Discordant Origins

by Queen Zozer

Chapter 2: The Cold Affliction

Months flew by. Fall slowly turned to winter, and young Draco, though he had a rough patch in the beginning, had somewhat adjusted to his way of life by regularly going to school like any other young pony. Given the reaction that he received on Day One, he was still ostracized by everypony.

Everypony except Posey, of course.

She was always by his side and stood up for him whenever bullies gave him a hard time. She wasn't that strong, but she stood up for him anyways. She was always in his corner. Just like Amma had predicted. Draco had grown very attached to Posey. He always felt a weird tingling sensation whenever he was around her. There was something about her that alluded him. In any case, they were great friends.

During recess, Draco and Posey went to their usual hangout spot. It was a large oak tree, that had various colored zinnias near the center. The flowers, however, were beginning to wilt.

"Oh don't worry! I know what to do!" said Posey as she ran off to the patch of grass a couple yards away from the tree. She was wearing hoof mittens and a cute red coat that had a white fluffy trim around the collar.

Draco patiently stood there in the cold. He traced hearts in the snow with the tip of his mismatched colored boots while he waited.

Posey playfully skipped back to where Draco was, she held a few odd-looking white flowers in her mouth. The buds on it looked like little white bells.

"I found some!" Posey said in a slightly muffled tone.

Draco had snapped out of his trance and looked at Posey holding the flowers. She looked so...cheerful. So happy. Her cheeks were a rosy pink.

"O-oh! What...are those?" Draco asked. She trotted over to the tree next to him and set the flowers down. She looked at the wilted flowers with a sad expression.

"These flowers wilt in the cold," she sighed, "so...we have to put in new ones." She then dug up the wilted flowers from the soil and planted in the strange white flower where she dug the hole. Draco walked closer to her to watch what she was doing.

"These are Lillies of the Valley. They can survive in the cold," she said while looking at Draco with a warm smile, "and they smell really nice!"

Draco immediately knew what she was suggesting. It meant that she wanted Draco to come smell the flowers with her. She always loved smelling flowers, but she especially loved seeing him smell them. He walked over next to her and sat down to smell the flowers.

"They smell amazing..." said Draco. When Posey went to smell the flowers, Draco opened his eyes and realized that his face was extremely close to hers. She didn't notice at first until Draco audibly gulped.

"Huh?" she turned to face him and his face turned a beet red. Draco couldn't look away from her, but he was still nervous. Posey just looked into his eyes. She was confused, but she didn't look away either. Suddenly, a small grey hoof stomped in between their faces and it caused them both to reel back in shock.

"Wh--?! Huh?!" Draco gasped. He looked up and instantly knew what was gonna happen. It was his school bully, Dips.

"Are you two LOSERS playing with flowers again?" Dips chuckled.

"Leave us alone, Dips," Draco said, "we didn't do anything to you."

"Whatever you say, twerp," Dips said as he pushed Draco to the ground. Draco was always weak. He knew he couldn't stand up to him. Despite Dips being scrawny, he was stronger than him. Even though she could never beat him, Posey always stood up for him whenever he was being bullied. However, today was a different day. A small quiet whimpering could be heard coming from Posey. Draco looked over to her and saw that she was nearly on the verge of tears. He looked at the ground and realized why she was acting this way.

"No...no...no..." she whimpered as her teardrops fell on the squashed white flowers. Draco was infuriated. He stood up quickly and tried tackling Dips again, but was easily pushed down.

"Just give it up already," Dips said.

Draco just laid there in the snow, cold tears running down his face. He stood up one last time and tried pushing Dips again. Instead of being beaten down like all the other times, Draco managed to stand his ground. He had his hands on Dip's hooves and tried to push him back. After nearly falling back again, Draco grunted loudly and nearly sent Dips flying. He had pushed him so far that it had left a ten-meter long wake in the snow. Draco nearly fell over from the sudden surge of energy. He looked up and saw how far away Dips was and gasped in shock. He looked at his own hands in bewilderment.

"What...? How did I...?" Draco asked himself. Posey had stopped crying and looked up to see Draco.

"Huh...? Where did that meanie go...?" Posey asked. He just stood there
silently staring at his hands. Posie stood up and walked to him. She put her hoof in his lion paw.

"Are you okay?" Posey asked.

"Mm?" Draco said as he snapped out of his trance, "yeah, I'm...fine."

"Are you sure...?" Posey worriedly insisted.

Draco looked up presumably to where Dips had landed, but saw that he was already gone. In that moment, Draco wasn't worried about where to find him.

He was worried about what he did to him.

---

A week had passed and Draco still thought about what happened that day. One morning, he sat waiting for Amma to finish making supper. The cottage felt warm from the fireplace and the rooms filled with the aroma of pastry and freshly-chopped dried fruit. Draco sat there and stared at the flames in the fireplace, watching each ember that flew up the chimney. Amma then laid out what seemed to look like a large, meat-like pie with basil sprinkled on top. Amma cut him a slice and put in on his plate.

"Here you go, dear. Your favorite!" Amma said with glee. Draco quickly turned his head to his plate and snapped out of his trance.

"O-oh! Thank you, Amma," Draco said, staring at his food. Amma then sat down on the other side of the wooden table. She quickly noticed that something was off with Draco.

"Come on, dear. You have to eat your food before it gets cold," Amma said. Draco just looked at her with puppy dog eyes. She knew what this meant.

"I know you want to go outside and play," Amma said, "but there's going to be a blizzard tonight so you need to stay inside." Draco just looked down at his plate with a disappointed look in his eyes.

"You can play tomorrow morning if you'd like," Amma said.

"Okay..." Draco said as he slowly ate pieces of his pie. It was one of his favorite foods, so he was at least happy that he had a good meal. And although this wasn't the first time that he didn't get to go play outside, he never really argued with it. What he did on that day, though...he couldn't just forget about it.

Draco layed restless in his bed that night. He had been up for hours wondering what happened to him that day. There was no blizzard outside. He figured that this would be a good excuse to sneak out since Amma wouldn't let him play outside because there would presumably be a blizzard. But if there's no blizzard, why shouldn't he be allowed to play outside. Besides, he didn't ACTUALLY want to play. He just wanted to see if he could replicate what he did to Dips and try to find out how he triggered it. His curiosity was eating him up inside, so he quietly hopped out of bed and tip-toed down the hallway. His room was directly adjacent to Amma's, so he had to tip-toe past her doorway. He peered through the crack in the door. She was fast asleep.

"Perfect! The coast is clear!" Draco thought to himself.

He tiptoed until he reached the rack that had his beanie and scarf. He put them on and tried putting on his winter boots. He tried to squeeze them in and nearly fall backwards in the process. He managed to keep his balance, but he made a lot of noise, so he stood still like a statue. Amma groaned in her sleep, but didn't wake up. Draco let out a sigh of relief and finally managed to put his boots on before exiting through the front door. He walked around to the back of the house and went into the forest where he usually went. He had a tendency to get lost in the forest, but he was still determined to satisfy his curiosity.

"First, I have to figure out what I want to test this out on.. And then...I have to figure out how to actually do it," Draco thought to himself as he walked deeper and deeper into the forest.

He saw a large boulder by a creek in the distance. The creek led downhill, so this would be a perfect spot to test it out. He put both of his hands on it in an effort to push it, but it wouldn't budge. He even gave himself a running start, but it still wouldn't move. He had nearly given up, until he paced back and forth thinking to himself. He tried thinking about how he triggered it in the first place. His mind clicked. It was a strong emotion that triggered it. He looked at the boulder and tried to imagine it being Dips. He pushed against the boulders and closed his eyes trying to picture pushing his bully. He remembered the look Posey had on her face when she cried. How hurt she was. Draco's heart filled with rage as he growled loudly. He used all of his might to push the boulder until it eventually stumbled and rolled downhill.

"Nrgh! Yes! I did it!" Draco yelled as the boulder kept rolling downhill. He watched as the massive boulder was getting closer and closer to the bottom, but then noticed a small filly walking in the pathway of where the boulder would land. They were laying down, as if smelling something from the ground.

"Wait a minute," Draco muttered to himself. He widened his eyes in shock, "Gasp! Posey look out!"

She looked up and saw that the boulder was already closing in on her. She managed to jump out of the way before being crushed. Draco immediately rushed down the creek to her aid.

"Posey! Are you alright?!" he said as he arrived at her side. Posey looked at him and gasped in shock.

"Posey, what's wrong?" Draco said as he laid out his lion paw to help her up. She reeled back from him, as if she had seen a ghost. She crawled over to the flattened flower and gently held it in her hooves before quietly sobbing. The flower's petals glimmered like stars. Draco felt horrible. He slowly walked over to her so that he could cheer her up. She quickly turned around to face him.

"That look in her eyes..."Draco thought to himself. His heart filled with sorrow. It was the same look that she had when Dips smashed the flowers. And he caused that. He emotionally hurt her. And it could've been astronomically worse. It would've been more than just a couple flattened flowers. He could've hurt somepony. Badly.

"Posey, I--"

"No!" Posey interrupted. Draco shut himself up.

"You're cruel...how could you do this...?" Posey said as she sniffled.

"Posey it's okay...its just a flower. I'm just glad that you didn't get hur--"

"'It's just a flower'?!" Posey interrupted again. Draco just stood there in silence.

"I got my cutie mark because I picked flowers for my mom...she's very sick. But I told her that I would find a flower that would help her get better," Posey said, while Draco listened intently.

"My mommy told me a story about a rare flower that could cure anything. It was called 'The Silver Starbeam,'" she continued as she held it's petals which seemed to have been shattered like glass, "she said that it only grew once every thousand years."

Draco gasped in shock as he realized what he had done, "Posey...I'm so sorry...it was an accident."

She only turned away from him as she shed a tear.

"You're not my friend anymore..."

Draco was heartbroken. His stomach twisted into knots as a rush of emotions filled him to the brim. He had never felt so hurt in his life. He cried as he looked at his hands, which started to glow. Suddenly, his irises started flickering a glowing yellow. He walked backwards in shock as he looked at his hands wondering what was happening to him. His whole body started to shake violently. He put his hands over his ears as he screamed in pain. A small white flash enveloped him as he seemingly disappeared into thin air. Except, he hadn't disappeared. He was now up in a tree, nearly 20 feet off the ground. He held on to the tree as he looked down, shaking. The white flash enveloped him again and he was now back on the top of the hill where he was before. He fell to the ground as he whimpered in pain. His stomach was twisting even more. He thought to himself that it was LITERALLY twisting inside of him. The white flash appeared around him again and he was now close to Posey again. He clenched at his stomach as he hunched his back over. Draco looked like he was about to vomit. His eyes began flickering yellow again, but even faster than before. He flung himself back and a massive beam of a dark and mysterious purple matter violently ejected from his mouth and shot up into the sky. The beam hit a small group of cumulus clouds and they increased to ten times their regular size and rumbled loudly.

"H-huh?" Posey whimpered.

Draco collapsed to the ground as he hyperventilated. He looked up to see Posey. The look of sadness in her eyes was now replaced by fear. Draco stood up quickly and ran further into the depths of the forest. His vision had become blurry and he ran into a tree. As soon as he made contact, the tree turned into a giant cinnamon stick. He jumped in surprise and continued running until he fell and stumbled down another creek. As soon as his body made contact with the water, it turned into tomato soup. He frantically crawled out of the creek and continued running into the forest. He looked up at the sky and saw that the blizzard was catching up to him. Because he wasn't watching where he was going, he didn't see that there was a cliff up ahead. He ran off the edge and screamed in terror as his limp body hit against multiple branches, barely breaking his fall. The branches violently ripped off his beanie and scarf before he eventually hit the ground with a loud thud. He curled his body in pain and the blizzard inevitably washed over him like a tsunami. The wind carried his body and slammed him against a tree. He opened one eye as he laid on the ground and spotted a cave nearby. He grunted as he slowly crawled towards the cave. As soon as he got in, he slumped over and held himself as he shivered. He just barely managed to get out of the blizzard and whatever had happened to him drained him of a lot of his energy. Plus, he was wounded. So, it's no surprise that as soon as he laid down, he had passed out from exhaustion. He was alive, but now...

He was alone.

Comments

[GeekCat]

Oh man...this is heartbreaking. Poor Draco and poor Posey...and poor Amma, once she realizes that Draco's suddenly vanished in the blizzard.

And now I'm worried...Draco may have been able to find shelter, but did Posey? He's never going to forgive himself if something happened to her, is he...

[Heartstrings1]

Draco just laid there in the snow, cold tears running down his face. He stood up one last time and tried pushing Dips again. Instead of being beaten down like all the other times, Draco managed to stand his ground. He had his hands on Dip's hooves and tried to push him back. After nearly falling back again, Draco grunted loudly and nearly sent Dips flying. He had pushed him so far that it had left a ten-meter long wake in the snow. Draco nearly fell over from the sudden surge of energy. He looked up and saw how far away Dips was and gasped in shock. He looked at his own hands in bewilderment.

"Mm?" Discord said as he snapped out of his trance, "yeah, I'm...fine."

Probs found an error

"My mommy told me a story about a rare flower that could cure anything. It was called 'The Silver Starbeam,'" she continued as she held it's petals which seemed to have been shattered like glass, "she said that it only grew once every thousand years."

gets tangled flashbacks

"You're not my friend anymore..."

Oohh... ouch

[Heartstrings1]

10569878
Trueee