He held me in his eagle arm for a few seconds. I became uncomfortable and squirmed my way out.
“Look, it’s great to meet you, Discord, but I just want to get back to that convention.” I told him, racking my brain for what may have caused this apparition in front of me. Did someone drug me when I was preoccupied? Or maybe I fell down and hit my head. It might have been that weird vendor, he didn’t exactly look trustworthy.
“What convention?” Asked Discord with one eyebrow raised. “I summoned a great hero that would be able to help me in a righteous task!” His paw was thrust into the air, making an epic pose.
“Well, I think you used the wrong summons, I’m no hero.” I dismissively told him.
“Oh, but you are! I summoned a bipedal creature with lenses and a long coat!” He yelled as he pointed out the coat still folded over my arm and the goggles on my head. “And you even have the vest and shirt that the picture depicted! Look at you, you’re definitely the Lord of Time!” He gestured towards all of me with a disbelieving look on his face.
“I’m no Time Lord. I can’t regenerate, I’m not a thousand years old, and I don’t have a TARDIS.” The tone my voice took on was more sarcastic than anything, but I think I still put him off a little bit.
“That’s not what I summoned at all! I attempted to bring forth a being that can control the flow of time, and you have that power.” He explained to me.
“What? How can I control time?” I asked incredulously.
“With your watch.” His paw pointed to the chain leading to my pocket.
“This thing can’t control time!” I pulled the timepiece out of the aforementioned pocket as I laughed. “It can’t even tell time reliably!” When I looked at the watch it said that it was two fifteen in the morning when, according to the sun, it’s closer to noon
“But it can manipulate time.” he pointed out like it was a well-known fact.
“How?!” I was just about done with this… thing talking to me. The fact that I was taking it seriously was only proving my lack of sanity.
“Like this.” He snatched the watch from me and pressed down on the crown. The reaction was surprising, to say the least.
The first thing I noticed was the cold. As soon as he pushed the crown down the temperature dropped to, in contrast to the sweltering heat only moments before, below zero! I rushed to put my coat back on and fold my arms to try and maintain what little heat I had left.
Then I looked around.
The grass, which was a writhing mass of green, flowing like the ocean, is now only a picture taken from an instant in time. Not even the sound of movement reached my ears, I no longer smelled the springtime air, and I felt no breeze on my skin. Everything was frozen.
When I looked back at Discord even he wasn't moving, the watch still in his paw. I went over to him, walking right up to his face. I looked right into his eyes, which were still focused on where I was before.
‘I wonder’ I thought as I looked into his unresponsive eyes.
I pried the watch from him rather easily and pressed the crown again, my face still inches from his.
Everything came rushing back, the sounds, the feels, and the sights. What had been a little over a minute for me was literally no time at all for him, which is probably why he jumped a good ten feet backward in surprise.
“I-I-I see you’ve gotten the hang of it.” there was a moment of silence and a “hick!” came from his mouth.
I promptly laughed my ass off.
“It’s not funny!” He yelled with a “hick!” to punctuate his statement.
I wiped a tear from my eye as I attempted to stop the chuckling still in my system. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting such a reaction from you.” I took a deep breath and looked at him, a ghost of a smile still present on my lips. “So I can do that, now.” I mumbled more to myself, but he seemed to hear it nonetheless.
“Yes, you can also speed time up, but I’ll get to that later. For now I’ll tell you why I’ve summoned you to my world.” He hiccupped again, but snapped his fingers and gave a swift nod before looking at me for a response.
“That would be good to know. What’s so bad that you need a ‘Lord of Time’ to help you fix it?” I asked, adopting the title he’d given me mere minutes ago.
“Firstly, I don’t think we’ve had proper introductions. I am the humble ruler of this land, King Discord.” He stated with a simple nod of the head, eyes closed.
This was the first time I realized I was in the presence of royalty. I racked my brain, the second time today, for the proper etiquette for meeting royalty before I realized it was a simple kneel and a “your majesty”, which is exactly what I did.
“Stand up; I’m not that kind of king.” As I slowly stood, he reconsidered his statement. “Well, I am that kind of king, but I don’t like the formalities very much. When we’re alone, please just call me Discord.”
“As you wish, King Discord.” I said, still not wanting to offend him, but not sure how friendly he wants me to get.
He deadpanned at me for a second, shook his head and said “that’ll just have to do for now.” Suddenly, his face became a visage of dead seriousness. “Back to the matter at hand: I am the king of these lands, at the moment, but there are two beings that wish to over throw me. They came to me earlier today, asking me to leave, but as you can probably guess, this isn’t exactly what I want to do, seeing as it would cause tyranny and militaristic regimentation. This is not desirable for anyone, other than the tyrant, so I gave them a proposal… a challenge, if you will. I told them to find a champion, someone that would fight for them. And I would find myself a champion. We would pit these fighters against each other and whoever’s champion is victorious would keep the kingdom.” He paused for a minute, thinking over his words carefully. “This is why I’ve summoned you.”
He kneeled in front of me, putting his arm across his chest, the other a fist in to the ground, and his head bowed. “Would you be my champion, oh mighty Lord of Time?”
I like this more then the one you recommended to me.
Even while trying to sucker someone into being his champion, would Discord actually say that the alternative is disarray and anarchy like those are bad things?
I'd think Discord would claim he wants to hold to his power to protect the ponies from tyranny and militaristic regimentation, or something. Even while trying to lie to someone to get them to help him, I doubt Discord would tell a lie that makes chaos sound bad. He'd look for a way to express the same idea -- overthrowing me is bad -- by referencing extremes of order, not chaos.
YOU DIRTY LITTLE LIAR!!!
4529957
all i'm going to say is thank you, because if i say anything else then i might end up dissing the other story on accident.
4529958
what i believe Discord is doing is acting like a normal ruler would, if they were under threat. he's being chaotic by doing the thing that the princesses will expect least, so when Michael does eventually meet them it fits Discords story perfectly.
if you think that the militarism thing would be more his style i could probably change it without anybody noticing.
4529969
4.bp.blogspot.com/-M0j4gUaZK8s/UEkwQuxctbI/AAAAAAAAI7A/QUmyoY5e3PQ/s400/mlfw2379-99229_-_animated_applejack_Applelie_liarjack_what_.gif
4529999
Careful now, I'd hate to have to send Screwball and Punchline after you (yay for Discord's children/scions of chaos)
fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/324/b/6/request__punchline_and_screwball_by_applestems-d4gtpiu.png
4529999
Also, SCREWBALL BEIN' ADORABLE!!!
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fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/117/0/d/adora_box_by_blockeraser-d4xt2sd.jpg
4530025
they're good friends of mine, if you sent them over, i'd send them right back with a loaded pie Bazooka!!
4530046
... i get a 404 not found. i think that links a bit out of date.
4530046
wait! just figured it out! ok, got it.
yes, that is cute.
4529991
Yeah, Discord's probably going to prefer to present it as a choice between freedom and tyranny than a choice between law and anarchy, because he prefers to think of himself as the guy who ensures that ponies have freedom (from pesky things like schedules, and consistent laws of physics, and the need to grow food considering that it rains food all the time :-)). And since your guy is a modern Westerner, he'll probably respond to that pretty well.
It's ironic that there's so much fiction out there presenting Chaos as evil, when in the twentieth century the major political threat was totalitarianism and dictatorship -- Order expressed in an evil way. Americans in particular are more likely to respond positively to the notion that they're protecting freedom than that they're protecting law and order, unless they are actually policemen.
4530064
LOL, once the alerts calm down i'll get to fixing that right away.
also, is that really true? that people will protect chaos over order? that's weird.
4529972 ok if you say so?
4530078
Because the century that humanity just lived through is one where Order was the enemy. Throughout most of human history prior to that the enemy was Chaos, but totalitarianism -- the form of dictatorship that both the Nazis and the Communists practiced -- was hyper-control, Order to the point of trying to control what people think. Against that backdrop, anarchy actually began to sound like a good idea (though ironically it was the anarchists fighting against oppressive monarchies and oligarchies that opened the door for the totalitarians to take over, in many cases.)
The pendulum is swinging again, with the threat in the world being things like terrorism and cyber attacks, although the fear of Big Brother and a police state are also alive and well. Honestly right now on Earth both Order and Chaos suck. We could use some Harmony. :-)
4530102
and i do.
4530050
Oh so we're doing food jokes now? Well, I good sir find that rather discrusting and distasteful, not to mention cheesy and overripe. I think it's pie time someone gave you a piece of their mind, because I'd be limeing if I said I didn't find that a bit corny.
So, you think you got what it take to have a barrel o' fun with a barrel o' puns?
4530110
lol, so true.
PONIES FOR ALL!!!!
freakinawesomenetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Posterupdate.png
4530122
all i got to say to that:
static.tumblr.com/536a2413ad102dce20068dbc4a65bff4/43i4eqp/0RXmufayc/tumblr_static_carl-azuz1.jpg
don't be carl.
4530137
Who?
4530218
he's a guy that works for CNN that always makes a bunch of bad puns like that at the end of the show. it always makes me laugh, but it's like a "aw, that was terrible" laugh. so i'll say it again:
don't be carl.
4530222
Hey what can I say; I'm one of the punniest dudes you'll ever meet. What's worse is that I don't even have to try; I blame the Discord Whooves "Punverse" tumblr blogs, and watching too many Misadventures of Flapjack.
4530263
well, i love puns, so keep 'em comin'!!
4530266
Sorry, too tired. It 2 in the morning where I am, so I'm callin' it a night. Peace.
4530380
same here, and i really should get to bed, but screw it!
G'night!
Well this is definitely beginning to garner my attention.
4530398
how so? (because i'm a curious person)
4530400 One: Jeez, I look away for what, fifteen seconds and I get a reply? Dang! The Answer to your question, well I'm not really sure why, but I've always been interested in stories where the evil character bends someone who really wants no part in this, or just to help, to their will. Also, Time Lords, what isn't interesting about that?
4530413
i can see your interest, and there will me much manipulation to come!!
and yes, timelords are just about as confusing as creatures get.
Well, while an overused concept, you've definitely differentiated yourself from most of these out there. Thank you for having a character who does not sit there bemoaning his own imprisonment or think with a rock instead of his brain at the beginning of his arrival. Thanks for writing, and curious to see where this goes.
4530532
thanks, good to hear you like it.
I really didn't like how he reacted when he found out he was in the presence of 'royalty', bowing? really? After how informal Discord was and the fact that he's a bloody draconequus, i would have thought he would have been overloaded with so much 'wut' that formalities would be something very very low on his list of priorities. Minor gripe seeing as i'm just nitpicking for things (which is something surprising hard too do so far). I really like how you have managed to create something completely fresh from something so overused it hurts too think about, i look forward too seeing more in the (hopefully) near future.
4530584
at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. he heard the word king and thought "dungeon", which is where he thought he'd end up if he didn't at least show his respects. and what's the harm, really? he just saw it as there was a king in front of him.
looking back i may take that out, now that you point out how weird his reaction was. thanks for telling me about this, and i hope i keep it hard to nitpick!
4530694 fair enough. Like i said, i'm just nitpicking, most of the times nitpicking is opinionated anyway. Just that if i randomly saw discord after being told i'm a lord of time (while knowing nothing about mlp) my thought processes wouldn't be anywhere near dungeon more along the lines of ******* run! This **** is so ****** up there's a ******* mixed up animal thingy floating right before me. I usually swear quite a bit but seeing as this this story has no... colorful language so far i thought i'd be a little respectful, only because you've been really good at responding and looking for advice/critique (also i see a lot of potential for this story).
4.bp.blogspot.com/-61YJZlgFx8M/UTT62XpkELI/AAAAAAAAAC4/bjne7nhaIVQ/s1600/Wibbly-Wobbly.jpg
4530112 so you don't like my comment's?
4530708
wait... there's no colorful language?
...
well, time to fix that!!
also, while i feel that you are correct in saying that your first thought would be "run", Michael thinks that he's tripping balls, so he's just going with the ride, seeing as he can't do anything about it.
4531224
while this is true, sadly, Michael can only follow the string into they ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, he can not jump from yarn string to yarn string, essentially time travel, like the Doctor can. he can only control how fast he follows said string. it sucks when you're stuck with a linear mind, isn't it?
4531419
good! you do that while i write more of it so you can read it!
it's mutually beneficial.
4531424
when did i say that? i love everyone's comments! especially yours because you commented more than once!!!
sorry if i said something before to make you think that. i promise i didn't mean it!
4531600
who's blackwing? and yes i did ask for it.
this was actually a reference to another story i read a while back The Tales of Prince Onyx. it's a pretty good read, i'd recomend it to any HiE lovers.
This is exactly the kind story I've been searching for lately.
4531994
good!
4531801 ok but what where you tolking about when you said "especially yours because you commented more than once" do most of your commenters just comment once? also I think I already gave you a hug but I fell like a hug right know so do you wont a second hug?
4532207
I will take as many hugs as you're willing to give! And none of my commenters comment as much as you. Some do more than others, but you're definitely the most!
I don't like it.
I LOVE IT. Moustaches for you.
But can you write longer chapters?
4532536
well, sorry there's too much detail, but most people like it that way. thanks, though.
4532611
i'd write longer chapters, but they kind of stop when they want to. it's not something i really control.
4532346 hahaha, have a look at this story the sister revolution read the comments.
... MORE soon please