Daughters of Discord Chapter 3

Finding a town or village was not time consuming. However minor, the daily interactions of many sapients in one location caused enough of a blip on his chaosdar that finding a settlement shouldn't be hard.

And it wasn't hard, it was rather easy.

Which was why he was using his hands as a telescope to spy down on a rather quant village. "Well, those certainly aren't ponies or dragons. Almost griffons though." he noted with a scowl as he spied the wingless creatures. "Those are Keythongs. So I am definitely not in Equestria anymore. Buck, I must have teleported half-way across the planet. Well, at least we didn't teleport to any of the Underground realms."

He sat in the sky, crossing his arms as he sat on a cloud and stared down at the village in annoyance for existing. He was stuck with those fillies. Oh, sure, he could just let them go with the love-spawns of griffons and earth-ponies, but he couldn't recall if these creatures were choosey about their meals being sapient. Which lead back to the issue that he couldn't bring himself to leave them in a position where he couldn't reasonably expect them to survive once he left.

Well, he supposed he'd have to investigate.

He teleported behind a tree, brushing a talon over his head; the grey fur became grey feathers as his snaggle tooth grew into a beak. Tail shortening and thinning, body filling out for the bipedal build, his torso covered in feathers that were midnight blue in shade as his eyes flashed to green. His lion paw removed and duplicated itself, taking the place of his lower limbs as they shrunk away, another griffon talon growing in its former place.

"There, that should be low-key enough," he mused, coughing briefly as his voice changed and deepened. "Ahh, silly me, almost forgot," he said, popping off his wings, throwing them in the bushes. "I can always get a newer model of wings anyway," he joked to himself as he cracked his neck. "Now for the most unpleasant part of this whole charade: Walking. Ugh."

With that, he walked out of the tree line and made his way to the village.

Several things stood out. Namely there was a wall. Not a good one, just a small wooden barrier around the entire town, albeit with some houses outside.

The other thing was the half dozen keythongs outside the gate, soldiers judging by the bronze cuirasses they wore with small swords upon their backs.

"Halt! Who goes there?" one of them called.

"That depends, where do you guard?" Discord called back, feigning innocent curiosity.

"You stand before the walls of Bambeak! What business do you have here?" the guard demanded again.

"None. Just a traveler named Kyperion, looking for a place to rest my weary claws," he answered humbly.

"Come forth, but no sudden movements," they called back in warning.

Discord obeyed while hiding his growing interest. Why the defenses, the questions? And what more precautions did they have, exactly?

Still, he played his role well as he strolled forth, noticing how one of the keythongs picked up a nearby staff, one with a dark blue crystal.

They all eyed him cautiously from all sides once he reached the gate. He said nothing as they held the crystal over him.

It glowed, turning a slightly lighter shade of blue.

"He's clean. More mana than average, but he's one of us," the guard assured as they all relaxed.

Except one. "How do we know he's not a warlock?" the one asked suspiciously.

"You say that every time it glows like that," the staff-holder retorted with an eye roll.

Interesting. Annoying, but interesting. There was some kind of anti-magic sentiment among these mortals. Still, fooling magic-detection items was easy enough for him.

"Where are you from, Kyperion?" the captain asked neutrally.

"I'm from "Wherever is least suspicious,"" Discord answered casually, enchanting his very words as they entered their ears.

He managed not to smirk as their eyes briefly dulled. "Oh, so you're from Clawstaras. I haven't heard of that place in years," the captain said idly.

"That you've heard of it at all is a small miracle," Discord remarked in dry jest. "Small places don't suit me, it seems."

"You're brave or stupid to take up wandering in these times, stranger," the suspicious one said. "If a place doesn't have a reliable detector, they might just stab you to test if you're a shapeshifter."

"And hoping to be unnoticed in a small place in the middle of nowhere is so much safer than finding a place with actual defenses, eh?" Discord countered smoothly.

"Ha! He's got you there," one of the others remarked in good natured jest.

"You're free to go in. Just don't cause any trouble," the captain ordered.

"Thank you," Discord said in his false voice as he strolled in past the gates. The buildings were all vaguely similar to Esponian Architecture: Thick wall clad with stucco, small windows and all only one story. Wood support beams outside. There were a few two-story buildings toward the center of town, but that was about it.

His curious mood soured as he took in the atmosphere. It wasn't tense and miserable like a group being under constant attack. The gruffness of the griffons stayed with their wingless brothers and sisters, as every adult seemed perpetually displeased with expressions ranging from annoyed to vaguely curious, with a few stoic faces chucked in. Like the one selling meat, trying not to show how much he wanted each customer to finish their business and leave him alone, or the old-timer rocking in a chair, growling at anyone that so much as got close to him.

But there was something he didn't like about this place, and it wasn't the mood.

The empty stockades he passed near the town square might have something to do with it though. A lot of little pieces were beginning to form into a picture he wasn't fond of.

"News from the Interior! The Lady of Arathong, ousted as a witch! Read all about it!"

Discord had to admit though, as cliché as the little newspaper cub handing out papers was, it was still adorable…saccharinely so. But more importantly, it was convenient.

"I'll take one, kid," Discord said, materializing some copper coins in his hand, discretely.

"Thank you, Sir!" the child said cheerfully, in sharp contrast to the general mood, exchanging the paper.

Discord hummed as he opened the paper, seeing the image of a devastated and tied up female keythong being pelted with food as she was led through a mob like a beast.

'...Very far from Equestria. Is this an Inquisition against magicals over here?' Discord mentally wondered while trying not to scowl.

Or turn the entire town inside out.

He was rapidly running out of reasons not to.

'I should head back soon. Six fillies will cause trouble in no time when left alone,' he decided with a headshake, wondering what he'd do now.

Leaving them here wasn't a death sentence...at least, he was pretty sure it wasn't. That meat for sale had been non-sapient, he could tell that much. But, well, even if there wasn't some supposed shapeshifting enemies to worry about, he didn't see these keythong to be the types to help get six filly ponies back to their home country. And that was assuming they didn't take issue with the unicorns or even the pegasi.

Shaking his head, he made his way towards an alley, preparing to teleport- only to freeze in mid-step as he stared downwards at the ground. To the naked eye it was nothing, just plain dirt, but to one who could see magic? There was a line of magic weaved just below his feet, sneaking about and crisscrossing with more lines. He carefully, tenderly touched into the magic and made every effort to NOT affect it in anyway. Retracting his talon, he was not surprised by what he found

There was a teleport-resistant field around the entire town. It was shoddy craftsmanship, so thinly built that he wouldn't even notice breaking it…and that would set off the alarm, letting everyone know if someone teleported in or out.

Anti-magic sentiment with magical safeguards. Hypocritical, to be sure, but practical. Still...

He casually leaned his dimensional axis several degrees off from this world, placing into a thin dimension between realities, slipping back in amongst the clouds, retaking his true form.

"Dimensional Stepping, the Hillbilly version of Teleporting," Discord remarked in amusement, gazing over his should at the town below. Perhaps Equestria wasn't the place most in need of his chaos these days. A country like this could use a visit from him to teach them about having better perspectives. "Still, best check on my fillienemies."

With that, he teleported away, reappearing above the cave. He decided to have some amusement, peeking his head down to get an upside down view.

Twilight was the most boring by virtue of sleeping, but he wasn't surprised given her own magical exhaustion. Pinkie Pie and Applejack appeared to be playing tic-tak-toe in the dirt. Rainbow and Rarity were having a vaguely interesting time messing with the glowing crystals, Rainbow helping bring them down for Rarity as they made some sort of artwork in the wall with them.

...And he was short a filly. He should not be short a filly. Why was he short a filly?!

Glancing around rapidly, he was relieved to see that Fluttershy had NOT somehow gotten out of the cave, but was curled up right at the entrance, the chaos-tape still in place.

"You know, eye-spy isn't that fun by yourself," Discord stated to Fluttershy.

Everypony, sans Twilight, instantly looked to him in excitement. "Mr. Cord!/Discord!/Mr. Discord!/Mr. Magic/Sir!" they cried out, awakening the sixth pony in the process.

"Where!? Where's the dragon with the cactus!?" Twilight blurted out in shock, silencing the others. All looked at her strangely as she blushed in embarrassment. "Umm, sorry, bad dream?"

"Sounds like a fun one to me," Discord countered idly as he slithered in and uprighted himself.

"So, did you find our home? Homes? Whichever," Rainbow asked hopefully as the fillies all gathered at his feet.

"Unfortunately not," Discord answered, deciding not to tell them about the town just yet, if at all. "But I might have found a clue to where we are. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a direction for us to head."

"What kind of clue?" Twilight asked curiously.

"Grown up stuff mainly, I'll explain it another time," he assured, waving her off for now. "That said, we're stuck here for a bit, so I thought we should spruce up a bit in here," he said, snapping his talons.

The young mares all looked around in awe as they saw the cave began to shimmer and wiggle before changing all together.

The ground was replaced with a smooth floor that was either grey with purple swirls or purple with grey swirls, the walls smoothing into curves as well.

"What's you do?" Twilight asked curiously, touching the floor. "It feels...nice?"

"I'm not a fan of traditional beds. So I made the entire cave into one big bed! And it'll be as comfy as you want it!" Discord explained proudly.

"Really!? Pinkie Pie said, jumping to lay down, pretending to sleep…

The other fillies gasped comically as she began to sink into the floor, just a bit.

Pinkie Pie looked up in excitement. "It's so squishy!" she said, poking the edges. "Poke! Poke, poke! Hehe!"

Applejack tilted her head and lay down, but her part of the floor was nice and firm, "Softer than the rocks."

"This is wonderful!" Rarity said, snuggling into the floor. "Like I'm sleeping on clouds!"

"Same here!" Rainbow agreed, rolling around on the floor in delight.

Twilight of course was watching this all with wide eyes and confusion, trying to understand something she didn't need to understand.

And Fluttershy..."Where'd she go this time?" Discord muttered, looking around with a scowl.

He noticed a small hole in the wall that hadn't been there before. Very small, but very dark.

Discord leaned down an absurd amount, eyeing her in the back of her little mini-cave. "What, are you scared of the other fillies?"

"N-no! Not really," she answered with a blush. "I, um, just wanted a spot out of the way...and dark so nothing else finds me while you're away."

"Suit yourself," Discord said as he stood back up and watched the other fillies play.

Fillies that would one day be Harmony's Champions and his enemies.

What was he even doing anymore?