Gods Among Us

by Gravitiaxis

Chapter Eleven: Even you hold Kindness...

After bringing Angel back from the afterlife, the three of you decided to head back to Fluttershy’s house and wait for the others to come back. On the meantime you engaged in small side conversations with Fluttershy(and Angel whenever she left the room) and learned a little more about the shy mare and her friends. Apparently she has two more friends that you haven’t met yet, Applejack and Rarity.

Given by the description that Fluttershy gave you, Applejack was the stereotypical country girl and Rarity was the prissy high class type of girl. Those might not have been her exact words, but that was all you got out of the description. You learned that all of her friends each make up one of the six elements of harmony, pretty much making them the collective incarnation of whatever element they possess.

Since Fluttershy is The Element of Kindness she represents everything that makes up the concept of being Kind. Twilight is the Element of Magic so she represents the concept of everything Magical and Arcane; Rainbow Dash is the Element of Loyalty, she represents the concept of Bonds and Promises. Pinkie Pie is The Element of Laughter, she represents the concept of all things Happy and Fun. Applejack, is the Element of Honesty, she represents the concept of Truth. And Rarity is the Element of Generosity, so she represents the concept of Self Sacrifice.

This was very interesting to hear so you decided to see if her knowledge went even farther back. “Tell me, do you know how the elements were created?” You asked taking sip of some tea that she offered. You stuck your tongue out due to hot it was.

“O-oh, watch out. The tea…it’s kind of hot.” She said almost hiding behind her own cup upon seeing your “Why didn’t you say that earlier?” look. After a few seconds of silence she quickly went back to the conversation. “No, all I really know is that the gods used them along time ago to seal away Discord and they were used again by Celestia to banish Nightmare Moon.”

“You know about the conflict of Discord?” You asked taking another small sip of your tea.

Fluttershy nodded her head as she took a sip as well. “Yes. Just a few months ago he broke from out his prison and began making a mess of things.” This instantly caught your attention as you looked up at her. If Discord was out of his stone prison then that was really bad news.

"So...your telling me that Discord had already escaped from his prison?" You said desperately trying to keep your cool. Fluttershy winced a bit in fear as she could visible see how angered you were becoming.

"N-no...I mean yes. He did break free, but me and my friends stopped him, by using the elements to turn him back into stone.” She said trying to provide you with comforting information.

You slowly began to calm yourself after hearing that discord was no longer a threat. "That's good. You gave me quite the scare Fluttershy. For a second there, I actually thought you were about to say that Discord was still free, roaming around doing whatever he pleases." You said slowly raising your cup of tea in order for a sip.

"But he has been set free." She gasped in surprise upon seeing the fragile cup shatter under your forceful grip. She quickly tried to gather a few napkins for you since most of the tea spilt onto your cloak. While your cloak looked like it was created from any old fabric, it actually wasn't. It's been been created with a rare kind of fabric that is stronger than steel and with magic that is gives it natural resistance to the elements, such water or fire. While not as strong as your original cloak, it was still handy none the less.

You couldn't even feel the hot liquid that you had just recently spilt on yourself. Even if you could feel it you wouldn't had paid much attention to it. This news that was just presented to you was much more important than some hot tea. "He's been released?" You yelled causing Fluttershy to almost shrink into her seat. "This is horrible! Why didn't Celestia tell me he was back?" You said asking no one in particular. Your yelling caused Angel who had just recently fell asleep on the couch to burst awake in surprise.

"M-maybe s-she didn't w-want you to worry about it?" She asked rather than said.

You slammed your fist on the table which almost caused the table to collapse. "He almost destroyed the entire world! And practically killed me in the process! How the hell am I not supposed to worry about that?!"

"I'm sorry." She quietly shrieked. You were perfectly justified to be angry. At this moment you feared for your life, because if Discord found you and in your current state could pretty much kiss being the God of Death goodbye.

"He'll destroy the whole universe if we don't stop him. Why didn't she tell me?! How could she be so stupid!?"

"I-I don't think he'll do something like that. He's changed?" Fluttershy said said trying to defend Discord.

"Changed? What makes you say a stupid thing like that?" You yelled. All the horrors and fears you've seen and hoped to forget all began to come back at just mentioning of the possibility of Discord being back.

"Because he's been reformed!" She yelled back at you. This was the first time you heard he actually raise her voice at you.

"Reformed? Bullshit! The Elements of Harmony couldn't possibly-"

"We didn't use the elements to reform him. I did it." At that moment everything grew silent.

You took a moment to consider the possibility that this soft spoken girl actually succeeded in changing the God of Chaos. You couldn't believe it, you would have to see it for your own eyes, you couldn't take her word for it. The Element of Harmony was created for the sole purpose of eradicating evil. You used them plenty of times on those who had been corrupted by Discord and used them to reform them back into their original selves, but when you used them on Discord you found out that the elements didn't have the same effect on him, as it did the others so you used a different alternative means to stop him. "That's impossible. We spent a thousand years fighting Discord, trying to get him to stop, but did he do it? No! He just got worse!"

"W-well all you did was try to fight him. As soon as he did something wrong, you shunned him and immediatly tried to hurt him. Did you ever even stopped to hear what he had to say?" Fluttershy rebutted.

"Before or after I ripped out his throat?"

"See! You tried to solve your problem with violence, when you could have showed him kindness."

"What the f- He was stealing weapons of mass destruction...by making our children do it for him! In what world do justify being kind to a god whose means of a perfect society is complete and utter chaos?!"

"My world! Just because he was stealing a weapons from you, doesn't justify harming him when you've could have talked it out. Even evil people deserve kindness." You could see that despite being a shy individual, even Fluttershy had a berserk button, and seems that she only speaks up when someone talks about a friend of hers. You couldn't see ho a sweet and lovable mortal such as Fluttershy could even hope to befriend someone as vile as Discord, or worse actually succeed in becoming friends with him.

"I'm the God of Death. My job is to kill mortals, and strip them away from the very things that they adore! Kindness is not really my forte."

"Then why did you bring back Angel then?"

"What?"

"You can't say that your not capable of Kindness when you just performed the act not more than thirty minutes ago." You were at a lost for words now. "For the so called billions of years that he;s been alive have you ever once showed him compassion?" This made you think. Have you ever treated Discord with any type of the respect that he deserved? Since the day of his birth, up to the day of his sealing you couldn't remember once showing him any shed of respect. You always remembered scolding him for his tricks and his tendency to play too much. So the answer that came to you was a big fat No.

"But the fact that he's alive and still a god today is proof that even in your darkest of times, despite every thing you witnessed him do, even you couldn't go through with k-killing your own brother. So you showed him mercy, and spared him. You still loved him despite the things he did." The words that were spoken from this young mare shocked you deeply.

You thought back to the war and began to think about how many times you've actually had the option to kill Discord, but for some reason averted it in order to prolong his life. You leaned back in your chair and sighed in defeat. As much as you hated to hear it, Fluttershy was right. You wanted to defend your actions for keeping him alive but you knew damn well that there was no way you explain it. So you decided to just say nothing.

"Now that's rich, a mortal no where near relative to the grand scheme of things, managed to put down The God of Death so badly that he's now contemplating on his life, if Discord and Forever could see me now..."

Fluttershy watched as you sank into your seat with an empty smile on your face. She could see how you really felt anout the situation and decided to leave you to your thoughts. "I'll go get you some more tea..." and "okay" were the only words you two shared for a brief time.

***

The silence finally broke upon the front door of Fluttershy's home opening up, revealing Twilight, Pinkie, Dash and two other mares you never met before, but due to Fluttershys description of them you recognized them as being Applejack and Rarity. The five of them all had sad looks on their faces as they hoped that you and Fluttershy had some good news on the whereabouts of Angel. Of course their faces lit upon seeing seeing Angel who had just fallen back asleep.

"Howdy partner. I'm Applejack." Said the orange mare with the cowboy hat.

"And I'm Rarity." Said the white mare with the nice clothes You gave Applejack a firm handshake and gave Rarity a kiss on the hand, a gesture indicating courtesy towards her. This caused Rarity to blush and Applejack to roll her eyes.

"I am Letum."

"I already know you are. Twilight told us about you on the way here." She said as the two of them began to bow down. You quickly tried to stop them, telling them that as long as you were still mortal that they didn't have to bow down to you. Applejack immediately got back up while Rarity finished bowing down.

"That's mighty humble of you." Applejack said tipping her hat to you.

"Nonsense. You are a god and shall be treated as such." Rarity said to you.

You didn't really have much to say about her choice to treat you as a god. If she wanted to bow down to you, who were you to stop her? Besides maybe some prayer every now and then would be good for you. It might actually restore your lost power. You nodded your head as if you had accepted her choice.

"I gotta ask you something. Are you really the God of Death?" She said sounding skeptical of your status.

"Yes, I am the personification of all things associated with Death."

"Really? You don't really look like The Grim Reaper?" She said causing your eye to twitch.

"...And pray tell, what is the The Grim Reaper supposed to look like?" You said cleverly masking your annoyance.

"Ohh, I don't know, more skulls and bones maybe? And wheres that creepy scythe that your supposed to be carrying?" She said causing Rainbow Dash to facepalm.

"Back at home with all the other shit you mortals like to think about me." You said now showing the anger behind your voice.

"I-I see...never mind." Applejack said backing off.

"So your the one who controls when we're going to die?" Rarity asked you picking up the question from Applejack.

"Something like that. I can't really control anything anymore. So if you've come to complain to me about a lost love save your breath. I've been gone for two thousand years."

"Yes, I already know that Twilight told us."

You looked at Twilight who gave you a small smile. Saves you the time of explaining your back story to them. You moved towards your seat but was stooped by Pinkie when she came almost flying over to you, giving you one of the biggest of bear hugs.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! For finding Angel!" Pinkie Pie yelled as she increased the strength by behind her hug. You were almost convinced that she was trying to secretly kill you. "I knew you were a good pony. I can't wait to throw you a party."

"Please don't." You quickly managed to say before she let go of her hug. This mare was definitely not normal.

While you didn't really have any other reason to stay at Fluttershy's home, you decided to stay and converse with Fluttershy and her friends. Much like how Twilight asked you questions about your past you found the girls asking much more different questions. Like-

"Did you have any children?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever get married?"

"Twice. Both times divorced."

"Did you ever have a relationship with Celestia? Did you ever have a relationship with Luna?"

"What type of animals lived back then?"

"How old are you?"

"If you had choose, who would be your favorite sibling?"

Tiring questions like that. These mares were more interested in personal questions rather than the more historical ones, that Twilight liked to ask. Before you know it was time to head back to the library. You left with Twilight and Pinkie and headed back into town. Twilight continued to asked you question about the history back then. You couldn't really blame her for asking you so many questions, you held billions of years worth of knowledge in your head, how could an egghead like Twilight resist? Pinkie Pie was more into saying hello to all the ponies she pasted on your way back to the library, but she only caught your attention when a shop owner called out her name, causing her to quickly bounce her way over to him.

"Hey Dodgy Trader, Hows the business doing?" Pinkie said as she quickly bounced back and forth as she checked out her merchandise. It looked like junk from afar but upon coming closer one could see that he's wares were crossing a thin line between common everyday things to almost ancient artifacts.

The earth pony took of his hat and gave Pinkie a playful bow. "Hello Pinkie I've doing just great, but I doing better now that your here." He said giving her a wink with his one good eye. His other eye was closed due to a deep scar that ran through it. "Are you here to buy something or did you stop by to say hello to little old me?"

"Aw come on Dodgy, Your no where near little, and definitely not old." Pinkie said returning the wink with one of hers.

The Merchant know as Dodgy let out a hearty laugh. "Flattery will get you no Pinkamena. I'm getting old whether if I want to or not." He said letting out another laugh. You found his statement to be a little weird. Dodgy didn't seem to be very old, he looked like he was in his late thirties, No where near the end of his life, not by what you could sense, but sometimes looks can be deceiving... Dodgy then turned his attention towards Twilight. "Ahh, Pleasure to see you again Princess Twilight." Dodgy said also giving her a bow.

"Good evening, Mister Trader." She said signalling him to rise.

"And who might this be?" Dodgy asked while taking a long look at you. You could tell he held no ill intentions towards you due to the question being asked in more of the curious tone rather than the suspicious one. "Perhaps a lover of sorts?" He said initiating a blush from Twilight, laugh from Pinkie and a quick glance away from you.

"Mister Trader! It's not like that!" She yelled in defense, but Dodgy just waved it off with a quick laugh.

"Sorry, sorry, I thought you two were going out due to how engaged in whatever conversation you were having before you came to talk to me."

"And the first thing you assumed was that I was her coltfriend?" You said looking back him.

"Haha! What can I say? My mind likes to wander. Oh yeah, before I forget, during my travels I found you another ancient tome." He said reaching into the back of his stand and pulling out a huge dusty book.

"Thank you, I though you would never find it." Twilight said reaching to grab the book from him but he quickly pulled it away. "Huh, whats wrong?"

"Unlike all the other times, this one was extremely hard to find. I think I deserve compensation don't you think? Perferably bits." Dodgy say patting the tome gently with his hand.

Twilight let out a small sigh as she gave him a smile. "I shall deliver the necessary bits to you whenever you ready." She said taking the book from him.

"Excellent! Come to my stand tomorrow and we'll talk an affordable price." Dodgy said tipping his hat to her.

"Wait, she's a princess. Shouldn't she get the book for free?"

"Normally, yes. But I've already given her a few of my tomb for free. Even Princesses have to pay every now and then. I gotta eat somehow right?" You slowly nodded his head as his statement made sense, but you decided to ask another question which seemed to be on your mind.

"Where did you get the tome? That thing looks hundreds of years old? I pretty sure you didn't stumble upon it by accident did you?"

Dodgy gave you a shifty smile as he placed his a finger to his lips. "Merchants secret."

"I'm not going to lie, your kinda suspicious." You said folding your arms.

"I won't deny that. The life of a Trader is not an easy one." He said giving you another smirk as he folded his arms as well. The air around you seemed kind of tense, but quickly dispersed upon hearing Pinkie speak.

"OHHHHH!" She said picking one of Dodgy's items off of his stand and began to bounce over to you. "Lety you should wear these!" She said quickly putting what looked like glasses over your eyes. It seemed everything began to become shaded upon putting on these glasses.

"What the? Everything just got dark! What happened?" You yelled out, as you quickly took the sunglasses off.

"Those are my ray bans. I just got them from the city Manehatten. You can have them if you like."

You looked back at the sunglasses and shrugged your shoulders before saying thanks. You put them back on and watched as day turned into night. They didn't have this two thousand years ago, so you were pretty amazed. Twilight shook her head as she told Dodgy that she was going to see him tomorrow, if not later this week. After Pinkie said goodbye to Dodgy you continued on back to the Library which was surprising just down the street.

You didn't know why you felt the need to keep your new sunglasses on, but you seemed to feel more cooler with them on, plus it feel like the right time to take them off. You were the first walking into the library, upon the sight in front of you, you quickly stopped causing Twilight and Pinkie Pie to bump into you. "Ow, whats wrong Letum?" Pinkie said as she rubbed her nose.

Twilight tried to assess the situation, by moving from behind you in order to see someone sitting on the floor, with her back turned away from the three of you. Several books were quickly floating around the person with the pages flowing rapidly from cover to cover and when the book would run out of pages the person would drop it in a neat pile, while picking up another book with their magic and began reading that one as well.

Twilight marveled at the speed of which the pony in front of her was reading, but quickly snapped out of it upon realizing that now she was going to have to reorganize all the books that the unknown pony had read. "What the?"

The pony in the center of the library quickly turned around and turned attention to you. Her facial features quickly changed from one of surprise to on joy upon seeing the three of you.

You slowly reached up to your new sunglasses and slowly began to take them off. As your eyes were glued to whatever was in front of you. "Mother of god..." You said almost whispering as you instantly recognized who the pony in front of you was. He may change her appearance almost constantly, but those eyes showed the same madness.

"Nice, to see you again Letum."

"Nice to see you too...Delirium..."

Comments

[Mr Skeleton]

yay

[Mr Skeleton]

also, ever read this?: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/30613/mort-takes-a-holiday

its prettey darn awesome

[Gravitiaxis]

3161206 I seen it before but I haven't gotten around to reading it.

[Stone Cold Steve Buscemi]

OMG so funny I loved it! " Mother of god "

[Mr Skeleton]

3161272 well if anything its worth a read and if you've got any good romance second person storys you would recomend, i'd be glad too hear about them since i've fallen short of good reading material. i must warn you though im pretty sure ive been everywhere on this site for that kind of stuff, but still if you've got any, let me know

[Hawk24731]

That settles it, take my fav.

[Taxes]

3161390
you know if your called anonymous that's still a title and a title is like a name so not really hiding anything aw shit im being a dick again aren't i

[Kenyis]

Why did I try to guess what you were going to do woth the sunglasses. Good job sir you made me lol

[Voltrasin]

Anthro- ponies still have horns, wings, etc

Etc? Dafuq? What's left?

[Blueprince]

3172705 Hooves in place of feet maybe ?

[Voltrasin]

3176225
Touche.