Like a big, red apple, the sun shone through the trees as Applebloom carried the last sack of apples over to the barn. She had always liked how the light washed through the leaves in the evening, especially when a wind blew and whirled warm sunset dots over the rough, grassy ground.
Putting down the heavy sack, she sat down to watch the light playing in the trees. She lied there, her front legs crossed behind her head, hind legs stretched out, the soft grass and leaves offering a nice mattress. Closing her eyes in joy, she sighed, relaxed, let herself forget the time as the wind played with her mane and with the leaves, the orchard filled with the sweet smell of growing apples [1] and the song of birds praising the sinking sun.
After a while of relaxing in the warm evening light, maybe for a few minutes, maybe a lot, she saw something moving through the trees. A squirrel? Probably. Slowly, she rose to a sitting position, leaning onto the apple sack, feeling the shape of the round, hard apples poking into her back. After a moment, she saw it again. No, it was definitely not a squirrel. Far too big for that. It rather looked like some kind of wooly snake - a marten? She had heard about some very big ones living in the Everfree Forest. Maybe she should call her sister? Animals that size could be dangerous, after all. Or trying to steal apples, for that matter. Then, whatever it was, jumped from one tree to another, and she saw dragon-like scales and mismatching wings.
Discord!
What was that old bugger doing at her farm? Was he trying to turn all the apples into bananas [2], like he did last time? Or did he want to make the trees dancing polka? Or something? Slowly, she got on her hooves, and got behind a tree. Peeking out from behind it, she watched him conspicously:
He was slinking from tree to tree, slowly, carefully, apparently not wanting to be seen. Sometimes he would move through a tree as if it just weren´t there, or dive into the ground and come out on the other side of the tree. Or something even stranger. All without making a sound. Cautiously, Applebloom followed him, moving from tree to tree in a somewhat less chaotic manner, carefull not to trip up on some root and betraying her presence to him.
After some time, as the apple-red sun had come down even more, nearly the horizon, they came to the edge of the orchard, and Discord geckoed down the last tree and sneaked across the little pasture, wading through the high gras like a child through a ball bath.
On the other side, the fence of the old funpark loomed, all grey wire and cold steel. This fence was the only part of the park that was being held in any state, the old attractions inside slowly falling inside, a deranged world of slivered varnish, rusted beams, and rugged tarpaulin, of dust whizzling through twisted decorations, dry leaves covering tarnished dance floors, and water seeping through partially collapsed roofs. When Applebloom asked Granny Smith about it, the older mare told her that she remembered when it was open, back when she was a little fillie, and the funpark was, well, fun: Loud, bright, crowded, full of thrilling attractions and sugary treats, and it had always been the height of the month to go there with her friends.
But when she was about Appleblooms age - at least that is what she said, and she always says that when telling any story about her childhood - rumours started, of ponies gone missing on the park ground, of strange sounds at nights, and weird scrawlings on walls in the mirror cabinet. One night then, the whole sky over the funpark was bright with lights, deep, fiery red, blindingly bold blue, sparkling silver, a brilliant green, and in the morning, Celestia herself came to town to declare the funpark closed. To make sure no one entered the park ever after, she put a spell on the fence, rendering it impossible to climb, fly, or jump over it, or dig beneath it, and so no one did. Of course Applebloom and her friends (as well as many other fillies and adventure-seekers in the past) tried to get in there, but to no prevail. So the funpark was left there, and decayed.
Discord just stood there, in front of the fence, as if waiting for something, his paw lying sofly on the wires. Applebloom, from behind a tree, watched him closely doing -
nothing.
As the sun sank, she got distracted by the light rushing over the trees of the orchard and the rusting roofs of the funpark, and watched the last sliver of light go down.
She looked back to Discord.
She blinked.
She ran over to the fence, and looked through.
Nothing.
Discord had vanished.
Maybe he teleported?
But if he did, why walk the whole way there and not simply teleport all the way?
Did he find a way into the park?
But then...
What does he do in there?
Does he have some sinister plot?
Maybe he tries to rise the souls of lost fillies in there, so he could bring about eternal chaos - again?
Or maybe he tortures the ghosts in there, for fun?
Or does he eat all the rust and the grime in there?
Or maybe...
She shuddered. Better not to think about it. Also, she wouldn´t be able to find out anything more this evening. So she made her way back to where she left the sack of apples, and brought it to the barn where she put it to the others she had brought there over the day, and walked home, where she ate something and then asked Granny Smith for a story about that old funpark as went to bed.
Tomorrow, she would get Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to help solve this mystery.