Chaos is a friend of mine

Fanfic by englishwitch

Disclaimer: The following is an entirely fan-created parody. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, it’s characters and all other affiliated merchandise are the intellectual property of Lauren Faust and Hasbro. Please support the official MLP: FiM show.

I make no profit, or money at all, for the production and distribution of this fanfiction.

“Chaos is a friend of mine” ~ Bob Dylan.

Prologue.

Her heart pounded and her knees trembled but Twilight Sparkle walked with her head held high. She moved with as much grace and dignity as she could summon within herself. Slowly she waked through the baying crowd, ignoring their cries, their insults and the rocks they threw at her.

She was led by a guard clad in black up a set of wooden steps onto a wide wooden platform. She paled at the sight of the long rope noose ahead of her but tried to not let it show. Yet, just for a second, she hesitated.

Taking a deep breath Twilight stepped into place. She could see the angry faces of the ponies looking up at her. Their mouths were moving, yelling insults she couldn't hear any more. All she heard was the frantic pounding of her heart in her ears.

As the guard slipped the noose around her neck she thought back over the events of the last month. All that had occurred before, every action she had pursued and every choice she had made that had led her to this moment and she still found herself asking, how had it come to this?

She looked up into the sky, and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

...***...

Rainbow Dash limped down the dirt road. The hospital was in sight. If she could just hold  on a few minutes more she would make it. Her broken back leg dragged in the dirt behind her and she had lost so much blood through the mangled stumps that were once her proud wings. What was a pegasus without wings? She didn't have the answer to that question and she no longer cared what it could be.

All she cared about was reaching the hospital. Entering would mean her eventual death but she had to survive now. Maybe she could escape later. Maybe.

Later was later, living long enough to survive the now was all that mattered.

She coughed, feeling the coppery tang of blood in her mouth. The world swam around her, threatening to throw her off her hooves. Sheer will power kept up upright and moving. A reserve of strength even she wouldn’t have thought she had. Everything in her, nerve and sinew, heart and soul, was drained and burned out. There was nothing left except that tiny, weak, insignificant, forgotten and often overlooked, spark of willpower which told her to hold on and take one more step, just one more. Then one more. Then one more.

She passed a sign post without noticing it. Passed the WANTED poster without seeing it. If she even had a gram more of strength she might have seen and might have commented that it really was a very bad picture of her they had used.

...***...

Rarity looked across the grimy dungeon to Pinkie Pie. What remained of the pink mare's mane lay flat against her head. No smiles or laughter to fix this. No balloons, streamers or parties. There were only teas and what little comfort they could bring. A cold comfort, harsh and unforgiving, of pain expressed in its purest form.

In her hoof she held a piece of tattered paper. The guard had let her keep it as a last request. It was a photo of the six of them, from happier times, from when they were whole. Before this chaotic mess had even begun.

Rarity raised a hoof to her face and adjusted the eyepatch so it sat more comfortably over the empty socket. The pain was coming back but she knew there would be no more helpful drugs anymore. There was no point wasting them on a pony who was on death row. A pony who was going to be hanged at dawn.

...***...

Fluttershy wept silent tears. Each tear ran to the end of her chin and fell to her hooves. She wished each drop was enough to wash them clean of the blood that stained them so deeply. There wouldn't be enough water in the whole ocean to make her clean again.

She stared at the bloody knife by her side and a fresh burst of wails rose out of her. She rocked back and forth in vain attempts of comfort, her head hitting the stone cave wall with each backwards swing.

Outside she could hear the dogs approaching. The snarls, growls and barks amplified as they echoed off the cave walls. Had they caught the scent? How far away were they?

Applejack didn't stir. Unconscious and possibly dying there was nothing Fluttershy could do for her but wait and pray. Pray for her recovery and pray they weren't found before then. Beaten a bruised the orange coloured mare had suffered so. At least asleep she wouldn’t feel any more pain.

Fluttershy knew she stood a better chance of getting away if she left Applejack behind. It was a horrible thought to have but it occurred to her all the same. She didn’t entertain it. Refused and openly defied such thoughts. She had lost so much, she would not leave behind the one friend she had left in the world. Whatever the end, they would face it together.

...***...

Clouds of smoke drifted over Ponyville. Heavy, black, pendulous. Like the clouds of a ferocious storm. The citizens stared up in fear from the safety of their homes. These were no rain clouds that drifted overhead. Rain clouds would be better. Clouds that carried with them a storm strong enough to level Ponyville to the ground would be more welcome than the source of the black nightmare that hung over their heads.

From a cave atop the great mountain a dragon looked out at the countryside, barely giving notice to the tiny town that lay in the centre of its newly captured territory.

The beast pulled his horde closer to his gigantic body. He stretched out his enormous wings for a second and pulled them close again. His purple scales shimmered in the faint light that made it into his cave. The huge green spikes that adorned his back scraped against the stone walls, leaving deeply carved grooves in their wake.

Now he was a monster, feared by all and fuelled by greed.

He had gone by a different name once and lived a different life. One he no longer remembered. There was nothing of that before time remaining within him. Only the beast lived within his soul now.

Looking without comprehension the dragon cast its eyes upwards. Through the smallest of breaks in the cloud he saw it. Eyes that were so sharp they could see a gemstone from two miles up couldn’t fail to see this. The enormous ball of fire that shone down onto the world, providing light, heat and life to the word. But instinct told him this was not the sun. His body knew the sun and moon, knew the rhythms and cycles of the world which ran his internal body clock, allowing him to know when it was night and day even when miles underground within the deepest caves where no natural light could ever reach.

This was not the sun, this was the moon. The moon set ablaze in a noble attempt to take the place its sister celestial body in duty. What had happened to the sun the dragon neither knew, nor cared.