Rippling clouds.
Dark thunderbeds and onyx skies.
Shrieks in the distance, growing closer...
Rainbow Dash was asleep. She knew that she was. Perhaps that's why she took all of these images in stride. The mare glided along, her mane full and long, The scars on her body had vanished; she was just as she remembered from a time lost forever.
Her body felt weightless. Perthaps because there was no Element of Loyalty weighing her down. Normally, this would have scared her. But in his place... this strange sky of smoldering obsidian bands... she suffered no fear.
She flew. She observed. With casual grace, she watched as the heavens shifted past her.
The shrieks increased in volume, circling around her now.
Rainbow Dash's brow furrowed. She leaned her head forward, squinting in an effort to pierce the thunderous barriers lingering ahead.
Something flickered amidst the billowing malaise. Fixed points of lunar light—all in pairs. Like fangs.
Somehow, Rainbow Dash knew.
Thus—when the leather bodies pierced the cloud and filled the atmosphere with screams—she barely flinched.
Rainbow Dash awoke slowly... calmly.
One eye fluttered open, followed by the other.
She was safe. She was relaxed. She was curled up in the same fuzzy blue ball as before—only countless hours had passed. Her searching eyes pierced the fog, and on the far end of the tent she spotted Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. The two ghostly mares "sat" casually by the canvas exit, chatting amicably with one another. Both spirits had their flanks to Rainbow. Neither had noticed yet that she had woken up.
Rainbow took a deep breath. Just as she started to stir her stiff muscles—
"Pleasant dreams?"
"... ... ..." Without moving, Rainbow looked to her right.
A serpentine shadow with black antlers reclined against the tent fabric beside her. Faking a yawn, the figure brought a dark paw to his goat's muzzle and gestured with his talon while continuing:
"You're not all that scared of them anymore, are you?"
Rainbow Dash was silent.
"Of course, there's probably a reason for that." The figure shifted into the light. A pair of red-on-yellow eyes peered above a fanged grin. "You no longer have me cooped up in there." He pointed a talon at Rainbow's skull. "Must have been terribly claustrophobic to have shared all those visions of loosening teeth, free falls, and embarrassing days showing up to school with your clothes on."
Rainbow blinked.
"It was the only way we could connect for a while, y'know." Discord pointed at her skull again. "Up there. Up where it's fuzzy and oh so blue." He did a ballerina leap across the tent and piroutted to a stop behind Twilight and Fluttershy. "After all, what's more chaotic than dreams? True... there is an ounce of logic forming a basic, narrative thread to the nightly cabesa shuffle. But your poor Princess Luna must have been killing herself to drown herself in so much unpredictability for so long—on behalf of the Equestrian populous!" His brow furrowed with a touch of mischief. "Unless... of course... harmony was never quite her forte from the beginning. And she's the one in charge of both the sun and moon nowadays! Oh, how blissfully... scathingly ironic!"
"... ... ...."
"Pssssst. Hey." Balancing on his tail, Discord aimed the ends of his lower limbs at the rumps of Twilight and Fluttershy respectfully. "Which of them do you think will fly farther if I give it the ol' punt? My money's on the lavender unicorn; her egghead's gotta have some weight to it."
Rainbow's nostrils flared. With very little hesitation, she suddenly whispered, "You won't kick them."
"Why not?" Discord snaked his head about and pouted upside-down at Rainbow. "You don't think it'll connect?"
"I've tolerated you this long," Rainbow murmured so that only he could hear. "I doubt you'll want to ruin the attention so soon."
"... ... ..." Discord stared long and hard at Rainbow. At last, he retracted from the two mares, slinking back to Rainbow's side. "Well, you've got me there, Sparky." He reclined with a casual smirk cradled in a lazy paw. "I guess you really do miss having me up in there."
"I don't miss a thing about you," Rainbow muttered. "And if you disappeared tomorrow, I still wouldn't."
"Oh, how you wound me!" Eyelashes fluttering, Discord reached a talon to "dust off" Rainbow's bangs. "And to think I kept your insides all nice and tidy while you were dozing off the spider juice."
Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "... ... ...what could you possibly have learned from any of this?"
"What—you mean while you were drooling for weeks under a coma?" Discord shrugged. "Why—I couldn't possibly have learned a single thing!" He lingered, then winked at her. "Unless... you actually believe me capable of gleaming something."
Rainbow's jaws tightened. "Just because you were perculating in my head after I freed Applejack, causing countless nightmares to mess with me—"
"Oh, we both know I've been with you far longer. That was just the only place where you and I could—how should I say it—commune with one another. At least for a while." Discord pretended to examine his claws. "Dreams are simply the sludge of the day, dredged up and heated under a pressure cooker overnight. No—you don't have to thank me for venting off the excess steam. Then again, if you had the good sense to let me out sooner intead of the rest of your sappy gal-pals, then maybe it wouldn't have been so taxing on you."
"I didn't choose the order my friends were released," Rainbow Dash hissed. "Yaerfaerda chose!"
"That's certainly a convenient notion, isn't it? Did you officially come to trust all things taught to you by the dusty runes in those stuffy little Machine World chambers you eventually Mary-Sue'd your way into on the flipside?"
"They haven't steered me wrong yet."
"But you don't seem the kind of pegasus to be 'steered' so easily." Discord folded his arms. "After all, what did Abaddon call it? Ilrifa's Codex? Maybe... Sparky... just maybe all of the answers you've ever wanted were written inside you from the beginning."
Rainbow looked confused.
"Don't give me that expression, young lady! You could be worse off, y'know!" Discord sported a smug grin. "Have you noticed how often you're suffering from paralytic dizzy attacks as of late?"
The mare fidgeted. She bit the edge of her lip.
"Now... are you going to chalk that all to the Dark Side? To the depths of which you've sunk into chaos itself?" His fang glinted. "Or the degree to which you've unleashed the chaos that's been bubbling inside of you."
"This..." Rainbow sighed. "...is just another elaborate ruse to get me to talk to you more, isn't it?"
"Sparky, you've chosen to talk to me!" Discord stood tall in the tent and bowed. "Instead of banishing me upon first fizzle, you've kept me in your dashing presence! I'm flattered, really! But I can still tell we've got a long way to go. Nevertheless, there's hope yet! After all, if there's anything I've picked up about you... the further you go, the more stable you get. Even if all around you is instability."
Rainbow glanced at Twilight and Fluttershy across the tent. Her tail flicked nervously.
"That's why I think we can make such a good team, you and I..." Discord leaned in, his voice taking on a slightly breathy tone. "Do the smart thing, Sparky. Ditch the pastel echo chamber. Except for the floofy-goofy one, I find them all rather... redundantly trite in their own respective moralities. But me? Ohhhh boyoooo... with me by your side we can explore all the crazy little puzzles left festering in your brain." He tilted his chin up with a knowing glint. "And—while we're at it—we can tackle a few of the conundrums looming before your fragile loyal conscience."
Rainbow sighed, and she smirked slightly. "You get more and more friggin' desperate each time I listen to you."
"Ah...!" He pointed a talon. "...that can only mean there will be a 'next time' that you listen to me."
"... ... ..."
"A delightfully dumb expression if I ever saw one, Sparky." Discord spun in a circle, rematerializing with a business suit and suitcase. "Very well. I'll be on my way. But don't relish my absence, Sparky. Now that I'm on the outside..." He pointed at her skull again. "...that leaves a lot of space on the inside. And—tell me..." His red-on-yellow eyes narrowed. "... ... ...do you really think there's nopony else looking in on that vacancy?"
Rainbow merely raised an eyebrow. She opened her muzzle as if to ask something.
Discord saw it, and he grinned. "Ciao!" And he walked into himself, disappearing cyclonically with a vaprous burp of his suitcase. The air of the tent was clear once again.
Rainbow Dash must have shot up to her hooves, because Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy heard her movement and turned around. They brightened upon seeing their anchor awake.
"Oh!" Fluttershy grinned. "Rainbow Dash!"
"Morning, Rainbow!" Twilight Sparkle floated closer. "Is there anything we can help you with?"
Rainbow Dash looked at her friends, blinking wide.
Her friends looked back, grinning.
Rainbow fumbled... squirmed... then finally opened her muzzle: "... ... ...I gotta pee." And she galloped briskly out of the tent, dragging two confused ghosts along with her.
We haven’t seen Discord in a while.
Somepony looking in? Could he be referencing the soul succ-ers? They seemed to notice when she first crossed the plane, and I still think they're the most powerful and dangerous of the three factions by far.
Hmmmmm Discord what do you know? That is quite the interesting tidbit of info there.
And so, our heroine finds herself confronted with the confounding conundrums of an enemy who loves to hear himself talk.
Be her for our next confusing episode "The Case of the Dodgy Draconequus" or "Urine Trouble Now!"
Methinks Discord is talking about Ilrifa, she's probably looking to get inside Rainbow's head somehow.
Whether or not that's a good thing is another story.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
He's baaaaaack.
Wonder what he means "nopony elselooking in on that vacancy?" Another spooky ghost we don't know? Whatever it is, it can't be good.
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Yeah. Must’ve been on hiatus.
Oh look. Super best friend has returned. And at the same time as the other five, too.
Ah, good ol' Dipcord is back at it again (at the Krispy Kreme).
He sure does love being as cryptic as all of the other immortal/semi-immortal beings we've met thus far, doesn't he?
I'm betting on the Tchern wanting to dig into lil miss sunshine's noggin.
The second comma should be a period, I think.
I was going on the assumption that Ilrifa was long dead and that whatever Rainbow was talking to in all of her interactions with the ruby flame was just an echo. Discord's giving me something to think about, though. It's good to finally see him back.
Also, does anyone remember when the changeling back at Darkreach dropped the hint about Wildcard not talking for some reason other than his vow to Keris? I hope we get to learn more about that soon.
Gotta admit, Discord is one persistent bastard. I wish I were like that with my goals. lul
I like this Discord. He's not quite as obnoxious as he was when he first appeared. Almost like Discord finally realizes the only way to get Dash to listen is to talk more and taunt less.
Ilifra, Tchern, or Night Shards? Or even another party?
On an unrelated note, I was going to wait for this book to finish then binge it, but then IC had to make it more than 200 chapters. And so, 7 hours later, here we are. Why you do this to me IC? Why must you pull me into this daily wait for an upload?
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I'm going to guess that it is Ilifra. Tchern can only mess with her children and herself, not the minds of others. Night Shards deal with souls, and that's by taking souls and reliving them like the Sequence machines on the Light Side. They can't control or replace people.
Ilifra, however, is a Machine AI powerful enough to control Harmony, the Alicorns, History and Life on this broken machine world, control the Elements of Harmony, and Fate itself.
It controls everything in RD's life already. Even random chance encounters were set up and controlled eons in advance. So if it's already controlling everything about her situation, why not just physically join with her as well and actually physically control her? Especially if there might actually not be a way to save the world, and instead this whole quest is to 'save her' and 'let her escape', 'into RD's Mind'.
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That's the scary part though. The 3 sides are somehow managing to fight to a standstill for the better part of a generation. Unless something (Dash & co.) destabilize that balance then it's likely to continue.
The way Discord talks makes me think more and more that Dash isn't always in full control of her actions, and that the "Austreaoh" is a force that's manipulated her in more ways than one since before the start of the story. Everything from DNA encoding to literal shifting or control of causality and probability could have been playing a role in pushing Dash towards certain events and decisions, including this sudden impulse to want to go chat it up with the sarosians.
Speaking of which, I still think nobody in the group is thinking about this in a balanced and rational sense. Dash seems intent on just flying up to the first bat pony fort she sees and try to talk to them. Which will end in tragedy. Meanwhile Seraphimus seems fixated on assassination as the best course of action.
If it were me, I'd say focus on going to Petra. The goblins at least seem to have a hint of civilization that isn't built on murder, if they can understand the value of trade, and their city has managed to survive the Dark Side for generations. Hence its possible to talk with them, get into their city without being stabbed or shot full of holes, and get involved in some barter to acquire information and equipment better suited to dealing with the sarosians. Information on bat pony weaponry, tactics, deployments, anything of that sort would be useful, while at the same time upgrading gear to whatever weapons and armor the goblins tend to use to keep themselves from getting destroyed would probably also be useful.
From there, then Dash and company could tackle bat pony territory, and I'd say a good first plan would be to instead of just flying up to the first major fort or group you see and hoping it doesn't end in horrific death for one or more of the Herald it would be smarter to try to locate a small patrol along their borders to ambush and capture. When I say small patrol I'm talking the Herald should probably seek to have a two to one advantage, as well as the element of surprise. Why? Because they know jack shit currently about bat pony combat abilities, so its best to stack all the advantages you can. If one baby Dark Side changeling nearly kicked everyone's ass, imagine what a full squadron of Bloodwings (who fight adult changelings on a regular basis and can win) might do. So ambush a small group and hope to capture them.
Once captured, and the bat ponies are very, very, very tied up, then Dash can try her negotiation skills, including whether any of the bat ponies are remotely impressed by the Lunar enchantment thingie. In as controlled a situation as possible Dash and the others can see how... capable of reason the Bloodwings are. If they're not, then if nothing else you know more about how they fight and can maybe learn more about their territory from the ones captured.
This plan at least makes more sense then either flying up to a fort and hoping not to get killed while trying diplomacy, or hoping to catch Lexxic somewhere away from the bat ponies main fort where he could be somehow assassinated. Really neither of the current plans on the table are all that well thought out, so I'm hoping something smarter gets put on the table soon. I know this story is oddly obsessed with pushing stupidity as a virtue and almost shaming the idea of thinking things through smartly, but I can still hope there's some intelligence to how Dash proceeds next and it isn't the usual "stupid = awesome = success!". Or worse that by doing so Dash gets one or more of the Herald straight up killed. I mean, I know that's gonna happen eventually anyway, but I'd prefer it if it wasn't due to Dash doing something incredibly and avoidably incompetent.
And nearly forgot this time (and likely many times to come):
Seraphimus x Logan Ship Confirmation Chapter Counter: 9
Oh look, the annoyance shows up again!
Discord might be outside Dash now, bu so ar the girls, and they cant go very far. So, how far can Discord go, such as outside of hearing distance?
Dash needs to learn to silence the discord app.
Discord, a.k.a. the most malformed slippery eel of chaos.
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At this point not enough is known about the Night Shard for me to argue. I was thinking Tchern more for the idea that changelings can "sense" those you are connected with so to speak. At this point I feel like Ilifra IS in Dash subconsciously, based on pure speculation and Dash drawing circular patterns that are unknown to anyone else.
Basically, I can see Tchern's changelings transforming into an Angel or even Ilifra upon 'peering inside' Rainbow Dash. That'll be neat.
It had been established before that Discord's self and the essence of Chaos that self was formerly imbued with are two entirely distinct entities, which is why Discord could die but his power still infect Rainbow. As such, this development is interesting. This Discord might be more than just his literal ghost.
So maybe the ruby flames are doing more than just keeping her alive and stable, maybe the Ruby flames are also awakening dormant genetic memories within Rainbow. Curious, but not nearly as potentially important as
He implies that someone is looking to get in. Who or what, and more importantly, why?
After about 8 months of on and off reading, I've finally caught up with this fic. And my goodness it's been a crazy ride. Easily the longest story I've ever read in my life. I've created an account just to join in on commenting in the new chapters. Glad to be one of the few who are caught up.
Absolutely love the way IC writes Discord. I can't wait for RD to have a real talk with him.
In the Eighth Book of East Horse, Imploding gave to me
Eight Bats of Saros,
Seven glowing circles,
Six weeks a-Choking,
FIVE WAYS TO FLY!!!
Four warring sides,
Three great days,
Two Companions,
And a Rainbow that’s flying East.
Hmm... I bet Discord means us readers. If anyone wants to get inside Dashie’s head, it’s us.
8778945 Welcome aboard. Please fasten your seat belt, we are about to experience some turbulence.
Here's hoping Discord and the others don't stay invisible to each other for long.
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RD: Hey, Sera! Watch me pull a friendship out of my
Sera: But that trick never works!
RD: This time for sure! Presto!
*suddenly, Bloodwings EVERYWHERE*
I'm all for a little chaotic comradery, but then Discord has to add in the "just ditch your friends!" bit making it sound less like cooperation and more like a deal with the devil.
Wow!
... I sure hope Rainbow finds a good place to pee!
Did Dashie just include Discord under "friends"? Awww.
Well that's bizarre and ominous.
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Haha, that's Discord for ya!
8778945
Welcome!
Such style, such grace. A true hero.
Discord seems pretty animated here. Rainbow must've paid for nitro.
After all these years, we still don't know what his game is
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I doubt that even HE knows what his game is, or if he even has one, and isn't just making it up as he goes.
05/10/2018
00:04 UTC
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I think Discord knows more than he's letting on.
He's an ancient and powerful being, no more or less old than all the alicorns and Drago shes encountered, she just has a personal bias against him in particular which clouds her judgement.
...Discord? What are you hiding?
Hm. Interesting. Concerning. Ominous...
Hmmm....so Discord seems to want to have more freedom to
talktroll Dash, while also implying some pretty heavy stuff....the hell is going on here.