So here he was again, back in the strange void that existed in this state of existence. Neither living nor dead, this plane of existence was one where thought was nothing, and reality may have just been a thought.
Celestia had improved his cell since last time; he could no longer spread his chaotic aura around himself as he had done last time. There would be no hope that some mere passerby would free him now. However, as a trade-off he could focus his awareness singularly on the outside world, he could see life through the eyes of the ponies in Equestria. Perhaps Celestia had intended to reshape his view on the world, to see it as a place of beauty in its own right, without his chaos he could see Equestria as Celestia saw it.
He disapproved.
He was Discord, he was chaos. Whatever strange beauty there was to Celestia’s carefully ordered world, what fun was there in it? How boring it must be to wake up every single day, in the knowledge that things would be just as they had been yesterday. How dull it was to be able to change life to simply match your desires, to raise the day when one wanted, and night when it was desired. How drab it must be to simply know when one would wake?
Ironically enough, Discord had found a perfectly ordered pony to see through, an earth pony stallion with a slick black mane and brown coat, going by the name of Inkheart. He was a simple pony working for the newspaper: Equestria Daily. He woke up every day at 6 sharp, using some new invention since when he had first been sealed called a clock, and would systematically work, sleep, and eat, at the same times every day.
Discord could not only see through Inkheart’s eyes, but could also feel his emotions too, or rather, the lack of them. Discord had heard of the term, switching off, to describe one leaving all the emotions that must come from the sheer boredom of their life, but Discord had always assumed it had just meant them ignoring their emotions. Somehow, this pony had managed to entirely seal his emotions off from his life, convincing himself that he was simply a small part of the world, and that he should content himself with running the small part of his life he had been allotted. This pony’s complete sense of powerlessness both disgusted and saddened him.
How could anypony force such a miserable existence upon themselves? It was a strange type of irony that he, being the spirit of chaos, couldn’t make sense of a being so ordered and precise. It was while pondering why they would inflict such a life upon themselves that he realized he was not simply a bystander in this. Throughout all the time Discord had spent with Inkheart, he had managed to find base similarities between the two of them, a strange connection that even he wouldn’t have accounted for.
It was a week later that Discord let his thoughts touch the pony, though Discord made sure that it was only in the subtlest of ways. He didn’t want this pony to realize who he was; otherwise they could very well notify Celestia of his actions and she would make sure to seal up this particular gap. It was just a small nudged, telling him that it would be okay to sleep in despite his body trying to force itself awake. Just simple alterations that he added to spice up Inkheart’s life; it wasn’t like when he had a physical presence and could change ponies with just a touch.
Soon he was putting his influence over this pony to the test, seeing just how far he could get this pony to go before he started questioning what he was doing. Discord managed to find a joy in Inkheart’s job, once he added his own special ways to the mix. He pushed the pony to fabricate parts in the paper, and to encourage the reader’s to follow those ideas. Slowly but surely he put progressively wilder stories into the stallion’s head, and as the pony came to accept these idea’s as his own, Discord’s influence grew on him.
Before long the spirit of chaos could almost openly communicate with Inkheart, convincing the pony that he was his “artistic influence” that had been waiting inside the stallion all this time. In time Discord began to realize how similar the two of them had become, and with a small amount of bitterness Discord admitted that he had learnt from this pony. He was not as disciplined or punctual as Inkheart, and he never would be, but he had discovered the importance of planning. When he had come to Equestria previously, he had rushed headlong into the world, creating as much chaos as he possibly could before it was taken away from him.
This time things would be different, this time he would emerge victorious. Discord picked through what he could do in the same way he had found Inkheart doing, the pony carefully analyzing where each path would take him and choosing the best. It was as if all the chaos of the world was actually simple lines, each line would branch out into a multitude of others, and rarely would there be any unexpected results. It was an incredibly strange way of viewing life. As if all of the chaos he had made were only so because of the ordering of possibilities. For now though, it would be order that would bring chaos.
Discord had discovered early on in his observation of Inkheart that there was a place ponies went not unlike where he was in his captivity. However, quite different to the cell of his thoughts was the vividness that proclaimed the imagining’s of the pony’s mind to be real. Discord had never been able to do it, maybe it was because he wasn’t a pony, maybe it was because he had never had enough time to, but Discord realized he longed for what this stallion had. Sleep.
The chaotic nature of the world of sleep was called a dream. It sounded such a pleasant word when the pony said it, yet sometimes the dream could take on such frightening prospects, though these were often referred to by a different name; Nightmares. It seemed quite funny to him that the ponies would describe such a frightening and harrowing experience with such a strange name. The only connection he could see between the word and its meaning was that the nightmares took place at night, though there was distinctly nothing mare-ish about them. However tonight he would not partake in the strange experiences of this stallion’s dreams, this time he came with an idea, a plan.
In the depths of Inkheart’s mind, Discord put the first step of his plan into action. It was such a simple idea that it was hard to believe his return hinged so entirely upon it. He had shown it to the pony as the “Scandal of the Century”, and laid before him every step of it just the way the stallion would normally do so. A phrase he had heard spoken in the stallion’s workplace had been to kill two birds with one stone, with his plan he would do just that.
Celestia had even been so kind as to tell him the exact requirements for his release. When he had tried to influence Celestia to try and free him from this cage he had received quite an unexpected response. The Alicorn had laughed; he had originally thought it was because of how the great spirit of chaos would be reduced to groveling for his freedom, and after being defeated by a bunch of fillies no less. But she had quickly explained to him the real reason behind it. There would be no escaping this cage with some passing group of foal’s, not even a riot could break the seal Celestia had made for his prison, No.
This time he would need a war.
