The Peculiar Dream Journal Of William Klaskovsky

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Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak.

Nurses’ shoes clapping hard against the linoleum. Painfully bright fluorescent lights. The overpowering scent of disinfectant and cleaning solution.

He hated hospitals.

He hated everything about them.

He drifted like a phantom over the floor, unseen. Unnoticed. Unheard.

Even the ones that walked right by him paid absolutely no attention to him, like he wasn’t even there. Maybe he really wasn’t.

Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak.

Even though he knew for certain they couldn’t see him, he still couldn’t help but avoid the busy people nonetheless. It felt like someone was watching him, and he didn’t like it. Invisible, ephemeral, through one wall after the next; it didn’t matter that he could have simply been elsewhere with a snap of his fingers. He wanted to keep moving. He needed to keep moving.

It was imperative that he never stop. If he stopped, he’d focus his attention elsewhere on things he didn’t want to. Like thinking. More specifically, about anything.

William pushed through layer after layer of concrete, through the next and the next. What felt like forever, until the natural light gently caressing his face felt like breaking the surface of a pool. Toward through the wall without tearing it, continuing along without even breaking stride.

Just keep going. It wasn’t so much a thought as it was a central drive that all of his focus remained on.

For god’s sake, just ever stop.

And he kept on going.

For how long, he didn’t know.

He’d told him everything he could, the memory was still fresh in his mind. It didn’t help get anything off of his chest. If anything he felt worse than before.

The cycle of day and night reoccurred numerous times; of how many, he was uncertain. Time didn’t matter anymore, nor did the almost instantaneously changing scenery. It was irrelevant as well.

William wasn’t quite certain what caused him to stop.

The cheerful noise of children playing met his ears. Children his own size seemed to run right past him on the playground, but he felt so much bigger than all of them. Too large.

With a long, unheard weary sigh, William finally sank into one of the worn wooden benches and watched them all, hands folded loosely in his lap as his mind was allowed to wander at last. He didn’t particularly like where it led him, but he was simply too tired to try anymore. He sat there for a long time. He watched children come and go for a while, simply listening to the chaos of rampant children. One of them continuously checked over in his direction, oddly looking right at him. A girl hardly his own age, bright blond hair up in wildly flapping pigtails. Again and again she looked right at him, through him before eventually wandering away with her happily chatting friends.

Perhaps he had only been there for a moment, or maybe he had been there all along, but William was slow to make the sudden realization that he was not sitting alone.

“… You found me.”

“I didn’t know you were playing hide and go seek,” Discord replied lazily. Tail draped languidly over the bench behind him, Discord sat oddly stiff next to the boy with his arms loosely crossed.

“I didn’t want to be found,” William answered quietly.

They sat in silence for a little while longer. William couldn’t quite bring himself to look at the draconequus.

“I… er-hem,” Discord cleared his throat. “Eris was pretty torn up after you ran away.”

“It seems like I do that a lot these days. Running away, I mean.”

He wasn’t quite sure if William was really listening or just responding out of habit.

“I should have figured you’d come here. Back to this old place,” the draconequus gestured toward the orphanage’s fenced in playground.

“I don’t recognize anyone here,” William’s voice was slightly distraught. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“Yeah.”

Again silence fell.

Discord seemed to hate it even more than William did, shifting this way and that in discomfort.

“… Sixty-five years?” William breathed at last.

“It has been a bit-”

“That’s a long time to keep someone like that,” he watched a vibrant orange beach ball become the victim of a jealous group of children. “I mean… god.”

“You must have gone through quite a bit to find him,” Discord coughed into his hand.

“Not really. Just a few paper trails,” William's dead stare ahead was unbroken. “Quadriplegic. Total paralysis. For sixty-five years. And you made sure he suffered every goddamn day.”

Discord grew inordinately stiff.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t even look at him for the longest time.

“… He was conscious when I found him. I don’t know if he was really even there anymore though,” William explained quietly. “I sat with him. You know. That shell of flesh that used to be my biological father.”

Still Discord said nothing.

“I don’t think anyp-anyone had even talked to him for… for a long time,” he continued. “So I talked to him. I don’t know if he heard me. I told him all about home. How everything was going. I told him about mother. And you. And Eris, and Miss Pie, and Scootaloo and everyone. I told him everything I could about home. I wanted him to know what kind of person I turned out to be.”

“… And?”

“And… then I smothered him.”

“… I know.”

The silence was the worst.

“I’m not sorry. I’m angry that you deliberately kept Neil alive without telling anyone.”

“I didn’t figure you would be,” Discord shrugged with a tired sigh.

“He didn’t deserve to stay like that. Nobody should have to suffer like that.”

“You aren’t really in a position to judge,” Discord snapped at last, the anger and bitterness clear in his voice. “Do you even have the slightest damned inkling of what I’ve gone through? For your sake? Do you?”

William squirmed uncomfortably under his suddenly hot gaze. He tried to look at the other children, at the bench, at his shoelaces. Anything else aside from his angry, disappointed eyes.

“A lot, to paraphrase,” Discord said after a stretch of awkward silence. “A whole lot. More than you could possibly imagine. What I do in my spare time is nobody’s business but my own. William.”

Hands clasped neatly in his lap, his gaze stayed firmly on the suddenly interesting spot between his feet.

“… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“I am,” William sniffled miserably, his shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t change anything. But I am. I just want things to be right again,” he struggled, his voice straining. “I just want…! I want…!”

He clenched his hands at the air again and again, grasping at something invisible.

“I don’t know what I want!” William blurted angrily, fighting back a sudden stinging sensation in his eyes as he felt the draconequus watching him. “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t… I-I don’t… know…” he trailed off weakly. “I’m sorry. Oh god, I’m such a monster. I guess it really does run in the family,” he gave a bitter bark. “I have a kill count now.”

“That happens,” Discord breathed, one talon rubbing his temple. “Surprisingly often.”

“Don’t make it sound so arbitrary,” William huffed tearily. “First Fluttershy, now this…”

Discord jerked suddenly, surprising him.

“Say that again?”

“I don’t want to,” he sniffed. “I’m such a-”

“Say it again!” William flinched when the draconequus grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. “Again, say it again!”

“I-I’m sorry!” he cringed.

“Not that!” the urgency in Discord’s voice was apparent, his red eyes wider than he had ever seen them. “How many did you say again?”

“H-how-”

“How many people did you kill?!”

“Two! Two!” William flailed, unable to free himself from Discord’s mantic grasp.

“Then you’re wrong,” Discord rose with renewed vigor, dragging William along roughly by the wrist.

“What?”

“You’re wrong!” he informed him gleefully. “This changes everything!”

“… What? Wh-”

A blonde girl with twin pigtails watched the strange shimmer in the air where something very unusual had occurred. A single dusty vehicle passed by on the street, the sounds of the city muffled by the enclosed buildings shielding them.

Something odd, that was certain. Something not quite noticeable, like when something is right on the tip of the tongue. Something peculiar.

And so she followed.

It took less than a hint of a shadow of a fraction of a millisecond for them to vanish into thin air.

“-ere are you taking me?”

William blinked as Discord’s unbreakable grip fell away, an almost unbearably golden reflection blinding him. The sudden scenery change had been unexpected, and it took a moment for William to try to understand what had happened. He had seen a number of rather unlikely and impossible things since achieving godhood, but this was the most unbelievable out of all of them.

Before him stood a gargantuan golden statue of Discord himself.

It was large, to say the least; incomprehensibly so. It stretched so high up into the sky that he couldn’t see the top – and what he thought at first was the sky turned out to the an enormous domed ceiling of some even more massive structure. Huge black and white checkered tiles made up the floor, winding over to one wall and disappearing into a thick wall of yellow prickly vines. What looked like a minibus over a mile long was driven by a whole parade of Discords, nearly all identical. A couple of floating cotton candy clouds drifted by, occasionally shooting out quick rivets of chocolate rain and candied lightning bolts to unfortunate passersby. Explosions of light and sound emanated from nearly every direction, each one attracting his attention. The sky-ceiling broiled and shifted, showing the ground beneath them, and the bottom of an ocean, and the surface of a sun and a tray of muffins.

There was simply so much happening all at once, it was so overwhelming that it took William a while to realize that the happily shrieking figure shaking him was not, in fact, the specter of death in the shape of a banshee.

“Oh my god, William!” Eris swung the boy back and forth in her iron grasp, his feet not even touching the floor. “Ohmigodohmigodohmigod I thought I’d never see you again, I thought you were gone forever and I looked and looked but I couldn’t find you and I thought you were gone but now you’re not you’re here, you’re here and you’re not gone and ohmigodohmigodohmigod!”

“Can’t… breathe…!” William struggled uselessly, unable to pry himself safely from her grip.

“Where did you find him?” Eris asked Discord breathlessly, overtaken with joy. “How?”

“You’d be surprised,” Discord responded dryly, apparently unperturbed by the surrounding chaos. “Things have changed.”

“And?” Eris asked, leaving William utterly baffled.

“What are you two talking about?” he finally managed to free himself from Eris’s arms, looking around at the impossible surroundings. They shared a single look before promptly ignoring him.

“He doesn’t still have to go, does he?” she asked quickly, not hiding her trepidation well.

“Go where?”

“I’m afraid so,” Discord nodded, crossing his mismatched arms and beginning a steady march in a seemingly random direction, the pair following him. “The council’s word was given.”

“Council? What council?” William stepped quickly on one side of him. “Council of what? Where are we?”

“But won’t they…?” Eris started uneasily.

“Willie said he killed two people,” Discord nodded. William shifted uneasily, but kept up the pace. To where, he didn’t know. They passed what appeared to be an upside down tree made out of a billion other trees, spinning in a circle. “Just two. Right?”

“Er…” William cleared his throat, uncertain of what to do with the attention he suddenly had now that he had it. “I-yes. Two. Not, um… not counting all the… people in the castle…”

“Oh – so that’s where everybody went to,” Eris scratched her chin thoughtfully.

“I mean, not technically dead,” William added quickly. “They were still alive in their primordial forms. Technically.”

“THAT SHIT WAS PEOPLE?!”

“He still has to be brought before the Council regardless,” Discord explained as they passed through a massive silver archway, which was suddenly in front of them again and again with nothing behind. “And believe me, the Council is pissed.”

William paled considerably, a plethora of terrible worries all striking him at once.

“Try not to worry about it too much,” Discord reassured him. “I was going to have to bring you here anyway. Just make sure that you tell them exactly what you told me and not think about the eternal suffering you’ll be enduring if you make them angry.”

“Wait, what?”

Discord was, quite possibly, the most serious he had ever seen him. Even the previously cheerful Eris was worried and grim. A nasty thought occurred to him as a literal stream of Discords drifted by.

There was a multitude of Discords. All over the place.

How could he even be sure the one leading him toward something he knew nothing about even be the right one?

Eris seemed to catch onto his worry, one paw firmly on his shoulder as they guided him over a bridge which somehow went up a wall and looped back on itself to another archway.

“Will…” she started with difficulty. “Um… things have been a little, uh… crazy.”

“Oh,” he nodded, looking around. “You don’t say.”

“People are dead, Will,” Discord said darkly. He snapped his talons twice and the floor split apart like a pair of bird’s wings, launching them so fast that everything else turned into a blur. They remained mysteriously still in the center, regardless of the erratic patterns that the floor tile bird twirled in.

“I-”

“A lot of people,” he cut the boy off. “You, specifically.”

“Er… what?”

“You’re dead,” Discord repeated. “All over the galaxy. Every galaxy.”

“Did-did you seriously not tell him?” Eris balked at the elder draconequus. “… Oh my god, you ginormous dickweed.”

“Tell me what?” William threw up his arms in exasperation.

Eris took a deep breath, running her paw between her eyes.

“Okay, so… you know how reality branches apart from each differing potential outcome, right?” she said slowly.

“Go on…” William watched her intently.

“Well,” she coughed into one paw. “You’re kind of… dead. In, like… all of them.”

William stared at her, still trying to contemplate her words.

“All…”

“All of them, yes,” Discord added. “Every world. Every dimension, every reality, every possibility. A mass genocide on the scale that even… upsets the Council. There are no other worlds with other versions of you in them, William. You’re the last one. The only one in all of existence and non-existence to be.”

“So… you’re unique!” Eris punched his shoulder playfully. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“Oh my god,” William’s head felt as if it were going to explode. Which it very well might have, he wouldn’t be too surprised after the recent events. They had long since landed straight into a, surprisingly, bland and ordinary pavilion with a single dingy elevator stretching up into eternity. “Oh god. Oh god, that’s impossible.”

“That’s the problem,” Discord led them toward the elevator, the friendly ding! of the metal double doors snapping shut far too loud. “This kind of thing doesn’t just happen out of nowhere. Most things the Council doesn’t really care about unless you have a minimum of four freckles, but there are penalties for that kind of thing.”

“Freck-what?”

“It happened all at once, too,” Eris stated as they steadily rose to a new unknown location. “No warning, no sign whatsoever. Just… every version of you just died. It’s a total mystery!”

“Please don’t sound so excited,” William felt very much like he were going to be ill.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten to have any kind of fun?” she frowned. “We could totes crack this case wide open – we can be the mystery twins!”

“We’re not twins!” he scowled.

“Focus,” Discord said tersely and snapped his talons again as the elevator came to a screeching halt. “Will, this is kind of really damned important. Try to keep in mind that it’s not just your neck on the line here, alright?”

“What do you mean?” William asked in confusion.

“It means I’m vouching for you,” Discord answered.

William paused for thought.

That was something to keep in mind, and he wished for more time to mull it over. Unfortunately, he was granted no such thing as the elevator doors rapidly sprang open, quite literally vomiting them out with a highly unpleasant noise. The room they were deposited in couldn’t really be called a room as much as it was an entirely new perspective in and of itself. What was inside out was upside down and blue, all of his tastebuds seemed to be assaulted by something terribly orange-y all at once, and he could have sworn that he was smelling the color blue.

All that combined might have been what caused him to finally shut down before the combined semicircle of Discords, each residing regally behind their own raised desks. Long shadows were cast at impossible angles, throwing William into what felt very much like a spotlight. Not a single one was without a ludicrously tall powdered wig, and the clamoring noise of over a dozen gavels would have been deafening were he in any other situation than the bizarre courtroom of draconequui.

“Order! Order in the Court of Chaos!” cried one of the Discords. He slammed his wooden hammer against the desk jarringly with the others.

“Order!” shouted the one next to him, banging his gavel even harder for emphasis.

“Also order! More order in my section than yours!” the one on the end literally had to scream to make himself heard, the cacophonous noise overpowering all else.

It went on for nearly five whole minutes.

The banging and shouting match seemed to go on for much longer, and William couldn’t do much more than stand helplessly in confusion as he vainly tried to spot the Discord he knew with Eris anywhere else. However, only darkness surrounded him.

And then, just as swiftly as it had happened, it stopped.

“… Do you know why you have been brought before the Council?” one of the wigged Discords on the end spoke at him suddenly. William was still reeling from the sudden silence, teetering in confusion.

“… I have no idea what’s going on,” he spoke loudly, still unable to quite hear himself properly.

“Regardless!” spoke up another, this one with a wildly spinning eye. “Your crimes against the balance have not gone unnoticed very much in the span of time in which they were occurring at the time that you did them and will not be unable to not get away with for!”

“… What?” scoffed another Discord, this one two seats away. “Are you even paying attention anymore?”

“No, not really!” the madly spinning eye stopped briefly on his double. “The sentence is eternal damnation in the pits of highly unpleasant poky things!”

“Now-now hold on a moment,” William interjected nervously, his voice coming out much weaker than he anticipated. “Can someone – anyone, please tell me what in god’s name is going on?”

“Are you not responsible for the genocide of approximately forty-seven quadrillion,” the Discord with the spinning eye focused on him intently. “Billion, million-ty seventh-jillion sectup-illion-”

“Did you murder literally every other William Z. Klaskovsky in existence?” the Discord on the end gave an exasperated sigh. His talons clacked and clicked boredly against his high desk.

“Er…” William cleared his throat uneasily. “N-N… no…?”

There was silence amongst the court for a few moments.

In the darkness, someone coughed.

“… Whelp,” coughed one of them into his paw. “He said he didn’t do it. Case closed. Who’s up for bagels?”

“Yeah, I could go for some lunch right about now,” one of the others stretched languidly, rolling his shoulders. “We can go grab some gelato for a snack and head over to the cafeteria and do you honestly think we believe that?” he snarled viciously at William, suddenly ten feet taller than before. Yet another loud cough echoed from somewhere in the distance.

“Well…” he shifted awkwardly. “I should hope so. I’m innocent on-on accounts of genocide! That’s monstrous!”

“Ha!” two other of the draconequui cackled in slightly offbeat symphony. “As if something like innocence is going to get in the way of serving hot justice!”

“It’s served cold,” another muttered under his breath.

“Hot and cold justice!”

“Now-now, hold on…!” William felt himself magically raised by invisible hands, the strength sapped out of him instantly. Panic choked him as he swung violently back and forth, incapable of freeing himself or doing much other than stare ahead.

“To the Pit of Poky Things!”

“Agreed! To the Pit! All in favor say ‘aye’!”

A rousing chorus of ‘ayes’ came from them all at once, leaving William even more stricken than before.

Another spectacularly loud coughing fit came from behind him, and William struggled in vain to take a closer look. Unsurprisingly, Discord was hacking and wheezing with remarkably earsplitting deliberate coughs into his paw, giving the council a meaningful look. Eris stood barely a foot away, expression utterly blank.

“… Is there something that you’d like to add?” the center of the council readjusted his wig with self importance, leveling a look at the lower-altitude Discord.

“Cut the antics,” he responded in an inordinately somber tone. “The schtick wasn’t funny the first time.”

“You have no sense of humor, sixty-nine dash eight comma ampersand purple question mark,” the council member shot back grumpily. William was promptly dropped to what he could only assume was the floor, because he couldn’t quite see it. “I can’t say that I’m all that surprised.”

“High Council of Supreme Discords,” he strode forth with his head held high. “I have done as you decreed and brought the last before you.”

“Yes, we know,” said the same Discord from above. “That part’s fairly obvious.”

“And,” the Discord standing in front of William said a little more loudly. “And, I would also like to present evidence of innocence.”

“What evidence?” William murmured.

“Hush, I got this,” he muttered back.

The council of draconequui’s hushed murmurs echoed for a few seconds throughout the shadowy hall.

“And… what evidence could you possibly be providing?” spoke up the one on the end. “This is a matter of grave importance, there are questions unanswered and punishment must be given!”

“Er…” Discord changed his stance slightly before jabbing a thumb back at William. “Well, uh… how does the last’s memory itself serve?”

Another chorus of murmurs echoed quietly.

“Yeah, that’d just about do it,” the not quite in sync pair responded.

“Neat!” Discord clapped his mismatched hands together. “Just give me…” he tapped each talon to his palm, counting aloud. “One… two… three… fo- four centuries, I’ll be right back.”

Another chorus of murmurs went around the council.

“… Alright,” shrugged the still too-tall draconequus. “You have four centuries. Not a millisecond after though,” he warned him.

“I’ll be on it like Yogi Bear on a pic-a-nic basket!” Discord nodded seriously. He snapped his talons once.

Before William even realized it, the entire room was gone. Long shadows were replaced with the bright, cheery colors of an empty hospital waiting room with far too many happy faces painted onto the walls. Chalky drawings were stuck here and there with tape, dangling quietly.

“… What in the Sam hell is going on?!” William blurted, arms still crossed protectively over his head.

Eris leaned back in the seat next to him, peering over at Discord on his opposite side.

“So… that happened,” she stated. It was the first time she had spoken in a while, and it sounded odd to William. “Four centuries, huh?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Discord rose, motioning for them both to follow as he pushed through the hospital’s double doors and strode with a rapid tunk, tick! down the brightly illuminated hallway. His words were just as fast as his actions, impatient. “Time means nothing to the council.”

“So… we’re actually going to have to wait four centuries?” William asked, straining to keep up and still attempting to make sense of the madness occurring all at once. A small part of him silently noted that he was barely even phased by the teleportation anymore.

“No,” Discord frowned. “I mean, time literally means nothing to the Confederacy of Dunces. We might not even have four minutes. If they can count.”

“Do… you… not get along?” he asked slowly, oblivious to the ‘shut up’ motions that Eris was making.

“You could say that,” he answered grimly. “But at the moment they’re our best line of defense. It’s best to just play along and let them argue amongst themselves rather than… well.”

“Well, what?” William asked curiously as they rounded a corner, the unnervingly empty hospital beginning to make his spine tingle. “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Well,” Discord ran a paw over his head. “You mean aside from the fact that literally every other version of you to be known mysteriously bit the dust and you’re seemingly the culprit due to process of elimination? All of creation is kind of having a rough time at the moment.”

“… Define ‘a rough time’.”

“Have you ever heard of the Titans?” Eris asked uneasily as they came to a door with a single number eight on it. Discord barged in without delay, leaving them both to follow.

“Religious myths in Equestria about the founders of the world, yes,” William said slowly and uncertainly.

“They’re not myths,” she said after Discord nodded to her subtly. “At least, mostly. They’re a constant in every world – the source of Harmony itself, there before life and death and sentience even. Think of gods amongst gods,” Eris rubbed her shoulder. It took William a brief moment to realize that they had been standing rather uncomfortably in front of a very cold looking metal examination table for a while now.

“And… what does this have to do with… anything?” William’s brows narrowed.

“The Elements…” Discord shifted at last. “The Titans were, and have been, very responsive to the agents of Chaos; to everyone, really, so long as they sought them out. And then they went quiet.”

“Okay…” William’s skeptical tone didn’t help matters, but he didn’t drop it.

“All of a sudden,” he threw out his arms. “Worlds, galaxies – whole realities, just gone.”

“That happens sometimes,” Eris interjected.

“Just not on such a massive scale,” Discord frowned. “It’s unnatural entropy… or, more than that, like they were being devoured.”

“Right…” she nodded as she helped the nervous William up onto the examination table. “As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”

“There’s a disturbance in the Force,” Discord nodded seriously. “And the Council of Chaos is just a teeny, tiny bit paranoid that you might be involved.”

William’s mouth had been opening and closing, but nothing seemed to come out until the last part.

“But-but, that’s… that’s insane!” William tried to push away the stethoscope that had appeared out of thin air. “That’s insane, it’s just… mad!”

“You just described the Council, kiddo,” Discord harrumphed. “Not even proper anarchy, I can’t stand courtroom farces. Stuck up pricks.”

“He’s still kind of sore since he got rejected from one of the seats,” Eris explained.

“Nuh-uh!” the draconequus snapped. “I am not!”

“Slow down slow down slow down slow down!” William smacked the flying stethoscope away once again in irritation as he was pressed back down to the bench. “Just-just give me a moment, would you?”

“There’s no time!” Discord growled, clicking his talons again. An odd sensation began to prickle at the base of William’s neck, spreading through his body in an instant. It felt very much as if he had suddenly been dropped into a bath of ice cubes, and he fought hard not to shiver. “I just need to you trust that I know what I’m doing; kind of like I trust that you weren’t lying to me, or I am in some serious deuce with the Council.”

William took a deep breath, looking back and forth between the determined draconequui.

“You’re… you’re just… looking through my-my memory, right?” he asked uneasily.

“Well, actually,” Eris looked away with embarrassment. “You’ve kind of got something that doesn’t really, you know… belong to you stuck away somewhere within your, uh… entity.”

“Your power,” he answered instantly.

“Bingo,” Discord nodded. “She’d kind of like that back.”

“Take it,” William didn’t even blink. “It wasn’t mine to begin with. Just take it back already. I couldn’t really find too many uses for it after all,” he lied.

“That’s, uh… that’s kind of a problem as well…” Eris tapped her talons together. “See, you’ve kind of, er… seen a little too much.”

“… I don’t like where this is going.”

Discord sighed heavily, pinching his the bridge of his snout.

“Once Eris’s connection to Chaos has been taken out of you…” Discord started. “If all goes well, you’ll revert back to your previous state. I can keep you in a state of suspended animation for a while, but… you’ll still know things you shouldn’t. You’ve seen things that human minds simply can’t handle without shutting down.”

“Oh- oh, no,” William shied away quickly. “Oh, no no no – no way, I don’t like where this is going…!”

“Will.”

Eris’s paw on his hand kept him still for a moment.

“Look. Dude,” she locked eyes with him. “I’m gonna level with you here. It’s probably kinda gonna suck. You’re probably gonna have migraines for a few decades.”

“Decades?!”

“But trust me when I say you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Eris continued to console him. “Dad’s mind wiped me too, remember? And look at me, I’m totally fine!”

She gave him her best winning smile. She even kicked up the ‘perky’ factor a couple of notches.

“… Not a chance in hell!” William tried to scrabble away again, regardless of the futility.

“QUIET!”

William flinched at the sound of Discord’s angry bark. However, when he looked at him, his face was utterly expressionless.

“… Look,” Discord seethed. “Just roll with it. I promise I’ll only wipe out what’s absolutely necessary. And I swear to the Titans, if I find anything incriminating…”

His threat was left hanging.

“I stand by my plea of innocence,” William said firmly. “Just… whatever it takes. I just want to go home.”

“… Yeah.”

Discord looked away for another moment, his face downcast.

“… Tell you what,” Discord nodded after a bit. “Tell you what. I’m gonna put you under. Okay? It’ll be just like going to sleep,” he held up a finger when the boy began to protest. “And when you wake up, all of this will just be a bad dream and you’ll be back at home again.”

“… In Equestria?” he asked hesitantly.

“You betcha. Like this was all just a bad dream.”

William held his gaze for a beat before turning to the silent Eris, then back to Discord.

“… You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Alright,” he agreed slowly. Just as Discord began to move, William interrupted again. “Wait, wait!”

“What now?” Discord asked in exasperation.

“I-I had another question,” William started. “Since I might forget anyway… is-is there anything I should know first?”

“Yes,” Eris nodded. “Time is a falsehood, the universe is a hologram and everything you thought you knew is wrong.”

“What-“

And that was all the time he had before dropping rather unceremoniously onto the table.

“… Just gonna knock him out, huh? Done in ten seconds, huh?”

“Eris.”

“… Yeah Dad?”

“Shut up.”

“M’kay.”

The process was long and arduous, to say the least.

Discord washed away grime that he couldn’t see down a sink as Eris kicked cheerfully on the countertop beside him, noisily enjoying her lollipop. Her eyes remained rather firmly, however, on the brightly glowing sphere floating cheerfully around his left antler and making a rather bizarre and indefinable noise. It orbited him slowly, almost like a spherical halo.

“You really think the Council will be happy with that?” Eris asked after a long stretch of silence, the poor gnawed stick of her candy all that remained.

“They’d better be,” Discord harrumphed. “If not we’re kind of boned.”

“Great. So… was it…?”

“I’d prefer to consider it a merciful lobotomy,” Discord flicked his talons dry. “Still not anywhere near as bad as yours.”

“Really?”

“Definitely,” he rolled his shoulders, making it pop audibly. “Although he might be down by about a dozen IQ points or so now. Nothing he’ll miss! Probably…”

Discord tried whistling restlessly. He failed.

Terribly.

“So… this means I get my powers back now, right?” Eris perked up hopefully.

“Yeah, no.”

“Wha- why not?” she dropped off the countertop indignantly.

“Because you’re still grounded, that’s why,” he answered humorlessly.

“Oh my god!” Eris threw up her arms in fury. “This is so unfair! I can’t believe you, why do you always have to be such a massive-”

“And if you show no signs of power then the Council has no reason to show interest in you,” Discord added, almost as an afterthought, but it was clear from his tone what his intent was. Eris quieted down swiftly afterwards.

“... So…” she rubbed her elbow, trying not to look around the room. “Now what?”

“Now I keep my promise,” Discord grinned, clicking his talons.

“Which one?”

“See you after work, sugar booger,” he kissed her quickly on the forehead. “Try not to let your brother botch things too badly this time around. ‘Kay?”

“No! No, not o-”

“-kay!”

Eris blinked, the slumped form lying in the grass before her oddly small and frail looking on the ground. The cheerfully quacking ducks in the lake beside them filled the summer air, complimenting the sound of a number of families along its sandy banks. Mid afternoon warmth radiated over them, followed shortly by the ever so subtly cool breeze wafting from the waters of Ponyville Lake. She looked back down at William again, still unfamiliar with the sight. A small voice in the back of her head (at least, one that wasn’t screaming German six days a week) was very clear that she preferred the boy’s previous form better. The colt just seemed off looking.

The other voices in her head seemed to be in symphony with her, though.

“… COCKSUCKING SON OF A WHORE!”

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