day of the pink draconequus

a while ago alara-sama had an idea for a fic involving the concept that draconequui are brood parasites, like cuckoos, depositing their young/eggs to be raised by other species. this enabled the idea that pinkie pie was actually a draconequus larva. alara's version involved a lot of political drama about draconequui having been hunted to extinction by ponykind and mobs calling for pinkie's execution because all draconequui are evil potential discords, etc, etc. she stated then that she wasnt gonna get to that fic anytime soon, but the idea of pinkie pie being a draconequus larva stuck in my head and germinated. I even went so far as to ask alara if i could run screaming away with the idea and she gave her blessing. especially since what i'd like to do is a lot more shippy and a lot less Mobs with Pitchforks.

TL;DR pinkie pie turns out to be a larval draconequus whose time for transformation to adulthood is upon her. discord acts as her mentor in chaos magic. romance, time-travel shenanigans and hijinks ensue.

bonus "the history and life cycles of the draconequui race" as compiled by princess twilight sparkle.

~~~~~
Strange things keep happening around sugar cube corner. At first everyone thinks it's Pumpkin Cake having another magical spurt, but the randomness continues even when he's under watch with magic-inhibitors. Pinkie develops strange rashes and her pinkie sense is going completely wacko. Parts of her start changing colors. Things around her start changing colors. She starts craving milk, and nuts, and fish of all things! She gobbles soy burgers like they're going out of style. Is pinkie getting taller? Her neck seems longer...and sometimes her fore hooves bend the wrong way! The spurts seem to be getting worse. Zecora tells them it's not a ghost. Twilight is searching every book on magic and medicine she can find. Pinkie starts randomly shapeshifting, herself and others.

The magic spurts get so bad, discord shows up, drawn, he says, by the bursts of chaos he can feel ten miles off.

He confirms that the magic she's spouting is specifically chaotic in nature, not unicorn high magic or shamanism or cutie mark shenanigans. Unfocused raw unicorn magic can often feel similar, he explains, especially to those not familiar to chaos, but he knows 120% that's what it is.

"She's always had a bit of 'background radiation' you could say. Sure she's pretty random, but it's always been within the standard pony deviation range till now...now she lights up like a hearth's warming eve bonfire."
"So she's not a changeling? Or a mirror pool clone?"
"Positively not. Changeling-power is based in Void magic and Glamories. And there are plenty of spells, as I'm sure dear Princess Twilight knows, to reveal those. No," he twisted in the air, pulling on his beard thoughtfully, "not a changeling. But do enlighten me on what, pray tell, you mean by 'mirror pool clone'?"

Cue section where they investigate the pool, where pinkie has another episode of chaos magic, where discord can witness it. And maybe a moment of pinkie sense where discord and her have identical 'wobbly' reactions to a disturbance in magic.

Idea: discord has never been privy to "pinkie sense", which is remarkably similar to his own magic-sense. It ends up being one of the key factors in his 'diagnosis'

(and how im gonna write him sharing his suspicions without it sounding like 'yer a draconequus harry pinkie' i have yet to figure out)

discord doesnt want to believe she could possibly be one of his species. it would significantly take away from his Special Last of my Kind Snowflake status and open up cans of worms he cant even forsee. (and other reasons im still puzzling out)

but pinkie pie has pony parents, how could she possibly be another species? someone asks. Pinkie admits that she's kinda always wondered if she was adopted, putting a brave face on but feeling insecure underneath. This prompts a visit to the pie family home, where her parents tell how they found her inside a rock. The rock split open when mama pie touched it, and inside was rainbow iridescent shell surrounding an infant foal. They kept a piece, which they then give pinkie. They stress how much she is still their daughter and that they love her. They always meant to tell her, but just couldn't find a good chance.

soon after (maybe even while still at the farm) pinkie pie's final transformation begins. chaos magic crystallizes around her in a giant cocoon, throwing out occasional spurts of chaos lightning to any who approach it, except discord, who seems immune.

Inside, the chaos magic is attempting to fuse with her, trying to deconstruct and recreate her in its own image. she’s overwhelmed at first, and this threatens to make her lose her sense of self, her memories, her soul, everything that made pinkie pie, pinkie pie. until it tries to assimilate the element of laughter/her cutie mark. her spirit is able to use that part of her as a core, a rallying point, and she reweaves her Self with it as a focus. pinkie draws on her precious memories of her friends to build strength.

for one reason or another, discord had a particularly rough transformation himself, eons ago, so he talks to her within the sphere, guiding her through the chaos. her other friends join in (from a disctance), reminding her who she was and how they love her. He lists all her good points and it forces him to think of her more positively than he's been before. Cute, friendly, loved. Playful and creative and laughter and fun.

"Not fair, you're almost as chaotic as I am but everyone loves you for it. You somehow know just how much anypony can take without resenting you. Of course, I often know how much a pony can take of chaos...and then push them beyond it. Guess that's the difference between us, you care enough to hold back. You control the chaos so everyone can play again. Which is why I know you can do this. You don't have to beat the chaos, but just don't let it beat you, ok? Not when you were just getting interesting."

Discord keeps watch over the pod and shoos all the ponies out of the room it's held. He and twilight have a magic ward on the room to prevent the arcing chaos lightning from spreading. Fluttershy brings him tea sometimes, and twilight takes notes.

"It's not trying to hurt anypony, it just wants to play, to change and grow and never stay still. Like her. Like a foal. Creative and destructive, taking things apart and putting them back together. Terrible freedom. Fierce joy.”

Inside the shell Pinkie can only hear snippets of Discord's voice, but it helps her sanity considerably. Eventually she notices that the chaos around her does have its own rhythm and flow and pattern, but layered & twisted so heavily over itself as to appear random and insane. she learns that while chaos likes to destroy and disobey, it also loves to create and learn. It can fuel rage and joy alike. she stops fighting it, but doesn't just roll over and let it wash her away either. She invites the chaos to come with her and play and grow and laugh and make smiles. At first she thinks its going to tear her apart, but only when she fights. When she directs the flow, like water bending or air bending, it follows like a puppy. She builds her new form around the core of her harmonious soul. She makes friends with it. Pinkie pie explodes from her cocoon in a brilliant rainbow swirl, trailing ethereal golden balloons as she bursts into the sky in a crescendo of joyful fireworks. Discord himself can't help but find her and her chaos beautiful. She loses energy rapidly after that, but her friends catch her and put her to bed.

Afterward, they all have to discuss what to do next and how much to keep hidden from the public eye. whatever the decision, they do agree that pinkie needs to learn how to control her sporadic magic bursts if she wants to live around ponies. They press-gang discord into agreeing to be her tutor in this regard, and the others agree to help in anyway they can. Twilight is already formulating a research project to discover everything ever written about draconequui.

[[on that note, one fun thing i want to do with this fic is have notes on the draconequui species as they might appear in twilight's research, topping each chapter. starting with the origin of the species, then talking about their evolution, their lifecycles, their culture, their civilization, and their eventual downfall. hinting as to how discord and pinkie pie came to be the last survivors of the chaotic draconequus race. ive already got pages and pages of notes for them, and if anyone is interested maybe i'll throw some in a follow up blog post.]]

chaos lessons include; transmogrification on demand, teleportation, summoning, magic-sense, reality warping, transformation, and flying. discord very carefully avoids revealing his ignorance on the draconequus species' history, but his ignorance on anatomy is what begins to get them in trouble.
You see, draconequui practice mating in-flight like eagles or dragons. The way discord and pinkie play 'chase' in their flying lessons awakens all kinds of awkward feelings and instincts and pheromone production neither is prepared for. (I did warn you there would be shipping)

I have a lovely scene written where they accidentally initiate a mating flight but don't go all the way through with it. Discord stops himself, listing any excuse that comes to mind except his actual feelings. It's not the right time, it's not a real flight, she hadnt blooded a kill, she was just barely out of childhood, he was her teacher, (Conveniently ignoring that draq culture often saw teacher student pair bonding, which i'd cover in the 'research notes'), etc. The heart of it is he's scared silly.

Discord flees the scene, leaving Pinkie horny and confused and feeling utterly rejected.

[[just to clarify, i'm not implying its wrong that he stopped them, on the contrary, it'd be very noble of him to stop when he's not feeling ready, but ideally you want to discuss these things with your partner instead of running away.]]

After some time spent brooding (aaaaaangst), they come back together and basically agree to forget the whole thing ever happened.

Somehow or another, they go on a little field trip together where Pinkie was found and discover the ruins of an old draq city in the sea cliffs. Maybe they even discover an old egg cave filled with hundreds of broken or calcified eggs. Pinkie mourns her species.

Pinkie Pie stumbles upon an ancient chaos artifact that sends her back in time to the heyday of the draq civilization.

She arrives at the festival of flight and marvels at the great party being thrown. She's instantly hit on, partially for her uniquely bright pink color and partly because the males can smell that she's a virgin and close to first flight. She makes a friend right away, a foxy thing called salacious, aka Sally. She shows pinks around and offers her a place to stay. She's homoromantic but mates with males. She's aiming to be a powerful matriarch some day and brood with a cute female. She cuddles pinks at night. She treats pinks like a draq just after transmogrification puberty, and so doesn't question her ignorance. She gossips about all the males and their after-flight accommodations. Brutus is huge and rough but between you and me his cavern is a little sparse. Candor is shaping up to be a great chaos mage and he's really witty, although he's more into writing plays than storm crafting. Jaquaron has a beautiful coat and sense of style, Etc.

During the festival Pinkie Pie tries a little of everything, and keeps thinking she sees Discord at every turn, wanting to show him things or ask questions. She begins to miss him.

Meanwhile Discord is mystified as to how she pulled off such a massive time dilation. He flies back to ponies, demanding help. They pool their resources, and send him to follow pinks. It's slightly easier to follow where she's already forged a path, so to speak. Discord arrives in time to find her bloodying her first kill before a flight. He fights off other males as she rises. For the first time in his life, he encounters other chaos users who can give him a fight. Pinkies own speed, agility, and pinkie sense assist in the effort to fend off other male draqs, but discord has flown with her before and knows her moves. She's lost to the wild rhythm of the flight, barely remembering her own name. He catches her, and tries to just hold her without mating, but her thrashing and the exertion has affected him too.

She begs him to take her. He says its just the flight talking...she cries out that he should make up his mind, points out his hypocrisy. He admits that's she's hot as hell and that he wants her, but he knows she's been raised as a pony, and that this isn't how ponies do courtship. That it didn't feel right. He wanted her to chose him because she loved him, not because of hormones and instincts gone wild. He later can't believe he used the L word. "Guess you ponies have really gotten to me."
Or maybe he's afraid of making more draq, he's ashamed of his species. If so, pinkie can show him the good things she saw in her time there. The art and music and laughter.

His final act of resistance to taking her is to poof home. They splash down in a pond, which is good, as if gives discord's excitement a chance to calm down before he has to encounter the ponies. He returns her to her friends, part of his mind kicking himself for not tapping that ass. He paces nearly all night wrestling with his desires.

She visits him later and confesses her love, not just her desire. Then they have a nice long talk about what almost happened. Discord admits his ignorance and fears. He tells her he's always been a big fish in a small pond, always special, if alone. But this turned everything he knew about himself on its head.

She thanks him for fighting the other males for her honor. "You were magnificent." She croons. He preens. They hold paws...and tails. Cue cute drawing.

She still works at SCC, as a pony, but changes back to draconequus form off shift. She has an Inbetween form she uses around town, and sometimes discord joins her as a pony.

depending on the rating, a scene where they make love on the ground, emphasizing that their feelings for each other are more than hormones and the random chance of being the last male and female of their species alive. and possibly an epilogue where he flies her properly, playful and low pressure.

the final research notes entry hints that discord and pinkie have offspring together in the future.

one final note: i dont know where to work it in, but pinkie pie should be able to still function as an element of hamony, even after her transformation.
Maybe when pinks touches the tree of harmony (or does element of harmony-type things) it turns her into a pony and dilutes her chaos magic. Her magic gets huffy afterwards too, like a cat that'd been forced into a bath. It then acts out and has to be coaxed to behaving again.

thanks for reading! here's a picture to celebrate!

Comments

[alarajrogers]

I really really like the whole "we can't do this because I wanted it to be more than just hormones" thing. So many times I've seen two lovers' first time in fanfic, or in original fic based on supernatural concepts like dragons or werewolves, be an instinctive mating thing. But instinctive mating feels all wrong for sapient beings. Like, if your mind and heart aren't involved and it's just your body, then why would the love last? Why are you even compatible? Discord isn't part of pony society but it's been the only socialization he's gotten for years, so it turning out that he's been heavily influenced by pony philosophies of love to the point where he rejects sex with the first female of his species he's ever encountered because he cares about her too much to have sex with her without love is really nice. And really romantic, in a way that "OMG we must take each other now because MATING INSTINCTS" will never, ever be. (And truly impressive for Discord, who flies by the seat of his pants, does what he feels like, and is experiencing genuine lust for the first time ever.)

I also rather like the concept that species specificity is a thing. Like, you can be raised with ponies to the point where you can find them attractive, but you don't ever feel that hot drive of total lust toward one, and you think this is because haha, you're the Lord of Chaos and you can't be influenced by such trivial pony emotions, and then you meet one of your own kind and... yeah. Like, Discord's always been capable of loving ponies (though generally chose not to), but not lusting for them. The way a teenage gay guy who's closeted even to himself might feel about his first girlfriend. You don't know what lust feels like, so when you feel platonic love, you convince yourself that that is it. I think Discord is too old and too much in love with novelty and new experience to have never tried sex, but it probably didn't actually feel all that great because sex without desire is kind of mechanical and ehh even if you love your partner platonically.