There's only so much you can blame on the imaginary drugs you think someone must have slipped into that food you ate a bit ago to explain what you're seeing.
That's really quite a key acknowledgement. Alongside it, if you're crazy enough to hallucinate things happening that couldn't be called anything less than the acts of a god, you may as well just call your personal crazy-land reality and move on with life, because i'm fairly sure you aren't getting out of there. Ever. So you may as well just adapt and look for the positive side.
Most of you have probably known these sorts of things forever. Maybe you haven't, but I just gave you a convenient lesson summary, and if I was you, i'd pretend that I had. Look good when possible, I suppose I'm saying. Because they're both completely right. I'd known and understood that for a good while--both were easily reachable conclusions--though I admit, it only really set in on the day I went crazy. Before that, they were just one more thing that could spiral through my mind and maybe, if they were lucky, get caught in a moment of focus. They might have been there jokingly, too. But madness throws a lot into the foreground that previously was probably more comparable to... I don't know. That speck of color you accidental made when you set down a paintbrush? That.
All this rather poorly stated several times over, i'm insane. At least, i'm pretty sure i'm insane. See, I can't be sane, so it would follow that I would be the opposite—and as sanity doesn't ordinarily involve seeing a magical cartoon chimera, you can understand my logical progression here.
How did I start seeing a magical cartoon chimera? Well, that takes a story to explain. But it's sort of a lame one, and really, really, really short, too. The chimera just sort of appeared, you know, in one of those cartoony magical "poof"s. Rather randomly. I think I was eating pizza and playing Skyrim at the time. Regardless, that isn't really the critical component of the story. A random event is insignificant until it makes something happen, so the critical part of the story lies in what this did to me. And, man, did going crazy do a lot to me. A lot.
I'll start that story—the interesting, critical one—just after the random event, roughly near the established "pizza and Skyrim" point on my delusional demonstrative timeline. I believe it started with shouting.
I shouted, rather loudly, a curse or two when the multicolored serpent monster appeared between me and my tv screen. I lucked out in that I didn't make any overly drastic moves, more just gave a general flinch of shock and locked up. This meant my pizza could be saved, as well as my game, which i'd accidentally paused as my thumb slipped off the thumbstick. I looked at the serpentine beast suddenly hovering above me, body coiled in the air to fit itself into the available space. It looked weird, cartoonish,
and very familiar, its body a long slender light-brown shape, its limbs seemingly gathered from several different creatures, its head roughly that of a goat, though with two odd horns that had rather strange (and both different) shapes. Its solid red eyes looked around the plain basement with an amused curiosity.
"Discord?..." I said, quietly dumbfounded. The massive beast looked at me.
"Well, now, what are you? And, perhaps, where am I?" I watched the subtle movements of the large draconequus, mouth hung open slightly. Discord raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly. "Not used to seeing cross-dimensional teleportation? Or perhaps you can't speak well." Discord gave a relaxed yawn as he stretched. "Well, whatever."
"You aren't real," I said quietly. I blinked. The moment felt absurd. Am I dreaming?
"I take mild offense at that," Discord said jokingly. I continued my undoubtably rather blank stare. The large draconequus tilted in the air and repositioned to his full length, lying horizontally in the air. The draconequus was yards long, and he definitely couldn't pose vertically in any room of my house without some trouble. He looked roughly like he was laying on a sofa, or... Something solid. Only he wasn't, of course. He was floating.
"Are you, like..." I thought for a moment. There was nothing coming to mind to follow that up with. My mouth moved anyways. "Am I hallucinating?"
"Afraid not, at least as far as I can tell. You can see me, correct? Not some sort of giant, mutant
cabbage or the like?"
"Yeah, I guess," I said flatly. A momentary impulse to ignore the floating spirit of chaos and go back to playing Skyrim until my sanity returned passed over my mind, but, of course, Discord was in the direct way of the screen. "So... uh... why are you here?" I was painfully aware of how forced the question seemed. This was by far the most awkward hallucinated exchange i'd ever had.
"An emergency escape, I'm afraid. Ran into an awful conflict with a number of dreadfully irritable ponies." Discord looked up, reaching a clawed foot to the white-painted ceiling and running it along the surface. "No idea where I was going, of course, not that this dimension doesn't seem decent, my strange, pale friend."
I continued staring. It seemed to have not resulted in any sort of negative consequence so far, and i'm not the sort to fix things that aren't broken. Or fix things that are broken that I don't immediately need. Discord raised an eyebrow at me, sitting with a vacant expression on my sofa.
"So, does this place have a name?" Discord said.
"Earth," I said.
"And what is your species called?" Discord asked, in a leading tone of voice.
"Human," I said.
"And what are you called?"
"Aaron," I answered. Discord smirked.
"So you can speak more fluidly when prompted." He looked around the room. "Though, I can't ask you much more. That would spoil all the fun of discovery." He seemed to have a childish glee at the idea.
"Cool," I said. My mind froze a seconds, rebooted, and I blinked a few times. "Can you, uh, move? I'm playing a game."
"Hmm?" Discord said. He glanced behind him, twisting his neck to look. His fingers snapped, and a bright flash of light followed. "Better?" A voice said from near my ear. My head whipped around. Yup, there he was, lying on the small ledge going along the back wall. His head was inches away, a wide, slightly cruel smirk on his face. He looked a bit more massive, put against the still more confined space behind me.
"Yeah, that's better," I said, maddeningly calm. The draconequus seemed unperturbed by this. My heart pounded heavily in my chest, and as I looked for a moment down to my controller, I noticed a shaking to my hands. The screen remained paused, even as I refocused on it.
"You don't seem to be doing much," Discord said with a happy sarcasm after a few seconds.
"I haven't started."
"Well, I am rather curious, if you would," Discord said.
"Actually, I don't think I should," I said, the sheer stupidity of my shocked psyche bothering me to no end. But, I'd said it, so I was obligated to not do it. I held the center button, and when the option came onto the screen, I turned off the console. And then the tv.
"A shame," Discord said into my ear with a politely disappointed air.
"Yeah, I guess." I grabbed the plate and with it, my pizza. I started to walk out of the room, trying hard to not look back. Denying. Ignore him. He's not real.
"How rude a host you are, ignoring your guest," Discord said in joking critique. I kept walking out of the room, down the hallway, up the staircase, to the left, and all the walking it took to get me up to my room, where I immediately closed the door and locked it behind me. I checked that the bump of the lock was pressed in. I looked around. Normal bed, normal futon, normal desk. See. He didn't even follow you. He would have totally followed you if he existed. I chuckled a bit and enjoyed the numb tingle that often accompanied re-realizing my own madness. Then I laughed. Then I chuckled some more.
"Wow... I actually snapped." I walked over to my computer and hit the power. The light turned green as the desktop slowly came to life. I rested my cheek on my hand, braced on my desk. My fingers drummed. Ha, Discord just showing up in your basement. What sort of fantasy bullshit is that?
The screen flashed as the startup process continued. Really, it wasn't that slow, but under the looming pressure that thinking one's self insane brings, it felt like trying to watch a snail move from one end of a table to the other. I took a bite of pizza, and as I tore off a bite of topping-covered bread goodness, I looked back at the door. I had barely even been thinking as I did so, but as soon as I considered the reason I'd looked was incredibly obvious.
He isn't there, idiot. He isn't real. I forced my focus back to my computer, setting my pizza down and putting my fingers on my keyboard. A few seconds, and the user log-in was before me. I went through the log-in steps, watched the desktop boot, hit the google Chrome shortcut, waited another second or two for that to load... I looked at the doorway again. It, as is the natural tendency of doors, was not moving. There weren't any obvious sounds coming from past it, either.
He isn't there, my thoughts yelled in cruel denial of the possibility.
I've never been actually crazy, though. What guarantees this isn't really happening? the other side of my thoughts said back with calm rationality. Odd, given it seemed the side that favored losing my grip on reality.
The fact that cartoon characters don't exist, the other side replied.
You have no sense of imagination, do you? the other side replied. I stared at the loaded Chrome window. I didn't actually have a plan for doing anything on the computer, I knew. But the crazy, "Aaron, just let go of your grip on your reality, it'll be hilarious, man," part of my brain wasn't something I liked to let pressure me into doing things. It just seemed... You know. Stupid.
I clicked on my bookmarks folder labeled "pony" and headed to Equestria Daily. I'd checked it just before going downstairs, so it wasn't probably going to have too much that I hadn't seen. Not the best distraction to pick.
Sure enough... There were only a few things, including fanfiction updates to stories I wasn't reading, and non-vocal music by people I didn't know. Nothing that interested me. I felt an odd tingle on my neck's right side, and the solitude of the room felt disturbing for a moment. I looked to the door with a quick glance. Still not moving. I stared at my screen again. Then my desk.
I sighed. I really need to work on self restraint, I thought as I got up off my seat to check for my fantasized mythical villain. I walked to the boundary of my room and the rest of my house. The plain wooden portal separating me and the pursuit of madness. I grabbed the door handle, twisted my hand, and walked back out into the not-my-room rooms of my house. They didn't seem horribly off, and also seemed rather void of Discord, so I headed back towards the basement. The first sign was loud laughing, in that rather distinct voice. Which made me curious, if Discord did exist, how separate was he from his voice actors and animators?
I kept walking, shoving the thought to the back of my mind. This wasn't something worth logical analysis. As I turned into the hallway leading to my gaming room, I saw the large draconequus. Vertical. That seemed physically impossible. I ran into the room, and Discord turned to me with a smile.
"Ah, Aaron, nice of you to join me."
I looked around the room. First off, it was way larger than it had been. The ceiling was increased from maybe 7 or 8 feet to at least 15, and horizontally... the room seemed to somehow stretch infinitely away from me and the draconequus. Everything previously in the room was gone, replaced with... I wasn't even really sure. A wide assortment of random things in a large, plain white space. Very, very odd random things. I was getting tired of doing the surprised-and-in-shock act, but I found it happening again.
"Uh," I said astutely. Discord turned toward me and stretched his mismatched arms to the ceiling.
"I've done a wondrous job of remodeling, if I do say so myself!" He lowered his arms and put his lions claw to his chin. "Though I admit that the walls could use a more stimulating color than white."
"What'd you do to my stuff?!" I said, louder and more whiny than i'd intended. He waved a hand back and forth dismissively.
"Oh, nothing. It's back in the native dimension of this space, perfectly safe and unchanged."
"So this, uh-" My eyes lingered on a massive centipede nearby that seemed to be constructed out of segments that were pumpkins. "-place is another dimension?"
"Well, if you'd like to put it in simple terms, yes. One big, cross-dimensional hole, dug personally by me."
"But, like... The room..." I said weakly. My thoughts however, went in a more positive direction than concern over the existence of a specific room in my basement; Hey, he is here. See? At bare minimum, you're at least crazy in a reliable way.
"Yes?" Discord asked, elongating it in a leading manner.
"Uh, that needs to be there. My parents will be back soon, and, uh-"
"Well, i'll just put this away when they get here, if it'd be a disturbance. What do you think of it, though?" Discord raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"The... the dimensional thing you made?"
"Yes, that," Discord confirmed.
"It's, uh, nice?" I said. Bizarre seemed more accurate than nice, but, if it was at all possible that this Discord--who couldn't really be the animated Discord, because that would mean he'd have to be voiced and animated instantaneously in real time by animators and his voice actor. In the third dimension. In my basement. But, regardless of that... if this Discord were real, pissing him off would be a devastating mistake.
"Hmm, yes, nice... Still, I would admit, it isn't my best work. I don't seem quite as powerful here as in Equestria." He paused. "Maybe if I did add color..."
"So, wait, why haven't you just done this to my whole house?" I asked.
"Why, that would be rude," Discord said. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "And far too easy. The whole joy of a game lies in challenging one's self."
"Makes sense," I said numbly. We stared at each other for a moment. I adjusted my glasses. "So, uh, you just gonna stay down here?" Discord opened his both, but then glanced behind him at the sound of something exploding. He looked for a moment, relatively unconcerned, before looking back.
"Well, I could. It would be rather boring though. Chaos needs an audience."
"I mean... what do you wanna do?" Amazing how quickly my attempts at controlled speech devolve into the most common of phrases.
"Well, I would be open to suggestions."
"What?" I said.
"Suggestions. Vocalized or hinted directions for action. I'll obey anything you give me."
"Oh... Hmm." I'll obey? "...Don't you sort of normally make the rules? Control things?"
"Sometimes. Depends on my mood, really." He seemed to think for a moment. "Though certainly it is a bit more fun to control others... Hmm." He snapped, and in a flash of light, he was gone. I blinked in surprise. His position became suddenly clear to me again when I felt a light touch on the back of my head. I felt a weird surge of warmth over my body. Whatever delay there'd been in my instinctive urge to move away, that seemed to cancel it, and I jerked forwards, turning as I did so. Discord hovered where i'd been standing, looking curiously at his index- finger? Talon?
"What was that?!" I asked, both excited and irritated. My heart was pounding, and the warmth lingered, along with an electric tingle. It felt uncomfortable.
"Oh, just a test. You appear to be resistant to mental manipulation. Kudos." My heartbeat intensified.
"So... You tried to mind-control me?"
"More like tweak your brain than 'control,' per say," Discord said. He seemed completely casual about it. Like it hadn't even taken a thought, or was just done spontaneously. Which it was. Discord. Chaos. Of course he's casual about it. You've done long-winded rants about how casual he was about it and why you didn't like that.
"Well, that's cool, I guess."
"Hmm. You're okay with that?"
"I guess. I mean, not like it'd matter."
"Interesting," Discord said.
"In a good way, or a bad way?" I asked.
"Good. Entertaining, at least. Which in the end is just good, really, so let's settle at that." I nodded.
"Okay." I looked around. "Well. Uh. Yeah." I rubbed the back of my head. There wasn't really anything else I could think of to say to the godlike figure. He did seem to still be there, and not acting quite as nice to me as he probably would have if he was merely a delusion of mine. He also didn't seem to be steering me towards anything, which seemed to move my self-diagnosis farther away still from having snapped. But, if that were all the case, what was there to do? Leave him in my basement? That didn't seem very effective. Or likely to be possible, for that matter.
"Well, anything else?" I broke out of my thoughts.
"Hmm?"
"You did come back down here. Not for anything specific?" Discord absentmindedly waved a hand around, a red flame trailing after his fingertips.
"Not really. Just checking where you were."
"That's nice of you." I nodded again. I remained paused for maybe a second before starting for the hall, desperate to escape the rather slow, awkward, confused conversation. I was almost past when a force gripped at my shoulder. I looked, but there was nothing there. It had, however, appeared right when I was reached Discord's side. "Would you mind if I accompanied you upstairs? You seem more interesting than here at the moment." I was silent a moment. Be friendly. Appeasement.
"No, I guess." The force released, and I started walking again. Discord lowered his head and followed me, snapping his fingers as he went. I looked back subconsciously, and from what I could see, the old, much closer wall seemed to be back in place. I assumed the whole room had followed back into place. With a snap. I headed back to my room, trying again to ignore the mythical beast following. That seemed to be a pattern. Acknowledge, Ignore, Deny. Of course, it'd be harder to do the denial phase with Discord actually present. But I would try, damn it.
"So, you mentioned parents?"
"Yeah," I said. "They're out running errands for today."
"Hmm," Discord offered as comment. "Do you think they'll mind?" The weight of that sentence took a second to hit. It was amazing that I didn't feel it as soon as the sentence was spoken, because the thing must have weighed a ton.
"Probably," I said, a little shakily.
"Well, then, I will simply take my leave whenever they return." I looked back, which didn't work out too great because Discord just kept moving. He hovered right up to me, moving to head over my shoulder, though he paused on noting that i'd stopped. This had the awkward effect of shoving his face almost against mine. "Yes?" He said, still calm.
"I, uh-" His bright red eyes were locked with mine. It was fairly intimidating. "Like. That just seems... helpful."
"Yes, that was the idea."
"Okay," I said flatly. I turned around briskly and started once again heading to my room. Discord chuckled behind me as I went. It bugged me.
I opened more door, and Discord ducked his head to follow me into my room. He was still chuckling. I wasn't entirely sure about what, unless he really just found my vague discomfort that hilarious.
"Well... This'll be fun," I muttured as I sat down at my computer, Discord hovering behind my shoulder.
Fun, as implied by my sarcastic utterance, wasn't what i'd call the next hour I spent in Discord's company. At least not for me; Discord seemed to be having a blast. Mostly because he seemed fascinated by my interests. And, you know, the whole "brony" concept.
As with the computers of most bronies I know, mine had quickly revealed me as having some knowledge of Equestria, so Discord got to that part of the hour after maybe two minutes, when I reached my homepage (Equestria Daily) and... Well, that's sort of a dead giveaway. So that bought maybe fifteen minutes of nothing but awkwardly explaining things. Discord took the news that he was a creation made for children's entertainment on earth pretty well, chuckling amusedly and joking about how humans must have much better senses of humor over ponies as opposed to having an existential breakdown. He could warp dimensions, so that did make sense, I suppose. Him being surprised by anything as mundane as being revealed as a multi-person creative effort from a different plane of existence would have come as a surprise to me.
After that, though, things got more awkward still, because most of my normal time would have been devoted to checking artists (and there were several that might have been... Strange... To check in front of Discord) and watching stuff on the internet, which felt somewhat self-focused with a guest. Even if the guest was a possibly imagined serpentine cartoon character.
"So, these bronies, as you call them," Discord started. Given my lack of direction, Discord had seemed content to keep driving the conversation in that direction. Presumably, again, because my suffering and growing irritation amused him. By the end of the hour (And I knew it was an hour--i'd been checking my watch throughout the time), or now, it was driving me mad. "Are all obsessing over a kid's tv show, which happens to perfectly mirror my home dimension, for personal amusement, and many devote hours of their free time to this, and only this."
I let out a long breath. "Basically, yes."
"Ha!" Discord exclaimed. Again. "Priceless! It's such a bizarre situation I bet only a couple thousand individuals have ever thought of it." Discord laughed a bit longer, clutching his stomach and tilting back his head. Discord's chuckles took a while to die off, and to my anguish, he immediately resumed staring at my screen as soon as he was done.
"So, have anything in particular you want to see?" I asked, boredom leaking from my words.
"What is there to see?" Discord asked.
"I don't know. Videos. Games. More pony stuff." I added the last one with a bitter sarcasm. As I probably should have predicted, it was stupid to even mention the option.
"Show me this pony stuff of yours." I gave a small snort of irritation, but I was already moving my hand to open the appropriate folder on my desktop. Just get it over with, hide any sort of emotional response, and he'll lose interest. Probably. As the folder opened, a strange feeling of dread came over me. Hopefully.
"What amongst the pony stuff do you want to see?" I asked, cursor drifting up and down the additional folders in there. Fanfiction, Images, Videos...
"Hmm... How about images," Discord said, with the tone of someone experimenting aimlessly for amusement. I clicked it open. I looked over some of the first of hundreds of images I had saved, but I suddenly felt tired. Well, more tired, really.
"You know what, you can just look through the stuff if you find it so fascinating." I got up, and Discord shifted behind my seat to let me pass.
"You aren't going to give me any guidance on how to do that?"
"Eh, the computer's almost dead anyways. It'll be more fun for you this way." Discord smirked.
"How considerate of you, Aaron." Discord touched my chair, and in a flash of light it teleported two feet backwards. Discord promptly sat and put his eagle's claw on the mouse, lifting it and looking over the device analytically. I walked out of the room. If he's willing to dick around looking through my pony stuff, then i'll let him. After a moment, I turned around and shut the door behind me.
I headed out to my kitchen and started making myself a sandwich. Cheese, ham, pickles, bread... I tossed the ingredients down on the counter, and went about the process of getting out a plate, getting out bread and putting that on the plate, and putting the other toppings on that. A sandwich. I started eating--really, that was the nice thing about a sandwich, how little preparation time it took. Two minutes and I was away from explaining my love of a show to one of its stars and instead with a delicious sandwich. Much better company.
"Man... what the hell did I do to have this happen," I muttered to myself as I took a bite of the sandwich. Bizarre. The whole situation was bizarre. I'm eating a sandwich while two rooms away an omnipotent being browses my pony images. I kept eating. It wasn't a very exciting sandwich, but it wasn't bad by any means either. Decent.
Even though I desperately wanted to avoid being in Discord's company, I had a very, very strong urge to run back into that room and not let him out of my sight. My sandwich was much nicer, it was true; but it also didn't have much destructive potential. Discord could have turned my computer into a pinata filled with chocolate syrup in like two seconds, if the thought passed through his mind. Though he had said something about being polite or restricting himself or something, so he probably hadn't. "Probably" being key there. I took another bite of sandwich, forcing myself to eat it slowly. He'd be fine, and I needed to keep myself in a rational state, which being near Discord was never going to allow.
Having to explain what a brony is again... how tedious. Chewing felt like work for some reason, but I kept going at it. How Discord could be so distracting without even trying was incredible to me. I suppose the whole situation was rather... fantastic, but still, it was hard to believe. Hell, I didn't believe it. The idea that I was going to wake up at any second kept reappearing in my head as soon as it could be shoved out, persistent and powerful.
I heard a loud fit of laughter from my room. I could only imagine why he was laughing again, but it could have been any number of things considering the vastness of my pony folder. I bit into my sandwich again. It was almost gone; i'd have to switch to an apple soon if I was going to keep using the food excuse to avoid my room. I got maybe a minute of silence before I heard another burst of laughter.
What is he looking at? I finished my sandwich in two large, tearing bites, probably influenced by my gradually decreasing tolerance for abnormality. I got my apple, and took a large, aggressive chomp out of it. It was a Granny Smith, and rather dark green, so it was pretty tart. How I liked it. Some of the comics are funny, yeah, but not... laugh-out-loud funny. Not that laugh-out-loud funny, at least. I held the apple up to my teeth, but then my arm started to drop.
"Aw, fuck it," I muttered to myself (which it seemed was conceptually threatening to become a habit), and traveled back towards my room. I kept the apple with me.
I looked over to my chair as I opened the door, and there was Discord, leaned back and several feet away from my desk to fit into the space more easily. His head leaned against his left hand in a casual, relaxed manner. His right hand seemed to be missing, but then I noticed a yellow stump extending from where the mousepad was located and I understood. Being a draconequus would be the most convenient thing ever. Discord didn't glance over, but his visible eyes did seem to turn towards me.
"You weren't gone all that long. I've only gotten through what i'd guess is a small fraction of the total content here."
"Yeah. I got bored," I said unenthusiastically. "What are you lookin-" I stared a moment when I reached the screen. Oh, that's what was so funny. Some rather saucy shipping art, specifically rather saucy shipping art of Discord. I opened my mouth to say something, but my brain seemed to have shut down momentarily, and it wasn't rebooting very quick. Discord's grin broke into a wide, slightly predatory smile.
"So, an individual of unusual tastes?" He said it in a sort of forceful whisper, not really loud, but intimidating none the less. He hadn't even said it in an angry way, in fact he sounded rather delighted, but there was still something unnerving about it. I wanted to just turn around and leave, but I didn't. There was something between curiosity and a bizarre sense of politeness pinning me in place.
"Uh- well, I guess so, yeah," I muttered. Well, that sounded weak. I dragged out what little pride I could muster, and gave it a second shot. "Yeah." Slightly better. Still not above "horrible." Discord gave a snort, and then promptly teleported. I blinked. It took a second for my head to remember that it wanted to know where he was and start turning, but thankfully, Discord once again provided his location rather quickly.
I felt his fur push up against the back of my head. Shortly after feeling this, the weight of two hands landed on each respective shoulder, and there was a playful chuckle from behind me. The mix of various factors sent an uncomfortably pleasant tingle of anticipation through my body, one that I did not want to be experiencing while still unsure of my mental stability. "Well, you could have said so earlier! There's nothing wrong with strange interests."
"Yep. I could have, but I didn't, so that's that," I said, voice becoming increasingly flustered as Discord started to rub my shoulders. "You could get off me now, you don't have to-"
"Oh, i'm quite fine here." He snickered. "Your face is simply marvelous right now, and to disrupt your making it would be nothing short of kind and compassionate! It's straight out, that is to say." I turned my head back to the right, eyeing the paw squeezing my shoulder. The individual... toes(?), I suppose would be the colloquial term over fingers, were mesmerizing to look at. They were just so... not real. I wondered if Discord was seeing some bizarrely over-textured, over-complicated being under his Molesting hands. Then I lunged sideways onto my futon to get out from under his molesting hands.
He just chuckled again. "This is incredibly good comedic output for the effort it's taking, you realize."
The hands seemed to still be on my shoulders, persisting in massaging me with an unholy vigor. Despite the fact the Discord, who I could see clearly again from my new, horizontal vantage point, had not moved. The clean stumps of his arms--And, well, that he was Discord--made how that was happening pretty quickly apparent.
"Are these, uh, gonna just stay there? They're-" My brain slapped my mouth silent a moment. If my thought at that moment could have a voice, it would speak in an angry whisper. Quit being polite! You're having your shoulders rubbed without your consent! Are you just gonna take that? My mouth closed as civil war broke out in the brain department of my body.
Well, I mean, I shouldn't. It's not right. And clearly it's being done only in jest. Thereby, I should work to stop it. It's only logical.
...It does feel good you know, Logical Side, a different part of me said. Probably good 'ole Insanity.
"Oops. Aaron? Have I broken you? You seem to be zoning out," Discord said, tapping my head with a stump. My brain department made a hasty compromise.
"Discord, get your hands off me. For now." Instant regret came at the stupidity of what the ending there seemed to imply. I considered furiously backpedaling, but for some reason that felt stupid and embarrassing even before doing it. Which wasn't normal. Normally backpedaling got going before I would realize I was being stupid and embarrassing. I was fairly surprised when Discord obliged, hovering his hands back to him and displaying his palms in a peace gesture while they went about reattaching.
"Well, if you promise to make it up later, i'll happily retreat for now."
"I won't make any sort of promise," I said, annoyed.
"Nah, you will," Discord said, in classic infantile comeback fashion. "I get an exemption from my "obey you" rule next time I mess with you. Heard it loud and clear from your brain just now."
"My brai- Wait, that was a rule? Not just for like those ten seconds?" I said incredulously.
"Yep," Discord said calmly.
I shifted slightly on the futon as I massaged my temples. I have Discord in my house, who has at least said that he'll obey whatever I say, he knows what a brony is, that i'm one, and that I really, really like ponies. Probably a bit too much. I took a deep breath. I could be hallucinating, but it doesn't seem likely, and if I am, my parents will be coming back soon enough. Though Discord's said he'll just leave then. I took another breath, slightly smaller, for strength, and then forced myself to stand.
"Okay, then," I said, sounding much more decisive than I actually was. "I don't really know what to do, so i'm just going to go over to a window and stare contemplatively at the outside world for a while. You can keep looking at... whatever. I don't even care."
"Toodles, again, then," Discord said, flashing back to my armchair and immediately resuming his image browsing. I left and went to a window. I had some contemplative staring to do.