The element of kindness swirled around a green taloned hand, mismatched eyes followed the butterfly as it spun, and a deep sigh resounded through the aether Discord lingered in.
“Dearest Fluttershy, finally you gave me a gift that means more to me than you will ever know,” he sighed in resignation and grabbed the necklace by the gem. “Without the worry of being turned to stone again,” he took on a sinister grin, “I think I’ll have a little fun.”
He snapped his talons and the necklace appeared around a life size doll in the image of Fluttershy. “Watch and learn, my friend, at what little games Discord plays when not in danger of spending another nanosecond stoned… without a pipe,” a corncob pipe flashed into where the doll’s mouth would be with smoke bubbles in the shape of marijuana leaves floated out.
“Stay alert now, my little pony,” he winked and created basic features on the dolls face that scrunched and blinked, moved slightly and then grinned a pink cottony grin around the pipe, “shenanigans shall ensue after this short interlude.”
Rainbow Dash, blue showboat of Ponyville and element of loyalty hovered at Fluttershy’s door with a frown and her forelegs crossed as she stared at the butter colored mare. “I just wanted to let him know we trust him. He’s really a different creature now that he’s reformed and-”
“He’s Discord! It’s not real, it’s an act! Fluttershy, we can’t fight him now,” Rainbow retorted and thrust her forelegs up in frustration. “What made you think it was going to be okay with the rest of us? Why didn’t you talk it over or plan something with Twilight?” Rainbow recrossed her forelegs.
Fluttershy gulped and stood as tall as she could. “Rainbow, I know he’s a bit rough around the edges, but he has seriously changed for the better. He fixed my tea set after he turned it into some kind of bird that shattered when it hit the window. Discord wouldn’t do that unless he was really my friend.”
Rainbow’s deadpan expression was enough to answer Fluttershy’s concern and feelings on the matter. Rainbow landed and sighed to the ground. “Look, I know you think he’s all better and whatever, but I still don’t trust him. Something’s off about this, all of it, and I’m gonna get to the bottom of it.”
Rainbow squatted and leapt into the air, flapping her wings to take off higher into the sky. A flash of light beside Fluttershy brought Discord. “My, my. She certainly has a case of doubt-itis, doesn’t she, Fluttershy?”
She looked aside at him and shrugged. “She’ll come around, Discord. Before you know it,” Fluttershy watched her friend fly away, “she’ll be one of your best friends.”
“Hrm, I don’t doubt that one bit,” Discord said while stroking his beard and smirking at Rainbow Dash. He lowered the spyglass he had hovering in his eye, taking his eye with it and pulling it off. He stuck it back in his socket and blinked, the spyglass preventing a complete blink. “She certainly is stubborn, mayhaps a little encouragement is in order?”
He looked at Fluttershy completely normal again. “I don’t know, Discord. Rainbow Dash isn’t one to be forced into anything.”
He placed a claw to his chest. “Perish the thought,” he shrank to meet Fluttershy’s eyes, “the last thing I’d want to do it make anypony do anything against their will. That’s something the old Discord would do,” another Discord walked from behind Fluttershy to stand over them both, “and I’m certainly not him.”
Fluttershy giggled and nodded. “I know, and soon the others will come around, too. Just give it time.” She turned back to her cottage while Discord hummed.
“Time, indeed.”
Rainbow Dash flew to her cloud house and into one of the upper floor windows, stopping quickly on the cloud floor. She looked around her room and found her Daring Do book by her bed, where she’d left it. She practically pranced over to her bed and climbed onto the blanket baring her cutie mark.
When she reached for her book she fell off her bed and into a dark abyss that didn’t seem to have an end. After a split second of startled fear her wings opened and she flapped them to hover, only she didn’t know if she was. There was nothing to gauge where she was and her relation to anything was just impossible. She didn’t like where she was and knew who was to blame.
“Discord! What the hay are you doing?” A light lit the horizon and mountains in the distance became known, then she looked down and saw a tongue. She sneered and looked at the opening, now she could see they were teeth, omnivorous teeth. She flew past them and into a dark void where purple and black rippled through the very air, she turned to look at the Lord of Chaos in the muzzle.
He towered over her at what seemed like a full grown dragon. She snorted at him. “What’s the big idea?”
He opened his mouth and the stench of old cheese, fresh fruit, and rust washed over her making her stomach turn. “Why, my dearest Little Dashie; I’m only here to help you see the light that I am reformed.”
“You might have Fluttershy fooled, but not me,” she held her hooved up, ready to throw a punch.
He vanished and appeared on her back holding reigns and wearing a stetson. Rainbow gagged on the bit in her mouth then turned her head to look at him. “Nah, ah, ah,” he pulled the reigns and turned her head forward again, “a good pony does as she’s told.” Rainbow flipped over and tried to shake the draconequus off to no avail. “Yee-haw, ride’m cowpony!”
“Get oph me, gurk!”
He leaned heavily to one side and she flipped back over. Every time she’d try to move he’d counter it, leaving her worriedly looking around. “Now now,” he purred and reached over her head to pet her muzzle with a cat’s paw. He looked down at her and she flinched at the fat orange tabby cat with yellow eyes and slit red pupils. “A good friend knows how to behave, and you aren’t behaving like a good friend, have you?” he asked her and leaned back, Rainbow frowned and bit hard on the bit and it shattered.
“Ptheth, what the… peppermint?” she licked her lips at the tasty treat and looked back at Discord who was nibbling on the grape colored noodle.
“I do oh so love a little prank once in a while,” he slurped the noodle for what seemed to be several seconds before it finally ended. Rainbow looked around and took in the empty swirling space. “Welcome, to the Hall of Chaos,” he shouted from behind her left eye while pressing his hands to the back of her eye. Rainbow screamed and shut her eyes while slapping her leaning head.
“Get outta my head! Get out, get out!”
He tumbled out of her ear into a ball of cotton that he lounged on slipping glass from a juice cup through a tiny paper umbrella. “My dear, there’s so much space in there I already rented it out as a timeshare,” he lifted his drink and Rainbow covered her ears as thumping inside her head started a muffled song. The sound of partygoers chatting over one another reverberated around her skull and when she opened her eyes colorful lights flashed from her eyes. She thought she screamed but couldn’t hear herself, then there was silence.
Discord was holding a megaphone at her face while a small recorder waved at her with its play button. “Like I’d ever waste such important empty space as your head. I could fill it with candy and whack it like a pinata,” he flashed a spiked baseball bat into his talon and a flaming sword into his other. Rainbow flew back from him.
“Send me home, I’m not playing your dumb mind games,” she winced when he grabbed his horn and opened his head, a porcelain dinner set ran out screaming ‘freedom’, except for a single for he grabbed and used to scratch his fang.
“Of all your friends, they’ve come to accept me at some level, except for you.”
“That’s because I know you’re still evil and when I get back everypony’s gonna know what you’ve done!”
“What I’ve done? You mean taking you to my home and showing you how good of a time one can have when the rules don’t apply? I don’t see how that’s evil of me.”
Rainbow opened her mouth but no words came out. Finally she noticed something over her head and blinked at the circle with a small line pointed at her. The words ‘What is that thing?’ filled it in and she facehooved. ‘Let me go home, I’ve got important things to do.”
“Like?” he asked now stretching the fork to nearly as tall as him; then he scratched his back with it, shuddering slightly when it touched between his wings. “I’ve watched you, all you do is have fun napping and flying; hardly what I’d call a good time,” he yawned loudly and shoved the fork into his ear extruding crackling electronics from his other.
“It’s not fun, it’s awesome. And I’ve got pranks to pull, I meet Pinkie today and we’re gonna get a few ponies really good.”
He perked up and grinned at her. “Pranks, you say? I’m always one for a good prank,” Rainbow turned to look for him and giggled at the clown outfit he was wearing, rainbow wig and all. “There’s something about bringing a smile to others that just fills my heart with joy,” he pulled balloons from behind him small butterflies took them away.
Rainbow felt something on her mouth so she touched it and grabbed it with her forehooves. With a tug she pulled it free and looked at the fake smile he’d put on her and deadpan looked back at him for a second before breaking into a laugh and throwing the smile behind her. “Wow, good one. I gotta get some’a those, can I get a few to take home?”
Discord curled around her, holding her up, and joined her in laughing. “So, does this mean you believe I’m reformed now? Was it truly that easy?”
Rainbow Dash flexed her wings and Discord uncurled from her, hovering over her and looking down. “No way, buddy. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes that easily,” she sputtered and grumbled in muffled tones as she lifted the sheep off her head.
Discord pointed behind Rainbow with a flourish of his paint brush, splattering paint against an unseen glass barrier. “Perhaps it’s you who need to open your eyes, oh rainbow maned one. Perhaps a test of prankage, combatants who use the world as their canvas!” Rainbow let the sheep float away and didn’t watch as it turned into marshmallows, spreading across the flowery hill the two were now on. The paint started to form against the wall into thousands of pony silhouettes laughing silently at Rainbow and Discord pulling their strings.
“Discord, that’s just creepy… a joke is just a joke, not a way to control ponies.”
“Ah, how nice it was to think in three dimensions it was,” he dropped a rubix cube on the ground in front of her. “But when you think in more complex ways,” the rubix cube hovered at her face height and began to spin on all axis, breaking into trillions of pieces that broke into trillions more, each one continuing the patterns and Rainbow stared, transfixed at the improbably beautiful kaleidoscope of reality that began to form inside her mind.
A snap and she was back in the void, tears running down her cheeks as she blinked her mind back into the reality she understood. “Wha-what was that…”
He leaned in so close he dominated her vision. “That, was the barest glint of the existence I wish to bring to the world as you know it, but alas,” he backed up and stood in his normal way, “the world isn't ready for such beauty.”
Rainbow wiped her eyes on her foreleg, adopting a stern look. “You tricked me, I want crying. Take me home, Discord, this hasn't been any fun and I'm telling Fluttershy-”
She clamped her mouth closed when fire danced around him and in a split second he grew to the size of a full grown adult dragon. He bore more teeth than she'd ever seen in her life, combined. Each razor sharp and glinting with saliva.
A stench of rotten fish and Shrewsbury strawberry shortcake ice cream buffeted his voice. “You'll tell her what?”
Rainbow clapped her forehooves to her ears that were already against her head. She felt her insides vibrate for seconds after he'd finished speaking.
She saw a flash of light and she felt fine again. “Y-you don't scare me. How would you explain me going missing if you are me? Huh?” She flexed her wings and looked at him smugly.
He narrowed his eyes and lifted his clawed hand, then made a show of snapping his fingers.