“Ah, it was the end of the Third Era. I simply adore eras. With their little e’s and a’s. Oh, and those disgusting Greymarches that always accompany them! Can’t stand those. At least they come with cheese! Where was I?
Oh, right, the Third Era. My good pal Jyggalag was on his way home from nowhere, ready to take my precious Shivering Isles from me! Then that Champion showed up, and started killing all the Knights of Order! The bloodshed was delicious! Delicious and tasty! But anyway, the Champion stopped all that.
Yes, I don’t think I ever gave him his cheese. Or plucked out his eyes like I promised! I hate to be a liar. Oh well, his loss! Well, Jyggalag showed up and started fixing my Madness, and that just made me mad! And then he had the nerve to turn me into him! Then the Champion killed me. Now here I am.
He’s the new me, and the old me is still me. I wonder if he worships me, or if I worship myself. Do we worship each other? Oh well, more cheese for me!”
Sheogorath watched as his Champion’s blade pierced through the armor of the being he’d been turned into. Jyggalag’s armor wasn’t near enough to keep the Greymarch functioning. The Madgod silently cheered as he listened to his counterpart’s speech.
“Enough! I am beaten. The Greymarch is ended. For millennia this drama has unfolded, and each time, I have conquered this land, only to be transformed back into that gibbering fool, Sheogorath.”
The Daedric prince in question let out a silenced grunt of indignant laughter.
“It was not always so. Once, I ruled this realm, a world of perfect Order. My dominion expanded across the seas of Oblivion with each passing era. The other princes, fearful of my power, cursed me with Madness, doomed me to live as Sheogorath, a broken soul reigning in a broken land.”
Sheogorath chuckled at his counterpart’s contempt for Madness. Madness was a blessing upon the dull lives of mortals. Just like cheese.
“Once each era, I was allowed my true form, conquering this land anew. And each time I did, the curse was renewed, damning me to exist as Sheogorath. Now, though, you have ended the cycle. You now hold the mantle of Madness, and Jyggalag is free to roam the voids of Oblivion once more.”
The Madgod laughed at the idea of holding the mantle of Madness. One does not simply hold Madness; Madness holds one simply!
“I will take my leave, and you will remain here, mortal. Mortal…? King? God? It seems uncertain. This realm is yours. Perhaps you will grow to your station. Fare thee well, Sheogorath, Prince of Madness.”
With that, the Daedric Prince of Order, along with his subconscious Prince of Madness, vanished from the mortal realm of reality. While Jyggalag returned to the planes of the void of Oblivion, Sheogorath was left without a place to return to. Having just been a piece of Order with a side of Chaos, he was no longer an entity of his own.
In short, he didn’t exist. He was replaced by the Champion he hired to kill him. And the other him likely wouldn’t want him back. And so, being nothing but nothing, the Madgod began his search for a new entity to become. And boy, did he become! The Prince of Cheese—or was it Madness?—he couldn’t tell anymore…continued to journey from one consciousness to another, checking each for a suitable suitor to fit his suit.
Finally, after minutes of searching, hours of looking, and days of liking, he stumbled across a world with a single being almost as chaotic and demented as himself. Of course, when you judge Madness by appearance, you’re oftentimes right, and so the Madgod decided this creature would do the trick, chaos or no.
And wouldn’t you know, when Sheogorath found the perfect body, it was already eating cheese! …And making chaos… But mostly eating cheese!
…
The familiar draconequus whistled a happy tune as he drifted back and forth across the large dining room he’d been instructed to clean. Of course, he wouldn’t have had to clean it if he hadn’t summoned a giant cotton-candy chocolate milk cloud the previous evening to break up an uptight dinner party the local snobs were hosting. But no, he wasn’t technically allowed to use his chaos for fun. And so, under Princess Celestia’s watchful tattle-tales, the fun-loving beast was forced to pretend to actually clean the mess he’d made.
Sure, he could simply snap his claws and the mess would be gone, but it wasn’t often he was alone with the Canterlot guards, and he intended to annoy them as much a possible before being summoned back to the castle. While they constantly nagged him to get to work, pleading that they couldn’t end their shift until they’d supervised his restoration of the dining hall, he nibbled away at a block of disgustingly-smelly cheese.
Each time they would say something, he would snort back, “I’ll clean the room when I finish my snack.”
And then, just when the guards were certain he was finished, the block would restore itself to full. After about the fifth time, the guards gave up, and joined him in his cheese-consuming endeavors. It was finally time for the night guards’ shifts to restart when the draconequus decided to actually do some cleaning, and by that point they had already been summoned back to duty by the guard captain.
With an innocent grin of harmless fun, the beast restored his mess and continued to nibble away at his tasty dairy product. Which, as the guards would soon find out, was not catered to the equine biology.
Finally finishing the block of cheese in full, the chaos-loving thing let out a content sigh, “Ah, it’s good to be free from that prison, and with almost no strings attached…” To accompany his sigh, although there were no witnesses around, he spawned a marionette’s crossbar above his head, thin wires wrapping around his limbs.
Just as he undid the action, a maniacal voice rang out around him. “Ah, I see you love a bit of Madness on your own terms! I like terms, especially when they’re mine!” In the blink of an eye, the Madgod appeared before him like a ghost in a haunted mansion. As you might guess, the two shared a common interest in ghosts, because they never made any sense.
The bipedal being’s sudden appearance from thin air startled Discord, who proceeded to re-spawn his cheese. He decided he would stick around a while if random creatures were going to appear in thin air.
“You could say that, yes. And who might you be, my two-legged friend?” Discord bit a chunk from his chunk and swallowed hastily.
Sheogorath tossed his cane in the air and groaned, “No, no, no! That’s all wrong! That isn’t how you eat cheese! This is how you eat cheese!” A giant wheel of Cyrodiil’s finest cheese burst into existence in the man’s hand, which he immediately shoved into his mouth, chewing in a disgustingly loud manner, crumbs of the dairy getting all over the freshly-cleaned carpet.
Discord chuckled, following in the man’s example, “My, aren’t you a funny little biped?”
“And don’t you forget it, you mismatched animal! Or I’ll have to pluck out your eyes! Or…no…I’ll take away your cheese!” the Madgod shuddered, “That’s the worst punishment of all!”
Swallowing the mountain of processed dairy, the draconequus scoffed, “Oh no, my friend. You can’t begin to understand what ‘punishment’ is until you’ve been trapped in stone for two millennia.”
“Hah!” the Daedric prince scoffed. “Try having your body stolen and kingdom completely leveled at the end of every era! It makes it hard to eat cheese when you aren’t yourself!” At the mention of the dairy product, he spawned another wheel and ate it in similar fashion to the previous.
Discord considered this and chuckled, “You’ve got me there, no doubt. So, what exactly are you supposed to be?” The beast followed in his companion’s footsteps, consuming another wheel of preferred cheese.
“I’m a Daedra! What kind of rock do you live under?! I’m the Ex-Prince of Madness, the Ex-Madgod, the Ex-Cheese Master! You can call me Sheogorath. And if you don’t, I’ll end up skipping rope with your hide!” After swallowing the mess of cheese, he continued, “And what exactly are you? A dragon? Maybe you’re a horse! Ooh, what about a dragon-mounted horse with mudcrab meat!”
The draconequus took a minute to actually examine his conversation partner. The man was obviously demented, both physically and mentally. He had the look of an aged creature, and his eyes shined with years of grotesque insanity. Discord liked him.
“I’m a little bit of everything, actually. Except Daedra, whatever that is. Dragon, pony, lion, eagle, etc.” He casually waved a claw around as if his composition was of no importance.
The demented humanoid sighed, “I hate things that aren’t all themselves! I hate indecision! I hated myself, until I killed me. Now I’m here, talking to another indecisive beast! Why don’t you just fix yourself?” Sheogorath’s staff finally fell to the ground, a ray of red light engulfing Discord.
When the light faded, the draconequus found himself in the form of a full-fledged, albeit small, dragon. He groaned, “To put it simply, the way I am is an embodiment of the power I used to abuse. I hate when things make sense! I prefer complete confusion over simple puzzles any day…” With a snap of his claws, he returned to his normal shape.
Sheogorath flinched and gasped, “By the Nine Divines, you just changed back! I didn’t say you could change back! How dare you? …I like dares…”
“You seem good at what you do, Sheogorath. You like chaos, don’t you?” The beast chuckled, remembering a few of his own amazing chaotic commands.
The Madgod sighed, “Do I certainly? I certainly do! Well, I prefer Madness over chaos, but what can you do. Maybe both, now that I think of it. I guess you and I are pretty close now! I’ve never met something that could mess with my Madness!” He attempted to return Discord to a dragon state, but found the creature’s own magic as powerful as his.
Discord laughed, “I used to be like that as well. However, two-thousand years in isolation helped me decide that freedom is more important than abuse of power.”
“With your kind of power, how’d you get trapped? Did they catch you full of cheese? That’s my weakness! Oh, and the Greymarches, but they’re gone now!” Sheogorath summoned a small throne to sit on as he awaited the chaotic beast’s explanation.
The abomination sighed, “It’s quite a terrible tale, truly.” He summoned his own bed of cotton-candy to lie on, and then continued, “I used to rule this kingdom with my chaos, but some of the citizens didn’t like that. Some magical gems showed up one day, and my ex-lover and her sister used them to seal me away.” With that, Discord summoned more cheese.
The Ex-Prince of Madness sighed, “That’s why I never love people. They betray you. Also, they don’t like cheese. Or Madness. Actually, they don’t like your voice. Or your kingdom. I actually think one of them tried to trim my beard. She died.” He shuttered at the thought of having his facial hair removed.
“Yes. Truly, no one can appreciate good chaos like a master of it. But I promised my dear Celestia I would behave in exchange for my freedom, so I can only use chaos in controlled spurts.” Discord placed a hand dramatically to his forehead, almost as if he were seriously hurt by his self-control.
Sheogorath laughed, “I would never give up Madness for freedom! Especially since they go hand in hand! Or do they go foot in mouth? I can’t remember…” A loud knocking erupted at the dining hall’s door. “With that, our meeting is adjourned. The next time we meet, we’ll have a feast! Cheese wheels, cheese balls, cheese powders! Ooh, I’ll even bake some cheese fondues! Perhaps there will be cabbage…”
As the door slowly opened, Discord did away with the evidence of the Madgod’s presence, just as the Madgod vanished. The stallion that entered the room spoke in a shaky voice, “Discord, Princess Celestia has summoned you to the throne…”
Discord rolled his eyes and snapped his claws, vanishing from the room. As the draconequus warped toward the throne room, Sheogorath’s voice echoed, “Tata! I’ll visit again soon! And if I don’t, you can pluck out my eyes, hahaha!”
The beast let out a chuckle, the chaos emanating from the strange creature he’d just met.