The Heart of Chaos: Discord's Origins

by The Ravenclaw Queen

Chapter 3: Next of Kin to Chaos

“So,” the triangle said, with no visible mouth anywhere, “what’s your name, kid?”

Discord felt a little freaked out at being surrounded by so many unfamiliar and hostile creatures. He also thought that this voice was the tiniest bit off-putting; it almost sounded like it came from a mechanical recording instead of a living being, and it seemed to echo even with no walls nearby. But now was not the time for worrying; he decided to put on a brave face, and he bowed dramatically. “Why, I . . . am Discord!” He sprang back up, grinning with his arms thrown outward, and a burst of fireworks erupted behind him.

The triangle laughed. It was a short, unusual laugh that almost sounded insane, but still retained a note of genuine mirth.

“I like you already! You certainly seem to know how to have a bit of fun!” The triangle tipped the top hat to him. “Name’s Bill Cipher. King of the Nightmare Realm around here.” He flew in a circle around Discord, inspecting him, his huge eye somehow widening even more. “And what a sight you are - a draconequus, around these parts!”

“A what?” Discord asked, bewildered. He had never heard of such a thing.

Bill came back around to face Discord; up close he wasn’t as large as he had initially seemed, and at eye level with Discord his feet only reached the bottom of his gray furry neck.

“A draconequus, of course. I’ve been in this miserable game called existence for nearly three trillion years, and even I’ve only seen a few of your kind.” Bill closed his eye and used his eyelids as lips to take a sip of his drink before continuing.

“Draconequi aren’t a breed like normal creatures; they don’t really mate and have kids, and as far as I’ve heard they don’t form their own civilizations. Draconequi are the extremely powerful physical manifestations of the darker forces of nature that simply spring into being when it’s their time. They’ve got magic that bests any creature in this multiverse - except for me, of course, but they do come pretty damn close. I met this one a while back, somewhere around mmm, twenty bil ago? Anyway he’d already been around for a while by then; he was the embodiment of violence - Cutthroat, was it? Yeah that sounds about right - and man, could that guy shed some blood!” Bill laughed again, then sighed regretfully. “We probably could’ve been pretty great pals if he hadn’t tried to slice me open within five minutes of me talking to him.”

Bill thrust his glass suddenly towards Discord. “Anyways! What’re you, kid? Actually no, you know what, I’m gonna guess - Discord, huh? So you’re, what, disharmony? Confusion?” His eye seemed to glow with excitement. “Chaos?”

Discord felt a smile spread on his face just at the mention of the third word. “I’ve no clue, but chaos sounds pretty great to me!” he replied. Bill cackled with delight.

“Well that’s fantastic to hear! I love chaos!” The monsters around them roared in agreement at Bill’s words. Discord couldn’t help but laugh along. He’d met someone who clearly thought just like him!

“So tell me, Discord,” Bill said, “how did you find your way here?”

Discord snapped his fingers and a glass of chocolate milk appeared in his clawed hand. He took a sip from his drink before he answered. “Well,” he said, indicating back the way he came with his glass, “I had been checking out this one weird spot in my dimension that kept giving me bad vibes, you know? Anyways, then I noticed a bunch of other connections to various worlds over there, so I came here next to see what it was like.” Discord paused suddenly, looking around him. “Or, wherever here is. I still don’t even know where I am. Didn’t you call this something earlier, the Nightmare Land or - ?”

“What, this shitshow?” Bill gestured around the dark world, a note of disdain now entering his reverberating voice. “This is the Nightmare Realm. It’s not even technically a dimension; it’s just the part of the multiverse in between other dimensions. Home to tons of monsters from all over, and also anything that gets lost, which usually never finds its way back out.”

Bill swirled his drink again, his eyes narrowed at something in the distance Discord couldn’t see. “This is where I’ve been stuck for nearly a trillion years, after something I’d done back home.”

“Are you serious?” Discord said in a slightly hushed voice, horrified at the idea of being trapped in one place for that long. “Whatever did you do?”

“Ah, never you mind, that’s not important,” Bill said dismissively, waving a hand. “So anyway, you said your dimension’s just next door, eh? Which one is it?”

But Discord now had a slight knot in the pit of his stomach. The hand holding his glass tightened instinctively. “Wait, but, if I'm in here now - will I be able to even get back out of this place?”

“Sure you will, kid!” Bill exclaimed with a laugh, patting Discord on the shoulder. “You’re a draconequus, and I’d like to see the barrier in all of space and time that could stop a draconequus. But I’m a special case. You see, I’m not just your average demon, oh no - I’m probably the most powerful dream demon you’ll ever meet in your immortal little lifetime. They don’t call me Master of the Mind for nothing, after all.” Bill’s free hand curled into a fist, which burst into glowing cyan flames. He stared at their flickering glow darkly.

“That’s what’s got me stuck here, though: the fact that I’m bound by a very ancient magic whose origins even I don’t know and that I don’t actually have a physical body, so I only have one way to enter another world on my own: the mindscape.”

“Well that must get quite boring,” Discord said, though he was now very relieved to know he’d still be able to get back to his lovely chaotic home. “Only one physical place anywhere around where you can freely cause chaos to your heart’s content, but it’s not exactly anybody’s number-one pick, is it?”

“Exactly!!” Bill screamed, throwing his arm around Discord and gesturing with the glass in his opposite hand to the world around them. “Just look at this place! There’s basically nobody to terrorize, because every living thing in here is either a monster themselves or dead too soon!”

He suddenly sighed, moving away from Discord again while rubbing his closed eyelid in frustration. “If I weren’t already insane I’d be worried for the state of my mind from being trapped in here for so long, but I’m still gonna try as best as I can to get out of here. Until then, this pathetic wasteland is the only thing I can call home.”

Discord felt an odd sensation that he wasn’t sure he liked very much; it took him a moment to realize that it was pity. “Well gods, if only there were a way for you to come to my place - we’d have a blast together over there, I promise you.” He frowned, then looked back at Bill. “What’s that ‘mindscape’ thing you mentioned earlier?”

“Oh, that,” Bill said, looking bored. “It’s just the metaphysical plane of existence that stretches over everything in the multiverse and allows me to appear when summoned in the dreams of living creatures and speak to them. Nothing special, really.” But then his eye widened suddenly, as though he had just remembered something.

“There is one way I can enter another physical realm,” Bill said excitedly, turning towards Discord. “Well, two ways really - one indirectly and one directly. I can make deals with creatures in their minds and offer them something they want while they give me the chance to temporarily borrow their bodies. I used to do it with humans all the time back in the old days, but they don’t trust me anymore.” He sighed, taking a thoughtful sip from his drink. “It’s not the most ideal solution, and I can’t do any magic while in those bodies, but I can still use my incredible charm and wits to get whatever it is I need or want.”

Discord had no idea what a human was, but he grinned as he listened to Bill. “And the other way? I’m guessing it’s the more direct way.”

“Right you are, kid. See, I can travel to any part of the multiverse via the mindscape, but I can’t make any portals to physical locations outside of the Nightmare Realm. However, if another creature were to open up a portal from their world to this place - then I’d be quite free to go into that world, where I’d gain my own physical body and be able to use my powers there however I wished! And I would be free from here, forever!” He laughed wildly.

Discord sprang higher into the air, arms thrown wide, accidentally sending his glass flying through the dark world. “Well that’s perfect! All we have to do is find a creature who can open up interdimensional portals, and then the fun would begin!” He pointed suddenly towards Bill. “What about those other things you mentioned, those - humans? Could you use them?”

Bill chuckled. “Nah, they don’t have magic. They’d have to build a portal themselves, and it would require the biggest of brains and most advanced technology, which makes it really difficult for them as they’re still in this Byzantine Empire era that’s been going on for a few decades. One did come pretty close a while back, however, but it was total trash, and then he and his tribe stopped trusting me. Those guys are just so paranoid.” If he had a mouth, Bill would be grinning wickedly. “But we don’t need humans, silly! We have a much better solution way closer to home.”

“We do?” Discord inquired, looking around the Nightmare Realm. “Who?”

Bill laughed and threw an arm around Discord’s shoulders. “Why, you, kid! Are you kidding? With your power, you could just snap those claws of yours and teleport yourself and anyone around you to wherever the hell in the multiverse you wish to go!”

“Really?” Discord stared at his paw in amazement. To imagine that he had the potential for that kind of power . . .

“How long have you been around anyway?” Bill asked suddenly, looking quizzically at Discord. “Surely you would’ve picked up on your teleportation power by now, it’s one of the most basic abilities. Originally I figured you were only a few decades old, but now I’m starting to think you’re closer to just a few years . . . ?”

Discord shook his head with a smirk. “Try more like a few hours.”

“A few hours?!” Bill repeated, flying around to face Discord and staring at him in shock. “You’re just an infant! My my, there’s so much you’ve got to learn! No wonder you looked so clueless when you wandered over here earlier.” Bill suddenly finished his drink at top speed, then threw the empty glass over his shoulder, where it collided with an asteroid and exploded. “Well then, who better to teach the newborn spirit of chaos how to wield his powers than the master of chaos?”

Discord grinned widely. “Excellent!” A pad of paper and a pencil appeared in his hands, which he grabbed and posed with as though eager to begin taking notes. “So, where to start? I presume teleportation and portal mastering is our first lesson?”

“Right you are!” Bill said, a single-lens pair of glasses appearing on his face. “See, the trick is your mind, not necessarily the magic. Sure you’ve got the potential to travel to the other side of existence in the space of a nanosecond, but when you’ve never done it before, it requires some serious concentration.”

There was a sudden flash, and Discord found Bill and himself now floating in a quieter, less populated area of the realm, and the glasses, pad, and pen had gone. He looked down and saw the clearing they had just been in, only much farther below.

“Now, let’s go ahead and try getting to your dimension,” Bill resumed casually. “Since you’re a beginner, you’ll need few distractions and some silence to really focus.”

Discord couldn’t help but feel surprised at this. “We’re starting off pretty big considering I’m just a beginner, eh? Thought we’d be going like, from this asteroid to that one.”

Bill made a pfft sound, waving his hand. “I don’t do small stuff, kid. If you can travel between dimensions, you can teleport to a few feet away. It’s that simple.”

Discord shrugged; it was sound logic to him.

“So, piece of advice: if you want to physically move between places, your mind has to be free to move as well,” Bill told Discord, moving around him. “This won’t be too hard since you already know where you’re planning to go pretty well. Just picture your dimension in your mind; focus on it and try, if you can, to feel like you’re there now.”

Discord closed his eyes, bringing to the forefront of his mind an image of his home. He immersed himself in the kaleidoscopic sky, the hundreds of unique floating islands, the plants and animals that ran across the chattering grass and checkered ground, the fish and creatures that swam through the air. Discord inhaled slightly, and could almost smell the cotton candy clouds dotting the sky. He relaxed as he felt himself just as much of a part of that dimension as everything else over there.

“Alright, now hold on to that image,” Bill’s voice said from somewhere next to Discord. “Hold on to whatever you’re feeling too actually, because you look relaxed enough for good transportation.

“Now,” Bill’s voice had moved to in front of Discord, “imagine yourself traveling there, and when you think you’re ready, snap your fingers to summon the magic and channel it better. If you vanish, I’ll be watching where you go in the mindscape.”

Discord allowed himself to become as fully submerged in the scene in his mind, then he raised his eagle claw slowly, shaking slightly. Discord brought his fingers together, took in a deep breath, and snapped.

There was a sudden rush, followed by the strangest feeling of everything around him being sucked into the void, before it all returned to normal, all under a second.

The first thing Discord registered, his eyes still closed, was the sound around him. The roars and shrieks were gone; instead, there was a symphony of overlaying music and various animal calls.

He opened his eyes. He was hovering in his own dimension again.There was a sudden loud squawk in his ear, and he turned to see a winged catfish staring at him. He laughed and reached out to pet the fish, but it zoomed away playfully.

Suddenly, everything around him slowed to a standstill. Discord stared around in alarm; the constant sound had also stopped, and he was suddenly feeling very worried. Then without warning the entire world except for Discord became grayscale, and there was a sudden flash of light besides him.

“Nice work, kid!” It was Bill, still glowing bright yellow and looking excited. “That was perfect!”

“Wha- Bill?” Discord asked, bewildered. “But how - I thought you couldn’t travel - ”

“Oh right, I forgot.” Bill threw his arms wide. “Welcome to the mindscape! I can also just hit pause on time itself whenever I want, so that’s why everything out there’s frozen.” Bill conjured a black cane and whirled it a bit through the air before pointing towards the edge of the dimension. “Now, all you gotta do is open a portal to the Nightmare Realm! When you’re back in the physical world, concentrate like you’re gonna teleport over there, but instead of actually going there, just open up a tear between the dimensional barriers. It should be easier than before.”

And with that Bill vanished. The whole dimension resumed its normal state as if nothing had happened. Discord blinked, then smirked. Following Bill’s instructions, he closed his eyes and pictured the Nightmare Realm in his mind, with all its swirling, suffocating gloom and chaotic monsters. This time, Discord focused on that world’s proximity to his, and he felt what seemed like a thin but strong wavering wall between the two realms. He raised his eagle claw again and snapped his fingers. In his mind, he sensed a large hole open up in that wall, and when he opened his eyes he saw a portal right in front of him, with the Nightmare Realm just visible on the other side.

Discord felt a wide grin spread across his face. Look what he could do with his powers! And that was only with a little bit of help!

Bill then appeared in the entranceway between the two worlds, looking very excited, before entering Discord’s dimension. The portal sealed up behind him.

“Well kid,” Bill said, turning to face Discord. “Time to begin unlocking your godlike potential!”