After the alicorns came to power, Equestria grew and prospered for countless generations. The centuries saw the foundation of many a great city. Research of the Elements of Harmony progressed slowly, but steadily. Chrysalis ascended to alicornhood, and the Crystal Empire was established in the north. Meanwhile, the royal siblings became more revered with every passing day. Religious societies that worshipped them as gods were quite common. The Night Guard and Royal Guard both trace their origins back to that time, though the latter were originally named the "Celestian Solari".
Yet while the rulership of the siblings seemed an image of perfection to the Equestrian common folk, trouble was brewing. Luna and Celestia – who now styled themselves princesses of night and day – governed Equestria with solemn dedication to their responsibilities. With the troubles of an entire realm upon their shoulders, both of them considered any kind of relaxation treachery against their people.
Their mindset clashed heavily with Prince Melody’s approach to power. He was the keeper of Laughter and Magic, and he understood himself as such. Spreading cheer and smiles was in his blood. He could not stand the sour-faced attitude of his sisters, just as they couldn't stand his. Through countless shunned surprise parties, popped balloons, cakes thrown into his face, Melody came to feel that even his own kin could not love him. For all his life, he had failed every challenge stacked against him. Where his sisters governed day and night, he was effectively without power. Yet Laughter was who he was. If Laughter had no place in the world… what did that say about him?
An alicorn perceives time in different ways than a mortal would; their resilience is remarkable, but not unlimited. On his eight hundredth birthday, Melody hit the absolute low-point of his life. Without friends or family, he celebrated his own birth locked away in his chambers, with no one to attend his party and with presents he had wrapped himself. Just then, when he felt that his existence couldn’t be any more pitiful, his sister Luna found him.
The silver princess scowled him for his laziness. Naming him a useless fool and a disgrace to the alicorns, she drove him from the castle, crying. As he fled Canterlot in helpless rage, Melody swore never to return to his sisters again. He would find his place in the world, with them or against them. His grief turned into bitterness, and a horrible idea took root in his mind.
The prince’s wings took him southwest, towards the Equestrians’ ancestral lands. Warmth began to vanish all around him as he approached the fringes of his homeland. Mountains of snow grew beneath him, higher and higher. The cold turned from cruel to murderous. Without his alicorn magic, Melody would soon have perished, yet he rejoiced in the strength of the blizzards battering his form. He felt them swell with rage as he fed them his own thirst for vengeance and he knew that there was mind in them – evil, lifeless, empty mind. It was just as he had predicted: the hate eaters of old were still alive. Weakened, yes, and driven from Equestria, but they were still there. And he knew where they were strongest. This one time, he swore to himself, he would do something right.
The cave was not hard for him to find. Though winter had reclaimed the area after the first pioneers departed, it was still a place of power, hallowed and haunted at once. Its aura drew the alicorn prince like a moth to the flame. As Melody entered the crevice, the howling blizzard was cut off; the mountain all around protected him, just like it had done to the three races seeking shelter there nine hundred years before. The very air seemed to resonate with the Fires of Friendship and yet there was a chill to it, like a constant trickle of cold water in the neck.
On a pedestal in the very centre of the cave, the prince found what he had been looking for: a common rock. Nothing remarkable was to be seen about it. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t shiny, it wasn’t even shaped any different than any other stone. And yet once, in a time before Equestria, a princess, a chancellor and a general had nearly killed each other fighting over it. Never had a trivial thing like that caused so much hatred. It trembled with Dissonance.
Melody could sense the windigo spirits howling all around him. He embraced the strange relic with both of his hands and spoke two sentences that would have went down in history if anyone had been there to hear them: I am Melody, prince of Equestria. Offer me just a place in this world, and I will give you all I am in return.
His bitterness was a feast for them. They did not refuse his invitation as he opened his arms for them. One by one, they plunged into his body, poisoned his great soul with their own, one by one, demon after demon, one by one until Melody was shrieking in agony. When he finally realized what he had done, it was much too late to fight them.
By the time it was over, his mind was throbbing with chaos. The windigos were no more and the storm outside soon passed. Each and every one of them had bound their soul to Melody, to make the alicorn prince their own. In body and mind, he had been turned into a vessel of disharmony. He rose on mismatched limbs. With a lion paw where a hand had been, he wiped away the blood dripping from the horns that had just broken through his brow. Discord opened his eyes.
Back in Canterlot, Celestia stumbled as she was struck with a sudden, inexplicable horror. In her private chambers, Luna awoke from a terrible nightmare, screaming. Amongst the glaciers of the frozen north, black King Sombra shuddered with delight. For one second, every being in Equestria felt that something monstrous had occurred.
First reports of unsettling events reached the capital two days later. To the south, the entire landscape was warping. Crops were wilting, animals wreaking havoc on earth walker settlements, storms raging with such ferocity that the pegasi could not detain them. The princesses’ feeling grew from bad to worse as the phenomenon spread; too many bad news that followed too closely on their brother’s disappearance. Several guard squadrons were sent out to investigate the problem, but none of the returned. Meanwhile, a growing stream of refugees kept pouring in from the south, carrying news that grew more surreal with every passing hour.
But when the princesses finally decided to strike south themselves, Discord had already come to them. The draconequus swept down onto Canterlot, riding the storm of chaos that followed in his wake. In between bursts of manic gaggling and sudden weeping fits, he spew out a flood of incoherent rambling, threats, promises, pleas for forgiveness, even poetry. His assault washed over the city like a winged wave and left those unfortunate enough to cross him twisted, warped and stained. Discord’s mad assault was eventually met by his former sisters on the steps of Canterlot Palace. The Royal and the Night Guard both stood beside them.
The draconequus tore them to pieces, laughing. Even the royal sisters were like leafs in a storm before him. In the end, the defenders had no choice but to turn tail and flee. Celestia and Luna were driven from their thrones, their guards broken and scattered. As they fled to their old sanctuary in the Everfree Forest, their brother’s cackles rang after them. An age of chaos descended on Equestria.
At this point, any attempt to establish a chronological order of events is destined to fail. With the alicorns’ power broken, Discord’s reign soon stretched from the badlands in the south to the frozen haunted north. Time and space crumbled. Equestria was plucked away from reality, and returned to it only by the great deceiver’s defeat. Afterwards, some would say it lasted days, others that it lasted years, decades, centuries – but when the nation was eventually returned to Harmony, not a minute had passed in truth. This is why the Age of Discord is rightfully considered to be no actual historical era at all: to the rest of the world, it went past in an instant.
Speaking of that age is neither pleasant nor fruitful in any way, so let us skip ahead. After an immeasurable span of time, the royal sisters did eventually re-emerge from their exile. The Elements of Harmony had once again revealed themselves to them – Laughter to Celestia, Magic to Luna – and thereby filled the hole left by Melody’s betrayal. For the first time in history, the alicorns made full use of the magical gems they had crafted so long ago. The Elements were unleashed in all their glory, and they crushed Discord like he had crushed their bearers before. Their spell swept over the land, restoring peace and order where it went. The lord of chaos himself was trapped in stone and sealed away for all eternity, even as his deranged laughter echoed in the ears of his victorious sisters.
His part in history was done, but theirs far from it. As they struggled to pick up the shards of their once powerful nation, the sisters silently agreed to never speak of this past again. Too painful was the memory of their fallen brother, too deep ran guilt, shame and anger all at once. Soon enough, their vow would spread to all of Equestria. The entire nation joined in their agreement, maybe for the same reasons, maybe for others. Did they wish to punish their prince by striking his name from history? Had his reign been so horrendous that even their memories still scared them? Whatever the answer may be, the world soon forgot that there had ever been a prince called Melody. Today, the draconequus is nothing more than a fairy tale to frighten children – and the truth just a bitter memory tucked away in Celestia’s mind.