Some Love

Discord’s eyes shot open, and he rolled from his bed, landing on the floor with a loud grunt. He looked around frantically, smoke pouring in from all around him. His window was shattered, and the flickering of flames met his gaze as it poured through the broken glass.

The hot air and dense smoke choked his lungs, and Discord fell to his knees, gasping. Down there, he was afforded cleaner air, but not by much. His eyes watering, he crawled his way towards the door, pressing both his claw and talon hard against it when he reached it.

The door was hot to the touch, and burst outward as he pushed it, crumbling into several large chunks and slivers of smouldering wood. The hallway outside was likewise engulfed in flames, smoke obscuring any path he could hope to choose by sight.

Discord plunged into the hallway, the burning sensation of the flames licking at his bottom half causing him to yelp in pain. His voice was lost to the thunderous crackling of the flames, and the loud sounds of wooden beams somewhere in the house splintering and coming down with a crash.

The young draconequus rushed down the hallway, not caring that his hooves were heating up and that his fur was getting singed. Tears were flowing down his cheeks, but the hot air was drying them faster than they could roll. He was certain that at any moment, they would begin to boil, and he would soon join them.

Wading through the flaming floor and the smothering smoke, Discord found himself in the dining room. The table was on fire, and all of the chairs were crumbled, smouldering heaps of what they once were. He screamed out words, but his throat was so raw and dry that only a strangled sound escaped.

I need to get out.

Many thoughts were racing through his mind, but that was the one that stood out above the others. Forget his family, forget his belongings, forget those weird sounds and noises echoing inside his mind, forget anything else. Right now, he could only focus on escaping his home, and then... and only then could he focus on everything else.

Discord knew that there was a doorway that lead out of his home to the left of the dining room, but all his fevered mind could see was the window, yet unshattered, that was right in front of his very eyes. He stumbled over to it, coughing and hacking loudly as a fresh wave of smoke from the table collapsing under its own weight overtook him, and thrust his palms against it.

Immediately, he withdrew, moaning in agony as the skin under his paw began to blister, and his scales on his talon began to flake. The widow was burning hot, and Discord wasn’t even sure how it hadn’t melted yet.

It his fevered mind, his raised his burnt talon and snapped, focusing what little control over chaos magic he had at the window. It flexed outward, as if it were soapy water just before a bubble had been blown with it, and it melted outwards, covering the ground outside in a thin, shiny layer.

He tumbled over and out of his home, landing on the glass with a dull thud. He hobbled to his feet, and looked around, eyes still watering from the smoke and ash that filled the air. He turned his head to the left and right, looking up and down his street—and only found ash and burning buildings.

His street was situated on a large hill, with an overlook of the entire city. As Discord turned to look down over it, his worst fears were confirmed. The whole city was ablaze, thick smoke wafting up from the center, making the night hazy with a dull orange glow.

Something far worse than he could ever imagine was hanging right above the center of town.

A colossal red dragon was beating its wings, easily hundred of feet, if not thousands, in length. It opened its mouth with a ground-shaking roar, and expelled a fresh wave of flames upon the center of the city.

“BURN, CHAOTIC INTERLOPERS,” it bellowed, the deep, gravely voice carrying across the landscape. “BURN FOR THE MAGIC YOU HAVE SO CARELESSLY PURSUED! BURN FOR THE LANDSCAPES THAT HAVE BEEN IRREPLACEABLY MARRED BY YOUR INCURSIONS! AND ABOVE ALL, BURN FOR THE BROOD OF MINE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES TO SEAL THE RIFTS YOUR PEOPLE TORE INTO THE FABRIC OF OUR WORLD!”

His jaw dropped as he awed in the terrifying shadow of the beast. Discord was far away from it by his standards, but it could easily be bearing down on him with but two flaps of its mighty wings.

He could hear scream now, and shouts, sometimes a broken word or two...

And then came the voices.

Having been freed from the immediate danger of burning alive, Discord could focus on the odd noises inside of his mind which certainly were not his thoughts. Bits of conversations, emotions, ideas... everything flooding into his mind at once.

These were the cries of the dead.

The collective conscious of the draconequi was shrinking, the thoughts and minds and personalities of those who were being burned alive by the dragon fire rushing into the surviving members’ psyches. Discord fell to the ground for the second time that night, clutching his head as it burst with his people’s minds as they were burnt alive. Pain, pain, pain, it was all pain...

He could feel something else growing inside him as well, though, as if something was being unlocked within him. It was a growing warmth that had nothing to do with the fire, an inner glow that caused him to regain the strength to stand. His paw shot out to the side as he felt his whole arm grow numb, and the burning house next to him froze solid.

“Wh-Wha...” Discord stared in disbelief at the frozen home, which did not even begin to melt despite everything around it being engulfed in flame.

It wasn’t just the minds that was being transferred from the dead, it was their power.

He, little Discord, who had barely been able to melt a window, could suddenly freeze entire buildings. And he suspected that was just the beginning of his power.

He rose his hand up towards the dragon, and concentrated on the beat with all his might. There was a deafening boom, and a large shockwave emanated from somewhere between Discord and the dragon, flattening a good section of the city below. Even with the strength of so many of his people within him, he still couldn’t take on the dragon.

“No!” Discord screamed, falling to the ground once more. He simply could not handle the new wave of thoughts, feelings, and powers that were being funneled into him, mostly in part to his failed attack. His chest felt like it was bursting, like there was a volcano inside of him trying to force its way out. He lay there writhing, and vaguely he head the roar of the beast once more.

He opened his eyes for a brief moment, only to shut them once more when a blinding flash of light overtook his vision. When it had passed, he struggled to open them again.

And then rubbed them a few times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

Floating above him was none other than Celestia, her tiny wings beating as hard as they could. She looked... different, however. As if she were intangible, somehow.

“Grab my hoof, Discord!” she shouted over the sound of the burning city and the roaring dragon. “We need to get you out of here!”

“H-How...” Discord gasped, staring up at Celestia in complete and honest disbelief.

“We could see the city burning all the way from the Everfree!” Celestia yelled down to Discord. “I broke into the library and stole a teleportation tablet! It was lucky we fell on each other earlier, some of your fur was stuck in my coat! I put it on the tablet and it sent me here, but hurry up and grab my hoof, there’s not much time!”

Discord tried to lift his arm, but it felt like it had been hollowed out and filled with lead. With a great amount of effort, he lifted his hand up, the tippy-tips of his paws stretching, reaching towards Celestia’s ethereal hoof...

There was a great yanking in his somewhere in the pit of his stomach, and he felt his whole body being stretched as if he were paste being squeezed from a tube. The next sensation he remembered feeling was cold grass against his scorched stomach, and the blunt impact of him hitting the ground.

He turned his head and saw Celestia laying in the grass near him, he eyes closed and a large gash in her forehead. A rock that was next to her dripped with her fresh blood, and Discord cringed, imagining the stone slicing through her skin. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the glow of his city off in the distance.

Before Discord could so much as open his mouth to ask Celestia if she was alright, an overpowering wave of emotions, thoughts, and power blasted through his body. He let out a carnal scream, his back arching, and his tail thumping hard against the ground. His mind felt like a star was exploding inside of it, threatening to blow his brains across the whole field.

When the sensation died down, Discord lay on the grass, quietly sobbing next to Celestia’s unconscious form. He just wanted to lay there, in the grass, without anything bothering him, just to sit there and sob. At least he could be afforded this: he needn’t worry about another one of those power surges from a dying draconequus wracking his body.

He was the last one left.