My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, its characters, setting, and story all belong to Hasbro, Lauren Faust, and present directors and artists. Please understand that much of the content of this work is due largely to their work and creative genius. Huge thanks (and debt) is owed to the wonder that is John Perry and Halcyon for being my prereaders and editors. This thing wouldn't be half the story it is without them... that's still not saying much.
Dis Immortalis
By: Dawn Scroll
Dichónoia
A few languid rays of sunlight filtered through the standing landscaped trees of the royal garden, casting mottled shadows upon the green grass, as Celestia’s heavenly sun set into the west. Only hours ago the celestial body, held high above the world, had filled the entire garden with the warmth and amiability of summer. Like innumerable days past, it had burned with great ardor. The brilliance had been akin to a hot silver coin being tossed into the sky in a game of chance, as if fate had been foalhardy enough to partake in such frivolity. By this time, however, the coin’s spotlight had dimmed considerably, as the sun gradually sunk beneath the horizon.
In shades of fire and darkness it crept beneath the line, and the final lances of red light shone briefly on the towering spires of Canterlot. The light offered the day’s final, yet rapidly diminishing, experiences of heat. However, that sensation was quickly being drowned by the night’s cool embrace.
Had anyone been present in the royal gardens at the time, they could have been able to truly appreciate the sense of calm and tranquility that the garden possessed during one of the Alicorn’s sunsets.
But there was nopony. Nopony save several dozen weather-worn statues of ponies from ages long gone… and one draconeques.
Of all the possible punishments he could have been given, Discord knew that none of them would ever hold a candle to yet another eon or so of being imprisoned in stone.
The idea behind the punishment itself irked him. Being used as a lawn ornament was dismissible. Being bested by six ponies was insignificant. Losing the throne yet again was but a trifle. No, there was only one thing, one very simple thing that made being sealed in stone a true prison for Discord.
It was exceedingly boring.
Not just “ho-hum” boring either. No, this was a sort of excruciating, mind-numbing nothing.
The Nothing was like a vast ocean of darkness. From within his stone prison, Discord was only surrounded by its embrace and its expanse. Nothing could permeate the rocky exterior. Yet that was a lie unto itself. It wasn’t as though Discord had ceased to be. He could feel himself still alive. He could sense the unbreakable stone, his own malformed body no less, press down him, threatening to crush him. With each passing second he continued to suffocate from the final breath he had taken before his entombment. His lungs, now stone, somehow burned with the ever-increasing acute aching that that an immortal should never have had the misfortune to experience.
Discord was still self-aware. That much was for sure. He had struggled for eons before this to remain so, and Celestia be damned if he stopped now. Like a tiny flame, threatened to be extinguished, his being flickered inexplicably against the darkness, the claustrophobic tightness, and the searing pain.
Honestly, had he been able to, Discord would have yawned.
It wasn’t anything new. Day in and day out it had been the exact same experiences of stifling Nothing. For a creature, nay, for the very Spirit of Chaos, this sort of monotony… was an absolute nightmare.
None of it ever changed. The pain, the darkness, the Nothing was always there and never showed even the slightest hint of ever changing. The experience was just so infuriating. Discord wished he could have changed at least some sort of variable to his prison… like being encased in chocolate instead of stone. Now that would have been an experience.
The draconeques was a creature of the unexpected. It was Discord’s nature for everything he did to be random and unexplainable. Why else would he be imprisoned in stone right now?
Discord mulled over the thought silently. Why had he let those ponies simply imprison him in stone again? He wasn’t just an agent of chaos; he was Chaos. Master of disorder, confusion, anarchy. There was nothing, well, almost nothing, that was out of his power or control. With a snap of his fingers he could have turned those equines into glue… or spoons.
The gears in Discord’s mind worked briefly on that concept before chucking it out the window. Spoons were a silly idea. Who would even think of turning a pony into a spoon? Forks were far more logical. But since forks were logical, forks were out of the question then. Still, spoons wouldn’t do.
The Lord of Chaos chortled to himself in his prison.
Sporks. He could have always turned them into sporks… or storks for that matter. That yellow Pegasus would’ve made a nice stork.
How did he even get onto this train wreck of thought?
Oh, right. Ponies.
The only reason he hadn’t simply turned them into cutlery cutlery -- or fowl for that matter -- when they used those accursed Elements was one simple thing: The ponies expected him to do so. Celestia expected him to.
They expected him to be cruel. To fight or trick or manipulate his way out of being imprisoned. Celestia expected him to at least put of some sort of resistance.
So he did the exact opposite. He had stood there as the rainbow light came crashing down on him. Because it was the last thing any of them expected him to do.
Discord hated being held to expectations, both by and to others. Maybe it was because Celestia had always considered him to be “abnormal.” What was “normal” anyway? Just another pony’s perception of how things should be?
Try as he might, locked in his stony prison with its fixed ‘shocked’ expression, Discord could not achieve the single act that he felt would have summmed up his particular view of this. He desperately wished he could roll his eyes.
Discord wasn’t blind. He knew how other creatures saw him. He saw himself in the same light they did. Malformed. Erroneously created. Possibly insane.
So no matter what, Discord had gone out of his way to smash their expectations, both of him and of themselves.
What was it that Celestia had said about him? In Discord’s mind, a small caricature of the white alicorn’s face formed and spoke the words.
“It seems an old foe of mine, someone I had thought long defeated has returned. His name is Discord. Discord is the mischievous spirit of Disharmony. Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness. Luna and I saw how miserable life was for Earth ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi alike. So after discovering the Elements of Harmony, we rose up against him.”
Ah, yes. Once again, Celestia had proven how grim she had grown these past centuries. With a single puff of imaginary breath he extinguished the mockery of the sun-goddess.
Expectations were easy to break. All you had to do was fail to meet them. The ponies Celestia had sent to do her dirty work expected a hateful, vengeful creature bent on wreaking havoc. Sure, at the end of the day, Ponyville had looked like something out of the mind of Salvaclop Deliboz. Discord was only trying to make up for several millennia of boredom! And in the end, nopony had actually gotten hurt. Hurting ponies wasn’t quite to his taste.
Order and Chaos were two signs of the same coin. Without Order, Chaos would be the norm, and it would no longer be Chaos. If Order was all that existed, then life would be stagnant and unchanging forever.
…much like his current form of imprisonment. The trickster god could appreciate the irony. He’d be sure to repay that white sun-goddess the same favor one day.
Celestia had spoken so ill against him, as though he had been a bloodthirsty tyrant. Typical Celestia playing the role of the goody two-shoes princess once again. To say he “ruled” was along the lines of saying that fish could fly. Discord had never portrayed himself as a ruler of anything, expect perhaps of incredible parties. He had never held court, never called himself a king, and had never asked or desired anypony to bow down to him. Sure, things may have been a little chaotic back then, but that was the nature of the universe. Whatever problems the ponies had, he merely watched from afar. He had let chaos work its natural course. These sorts of things had to work themselves out.
Massive flood that washed out a village? Its inhabitants would have to rebuild.
A drought that dried up all the crops and forced starvation on ponies? They would have to endure, leave, or starve.
Clouds suddenly turned into cotton candy and rained chocolate? Alright, maybe that one had been his doing. Sometimes Discord just saw an opportunity to stir up a laugh or two and, he just couldn’t resist.
Chaos was an unpredictable thing to work with. The Universe was unpredictable. At best, it could be described as random. It could be wonderful, and it could be terrifying. It could be beautiful, and it could be sordid.
Not all of it was bad but not all of it was good, either. It didn’t have to be fair, and neither did he. Discord was just a creature of it.
But to portray him as a monster for it… Discord took that as a personal blow.
Those ponies loved their precious Sun Princess so much that they had clung onto her every word. Clung to the “magic of friendship” that had helped them in the past. Discord had to imagine himself gagging at that thought to get the desired effect. His mouth was granite now, after all, and yet he still tasted the wretchedness of those words. Such hypocrisy.
Discord rather enjoyed toying with their minds. He felt as though he had opened them to a whole new world of possibilities. Twilight Sparkle had once claimed that Discord had put a spell on her friends to act the way they did.
The draconeques gave a toothy, knowing smile inside in his mind. If only it were that simple.
Despite being an immortal being, the entity of chaos itself, even Discord was limited in what he could and could not do. Bend the laws of physics and reality into a delicious pretzel? Easily done, especially if mustard was on hand. But to completely change a pony’s personality, hopes and dreams? Discord could only work with what he had in front of him.
Brave little Rainbow Dash. What was it she had said? Once again, in Discord’s mind, a caricature of the Ponyville weather officer formed and stared at him heatedly.
“You bet! I’ll always stay loyal to the princess!”
Discord let out a deep chuckle.
“Loyalty towards friends is important Rainbow Dash,” he murmured, “…but loyalty to your fame and duty was more important in the end, wasn’t it?”
All he had to do was tell Rainbow that her home was in danger and offer her the chance to save it. She took it without a second thought.
A mimicry of an orange pony with a Stetson appeared next to Rainbow Dash.
“Our friendship over? It can’t be true!”
“Honesty is a sign of trust, Applejack. But the truth is harsh and sometimes lies are easier to take,” Discord breathed.
And lie she did to protect her precious friendship. Towards the end of it, Discord felt she had gotten quite good at the skill.
Now, the face of a white mare with elegant lavender curls appeared.
“No, I shan’t succumb to such fabulosity!” the image protested in Rarity’s voice.
Somewhere in his mind, Discord stroked his tuft of a beard.
“Generosity is a gift, my beautiful Rarity. But only to those who receive it.”
Like so many before her who accepted generosity, Rarity succumbed to greed without giving much resistance. A large, beautiful diamond was all it took. She had barely hesitated before she was ready to break all bonds friendship and fight anyone who got close in order to keep it.
Discord pushed the faces off to the side as a yellow filly with pink hair appeared, shying away from his nonexistent gaze.
“I’m awfully lucky to have friends who want me to be the best I can be.”
Discord would have just stared at the image in disbelief if he could.
“Gentle Fluttershy, Kindness warms hearts, but cruelty got you so much further,” Discord said with some annoyance, before pushing the image to the side with the others. He knew the truth, even though she denied it to herself. That mare had some serious anger issues. True, in the end, he had to intervene with her. But he didn’t have to do much.
A burst of pink appeared in the ever-present darkness. Discord felt the slightest twinges of regret at the smiling, sweet face.
“My friends laugh with me, not at me.” Pinkie Pie said with a smile.
“Laughter is fun, dear Pinkamina,“ Somewhere in his mind, Discord gave a small sigh, “Until you become its source for the wrong reasons…” he added darkly.
If anyone had truly appreciated what he was trying to do, it had been that silly filly. His cotton candy clouds. His soap streets. His chocolate rain. Only she seemed to understand him. He had even tried to talk himself out of the deed. But Discord knew it was necessary to remove that mask she carried.
When Pinkie Pie’s face had joined the others, there was a small swirl before the purple unicorn herself appeared before him.
“But it’s not as wonderful as friendship!”
“Dear Twilight, Friendship IS magic. But without friends, where is your magic?” Discord said with smug grin.
She had been his favorite to play with. In the end, she proved to be a bit of a disappointment. Discord had tried everything he knew to get her to loosen up. He had treated her kindly, playfully joking with her about her ideas. Her attempts to defeat him with friendship had been so amusing. She held such faith in her friends and the magic of friendship that she thought the two would be enough stop the monster of madness. These expectations were easily shattered by Discord, such an achievement hardly being surprising to him.
Sure, in the end, the draconeques had allowed himself to be imprisoned, but that wasn’t the point. What was that even though it was for a few hours, he had broken the ponies’ expectations of themselves. He couldn’t make someone act in a way they weren’t capable of. All he could do was turn the key to their hearts and let their emotions spill forth.
Discord had done it all too happily. He had shown that things weren’t just black and white.
He had shown that even the Element of Honesty could be Deceitful. That Loyalty could easily Betray. That Generosity could fall willingly to Greed. Kindness could bask in Cruelty. Laughter could wallow in Sorrow.
He had shown those ponies that even the most magical of friendships could fall apart.
Things, after all, weren’t always black and white. A monster could be a giggling joker. A loving Sun-Queen could hate.
Discord snickered to himself, his being floating in the vast expanse of Nothing. Every so often, he knew she paid him visits. Celestia was the only one who did, this particular branch of the garden being avoided ever since his escape.
The sun had finished setting in the distance, the last glimpse of red light vanishing off the statues in the garden.
Discord loved it when she visited. He couldn’t actually see her, but he could feel her piercing gaze, so laced with disgust and hatred for him. She radiated such negative emotions around him and Discord gobbled them up like after-dinner mints. It was so… un-princess like of her. He knew she wanted to smash him to pieces now that he was stone, but again… Order needed Chaos to be Order.
Discord knew Celestia wouldn’t be willing to pick up his mantle anytime soon like she had her sister’s. It just wasn’t her character. He would have loved to see it though, to watch the prim and proper diarch be forced to take the role as the personification of random and sudden.
Celestia would despise her own existence then. Discord could reason this was the sole reason she kept him in existence. Purely so she keep up her expectations of herself. He remembered now exactly why she was so grim.
It absolutely delighted him that he could get under her skin so easily.
With a swipe of an nonexistent claw, the faces of the ponies dissipated into nothing, leaving Discord to his own thoughts, devices, and loneliness. Those ponies were so much fun to play with. Far more entertaining than Picard.
That got Discord to thinking. He was going to be in here for what was probably going to be a random amount of time. He might as well make the most of it. Third time would be the charm. And he’d make up for lost time with the most chaotic day ever. He’d turn the moon into cheese, maybe reverse gravity for a few hours, and make those ponies eat their own words… literally.
He would actually made them eat their own words. Hay, Discord was even planning on trying a few words out himself. He wondered what ‘pandemonium’ would taste like.
Discord floated in the void chuckling as he licked his lips in anticipation. He was beginning to get ahead of himself. He had to get his plan in disarray first.
First step… his grand comeback.
“I’m going to need a mariachi band.”