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// 1. The Winds of Change 
// Story: Lessons of Differing Realities 
// by Uncle Death 
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It was a fine day in the kingdom, the sun was shining, animals were grazing and her ponies where happy. Even so Celestia felt tense that something was going to change, better or for worse she didn’t know, only that something would happen that would shake up the peaceful routine that had settled over her kingdom after Twilights battle with Tirek. Hearing hooves strike the marble floor behind her, did Celestia turn around and see her beloved sister Luna, princess of the moon.

“Do you also sense it sister, there seems to be a new presence in our kingdom?” the blue alicorn asked, her blue eyes alight with a hint of fear and Celestia couldn’t fault her for it. Flaring a little of her power did she also get a return pulse. The new presence that she felt showed no hostile intent towards them and it was powerful, but most worrying was its tinge of darkness. Most things or beings that she and her sister had encountered in their long life had used darkness for evil. 

Celestia knew that darkness didn’t mean evil or that light meant good, but most things that meant harm used some form of darkness to do its bidding, either through dark magic or twisted feelings. Before Celestia could answer her sister question, did the presence sharply spike in the corner of her lounge room. Both sisters sharply turned to the corner only to see a portal of some kind, it was black with hints of deep purple swirling within itself. 

With no warning, what-so-ever did the portal collapse within itself to reveal a scary creature, it stood at eye level to Celestia and wore a coat of the darkest black, a colour that seemed to absorb all the light within its vicinity, a hood that completely hid the face along with a chain connected to what the sisters could only guess was their guests neck and to finish its outfit was the black gloves and boots the creature wore. Before the sister could attack, did the intruder speak.

“Do not be alarmed, I’m not here to cause harm but to give you a gift.” It said. Not convinced, Luna asked the creature a question.
“What gift could an unknown and untrusted stranger give to us?”

“Why the gift of knowledge of course.” It said, while gesturing towards a marble that it had created from darkness. It then went on to explain that its species was humanity, he was a male and how the marble works.

“You see, since this marble was crafted from darkness, wherein darkness was the beginning of all things, it can show you recordings of whenever and wherever you want and all you have to do to make it work is to imagine a scene you want when you crush it and a movie of the subject will appear on the projection. After the movie vanishes the marble will repair itself for the next viewing.”
It was Celestia’s turn to ask a question.

“While it’s good to know that you’re not an enemy, there must be a downside to using the marble, magic is all about give and take, to peer into the fabric of the universe requires strong divination magic so what is the downside to using its power?” As she finished her question did the man answer her.

“You don’t have to worry about the cost, because I’ve already paid much of it in its creation. The main worry you guys will have is what knowledge you would like answered, for if you don’t ask the right question it could give you an entire different answer than the one you want. For example, if you asked for how the hero of a story defeats the villain, you might get a video of the hero dying with the villain still alive except defeated in some way.” The man then continued to explain how the marble was constructed and some warnings in its use. Especially about researching the future and trying to change it.

“That has assured me in some of my concerns, but can you show me an example of its use?” asked Celestia. 

“Do you have a specific question that you would like to ask?” the man questioned.

“Yes, show me how Twilight sparkle hatched Spike the dragon.” She exclaimed. Nodding his head, the man tightened his grip on the marble in his hand, thought hard about the question and shattered the marble. As soon as the marble had shattered, the pieces had turned into wisps of dark energy and had formed a flat square projection, which than lit up into a multitude of colours that slowly fused into a shape that Celestia recognized, that of a filly Twilight.

The room that appeared in the vision was a classroom coloured in blues, greens and purples. It showed a young Twilight sparkle with her mother and father, with four examiners sitting in the chairs meant for students. Twilight quickly looked to her parents for help, only to get nervous smiles in return did she turn back to the examiners. A sound to the left of her caught her attention, which caused her to look towards it to see a brown earth pony pushing a cart, with an egg on it, into the room. Turning back to the examiners did the yellow pony speak.

“Well miss sparkle?”

Laughing nervously, Twilight made her way to cart, soft sounds of the examiners magic activating and lifting their clip boards behind her. Twilight started to grunt and groan in trying to force her magic to activate, the grey examiner in the chair coughed, the blue one yawned and the yellow one spoke once again.

“we don’t have all day.”

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get one ounce of magic to form. Giving up she said.

“I’m sorry that I wasted your time.” And just as she was about to cry did an explosion happen outside, an explosion with all the colours of the rainbow. Jumping in shock did Twilight's magic activate and send a beam that hit the egg which hatched into a purple and green baby dragon. Another stream hit the examiners which caused them to float, another her parents which turned them into potted plants and her last one which forcibly grew the baby dragon into a towering dragon of muscle and scales.

After that last image did the video disappear and turn back into smoke, which than rabidly reformed into a black marble that lay on the ground.

“It seems I need to speak to the examiners in how to treat a foal in exams.” Celestia grumbled to herself.

“So, was that how Spike was hatched sister?” questioned Luna.

“Indeed, it was Luna, it seems our new friend was telling the truth about his gift, I didn’t sense anything off with the magic scans I was running. Now friend, is there anything you want us to do with this gift and do you have a name that we can call you while you stay with us?” asked Celestia

“I only ask that you bring the element bearers, crystal rulers and discord to learn with you two about the differing realities, ones that will bring happiness, sadness, joy and all the emotions that you can think of. As for a name, you can call me…

The new-found friend to the celestial sisters paused and thought about giving his real name to them but decided not to, not while he still didn’t fully trust them, because true names give a degree of control over the named things, especially when dealing with magic. He finally decided to give them the backwards spelled name of his old master in magic, wouldn’t that get his beard in a twist. Quietly laughing at his inside joke, he finally turned to Celestia and Luna and said.

“You can call me Disney.”