Prologue: Reality in a Fallacy
~Jealous Guy~
~Prologue~
~Reality in a Fallacy~
The childish Discord wandered the woods, looking for his two friends he was sure to be somewhere around, but nowhere to be found at the moment. Though he’d looked all morning, they just didn’t show up. He considered the possibility of them just avoiding him, playing their little games as always, but they usually did that after at least mingling with him first. He turned his head past the rays shining through and illuminating the dust that lofted by his head and brought his talon to his bottom lip. “Celly...? Lulu?”
He looked down, the poor being suddenly getting a sinking feeling in his gut, but that was quickly cured by the sound of wings stirring the air just above his head. He glanced up to see the young filly princess, Celestia glide down and land gracefully right in front of him. Her pink and glorious mane swished through the cool air resembling waves in the ocean currents, and her eyes focused upon Discord while a smile beamed at him, creating a euphoric sense within his heart. “You called?” she asked.
“I was beginning to get a little worried! Where’ve you been?”
Celestia walked in circles around the Draconequus while giggling, “I was on my way. You shouldn’t get so worried, you know.”
Discord just peered to the left, then the right and questioned, “Uhh... where’s your sister?”
“Don’t worry,” she chanted while passing by his back. “She’ll be around.”
Discord felt her fondly rub herself against his left side and sit with him, her cheek resting on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and kindly leaned on her as well. With birds chirping in the far off distance and peacefulness all around them, the two sat in the clearing, enjoying each other’s company. Discord wrapped his claw around his young, royal friend and said, “I hope these days never end...”
Out of nowhere, Luna interrupted the leisure time they were sharing by yelling from her perch atop a tree branch, “Thy make such a cute couple, ‘tis a shame we must disrupt thou.”
Celestia stepped forward and yelled, “There you are! You’re so slow when it comes to flying.”
Discord, blushing furiously asked Luna, “What do you mean by that?!”
She lifted her frame a few inches and came swirling down the tree while flying around it and skimming her right fore hoof along its ridged bark. As she landed, pushing some dirt up as she did, she taunted, “Thou lovebirds are just so adorable, how couldn’t we tease?”
Celestia giggled at this while Discord fumed in embarrassment. His thick eyebrows lowered at her statement. “Cut it. We’re j-just friends.”
Celestia looked at the young being and asked, “Oh, but Dissy, what if I want to be more than that?” She inched closer to him, the look of desire her eyes held forcing his face to flush.
Luna then used her magic to counter her sister’s flirtatious ways. Her star-laden mane fluffed into a pink, cotton candy-like style while she mimicked her sister, “Dissy, we’re so beautiful and tempting, how could thy resist?!”
Discord barely managed to stop himself from bursting into a fit of laughter while Celestia sarcastically uttered, “That’s not funny, stop it!”
Believing Celestia to be truly upset, Discord put away his smile and tried to defended her with, “Uh, yeah Luna. That’s not cool.” The sun princess turned towards the Draconequus and listened attentively. “Besides, Celestia’s just fooling around, right?” He stared at her with an unsure expression.
Discord’s secret crush batted her eyes at him with a coy smile and uttered, “Perhaps this will convince you otherwise...”
Her muzzle came close to his as she leaned in, and with a mere kiss right on the lips, young Luna dropped her jaw at the action, and Discord was shot clean out of his dream.
He awoke in his room, lifted his upper torso up and gazed at the dimly lit, dying candle on his desk as it remained burning away. The fiend raised his paw to hold his sweating head and whispered to himself, “Wonderful... Another dream. This is getting old, real fast.”
For the last few weeks, Discord had been having terrible nightmares involving his dark past. Memories of his days with the young filly princesses drifted in unwanted, but still thoroughly fogged his dreams. The former master of chaos often tossed and turned in the night, wishing for there to be some sort of relief to the traumatic images he relapsed seemingly every evening. “At least this one wasn’t quite as... vivid,” he muttered to himself. “But still, if this doesn’t stop, I’ll continue to lose my hold over these chaotic powers of mine, and that won’t be good for anyone.”
He looked around his room, azure paint decorating the walls and pictures of him with either Celestia or Luna mounted on almost every visible side. One photo was different, though; it was the only frame that didn’t hang. It sat at his elegant looking desk and held Fluttershy’s image in the round gap, displaying her kind expression. He slowly swung the blankets away and approached the picture to lift it up with his talon. Her smiling muzzle showed great happiness while her adorable eyes gazed at him and held the tranquil aura commonly found with the timid Pegasus pony. Placing it back down, he blinked and asked, “Fluttershy... What’s happening to me?”
Without an answer, something he desperately required, he opened the door leading out to the balcony and sauntered into the moonlight. Bathing himself in its wondrous glow, his stare remained facing the luminous orb in the sky while his paw and claw rested on the railings. He sighed before feeling the lunar princess land on the balcony, a few feet behind him. “I’m not in the mood, Luna.”
She just stood there, waiting for him to respectively turn and give her his undivided attention. As he leaned around and sat on the handlebars, she said, “You’ve been having those rather lude dreams again...”
“Of course, why else would I be up at such a late hour?” He averted his eyes with an annoyed expression. “Curse my conscious irregularity... If it wasn’t for that, I’m almost positive you’d be able to help me by entering in and-”
Luna silenced his sentence with her armoured hoof, sealing his lips for a bit with its cold touch. “You know this is your problem, Discord, not mine. We’re both aware of how many times I’ve tried. Countless times I’ve attempted to reach your state of slumber, but it’s beyond my magic’s capabilities; you and I know this now... Besides, I doubt I could help you. This seems to be a subconscious thing for you. The answers you seek aren’t going to be obtained so easily from anyone but yourself.”
Discord rubbed his head with his paw, looked at her and said, “It’s nothing I’ve done so far... Honestly Luna, I‘ve been reformed and to try and keep a thorough struggle against my chaotic magic is proving more troublesome each and every day. No matter how many times I make an effort to sleep it off, I wake up feeling weaker. It’s as though my will for destruction is sliding right out of my control despite all I’ve done to... to... ”
His eyes squinted shut, and his other appendage gripped his head before both Discord and Luna heard a cracking sound from behind the alicorn. The fiend looked behind his companion to see broken glass in one of the many square pieces of the door leading back to his room. Luna turned as well and used her magic to enchantingly restore the shards to their former shape, repairing the pane in the process. “Calm yourself, my friend. The more your anger rises, the less mental control you have.”
Discord looked out at the horizon and stared for a few brief moments towards the peak of the mountain. The silver lining that shimmered through the fog was illuminated from the moon’s luminescent glow. He glanced back at Luna and questioned, “What should I do?”
Luna shook her head and claimed, “I do not know... Maybe, it’s truly best for you to simply try and sleep it off. Hopefully, the answers will come to you in your slumber.”
Discord walked past her as he exited the balcony before whispering to her, “This isn’t sleep. This is a slow and steady jog up the path of chaotic thoughts and actions; a place I’d rather not return to again.” The being turned to see Luna gone while the door remained open. Shutting it with his tail, he glanced back to his inviting bed and asked himself, “How far must I venture...? How close must I get to the flames of ruin just to stomp them out permanently?”
