The Element of Chaos

It wasn’t until the next day that Discord realized that being Pinkie’s friend wasn’t quite as special he had first thought. Apparently, everyone in Ponyville was her friend. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but this fact irked him. He had a feeling it was jealously, but that would be silly. Him? Jealous? Of friendship? It was laughable! He tried out a guffaw at the idea but it felt strangely hollow. He wanted to open up his diaphragm and see why, but as he was in a public place and trying to remain incognito, he decided he would wait until later.

Pinkie had found him that morning in the library looking through books for clues on the elements (a very tedious job that in his boredom caused him to turn three of the books into paper birds and one unfortunate bookworm into a spiderworm that terrified the librarian and almost led to the spiderworm’s untimely demise had Discord not saved it at the last possible moment) and insisted that he meet all of her friends. Discord looked around at the lack of stimulus in the library, shrugged, and threw the book he was looking through into the air where it promptly grew wings and flew away. The elements could wait. Meeting Pinkie’s friends had to be more interesting than this. What he did not realize, however, was that meeting all of her friends meant meeting everyone in the entire school! Did friendship mean so little to the girl that she offered it to everyone she met? And they were all so normal and boring! Why did Pinkie waste her time with such underlings? It’s not as if they would ever be able to understand her. Not that he completely understood her, but he understood her more than they did!

By the twentieth person, he had had enough. “And this is Vinyl,” Pinkie said, dragging a bewildered blue haired girl with headphones on in front of him. He pushed the girl away as Pinkie turned her attention to someone else. “Pinkie,” Discord began. “Don’t you, I mean we, have class soon?”

“And this is – Oh sweet cupcakes! You’re right!” She shrieked, nearly throwing the dark haired girl she was about to introduce him to across the hall. “But I haven’t even introduced you to my very bestest best friends yet!” Very bestest best friends? And he was just a friend? Alright, now he was jealous. “You have to come to lunch today so I can introduce you to them!” Pinkie insisted. “I was going to introduce you yesterday, but you weren’t at lunch and I was really sad. You have to go today!”

“I don’t-“

“Please?” Pinkie begged, her blue eyes looking particularly puppy like. Must resist the cuteness, thought Discord. He was the unconquerable Lord of Chaos and would not be swayed by the pleas of some little, annoying, fluffy, adorable, sweet, chaotic – “Alright Pinkie, I’ll go,” he caved. Oh how far he had fallen! He couldn’t even so no to a little girl. What was this power that this pink fluffball had over him?

“Yay! You’re going to love them. I just know it!” Pinkie gave him a celebratory hug. Oh right, thought Discord. Friendship and hugs. He had almost forgotten. Ah well. It would all be worth it once he got the elements.

“Dizzy! Dizzy! Over here!” Pinkie waved to him from across the cafeteria. He drifted over to them. “Dizzy, I want you to meet my bestest best friends in the whole world, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy!” Brat, hick, angry pants, and Miss fraidy-cat, Discord thought. Yep. Easy enough to remember.

“It is an honor to make your acquaintances,” Discord bowed. It was a lie, of course, but he knew how to be charming when occasion called for it. He had an urge to change into a top hat and tuxedo, but he resisted.

Pinkie giggled. “You’re so silly Dizzy.” Discord smirked. So easily pleased, he thought as he slid into the seat next to her. The other girls looked at him skeptically, probably assessing whether he was good friend material for their dear Pinkie. Discord did much the same to them, and didn’t like what he saw. The four girls held varying degrees of normalcy. There was the well-dressed purple haired one who was obviously too much into herself to be of any interest. The rainbow-haired and blonde one could be entertaining if they were forced to compete against one another, he supposed, but not nearly entertaining enough. The last one was completely hopeless. She was too nervous to even look at him. Were these really the bestest best friends he was supposed to be meeting? How dull. Pinkie could do better than them. No wonder she had been so desperate to be friends with him.

“So, Discord, where are you from?” Rarity asked.

“Yeah Dizzy,” Rainbow Dash smirked.  “Where are you from?”

Discord raised an eyebrow at the name Dizzy. Only Pinkie was allowed to call him that. “I prefer Discord actually. I’m from – “

“New York! Isn’t that amazing!” Pinkie interjected. Did she just lie for him? He looked at her questioningly. “That’s why he didn’t like the dance. He’s used to parties being a lot bigger than anything Ponyville could produce.” Dance? Oh right. Now that Pinkie mentioned it, he did remember those girls pestering him after he insulted her little party a couple of nights ago. He hadn’t been exactly polite to them, or to Pinkie for that matter. That explained the hostility.

“New York! Oh that is simply divine!” Rarity gushed. “I’ve always wanted to go to New York. What’s it like?”

“Lots of people, noisy, full of smog,” Discord replied with a shrug. “Could use a giant marshmallow man or two to loosen people up a bit. Don’t you think Pinkie?”

“Oh definitely!” she giggled. “And maybe buildings made of gingerbread so you would never be hungry and streets made of soap so you can slide to anywhere you wanted to go.”

“I like the way you think Pinks,” Discord grinned. “Soap travel would be both fun and eco-friendly!”

“Oh dear sweet Celestia,” Rainbow Dash muttered under her breath. “There’s two of them.”

Applejack looked over at her in confusion. “Did you just use the principal’s name as a curse? That’s a little weird.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Twilight used to do it. I don’t see why I can’t.”

“Twilight was from an alternate dimension,” Applejack countered. “She’s allowed to be a little weird.” Discord, who had been brainstorming with Pinkie about all the different ways New York could be discorded (a llama herd in central park? Oh yes!), stopped midsentence and turned towards Applejack.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you say alternate dimension? I’m not sure if I heard that quite right.”

“Yeeup! That’s what I said,” Applejack replied. “Did Pinkie not mention Twi?”

“No,” Discord glanced at Pinkie.

“He never asked,” she said simply, biting into a cupcake that Discord was almost certain she hadn’t had a moment ago. Discord raised an eyebrow at her, and she shoved the rest of the cupcake in her mouth and swallowed it in one gulp before saying, “She’s a magical pony princess who used the magic of friendship and the elements of harmony to defeat Sunset Shimmer and bring harmony back to Canterlot High.”

“Did you say the elements of harmony? And a magical pony princess?” Discord leaned in eagerly, grabbing a bag of popcorn from nowhere (Pinkie did it and nobody said anything so that meant he could too right?).

“Where did you-“ Applejack began, but Discord shushed her. He turned back to Pinkie. “I think you need to start from the beginning.”

“Okie dokie lokie! I was born on a Tuesday – “

“Er… not quite that far in the beginning Pinkie,” Discord said. “Start at the part when Twilight comes in.”

“Ooh! Okay!” So Pinkie, with various interjections from the other four girls, told him all about her bestest best friend Twilight and how she had come to Canterlot High from another dimension where everyone was a pony. As she told him about their adventure together, Discord’s grin got wider and wider.