Long ago, when the land had no form, and the sky warred with itself, there was nothing. From this nothingness stepped the gods, who wrought all creation, and it was good. Reality brought form to the void, and its beauty was loved by all.

This creation brought change to the static, bleak nothingness. The earth began to shift, mountains formed, and rivers flowed. Oceans spread, filled with beautiful coral and fish. All across the land, beautiful verdant greens appeared and further shaped the world.

Simple beasts could soon be found, stalking the wilds. Predators and prey of various shapes and sizes roamed along the ground. Teeth and claws their only weapons, while colorful birds claimed dominion of the sky.

Then there were the Fey, the most varied of all the creatures to roam the wilds. Some were small, others large. Some walked on two or four legs, while yet others had none at all! So wild were the Fey, and free, that all of the beasts were in awe of them and their beautiful magic.

Last to appear were the Men, though they were not the least! Cunning and intelligent, Man quickly became better hunters than even the Fey with their magic! They were smarter than any beast, and they stalked the wilds with fear of nothing.

The beauty of their creation, however, was brief. Soon the Fey became jealous of Man, and the beasts feared him. The Fey and Beasts decided to join forces and destroy Man, though they could not.

Life and death had constantly vied for dominance all across creation, though it remained in the favor of life. Nature began to suffer, however; there was no room for trees to grow, as they had already covered all the earth; there was not enough food for the animals, as they bred rapidly and had no way to grow it. The Fey, too, existed only within the means of nature, and so could not fight for more than what it provided.

Man was cunning and foresaw this, however, so they made weapons of war, and tools of agriculture. They felled trees and built homes, and used the open space they made to plant wheat. Nature held no sway over them, and so the Fey and Beasts were helpless before them. Death, being the final part of creation, begun to spread rapidly, stripping away all so that Man could grow in its place.

As for the gods, they watched with great sorrow. They wept for the destruction of their beautiful children. As they made more and more life, they had finally created a child which could care for itself. Men cared far more for themselves than their distant creators, or their weaker brothers, and they went on with reckless abandon.

So it came to pass that the gods separated their children. The separation was so vast, yet so small, that it defied knowing. This separation came to be called the æther, and it is from here that magic is born. The æther is the Ocean, and Terra and Mythas are the land. Every spell is a ripple, and both worlds felt its presence.

Sometimes, however, the gods' children would come to miss each-other so, that they would cross the æther to find one another. Thus it came to be that the myth was born...

A gentle beam of moonlight slid through a pair of old, purple silken drapes, falling half onto a stone block floor, and half onto an old mahogany reading desk. The light of a candle helped illuminate the rest of the room; ancient bookshelves filled to the brim with even older tomes, a portrait which curiously shifted between several things and nothing, and a high-backed chair which held the room's only occupant.

This creature was odd indeed. It was a seamless amalgam of countless creatures; a goat horn, a deer antler, a horse head, a billy goat's beard, an eagle's claw, a lion's paw, a lizard's leg, a bat's wing, a bird's wing, and many other things. Such a creature was surely magical, for no womb or twisted science could give life to something so mismatched. And it must surely be ancient, too, for the distant look in it's normally manic eyes.

The odd creature sighed wistfully, staring off into the distance while gently pinching a page between two of the digits on it's furry appendage. This place was not real, and the creature lamented that it was stuck there.

This creature was called "Discord," though he never really appreciated that name. He had a name once, though he had changed so much, and lived so long that he had forgotten it. It wasn't really in his nature to take only one name, though, so he could answer to "Discord," he supposed.

"Discord" was the embodiment of change, and his job, as ordained by the gods themselves, was to curate the balance of the world. If it were too orderly, it would grow old and stagnate, shortly before whipping hard into the forces of chaos. If it became too chaotic, nothing would grow, and everything would start to come apart at the seams. His job was important, and he had been content to play from the sidelines... mostly.

Around 1,200 years ago, he sensed something odd. Life began to overtake the balance, just as it had in his chronicling of the beginning of creation. He knew what that could mean, so he went right to setting the scales into balance again.

For the past thousand years, though, he had been unable to move, much less do his job. Apparently, a couple of upstart demigods got their hands on a rather powerful fragment of creation, and he knew he had to get it from them. Such things could seriously alter the balance of order and chaos if used inappropriately.

What he didn't know was that these fragments of creation could be used against him! Those little usurpers were like ants to him, so he had been a little too bold, too uncaring. Now he was in a petrified state that only the will of a god (or a very determined demigod) could break from outside.

He could sense the shifting of the balance even from within his prison. It had been shifting toward order long before the upstarts put him there, though he didn't know why. As time went on, everything outside began to rapidly shift toward order.

He knew the creation was flawed, and needed to be tended carefully, lest it destroy itself in an attempt to find balance on its own. It was why he was created in the first place.

But this level of order... It was unnatural, and he could feel the world crying out in pain and fear. The passing of time affected him little, though he feared the wailing would drive him mad soon. The gods should have intervened by now, and the fact that they hadn't was worrying.

However, as he meditated on this, he felt a presence. It was a familiar one just outside his stone prison.

He stretched his mind, using all of his strength to see through his eyes.

A vast garden stretched around a particular statue, that being the petrified form of Discord. It was late in the evening as Discord roused his imprisoned senses, and the first thing he noticed was a rather large cat had decided to seat itself in front of his stone form.

The first odd thing about this cat, was that it wasn't a cat at all, being a jaguar in reality. The second odd thing about this cat, was that everything ignored it, including the moonlight. Discord knew who this cat was, and it was a rather welcoming sight.

"I had almost hoped you would have forgotten about me," the cat said. His tail swished lazily from side to side, accentuating his Cheshire grin. Discord would have immediately bowed, however, he found that being stone made bowing quite difficult.

The cat chuckled briefly at his internal struggle. "Do not strain yourself on my account, I only came to deliver a message, after all."

Discord couldn't respond, so instead he merely listened, intently. The seated cat's smile grew a little, in response.

"The balance of not only your charge, but Terra, as well, has shifted so drastically that action needs to be taken. I will send you a champion for aid, and I will see to it personally that the balance of Terra is righted."

The cat stood, beginning to pace slowly around him. "Do not worry, you will not be punished. We have deemed you too useful to kill over a single failure, and so we have found that your imprisonment is punishment enough.

"Regardless, the ponies- particularly Celestia of Helios, and my own Luna- have caused far too much order; they are going to cause a massive backlash of chaos so powerful, that it will destroy all of Mythas. You know what must be done."

Discord watched as the cat flashed him a final grin, before walking away in a direction that required perception of six dimensions to comprehend. With that, Discord was left to his own thoughts, though now he had hope. He felt his prison weaken slightly, and he certainly knew what he had to do next.

Author's Note

I think I'm satisfied with this.