The Saint Claire’s Orphanage of Brooklyn was not the largest orphanage in the city, nor was it the most well-funded. Neither was it the cleanest, nor the safest, or anything above slightly below average. It was a place of refuge to children, it was a home for those lost or castaway with nowhere else to turn.

It was a last refuge of the hopeless.

To William, it was merely another place to keep his books.

“How come you’re readin’ again?”

William Klaskovsky gave a deadpan over the edge of his copy of Of Mice And Men, peering hard at the boy beside him. Ronald had been one of the few tolerable souls that William had the fortune of encountering at Saint Claire’s, as well as one of the most entertaining. They had been friends almost upon meeting, regardless of the stark differences between the nine year olds.

For example, William, whereas the same age as Ronald, was much thinner and smaller than the feral looking, black haired boy. Ronald possessed a fierce soul, as fiery as his temper; however, he was enormously faithful toward the wiry William, which could come in handy.

However, there were times when William would have sworn that the poor boy retained all the intelligence of your run-of-the-mill tree stump.

William sighed, closing his book quietly as Ronald fiddled with his glasses. The short tuft of sandy hair atop William’s head did nothing to cover his clearly agitated look, which burned behind his beady brown eyes as he glared at his ‘comrade’.

“For the same reason that I always read, chum,” William grumbled, inattentively watching the children play before lunch time was over. “Insomuch that I do not crumble into the withering pit of inadequacy that plagues your attention deficit riddled brain.”

Ronald, who had been too busy picking his nose to properly pay attention, blinked.

“I dunno what that means.”

William sighed heavily once again.

“Of course not, you blithering, incompetent, uneducated troglodyte,” William said friendlily. Ronald, who was fairly certain that he had just been insulted, frowned at him. He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly jerked his head off to the side, staring into space for a few long moments, eventually dawdling off.

It was times like these that William heavily suspected that his friend suffered from some measure of acute schizophrenia. Always talking to people that weren’t there.

Ronald Miller was an odd one, to be certain.

Many of William's days went by like this, dreary and repetitive as he devoured book after book, quietly sticking to himself instead of listening to the everyday urges of the orphanage’s nuns to go play with the other children. Generally, at which point, William would politely ask Ronald to cause a distraction so that he could read in peace, which the unruly child was always far too eager to do.

William had no particular sense of discontent, really; no excessive urge to be adventurous, or explore. His mind was a logical one, and he valued reason and related contemporary works over fictional literature. Perhaps this was why he was so completely and utterly flabbergasted to have discovered the leering draconequus standing over him one cloudy morning as he clutched tightly at his book.

“… Hi, there!” Discord grinned at him and gave a little wave, sitting down on the worn plastic bench beside him.

For a long, long moment, William simply sat very still, staring in shock at the bizarre amalgamation of animals and mythological creatures beside him. The odd creature seemed to be part goat, part lion, part dragon, part… too many things. The beaming draconequus sat leisurely beside him, his tail twitching through the air lazily as absolutely nobody seemed to notice.

“… What the bleeding hell is that,” William gawked, and rubbed his eyes hard. Spots appeared after a while, but the insane mismatched creature remained. He wasn’t quite certain whether to be very afraid, or merely confused.

“Yeah,” Discord tapped his talons together sadly, staring into his lap as he crossed one leg over the other. “That’s what my parents said, too.”

William stared at him so hard that it felt like his eyes were going dry. He whipped his head about to some of the adults, spotting the familiar form of Sister Francis picking up a young girl that had recently scraped her knee. William stood up on the bench and waved wildly to her, pointing wordlessly toward the draconequus.

Sister Francis merely smiled and gave a little wave back before tending to the young girl, completely oblivious.

“… Interesting,” William crossed his arms. “Either I have completely lost my mind with absolutely no prelude to mental degradation, or you appear to have developed a form of imperfect cloaking technology.”

“Hmm?” Discord asked as he was tilting himself upside down, his face somehow still managing to remain right side up. “Oh, that,” he said in a bored tone. “You’d be amazed at what mortals fail to notice from time to time. Being an infinitely powerful god does tend to help matters along,” he admitted.

William slowly sat back down, thinking heavily.

“I daresay that no such thing as gods exist,” William pronounced carefully. “Although I now take my previous statements into careful consideration. Also, if you’re here to take me to hell for hearsay, Ronald started it.”

Discord snorted, righting himself and blowing a couple of toucans out of his left ear, which fluttered off into the air.

“Well, I have to concede,” Discord grinned toothily at him again. “You are most definitely not what I came here to find.”

William frowned, multiple theories running through his mind simultaneously.

“I see. And what, may I ask, oh god of nightmare fuel, do you happen to be in search of?”

“Actually,” he stuck out a single talon for William to shake. “The name’s Discord! My birth name is Discord, although I had to change it to Discord when I moved. But my friends call me Discord!”

For a moment, William wondered if the bizarre creature with mismatched eyes just might be utterly insane.

Were that the case, he would probably be right.

“You are dodging the question with inane repetition, ‘Discord’,” William scowled at him, desperately wishing that one of the nuns would assist in making sense of this situation. Then again, it wasn’t as if they were much help to William before.

“Bah, you’re so frown-y!” the draconequus turned his face down to match his, stretching it like silly putty.

“… I need an adult,” William said slowly as Discord disturbingly overextended his face to look like a mockery of an anteater before snapping it back into position.

“Ha! I am an adult!”

William pinched the bridge of his nose, and sat very still. It was possible that he were hallucinating; however, this seemed far too lucid to be an ordinary hallucination. Perhaps someone had drugged his orange juice?

“So…” Discord tapped his talons together with a hint of discomfort in his voice, and slouched a bit further. “Wouldn’t you know it, Pinkie Pie managed to get to the guy before I could. And while I’m all for reanimation and wild robot-dinosaur-zombie caged death battles, I think this idea might be better.”

“I have no idea what you are blathering about,” William stated. Maybe he could find a way to net the creature? But it was much larger than him, and he had no net. There might have been a small possibility of requesting help, but nobody even seemed to notice that the monster existed…

“Well,” Discord waved an arm over the orphanage. “I’m unhealthily impulsive, and I guess that you could say that this seems like a pretty dismal place to spend an entire childhood-”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“ – and you seem to be pretty bummed out all by yourself!” Discord continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “So, kiddo; want to get adopted?”

William gave the draconequus a look cold enough to make an ice cube shiver.

He looked around once again, as if he were certain that this were some form of ridiculous prank, and that at any second ‘Discord’ would pull off the mask and reveal a sweaty man with a video camera for reality television inside.

“… Is this a joke?” William asked suspiciously, crossing his arms again defensively.

“Sure, why not!” Discord shrugged. “And adoption is the punchline!”

“… Why?” he asked incredulously.

To be fair, that was a very good question.

“Like I said,” Discord yawned, emitting a high pitched whistle of steam from his nose. “I’m impulsive, and revenge-seeking isn’t going to get me anywhere positive.”

“That sounded ambiguously ominous.”

“Look, I’m trying to be nice,” Discord glowered at him. “I can always put the paperwork back if you’d rather grow up in this dump, instead.”

“Paperwork?”

“Well, duh!” Discord facepalmed. “Adoption doesn’t work without paperwork – that’s just kidnapping!”

William paused, thinking.

“If you could make it so that absolutely nobody but me noticed you, couldn’t you just do the same and have whisked me off scot-free by now?”

“It’s up to you, kid. Just say the word, and I could just go away right now, and you’d never hear from me again. Heck, you wouldn’t even remember me again. Also, it looks better on my resume if it’s legal,” Discord deadpanned. With that, he flicked his talons together and a stream of paper erupted out of between them. He caught a random one, pulled a large and feathery blue quill from inside his ear, and presented it to William.

For the longest time, William quietly sat on the bench, staring at the draconequus and the document he presented.

“Nine year olds aren’t legally qualified to claim responsibility,” he grumbled weakly before signing his name.

“He’s what?”

Rainbow Dash pushed past a clearly disgruntled Twilight Sparkle and Rarity, mouth hanging agape as Discord himself stood at the door to Golden Oaks library, with something very unexpected in tow. Not even Applejack or Fluttershy could bring themselves to speak, and Pinkie Pie’s eyes seemed to have glazed over slightly.

The small human child hiding behind Discord almost managed to escape Rainbow Dash’s gaze, but it was the eyes that caught her attention.

His eyes.

He had Master’s eyes.

“So…” Discord tapped his talons together awkwardly as a long, uncomfortable silence settled over the bearers of the Elements of Harmony.

“… Can we keep it?”

Author's Notes:

Huh.
Who knew.