"Small communities grow great through harmony; great ones fall to pieces through discord."
The Dragon Queen's mind churned as she flew over endless, uncharted mountains, her eyes scanning the distance for signs of civilization. How long had it been since dragons feasted freely? How long had it been since their lands became barren and the ponies left? Most importantly, how much longer would this journey last, and how long would she still have to wait until she found them again?
She clenched her claws, each talon pressing against charcoal-black scales as tough as mountains and twice as rough. Each scale grated against the next, as her huge frame flexed with each beat of her massive, bat-like wings. Some of her scales were missing, each of them a battle-scar or sign of her venerable age – all of them as much a sign of prestige and power as the holes in her wings and the broken tips of deep crimson spines that ran the length of her back and tail. Like her claws, however, those spines were as sharp as broken glass; she was a living weapon. One did not come to rule over a race such as the dragons without the ability to back up one's authority with a display of power, and Queen Teneblight was very powerful indeed.
However, a wise ruler was practical, and even the most powerful warrior-queen did not fly into battle alone. On either side, she was accompanied by her chief lieutenants. The red dragon to her left was small in stature compared to most of their kind, but he had cunning and tenacity unbridled. The orange dragon to her right, meanwhile, was a great brute. He was not especially intelligent, but was ferocious and nigh-unstoppable on the field of battle, almost the exact opposite of his counterpart. Both of them were loyal, however, and both had proven themselves time and time again to be capable warriors.
Teneblight beat her wings and rose slightly before continuing her glide. There was no rush here. Although they were making a long journey, they didn't yet know their final destination. This was a hunt, and they needed to be methodical about it. It had been centuries since the three pony tribes had migrated away from their original homes, leaving the dragons without their favourite food. The Queen knew that they must have come this way, and the ponies had to be found.
She had heard the rumours, of course. Many dragons living on the outskirts of their territory often spoke of this so-called "Equestria," telling fanciful stories of the tribes uniting under one banner. It was a preposterous thought. Though the tribes had maintained trade before, Queen Teneblight knew well of how much they despised one another. Their seething hatred was so great that it had attracted the windigoes to their lands and brought about the eternal winter. This was another reason why the ponies needed to be found and once again subjugated by their rightful rulers – they had brought that war to her perfect kingdom, and so had to be punished for it. The windigoes had been... difficult to remove.
Nonetheless, Queen Teneblight had always known better than to dismiss these claims wholesale, and the search for the true fate of the tribes had been going on for years. Until now, it had been fruitless, but that had all changed when a lone scout came across the remains of a pony outpost in the south by chance. It had been buried under the snow, deep in the mountain range where no dragon normally dared to wander, and it was far from where ponies had once built their homes. In that direction, Teneblight's agents had uncovered a trail. Crude attempts at building settlements or centuries-old camps littered the mountains there. All agreed that the ponies must have once passed through that way, but had elected not to stay.
That discovery had been over a month ago, and now Queen Teneblight personally led the expedition to the south. This was the first time that any dragon had come out this far, but the fires of determination burned in their hearts, and the Queen's conviction that they would soon find the ponies was unquestionable.
What remained uncertain was what had become of the ponies in this faraway land. Although it was doubtful that the tribes really had united as was claimed, there may still have been some truth to the tales. It was not entirely inconceivable that they might have formed an alliance of convenience. She had heard, after all, that some of the windigoes had followed their exodus.
The great dragon's eyes flicked down to a valley below her. Though her shadow cast it in darkness, she could see the ruins of a castle nestled into the side of the rock. Unicorn construction, it appeared. Not the first they'd passed. Like the others, it was clearly uninhabited now, and thus not worth stopping for, but it was a sign that ponies had been here. They were still on the trail, indirect and winding as it was. This was the way that the ponies had migrated. This was the route that would lead them to where Equestria was supposed to be.
She turned her attention back to the southern sky ahead of her. The sun was shining in the distance, and the clouds were clearing the further they went. There looked to be no end to the mountain range yet, but they had all the time in the world.
It had been many hours of flight by the time the scenery began to change. At first, it was gradual. The terrain itself seemed just as uneven and rocky as before, yet the mountains began gleaming in the sunlight. A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips as the Queen realised that the mountains were made entirely of crystal. Her lieutenants noticed it too, and the big orange one was visibly salivating as they passed over them.
"Harcoal, control yourself," Teneblight said, her voice low and dangerous.
Her underling did not look at her as he replied, practically muttering back to her as his neck still craned down to leer at the mountains.
"Apologies, your majesty."
"There will be time to gorge later. The crystals will taste far sweeter when complemented with the right meat."
That got Harcoal's attention, and he raised his head up to address Queen Teneblight directly this time.
"You are right, as you always are, your majesty. I shall wait."
And so it continued for several more miles, until even the crystal mountains gave way to flatter ground, and the dragons saw before them an expanse of lush green wilderness. There were rolling grassy plains, vast forests in the distance, and all manner of other plant life once thought to have completely died out since the blight of the windigoes. Teneblight remembered the old times, before the ponies had left and the eternal winter had begun, when their home looked just like this, and began to consider that the ponies might have had the right idea.
Queen Teneblight ordered her followers to stop and rest, and they landed atop the peak of one of the lesser mountains right on the outskirts of the range. Perching herself on the edge, the Queen gave a wide, toothy grin as she admired the view.
"This land is teeming with life," she said. "The tribes chose their new home well."
Her other lieutenant, the red dragon, slithered over to her side.
"Your majesty," he hissed at a volume that would be called a low whisper by dragon standards, "I see no ponies around here yet. Are you so sure that this is the place the rumours spoke of?"
His skepticism was not enough to hurt Queen Teneblight's mood. She maintained her smile as she hungrily took in the sight of what she supposed was called Equestria.
"They likely settled somewhat further south, but I am certain that we are close now. And even if the tales of Equestria are proved to be falsehoods, wild beasts roam here and gem deposits are plenty; we shall never be starved for food! The Dragon Empire would do well to resettle here."
The lieutenant raised an eyebrow at her.
"A southern migration of our own? After fighting so long to hold our homeland against the winter spirit cowards?"
Queen Teneblight snorted, smoke billowing from her nostrils.
"The windigoes are already dead, Lieutenant Atrophia, and what we gained from victory was not enough to justify how long we spent fighting for it. We should have followed the ponies from the start. We would have never suffered such shortages for so long were it not for our stubbornness; it is a fallacy to continue living as we have done merely because we have already fought for it." She turned to her lieutenant, giving him a wry smile. "Besides. I do so miss certain luxuries, do you not? Why not make our home one of plenty once more?"
Atrophia gave her a sly smile in turn.
"You know best, my queen."
"Come," she said, stretching her wings again. "Let us find them."
The journey southwards continued after that, but from there, their discoveries became stranger. The crystal mountains were a novelty, but what Equestria itself held went far beyond that. Shortly after they passed over another lone mountain, they had found a great rainbow lake on the other side. At its furthest edges, it froze into rainbow-coloured ice, and the clouds overhead were tinged the same colour and rained the same liquid.
Afterwards, they had come across the desert. The land this far south was no longer blanketed in snow, but it was still decently chilling. Yet, here in all this cold, there sat a perfect circle of scorching, sandy desert. Having never seen anything like it before, both lieutenants were baffled. Queen Teneblight had refrained from commenting on it, even as she stepped into the sand and felt the sun suddenly beating down on her with heat to rival the core of her volcanic lair.
And then there were the holes in the sky. They had been flying over a low forest without much care, when without warning a number of mysterious, swirling blue portals began opening and closing nearby in rapid succession. Trees and woodland animals and large quantities of water were all ejected and launched through the air at high velocity, forcing even the normally slow-moving and cautious Queen of the Dragons to maneuver out of the way and dodge a hail of projectiles.
Her lieutenants were less lucky, with Harcoal having been struck in the head with a log from a falling tree, and Atrophia having been soaked in what he later claimed was salt water. They decided against investigating why there was salt water being teleported up from the forest. All three dragons, even if none of them said it, were all too eager to get out of the portal storm and try to leave it behind them.
"What is this place?" Harcoal shouted, still glaring back over his shoulder at the forest as they flew away. "It's like this land is possessed, or cursed by some foul pony magic!"
"Pony magic could not do this," Atrophia commented. "This is beyond them. These magics must be natural. Even the old unicorn tribe had to conserve their magic so as to continue moving the heavenly spheres each day. To constantly maintain magic on this scale would be wasteful in the extreme. It is possible that their population has grown and that they now have greater magic to spare, I admit, but I do not think it likely."
"I heard that the tribes were all working together now."
"Still not enough, even if all three were capable of casting, which they are not. Besides, even if that were the case, I can scarcely imagine why they would use their collective power for such trivialities. This magic seems to have no rhyme or reason."
Harcoal snarled. "If these magics are natural, as you say, then this would make a poor home. It's unpredictable. Chaotic. Hard to tame."
"Silence, you two! I see... something."
Ahead of them, Teneblight could make out what looked to be box-shaped structures, mostly brown or grey and topped with yellow. As the dragons flew in closer, she could recognise them as signs of civilization. The boxes were huts and small stone buildings. The yellow was the straw from their thatched rooftops. There were ploughed fields and farmlands surrounding the settlement. When she was fully able to make out the four-legged creatures milling about, there was no doubt left in her mind. This was an earth pony village.
As she did back on the mountaintop, the Queen grinned.
"We have found them, my lieutenants," she said.
They made their entrance as loud and bombastic as possible. Shock and awe was the tactic of choice when dealing with ponies – especially earth ponies. They were the least capable of fighting back against the dragons, having neither the magical prowess of the unicorns nor the ability to fight in three dimensions that was afforded to the pegasi. Lieutenant Atrophia and Lieutenant Harcoal merely had to land either side of the village to cut off any escape, so Queen Teneblight could hover overhead and address the population.
"Weaklings!" she shouted, speaking in pony tongue. "Long have your pitiful kind escaped the notice of the Dragon Empire, but not anymore! We come today to reclaim what should be ours! It is time that ponykind be reminded of its true masters! All of you, gather and bow before your queen, lest you drive me to burn your village to ashes!"
One by one, the ponies started leaving their homes and pouring into the streets. Some still tried to flee, but found the lieutenants blocking their path. The dragons corralled them out of the safety and comfort of the village, forcing them to gather in a crowd just on the outskirts of the farmland. They were closely bunched together by this point, enough that Harcoal could manage them by himself. Atrophia herded the farmers at the other end of the fields in the direction of the village, forcing the two groups together.
Teneblight smiled and swooped over to land before them all. Harcoal and Atrophia landed behind the crowd once they had the ponies gathered together.
The Queen laughed as she looked over her first conquests. "It has been many years since I have had the opportunity to acquire new slaves. You will be but the first to be taken. You all look like quite the pathetic lot, but I am sure you will serve just as well as your ancestors did. If you obey us, that is. Those that will not obey, and those who do not work, will be devoured."
She drew herself up, casually scratching the underside of her chin with a claw.
"But now, I offer a way out of servitude. If anypony were to volunteer information on where we can find more of your kind, they will earn our favour, and their lives will be spared. All who prove themselves loyal and useful to us shall reap the benefits of my infinite generosity!"
Many of the earth ponies were trembling. Families huddled together and held one another. Some cried, mostly the children, but a few grown mares and stallions did too.
Then the villagers began parting. Many ponies, all looking confused, stood aside to make way for an elderly stallion hobbling through the crowd.
Teneblight smiled at first. At least somepony was willing to be cooperative. But her smile wavered when she gave him a closer look. The geriatric stallion looked what could only be described as "mutated." His head was massive compared to his body, which was almost skin and bones, and his right eye was far larger than his left. It was also a different colour, being yellow with a red iris, while his smaller eye seemed not to be an eye at all, but a blank white window into nothing. He was bald, his tail was frayed and white, and he had a dull grey coat.
Stranger still were the tattoos. His entire face and every part of his visible body had some kind of red rune or marking; every single one of them was different, and several of the more minor ones were glowing. Not helping his already odd appearance was the froth at the edge of his mouth, the twitching of his yellow eye, and the fact that he was wearing a polka-dotted kilt.
He came to the front of the crowd, stood up on his hind legs, and pointed his walking cane at Queen Teneblight.
"The Chaos Lord sees all in his home!" he screeched.
He started giggling as the crowd behind him all took a step backwards. Teneblight herself could only blink and keep staring.
"His watch is endless and eternal!" the mad pony continued. "He is king and he is ruler! Not you! Pretender! False one! Usurper! Fiend!"
The old pony collapsed on the floor and rolled in the grass, still giggling. The two dragon lieutenants exchanged a look with each other. Queen Teneblight, for her part, did not let confusion show on her face, whether she felt it or not. Instead, the black dragoness merely stepped forward, pinned the old pony with a claw, picked him up, and tossed him into her mouth. She swallowed him in one gulp, not even taking the time to savour the taste.
"Now," she said, "does anypony sane wish to speak up?"
"Sanity is overrated."
The voice came from right next to her ear, and Teneblight recoiled. Her eyes widened as she turned to face whatever had managed to sneak up on her, and found some chimera creature only as big as her own eyeball floating in the air next to where she had been standing, smiling at her.
It was a very strange one too, even for a chimera. Queen Teneblight had seen many in her time, but this one was unusual just for the sheer number of different animals it was composed of. Its primary features were the serpentine body and the pony head, but what was so disorienting were all the extra parts. The beast had no sense of symmetry. Every pair of limbs was mismatched, even the wings, which should have made flight impossible. Infuriatingly, the creature was not even using its wings to hover in place. It was just inexplicably floating under its own power.
What drew her attention most, however, were its eyes. They were yellow and red and looked completely mad, just like the old pony's had been, and the chimera leered at her with them. They seemed especially prominent for the fact that both were like this, rather than being different colours, or different sizes, or from different animals. It was the only place that the creature showed any kind of consistency.
Queen Teneblight collected herself. The ponies were still watching, and it would not do to show signs of weakness in front of the new slaves. If this creature was here to cause trouble, it should be made an example of as well.
"Who dares?" she demanded, stepping back towards it.
"Why, I dare, of course!"
The creature floated closer, moving up in front of her face.
This was ridiculous. Teneblight wasn't much of an expert on the magic of ponies or chimeras, but she knew that this should not have been feasible. If self-levitation were nearly so easy, the unicorns and other magical creatures would have done it all the time. Yet for this thing, it seemed to come so naturally. She didn't even see a magical field around him. Was he disguising it? Or did this creature, whatever it may be, simply not produce a visible field? If that were the case, he could be using magic at any time, and she would be unable to tell.
The mere thought was unnerving, but Teneblight did not let it show.
"And who are you?" Teneblight asked, icily.
The chimera took a mid-air bow. "Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, at your service!"
The Queen's eyes narrowed.
"A spirit of disharmony, you say? Perhaps you bear relation to the cursed winter spirits of the north, the windigoes?"
Discord gave a dismissive wave and rolled his eyes. "Oh, we go way back!"
He raised his eagle claw and snapped his talons. For a split-second, Queen Teneblight was blinded by a flash of white light. When it was over, the chimera that claimed to be a spirit was holding a big red book. He turned around and jumped backwards towards her face. Teneblight felt a pressure on the bridge of her nose, and crossing her eyes, she found him sitting there in a pony-sized wooden chair. Discord opened the book to reveal that it was a photo album, and held it to the side so that it was in direct view of one of Teneblight's eyes.
"This one here is a family photo from our last reunion," he said, pointing to a picture of himself and a group of windigoes standing in a line and looking at the viewer. Discord was the only one smiling in the photo, and he was holding his claws behind the head of one of the windigoes to make bunny ears.
He turned the page.
"This one is Gary's two-thousandth birthday."
He pointed to a photo of them all sitting around a table and enjoying cake, with one windigo in the centre of the picture wearing a party hat.
"Ooh! And this one here is—"
"Enough!" Queen Teneblight shook her head, removing Discord and the wooden chair. "You presume to disrespect me?"
Discord gasped, putting a paw over his mouth.
"Why, what an accusation! The scandal! To even think that I would ever be anything but a perfect gentlecolt to visiting dignitaries! Or is it gentledrake? Is that the term? I do hope I'm being culturally sensitive enough."
The Dragon Queen growled. Her two lieutenants moved around the crowd and began to flank Discord, who was left floating in the air between the three of them.
"You would do well to not antagonise me, spirit! I am Queen Teneblight, ruler of the Dragon Empire, and I have slain dozens of your windigo kin before! No icy spirit of winter can withstand the flame forever!"
Discord laughed, earning another growl from Teneblight for his audacity.
"I was kidding before, you know," he said, wiping away a tear. "Truth is, I'm not related to the windigoes at all. They do their own thing, and trust me, they're nothing like me, even if we do have the same gig. They're small time. They only use disharmony to spread their cold, but I am disharmony. The distinction is important, because disharmony is what breaks nations, not a sprinkling of frost."
He flew up to Teneblight's face again and smirked. "Killing windigoes doesn't impress me. Anyone can kill a disease as long as they take their vitamins."
The Queen snapped her jaw at him, but he dodged out of the way quickly enough. Rather than running, he only frowned at her.
"Rude."
She let loose a blast of fire at him, which he dodged again.
"Spirit, we have come here on a mission to restore the glory of the Dragon Empire! We have no desire to fight with you, for it is the ponies we came for, but if you insist on making a nuisance of yourself then you will be shown no mercy!"
Discord stroked his short grey beard and pondered her words.
"Hmm. Well, it seems we have a problem then. Because even though you say you don't want to fight with me, the fact still stands that you just killed one of my cultists."
Queen Teneblight's eyes flicked down to look at her own stomach, and then up again to address Discord.
"I was unaware that he was already your property."
"Oh, not to worry. He'll be coming back to life any second now."
Moments after those words left his lips, Teneblight felt a kicking against the lining of her stomach. A feeling of illness began to take her. Nothing should have been able to survive in a dragon's belly, but something had, and it was fighting its way out. She felt it moving inside her throat and scaling the walls, slipping upwards and making her nearly gag. Teneblight felt it pulling itself up by hugging her tongue and shimmying upwards. She was overwhelmed by how wretched it tasted, until finally she felt the old pony from earlier force her jaw apart with impossible strength and crawl out from between her teeth.
The cultist leapt out, covered in saliva and a foul-smelling mixture of magma and liquefied gemstones. The solution should have been hot enough to sear his flesh, but they had no ill effect on him other than making the cultist messier and worse-smelling. Gravity tried to take hold of the old pony and force him to fall, but was quickly defeated. Instead, he floated upside down through the air and drifted over to Discord's side, who turned himself upside down as well to pat him on his bald head.
"There, there." Discord spoke as if talking to a baby. "Daddy's here to make the big bad dragon go away."
When the pony did not respond at all, instead staring into space like a zombie, Discord righted himself and dropped whatever spell he was using. His loyal follower dropped from what should have been an unsurvivable height and landed head first on the grass. Somehow, he wasn't hurt at all. In fact, he was still breathing, yet he remained just as rigid and unblinking as before. Discord gave the cultist a sympathetic glance before looking back to Queen Teneblight. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged.
"Necromancy. Whaddayagonnado?"
It was then that Teneblight decided to not press the matter further. It was best not to provoke the spirit into demonstrating any further tricks.
"It is clear you are powerful, Discord." He raised an eyebrow at Teneblight's first proper use of his name. "As we said, our quarrel is not with you. We came here in search of the ponies that left our home to the north long ago. My people have been without the taste of pony flesh for too long, and we came to find the rumoured land of Equestria where they have supposedly made their new home. Grant us—"
Discord laughed again.
"Oh, if that's what you came here for, you're a little late!"
Queen Teneblight paused.
"What?"
"Equestria," said Discord. "You just missed it by about... oh... a decade? I know what rumours you're talking about, and they were true. The three tribes did unite and form a single nation based on the principle of harmony. Except that, well, I showed up."
"You...?"
Discord waved at her. "Hi. I'm Discord. Nice to meet you."
Teneblight spluttered.
"This is preposterous! You expect me to believe—"
Discord flew right up to her eye and pointed a claw at her, in a move so sudden that even the Queen unconsciously took a step backwards.
"Yes, I expect you to believe it! Sorry to tell you this, your majesty, but the former kingdom of Equestria is mine, and its ponies are my playthings, not yours! Equestria crumbled, as everything does, and I worked very hard to make that happen! I put in the work, not you, so back off!"
He emphasised the last two words by leaning against her head and poking her just below her eyebrow, his face twisted into a snarl as he gave her a piercing glare.
"And if you don't, I might start feeling a little less welcoming." He floated further away from her. "So, do we have an understanding, dragon?"
Discord and Teneblight glared at each other.
"Very well. If you insist on standing against us... Attack!"
Harcoal leapt through the air with a grace and speed that one wouldn't have expected of a beast his size, snapping his jaws as he drew in on Discord. With a flash of that same white light from before, the spirit disappeared, and Harcoal hit the ground. Discord appeared again on top of Harcoal's head.
"Missed me!" he called out.
He vanished a second time as Harcoal thrashed to get him off, reappearing right by his feet.
"Down here!"
Harcoal tried to stomp down on him. Discord appeared on his back, this time with a hat, a pair of spurred boots, and a sleeveless blue jacket with a silver star pinned on it. A giant saddle and a pair of reins materialised around the brutish orange dragon shortly after. He reacted as one would expect an enraged, full-grown dragon to do – he began thrashing wildly and throwing himself back in an attempt to get his rider off.
"Yeehaw!" Discord cried at the top his lungs, grabbing his hat with one hand and the reins in the other.
Queen Teneblight held back, shooting a look to Atrophia. Under her glare, Atrophia took to the sky to provide support from a distance in case their foe teleported again. The Queen, meanwhile, took a deep breath before unleashing a flurry of flames in Discord's direction. They washed harmlessly over Harcoal and burned only the saddle and reins to ash, but Discord seemed to have teleported away again. It was enraging how adept a mage he seemed to be, but Teneblight had yet to meet any magic-user that she could not best in single combat. Even if he was a spirit.
Discord popped into being on her left wing, a tee and golf ball blinking into existence at the moment he appeared. He held up a golf club. Teneblight turned her head to look at him at precisely the wrong moment.
"Fore!"
The golf ball struck her directly in the eye. Queen Teneblight reared up and roared in pain, clutching her face. She failed to notice Discord, now armed with a catapult, teleport behind her. When she once again faced him, the same thing happened. He launched another projectile directly into her other eye. This time it turned out to be a bottle of vinegar. The stinging pain was so immense and caught her so off-guard that Teneblight couldn't help but fall on her back.
The moment she did, she began cursing her foolishness to herself. Her belly was exposed, and any second, her enemy was surely going to take advantage and cut her open. But her fears did not come true. Instead, a shower of jelly beans fell from the sky in such a quantity as to almost bury the Queen under its collective mass.
At the edge of the pile of sweets, the dumbstruck earth pony villagers watched the fight without comment, not even attempting to move. But even they were broken from their trance when Atrophia flew back around and hovered near the pile.
"Your majesty! Do you ecantsissa eriuqer? Tahw, tiaw? Siht si tahw?"
Queen Teneblight's head emerged from beneath the jelly beans.
"Lieutenant Atrophia! Where is he? Where is Discord?"
"Wonk ton od I!"
"Cease your gibbering and answer me!"
A chimera made of jelly beans emerged from the mass that Queen Teneblight was still mostly submerged in.
"Over here!" said Discord.
Teneblight gnashed at him again, and this time her teeth actually closed around something. She caught his body in her jaw and crushed and chewed him to bits, delighting in the variety of fruity flavours. She considered swallowing him, but recalled what happened with the chaos cultist from earlier, and so spat out Discord's jelly bean remains on the floor in front of her. Satisfied for now, she crawled out of the pile and stood up tall again.
"Pitiful creature," she said, addressing what was left of her foe. "Not even the spirits themselves can best a dragon queen. Why do your kind never learn?"
A spectral Discord rose from the remains of his jelly bean corpse, grinning at her.
"Look, ma! No corporeal body!"
She reeled back again. Why did this monster not have the good sense to die? She gritted her teeth while she prepared her next attack.
Another burst of flame breath, another disappearance. This was getting tiresome. The Queen looked around in search of her other lieutenant, since Atrophia was preoccupied with how his mouth didn't seem to be working as intended. Surprisingly, he was nowhere to be seen.
"Harcoal? Harcoal, where are you?"
"Your majesty!"
Harcoal's voice was coming from somewhere above. Queen Teneblight looked up and saw Discord there, holding a neon-pink bouncy ball with an image of a frightened-looking dragon's face painted on its exterior. He launched it down at her. The ball hit her in the eyes again and bounced back into the air, prompting another pained groan. On its second descent, she caught it in between her claws, and stared down in horrified realisation at her lieutenant's features.
"Harcoal?"
The face on the bouncy ball was shouting at her, eyes rapidly darting from side to side.
"What has this trickster done to me? I can't move! I can't feel my legs or breathe fire anymore! What did he do?"
Queen Teneblight remembered a time long ago when they had captured a unicorn mage who was capable of transformation magic. They had interrogated him on how it worked, because they had feared what such magic might be able to do them. Their captive had sworn to them (and subsequent tests had proved him right) that it was nearly impossible to simply transform a full-grown dragon into something small and helpless, due to the energy requirements of such an act. He had said that even if they could do it at all, even the most powerful unicorns would probably only be able to do so once, and they would exhaust themselves trying it.
Discord had just turned Harcoal into a bouncy ball without breaking a sweat. Until now, Teneblight hadn't realised what they were really dealing with, but it was abundantly clear that he was merely toying with them. It dawned on her that they might possibly lose this fight.
"Yoohoo!" Discord called.
Teneblight's instincts told her that facing Discord would likely end with another eye injury, but it was foolish to keep one's back exposed to the enemy. The moment her head was turned, Discord blasted her with a firehose. She staggered back, only for the hose to leave Discord's side and advance on her like a great serpent. It curled around her neck and up her side and drove itself into her mouth, pouring water directly down her throat.
She tried to crunch its head in her teeth and rip the body open with her claws, but it resisted. She could crush diamonds with the strength of her jaw, but no matter how much she tried, Discord's magical construct seemed impervious. Trying to turn her head away or pull it out didn't work either; it constricted her tighter and tighter, crushing her hope as well as her body. She started thrashing about and flailing impotently as the situation became ever more desperate. Water surged down the back of her throat, extinguishing any flames she could conjure. Teneblight had to breathe deeply and rapidly, lest she drowned.
Meanwhile, Atrophia backed away as Discord advanced on him too.
"On! Ooooooooooon!" he wailed.
No more fancy tricks. Discord just snapped his talons once, and in a flash of light, Atrophia was now a potted plant. Just like Harcoal, his face was depicted on the exterior of the plant pot like some kind of magically-animated painting. He fell right into Discord's grasp and whimpered as the Spirit of Chaos brought him up to look him in the eye.
"Eid ot tnaw ton od I!" he begged.
"Oh, don't worry; I'm not a killer," Discord said, grinning at him. "You're not worth the time it'd take."
He tossed Atrophia over his shoulder, who landed somewhere in the jelly bean pile, and then drifted back over to Teneblight. She looked sideways at him, silently willing him to stop. With a snap and another bright flash, the hose vanished. She fell back down again, coughing, spluttering, and spitting out water. The Dragon Queen tried to breathe fire again, but she could not even produce fumes now.
Discord let himself fall from the sky and landed on the mass of jelly beans, lying back on them. He grabbed a few and tossed them into his mouth.
"Ready to call it quits?" he asked between chewing.
Queen Teneblight gave him a defiant glare.
"This... isn't over... you wretch..." she said between breaths. "You have... declared war... on the Dragon Empire..."
"Correction! The Dragon Empire has declared war on the very concept of chaos and disharmony given physical form! Not a smart move on your part, attacking a primordial force of the universe like that. I mean, I haven't been intelligent for most of my existence, but by chaos, I'm as old as time itself. Between you and me, I don't like your chances."
"We... will not stand for this... Our kind are strong... The dragons are too powerful for you to fight all of us at—"
Discord leapt up from his pile of jelly beans and teleported directly to her side again, floating right next to her ear as he whispered to her.
"No. You're not. You're not strong, or smart, or powerful, or enduring. You're just as much my playthings as the ponies are, your nation will fall to disharmony just as theirs did, and in the end, you'll be just another sapient species roaming the same ruined world that probably won't even remember they were ever anything more. All civilizations end, and all information is lost. That's called entropy. That's chaos."
He flew into her line of sight again. This time, the Queen cringed, expecting another eye injury. She tried to shut them and hold them that way, but Discord forced her eyelids open with magic. This was the first time she had felt him use telekinesis on her, and it was impossibly strong. Far stronger than any unicorn's. She'd never really stood a chance.
He leaned in, and Teneblight fell into a kind of trance from his strangely hypnotic look.
"And you, my dear? Trapped and only released at my mercy? Toyed with like a pony? Made a fool of in a fight that was hopeless from the start? You're the weakest one of them all."
The Dragon Queen quivered under his gaze. She felt a tear escape, as she hadn't done since she was but a whelp. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and threw her head down, unable to look at Discord as he floated higher above her.
"Very well," she said, bitterly. "You have bested us this day... I believe... it would be mutually beneficial if we were to open negotiations."
Discord laughed loudly, like he'd just heard the most hilarious joke in the world. It forced Teneblight to look up at him again, glaring as he clutched his stomach and rolled on his side midair.
"Hahaha! Negotiations!" he said, his laughter subsiding. "Really? Negotiations? You're serious?"
He smirked again, but floated down to meet her on her level.
"Okay. I'll bite. What are we negotiating for?"
Teneblight swallowed her pride and drew in a breath.
"Allow us to take some ponies from your land—"
"I'm going to stop you there, Teeny. You lost. You don't get any of my stuff. If we're negotiating anything at all, it's what you have to offer me in exchange for turning the other two back to normal."
Teneblight was tempted to snap at him or attempt to reinitiate the fight, but instead bit her lip and took another deep breath.
"What do you want?"
Discord smiled slyly and stroked his beard.
"I want... you, as my maid for a week." Teneblight balked. "You'll have to wear a frilly costume, clean my old socks, and you may be called upon to dance at my command."
"I would never!" she shouted back at him, her face almost going red.
"No? Well then, if you don't want to play along with my games, then I'm afraid I'll have to kindly ask you to get out of my country."
Finally, Teneblight's temper got the better of her. She growled and pointed a claw at Discord.
"Fine! I shall leave! But I will come back with an army the likes of which you have never seen, and wage a ruthless, bloody war against you, Discord! I promise you that you will be destroyed! We will fight you to our very last breath!"
Discord was quiet for a moment, but his grin only grew more sinister, causing Teneblight to falter and back away again.
"Well, I've just been playing games until now, but if you're challenging me to a real fight, then let the best monarch win."
Teneblight did not stop backing away. Those words were the last she heard from Discord before she completely turned and fled, spreading her wings and taking to the sky without even trying to rescue her two lieutenants.
As the Dragon Queen disappeared into the distance, the Spirit of Chaos smiled to himself and looked over his handiwork. Pile of jelly beans, check. Fleeing dragon, check. Talking potted plant and bouncy ball, check and check. Chaos cultist getting out alive without being turned into a mindless zombie? Unfortunately, he couldn't check that one, but four out of five wasn't bad.
It was then that he noticed the crowd of ponies that were still standing at the edge of the scene, staring on at him and the leftovers from the chaotic battle. Then he remembered that he had forgotten number six: terrorise the villagers.
Discord turned back to the crowd, a grin spreading across his face.
"So! I think I've neglected your little village for too long, out on the edge like this! You don't even have flying sharks here in the north! I've been a terrible ruler. I'm sorry. So to make it up to you all, let's play a game! You all go back in your houses, I'll scatter you across Equestria, and we'll see what comes of it! The two households that surprise me the most get a pet dragon as a prize!"
Discord's smile faltered as he looked back over his shoulder at Queen Teneblight's rapidly shrinking form. He frowned and turned his gaze towards the northern mountains, beyond which he knew the Dragon Empire must lie waiting.
"Ah, who am I kidding? Pet dragons for everypony!"
In the libraries of the Crystal Empire of the north, one can find numerous references to an old kingdom of dragons that once ruled over the region, enemies of the three tribes in the days before the rise of Equestria. All accounts agree that they persisted after the tribes departed, and that they won their long-fought war against the windigoes that had so long consumed them after that time. Yet there never was a generally agreed-upon explanation for why their civilization seemed to disappear overnight.
The dragon race itself never disappeared. Indeed, in modern times, dragons have been found in every corner of the globe, despite the crystal ponies' mistaken belief that they dwelled only in the north. However, nowhere but in these ancient texts is it suggested that these solitary beasts may have once been communal.
To be sure, the yearly dragon migrations support this, but for the most part, dragons are fiercely territorial, the very picture of strife and conflict. They are not commonly thought of as as a civilised species in the way that ponies or griffons are. Bringing together enough dragons to unite them into a nation would require an extraordinary will and unimaginable strength, as a dragon monarch would no doubt be subject to constant challenge and would need to reinforce their authority with displays of power. In what can loosely be called dragon society today, there does not appear to be any single figure of undisputed authority like this, and thus there is no dragon nation. In fact, to some, the very idea of such a nation is considered inherently absurd.
History may never know what happened to cause the dragons to go from empire-builders to the almost animalistic creatures that we know nowadays. Some have proposed that the Dragon Empire may have been united under an intensely powerful and unique dragon monarch, an equivalent to our own alicorn princesses, whose disappearance or death eventually caused the Empire to collapse without their guidance. Yet, ultimately, this is just conjecture, and there remains no hard evidence that such a monarch ever existed.
All that we know for sure is that there is still much to learn about the ways of dragons, and it is hoped that ongoing study will eventually reveal the truth.
Discord removed a pair of round spectacles and lowered the book. On the other side, he found a certain alicorn smiling at him. He tossed the book aside, but Twilight Sparkle caught it before it hit the ground, briefly frowning at him before she placed it back on a nearby reading table. Twilight stepped back from the comfy chair where Discord was seated, giving him space to stand up, and he loomed over her with his greater stature.
"What?" he asked.
"What do you mean what?" she said. "I'm just glad to see that you've taken an interest in reading. I'd have never thought it of you, Discord."
Discord gave her a flat look.
"Are you insulting my intelligence, Princess Twilight?"
"Oh no! I didn't mean—" She stopped and composed herself. "What I mean is, I thought that reading would be too... quiet for you."
Discord didn't respond. Twilight rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof and then looked over at the book she had put down.
"So... interested in dragon history, are you?" she asked. "Personally, I find it fascinating. Especially the idea of the Dragon Empire. I hear that there are plans being made in Canterlot to send an expedition to find the ruins soon."
Discord shrugged. "Eh, it wasn't that interesting a place. Just a few pompous lizards living in some caves."
Twilight's eyes widened.
"You've been to the Dragon Empire?" she asked excitedly, her face brightening as a smile spread across it.
"Oh, just once. A while ago. Your princesses were still out questing for a way to beat me at the time, I think."
She gave Discord an expectant look. "Do you know what happened to it then? Nopony seems to know why it ever disappeared. They said that it just vanished one day, as if it..."
Her smile slowly died as realisation dawned. Discord's grew in turn.
"Like I said. Just once."
Author's Note
This story was originally written as part of the Borderworld.
Thanks go out to KitsuneRisu for his support and editing help, and to InquisitorM for his additional advice during the rewrite. The cover art was commissioned from Arylett-Charnoa. Opening quote (and fic inspiration) is from the song "Daddy Discord" by dBPony.
