The sound of a raspberry in a dark hall
The cell block in Tartarus State Penitentiary that held some of its eldest inmates was rarely quiet even on the most uneventful of days, and today was eventful indeed.
“You're never gonna survive, you know that right?” a deep, gruff voice taunted. An old man, large of build and gray of skin, grinned through his bars at the cell across from him. “Nobody does. Who could, after spending so much of their life in Tartarus?” He chuckled menacingly. “It breaks you down too much. You can't handle anything else. Why,” he paused to slyly stroke his long white sideburns in thought, “I don't think even ol' Strong Arm lasted more than a week before he offed himself. A guy like you might not even last an hour!”
A chorus of hoots and wheezing laughter rose up from the rest of the hallway.
A single defiant snort from the cell across the large old man cut through it all. “Oh spare me, Sombra,” came the reply, the speaker's voice a little refined and a lot annoyed. He was tall and lithe, reclining on his bed under his cell's window. He licked his thumb and turned the page of the newspaper he was reading, then turned his head to look across the hall at Sombra. “Even you know-” he said sharply, his bushy white eyebrows furrowed into a harsh glare over two wild and almost beady red eyes- “that I'm far more than some simple... street thug like Strong Arm was.” He rolled his left hand as he said the words like they were something filthy.
“Because unlike the rest of you,” he said with a haughty smirk as he turned his attention back to his newspaper, “I've actually tried to keep up with the outside world. In fact, I dare say I'm looking forward to my release!” He let out a giddy giggle, twirling his long goatee around a finger. “Ooh, there's just so much I want to experience, I'm like a kid in a candy store! Which, I'll have you know,” he turned a smugly knowing look back to Sombra, “are not as common as they used to be.”
Sombra snorted and glowered. “Arrogant to the end, aren't you?” he said before turning and retreating to his own bed.
The other man gasped in shock and got to his feet. “Arrogant?!” he repeated in exaggerated disbelief, walking over to the bars of his cell. “I am Q. X. Discord, the greatest there ever was!” he said, striking a theatrical pose. “And there is nothing I can't handle!” He grabbed the cell bars in a fit of anger, his right eye bugging out while his left remained beady.
“Except old age,” Sombra taunted, prompting another round of laughter from the other inmates in the block.
Discord looked up at his goldish gray, liver-spotted, and thoroughly bald head; the only hair he had left were a few white wisps that stuck straight out sideways above his ears. Grumbling incoherently, he pulled a tattered old top hat out of his jumpsuit, shoved it onto his head, and sat back on his bed with a huff. The other inmates just laughed again, but one particularly wheezy one quickly stood out from the rest.
“Well...,” said a soft, hoarse, and slow voice, “I for one think you'll do well in the outside world. The chaotic hustle and bustle it's become suits you, Discord.” The speaker stepped out of the shadows in the cell next to Sombra's, revealing a long white beard and faded red skin. He coughed. “And...perhaps, once you're free, you could put in a good word for me with the parole board? After all,” he paused to cough again, “having an old friend on the outside with you might make it all the more bearable. And just think,” he clenched his fist and raised his voice, “of all the things we could accomplish, together!”
Discord glanced his way, then snorted and rolled his eye. “Oh, go shrivel up and die already, Tirek,” he said, looking back at his newspaper. “I've spent too many decades locked up in here with you whining and moaning-” he rolled his hand and eye in a gesture of tedium- “about how your little brother sold you out and how you're never ever going to work with anybody ever again, to fall for your little 'fake friend' routine,” he finished, glaring at the older inmate. Tirek just glowered at him.
“Besides,” Discord continued, crossing his legs and adjusting his paper, “I'm reformed now. I'm not about to risk my chance at seeing the glories of the outside world by doing another job, no matter how fun it might seem. I simply refuse to spend my last days rotting in a moldy old place like this like the rest of you.”
“...'reformed'?” Tirek repeated slowly before bursting out into laughter, Sombra and the rest of the hall's inmates joining in shortly after. “Do you take us for fools, Discord?” Tirek asked, cutting the laughter short with a single hand motion. “You're not reformed. Everyone can see that you're the same showboating weasel of a conman that you were the first day you stepped in here!”
“And yet I'm getting out on parole today,” Discord smugly replied, “and you aren't!” He threw back his head and hooted with laughter. “I'd say that's reformed enough by most standards. Now why don't you boys just quit it with the blatant displays of jealousy. We all know I'm going to handle my release with impeccable ease regardless of what you do.”
Sombra snorted. “Keep tellin' yourself that,” he muttered.
“You know,” Discord said with a wild and mocking smile, “I think I might just do that!” He drew in a large breath, but paused when a door at the end of the hall suddenly opened up. “Actually, scratch that,” he said, letting out his breath and smirking at the sound of approaching footsteps. “I think that's my ride, for want of a better term.”
Several of the other inmates started throwing out insults and invectives and even pleas at the orange-skinned guard as he walked past, but he kept his cold stare forward until he reached Discord's cell. “Alright, Discord,” he said harshly to the eager old man who was quickly gathering up everything that could passably be called a belonging of his, “it's time to go.”
“Finally,” Discord said in relief as the guard began to open the cell door. “I am so grateful to be let out after all this time, the others have just been horrible to me lately!” He put a hand to his forehead in a dramatic gesture right before the cell door swung open with a squeak.
“Mm-hmm,” the guard said uncaringly, slapping handcuffs on the wrists of an obliging Discord then pulling him out into the hall. “Come with me,” he said, leading the soon-to-be-paroled inmate back through the cell block from behind.
“Later, fellas!” Discord called back to Sombra, Tirek, and the other inmates with as much of a wave as he could muster. “I'd say it's been fun, but, well...,” he paused, then blew a raspberry and broke up laughing. After a moment he let out a dreamy sigh. “Speaking of fun, I do so hope the outside world lives up to my expectations. I just have soooo much planned...” A sinister smile formed on his face and he began to laugh again – this time low and dark.
He stopped it when the guard shoved him. “Can it with the evil laughter. Do you wanna be paroled or not?”
“Oh! Oh, yes, right,” Discord said, stopping in his tracks just short of the door as his laughter quickly became sheepish. “You have my humblest apologies,” he told the guard, “it won't happen again. Just a... a bad habit I must've picked up from the others,” he quickly tried to explain, “you understand?” He batted his eyes in a pleading manner.
The guard just shoved him back into movement. “That's what they all say, buddy,” he deadpanned as he escorted Discord out of the cell block.
Author's Note
Discord is a really fun character to write, in all his incarnations.
This storyline is continued in Rather Fetching, Don't You Think?
