//------------------------------// // Home Is Where the Heart Break is. // Story: Love & Entropy // by DraconequusMaximus //------------------------------// Spike over the next few days had visited each of the girls & talked to them about his situation, all had been supportive of the issue & told him to follow his heart in their own way. The conversation with Rarity had been the most awkward out of the bunch as she had been aware of his past affections. The conversation had gone well after the initial weirdness, & Rarity even thought the two would make an interesting couple. Spike had spent the better part of the week tracking everypony down. Pinkie wanted to throw a party & Rainbow consented that she wasn't the person to ask about "mushy stuff". He reminisced over seeing his family again as he flew home to the lost city. He stopped in the forest to eat some of the magical fruit as ponies didn't keep enough food to sate his hunger for long. He picked one & shoved it in his mouth only to find it tasteless. He plucked another one and bit it in half to find it too was tasteless & the inner flesh of the fruit was a dull grey. "Something is very wrong here." Spike said to himself. He made a mad dash for the chasm & without hesitation dove in quickly accelerating to the best of his ability. As he continued his descent into the pit he noticed it was significantly darker, he looked around to see the light crystals were much dimmer than he had ever seen. The city soon came into view, it seemed nearly dead. The crystals were flickering in some places & the various inhabitants were arguing or locking themselves in their homes to avoid the trouble the colors of everyone he saw were considerably muted with gray. "Hey! What's going on here? Everything was fine when I left a few days ago." Spike said separating a diamond dog & a minotaur who were having a fight. They recognized him immediately. "Sir! We were just... uh settling a disagreement about loyalty to the king, I support him still but he thinks the king is incompetent just because the magic around the city has been faltering since the king locked himself away two days ago" Said the minotaur as he pointed to the diamond dog. "What? The magic is failing? Why isn't Discord fixing it?" He bellowed at the malcontents before him. They merely shrugged & Spike waved them off & sighed. Spike rushed as quickly as he could to the palace. The palace lights were completely dim & what Spike recognized as plunder vines were encircling the now closed doors & the entirety of the structure. Spike tackled the doors to little effect. His claws did more but the vines grew themselves back before he could make any headway. Spike inhaled as deeply as he could & blasted a torrential stream of fire directly onto the door. The vines burned away & couldn't regenerate their burnt stumps. Spike ripped the door open as quickly as he could & ran into the palace. The entire building was dark as could be Spike felt around until he found a wall torch & ignited it himself. The walls were also covered in the vines. As he made his way to the main hall he could hear sobbing. There in front of his throne was the spirit of mischief his hair disheveled & colors all faded into gray. There was several empty bottles laying around the huddled draconequus as well as a ripped bag of black seeds & discarded cupcake wrappers. Spike realized that all the issues the city was facing was result of an extremely depressed god. Spike knew that magic was directly effected by emotions. Spike could feel the magic seeping from the crying draconequus feeding the plunder vines he had planted to keep others away. Discord's seemingly endless magic supported the entire city & the impossible forest above. The magic's user was in turmoil so the magic itself was seemingly sick. "Discord? Are you alright? I came back." Spike said worriedly. "Go away, you don't want me. I'm just a mismatched monster & you're a dragon, you're beautiful & perfect & you have an amazing personality. All I have is magic that causes trouble all the time, & I can't even die right! The wounds heal, the poisons just make you pass out, & there's nothing I can do about it!" The chimerical king bellowed. "Discord... you tried to... end it all? Over me?" ... The draconequus was silent. Spike was in tears, he rushed over to Discord & grabbed him, pulling him close. "I'm sorry I overreacted Discord, I should've come back sooner. I went & saw the girls, they all miss you. Rainbow Dash even asked how you were. Fluttershy was so proud of you when I told her about the city, I know I broke the rules but I needed advice." Spike said through his burning tears. Discord turned his head to the dragon, even his eyes were dulled considerably. "They really missed me?" he said softly. Spike was unsure but he thought he saw some color return to the depressed creature's eyes. "No, WE missed you." Spike said before pulling him into a kiss. It wasn't a great kiss as it was both of their firsts but there was definitely something there between the two. Discord's body flashed brightly & the light blasted outward righting all the wrongs of the city. The crystals returned to normal, the vines vanished, & all the color of the inhabitants were returned to their normal luster. "Spike, I... do you really want to..." Spike stopped him with a claw to his lips. "I came back to you didn't I? I'm still new to this, but I want to try. I just gave you my first kiss, it wasn't under the circumstances I had ever imagined but I don't wanna take it back. It did a lot of good for everyone, including me. But, no matter how this turns out, just know that I care about you & I never wanna see you like that ever again. You scared me Discord, I know you're immortal but that doesn't mean your head is always in the right place." Spike got up & helped the restored god to his mismatched feet. "I'm sorry how I reacted Spike, I've never been in love before & when you left I felt broken. I just wanted everything over with I've lived for longer than anyone else on the planet but I haven't dealt with emotion very often." Discord said as he snapped his fingers ridding the floor of the clutter & summoning another bottle to calm himself. "What is that stuff you went through so much of anyway?" Spike asked curiously. "Peppermint schnaps, a grateful citizen gave it to me once & I grew to like it. Want a sip?" Discord asked passing the bottle to Spike. He took a quick swig after examining it for a moment. "That's pretty goo- Buuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrp!" He was interrupted by a huge torrent of flame that emerged from his mouth. A slightly ashy letter fell from the smoke. "Perhaps you should notify ponies not to send you mail the next time you decide to have a drink?" Discord said after snapping his fingers to restore his immolated eyebrows. "Heh, lets just see what the letter says...huh? It's some kinda drawing & a date & time." Spike said showing it to Discord. "Your mother just sent us a locator seal. She's coming to the location of the letter at... 7PM three days from now." Discord said suddenly shaking. "Discord? What's wrong?" Spike asked with raised brow. "I'm going to meet you're mother & we've only been going out for... 13 minutes!" Discord said while materializing an oversized pocket watch. Spike merely rolled his eyes. "You've met her countless times Discord, you even knew her before she became a princess." He said. "Oh Horseapples! I forgot she was royalty too! I need to class up the place, maybe solid gold mini-fridges in every room?" Discord was beginning to panic. Spike merely took a long drink of the bottle in his hand & belched another blast of flame at the draconequus, this time on purpose. "Better now?" Spike asked semi-sarcastically. "Much, but I don't feel great about you having to be the voice of reason so often, you've had to do that since you were little. I'm quite literally a thousand times your age & I'm the one acting like a foal." An ashen Discord stated as he dusted himself off. "It's the role I was born to play, besides I think you're funny. Plus I don't think I could torch someone else when they got out of hand." Spike said with an evil grin. "You're terrible." Discord said sarcastically. "Yeah, yeah, now let's go clean up you're political mess before we get an auditorium full of petitioners." Spike said waving his new love interest's jest off, & with that they went to fix their home.