The greatest lie we tell ourselves is that ponies are born evil.
They aren’t.
Evil doesn’t come into the world with a spiky crown and cape, a menacing grin, and a huge, fierce, terrifying form. Evil does not rise from the earth in fit and fire, rising from the volcanoes and fissures with threats to destroy and disrupt. Evil does not fall from the sky, crashing into our land with a brilliant explosion of fury. Evil is calm. Evil is quiet. Evil sits in the shadows alone. Evil grows not through force; evil grows through practice. Evil grows in the crevices we step on thoughtlessly.
This is how evil is really born—in the small things: a cruel taunt, a forgotten visit, and a childish urge to hit and hurt. But these dark vortexes are not something other; they are not the wills of a devil sitting upon a flaming throne, nor are they the manifestations of some greater spirit of chaos. No. They are us. All the little evils we perpetuate, day after day, gather and thicken in the psychic womb of an unlucky few. They swirl and combine, grow and take root until they take shape and form.
Then they burst up and out.
Then they explode.
Once we create them, they feed their darkness back into us. So we bring life to the shadows that siphon away ours. We all bleed together, and this is the result: millions of small sins, billions of tiny evils, twisting, twining, grouping, and combining until they become a great serpent—a blight on the world that rises from the collective unconscious, towering over us and blocking out the light.
It’s so convenient to blame it all on those serpents, those sneering, arrogant demons plotting to corrupt our souls and uproot our lives. But if the victims are the devils, then they’re just a projection of our own sins. Does it make sense? No, it doesn’t—disharmony is the only thing that makes sense. That’s where I get my name, isn’t it? I am the blight of the world. I am the serpent of the night. I am the agent of chaos.
But I watch myself be reborn every single day.
From the shadows I rise. From the depths of the Everfree forest, one of my eyes opens as I slowly wake. The other soon follows, and with a claw, I feel my way back into existence. I feel the leaves under me crack and light ablaze as I rise from the ground with a push of paw and talon. I stare out into the vast expanse of blackness, the void surrounded, enclosed by trees and webs and haze. My eyes work their way from one side to the next, searching, shooting my gaze around every which way in the shadows to see if I can find life. I panic. My blood freezes. My breath holds. My heart stops.
I am alone.
With that, I fly into the night.
With that flap of wing after mismatched, draconian wing, I fly into the night. I swivel and slither up from the trees, rattling the leaves, shaking the branches, shattering the eerie quiet of the forest. The trepidation has been ceased; the ominous air has been slashed; the anxiety has come to end—for the creature of the night has leapt. For the devil of the skies, the demon of the clouds has jolted from his slumber. His presence, my presence, gives you comfort in knowing that if you are looking at me, I have not found you yet. You are safe in knowing that as long as you are only on the outside looking in, chaos can never reach you. Evil can never harm you. Darkness can never consume you. You are outside of the window pane, standing, staring, before walking away into the cold night and forgetting. That is the difference between you and I: I do not forget.
To this day, I remember their faces.
As I fly into the night, I fly away from the forest. In one moment, I find myself in the city. I find myself flying higher and higher, climbing, chasing the tops of skyscrapers. When I make it, I watch the scene before me: I had made it in time for the circus. I can hear the music. I can see the dancing. I can hear the cheering. I can see nothing.
He stands alone. Between two skyscrapers, between two icons of society and power, he stands alone. With every step, the rope bends further. With every step, one nylon hair breaks. With every step, his grip on the balancing pole loosens. But it’s all for practice, isn’t it? The broken glass on the ground, the mirrors that fell from the heights of these great buildings, are just debris left over from who he used to be, aren’t they? Or do they still reflect his broken image of himself—the shattered view, the warped picture, the truth misconstrued—because it is allowed to? Because we let it? Because we tell him that a broken mirror can still shine light on who he is?
He looks down, but I can see it in his eyes: he does not look down out of fear; no, he looks down out of shame. Shame for his fear of the ground. Shame that he has yet to try and fly. He is an earth pony, why should he be afraid of the ground? The ground is his home. The ground is welcoming. The ground is warm, the ground is neutral, and the ground does not judge. He can empathize with the ground—he too knows what it is like to be walked upon, regarded as nothing but dirt. He knows that the ground holds up the entire world but would never tell, because who wants to listen to something beneath their legs instead of bury it beneath them?
Loitering with a vacant eye, along this skyline gallery, I meet those of a colt no more than ten. On that bending rope stands he, stopping just to stare at my figure on the background of the shadows. What, child, drooping with your lot? I too would walk that line of yours. I too survey the endless crowds of ponies whose thoughts are not as mine. Years while you lay down upon me your ill, I shall stand and bear your burdens. Courage, child, life’s not for long: stand up, walk like stone, and be strong, or so I thought my look would say, and shine a light to him reflecting off the rubble of his broken glass.
But just like that mirror gone, the world around me shatters. The buildings fall to the ground. The city crumbles like a rock under the great force of an ocean’s wake. In the dark, my reality dissipates, and I am left with the truth I tried to ignore. I am left with the world I wished wasn’t true. I am left with the world that has been forced upon me—forced upon all of us. In the dark, the skyscrapers stand no more. In the dark, there are buildings, and on a roof sits a child. On that roof sits the trapeze artist. On that roof, he sits on the edge, dangling his hooves as he tosses off pebbles, listening to them whistle and crack as they fall to the ground.
And in this moment, I appear. In this moment, I am everywhere at once. In this moment, I am on that roof, throwing my own pebbles alongside his. I watch and listen was we try to race gravity. I watch and listen as pebbles, no matter their size, hit the ground at the same time, because no matter what size, shape, or type they are, the act of falling unifies them. The act of falling groups them. The act of falling gives them something in such common that they can no longer be differentiated from that outside viewer looking in. It doesn’t matter who or what the pebbles were, they fell—and that was all that mattered.
“Boring night, isn’t it?” I say. He jumps back in astonishment—he must have not noticed me there. “I’ve always urged Luna, her poor soul, to please add some fireworks into this display. I don’t get what the point of stars is to begin with.”
“I-I’ve heard the legends about you,” he squeaks out. His coat is a simple brown with a white mane. His eyes have darkened black. He has no cutie mark—he’s too young to know who he really is. “Y-you’re Discord…”
“Why, yes I am,” I agree, standing from the ledge of the building and falling back, landing on a chair that had formed behind me. As I turn to the colt once more, I now wear a hat and thick glasses with a sweater vest. In paw and talon I hold a pen and notepad. “And might you tell me who has made their way into my office? I’ll have you know I require an appointment,” I say as I scribble down nothing but lines and crosses, “but I’ll make an exception—just this once. Just for you.”
He tells me his name. I don’t hear it. I remember their faces, but I refuse to learn their names. Names blend. Names mix. Names are decided by those other than the people themselves. Faces are what matter. Faces are ponies. Names are just letters on a paper. Names are nothing but lines and crosses.
“What are you doing here?” the colt asks. Uneasiness grows apparent on his face, but he does not back away from me. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Why have you come to hurt me?”
And then, without another word, I light the sky with fireworks. With an effortless flick of paw and talon, I expel the darkness, lighting the night sky with beautiful, brilliant fireworks. I watch his eyes go wide and his mouth drop. I watch his pupils follow the streaks of color. I watch his ears flick in anticipation of every explosion. I watch his heart pound out of his chest. If only for this moment, I watch his life be set ablaze in him.
Then the fireworks stop.
And the darkness returns.
“My little pony, you are far too young to speak like that,” I say. My costume disappears, and I return to the ledge next to him. “Cynicism is reserved for old drunkards, game show hosts, and the occasionally neurotic Princess Twilight Sparkle. What troubles you so much that you sit here tonight?”
“What would you care about me?” he asks. He narrows his eyes toward me. “You’re a beast. You’re evil.”
“A beast like they call you?” I ask. I watch as his mouth drops and his eyes go wide. “Yes, I know what it is like to be revered as ugly and vile. I know what it feels like to be unwanted. I know what it is like to feel like an atrocity—I feel it every day. I know what it is like to desire friendship yet not understand how to claim it for my own. I know what it feels like to wonder if I will ever find ponies that make me happy. I know what it feels like to see nothing but black in my future. I know what it feels like to fear that no one would ever fall in love with me. I know what it feels like to be an outcast.”
“I know what it feels like to be you,” I continue as I stare into his eyes, “and you know what it feels like to be me.”
For awhile thereafter, time passes. We sit and talk. We sit and talk about nothing and everything. We exchange stories of old, stories of joy, and stories of pain. I laugh. He laughs. He cries. I listen. Nothing and everything is said all at once. In the end, I give him courage. In the end, I tell him that he should get off the ledge. That it isn’t worth it to hurt himself like this. And he listens to me.
He jumps.
I watch him as he falls to the ground, no different than any of the pebbles we had thrown just seconds before. I watch him as he breathes his last breath, clinging to air that will never make it out of his chest. I watch his body, devoid of any mark, with no indication that he had ever discovered himself, connect with the pavement. I watch as the life he held only a moment ago leaves him.
I have never saved one person.
But tomorrow night, I will try again.
Author's Note
Written for and dedicated to Michael Morones and his family. I hope that some of us take the time, in the wake of this tragedy, to reflect upon ourselves and our actions. It is not through acts of a devil that things like this occur, it is through acts of human beings like us. None of us here are innocent, and I hope that we can take the lessons we learn from this show and community to make the world better for kids like Michael. We owe it to them. Not because we're bronies, but because we're people.
If you know someone that is hurting, talk to them about it. If you see someone different, accept their differences. If you hold anger toward someone, let it go. Things like this can be avoided. Things like this can be cured with the light we as people can shine on humanity.
I ask that all of you, religious or not, pray for the recovery Michael Morones.
Goodnight, FIMFiction.
—L
