The woman - no, the pony - hadn’t a clue how long she had been lying on the ground for, but when she finally ceased her crying, her fur was considerably warmer than it felt earlier that morning. She cast a glance to the skies, a deep blazing shade of sapphire blue, and the sun was much higher than she remembered.
The vibrancy of her surroundings brought an ache behind her eyes, and she raised her hooves to her head. She had no fight left within her, energy sapped from her emotional outburst. She felt numb; staring down at her hooves, she felt nothing but a hint of resentment.
‘You are #040496’, the last angry dredges of her consciousness hissed at her. She was far too tired to argue this time - instead, she chose to rise from her position and shake off the warmth in her fur and the cold in her mind. #040496 looked around and decided on a direction of travel; putting one hoof in front of the other felt like a monumental task, but ever so slowly, she began to descend from the base of the hill.
Her hooves were like tar, gripping her soul to the cold ground, and she dragged her unwilling body through the grass and in the direction of the fields below her. A vast expanse of rolling green stretched as far as she could see. In the far distance, a mountain range glittered with snow as they reached up to touch the skyline, shimmering in the light like iridescent soap bubbles, suspended out of time. The trees that dotted the fields below stretched out to the heavens like their lives depended on it, swaying in the midday breeze.
As soon as she laid her eyes on the ground beneath her hooves, however, the scenery began to shift.
With an almighty jolt of electricity in the air, a burst of energy rippled the ground like a rock skipping on a pond, and the grass changed from green to a deep chartreuse from under her. She almost choked as she reared her hind legs, a new sense of dread flooding her mind as the skies themselves opened into a sickly coral haze. The air grew swiftly thick with the scent of sulphur and she gagged uncontrollably as more strange energy ricocheted through the atmosphere, bringing the changing colours and sickly stench with it like lightning as it forked overhead. Pinpricks of dread brushed her fur like an omen and #040496 shrieked as the ground beneath her changed once more into a fine wet soapy texture, and she lost her balance on her new hooves.
She careened down the hillside into the fields below, and she choked as her screams died in her throat.
She finally slid to a stop in front of a large wooden cardboard tree. She quivered violently and her mind raced, pulling menacing shadows out of the corner of her eyes and calling her attention from all sides, demanding she pay attention lest she fall victim to the chaos around her. Waves of fear rushed her mind and roared in her ears, her muscles twitching and burning. Tears sprang to her eyes once more and she curled up behind the cardboard tree, rubbing her temples before realising she had hooves instead of hands.
‘It’s only a nightmare, it’s only a nightmare, it’s only a nightmare,’ she whispered, her voice hoarse and dripping with uncertainty, ‘calm down, calm down, calm down!’
Suddenly, the world was plunged into darkness as the sun vanished from the sickly green sky. #040496 jumped to her hooves clumsily and ran, primal fear flooding her senses and commanding her body in absence of her mind. She tripped over cardboard foliage in the blackness, blinding pain shooting up her foreleg as she did so. Grinding her teeth, she paid it no mind as her thoughts came rapid-fire at a blinding rate to her hooves; how did she get here? What was happening to her? What was going on? Where was she? Who was she?
‘I am #040496’, her mind echoed instinctively, attempting to quell her racing thoughts and slow her pace. She skidded to a halt suddenly as the daylight returned and assaulted her senses. She stumbled backwards and her eyes burned with the sudden light. Sunbeams slammed on her eyelids and demanded access, and she shielded the sun with her hooves in a futile attempt to get a better view of her surroundings. Sunspots coated her vision, dancing erratically with her eyes. She whimpered and splayed her body against the violet checkerboard ground, eyes blind and hooves useless.
#040496 prayed that death would take pity on her shaking, unfamiliar form and take her quickly.
In a deep, blinding flash, the skeins had shifted, and the world surrounding the Doctor and Ditzy shimmered in a deep, booming staccato as colours danced and flickered in the waxing light. The well-ridden dirt pathway that arched towards Ponyville turned into a consistency akin to soap bubbles and the Doctor careened into his companion at full speed, knocking the wind out of himself as they tumbled down a hill and landed with an unceremonious thud into a paddock. A sharp pain ripped through the Doctor’s foreleg, and he groaned as he sat up, looking frantically for Ditzy.
With a sigh of relief, and then confusion, he locked eyes with the mare who had broken her fall on a winged pig and was soothing it with gentle chin strokes.
“I’m sorry, little one!” She cooed. The Doctor might have chuckled if not for the absurdity of the situation. He rose to all four hooves and extended one to Ditzy, and she took it gratefully.
“What’s going on, Doctor?” She whispered. The skies above them flashed a deep indigo before settling into night-time at a rapid pace, only to be replaced by the sun mere seconds later.
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s time we find out,” he murmured in a tone too jubilant for the occasion, and with a short, disapproving glare from Ditzy, the two set off into the small town, following the trail of chaos.
As the two wanderers cautiously made their way to the centre of the town Ditzy once called home, the scenery around them changed. Objects winked in and out of sight in the Doctor’s peripheral vision as bright cardboard replaced houses and trees, and a possessed pony with swirling red eyes pushed him aside with a great shove in a daze of confusion. To his left, he saw Ditzy reel in horror as they passed a tiny shack and saw a mare with a deep, despondent grey mane and coat attacking a carrot patch, ripping up her life’s work with fervour.
“Golden Harvest?” Ditzy whimpered, staring with one good eye at the mare tearing up the garden.
The Doctor rushed to the possessed mare’s side and was promptly bucked away. Unswayed, he scrambled to his hooves and approached from the front, dodging a swift kick. In that moment, he saw Ditzy take to the sky with a flutter of her wings and he bemoaned his own lack of wings.
He was at least thankful that the pony in front of him also lacked such appendages; he wasn’t sure if he could deal with a flighty pegasus.
“Golden Harvest? Can you hear me?” He crouched down and grabbed her by the muzzle, locking her jaw and, for a brief moment, forcing her to look him in the eye. Dull green marbles stared back at him, and a deep sense of unease gripped his stomach. There was something so achingly wrong behind them. Golden Harvest struggled against his grip and hissed.
Suddenly, a deep red scaly tail wrapped itself around the Doctor, and he dropped the possessed pony in surprise. He cried out angrily as the form of a giant beast materialised around him, a mishmash of a variety of creatures all combined haphazardly onto the one body as if constructed by a toddler. The beast smiled at the pony in its grasp with his elongated horse-like muzzle, revealing a row of sharp yellow teeth.
“Hello there.”
The creature’s raspy tone grated on his ears, and he found it hard to stare at the beast’s glowing red eyes, the yellow sclera underlining something far more sinister than the Doctor was prepared to admit. He struggled and strained as the beast’s tail wrapped even tighter around him, and for a cold instant, he wondered if the beast was squeezing the life out of him.
The creature did not seem to need to obey the laws of gravity as his two tiny, mismatched wings were barely flapping, and yet he was flying a few feet off the ground as he brought the Doctor closer still to his face. A look of recognition breezed past the beast’s face, so quickly that the struggling stallion almost didn’t notice.
“What have you done to these ponies?” Cried the Doctor through gritted teeth, the beast’s cold scales and even colder talons from one of his hind legs caressing his fur, burning like ice into his skin. “Who are you to treat these creatures like this?”
With the Doctor flailing in his grasp, the beast paused and wrinkled his muzzle in confusion. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
The beast immediately wound himself tighter around the Doctor’s torso, squeezing with sudden delight as a low chuckle emanated from his dark chest.
In the commotion, the Doctor did not see his companion approaching the beast from below.
“Get off him!” Ditzy screamed in a high-pitched tone, sounding more like a whine than a battle-cry, but just as welcoming to the Doctor’s ears as it was frightening. Before he could cry out a warning, Ditzy slammed her body against the creature, but he only stared at her in mild amusement.
“Aww, aren’t you adorable!?” He cooed, his attention now to the panicking mare throwing herself into his tail. He stroked his tiny white beard in thought. He turned back to the Doctor.
“I’ve met you once before, don’t you remember me? It isn’t often I meet another creature who has lived as long as I have.” He muttered at the struggling stallion. The Doctor paused at this, and he raised his eyebrow but remained silent as Ditzy flew in a tight circle around them, attempting to draw the beast’s attention away from the stallion in his grasp. The beast considered the mare no more than a pesky fly and he waved her away as such, his left claw striking her side as he did so. Ditzy yelped and, with a flutter of her wings, flew a few feet backwards. Small, soft tears leapt unbidden to the rims of her eyes and she blinked them away rapidly, and with each blink, her right eye changed directions as her left continued to be locked onto the beast and the Doctor. The beast found this to be quite amusing as he crossed his eyes to imitate that of the pony flying around him, giggling like a child mocking another on the schoolyard playground.
“Hey!” The Doctor growled. “Don’t you dare hurt my friend!”
“Are you really in the position to be making demands?” The beast snarked, his forked tongue running threateningly over his bright fangs. The Doctor, however, remained stone-faced, glaring at the beast and occasionally struggling against the grip of his tail. He writhed angrily, the sharp scales now digging painfully into his skin. The beast seemed to enjoy this, his grin growing wider with each passing second.
The Doctor sighed. It was time to change tactics.
“You’re right. Who are you?” The Doctor asked, his tone soft but steady and his gaze unwavering into the mismatched eyes of the beast before him. He felt the creature bristle slightly, and the Doctor took a mental note of his reaction. He had been in countless situations like this before – such was the life of a wanderer like himself – but he would never admit that he looked forward to the dangers of it.
The creature seemed momentarily stunned by the question but covered it with a small chuckle and a shake of his head. He ran a clawed finger through his beard, perhaps in thought, or perhaps buying time, the Doctor could not be sure.
“I see that we’re doing introductions again. I am Discord, spirit of chaos, and you, my friend,” The creature poked the stallion’s muzzle with his right paw, “Are the Doctor!”
Discord chuckled, and the Doctor cocked his head. “I don’t recall ever meeting you, Discord.”
“I’m not surprised.” Discord said nonchalantly, shrugging. “It has been over a thousand years.”
The Doctor only nodded, biting his lip. A million responses crashed like a tsunami in his ever-turning mind as, in a split-second, he weighed each one and determined the best to say. Looking into the eyes of the beast, it would not be worth admitting to him that, perhaps they had met once before.
They might have met in Discord’s past, but in the Doctor’s future.
Time travel was rather fickle that way.
A flash of amusement soon danced in Discord’s eyes as he unceremoniously dumped the stallion onto the lilac grass, fluttering his wings violently as he did so. Ditzy yelped as she rushed to her friends’ side, and they watched as he twisted in the air like fractals of light trapped in a cracked gemstone.
“Excuse me, friends!” He said, his raspy voice filled with delight as he waved his paw. “I need to meet a unicorn who needs my assistance!”
In an instant, the beast snapped his claws, and he dissipated in a sudden burst.
With fury in his voice and a pit of uncertainty in his stomach, the Doctor yelled out a command to return, bellowing as loudly as he could, but the beast did not hear him. Or, if he did, he did not respond. The Doctor could have kicked himself; how could he have allowed the beast to escape? He had to track him down. His hearts thumped excitedly in his chest and his rapid breaths were loud and raspy in the air, and a sharp unwelcome chill descended upon him with its chaotic fervour. Determination gripped him and pulled him up as he rose to his hooves and grasped his companion’s front foreleg, pulling her up with him.
As the pair scrambled, a terrific bang erupted from behind them, and a blast of wind knocked them back as a barrage of brilliant rainbow light poured over the magenta sky, emanating from a whirlpool of colours behind a stack of cardboard buildings. A dreadful screech erupted in the distance alongside the electric magical blast of rainbow colours, then faded into silence as the world slowly melted. The Doctor and Ditzy shared a look of desperate confusion before running in the direction of the blast.
Less than thirty seconds had passed, but when they turned the corner around a small brick cottage, the rainbow dust had settled on the ground and the taste of metal was heavy in the air as Discord lay still in front of them, encased in stone, with his claws curled in panic and a stunned expression on his face. Surrounding him, six ponies of various colours and creeds lay on their haunches, panting heavily from exertion. Each bore a coloured necklace of jewels glowing with no aid from the sunlight, save for one lavender unicorn, on her head a crown of starlight, similarly shining with her companion’s accessories.
Just as quickly as he had appeared, the spirit of chaos had fallen.