Reconstruction

Discord arched his back and yawned. “Thank the cosmos this is finally done…” He jumped up and floated before the large crowd of alicorns before him. There were stallions and mares, fillies and colts, and all were standing or sitting around, looks of uneasiness universal across their faces. “Attention, my little ponies!” Discord shouted. A few in the front turned to look at him.

He frowned. “I said, attention, my little ponies!”

The few that had taken notice shortly returned their attention to each other. Discord snarled. Insubordination? Pervading the populace this early? With a grand sweep of his glowing arms, the sky above was shrouded in an inky black stormcloud. Lightning and thunder punctuated his every word: “ATTENTION, MY LITTLE PONIES.”

Not a pony neglected to give him its attention; every pair of eyes looked upon their creator, filled to the brim with fear.

Discord smirked. “Much better.” With a flash, a large megaphone appeared in his paw. “Welcome, my creations, to the first day of the rest of your lives!”

An uneasy murmur ran through the crowd. “The rest of our lives?” one filly asked. “I’ve been here for weeks!” said a stallion. “Why does he look so different than us?” asked a mare.

“I’m willing to bet,” Discord continued, “that you’re all still a bit disoriented.”

The ponies murmured their assent, some still gazing warily at the swirling storm clouds above.

“In time, I’m sure you’ll grow used to the experience of being alive. You might even find you prefer it to the Oblivion of nonexistence. Of course, I can’t make the comparison, because I have never not existed.” He scratched his chin. “Actually, I wonder what it’s like…”

With a flash, Discord disappeared. The ponies looked amongst each other, confused. A moment later, he reappeared. “Yep, I was right,” he said thoughtfully. “That was terrible.

“Regardless, my creations, there are now five hundred of you on this planet, and you exist for one purpose and one purpose only.” He grinned mischievously. “Does anyone know what that purpose is?”

The crowd remained utterly silent. Discord scratched his his neck. “No? Nopony? No one's going to--” He cupped his face in his paw. “Okay, okay. Maybe I’m starting off too strong.” He gestured to the mountain behind him. “Fluttershy always said I was too ‘forward’, so let’s take this more slowly. Does anypony have any questions?”

After a moment of silence, a mare near the middle of the crowd began to hover. “Who are you?”

Discord chuckled. “Ah! My favorite subject!” Great bolts of lightning shot out of the clouds and froze above his head, spelling the word DISCORD in giant, crackling letters. “I am Discord, the spirit of chaos. Everything you see around you is a product of my hand; a fruit of my labor; a result of my unimaginably powerful…” He bit his lip. “...power.”

“Who are we?” the mare asked. Numerous ponies murmured, obviously wondering the same thing.

“You,” said Discord as the lightning letters disappeared, “are the epitome of my creation. I have gifted you with the utmost level of intellect and spirit, as well as dominion over all of creation.”

“Why?”

Discord clapped his hands together. “Excellent question! You exist for one purpose: to entertain me.”

The ponies in the crowd muttered amongst themselves; Discord could decipher expressions of discontent.

“Well, I suppose that isn't entirely true.” Numerous ponies looked up at him with hopeful eyes. With a flash, Eris appeared in Discord’s arms. “This one is special.” Eris smiled up at him cheerfully, but her face fell as she observed the increasingly angry expressions of the ponies below.

“What makes her so special?” asked a stallion.

“For your information… uh…” Discord tapped his chin. “Who are you again?”

“Pebble Pusher,” said the stallion with a scowl.

“Right. This one just happens to be the very first pony out of all of you.”

“And that makes her better than us?”

In Discord’s grasp, Eris looked back and waved her arms frantically. “Are you sure you don’t want me to set this one straight?” Discord asked her. “It would be easy enough to get rid of him.”

Eris frowned and shook her head gently.

“Fine.” He sighed. “My ponies,” he said to the crowd, “your task is to construct and establish a bustling metropolitan society, with a harmonious populace and a benevolent government, capable of sustaining itself until the day that star over there in the sky expands enough to end you all in a great burst of nuclear fire.” He nodded resolutely.

Pebble Pusher’s jaw dropped. “What? How are we supposed to do that?” Great cries from the others punctuated his question.

Discord set Eris on his head between his horns and threw his arms into the air. “I don’t know! You just… do it!”

“How?”

“Go punch a tree and make a building, or something! Do I have to do all the work?”

“How do we make a building?” Pebble Pusher asked.

Discord shrugged. “I never saw them do it! I found them when it was all already done! Can’t you all just figure it out?”

“You’re the one that made us,” said Pebble Pusher. “Can’t you teach us how?”

Discord smirked. “Sure. Watch and learn.” He snapped, and beside him, floating in the air, appeared a small log cabin, complete with a welcome mat and chimney. “I don’t suppose you ponies can do that.”

Pebble Pusher groaned. “Quit screwing around and teach us how to do it!”

“Yeah, teach us!” sang numerous other ponies. “How can we do it if you don’t teach us?”

“Well, I don’t know how to do it,” Discord replied. “If I need to make something, I just do it all at once.”

“Why don’t you let us do that, then?”

“There can be only one god,” Discord said snidely. “You ponies need to do it the old-fashioned way.”

Cries of indignation rose from the crowd.

“Why can’t you just help us?” asked one colt in the front.

“Because you need to do it yourselves! I need to oversee a better society than Celestia, not build it myself!”

The ponies looked to each other in confusion, the question of “Who is Celestia?” running through the crowd.

“Look,” said Discord, his voice laced with mounting irritation. “The point is, you ponies need to get your acts together and organize yourselves.” He pointed a finger up, and a thin beam of golden light shot skyward into the dark clouds. The light sucked the clouds like a vacuum, sending the darkness down the beam until it dissipated around Discord’s hand. He gestured to the clear sky and the setting sun. “And you’d better hurry. I do believe the predators around here are nocturnal.”

Panicked cries arose from the crowd. Exclamations of “How are we supposed to do this?” and “We’ll never make it!” and “I don’t even know how to punch trees!” rang out in the cacophonous uproar.

Discord clutched the sides of his face. “Why do you ponies not understand this?” he shouted. “How did you learn in the first place?”

“We had no first place!” a pony shouted. “I was only made just yesterday!”

By now the crowd was dispersing as ponies fled in seemingly random directions, great cries and declarations of doom sounding out from all over. Discord looked upon his panicking ponies, his eyes darting across the landscape as he pulled at the fur on his face in growing desperation.

“Order!” he shouted. “I demand order!”

The shouting and running continued regardless.

“Order! I want order!”

“We’re gonna die!”

“We’re all doomed!”

“I don’t want to die!”

“ORDER!”

“I didn't ask to live!”

“We’re never going to make it!”

“I find this environment troublingly overstimulating!”

“ORDER! Order, please!”

“What do we do?”

“Where do we go?”

“ORDER! ORD-- STOOOOOOOOP!”

Discord swung his arms out like an umpire, and instantly the ponies froze in place. He lowered himself and collapsed on the ground, clutching his temples. Eris poked his forehead inquisitively.

“This isn't chaos,” Discord moaned. “Chaos is fun! Chaos is entertaining!” He gestured to the frozen pandemonium before them. “This isn't fun! This is just annoying! This is…” He scoured for words, failed, and sighed loudly. He rolled over, setting Eris on his side and holding his head up with his paw. “I imagine you must find this delightfully ironic, little one.”

Eris thought for a moment. “Why do you hate us?”

Discord’s eyes grew wide as she spoke. Her voice was soft and soothing, barely a whisper, high-pitched without being shrill. Rather like Fluttershy’s voice, Discord thought. “What did you say?”

“Why do you hate us?”

“Rather depressing first words,” Discord said with a chuckle. “You haven’t said a single thing since I made you.”

Eris blushed. “Nothing has been important enough to say.”

“Until now?”

“Why do you hate us?”

“I don’t hate you,” Discord said. “I love all of my little, wretched, inexplicably panic-prone ponies.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Okay, you’re right, but how am I supposed to?” He pointed at Pebble Pusher, who had been frozen mid-trip, his face hurtling down toward a puddle of mud. “That one was remarkably disrespectful. You’d think he’d have a little more reverence.”

The two sat silently for several minutes, both equally lost in thought. “They’re scared,” she said finally.

“They’re lazy.”

“They’re scared. They don’t know what to do, and they’re scared.”

“I told them what to do, but they don’t seem to think their god is wise enough to set them on the right path.” He growled. “Wretched creatures.”

Eris adjusted herself, and was now lying on her back atop Discord’s torso. “Why don’t you help them?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

As if by some unspoken agreement, they let the subject drop. Pony and draconequus laid there in the grass, under the frozen sunset.

“Who’s Celestia?” Eris asked after a time.

He looked at her skeptically. “Are you sure you want to know? It’s a little much for the mortal mind.”

She nodded.

“There was a universe before this one,” he said. “In that universe, Celestia ruled a great nation of many different ponies.”

“Was she nice?”

He snorted. “Ol’ Sun-butt? Oh, you should have seen her! Stomping on everypony’s fun, insisting that every little thing be kept in line, making sure that society ran smoothly without the least bit of disorder…” He swallowed. “Yes, I suppose she was rather nice.”

“You didn't like her,” she said, more as a statement than as a question.

He chuckled softly. “That would be quite the understatement, but no, she and I did not mesh well.”

“Why?”

“Celestia insisted on keeping everything so neat and tidy, so meticulous and methodical… There was no room for fun when she was around.”

“Were her ponies happy?”

“The incredible thing is that they were. All of them. I never met a single pony who didn't approve of her.” He clasped his hands beside his face. “They all love love loooooved it,” he sang dryly.

“But you weren't happy?”

“No. No, I wasn't.” He paused. “At least, not at first.”

“What happened?”

“Celestia had the ridiculous idea of ‘reforming’ me,” he said, using his fingers as quotation marks. “She thought that if I made a friend, I’d never plunge the world into chaos again.”

“Did you?”

“Make a friend, or plunge the world into chaos again?”

“Both.”

“Yes,” he answered. “And no.”

“So she was right, then. Even you were happy, eventually.”

“Yeah…” He couldn't contain a wistful smirk. “But I never liked her. It was only fortune and serendipity that allowed me to find contentment in a society so devoid of creativity.”

The two again fell silent. “Why do you like chaos?”

“Why do I like chaos?” He cackled loudly. “Why do I like chaos?”

She nodded.

“Why do I like chaos!” he sang. “Why do I like chaos!” He wiped away a mirthful tear as his giggles faded away.

“Well?”

“Well, I…” He brought a hand to his chin and stroked his beard. “It’s really not that hard of a question. You see, it’s…”

“Yes?”

“I just…”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s who I am,” he said finally. “I guess there’s no other reason than that. I’m the spirit of chaos, and that’s that.”

“Is it fun?”

He grinned. “It’s the most fun in the world! Nothing is more joyous than a good bout of discord!”

She slowly waved her hoof, gesturing to the frozen ponies before them. “Is this fun?”

“No,” he sighed, “this is not fun.”

“Did you love her?”

“What?” he asked, taken aback.

Eris pointed to the mountain behind them. “That pony you made in the mountain. She was the friend you made, wasn't she?”

Discord rolled over, positioning himself on his back. Eris righted herself, laying herself on his chest. After a moment, he nodded slowly. “Yes.”

"What was her name?"

“Fluttershy.”

“Did you love her?”

Discord looked to the ground, a faint blush showing through his grey fur. “Yeah.”

“Did she hate other ponies?”

He looked at her quizzically. “No; she adored other ponies. Even if she was too afraid to be around them, she never stopped loving ponies.”

“You didn't hate everypony back then, did you?”

He shook his head. “Nah. There were six I didn't completely despise. Seven, if you count the baby dragon. Which reminds me.” He sat up and snapped his fingers. Beside the two a pair of giant purple dragons appeared. They met each other’s eyes and flew off, sparing a moment to glance in confusion at the motionless ponies below. Discord laid back down. “There we go. Some nice destruction to be had a few years down the road. Dragons are such territorial creatures.”

“Didn't Fluttershy teach you to like other ponies too?” Eris asked.

“Maybe a little,” he said with a sigh, “but mostly she just settled with getting me to resent other ponies less.”

“But it didn't work.”

“I didn't become a saint, but I would sure like to think it worked.” He shrugged. “Well, at least a little bit.”

“But you hate us.”

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Look, I don’t necessarily like all of the ponies here, but I've learned to reserve my hatred for ponies of a particularly despicable character. Like Celestia, and that bear.”

Eris cocked her head. “That bear?”

“Fluttershy had this bear friend. Harry, or Bearison, or something.” He clenched his fists as his whole body shook with barely-contained rage. “By the cosmos, I hated that bear,” he seethed.

“Um… but you don’t hate us?”

He loosened his body and sighed. “No, Eris. I don’t hate you.”

“Then why won’t you help us?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I bet one of my friends in the old universe that I could run a better society than Celestia, and societies can’t perpetuate themselves if ponies aren't left to their own devices.” He shook his head. “As irritating as Celestia was, at least she was mostly hands-off.”

“So we’re a bet to you,” Eris said quietly.

Discord sat up. “No, no! Well, maybe they are,” he said, gesturing to the frozen crowd. “But you, I like. You’re fun. And nice. Like Fluttershy.”

“But I’m one of them.” She hopped off his chest, flitting her wings to slow her fall. She trotted over to the crowd and posed, as if she had been running with them. “It’s all of us or none of us.”

Discord smirked. “Since when did you get so effective at negotiation?”

“I picked it up when I tried to stop you from naming the ponies really dumb things.”

Discord paused, and then laughed. "Very well," he said, standing up. "If you insist on an ultimatum, we'll do things your way." Eris dropped the pose and smiled. "I'll fill the role of the god-among-the-ponies; I"ll help society get under way; and I'll do my best to make things go smoothly, under one condition."

"What?"

“You tell me the real reason you never said anything before now.”

Eris looked to her hooves and blushed. “I… I was afraid to.”

“I see. I scare you.”

She met his eyes and waved a hoof frantically. “No! No, it’s not like that! I just--”

Discord slithered forward and embraced her gently. “You are just like her.” He pulled Eris into the air and snapped, and four hundred and ninety-nine ponies suddenly sprang back into motion. Screaming once again filled the air, ponies frantically fought their way through the mass, and Pebble Pusher’s face became acquainted with a large puddle of mud.

Discord held his hands over Eris’s ears and bellowed, “I WILL HELP YOU.” His voice shook the ground with its volume, and within moments the ponies had returned their attention to him.

“What did he say?”

“He’s going to help us after all?”

“Yes, yes,” he said bitterly. “I’ll help you.” He grimaced as half-smiles and incredulous laughter spread throughout the crowd. He held Eris forward with outstretched arms. “And you all have this one to thank for it.”

Somepony in the back began to cheer, followed by another, and another, until soon the entire mass was hollering praise with one accord. Even Pebble Pusher managed to shout, his joy intermixed with hacking fits as he cleared his mouth of the mud.

“What’s her name?” screamed one stallion. “What’s her name?”

“Eris!” their creator answered.

“Dis-cord! Er-is! Dis-cord! Er-is!” The ponies began an indefatigable chant, repeating the duo’s names over and over. Eris blushed a deep red and waved timidly at the excited crowd, and Discord himself couldn't help but revel in the adoration.

“Yes!” he shouted. “Yes!”

“Dis-cord! Er-is! Dis-cord! Er-is!”

“We will make the greatest society the cosmos have ever known! We will!”

“Dis-cord! Er-is! Dis-cord! Er-is!”

“And I will help you!” He began to laugh madly. “Together, we’ll show Sun-butt what’s what!”

The crowd continued its tireless roar long into the night, and Discord was more than ecstatic to soak it in for as long as it lasted. At some point (he had lost track of the time), he noticed Eris sleeping soundly in his arms despite the deafening noise. A small smile crept up on his face, this one more sincere and gentle than the mad grin he had been wearing as the crowd cheered him. He summoned a small golden bubble and placed Eris gently inside, and cast a soundproofing spell on its membrane.

He stretched his arms out again. “My little ponies! Please, stop your cheering for a moment!”

Within moments the ponies in the front obeyed, and the message relayed down through the mass of bodies until the crowd stood in silent expectation.

“My little ponies, we have some work to do.”