“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.” Elvis Presley
In the middle of the training grounds inside the guard’s academy two mares, a light grey thestral and a yellow unicorn were recovering from what would probably be the worst training session of their short life. After almost a year of training Moonflower and Klaxie finally were officially part of Twilight’s unofficial team, ol’ Silver had pushed them to their limit and beyond. Twilight had requested for those two to be trained under Silver himself and if he was able to get the results she needed in a year, Twilight would volunteer on missions Silver would require a special assistant. Silver was pleased, it was hard, he had almost given up along the way but those two mares didn't. They put heart and soul to get strong and overcome all the training.
“You know, Miss. Not want to leave my books, I knew pegasi and thestrals had good eyesight but that little mare is on another level,” said Silver to Twilight who was standing next to him while they looked at the tired mares.
“Could you stop calling us that,” replied Twilight frowning at Silver, “and we knew they could do it, you should trust our instincts Old Bones.” Silver laughed hard like he always did as he ordered the dead tired mares to take the rest of the day off. Leaving the mares to themselves he left to his office to finish his work. Twilight walked close to her two friends with a smile of her face.
“Sorry my Queen, I can’t move to properly welcome you,” said the yellow unicorn.
“It’s alright Zipzee, also please don’t call us that, at least not in public,” replied Twilight as she used her magic to pick both mares up from the floor.
“Thank you Twilight,” responded Moonflower as she floated in Twilight’s magic, as her friend just smiled at her.
Twilight teleported them to her room, she took both her friends to the shower and left them to clean and refresh themselves. She also made sure to get some food from the kitchen while they got ready. On her way from the kitchen she met with her sister Sunset, they shared a hug and talked for a few minutes before parting ways. Sunset had been working with magic artifacts under Princess Celestia’s supervision lately, apparently the princess would have the same lesson with Twilight once she was more advanced in her own lessons.
After the deal with Silver regarding Moonflower and Zipzee, Princess Celestia wasn’t very happy, she was proud of Twilight’s decision to help her new friends, but she hadn't liked the way Twilight had dealt with everything. She was also kind of hurt by Twilight not trusting her enough to ask for her help. Returning to her room she brought Moonflower’s and Zipzee’s food. While her friends were eating Twilight continued with her research regarding petrifying spells and the state their victims were left to inside the stone prisons. From cockatrice’s magic gaze, simple dark magic spells to artifacts that created petrifying smoke, she had researched for the last month after giving up on getting Princess Celestia to tell her what she had used on Discord.
“Twilight, How is the research going?” asked Moonflower after finally recovering her strength with the bath and food.
“Not so good, Moony,” responded Twilight with a sigh, “These kind of spells are hard to get trustworthy results from.”
“Would you like me to volunteer my Queen?” asked Zipzee full of excitement to help.
“Zipzee, please stop calling us that, also no need to put yourself in danger,” replied Twilight, withdrawing from her book, “Besides in these books they explain what happened to the ponies after the use of the spells.” The disguised changeling’s ears pinned back, Twilight wrapped her wing around her and smiled at her to make her feel better. After their talk Zipzee became loyal to Twilight, she had also gotten her own blessing from the goddess, evolving from a simple changeling drone to something different, she was not longer linked to the hive and she wasn’t starving anymore. She could still eat emotions but now it wasn’t her only source of food. Zipzee’s new goal became making sure her new queen was happy, she trained hard so she able to protect her against any danger. Twilight was happy for her friend and supported her goals, she knew how loyal changeling’s could get.
Moonflower had also grown powerful as an airborne fighter, she had even received some interesting tips from the uprising Captain of the Wonderbolts, Spitfire herself. Spitfire was meeting with old Silver Might and discovered the young thestral training. She even requested Silver to transfer Moonflower to the Wonderbolt Academy to turn her into Wonderbolt. Luckily for Moonflower, Silver refused, pointing out she was not Wonderbolt material, she was too good for a showoff group. Spitfire laughed with Silver on their way to the meeting, the next day Silver had a new training regimen for Moonflower to follow thanks to Spitfire.
For Silver, Moonflower’s strength was in her head. She was really smart and combined with her excellent sight she was becoming a great strategist. Twilight was able to get some help from the princess in granting access to the Archives and Royal Library for Moonflower to study military strategy and history. After gaining sight Moonflower’s studies had never stopped, she loved books as much as Twilight, so both had become fast friends, and Moonflower had even opened up to Twilight after a couple of months ending the princess / guard attitude.
The trio of friends spent their time together almost every night before they had go back to their respective housings. Moonflower ended up adjusting to a diurnal lifestyle in order to live with Twilight’s parents and assist the academy to train. Zipzee was living with the others recruits in the living quarters, she was able to find a place thanks to Silver. Twilight’s parents were happy to have Moonflower at their place, Twilight would visit more often during the week to spend time with her friend and family. Her “BBBFF” was also helping Zipzee with her new life and even helped her get used to the military life.
Life was simple for Twilight and her friends, her studies were progressing at a good pace, her sister Sunset was happy with her and also liked to hangout with the other two. Spike could talk more and was able to walk without help. Princess Celestia asked Cadance to teach him to read and write, as he had requested from the princess so he could help Twilight and Sunset at some point. Owlowiscious helped her keep the corrupted nobles at bay, and her clues were helping her brother rise within the guard. He was now a lieutenant and he would continue getting promotions, he wanted to become the Captain of the Royal Guard and Twilight knew he could do it on his own.
One day after many books, research and experiments done Twilight found a way to know what happened to the Spirit of Chaos. One book of black magic from the secret shelves of the princess had the clue she needed to continue. She just needed to train to learn the spell and not destroy the target statue by accident. She needed to practice away from the princesses eyes since it was technically a forbidden spell. Unfortunately for her, that week, as had been usual for a while, every few months Princess Celestia would disguise herself as a pegasus mare and hang out with Twilight. She realized long ago that, if she tried to be friendly to the disguised princess she would be happy, so she discovered by chance the reason why the princess was stalking her all those occasions.
At some point she mentioned to the princess about a strange pegasus mare that followed Twilight everywhere every now and then, Princess Celestia was really nervous that day and commented that maybe the mare wanted to be friends with her but was shy. Twilight had wanted to facehoof but had used all her godly powers to not do so and ended up changing the conversation topic for both mares’ own good. Twilight didn't know what to think after that revelation, so she did what she thought would be the best for her private time and Princess Celestia’s own well-being and honor, she started talking to Sunny Skies and befriended her. They spent together a few times every month when Sunny returned from her work trips to Canterlot, getting some tea or enjoying the cultural parts of the city.
But that week she couldn't keep the princess busy, she needed that opportunity to test the spell, she asked Zipzee to entertain Princess Celestia by disguising herself as Twilight for that day. While Twilight went to the Canterlot Statue Garden to test her luck with Discord’s statue and the new spell. It took her the whole day to master the spell, but by moonrise she was ready to start.
Bored, that’s what this place made him feel. He felt bored, all around him was just darkness. He couldn’t cast magic, make a joke that he hadn't heard already. He would kill to have a drink of chocolate milk or summon a T.V. to entertain himself. Darkness was all he could see, feel or think. He didn't know for how long darkness became his world. He had felt some interesting events in the world outside of his prison, or heard a few conversation near his location, but he couldn’t influence the world or free himself anytime soon.
His head was horse-like, he had a deer antler on the right, a blue goat horn on the left, one long fang, different-sized red pupils with bright yellow eyes, a snake tongue, a goat beard, and white bushy eyebrows. He had the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat. In addition, he had a bat's right wing, a Pegasus' left wing, a horse's mane, and a dragon-like snake's tail with a white tail tuft. The shape of his body resembled that of a snake. A draconequus, a mysterious creature the came to Equestria from nopony knows where. He fed on chaos, disharmony, those were his domains to rule and he loved to cause trouble. When he got bored of the world he would make it interesting for him. Unfortunately for any other creature that usually meant troubles or something worse.
He had lived that way for thousands of years, but when the pillars disappeared from Equestria he knew it was his opportunity to have some fun. Which left him to become a stupid garden decoration. Who knew that those six would have a backup plan in their absence. Thought the creature as he floated in the darkness. He felt the darkness leaving as love magic disappeared in the north. He felt when his favorite princesses had disharmony with each other, he thought that was his queue to enter the stage but that hadn’t been it either. Lately he had felt something growing in the south but nothing useful to help escape. But things were too quiet, his boredom grew stronger. It had been maybe a few thousand years but he was starting to get tired of waiting.
“I should have enough magic now to break a flower vase in Celestia’s room... “ murmured the draconequus floating in the void. Suddenly the void transformed itself, he was still floating in darkness, but now there were stars twinkling everywhere. “Am I in space now?” he said looking at the changes that happened.
“No, you’re still a garden decoration,” replied a female voice. Startled by the reply to his comment he looked around trying to see who was talking. He saw the shape of an alicorn made of shadows entering into existence in the middle of the sea of twinkling stars.
“My, if it isn't Moonbutt, ” responded the creature with a grin, “To what do I owe the honor of a dream visit, my dear?”
“Oh Discord old friend, we think you have the wrong alicorn,” responded the alicorn shaped shadow.
“Sorry but my last friend was Hubbert and you don’t look like a butterdragon,” responded Discord to the figure, snarling. To Discord’s surprise the alicorn started to take color, it was a small lavender alicorn, her wings a little too big for her body, and her ethereal star shimmering mane and tail mixed together with the stars in the space they were. When she opened her slitted shining violet eyes she smiled at him.
“Impossible… ” said Discord shocked, “You can’t be her… maybe her daughter? No, she only had eyes for her moon, maybe this world’s version of her...” he kept murmuring while looking at the small alicorn.
“We can hear you, you know,” replied Twilight looking at him with a smile still on face, “and to answer your question, yes we were once... Starbutt.”
Discord smiled broadly at her before pushing himself to hug Twilight tightly in his arms, only to stop after a moment. “Wait, Were?” he asked. Twilight, while still in the arms of the draconequus embracing her explained to Discord what happened years ago to Asteria and the original Twilight. Discord listened to the story, his face turned pale and became sad when he discovered that the other universe was no more and his friends forever lost.
Hugging Twilight even tighter he shared a few tears for what he had lost, it had been thousands of years since he had left that universe to enter the one they both resided in now. Different to his current circumstances, the other Equestria hadn’t bothered to chase him out. Asteria and her sisters were his friends and he had cared for them too. Asteria herself loved to prank her sisters with the help of Discord. The chaos they both made in the name of making the Goddess of Love explode with anger was incredibly fun. After exchanging happy moments of the past, Twilight asked what circumstances had made him end up as a garden decoration.
“Oh, my dear Starbutt, you have no idea how different things workhere,” responded Discord floating around Twilight.
“Well Dissy, from what we have learned over the years we wouldn’t be surprised,” Twilight said sighing, “Especially when it comes to Celestia of the Sun doing the work.”
“Oh yes, Sunbutt. She is quite the party pooper,” replied Discord, a frown marring his face, ”Turning me into stone over a little Equestria sized chaos party, those princesses take harmony too serious.”
“What did they use? A spell?” asked Twilight with a serious gaze.
“Nah, some harmony powered artifacts, The Jewelry of Harmony I think they were called,” replied Discord bored just by remembering how long he'd been there.
“Jewelry of Harmony? Could those artifacts have been used to seal a goddess of the moon too?” asked Twilight to herself while thinking.
“Well, my dear child they did turn me into stone,” replied Discord laughing at his own fate.
“Point taken… ” Twilight said with a sigh.
“Do you think you could let Ol’ Discord out?” Discord asked with a grin on his face.
“We don't even know how harmony magic works, the concept is new to us,” responded Twilight with an apologetic face, “But we’ll try once we find out where Celestia has those artifacts hidden.”
“Oh ho ho ho, that’s my girl,” responded Discord, happily clapping
Twilight smiled at him but them her face turned dead serious making the draconequus nervous, “It something wrong?” he asked.
“Tell me Dissy, when you came to this world. Did you bring something or some creature with you from our old one?”
Discord started to think on what had happened those thousands of years ago to see if he had brought something with him or not. Then his expression changed to a nervous smile with a cold sweat running down his spine, “Maybe?” he said with a small voice.
Twilight slitted eyes began to shine brightly, making Discord feel unsafe, he was suddenly wrapped in dark purple magic and pulled to Twilight’s eye level.
“Would you kindly tell us what you brought?” Twilight asked in a powerful, commanding tone, making the draconequus flinch. Discord knew he didn't have magic at the moment since he was imprisoned, and Twilight obviously did have enough power to hurt him. Giving up to his fate he told her he may have brought a few creatures, which may have also included a small city that Heartbutt had asked him to take and a pitch black tree from somepony’s forest without permission. Twilight released him from her magic grasp while sighing deeply, taking a moment to think she closed her eyes. Discord took the opportunity to get some distance between them. After a few minutes that had felt like an hour of uncomfortable silence for the draconequus Twilight opened her eyes and smiled at Discord, making him feel less worried.
“Well, we must say the we’re mad that you took one of our children without permission,” said Twilight with an angry voice, “But thanks to your doing we didn't lose everything to the deadly darkness.” she continued saying, changing her tone to a graceful one. Though he knew what kind of questions would come next, he was happy that he actually end up helping an old friend while thinking of ways he could create chaos. Twilight continued asking questions, about what he brought, about what he knew about the past, the Jewelry of Harmony, the pillars he mentioned and what he knew about Princess Luna. Unfortunately, the only information regarding the banishment of Luna he knew was the disharmony he had felt long ago, but he mentioned a few ideas he thought were the cause of the fight.
They spent quite the time talking, but soon Twilight’s magic was starting to weaken because of how hard it was to keep the connection with Discord’s trapped mind. Seeing this Discord decided to go back to his bored sleeping darkness while he waited for his freedom.
“Oh, one last thing, my dear Starbutt,” said the draconequus, his eyes shining red, “I recommend you to take a trip south soon, it’s lovely this time of the year, there’s even a chance to find a chaotic storm forming that you could find quite entertaining, ta-ta...” waving his lion claw with an evil grin he disappeared into the darkness, only his laugh could be heard before Twilight was back in front of Discord’s stone prison in the garden.
“We hate when he does that…” Said Twilight frowning as she flew back to her room for the night with Discord’s warning on her mind.