Log Ten - Chapter Nine - Part Two

The last thing I could remember for the life of me was when I fell from a number of stories high due to a mischievous prankster.  After that, I went and fainted.

What does being unconscious feel like?  Well, it's a distant memory, but I'll do my best to recall.

One could describe it much like how one is asleep.  It's peaceful, to put it blunt.  The whole world around me was nothing more than a blank subspace.  My mind was empty of worries, but filled with waters of clarity.  The encircling darkness welcomed me to its serenity, and I embraced the welcoming.  For the very first time, I felt very calm and, perhaps, happy; I had never been this relaxed since forever.  Beyond the vast, infinite blackness there was a white, divine light shimmering brightly across the groundless yonder.

This illumination had a holy aura attached to it, an aura so strangely compelling I dragged myself towards it with relative ease.

In this plane of unconsciousness, there was no law of physics or gravity; there wasn't any sound of footsteps as my body was literally light as a feather.  Soon half of the surrounding darkness was engulfed by the light, and for some inexplicable reason gravity began taking its claim the closer I approached.  After a few more steps the light entirely devoured the darkness, enveloping me to a brand new world of antique white.

Then the colorless expanse gradually dissipated, and this was the moment I realized I was coming to.

Starting off, I remembered everything was blissfully quiet, save for the sounds of mother nature's balmy breaths and the lenient rustling of leaves.  Thank God I wasn't sapped of the ability to hear or feel.  My brain attempted giving my limbs, and my eyelids, the command to budge.  Only to no avail, sadly.  However, the minute my mouth emitted a groan, my head registered the pleasing conclusion that I may had survived the fall.  Moreover, the luxuriantly-distinctive smell of grass invading my nostrils encouraged the assumption that I could have been very much alive.

    But there was an unsettling question left unanswered: why was it that I didn't feel any pain when I landed?  Going out on a limb here, I pondered on the possibility I could have had fallen into the lake.  Though that wouldn't make sense... because if I did, me and my clothes would've been soaked.

A viable thought instilled with anxiousness reverberated in the depths of my mind, 'please don't tell me where I think I am...'

With as much willpower as I could muster, I urged the nerves of my toes to wiggle.  Miraculously, the little toe was the first to twitch. The other toe beside it followed.  Then the next, and then the next, until every one of my toes were in sync.  Over time, my other foot's toes wiggled as well.  The lower part of my body, and eventually the upper section, were corresponding with positive movements; every appendage were wholly intact and accounted for.  The last thing I had to do was lift my eyelids so that I could investigate my whereabouts.

The effort to do so was struggling, but with sheer success I managed to lift my eyelids at a sluggish pace.

I winced when I was first introduced by the harsh rays of the sunlight.  I immediately shielded my eyes and rolled to the side, allowing them to recover in the safe shelter of my hands.  They regained their focus shortly afterward.  Lowering my hands, I got a clear close-up view of a teeny ladybug standing remotely still on an unblemished blade of grass.  It looked to be just your average ladybug: a dainty minuscule beetle with a smooth red body and black spots.  It's incredible how insects in Equestria were parallel to the ones on Earth.  Yet I never liked insects.  I always thought they were plain gross and revolting like spiders (my number one phobia, next to escalating heights).

Who wouldn't agree?  Spiders have eight hairy crawlers, wrap their prey in webbing and the ghastliest of it all is their eyes.  Six, eight, twelve.  No matter how many eyes they have, whether the spider be large or small, they're downright creepy.  God it makes me shudder thinking about it.

Butterflies, though, were actually my favorite among all the other bugs.  I don't know why, but how I see them is they're majestic, harmless, and quite beautiful above all else.  Of course their beauty can never top my adoring daughter; my dear Shy will always and forever be my little butterfly.

I was snapped out of my reminiscing when I examined the ladybug closer.  For whatever reason the thing had a familiar unruly goatee with crazy red pupils that were staring right back at me.

I was assured that wherever I was it wasn't heaven nor paradise, but instead... hell.

"Just what were you thinking, Discord?!"

"Calm down, Rick," replied the draconequus nonchalantly, who was perched onto one of the willow tree's thick branches on his back, both of his mismatched legs and serpentine-like tail dangling limply off a side.  "You act as if I had done something exceptionally horrid."

I stared at him in disbelief.  "You cannot be serious..."

"I never am serious.  Unlike somepony I know," Discord made no effort masking the sneer in his voice at that last sentence.  He quickly shifted about and was now lying on his stomach but his neck stayed as it were.

I brought a hand and facepalmed, groaning in exasperation.  "I'm actually being serious here, Discord!  I mean, have you seen what's been goin' on lately aka the erratic behavior of the clouds?" I pointed a finger at the direction of Ponyville where the checkered-pattern clouds were ominously looming over.

"Indeed I have," he answered, a touch too casual.

There was a short exchange of silence between the two of us; he was humming a tune within his own contentment while I stared at him incredulously.

"...and do you plan on doing something about it?" I asked.

Discord ceased his humming, his gaze never wavering.  "What was that?  Sorry but I think I have something in my ear."  The spirit knocked his noggin with a lion paw and out came a pink... fly-thingy?  Okay, I didn't know what the heck it was but it had wings of a fly.  The pink bug buzzed away as Discord materialized an ear trumpet and raised it to his left ear.  "You were saying?"

"I said: and do you plan on doing something about it?"

"Why are you asking me that for?" Discord inquired curiously.

"I don't know.  Maybe because those clouds have your name written all over them!"

My accusation snagged his attention.  He sat up with his back against me since his neck was still twisted at a hundred 'n' eighty degree angle.  "Why, Rick, I'm so flattered you would accuse me of such a thing."  The spirit's body rotated until his chest aimed at the same direction his face was.  "But I'm afraid to tell you that I had no part of it.  My hands are clean."

He showed the palms of his eagle talon and lion paw.  They were so clean they practically reflected the sunlight.

He lounged back onto the branch.  "And besides," Discord continued, "it's nothing the pegasi can't handle."

I lifted a finger and opened my mouth to retort, but the god of chaos did have a point.  I lowered my finger, only then to raise it back up.  "Well what about my dear Shy and the others?"

"What about them?"

"So you don't know?" I cocked a quizzed brow.  "Their cutie marks got switched; Rainbow Dash has my daughter's cutie mark, while my daughter has Pinkie Pie's cutie mark.  Everything has gone haywire!  From what I've been told nobody, even alicorns like Celestia herself, can't tamper a pony's cutie mark.  Twilight theorized something more powerful than an alicorn could be capable of such.  So, care to explain?"

I caught Discord's attention once more.  However he seemed to be more intrigued.  "Is that so?"  The spirit snapped his finger, vanishing and reappearing right beside me.  "We-he-he-ll.  In all the years of my immortal life, this surprises me.  I've been surprised before but this would be the first time I'm legitimately shocked.  The elements must be quite distraught.  Their cutie marks switched, having no idea what to do outside their element?  Why didn't I think of that earlier before?  I digress.  I must applaud the fellow for a job well done.  Jolly good show!"

"Wha?" I blinked, twice.  I rubbed my temples in aggravating confusion.  "Okay, I'm kind of confused here.  Are you telling me that you're not responsible for the unstable clouds and the cutie mark switch?"

Suddenly there were party blowers as I was showered with a cascade of yellow confetti.

"Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  We have a winner here, Johnny!" Discord chimed uproariously aloud.

Unfazed, I crossed my arms and glowered.  "Regardless," I began, "if you're not the one who started this whole mess, you still have the power to fix it."

"I do, don't I," Discord boastfully admitted.

"So why don't you do it?"

Discord rolled his eyes.  "Sorry if I rain on your parade, Rick," he said as he conjured a small rain cloud above me, yet not a sign of a single raindrop descended, "but I am forbid to do anything because Princess Celestia," he mockingly recited the name in a regal accent, "wishes me to lay low for today."

My glowering demeanor was wiped away and to be replaced with an inquisitive one.  "For what apparent reason?" I asked.

The spirit thrusted a lion's finger in front of my face, waving it back and forth like a metronome.  "Ah, ah, ah," he clicked his tongue, "that reason is only for me and her to know and for you to find out."

I curtly raised my arms in the air dismissively.  "Okay.  Fine.  But I'm still mad at you for what you did earlier.  I mean, did you have any idea how bad my heartrate was going?  Did you consider the fact my phobia of escalating heights could've wrought a heart attack?  Seriously.  My heart hammered against my chest so hard it felt like it was going to burst right out of it!"

Discord blatantly shrugged as a reciprocation.  "Oh I don't know about that.  I mean, it was out of fun, right?"

The minute Discord said that asinine comment, I shot him a glare as if my eyes were sharpened daggers.  A stare which nearly rivalled my daughter's.  Yes, my daughter once pulled out 'The Stare' (as she profoundly calls it) on me.  It was way back when I tried giving her animal crackers.  Admittedly saying if looks could kill, by george Fluttershy's could have easily done so.  I mean, damn.  Rainbow Dash's glare earlier had nothing on Fluttershy's.  Even as her father, I dreaded whenever she'd use that authoritative stare of hers again.

"Fun?  Fun?!" I repeated with an angry stomp.  "A prank is only funny when the prankster and the pranked laugh!  Do I look like I'm laughing?!"

"Well," Discord took a talon and groomed his goatee thoughtfully, "I guess I might have gone a little overboard."

"Overboard?!  More like you took it to the extreme!" I snapped.  "And what was with that stunt?  Making me fall from a bajillion feet high!  Teleporting would've sufficed enough without undergoing such a horrific experience!"

"Relax, Rick," Discord replied calmly.  "It wasn't as if I would voluntarily let you hit the ground.  What sort of monster do you take me for?"

"A mutant freak with a lion paw, an eagle talon for arms, a mane of a donkey, I think.  An antler of a deer and that one..." I briefly paused trying to decipher his other horn.  "I don't know what that other horn is."

"A blue goat horn," Discord said flatly.

"Whatever.  What I know is you have a head of a horse and a body of different animals. Where I originally come from, we would call that a monstrosity; an abomination."

Discord poofed up a plain-white handkerchief, padding it against his watery eyes which I presumed I hurted his feelings.  "Why..." he sniffed.  "Why that's some of the nicest things anyone has ever called me."

"For pete's sake!" I grumbled heatedly.  "That wasn't a complement- you- you know what, forget it," I huffed, and twirled around, my back now facing Discord.  I stuck my nose in the air pointedly.  "How did I even become friends with you in the first place?"

Discord teleported in front of me, his face inches from mine.  "Is it because of my good looks?" he snarkily queried, wiggling his eyebrows.

I rolled my eyes.  "I highly doubt that'd be the reason," I scoffed as I again swiveled away from his goofy face.  "Plus, nobody in Ponyville would ever ask somebody such as you out," I added.

"Now you're just deliberately twying to hurt my widdle feewings," Discord spoke in a baby's voice.  Stubborn as he was, he reappeared before me in a bright flash.  He stood straightly upright how a british guard would stand outside his queen's castle.  He placed his lion arm behind his back and offered his eagle claw for a handshake.  This was highly unusual for Discord to behave so... normal.  It's kind of disturbing, actually.  "But I suppose I should indulge myself to say I sincerely apologize for performing such an act.  Why not we forget it ever happened and let bygones be bygones."

I stared at his claw, then his face, then back to the claw.  I stretched my lips to a forgiving smirk and grabbed his hand firmly in acceptance.  "Tch.  Sure, why not," I said, shaking my hand up and down twice.

I pulled my hand away, only to realize that I literally yanked his arm off of his body.

Both of Discord's cheeks started inflating like a puffed up pufferfish.

I cracked a wry smile and said, "Well that's disarming."