Author's Note
My (very late) contribution to "Discord Day".
Learning About Chaos
Discord sat down in the offered chair, a toothy grin on his features. He normally disliked these sorts of things, for the reason that he was required to sit still. Using his powers was also greatly discouraged, as they could ruin the proceedings. But Princess Celestia had assured him that this was a big step towards being accepted by everypony. If he managed to get through this whilst curbing his behavior, ponies might be more inclined to trust him, rather than slamming the door in his face when he attempted to wish them a happy birthday.
The interviewer, an older unicorn mare named Perfect Prose, eyed the Spirit of Chaos with a satisfied expression. She had been waiting months for this. She had blackmailed, lied, and even spiked somepony's coffee, all to get her precious twenty minutes with the hottest topic in Equestria. This article was going to put her on top.
“Comfortable?” Perfect Prose inquired in a sophisticated voice.
Discord, who was pretending to assess the room while in reality assessing Perfect Prose, nodded. His claws twitched as the desire to turn the ordinary chair into an immense throne pressed down on his mind. He took a deep breath, remembering his promise to Celestia.
Perfect Prose noticed the twitching claws and smiled. She'd heard all the stories about Discord. Not just the legends, but the more recent tales of his antics. She was no gullible foal, though. She only believed the most outrageous ones.
“Shall we begin?” Perfect Prose asked, flashing her own toothy smile.
Discord grimaced at the smile. This mare wore far too much make-up. She looked as if she had simply shoved her face into a bowl of beauty products. He opened his mouth to tell her this, but the words “Remain polite!”, spoken in Celestia's domineering voice, froze his tongue. Mentally sulking, Discord nodded stiffly.
Perfect Prose retrieved a stack of papers from her desk drawer. To the untrained eye, they appeared to be notes. But Perfect Prose was more clever than that. In reality, this was a hearty list of rumors she had been collecting for two months. Perfect Prose smoothed the papers on her desk and pressed the “Record” button on the tape recorder.
“Discord, readers of The Ponyville Inquirer are very eager to learn more about you,” she began seriously. “You're supposedly a literal embodiment of disharmony whose only counter is six of the most powerful magical items in existence. You are feared, yet respected and even admired by some ponies. What do you think? Are you happy with how the general population sees you?”
Discord stroked his goatee thoughtfully.
“Oh, not really,” he uttered truthfully. “I could stand to be worshiped a bit more. Maybe a few more free ice cream cones or discount hayburgers. A parade in my honor. A day dedicated to my smile. Not that I'm at all egotistical.”
Perfect Prose smirked. She knew that feeling.
“You want to be worshiped?” she uttered in fake surprise. “Isn't that asking a little much? You tried to plunge the world into neverending chaos….twice. Are you sure you deserve to be treated better than the princesses?”
Discord squirmed uncomfortably in his pony-sized chair. He desperately wanted to do something about it. But he restrained himself.
“You say neverending chaos as if it's a bad thing,” Discord replied, pouting. “I am so tired of ponies misinterpreting my artistic work! If a foal draws something vaguely resembling a cow, they get praised. If I turn the world upside down and make it rain unsalted pretzels, everypony tries to censor my creative vision! Make up your minds!”
Perfect Prose nodded as if she understood his pain. She shuffled the papers before her, skimming the list to find the least unrelated to the topic at hoof.
“Do you feel as if Equestria would benefit from having you as a leader?” she asked.
Discord leaned forward eagerly, as if he'd been waiting for this question.
“Oh, yes, certainly!” he replied quickly. “For one thing, I'd get rid of this ridiculous law about marrying buildings. I happen to find Applejack's barn very attractive and would be honored to take its scaffolding in marriage. And aren't you tired of all these rules about littering? If I was ruler of Equestria, I'd just dump all of our garbage into another dimension. Problem solved and nopony has to wear a stupid vest and pick up empty cans for twenty-four hours!”
Perfect Prose disliked the sound of that last one. If she couldn't paint litterers to be worse than murderers, a lot of her upcoming articles were going to come off as cruel.
“Shall I take this to mean that you'd overthrow the princesses if you could?” she dared to ask, briefly tossing away all pretense.
Discord's grin dissolved into a worried frown.
“Overthrow the princesses?” he echoed. “I would never dream of such a thing! Fluttershy would be very disappointed in me. The two of us are great friends, you know. She's the only pony that understands me.”
Perfect Prose glanced at her list of rumors yet again. Several of them contained the name of a timid yellow pegasus. She smiled, pleased to ease them into this subject. It was going to be one of the main focuses of her article.
“You're close to Fluttershy?” she inquired casually.
Discord's eyes lit up at the mention of his pegasus friend.
“Oh, we're the closest you can imagine!” he responded energetically. “We have tea parties together and she laughs at all my jokes and we just have the most fun! She does scold me quite frequently, though. Yesterday, she got upset with me just because I transported Angel Bunny to another dimension. Can you believe it?! That stupid bunny dared to steal the last cookie in the jar and she yelled at me for giving him what he deserved!”
Perfect Prose managed a sympathetic smile that only looked slightly convincing. But it seemed to fool Discord.
“You must have a difficult life with Fluttershy,” Perfect Prose surmised. “Do you ever sometimes think you'd be better off with another mare?”
Apparently Discord missed the underlying message of that sentence, because he took the bait immediately.
“There are thousands of other mares I'd prefer being with!” he responded. “Rainbow Dash, for example. If only she'd warm up to me, we could travel through space and time together, playing pranks on innocent ponies. And that poor Pinkie Pie! Always full of laughter, yet she'll never know the joy of flirting with sentient mold!”
He cleared his throat.
“But you musn't think I'm heartless!” Discord added. “I'd want Fluttershy to share in the fun! You know what they say: Three is better than two! And if you add another one, it's Gummy's bachelor party all over again.”
Already imagining what she was going to do with all Discord had said, Perfect Prose eagerly hurried the conversation along.
“You have an unusually big heart,” she observed, amused.
Discord shook his head, although he looked rather proud of himself.
“It's smaller on the inside,” he assured her.
Perfect Prose laughed. Emboldened by Discord's frankness, she spun the topic around again.
“Who else are you close to in the land of Equestria?” she asked. “I've heard you've become great friends with Princess Celestia.”
Discord waved his lion's paw dismissively. He'd heard about all the rumors concerning him and Celestia at least sixteen times. Celestia found them distastefully bold, yet Discord found them entertaining.
“Celestia and me have never seen eye-to-eye,” he revealed. “She wants to paint the town with roses, I want to paint the town with pictures of Spidermare. She tries her best, but poor Celly cannot understand my chaos and I can not understand her need for harmony. Reformed or not, I fail to understand how ninety-nine red balloons with my face on them are not an appropriate birthday gift.”
Perfect Prose held back a scowl. Truthfully, she found Discord's sense of humor annoying. He wasn't the type of creature that belonged in a land of ponies. But she knew how to take care of creatures like him. All she needed was a quill pen, a bottle of ink, a tape recorder, and a little twisting of the truth. To keep up her facade, she forced herself to smile at Discord's words and nod as if she was empathetic towards his struggles.
“Our readers are eager to know about your relationship with the other princesses,” Perfect Prose lied. “You're close to Princess Twilight, are you not?”
Discord was contorting himself in a snake-like manner, attempting to be at least slightly relaxed in his under-sized, badly-designed chair. But regardless of where his head and legs where, the chair refused to be comfortable. Giving up, he straightened himself and looked at Perfect Prose. His claws twitched again. He was itching to do something about that hideous make-up.
“Princess Twilight tolerates me for the sake of Celestia,” he explained. “But she has no sense of fun! I explained to her that I thought her mane looked better white and purple, but she still threw me out of the castle! Such inconsideration for the efforts of a friend!”
Discord shook his head sadly at the memory.
“Princess Luna is more understanding,” he informed Perfect Prose. “We have long talks about how much better Equestria would be if the other princesses weren't so uptight. She agrees that we need less rules and more puns. If there were more puns, there would be less strife in our great land.”
Perfect Prose, who'd stopped listening for a minute, nodded as if on cue.
“You're absolutely right!” she agreed. “You're the type of leader Equestria needs! Have you ever considered getting into politics, Discord? Running for mayor, perhaps?”
Discord laughed uproariously at the idea.
“Me, as mayor of Ponyville?” he cried. “I don't have nearly enough tacky suits in my wardrobe to be a mayor!”
Perfect Prose raised her eyebrow skeptically.
“Do you believe anypony would vote for you?” she asked.
Discord rearranged himself in his chair, giving up on comfort. He coughed pointedly.
“I have my supporters,” Discord assured her, winking. “I've gotten the odd love letter or two in my day. Always anonymous, of course.”
Perfect Prose nearly gagged. She couldn't imagine why anypony would want to send a love letter to Discord. Some mares and stallions in their great land really were delusional. But she couldn't blame all of them for their ignorance. At one time, she had been a naive filly who'd believed that it was possible to reform villains and that everypony deserved a second chance. But she was older and wiser now. She knew that villains were forever villains and heroes, like her, were forever heroes for proving that to the public.
“L-Love letter?” the mare stammered, hiding her revulsion.
Discord didn't appear to see the look of pure disgust that darted across her features. He was examining his claws with a bored expression.
“I'm not one to commit, though,” he admitted serenely. “What kind of Spirit of Chaos would I be if I did? But just between you and me...”
He leaned closer, causing Perfect Prose to flinch and instinctively recoil.
“……..If I did commit, it would be at Fluttershy's request,” Discord whispered confidentially. “She really does know what's best for me. I hate to admit it, but she's…..the closest thing to a mother I've ever had. She's helped me so much with fitting into equine society. She's...the kindest soul I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.”
Discord's voice, once dancing in amusement, went serious as he made this confession. This was information he'd never shared with anypony, including Fluttershy herself. But he thought it wouldn't come as too much of a surprise to the timid pegasus. He suspected it was in her nature to consider herself a “mother figure” to everypony who appeared to need one, including a Spirit of Chaos trying desperately to fit into a society that had once shunned his existence.
Perfect Prose wasn't impressed. This was the same old excuse nearly every “reformed” criminal seemed to use, before she tore their reputation to shreds. They always claimed to have latched onto somepony, usually a well-known mare or stallion whose kindness was legendary. It was a cheap tactic to get others to believe in them. But Perfect Prose never fell for it.
“Didn't you betray Fluttershy once?” she couldn't resist pointing out.
The incident hadn't been brought up in nearly a year. Discord had accepted his own mistake, but mention of the unfortunate event still caused him unease.
“That was a different me,” Discord assured the mare. “It was just a shadow of what I used to be, swooping down over my new life. I know my destiny now.”
Without thinking, he reached forward and seized an inkwell from the desk. He took a large bite out of it, crunching the glass between his teeth as if it was candy.
“Famished,” he explained himself quickly.
Since that was technically not chaos-related magic or any otherwise blatant display of his powers, he decided Celestia wouldn't scold him if she found out.
Perfect Prose's hoof twitched, longing to punch Discord in the face.
“I apologize for the lack of refreshments,” she uttered with a honey-soaked smile.
Discord tilted the half-eaten inkwell, pouring the remaining ink down his throat.
Perfect Prose tore her eyes away from the bizarre spectacle. She turned her attention to the fifth page of rumors. The rumors on this page were all about Discord fathering a child with one of Twilight's friends or Twilight herself. She cleared her throat, wondering how she could bring up the topic delicately.
Delicately? she thought bitterly. He ate my bucking inkwell!
Breaching her own rules about subtlety, she slammed her hoof on the paper and gazed directly into Discord's chaos-filled eyes.
“Our readers want to know if you've had relations with any of your mare friends!” she announced boldly.
Discord blinked. He slowly returned the inkwell to the desk, the pieces he had eaten reappearing as he did so. He arched his eyebrows at the unexpectedly brave question. But a smile crossed his face.
“They do, do they?” he replied, a hint of playful menace in his voice. “Tell your readers that I have no interest in that kind of thing. When you've lived for as long as I have, sex is no better or worse than bowling with elves. You just do it and spend the next fifty years with your claw hovering over the number.”
Perfect Prose glanced at the clock. She was relieved to notice that a decent amount of time had passed. She could finally banish this bothersome creature from her office and begin working on her next award-winning piece of journalism. Perfect Prose casually turned off the tape recorder.
“Thank you for your time, Discord,” she uttered politely. “I believe I've gotten all I need for my article.”
Discord, pleased to escape from his loathsome seat, immediately leaped into the air. Hovering a few inches above the ground, he bowed to Perfect Prose.
“Thank you for having me,” he replied.
He turned and fled the office as if it was a prison cell. As soon as he'd reached the pavement outside the building, a long breath rushed from his mouth. Liberated from all the rules Princess Celestia had forced upon him, Discord smirked in the bright sunlight. All he needed was something to satisfy his pressing need for chaos. He turned back to the immense building he'd just left, gazing at the one curtained window that belonged to Perfect Prose's office.
Meanwhile, Perfect Prose leaned back in her chair with a delighted smile. She had actually gotten away with it, she realized somewhat giddily. She had fooled the Spirit of Chaos numerous times in under an hour. And all it took was some shallow flattery and fake smiles. Perfect Prose opened her desk drawer to retrieve a fresh sheet of parchment.
Down on the street, Discord snapped his claws.
Perfect Prose stared at the stack of papers on her desk. A second ago, it had been the list of rumors she had been consulting. Now, to her bemusement, the top page had gone utterly blank. Her mouth slightly open, she seized the first page and placed it aside. But the page underneath it was also blank. Becoming frantic, Perfect Prose started to go through the remaining pages in a relative frenzy. They were all devoid of her careful notes. Breathing heavily, she reached the last page. However, this one was not blank.
What the……?! the mare thought, gaping in outrage.
The last page read, in large red letters: “BITCH”. The “i” was dotted with a tiny drawing of Discord's winking face.
Perfect Prose tossed the remaining papers to the floor and seized her tape recorder. She slammed her hoof down on the “Play” button with nearly enough force to break it. Instead of hearing her voice and Discord's, she was greeted by the chorus of the song “Buck You” by Lovely Aloe, playing in an endless loop. Perfect Prose's hooves started to shake.
A moment later, Discord paused in his elated dancing at the sound of smashing glass. He watched calmly as a tape recorder sailed out of Perfect Prose's window and crashed to the ground. He shook his head sadly, regarding the smashed device with some pity.
A perfectly good tape recorder,” he commented.
Discord could hear the sounds of Perfect Prose crashing around her office in a rage. He suspected that she had found, or would soon find, that most of her ill-gotten journalism awards had been turned into scented candles.
How do I explain this to Celly? Discord wondered uneasily.
He hoped it would never reach her. And if it did, he hoped she would try to understand his point of view. Discord couldn't care less if some utter bitch of a journalist tried to twist him into some kind of monster. He could take another five years of negative press. But Fluttershy was different. If Perfect Prose had written that article, she would have done her best to drag everypony who believed in Discord, especially Fluttershy, into the abyss. It was better if Perfect Prose learned who she was dealing with and willingly backed off without anypony getting hurt.
Perfect Prose galloped to her smashed window and looked down at Discord, screaming obscenities. She drew back with a shriek as the remains of the glass turned into vanilla pudding.
Humming cheerfully, Discord left Perfect Prose to her ruined office, her ruined work, and an expensive repair bill that would hopefully come out of her make-up fund.
