heavy breathing.
“C-Come, Meredith,” Discord said with a slight shaking in his voice, standing up from the bench and giving the piano and apprehensive look. “I-I think that’s enough merrymaking for now. Why should we keep the Princess waiting any longer?”
Discord paused. He had been on his way across the ruins of the palace, heading towards the center with Meredith behind him, when he came across something that had made him freeze in place. The place where he was standing was just another barren, desolate patch of earth, save for one major detail: there was a ditch full of rocks here. Crumbled, broken marble, pieces of clay that had broken away, even some of the natural rocks. Laying here, in the middle of the ruins, was something that didn’t fit.
“Meredith, why do you think they put a tub of cold shrimp here, right in the middle of the bathroom?” Discord asked the mop.
Meredith said nothing, for she was a mop.
“I mean, it honestly cannot be sanitary,” Discord said, walking around the pit and giving it cold, unforgiving looks. “Perhaps there is someone who brought it in from the kitchens, as a joke? Well, as a master of tricks myself, I can say this one is neither clever nor funny! I’ll have to have a word with whoever did this...”
Discord walked right over to a large rock, and knocked on it with a talon. “Hello? Anypony in there? I know it must be distressing to be interrupted on the john, but honestly! Cold shrimp? In the bathroom? I must say, that’s an offense to chaos! It’s lazy, it’s annoying... it’s just a plain waste!”
Discord turned her head around, and looked at Meredith. “Do ponies even eat shrimp, Meredith?”
No response.
“See, I thought so. Listen here, you,” Discord said, turning back to the rock and jabbing it. “You’ve got some explaining to do here! You’ve gone and wasted the lives of perfectly good shrimp on this shoddy attempt at disjointed trickery! As the God of Chaos himself, I am quite wounded that you would even do such a thing? This is utter nonsense, absurd and trite! This ‘attempt’... why, I could hardly call it as such!”
Discord stared at the rock, brow furrowed and scowl present. “You refuse to answer me? Have it your way—I’m coming in!”
Discord weaseled his paw and talon under the rock, and with a grunt, lifted it up. Flipping it on its back, the miffed spirit walked right into the place where it had once been.
The ground was not cracked here, although it was just as dry as everywhere else. Still, it was a smooth, compact clay, and some moisture way have been hidden inside.
“Wh-Why... Meredith, so you see this?” Discord’s mouth fell open, and he dropped to his knees, feeling the ground before him. “Nothing here! No one home! Well, I suppose I am relieved in one way, but...” He narrowed his eyes. “This still annoys me greatly. I’m sorry you have to see me like this, Meredith, but... I must find out who has done this!”
Discord turned right around, and walked over towards the ditch. “And what better way than to defeat their prank by consuming it? They’ll never be suspecting it, I can assure you!”
Discord looked at Meredith, and then twirled his talon, spinning her around. “You don’t need to see this, darling. It will certainly be shameful...”
Discord plunged his paw into the rocks, gravel, and chunks of marble, and pulled up a decent amount. He quickly shoved it all into his gullet, and began to chew without much fanfare, loud crunching and grating sounds echoing around the nearby ruins. With a dry heave, Discord swallowed the detritus, and stuck his tongue out in displeasure.
“It becomes immediately apparent why ponies aren’t fond of shrimp in the first place,” Discord said, blanching as his tongue ran over his teeth, a bit of marble falling out. “The texture is pleasing, and I can taste individual hints of sensations that I enjoy, but... together, mashed and mixed, I simply cannot stand it!”
Discord looked down at the rocks again. “But, if I am to show up that poor imitator, I must take one for the team!” He paused, and stroked his beard, pondering that thoughtfully. “Yes, I quite like that... Team Chaos, with you and I as leaders, Meredith! And perhaps Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy as sub leaders if they felt so inclined.”
Discord cleared his throat, and shook his head, staring down into the pit. The task at hand demanded his attention now. Plunging both his talon and his paw into the ditch, he pulled up ample amounts of the earthen rubbish and shoved them into his mouth, gagging a bit as he did so.
He did this for quite some time, well over ten minutes at least. He shoveled fist after fist of the rocks into his mouth, gravel, marble, and clay alike all disappearing into his gullet. He choked and blanched, gagged and groaned, but the draconequus was determined. He only stopped when his belly began to bulge, lumpy and distended from the sheer amount of earth he had eaten.
“See... now where is your prank, you lackluster impersonator?” Discord forced out with a breathless gasp. The ditch was now about half full, certainly much lower than it had been.
Discord slumped onto his side, clutching his aching belly. “Oh, Meredith... what have I become? I thought I was mature, that I had evolved from this, and what do you find me doing at the slightest sign of provocation? Eating myself sick with something I dislike, just to show what is likely a foal up at my own game... I’ve let pettiness consume me, darling, just as I consumed this shrimp.”
Discord unbuttoned his suit, letting his belly be free of the tightened confines. “Ah, much better. I do believe I will be paying for this later tonight...”
He payed at the ground with his talon, and closed his eyes in frustration. “Oh, how am I to show up Celestia now? I can barely stand, let alone strut my stuff? Meredith, please, help me find my strength...”
Meredith did no such thing, as she was an inanimate object; however a bright light soon filtered through his eyelids, which caused him to open then cautiously, squinting into the blinding light.
“M-Meredith? What is that? Can you see?”
Discord sat up, letting out a groan as the rocks ground against his inside. He squinted harder, holding his paw like a visor to shield his vision.
What he saw in the light made him make another noise, not unlike a small puppy being stepped on.
Discord grunted as he tripped over his own tail, and watched as the white foal scuttled away from him, laughing all the way.
“Come on, you can do better than that! Don’t be lame, Dissy!”
“Well, it’s hard when I’ve got this dumb tail,” Discord griped, wiggling his tail around as he jogged. “It was so much smaller just a few weeks ago...”
“Well, you’ve still got one small thing,” Celestia said, sticking her tongue out playfully. Discord blushed and frowned indignantly, squeezing his legs together.”
“Hey, you take that back!”
Celestia waggled her tongue around. “Make me!”
With a growl, Discord lunged forward and attempted to tackle Celestia, who shrieked and flapped her wings as hard as she could, taking off into the air. Discord fell on his stomach, and bounced a bit, rolling down a small hill that bordered the field that they were playing about in.
Celestia laughed at Discord’s tumble, right up until she flew backwards into a low hanging branch on a nearby tree. Letting out a gasp of pain, Celestia fell down onto Discord, clutching her head with her hooves.
“Ow! Celly!” Discord moaned. “Watch where you’re going!”
“Hey, I’m not the one who fell down the hill because of his big, clumsy tail,” Celestia shot back.
Discord narrowed his eyes at Celestia. The foal returned his chilling glance with a sly smile, and shifted on his chest, her wings rustling.
“Your big, clumsy tail is kinda cute, though...”
Discord rolled his eyes. “Are we doing this AGAIN?”
Celestia giggled and gave Discord a quick peck on the cheek. “You know you love it, Dissy.”
Discord grunted, and placed his talon and paw on Celestia’s sides, holding her in place. “I don’t like being called ‘Dissy’,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.
“And I don’t like being called Celly, but I let you do it anyway,” Celestia said in similarly low voice, hers being cut with a vague sultriness.
“You know, I could have my own way about this...” Discord’s tongue slid out from between his lips, and the edges of his mouth curled.
Celestia cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t have the mettle, Dissy.”
“Oh yeah?” Discord arched his head up, lips puckered. Celestia chuckled to herself, and puckered her own; slowly, the two inched towards each other, each holding back for they were afraid of what was to come. Ever so slowly, they got closer and closer, until—
“Sister! What art thou doing with that cur?”
Celestia’s eyes shot open, and she pulled herself up so that she slipped from Discord’s grasp, and ended up sitting on his stomach. Discord’s kiss flew forward, and ended up landing somewhere in Celestia’s wing, gaining nothing but a mouthful of feathers for his courageous efforts.
“Luna! What are you DOING here?” Celestia asked, her voice burning with embarrassment and annoyance alike. “You have studies!”
“We finished them early, so our mother sent us to find out where you had taken flight to,” Luna said with an upturned muzzle. “And we see that you are cavorting with the serpent.”
“He has a name, Luna. And don’t speak like that outside of studies, it just makes you sound pretentious and annoying,” Celestia spat at her sister, slowly getting up from Discord and walking towards the slope of the hill. Discord propped himself up on his arms, a blush radiating off his cheeks as he looked at Celestia and Luna both.
“A serpent’s name is best left distant from the tongue of an Equestrian,” Luna replied, voice chock-full of haughtiness. “And we are to be Princesses one day, Celestia. We are best suited to speaking in a proper manner.”
“See, now all of that was just unnecessary,” Celestia said with a sigh. “We’re just friends here! We don’t have to speak like we would as though we were addressing a royal!”
“Say what you will about yourself, but we are no friend of the serpent,” Luna said disdainfully, casting a sour glance over at Discord. Discord stuck his tongue out at Luna in retaliation.
“Can you two at least attempt to be civil around each other?” Celestia asked, rolling her eyes. “I enjoy getting embroiled in a fight as much as the next filly, but it’s become rather tiresome for you two to be doing it all the time, every time you meet.”
“Hey, she starts it! She’s mean to me just because I’m a draconequus! That’s like, super racist!” Discord said indignantly, pointing is talon at her accusingly.
“We do not ‘start’ anything with the serpent that isn’t already coming to him,” Luna stated simply.
“Look, she won’t even talk to me directly! Tia, this isn’t fair, she’s the one causing all the problems!”
Celestia groaned loudly. “Look, I don’t care who starts it or who does what! All I care about is who puts an end to the whole moaning and groaning and constant back and forth between you two!”
“We feel the need to remind our sister that she was previously berating us for using proper speech immediately prior to this conversation,” Luna pointed out with an arched eyebrow.
Celestia grit her teeth. “Look here, Luna, I—”
“Discord! Whatever are you doing?”
“Oh no...” Discord moaned under his breath, covering his eyes with his paw.
The two foals stopped their arguing prematurely and looked over at the source of the voice. Standing there, only a few feet away, was a being that looked like Discord, were he significantly older. He was also laden in robes of magenta, trimmed with gold and inscribed with runes unreadable to the sisters. He held clutched in his claw an old, thick book bound in leather.
“Discord, who is this?” Celestia asked, frowning.
“I am Discord’s father,” the elder draconequus said shortly, giving the white foal a vague grimace, as if just looking at her left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. “And I am here to collect you, Discord, from the clutches of the Equestrians.”
“Hey! We don’t have him in our clutches!” Celestia cried out indignantly.
“Yeah, dad, they weren’t—” Discord began before his father cut him off swiftly.
“You are not to be in the presence of the equines, my child! We made this very clear. There can simply be no cross interactions between our two races, except at the highest of levels.”
“Aha! Now who is being racist? It is not us!” Luna said triumphantly.
Discord’s father turned to Luna and gave her a cold look. “It would be best for you to hold your tongue, blue foal. The ire of the draconequus is not something you should seek out. That notwithstanding, pride always comes before the fall.”
Luna looked down at her hooves, her blush mostly masked by the color of her fur, yet still visible due to its intensity.
“Now come, Discord! We must get home now!” Discord’s father held out his talon to his son.
“But da-ad...” Discord moaned, tail flopping in the grass defiantly.
“I said come NOW,” his father commanded, the stern expression turning to one of anger. “Come now, or face repercussions at home in the magnitude of which you will wish you never experienced!”
Discord sighed, and got to his hooves, walking over towards his father. With one last, forlorn glance at Celestia, who waved him a small goodbye with her hoof, he placed his talon in his father’s.
The two were gone in a flash of light a moment later.
Discord’s eyes shot open, and he rolled from his bed, landing on the floor with a loud grunt. He looked around frantically, smoke pouring in from all around him. His window was shattered, and the flickering of flames met his gaze as it poured through the broken glass.
The hot air and dense smoke choked his lungs, and Discord fell to his knees, gasping. Down there, he was afforded cleaner air, but not by much. His eyes watering, he crawled his way towards the door, pressing both his claw and talon hard against it when he reached it.
The door was hot to the touch, and burst outward as he pushed it, crumbling into several large chunks and slivers of smouldering wood. The hallway outside was likewise engulfed in flames, smoke obscuring any path he could hope to choose by sight.
Discord plunged into the hallway, the burning sensation of the flames licking at his bottom half causing him to yelp in pain. His voice was lost to the thunderous crackling of the flames, and the loud sounds of wooden beams somewhere in the house splintering and coming down with a crash.
The young draconequus rushed down the hallway, not caring that his hooves were heating up and that his fur was getting singed. Tears were flowing down his cheeks, but the hot air was drying them faster than they could roll. He was certain that at any moment, they would begin to boil, and he would soon join them.
Wading through the flaming floor and the smothering smoke, Discord found himself in the dining room. The table was on fire, and all of the chairs were crumbled, smouldering heaps of what they once were. He screamed out words, but his throat was so raw and dry that only a strangled sound escaped.
I need to get out.
Many thoughts were racing through his mind, but that was the one that stood out above the others. Forget his family, forget his belongings, forget those weird sounds and noises echoing inside his mind, forget anything else. Right now, he could only focus on escaping his home, and then... and only then could he focus on everything else.
Discord knew that there was a doorway that lead out of his home to the left of the dining room, but all his fevered mind could see was the window, yet unshattered, that was right in front of his very eyes. He stumbled over to it, coughing and hacking loudly as a fresh wave of smoke from the table collapsing under its own weight overtook him, and thrust his palms against it.
Immediately, he withdrew, moaning in agony as the skin under his paw began to blister, and his scales on his talon began to flake. The widow was burning hot, and Discord wasn’t even sure how it hadn’t melted yet.
It his fevered mind, his raised his burnt talon and snapped, focusing what little control over chaos magic he had at the window. It flexed outward, as if it were soapy water just before a bubble had been blown with it, and it melted outwards, covering the ground outside in a thin, shiny layer.
He tumbled over and out of his home, landing on the glass with a dull thud. He hobbled to his feet, and looked around, eyes still watering from the smoke and ash that filled the air. He turned his head to the left and right, looking up and down his street—and only found ash and burning buildings.
His street was situated on a large hill, with an overlook of the entire city. As Discord turned to look down over it, his worst fears were confirmed. The whole city was ablaze, thick smoke wafting up from the center, making the night hazy with a dull orange glow.
Something far worse than he could ever imagine was hanging right above the center of town.
A colossal red dragon was beating its wings, easily hundred of feet, if not thousands, in length. It opened its mouth with a ground-shaking roar, and expelled a fresh wave of flames upon the center of the city.
“BURN, CHAOTIC INTERLOPERS,” it bellowed, the deep, gravely voice carrying across the landscape. “BURN FOR THE MAGIC YOU HAVE SO CARELESSLY PURSUED! BURN FOR THE LANDSCAPES THAT HAVE BEEN IRREPLACEABLY MARRED BY YOUR INCURSIONS! AND ABOVE ALL, BURN FOR THE BROOD OF MINE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES TO SEAL THE RIFTS YOUR PEOPLE TORE INTO THE FABRIC OF OUR WORLD!”
His jaw dropped as he awed in the terrifying shadow of the beast. Discord was far away from it by his standards, but it could easily be bearing down on him with but two flaps of its mighty wings.
He could hear scream now, and shouts, sometimes a broken word or two...
And then came the voices.
Having been freed from the immediate danger of burning alive, Discord could focus on the odd noises inside of his mind which certainly were not his thoughts. Bits of conversations, emotions, ideas... everything flooding into his mind at once.
These were the cries of the dead.
The collective conscious of the draconequi was shrinking, the thoughts and minds and personalities of those who were being burned alive by the dragon fire rushing into the surviving members’ psyches. Discord fell to the ground for the second time that night, clutching his head as it burst with his people’s minds as they were burnt alive. Pain, pain, pain, it was all pain...
He could feel something else growing inside him as well, though, as if something was being unlocked within him. It was a growing warmth that had nothing to do with the fire, an inner glow that caused him to regain the strength to stand. His paw shot out to the side as he felt his whole arm grow numb, and the burning house next to him froze solid.
“Wh-Wha...” Discord stared in disbelief at the frozen home, which did not even begin to melt despite everything around it being engulfed in flame.
It wasn’t just the minds that was being transferred from the dead, it was their power.
He, little Discord, who had barely been able to melt a window, could suddenly freeze entire buildings. And he suspected that was just the beginning of his power.
He rose his hand up towards the dragon, and concentrated on the beat with all his might. There was a deafening boom, and a large shockwave emanated from somewhere between Discord and the dragon, flattening a good section of the city below. Even with the strength of so many of his people within him, he still couldn’t take on the dragon.
“No!” Discord screamed, falling to the ground once more. He simply could not handle the new wave of thoughts, feelings, and powers that were being funneled into him, mostly in part to his failed attack. His chest felt like it was bursting, like there was a volcano inside of him trying to force its way out. He lay there writhing, and vaguely he head the roar of the beast once more.
He opened his eyes for a brief moment, only to shut them once more when a blinding flash of light overtook his vision. When it had passed, he struggled to open them again.
And then rubbed them a few times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Floating above him was none other than Celestia, her tiny wings beating as hard as they could. She looked... different, however. As if she were intangible, somehow.
“Grab my hoof, Discord!” she shouted over the sound of the burning city and the roaring dragon. “We need to get you out of here!”
“H-How...” Discord gasped, staring up at Celestia in complete and honest disbelief.
“We could see the city burning all the way from the Everfree!” Celestia yelled down to Discord. “I broke into the library and stole a teleportation tablet! It was lucky we fell on each other earlier, some of your fur was stuck in my coat! I put it on the tablet and it sent me here, but hurry up and grab my hoof, there’s not much time!”
Discord tried to lift his arm, but it felt like it had been hollowed out and filled with lead. With a great amount of effort, he lifted his hand up, the tippy-tips of his paws stretching, reaching towards Celestia’s ethereal hoof...
There was a great yanking in his somewhere in the pit of his stomach, and he felt his whole body being stretched as if he were paste being squeezed from a tube. The next sensation he remembered feeling was cold grass against his scorched stomach, and the blunt impact of him hitting the ground.
He turned his head and saw Celestia laying in the grass near him, he eyes closed and a large gash in her forehead. A rock that was next to her dripped with her fresh blood, and Discord cringed, imagining the stone slicing through her skin. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the glow of his city off in the distance.
Before Discord could so much as open his mouth to ask Celestia if she was alright, an overpowering wave of emotions, thoughts, and power blasted through his body. He let out a carnal scream, his back arching, and his tail thumping hard against the ground. His mind felt like a star was exploding inside of it, threatening to blow his brains across the whole field.
When the sensation died down, Discord lay on the grass, quietly sobbing next to Celestia’s unconscious form. He just wanted to lay there, in the grass, without anything bothering him, just to sit there and sob. At least he could be afforded this: he needn’t worry about another one of those power surges from a dying draconequus wracking his body.
The glow from the form died down slightly, and Discord stepped back a few paces his eyes scanning the form.
Discord chuckled and smiled devilishly. “Why, it is you, Celestia! What a pleasant surprise. What brings you out of lounging on your luxurious princess bottom to come down here into the first floor stallion’s bathrooms? Getting into some naughty business?”
The form from which the light emanated from made a high pitched noise, almost as if it were saying something. The outline of its body, roughly Discord’s height, was traced in the light, setting it into a silhouette. Four long, thin legs hug off of its vaguely cylindrical body, and two stockier, if still thin in comparison to a pony’s, legs provided the being a place in which to stand
The light died down, and the form’s finer details become visible. Its head could now be seen, and its color descended—it was grey, and the head was too small for its body. Two long antenna jutted off of the creature’s head, and chitinous plates made up its underbelly, which was pointed right at Discord.
“Well, you’ve let yourself go, Celestia,” Discord stated matter-of-factly. “Why, I can already see the new inches that line that plot of yours. Still, I suppose you’ll find a stallion who will go for the larger ladies...” He paused to lick his lips. “I know I will.”
The beetle stared at Discord with large, compound eyes. Its mandibles clicked and chattered, and the noise escaped from its mouth again, this time sounded more like wind over the tops of bottles than anything else.
“Oh, you know I kid, Celestia, my old friend,” Discord said with a chuckle, waving his paw at her limp-wristed. “I was just coming here to see you, actually! Thank you for saving me a trip all the way to the throne room, it’s quite arduous to walk up two flights of stairs...”
The beetle clicked and chittered.
Discord arched an eyebrow. “Oh? You don’t say! Why, I thought that hedge had moved.”
The antenna twitched.
“Well, now, if I had anything to do with “giant moles”, you know I would have told—well, no, you’re right, but still! I don’t just spend all my time screwing with moles, Celestia. Just Sundays.”
Discord laughed heartily. The beetle clicked.
“Now, where are my manners! Let me introduce you to my lovely girlfriend, Meredith!” Discord ushered Meredith forward, the mop gliding up to the beetle. The beetle ceased any noises it was making and stared down at the mop with its large, insectoid eyes.
“Now, say hello Meredith. This is Princess Celestia herself!”
Meredith, incapable of speaking due to the small detail of her being a mop, said nothing. The beetle, however, made a single loud clack with its mandible, and turned to Discord.
“Ah, good to see you hitting off,” Discord said with a smile. “I was afraid you two would be at odds, what with Celestia being extremely jealous of Meredith’s obviously superior looks.”
Discord smirked, and the beetle clacked its mandibles once more. It opened them, and a noise escaped once more, but this wasn’t the mumble that had occurred from before, nor the whooshing drone. This was something that could... almost be words. In fact, they were words, but no one there understood them.
“Hee-san-ee-may-hee no...” the beetle trilled in a high-pitched voice. “Hee-san-ee-may-hee no...”
“Oh, relax, Celestia! You’re a mare lacking in bad appearances, but you hardly hold a light up to Meredith; fret not, though! I am comparing you to true perfection, so you shouldn’t take it so hard. You’re easily one of the finer looking mares I have encountered.”
“Hee-san-ee-may-hee no...” The beetle was stepping closer, trundling on its frail legs, looking as though it could collapse at any moment. “Hee-san-ee-may-hee no...”
“Me? Harbor any feelings? Celestia, surely you jest!” Discord held his talon to his chest in mock astonishment. “In all seriousness, Princess, you know our relations were severed long ago. Meredith is the only one for me, aren’t you, darling?”
Discord brought Meredith close and nuzzled the top of her handle with his cheek. The beetle took one step closer, now only a foot away from Discord.
“C-Celestia, what are you doing?” Discord asked, his voice catching for a moment. “You can’t be serious! I belong to Meredith now! You had your chance, you and Luna both, and you both blew it in turn!”
The beetle was a mere six inches away from Discord as it took another step closer to him. “HEE-SAN-EE-MAY-HEE NO... HEE-SAN-EE-MAY-HE NO...”
“Celestia, I am trying to be c-civil here...” Discord stammered, stepping back and falling into his rear. The static noise from before had roared up in his ears once again, starting off low but spiking in no time. “I don’t want this to turn into a fight! C-Can’t this simply be a meeting between friends?”
“HEE-SAN-EE-MAY-HEE NO... HEE-SAN-EE-MAY-HEE NO...” The beetle reached up one of its lower arms towards Discord, extending itself towards his face...
The static reached a steam whistle pitch in Discords ears, and he scooted himself back five feet, sweating and pale. “I-I’m sorry my dear, and Celestia... I think that shrimp is simply not agreeing with me. I’ll be right back...”
Discord dove another four feet to his left, and lifted up the rock from before. He retched, and dry heaved for a few moments, before his eyes rolled back into his head. He vomited a large deposits of sand from his mouth, the gritty, grainy mix flooding from his mouth. It was mostly a dull yellow, but it was also interspersed with a fine amount of red and white, from the clay and marble he had ingested, respectively.
“Oh, oh my...” Discord gasped between breaths. “That’s the last time I eat strange shrimp from a bathroom...” He struggled to smile weakly, but his mouth was soon occupied by a large amount of sand flooding forth from it once more.
The beetle looked over at Discord, turning to face him. It clacked once, and turned away to face Meredith, who was hovering just to the left of the large bug. It trundled over to the mop, antennas twitching wildly, and butted its head gently against the handle.
It let loose a loud scream, and jumped back, its back parting to reveal a set of four gossemer wings, two on each side, one under the other. It fluttered these wings for a brief moment before seemingly calming down, and turned to face Discord again.
Discord turned around, his brow heavy with sweat, and moaned in discomfort. “N-Now, ladies, I expect you to behave with each other... I don’t want any—URP!”
Discord covered his mouth and turned back to the pile of sand, clay, and marble, and vomited a few large chunks of stone.
The beetle stared at Discord for a few moments before turning its back to him, slowly lumbering away in the opposite direction without another word.
Discord choked once more, a bit of clay dust and a few granules of sand escaping from his mouth. Wiping his maw with his paw, he took a shaky stand to his hooves, and looked around. Upon seeing the beetle trundle away, he stumbled after it, his talon clutching his stomach.
“Celestia! Wait! Come on, don’t play this game with me! You and Meredith need to get along; resolve your differences! Isn’t that what you and your six little mares are always going on about?”
Discord burped loudly, and fell to his knees, coughing up a few pebbles. “Oh f-fuff... those shrimp really did a number on me...”
Snapping his fingers, a beaten cup appearing in his hand, looking as though it had been sitting neglected under a few hundred pounds of debris for quite a while. In fact, in only barely held its shape, and large cracks running around it threatened to cause it to crumble at any moment.
Taking a dry sip from the cup, Discord’s slurp echoed around the small area that only he and Meredith were in now. Dropping the cup to the ground, where it burst apart into many, many fragments, he shot a slightly irritated glance at Meredith.
“Meredith, whatever was that all about? You’re better than that! Why, I know I couldn’t have expect you and Celestia to be the best of friends right off the bat... but I daresay I hoped that you would at least be civil with her!”
Meredith, a mop, did not respond.
“Well, I don’t care if she started it, you should know better than to—AH!”
The static in Discord’s ears had returned abruptly, as if a muted stereo had just been blasted on eleven. He fell to his knees once again, clutching his ears as the loud sound droned through him.
“Alright, Discord! Let’s get you looking your best! This is going to be a VERY important day!”
Discord’s forehead hit the ground, and his jaw was clenched tight, eyes screwed up in pain as the static blasted louder and louder
“Oh, do I have to Mom?”
His back and tail contorted, his tail coiling and his back twisting, his legs flailing around upward while his elbows remained planted firmly on the ground, pressing down.
“Don’t act smart, Discord; this means a lot to Twilight, and I think you should be looking your best!”
“AGH!” Discord wailed, flipping and flailing about on the dried clay. “Th-this... this is agony! Pure torture! Meredith, p-please! Help! Get help!”
“Oh, alright, Fluttershy. Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about this, it’s just a simple diplomacy party. Why, I shouldn’t even need to GO there in the first place!”
Discord’s fang was digging deep into his chin as his agony increased, blood dripping from the entry point. His elbows bored into the ground, uprooting chunks of clay as he did so, a high pitched scream escaping from his lips, which likewise echoed.
“Well, they said we all could bring a plus one, I want you to be mine! Besides, it’s the leader of the Barrowdeep Dragons! That’s fascinating, wouldn’t you say? Worth meeting?”
“...”
“I-Is something wrong?”
“I don’t get along well with dragons, Fluttershy.”
The two stood in the field, the wind blowing gently over them. Even though they had only been here just yesterday, it felt as though a million years had passed since they last were tumbling through the grass together.
Off in the distance, one could see the smoke rising from the smouldering ruins where the once-great city had stood. The sky was polluted with black clouds, and a fine dusting of ash fell from the sky like inverted snow.
“A-Are you...” she asked, turning her head to look at him. He did not respond, and simple continued to stare off at the ruins.
The sun was shining, her sun was shining, yet he could not feel the warmth caressing his as it usually did. There was only the ash, and the blasted remnants of everything that was once his life.
“Come here, Dissy...” she said, placing her forearm around his midsection. He shrugged, and moved away from her, her hoof falling into the ash-dappled grass.
There was once again silence between them, before she broke it once more.
“D-Do... do you know who did it?”
He spoke for the first time. “I wasn’t asking for names.”
“No, I know, I’m sorry.... but did you recognize him at all? I didn’t get a good look at him, I’m sorry, if I did I could tell you who it was, but... could you describe him to me?”
More silence. Then, with a heavy sigh, he spoke.
“He was huge. A-And... and red. And he had a fearsome presence to him, like... like I knew that he wanted to kill me personally. It was terrifying...”
He slumped down to his knees, and he was joined by her, who pulled him into a hug. He lay his head in the crook of her neck, his eyes shut tight, a single tear running down his cheek. His oversized tail flopped once halfheartedly, before her multi-colored one gently lay atop it.
“He said... he said he was repaying the draconequui for his lost brood. Do you know...?”
He shook his head. “We fought at least three dragonflights during the war, and I couldn’t even tell you the names. I never paid attention when they talked about it...”
She pulled him into a tighter hug, and he rewarded her with a hug in return. The two sat there on the grass, the ash gently falling from the sky onto the two of them. They were unmoving, unspeaking for the longest of times, before he broke the silence for once.
“T-Tia?”
“Yes?”
He looked deep into her eyes, his own shining wet with tears. “Can you promise me something?”
“What?”
“Promise me that everything will be alright in the end.”
Discord lay on the ground, the scorched clay broken by his contortions. His chest heaved up and down as he lay there in agony, blood running fresh down his face. Although the static had since ended, a faint ringing could still be heard in his ears.
“I...” he gasped, eyes wide, staring up at the golden sky, the sun in the corner of one of his eyes and the moon in the corner of the other. “I...”
Discord rolled over on to his side, and looked around, his gaze darting from the ruins of the wall, to the pile of gravel and sand he had vomited, and back again. After a few long moments of catching his breath and surveying the area, Discord pushed himself to his hoof and claw, and set his eyes on Meredith.
She was laying there in the clay, the magic that Discord had used to levitate her having been broken when the sonic attack had begun. He strode over, looking down at her with an expression of annoyance, kicking up bits of clay as he went.
“Now, Meredith, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he scolded the mop, cocking an eyebrow and frowning. “It isn’t like you at all to be so rude! First you drive off Celestia, and now you can’t even help me when I fall ill? What’s going on?”
Discord’s frown grew deeper, and his brow knit together. “Meredith, this is no place for name-calling. I’m sure we’re both above that, so please, give it a rest! I know you’re angry, but there was no reason to lash out at Celestia like that! And there was certainly no reason not to help me! My stomach aches so much that I hear a ringing in my ears! This is bad, Meredith, and I expect a little support when things get as bad as this!”
A faint breeze stirred the dust around Meredith, but it was the only noise that came from her general direction.
“And look, now you’ve gone and gotten yourself all dirty,” Discord griped, leaning down and running his paw through her yarn. “Soiled! Soiled and tarnished, just after I gave you a nice bath.”
Meredith said nothing.
Discord gasped in shock. “Meredith! Why, I never... how could you... how could you say something like that?”
The breezle rustled a bit of fluff from one of the yarn strands, and blew some more dirt onto Meredith.
“Well, you know what, Meredith?” Discord said, scowling at her and turning his muzzle up at the mop. “I think that you’ve said quite enough. Don’t bother me with any apologies here, because I simply will not stand for that sort of insult!”
Discord snorted, and looked back and Meredith, breathing heavily. Kicking and driving the clay with his hoof and claw, he made a small noise in the back of his throat, as if he were trying to cough up a hairball.
“I-I think it's best we spent some time apart, Meredith,” Discord choked out, his throat dry. “I really don’t think we should be aggravating this any further. We both need to go, until we calm down, and—”
Discord paused, glaring at the mop. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Meredith, please, just be courteous for a moment and let us part ways!”
The ruins fell silent, and Discord was left staring at Meredith through angry, hurt eyes.
“I-I don’t know, Meredith.” He turned his back to her, and began to walk away, muttering sadly under his breath. “I just don’t know...”
Discord kicked up some of the sand at his hoof and claw, muttering angrily to himself. He had left the ruins of Canterlot Palace behind, and he was now wandering through the sand-flooded streets of Canterlot itself. A few tops of buildings jutted out here and there, but most were drowned in the sun-beat sands.
“Honestly, I can’t believe she would do something like that...” Discord grumbled. “Today was suppose to be special and she just... ruined it like that!”
His suit ruffles had come undone, and so had his bowtie. Despite himself, Discord had parted his shirt due to the heat.
“Now, Discord, don’t go talking to yourself,” he said, casting glances around at the ruined housetops poking from the mounds of sands. “Ponies are liable to think you’re mad...”
He trudged through the sands in the remains of the once great city, the wind ever so gently blowing bits of sand up in little flurries here and there. His blood on his chin had since dried, and was flaking off gently at the prompting of the breeze.
As he walked, Discord looked down at his hoof and claw occasionally, the hoofprints he left behind in the sand disappearing shortly afterward due to the wind’s effort. After an indeterminate amount of time, however, the sand began to be broken up by a large amount of rocks, chunks of buildings, and shattered bones.
“Oh, look at that, the road is beginning to fall into disrepair,” Discord commented upon seeing the debris scattered through the sand. “I’m all for a good mess, but this is inconvenient; not only that, it’s inconvenient to the only one who matters: me!”
Discord sighed and rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue. “If Meredith hadn’t driven her off, I would be liable to report this to Celestia...”
Walking a few more paces, Discord came across a rather steep dune that formed a berm of sorts. It seemed as though the sand had been intermingled with enough debris, clay, and rocks to not truly be called a dune anymore. It stretched around as far as Discord could see, before him and between two roofs, which blocked his view on either side of him.
“Oh, it seems as though a crowd has gathered here,” Discord said, wiping down his sweaty brow with his paw.
He approached the berm, and, after getting his footing, ascended the steep ten feet towards the top. His paw and talon dug into the dirt to get ample leverage, and in his climb, Discord unearthed a dirtied skull of a pony.
“Oh, pardon me,” he said, holding the skull at an arm’s length and looking deep into the eye sockets. “I just want to see what all the fuss is about, after all.”
Unceremoniously tossing the skull behind him, Discord crawled the rest of the way up the birm, and upon reaching the top, was greeted with a devastatingly magnificent sight.
The birm dropped off down about thirty to forty feet, the hue of the dirt and rocks and clay blackening as they went down. It couldn’t be called a berm here—this was the side of a crater. Discord stood on the edge, looking down over the crater, and the destruction contained within.
Large buildings stood in the crater, smoke rising from them as though they had just been burnt. Calling them buildings was honestly a stretch at this point—they were closer to smouldering pile of tinders with the frames of buildings precariously supporting them.
“What...” Discord whispered, his voice going soft as he gazed over the crater. Something was clicking in his mind, like the end of a vinyl record left too long on a record player...
He slid down the crater, his hoof and claw gliding along the surface without digging in, for whatever caused the blast that formed the crater ensured that the sides had become smooth as glass and just as hard. When he reached the bottom, Discord wandered aimlessly towards the center of the wreckage, weaving in and out of broken buildings and blasted homes.
“What’s all of this? How did I...” Discord paused as he passed over a fallen wall. Before him lay what was mostly likely a wide, busy street at some point. There was a large platform, like a parade float, blackened and fragile, looking as though a stiff wind could blow it to ash.
The buildings all flanking the street has suffered a significant amount more damage than the other buildings in the crater, which was truly saying something. These buildings were nothing more than piles of charred remains with low walls being the only evidence that they were ever buildings. The center of the street, right in front of the platform, was charred to the deepest black that Discord had ever seen, almost like a pool of ink that had been entrenched there.
He said nothing as he walked cautiously over to the platform, giving it a wide berth as he chose to approach the center of the road instead. There was a figure-like mark that precluded the scorch mark on the stone, and it looked like...
“Is that me?” Discord wondered aloud, under his breath. The unscorched area did look a little like him, but stretched out, elongated at his midriff and extended upward until it disappeared completely into long streaks that mingled with the charred stone.
As he stepped his hoof into the strange mark, the clicking sound began again, but this time very loud, and very fast, a droning not unlike the static filling his ears—
“HAVE YOU COME BACK TO FINISH THE JOB, DISCORD?”
“Agh!” Discord yelped, holding his paw to his forehead and clenching his eyes tight again. “What is going on? I... did I do this? Did I make this crater? Where is everypony, everyone?” He looked up, staring at the platform, and then around at the houses. “Celestia! Twilight! Come out, where are you? What’s...”
He stumbled backwards, falling down into his back, his legs fitting perfectly into the unscorched zone.
“Fluttershy? I need you—”
There was an intense, blinding flash of light, and reality pulled on itself until it snapped. The heat of the heart of a star engulfed him, and all was gone.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and twenty two...” Twilight Sparkle said, scratching her hoof against the rock, making another mark. “Three hundred and fifty nine thousand million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and twenty three...”
Her hoof was worn down thin, the fur, skin, and tissue underneath having long since worn away. The whole front of her hoof was a very scuffed bone, flecks and chips missing, a few cracks running up and down it. It didn’t hurt anymore, though; the nerves had long since died.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and thirty one,” she said, having used up the chunk of a stone column thoroughly on the markings; almost its entire surface was covered in these etchings, so she couldn’t use it any more. She set it down on the ground next to her, letting out a dry, pained sigh.
She could hardly be recognized anymore. Twilight was thin, as was her fur. She had so little left on her that she looked like a skeleton with patches of thinning fur all over her body. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, the whites of her eyes having fallen to sickly yellow color. Her mane and tail were thin vestiges of what they once were—thin, stringy remnants, barely holding on to the scabbed skin they were once fully embedded within.
Her horn sparked, but it was useless. Cracked and chipped, it looked as though it had been used as a rough bludgeoning tool to beat boulders into small chunks. She moved her hooves, scraped and skeletal, and dragged an unetched rock towards her. She dragged her hoof along the surface, the horrible grinding and grating noise echoing around the empty landscape as she did so.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty,” she said, her voice raw and thin from the endless counting. “Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty one...”
Twilight Sparkle continued to count and drag her hoof along these rocks, making the marks. It was all she could focus on doing now; it was the only thing that kept her sane. Counting, counting...
Every second, I must make a mark.
Her hoof dragged along the stone.
It is the only way to keep the time.
Her hoof dragged across the stone.
The sun and the moon are useless and static and now and I must keep the time.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty four... three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty five...”
Two more marks joined the stone.
I must keep the time to keep my sanity.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty six...”
A fair trade, I guess.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty seven...”
I give something, I get something in return. Basic bartering system.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty eight...”
So then why haven’t I gotten anything in return for my horrific suffering?
““Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and forty nine...”
She made one mark, and then paused for the briefest instant. She would have cried out in pain if her voice could do anything but croak.
She made up for her hiccup almost immediately, and thrust her hoof down against the rock. “Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty!”
There was a blinding flash of light, and a great heat emanated from somewhere just beyond Twilight’s massive collection of timekeeping rocks. When the flash faded, a great rolling force of energy energy buffeted her, pressing her frail form to the ground. Chunks of clay and dust uprooted from the blighted earth blasted against her cracked and scabbed skin, causing her heart to skip a defeated beat. However, none of the chunks were from her pile, so she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Wh-What?” she said painfully, staggering to her hooves. She looked over at the smoldering crack that had been ripped into the ground.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty si—”
Discord stumbled out into the dirt, wading through a veritable pond of cracked clay and loosened dirt. The air around him rung with the hard note of his apparition, and as he stepped from his mini crater, he fell to his knees, gasping for air.
His vision was still fading from white, and each crack in the ground was glowing intensely. Crawling forward, and only managing not to throw up due to his empty stomach, Discord’s talon came in contact with a large rock.
“DISCORD?”
Discord’s ears perked up, the hairs on the end of each raising in alarm. Could it possibly be...?
Discord pushed himself to his hoof and claw, bracing himself against the half shattered pylon that stood out of the ground closest to him. He looked over at the source of the noise with his bloodshot eyes.
His gaze first fell on a pile of rocks—it must have been ten feet tall, and stretched off into the distance. Each one was covered in markings, some with under ten, others with hundreds, maybe even thousands on them.
Through a break in the rocks, he saw a figure. It was hunched over, trembling, yellowing eyes wide in disbelief. Discord slowly moved from the pylon, pressing the rocks aside to make room for himself.
“Hey! Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty! Careful with those!” the voice rang out, attacking his ears like a rusty sawblade.
Almost as bad as that damn static...
“Figures; you’re the first living thing I see in years, and the first thing you do is annoy me. Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty two...” There was laughter, and each laugh felt like a stab through the eardrum. Discord cringed as he moved himself over the pile.
“Wait... three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty three... how do I know you’re actually real, and not just a hallucination?” Discord stepped off the pile, and stood before Twilight, looking her up and down. She was a mess, to be certain: from her scraggly mane and tail, to her scabbed, frayed body, to her split and ground down hooves.
“Oh, Twilight, my dear,” Discord whispered. “How could I be anything but real?”
Twilight Sparkle looked up at Discord, her face contorting. For a moment, it looked as though she were stuck in the place right before one sneezes, before it became apparent that she was trying to cry. No tears came out, her body having been drained of all non-essential moisture ages ago, but the attempted emotion was all there.
Unable to control herself, Twilight flung herself around Discord, embracing him. As she did so, some of her remaining fur on her body rubbed off into his, and a few scabs detached themselves from her and flaked to the ground. She cared not about her sores reopening—not right now, anyway. This was a time for rejoicing.
“What’s this for?” Discord asked, confused, gently pushing Twilight off of him. Twilight’s expression of joy drooped slightly. “It hasn’t be terribly long since we’ve seen ourselves last.”
Twilight’s expression morphed into one of confusion. “Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty eight... what are you talking about? I haven’t seen you for over—”
Discord pushed one of his pads on his paw up to Twilight’s lips. “Twilight, please! Not so loud! We are in public, you know...”
Twilight stared at Discord, mouth gaping, unable to truly comprehend what he had just said to her. “I-I... what? Excuse me? Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and seventy...”
“You don’t need to make such a big scene,” he said, glancing down at her. “I know it’s been some time, but you’ll make ponies stare at us! Usually, I’d be up for a big ruckus, but I’m not in a good way right now...”
“What are you talking about?” Twilight yelled, her voice echoing across the empty landscape. “We’re the only ones here! We’ve been the only ones for... at least—”
“Twilight, come,” Discord said abruptly. “Let’s go out and do something, shall we? Take a little stroll through Canterlot with my favorite mare.”
Twilight stared at Discord in disbelief as the draconequus grabbed her left foreleg and lead her away from the cracked rocks she had been engraving with the lines.
“No! Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and seventy five! I need to be there! I need to keep the time!”
“There’ll be clocks aplenty where we’re going...” Discord said, his voice dropping to an almost ominous tone.
Twilight cocked the skin where an eyebrow had once been, far too long ago. “Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and seventy seven... oh, I see now. You’re messing with me! How could I think, even for a second, after all these years, that you’d be any different? Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty...”
“Now, Twilight, please,” Discord said, grinning down at her. “Why would I ever do something like that? Truth be told, I have... different motives this time around.”
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty two?”
“That’s right,” Discord said, still smiling. “We’re going on a little date, you and I.”
Twilight’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Wh-What... Discord? Have you gone insane? You must have, this apocalypse drove you to madness, just like it’s dragging me down with it, oh dear sweet three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty four...”
“My dear, the only thing you’ll be mad with is love,” Discord chided, giving Twilight a ridiculously dopey grin. Turning away from her, his eyes darkened, and he looked off into the desolate distance. “This will show Meredith,” he muttered under his breath.
Twilight stared at Discord, mouth gaping like a fish out of water. “Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty eight?”
“Come on, Twilight! It will be grand!” Discord pirouetted in front of Twilight at grinned down at her, arms wide. The stunned alicorn simply stared at Discord, unable to do or say anything in response.
“Oh, don’t act so distant,” Discord said. “We both know that this has been coming for quite a while...” His eyes shifted back and forth, as if he were attempting to convince himself of this as well as Twilight.
“Discord, we... three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety two... we don’t have time for this! We’re the last ones left, and we need to be doing something responsible with our time!”
Discord let loose a loud, long cackle, doubling over in mirth. “Oh, Twilight! Now you’re just speaking gibberish. Good to know you’ve got a sense of humor, though. You know I value that in a mare...”
Discord sauntered class to Twilight, his hoof and claw cracking the clay beneath with the force he put them down with. Twilight stumbled back a pace, her own hoof catching on a sharp, twisted piece of metal, causing her to fall into her thin haunches. She grunted as she collided with the dirt, a thin trickle of blood escaping from where the metal dug into her fetlock.
“Now, let’s... have a little dinner date, shall we?” Discord said, folding his legs up as he sat down on the ground next to Twilight, stroking the underside of her chin with his paw, holding it there and gently rubbing the blistered skin. Twilight felt a shudder run down her spine, and she dry-heaved slightly.
“I-I don’t... three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety nine... I don’t understand...”
Discord looked into Twilight’s yellowed eyes thoughtfully, a strange, almost primal look plainly visible for Twilight to see in his own. There was a pause of silence, which was only punctuated by:
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, nine hundred.”
“You say the sweetest things,” Discord said, laughing.
Twilight shook her head. “I can’t believe it. After so long without any punctuation in this hell, and the only other survivor is you. Gibbering mad, no less!”
Twilight cast a disdainful look at Discord’s apparel. “Why are you even dressed in a suit?”
Discord stopped laughing, and his expression turned dark for a moment. It was an almost angry expression as his thoughts turned to ones of Meredith. “Well, I’d want to look my best for our date, wouldn’t I, Twilight?”
Twilight’s mind stopped working momentarily, and this was accented by a nearly comical fizzling of her horn, which shot sparks when Discord let her know what his explicit intentions of his raving truly were. Her wings opened, but they were merely bone with skin stretched over them now. A few of the remaining feathers fluttered off, landing on the cracked earth without much hurrah.
“Th-Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, nine hundred and ten?”
Discord slid himself closer to Twilight, his free arm caressing her emaciated form. Her crusty, faded coat ground against his suit, which had begun to stain from the dry wind blowing the dirt and clay dust into it.
“Oh, this is going to be just lovely,” Discord crooned, placing his talon under Twilight’s bony jaw, moving her head so that she faced him. His yellow eyes looked into hers, and he smiled sultrily.
“D-Discord I d-don’t...” Twilight’s remaining teeth chattered and clacked together, her body quivering in confused terror. What was he playing at? Did Discord know something she didn’t? He had to be stringing her along, right?
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, nine hundred and eighteen... Discord, please, just... just tell me what you’re playing at, I can’t handle this! As far as I know, we’re the only ones left in this world, and I’m so frightened and I...”
Twilight blinked, and she would have shed tears had there been enough moisture left in her body to do so. “P-Please, just... talk to me like...”
Discord pressed his muzzle up against hers, his comparatively wetter tongue wrapped against her dry, cracked one. He gripped the sides of Twilight’s withered figure, his snake-like body wrapped up around her like some sort of foul, mix-match anaconda moving in on its prey.
“Fggh nhhmh nd fnnd nn mlln, aaht nhhmh ndnnddn fvvn ffoffn, nn nhhmh nd ndnnddn!” Twilight moaned into Discords mouth, feeling his tongue slip between a gap in her cracked, yellowed teeth.
Discord pulled away from the former princess, and smiled at her yet again. This smile wasn’t as sultry as the one before, but it certainly betrayed the hint of further advance. This was a softer smile altogether, and Twilight felt herself begin to quake again.
“Don’t fight this, Princess,” Discord crooned. “We can have the perfect night.”
“D-Discord...” Twilight heaved, blinking hard again. “Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty four... please, for the love of...”
She trailed off. All of her higher powers had died. She had nothing to beg for the love of.
Twilight fell to her side, dust stirring up in small clouds around her. She no longer bothered to heave or blink; she now knew that it was useless.
All she had was her counting.
“Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty six... Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty seven...”
Discord slid up behind her, his immense tail and the lower part of his body still coiled around her. “Oh, darling Twilight... I know what will set you proper...”
Twilight, laying there in her near stupor, her eyes closed, made no movement except from her lips. “Three hundred and fifty nine million, eight hundred and twenty seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty nine...” she whispered.
Her eyes shot open as she felt something warm press up against her backside.
It slid between her legs, and up against her inner thigh. She did not move, she did not breathe: she did not even speak, because she could not bring herself to do so. The count continued on in her head, but her raspy voice no longer carried out over the ground.
She could not—no, she refused to believe this was happening. She had to be hallucinating; a lack of water brought this on, perhaps! She...
How could the only being left in the world be so cruel?
Wasn’t it enough that the land had been blighted and baked, reduced to a wasteland, the sun and moon frozen in the sky? Hadn’t that been enough?
“Oh, Twilight,” he said, his voice hissing from his mouth like the air from a deflating tire. “You really are a magnificent mare. This date has been so entertaining! You make such pleasant, droll conversation.”
She did not answer him. She could not even feel what should have properly been felt—she only felt weight on top of her.
“Can I confess something to you, Twilight?” Discord pressed down into her, and Twilight opened and closed her mouth, like a fish out of water.
“I honestly thought that you would turn your snout up at me. Absurd now that we’ve nearly completed a full date, and you’ve yet to run out on me...”
Twilight felt her hips lift, and her eyes widened in terror.
“Fluttershy was absolutely right! I should have stopped messing around with you all sooner, and treated you like proper ponies instead of my pandemonious playthings.”
Twilight felt a great force push into her, and her face slammed into the hard, dusty clay. Her cheek ground into the earth, the remaining fur becoming stained with a dull, rotten-yellow hue.
“D-Discord...” she managed to croak out. “P-Please, stop... I just... I don’t...”
“Yes, today has been a good day. Who cares about that snobby bitch, Meredith? She’s a thing of the past, Twilight Sparkle, and I can assure you one thing: I will dedicate my time now to you, and you alone.”
With that, it was over. Twilight felt her lower body slam into the ground as her legs and hips were dropped. She ached, her dry, blistered nethers having been torn by Discord. She felt a dampness spreading down her legs, but this was not a dampness as she had remembered so long ago. This was a thick, oozing wet feeling, dripping down her back legs as if as a crude, black oil. She could not tell if it was his ejaculate or her own blood. She did not want to look between her legs to find out.
“Yes, this was a lovely dinner date, Twilight,” she heard Discord say as the voice slowly became further and further away from her, his hoof and claw beats crunching over the earth setting a dull beat beneath his slick tone. “And don’t you worry, I’ll pick up the check.”
Twilight gripped her head in her hooves, biting down hard on her lip, until she could taste the sharp, metallic taste leak onto her tongue.
Discord adjusted the lens, looking into it with one eye. Had someone been looking through it, they would have seen the eye through the distortion of the lens, bulged up in the middle, making the rest of his face look convex and small by comparison.
He stepped back, grinning his snagglefang, oily grin. “Alright, we’re reeeeady...”
“Still don’t see why we have to get a lame picture taken with him,” Rainbow Dash muttered in the background.
“Hush, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy said to her. “I’d like us to all have a nice picture together. It’ll help us move along in our friendship!”
“He’s clearly not interested in that,” Rainbow grumbled as she settled next to Applejack, who was brushing dust from her stetson. “Just the other day he turned my bed into cotton candy and ATE it!”
“You’ll be glad I wasn’t hungry for other things,” Discord said deviously, licking his lips and giving Rainbow and dangerous smile. Rainbow Dash shivered and shot him a disgusted look.
“Discord! Behave!” Fluttershy said. “Besides, Rainbow, it should be us that take the first steps. Discord’s not a bad guy at heart...”
“We’ve been doin’ an awful lot of first-step taking...” Rainbow said under her breath.
“I think this is a good idea, as well,” Rarity said, gently poofing her curls with a hoof. “It will help us make sure we’re all absolutely presentable for when we meet with the ambassador. A good picture always leaves you wanting to look your best! And I think we should be looking our best. Other than Spike, I don’t think we’ve met a properly civil dragon...”
Discord slid up behind the six of them, his claw and talon resting on Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, respectively. There was a flash of light...
FZZT
KRRRKT
They were almost all frozen in time, the color slowly fading from them and their surroundings. Discord, however, stayed in his coloration, as did the unicorn next to Pinkie Pie. Twilight turned and looked up at Discord, her mouth slowly falling open, her face contorting in a silent scream. Discord warped and blackened, like a shadow that had taken to life, and extended his arms towards her. His claw and talon wrapped around her fragile neck, squeezing tightly. He pressed her to the ground, constricting and wringing Twilight’s neck as he strangled her.
No sound escaped from Twilight's open mouth, and their surroundings began to warp. The ponies all around them began to melt, as if they were clay under a bright lamp. Twilight herself withered as the ground cracked and blighted beneath her. The decay that struck the rest of the scene left Discord unaffected as he continued to wring her neck.
“I’m so, SO glad I can spend time with you, Twilight. You make me feel fresh, alive! I’m glad I gave you a chance.” said the creature who had fallen so far that his words no longer matched his actions.
Twilight grunted as she strained her wings, flapping them harder than she could ever remember flapping them before. The sounds of screams and roars from below rang in her ears, shooting up past her and piercing the clouds beside her.
She flew upward, upward, higher and higher, until it became difficult for her to breathe. She only then looked down, through the hole in the clouds that had been made by her sudden acceleration.
And there was only smoke. There was only smoke that stretched out before her eyes, pouring up from the hole in the pure white fluff that lay in the sky. The rich, dark clouds were wafting up to her, washing over her... her eyes stung and she could taste the burning brick in her mouth.
Twilight strained her already fatigued wings as she flew to the left, trying to find a way to evade the burning, darkening sky. She gazed down on Canterlot, the places where the smoke had not reached, and saw tiny little figures rushing away from the center of the town. Their screams rose up above the crackling of flame.
Her horn sparked, but Princess Twilight Sparkle knew not what for. She had no idea how to combat this, how to fight this how to... do anything here.
“The elements,” she whispered. “I need to reach the elements.”
Twilight flared her wings, and dropped down into a dive. Just as she felt the rush of air against her face, she heard a voice call out—
“NOT THIS TIME!”
—And there was nothing but bright light. Twilight felt the force of a mountain slam into her, and she flew back upward, not even able to grunt as she felt as though her skeleton were being pushed from her backside.
The burning came next. Flame, hot white, poured into her vision, and up into her head, filling her skull and snaking down her spine like a long, conflagrant snake. Twilight opened her mouth, and her tongue was engulfed in ash and fire, silencing her.
Twilight felt herself begin to fall, slowly at first, as if the hot air were still pushing her up. She quickly began to fall faster, down, down down, spiraling towards a ground that she could not see.
She hit it with a hard CRUNCH, and felt nothing more.
She slowly opened her eyes, looking around groggily. The wall next to her smoked slowly, the thin trails rising off of it, lazily wafting into the air. She trained her gaze upward, and watched as the sun and moon hung together in the golden sky.
There was nothing. She did not know for how long she lay there, but she knew that nothing there moved. She tried to spark her horn, but was merely met with a dull throbbing in her head.
There was nothing.
Time could not pass. There was no way she could tell if time passed. Twilight turned her head to the side, the biggest movement she had made in an indescribable amount of time, and she set her gaze on the wall.
She opened her mouth, dry tongue grazing against teeth she was surprised she even still had, and dragged herself to the wall, bringing her hoof against the rock, scraping a mark in it with each word.
