//------------------------------// // Memories // Story: What Is This Strange Feeling? // by PonySage86 //------------------------------// A lone earth pony mare walks down a road in a wooded area off in the country. Her fur is a light purple, her mane a deep red with bright pink streaks, her eyes a calming brown, and on her flank rests a cutie mark of a paint brush painting a cherry blossom tree on a canvas. She hums happily as she walks, she looks back to make sure her grocery bags are still in her saddle bags. Suddenly her attention is drawn to the sky as she hears a loud scream, way up in the air a large ball of magical energy explodes into view, the mare sprints away from the blast, wanting to get home instead of getting blown up. High in the sky the God of Chaos has no idea he's scary nearby ponies, and at this point he doesn't remember if he cares or not. Discord is floating in midair with his arms outreached, a large bubble of magic surrounds him, his eyes are flying around his body with little helicopter propellers searching for something. After a moment Discord growls and his eyes sprout jet boosters and zoom back into his eye-sockets. "Where is it?" Discord grips his hair and grinds his teeth. "Her influence can't be coming from nowhere, I obviously can't find... her is it a her?" Discord puts a claw to his chin, after a moment he shakes his head and sighs. "It's not important what they are, I just gotta find the source before all of my memories are gone." Discord looks around the sky again. The plan I used to find their magic with Rainbow... something, isn't working. "Hmm..." Discord uses his talon to scratch his chin. The spell is acting like real fire, so if I can snuff it out I should be fine for a while, but I can't snuff out memory fire the same way as normal fire. Maybe if I do something that causes me to regain all my burnt memories at once maybe that'll work... but how do you regain memories? Discord taps his chin in thought. "I remember me and Twilight talking about this once, I believe you can regain memories in a similar fashion to how you lose them. Hmm... what's the best way to lose memories?" A loud whistle from the ground below gets Discords attention, far below him is a seven car train, counting the engine. The engine is gray and copper, the first car is purple, the second is white with purple, the third is blue with a rainbow roof, the fourth looks like an orange barn, Discords eyes linger on the yellow and pink fifth car before going to the final bright pink car. Upon hearing the train blow its whistle again, Discord remembers something. "Blunt force trauma." Discord smiles brightly. "That's it." Without a second thought Discord flys down to the tracks below, he tilts his head forward, as the train gets closer Discord just keeps smiling. "This is a really good idea." Discord hears the brakes on the train start screeching as the driver catches sight of the Draconequus on the road, Discord smirks to himself as he knows the train won't stop in time. Suddenly sees and hears the flash of teleportation, he blinks in confusion as the train tracks he was standing on have been replaced with bare grass, but before he can dwell on that he hears somepony call out to him. "What the tartarus were you doing in the mi-" The steel gray pony clamps his mouth as he recognizes the figure before him, his dark blue eyes widen as Discord locks eyes with him. "Did you just teleport me?" Discord gestures between himself and the place he had been standing, hes a bit impressed by how fast the train has stopped, the stallion before him suddenly becomes very flustered. "Oh... uh well, yes technically, but if I had known-" "If you'd known it was me you would've hit me with a train?" Discord asks dryly, which makes the stallion stammer even more. "What n-no I meant I-I would've um asked permi-" The stallion cuts himself off mid sentence and hangs his head. "I'm sorry sir I didn't mean to offend." Discord is taken back by this no pony has ever called him sir before... at least he doesn't think any pony has. He waves off the stallions apology. "Don't worry about it your train wouldn't have hurt me anyway." "R-really?" The Stallion says surprised, Discord nods smugly. "But of course I am the Lord of Chaos after all." "Of course how silly of me sir." Discord chuckles at the Stallion. "Please call me Discord." The Stallion smiles brightly at this, he looks over at his train and then back to Discord with a raised eyebrow. "If you don't mind me asking si- I mean Discord why were you on the train tracks?" Discord looks at the Stallion pointedly, before shrugging. "I'm having a bit of trouble with my memory so I wanted to give my brain a jolt." The Stallion opens his eyes wide. "Um sir Discord I think getting it by a train is more likely to make you lose memories then... remember them." Discord looks sternly at the Stallion. "Oh really well then Mister..." Discord stares forward blankly, he gestures to the stallion to fill in the blank, to Discords relief the stallion seems to get the hint easily. "Oh I'm Iron Sprocket." Iron Sprocket says with a smile. "Thank you, well then Mister Iron Sprocket why don't you tell me a better way to recover your memories then getting your skull bashed in by a speeding train." Discord blinks in disbelief at just how stupid his plan sounds, he then begins to wonder if his burning brain might be effecting his decision making. Iron Sprocket is unaware of this thoughts so he just answers the question. "Well Sir Discord when I want to remember something I usually look at old pictures or other things that remind me of stuff from my past. For Example..." Iron Sprockets horn glows and his conductors hat floats off his head, once the hat is in the air something falls out of it, Iron Sprocket quickly catches it with his hoof, he holds the item out to Discord. "This." Discord leans forward and raises an eyebrow at the small metallic object in the stallions hoof, he turns his gaze to Iron Sprockets face and looks very unimpressed by the ponys item as he speaks dryly. "A train whistle." "Yep." Iron Sprocket says with a big smile. "And what good does a train whistle do?" Discord asks with a bit more of a snap then he had intended. Iron Sprocket is slightly taken back by the edge in his voice, but he presses forward anyway. "To most ponies it looks like a normal train whistle, but when I look at it..." Discord notices that the stallions eyes seem to get a bit misty. "I see my wifes face when we first met, our first date when she gave me this, our wedding day, the day our son was born." Discord raises an eyebrow at Iron Sprocket as the stallion sighs blissfully, Discord clears his throat loudly getting the ponys attention. "You remember all that just by looking at a whistle?" "Well yeah." Iron Sprocket says cheerfully, he places the whistle back into his hat and then puts the hat back on his head. "Why is that?" Discord asks more then a little interested, Iron Sprocket puts a hoof to his chin. "Its sentimental y'know?" Iron Sprocket more states then asks, Discord seems even more interested by this. "Sentimental huh?" Discord scratches his chin with a fork made out of a candy cane. "Seeing objects with Sentimental value causes you to remember things?" "I think that's the case for most ponies." Iron Sprocket says politely, Discord throws away his fork, as soon as it leaves his paw it sprouts large bat wings and quickly tunnels through the earth and out of sight. "So where can I get some sentiment?" Discord asks with a smile, Iron Sprocket rubs his neck nervously. "Well you can't get sentiment it just kinda happens when you get something important, like when my wife got me this whistle for our first anniversary." Discord frowns at the grey stallion before him. "Its bad enough I had to learn how to hold ponies near and dear to my heart now I gotta do it with stuff too?" Discord asks loudly, the two males stare awkwardly at each other, Iron Sprocket keeps looking from his train to Discord and back again. After another moment Iron Sprocket sighs. "Got any pictures?" Iron asks with an awkward smile Discords face lights up with christmas decorations. "Of course, tons!" Discord exclaims happily. "Those should work." Iron Sprocket says with a sigh. "Excellent!" Discord shouts before vanishing into thick air. Iron Sprocket stares at where the lord of chaos had just been, his face slowly lights up into a big grin as he begins to snicker. "Wait till I tell Copper Bolt." Iron Sprocket begins walking back to his train. "She's gonna be so jealous." Discords Chaos Home A blast of confetti explodes out of nowhere revealing Discord, the confetti swarms together like bees which then fly off to a field of licorice flowers while hiccupping. Discord floats through his living room, he absentmindedly loosens his make shift neck tie that he got for Hearths Warming. As he floats trough the room he is only vaguely aware of the pure chaos that is his home, his pet cracker calling for a parrot, the cards playing dog poker, an inside out table tap dances in the corner, and many more chaotic things. But Discord makes his way past all those things and past all the other super awesome chaotic thingys in his house that I was to lazy to come up with. He stops in front of a trap door, he quickly pops it open and hops inside. Discords bedroom is much less chaotic then the rest of the house and much more simple with only a bed, a nightstand with two picture frames on top, and a dresser. The bed is on the wall, the nightstand on the ceiling, and the dresser is on the floor. The dresser drawer suddenly opens up and Discord pops out. He zips over to his bed and reaches underneath, with a smile on his face Discord pulls a shoebox out from underneath his bed. "Alright let's reignite those memories." Discord puts a paw to his head and feels the heat of the fire burning his mind. "Hmm poor choice of words..." With a shrug Discord opens the shoebox and pulls out a large photo album. "The stallion said pictures will help, and I got a lot of pictures." Discord flips open the book and smiles at the first picture, a group shot of him with the Mane Six the only friends he has, he looks at the small purple dragon in the picture, after a moment nothing comes to mind so he flips the page. The next picture Discord stops at puzzles him it's a shot of him with the Princesses, and their all smiling for some reason. Another picture of him with his friends Fluttershy, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack... and some other unicorn and dragon. Discord sighs angrily, he's halfway through the book and no memories have returned, but he did find another group shot with his friends Fluttershy, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow something, and two other ponies with a dragon. "Ugh I hate it when ponies photo bomb my pictures." Later Discord closes the second photo album with a grunt. "This isn't working at all I'm just looking at pictures of ponies I don't know hows that gonna help me... uh... help me..." Discord scratches his head in thought. Why was I doing this? He looks around at all the papers scattered around the room, the photo albums opened to random pages, and the shoe box in his lap that he knows has more stuff in it. Discord groans in annoyance, he grabs a photo from the shoe box and stares at it. The picture is of Discord with six ponies, a purple Alicorn that just confuses him, a white unicorn next to a rainbow pegasus, a pink earth pony, an orange earth pony, and finally up in Discords claws caught in a tight embrace a yellow pegasus with long flowing pink hair. Discord runs his talon over the image. "Flu..." Discords eyes snap open in alarm. "Flu- what, whats the rest!?" Discord begins rapidly flipping through every album going over picture, but each page is full of more ponies he doesn't remember, the yellow pegasus, Flu as he knew her, was on almost every single page, but no matter how many times he sees her he can't remember the rest of her name. Flu, the partial name stuck there in his mind defiantly, neither Discord nor the memory burning flames could move it. Discord closes his eyes and sighs in defeat. "Maybe Moonlight knows who she is." Discords eyes snap open so fast that his eyelids break off and hit the ceiling. "I remember Moonlight... perfectly..." Discord thinks back, he can only remember his Mother and Father and Moonlight perfectly, Celestia and Luna get kind of fuzzy after the time they defeated him... Defeated... Discord taps his talon against his chin. Wasn't I defeated more then once? Discord tries to recall any other times a giant rainbow of stony death was hurled at his face, other then the sisters there was only one other time. "The Elements of Harmony! That's who she is!" Discord grabs the picture of him and the six mares again. "If these six are the Elements of Harmony why am I posing with them?" Discord narrows his eyes at one pony in particular. "And why am I not made of stone right now?" Discords eyes lock onto the smiling face of Flutt- again, seeing her smiling face brings a smile to his own. Discord suddenly throws the picture away and scowls, he grabs the shoebox from his lap and chucks it at the wall, or is it the floor, Discords not sure at this point, the box moves through the air in slow motion. "I'm never going to get any answers this way I'll just go find these Elements of Harmony and make them tell me what's going on." Discord raises his paw to snap, but before he can the shoebox hits the wall/floor/ceiling and fills the room with the sound of rustling papers, banging books and the clang of metal hitting metal. Metal? Discord flips around and stares at the mountain of papers and photo albums, sitting on top of the pile is a pair of pony ice skates. "What the?" Discord floats over to the pile to get a closer look, sure enough there sits the four skates needed for a pony to go ice skating. The skates are small but long, whoever skates these are they are slightly taller then normal ponies but also a bit slimmer, no where near the size of any pony Discord has ever disguised himself as. Discord reaches out to grab them, but as soon as his fingers touch the skates there is a bright flash of light. Discord throws up his paw to shield his eyes. "Agh." Discord moves his paw after the flash fades and he is more then a little surprised to see ice in front of him. He glances around as he quickly realizes he's in a frozen forest, no wait Discord notices the uniform spacing of the trees, he deduces that this isn't a forest but an orchard of some kind. An orchard that appears to have been flooded and then flash frozen. Before Discord can ponder why he is here he hears some voices. When he turns to look at the voices he is just in time to see a pair of ice skates hit the ice, the yellow pegasus from all the pictures is the one who threw them, she speaks before turning away in a huff. "I am not your friend!" For reasons unknown to Discord that sentence pains him to hear. Discord reaches out to stop Flutter- from leaving, but before he can touch her everything flashes again. Suddenly Discord finds himself in a grassy meadow he looks around a bit before a soft sob catches his ear, he turns and looks at the source, sitting in a cage in the middle of the field is Fluttersh- she's being held by the orange mare Discord saw in the pictures, three of the other mares are there as well. Suddenly Discord feels his mouth move and hears his own voice. "Oh come now you must have seen this coming." The crying Pegasus looks up at Discord with tears in her eyes, her sorrow seems to drive daggers into his heart. "No." She looks away from him and covers her eyes with her hooves. "I didn't." A stabbing pain shoots through Discords heart, his eyes are glued to the weeping pegasus, as tears begin to well up in his own eyes Discord forces his eyes closed. "What is going on? Why am I seeing this!?" Tears begin rolling down Discords face. "I don't want to remember this..." His thoughts drift to the crying Pegasus.I never want to see Fluttershy cry again. Discord wipes his tears. "Why am I remembering these things I can't fix anything." "You need to fix this." Discords eyes snap open at Fluttershys pleading voice. He looks down and finds himself staring into Fluttershys shining teal eyes. She's staring up at him with a burnt box in her hooves, Discord looks around to find the grassy meadow has been replaced by Fluttershys living room, he looks down and sighs as he remembers how this went last time. He reaches out his talon and places it on the box before releasing some energy into the box to try and fix it, but just like before nothing happens. Discord clenches his paw into a fist and growls. "I can't fix it." Discord is prepared to lash out at the wall just as he did in reality, but something stops him, a quiet voice asking. "Why?" "Huh?" Discord stares at Fluttershy in surprise, as he remembers that she didn't ask that before. She's staring up at him with her big sparkling eyes. "W-what you did say?" "Why?" Fluttershy repeats the same voice. "Well because it's been destroyed." Discord says somberly. "Why?" Fluttershy asks again. "Because uh... somepony wanted to destroy it." Discord says a bit confused. "Why?" Fluttershy repeats her voice unchanged. "I don't know." Discord says disappointed. "Why?" "Because I don't!" Discord clenches his fist at his confession. "Why?" "Because it makes no sense." Discord says clutching his aching head. "Why?" "Because she has nothing to gain from doing it." Discord nearly shouts as he begins grinding his teeth. He waits for the next why to come, but instead he hears. "Doing what?" Discord sighs in annoyance. "Burning my-" Discords eyes snap open as far as they can without involving chaos powers. "Son of a Chrysalis." Suddenly everything seems so clear to him all the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly, the fire on Hearths Warming wasn't just to ruin Discord and Fluttershys evening or just to wreck Fluttershys gift. No, Discord now realizes that the fire was a tool to implant a conduit for Moonlights magic something she knew Discord would always keep on him but would never suspect. Discord looks down and grabs the makeshift tie from around his neck, he stares it a moment and then scowls at it. Clever Moonlight. Without another thought Discord crushes the tie in his talon causing it to disintegrate into nothing. As soon as the tie is destroyed the fires in Discord brain halt their advance and quickly go out. "Ahhh..." Discord sighs contently as he lays down on Fluttershys floor, of course it's not actually Fluttershys floor he is still in his flashback, minus Fluttershy, for some reason, Discord shrugs it off as him subconsciously transforming the room to match his flashbacks. Discord smirks up at the ceiling/wall as he feels his brain begin to fix itself with a team of microscopic Discords. His smirk fades as he thinks of Moonlight. She was so close to having me there, if it wasn't for Fluttershy... Discord sits up and grabs the pair of ice skates again, luckily they don't set off another flashback. Everytime I see these I remember that moment... the moment Fluttershy said we weren't friends. Discord rubs his chin in thought. Is this what Iron Sprocket meant by sentimentality, I was excepting to remember happy memories but instead I remembered my two worst... but... Discord sighs heavily. But if it wasn't for those two memories I might not have remembered Fluttershy... and without her... Discord shakes his head wildly, he stands up deciding that he's got more important stuff to do then worry about what might have been. Discord raises his fingers and imagines Fluttershy house in his mind. "It's time to tell her, to tell everypony what's going on, and to take care of Moonlight." And just like that Discord is off. ........ In a lush green field a young Draconequus hums to himself as he sits on a large rock, he is kicking his mismatched feet to the beat of his humming, his arms are patting on his knees, and his pair of horns is doing nothing as his horns are just stubs at this point. The little Draconequus stops humming as a familiar but broken voice echoes in his ear. "Hello Discord.." Young Discord looks up from his lap and smiles at the open air. "Hey your back." Young Discord stands up, he is about half the size of grown up Discord. "Where have you been?" "I've been working." The empty air replies. "Oh yeah my Mom said your really important to the ponies." Discord raises in eyebrow. "What exactly do you do?" "Hmm I suppose you could say I help ponies make up their minds." The empty air replies slowly, Young Discords eyes light up in excitement. "You mean you get to play with their heads and make them do stuff." Young Discord jumps up and down happily, the air chuckles at him. "Basically yes." "No way that's so cool." Young Discord moves to the edge of the rock and leans as close to the empty air as he can. "Can you teach me how to do that?" "Hmm I suppose you could learn how." Young Discord has a feeling that the air is scratching its chin in thought. "Yes." "Hooray!" Young Discord jumps into the air and falls in a loop. "Oh thank you invisible lady, don't worry I'll be the best student ever." "Oh my dear sweet Discord." Young Discord feels a soft hand cup his cheek, but he can't see it. "Please call me..." "SIN."