Taken

The thing in front of me looks at me curiously. It is almost as though it had never seen a human before. No, that couldn’t be it. In spite of its monstrous appearance, I see intelligence behind its eyes; this thing is not stupid, not in the least bit. Maybe it’s heard of humans, but has never gotten the chance to see one up close and personal. Yeah, that’s it. I think.

It’s smiling at me now. “I wasn’t aware that your friend has already told you about me.”

Now I’m confused. Twilight hadn’t mentioned anything to me about this creature. “She hasn’t said a word about you…”

“Oh is that so?” it asks. “Then how did you know what my name was, young one?”

What? Oh… “Your name is Discord? What kind of name is that?”

It grins. “An appropriate one.” This is getting annoying. Not only is this thing being very cryptic, but I’m starting to get the feeling that maybe there’s a reason why Twilight didn’t mention him to me. I think this thing is up to no good.

I want to try to keep this conversation as civil as possible, for now at least; I’m pretty sure that this Discord character has access to some of the same… whatever it is that Twilight has access to, so that automatically means that he’s stronger than I am. I don’t want to piss him off. So I get out another cigarette and fire it up. “I’ve never seen anything like you before,” I say. “What are you, exactly?”

By the look in his eyes, he was more than happy to talk about himself. “I come from a long line of noble creatures. In our world, we are referred to as draconequi. Half dragon, half pony.”

I take a puff, then exhale. “I can see the dragon and I can see the pony, but… where did all your other body parts come from?”

“Oh, here and there. Various things that didn’t deserve to live. I gave them higher meaning in forming them to my body. Or should I say, the one who made me did so.”

Curious. So this thing isn’t entirely natural; at least part of him is manufactured. “Who made you?”

“Not important.” He dismisses my comment with a wave of his hand, which appears to have been taken from some sort of bird of prey. “What is important is you, son. You are a very interesting specimen.”

I realize I’m shivering now. It’s getting colder out; I shouldn’t really stay out here for very much longer. “Me?” I ask. “I’m not really all that interesting.”

Discord smiles. “You may not think you are, but I can see something in you that you cannot. A flame, to be precise.”

So now I’m on fire inside? Wouldn’t that mean I’d be warm, and not freezing my ass off? It then occurs to me that he’s probably not talking literally. That doesn’t mean I can’t let him know that I know that, though.

“A literal flame?” I ask.

Discord laughs. “No, no… A spiritual one. You have something inside of you that I have only seen in one other human before.” Oh. So he does know who humans are. Granted, he hasn’t had all that much experience with them, but then again that’s not surprising considering from what I’ve been able to gather, humans aren’t found in the world where Discord and Twilight come from.

That’s a bit of an assumption, though, so I kind of want to clarify this for myself. I ask him, “Now let me ask you something. Do you and Twilight come from the same world?”

“We do,” he confirms. “I am like a god in that world, but here… there is no ‘like’ about it. As far as I can tell, you humans cannot perform magic like we can. Thus, a person who can use magic is automatically going to be stronger than anything a mere human can throw at them.”

Magic? I get the sense he’s not talking about Penn and Teller-style magic, but more along the lines of Harry Potter magic. Which is bullshit, because magic like that doesn’t exist. Or maybe it just doesn’t exist in my world…

Hold on a second. Something is confusing me. “You said you are stronger than humans in this world… Does this mean you know where we are? That you know what else is here, besides us?”

It laughs again. “Of course. Why would I not? If I didn’t know where you were, I would not have been able to come and find you.”

Makes sense. “So, where are we, then?”

“Oh that much, I can’t tell you. Well, more specifically, I don’t want to tell you. Oh, you will find out in time, but until then, it’s on a strictly need-to-know basis, and well… you don’t need to know.”

This thing is really getting annoying… Playfully bantering with me the whole time. Does he ever take anything seriously? “Did you send Twilight and I here?” I ask.

“Maybe, maybe not,” it says with a grin. Yeah, this Discord thing is definitely pissing me off now. “What I will tell you is that you were chosen for a reason, as was Twilight Sparkle.”

“And what reason would that be?” I counter.

Discord shakes his head. “Not now, my friend. That will be revealed in time. For now, be happy that I am nice enough to allow you to engage in your vice. Soon… everything will make sense.” He grins one last time, then flies up into the air and away from the house. Before he should have gone out of line of sight, he simply vanishes, like he was never there.

I sit down on one of the benches. Okay, so I need to try to get this straight to myself. Apparently, Twilight Sparkle can use magic, which is probably how she stopped that thing from attacking me. Can all unicorns from her world use magic too? Probably, I would guess. But not only do we have Twilight who can do magic, we have this Discord thing who’s apparently evil… and he can use magic.  He didn’t seem all that evil to me, though…

I wonder what Twilight would have to say about this. I finish my cigarette and walk back inside. Laying on the couch is a note. I figure it’s from Twilight, but when I read it, I find out that I was wrong: “Enjoy your life, son. That one pack is all you’ll ever need.” The note was signed, “Discord.”

So what, did I just receive a never-ending pack of cigarettes? What is this, a smoking man’s version of the Endless Decanter of Dwarven Ale? Oh wow… damn, I haven’t played D&D in years. How the hell did I even remember that?

I then notice Twilight, laying on the couch. She is looking at me fearfully. “You saw the note, I guess?”

She stands. “When were you going to tell me you were in contact with Discord?”

“As soon as you woke up. I just got finished talking to him for the first time and-“

She leaps off the couch and lands in front of me. She has a fiercely determined look in her eyes, one that I’ve never seen on her before, and quite frankly it’s a bit scary. “Tell… me… everything,” she demands.

I go and sit down on the couch and she follows me. I start from the beginning: the weird feeling to go outside, the randomly spawning pack of cigarettes, all the way through my whole conversation with Discord. When I finish, she is looking at me with pity in her eyes.

“Oh don’t look at me like that,” I say. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Maybe not,” she says, curling up on the couch, “but Discord is a trickster above all else. He will try to manipulate you into doing his bidding. He did it to us before, once… It is a feeling I wish to never have to go through again.”

“What did he do?” I ask.

She sighs. “My friends and I all fell under his spell. He changed us, if only temporarily… We became everything that was the opposite of our true natures. I became very depressed and morose, Applejack- who is normally the most honest and kind soul anypony has ever known- became very evasive and distant, Rarity was tricked into being very greedy and miserly when in reality she is a very generous and giving pony…” She shivers. “Discord is the greatest evil I have ever faced. I’m lucky to have survived it.”

Shit. And I had a full-on conversation with this thing. I reach over and start to rub gently behind Twilight’s ears. A light smile plays across her face, and she begins to calm down some. Good. I’m glad I can do something to ease her tension.

“So what would your suggestion be?” I ask. “Seeing as you’ve dealt with Discord before, and I haven’t.”

She thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure if I can tell you anything,” she says. “Ponies are by their very nature different from humans, so naturally Discord is able to affect each one differently. The problem is, there are no recorded instances of how Discord affects humans, so I can’t tell you what to watch out for. I can tell you, though, that this is not the only time you will see Discord. He doesn’t give up very easily, and he’s absolutely ruthless when it comes to hunting down what he wants.”

I nod. “I’ll be sure to keep that in-“ I just happen to glance out the window at that point, and what I see causes me to stop in mid-sentence. “What the fuck is that?” Twilight follows my gaze out the window and gasps in shock.

It’s already been established in my mind that the creatures native to this world are like nothing that I- and apparently Twilight, as well- have ever seen. This thing that I’m seeing now, though, is just beyond belief. It looks to be similar in body structure to… well, the only thing that comes to my mind is the AT-AT walkers from the old Star Wars movies. Except these things look downright hideous. They’re covered in some sort of brown spiky scales, each one of them looking sharp enough to kill. The head is almost like a hammerhead shark’s head, but flatter and wider. Two eyes are in the center of its head.

“Holy shit…” I murmur. I hear Twilight say beside me, “That thing… I’ve never read anything about something even similar to that before.”

It’s only then that I notice that it isn’t alone. There are two more of them standing just past the treeline, trying to stay out of our line of sight. I can just barely see them, so obviously they’re doing a decent job of it. I motion to Twilight, pointing them out to her; she nods.

Just then, the one in the middle looks to the other two and barks out a harsh noise. They both come out from the trees and stand with the one that was already visible. “They saw me,” I say out loud in amazement. “From all the way over there, they saw me motion to you that I saw them. They knew that they couldn’t hide anymore, so they came out…”

Twilight was in amazement, but I could sense a definite fear in her as well. “What are these things?” she repeats. Suddenly, without warning, all three start running as fast as they can towards the house. I curse and pick Twilight up, starting to run towards the door.

“What are you doing?!” she yells. My only response is, “Trying to save both of us!”

I throw open the door and jump from the high branch. Immediately upon impact, I realize that I’d messed up. I can feel my ankle break as my whole body weight goes down on top of it. I cry out in pain, but somehow manage to make it to my feet. I motion for Twilight to follow me, but I can only make it a single step before I fall again. The pain is just too much.

Twilight, I think, can see that it’s broken, because she runs over to me and quickly dips her head towards my ankle. As soon as her horn makes contact, it glows again, and I can literally feel my bone beginning to mend itself. In a brief moment, it is no longer broken.

Well fuck. She just saved my life again, probably. I look at her gratefully and she smiles. No words need to be said. The creatures’ thundering footsteps zre shaking the ground as they came closer, so Twilight and I take off running.

We hear the splintering of wood, as the creatures gallop through the house, demolishing it in their wake of destruction. I can even hear the tree falling, a once-majestic thing reduced to kindling in the rage of some great beast.

I don’t care where we’re going. All I know is that we need to get away from those things, and the only way we can do that is to run. I look straight ahead, trying not to look back at the devastation. It’s only because of this that I see the creature further up along the path. Discord. He is motioning towards a cave, smiling then disappearing.

“There!” I yell, pointing the cave out to Twilight. I’m not going to mention to her that it was Discord that pointed it out to me to begin with. No need to add insult to broken ankle.

In a minute we reach it, and duck inside. We both huddle up close to each other, trying not to make a sound. The creatures run right past the cave, their footfalls thundering into the distance until we can barely make them out.

I look at Twilight and am about to say something, when the shock of the whole situation comes crashing down upon me all at once. I can’t even get the first word out before I slip away into unconsciousness. The whole world goes black, and I fade away.