The Depth of Motherly Love
The draconequui were once a fine species of proper immortals, whose everlasting nature came not just with great magic, but the capacity to truly live. Of all the creatures on the planet, only one other species shared this ability for true life, and they were the Alicorns, the pinnacle of all possible kinds of equine, the law-makers, erudite paragons of romance and purity. The Alicorns were an asocial lot despite their penchant for maintaining passionately beloved autocracies, and the exact opposite of the draconequui, who lived without borders or contemplation. Save for but a few things, such as perversions and atrocities, the draconequui were willing to do all else in search of fulfillment and catering to their chronic impatience. When they were not overcome with laziness and frivolous indulgences, the tickling of chaos would compel the draconequui to head off and unleash their power until they had a proper story to trade among their kind like a well-chewed bone.
There was very little that could unite the two vastly different creatures save for magic, eternity, mortals, and stories. Of all the creatures among the stars, it was those who lived forever that were nourished the most by sharing stories, as well as seeking them. Long after draconequui would gather in small packs, swapping tales of what they had done in between the decades since the hypersocial immortals last mingled so greatly among their kind, they would have those bones to return to. Never were they the type to be troubled by the abstract, or the wonders of the self, draconequui delighted in one tale above all others.
On a planet teeming with a mosaic of intelligent and unintelligent animals, the two eternal creatures could not go unnoticed, just as no diamonds may exist in a world without dust and dirt. Mortals, the scraps of the world, called to the draconequui like nothing else ever could save for the incessant thrum of their powers within them. Alicorns choose to live among the mortals, to fuss over the slate, slag, and dull pebbles that worshipped them, though they never needed the mortals with the same mewling codependency that required mortals to cling to the Alicorns. Without the Alicorns, who were ever concerned with their quests for attaining godhood on the everlasting journey of their lives, the planet would be a desecrated grave, adrift amid a cold galaxy and drifting towards whatever nebulae needed their remains. But the Alicorns had no obligation to stay and enable such creatures to live, nothing kept them present except what duties they fashioned for themselves in tending to the mortals that they permitted to live within their domains, chipping away at all their injustices and wrongdoing in order to sculpt them into far more competent creatures.
It was the draconequui who were different, ever in search of their perfect story. They traveled for mortals, ever the scavenger in their wake, and always in need of their richly cultivated miseries since the mortals were known for their generosity. They boiled their lives with enough strife, sabotage, and betrayal in their own ways. It was enough to serve as an infinite buffet to the draconequui, who need only sprinkle in seasons of their own magic on their constant hung for amusement. The sights of mortals were an explosion of everything from the silliest of celebrations to all-encompassing tessellations of tragedy that no draconequui could help but to bask in the splendid disorder of their lives and deaths, should they tangle themselves on the wrong side of the Alicorns, or even one another.
And despite it all, there was only one story of mortals that the draconequui had that had never gone away. To the Alicorns, mortals were beings with whom one could have a relationship, as default subjects forever unequal to their gods more often than not. In rare cases, they were friends, and in rarer cases, they were lovers or half-breeds from those lovers. To a draconequus, a mortal was the grandest toy, a puppet who could be blinded by the optimism of fools or sharpened with the smartest quest for honesty. Their vast amount of limitations made it so they were perfect to string along the most glorious puppet show. Despite it all, the stories of draconequui declared that the mortals they played like instruments were most irresistible in that despite their diversity, only two paradoxical notes existed in the song of their life. First and foremost, their highest wish was often for the sweet dishonesty of that kindly, unattainable optimism that overflowed in all creatures who had yet to discard such a blinding, harmful thing — and it was the mortal animals that held it in abundance, something the Alicorns tried to rid them of with education, experience, and the pursuit of virtue.
With this note alone, a draconequus could make a song of some of the most uniquely mortal things: the blind adherence to a poor ruler, wasted empathy coming back to bite the fool who gave it freely, the naïveté of misplaced forgiveness, and the inability or outright refusal to see evil in those that they held dear, even when the truth needed to be uncaged. The counterpart to this was low rich, and always lurking with a greater presence than bone beneath skin, stray sketch lines under the finest painting, and the fur of a cat upon dark clothes. It was the indivisible, immutable moral compulsion that drove a need for evil in all temporary lives. Together, there was no more effective song to enrapture the draconequus population with all the possibilities for a rich and resonant evil.
And no matter their magic, no matter their might, there wasn’t a single member of either immortal species who had ever been told to not be wary of the misfortune so deeply embedded in the lesser sapients among the planet they charitably shared. That was one of the first things learned by any immortal that was growing to the point where they might be able to wander outside the careful, loving seclusion in which their kind was customarily raised — it was a lesson even more obvious than a mortal learning not to drink live maggots, accept an offer for a spider enema, or to attempt to sire anything with a female who could only be described as crazy.
(Unless, of course, you were a draconequus. They were supposed to do that, for better or for worse.)
(Generally for worse.)
...
It was a warning that Discord’s memory would do well not to erase. Though it was as immortal as he was, he found that many of the earliest parts of it were softer in how exactly he recalled them, like the edge of a cloud that is stared at for too long. He hadn’t learned this lesson until the stories of the two-note mortal song were just that, tucked into the dustiest place in his mind. He had not seen another draconequus for longer than a whole village population’s lifetime thrown together when he was just a cub. They had vanished when the rest of the world had, and the young draconequus cub had spent his earliest wanderings scavenging. The world had been razed, and the stars still showed. Poking around enough in order indulge his impulsive, coiled-string urges to play and seek — a tug his magic only heightened, giving an electric edge to his thoughts — showed sure signs of how the world was scourged deeply. Now there was something that made his young gaggle of mismatched limbs tremble and his stomach grumbles into tighter, slippery nausea that crawled up from the very deepest pit of his stomach, and the long rush up his throat.
There were times when he would stumble upon the beauty of chattering phoenixes in flight — only to hear their words die as he would approach them. Discord was a son of the desert, one who would claw his way into a cactus hollow (if he could still fit) when the winds took a turn for the ill or he felt threatened in any way...
...threatened by how the sky was a bowl, and he was an ant crushed by loneliness and a budding song. An unnamed, entirely instinctual need was slowly sagging in Discord's tiny body. The few creatures he saw skirted the line of being a grand-animal, as his parents described beings like him, the invisible Alicorns, and a whole host of other promised beasties. Their feral state was more pronounced than ever, and he had yet to feel real joy to any one of them.
Two notes hummed in him for every day yet to come, each one clumsy and childishly off-key. In those long and lonely decades of youth, Discord would find himself recalling all the conversations he had with his parents. When he was curled up alone, out of sight from the stars themselves, the only comfort he had was dwelling on the attention he was constantly starved of. Before they had left him, Discord had never known any creatures that were not food. He had met no other kin, no travelers dared step within his parents' cave-home, and all the lower creatures he grew up around were those for hunting. All too often, Discord would find that he was talking to himself on his aimless travels, he was struggling to thrust himself back into those memories, to gulp them down like a drink sweeter than oasis water. With no magic to fashion puppets for himself and only layers of memory, Discord was too starved for mortals and their company to heed the warning of that instinctual, chaotic hymn — the one that would bear the clearest song if only he knew to listen to it, and to understand its message — mortals were not built for morality.
...
Before the great nation of Saddle Arabia came to be, the creatures of the land were divided as deeply as widely as sand was scattered by the wind. Peace and prosperity had yet to come to those who called the sands of the desert home. The tribes of horses were mighty still, but their hearts were ruled only by suspicion. The ponies in these times struggled to survive in the harsh sands; they clung to life like a mouse might desperately grip a wire hanging above a boiling pot. Their nervousness drove them to community — which did not always bode well. They stacked all their survival on the notion of the herd which both warmed them on the coldest of nights and eroded their truest selves, giving them less doubt for the words of others and much towards their own thoughts. The buffalo hunted ghosts, whether they were in the stories of the better world that had been, keeping a reverent watch of the long-buried civilizations beneath the sand, and gathering fallen phoenix feathers.
The jinni ran wild and let their scorching magic fly across the desert. There were only two places they avoided: the oases where herds of sapient and non-sapient animals found respite and the distant dunes. Legends spoke of long-buried cities that had long been blasted, burned, and razed in a catastrophe none could recall with certainty, except that it was enough to make the whole world go away. All knowledge, and all gods with their horns, wings, and nature beyond mortal knowing had ceased to be. Now everypony lived in camps and had to make do with passing off a few scraps of tradition as culture, unable to fully understand that they lived in a new age, where history was composed of only two things. These were the known lacunae that could not be described, and the unknown lacunae from the life their kind lived before, the kind they ought to still know, but couldn't recall in full after a Collapse so great and dire that their gods and empires — all that ought to rightly remain — was swallowed, leaving only who and what was going to die a footnote, if anything.
Instead, the mortal creatures let their generations be supplanted into a world that they only half-understood the slow decay of. The sky was all shades of orange, purple, red, and even gray. Each was streaked generously across the heavens in sickly, melting shades that bled into one another in the worst ways. Nothing escaped the ominous light, not since the event collectively known as the Collapse. Its totality was unknown, even to those who remained took to trying to rebuild the desert in this new age of warlords. All the gods had vanished, and what little could be found of earthly empires was naught but ruins. Now, the sky was sick and ruined too, with no creature capable of controlling it.
Afra was only able to gauge the sky's illness by looking at it. In that regard, she was like most creatures. The young horse was lithe and a tad underfed, which made the limbs that poked out from under her scrappy robes look like sticks. Those same legs were caked with sand and scrapes from her journey. Without the roads of old, she had set out on a most perilous quest, one driven only by all the love she could muster and the goodwill of the many strangers in the land. She was born well after the gods had vanished, she'd only known a world of fragmented caravans, few oases, and the sickly heavens. Sometimes, when she stopped for rest and water, Afra would untie the scarf holding back her long whiteish-red mane and let it tumble out against the colors of the sand and sky. Even though there were no stallions or strangers around, she still did not keep her mane loose for long.
Atiya was her quest, her life, and her love. The little filly was swaddled in all the blankets she had, and despite how much Afra rotated them, each one was drenched with sweat by morning, and her daughter shivered in the day's heat. The slender horse-mare kept her filly bundled with additional fabric that she slung across her back and secured more carefully with her provisions. Alongside all the supplies she could think to bring with her on her adventure were all the medicines in her clan's household, each scavenged carefully from the desert lands that made up her world. Every single one of them was never enough. None could ease the fever, coughs, or chills that wracked her little one. Her daughter's pale magenta coat was ashy and left sparse from the illness that ravaged her tiny body. Her dark violet locks were sticky with sweat no matter how many stops Afra made to wash her baby with oasis waters. Atiya's eyes used to match her mane before the wasting sickness took hold of her, and they shone with almost the same rich hue. However, those days were long gone. Her daughter's eyes were always half-closed now, and dimmer than the most tarnished dowry jewelry of all of Afra's foremothers — the kind that could only be kept for their stories, and no longer had any value in their sparkle.
There were only a few reasons that Afra stopped. One of them was to shift her robes, slip Atiya from her back, and allow her to nurse. Though the filly was growing weaker by the day, Afra was still able to coax her to have milk. The second reason was for rest and replenishment. No matter how many supplies she thought she had, she never wasted the chance to refill her water vessels, gather fresh provisions, and graze at every single oasis she encountered. This far out into the sands and depths of the Great Desert, there were few that were occupied by any sapient animals like herself. She counted herself very lucky that a lone mother like her was not stopped — all other Arabians were an immediate sign of trouble, there could be no other horse who was a friend. She was long past the walls of the minor city scratched out into the sand that made up her old world, where her clan lived among other rival horse families and no malik to keep order amidst all the violence, treachery, and scheming inherent to life. Afra was also many days and nights away from any villages with the serfs who paid tribute to her family, or any of the other clans whose names were not foreign to her tongue.
(There were only more and more cities scattered across sands, ruins, and small green places across all of the old echoes of an almost forgotten empire that lent her kind their name: Arabia. It barely made it into the stories that she had grown up with, for even her ancestors had not known those times — where almuluk answered to a sultan, who in turn answered to the highest beings known only as 'Alicorns' — which were naught but myths now. There were only hooves grasping for power, scimitars soaked in the bloodshed of war — and even the idea of unity, sultans, and Alicorns had been stolen from her kind.)
The last reason she stopped was to pull out her spyglass for scouting. It wasn't simply a sign of danger to see the sandstone and limestone walls that gave away the presence of a horse city or to find Bedu camels and equines bringing their tenant species to an oasis — it would be a sign that she was terribly off course. Afra had to remain alone. In some ways, that was all well. It was not a horse she sought. She wasn't even looking for a diminutive pony and their mysterious marks. She had to head northward, towards where the legends spoke of buffalo tribes that spilled into the Great Desert — without actually finding them. She needed to search the land in between this northern edge and everything she knew to be real.
Afra needed to find the only creature in the world to emerge and be identified as a god since the world died countless generations ago.
...
The same sickness that was slowly killing Atiya had also claimed Afra's husband. She did not know why her daughter of only a few weeks lingered as she did while her husband and a quarter of his household had been quick to perish. Every age was a time of plague, wars, and a thousand ways to be struck dead. Afra could not imagine the world being any other way, nor could any of her ancestors. She had only been married the summer before, to a handsome and noble stallion she had loved — her father had chosen well — with the expectation that she would birth many colts to carry on the name of her husband's house and many daughters to marry as well as Afra herself had. For a family to lose their only son the summer after he was married and be left with only a daughter placed a tremendous burden upon Afra. Her daughter was solely responsible for keeping one of the city's most powerful houses alive so that her mother might live the life of a noble widow instead of returning to her own home, with her only foal dead, her value decreased, and her life filled with shame so powerful she likely would not ever see herself married again.
Every night, when she held her coughing daughter close under the stars, Afra's thoughts turned to this. Her purpose rested on an impossible quest, one that even her in-laws barely supported in order to maintain her honor and the life of her little one. Afra was not naturally enamored with foals, though she always knew she hadn't come up with a path to opt out of motherhood. However, her husband had convinced her — he spun stories with the skill of a wizened mare until she was enthralled with the idea of a foal. She spent her entire pregnancy weaving stories with him about the type of horse they would shape their foal into, whether they would be a beautiful and dutiful mare or a brave and obedient stallion. The pain of giving birth had almost made her regret her duty, and she had wept when she first saw Atiya all fresh, shriveled, messy, new, and incomplete with the rawness of a pupa. Her husband had mistaken her tears for those of overwhelming love and laid upon her the most proud and grateful kiss, and all had been right in Afra's mind after that and the midwives placed her cleaned-up daughter into her forehooves. Only then was Afra first able to see the mare-to-be that was the first block in the foundation of her parents' future.
The spaciousness of Afra's blankets did little to comfort her all of the nights she lay sleeping in the sands. They had been woven for a married couple, not a mother clinging to her foal and keeping a long knife sheathed in the folds, ready to flash at a moment's notice.
In her dreams, she tried to envision the beauty that a god must have. She had first heard the story on a scorching afternoon in the market, where she had been using as loud of a voice as she could get away with to keep herself from bursting into tears. Afra had been haggling over the price of medicines stocked in the stalls fueled by those who dared venture outside the city's walls for a living. In the din of the market, she had backed into an older stallion in the middle of a tall tale, where talk of a god quickly caught Afra's attention. For a smaller sum than the medicine merchant would have charged her, he told her his tale in that crowded market over twenty-five weeks ago.
...
In the northernmost lands, where sands start to give way to canyons, there is a creature immune to all death's ways. He is but a youth for his kind, on the cusp of what stallionhood must be to any that might be like him if such creatures could ever exist. He knows riddles and speaks as well as you and I, and he rambles with the speed of a pegasus set fire flying down a well. He speaks of the dead world if you let him, and he speaks true underneath his crookedness. If you ask him, he can describe an Alicorn. Use this to get him to reveal his age if you do not believe him by his looks. This young-old one has more mystery, might, and magic to him than any unicorn or storyteller can put into words. Give him something. Always make offerings to a god if you want something of them. What he wants from you will always vary, as no one thing can tempt him. He will only grant you one audience — do not fail to appease him, or you will lose your chance.
No, he will not take any coins. Raw gems do not seem to be of interest to him, for he is no dragon. Not just any serving mare you can offer him in your stead will satisfy him, and he keeps no slaves. You must never laugh at him or fail to laugh when he does, or he will read you poorly. Do not try to give him fine silks. He has no need for such things. He is immune to our needs for food and sleep, so he will merely indulge in it, as far as I saw with my own eyes. No sickness can kill him, so he has no want for medicine.
Ah, you have never ventured out of the city, noble lady? Then of course you will not know what to look for. Let me tell you. He lives within a crude temple of stone, a place open to the elements with no creature comforts. He fears no robbery. The weather and world around this temple are nothing like anything on any map or contained in any season. He makes the fiercest storms of the desert seem tamed. Nothing about his temple resembles the splendor you think of, all of our lords' manors and courtyards will outshine it, but it is still very clearly a temple. You may not know it by sight, but you will know it by the weather.
He is not usually alone. I have encountered few who have met him, and I only give you this story because of your dire need and generous payment, noble lady. I am an old foraging stallion of the sands, not a heartless miser. But know that you must not try to steal his attendants. All of them are mares about to graduate from adolescence the way he still retains his youth — but do not treat him as a child — and their manes are as pink as the fairest flowers and sunset clouds if the sky-sickness did not exist. Their manes cannot be striped, swirled, or anything of the sort — he requires pure, solid pale hues.
None I have ever spoken to can tell why that is the only type of mare that he keeps, but they all have those pink manes. Do not question these maidens why, or he will refuse you. Do not question him about it either. None of the same mares have ever been seen there by the wayward souls who find him. No, fair lady, this is not simply a matter of centuries. He is young and has no need for older mares — yes, these maidens are only fit for that label because of their age. He has no bed, yet he beds them. He has no martial commitment and no jealousy exists among them. If you ask him, he will even mention that he strays from this hideout to other places like it in the Great Desert in search of more pink-maned mares. No young of his has ever been found, and if you ask me why, that is simply a sign that he is not able to yield any offspring with our kind. Some of his harem have left of their own accord and grown old among us. They only speak a little of them — and when they do, they talk as jaded lovers. He is always seeking something he cannot find, even when with them. They either grow into old gray mares all alone or throw themselves at the first stallion who will take them while they are still young if their hearts do not seem too broken. The ones that do take a mate have no want to talk of him again. In my travels, I have met both kinds, and I can tell you that there is sadness to both of their eyes, but that the second kind hides it better.
How do you make sure he is at that temple? The one that he allows others to find? Ah, yes, I spoke right — he must allow you to find him. This is why you must pay attention to the weather and the ways that the world around you changes, young lady. I know not how he knows when creatures are looking for him, only that he does not allow everypony who looks for him to find him. There are those who seek him and wander the region he is fond of that will never lay eyes on him, and those who do not know to quit will go mad until they drop dead.
I pray that you are not so unfortunate. The Empty Quarter of our land is not kind.
...
Two moons later, Atiya was in even more desperate condition. She was growing too weak to nurse, and what little wait she had left was quickly slipping away. Her daughter struggled to even cry out, her night sweats became more frequent, and the filly was as limp as a doll. At night, when the feeble stars shone faintly as they wobbled into the sky, Afra would find herself saying anything like a prayer. Fragments of prayers to the Alicorns had been passed down in families like hers, yet nothing ever seemed to come from her choked whispers, no matter how tightly she clutched at the nazar amulet she kept tucked under her robes. All she could think about was how if her daughter died, her chance of a good life would be over. That weighed on Afra's mind more than the desperate and elusive art of prayer, which was all she had to keep her occupied in between her scouting.
The gifts of the land were growing harder to find as signs of the Empty Quarter gave way to parched stone. The canyons of this region had little in the way of oases and rivers; Afra had to keep all of her waterskins filled and ration them desperately. Hopes of palm trees, grasses, and dates that she could dry were growing fainter by the day. Instead, they were replaced with stone formations that looked as though they were reaching for the ever-distant sky in vain, despite their obvious brokenness. She caught sight of scorpions and nasty crawling things within their shade, along with serpents she dared not cross out of fear of being struck. The sight of every one of them made the amulet around her neck feel that much heavier and slicked with sweat. Other than the heirlooms she dared not trade for fear of dishonor, it was the one piece of jewelry she had not bartered away to get supplies for her journey. A long time ago, her grandmother told her a story about how the mysterious pendants were related to the gods, though in what way, no creature could say. Afra certainly couldn't, she fell asleep through all the stories that were not filled with that which was exciting for a filly — dreams of strong stallions, beautiful gardens, and mares gifted with treasures no city under the sun seemed to have.
Afra thought she was in a dream when the first drop of saffron syrup hit her hijab. She was immediately jolted out of the daze of travel and the tiresome weight of Atiya on her back when she smelt the sweet scent. Soon, another drop pelted her. The thought of how unpleasantly sticky she might become was drowned out by the growling of her traitorous stomach and the startled cacophony that her jumbled thoughts became. She tilted her head straight up as the drops continued to fall, to the point that her hijab threatened to slip off. The notion of shielding little Atiya, who was strapped to her back and swaddled slipped Afra's mind.
She did not even hear the latest coughing bouts of her daughter as her bewildered gaze drank in the sight above her. Floating low and proud above her was a cloud unlike any that Afra had ever seen — as though it were placed there by a lazy pegasus — and it was not the only one of its kind. Weighing down a few normal clouds of wispy white were the fluffiest, puffiest clouds that Afra had ever seen, and every single one of them was a shade of orange brighter than the best market silks that Afra had ever laid her eyes upon. No hue of the sick sun's sky could compare to the intensity of the color before her and the sheer unnaturalness of the spectacle. Each of these fantastic clouds was roiling and swollen with the same saffron syrup that was now pouring out like rain.
"Sweet skies..." Afra whispered. The taste on her tongue was identical to what she could buy if she were still within her city.
Then, the cloud moved. Not in the way that some clouds were supposed to move without a pegasus, where they slowly drifted along the sky like foam moved across a coffee cup. This was a sudden jerk, like a captured horse kicking out against a lasso. She watched as the mismatched clump of clouds darted ferociously away from her, zigzagging among the reddish rocky formations that dominated the land.
"Wait!" Afra called out. The echo of her own voice thrown back at her made her tremble. "Are you the great god? Please, come back! I have been seeking you for many moons!"
She managed a canter, despite her burden. The unnaturalness of the sight filled her with the adrenaline that she had kept under wraps for all of the months that she had been crossing the desert. The few weak cries that her daughter uttered were nothing to her, not when the end of her journey could be at hoof — which would mean good health and a safe return for the both of them. Her waterskins added an extra lurch to her step and made Afra's breaths sharper, but she pressed on with the lunging pace of a madmare. Soon, the taste of saffron and the sound of her heart and heaving breaths drowned out everything else. Afra saw only the orange clouds as they zoomed across the corners of the dry and craggy landscape.
She could not lose sight of them. Her life and honor depended on it. Atiya's life hinged on this being a sign of the divine.
The luggage had nearly knocked all of the wind from her lungs when Afra was finally able to stop. Her mad pace died when she nearly fell over upon her side rounding a turn with the speed of a whirling dervish — a fall that would have crushed frail Atiya had Afra not used her remaining strength to steady herself. Her chase had led her deep into the land of stone and dust, where everything was hard under her hooves and dry brush spread its choked roots upon the land. It was when she pivoted around this last bend to Afra finally felt her breath catch in her throat with a choke.
The cloud had ceased its mad motions and joined other clumps of nature and the unnatural. Saffron rained in broad daylight and large swathes of the sky were visible with a stark and brilliant blue, despite the weather. On one side, a wall of twisting canyon swept down into a weathered structure propped up with pillars of reddish stone, forming a crude and spacious natural gazebo, as though giant equines had been playing at making a table. Winding around some of the pillars were vines of numerous plants. Some were obviously frail and dry, even from a distance, where she could see how they danced in the wind. Others were bearing fruit in a confusing array of colors and patterns that were too difficult to discern. Still, the obvious effort at improvised trellises was something that only civilized animals could attempt. Even if that area was too distant to glimpse any other details or hints of what happened within, Afra felt the lightness of relief in her chest for the first time in many nights.
The cracked ground under Afra's hooves was faintly moist and smelt strongly of soap. All around her, desert plants were forcing themselves through the sandy soil — and there were even a few crooked, struggling palms! Laundry lines waved in the wind, trailing down from where they were tied to the trunks and ended in various other places. On them, bright fabrics with many patterns — familiar and strange — flapped in the wind. Rocky outcroppings here and there provided some sources of shade, and there were even a few crude stone teepees that were obviously deliberately made, though the shelter they offered was smaller. However, the greatest promise of life was a circle of stone bricks with one long rod laying across it — a maintained well.
The old stallion in the market had been right about the mares, though. Scattered across the land were about half a dozen mares. Some were horses, like herself, and others were ponies, though she could not discern their races or marks well from here. Their coats varied in color, and their makeup and shawl patterns were styled in ways that indicated the techniques of foreign regions of the desert. This caused Afra to tense up since there was virtually no circumstance where one wanted to meet an able-bodied foreigner. However, what was truly stunning was how some of the mares had seen fit to abandon head coverings altogether, letting their manes fly in the desert wind.
Every single one of the mares had a mane as pink as the elder had led her to believe.
Before she could evade their sight, the closest mare trotted up to Afra. She was a horse with spindly legs that designated one not yet grown enough to be considered a mare, as Afra was. The stranger's coat was a shade of cheerful saffron in a flea-bitten pattern, and her hijab was at least recognizably styled in the manner of the oldest one could be as a filly, judging by the designs. The cloth was pushed down to her withers, revealing a mane that was a gorgeous fair pink, striped with maroon and rosier hues.
"Stranger!" she called out in an accent that Afra could faintly recognize as belonging to the western regions, closer to the sea. "Dear stranger, what brings you here? This land is not found easily."
How had one from so far away ended up so far from home? And how had she made the trip when she was obviously so young? This pink-maned stranger would have had to travel farther than Afra herself!
Afra wasn't able to conceal her weary hyperventilating when the filly fine got close to her. Her legs were ready to give out, the heat was unbearable upon her back, and she heard Atiya coughing weakly among the waterskins. She felt that she might swallow her own tongue and suffocate due to how dry it was. Yet, she still managed to call out weakly. "Your god... you have a god..."
The stranger halted in front of Afra and took in the older mare's haggard form with wide green eyes. Despite her condition, Afra was able to feel thoughts bubble up about the condition of the filly in front of her. She wore too much kohl around her eyes for even a respectable mare of Afra's age, and her hijab was soaked with sweat. Much of her mane was piled in a loose bun partway down her neck and was obviously slicked with sweat. Keeping the long locks in place was nothing but a knotted bunch of twine and a few long manepins that were tarnished beyond the point of respectability — they likely had not been more than copper.
"By his might!" she gasped. "How far have you come?"
Afra could only groan in reply and laid her ears back when she felt her daughter squirm ever so faintly.
"Traveler, normally we do greetings much differently around here, but you are ailing and — oh! You have a foal!" Those green eyes grew wider. "Ladies! Ready the well! This mare needs water! She has a foal!"
...
The others had retreated once Afra had been given a bucket of water, which she gulped down greedily after each fill she was given. However, the filly stayed and introduced herself as Maha bint Layla bint Janan al-Bihaar. She guided Afra over to the shade of a leaning stone outcropping and helped her unload the supplies she had burdened herself with.
"Names mean nothing here," she chimed as she settled next to Afra. "So everypony calls me Maha. What about you, stranger?"
"Please," rasped Afra, who was simply glad to be able to dampen her throat again, "just call me Afra. This is my daughter, Atiya," she said, pushing the bucket away while Maha pushed the bucket to one of her fellowmares for filling. Then, she reached into the latest blankets that had swaddled Atiya and pulled the little filly into her forehooves.
"Afra, did you come here alone?" Maha whispered, voice filled with both shock and sympathy.
All that Afra could do in reply was nod with her regained strength. In her forehooves, Atiya felt no different than a sack of flour — and truthfully, Afra felt as connected to her daughter as she would be with flour right now. She could barely feel her own forelegs. Despite the water and dates that had been offered to her so far, it was as though the weight of her travels had finally set in. Kindness from strangers was as normal as a notion of drowning fish, but because of these fillies, Afra had finally been fed well enough to have plenty of milk to nurse Atiya with... if the filly would even be able to have any.
"Hmm..." Maha hummed and looked to the edge of the large shadow that they sat in. "That is good. He rarely lets outsiders find this place. Those that do manage to stumble here... they do not always last."
Afra swallowed harshly. "You mean to say that your god kills those who find you?"
Horror flashed across Maha's face and she immediately shook her head, holding up her forehooves. "No! He only kills the intruders who would bring malice here. But he defies what your mind can imagine! There are other ways to make unwanted guests leave, and his magic is unlike anything in this world. You... oh, Afra, you have to see to believe! He is immune to death, no poison can break him, and he can read magic like ink!"
A breath of relief left Afra. "Your god, is his name sacred?"
Maha shook her head with an ease that Afra had not expected. "His name is Discord."
"What?" Afra tilted her head and swiveled her ears. The syllables that Maha just spoke were not of any dialect that she knew. "What language is that?"
Maha offered only a carefree shrug. "No creature seems to know. I have spoken to the few elders that find their way here and with every other filly. None of them, no matter how far they have traveled, can tell what tongue his name is in. Those of us who have been around Discord, we learn from him that he knows names that occur in no language. What is a 'Celestia' or a 'Luna'? There are no real words like that in Arabic or any language. They are just made-up, magic words, like your baby might say. Though, he does not like them spoken to his face — we simply overhear them."
"All of you... share the attention of this god, this Discord? For how long? Why does he prey on such young mares?"
The dismissive snort that Maha let loose was unexpected but entirely fitting for a filly of her age. Something about the gesture made her feel more earthly. "He does not 'prey' on us. You will know why when you see him. And yes, he fancies all of us. Discord finds us from all corners of the desert and... well, you have a foal. You know how things are when mares and stallions get together. You were my age once, so you know of the longings. He is different and exciting. Discord does things that no creature you know of can do—"
"Like what?" Afra harumphed. She hadn't heard a filly this boastful or lovestruck since her youth when a few fillies in her neighborhood tried their luck with stallions solely of their own choosing, and before marriage. Fillies that talked like Maha did usually ended up without a dowry — or shunned by their families at worst.
Maha pushed her muzzle to Afra's abruptly until the younger mare's kohl-rimmed eyes were peering directly into Afra's own before she excitedly hissed out each word. "Discord. Has. Two. Penises."
"H-how can that be?" Afra stammered as she pulled back. Immediately, she clutched Atiya closer. For the first time since she set off on her journey, Afra was scared of what kind of creature this Discord might be. "Is he some kind of abomination?"
"Discord definitely is not an abomination; he's just not like any creature in the world!" Maha insisted with a wicked smile. "As for why he is like that? None of us know. Not any of the fillies who have been here before me, nor any of the others here now. Those parts of him are just... sort of dragon-like."
Afra could only stare blankly at her. A creature that was too different sounded precisely like what the definition of 'abomination' was.
She had also seen a dragon before — though only as a corpse. One had made an attempt to raid her city after flying in from the badlands, which were even more distant from her city than the canyons where Afra was now. All of the mares and foals had to be sent to the deepest cellars in order to stay safe, and some even crawled into tombs. The southern corner of the city ended up being leveled, killing all of those sheltered there, and the southeast portion was scorched to nothing — as was every creature in it. Twelve of the stallions who had fought the dragon had been eaten alive, and many more were killed before the beast was brought down. While the mourners crawled out from their shelter to weep at what cost the city's riches had been saved, Afra had joined other youth in sneaking out beyond the walls to see the corpse of the beast. One of the warriors had pulled the cloth away from his face, levitated his spear, and shown them the various parts of the monster — the fangs, the claws, along with the torn and pierced scales. The bloodied unicorn pony recounted the battle with a wildness absent from the older stallions. As he did, Afra had been able to see that the dragon was indeed a male as other stallions were attempting to pry scales from the body. Dragons definitely did not have two of those, or at least not any that Afra was aware of.
"I promise. He is not evil. I swear it on my life." Maha patted one of Afra's forehooves lightly.
Atiya whimpered faintly in Afra's forehooves. She found herself letting out a heavy sigh. Any creature that was not evil had to be good. That was the way things worked.
"Why do you all have pink manes?" Afra muttered. She inhaled sharply, feeling the weight of her nazar pendant under her robes. It was a reminder to resist the urge to cast a suspicious glare toward Maha and the others, lest they retaliate. As strange as the fillies were, enough of them were still Arabian enough to react properly to a curse.
"Discord only likes mares with pink manes. Asking him why just makes him freeze — which is nothing like him. Unless he is sunning himself, he is always moving. When he gets like that, all we know is we have hit a sore spot — like a lance getting under a dragon scale. All he ever says is that he likes us this way." Maha swiveled her ears to the side hesitantly. "He says that the same way he tells us that he needs to patrol the borders of his territory. The same longing is there, as though he is still very far away even when he speaks to us. During those patrols, he will disappear for whole moons, traveling to places only he knows — sometimes he brings another filly back to join us, a new creature, or some supplies. We maintain everything when he goes away. He always comes back before the seasons change."
"You know, stallions put down roots," Afra piped. "We herd. There is no waiting for strange creatures or rootless tending to a garden in conditions fit only for serfs. What of your families? Your honor? Were you all of low blood?"
Normally, such questions would provoke outcry from another Arabian, but Afra felt that they had to be asked. The response she received was for Maha to throw back her head and let loose a girlish cackle. "Oh, surely you are kidding? Do you really not see the charm in our life? He calls us his anarchists, whatever that may mean. We come from all ranks here — like Layla, she was the daughter of a malik. Batul was a herder's daughter. Dalal's parents were going to sell her to be a whore before Discord liberated her. Hadil came from a well-off family in a city, just like you. Fajr lived in the slums." Maha stopped throwing her forehooves towards random fillies across the landscape and instead clutched both over her own heart. "My village set up a temple to him, as have the homes of fillies who have been here. I was a priestess to him, taught by my own mother, who was one before me. I left home with my father's blessing. The others have their own tales."
"Everypony here was somepony else before, but we all have Discord in common," Maha continued, her voice light and dreamy, perfect for a filly head over hooves in love. "He is passionate, and just a little bit of him is unlike any stallion you will ever know, enough that you will long for him the way we do. Life with him is a thrill and he can protect us from any creature that would try to harm us. There are no rules here we did not decide ourselves. Why, we do not even have to worry about foals! Rarely do those here have their teas, herbs, or spells stop working. When that happens, Discord takes us to one of his temples — any one of them! Whichever one we want!"
"Even if I had hair like yours... I would still only want the cure for Atiya's sickness. My only daughter is dying, and no medicine will cure her. I heard of your god and have come to make an offering for my daughter's health." Afra stared despondently down at the deep hue of her daughter's eyes. "I do not think I will ever understand anypony like you, who would so readily reject the comforts of civilization for this... but I am thankful. Without you, I would be dead, and you have generously shared your story with me. I have but one last thing to ask — could you please tell me how to meet Discord?"
...
The temple was sheltered from wind, but not much else. As Afra hopped up the rocks that haphazardly formed the pathway up to it, she thought she could see the telltale signs of sandstorms between the natural pillars. Sunlight and shade were offered in an alternating, irregular pattern. She could tell that much when she finally ascended and stepped onto what passed for a floor. Afra knew that the rest of the canyon was spread out behind her, and she could glimpse Discord's harem continuing to go about their day between stone pillars out of the corner of her eye and to her right. When she pressed deeper into the temple, she knew two things. The first was that she was nervous. She could hear her own breathing — which was heavy, and not simply because she had Atiya and her supplies piled on her back like some lowly mule again.
Secondly, Afra felt chilly. The temple was shadier than she expected and only got darker as she stepped further inside. Shadows swallowed her every hesitant step forward. The vines growing outside eventually obscured any chance of glancing out from beneath the pillars. While the entirety of the temple was dimly lit, she was able to make out the shapes of some of the harem's crops. Somehow, they had managed to get grapes, pears, apricots, and other delicious fruits growing in the middle of the desert. In addition to those plants, Afra saw many more that she was puzzled by. Even though she couldn't recognize the plants, she was quite sure that she had never seen plants that glowed, bore fuzz, and were covered in nonsense patterns. Perfect polka dots, stripes, swirls, and zigzags were just the ones that she was able to make out in the growing darkness.
The proper interior of the temple itself was hardly different from a cave. Afra couldn't even see all of the way into the back. Within her field of vision were the remains of a few fires. Laying close by were numerous blankets in a tangled, disorganized heap, though they were still close enough away from the fires' remains that nopony laying on them would have gotten singed. Towards either side of the temple were jars and baskets stacked with no apparent order in mind, nor was there any hint of what the contents may be. Their hues were just as disorganized, suggesting either mixtures of material or that the decorations on each were as disastrous as spilled spices. Just once, Afra thought she caught a glimpse of something metallic shining dimly within a basket.
As the wind stirred around Afra's legs, swishing her robes, she was reminded of how nervous she was. So much effort had been put into surviving up until this point that she had not stopped to consider how she might face a god.
"O, Raba! Great and mighty Discord!" she called out weakly. "I have spoken to your devotees and they have sent me here in goodwill. Please, spare but a few minutes of your time to speak to me today."
The echo of her own voice being thrown back at Afra in the dark made her shudder. When Atiya started to whimper faintly, all she could do was lay her ears back.
"Please. Dear Raba, I beg of you: please present yourself. I have traveled far just to glimpse your face and hear you speak. I have only one thing I wish to ask of you, and I did not come without a proper offering." Afra reached up one forehoof and nudged it under her robes and hijab until she found the nazar pendant. She slipped it off of her head gingerly and set it on the stone, giving it the most restrained kick with her forehooves that she could manage. Then, she watched as the pendant skittered across the stone and into the darkness.
A choked feeling rose in her throat. "This is all I have. I can think of nothing else to offer you. I have pawned everything else that I was permitted to get my hooves on so that I could appear before you, O Raba Discord. All that is to offer, I present to you, and I ask only for you to show your grace toward me."
"Oh my," crooned a second, decidedly male voice. "Must you always be so dramatic? Nopony ever comes to see poor old me wanting a delicious pudding. Everything is foals falling down wells, dragons in need of slaying, or some other dreadful fiasco. I swear, all you little creatures stopped knowing anything about merriment before I was even hatched!"
The suddenness of the sound made Afra tremble and she took two great shaking steps backward. In the darkness, she thought she caught sight of something serpentine slipping about. Something frighteningly large. Then, she heard claws against the stone floor. Following that was a glimpse of what could be oryx horns — or perhaps those of a dragon. She couldn't say.
When Discord finally made himself known, she knew was that her heart was racing and her mind was filled with thoughts of flinging everything from her back and galloping away. Maha, the storyteller, and the others had been understating just how frighteningly different he was — Discord was indeed an abomination. He tumbled and flew into her line of sight, standing up with frightening flexibility only to tower over her. While his face was vaguely equine, Afra found it to be more hideous than any donkey's and his snaggletooth to be a clear threat: it was sharpened just like a predator. No limb of his matched — not even his wing or his horns — and his tail came from a beast she could not even name. Clutched in the palm of his paw was the pendant she had offered, and around it was the dying glow of the most unholy-looking aura: what appeared to be predominantly purple, laced with wild flickers of all other colors.
How could such magic possibly be good? Was the sting below her heart the feeling of regret?
The tuft on his tail twitched as he threw back his head and let loose a roaring cackle, one that made Maha's seem ladylike and whispery in comparison. "Oh, I kid, I kid! Of course I will listen to you! All of you pretty little ponies come here begging and asking for some of the most outrageous things — and you let me do everything exactly as I want to! Isn't that right?"
"R-r-right," Afra stammered out. She had no idea what she was agreeing to, only that she must agree with this dreadful thing if she ever wanted to get herself — and Atiya — home again. There wasn't even any point in correcting his erroneous proclamation of her species. Anything to get out of her quicker.
While she watched him transfer the dangling pendant from his vicious-looking paw to his sinister she claw, she risked looking away from its shining face and tried to get a good look at the god-beast. He had a fluffy white forelock that drooped into his eyes, a fluffy gray chest, and a mane that grew in like the repulsive donkeykind that she thought he initially resembled. Two odd wings flapped happily in unison against his outrageous body. That was when she took in something startling about the creature before her — with his breaking voice, lankiness, garish smile, and shining wide eyes Maha's remark about the fact that Discord kept fillies made sense.
Somehow, the ugly god was a teenager himself.
The big cat's paw rose in a poor attempt to hide his all too fangy grin. "You should see the look on your face!" Ill-concealed snickers bounced all over the inside of the temple.
"I-I suppose I should..." Anything to play along with him was worth saying.
"Oh, fine," came a moody harumph. It certainly sounded better suited to a rebellious street-filly who might be scooped up by Discord than the god himself. "Fine. Be a spoilsport. All of you ponies and horses travel so far and somehow all of the fun just bleeds out of you. Why are you all so gloomy these days?"
Afra had no idea where he got the impression that ponies and horses were kindly creatures but she did her best to compose herself before speaking. "O Raba Discord—"
"Jeez. Aren't you in a hurry? Somehow, you know, despite being in the middle of the desert? You can come up with a better name for me, right? Oh, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the theatrics, but right now, I'm not in the mood. What about 'Discord McCoolpants' or 'Danger Noodle' — oh, oh, OH, or even 'Dissy-Wissy, Cassanova Extraordinaire and Sultan of Swagger'?"
He looked Afra in the eyes with his lit-up like a fiery jinni, which was enough to tell her that he seriously thought all of those were fantastic. Once again, she nodded along. "Y-yes, of course."
"Now, now, no need to thank me for the suggestions. Great ideas are what I do." With a mere snap of his paw, a turban fit for the gaudiest sultan popped into existence on his head. Colorful feathers popped out in all directions, some from birds that Afra wasn't even sure were real. Gems on gold chains popped out of every fold and made audible jangles. She could sell a turban like that and buy at least a whole other house unless the sight of those diamonds deceived her.
Afra didn't want to know if she was drooling as she stared hungrily at his headwear. All the months of travel, loneliness, and Atyia's illness unleashed its weight upon her.
"Missus Horsie, why the long face?" Discord innocently tapped a claw to his chin, where everything was bright enough that she could see the hint of stubble growing there.
"You... you just... that turban... those jewels..."
Discord's eyes traveled up to his head — quite literally, they rolled upward to peer at the turban before rolling back into his sockets without consequence. "Oh, this silly thing? You haven't seen anything yet." One more snap later, and it was gone. "I'm Discord, baby! I do at least five impossible things before breakfast!"
He may have been hideous, but Afra knew a feat like that meant that she was in the right place.
"So..." Discord mumbled, giving the nazar pendant a chomp to test his quality, "...what impossible thing can I do for you? No adoring fan of moi shows up here without a pretty-please in addition to their offering."
Finally, Afra took Atiya from her back and cradled her little one in outstretched forelegs, offering to her to the monster. "This is my daughter, Atiya. For months, she has been battling the same plague that killed my husband and claimed so many in my city. No medicine has worked, and I have bought just about everything that I can. Every day, she grows worse. I know she will not linger for much longer, and I cannot bear the thought of having to return home without her."
As soon as he saw Atiya, Discord's face softened. All the jarring silliness that he had shown Afra before vanished, instantly replaced with a mixture of shock and pity. He accepted the bundled filly as though she were more fragile than colored glass, cradling her in his own limbs with the awkwardness of someone who had never done so before. "I... I'm not a healer, not in the way you want... I can do my best... I can absolutely do something—"
"Will it be enough?" Afra whispered against her better judgment. "Will she live?"
"Absolutely," Discord answered without hesitation. "Do you trust me? Do you love her no matter what?"
"Of course," said Afra, pouring her heart into the half-truth. She had just met him, and she was not about to trust a foreigner. But she trusted that he could do the impossible to keep her daughter alive. His second question was utterly ridiculous, but she failed to see why it wasn't contained within her answer. There was no need to separate it.
"Then, my work begins!" Discord bellowed, his eyes shining with a manic grin. His awful aura surrounded his mismatched forelimbs and he quickly discarded the blankets swadling Atiya. Before she could even begin to stir, he grasped a limb at each end of her and began to pull strange shapes from the shadowy corners of the cave.
Only when they came to light did Afra realize what his magic was holding. Snakes. At least seven of them.
Next, Discord began to twist Atiya and pull her in opposite directions — and the little filly gave in like candy with terrible cries. Still, Discord continued to tug her like he was pulling mere sweets and not flesh. Afra looked on in horror as Discord began to turn each snake inside out like discarded stockings. Bones covered in viscera were tossed away and heaps of innards, still dripping with blood, were levitated over to the half-melted appearance of Atiya. Discord did not flinch as he held open Atiya's mouth while his magic kept her afloat. He proceeded to embowel the infant with parts taken from the snakes, shoving them into her mouth as bits fell to the floor. With each shove and crunch, her form somehow grew longer and Afra felt herself retreat to somewhere in her mind where these things did not happen.
The sound of a thud pulled her partway from her from her painful haze was a thud. Afra strained to lift her eyes, and what she saw made vomit force itself up partway through herself. Protruding from a torn hindleg was the bone of her daughter, surrounded by ragged rings of flesh, and completely severed. By the time the sound echoed again, Afra had drifted even farther away. She did not need to check to see if the sound belonged to the limb's twin. Distantly, a thought probed through her frozen state: where were her daughter's cries? Had she truly dissociated beyond the point of hearing them?
Before she could even begin to puzzle out the answer, a flash of Discord's awful aura pulsed through the whole temple. Something about that deep, tempestuous violet and the other colors that rippled through it so violently was inseparable from nausea to Afra. She used the distraction to turn around and expel the vomit within her through one painfully choked heave.
"Ta-da!" chimed Discord's voice. He sounded utterly ignorant to the splatter of vomit that had just been let loose in his temple. "Hold out your hooves; she's as good as new!"
Afra's limbs rose before she felt herself become aware of the action, rising up to collect what was left of her daughter. Discord smiled gleefully as he scooped Atiya's shadowed form into the blankets Afra had presented Atiya to him in. They were now covered with the dust of the desert and ashes from long-dead fires.
"Just look at her! She's better than ever before, and I guarantee that she'll live a lot longer too!"
The weight of her daughter being thrust back into her forehooves pulled her spirit back into her body. Despite her hammering heart, Afra managed to look down.
What she held in her hooves was not her daughter. There was Atiya's face, restored to the most perfect and healthy glow. Any trace of pain was gone from her rosy eyes as she stared up longingly at her mother, cooing and babbling excitedly like she never had before. Little streams of drool glistened around her mouth, making what were either her first two teeth or the tiniest fangs visible. Her mane was longer than before, and returned to a luster only the finest mares in Afra's city could afford; the glossiness was fit for the wife of a malik. Verses were written about a mane like that and perfumes were made specifically for washing it.
The sight of Atiya's two remaining hooves sent a tight clamp of fear through Afra's whole barrel. The kind of fear one felt when seeing raiders trotting toward you with no city walls in sight, or when tales of a kraken attacking a merchant ship reached the inland regions, and one could not help but imagine the terror of the sailors as they were eaten or pulled down into the deep. That same fear was Afra's now. The forehooves were a deeper magenta than Afra remembered, only now they were the only part of Atiya's body that had any of her familiar coat color left. New stripes — snake stripes — could be found going up and down each like sleeves. And her coat was gone, replaced by smooth, cold skin. Most of it was stone-gray now — as gray as sickness and serpents. Her entire form was covered in awful, damp scales that made Afra's skin crawl like nothing ever had. The body of what had once been a healthy filly now was that of an enormous serpent, whose smokey shades gave way to hints of old color in a few stripes of the underbelly that traveled up to show more dense, dark, terrifying rings crowding her upper form.
"T-this..." Afra stammered, watching her own forelegs go pale with the fear draining the rest of her body, tensing it with energy.
"That's your daughter!" Discord leaned forward, beaming down at Afra even though he stood so far from her. Everything was so quiet after he spoke that Afra could hear the blood dripping from his claws.
All the while, Atiya reached out her forehooves towards a mare that only ducked away. Her long serpent's body wiggled with childish innocence — or a dark mimicry of it. All of her motherly love had coalesced within her to reveal its truest depths.
"This is not my daughter!" Afra shrieked, her whole body tensing up with the fear and rage that had been born at the sight of Atiya's new appearance. "My daughter is no monster! I gave you all I had — a sign that no evil being is capable of touching — so that you could fix her! She is cursed, inequine, an abomination! I will have no such evil!" With strength and malice only angry mothers were known to possess, Afra tossed the bundle down with the genuine hope of hearing a crack. "DASH HER HEAD AGAINST THE ROCKS! THAT WHICH IS NOT PERMISSIBLE SHOULD NOT BE!"
Afra's surprise did little to hinder her as she galloped off with the might of a mare used to braving the desert. Discord peered out from between the pillars of the temple and saw his girlfriends raise their heads. All of them watched in shock as the screaming mare dashed out of sight and back into the desert proper, where she was even more well-equipped to survive now that she was a party of one. Real, genuine hurt crossed Discord's face once he was sure that she was gone. His tail drooped to the ground and his whole posture had lost its confidence. A rare frown of dismay made its way across his muzzle.
He knew that his girlfriends would not rush over to him until he summoned them, and no such signal had been given. With a slugged, dejected gait, he made his way over to where little Atiya had been tossed. The infant was crying sharply, and Discord saw that part of a blanket close to her head was wet with blood, as was her mane.
"Oh no," he gasped, scooping his creation into his mismatched limbs. "That will never do."
One snap of his claw later and the blood was gone. "There, all better. At least I can heal that much." Discord bit into his lip. "I... I can't believe she did that. She said she loved you... and she didn't sound like she was lying. I'm a good liar. I can tell when one of the little creatures is lying."
Atiya had not stopped wailing. "Mama! Mama!"
Discord swallowed sharply, pushing down a familiar emotion. When he spoke next, his voice was remorseful and held a fragileness that he did not want his girlfriends to hear. This was a loss that he knew all too well. "She... she's not coming back, okay? But you don't need her anymore. You're not a monster. My girlfriends and I will take care of you. None of them are like that mare. Her hysterics were all lies; it's her and her kind that are monsters. There should be way more of you, not of them. Any creature that would throw away another j-just b-because of how they look is the r-real m-monster," finished Discord with a sniffle before choking it back down again.
"Tell you what, I'll give you a gift," Discord said. "I give lots of gifts to the creatures I help." A flicker of chaos magic budded on the tip of his paw once again, and he gently pressed the colored bit of magic into the crying filly's forehead until it disappeared. "Let any of the little creatures not marked by me die when they touch you. Let your poison be so strong that no mortal can match it. Lure those among the little creatures who walk with false friendliness to you before you can be hurt by them. May the colors of your kind become as bright as ponies' own hues, so that you have nature's best warnings. May your bite kill and your skin bring sickness unto death."
When the little bead of magic fully disappeared into Atiya's head, the little filly ceased to cry and let loose only a few pitiful whimpers. Her scales were damper, but nothing could compare to the large tears beginning to roll from her large, wet eyes. Discord took in the sight and did the only thing he could think of. He pulled little orphan Atiya into a hug. At long last, her tears began to dry, and she was home, with her family.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading this totally normal Mother's Day adventure.
A special thank you to my boyfriend, Sunlight Taiga, for being a raging furry. Without you, I wouldn't have been able to come up with proper fictional dick lore for the dicks referenced in this story. He also helped me with normal parts of this story, which has been a few years in the making.
The information about Arabic names is as follows:
Afra = "whitish red"
Atiya = "gift"
Batul = "virgin"
Dalal = "coquettishness"
Fajr = "dawn, beginning"
Hadil = "cooing of a pigeon"
Layla = "night"
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