//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: The Deal 
// Story: True Chaos 
// by Woolytop 
//------------------------------//

	Moonstruck froze. She slowly turned around to face the statue once more. Aunt Celestia had told her not to speak with Discord. She had somewhat expected him to be asleep, or otherwise unwilling to deign himself to speak with her.
“Yes. I'm certain,” Moonstruck stuttered after what felt like several minutes.
“You hardly sound convinced.” There was a certain quality about Discord's voice. It was like she had something wriggling around in her head, but something that wasn't entirely alien or even fully unwelcome. “I heard what you did to that snob Blueblood. Not bad for an amateur.”
Moonstruck caught herself before she allowed a hint of a smile to come to her face. “I didn't come here for your praise. I just wanted to say it. I'm nothing like you.”
“In that case, couldn't you have just said it to your mirror?” Discord posed.
Moonstruck floundered. Why had she decided that she needed to tell it to the other draconequus?
“Or maybe you're here simply because Auntie Celestia doesn't want you to be?” Discord said condescendingly.
“No, that's not it,” Moonstruck insisted as she shook her head. “If I said it to you, then... it would mean more,” she invented.
Discord chuckled. “You can't fool me, Moonstruck. As little as you act like one, you are a draconequus.”
“What I am is not the same as who I am,” Moonstruck paraphrased. This had been the content of the very first friendship report Celestia had given her to go over.
Discord scoffed at her. “Even if you really believe that, Celestia doesn't.”
“What?” Moonstruck asked.
“Oh, don't tell me you haven't noticed. She keeps you in the castle at all times. She doesn't allow you to attend social events. Everypony who works in the palace is under oath to keep the fact that you exist a secret. She grounded you for half a week over a little prank, and she's been stuffing 'friendship' reports down your throat like it'll keep the sun in the sky. It's painfully obvious that she's afraid of you,” Discord said.
Moonstruck pulled back, stunned. It was hard to imagine Auntie being afraid of anything, but everything else Discord had pointed out had been true.
“No,” she said, “there's no way Auntie's scared of me. She's the most powerful magician in Equestria.”
Discord began to laugh. “Oh, that's a good one. If that were the case, she wouldn't need the elements of harmony just to keep me pinned down for the next fifty years or so.”
Moonstruck began to think of the stained glass windows and murals that depicted Discord's defeat, both fifteen hundred years ago, and seven years ago. In both cases the elements of harmony had been used not to eliminate him, not to turn him from his evil ways, but only to encase him in stone. To contain him.
“If Auntie was afraid of me, why would she be raising me? Why not just turn me to stone, too?” Moonstruck asked.
“Celestia never was fond of leaving loose ends. If I had to guess, I'd say she was planning on using you to defeat me once I inevitably reclaim my freedom,” Discord said. Another jab, right in the gut.
“U...using me?” Moonstruck wracked her brain for a point to counter this, but she couldn't. “...You're lying.”
“Lying? Moi? I'm no worse than your princesses,” Discord said, “but you believe what you want.”
“I'm not like you!” Moonstruck insisted again before she turned and ran.

Moonstruck caught onto her balcony railing and tossed herself onto the ground. That hadn't gone how she wanted at all. She had said that she thought Discord was lying, but it was hard  to convince herself of that. The more she thought about what he'd said, the more sense it made.
Celestia had taught Moonstruck the basis of the scientific method. If you wanted to test a variable, you made sure it was the only variable by putting it in as controlled an environment as possible. She looked about in her room; Almost anypony probably would have offered anything for a chance to live like she did for even just a while, but now all she wanted to do was get out. She sighed as the effects of being sent to bed with no supper began to set in. She curled up under her covers and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Is something troubling you, Moonstruck?”
She jumped as Aunt Celestia called to her during class the next day.
“Besides me, and Discord, were there other Draconequuses...es...es?” she asked. It was the first thing that came to mind that wouldn't immediately imply she had spoken with Discord.
“Draconequines,” Celestia provided. “There were. They were never as numerous as ponies, but they weren't unheard of.”
“Were there any... nice draconequines?” Moonstruck asked.
Celestia paused for a moment. “I'm sure there were, but history has a tendency to forget kindness among the population.”
Moonstruck deflated a little bit.
“Don't let what Blueblood said get to you. Who you grow to be is your choice, and nopony else's.”

Moonstruck swished her tail and kicked her legs after dinner, although this time in frustration rather than boredom. “She's using you.” Why did that bother her so much? She'd still woken up, taken her lessons, and had time to herself. The only thing that had changed was that she could see the cage now. But what could she do about it? She wanted to see all of Equestria, and everything beyond, but she was trapped.
“I could run away,” she thought. “Just go someplace. Who cares where?” Moonstruck got up and began to pace. She reared up on her hind legs and walked that way, exactly like Aunt Celestia had told her not to. She tapped the base of her fang with her finger.
“But how? She's not going to let me just walk out the front door. There are too many guards watching the skies, and the castle has alarm wards that trip if anypony tries to teleport over them. I could use some chaos magic, but... can you teleport with chaos magic?” Moonstruck could only think of one other creature in the castle who would know that.

Security was lighter in the gardens then the previous night. Only one guard patrolled the main path which looped around the hedge maze. Something terribly important must have happened for Aunt Luna to draw them all from the gardens.
“Discord,” she said to the statue. No response. “Discord. Discord.” She reached up and began poking at his goat thigh. “Discord. Discord. Discor...”
“Do you MIND?! I'm plotting here!” Discord burst out.
“What're you plotting?” Moonstruck asked.
“My escape, of course. What else does a prisoner plot?” he replied.
“I actually wanted to ask you something along those lines,” Moonstruck said. “Can you teleport with chaos magic?”
“Of course. If you've got the will, knowledge, and power, you can do anything with chaos magic. I would know. I've done it twice,” Discord replied.
“Would a chaos teleport set off the castle's alarms?” Moonstruck asked.
“Not unless you wanted it to,” he said.
“Can you teach me to teleport with Chaos magic?” she pleaded.
Discord paused. “I could. But why would I want to?”
“Be~cause that'd be super nice of you?”  Moonstruck smiled.
Discord laughed. “I'm afraid you can't get anything in life from being 'super-nice', my dear. If you want me to help you, you're going to have to help me.”
“I'm not breaking you out,” Moonstruck said as she crossed her arms and leaned back on her tail.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Discord said. “I'll teach you a spell that will get you out of the castle undetected, under one condition.”
“I'm listening,” Moonstruck said cautiously.
“I get to pick your first destination,” Discord said. “After you get there, you'll be free to do whatever your little heart desires.”
“That doesn't sound too bad,” Moonstruck nodded. “Where is this place you want me to go?”
“Who knows? It could be anywhere in the world by now,” Discord replied. Moonstruck titled her head to the side. “The place I want you to go is the home of the draconequines. I can never seem to remember where we left it.”
“Then how am I supposed to find it?” Moonstruck asked.
“Simply follow the chaos,” Discord said. Moonstruck blew her mane out of her face.
“Alright,” she said after a pause. “I'll do it.”
“Wonderful! Take my paw in your hand, and the deal will be complete.”
Moonstruck lifted herself off the ground, and hesitantly wrapped her fingers around Discord's lion paw. Lightning struck from overhead as Moonstruck's head began to throb. After the throbbing passed, she didn't feel much different.
“So, how do I...” Moonstruck was cut off as her brain answered the question she was about to pose. She had a strong understanding of order magic. In order to use order magic, she needed to take the magical energy she had, use it to grab energy from the planet's leylines, whip it to the shape of her will, and then force it out into the world, in form of a spell. It was rigid, and if done improperly, could fizzle or backfire. Chaos magic worked differently. The power came solely from the self, and trying to simply wrestle it into submission would be like trying the same with a summer breeze. Instead, to perform chaos magic, she needed to let her magic run wild, and only direct it in the way she desired. It was much harder to cast magic that way, since there really were no 'spells', and anything could happen if she did it wrong. She'd only ever been able to do simple things with it before, like make plants overgrow, or turn things into different things.
But now, there it was. Like she'd always known how to do it. Teleportation through chaos magic. She squealed in excitement.
“Thank you!” she said excitedly as she bounced around the statue. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Yes, yes. Just make sure you keep your end of the deal.” Discord replied. “Bon voyage!” Moonstruck snapped her fingers and vanished in a flash of light.
She returned to her room first. She grabbed a small, pink suitcase and began to stuff things inside it. Her brush, talon file, fingernail clipper, a box of charcoal pencils, a stack of paper, a blanket, a pillow, and her violin. She stifled a yawn as she finished, took a solid hold of its handle and snapped her fingers.
In a flash, she was out of the castle. She looked around as she arrived; She was on a mountain pass. Looming above her was the castle, and spread out below her was a quaint little village. She smiled as she started off away from the castle. She was free.