Two Previews · 8:15pm Aug 31st, 2015
One for Double Agent and one for Taxonomy.
Neither of them will be updated for a while because work and stuff. We'll see. Sigh. Life is, for want of a better word, chaotic right now.
Don't read beyond the break if you wish to avoid spoilers.
Double Agent preview
Train rides with Sparky are never fun.
She spends most of her time reading. Now, I'm certainly not adverse to the idea of expanding one's mind through literature (and ahem...other means) but you have to understand that it's so BORING travelling with someone who isn't engaging you in conversation. So I did the only thing I could do: I went into her book.
Yeah, I've heard of what you ponies called "Hayscarte's Method" but here's the thing- It's not Hayscarte's- it's mine. You don't know the number of times through the centuries where I've seen ponies use chaos magic and then attribute it to one of their ancestors or give it some cutesey name as if they're reading from a chemistry book.
That spell is mine and Hayscarte was a hack. He also had a massive drinking problem. I'm surprised he managed to come up with anything at all.
But no, we can't admit that we use chaos magic now, can we? Because that might mean we do what Discord does and whatever Discord does is clearly bad and wrong, so instead we'll just use it anyway under the guise of harmonious magic, kind of like how I'M being used for Celestia's jaunts.
"Hey, Twilight."
"Eep! Don't do that!"
"Why not?"
"In case you hadn't noticed, I was reading."
"Oh no, I hadn't noticed that at all. That's why I appeared in your refridgerator as a ham instead of in the very pages of this book".
She sighed at me. "What is it, Discord?"
"I just want to talk."
She raised an eyebrow at me. Sparky's been kind of wary of me since the Tirek thing. Oh, don't get me wrong, she has forgiven me but I suppose I can't completely blame her for being annoyed with me now and then. It...it still smarts a bit though.
Finally she said: "What do you want to talk about?"
I emerged from her book as I would from a bathtub and she shrieked. "Warn me when you're going to do that!"
"If I warned you about everything then I wouldn't be the Spirit of Chaos now, would I? Now, yeah. The thing I want to talk about is this mission."
"What about it? Princess Celestia has already given us all the details."
"Yeah, but do you ever ask yourself why she doesn't go on these dangerous missions herself?"
"She's very busy in Canterlot."
"Doing what? Raising a fiery G-type main sequence ball of superheated gas from billions of miles away across the vastness of space? That's like Physics 101. The old girl used to be so much more full of fire and spark. She could manipulate red giants, now she's restricted to herself to a yellow dwarf. Boring."
Twilight blinked at me.
"Nevermind," I said.
Taxonomy preview:
The darkness pulsated, but if there had been any observers on the outskirts of the Chaos dimensions, they would not have been able to tell it did.
“It begins.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. The creature that has held you back all this time is powerless. His power has not moved to another entity like the last time.”
“Good. I do not wish for more false alarms. Let us ready.”
The darkness pulsated again, though this time it was as if it was made up of millions of entities.
“Not...going...back to hospital,” said Discord, struggling as best he could. Starswirl groaned. Trying to carry Discord back to the castle, even with magic was like trying to grasp a giant macaroni noodle that kept flopping about. The draconequus was delirious but still seemed to have strength in that body.
They were about a half mile from the Castle of Friendship. While Starswirl did feel that the hospital was the best place for him, he needed to get Discord somewhere closer first, and somewhere out of the rain that had now become torrential.
The whole way there Discord had muttered nonsense sprinkled with the occasional phrase that cut Starswirl to the quick: “you all hate me.”
“No, boy. We don't hate you.”
“You do! I knew it was all too good to be true. When I get out of this statue...”
Starswirl was immediately thankful that when they reached Castle Friendship, the rain on his face would disguise any wetness that had appeared there by other means. He pushed open the heavy doors and dragged in a very soaked and very maudlin draconequus.
“Twilight!” called the unicorn. “I found him!”
The sound of several sets of hooves running down the stairs greeted Starswirl's tired ears. Twilight and Fluttershy headed the crowd of ponies and Spike.
"Geeze, he looks like a dead eel," said Spike.
"Spike!" scolded Twilight Sparkle.
"Sorry...it just sort of slipped out."
Fluttershy was moving towards Discord. She reached out to stroke his mane but he seemed to recognize what she was going to do and curled up against Starswirl, away from her. He was delerious, but he still felt guilt at what he had done.
Fluttershy felt a gnawing sensation in her chest at his fearful movement.
"We need to get him to the hospital," said Starswirl.
"No hospital!" whimpered Discord. "I want a bed."
Twilight helped Starswirl move Discord onto a sofa bed. The draconequus curled up, and buried his snout in the pillows. He truly was exhausted.
"You can rest for a bit, but we really do need to take you there, boy."
"No hospital," repeated Discord, but there was less fight in his voice this time. He just seemed relieved to be in a soft bed, even if his drenched feathers were soaking the sheets.
"Send a message to Doctor Zygoma," said Starswirl. "At the very least he needs looking at."
Spike starting taking a note.
Fluttershy watched Discord from the door. She really hoped the cure the doctors were developing with the antibodies would not only be ready soon, but might actually work. She wanted more than anything to comfort him and stroke his mane and tell him everything would be okay. But would it? For reasons no one seemed to be able to understand yet, the disease seemed to be affecting Discord much faster than it had affected the pony.
*Whines*
The feels, goshdangit! I can't really say anything that is constructive without babbling on about how much I can't wait for the next chapter!(I bet you'll hear that another ten times at least before you post it XD)
Well, there you go. That was my insightful review of a beautiful snippet of your work
Can't wait!