I awoke rather suddenly, from unpleasant dreams. No specific images rose from the dark depths of dreamland, but I had a general sense of unease as I awoke. Not helped by the fact that my last memory of the waking world involved me collapsing to the floor and hallucinating.
I had no recognition of where I was, either. It was certainly not the Ponyville library. Wherever it was was dark, and the air felt cool outside of the bed I was in. The scent of dampness was in the air.
I'm in a bed. Sheets shifted above me as I lifted my arms. They still felt weak, and as they moved, they gave me a sort of odd, tingling electric backlash. It didn't hurt, but it felt incredibly strange. I let my arms fall back to my sides. The effort seemed too much for them. I was still dressed, I noted. I could feel my clothes against my skin, clingy and stiff, like they'd been worn a few days. Which they probably had, really.
Well, i'm clearly not dead, unless the afterlife is incredibly dull and feels much like the real one. My eyes started to search the darkness. Already, they were adapting, and I could make out dull shapes in the space around me. They weren't recognizable yet, but I was sure that it would only be another minute or two before I would start perceiving detail. The ceiling seemed to be high, maybe thirty feet, and I could see that it was rough and changed height frequently. I could see walls in the distance, not very close.
A cave, maybe?
A few minutes later, I tried getting up again. Boredom and the creeping feeling of isolation were beginning to set in, and accompanying them, the compulsion to move. The effort went better; I managed to get to a sitting position, and then swing my legs off the bed. The floor was rough and uneven too, which made standing on weak legs even worse. I staggered forward and away from the bed.
I'm weak, but there's no pain at all.
"Discord?" I called out. There was no answer. "Discord, if you're there, I order you respond." No answer. So I was alone in wherever I was, unless Discord had suddenly decided that now was the time to stop listening to me. Great. I'm confused and alone.
Gradually, keeping a hand to the wall on my left, I crept along the rooms edges. It was painfully slow progress. My legs didn't seem to want to move as I bade them, and I still couldn't see incredibly well. It was dark, simply put, no matter how adapted my eyes could get. The room was big, and lacked any sort of decisive shape to it. It was just a big, empty cavern. I noted several tiny holes in the ceiling, far above, too small to give any decent light, but enough I could breath, I supposed. Eventually, after what felt like a good part of an hour (I had taken several rest breaks) I made it all the way around the room and got back to the bed, where I promptly collapsed.
Definitely a cave, I thought. And Discord was most definitely the one who brought me here. There's no clear entrance and there's an incredibly made, huge bed in a cave for no reason. The traces are all over this. I lay back on the bed, and slipped off my shoes, tossing them gently off the edge of the bed. They were dirty and wet now, if they hadn't been already. I didn't move. Everything in me felt weak, and I felt tired, even though i'd barely just woken up. I forced myself to stay awake for another half an hour, realized nothing had happened, and then went back to sleep.
When I woke up again, it was to the feeling of my chest being lightly pressed down upon. I opened my eyes.
"Feeling better?" Discord said. He was sitting on me. It seemed like something that should have felt much heaver than a light pushing on my chest; the draconequus was looming over me with his great height, in our positions.
"Yeah, I guess. I'm not passed out." The draconequus wasn't smiling. He wasn't frowning, either, but on him the expression looked rather grim.
"That's good to hear." He lifted off my chest, and slid down to stand besides the bed. He didn't speak.
"What happened to me?" I asked.
"In essence, from what i've gathered, your body was starting to adapt to having magic in it," he said. I thought a moment.
"My body has magic in it?" I said flatly. It sounded more snarky than I'd intended.
"Yes, your body has magic in it," Discord said dryly. I lifted a weak arm in front of my face and flexed the fingers.
"Why am I so weak, then?"
"First off, you're still adapting. I suppose that earth's atmosphere isn't magically charged, so you aren't used to breathing magic. Secondly, everything living in Equestria has magic in their body, but without either a horn or an instinctive, automatic impulse to use it, it does pronouncedly little for them. As it will likely do for you." I was quiet for a while, staring at my hand and flexing the fingers again. It made sense. It even conveniently fit into my existing headcanon, which was both immensely fortunate and rather surprising to me. Still... I'm breathing magic now, and it just makes me weak for a while?
"You will live longer," Discord added, seemingly aware of my mild disappointment.
"Well, that's nice, I suppose," I said calmly. "So, I'm just absorbing it from the atmosphere now?"
"As far as I can tell. In vast quantities, too. Hence your collapsing."
"Is that... Normal?" The draconequus sighed with boredom.
"Who can say?" He flopped his lower body down on the edge of the bed. I felt the sinking of my back support towards that side. He was looking at one of the walls, with a distant look. I held myself back. He'd speak eventually. A minute or two passed. Then five. It was the longest I'd ever seen Discord sit still. "...I've been rather painfully bored the past few days. I'm not sure if you can tell."
"I can tell," I said.
"Hmm."
We stopped talking for a while again. Nothing to talk about, I suppose. Discord might have had some recent developments, but I'd had none, a common side effect of being unconscious, and he didn't particularly seem in a chatting mood. What mood he did seem in was hard to say. He had gone back to staring forlornly at a cave wall, his body relaxed and slightly slumped. My immediate instinct was to comfort him somehow, as it was clear he was saddened. But I lacked the nerve to just... I don't know, pet him? Hug him? Say "What's wrong?"
"So, uh..." I muttered.
"Don't pass out again," Discord said quietly. I stared a moment.
"I wasn't planning on it," I said meekly. He turned to face me, face a mask.
"Seriously, don't. I couldn't do anything to anyone and I couldn't get your permission or input on anything. If I know what i'm going to do and I can't force any good reactions out of anybody, how am I supposed to be entertained?"
"You could have made stuff happen around them, you know," I said.
"Clearly you haven't tried to get a reaction out of these ponies. Most of them just get annoyed or frightened if you have things randomly appear. Or explode." He gave a frustrated sigh. "Anything, really. It's rather irritating."
Silence again. We seem to tend towards silence over speech. How strange. Maybe we don't have enough common interests?
"Yeah, sorry for going unconscious again," I muttered.
"Hmm?"
"Ah, just... I've spent a lot of time in Equestria sleeping or in a state of unconsciousness. So. You've probably been bored a lot."
"Oh."
Another pause seemed to be starting. I cut it off; the silence was beginning to drive into my head. "So, what now?"
"What do you mean, what now?"
"I'm conscious. Like. We can do things."
Discord gave a slight smile. "You aren't exactly in ideal shape to be doing things, yet."
He's right. I stopped exerting the effort of keeping my head semi-upright and let it slump down onto my pillow. The soft fabric of the fluffy thing indented to receive my head, and it felt wonderfully soft. Laying down was easy. And yet, even sitting up was so hard now...
"So, I can't cast spells?" I said, more a statement than a question.
"Not to my knowledge. Though, of course, magic is a science, and so at least half of it is composed of guessing and checking. The other half, accidents and the phrase, "how did that work?""
"Well. I guess I can hope, then."
"I suppose you can," Discord said, sounding tired. It sent a fearful tremor through my heart. His not being upbeat and cheery was oddly disturbing to me, it seemed. He might be to blame, but he is my only real company. And I'm also at his mercy. Of course it's troubling. I wanted to reach out, and comfort him somehow, but my arm was weak and, really, I couldn't do anything. Pet him, maybe. But giving the immortal therapy seemed a task of a magnitude beyond my strength.
"Were you lonely while I was asleep?" I said anyways. Discord looked at me, eyes looking wild, and yet bizarrely lacking in menace. A look of despairing madness. He looked away again.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. You're in a new atmosphere, which I dragged you to."
"I know, but. Like..." Still, my mind wanted to finish. Still, it must be awful. The loneliness. 1000 years... Instead, I just weakly added another, "I'm sorry." The draconequus was still for a while. Minutes dripped by.
Abruptly, he teleported to besides me in the bed. He wasn't facing me, though—he was laying on his back, looking up at the stone cave ceiling. I flinched at his arrival regardless, but I made no comment.
"You know, it's shocking, how few of them react," he muttered pensively. "Oh, scatter and flee, sure, but nopony stands and applauds or yells out a challenge. It's all so predictable. It always has been, of course, even back when I ruled anarchy, but..." Ruled anarchy, I thought. It was a contradiction, but I understood what he meant. More important to me at the moment was his voice—His words were oddly calm as he spoke them.
"There are the elements," I said.
"Oh, sure, there's them, but aside from Miss Pie all their little pony bearers just try to stand and honorably fight. If it can even be called that. Honorably bombard, more like." He paused a moment, and gave a sigh. "Dreadfully predictable, and pronouncedly easy to thwart."
"They worked once," I said before I could consider if that was insensitive. Discord took a deep breath, and calmly let it out.
"True. I was overconfident; took a pose, said, "blast away..." And I paid a penalty for it. A rather harsh one, too, for a bit of arrogance, don't you think." I was silent. Discord gave a small, sad chuckle to himself. "The pose did likely make me a good statue, though. No doubt I looked magnificent in the garden."
"Are they frightening?" I asked. He looked over to me, and I added, "the elements, I mean. To you."
"Nah. If you're a demi-god and you put yourself into moving out of the way, you're out of the way. The jewels aren't the most speedy instrument of destruction. They also aren't very threatening if you've stolen one."
As he said it, my hand darted to pat at my pocket. There was nothing there, which should have been obvious. The tiara was too heavy for me to have not noticed it while walking around as long as I had. Discord noted and laughed, a bit more happily this time.
"It's under the bed," he explained simply. Somewhat embarrassed, among other feelings less easy to define, I stared over at him.
"Ah." I slumped back. The dampness of the cave hung thick in the air over us. An anxious twitch was building up in my motionlessness, until eventually in an awkward, jerky fashion, I weakly rolled over toward him. One red eye focused on me, though he offered no comment. I paused. My breaths seemed loud and forced, and I could feel the effort it took from my weak lungs. "I, uh-" I said, starting a justification for my motion. I didn't have much of one, it felt.
"Yes, Aaron?"
"It's just, uh-" I started again. God, this is so... Like me? Unlike me? I couldn't tell. Both at once. And it was the second time it was happening within the day, too. Discord was still just patiently waiting. "I feel compelled to hug you." His face was stiff for a moment, but then a light smile appeared on his lips.
"I won't stop you," he said softly. I did so, if a bit slowly, lingering anxiety staying my motion besides my physical frailty. My hands reached his thick fur, fingers pressing down to give them access to the flesh underneath. They slid around his sides, and then we were hugging. He was still silent, and unmoving—it was hard to tell how to proceed, or if I should let go. I didn't want to, necessarily. But the awkwardness in the air, at least to me, was palpable almost to the point if smothering. Of course, releasing too early would be odd as well... Or was that just a feeble justification for holding my position?
What the fuck is the policy for comfort-hug length?
"It's worth mentioning that the elements are aware an element was stolen," Discord said.
"Do you know where they're searching?"
"No idea. Not for you, though. I told them it was taken by a foreigner who'd met them many times before. Accurate, technically, but misleading if one doesn't know about your whole pony obsession." He chuckled, and this time there was no sorrow in his voice. "We have plenty of time, now."
"That's nice," I said. "Of course, I can still only barely move."
Discord was silent a moment. As we'd spoken, he'd returned my hug, and now one of his hands was running casually down my back in repeated, calm strokes. It felt pleasant. "Maybe not." I looked up—which in my current position, basically meant looking up his chest—to him. He smiled. "You remember the whole, "being inside me," conversation?"
"...Yeah..."
"Well, we could do it."
"The original idea or the heavily-implied other idea?"
"Well, I was thinking original, given your current physical state. Though I suppose if I did most of the moving, the other idea is equally viable." I felt embarrassed at that, though not as much as I thought I would. Still enough to try hiding my face by pressing it into Discord's fur. That helped little.
"I still don't understand how that would work," I said. My voice came out muffled due to the fur. Which I couldn't help but notice, in such close proximity, smelled nice. I wonder if he needs to bathe, as a demi-god...
"What was that?"
"I said, I still don't understand how that would work."
"As I explained earlier, my king, I don't believe you yet understand Draconequus physiology. Though, if you're willing to accept that I will have the appropriate anatomical bits and pieces when needed, we could start instruction on the subject today." I buried my face a bit deeper into the fur. Perhaps a bit emotionally immature, but comforting. I took a breath.
"Not today. Neither. The fusion or the... anatomy."
"Hmm. A shame."
"I suppose so," I said back. Discord was silent for a while, but then a minute later he broke into laughter.
"What?"
"It's just... For such a pervert, you sure seem hesitant to do the deed," he said, amusement obvious in his voice.
"Yeah... I guess so. I mean, it's kind of weird to do it so early... Right?" I asked, almost as much to myself as it was rhetorically. Not that I could answer, with my total zero dating and sexual experiences.
"Too early, you mean?" Discord said. "Oh, how lucky." He dropped to a whisper as he said it. "I've caught a believer in romance, it appears. What a rare find."
"You already knew that," I said irritably. Discord's stroking hand darted suddenly upward, and grabbed the back of my head. He pulled me away from him, not overly hard—still, forceful enough to surprise me. My head lifted from the surface of the bed. His own head was tilted down almost flat against his neck to look at me squarely. As my neck tilted back the little bit my weakened state and his grip allowed, to get comfortable, his grip loosened.
"Indeed I did." He drew closer. "Still. It's funny."
"Could you not get molest-ey when I can barely move?" I said. Discord smiled.
"Is that an order?..." he said, letting the end hang.
"Yes."
"Oh..." He said. He sounded almost disappointed. It took a short while until he said in an oddly subdued voice, "Can I at least be cuddly?"
I couldn't help but chuckle. I moved closer to the draconequus, back to my old position. "Yes."
"Good. I'll do that as you sleep."
"Sleep?" I said.
"You should sleep. You need to recover, and sleep, if my understanding of the matter is correct, will help that."
"Just... Go back to sleep, in this cave? Like this?"
His arms closed around me. "Like this, yes."
I closed my eyes. I didn't feel tired, but in all likelihood I was physically exhausted. Sleep would come. "Fair enough." I let myself give into fatigue, and gradually, I started to feel myself not making an effort to keep my eyes shut. Damn it. I'm going to sleep on him again, my thoughts said. But it was hard to feel bad about it. Discord seemed momentarily made happy again, by my actions. He was hugging me as I went to sleep. So. He was good. Even if I was going to sleep on him again.
Be more worried about you. He was being honest when he said he dragged you here. Your family's probably worried out of their minds. You're physically weakened by the magic in Equestria. And you are, more or less, an enemy of the existing Equestrian regime.
But as comfy as my current position was, that was hard to feek bad about as well.