Coagulation

Thock

Bwmp

Thock

Bwmp

Thock

Bwmp

The sound of a rubber ball hitting the wall and bouncing back to a tail, only to be tossed back into the wall was the only one audible in the bedroom.

“Fifteen…” Lazuli said to herself, bouncing the ball off her tail again.

Bwmp

Thock

“Sixteen…”

Bwmp

Thock

The door swung open, shocking Lazuli out of her stupor. Fizzle trotted into the room, panting lightly with sweat dripping from her fur.

“Geez, where’ve you been?” The Dracony knocked the ball off to the side, letting it idly roll.

“Running!” Fizzle breathed heavily, taking a sip from the water bottle attached to her chest, with a long tube running from it up to her mouth.

“Running…where?”

“Up and down the road between here and Sweet Apple Acres. One round trip is a kilometre, I did ten!”

“…cool.” Lazuli sighed and flopped back on her bed.

“What’s up your tail-end?”

“I dunno.”

“You…wanna talk about it?” Fizzle picked up a towel from her own bed and wiped her face off with it.

“…I…dunno.”

“…” Fizzle shrugged. “Alright, well I guess I should tell you, the friendship crew has been figuring out some kind of exercise for you.”

“…physical, I hope?”

“No, otherwise I wouldn’t have called them the friendship crew. I think it has something to do with making a friend…besides me.”

Lazuli snickered and wiggled back on the bed. “What, so that’s not enough now?”

“Yeah…I guess not.” Fizzlepop pushed open the door to the bathroom. “Anyway, I’ve gotta take a shower now, so I guess you should head to the meeting room.”

“Right. Yeah.”

As Fizzle closed the door behind her, Lazuli sighed and stood up. She cracked her joints, stretching out her muscles and opened the door to the room, trotting out into the hall. Not even five seconds after she stepped out, she bumped right into a blue unicorn.

“Oh. Sorry.” Lazuli began to walk past them, but the mare stopped her.

“Apologies, but…” Lazuli turned around as the unicorn spoke. She had a light blue coat with purple eyes and whitish mane with slight blue tints to it, and Laz could faintly see her cutie mark looked to be a wand with a twinkling blue sheet next to it…or something.

Realizing the unicorn hadn’t finished her sentence and was just blankly staring at her, she cleared her throat. “Yes…?”

“Oh, sorry. I’ve just- wow, I’ve never seen a pony like you before.”

“Er, right, so we haven’t met. I’m Lazuli.”

“Oh! Uh, right. I’m Trixie. Trixie Lulamoon. I’m still working on this…”

“Working on…what?”

“The whole friendship thing. I came on a bit too strong there, right?”

“…maybe a titch, yeah.”

Trixie nervously scuffed a hoof against the tile floor. “I uh…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’ll be on my way.”

Lazuli watched her turn around and start walking in the direction she had been headed. She shrugged her shoulders, then headed to the meeting room.

As she pushed open the doors, she found that only Twilight, Starlight and Fluttershy were there – along with a weird looking lamp sitting on the table.

“Hi.” Lazuli greeted them all, trotting up to one of the chairs and sitting down beside Fluttershy, who glanced at her and then back at Twilight.

“Good morning!” Twilight said with a smile. “I’m glad you’re here so early, we wanted to talk to you before we have our daily meeting.”

“About uh…friendship stuff?”

“Well to put it lightly, yes.” Twilight nodded. “See, when Starlight first came here as my student, I made it one of her first assignments for her to meet new friends. I was…skeptical of her choice at first, but it worked out pretty well.”

Lazuli was only half listening, and in all honesty she was still slightly angry with Starlight, who spoke next. “So you’re basically getting the same assignment I did. You have to go out and…well…make a new friend!”

“Fizzlepop is a great friend for you, I can tell.” Twilight continued. “But she can’t be your only one.”

“I hate to cut you off, princess…” Lazuli frowned. “But uh…where did the lamp go?”

“Hrm? What lamp?”

“The lamp. The one on the table.”

“There wasn’t a lamp there.”

Lazuli blinked and looked between all three of them. “I…sorry, what? There was a lamp sitting there.”

“…oh…my…” Fluttershy whispered under her breath.

“What?”

The yellow Pegasus just shook her head with a small squeak.

“…okay. Well. Anyway…”

“Are you alright, Lazuli?” Twilight asked.

“I’m fine. So I have to find a new friend, that’s it?”

Twilight and Starlight nodded at the same time. “Yep!”

“Well, that’s not so difficult.” She stood up from her seat. “…also, why’s Fluttershy here? No offense to you.” She said quickly, not wanting to make the already sensitive Pegasus emotional.

“Oh, she just gets here early quite often.” Twilight smiled.

“Ah. Right.” Lazuli sighed and trotted towards the door. “Well, I’ll see you later princess.”

“See you, Lazuli!” Twilight called after her, and the door shut behind her.

As she walked out of the meeting room and into the hall, her ear twitched slightly. She felt her tail hike up a bit, raising the spaded end over her head instinctively, as if poising to strike. She stopped, and stood still where she was. “Okay, who’s there?”

She heard a deep chuckle, one that echoed heavily and felt like it bounced through her skull.

The voice was completely unknown to her, but something about it seemed familiar. “Oh, I’m sorry.” The voice said, quite obviously male. “But I couldn’t help but overhear your little conversation with Princess Twilight…”

A creature popped into existence in front of her. Lazuli really didn’t know what to describe it as. His head was like a donkey, with a sharp tooth sticking out of one side of his mouth. He had two mismatched horns atop his head, a long, snake-like body, and all sorts of parts – none of which fit together.

“Discord?” Lazuli raised an eyebrow. “I’m just assuming.”

“Ah, so my reputation precedes me!” He chuckled again. “It’s wonderful to meet you, I must say. I’ve heard so much about you from Celestia.”

“You talk to her now?”

“We’re friends, yes! Well, perhaps she wouldn’t call it that. But I do, and that’s what matters.”

“I don’t think that’s how it-“

Suddenly Discord’s paw appeared out of her shoulder, his whole body slowly revealing itself leaning on her back. “Now, besides all that.” He spoke as if he hadn’t just appeared out of thin air without even disappearing from the spot he had been in. When Lazuli looked at where he had been standing, nothing was there. “I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re in need of a new friend.”

“…uh huh.”

“Well. I heard that, and I thought to myself, who would make a good friend for a mare who has spent most of her life killing, running and hiding? I don’t think most ponies could…relate.”

“Do you have a point?”

“Well, most of the things I say don’t.” Discord hung upside down in the air, conjuring up a cloud to lie on to at least make it look like his mismatched wings weren’t somehow holding up his weight. “So take this with as much certainty as you would anything else I say.”

“I haven’t really spoken to you before, so…”

Discord snapped his fingers and the scenery changed. Both of them were teleported from the inside of the castle to the outside – but not the Ponyville castle. Lazuli found herself standing on the spire on top of the Canterlot palace. “Wh-what the fuck?!” She squeaked, her hooves barely balancing on the large metal pole.

“Now, you see…” Discord hovered next to her, chin resting on his paws. “This is a view I enjoy every so often. Canterlot is such a perfectly centered place, I must say. You can see all of Equestria from up here…oh, and be careful not to fall. The airspace around the castle is protected by an anti-flight spell at this time of day.”

“G-get me off of here!” Lazuli looked around, but using her tail, she slowly found her balance atop the pole.

“Not until I’ve shown you what you have to see.” Discord snapped his fingers again, and the cloud layer that masked the ground below moved. Sweet Faust, am I just talking to God right now? Lazuli thought to herself.

“Okay, it’s Equestria. So?”

“There are so many things in this world you’ve never known, ‘Lazuli’. You’ve likely been to any given place that I could point you to.” He grasped her shoulders, making her squeal slightly as her balance shifted. “You’ve travelled all of Equestria, but I guarantee you’ve never met anypony out there that you liked, have you?”

Discord snapped his fingers again, and now they were back on the ground, standing in front of the Ponyville castle. “So the point of my little talk here was to remind you that you’ve never liked anypony, and that you’re more afraid of heights than you realized.”

“…what?!”

“What, you thought I was going to give you some kind of deep speech about how there are hundreds of possible friends out there?” Discord chuckled. “Now what kind of being did you take me for?”

Lazuli growled at him and shook her head. “You…what- there wasn’t even a point to that!”

“I know. I told you, I don’t often have one. It’s just fun to see ponies like you realize they’re not as stalwart as they seem. Though you definitely seem like fun…” He ran a clawed finger under Lazuli’s chin, then shrugged and snapped his fingers again, abruptly wearing a horribly unfashionable shirt and sunglasses. “Well, I’m off to catch some sunlight on the coast. You have fun with your little…friendship quest.” One last time he snapped his claws, and vanished in a flash.

Lazuli was left standing there, a mixture of confused and angry. “…okay…then...”

The next morning, Fizzlepop was woken up quite early by the sound of Lazuli moving around. She opened her eyes, looking up to see the Dracony opening the window. Her fur was tied up in a ponytail, but a bit still stuck over her eye. She glanced at the clock – it was 4 AM.

“Where are you going?” Fizzle squinted a bit, the moonlight hitting her in the face and framing Lazuli’s form in a dark silhouette.

“I need to do something.”

“You can’t just leave, the whole reason you’re here is to hide, remember?”

“It’s been two months. The only ponies who know me now are the ones who want to.” She had a grave tone to her voice.

Fizzlepop sat up in bed. “Are you okay?”

“I just need to see something.”

“And it can’t wait until it’s daylight?”

“No, no it can’t.”

“…well…you know I can’t lie if they show up asking where you went, right?”

“You don’t need to.” Lazuli flared her wings out and leaned forward. “You don’t know.”

With that, she leaned all the way forward and flew out. Her tail slapped the window shut, and she flapped her wings softly to keep herself up as she flew off to the northeast.

Fizzle briefly cursed herself for not having wings.