Depending on how one looked at it, one could say that he was the oldest being in existence. But, it was equally true that Discord was very young on the scale of immortals. After all, it wouldn’t be very chaotic for a primordial force of chaos to have just one personality, now would it?
This particular manifestation of the eternally timeless Chaos Spirit was only about three thousand years old. But, being a ninth-dimensional being, he was still a part of the collective that spanned every place, time, and probability. And while he could access those memories of his collective self, this particular incarnation did not choose to.
Instead, this Discord took up the role as a mere sixth-dimensional reality warper, and a fairly tame one at that. And, even in the face of danger (what a laughable concept), the Chaos Spirit never, ever broke character. Even when Tirek had taken his magic (as if he really had), or when he’d been bound in stone (escaping would have meant breaking character), the Chaos Spirit never broke out of his self-given role. His Character didn’t even know that it could.
But when he’d betrayed Fluttershy and her friends... she’d had this look on her face. And for once, it pained the Chaos Spirit in a way he’d never been hurt before. It struck him all the way to his core.
It was new. It was novel. It was delicious. The Chaos Spirit fed on entropy, and the more possibilities there were, the more entropy there was to consume. And, in light of this, Discord wondered if he should break character.
Discord chuckled silently to himself as the thought occurred to him. Fluttershy, his current tea companion, did happen to catch his smile, though. “Discord? What are you thinking about?” the butter-yellow pegasus asked him.
Drawing a long, unusually ordinary sip from his chamomile tea, Discord held off on answering for just a moment. Finally, however, he set his teacup upside down on the floating saucer. “Oh, I was just thinking about you, my dear.”
“Me?” Fluttershy asked, somewhat surprised. “Well, I’m glad that I could make you smile, even in your thoughts.”
Discord reclined his chair. It wasn’t the sort of chair that reclined, but that didn’t stop Discord from doing so anyway. His eyes darted to the clock on the wall. It read 2:45. The action of reading the clock wasn’t strictly necessary; being a higher dimensional being, the concept of time was much like the concept of relative position for a three-dimensional being. The clock just served as a metaphor for what he was actually looking at.
And with barely more than a twitch, Discord created a perfect copy of this day in a free-floating bubble of spacetime, independent of the rest of the multiverse. Neither Fluttershy, nor the animals in her cottage noticed.
Discord, in the copy timeline, seamlessly replied, “Well, I wouldn’t call it a particularly happy memory. I was thinking back to Tirek, when you were captured, and I still had my magic. You gave me this look...” Discord looked Fluttercopy (as he dubbed her) in the eyes. “I don’t think anything has ever hurt me that badly before.”
Fluttercopy gasped. “I hurt you?”
Discord merely shrugged. “Yes, and no. I’d hurt you, and your look of betrayal stung me like nothing else had before. Even the elements of harmony didn’t hurt that badly. And this was a different sort of hurt, too.”
Tears welled up in Fluttercopy’s eyes. With a swift leap, she’d crossed the distance between them and embraced Discord’s noodly torso. “Oh, Discord! I’m so sorry that I made you feel so bad!”
His lion’s paw came down and stroked her pink mane. With his golden talon, he lifted her chin up so that she was looking him in the eye. “Fluttershy...”
“Discord?”
“Can I kill you?”
For a moment, Fluttercopy just stared vacantly as she tried to process what he’d just said. His tone had been perfectly jovial and smooth, as if he were discussing Rainbow Dash’s latest antics, but the words themselves... “What?”
“I said, ‘can. I. Kill. You?’ It’s a simple question, really...” Here, his body shifted slightly. No longer was he comical-looking, no longer did he look like a character from a cartoon or a comic book. No, now he looked like a beast, ferocious and wild.
His body, without growing an inch, filled the room. His teeth, which once formed witty remarks, curled into fangs that dripped with thick saliva. His fur grew course and disheveled, while his muscles bulged and tensed. His eyes, though, his eyes locked onto the mare with murderous intent.
His voice, though, his voice was a mockery of the kind sound it had once been. “Would you let me tear you apart? Rip you limb from limb? Leave you a bloody, gory mess? Or maybe I’ll devour your succulent flesh?”
The pegasus’s gut clenched. She backed up instinctively, before her conscious mind even had time to process what was happening. And yet, seemingly the instant she had retreated, the beastly draconequus advanced the same amount.
His hot, putrid breath bathed her body. “D-D-Discord?”
He took a step forward, and then another, perfectly in time with every fifth beat of her quaking heart.
She took another step back, and her hoof made contact with the wall. Here frightened eyes flickered to the wall as she hurriedly, instinctively, gauged her surroundings. In the time it took her eyes to travel back to him, Discord had closed the gap.
He sniffed her, as a wolf would when scenting their prey. Then his jaw opened wide.
In that moment, the pegasus knew that she was going to die.
“No, that’s not it.”
She hadn’t moved, and yet she was back in her seat. Discord, the comical, goofy, not-at-all murderous Discord, sat across from her, holding his teacup. He shook his head. “No, that wasn’t the right feeling at all.”
Discord raised his lion’s paw, and snapped.
The miniature world rippled, and then reversed.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it a particularly happy memory. I was thinking back to Tirek, when you were captured, and I still had my magic. You gave me this look...” Discord recited the line perfectly. It was the same answer he’d given Fluttercopy the first time. For her though, it was the first time. “I don’t think anything has ever hurt me that badly before.”
He paused. Then, as if pondering something, he added, “I wonder...” His tail flicked, and with the sound of metal grating on metal, the hairs on the end straightened, hardened, and sharpened themselves to a point. Then, faster than the eye could follow, he struck.
The tail blade sank into her flesh. With unnatural skill, he’d purposefully avoided her major organs, but the wound was deep regardless.
Fluttercopy had time to blink once before the pain hit, and then she howled with pain. It was an instinctive, animalistic cry, born from the primitive core of her mind that so desperately was calling for help.
And then Discord struck again. And again. And again.
The pegasus looked up at her once-friend. She could form no words, but her eyes said it all: “Why?”
Discord frowned, and flicked the blood off his tail. As his friend lay dying in a pool of her own blood, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed. That wasn’t what he was looking for. It was close, but no cigar.
He snapped his lion’s paw again.
The miniature world rippled, and then reversed.
Whole, no longer bleeding, and completely unaware of what no longer would have had transpired (such as a temporally bound creature should have been), Fluttershy sat sipping her tea.
Instead of repeating the lines that he had said before, Discord opted for something else. “Fluttershy, I was thinking... Do you remember that look you gave me, when you were in Tirek’s cage? Right before I got my magic stolen?”
Fluttercopy nodded. It wasn’t a very nice memory, but she could tell something was bothering Discord, so she steeled herself against the memory anyway.
“Why did you look that way?”
Fluttershy sipped her tea, unaware that Discord had silently topped it off. “Well, you hurt my friends. I didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was that you had turned against us. I was hurt, Discord. I kept thinking, ‘How could you? How could you?’ over and over.”
Discord cocked his head to the side. “Is that a feeling that is worse than death?”
The Fluttershy copy nodded. “Oh, yes. I can’t imagine anything worse than being betrayed like that.”
Instead of answering, Discord summoned a magician’s hat and a black wand. He tapped the wand on the hat, and then pulled out Angel Bunny. Then he stood, holding the squirming, petulant rabbit in his talons, and walked towards her. “Good. Fluttershy, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this.”
He crushed the rabbit.
Guts splattered on the copy’s face.
Horror.
Fluttercopy stepped back.
Disgust.
She looked down at herself, at her bloodied coat.
Rage.
Her eyes snapped up to meet Discord’s.
Fear.
His teeth were right in her face.
Betrayal.
“I’m going to kill them all.”
And Discord smiled. It may not have been exactly the expression he was looking for, but the way the Fluttershy copy was looking at him, he knew that was what he wanted. He realized why that face stung him so badly. He knew why it hurt him.
And all it took was a little blood.
He snapped his fingers one last time.
For the original Fluttershy, no time at all had passed, nor had Discord visibly moved. And yet, his smile had somehow grown in the span of the blink of an eye.
“Me?” Fluttershy had asked, somewhat surprised. “Well, I’m glad that I could make you smile, even in your thoughts.”
“Of course!” Discord replied jovially. He squashed the unpleasant image of her bleeding to death out of his mind. “You’re my best friend.”
“Really?” Fluttershy asked, somewhat amazed by the notion.
“Really, really.” He leaned in and clasped his paw and claw together in front of his mouth. It was the only thing keeping the sudden regret from voiding his stomach. “I had a little epiphany. I don’t think I could stand seeing anyone hurt you ever again.”
You hurt her, his mind helpfully supplied.
The manifestation of the Chaos Spirit smiled. The smile was the truth. The smile was a lie. The smile was.
You hurt her. You love her. You want to kill her. You want to suffer. You hate her. You love her. You want to tear her apart. You want to caress her.
His heart filled with glee. Fluttershy could destroy him, he knew. But somehow, that thought was more uplifting than anything else he had ever though.
The Chaos Spirit purred with delight.
Author's Note
I don't know where this came from. Some weird mashup of a Fluttercord fic and Cupcakes, perhaps? Or maybe I've been reading too much Discordantly Vore. Dunno. I wrote this in about an hour, so make of it what you will.
