“What's wrong with me?” Discord asked himself while lying in a grassy area and staring into the night sky.
For many hours Discord walked through the dangerous Everfree Forest in hopes of clearing a mind filled with deep thoughts of loneliness. After many years of searching he had given up all hope of finding any trace of his race. His only wish now was to find himself a home. All he wanted was to live in any place he could find where the other living creature wouldn’t greet him with fear or hatred. Everywhere he wandered always ended with everyone he met, would run from him out their terror or laughing at him because of how he’d looked. As his failed searched mounted, his loneliness grew to an intolerable level.
Discord sighed heavily as he continued to stare at the stars while he pondered over his isolated fate. No matter how one looked at it; he would always have the body of a beast. He would always be feared and avoided by all. There was no town or city in Equestria that would want him. He could maybe use his magic to adjust his appearance, but it would only take one lapse in concentration for the mask to fall off and reveal the monster underneath. He breathed deeply and sighed again. The only place he would find shelter was where other monsters lived. It pained him as he thought about living his days as another beast living in the dark heart of the Everfree Forest but what cut even deeper was the thought of another rejection.
Discord slowly got up without a word and began to wander the woods again. He took firm hold of his resolve to find a place he could call home. He couldn’t remember how far deep into the woods he’d traveled and he honestly didn’t care. The draconequus didn’t even care to remember much from the past eons. Suddenly, his ear picked up of a strange and soft rustling nearby. As he paused to focus his other ear and heard same sounds. Curious, he listened for the source of the noises. Once he pinpoint the sound, he ventured off to investigate it. After straying from his path he spotted a small den dug beneath a large tree. As he drew closer, he could make out a very well-crafted cave hidden by roots and moss. It was very clear that the soft rustling noise was coming from the small hovel. Discord took a look inside and spotted a small clutch of young newborn foals. They appeared to be bat ponies with rough yet soft dark pink manes with yellow pale coats. He could also make out tiny red eyes as they rustled around in the back of the cave in a nest of leaves and small twigs.
Discord remained still and silent as he carefully counted how many bat ponies resided under the ancient tree.
“Five bat foals?” he thought to himself, as he continued to carefully watch them.
They squeaked, shuffled and sometimes rolled over each other in play. All the bat were genuinely having fun as if there wasn’t a dark and scary forest just beyond their den. As Discord continued to watch the creatures wriggle and boundce about one bat foal looked right at the of the draconequus’ face. It immediately recognized the fact that an outsider was right at the entrance and was spying on them. Shortly after, the first one stopped and stared back the rest noticed him as well. Discord held his breath and called upon his magic to camouflage himself in hopes that they would forget all about what they saw and resume their innocent mischief. As he masked his body he caught the sound of more rustling but this time it was behind him. On instinct he turned his gaze and observed the area in search of the unseen presence.
A loud roaring hiss burst out from the branches above him. He looked up at the surprisingly intimidating sound and spotted a full grown bat pony mare with the same feature as the foals inside the den. The only real differences were the larger fangs, stronger wings, more commanding frame and her flank was adorned by three pink bats. The new creature landed firmly in front of him and stared into eyes or even possibly through his very soul.
“Maybe she can’t find me if I stay still.” Discord thought to himself as he stared back at the unknown menace with a hunter’s gleam in her eye.
She continued to stare back and broke the silence by softly sniffing the air.
“Then again…I didn’t disguise my scent,” he silently lamented, as it took a step forward and he realized his grim miscalculation. In his curiousness he had ventured into the den for a closer look. He was not being viewed by a hungry predator. He was being sized up by a mother protecting her young.
Abruptly at neck breaking speed she leaped into the air and planted herself between him and the exit. She hissed soundly and Discord heard the tiny creatures huddle into the back of the den. The camouflaged creature slowly stepped aside to try to get around the bat. Every one of his steps was met by a move from the matron; equally moving to block his exodus. Discord crouched low and found a window of opportunity. All he had to do was make a slow step then a mad dash out. He just needed to a way to bait her into getting closer to the natural wall of the den to give him room to rush out. He made his first step to his freedom and his foot landed on what had to be the loudest twig ever to exist. The snap taunted him as it rattled in his mind and the angry snort from the bat broke his focus and the spell that hid him was dropped. They both stared into each other eyes. The feral mare’s gaze was filled with protective anger while Discord’s was visibly full of fear and understanding of his trespass, He deeply hoped that the bat could sense that he had no desire to attack.
Discord dared take a step towards the exit but was halted by a low growl.Before he could process his next move the mare pounced. With a surprising amount of strength she had knocked him to the ground. Her eyes remained fixated on his own as he began to consider his own mortality.
“I’ll leave if you just get off of me” Discord said with a considerable effort to stay calm and composed.
The mare seemed to understand him. She slowly removed herself from his body. Before he could get up she grabbed his tail and started to drag him deeper into the den. The draconequus didn’t know what to expect. Was she going to feed him to her litter? Was she going to make him part of the inner nest? Did he just get selected to be a pet? The tiny foals watched as their mother approached with the strange mismatched creature. The full grown bat released her grip and lightly nudged him into the nest. The little bats approached him with their tiny fangs bared.
“Oh no you don’t!” he said, as his mind raced for a solution. He could not harm them and wasn’t willing to harm the mother but he did have Chaos magic on his side. In a blinding flash of light, he quickly shrunk himself to their size and altered his body to match their shapes. Before any of them recovered from the flash, he was in the pile of foals, squirming and playing like the rest of them.
The mother sniffed around her foals and immediately sensed the odd one out. She’d picked up Discord by the scruff of his neck and set him back down. The small infants jumped on him and began to squirm and play while gently nibbling on occasion. Discord wriggled in attempts to get away but he was soon dragged into the middle of the playful pile. With him called out on being the fake, he had gone from a disguised draconequus to a new chew toy.
“That’s it!” Discord groaned, as he failed again to get out from under the small mountain of fur, wings and teeth. Discord quickly turned back to his usual self and size. With a glance, he realized that every foal had managed to hold on to him as he grew. He carefully plucked them off and set them down in their home of twigs and leaves and they just sat still staring up at him.
Discord glared at the grown bat before swapping to a more innocent look. “Who are you? Why did you bring me here?” He hesitated, as he considered the futility of words.
“Flutterbat,” she responded abruptly in a husky voice. “Foals,” she softly uttered as she aimed a hoof at the cluster of curious creatures.
The mother raised and stretched a wing and several apples fell from a clearly dedicated grip. Her brood approached the fruit and sunk their fangs into the offering, slowly drinking deep the juices of the bounty.
“Well I’m Discord; and you all should be afraid of me!” replied the tyrant. Discord dropped to all fours and let loose a powerful roar. Twigs and leaves were swept away and the den mother herself was pushed back a few inches. Discord glared at the bat with new resolve. He was determined to leave that clearly it would take a show of force to be released. He growled and then paused in all thought. One of the foals had crawled up to him and softly nuzzles his lion paw.
“Are you serious?” Discord stared that the brave or mad creature. “Are you serious?” The only response was the soft motions of a tiny infant getting a good feel of his soft fur.
Flutterbat circled around him carefully as she inspected his monstrous parts. His slithery and scaly snake tail, the mismatched pair of strong wings and the might of his sturdy looking limbs made up a curious caricature. His strong teeth could rend flesh and bone alike and clearly possessed power she did not understand. What really caught her eye was that for all his potential as a threat he had done no harm. She looked at her foals and nodded.
They all happily babbled in response. Discord gave up on understanding this strange clutch. Whatever they were and whatever they were going to do next; it did not concern him in the least. Flutterbat let out a soft sonic wave and her foals crawled to her with perked ears and warm smiles. They all snuggled close to her as she sat in the nest.
“Well whatever. It was nice meeting you,” the draconequus said as he turned to leave. At the first step he heard the soft whine of one of the foals; possibly the one who dared nuzzle him earlier.
“Alone.” Flutterbat said softly spoke.
“What did you say?” Discord asked as he turned his head.
”You’re all alone. So are we,” she responded softly while nuzzle one of her foals to comfort it. “I can sense your loneliness.”
“You have each other. Sorry,” he said quickly, as the exit grew closer with every step. As he reached the threshold he heard every foal whine. He turned to see that the mother followed the beast to the edge.
“Wait!” she begged as she approached ever closer.
He stopped and stared at her with an exasperated groan. “What do you want now?”
“You’d need a place to stay. I need help keeping my foals safe.”
Discord blinked and hardened his features. “Why would I help you protecting your foals? Your place looks safe like no one would bother you.”
“Because it‘s not safe. There are more predators than me in this forest. Some of them stronger, some of them faster; all of them ready to feast on the helpless if given the chance.”
They continued staring at each other as a heavy silence came over the den. To Discord her motives were easy to see. She needed someone to help protect her young during her ventures beyond the den for food. It would be a small price to pay for a place to stay but it was not something he could accept. Safety and peace were tempting but his heart yearned for freedom. The small hovel under the tree was cozy enough but Discord could not see himself trading his freedom for it. A clutch of small children just wasn’t in the cards.
“Please...” she said softly, as she read his face. She reached into her wing and withdrew an apple. The mare offered the fruit to him as if they were the same species. “I know you are not a monster.”
He continued to stare deeply into her crimson eyes. The ocular orbs were begging him to stay with them. He sighed and half of him could stay and accept. The other half couldn’t see himself sticking around. He was after all a monstrous beast to be feared. He was supposed to live here to scare off predators. How long before he terrified the foals to the point of being cast out like all the others he had met?
“I’m sorry. I can’t take your offer,” he said before opening his wings and darting off into the night.
“You don’t have to do it all alone...” the bat whispered to the empty space the draconequus used to be in.
Discord landed to the ground a good distance away from the bat den. He did feel a little guilty about leaving them. It was clear that they needed him as much as he needed a home. It seemed like a simple arraignment at a glance but the responsibilities just weren’t something he wanted. He wanted shelter and acceptance but he also wanted freedom. He growled to himself as he tried to clear his head. Thinking about it would just drive him mad. Discord did the only thing he could do; he started walking without direction into the unknown. As his first step landed he heard the crunching of leaves and the breeze. The weight of being alone was as heavy as it always had been. Discord made an effort to block it out and picked up the sound of a tiny cry. He swore that he heard one of the tiny foals he had left behind. He glanced around and the cries seemed to be coming from directly above him in the trees.
“Now why would I be hearing that out here? Was I somehow followed by one of them?” He softly mused to himself the possibility and curiosity came with a small sensation of worry. Discord shed a layer of skin and fur revealing scales and slithered silently up the tree like a large snake on a stalking mission. In a high branch he could make out the source of the cries. He found a tiny bat foal huddled against the tree, afraid and alone. Discord drew closer and gently rustled leaves to get its attention without startling it. The tiny creature paused and looked at him and seemed to recognize his scent immediately. It just looked at him with a blank expression as if to say that everything was wrong.
“You want to come down or do you want to stare at me all night?” Discord asked with a groan. He couldn’t bring himself to leave it here in the tree but he didn’t want to spend a lot of time being watched by the bat.
The frightened bat slowly nodded and crawled over to him. Discord lowered his head to its level and it proceeded to climb aboard. He waited for it to find a comfortable spot before moving any further.
“Hang on tight,” he said as he quickly slid down the tree. One of his eyes rolled out of place and near where the foal was perched and saw that it was huddled with its eyes shut tight. Discord softly landed on the forest floor and just as carefully gripped the foal with his paw and set it down at his feet. It opened its eyes and smiled at him while babbling incoherently. With the task done, Discord turned to leave but the sudden sound of whimpering made him pause.
“What?” He said as he turned to face the foal again.
It stood up on its hind legs and reached its forelegs towards him.
“Oh no. No. No. No. You're not coming with me. You can stay and wait for your mother to”
A rumbling stomach cutting him off. Shortly after that the whimpering started again. Clearly he was not leaving until the odd foal had something to eat. Discord just didn’t have it in him to walk away from a starving infant. His eyes surveyed the trees. He gripped his magic and leaves became translucent. With the high apples revealed to him he aimed his claw upwards and commanded one to fall to him. Discord released the spell and the leaves returned to their natural opacity. The draconequus silently offered the fruit to the child. It sniffed the fruit and sunk its teeth in. Discord elected that he had a good opportunity to leave while it was distracted with food.
He was soon proven wrong. He could hear shuffling and whimpering behind him. The foal was determined to follow him even though Discord’s own stride covered considerably much more ground than the foal could while crawling. Suddenly the foal got very quiet before uttering a very sharp cry. Discord turned and could clearly see the foal; but between him and it was a large timberwolf. The wooden beast growled menacingly as it moved closer to the foal. All the child could do was curl up and whimper. It lacked the strength and speed to do anything except become a snack.
Discord sighed heavily. In the grand scheme of things it was inevitable. A small creature wandering the woods at night all alone and making noise would indeed get the attention of something bigger and hungry. Clearly nature was taking its course. The timberwolf would eat and move on and that would be the logical conclusion of this scenario. Such a grim sight was quite normal in the wild.
Of course, under normal circumstances a draconequus would not be present for such a hunt. What happened in the next second was a blur but it ended with the timberwolf on the ground against a tree.
The timberwolf got up on its feet and shook off the sudden attack. It turned and growled at Discord. The beast advanced and loudly barked and snarled. It was a rather fierce and intimidating display and it was guaranteed to effectively frighten anything that heard it. Under normal circumstances it would work. Discord disregarded how things normally worked in nature for the second time that evening. He altered his head to the likeness of a dragon’s head. He expanded it until it was as tall as he was. When the reptilian chin touched the floor, he roared with the rage of a blood starved beast who just stubbed his toe on something solid. The timberwolf turned and ran so fast that it tripped and lost a leg as it rampaged off into the night. Discord returned his head to its natural shape and size and felt the foal clinging onto his leg.
“It’s gone. You're safe,” he said slowly ruffling the bat’s mane before he disappeared into thin air.
The infant cried the second it was alone. Discord appeared on a high tree branch nearby and watched. Maybe if he waited long enough the mother would find it. Judging by the squirming and crying it seemed that the infant drew the same conclusion. He considered leaving it but one Timberwolf always means a dozen. By the time the mother might find it there would nothing to take home. The next one that came along would be the last one if nothing was around to protect it; and it seemed very likely that there would be another one very soon. Discord sighed and dropped back down. The small bat stopped crying and scurried to his foot and held on tight.
“Come on.” He said calmly as he gently picked it up and set it down on his shoulder. “There.”
The little bat smiled softly and nuzzled him as if to say ‘Thank you’.
“Okay. Okay. I get it. You're welcome,” he said with a small smile. “Let’s get you home to your mother and siblings.”
The creature responded by slowly climbing up his face and onto his head.
“Let's go,” he said, as he opened his wings and took a steady pace. The foal only babbled and nibbled on his antler.
Flutterbat frantically searched the den for the missing foal. She uttered a sonic wave but only got the responses from the accounted for children. She raced out and flew to the top of the tree they lived under and scoured all she could survey. She saw nothing but trees and the moon. She went below the canopy and raced around in a desperate search. All she could think of was the most obvious fate of a lost child; eaten by something larger. Her heart felt like it had been smashed. The most basic duty of a mother was to protect her young; and she failed. She desperately uttered another sonic wave and was granted nothing but the sound of her own growing sobs.
“What’s with the crying? Did a mother lose something precious to her?”
With rage and wonder she turned directly at the source of the voice. Her crying halted when she saw the mismatched guest back in her domain. Her heart leapt when she saw the tiny babbling bundle atop his head.
“My foal!”
The mare raced down to it and tenderly took the child into her fore hooves. A frantic utterance of a thank you came out as she nuzzled the child.
“Well... You’re welcome...” he said while taking a moment to enjoy the reunion.
Discord turned to again resume his journey in search of a place to call home. He took a step towards a land of acceptance and support. He was halted by a gentle squeeze on his paw. He looked to see the full grown Bat Pony holding on lightly. Her eyes were silently repeating her offer for him to stay. Discord paused as the night went on as if they weren’t there. The moon reached its apex and what little light it offered had now fully illuminated the clearing. Discord found himself looking at more than just her eyes. Her fangs no longer threatened to rip and tear; now they seemed steeled to protect. Her wings no longer looked like dire limbs to help her seize an unwary traveler. Her bat wings held a more graceful stance. Her rough and unkempt mane and tail seemed softer and more approachable. Her eyes were not gauging him as a threat but as something she wanted to stay near her. The more he looked at the bat; the more he wanted to stay. The silence prevailed as the moon continued its journey. The soft moonbeam was gone and her figure grew darker but that image of a pale guardian still could be seen over the terror of the forest.
“Okay, you twisted my wing,” he said breaking the silence. ”I’ll stay.”
Her little foal let out a happy hiss as if understanding the spoken words. Discord slowly entered the den with the bats and drew close to the inner nest. The mother set the foal down next to its siblings and she smiled at them as they looked up. Discord watched as no words were exchanged and yet a clear conversation was held. The foals babbled and crawled towards where he sat. Discord smiled at them warmly and coiled his body around them. They continued to babble and squirm. They took in his scent and nibbled on his flesh. They inspected his various parts and made time to nuzzle in-between their explorations. The draconequus realized that they had tried to do this once before. The tyrant remained still; content to use his body as a new nest for them to be secure in.
“Thank you...” Flutterbat said as she found a place inside the circle.
Before he could respond she leaned in and softly kissed him on the cheek. The mare then moved to slowly nuzzle him as she drifted off to sleep. Discord blushed at the gesture. Being bitten, scratched, snarled at, chased and cursed at were normal and common. Being kissed was a first for him.
Discord took a moment to observe the now sleeping foal. He looked to the entrance to the den and saw no sign of danger. He reached with his magic and manipulated thick roots to clock the opening for a bit of extra security. There was nothing to notice except the slumbering companions and their breathing. He gave the foals another glance and saw that none of them had moved. He continued to watch and one of them slowly began to climb up his body as if trying to leave. Discord gently nudged it back down with his tail, which became a momentary chew toy before the foal fell into a deep sleep. His earlier yearning for mischief were replaced by a firm satisfaction. They had no fear of him. They did not hate him. He could have had this sooner if he wasn’t too stubborn to notice it earlier.
He chuckled as he settled in to join them in slumber. It wasn’t the home he expected to find and it clearly came at the cost of vigilance; but he was happy. No more wandering. No more running and chasing. No more sleepless, lonely nights of just him and his shadow. Discord softly nuzzled the mare before drifting off to sleep. He wasn’t a monster in their eyes. He was just what he was. They only saw him as Discord.
Author's Note
This is what I would think of her bat foals would look like or something miniature of her.
