A Blight on Equestria

My eyes adjust to the sunlight that just came uninvited into my bedroom.

Or rather the room I fell asleep in anyway.

With a yawn I lazily levitate to my feet and spawn a glass of pure pomegranate juice, then I promptly toss it into nothing in favor of something less tart and less healthy.  In my now vacant hand I summon a glorious cupcake from a little shop back in Ponyville.  I’m about to inhale it when a dull sensation overtakes my whimsical mind and I recall a promise I made to the first friend I ever made.  I swore that I would be a generally good draconequus and that did include a clause against stealing.

I send the treat back where it came from.  It was literally fresh from a baking pan anyway.  Seriously, right from the pan.  I’m sure that a certain pink pony was wondering if it was offended by something she said or didn’t say or whatever she panics about when confectionary treats are concerned.

Out of the abyss that in reality is actually a potted plant I call back the tart beverage.  It’s not that I don’t like pomegranate; I just really wanted that cupcake.  Oh well, there wasn’t any frosting on it yet anyhow.  I drink the glass in one gulp and chew the remains while a guard tries his best to keep a straight face.

Abruptly visiting Canterlot was going to be an amusing little vacation.  My mind innocently drifts to wondering about what qualifies as acceptable mischief when abruptly white flash of light just eats everything.  Just as fast as it appears it leaves and there is a parting gift in the hall.  Princess Celestia in most of her glory stands before me and it’s obvious that my day just became full of tediousness.

I should have taken an actual bedroom instead of just making myself at home on the floor.

I make eye contact and start to take this meeting  a bit more seriously, just a bit though.  She doesn’t say anything.  She just regards me with stone cold eyes and opens an oval shaped portal of several hues stolen from some poor rainbow’s copyright papers somewhere.

I start marching through and start working my brain on establishing an alibi.

The portal drops me off in a secluded area of the palace gardens; specifically in the heart of a maze built with rose bushes.  Quite thorny ones I might add.  In front of me is something that makes me forget all about my story about how I couldn’t have possible had anything to do with a certain cheesecake suddenly tasting like dirt with a splash of rope.

A very well made statue of a spider is looking right at me.  It stands quite tall, taller than some houses in town actually.  It’s made of obsidian and the fangs and eyes are very well crafted.  Heck even the tiny hairs on the legs are impressive.  I can imagine the look on the poor pony who woke up to see that staring in their window and I’m intrigued.  Is this a challenge to my own imagination?  Did Rainbow Dash own up to her boasts of being a master prankster?  I’m about to laugh as I again marvel at the leg detail when I see something…obscene.

Lying in the well maintained grass under the statue’s abdomen are corpses.  Four of them are changelings and the others are Unicorns.  Their hind legs are decorated with small cuts and puncture wounds near the hooves, and they all have deep fresher cuts under their eyes that stretch to their mouths.  The princess of the sun makes herself known by speaking to me with a restrained tone.

“Discord.  Do you know anything about this?”

I fight the urge to give her quite the indignant verbal thrashing that compares to master trolling.  I look back at her and re-establish eye contact.  I fight with everything I have and a few thoughts about Fluttershy as I try to be as civil as possible.

“I’ve done a great deal of things both alleged and proven that possibly merited me being trapped in stone on two occasions from certain perspectives; but not once have I ever killed anypony.”

She believes me and it looks like she wants to apologize but isn’t sure what words she wants to use.  I look back at the dead bodies.  Their small frames just lay motionless in the grass which is being stained crimson by some blood flow from the wounds.  I walk over to the closes one; a changeling.  The poor creature looks like it had starved to death and all the wounds appear to have been made been made before she had passed on.

That’s right.  She died of starvation after being cut up by a very precise violent motion.  Her eyes are open and I notice something wrong.  Not that I’m saying that what I’ve seen so far is right but rather that I see something that makes this somehow worse.

She was at peace when she expired.  It just looked like she wanted this lingering death.  Celestia says something and I ignore it.  The other changelings have the same details.  They all looked like willing participants in this macabre mystery.

“The changelings…weren’t murdered.”

The princes speaks and this time I actually hear her, and by that I mean I listened.

“And the ponies?”

I look over them and their bodies tell a different story.  Their coats are matted in several places on their limbs with dried blood.  There are dark bruises that look like they were tied down.  Their eyes are full of pain.  It’s like they are trying to ask me why they died since whoever did this didn’t seem to think they deserved an answer.  Their bodies are just as thin and hard to look at.  For some reason their bones are more noticeable through their cold figures.  I try to keep my rage down as I answer the monarch.

“They didn’t want this.  They were tied down like animals.”

I think I failed to keep my emotions under control.  She places a lone hoof on my shoulder as if it was supposed to be a comforting gesture.

“I needed to hear it from you Discord; that you had nothing to do with this.”

Fluttershy keeps me from smacking the hoof away as I speak.

“I.  Never.  Killed.  Anypony.  I turned their worlds and heads fifty flavors of upside down many times but I never took a life.”

I look at the first changeling again and I start to offer some of my body’s water in a form of silent solidarity.

I’m not crying.  I don't care what she sees or says.

“That changeling is pregnant.  Well rather she was anyway…”

Celestia takes her hoof back and approaches the bodies and just stares at them.  I guess never in her thousand year reign she had to witness this degree of brutality.  I’m sure that she has watched over a few conflicts or the occasional declaration of war but seeing her subjects killed and just left behind in her backyard was clearly a new experience.  I break the silence with a question.

“When did you find them here?”

She doesn’t look back at me and it takes her some time to answer.

“The giant spider was discovered in the middle of the city with the bodies hanging upside down from its legs by barbed wire.”

“That explains the injuries on their ankles.”

“My sister is probably taking this harder than myself.  This…thing was set up right under her nose…she still won’t speak to anyone.  She’s probably still awake.”

I look at the spider again to take my mind off the victims.  Whoever made this put a lot of work into the craftsmanship.  From a distance you would think that it was carved from one single block of obsidian.  You can barely tell where stone pieces have been fused together.

“Well it wasn’t someone magically inclined who made this.”

I didn’t realize that I had said it out loud.  Princess Celestia turns back to me and before she says anything I go on.  I have an idea of what she wants to ask anyway.

“I have an eye for detail; there are a lot of small bits and pieces that go into organized chaos after all.  If you look closely you can see where the pieces were put together.  All the statues made by Unicorn magic were welded to appear as if it was from one large chunk.  This was done by a pair or possibly even a quad of patient and more crafty hooves.”

I walk around the strange monument and I pause at another oddity.  Up the body just over one of its back legs is something that catches my eye and then the other eye.  I see what looks like a Cutie Mark.  I take my eyes out of my head and polish them on my chest like pieces of fruit and put them back in.  The mark is still there.

“Princess…I’m starting to think that somepony is quite upset with somepony.”

The Cutie Mark on the black beast is three stars that appear to be scratched and cracked in several places.  She sees what I’m looking at and without another word she’s gone in a flash of light.  I start to wonder why she has a chariot in the first place if she can do that at will.  I start to wonder how she keeps a figure without any real motivation to actually walk.

I shake my head to clear the thoughts out and the symbols on the spider remind me of a certain lavender pony’s own mark.  I’m about to further examine to corpses when the object of my last thought comes storming into the heart of the rose bush maze.  She’s out of breath and I almost don’t recognize her without the young dragon at her side.

If I hadn’t seen the bodies or had been indirectly accused to making them I might have made a wisecrack about child labor.  She catches her breath and sparks conversation.

“Discord.  I know we’ve had our differences but I really need a favor.”

I could mock her while bringing up the whole ‘reforming’ affair but I decide against it.  This really isn’t the time for fun or games.  I just nod and she goes on.

“I need you to take Spike away.  I…couldn’t live with myself he got hurt because…”

I catch something in her voice and eyes.  She knows something that I don’t.  I keep that bit to myself and let her continue.

“I can’t know where you take him.  I need you to get him somewhere safe.  I don’t care how or where.  Just…please Discord.  Spike will be safer if he’s far away from all this.”

At this point I have to ask.  What can I say?  I’m curious by nature.

“And why do you think that he’ll be safer if he’s far away from you?”

She glances around as if to see if anypony is around to listen.  She gets closer and her voice shrinks to a whisper.

“I was visited…by somepony two nights ago.  It was an earth pony who said its name was Blight.  Well…I guess it could have been a ‘they’.  Whenever it or they spoke there were two different voices.  It was like I was talking to a mare and a stallion at the same time.  Anyway…Blight said that they would ‘destroy everything that I love’.  I know that that means Spike too.  My closest friends are bearers of the Elements of Harmony but Spike…he’s still just a child…”

She starts to get all teary eyed and I decide that it’s time to just get to the bullet point of the matter at hand.  I place a paw and a claw on her shoulders and give her my answer.

“I’ll do it.  I’ll take Spike away somewhere where this Blight won’t easily find him and I’ll keep him there one way or another.  That’s a promise.”

She looks up at me again and I bend my body to make my face level with hers.

“Twilight Sparkle.  That’s a Pinkie Pie promise.  Cupcake in my eye and the rest of the other stuff.”

I’m satisfied with what Discord said.  I give one last look at the bodies on the grass and turn away.  A warm feeling in the tip of my horn tells me that the Princess is looking for me.  I guess I shouldn’t keep her waiting.  She probably wants me to tell her very detail about that creepy meeting in the archives the other night.

I sniffle again and try to keep myself from crying.

I don’t think I’ll be able to say goodbye to my number one assistant.  I don’t know if I even could.  I take a deep breath and walk onward.  I’ll be strong for Spike.  I’ll miss him terribly but he’ll be safer this way.

I hope.