Any Old Iron
Private Pansy had just unbuckled her barding and waded into the river up to her withers, a scrubbing brush in her mouth and Smart Cookie’s own hoofmade snowdrop soap balanced on her outspread wing, when she heard the far-off gurgling.
Off-duty though she was, warflock training kicked in. She paused and glanced this way and that, trying to peg the source. Past the thrum and murmur of the forest on all sides, the river itself roiled cheerily and noisily, swollen with meltwater. Pansy strained her ears, and caught a reprise of the strange, thick gurgle. It somehow sounded doleful, as if a jar of treacle was being upended against its will. She kept listening and on its heels, she heard an unfamiliar voice.
And what that voice said was, “Would a badger help? Here, have a badger.”
The warflock training was a bit lost on that one, and so was Pansy.
There was a distant schlft sound, as might be made by something warping out of thin air, and a querulous snort, as might be made by a mustelid coming to terms with unexpected genesis. The same sad gurgle came as if in answer, and the stranger’s voice took on a plaintive edge. “Come on. Yummy badger.”
Pansy had questions. And she was forced to conclude that they wouldn’t be answered if she stayed where she was.
She was a soldier of the warflock. Her long-hoped-for peaceful bath could wait. The warflock needed her to investigate. No, ponykind needed her to investigate.
Pansy edged back towards the riverbank, clambered up and out of the water, spat out the brush and flapped away the soap, and made for her barding. With some desperation, she tried to wriggle into it quickly and noiselessly and efficiently, and achieved none out of three. Flushing with embarrassment, being the sort of pony who could do that even when completely by herself in a secluded river-clearing, she scooped up and shoved her heavy iron helmet on atop her dripping mane.
Last, her crossbow. She fumbled it up into the crook of one foreleg, and reached for the quiver strapped against her barding’s flank. Iron-headed and unicorn-made alarm-bolts jostled for space inside it. Pansy hesitated for a moment, her hoof hovering over one then the other, and eventually picked up one of the alarm-bolts.
No matter how often she’d forced herself onto a practise range and how often the drill serjants had patiently tried to bellow aptitude into her, the iron-heads made the hide on her back itch, and loosing one of them from the crossbow made her reflexively squint her eyes shut every time. With any luck, she wouldn’t need one. Maybe she wouldn’t even need to warn ponies about whatever this was.
Maybe.
Pansy yanked back the bowstring, slipped the alarm-bolt into the bow’s groove, and flapped up off the ground and into the woods in the direction of the voice. She wove through the wide spaces between the trees, keenly aware of her own throbbing heart rate, of the way the forest whispered around her, of the excruciatingly loud way water kept dripping from her heavy barding and pattering on the leaves. The voice rang out again, becoming clearer as she drew near.
“How about something from the desert? You liked it there. Lots of fun shouty beings who yelled the most colourful names at me and whose pitchforks you ate.” There came a sudden thunderous crash and the sharp retort of splitting stone, making Pansy all but jump out of her hide and causing her to swerve directly into a tree. As she fell to the ground, clutched at her snout with her free hoof, and swore plaintively to herself, the unseen stranger spoke again, distinctly worried. “That was meant to be a morale-lifter. Why’s your morale not lifting?”
His conversational partner emitted the same sad, low gurgle as before.
Pansy, blinking away the ache of her snout, her crossbow wobbling in her grasp, shuffled forwards and craned her head round the tree trunk, angling for any sign of the speakers. Past the trunk and a few scrappy saplings, a forest clearing spread open under the sunlight.
Pansy beheld the speakers. And many other things. Her eyes slid slowly from side to side, taking it all in, and her mouth dropped open. Over the grass of the clearing, there lay knick-knacks and baubles, finery and trash, things which beggared description, and things which didn’t so much beggar description as kick description repeatedly in the head and make off with its money-pouch and the clothes on its back.
A haystack lay against a pile of multicoloured tomes, themselves resting at the base of a marble statue of a particularly dour-looking goat imperator. Here, a set of game boards and playing pieces, none of which matched; there, a set of fine dining furniture, atop which rested a termite mound with a ribbon wrapped around it. A great stone sarcophagus covered in strange hieroglyphs lay split open, and a mummified zebra had flopped out to regard the world with a partially-revealed and somewhat world-weary expression. A patch of the colour blue shimmered in mid-air, and flitted around to investigate things. Closer to earth, a badger snuffled at the mummy’s hooves and nibbled dubiously at one. All these and yet more, like the treasure hoard of the world’s maddest dragon.
And amidst the whole kerfuffle, two figures. One of them, a pale-green gelatinous blob with a downcast mouth, came up to about twice the height of a pony at the withers. It gurgled lowly and unhappily, and didn’t seem to notice Pansy as she edged her head around the tree.
The other had their back turned to Pansy, and towered above the blob. Mismatched horns jagged up from a long, goatish head, crowning a long, serpentine form. His mismatched arms folded sternly before him as he loomed over the blob, equally mismatched legs propped him up, and as Pansy boggled at him, he spoke with the voice she’d heard earlier. “Work with me here. What do I have to work chaos at to get you back in fine fettle? I’m not used to solving a problem rather than making one. At least give me a hint!”
The blob, whose shade of green looked distinctly sickly, wheezed unhappily.
“Swearing isn’t a hint!”
Pansy backed away slowly. It seemed only sensible. She’d make a quiet exit. She’d tell the Commander. She’d probably get told to lie down in the shade somewhere until her brain uncooked. It’d all be …
Her hoof came down on a treacherously rustly patch of leaves.
The monster stopped talking. His left ear twitched.
Pansy held her breath for a moment, hardly daring to so much as twitch a muscle. But the monster didn’t move, and after a brief eternity, she dared breathe out.
She took another step back.
“Ah, excellent!” the monster boomed, as his full length suddenly swept out from a flower on the ground by Pansy and loomed up before her, gazing down with bright yellow-red eyes, over a manic, snaggle-toothed, and sharp grin. Dark brows crawled atop his eyes, and a jet-black tuft of beard jutted from his chin. “You can help me fix the Smooze, whatever you are!”
Pansy screamed and, without any conscious effort, brandished her crossbow at him. Her other hoof hammered up against the trigger and the alarm-bolt shot forth, flying right past the monster’s ear. He blinked and turned to look at it as it whirred up into the sky over the clearing.
The bolt erupted, casting a great corona of green-and-purple light through the sky, sparkling as if it held a whole night sky. It was bright, it was visible for miles, it would be visible from Canter Vale and the new cloud-fort, it would surely be noticed and bring her help, Pansy prayed, oh please, oh please, let the Commander come …
The corona spread, and the monster eyed it. He extended an arm, held up a thumb and forefinger and angled them to encompass the whole flare in the curve of his paw. Then he flicked his wrist and brought his cupped paw down. And in it, there glittered the corona of the flare.
Pansy boggled at it, as small in his paw as it had been far away in the sky. She looked from it to the monster, who was frowning quizzically at it in his paw, and to where it had erupted in the now-empty sky, and back to the flare. “That, tha, I, how, that’s,” she stammered. “Y-you can’t, that’s not, that, how, you-you can’t, that’s —”
The monster tossed the glittering flare over to the blob, which wearily opened its mouth to catch it and gulped it down. It sat there for a moment, looking as confused as a blob with no features save a mouth could. Then it wheezed and seemed to deflate, looking even paler.
“Hmm,” said the creature, turning back on Pansy. “Got something else?”
Pansy stared up at the monster, up at that snaggle-toothed mouth that was more toothy than any mouth had any right to be, at that black goatee, at those terrible red-yellow eyes, at everything which didn’t match with anything around it, and finally at the clearing full of miscellany. Finally, she forced out something like coherent words in the highest pitch she’d ever yet reached. “What … what are you?”
“What an excellent question! Do you know, I’m not altogether sure? There’s so many answers.” The monster absently drummed his claw against the tree trunk, which evaporated wherever his talons touched it. “At least, there’s so many things I’ve been called. Every creature Smoozey and I have run into over the years came up with something different! Pejoratives, mainly. Let’s go for my favourite. Call me Discord.”
Pansy absorbed this in stock-silence. The shimmering patch of blue fluttered up to her face and flashed an affectionate shade of turquoise. “D-Discord?” she finally managed. If only the name had been the oddest thing.
“Think you slipped in a extra D there, but close enough. Oh yes, I’m Discord, or a Discord, or however this whole name thing works exactly.” The monster — Discord — sprouted a thumb from his tail and waggled it at the green blob. “And that’s Smooze over there, or a Smooze, or … look, you know how this goes. Help me fix him.”
“I ...” Private Pansy swallowed. She was a private of the warflock, protector of all pegasi and now all ponykind. The oaths she’d taken rose in her memory, and the thought of Hurricane’s low, coaxing voice helped her steady her heart. “I am Private Pansy. A-and in the name of the warflock and the united tribes of Equestria, I demand that you submit and explain your—”
“Speaking of tangents,” the creature said idly, “what an odd turn of phrase. In the name. How are any of you limited types meant to get in a name in the first place? I can, of course, though even I have to make an effort. Look.” He snapped a claw.
“Wha—” started Private PanDiscordsy, before she stopped, scrunched her snout, and sneezed. Private Pansy winced as the blurry instant passed, and tried to shake away the sensation of a full-body hiccup.
Cold dread seeped into the storm of fear and confusion roiling through her mind. Invoking the name of the warflock at this creature wouldn’t help her. It wasn’t clear what would.
“See?” Discord said. He frowned suddenly, shook his head, and gestured at the blob. “This is a tangent. I like those normally, but Smoozey is the focus right now. Didn’t I tell you to fix him?”
“Fix … what? How?” Pansy turned her gaze towards the pale blob. Against every instinct in her body and the advice of whatever sane parts of her mind still felt up for commenting on events, she took a step towards the clearing.
The Smooze didn’t look in the finest of fettles, inasmuch as Pansy could judge. The green wobbliness of its frame slumped, and seemed to be especially oozy around the edges. Its colour was pale, its mouth turned down at the corners. As she watched, it leaned down as stiffly as a jelly could and tried to lick the passing badger.
“What’s wrong with him?” Pansy hesitantly ventured.
“If I knew,” growled Discord, a nervous and testy timbre leaking into his garrulous tone, his gaze fixed on the Smooze, “I wouldn’t be asking. I’d just be fixing him and sauntering off merrily into the sunset. Setting the sun ahead of schedule, if need be. Making a bespoke horizon for the purpose. But I don’t fix. Mostly anything but.”
“And you think I’ll know what to do?” replied Pansy, trying and failing to not mewl the words.
“You’re a ...” Discord waggled his paw irritably. “You’re one of these little entities that has to obey cause-and-effect and suchlike, aren’t you? Your sort always has to try to account for it and learn about it, correct? Well, figure out what’s causing his current effect. You do it all the time. Do it here. Do it now.”
Pansy looked round at the Smooze. It hiccuped forlornly.
She remained acutely aware of the looming form of Discord to her side, all the mixed bits of him radiating testy worry with no useful outlet. She remained excruciatingly aware of what he could apparently do. And she couldn’t so much as guess what else he might be able to do.
The picture of the delicate new settlements in Canter Vale, full of unsuspecting pegasi and earth ponies and unicorns alike, rose to the forefront of her mind. And when she mixed the picture with an angry, fearful Discord…
It should have been a braver pony who went for her bath in the river earlier. A braver pony should have investigated the noise. A braver pony would be able to handle this.
But here she was.
Pansy breathed in, breathed out, and swallowed. “I’ll try to help him,” she declared. She looked up to Discord’s face for any sign of a smile, and could have fainted with relief when one indeed appeared. “I’ll help him. And you’ll, ah, saunter off into the sunset? Once he’s well?”
She looked up at the toothy smile, waiting for an answer. The sun beat down, and all around was the murmuring hush of the clearing.
“Oh, maybe,” said Discord at last, shrugging.
“...Maybe?” Pansy replied.
He ushered her towards the Smooze. “Go fix.”
Pansy hesitantly ventured towards the Smooze, her gait wobbly as she picked her way over strewn miscellany. The patch of blue flitted in the air around her, and the badger shuffled out of her way. The mummified zebra continued to regard the world as if he had endured many things to grumble about in life and was enduring yet more in the hereafter.
The Smooze itself lifted its head at her approach, and Pansy had the impression it was trying to look at her, for want of any eyes to do it with. She stopped before it, and one corner of its mouth twitched upwards, feebly, briefly. It tried to lean towards her, a motion which turned into more of a slump, and crooned something indistinct.
Pansy knew where she sat in the warflock. The Commander’s aide and pet charity-case was its scorned and lonesome outsider. She couldn’t aim a crossbow to save her life, had been known to get herself tangled up in her own stormclouds, paled at the sight of spilled blood, and went all but transparent when confronted with any being trying to spill her blood.
But if there was one thing she thought she could do, it was help others.
Memories came back of a day during the long migration, where roars and screams and flames had suddenly erupted further ahead in the column, past the driving snow, and in the moments after, pegasi had come flying back bearing injured soldiers. Some desperate, starving dragon had attacked in the vain hope of finding gems and precious metal among them. One of the injured had been thrust at Pansy, crying and thrashing as dragonfire still crackled along his flank.
Memories and tricks from the time before she’d joined the warflock came back to her and filled her mind, showed her the way. And just like that, the whole world had crystallised for her, turned cold, turned simple. In a haze, as if some other pegasus had taken control over her motions, she’d whipped off her own cloak and smothered the flames, shouted at a passing serjant — her, Pansy, shouting — to be brought cool water, had lashed together a dressing from appropriated whisky and strips of her much-abused cloak, had worked like a demon.
And the day after, the burned pegasus had lived to see the dawn. Soldiers who’d hitherto pointedly ignored her nodded at Pansy as she flew by. A new patched cloak had appeared in her tent, as if by magic. In Hurricane’s tent that evening, the Commander had opened one of her last bottles and wordlessly poured her charity-case a cupful.
She could help creatures, sometimes. Equestria just needed her to help another creature again. That was all.
“I’ll, ah...” Pansy rested one forehoof against the Smooze’s head, and found it cool and gloopy underhoof. “I’ll need to ask some questions.”
“Ask away,” came Discord’s reply at her back.
Pansy detached her hoof from the Smooze with some difficulty and leaned her face closer towards it. “How long have you been sick?”
The Smooze burbled incoherently.
Pansy blinked, and then looked helplessly round at Discord.
“That was just an incoherent burble,” he said. “He’s not on his best form. But I can field that. Only this bad for a couple of days now. He was a bit groggy and out-of-sorts before, ever since we came over the sea and started traipsing through this land. I even nearly beat him in a game of cards, just about.”
“Alright.” Pansy gingerly circled round the Smooze, checking for any rents or wounds, for anything that was oozing that didn’t seem like it ought to be oozing. “Did he eat anything funny before then?”
“I once fed him a jester when we poked our heads into a gazelle king’s court. He wasn’t that funny a jester, though. Screamed a lot rather than dispense witticisms. Smoozey just ate his bells and let him run away. Do you think I should summon him here?”
“I, that … no. Don’t do that. I mean, has he eaten anything unusual? What he wouldn’t normally eat?”
“Did he? He’s Smoozey,” stated Discord, as if that explained everything. “He just eats. If there’s any fine details involved, I certainly don’t pay attention to them.”
Pansy breathed out. “Right. Has he been exposed to any foul miasmas? Has anything happened which could imbalance his humours?”
“Jesters who just wail all the time wouldn’t be great for my humour, I can tell you that.”
Pansy decided to haul off and approach the matter from another angle. Her hoof gently tapped the Smooze where she hoped its shoulder would be if it had had shoulders, and she pointedly opened her mouth wide. The Smooze seemed to understand, and mimed the motion with some effort, its own maw unsticking and drooling green tendrils as it opened up. Pansy peered inside in hopes of seeing anything resembling recognisable biology, any obvious obstruction, any hint.
She saw plenty of green, and little else.
“Where does he usually live? Where’s he from?” she ventured, turning back to Discord. Climate was important, shaped a creature, drove them onwards. Ponykind knew that well enough.
“No idea. Maybe from where I’m from?” Discord said. Out the corner of her eye, Pansy couldn’t but notice that he’d wandered up to another tree and was waggling his finger back and forth at it like a conductor. Each branch and leaf swayed along, none of their motions matching Discord’s. “I met him there, unless he went wandering hitherto. I rather doubt it. Smoozey’s the more … sensible of us, you know. Not a natural wild-oat-sower. Does his best to keep me grounded.”
“And where are you from?”
“Oh, elsewhere, hither and thither, by way of strife and darkness in the deep places of the abyssal sea-depths, that sort of thing,” Discord replied. His tone was vague and breezy.
Pansy wasn’t sure what to say to that, and in the thoughtful silence that followed, the tree’s branches and leaves all stiffened, straightened, and spread out like an array of fans. It was carried off by a passing breeze, and Discord watched it drift away. “That, um,” Pansy ventured. “That must have been exciting.”
“Do you know, it really wasn’t?” Discord turned on another tree, which he squinted at and absently turned inside-out with a hideous splintering noise. “First I started existing in darkness and quiet, and then there was a long interval of yet more darkness and quiet and doing nothing. Then a lot of interesting noises outside, and a lot of shrieking, and a lot of crashing and sloshing. I wonder what I was missing. Then more darkness and quiet.” He was silent for a moment. “Lots of darkness and quiet. Something of a motif back then.”
He continued as Pansy absorbed this. “Lots of time for poking at the home I was in, and wondering what I was meant to be doing, and why I was here, and all that ... when suddenly there was this squelch-squelch-munch-munch sort of noise, and who else but Smoozey should come eating his way through the cage! Seemed a bit surprised to find me, but he takes these things in his stride, or his slither, or his something. Turns out I’d been at the bottom of the sea in a cage the whole time, not that I knew what a sea was or anything like that just yet, but it all came rushing into the cage and I was able to wander out. And lo and behold, there’d been this lovely big world outside for me to explore and play with all along.”
Discord grinned toothily. “Left home, grabbed my new pal Smoozey, took off through the water, and started making up for lost time. Blundered around the sea, and learned some good curse-words from a pod of dolphins, and accidentally dropped Smoozey in a thermal vent, and picked him out with only a little wanton ocean-trench formation, and then bumped into land and found some creatures, and decided to make their lives a little more chaotic for novelty’s sake, and that was all just the first day. There’s so many exciting things! And I made them excitinger!”
“So you’ve been travelling the world with the Smooze, then?” queried Pansy. She eyed the Smooze hesitantly. “Maybe he’s ill because he’s meant to be living underwater? I, um, not to sound flippant, but if you take a fish out from where it’s meant to live in water, they’re not in great form for long either.”
“Not the sort of fish I take out. After I’ve improved it, at least,” replied Discord. His gaze sharpened, and he frowned. “But no. We’ve been wandering for a couple of centuries, mostly over land, or sometimes over jam, whenever I’ve turned the land into that. Poking our noses and/or squelchy green face-fronts into lots of inhabited parts elsewhere. He’s never minded before. Why would he get poorly now?”
“Where were you last?” Pansy persisted. There’d surely be a clue in their recent history.
“Southaways. Hot and sandy and lush in various bits. Plenty of annoyed zebras wherever I went.” As he spoke, Pansy nodded. She vaguely knew of zebras, though the nearby mummy wearily taking stock of its lot was the first encounter she’d had with one in the flesh, as it were. “No sense of humour. All I did was invert their pyramids and let Smoozey eat some of the trinkets around their mummified pharaohs and conduct a little ventriloquism routine to an agog crowd with one of said pharaohs as a prop. Light chaos, by my standards. So we left about a week ago, wandered north over the sea, and found this new green land. Lots of chaotic potential.”
Discord trailed off, sighed contemplatively, and looked around. “You know, I might just settle here.”
Pansy balked. She looked right up at Discord. He had turned away, and seemed to be inspecting a far-off cloud. After a moment’s thought on Discord’s part, it burst into flames.
“Have you fixed him yet?” Discord asked, a shade too affectedly blithely. Far-off flames muttered.
“S-settle here?” Pansy trembled out.
“Oh yes. Been thinking about it for a while, and it’s time for me to try settling down. Turn my beard grey and whatnot. Time to situate myself and see what I can really do to a landscape. Keep the world guessing every morning, as and when I let there be mornings.” Discord glanced around with a contemplative expression, like an artist surveying a line-up of canvases. “Deflate the mountains and build them up again. Twist the trees together and boil the land and swap the sea and the sky. Open the land, see what I can pull out, and what I could stuff back in. Unravel and re-ravel and pre-ravel until time and space don’t know what’s when and when’s what. For a start. Unless I think of anything more chaotic. Any suggestions?”
Pansy swallowed, dread sinking into her gut. She stepped away from the Smooze and towards Discord. “I … we’re settling here as well.”
“Are you?” He studied Pansy. “Who’s we?”
“Me. My warflock. All ponykind.” It was an effort for Pansy to form coherent words, to force her panicking thoughts towards dissuading this mad power from settling here. “We … we’ve just come here after a long journey. We were driven from our first home by a dreadful winter, and we’ve been trying so, so long to find another. Somewhere peaceful, somewhere where we can settle down and live our lives in happiness and friendship, harmonious and united at last —”
“United?” Now it was Discord’s turn to balk. “I’ve come here just in time, then. Unity and harmony? What sort of way to live is that? No, no, no, you’ll have a home in my chaos capital. Every day and night different from the last, everything a novelty, every sensation a workout for the senses and sanity, every pony at odds in pandemonium, all the world a revel. Kindly Father-of-the-Nation Discord shall see to it.”
“No!”
“There’s this new trick I’ve wanting to practise for a while, too,” Discord said, as if he hadn’t heard her. He leaned down with a conspiratorial wink. “Turns a mind inside-out, sort of. Nothing better for setting a creature against their usual fellows, for changing things up. Mucks about with their hue as well, somehow, and blessed if I know why. Still, where’s the fun in knowing? Anypony you think I should try it on first? Or shall I just make my introduction to the rest and decide then?”
Pansy met the bright, cheerful yellow-red of his eyes. She wanted to scream. She wanted to find the right words. She didn’t know what to do.
She had to. Sometimes, she did know. Like when a burned pegasus cried for help before her. And like on that last night, the last night there had been three tribes rather than one. When the three had encamped within a mile of one other in Dream Valley, a distance which the last and worst snowstorm had made all but uncrossable.
She’d been with Hurricane, acting as her aide, feeding the withered and bitter Commander a thin broth as warflock bannerets and serjants braved the skies between her battered cloud. And she’d caught the whispers from some of them. A night raid on the unicorns and earth ponies, they urged. Take their stockpiles for the pegasi, stockpiles which were so badly needed, and scatter them and leave them to the mercy of the storm. I could lead such a raid, Commander…
Hurricane dismissed them all, for all that she stared at them longer and more levelly each time, and never even rose from where she sat. Pansy had never seen her defeated before, never seen her with no more reassurance and strength to lend, and now she knew the sight. And so Pansy had stepped forward for one last roll of the dice, one last suggestion of a plan that might now be accepted. She’d met with ponies from the other tribes when scouting, she’d said. She knew there were ponies close to the other leaders who were open to the idea of cooperation. Perhaps if they finally put aside their differences, they could find a way to …
Her Commander cut her off. Too little, too late, she’d snapped. And then all the mad bitterness came pouring out, uncorked and unstoppable. They’d never prevail, not in the face of winter itself hunting them down. If she, Hurricane, had any sense, she would bless the next raiding scheme that came to her cloud. Goodness knows it couldn’t end any worse for the pegasi than what she’d already led them to, than the failure she’d been as a Commander. She’d brought them too far, for too long, for nothing. The last thing she could do was stop one of her many mistakes making yet more in turn. Let the other tribes freeze and rot. Let them all. One way or another, let the pegasi have peace.
And like that, the cold place had enveloped Pansy again.
She wasn’t sure what she’d said then, not exactly.
She knew there’d been shouting.
And she knew she’d flown clear of the world and Hurricane’s bitter curses and into the white storm, to try and find Clover and Smart Cookie, to do whatever she could.
They’d done whatever they could, so she’d been told. The next morning, after that long and blurry and dim terror of a night, they were reminded what the sun looked like as the endless grey clouds peeled away. The tribes mingled in disbelieving delight. And the snow began to thaw.
Like hell Private Pansy would let it all be for nothing.
“Listen,” she murmured slowly, shakily, but with all the iron she could muster. She stepped further away from the Smooze. “We can’t live in a world of chaos. We can’t live like that. We’ve spent too long at the mercy of the wilds, at each other’s throats, at everything like that. My friends and I … we saw to it that ponies wouldn’t, not ever again. And if you do this, you’ll just hurt them. My friends, ponykind, everyone.”
Discord blinked, his expression unchanging, as if waiting for the part where this became relevant to him. Pansy fumbled around for another angle. How would Discord even understand it? “Look,” she gabbled desperately. “See it the way we do. It’d be like you and the Smooze. If you knew something would happen that would hurt him, then you’d want to try and stop it. You’d feel the way I do —”
“Smoozey is hurt right now,” Discord said suddenly, volatile as the sea, latching onto a topic he seemingly understood. His tone shifted, deepened, acquired a hint of snarl. “And you’ve still not fixed him.”
“I...” Pansy looked back round at the Smooze, which wheezed softly and sadly at nothing in particular. “I don’t know how. Just … just give me more time ”
“You’re one of these creatures which has to make a fuss about cause-and-effect! You’re meant to know!”
Pansy tried to answer that, but her treacherous throat seized shut. She could only move her mouth helplessly as no sound came out, looking up at Discord’s mad, desperate eyes.
“What’s the point of you?”
And that one crashed home, and everything she’d been before joining the warflock and every time she’d failed to live up to what the warflock expected stole back over her. A proper pegasus, a proper soldier, a proper anything would have snapped back, defended themselves, but all she could do was curl up into herself.
Discord, a snarl flickering around the edges of his mouth, looked towards the Smooze with a fearful expression, and then turned back on Pansy. His mouth set in something that was very nearly a firm line. “Right, then,” he growled, the words tumbling out, as if racing his plan. “Right. Right. All I have to do is change you into somebody useful. I’m not sure what one of those will be exactly, so there’ll have to be a little experimentation.” His claw flexed and rose in the air, and the sky distorted and clotted and seemed to faintly wail where he held it aloft. “Bear with me.”
Wind whipped about her head and the sky darkened, and Pansy lurched to one side in a vain attempt to dodge whatever Discord did to her, just as the high claw flexed …
...the same instant a storm blazed in stage right, and came crashing down upon Discord.
In less time than it took Pansy to blink, a dark, spear-shaped battering ram of clotted-together stormclouds and cracking thunderbolts smashed down into Discord’s side, and he toppled yelping and was lost from sight as the storm erupted and raged. Smaller arcs of lightning spat forth from the eruption, striking down at the ground, blazing holes into tree trunks, and one spitting down into the grass by the recumbent Smooze. Pansy looked up and around wildly.
There, flying in through the smoking wake of the thunder-ram, clearing the residue overhead with a single snap of her wings, she saw her Commander.
Hurricane’s battered barding hung off her frame. She’d not yet regained the weight she’d lost crossing the mountains. Her features were gaunt and scarred, made sharp to the point where her scars all but scraped over her cheekbones. But her wingbeats were sure and controlled, her poise perfect, and, as she glanced down to meet Pansy’s gaze, her eyes had regained their old shine. Her expression softened as she looked Pansy over, checking that she was alright, and then hardened anew as she turned on Discord. She seemed to take him in, as well as the Smooze and all the bric-a-brac covering the clearing, without letting a brow so much as arch.
The creature was slowly rising from where he’d fallen, dusting soot off his patchwork hide and fixing Hurricane with an irked look. Pansy blanched at the significance of that. Thunder-rams were what the warflock crafted when it wanted to punch holes in mountains. Thunder-rams were what you crafted when you went hunting for dragons. Discord had shrugged one off with nothing more than a faint patina of soot to show for it.
Hurricane surely noticed that as well, but if she had any thoughts on the matter, her face didn’t betray them. A Commander on proper form didn’t disclose a thing, didn’t give an inch to whatever fire roared within. She simply hovered in the air and met Discord’s piqued look with cold iron of her own. And she said, “Step clear of my soldier.”
Discord turned towards the Smooze. His gaze lingered on the smouldering patch of grass where the lightning bolt had nearly struck. The world seemed to turn eerily quiet as he regarded it.
“Commander?” Pansy whimpered. “Commander, please, we have to —”
“Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Discord rasped, his voice as flat as Pansy had ever heard it. His whole form suddenly twisted into a stance on all fours, slithering swiftly down like the offspring of a serpent and a lightning bolt. The red-and-yellow of his eyes flickered, as if they threatened to break out into pure flame, and a volcanic crackle entered his tone. “That very nearly hurt Smoozey.”
“Warflock, on me!” Hurricane bellowed. She glanced over her wither at Pansy. “Cut a contrail back to Canter Vale, Private. We’ve got this. We’ve got you.”
“No, wait!” wailed Pansy, to no avail. Hurricane was already turning back on Discord, and Pansy glimpsed another black mass sweeping in over the treetops. Pegasi of the warflock towed along one of the prepared storm-clouds, gaps in its black form glowing and crackling with the force of the compressed lightning at its heart. Other squadrons came sweeping in from the sides, and Pansy glimpsed the shapes of crossbows, couched lances, spurs gleaming in the sun.
She’d told them before that she was planning on bathing out here, Pansy remembered. And stars above, how they’d heeded.
“Nothing threatens one of my soldiers, beast. You’ll stand down if you want to leave this clearing alive,” Hurricane growled. The stormcloud rose overhead, filling the world with thunder, and Pansy found herself edging away from the sheer mass and volume of it.
From the forest at her back, she heard distant, galloping hooves, and the mass clatter of borne iron. A whole herd’s worth, with two raised voices at their fore.
“Stand fast, good pony!” Princess Platinum’s tones rang out, confident and clear. “Your Princess is coming! At the foe, unicorns! Tantivy!”
“Your Highness, please would you kindly slow down and let the trained combatants lead?” Pansy heard Clover wail in an imploring, long-suffering sort of way.
“We can’t hear you, Clover! Not over the sound of this blackguard’s imminent demise! Onwards!”
Pansy choked with horror. Scrabbling for a silver lining, she realised she’d at least not yet heard any earth pony voices. Nothing from …
“Chancellor, for the love of loam!” Smart Cookie’s voice rang out. “Ponies who rush ahead of their herd fill graves!”
“Haha! Aide of mine, every pony fills a grave sooner or later!” Pansy heard Puddinghead reply. “Faster now! Don’t let the princess embarrass you for speed! And everyone else, ignore that grave part! Everything’s probably going to be fine!”
“Cease trying to outpace us, you mud-bothering blaggards!” came Platinum’s indignant yell. “Attend us carefully, and you shall witness true ski—unk!” The yell became a yelp on the heels of what sounded like Platinum greeting a tree face-first.
Stars above, they’d all heeded the flare. All of them. Pansy couldn’t understand why.
All she understood was that she’d doomed them all, there was no way they could overcome Discord, they couldn’t fight something like that. None of them could. They’d come at him, and his mad, unstoppable power would answer them, and once the land lay still again, what would be left and recognisable of their new home? What would be left of ponykind? Would everything have been for nothing?
Pansy slumped, and a soft gurgle at her side made her dimly realise she’d lurched towards the Smooze. The creature leaned towards her and crooned sadly. She closed her eyes and leaned towards it in turn, her helmeted head resting on whatever passed for its wither.
She felt the creature’s form move and rest upon her helmet.
“You hear them, beast?” She heard Commander Hurricane speak to Discord, apparently unafraid. She heard the growl and crackle of his form roiling and shifting, as his limbs juddered and grew, as the hairs on his hide stood on end, and as magic made the air around him a screaming, rainbow-tinted haze. Past that haze, all of his shifting form grew more indistinct save for his eyes. They shone like falling stars, like fire against empty night. “Ponykind defends its own. You’re not the worst thing we’ve met and overcome. Ask the others like you in the Hereafter how it went for them.”
“You’ve met nothing like me.” The voice that snarled out of Discord could have come from a thousand mouths, all of them angry and fraying, as if he was coming apart at the seams and not bothering to hide it. One thing that might have been a claw extended and pointed at the Commander. “Come on, speck. Let’s see how many parts you have that I can invert. Let’s see how much I need to change.”
So much for resolve. So much for saving ponykind once if she couldn’t do it again when needed. Never mind the cold place she sought; a black pit seemed to have engulfed her, and down she spiralled. She couldn’t help anyone. Curse her. Curse Discord. Curse it all.
Past all those grim mists, she became dimly aware of another sensation, as if something was pushing on her helmet and slurping around it.
She opened her eyes and peered at the Smooze. And of all the damned things, it seemed to be tentatively sucking at her helmet. It struggled to get a proper purchase on the metal with its mouth, but was doing its feeble best.
And the drabbles and pieces of stories that Discord had told her unspooled before Pansy then, and lightning seemed to shoot right through her as some coherent thread of knowledge — somehow, from stories Discord of all creatures had told — dawned on her.
“Cages and bells,” she breathed, staring at the Smooze, which was still feebly sucking. “Cages and bells and trinkets and all. Like a dragon. Hold on. Hold on.”
The cold place overtook her. The iron thunder of the oncoming earth ponies and unicorns filled the forest at her back, chaos rippled about Discord like sheets of flame, and crossbow bolts shivered down from the hovering pegasi and passed through Discord’s form, They fell out the other side as flowers, flutes, newly-made birds, quivering shapeless things. He gestured with a claw, and the crossbows twisted in their bearer’s grips and snapped their arms up at them. Yells rang out, and she was dimly aware of Hurricane shouting something. It might have been directed at her.
Pansy didn’t give a damn about any of it. She swept off her helmet and gently pressed it into the Smooze’s mouth, helping it engulf it altogether. The creature sucked more avidly, and as it did, a darker, more vibrant greenish tinge seemed to suffuse through its form, like ink in water.
“Everypony, Discord, stop. Quiet, now.” Pansy heard herself mutter, even as her hooves scrabbled at and undid the clasps for her barding. The Smooze had perked up that little bit, and seemed to be regarding Pansy hopefully. Her spare forehoof scooped up and offered her crossbow stock-first, and the Smooze leaned forward to engulf the metal parts of the mechanism. “Everypony, stop!”
The hubbub bellowed on by her, though the oncoming hooves seemed to have slowed as they came within sight of what was happening. Pansy gritted her teeth and cleared her throat as she wrenched off her barding. “I said, QUIET! LOOK!”
Her throat stung with the effort, but whatever force she’d shovelled into it had worked. The hubbub hushed, and the rippling chaos that spread out from Discord seemed to freeze in its tracks. A crossbow bolt whipped through his form and flew out the other side as a confused budgie. He paid it no heed, and the two supernovas he had in place of eyes slowly turned to regard Pansy and the Smooze.
Something of Pansy’s customary mindset stole back over her as it dawned on her that she was at the centre of a great big ring of bemused attention. She briefly wondered how easy it would be to hide behind the Smooze. But the cold place steadied her, whispered reassuringly in her ear, and as the Smooze cooed hopefully, she hefted her barding and fed it to the creature.
It engulfed her iron barding with an enthusiastic schlurping noise. Pansy watched the silhouette of it obscured within the Smooze’s green bulk, slowly disintegrating around the edges into dark green flakes. She breathed out for a long moment and slumped back with a sigh, and the schlurping took on an ever-more delighted tone.
The quiver of bolts rested by her hooves. She picked it up, and as the Smooze seemed to finish the barding, she began to pick out one iron-head after another and feed them to the Smooze.
Hooves shuffled, and Pansy heard some of them stepping towards her. She turned and saw Discord. He’d resumed the tall, mismatched form she’d first found him in, that he seemed to favour, and his eyes sparkled their guileless red-yellow again. He looked down at her and the Smooze, one paw tugging on his black tuft of beard. He seemed confused as he studied them, as if trying to fit a round peg into the square hole of his mind.
And then, as his gaze came to rest on the Smooze, she saw him apparently decide to not give a toss about whatever troubling newness he was trying to figure out, and he bounded down to snatch the Smooze up and away from Pansy and engulf it in a hug.
“Smoozey! You’re fine and fixed and fantastic and all sorts of f-things!” He planted a sloppy kiss on top of its green head, and though the Smooze initially wriggled and blibbled in protest as it tried to get back towards Pansy’s bolts, it eventually subsided and nuzzled Discord’s chin. Discord spun with it in his arms, and the two made noises that were equally cheerful and incomprehensible.
The cold place ebbed away, and Pansy sat and watched them. She trembled and breathed heavily, as a giddy smile threatened to break across her features. Hoofbeats rang out by her, and she turned to see ponies approaching her from the forest. Clover, Smart Cookie, and Puddinghead were at their fore, wearing matching expressions that suggested both delight at all the noise and horror and chaos suddenly subsiding, as well as deep bewilderment as to how that had happened, exactly.
“Well!” Chancellor Puddinghead recovered first, affixing a bright grin atop her features. “This all seems to have, er ...”
“What happened here? What’re those things, why’s that clearing full of everything barring a kitchen basin, and, generally, what?” Smart Cookie stepped up beside her chancellor, her eyes wide.
“Pansy?” Next, Clover, who trotted up. Her bright eyes met Pansy’s. “Did you just—?”
“We arrive!” interjected Princess Platinum, pushing her way forwards. Her words were somewhat slurred, her gaze a little unfocused, and the crown atop her head wobbled as she swayed. A fresh bruise spread across most of her face, sporting the faint imprint of a bark pattern. She waggled a jeweled, hiltless blade in her magic, and swung it vaguely hither and thither till pony life wasn’t safe in the vicinity. “Fear not, good pegasus, your princess shall deliver you from peril. Now … now then, present us with whatever interloper dared threaten the ponies under our protection. We shall educate them on the errororerrs … errors of their ways.”
“Princess,” interjected Clover, stepping clear of the blade, “I believe the situation’s already resolved, sort of. Somehow.”
“Oh.” Platinum took a moment to process this, and she let the blade droop in her grasp. “Well. Well, how fortuitous.” She blinked and tottered. “Clover? Clover, we are seeing double.”
“Still deeply bewildered, and I’ve not a clue what you did just there,” Smart Cookie said in Pansy’s ear. She stepped up just as Princess Platinum fell over and Clover wearily stooped to tend to her. The earth pony mare clapped a hoof over Pansy’s withers. “I reckon you did it well, though. We owe you one.”
“Excellent showing! Whatever you did and whatever this was.” Chancellor Puddinghead’s own foreleg clapped down across Pansy and jostled insistently with Smart Cookie for wither space until Smart Cookie grudgingly yielded. She leaned in conspiratorially to Pansy’s ear. “Put on a brave face back there. Between you and me? When I got close enough to see more of what was going on, darn near widdled myself. When I got close enough to see you were doing things on the scene? Widdling held in abeyance. Any more of that sort of thing, and you’ll ingrain even odder habits in me than I already have. Excellent showing. What exactly did you do?”
“I...” Pansy stumbled. Shifting her mode of thought from terror to resolve to despair to the cold place to a conversation with Puddinghead was about as dramatic a series of lurches as a mind could undergo, and she needed a moment to adjust. And to think about what exactly she did. “I … I just listened. And remembered, in the nick of time.”
Puddinghead didn’t look entirely satisfied with that explanation, but before she could probe further, Discord drifted down from the sky, up into which he’d been blithely spinning for the last minute or so. He descended to the ground before Pansy, the Smooze tucked under one arm. The green creature gurgled happily in the direction of Pansy, and it wriggled as if full of beans.
Discord, for his own part, studied Pansy for a long moment, his face sporting the same expression of faint confusion from earlier, as strange thoughts passed below the surface. Behind him, Pansy glimpsed hovering pegasi and Commander Hurricane, their weapons ready even as they kept a cautious distance. They were giving her the floor.
“So,” Discord said, slowly, eventually, as if fumbling his way through a foreign language. “You … you don’t want a reign of chaos, then.”
“Please,” breathed Pansy. “We’ve struggled for too long. We just want peace for a while.”
Discord’s face screwed up. “Really? It’d be fun chaos, you know. I’m very good at chaos, you might have gathered this.”
“I’ve gathered. But we don’t need it now. We need space and time to settle down. Plant new roots. Tether our clouds. And just … to just live. Can you let us do that?”
The Smooze burbled in what might have been agreement, or what might have just been general satisfaction with the world. It was hard to tell. Discord glanced at it, frowned, and then turned back to Pansy.
“I mean, it sounds terribly deviant and suspect and odd,” he sighed, “but oh, fine, I suppose. I’m sure a bit of order and harmony’ll make you see how dull it all is and yearn for chaos. I’ll be around if you change your minds. And I’ll be back. But, in deference to your odd, odd wishes and Smoozey being fixed, I shan’t be back. Not soon, at least.”
He clicked his tongue and contemplated. “Call it a couple of centuries, maybe? Just while I poke my nose into whatever this continent’s got.”
Pansy breathed out. All was fine in the world again. “Alright. And we’ll ...” She stiffened herself, and tried to inject a note of determination into her tone. “We’ll be ready.”
“Excellent!” Discord cheerfully spun away from her, the determined tone seemingly lost on him as he hefted the Smooze up onto one of his withers like the world’s most peculiar parrot. He pointed nowhere in particular. “Come, Smoozey! I think I saw some mountains over there! You like mountains.”
The Smooze burbled amiably. It twisted its head back to beam at Pansy while it did so.
And then, with a flash and a bang, and what sounded like a trumpet fanfare, Discord and the Smooze vanished in a hail of confetti. And they were gone.
The world hushed in their wake, save for the insistent snuffling of the badger somewhere in the undergrowth, and Pansy’s legs threatened to give out from underneath her with pure relieved trembling.
Said legs instantly stiffened out of sheer reflex the moment Hurricane’s voice rang out, barking orders every which way.
“Ten-hut! Clear the skies, warflock, and tow that cloud back to the stockpile! All of you on the ground, back to Canter Vale! Come back with wagons and salvage some of all this lying here! Chancellor, you and I’ll have to talk about all this! Expect me at your longhouse at sundown. Clover, just tow that princess of yours back to her hall. I’ll spare a medic to check her skull’s not more dented than it already is. Private, at ease! I want a word!”
Pansy stiffened into a at-ease stance, somehow, when she realised that last one had been directed at her. As the skies thrummed with pegasi, and as the ponies about her peeled away, chatting or murmuring or gurgling concussedly as they went, Hurricane landed on the ground before Pansy. The private swallowed and kept her gaze low as her commander stepped closer to her. The sounds from all around grew quieter, enough that Pansy could all but hear her own thrumming heartbeat.
Then one of Hurricane’s iron-shod hooves extended and gently lifted up Pansy’s chin. “Chin up, private,” she said softly, and Pansy met Hurricane’s steady gaze. Hurricane studied her for a moment before she remarked, “Private, you appear to be without your barding. Ill-advised out here, even during your off-hours.”
“Yes, commander. Apologies.” She swallowed. “Wish to report that I fed it all, along with my crossbow mechanism, to some ailing metallovore, which pacified their fraught and all-powerful friend, commander.”
“Yes, private, I was there.” Hurricane sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she spoke. “In light of that, charges of misuse of warflock property, underpreparedness in a manner unbecoming, and inevitable underdressed-ness in future drills would seem a bit churlish to level. The warflock’s armoury has seen better days, private. Acquiring a replacement set will not happen soon. Understood?”
“Yes, commander. Thank you, commander.”
“Do you intend to make a habit of this, private?”
Pansy swallowed. “No, commander. Losing my barding was a one-off, it shan’t happen agai—”
“Of saving ponykind, private.” Hurricane shook her head, her voice softening. “From the windigos. From whatever that creature was. From me. You’re acquiring form for it.”
“I … I certainly hope to not have to repeat it, commander.”
“Hmmph.” Hurricane’s features tightened into something like a smile, and she shook her head ruefully. “I’ve not made many good decisions this last while. Not many since becoming Commander, truth be told. But enlisting you? Centuries down the line, pegasi’ll praise me for that.”
And Pansy needed a few minutes to respond to that. “You sell yourself short, commander. You got us through the mountains. No other pony could.”
“Were you given leave to contradict your commander, private?”
“No, commander. Apologies, commander.”
“Accepted, but don’t let it happen again,” Hurricane replied dryly. She seemed lost in thought a moment longer, before she snorted. “You came out here for a bath, didn’t you, private? Go and finish taking your bath. Be back at my tent within the hour. I’ll require my aide then. Dismissed.”
“Yes, commander.”
Pansy turned away, light-headed. She could have her bath at last, what she’d only wanted to begin with. She let herself fixate on that, for want of something sane and peaceful to fixate on. On just getting herself clean amidst the babbling water, fed by winter’s thaw. Smart Cookie’s soap and her brush should still be where she’d left them.
She turned away. And as she went, she heard Commander Hurricane murmur something. It could have been directed at Pansy. It could have just been directed at herself.
“Finding you replacement barding could take a while indeed.” There came the sound of a hoof gently rapping off an iron chestpiece. “This might be the only set that’ll do you justice.”
And that kept Private Pansy terrified the rest of the day.
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Oooh!
Nice!
So, that was a nutritional deficiency? Like what happened in canon, to Spike, IIRC?
I thought Discord would merge the Founders into Celestia and Luna, but no...
Well, Pansy bought them some time... Good for Past!Fluttershy!
"Patient bellowing" may be the best summary of a sergeant I've ever heard.
Ah. You know it's early history when Discord hasn't let himself go gray yet.
It is fascinating to see Discord visibly struggle with the whole "causality" thing. He has so little experience with it, and his mind just doesn't work that way.
Not exactly the most advanced medicine, this time period.
The Fall of Antlertis, as reported by an earwitness. (I'd wonder why they created Discord, but that late into the Mage-Lords' reign, such minor concerns as why they'd create abominations of the highest order were beneath them.)
Heh. Dropping the Smooze into a volcano is a reversal of the usual procedure. At least Discord got it back out.
I can't tell if that's a promise or a threat. Not sure if Puddinghead knows herself.
In any case, magnificent work in showing Pansy's aspect as a steel magnolia. I do wonder if Equestria remembered Discord by the time he returned. Either way, they were not at all prepared for him, but really, how could they be? Perhaps the more interesting question is whether Discord remembered Pansy when he met Fluttershy.
In any case, magnificent tale. Thank you for it.
This was a great story and I really liked how Pansy managed to help the Smooze and got Discord to leave. I wonder if the Smooze remembers it's first encounter with ponies when Discord took it to the Grand Galloping Gala. I bet that if Discord visited modern day Capra he'd try to find out if the Smooze enjoys eating sapient artifacts.
9421540
Glad you find it nice! And aye, a straight-up nutritional deficiency. Can't remember if that happened to Spike or not in canon (greed and suchlike got the better of his biology, I remember that much) but they do share an underlying appetite for shiny things, which Pansy was able to deduce. Good for her indeed.
9421571
I've had this piece on my back for a while now, and it's a delight to inflict it on the world at last.
Your assessments never fail to cheer me up, Fan. Chuffed you find it magnificent.
Let's be blunt; that late on into their civilisation, whenever bits of it weren't backstabbing other bits, the Mage-Lords were pretty much running on 'robot-that-screams' notions of progress.
9421827
Glad you like it! I wouldn't put money on the Smooze's memory being all that great, but it'd definitely still associate ponykind with being lovely metal-dispensers, and have reacted accordingly. As for what it'd make of the Crown ... probably a nice starter dish. If that.
I take it that Pansy was greatly relieved when Celestia and Luna's arrival and subsequent structuring of Equestria's government rendered the title Commander of Pegasopolis obsolete.
9422029
Long after Pansy's time, inasmuch as my own imagining of the timeline goes. But if it had happened during her time as Commander, she'd have been delighted, rest assured.
Very nice. :)
9422157
Thank you!
And thus did Pansy learn the reward for work done done well. Poor dear.
I'd forgotten that Discord was created in this world. Always worrying when there's a society that can create and contain a chaos god and then basically forget about it...
Schmoozy and Discord as old, OLD friends.
A few centuries and he'll be back... I'm reminded of Stormlight Archives. To a god, time is nothing. To a moral, time is everything.
9422268
Oh I'm quite sure they didn't forget about Discord.
After all, you need to be alive to forget.
The dead remember. That's all they can do.
Well, remember and wait.
They're very good with patience, the dead; they tend to have a surplus of it.
That's an interesting origin for Discord.
Pansy takes surprisingly exciting baths.
9422268
Save the world once, they'll have you doing it time and time again. The moral is to let some other poor daftie see to it.
9422532
It's a simple law. One wonders why the ungodly-powerful personifications of mortal winter and enmity have such trouble understanding it.
9422789
That is not dead which can eternal something something.
Antlertis has got its eternal something something down to a fine art by this point. Now they're really just honing it.
9423020
Her deepest, darkest fantasies are of a leisurely interval spent getting herself clean and well-groomed where she doesn't play a decisive role in the fate of nations.
Figures. The important calls for world salvation occur just when you get comfortable in the tub.
9423681
Calls for world salvation can be such awkward sods like that.
I started off thinking cut-me-own-throat dibbler had suddenly sprouted an extra two legs, and then got to this line:
I figured that somehow a portal from Ankh-Morpok had opened up, and then I wondered how Twilight and Co would go in that fair, fine city. And then it was a hop, skip and jump to Celestia and the Patrician sitting down to Tea, with a cameo from Luna.
9424743
Hah! If I'd had any sense while writing this, that's a crossover I should have absolutely planned.
Pansy as Commander, don't think that's the best idea seeing how she's at her best only in a crisis involving others. As the chief of staff and head of logistics, oh hay yes. But to the day to day she's a bit too timid.
As for Antlertis and their god making, I wonder what Aurora, Bori, and Alice are in this verse. The last un-corrupted deer lades, some last project? The mind boggles. Young Discord be scary yo! The guy really hasn't learned any form of restraint yet. He really mellows in his old age.
9425556
Timidity's a problem, definitely. She's not quite ready for the armour yet. But with enough attention from Hurricane and others, she could learn how to put on a bold face yet. Ninety-nine percent of essential Commanding, right there.
Aurora, Bori, and Alice are fun ponderables. Introduced way after I'd sketched out Antlertis and most of its horrors, but there's plenty of ways to reconcile those three, like you point out.
This was a very unique and interesting take on Discord. He really came across like an alien existence, and I really liked how the tension is resolved.
Also liked Pansy here, and the banter between her and Hurricane. It comes across as a very lived-in relationship.
9503123
I tried to have his younger self come across as a lot more raw and alien than his older self, and it appears to have worked. Likewise glad you like the dynamic between Pansy and Hurricane - they're a pair with a history together, and it ought to show.
Glad you liked my take on Discord!
9503263
Speaking of history, is this in continuity with The Commander's Shilling? Just curious...
9504038
It is! This takes place a few years on from Shilling, and they're both a part of my Palaververse continuity. Couple of other Founders-era stories in there as well, if they take your fancy.
9504066
It turns out I've actually read several of them in the past, and never realized they were by the same author, much less in the same continuity. You learn something new every day.
And then Discord came back, the very next day...
They all came. If nothing else it shows how much Unity even that short amount of time had created among them all. Will there be more story's soon?
9734093
i hope so! Currently mulling over ideas for something with Puddinghead in a starring role. I've given her shamefully little attention so far, and shall have to rectify that.