Diamond Hearts

Would you believe me if I told you, 'Ghosts can dream'?

No? Well that's weird considering I am one.

Regardless; My first night after meeting Diamond, I had the most amazing, and surprisingly enlightening dream.

I remember I was running along a narrow rooftop, the crisp morning air flowing across my face and through my hair. The sun rising over the city skyline as I leapt clear over the edge,  underneath me the yawn-inducing early morning shifters dragged their exhausted corpses to and from work. Call me a lemming if you must. My parents sure did. But I love free-running. Its one of the single greatest things on any world.

The best part? Easily, the jumps.

How can I possibly describe the feels you get when you jump across a huge gap or down a long distance, and do it justice? Its like, you feel your insides bunch up, kinda like your body's anticipating the next movement, the next leap, the next landing. Always checking and double checking, not maths and calculations like you'd think. No. Its all about the feel. Practice enough times and you get a feeling for every movement, you don't decide that your right, you feel it and you know. Your entire being is completely in-sync, all your parts and pieces working together for two goals. Running and staying alive. Feeling alive.

And the adrenaline... B-E-A-UTIFUL.

I landed with a roll just beyond the edge of the other side, now one story lower I pushed off forward from the roll and kept going.

One rule of free-running, never break flow. You break flow, the feelings gone. That's when your problems catch you.

School

Grades

Bullies

Parents

Ex-Boyfriends

All forced back into a tiny, insignificant corner of your mind when you run.

I vaulted over an exposed air vent, ahead of me, getting closer by the second was the other edge. The next building ahead didn't have as much of a gap, but it did have a series of pipes... and a ledge around the whole thing.

Perfect.

There were only a few things in my late high school days that seemed to bring me any joy. Chocolate Éclairs, Energy Drinks, B-Movies and my personal favourite... Free-Running.

I was never a happy teenager, but then again who is? I was coming to terms with who I am, which my parents were less than enthusiastic about. My grades were only just on the border of average. And I was the bullies favourite punching bag.

Needless to say I was a miserable guy.

I wouldn't find out until much later just how miserable I'd been.

I launched myself over the next edge, my breath caught in my chest as my arms and legs clamped on to the cold metal piping.

Climbing my way up I heard a voice above me.

"HELLOOOOOO, down there," I didn't stop climbing, I couldn't. If I did, I'd be back in a world of responsibilities and expectations. Looking up I saw something which, in any other situation would have scared the crap outta me. A dragon, deer, goat, lion, eagle, snake thing... wearing a blue t-shirt and red headband... dreams, funny how they'll make you accept anything right? "...Lovely morning for a run"

I hoisted myself onto the ledge and took off to the left after the dragon thing.

"If you wanna talk fine, but keep running"

I couldn't tell if the dragon thing had heard me, but he seemed to know what he was doing as he leapt onto an exposed air-conditioner and onto the next higher ledge. I was quick to follow suit.

"So, what are you? Some kinda dragon?"

"Hmmm, well that's rude. I'll have you know I'm not one of those giant geckos. I am a Draconequus!"

"... Oh well why didn't you say so? That makes all the difference."

Yeah I was being a tad impolite, but hey it's a dream, you only have so much control over what happens; heck that dragon-thingy was lucky I had pants on.

"So, before the next leap of faith, let's circle the building a few times, I feel as though we should talk... The name's Discord, and you are?"

"... I dunno"

Why wasn't I bothered by this? Well I was concentrating on running at the time and as I would discover later, it's hard to focus on much of anything in the dreamscape, it's one of the most chaotic places there is.

"Oh that's right, The Spell! Silly me."

That however caught my attention.

"Excuse Me? Spell? What spell? As in Magic?"

And now this Discord guy was running backwards, along the narrow ledge... I had to admit, that was ballsy... Or stupid, it's hard to tell with him.

"Oh, just a little seemingly harmless bending of the time-space continuum. A sprinkle of teleportation here, a memory spell there, a few crazy thoughts and Presto! Instant Phase Two."

"Phase Two? Of what?"

But all the chaos god did was tap his snout.

"Now now, no spoilers. You'll just have to wait and see!"

What a Douche-bag!

"Lucky me! So, any more mundane questions?"

"Oh, So many! Tell me, why are we running right now? Are you trying to get away from something?"

We both leapt over the gap between the ledge and the vent and continued around for a second time, how he could see where he was running I'll never know.

"I run because it's the only way I get any freedom! As for what I'm running from. Well Its a lot of things, all of which are none of your business!"

"Well that's not very nice..."

"Hey, no offence, Puff the Magic Dragon-thing. But I just met you. And nothing you've said has made sense. There's no such thing as magic! You existing period can't be physically possible and to top it all off... Why am I not freaking out just looking at you?!!"

Discord's muzzle shifted to a mischievous grin. Well at least he was enjoying himself.

"Why? Well some of the memories I... misplaced, helped a great deal. But really its most likely your connection to, as you know her, Little Diamond."

I had not idea what he was talking about. Little Diamond? I don't have that kind of money.

"What do you mean, misplaced memories? You mean my memories?"

Third time around the building, this was starting to get tedious.

"I had to, shall we say, place a few of them into storage, to help your mind adjust and accept your current situation. Memories of family and certain friends would have thrown you into despair, and really now, who wants to see that."

Was this... guy? Being serious? He was going about this so casually, like it was just another day. Talking about abduction and mind-fuckery as though it were nothing.

"W-Well who cares what you or others want! You can't just take my memories!"

Discord just smirked again and pointed to the ledge we were running on. Although on second glance I realised that he was standing perfectly still and I was, somehow, running on a tread mill. On a ledge. Fifteen stories up. Oddly enough that was the only time that night that I questioned if I was dreaming. Discord's lion arm detached from its socket and floated over, his paw holding and unfurled piece of thick leathery paper.

"Actually I think you'll find that I can."

Looking at the paper in front of me, I immediately realised something that should have tipped me off there and then that I was in a dream.

"Buddy, this is all gibberish!"

All that was on the paper were a series of odd squiggles and dots with a few important looking stamps at the bottom. Discord's arm popped like a balloon and re-inflated out of his side along with the paper. Now sporting a small pair of reading glasses on his snout, Discord looked over the paper thoroughly before face palming.

"Oh right. That won't work here. Alrighty then, I'll just read it to you... Ahem"

"Dearest Citizens of Equestria.

I, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Do hear-by grant one, Discord the Reformed. My full permission to go about Equestria and spread the Magic of Friendship and Harmony, to any and all in need. To stand against any threat to both Equestria and her people. To teach Friendship and Harmony to the best of his ability. To uphold the morals and... 'blah blah blah'... Princess Celestia... 'blah blah'... Our great, powerful and majestic ruler... 'blah blah blah... Oh Celestia why don't you love me... 'blah blah. Honestly will she ever stop kissing her flank' ... should Discord fail in his task, he shall... 'Blah, boring legal talk that isn't important, blah' Dictated but not written by... Signed and sealed... Princess Twilight Sparkle"

"You should have seen the way the Princess's eyes sparkled when I told her how much of a difference she'd made on me. Why she was so overjoyed with all the praise, she hardly stopped to look over what she was having her dragon slave write. Word to the wise, the key words are 'best of his ability' and believe me, neither you or Little Diamond have seen my best yet!"

"Alright, first things first dude. The Magic of Friendship? I'm sorry but, that has to be the stupidest, ages zero to five garbage I've ever heard. Friendship is an idea, not an actual force like gravity or electricity. And I don't care what some Princess says! She has no authority on my world! We don't even have Princesses where I'm from!"

"Oh really? (chuckle) I have a feeling your idea of friendship is going to change very soon... now tell me, Do or do you not come from a world called Equestria?"

Okay, now this was getting confusing.

"Yes"

"Well the same goes for mine, and it states here and I quote 'My full permission to go about Equestria...' she never specified a single specific Equestria... you see Equestria is like those delightful potato chips in a can that you humans love so much, you can't have just one."

"Whoa! I get how Friendship works, I have dozens of friends, why are you doing this to me?"

He wore that damned grin again.

"If you only knew... and you will, then you'd take that back immediately. But we'll deal with that when it comes. Firstly, since you seem so insistent, you can have this memory back."

Like a light bulb going off in my head the memories of the past few hours came back full force. Waking up under a talking, weird looking yet surprisingly cute ponies bed. Meeting Little Diamond. At least now I knew it wasn't her fault I was there.

Realisations struck me like bullets. My world was called Equestria just like the world Diamond and Discord. My being there was Discord's doing. Discord talks as though he'd visited my world before. And probably the most disturbing of all, Discord could give and take my memories whenever he wanted, or whenever it amused him.

"Now, to answer your other question... the reason you've been so accepting of everything going on, is because of your connection with Diamond Tiara. Every living being from my Equestria, Equestria Prime if you will, has magic inside them. Its her harmonious magic that's keeping you calm and in... relatively good spirits. Here, this is what you need to know... You and Diamond Tiara both need to learn a thing or two about Friendship. You've made poor choices and hurt others..."

"Kinda hard to feel guilty when you've had your memories stolen by a reality warping dragon monster. Don't you think your being a bit hypocritical!"

Discord scratched his chin before shooting me a deadpan look.

"Hmm, No... Now then, if you want your memories back... wait no, that sounds wrong, too evil... ah, in order to earn back your memories, you must..."

"Hey, what exactly did Little Dia do anyway? She just a kid, or Filly, whatever."

Discord frowned before continuing.

"Her bullying and insolent behaviour have resulted in..."

"Did she kill someone?"

Discord stood wide eyed, probably from being interrupted again; I had my memories stolen, I was allowed to be rude!

"No"

"Did she badly injure someone?"

"No"

"Has she broken any laws..."

"Oh for Celestia's sake, be quiet! Here's an idea, ask her yourself! Bottom line, either you and Diamond learn about friendship which will send you home, memories and all, or fail and remain Little Diamond's ghost buddy from now until you both are... shall we say, no more"

Why did I get the feeling there was more to this?

"That's it? Just learn about friendship, that'll be easy."

Discord didn't seem amused.

"Are you so sure? Friendship is a funny thing, true friendship can change ones entire outlook on life, it can move mountains and make the impossible, very possible indeed. But hey, I'm a fair Draconequus... so I'll tell you the rules of my, master friendship plan,"

"There's rules?"

I didn't even do anything to deserve having this forced on me, as far as I knew, and now this thing was forcing me to learn something I already know, and he had the audacity to set rules!

"Yes; One, don't hurt anypony! That should be obvious, but these ponies can be insufferable sometimes, so I had to be sure. Two, your stuck with Little Diamond, if you try to fly more than twenty feet away... (chuckle) well, you'll find out. Three, and this ones the most important, if you get found out, discovered, recognised as real by Princess Twilight. You Lose! You lose and your suck here... forever!"

As if to hammer the message home, the word 'forever' appeared behind him in giant golden letters. Also I was still running on that damn tread mill, funny, I hadn't even noticed.

"Wait! So if this Princess finds out I'm a ghost,"

"Or here because of me"

"Or here because of you, then I'm stuck here forever... THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL THAT YOU CAN DO THIS TO ME, I DON'T DESERVE THIS!!!"

Discord wasn't remotely phased.

"You wouldn't be saying that if you remembered,"

That caught me off guard. I've always been a nice guy, at least I've tried to be... haven't I?

"Believe me, you'll thank me when this is over. As for the part where you get trapped here if you lose, Well that's just how the spell works, Ol' Star Swirl had, and still has a lot of skeletons in his closet. If only Celestia knew the things he did before his passing. But that's another story for another time. Although it is quite ingenious really, this little spell of his. Really though it's more of a two way curse. It was originally a way of reforming criminals and those who abuse magic. Two souls become joined and are given a specific task to complete, usually something along the lines of helping others or aiding the crown, if they did well they were set free. But if they failed, they were trapped with each other permanently. And believe me, it's a lot harder for a criminal to lay low when he's got somepony else with them. All, The, Time,"

It was a weird feeling, being forced into a situation like this. Maybe this was what kidnap victims felt like. Which I supposed I was from then on. I wondered how this would affect me, if I ever got home.

"I was originally planning on casting the curse on Little Diamond and her school chum Silver Spoon. But something tells me, they'd enjoy being stuck in close proximity to one another. I also considered another Pony or Equestrian citizen. A Diamond Dog perhaps or maybe a Dragon. But those are much more difficult to keep calm and besides that, they rarely follow rules. Another Pony 'adult' would have been... awkward, to say the least, and another filly from elsewhere was out of the question, I'm a lot of things, but a foal-napper is not one of them!"

My word, did this guy ever love to hear himself talk.

"But then I re-read Princess Sparkle-Toosh's letter, and I realised. I was thinking too small. So I whisked myself away to the next dimension to mine, and what did I find? Only some of the most chaotic and emotionally irrational creatures I've ever seen. I mean really, talk about hitting the jackpot. I really considered staying, I didn't want to leave. But, alas, we all have our parts to play in the story of life. So I searched high and low for a Human to complete the curse, one with a clear lack of Harmony or understanding of the value of Friendship."

"And out of everyone. All the corrupt politicians, pedophiles, drug dealers, psychos, killers, stalkers and murderers... You chose me? Seriously... Me?!! Out of everyone else."

"Actually, I discovered, too my delight, and later chagrin... That there were far too many that met the criteria. So I did what any chaos god would do in my position. I picked one at random. You dear boy. Sorry if that makes you feel less special."

So that was it, the whole reason I was in this mess. Was a random, fucking choice. A dart on a newspaper. A flip of a coin. A roll of a dice. Completely random. It could have been anyone else, but instead it had to happen to me! Oddly enough, only one question was on my mind now.

"So wait, who's gonna tell Diamond this?"

"I am... I've been having a similar conversation with her while I've been chatting with you. Except her's was less running and jumping and more flowers and throne rooms... Oh, one last little thing."

Discord leaned in close, really close, face to face even. Was he gonna kiss me? God I hoped not.

"Wake up Miss Tiara"

Oh thank you spirits in the sky.

xxx