When Discord was invited to go camping with the CMC, how could he say “no”? True, he had never gone camping before, so he jumped at the chance. He wanted to try a new experience and bond with the three fillies. Ever since he became an honorary CMC, he felt closer to the girls on two accounts: he, like them, felt different than most ponies, and they seemed to have so much fun with him. This was not to say he wasn’t close to the Mane Six…especially Fluttershy.
She had done so much for him ever since she reformed him. While her friends were hesitant to welcome him, she seemed to be the one who understood him. She knew that he needed his freedom and he always counted on her to help him. Still, he never felt like he fit in with others and tired of being nice to others. When Tirek offered him freedom over friendship, Discord jumped at the chance. The spirit took friendship for granted and tried to use it with Tirek. However, since neither of them truly understood it, Tirek ended up betraying his ally.
Though he mostly learned about friendship at that point, the betrayal cut Discord deeply. It wasn’t that he considered Tirek a friend, but rather he trusted him to give him freedom. He then realized that freedom could also come from having friends. He had been blind till then, so he was going to make sure he didn’t lose any one of his companions. He thought he did when the Grand Galloping Gala approached.
He was very upset when Fluttershy said that she was taking someone else to the event. On impulse, he took the Smooze with him to show her he didn’t need her. But in truth, that was not the case. He needed her very much because he felt that she helped him fit in with the ponies. Without her as his only friend, he was just an outsider. The Cutie Mark Crusaders could relate to him on account of being without their cutie marks. When Discord was asked to go camping with the girls, he was excited to spend time with them.
As the sun was setting, the CMC were pitching up their tents. Scootaloo grunted, “Do you think being out in the wilderness will help us get our cutie marks?” Apple Bloom responded, “Well, it’s worth a shot. I’m glad our sisters let us camp by ourselves.” Sweetie Belle added, “Yeah, on the condition that Discord chaperones us.” Apple Bloom asked, “By the way, where is he?” Scootaloo said, “Well, I hope he isn’t leaving us here all alone.”
“And let you three have an adventure without me? I think not!”
In a flash of light, Discord appeared with a bag in his arms. He was wearing the same attire he wore on their animal field trip. The CMC cheered, “Discord! You made it!” They ran to hug him, but he cried, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Careful! I brought some things we need to make s’mores, so don’t crush them!”
The CMC cheered, “YAY! S’mores! We’re making s’mores! Hooray for Discord!” Discord levitated the bag, tore his hat in half, and put either half in his ears. “Geez!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you ever keep things down a notch?”
*****
The stars were out, the fire was lit, and the CMC and Discord were happily toasting marshmallows. The fillies pulled their marshmallows from the fire and put them between their graham crackers and chocolate. Discord, on the other hand, put his marshmallow between two pieces of chocolate (instead of graham crackers) and a graham cracker (instead of the chocolate). The girls thought it was odd, so Scootaloo asked, “Umm…Discord…You’re supposed to put it between graham crackers, not chocolate.” He shrugged while he chewed his s’more, “So? What’s wrong with switching it up?”
Apple Bloom said, “Hey, after we eat our s’mores, we can tell stories around the campfire.” Scootaloo playfully made a scary face, “Ooh! Let’s tell ghost stories! Wooooooo…” This disturbed Sweetie Belle, and she suggested, “I don’t exactly like that idea. How about fairy tales?” Scoots disagreed, “But we’ve heard them a million times.”
Discord swallowed and said, “I agree with Scootaloo. Fairy tales, to me, are very much boring and also very silly.” This gave the girls an idea. They gave each other glances and said in unison, “What don’t you tell us your story?” Discord paused before he could bite into his s’more again. He looked at the fillies and asked modestly, “Me? You want to hear the story of little old me?”
Apple Bloom said, “Yeah, we want to know where you came from.” Scootaloo added, “And how you got your cool powers!” Discord chuckled, “Well, I guess you can say I’m the type with a history as strange as my magic.” He snapped his fingers and the campfire and logs disappeared, replaced by a rug for the girls to sit on, a chair for Discord, and a lamp to provide light. Discord had a maroon satin robe on and reading glasses to read the book he had conjured up. He cleared his throat, “Now…where to begin?” He flipped the pages and stopped when he remarked, “Ah! Here we go…”
Centuries and centuries ago, I wasn’t alive like you. I was but earth, earth on a strange and mysterious island. Like most soils, I grew plants, very strange plants, mind you. I had no mind of my own, but after I became alive, I had an epiphany about how I came to exist. You see, I was just dirt on the island’s highest mountains. I could not see the view, but I felt the refreshing breeze and the sun’s warm rays. It was like my own little paradise, though I had no senses yet.
Then, one day, an odd-looking pony came onto the island’s shores in search of clay for his pottery. He climbed up the mountain and found a patch of earth that was yours truly. He dug the soil up and put them in two clay pots. He took them aboard his ship and sailed back to his home on the mainland.
Clay Spinner was a gray stallion with peach spots all over his body. He had green glasses and a short laurel green mane with a light yellow-green stripe lining the edge of his bangs and tail. He also had freckles, gray eyes, and a clay vase cutie mark. Though he was a talented pottery maker, he was very clumsy. When he took the soil back to his workshop, he wanted to use it for one or two sculptures. Clay Spinner tried to wet it, but it was so resistant. Then he remembered what the island inhabitants told him: he had to use saltwater mixed with sugar to get the soil to be shaped.
He thought it was a weird solution, but tried it nevertheless. After he created the mixture, he found that it worked on the soil! He then set to work on creating his sculpture. Clay Spinner wanted to pay homage to the island inhabitants, but he also wanted to soften the appearance since the residents were no less than intimidating. He sculpted random parts from other animals in place of some of the original limbs and added some things to what he was going to keep. When he was finished, Clay Spinner was amazed by his own work.
The sculpture was standing on two legs and pawing at the air. The mouth was open with the snake tongue sticking out. The head, very much pony, had a deer antler and a goat horn attached to the skull. The sculpture also had mismatched wings, legs, and arms. It had a tuft at the end of its dragon-like snake tail and a zebra-like mane on the back of its neck. Lastly, it had a fang protruding from its upper lip and the eyes and eyebrows were two different sizes.
Clay Spinner cried, “Viola! I am finished at last! I have decided to make you unlike anything the ponies have ever seen before. You are but a jumble of animals all pulled into a crazy form. And for that, I shall give you the name…Discord!”
However, unable to show his latest creation to anypony, he felt all alone. In his spare time, he read stories about inanimate objects coming to life. This gave him an idea-what if he could ask somepony to make one of his sculptures real? Then he could have an apprentice…or even better, a child. This is what set course for a history-changing event.
Clay Spinner eventually found a unicorn who was a colleague of Star Swirl the Bearded. Jade Stripes had just received a new set of spells; one of them was a spell to breathe life into sculptures. The earth pony was ecstatic to learn this and made arrangements with the unicorn. The plan was simple: Clay would send a sculpture to Jade so the latter could bring it to life and Jade would send it back to Clay alive and breathing. There was, however, one crucial error that led to a horrible mistake.
Clay had many sculptures of ponies, so it was easy enough. But when he tried to pack one of them in a crate, he was so excited that he bumped himself against the wall, breaking his glasses in the process. All he could see was a blur, so he grabbed what he thought was a pony sculpture pawing in the air and put it in the crate. He sent out the crate without realizing what he had done. For the moment, he was so excited that he would have a new resident soon.
Jade Stripes was a dark green unicorn with a green mane and a similarly-colored tail with light green stripes. He had jade eyes and wore a light green hat to mimic Star Swirl the Bearded. He also had three stripes, each a different hue of green, for his cutie mark. He was practicing his spells when the crate arrived. He opened it and was repulsed by the sculpture within. It looked like no mere pony, but a strange assortment of different creature parts, all connected in a single serpentine body. Clay had not sent a pony sculpture, but the one he called “Discord”!
Jade thought it was strange, but he decided to practice using the life spell on it. He positioned Discord on the table and angled his horn towards it. He recited while his horn glowed violet, “Lifeless sculpture made from earth, let this moment be your birth!” Just then, a violet ray of magic shot at the sculpture and surrounded it like an aura. The magic absorbed into the clay figure and a small white burst of light followed. A few moments of silence later, the clay began to dissolve under lines of white creeping around the sculpture, making way for newly-formed flesh from underneath. When the white lines were done dissolving the clay, a newly-alive Discord stood in his position for just a few seconds before falling to the ground.
The unicorn chuckled, “Well, hello, little fellow. Must’ve been quite a fall, huh?” As Jade was saying the second sentence, Discord dizzily looked up and tried to regain his senses. He couldn’t speak or think intelligently when he was brought to life. All he was at the moment was a confused animal.
Jade said, “You were sent here by mistake, but that’s good, because I didn’t know whether or not the spell would work. But now that I do know, I’ll tell Clay Spinner the good news and that there was a mix-up with the sculptures. If he doesn’t want you, I’ll keep you with me. It would be interesting to have a pet that was brought to life, but since you’re a new creature, I’m going to have to take notes on you. Now stay here and don’t move.”
As soon as Jade left his laboratory, Discord sat in silence for a while. He didn’t understand anything Jade Stripes said and was confused about everything. When his stomach grumbled, he knew one thing for certain: he was hungry. He sniffed around for food and came upon a strange bottle on the work desk. Discord was drawn to the bottle labeled “New Potion” and grabbed it quickly. He tried to drink from it, but he saw that a cork was blocking the neck. He voraciously pulled the cork off with his teeth and drank the potion heartily.
Suddenly, a sharp, revolting taste ran through his mouth and Discord began gagging, dropping the bottle in the process. A strange sensation like a jolt and nausea combined soon followed suit. He was retching, coughing, and writhing on the floor by the time Jade Stripes hurried back. “My word!” the unicorn cried when he saw the scene before him. His horn glowed and a bunch of special mint levitated towards Discord. Jade Stripes held the creature in his hoofs and force-fed him the mint. Discord relaxed within moments, but his eyes were weary and exhausted from the incident.
Jade Stripes soothed, “There, there. Do you feel better now?” He turned to the broken bottle with periwinkle fluid seeping out. He shook his head and tsked, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You should know better than to drink something unknown. Now I’ll have to make a new batch of the potion. In the meantime…”
He levitated a weak Discord towards a cage as he continued, “…you stay here, where you’ll be out of trouble.” Discord didn’t think twice about it before falling asleep as soon as Jade locked the door.
Author's Note
The italics will be Discord speaking. The regular type will be third-person narration.
Just to clarify, Discord wasn't actually throwing up when he drank the potion.