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Sunlight flickered through a vast canopy of leaves onto the forest floor below, creating a rippling effect of shadows and light. The constant trotting of hooves upon the dirt created a rhythmic beat as the occasional sweet birdsong and squirrel chatter intertwined with the noise. A diminutive creature darted from shadow to shadow, trying her hardest to avoid the patches of light. A few rays flickered upon her midnight flank, causing her to break into bell-like laughter as she leapt into the "safety" of the nearest bush. Trying, and failing to stifle her laughter with her hooves, she giggled amongst the branches. A shout broke the tranquil noises of the forest. It was calling somepony's name, her name: Luna. The young filly stopped giggling, her game forgotten, and twitched her ears in annoyance.
"Celly is such a worrywart," Luna sighed, slinking out of the bush, barely getting her horn untangled from a stubborn branch. By this point she was pretty dirty from her leaps and tumbles on the forest floor. Dust slightly dulled her usually shimmering dark blue coat. She shook the dirt off easily enough with a few flutters of her tiny wings, causing the white crescent moon on her rump to be seen clearly on the few blotches of her black fur. Leaves stubbornly clung to her tail as well, but a quick flick of her tail dislodged them all. Blowing her now frizzy, periwinkle mane out of her eyes with a huff, she began to trot away from her sister's voice in an act of foalish defiance. The annoyance on her face soon melted away as she allowed the rays of sunshine to catch her and dance on her flank. The dark blue filly sighed again, a sigh of tranquility, before breaking into a run. Nubby little wings unfolded from her sides and beat at the air rapidly to gain more distance with every galloping leap. She broke into a smile, that widened as she bounded gracefully through the forest, following a worn path that she knew all too well. Her horn shimmered with magic, sweeping away the occasional squirrel or rabbit from her trampling hooves. The cover of the trees began to thin out, allowing more shards of light to illuminate the forest floor as she ran. The low gurgling of a stream could be heard as she gleefully leapt onward to her destination.
Finally, she burst into a sun-laden clearing hidden amongst the surrounding trees. One part of the clearing was littered with numerous types of blooming, multicolored flowers. They filled the clearing with a sweet and peaceful scent, while bobbing to and fro in the slight breeze. Another part had a crystal-clear stream cutting through it, the flowing water bubbling hypnotically as silvery fish darted beneath its surface. The young alicorn sat down near the edge of the clearing as she panted with exhilaration and exhaustion. Taking a few moments to get her breath back, she stood back up and blinked.
"Now what?" Luna asked the empty clearing with a sigh. The rush from her run had worn off by now. The boredom she fought so hard to keep away crept annoyingly back into her mind. She'd been having trouble with boredom more and more lately, probably because it seemed as though she had done everything fun at least five times already. Her sister wasn't much help, either, as she often refused to play games with her, claiming them to be "too dangerous". The filly rolled her eyes at the thought and focused her attention on a small cerulean snake slithering past her hoof.
"What do you think I should do?" she innocently inquired of the snake, lowering her head down to its level so she could look it in the eyes. The snake flicked its tongue and pointedly ignored her in favor of the blueberry bush beside her at the edge of the clearing. It twisted up the bush and began to gulp down the ripened berries as the filly sighed again with boredom.
"Of course, you can't answer…." She trotted towards the middle of the clearing with a little less of a spring in her step. Murmuring ideas to herself in order to combat the evil foe that was boredom, she wandered around the forest meadow.
"I could always make designs with flowers. No, wait. Last time I did, I had sneezing fits for a week afterwards…. Poke the fish? Nah, they're catching on to me…. Tree climbing?" With this thought she visibly shuddered. "Never again!" The midnight filly sighed in defeat, her ears and wings drooping. She couldn't find anything interesting to do that she hadn't done enough already. Luna melodramatically collapsed onto the soft grass and thought frantically. There had to be something fun for her to do!
"Clouds, clouds. Feh, I guess I'll stare at the clouds." She rolled onto her back in the fresh grass, shivering involuntarily as she did so thanks to the dew, and gazed up at the slightly cloudy sky.
"Goodie," the filly said in a sarcastic, bored voice, "there are clouds." Her bright blue eyes flicked across the sky, not seeing anything interesting, as usual. Birds, check. Sun, check. Some scattered clouds, check. Boring! Her gaze rested on an especially fluffy looking pink cloud for a few seconds and then glanced at a wispy looking cloud farther to its right. She then did a genuine double-take as she realized that the previous cloud was pink. 'Hello, not boredom,' she thought as a devious smile crept across her face.
Luna, now filled with energy, bounced onto her hooves and craned her neck as far as it would allow in order to get a better view. Her smile grew wider when she saw something darting to and fro upon the small pink cloud. The smile then faltered a bit in confusion when she realized that whatever it was seemed to be eating the cloud. Her view still wasn't good enough to see exactly what the thing was or what it was actually doing. The cloud definitely wasn’t as high as the others, but it was high enough to make whatever was on it hard to see clearly. Either way, she had never seen anything like it before, blurry or not, even though she had lived in this forest for her entire life. She had to do something to get closer, to catch its attention! She couldn't let this opportunity pass her up.
"Wow! That looks fun!" she burst out, quickly yelling the first thing that came to her mind up at the cloud above. Luna then faltered as she saw the creature flinch and pause mid-bite after her shout. 'Great, I probably just scared it away. Not like it can answer me anyway. None of them ever can-'
"Then come on up!"
The young, male voice shouting back at her knocked her out of her thoughts. She refocused back on the cloud with a start to see the creature lounging nonchalantly on it while looking down at her. He waved with his bright yellow hoof thing –she wasn’t quite sure what it was- which somehow produced a snappy-cracky noise. With this, a piece of the cloud split off from the one he was on and began to zoom towards the filly. The strange cloud stopped right before her, hovering just above the grass. Luna hesitantly poked the cloud before her, grimacing slightly as parts of the "cloud" clung to her hoof.
"Cool. Thanks!" she shouted, yelling the next thing on her mind. In response, the creature made some vague gesture and went back to devouring his cloud. Shrugging her wings in acceptance, the filly jumped onto the pink cloud, wincing slightly at the new sensation this created.
It felt soft, if not slightly sticky, and a sweet smell emanated from it. She, however, was more preoccupied by the uncomfortable feeling of it clinging to her underbelly. Luna flinched as she suddenly realized that the cloud was rising towards the creature and away from the ground. She clung to the cloud with all four limbs before somewhat convincing herself that she wasn't going to fall through. She willed her muscles to relax and tried to get a better view of the something- no, someone- on the larger pink cloud in order to distract herself from her fear of falling.
The creature wasn't really "one" of anything, though. He looked as if though somepony simply took the creatures of the forest and mashed them together in a misguided attempt to create something new, but resulting in a strange and mismatched creation instead. His grey head looked pretty normal, much like hers, if not a bit elongated, but that was the only thing about him to look anything close to normal. He possessed two horns, but both were different- one being a small antler while the other was a pale blue horn, almost like hers, except kinked and twisted. One of his front arms was similar to the leg of a bird, while the other was the pale yellow arm of a wildcat. His back legs consisted of a tan, almost pony-like leg, albeit thinner, and the green leg of a lizard. His wings were just as mismatched, as the rest of his body as he had a wing exactly like hers, colored sky blue, as well as a navy bat's wing. He also was revealed to have a maroon, scaled tail which was almost like a snake’s, except for the pink tuft of fur on its tip. All of this fit upon the patchwork creature's skinny, dark-brown furred frame.
His tiny wings beat at the air as he clung to his cloud, climbing around it and even through it in what seemed to be excitement. His ears and tail bobbed as he clambered around it with seemingly limitless energy. Suddenly, he just stopped and crashed down onto the cloud in a laying position. His front legs hung off one side and the fuzzy end of his tail twitched and swung from the other. The creature peered at the filly, his head resting on the edge of the cloud, as she rose towards him.
"I'm Discord!" he exclaimed gleefully. His form trembled as if though he could barely contain his excitement whilst staying still. Discord smiled widely, more widely than the filly ever thought possible, before letting out a whoop of joy as he began racing around his small cloud once again.
From this smile, though, the filly also realized something that made her tremble slightly as well, but from fear rather than joy. A small but sharp, menacing fang jutted from his mouth. As she was much closer now, almost four feet away, she was able to see him with much more clarity. She realized that Discord used his razor sharp claws clung to the cloud as he twisted to and fro upon it. His horns were to a point as well and his snakelike tail contained small pink spikes. He paused his frantic running to glance at the filly again. With this, she got a clear view of his sickly looking yellow eyes. His red irises stared directly into her blue ones and she felt herself tense up instantly.
An aura of wrongness emanated from him. Her senses, instincts, picked up on this and were basically screaming at her to flee due to his dangerous appearance as well as something else that she couldn't quite understand. He's dangerous, no other creature here has the ability to harm you except him. Run! But the filly swallowed down these feelings, with much difficulty, instead.
'But he seems so nice,' she thought, trying to reason with her instincts. 'He's given me no reason to think otherwise. Besides, he is the first thing ever, besides my sister, to have ever been able to talk back to me. I have to give him a chance.' The midnight filly shunned her instincts and finally managed a weak smile under Discord's scrutiny. The dread didn’t leave her though, still tickling at the back of her mind and making her wary of the strange creature.
All too soon, the ride up ended as the two clouds merged with each other with a small pop. Luna suddenly found herself sitting way too close to Discord for comfort. Discord didn't help her persistent uneasy feeling either as he leapt right next to her, his tail wagging happily as he intruded even closer into her personal space.
"Who are you?" he asked, peering curiously right into her face. His scaly tail draped around her neck, loosely anchoring her in place. The fur on its tip flicked and tickled her chin. She giggled a bit. Holding out his claw, he smiled widely at her.
She ignored the many fangs in his mouth that his smile revealed, as well as the claws that seemed to gleam menacingly in the sunlight. She instead focused on his eyes, which seemed to sparkle with pure happiness and joy towards her.
She only hesitated for a second before smiling back at him and confidently placing her hoof in his claw.
"I'm Luna!"
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