//------------------------------// // Draconequus in danger // Story: Kindness and the Seed of Shadow // by Raven-Flight //------------------------------// Discord sat on a giant pillow floating in the vast, empty darkness. There were butterflies of every color embroidered on it, but they fluttered across its surface with almost as much mobility as any real lepidopteran. Discord watched their unpredictable swirls of motion for a while and then flopped forward onto his belly, propelling several of the animated embellishments away in all directions. “There’s nocreature here,” he moaned. “Why, why can I still feel your eyes on me?” In the moments he spent waiting for the silent void to reply, Discord watched his fists clench and unclench, and when he tried to control them, the effort made his goat leg twitch and then fall still, tingling like it was asleep. “I’m so pathetic. Pining away and pretending I’m dying, and for what? I used to be free!” Discord sat up again and waited for the rushing sensation to clear from his head. It felt like there were painful sparks arcing up his spine. “No, no, no...” He held his head and recovered a little clarity. “No, that’s not true. I used to be in stone. With Fluttershy by my side, I’m freer than I have ever been. And with me here, not by her side, she can be free too...” One by one, the embroidered butterflies found themselves plucked off the pillow. Discord released them into the air to fly in three dimensions. When he got to the last one, he held on and contemplated it. “Free to live...” Discord let his hand convulse back into a fist. “...and die, as she pleases.” He opened his hand again and let the pulverized butterfly dissolve into the void and vanish. All of the butterflies had flown away now, lost in the infinite darkness, free. On a giant plain pillow sat Discord alone. Small twitches began running up and down his muscles until he appeared to be vibrating in place. I’m free to go back to her. I’m free to stay here as long as I want. I should go back to her, NOW. NO, I’m enjoying my solitude. Solitude is all you’ll get once she’s DEAD! The pillow vanished and Discord instinctively curled into himself, floating helplessly in a fetal position in the vastness of eternal isolation. “But I have friends,” he whimpered. The void pressed in on him. Surrounding, consuming. Discord closed his eyes and curled tighter. “I have friends...” His lips moved, but his words were silent in the emptiness. Dark and quiet and alone. The draconequus spasmed. And spasmed again. No one was there to take pity. No one but himself. Dear Discord, I miss you. A lot. I’m sorry I upset you the last time we talked. I was confused and scared and I didn’t have my thoughts in order, but I certainly didn’t mean to imply there would ever be a moment for the rest of my life when I wouldn’t love you desperately. That’s what scares you, I think—“the rest of my life”—but I’ve been considering that a lot in the week since you left, and I want you to be aware of my opinions now that I’ve had a little more time to think through them. Fluttershy laid aside her pen and leaned back into the sofa. Her stretching belly loomed large in her view from her reclined position, and she laid her hooves over it thoughtfully. “Well, little one, what are my opinions on all this?” The thought of outliving all her friends still scared her. That much she knew. As to the living forever part, what really made that so unappealing? Overpopulation? That’s not really a risk as long as there are only a few and they were very responsible, like Twilight had said. Would her foal be immortal? She wouldn’t have to worry about producing any (or any more) immortal foals as long as she stayed true to Discord for all eternity. Ponies and shadow ponies were apparently close enough to reproduce, but a pony and a draconequus? Unlikely. So that’s not an issue, really. Maybe it was that infinite time is just so daunting. What would she do with it? Discord said he’s always found ways to keep himself busy. There would always be new ponies and new animals to help—as long as she got used to saying goodbye. But maybe that would be kind of nice. The helping, that is. It took a few moments of shifting and pushing for Fluttershy to sit up again. Reaching down to write was tricky with the foal in the way, but she was determined to keep going. I definitely don’t want to be a shadow pony—I’m too scared to let the dark magic take over my body again. But if there were another way, I think I would give the idea a chance. You seem to like being immortal, after all, and I know you like me and I like you. Plus, I’m sure Twilight wouldn’t mind having a friend to stick around with her. So you see, there would still be a lot to talk about, but I love you, and I want to have that conversation. Please come back. Yours forever, Fluttershy She rolled up the scroll and stared at it. Spike would be able to send it for her, but she would have to wait for him to come by, since she wasn’t really in a state to go searching for anycreature. Even if there were good parts, becoming immortal would still be a kind of sacrifice to Fluttershy. Not that she wasn’t willing to make sacrifices for Discord—he had already nearly died a couple of times for her sake, and she loved him enough to feel sure she would return the favor for him if it were ever necessary. Even so, they’d only been together as couple for a few moons now, and she would want to give it more time before committing to such a major decision. But no, it’s not a decision. Not unless somecreature found a way to bestow immortality aside from becoming a shadow pony. All these thoughts were just… hypotheticals. Fluttershy stood up. Her fur stood up too. It felt like static electricity, and the air was somehow crackling. A little light-filled rift tore into the space right in front of Fluttershy and her senses were flooded with a sensation of imminent danger. She flung herself backward. BOOM! Fluttershy dared to open her eyes but saw only black and white: plumes of ash cascading upward out of so many glowing white fractures in space. Then the fractures started to close, the air started to clear, and she saw… “Fluttershy! Help! Please!” There was Discord in the center of her mess of a living room, writhing and convulsing on the floor and digging his claws into his own skin. “Discord! Oh my goodness! What happened?” Instantly, Fluttershy was at his side. She forced his hands away from his body and hooked his claws into the nearest throw pillow, then commenced a pat-down to search for the injury. The draconequus kept on writhing, but he managed to start tearing apart the throw pillow instead of his own body. His breathing was hard and fast, like a creature brought back from the brink of drowning. “Don’t know… It was just a… little tingle… or a twitch… It got worse… and worse and...” When Discord didn’t finish and Fluttershy didn’t find any wounds besides the scratches from his own claws, she took his face in her hooves. “Discord, breathe slowly. I’m here.” He gulped and nodded. “How long has this been going on?” The longer Discord gazed into Fluttershy’s wide, anxious eyes, the more his body settled down. “It started five… maybe six days ago… I don’t know what caused it. I was with… Rainbow Dash at the time. What’s happening to me?” Fluttershy stroked his mane. “I don’t know. You’ll be alright. Just rest here a moment and breathe with me.” She lead with deep, measured breaths, and Discord followed. With every four-count exhale, she watched his muscles soften just a little bit more. A few minutes of breathing found the pair still and calm at last. “There, see? You’re already much better. Now we can try to figure out what went wrong.” Discord sat himself up and then wrapped Fluttershy in a hug. “Thank you. I haven’t felt this stable in days.” “I’m sorry to hear you’ve been suffering. Now, is there anything you can think of that might possibly have been related to this attack? Anything in the last couple of weeks you may have eaten, any unusual experiences, any extreme stress?” “Hmm.” Discord raised a claw to his chin. “Well, I certainly felt extremely stressed last time we talked, when I decided to leave you for a while. I suppose that could explain how it got started, but not how it got so exponentially worse… In fact, this might be the first time I’ve stopped twitching and felt in control of myself since it got bad.” “Maybe because this is the first time you’ve had a chance to relax and calm yourself?” Discord didn’t hear the question. There was a low rumble building in his ears, like the sound of mountains falling—and he would know that sound, for he’d witnessed the death of many an ancient mountain—until it was an all-consuming roar. And inside the rumbling, there was something else. Beats and consonants and syntax. Chants and incantations in a language Discord had spent many millenia trying to forget. All at once, he could understand, and worse, he recognized the sacred words. Loud and pounding, screeching, threatening with promises as ancient as the Lord of Chaos himself. “...Discord?” Suddenly, the draconequus snatched up Fluttershy’s hooves, clinging to them desperately. He stared into her face and his eyes were dark and wild. “Fluttershy, I’m so sorry. I’ll be back soon this time, if I can. I have to go home right away.” Just like that, he was gone. Fluttershy sat astonished and stared at the vacant space where Discord had been just a heartbeat ago. If he only needed to go home and back… How soon was soon? When after five minutes her living room was still quiet and unchanged, Fluttershy finally stood up and started putting her furniture back in order. The scorch mark on the floor might take some… scrubbing… but she could at least turn the armchair up and push the coffeetable back into place. Then she found her letter to Discord, still rolled up and half-hidden in a corner of the room. She stared at it in her hoof for a while, wondering if it was still appropriate to send it. Wondering if Discord was really well enough to be alone. After wiping more sweat off her brow from the exertion of tidying up the room, Fluttershy also wondered if she was really well enough to be alone. ~*~*~*~ He was flying so fast, his body stretched out across layers of spacetime and tears were streaming from his eyes even though there was no friction here to draw them out. All around him were millions and millions of glowing portals scattered throughout an immensity of nonphysical space so vast, the measurement would be profoundly incomprehensible if the concept of measurement had any meaning in this plane. Any mortal who so much as looked at the number if it existed would go mad on the spot. Discord never worried himself about any of that, and he certainly wasn’t thinking of it now as he soared down the inter-dimensional corridor past worlds familiar and worlds unexplored at a speed that defied description. He had to get home. All along the way, his mind could hold only a single thought, and that thought echoed endlessly into the infinitude in his wake. Mortal... Mortal... Mortal... Mortal...