A Beautiful Swallow

by Skijarama

The Spirit Of Chaos

When I woke up that morning, I felt very sick to my stomach. Nothing new, as I’d been sick for about five days now. Damn cupcakes. With a tired groan, I went to roll out of bed. My stomach suddenly churned as gravity inverted and I fell to the floor above me. Groaning again, I slowly stood and glanced out the window. Wait… It was morning a second ago. What the heck? It was night now. I slowly walked toward the window and looked outside. This was the antithesis of normal.

The hills were multi-colored checkerboards, houses were upside down, others were now flat cardboard cutouts and other things too unimaginable to properly comprehend were scattered all over the place. With a sharp intake of breath, I darted downstairs.

“Mom, dad!” I called desperately. When I came into the living room, I stopped dead in my tracks. Mom was walking on the ceiling and seemed to have chicken legs. Dad was stumbling about with a fishbowl on his head and Noctis was nowhere to be seen. My jaw fell open at the odd sight.

Without thinking, I ran up to dad and ripped the fishbowl off of his head. Water fell everywhere, splashing on the floor and drowning out the surprised yelp I made. “What?!” I half-screamed as my dad’s head went with the fishbowl, his body continuing to stumble around. I stood, frozen.

“Hi, son! Does it seem kind of moist to you today?” Dad’s disembodied head suddenly asked from the fishbowl, causing me to drop it and leap back.

“Okay, What the actual BUCK!?” I demanded, looking at my dads head as a goldfish suddenly swam into his left ear and out his right.

“Nettle! Language!” He said sternly as his shambling body came back, scooped up his head and put it back onto his shoulders.

“Yeah, no! Sorry, but I think that I have the right to curse up a storm with what’s going on here. By the way, What the hell is going on here?!” I yelled out, looking around the room as a couple of books on the coffee table suddenly sprouted legs and began to run around.

A voice suddenly spoke in my mind, driving a sharp spike of fear into me.

Oh, just a fun little touch of chaos.

“Show yourself!” I demanded, spinning around and glaring at the air. After a moment, there was a bright flash of light. I stumbled back and rubbed the sparks from my eyes before looking at the figure in front of me. My eyes widened considerably as he leaned down, red pupils surrounded by yellow corneas staring me, almost literally, in the soul.

“Hello, there.” He said with a jovial amusement that seemed harmless, yet had an underlying sinisterness to it that made me start to shake.

“Who are you?!” I asked, voice shaking.

The strange serpent took an exaggerated bow, swooping a hat off of his head. Where did he get that? He looked up at me, an oh-so twisted and happy grin on his face. “Spirit of chaos and disharmony, as well as the new ruler of Equestria, Discord, at your service. How about a cup of chocolate milk?”

I looked at this ‘Discord’ with confusion as he summoned up a small glass of chocolate milk in his hand. My headache amplified about twenty times. “How ‘bout no?” I deadpanned, taking another step back.

“Oh, suit yourself.” Discord pouted before swigging the cup. My eye twitched when he drank the glass instead. All that remained was a chunk of chocolate milk. Discord looked it over for a moment before it poofed out of existence.

“What is going on?” I asked, looking out the window nearby at the mind boggling landscape.

“One simple word, my boy. Chaos.” Discord replied before he vanished in a flash of light. Dad walked up next to me.

“I like his moustache.” He said.

<^><^><^><^>

“Noctis?! Where are you?!” I called as I ran through the streets, if one could call them that. Pink and blue checkerboarded ground now comprised of some unknown material was making it very hard to decide, but I was ultimately not paying that a lot of attention. I was trying to find my brother in the hopes that I’d find somepony sane to ask about this situation.

“Oh, my! You really had some fun that night, didn’t you?” Discord suddenly asked from right over my head. I skidded to a halt.

“What are you-” I started to ask before my words caught in my throat. Discord was holding Swallows letters up to his face, reading them. My eyes narrowed. “Put those back.”

“Come now, be neighborly!” Discord said, bending back and peering over the letters at me.

“I’m not your neighbor. Also, I’m pretty sure I hate you.” I snarled out, stomping a hoof for emphasis.

“Oh, on the contrary.” Discord shot back with a smirk. Snapping his fingers, I was suddenly engulfed in yet another flash of light. When I opened my eyes after the light faded, I gasped. I wasn’t in ponyville anymore. We were standing in a large garden, which had received some pretty big changes itself. My house suddenly appeared and plopped down next to an empty statue plaque. Discord appeared in front of it all. “We are, Neighbors! Well, we are now, at any rate.”

“Where are we?” I demanded, looking around. As I did, I realized where we were before he opened his mouth. Of course, I didn’t really get much of a chance to process that entirely, as there was another bright flash of light and I found myself deposited back in Ponyville.

“We were in Canterlot.” Discord said from behind me. I whipped around to glare at him, but he was gone. “I have some business to take care of. I’ll be seeing you later, little love-bird!” Discord cheered into my mind before fading away. I stood dumbfounded for several moments. That was Canterlot we were just in. Swallow lived in Canterlot.

My lips peeled back to show my teeth, clenched tightly together in a snarl. “What did you do to Swallow?!” I screamed out, hoping he would answer me. No answer came, though. “Do you hear me, you lunatic?!”

“Yes, yes, I hear you. Didn’t I just say I’m busy?” Discord's voice echoed around me.

“Do I need to repeat myself?! What did you do to Swallow?!”

“I haven’t done anything to her.” Discord said before a mirror poofed into existence in front of me. I tilted my head and stepped forwards. The mirror, interestingly enough, didn’t show my reflection. It showed Swallow, walking through the Canterlot streets. There was another pony, a colt around my age, next to her that I didn’t recognize. They were talking back and forth, though I had no idea what they were saying. The mirror showed only the image.

Swallow suddenly burst out laughing, the colt smiling softly at her as they came to a stop. After a few moments, Swallow stopped laughing and looked up at him. The two stared at each other for a few moments before Swallow suddenly leaned forwards and kissed the colt on the lips. My mind blanked. He didn’t seem at all surprised and wrapped a foreleg around her in an embrace. I took a step back. I wanted to say something, but no words came.

“Is this… real?” I finally managed to ask, trying hard to keep the tremble out of my tone. Discord made no reply. He must have gone off to do whatever he was doing. In the mirror, Swallow and the other pony separated, smiled, and walked out of my viewport. The mirror slowly rippled out of existence after that, leaving me all alone in the warped streets of Ponyville. I looked down. That couldn’t have been real, could it?

Real or not, it cemented one thing ever more firmly into my head. Swallow didn’t love me. If the image was real, she’d already found somepony else. If the image wasn’t real, she would find somepony else eventually. A chill ran down my spine. I turned around and walked away from the scene with no clear destination.

<^><^><^><^>

A house floating upside down. A bunch of buffalo river-dancing. Some weird black box with a moving picture in it. A pony with no wings… flying. All that and about a million other incomprehensible things were what surrounded me as I meandered aimlessly through the streets, just trying to stay in motion. Maybe I’d find somepony I knew who had not gone completely insane.

Of course, with my sanity starting to dwindle with every passing moment, that was starting to seem very unlikely. It was at some point while I was traveling down the light blue and off pink checkered road, trying to avoid the floating puddles of soapy water that made me slip onto my back. How does that even work? I mean I swear the next thing I was going to see is a pony swimming in a small flat puddle of… milk. My hoof connected firmly with my face as I just saw said thought float past me between houses that were changing colors like a disco dance floor.

Something was starting to get to me. I hadn’t noticed it until around about this point, but my stomach was starting to feel sick, my muscles sore and my head was starting to pound. I paused to try and relax, but the unpleasant sensations were only getting worse. On instinct, I reached a hoof up to clutch at my head as the pain got worse. When I saw my hoof, I grimaced. I was losing some of my color. Wonderful.

I tried to take a step forward, only to find my sense of balance was more or less non-existent now. I toppled over and fell flat onto my side, the wind being knocked straight out of my lungs upon impact. My eyes had slammed shut on reflex. When I opened them up again, the world around me was starting to warp, bend and distort as though a reflection in a pool of water that’s waves were getting harsher and harsher.

“Damn it…” I groaned, clutching at my barrel as my stomach began to twist and turn on itself. I coughed and some of my dinner from the previous day came shooting up and splattered on the ground in front of me. At this point, I was panicking, but had no strength left to do much other than lay there and groan out in slowly growing pain. What was wrong with me?!

I tried in vain to force myself to my hooves, but the effort was futile. I let my head rest for a minute, feeling my eyelids getting heavy. A nap suddenly sounded like an absolutely fantastic idea. As my eyes began to close of their own accord, I heard somepony calling out my name, though who it was, I could not tell.

<^><^><^><^>

To be blunt, I felt like shit. Excuse my french, but it’s true. I was in a lot of pain, felt more drowsy and groggy than I had ever felt before and my stomach was trying to eject food that simply wasn’t in there. When I opened my eyes, hard as it was, I was greeted to the sight of Noctis, eyes screwed shut and his horn aglow. My vision was tinted slightly with the color of his aura, indicating I was the target of his magic. I said nothing for a few moments, waiting for him to drop the spell.

He didn’t. It stayed up for a solid minute before I noticed the sweat matting down Noctis’ fur. He must have been channeling this for a while. “Noctis?” I asked carefully, my voice rough and hoarse.

He jumped slightly, then cracked one eye open slightly to look at me. “Finally awake, are we?” He asked with some effort.

“What happened?” I asked, glancing around to find that we were in a regular Ponyville shop. Looked like quills and sofas.

“I found you passed out on the street with fresh vomit and a watered down color palette. You tell me.” Noctis said, wincing as his magic wavered slightly. I was in a barrier. Small enough to contain me, and rather thin by the looks of it. Probably the only thing it could keep out was air.

“I don’t know. I just got really sick really fast and then you found me, I guess.” I muttered, shaking my head to get some of the grogginess out. It didn’t really work.

“Must be all of this… Chaos. I felt kinda sick there for a bit myself. This magic... I don’t imagine this much of it is very healthy for regular ponies.” Noctis theorized, taking a deep breath after and squeezing his eyes shut again.

“What are you doing?” I asked, finally. Noctis looked up at me and put on a forced smile.

“Keeping you safe from it. Duh.” He said, only slightly deadpan.

“Are you sure you can handle it?” I asked carefully, looking at the now flickering barrier.

“Nope.” And with that, the barrier dropped, Noctis falling to the ground and taking deep breaths. I stood slowly, making sure I had my balance before walking up to him and settling down.

“Thanks…” I said, patting him on the back. He coughed a couple of times before smiling over at me.

“No prob.”

We sat there for a long while, just waiting. I could feel my sickness slowly starting to creep back into my system. I sent a mental wish to anything that could hear it that this would all be over when… if I woke up. As I did so, I set my head down and let myself get pulled back into that oh-so uncomfortable sleep.

<^><^><^><^>

When I came to, it was to Noctis shaking me awake. “Nettle! Nettle! Wake up!”

“Ugh… what?” I groaned, realising shortly after that, while still a little queasy, I actually only felt the sort of grogginess that comes with a really good sleep.

“I think it’s over.” Noctis said gently, helping me to my hooves. I slowly stood and stumbled my way after him as he made his way out the door of the store. The grass and streets were back to normal. I could see a large crowd of Ponies starting to assemble, the vast majority of them starting to cheer.

When I made it outside and saw what they were all looking it, I was stunned into silence. A pleased smirk spread across my face. I saw Discord, frozen in stone, panic and fear on his face. Twilight Sparkle and her friends were standing in front of the statue, smiling back on the crowd. Well, Discord was taken care of.

I let a sigh of relief exit my system. I turned to face Noctis, who was now making his way back towards the house. Hoping it was still there, I turned and followed after him.

<^><^><^><^>

Swallow,

Had you not experienced a similar time, I would say you would not believe what I have been through in the last forty eight hours. Obviously you know about Discord. I hope you’re doing alright. I myself am fine, if a little shaken up by this mess. To think, it all started at about a time when I would have been in Canterlot had I not been super sick.

Well, at least it’s over. I won’t be able to attend the Ceremony in Canterlot next week, either. Mom, dad, Noctis and I are going on a trip out of town to visit my grandparents, who live in the countryside. I’ll send a letter your way when I get back from that particular trip.

I gotta get going now, so, see you later, I guess.

~Stinging Nettle.

I sighed as I finished writing up the letter before stuffing it into an envelope and making my way downstairs so I could send it. Things were plenty noisy downstairs as I walked into the living room, with mom coordinating packing and dad double checking to make sure we had enough in the way of bits to pay for transportation to and from our destination.

I was already packed and ready to go, just as soon as I sent the letter. Once it was safely nestled in the Mailbox, the rest of my family came out. “Ready Nettle?” Mom asked, passing my suitcase up to me. It would be a short walk to the carriage station, and then an almost twenty-four hour ride to reach our destination.

“Yeah, pretty much. Let’s go.” I replied, taking my suitcase and following the rest of my family as we locked up the house and made our way for the station. I had a funny feeling as we left Ponyville that day. I glanced up at Canterlot with concern. Swallow was the one pony I had yet to hear from since Discord showed up.

That fact alone was enough to fill me with worry. Still, I’d find out when we got back how everything went. It was only ten days out on the countryside, than back home, with my parchment and my letters on my desk, waiting for me.

Comments

[casey33]

Dude...you need to put a warning on this, you just triggered my depression >.<. Ugghh such a great story so far but dude this story is gonna mess me up for days now. I know i shouldnt but ill be reading any new chapters you release so i can get some closure on the story.

[Skijarama]

6233424
Thanks. It's been kind of a chore to write at times, but oh well. It's a story I have a deep emotional investment in, so I will keep writing, even if I take prolonged breaks.

6228930
Believe me, I know the feeling. Truth be told, this story was started from my own depression.

[casey33]

6233668

Its been a day so far and every time i think about your story it messes me up... im trying not to think about it but its so hard... great story but in the other aspect i hate it since it triggers my depression, those feels man

[Skijarama]

6234459

I find it hard to figure out how to take that. On the one hand, I aimed to make a sad story. On the other hand, I don't wanna mess anyone up. What about it specifically messes you up?

[casey33]

6234466 Because i can relate to it so well, with my clinical depression and such i can understand a lot of his actions

[Skijarama]

6235294

That does make sense. I have depression too, which, as I'm sure I've mentioned, is kinda why I began to write this story.

[casey33]

6235306 Keep up the good work man tho

[Skijarama]

6235310

I intend to. I have too much invested into this story to back down.