Before Equestria was founded, before the Gryphonian Empire, before even the spark of intelligence, the world belonged to Discord and Rhyme. Surely the creators knew what they were doing when they left them in charge, right?
It started when Twilight read Discords journal he sent in as a report. But curiosity got the best of her, and she had a desire to know more. Who was Rhyme?
She might not be prepared as she thought she was for the truth, because before there was Celestia and Luna. Before Discord ruled with a topaz fist. Before the great Great Gryphonian Empire, and long before the Great Pony Migration, there was the creators, and the creations. Surely they knew what they were doing when they left the fate of the world's balance in the care of Discord and Rhyme?
Or, maybe they just don't know what they are doing either.
This story is somewhat different than most you probably had read at some point in your life. There are many different versions of how the earth as we know it came to be, with it's distinct round shape, four seasons, wide variety of life, and the sun and moon revolving around it.
One theory tells us that it was all an accident, random chance that somehow all added up to what's here now. Others say that it was created with intelligent design in mind. Ahh, but now comes the fun part, intelligent design, who designed it then, and why? Well, it depends on who you ask. Ask a gryphon, and they say that the gods created them in their image, and the world is some sort of great test to make it to the great aerie of the gods. Where game is a plenty, and you can hunt, fly, fight, and feast with the gods forever.
Cows and Donkeys both share in the idea that the world was created for the entertainment of the gods, like some sort of grand version of Ogres and Oubliettes. That a chosen few are actually vessels of the gods to play among us, and we are simply here to fill in the gaps for them.
If you were to go up to a minotaur and ask them, they would tell you that the world is simply what it is, and it doesn't matter how it got here. What matters is how you play your life out, and use your lessons well in the next one.
Ah, but as a pony, and you'll hear some interesting things. That Celestia and Luna created it all, and only came down later to save the ponies from Discord's rule. And why not believe in such things? After all, the sun and moon literally does rise and set by their hooves. But if you were to ask either of those two, Luna would probably roll her eyes, and Celestia would try not to laugh before telling you simply, "The answer is out there. Go find yours."
This story is only different because Discord is a loose cannon. It all started on a summer evening in Canterlot. Discord was bored, as was usual for him lately. Granted that things were looking up for him in the Ministry of Practical Chaos, especially with the new direction they had been moving in with their latest invention. But now that the drafting was finished, and it was still a few weeks away from testing, he didn't have much to do other than paperwork.
Discord gave a slight sigh of discontent as he viewed the papers before him, each needing to be signed before sent off to Celestia's office in the morning. It wasn't a particularly big pile, just enough for him to want to skip reading and get it over with so he could get out there, and mix things up a bit in the castle. "It's not fair, why do i have to be cooped up in here when it's so nice outside?" He looked out his window and saw several foals playing a game of polo in the street. "Where did this window even come from?"
His mind began to wander a bit, as he realized that he probably put it there out of boredom, because his office was in the dead center of the building and offered little to look at. He also was debating keeping it or not when there was a sudden knock on the door. He quickly tried to look busy before saying, "come in," with a sing-song voice.
He didn't have to look up to know who it was. He always knew it was her when she knocked on the door. Seven rapid, loud knocks in an even tempo before silence. "Hello Discord, I was hoping to catch you here."
He wanted to roll his eyes, or even physically wince as Twilight Sparkle walked in. "Well, you caught me. Good for you for finding me at the one place I'm always at five days a week."
Twilight felt a small blush cross her features before continuing. "Er, yes. About that, you should really keep a schedule for when you come in and out of here, besides when you feel like it."
"Oh Twilight," he said with a slight chortle. "That's not the way I do things. Now, can I help you? I know I'm very busy with all this paperwork, but I'm sure I can make time to chat with you. "
Twilight looked at the three sheets of paper with interest. "Wow, you're already down to three sheets? How long have you been here?"
"Two hours," he said with a frown."
"You must have had a lot of paperwork to sign if it took you this long to get down to just three," she said with a hoof to her chin. "It usually takes me at least an hour to do all mine, but I only have around fifty things to look at. How many did you get today?"
"These three," Discord moaned as he slumped back in his chair. "This is cruel and inequine punishment!"
At this, Twilight actively facehoofed hard enough that Discord could hear the clunking sound it made through his prolonged groaning. "Discord, you know you could have been done in five minutes! What in Celestia's name were you doing for two hours?"
"Procrastinating," he said nonchalantly as one of the pens he had flicked up to the tile ceiling an hour ago, finally came dislodged and fell to his desk with a clatter. "I just wanna get out of here."
Twilight walked across the room and looked at the papers for a few seconds, going over each word carefully. "Okay, this first one is asking if you approve of a budget of thirty thousand bits to be requested from the treasury for your project. Do you?"
"Yes," Discord replied in a bored voice without even looking up from his desk.
"Then sign it," She said before shoving the paper to him. "This next one is a statement that says the device has been safety tested, and you wish to hold a field test, is that true?" Discord nodded, and she passed the sheet across the table to him. " The last one here says that you will personally pay for any unintended side effects that the device has, should something go awry so long as it was being used properly, do you accept?" He nodded once again and she quickly placed the sheet before him. "There, that didn't even take us two minutes, now sign them."
Discord quickly grabbed his pen and dipped it in his inkwell, scratching his name on all three sheets of paper. "So tell me, do you think you can come back to do this tomorrow?"
Twilight groaned slightly as Discord put the papers into a pneumatic tube to send them away. "Now can we talk? I do have a reason to be here besides handling your paperwork for you."
Discord floated around his desk with a smile, "Ask away Princess," He then continued past her and out the office door before jumping onto a giant ant and riding it down the halls. "But let's meet over some coffee first! Donuts at Pony Joe's, my treat, H-YAH!" Twilight was about to protest, when one of Discord's chairs swept her up and took her for a ride.
The ride was wild, and it didn't take long for Twilight to reach the front door of the Ministry of Practical Chaos, where the chair unceremoniously dumped her off by the front door. By the time she had arrived, Discord was long since gone from the strangely shaped building. Ugh, how can he stand himself? She wondered for a moment before galloping to catch up with him.
At least she knew where he was going. Despite the fact that it was only a block and a half away, Twilight was not an athlete, and was clearly winded by the time she'd caught up with the lord of chaos. "Ah, so lovely to see you made it! I hope you like sprinkles, this one's glazed, and has one half covered in sprinkles!"
Twilight tilted her head in confusion at the pastry. "But why would only half of the doughnut have sprinkles?"
Discord simply shrugged before chomping down on the treat, and shivered slightly from the taste. "Ooooh yeah, that's the good stuff."
Twilight gave off a heavy groan before slumping down on the seat next to Discord. Sensing the immanent danger of a distressed Twilight, Pony Joe quickly poured her a cup of her favored coffee before dashing off to the back to wait out her rising mood, and check on his insurance coverage. "Discord," she said with a slightly forced smile. "I came by to discuss something with you that's been bothering me lately."
If Discord heard her, he made a good job of pretending he hadn't. Instead, he continued eating his doughnuts and slurping down his hot cocoa. "Mmm, wha? Sorry, I'm just enjoying the taste of freedom and capitalism in action." He then munched down a bear claw in one bite. "And it is loaded with sugar!"
"I'm serious!" Twilight said with a slam of her hoof, finally making him look her in the eye. "Look, I'm sorry. I know that you want to just have fun right now, but there's something in the journal you turned in that's bothering me."
He grinned and placed his clasped his mismatched hands together. "The directors cut, or the abridged version?"
"Both, I mean, wait, there's a longer version?"
"Oh yes," Discord said with a smile. "The one I turned in was edited slightly, there's things that I felt should be best kept to myself." With that, a very thick book appeared at his side, with several papers threatening to spill out. "Like my conversation I had with my socks! It's a work in progress you see."
Twilight wanted to take the book, hoping that maybe it would have answered some of the questions she had, but before she could grasp it in her magic, Discord sent it away with a puff of smoke. Feeling a twinge of disappointment, she quickly shook her head of the thought, and continued with her original train of thought. "That's irrelevant. It's about the part where you wrote about the past. You know, about the founding of the Gryphonian Empire."
Discord nodded slightly as he took another long draw from his hot cocoa. "Hmm, yes I did write about that a bit. Nothing that you probably wouldn't be able to fill the gaps in yourself if you read a history book."
"That's just the thing," Twilight said in exasperation. "I've been trying to find out more about that era in the library here in Canterot, but all the books I do find from that era seem to be too fantastic to be true!" Discord looked at Twilight with worry as her speech sped up more and more. So he moved a few inches away from her. "I mean, they mixed in lore with fact, stories and legends that couldn't be real! That's why I came to you, I need your help."
Silence rang between the two, and Discord widened the gap even further for his safety. It was in this silence that they finally noticed that Pony Joe had come back to the counter in an old set of guards armor to protect himself from Twilight's possible coming onslaught of destruction. Finally, it was Discord who broke the awkward silence. "I'm sorry, you want my help... how?"
Twilight pulled a scroll out, from where, nopony knew for sure. "I thought to ask Celestia, but she wouldn't give any answers. But you've been around even longer than her! Surely you must know some things that time has forgotten!"
A small groan escaped Discord's lips as he realized what she was asking. "Twilight, I really don't think you want to know everything that happened in the past, the world was much different then."
"But, but," she slumped down in her seat as disappointment settled in quickly. "I just thought that," she slowly ate her doughnut as she rested her chin against the table.
Discord looked at the distraught alicorn, and felt a slight twinge of guilt. Not enough of one to stop his doughnut buffet, but enough to make him talk. "Well, I can't promise you everything, but what is it you want to know about the most?" Twilight muttered something around her doughnut causing Discord to lean in closer. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."
Twilight swallowed in embarrassment before answering again. "I wanted to know more about you and Rhyme. Where you came from, who she was, and-"
Discord quickly slammed another doughnut into her mouth to silence her. "Whoa whoa whoa! Settle down princess!" He looked around the doughnut shop to see if anypony heard what she said. Fortunately they were quite alone, other than Pony Joe. "Would you mind leaving us for a moment? Go make some more of those custard filled ones or something Joe."
The doughnut maker was about to protest, but saw the dangerous look in Discord's eyes and Twilight's unstable mood. "Alright, I'll just be going out to my supply closet to grab what I need, I guess." He was quick to exit the room, leaving the two of them alone in the shop.
Discord looked at the confused Twilight for a moment, jammed one last doughnut down and pulled Twilight so close to him that they were cheek to cheek. "It's not exactly an easy thing you're asking of me Twilight. To learn of my past and Rhyme is one of the greatest mysteries out there, one that could have consequences if this knowledge fell into the wrong hooves."
Twilight looked confused for a moment before laughing slightly. "Discord, as a Princess of Equestria, I'm sworn to do my duty to protect Equestria. But as a student of... a lot of things actually, it is my duty to discover the truth."
Discord nodded slightly as he weighed down her reply. After a few silent moments of thought, he gave a reply. "Some of the things that happened then, still weigh heavily in debate with scholars. Several countries have different legends about that time, and there have been wars fought over belief of what is true. The last thing I need is Celestia blaming me for a war. That being said, I'll help you out."
Twilight's wings flared open as she jumped on the table with joy, sending Discord back in slight worry. "You will! Oh great! When can we get started, I've got lots of paper for notes, and quills, and,"
Discord sighed slightly as he downed the rest of his drink. "Yes yes, bring all that with you. Come on, let's go somewhere private."
With a snap of his fingers, the pair disappeared from the doughnut shop, just as Pony Joe came around from the back. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief to find that he was alone to run everything in peace once again.
It has almost been an hour since the pair had teleported to the secret library of Star Swirl the Bearded, hidden deep underneath Canterlot Castle, and still nothing more exciting than Discord grabbing and discarding books has happened. Twilight looked up at him as he grabbed, thumbed through a particularly thick tome, and then tossed the priceless book over his shoulder like it were trash. "Discord, what are you even doing?"
"Research," he said shortly before tossing another book onto the table behind him. "I need to see if there's anything here to back up my claims, and if there's anything that I should leave out for your own safety."
Twilight meanwhile organized everything as neatly as she could. She stacked up the books into a pile, dusted off a table, placed a scroll on it, and placed a row of ink wells and quills for her to use. Finally, after several minutes and three re-checks of her supplies, Discord sat down and cracked open one of the books. "Alright, if you are ready to start, I suppose we should start at the beginning."
In the beginning, all was awash with a blankness. There was no light to see by, and no stars in the sky. No earth or sky to behold as the universe itself did not yet exist. That's where the gods and goddesses came into the nothingness, and gave light to all.
It was in this light, that they could see what they were doing, and for the first time, beheld themselves in what would become our universe. Everything was bathed in a white glow, as if the universe itself was made out of paper, and they would prove to themselves their own power here. At first, nothing happened, they simply stood in wait, looking at the vast white nothingness that they had to build up into something. Suffice to say, the mood was ruined when someone sneezed. "Really? You chose now to do that?"
"Sorry," the gryphon replied. "I'm like, half a lion, and I'm allergic to cats."
"Then why did you pick that form when you came here if you knew it would make you sneeze?"
A white alicorn turned to the arguing gods and frowned deeply. "Look, I know it's uncomfortable for you all to be here like this," The leader said to them all, and received a few grumbles. "Now look, this isn't our first world building exercise, for most of us. This one's going to be different than most things you've worked on before, and in order to understand what's going to be here, we need to be what will be here. Understand? Now, let's get to work."
There was a few more grumbles in the crowd as they began to gather their supplies, leaving the leader alone with a few of her core team members. "Mother," one of them said with a frown. "This really is a small crew for everything you have planned out. Are you sure this is enough?"
Mother laughed slightly, not from the question, but because of the fact that the small pegasus before her was around her age, came up with the nickname for her. "Well, you know how it is with management these days, they want to save as much as possible, budget cuts and bottom lines and all that." Suddenly everything fell back into darkness. "HEY! Who's in charge of the lighting?!"
There was silence for a moment, followed by a distant, "Sorry!" There was a sound of power coming back to the lights, and as soon as things were lit, everyone continued setting up the supplies they needed.
"Okay, first of all who's got the plans for the celestial movements?" Mother looked over at the committee she kept close to her, and was quickly passed a set of plans. "What's this?"
One of the creators, a diamond dog, raised a paw in apprehension to the question. "Ah, that's the master plan we had drafted. Pretty standard stuff for a new world. Planet with land and oceans revolving around a stationary sun with a moon option revolving around the world." He then smiled as his smugness came through. "Not to brag but, the boys down in HR feel that sentient life forms tend to do better with that moon roof. Makes them feel relaxed at night."
"Sorry Fluffy," Mother said with a frown. "But I thought we were clear before going in that this would be different. It might take some micro-management, but I think they can handle what we throw at them." She looked at the dimensions suggested on paper and frowned. "This sun's too big. For what we need it's going to be a lot smaller, and a lot closer."
"Closer? But mother, wouldn't that cook them? I've got a family you know, and I doubt my little ones would be thrilled to know that we-"
Mother snorted slightly, and was surprised that she had. Despite that she kept a cool face and continued. "I know what I'm doing here. You might have hired me and helped me select my crew, but when we're done, trust me when I say not only will your little ones love it, but you will at least tolerate being with them when they see what we've done." She turned away from the overseer from the company, and instead went over to the plans and supplies. She browsed around for a while on the makeshift desk, pausing over the map for the continents and nodding in approval before picking up a pen. Alright, I've got this.
She looked at her wings, and gave them a flap to test them out. Sure enough, they propelled her forward with ease. Her horn lit up and she quickly grabbed the pen from her hoof with the magic, and couldn't help but laugh at how easy it came. "Alright everyone!" She looked around the white void around her, and discovered that nobody was upright anymore, and had simply drifted throughout the emptiness. It took all she had to not slam her hoof into her face, but instead forced a smile. "Grab your pens and paints, and get ready to follow me!" She flapped her wings and lowered the pen as she flew in a great lazy arc. She looked back and saw that other's were either flying like her, or running through the nothingness, but all of them were doing basically the same thing, drawing a line behind them into the void to create a series of arcing lines. "Keep it up everyone, it needs to be as close to a perfect ball as possible to work!"
It didn't take too long for Mother to meet up with the unicorn that ran in the opposing direction she was flying in. When their pens met, the two backed away from what they did to survey their work, and joined the others that were done to wait for the rest to catch up. The lines continued to fill in behind the crew of gods, until what finally looked like ball made up of latitude and longitude wire frame was floating in the void. "Alright," Mother said with a smile. "Dump it!"
There was a sudden mad rush as everyone grabbed a bucket of blue paint from the supplies. It didn't take more than a minute before the wire frame took it into itself and became a giant floating ball of water. "Should we render it now Mother?"
"Not until after we're finished with the lands, or we're just going to have a big ball of water floating around." She looked over the what was done so far, and felt giddy from excitement start to build up in her. "Alright, team A, you're with Top, get over to the far end and start in on that moon. I want every detail on it done within the hour. Every rock, crater, and shade of white detailed to the last dust speck! When you are finished, join team B. Team B, you're with Big Guy. Get down there and start working on the land masses. Team C, you're with me on sunshine duty."
Teams A and B quickly dispersed to do what they had to, but team C groaned loudly before joining Mother off to one end of the void. "So how far away should we go? A few billion miles or..."
"Or," mother replied with a smile. "About the same distance as the moon, if not just a bit further." Mutterings went through the small group, and Mother noticed some of the things they were saying. "Now now, it's going to be a very small sun that orbits the planet. I have faith in you all." The other gods replied with a collective groan, and Mother shot a few sparks from her horn. "Hey! If you wanna be that way, I'll just have the company replace you all with trained chimps! But I'm sure you would rather get a pay check at the end of all this."
That did it, the other gods zoomed off without too much prompting, and Mother gave chase after them. "Hey wait! You don't even know where it's supposed to go yet, follow me!"
At the great blue ball, Big Guy was having issues of his own. "Alright, who's the wiseguy that spilled their ink bottle here without cleaning up?"
"Uh, I did Big Guy, uh sir," a small parasprite said bashfully to the minotaur. "Sorry, it's really hard for me to hold things like this, I'm just too tiny."
Big Guy just rubbed his temples and closed his eyes as he tried to think of what to say. "Alright, look, I know you're real talented, but maybe you should have tried to be something that isn't the size of a tennis ball when you got here? I mean, you just created a bunch of islands that weren't supposed to be here. What do you think I'm supposed to do with these?!"
"Well, it's south of the equator, maybe it can be a desert and jungle region? I mean," the parasprite stopped and swallowed down his saliva, only for it to cause him to accidentally spit up a copy of himself.
"Grand, another one of you. Bob...s, just... just go, I want you on detailing, and detailing ONLY. Use your pen to do something that doesn't involve an ink well, please?" The matching pair of insects saluted before flying off and grumbling about lack of respect, and Big Guy wiped some sweat from his brow. "Why did I take this job? I'm never going to recover from this."
His thoughts were interrupted when everything went pitch black again. "Great, SOMEONE HIT THE LIGHTS!"
"There's no need," He looked up and saw Mother and her crew floating down to surface level of the planet with a grin. "Any second now, that new sun's gonna roll up over the horizon." They waited for a moment, yet nothing happened. "Any minute now."
Big Guy and the pair of Bobs all looked to the east, only to find nothing happening, Finally Big Guy coughed into his hand and adjusted his glasses. "Uh, you think you did something wrong here? Maybe the planet needs to spin after all."
"I'd rather not do that with us all standing here," Mother said with a frown. "You think that the A team is done on the moon yet?" Just as she asked the question, a white orb appeared above them in the sky, casting everything around them in a soft glow.
"Well that answers that," Big Guy said in a huff. "Let's move to where the sun is and work our way around with it. Probably best that way." Mother nodded and quickly called over the rest of the crew to head east with their supplies.
And so it was that they drew everything. Every mass of land, every rock, tree, mountain fissure, lake, blade of grass and grain of sand. It could have taken eternity, and maybe it did. But for them, it was nothing. And yet the sun and moon refused to move on their own. It took Mother herself to move those orbs everywhere they needed it to keep a normal cycle of day and night.
It wasn't until the final days that the gods began working on drawing all the life. Creatures both fanciful, and deadly. Some were wild beasts that would be apart of nature, and others were designed to be different. Masters of the earth and skies with intelligence that rivaled only each other. None of them were living yet though, not until everything was ready.
But not everything was going to plan, and one of the gods had to speak up about it. "Alright, we've got everything ready to go, and are ready to hit the render button on this project of yours Mother, but we've got two problems," Top said with a frown.
"I'm listening," she replied with a frown.
"Okay, one is the issue with the sky. The sun and moon are both in constant need of manual control to move them, and nothing here has the ability to move them when we're gone." Top then pointed at the forest behind him before continuing. "The second issue is that none of the weather patterns seem to work here. The only place that works right on that aspect is over the ocean in patches, and that forest back there. So tell me, did you come up with a plan for this?"
Mother looked around her and noticed that there was a group of roughly sketched butterflies atop some freshly painted flowers. "Hang on a second," she turned away from Top and shouted, "WHO FORGOT TO COLOR THE BUTTERFLIES?!" There was a quiet sorry shouted from over the horizon, and she rolled her eyes slightly before turning back to the earth pony. "Yeah, I've got a plan for the weather. Once everything is rendered, the flying life forms we've designated to become sentient will be able to handle that. As for the sky," she trailed off and gave a slight sigh. "I might have to come up with something soon, I'd rather not retire here for such a mundane task."
Top nodded and headed out as Mother looked in her bag for a pen. It needs to be magical, that much is true, she thought to herself as she pulled the pen out. But much stronger than anything else is here in that department. Using her magic to stroke the ink into the air, she tried a few different ideas in a row based off of what was already created. First she tried a gryphon, but despite her best of intentions, she couldn't figure out how it would be able to move the sun, so gave up on the idea.
She then drew a unicorn pony, and smiled. "Alright little one," she said to the sketch. "I give you life, and knowledge. You are a your own pony." The unicorn blinked to life, and looked confused for a moment before seeing Mother and bowing deep. "My foal, would you show me if you can move the sun?"
The unicorn blinked a few times before bowing again. "I, shall try, Mother." Her little horn flared up as she reached out with her magic to grasp hold of the sun. The unicorn grunted and groaned a few times, and for a moment it looked as if it could work. Then the unicorn passed out before the sun even moved an inch.
"Hmm, that wouldn't work then," she said with a frown before wiping her memory and placing a spell to keep her asleep. She tried again with a great dragon, and quickly found out that even though they were given sentience, a dragon doesn't care who you are, they'll try to eat you.
Hours went by, or maybe it was days. She'd lost count by now. The extra gods had left long ago, leaving just herself and the small core creative team leaders she'd specifically wanted to help. The ten of them had been waiting for a while, and in boredom decided to join her in trying different drawings. By then it became a sort of game to see who could come up with what, have a laugh and erase it before bringing it to life.
"Mother," one of the gods finally said after who knew how long. "Look, we're starting to run behind schedule. Maybe we're going about this all wrong, are you sure you've tried everything?"
"Not quite everything," she said with a frown. She then started to draw something else before kicking over a can of paint, creating a colorful waterfall. "Great, we haven't even finished with rendering and everything's going to collapse, because of a pair of stubborn celestial objects!" The bored group of gods behind her began to mutter before shrugging and continuing with there game, snickering at what they'd created. "And what's so funny now?!"
"What? Oh, it's nothing. Just this thing we drew. I thought it was kinda funny."
Mother groaned as she turned around. She was about to say something about how they shouldn't waste resources, but instead simply asked, "What is that?"
The gods all shrugged again before one of them stepped forward, "Sorry Mother, it's just what we were doodling to keep spirits up. You want us to go ahead and hit the render switch before we leave you alone?"
She froze as the words rang out, and a smile crossed Mother's face. "Don't you dare move! I'm about to be brilliant." The gods and goddesses all gave a collective groan as Mother's red mane began to fray with excitement and she began to rant. "We're not done just yet," she then began to pace back and forth quickly while making pen strokes in the air. "We've been going about this all wrong."
"We?" a gryphon good called Fuzzy said with an accusing glare.
"Shut up, you know what I meant," Mother said as she continued drawing. "I've been trying to use ideas based on the mortals we already created. But mortals are so short lived, to use one to move these objects, it would burn out it's life in a decade! But, a spirit..." she trailed off as she continued adding more features to the sketch before her. Bored once again, the others returned to their game of drawing. One added a single antler to the head and giggled slightly as another placed a goats horn. "And done!" Mother said once she applied the last bit of paint.
The ten others looked in confusion at what she'd drawn. It was almost as big as she was, and she was easily the tallest among them in the group. The creature was a white wolf with a serene look on it's face, as if she knew something they didn't. "Well," one of them said as she rubbed the back of her neck. "It's certainly nice, but how is she supposed to work?"
Mother grinned as she slowly rotated the large wolf before them. "She is Rhyme, the answer to everything we've been needing. A spirit of harmony, reason and logic. She will maintain order among the mortals of this world. She'll be a goddess among mortals, keeping everything in check while we are gone and answer only to us." She ran a hoof down the wolf's fluffy back and smiled. "She also can move the moon and sun for us while we're gone. So, what do you think?"
The others looked at the beautiful creature before them, and quietly shoved their finished work behind them. "It's great!" Big Guy said with a smile.
The others mostly nodded in agreement before one of them said something. "Wouldn't she be lonely?"
Mother's smile dropped somewhat as she stopped petting the fluffy fur of Rhyme's suspended body. "Pardon me?"
Out of the small group, one of them, a Mule named Jayson was singled out and he looked embarrassed, but continued. "Well, if she's perfect harmony, and can live forever, won't she be lonely? And besides, what kind of a world would this be to look at if everything was in perfect harmony? I propose a counter to harmony is needed to keep things in balance." He then pulled forward the sketch that they were goofing off with and smiled. "I say that without confusion, and chaos, life would be too boring, and harmony would have no meaning. Let him balance her out."
Mother looked over the strange doodle and shivered slightly. It was cartoony, that much was certain. But there was something off about him that she didn't like. The haphazard body parts, or pair of fangs weren't even the issue, but rather the serious and stoic look drawn onto his features. She quickly grabbed a pen and eraser and dabbled a bit on him to soften his look. Finally, after a few more minutes of work, she felt satisfied and grabbed some paint. "Everyone grab a color and body part, he's got to be her opposite, but I don't want him to be too much of a menace to our world."
Once they were done, they moved him next to Rhyme, and they gave a small cheer, it was done finally. Everything needed to get the world started was in place, the creatures were set where they should be. The ponies, gryphons, donkeys, minotaurs, dragons and cows that were to be the intelligent life were ready to be activated in their respective parts of the world. All they needed to do, was hit the render, make some talk with the life they made, and go.
"Alright," Big Guy said with a grin as he placed his hand on the leaver. "Here we go!" With a shove, a spark ran through the universe, making everything real instead of drawings. The water became fluid, the life started to animate, and the plants began photo synthesis. Everything was perfect.
"Alright," Mother said with a smile. "Each one of you look like a different form of the intelligent life here. You all know what to say, right?" They all nodded silently as Mother used a hoof to try to get one of them to speak.
Finally, they took the message and Fluffy was the first one to open his beak. "I am Fluffy, one of the eleven gods that created this world. I created you in my image, as they created others in theirs. All of you are to share this world in peace as masters of all that you find here." He then smiled wide as Mother nodded.
"Very good. If they have questions, you may answer them. I don't want too much difference between the races here, and hope for a peaceful world. Mind you, the dragons might be a problem, so be sure to make your point strong, okay Smokey?"
Smokey nodded before disappearing to do his bit in a jet of flame, leaving the others to follow suit and go down to talk to the life. Leaving Mother alone. There were no Alicorns, and she was rather happy with that idea. No, no alicorns yet, I think that should be something they could strive for. Only the best of my ponies can be symbols to unify all the races. But I still have to talk to them, after all, I am the high goddess of my ponies. As for the others, well, if they accept me, then they do. If not, at least the ones that look like them will still work under me. With a silent nod she left the ethereal realm to join the other pony gods to say her part to them.
Twilight looked at Discord with her eyes narrowed once he had finished talking. "Did you just mash together about seven different religions into one story?"
Discord tried his best to keep a straight face at the question, but soon enough a grin that could only be described as villianous spread across his muzzle. "Maybe," he said in a voice that feigned innocence.
Twilight's face seemed to contort in unnatural ways for a few moments before finally giving up the ghost of politeness that was left in her. She threw the stack of notes she had taken from Discord's story in her magic, and threw them in his face. "I swear to all the gods that could or couldn't have existed, if I wanted some sort of made up religion forced down my throat, I would have gone to the church of magic-ology!"
"Oh I like them! Isn't that the one that a bunch of celebrities join, and you pay them a few hundred bits a month to be a member?" He then chuckled slightly and wiped a tear from his eyes. "Oh, they are priceless!"
"I don't believe you," Twilight said with a frown. "I thought for once I would get the truth from you. But, silly me! I forgot you needed to turn everything into a joke!"
"Well sorry to step on your tail Princess, but there's a basis of fact in every religion of this world. I'd like you to keep a story straight after having it told by word of mouth for centuries. Not to mention all the translations for all those races. Yes, I would love to see what they say you did in a few centuries."
Twilight wanted to leave, she didn't want to believe what Discord was saying, she wanted to yell something in his face and never speak to him about this subject again. But she did none of those things, because of one small voice in her head spoke up among the storm of anger. He's right... What will they say about me and my friends in a hundred years? Or a millennium from today? The voice was quiet, but what it said spoke volumes to her.
She turned to face the elephant in the room. "Listen, I'm sorry. But this is kind of hard for me to believe in. Gods drew the universe into existence? Are you trying to say we are all just animated pictures or something?"
The strangely colored elephant gave a shrug before answering her. "It's not for me to say, I wasn't actually there for that part." He then snapped the end of his trunk as if they were fingers, and Discord changed back to normal. "All I have is what I was told happened before I was awoken, and the stories that were told and retold over the generations. What you see before you," he waved his arm over the pile of books. "Is all that we have left on record. A single religion, broken by many peoples into fractures that are unrecognizable to the gods themselves."
Discord stopped speaking suddenly when he noticed something. The silence had been filled back up with the scratching of a quill on paper once more. "So, would you consider yourself to be religious?" Twilight asked as she finished her notes with a flourish.
"Me? Hardly," he said with a scoff. "Religions are made up by cultures, a dogma with more rules than spirituality." As he spoke, he suddenly appeared in the robes of a priest of the pantheon. "Mindlessly following the laws of gods written by mortals, never questioning it beyond that holy people say that it is so, and that redemption in the eyes of the gods only are through their church. A dogma with no progress, and very little truth. No my little princess, I am a spiritualist, and I have a great relationship with the gods."
Twilight couldn't help but scoff a little as she continued to write down what he said. "And I suppose that turning everything upside down is what they would have wanted."
"If a devil is created to do harm, is that not the gods will?" he rebutted with a frown. "But, I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get there," he said to himself. "I'm not going to defend myself for my actions. After all, I am the opposing end of Rhyme."
He then suddenly coughed, and Twilight knew he was trying to clear the air itself with that action. As if to disspell the awkwardness that had suddenly come up between them. "Well now, let's get some more coffee and snacks in here." With a snap of his talons a couple cups of coffee appeared on the table with a small waffle sitting on top of the cups. "I hope you like stroopwaffles, cause I bought way too many of them last week." And with that, he poured some milk into his coffee and took a delicate sip before he continued. "Now, the first thing that I became aware of when I woke up..."
There was a very bright light shining in his face, and he didn't care too much for it. He grunted slightly, searching his mind for the proper word to suffice the feeling he had. Word, how do I even know what that is? Or what I just thought to myself? Or that? A headache began to form in the base of his skull, and he quickly slammed his palms into his eyes in hopes it would block out the light, and pain.
"Ahh, there you are," a feminine voice said in a cheerful tone. "I had thought you would have wandered off by now." He looked up quickly, and regretted it as the light quickly blinded him again. "Don't you think before you act strange creature?"
"I don't know, I'm not even sure what I'm doing here!" He yelled with his arm over his eyes. "But there's a bright light everywhere, and my head hurts, it knows things!"
"Of course it knows things, that's what your head is for, among other things." The voice seemed closer to him now, and his ears twitched slightly. "I'm going to shade your eyes until they adjust, is that alright?" He didn't vocalize his answer beyond a whimper as he nodded his head. "It's alright, I'm here to help you," the voice said in a calm voice. He then felt something furry, ("Paws?" he thought to himself.) push down on his arm, allowing a small amount of light to filter through his eyelids. "It's alright, you can open your eyes now."
A part of him wanted to disobey the voice, in fact, the voice in his head screamed that he should do anything but what she said. But there was something about the soothing way she spoke. He nodded at her and slowly opened his eyes. They adjusted quickly to the dimmer light, and the first thing he saw was a pair of pale blue eyes staring back into his. "There now, can you see me?"
He looked past her eyes slightly, and saw the white fur that surrounded him entirely, and the softly smiling muzzle below a black nose. "Yes, I see you," he replied, and attempted to give a smile back.
"Alright, I'm going to move my tail away slowly. You've got to see this." He simply nodded his head, and soon the bright light began to slowly pour in as her tail moved away. Soon, there was nothing to stop the light at all as the white wolf backed off all the way as she spread an arm to show the sights around her. "Isn't it amazing? Have you ever seen anything like it?"
He stood dumbfounded for a moment or two as he looked out over the landscape, green grass carpeted every inch of the earth around them as far as the eye could see. Nearby, a stream was running swiftly through the field and a mighty oak tree shaded a small nearby hill. In the distance, he could see that the grass continued into a thick forested area, and even further away he could see that even they would end as a majestic mountain range jutted upward, reaching as high into the sky as it could.
But after it all, his eyes wandered back to the great wolf before him, and his smile grew back. "No, not ever before. It's all so... " He paused, unsure of the right word to describe what he's feeling, She looked at him with a tilt of her head, waiting for him to finish, and he felt the pressure, so he said the first word that came to his mind, "moist."
"Moist?" the wolf questioned with a wrinkled nose.
The draconequiss' face screwed up as what he said came back to him, and really registered in his mind. That's when he said, "Perhaps it would be best to not use that word any more. Unless we speak of cake."
"What is a cake?" the wolf asked as she got up to walk around him. "You are a strange being, tell me, what do you remember?"
He stood still, for he felt that it pleased him to do so, and thought hard. "Hmm, I see, a great vessel, flying through the stars at impossible speed." He paused, and his face scrunched up as he thought, "Wait, no... that's wrong."
The wolf was about to comment on something, when the sound of flapping caught both of their attention. The pair turned to see a great white alicorn landing a few feet away from them. "Hello my children," the alicorn said with a smile as she folded her wings.
The pair, unsure of what to do, looked at each other before one of them bowed deeply with respect. The other got closer to poke at her horn in curiosity. "Much wow, so pointy, he said as he continued to prod the alicorn.
" Oh you're going to be a fun one," Mother said with a frown. The draconequiss ignored her comment, and went on by pulling out her wings, or as he called them, "such flappy floops." Mother coughed into a hoof before pulling back her wings in a snap. "Yes, I have wings too," she said in a strained voice. "But I've come to speak with you both about something more important than how we look."
Just as he was about to try to get a better look at the little inkwell with the feather imprinted on her side, he was pulled away from her with a quick grasp of magic. He gave a short cry of disappointment as he was sat next to the wolf, and she gave him a shush before mimicking his pose.
The alicorn looked over the two before giving a satisfied nod. She then smiled, and picked up where she was going to originally start at. "My children, and you both are my children, and as such, I wish for you to call me Mother." She gave a warm smile at the pair, and they both felt at ease as they hung on to every word, every motion that Mother gave off. "I wanted to check in on you both sooner, but I'm afraid that things didn't go over well with the dragons," she paused as if in revere of a memory before making to the forest. "Walk with me."
The pair looked at each other, before the draconequiss shrugged and happily followed, while the wolf took after the pair at a cautioned distance. "There are many things that you don't know yet about this world," Mother said with a light tone in her voice. "Yet you have knowledge of things that no one else will be able to." The wolf and draconequiss looked down, and noticed that flowering vines began to spread on the trees blooming in vibrant colors.
"There is one thing of great importance that we task you with," the alicorn said as she pointed a wing out to indicate a general vague grandness to what she was saying. "We can't be here at all times, and our time for molding what this world was made for isn't come to pass yet,"
"And what is this world made for?" The wolf said with a tilt of her head.
"Patience," Mother said with a nod. "You will know when the time comes, you will see a great many things happen fairly regularly when the time is here. For now, this world needs to keep moving regularly in order to reach that goal."
"I don't understand," the draconequiss said as he attempted to reach for a bright apple in a nearby tree. "How are we supposed to do what you want, when you haven't told us what it is?"
"To be blunt," Mother said with a frown, "You two were made to be guardians of this world in our stead." Her horn came aglow, bringing forth a field of glowing magic wherein she showed an image of the world. "We created this world to be balanced in harmony, the center of it's own little system, a geocentric anomaly such as this needs guardians to ensure it's balance in the absence of the creators."
"Hang on," the draconequiss said with a sudden sternness in his voice that neither Mother, or the wolf saw coming. "We've only been alive, or at least aware that we are alive for, what would you say, five minutes tops? And you want us to run the world for you? We don't even have names!"
The wolf gave a solemn nod in agreement. "He might be odd, but he isn't stupid," she said with a frown. "He has a point however, how are we supposed to do what you do when we don't even understand who we are?"
Mother looked at the pair with a look that, if they were more experienced with life in general, they would have realized was a very flimsy attempt at looking calm and serene. Rather, it was in fact a poor mask for the exacerbation that she felt at having to continue to be here for longer than she had expected. "Ah, yes, well," she started but didn't quite know how to follow up. "Let me try this then."
A short blast of magic was expelled from her horn, and for the moment, neither the wolf, or draconequiss were animated anymore. "Right, this is going well," she grumbled sarcastically before pulling out a small rectangle from thin air. "Big Guy? Yeah, it's me, listen, these two aren't working out."
She started to pace in a circle around the frozen pair as she held the rectangle to one ear in her magic. "Well I mean specifically, the snaky thing you drew out. He's asking too many questions that I can't answer. OF COURSE I KNOW THE ANSWERS!" She gave off a slight huff, causing the sun to flair in the sky above her. "Look, I'm moving a pair of celestial objects while holding a cell phone, and trying to talk to a pair of over grown, well spoken infants! DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!"
Mother paused for a moment before sitting on the floor and taking a deep, and obvious breath. "See, nothing, I'm still not. Okay," she paused as she listened for a few moments before answering back. "Two minutes, bring the rest here, we have a little more to do before we can go home."
