Chapter Text
Prologue
Once upon a time, there was a land called Equestria. Its inhabitants were happy and everyone lived together in harmony and peace.
Sounds positively, downright DULL, doesn’t it?
The thing about peace is, nothing ever changes; it is relentless in its unwavering stability and firm in its consistency. People become complacent. Idle.
Boring.
Chaos is none of these things.
Chaos, bored with peace and unhappy at maintaining the status quo, decided that it was time for a change, and quite a drastic one. And so it did just that.
Deciding that the most drastic thing it could do would be to change itself, Chaos gave itself a physical form - made up of all sorts of different creatures - and a name just as grand.
Discord, Lord of Chaos.
It descended on Equestria and delighted in turning everything and everyone topsy-turvy. The land became a giant purple checkerboard, roads turned into soapy water that made everyone slip and slide around, only to turn into rivers of honey that got them instantly stuck. Clouds grew giant thorns and zipped through the skies or turned into sticky cotton candy that rained chocolate milk. Everyone’s left shoe went missing, people would be walking along the street only to suddenly start tap-dancing, or have the biggest urge to dig into the dirt like a dog.
They wallowed, full of misery as Discord laughed and revelled in its new and glorious freedom.
But harmony would not be so easily cowed into submission.
For you see, harmony had always known that chaos would rise once more to wreak havoc and spread disharmony; theirs was an ancient fight, fought many times before. And in its unpredictability, chaos had done the one thing it hated more than anything; it had become predictable.
And so, harmony had also given itself a physical form: that of a tree, strong and sturdy, with roots that reached far and wide. It bore magical stones that contained magical aspects of harmony; when brought together, these aspects could be wielded to combat disharmony and darkness.
They were named, the Elements of Harmony.
Six wielders were chosen, each with an inner trait that represented an Element of Harmony. Together, they stood against the evils of the land that Discord had unleashed in his chaos, sacrificing themselves in an attempt to contain one such evil, known as the Creature of Shadows.
Two sisters, former students of one of the previous bearers, rose up in their stead and took on the mantel of wielders of the elements. Using their own powerful magic, they challenged the Lord of Chaos, who did little more than laugh in the face of their ultimatum, convinced of his own superiority.
But in its desperation for change, chaos had given itself the one thing it did not have before.
It gave itself a physical body and in doing so, gained a weakness.
And in his folly, Discord was defeated, his physical form turned to stone by the Elements and the two sisters who wielded them.
And so, peace was brought upon the land once again, the two sisters ruling side by side until jealousy and bitterness broke them apart and in doing so, broke their connection and ability to wield the Elements.
Discord, quietly seething in his cold, stone prison, hearing and seeing all but unable to touch or interact, felt this disturbance, this break in the magic and a malicious sort of glee rose up inside it. He knew that it wouldn’t be long till he could rise again, that it was only a matter of time before its chains would crumble to dust and he would be free once more. And so it did something it had never done once in its entire manifestation.
It waited.
He waited patiently, biding his time, feeling the magical ebbs and flows of the world, the strong pulse of new magic when new Element bearers were found, the bond between them connecting and cementing deep inside him.
He would always know, would always have that connection, however much he despised it. He was the Yin to harmony’s yang; harmony and disharmony, accord and Discord, order and chaos. There would never be one without the other.
And so, he waited until one day, almost an eternity later, he was released; thanks to the rambunctiousness of three hot-headed little girls, ignorant of what their bickering had unleashed on the world.
Free from his stone bodysuit, Discord stretched his coils in the sunlight, cracked his stiff, aching joints, unfurled his giant, mismatched wings....and hid.
With a snap of his claws, Discord disappeared into the Everfree Forest, a place of old magic that no-one with a lick of sense ever ventured. A place as wild and as free as himself, where he could lay low and gather his strength, waiting for the perfect time to reclaim what was his.
And so, amongst the natural chaos of the forest, Discord made his home, his name once legendary now seeping slowly into myth.
And there he waited.
For the perfect butterfly to come along, flap their wings and unleash the whirlwind of chaos that was Discord upon the world once more.