Discord's Playground
Prologue: Doors are Opened
In the midst of the Canterlot Gardens, a strange statue stood. Although there were many strange statues in hedge and flower filled maze, this one was unique. While many of the statues presented famous Pegasi, powerful Unicorns, and industrious Earth Ponies of a time long past, this one was completely different: it was not of a pony. This lone statue depicted a draconequus, and had recently been returned to its designated place in the garden after its reign of chaos had been brought to a close. This statue was none other than Discord, the Spirit of Chaos.
It had been seven days since the Bearers of the Elements had returned him to his stone prison, and he had spent every day despising and hating each one of them and plotting their demise. Of course, it hadn’t taken him long to realize that their deaths would be what would set him free and he wouldn’t be around to take them down in a chaotic fashion. So, he had spent the last of the seven days plotting the demise of somepony he knew would still be around: Princess Celestia. He had been so intent on planning and scheming that he had spent the entire day finding the perfect way to take her down. But, being the Spirit of Chaos that he was, he couldn’t settle on one subject for long and he quickly got bored of it.
So instead, he decided to look around the familiar spaces in his marble prison. Nothing much had changed; he was still in his ridiculous position and, while he had gained weight, his physical prison was exactly the same as before. He then decided to look out… which was a bad idea as it was just as orderly and boring as it had been the thousands of years that he had witnessed before. It was ironic that the Spirit of Chaos would be kept in such an orderly place. It was almost as if Celestia thought he would break out if kept in a chaotic environment for too long. ‘Silly Tia’ he thought, ‘that will only happen if the Bearers die.’ But no, she couldn’t hear him, and even if she could, she probably wouldn’t change the garden out of the fear that he knew resided deep in her very being. So, he had checked all the usual places. Physical, mental, external, and had found nothing. Nothing at all. Then he noticed a little corner he had forgotten about, a sort of cubby hole that one would keep something they treasured hidden in. And to Discord, that’s exactly what it was.
It had been so long since he had been in this part of his prison. So long that if cobwebs could have been there, the spiders that created them would have died several million times over. Yes, it had been a long time since he had treaded this part of his cell. He remembered it with an emotion that only he could feel: a sort of fondness that he only felt because it had removed the boredom.
A couple hundred years into his imprisonment, he had discovered that he could mentally expand the room inside the statue. In his bored state, he had created entire rooms and mansions, entirely in his mind of course, but for a while, it eased the boredom. But, as was the norm for anything he chose to do, this quickly faded and he removed all the rooms until he was just in the form of the statue again. But, his experiment with the room’s taught him something: although the prison was physical, it might not be entirely mental. Sure, he couldn’t just ‘escape with his mind,’ but he might be able to find a way around the barrier he called his prison. It was then that he began the series of tests that would eventually lead to him discovering a loophole.
It was one day in spring when he discovered it. The snow had finally melted from his muzzle and he had been testing how big the mental room could go, when he heard weeping. He went back to the small cell of the statue and saw a disheveled figure on the ground in front of him with the elements spread around her, bathing in the tears she shed. Celestia. He didn’t know it then but she had just had to do the worst thing she could think of: banish her sister. Of course, Discord didn’t care for the weeping princess, what he noticed was the chaos boiling inside her, channeling into the statue. He felt the whiplash of the love she had felt, the anguish she experienced, and the pain she had as she banished her only sister to the moon. He also felt a shift, a changing of the spell holding him. It didn’t break and he couldn’t quite pinpoint it, but it felt like the elements had changed hooves, or lost a set of hooves. That, coupled with the chaos Tia felt, bombarded the spell and Discord watched in awe as the spell cracked. It didn’t shatter or even break, it just… cracked. Faster than light, Discord raced at the crack, trying to reach it in case it closed. And just as fast, he rammed into it; it wasn’t big enough for him to fit through, even in his nonphysical state. Then, to his horror, the small slit had started closing. He racked his brain, for the first time cursing its chaotic organization. And at the last possible second, he did it.
For the next thousand years, the small door he had placed in the cubbyhole remained forgotten. Then, in a flood of relief, Discord felt the Spell’s hold weaken, startling him. He knew something had happened to the spell to weaken the hold. It couldn’t be Celestia; she still came regularly, relaxing after a long day’s work. So it had to be something with the Elements. But, that would mean something had happened to the Elements to make them not work… but that was – impossible right?
He didn’t find out the answer until a few days later, when the workponies were installing a large stained glass in the castle. It depicted six fillies wielding the artifacts and using them to defeat an alicorn that reminded him quite a bit of… Luna. It was only then that he truly understood what had happened. A thousand years before, Luna’s banishment, the spell weakening, it all made sense – even to Discord. The Elements had originally lost Luna, one of two Bearers. That was when the spell weakened the first time. And the second time was when Celestia hoofed over the Elements to six fillies for them to stop a corrupted Luna. Now, nopony was supporting the Elements in connection to the spell, a spell that would only hold him until he got enough power to break out.
It happened not long after that, at least for Discord. The only sign that a year had passed was the fact that the snow had come and gone and with it, the ridiculous songs the ponies sang. It was early spring, the flowers under the Statue fighting for supremacy, fighting for the right to be in the sun. Oh, and the sun; Discord barely felt it now, but he could still tell when it was warm or cold. Today, it was warm, warm enough for several schools to make their field trips to the Gardens. It was about midday, and most of the schools had just gone into the Central Garden to eat their lunches. Then, out of nowhere, the faintest bit of chaos came, channeling into the statue as Celestia’s turmoil had a thousand years before. He looked down, cursing his long snout, and saw three little fillies arguing and fighting over their descriptions of him. It wasn’t hate, or the urge to kill, destroy, or oppress, but it was still chaos. And that chaos was enough to overpower the spell…
Discord mentally shook his head. He had noticed he had been daydreaming more in recent days. Not quite an escape, but more of a chaos starved hallucination. He shook his head again, looking at the door. When he had created it, it had surrounded the crack in the original spell, keeping it open. But now, that spell had been destroyed and replaced by the six fillies that had imprisoned him once again. To tell you the truth, he was surprised that the door was even still there, he must have been keeping it in the back of his chaos filled mind. ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I guess there’s no harm in trying.’ He opened the small aperture, expecting to see the spell. And, for the most part, he got his wish. He saw the full spell, no cracks, no holes or openings; the six had done their job well. Except, wait. Something wasn’t quite right with the spell, he couldn’t quite place it but… it felt, familiar. He searched his mind once again, looking, searching for any sign of a reason the spell was different from the rest. Then, he found it: one thousand years ago, the weakening; a week and a half ago, another weakening. It made sense, much to Discord’s chagrin. The door in the back of his mind had not stopped the spell, but had stopped the Elements. Somehow, the ponies had missed this little door in his mind and, since it hadn’t been accounted for, the Elements had left it alone.
Discord sat in wonder, staring at the door before him; all he needed was another spurt of chaos, another weeping princess, anything. The only problem with the idea forming in his head was that the princess forbade anypony but herself and Luna to go near the statue. But there was a small loophole, the very thing that bound him to his prison: the Elements of Harmony. All that had to happen to break the spell inside the door was one of the six creating chaos. A dragon would do, or maybe a Pegasus weather mix up. Even a large argument would do the trick. But, knowing those fillies and their seeming ability to attract anything chaotic or dangerous, he wouldn’t have to wait long.
It happened a few days later, that familiar feel of chaos. Being a few thousand years in prison, and billions of years before that, he had gotten extremely good at pinpointing the source and type of chaos. This one was a bit harder; the only reason being he had had limited contact with her. But he could definitely tell who it was from: Twilight Sparkle. She had been chaotic all day, causing mischief all over town in the apparent need to help ponies. Now, she had broken the limit and cast a spell that resulted in so much chaos, that several dragon rampages would’ve seemed tiny in comparison. Discord rushed to the door, flinging it open with such force that in the real world, it would have torn off its hinges. Here though, it opened, revealing the wall of the basic spell, flickering and warping with the force of the pure chaos flooding through its walls. It was time to act; Discord drank in the power, charging himself like a Unicorn charged a spell. Then, he mentally snapped his fingers and the spell shattered into oblivion and he strode through.