Felix was out for his daily walk-aimlessly-around-ponyville, trying to enjoy what little winter dun there was before it would disappear below the horizon again. Despite it being early afternoon, the sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows across the snow-covered ground. Felix could see his breath tinged orange in the light.

Until it was purple.

Most creatures would panic at this; something was clearly wrong. Were they sick? Hallucinating? Something in the air?

Felix had been through this before though. Well, not exactly this; but after a lifetime of random things like this popping up about four times a year, his mind immediately went to a reasonable explanation.

“Discord?” he asked. Happily, to his own surprise. “You there?”

His cloud of purple breath grew and snaked out, until a familiar mishmash of features popped into existence in front of him.

“Felix, my dear son-of-friend! How are you doing?” Discord asked as soon as his mouth had formed. He snapped his paw, and Felix suddenly found himself sitting on a sofa in front of a fireplace with a hot cocoa in his claws. “You look chilly, why not have some more movement?”

Felix grinned, and sipped on the drink; Discord’s creations were always edible to him, for some reason, so this was one of his few chances of actually tasting chocolate. The sofa was room temperature, and the fireplace was connected to nothing but you had to ignore little details like that when dealing with chaos.

“I’m doing okay, ” Felix said, after he’d swallowed the mouthful of warm sweetness. “Thank you for the chocolate!”

“Oh, t’was nothing!” A thermos appeared in front of Felix. “Why not take some to go as well? Consider it an you-are-an-arbitrary-length-of-time-older present!”

Felix smiled again, wider than he had in a long time. Discord’s visit usually ranged from annoying -when he popped up while Felix needed to do something else- to really fun -when Felix was bored. And right now, he could really really use some chaos and fun in his life. It was also just nice to see him again, considering-

“Where have you been? It’s been like, a year, since I saw you last!”

Discord fumbled around a bit. “Well, you know. Here and there.” His torso grew an extra set of forelimbs which pointed in different directions. “Where and why.” More limbs pointing. “When and who and why and sometimes.” He now resembled a tree with all of his limbs pointing in different directions. “…I lost track of time.” He finished, and the tuft on his tail snapped, making colorful lights and tinsel appear on his arms, as well as a glowing star replacing his horn and antlers. “But I would never forget my the holiday of my favourite sort-of-nephew’s birthday!”

“It’s not even midwinter yet!” Felix laughed. “You’re over a moon early for Hearth’s Warming!”

“..well, I guess I really did lose track of time.” Discord’s extra limbs disappeared with a pop. “How old will you be anyway? Are you an adult yet? You seem like you’re not done growing.” He shrank down to Felix’ size and sat down beside him. “Yuck, how do you stand being this short? You can’t even properly loom over anyone! …Except maybe frogs.”

Felix shoved him off of the couch. “You’re just weirdly giant, you big noodle.”

Discord shifted into spaghetti. “That’s pasta-ist, I’ll have you know.” He then grabbed his tail, stuck it in his mouth, and began to slurp it down. It seemed to be just one long strand of spaghetti.

“That’s disgusting,” Felix groaned, and took a swig of his drink. “And yeah, of course I’m an adult. I’m just a bit short.”

With a ‘pling’, Discord’s spaghetti ended and the end smacked him on the muzzle. About half of his tail was gone by that point. “Ah, good, that’s…

His tail regrew with snap, and he stopped being pasta. “That’s good.

Felix brows furrowed. “Why is that good?”

“Weeelll,” Discord snapped a rocking chair into existence and settled into it. “From spying on parents, I’ve been told you’re supposed to wait to tell kids some stuff about their biology until they’re ‘older’.” Discord frowned and created a mug for himself to sip from as well. “Not that anyone specified what those things were or how old ‘older’ is, so I figured I’d be safe and that adulthood was probably good enough.”

“Oh, uh, what age they mean depends a bit on—” What Discord had said finally caught up with him. “Wait, no. What have you not told me before??”

Felix knew he’d been created by Discord, and that’s why he was so unique. Noone had said it outright, but he also knew Discord’s general… ineptitude at making orderly stuff was most likely the reason his body was so chaotic and prone to issues. He’d used to feel a bit conflicted about that, but had since figured that it wouldn’t do to dwell on it. Discord was bad at understanding what other people actually wanted and needed, acted on what he thought was best, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it now. It also helped that Discord had seemed really apologetic and had actually asked Twilight for advice the next time he wanted to do a big surprise for Fluttershy.

So he had been pretty much over the entire created-by-chaos thing…

Until now, apparently. There was something Discord had kept from him?

Discord winced. “Well, it’s nothing that important. Just… you know I made you by combining the build-a-body-information of Fluttershy and her griffon?”

“Mum’s got a name, you know.” Felix squinted suspiciously at him. “And… yeah?”

“You ever wonder why you have such problems controlling your magic?”

Felix paused. “Not really? I assumed it was just me being me.” But now, his heart froze. “You— you’re saying it’s not?”

Discord looked away and took a bite from his cup. It crunched as he chewed on it, seeming to try and buy time. Felix gripped his cup, and kept his spine ramrod straight on the plush couch, bracing for whatever Discord was planning on revealing.

“I mean, it is you being you, but you…. don’t completely know you?” Discord scratched his head. “Does that sentence make sense? Anyway; story time.”

He suddenly held a book, and opened it to show Felix… something. It seemed to be a mess of colors and lines, scribbled randomly on the pages.

“This is an example of my first attempts to mix your mothers material. As you can see here, it did not work very well.” Discord said, pointing to one random line in the mess.

Felix could not see that, but decided to not point that out so that Discord would continue.

“The different bits did not want to join together and everything fell apart at the slightest touch. And I couldn’t get it to stay together; as soon as I let go of the cell and waited for it to replicate itself, it just became basically just full of…” He grinned at Felix. “…spaghetti!”

Discord seemed to think the callback to their earlier conversation was hilarious, but Felix didn’t much feel like laughing. Discord’s smile slipped from his face.

“Fine then, serious time. I had an idea! Chaos magic can do a lot of things, including making things work which really shouldn’t by your knowledge of the universe. But I couldn’t keep you together with my magic all the time, I’d lose focus in less than a week. So I, uh…” he gave Felix a sheepish grin and flipped a page. It showed a two-colored spiral ladder, with a strange semi-see-through third strand weaving in and out of the ladder. “I may have… pulled out a part of my build-a-spirit information and smushed it into the ones given by your moms.”

Felix dropped the mug, which bounced off of the couch and splashed his legs and tail.

“That’s why you can’t control some of your magic the normal way; it’s not actually unicorn magic your channeling and chaos doesn't really do control.” Discord slammed the book close, and threw it over his shoulder. “And that was all, storytime over!”

Felix finally realised his jaw was hanging open, so he snapped it shut and leapt out of the sofa like it burned.

“WAIT, wait wait—!”, he felt his fur stand on end in agitation. “What the absolute BUCK, Discord?!”

Discord shrugged and folded his front legs. “Would you have preferred to fall apart? It was either chaos or nothing bucko.” He sniffed and turned his nose up.

“Th- that’s not the point! Discord how can—” Felix tugged at his ears in agitation. “I’m related to you?!”

“Oh,” Discords front legs fell to hang at his side again. “That’s what you’re hung up about? Not the being-part-chaos thing?”

“I can only try to deal with one thing at a time, don’t make me think about that too!”

Discord cocked his head. “Really, you can’t multi-thread? But it’s so easy, you just split your thoughts! And then you can panic at all the things you want at once.”

Felix threw a clawful of snow into his face.

“Rude.” Discord brushed it off. “But yes, fine, if we go by your fleshy definitions I suppose so.” He tapped at his chin with a claw. “Not that my kind of spirit really do ‘family’ or ‘relations’ in the sense you’re thinking of it.”

Felix sighed, and buried his head into the snow. It felt cold and nice on his oncoming headache, and shut out some of the sounds of Discord’s ramblings.

He eventually had to surface for air again, and was right back face-to-face with a very confused Discord.

“Just just felt like trying to bury yourself? That wasn’t a very good attempt I must inform you; the snow is much to shallow here. Ooh, do you want me to make more? I can make it mustard flavoured!”

Felix gripped Discord around his muzzle to shut him up. “Please. Please stop talking. I am trying to process a lot of new stuff, and you are making that very hard.”

Discord’s mouth grew legs and walked away.

“Okay, good.” Felix took a deep breath. “Good, good, good, good. Some questions? One; will this affect me further in the future? Am I gonna…” he waved a claw around. “Grow new body parts, or become radioactive or something?”

The mouth returned and jumped into place. “No idea. Magic eight ball says no, but you can never be completely sure with chaos.”

That was not very reassuring. Whatever; panic later, trying to get information now. “Okay. Two then; if I don’t have unicorn magic, why am I part unicorn?”

“Easy, you’re not.”

“I’m.. I’m not?”

“Nope.” Discord seemed to have grown bored, and was floating around aimlessly, answering Felix’ questions without even looking in his direction. “You’re just part pegasus part griffin. It’s sad you didn’t get wings from both sides, you would have looked very interesting.”

Felix ignored that last part. “Then… why do I have a unicorn horn? Or —oh, is it from you? Why didn’t I get two then?”

Discord’s head snapped around to look at him. “Oh, no, that’s not from me.” He gave Felix a very fake looking grin. “I mean, um… I’m not real! Well, my body is real but it’s not mine, at least. So you can’t inherit from it.”

Felix blinked.

“…Okay, look, it’s just a costume.” And with that, Discord collapsed on the ground. His eyes were open, staring unblinkingly at Felix, and his body completely limp. Too limp and too unblinkingly.

Training made Felix jump forwards and put his ear next to Discord’s mouth. No breath.

Panicked now, he pressed his nose up into Discord’s neck, right below his jaw; no pulse either.

He rushed down Discord’s neck to where his chest was, and tried to feel where his rib cage ended. His claws gripped together in a fist, as he opened his mouth to scream for—

“Oh, hush now. I’m fine, see?” Discord’s voice echoed inside Felix’ head, and he whipped it around to find where it was coming from. But Discord was nowhere to be found, except for the limp… body? In front of him.

“I told you, that’s just a suit I wear. You fleshy people can’t seem to take me seriously without it.” Discord's voice said again. It was too close and didn’t seem to come from any direction. “I am surprised the same seems to hold true for you though. Thought your chaos magic would let you perceive me.”

“Wh- where are you?” Felix stammered, twirling around on the spot. “I can’t see you!”

“Close your stupid flesh eyes then, and try to actually…. Okay, so there isn’t a good word for it in your language. The closest is ‘see’, but then you’ll just try to perceive light. …Some earth horsey settlements further north and south used to have words for it in their languages, but… hmm, this is hard. Why does your language have to have so many limits and rules?”

“What?” Was all Felix could ask, helplessly.

“You know what, we’ll call it ‘grok’.”

Felix felt his eyelids close against his will.

“Now, I’ve made myself extra, uh, grokable, so try to grok me. I’m about as grokable right now as an actual sun is visible from two trots away, so it should be easy.”

Felix was about fifty-fifty on whether or not this was a dream at this point, so he gave up on trying to understand it. Trying to relax, he looked, and saw the inside of his own eyelids.

“What part of don’t use your flesh-eyes did you not understand? Do you also try to see wind and heat when you’re flying?”

Well, no, he sensed them with his flight magic. It was hard to do; his horn tended to overshadow other means of controlling magic, but he had learned to focus on his wings when using flight magic.

So, he should do the same… but with his uni- uhh. Chaos magic? Stars, that felt weird to even think.

He wasn’t sure how long he tried to do something with his chaos magic -long enough that someone, probably Discord, had started to drop snow on his head- but eventually, he felt… something. He really lacked the words to describe it; like the time he tried to explain the feel that came with flight magic to Moony. But there sure was… something. Right in front of him.

“You know what, we’ll call that good enough for now. I’m bored.” Discord’s voice said, and Felix could open his eyes again. “You are really bad at new things, did you know that? I have to spell it out for you before you even attempt to try it. Really, no one will guess you have chaos in you.”

Discord -or Discord’s literal body suit??- was still laying limp in front of him. But another creature now also stood next to him, leaning in close to his face. It was made of snow; a round body with four appendages. A crab leg, a tentacle and a flipper under it, with a long ‘tail’ made from floating snowballs. It also had a ‘head’ made from a small chair with three eyes.

Felix felt like screaming again.

“Nono, shush, it's just me again.” A mouth opened in the chair, and Discord’s voice drifted out. “Just wanted to show that I dress in almost anything. I just keep my old body because you people are used to it.”

And with that, the snow-Discord collapsed and the normal Discord rose as if someone had inflated him like a balloon. “So as you can see, your body shouldn’t be based on this body in any way, because this body isn’t me. And even if it could be, I wasn’t wearing it when I snipped a bit of me off.”

Felix sat down in the snow with a soft thump. “I want to go to bed. …Unless I’m there.” He drew a deep breath to yell. “Princess Luna, am I dreaming!?”

Discord gave himself a blue wig with twinkling stars in it. “No, thou art very much awake.”

“Oh. Well, buck then.” Felix laid back in the snow. “It would have been easier.”

He laid there for a few minutes, watching Discord entertain himself by making small snow-creatures and having them play baseball with each other. There didn’t seem to be any real rules, as one team won by eating the other.

“Wait a second!” Felix shot up again, throwing snow up with the violent action. “You didn't answer: If I’m not part unicorn, and I didn’t inherit my horn from you, then why in tartarus do I have it!?”

The snow creature Discord had been modeling exploded in a shower of flakes. He stared at Felix.

“…chaos!” He finally said, eyes now shifting to dart around wildly, never glancing in Felix direction.

Felix jumped to stand up and jabbed a claw in Discords direction. “You- you’re lying! Why are you lying?” He threw his arms into the air and yelled out. “How can there be even more secrets you haven’t told me!!?”

Discord literally shrank under Felix’ angry glare. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Felix glared harder, his back paw scraping the ground in anger. Discord shrank even more, sweat beginning to drip from him. Felix glared even harder; not realising just how much he looked like Fluttershy at that moment.

That resemblance may have been the actual reason Discord finally cracked.

“Okay. Okay! There is more…” Discord regrew to his normal size, and pushed Felix down onto the chair which had previously been a head. “But you’ll have to promise to sit down as I tell you.”


And with some more attempts at stalling and one at bribing… Discord told Felix what had happened.


Once he was done, he sat uncharacteristically silent and still, waiting for Felix’ reaction.



Felix fainted.


——-


When he woke up again, Discord had left, leaving behind an impossibly warm inflatable mattress which Felix had been placed on. That suited Felix nicely; he wasn’t sure what he’d do or say to Discord right now, and present enough to recognize that whatever it would be, it wouldn’t be a good idea. He needed to process this …entire thing, first.

There was also the sudden realisation he needed to deal with; he wasn’t the only one involved who deserved to know.

He started to walk.

Somehow he’d made his way to the castle. He must have looked like crap, because Twilight had immediately tried to bundle him up in blankets and ask Spike to fetch Fluttershy.

Felix stopped them though, and spent at least twenty minutes convincing her and Spike that he was fine; he’d just had an upsetting encounter with Discord. He didn’t have to tell them exactly what the encounter had entailed, luckily, as they seemed to just accept ‘Discord’ as a valid reason for it in and of itself.

Eventually he managed to calm them, and himself, down enough to ask to use their telephone. They agreed and left him alone; they probably assumed he wanted to see if he could reach Moony to talk about his encounter. Which, yes, was technically true, but not for the reason they thought.

He took a breath —then another and another, until he forced himself to stop before it became hyperventilation. He had to tell her.

Adjusting the earmount to be comfortable, he switched the telephone on. In some versions you had a pedal to step on too, to notify the operator —but this one was made for royalty. It had a second battery for that. So he just waited in forced calm as the dial tone rang into his ears.

A ‘click’ and the tone stopped. “Yes, how can I help you?” a voice asked.

He had to wet his lips before responding. “I need to make a long distance call. To Manehattan.”

“Of course. May I have the number you wish to call?”

“132-5564”

“Thank you. I will contact the Manehattan office to set this up for you; once it is finished I will call you back. It should take less than half an hour. Do you have any questions?”

The operator spoke a thousand words a minute, clearly reading from an internal script they had memorized. Felix reeled for a second, was about to answer ‘no’, then remembered something.

“Uh, their telephone is a communal one in a common area, so there might not be someone there to hear it. But this is very important. Is there some way you can set it up so I can keep calling them every half hour or something until someone picks up?”

The operator was quiet for a second, before responding. “…yes, we should be able to arrange that. Any other questions?”

Felix said no, and clicked the phone off once the line went dead again. He was almost certain a big part of them agreeing was that they could see he was calling from the castle. Whatever, this was important enough that he felt justified in abusing his friend’s power just a little.

He hoped Moony was home. She might be at school. Did the university have telephones on campus? He would assume so. Then again, they would probably be public pay-phones…

Wait, so was the stupid communal phone! He hadn’t thought about that; everyone living in the building could see anyone else speaking to someone.

Plus, a small part of his mind whispered. Even if she had a private one, is this really the type of news you tell someone over the phone?

But he couldn’t…

He had an idea, based on something Discord said. He didn’t want to think about it, and his memories of it were very jumbled despite them just happening some hours ago. Still, one bit stuck out in his mind for some reason. About him needing to have things spelled out…

It was worth a try. For Moonstone, at least.

He called the operator back.

“I apologise, I have not—”

“Sorry, sorry, but you can cancel my last request.” He felt a bit bad for cutting them off, but figured it was the best way to get one word in edgewise. “I’ll… be going in person to speak with her instead.”

Deep breath Felix.

“Could you instead connect me to— sorry I don’t know their number. The ponyville train station?”

“Of course.” The operator disappeared with a ‘click’, and Felix could only hear his own breathing and the beeping from the earpiece as the train station’s telephone rang. He hoped, he hoped that it was—

“Ponyville train station, how may I help you?” A familiar voice said. It was Time Tracker working there today!

“Hi,” Felix said shyly. “I’m, I’m—”

He couldn’t speak. He turned around to just walk away… and there was no one there. He was all alone in an empty room. No one could see him.

“Hello?” Time Tracker said again, his voice coming thin through the earpiece.

Felix grabbed the ear- and mouthpiece off their hooks, and sat down against the wall so he could see the room.

“Sorry,” he spoke. “Just… had to adjust the telephone.”

He could hang up if it got too much.

“It’s Felix. Do you remember me? The, uh, pony-cat—”

“Felix! Of course I remember you.” Tracker’s voice was warm and cheerful, albeit very careful. “What can I do you for?”

Felix swallowed. “Do you have time for a… long conversation? I need to ask a lot of questions…”

Trackers voice laughed. “Of course! I have nothing but time at this time of day. You’ll be saving me from falling asleep.” He laughed, some of the boom of the sound disappearing with the poor audio quality.

“No, really, it’s a lot of questions.” Felix started to flex his claws, stopped, and then realised Tracker couldn’t see him. So he flexed them as he spoke. “You see, I—”

“Yes?”

“…I get …nervous, in new situations.” That was putting it mildly. “That’s why I, um, that’s why…”

Tracker's voice was gentle. “That’s what happened last time you came by then? There’s nothing to be ashamed of, son, everyone has their own fears and problems.” He chuckled. “Me, I’m terrified of spiders. My partner has to carry them outside every time they enter our house, because I will not come down from atop the pantry when they’re in there.”

Felix smiled a bit. “Y- yeah, that’s what happened. But now I really really need to get to Manehattan. So I thought…”

“Yes? Anything I can do to help, just say the word.”

“Can you describe to me exactly how my trip from start to finish will go? Including the things that can go wrong and what I should do in that case?” He said it in a rush of air, and then held his breath, hoping.

Tracker didn’t say anything for a second, and Felix was starting to worry that he was trying to let him down gently. But then; “Yeah, I can do that. Hey, if you can tell me where in Manehattan you’re planning to go, I can probably even tell you how to deal with that maze of a city too while I’m at it.”

Felix felt a bit lightheaded from relief, and let out a gust of air into the mouthpiece.

“Yeah, it’s not a problem at all, helping folks with their trips is what I’m here for!” Tracker sounded so cheerful Felix couldn’t help but smile too. “Just one thing; this might take a while, so if I get a customer here at the station I’ll have to deal with them. Same thing if someone else rings during our call. But I can call you right back afterwards; does that work?”

“Y- yeah!” Felix said. “Of course! Um, the number I’m calling from is 001-00001.”

Tracker whistled. “Now that’s easy to remember at least. Now, are you ready to start?”

“Just a second!” Felix shot up and grabbed a bunch of papers and pens from a nearby desk; there were always an abundance of them everywhere in the apartment. “Yeah, now I am; just got something to write notes on.”

“Good idea. Now, let’s start with the absolute first step. Picking what trains to take; there are several ways to go to Manehattan from here. There are two trains which are a straight shot there, and three you can take from Canterlot if you don’t mind a switch. If you’re new to trains, I suggest the ones which go directly from here; they actually take a bit longer, since they’re stopping at more places, but they’re easier since you just have one train to keep track of. One leaves in the morning and arrives in the afternoon, and one leaves at around dinnertime and…”

Step by step he described how Felix’ journey would look like. How he would tell which seat was his, how the people working on the train would walk by a lot without doing anything, except for one time when they would ask for his ticket. What would happen if he lost his ticket. How to find to ask them questions if they hadn’t walked by for a while. If people would stare at him. How many stops the train would have, and how to know when it was his. What to do if he got off on the wrong one… He spoke a lot, but with each word Felix wrote down, he felt a little better.

He was still very worried: he had never done this before, and things could go wrong and— He didn’t have any first-hoof experience of these situations to lean on. He didn't know how—

Except, now he did know, at least somewhat. He had second-hoof experience, and that was good enough for him to dare to try with. And if this didn't work, he'd try a new approach.


He was going to Manehattan, somehow.