"And I've watched you from that very first day..."
But Celestia had never said what she'd been watching for.
It made so much sense now. Why had the Solar alicorn been near the school at all on the entrance exam day? At the very least, she'd probably intended to look over the test results. It was possible that she'd meant to supervise the applicants, but had been delayed: there were a thousand responsibilities which could have stalled her. But she'd been on the way all along, possibly using the same path she'd taken hundreds of times before. And every time, she would have been searching for the most talented caster. Perhaps that was the true reason the Gifted School even existed: an excuse to get all of those potential candidates into Canterlot, where it would be that much easier for Celestia to keep an eye on them.
An entrance exam day like any other, only with time running out. With the alignment of stars only a few years away. Running out of chances. Getting down to the last hope. And then Twilight had
no
and Celestia, believing those events indicated that the true search might have made a discovery, had taken her on as a student.
"To see what you might do."
How many students did she have before me? Was there one in every generation? Did she have one for a few years, but then a better candidate would come along and she'd just switch? How many times did she...
It was not uncommon for the Bearers to spend the first day after a mission apart. Their lives had been put on hold, and what passed for the normal part of their existence had to be taken up again. In Rarity's case, this could mean a day spent in taking inventory, seeing what her substitute had managed to sell (assuming she hadn't chosen to just bill the palace for a typical sales period), trying to figure out if anything had been stolen, and repairing the damage which could be produced by customers who were just a little too casual about not putting things back properly. Similarly, Applejack often felt the need to inspect the Acres, despite the fact (or perhaps due to it) that she had siblings who'd been watching things for her. By contrast, Rainbow usually caught up on naps, while Pinkie would use the bakery's first shift for reconnecting to Ponyville itself, learning about what had happened while they had all been away. And Fluttershy would need hours to determine the current state of the cottage, along with reviewing anything which had been recorded for new charges and patients. The end of a mission always meant things to do, and so they tended to give each other some space and privacy.
In Twilight's case... on the many occasions when missions had seen Spike left behind, he'd been in charge of the library, and his efforts were very nearly up to her standards: it frequently took a mere three hours of straightening before she was satisfied. Should his presence be required, a government-assigned substitute would take the helm, and that required at least five hours of work before the damage could be repaired. For this particular mission, whoever had been running the desk had apparently decided the best way to access a card catalog was through removal of the back panel, along with having very little idea of how the checkout stamp worked. She hadn't lost many books: those who'd simply been looking for something Twilight had signed out wouldn't have been content to steal somepony else's autograph. But for what remained in the library, the shelving arrangement could best be described as 'anywhere', and one of the periodicals racks had somehow wound up with her telescope shoved through it.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a cause for multiple scrolls sent off to the office which assigned the temporaries, with a special request to Spike that he make those arrivals loud. Today, it was work. It was an excuse to close the library, because it was clearly in no fit state for patron occupancy. She could reshelve, she could straighten, she could reorganize, she could do it all while the world was kept outside the door, and so she almost relished the nightmare which her domain had become, even while discovering that three encyclopedia volumes had somehow found their way under her mattress and she was now expected to sleep atop the entry on phosphorescent moss.
The tree was her fortress. Her barricade point against the chaos of the world.
There were several problems with this approach.
The first came from her own thoughts, starting with their insistence on reminding her that prior to the moment Celestia had spoken, Twilight had already known what a barricade point was.
I had a dream of something I never could have known. A dream of a place I'd never been. Of Star Swirl's barricade, after Discord broke it. That was him just before he joined them. The last pony to join. The barricade was broken, so he went with them because he didn't have any other choice. And the only way to have known that, to have been there in dream...
The biography nearly slipped out of her field, scraped its edge against the shelf. She silently added it to the massive stack of tomes awaiting delivery to Mrs. Bradel's for repair.
...was to have been there in life.
His life.
For Twilight, the dream was proof. All of the dreams, every last time she'd consulted the old caster in her nightscape. The stress of the mission, the stress of her post-change life, all the caustic pain blending into something which could erode walls. Something had leaked.
She had seen him. He had spoken to her.
She had been him.
I'm not supposed to be alive.
The second load of magazines dropped out of her corona, just as readily as the first. Twilight silently gathered them up again.
She distantly realized that she now had a very real emotional reference point for how Pinkie and Fluttershy must have felt while watching the presentation, because it was something the three of them shared. They only existed because somepony
what makes you the least bit different --
-- had created a working: something born from anger and refusal to accept what was. And with her friends, the ultimate results of Doctor Gentle's spell had been bright, better than the intent ever should have wrought, and far more than the caster deserved. But with Twilight...
I'm not supposed to exist.
She quietly recovered the New Arrival cards. It took a while: the sudden dispersal of her field had sent them flying all over the library's interior.
Star Swirl lived. He died. It was supposed to end there. He goes to the shadowlands, and... I wouldn't have been born. So many ponies never would existed because it was the same pony, over and over again...
Celestia's spell had done exactly what the alicorn had furiously desired. Twilight's dream had been the proof. Her life.
I was always so fascinated by him, from the first moment I learned he'd existed.
I wanted to follow in his hoofsteps.
Complete his castings.
Finish his Great Work.
"Twilight?"
"...I'll pick it up, Spike."
"Maybe you're getting Rhynorn's." She could hear the concern in her brother's voice, along with the fact that he didn't believe in the excuse he'd just tried to gift her. "You should lie down for a while --"
"-- it's not field scattering, and I don't have any muscle aches." The unicorn disease meant four to seven days of flu-like symptoms, combined with a total inability to focus magic on a target, subdividing a corona's power onto whatever the uncontrollable sparks randomly hit. Twilight's one and only bout with the illness had rearranged the library. "I'm just -- distracted."
"Distracted," he repeated.
"Yes."
"This is worse than distracted," he blatantly called her out. "Something's wrong --"
"-- just let me clean things up, Spike. Please."
But it wasn't enough. No amount of work ever could be. She cleaned, reshelved, organized, fixed things here and there. And no matter what she tried, all of the thoughts just kept going around and around. Carving the pit ever-deeper as new implications occasionally fountained from the darkness.
She was thinking. Obsessively. Compulsively. She couldn't stop.
I was somepony else.
Somepony horrible.
He should be dead.
I shouldn't exist.
Please let me --
The second problem was Spike.
Her friends had their own lives, and so did her sibling. They had their jobs, as did he. The current issue was that his was keeping an eye on her. Spot when she wasn't doing well, offer comfort, reassurance, call for help if he wasn't enough to fix it. He watched her, because he wanted to, on some levels had to -- and on the deepest one, she needed that scrutiny. To know somepony was always looking out for her, even if so much of what she did in response to his attention seemed to be focused on making his task impossible.
He knew her, better than anypony in the world. He knew something was wrong. And she didn't want to tell him, didn't ever want to tell anypony among friends and family that she wasn't supposed to exist. There was a way to conceal that pain, drive it down until all of the torture had been isolated within her soul
his soul
and could never show on the outside. She could go through her spell-inflicted life smiling and laughing while never letting anypony see. There was a way to do that and she just needed some privacy in order to figure out what it was. Time away from the others. A chance to escape from herself.
But she had a little brother. And she'd tried to get him outside. Told him that it had been days, his friends would have been missing him and with autumn getting so close, he would be running out of days where he could play outside in comfort. It was okay if he just -- left for a while. Also, there was shopping he could do. Pick up some food for both of them. And hadn't Featherweight been wanting to show him that special spot along that one creek, the one with the harmless natural whirlpool where all it did was send you around and around until you finally staggered back to shore, dizzy and giggling and just feeling young...
There were days when he would have done all of it, slumped back into the tree, just barely reaching his basket before falling asleep. But he knew her, and so he knew something was wrong. He stayed close. He made frequent attempts to start conversations, steered them in various directions in a desperate effort to find the cause. And he would have gone out to find her friends, but everypony had their own lives and since he didn't seem to feel she was at a crisis point yet
I've learned to hide that much.
I could send a scroll about hiding things. Keeping this concealed is a lesson. Except that Celestia is a master at keeping everything hidden and I'm just her student and
I don't want to be her student
I don't want to send her lessons
I don't want to be
he was just spending their first day back in staying close. Trying to talk about the mission, in case something which had taken place was still on her mind. Bringing up all the things which he might have believed that she didn't want to think about, because he had no way to know about the real problem.
I can't tell him.
I can't tell them.
I can't breathe...
A scaly palm pressed against her ribs. There and there.
"...Spike?"
"You were --" and then a moment as he visibly searched for the word: his vocabulary was advanced for his age, but it wasn't all-inclusive. "-- hyperventilating."
"I inhaled some dust from those last books." She wasn't Honesty, any more than Celestia had been. She could lie. "Maybe you should step outside for an hour. If I start shaking them out, it's going to get really hard to breathe in here --"
He was staring up at her, with those green eyes and their vertically-slit pupils. To look into his eyes this way was to remember that his inclusion within the category of 'anypony' was strictly a honorific. By the strictest terms of the dictionary, he was an 'anyone' and to far too many, 'it.'
Someone laid his egg.
How did Celestia get it? Did the mother just abandon it? Did she die? Was the egg stolen? Why was it at the school? Who just takes a thinking being and makes their arrival under Sun into a challenge...
"I'm staying," her little brother steadily said. "There's a lot of work."
And she couldn't make him leave.
Technically, the third problem wasn't Spike's fault, for it was a poor pony who blamed the messenger.
It started in midafternoon. Long enough for a certain party to have gone through a few drafts and work out exactly which lies she wanted to tell.
"Twilight!"
She didn't have to ask: she'd scented the flame before seeing it, heard the scroll smack into his palm, and she only turned in order to get her horn that much closer to the sending. Checking for an underlayer, something which turned out not to be there.
"I can't open it," Spike quickly declared. "See the seal?" He held the scroll up for inspection, and her memory automatically pulled up the spell. Yes, this one was meant for her to read, mostly likely in private. It was possible for another to get past the wax, but neutralizing the security spell would take some work, and a failed attempt had a good chance to destroy the contents. With Twilight, the working would simply register her signature and neutralize the adhesive. "Most of what it says on the outside is that it's for you. And the Princess wrote a note for me, just to say it's not a new mission." Which made him smile, just a little. "I don't want another mission for at least a week. So if you want to take it --"
She did, because the scroll would automatically alert Celestia as to both her receipt and opening. Her corona ignited, with her field projecting forward to collect the scroll --
-- the sound could have been described in a few ways. Strictly speaking, it was something of a FWOOMPH!, only one which had decided to have all of the letters collapse in towards the center. It was also decidedly final.
"-- when you get a minute, Spike," Twilight calmly stated as she looked away from his startled expression, "take a note. That working really isn't meant to be used on paper." Her corona winked out, and the imploded remnants dropped to the floor.
"Twilight --"
"-- I'm busy."
Which, she later realized, was when he knew it wasn't just the mission. The moment he realized that the final party he could have asked for help was the last one she wanted to see.
"We have to stop," Spike insisted, hands almost automatically going to his hips. "We need to talk, right now --"
"-- first day back. We're cleaning. Everypony's getting their lives back together. It's not a mission, and that means our lives are what's important." Steadfastly, marveling at just how well she seemed to be suppressing it all, "She can wait."
I'm not supposed to be alive.
She began to trot away. There were more things to organize.
"Twilight --"
Suppression was something of a short-term thing.
"-- go outside."
"NO." Which came with just a hint of roar.
She shrugged. "Fine." And trotted away.
The working which had been placed on the scroll informed Celestia when Twilight received and opened it. The spell was also perfectly capable of letting the caster know about destruction. So after forty minutes had passed with Twilight rearranging atlases and Spike finding no map which told him where any conversation could go...
Almost valiantly, "She sent another one."
"I know." The odor from her sibling's breath was rather distinctive.
"It's sealed again."
She nodded.
Almost desperate now, "Twilight, it has to be important --"
She had a path to the fountain memorized from anywhere in Ponyville. As it turned out, the only tricky part was remembering to open the window first.
"We've got some replacement glass in basement storage," Twilight calmly stated. "Could you get that for me?"
"...maybe I should go buy some," he finally tried. "I think we were getting low --"
He's going to get the others.
"-- no. Basement."
By an hour before Sun-lowering, there was a scroll coming in every two minutes, and their disposal was actually turning into something of a creative exercise. Much to Twilight's surprise, she had begun to run low on options. Scrolls had been crushed, torn up, soaked into scraps, pinned under the heaviest furniture available, stomped on by hoof because a purely physical option had some dark pleasure attached, and she'd used most of the offensive spells she knew, at least for those which could be safely cast indoors. She was starting to wonder if it was worth stepping outside, just in the name of increasing the available variety. Additionally, there was a chance that she might be able to temporarily assume the mindset required for flight and while dropping a scroll from a great height didn't seem all that satisfying, she had yet to attempt anything involving lightning...
"Twilight --"
She shredded it.
"-- please, this has to stop --"
She completely missed the pain in his voice, fetched acid from the lab.
"-- please --"
And then he choked.
It was that horrible sound which got her attention. There were so many things Twilight feared, and one of the oldest terrors centered around her brother's health. There were hardly any books available on dragon medicine: every childhood illness had been a mystery, a time of fear as she scrambled to find anything which might work, prayed unto the Princess for all the good that did that he would recover, and so the sound of Spike choking, breath stopped in his throat -- that got through. It struck her as a lightning bolt moving through the inner storm, shocked her into momentary focus, made her see him --
-- just before the scrolls sprayed from his mouth.
It looked like a fountain of paper. There couldn't have been more than fifteen of them, and it felt like a flood because he was choking, barely able to breathe at all, too much coming through at once, too much and he was on his knees and his eyes were tearing up and she galloped up to him, her field broke the nearest scroll's seal even as a secondary bubble fetched ink and quill, she put her words on top of the ones she refused to read and held it in front of her suffering sibling.
"Please, Spike!" She was begging. She could hear it in her voice, she was begging and it wasn't even really begging him, there was one party who could release him from this and for the first time in her life, she saw herself in front of that pony with her own horn blazing and looking for a place to attack. "If you've got anything left, if it won't hurt you any more, send it to her! It'll make this stop!"
His watering eyes desperately stared down, failed to make out anything beyond her frantic scrawl.
YOU'RE HURTING HIM! STOP IT!
One tiny wisp of flame dropped from his lower lip. The scroll vanished.
She dropped down on top of paper, pressed herself against his shaking body. Waited. Five minutes passed, and then ten. Nothing more came.
Finally, he had recovered enough to speak.
"Twi... Twilight..."
"I'll get you some gems," she softly said. "And then you're going to bed."
"...you're fighting... you're fighting with her -- you've never --"
"-- and you're not sneaking out," she gently told him. "Don't send anything off, either. Not to her, not to our friends. You're strained. You need to rest. Because if you try anything now, there's no school nurse. Gems, and then bed."
He protested, as best he could. He wanted to fix things, because he loved her. But he was small, and tired, and desperately needed to rest. He fought her for about half of the trip to his basket, and was asleep before scales touched cushions.
It gave her privacy. A chance to clean up, to destroy all of the remaining scrolls with a single shot. The opportunity to think about the same things over and over and over again.
There was one last thing to take care of, before she went to bed, and she considered it taken care of as soon as she put up the little flag on the tree's Outgoing mailbox, with the overnight express stamp already attached and ready for the Moon-lit transport. Given the distance involved, the letter would be at the palace within hours. The staff would see the sending address, relay it... all things considered, Celestia would probably be reading the contents before Sun was raised. It wouldn't take long, especially since Twilight had been perfectly happy to go with her first draft. Words which seemed to say it all.
Never write me again.
The fourth problem is standing within her nightscape, and it will not leave.
"You must speak with her, Twilight Sparkle. I am asking you as a frie --"
"-- she didn't tell me anything real, not for years. She can wait." Around them, the library shakes. Books filled with words which the dreamer can never decipher fly off shelves, scatter their pages everywhere, and she does not care. "She's good at that. I'll scout the sky, I'll find some stars, I'll figure out what their future alignment is going to be, and then you tell her that when the group looks like that, I'll be ready to talk to her. And just so you know, I'm aiming for a thousand years --"
"-- Twilight Sparkle."
"NO!" A crashing sound from outside, as one of the largest branches falls off. Beneath her hooves, the wood is beginning to rot. "She has no right to talk! Not after that! Not ever! And you knew, Luna! She told me you knew about the spell, the abomination! Did you know who she thought I --"
The lightning strikes two body lengths away from her forehooves, and the thunder steals her words.
"I know what the spell was meant to do," the dark alicorn quietly states. "I know that she felt it had brought you to her. We had many discussions regarding it over the last three years, Twilight Sparkle. About who you were, and who you were not --"
"-- why do you always use my full name? Is it because you weren't Honesty either? Because you can lie about who I am?"
The periodicals racks come apart. Newspapers turn to acid, burn through everything true.
The large eyes briefly close.
"You heard me once," the younger of the siblings says. "Heard me when no others did. And then you saw my pain when no others could --"
"-- on that Nightmare Night."
"Yes."
The next words blast her desk apart. "What was it like, Luna? To see me disguised as myself?"
The alicorn is completely still. Fragments of wood and rage phase through her.
"It hurt," she finally replies. "It... hurt. In appearance, the two of you have little in common. There was a degree of purple in his fur, although it went more towards the grey. There were times when he became too thin. After the battle, it was the same fault you possess: study to the point where food becomes unimportant -- "
Don't tell me that, don't tell me how much I'm like him, like a monster --
"-- and while the war still raged --" a little more softly "-- because he often had trouble accepting his portion of the rations. There were times when we could not gather enough food for all to be satisfied, and it seemed better for all to be somewhat hungry than for four to be content and three to starve --"
"-- seven," she interrupts.
The alicorn quietly nods.
This laugh is bitter. "Six and a protector. Is that all it takes to make one of you admit it? Let's keep going, Luna! Which Element did your sister bear? Because I really want to know! I want to know that more than anything, because when we start to die off, we can take that Element and give it to a new Bearer! I've already got the perfect pony in mind, and since your group had at least one stallion, I don't think you'll mind seeing Doctor Gentle take a necklace --"
"-- I am being patient with you," the alicorn softly says, "because I understand something of what you are experiencing --"
"-- since they're exactly alike! Forbidden magic! Trying to call back the dead! Tell me, Luna, since somepony is finally willing to tell me something real! Which virtue explains what she did?"
Which is when the ceiling cracks.
The alicorn looks up at the sound. Stomps her left forehoof, and everything stops.
Torn pages are frozen in flight. Fragments of wood ignore gravity. The dreamer cannot move.
"The Element," the dark alicorn quietly states, "which meant she never stopped trying to bring me back. The one which had her face the pain of raising and lowering Moon every night and morning, for the sake of the world. It hurts her, did you know that? She has told me that it is much like shoving a spear of ice into her own heart. I raise Sun, and my soul burns. To a degree, we can manipulate each other's domains -- but it is agony to do so. A torture she faced twice per cycle for a thousand years, when it would have been so very easy to stop. To bring her horn to the triple corona, and swing it against a wall. Fly as high as she could before locking her wings. And for the last... there is a question which brings a final answer. For every race, a unique method of suicide. For us, options, and she refused them for a thousand years, because she still embodies that Element. She lowered Moon for me at the party, so that the resonance of my doing so would not disrupt the festivities. I have seen her in need of true rest and taken Sun for a time. We hurt for one another, for we love each other. Does that tell you her Element? Does it give you the clue you require to determine mine?"
She tries to speak. Her jaw will not open.
"She delved deep in the Hall," the alicorn continues. "And did so while in pain. Stress and fear, added to the terror of what might come. To delve so deep, when one's mind is not at peace -- there can be side effects. She was already shaken, and then she did that. What spoke to you in the Courtyard was my sister -- combined with the aspect of another. Because she was shaken, tormented, desiring some level of release from her pain -- and so one might call what she did an act of brutal honesty. The act of confession. You felt the resonance, did you not? It was worse before my Return, it had been easing... and then it surged anew. Think about that resonance, its exact nature. Every time she thought about what she had done. That is the difference between my sister and Gentle Arrival. She hurts. She hurts so much that last night, in the depths of her agony, she confessed. And perhaps she did so because in part, she believed she had not been through enough pain..."
The papers begin to vibrate. A splash of ink, nothing more than a dark streak in the petrified air, sheds a single drop.
"I cannot hold you here for much longer," that intruder tells her. "So I will remind you of one final thing, to bring with you under Sun. I asked you for a promise, one you freely gave. Will you keep it?"
"I --" She can speak again. She simply has no idea of what to say. "-- I don't know what you mean. And it doesn't change what she --"
Dark eyes squeeze shut and somehow, it is enough to silence her.
"We will speak again," the alicorn says. "Every night if need be. Until this is resolved."
"I can find a spell to block you out." She's not entirely sure she believes that.
"Yes," the alicorn patiently replies. "I have seen such workings in the nightscape before. I tend to regard them as requests for privacy. Closed doors, and so I generally do not disturb such dreamers. But in a crisis, I feel free to -- knock. Until next you sleep, Twilight Sparkle." She turns, begins to trot away --
-- stops.
"And regarding my original and ongoing use of your full name, along with other linguistic factors -- if you truly wish for me to briefly speak in a manner with which you might be more familiar --" the dark alicorn evenly declares, with the steadiness of her words fully ignoring the supernova of effort which has just gone off in her mane, "-- then I do understand what you're going through, Twilight. I know what that feels like better than you might ever imagine. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to fix this." A single deep breath, and the star-filled tail lashes. "But when it comes to how you're treating Tia, you have every right to be angry -- but I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a breath, try to see things from her side, and get your head out of your ass."
The dreamer's legs are working again, and thus the hind ones feel free to collapse.
"I believe that adequately summarizes my position on these matters," the alicorn concludes. "Good day to you."
In some ways, the second day back was much like the first. There were a distinct absence of scrolls, there was an equal inability to stop her own mind from turning against her, and there was just as much work to do, because to stop working would mean opening the library. An open library meant having to deal with other ponies. And there was also the problem of Spike, who was now all too willing to pretend he wanted to go play with his friends, when he really wanted to go speak with hers. To let him out was to have a myriad of hoof shades pounding on the door, and she didn't want to speak with anypony because it felt as if eventually, the wrong words would just tumble out and then they would all
it's been coming for a long time
It should have happened years ago
They're better off without
and just because it was inevitable didn't mean she was ready for it.
The second day was much like the first one, except for all the ponies who came by wondering why the tree had been closed for so long, and all the excuses Spike kept making, and the pile of books she couldn't even have sent out for repairs because it would mean opening the door. And she thought she heard a friend outside (Pinkie, perhaps: the indistinct words were rather quick) and she couldn't go to them, and she didn't want to fetch the mail, and she found herself disrupting shelving and putting cards out of order just so there would be more to do. And all the time, she thought about dreams and pain, breathing and moving and living under a Sun which she had no right to see.
The second day was much like the first, except for all the ways in which it was worse.
She was in her bed, on top of the sheets. There didn't seem to be much point in getting under them. She'd tossed off the blankets on the previous night.
I'm hungry.
I barely ate anything today.
Good.
She couldn't fall asleep. She'd found the spell which was supposed to shield dreams, she'd looked it over carefully, and then she'd realized it wasn't going to do much of anything. To sleep would mean Luna, and Luna would mean...
Every night.
Maybe there could be a new spell, something which would truly hold. After all, creating a fresh working to solve a problem was exactly what Star Swirl would have done --
-- a shuffling sound. Claws on wood. Spike was up. Probably using the bathroom, or getting a drink. Which, if it was the latter, meant more movement later.
Maybe it'll wake me up.
Maybe I'll just stay asleep.
Maybe I could sleep forev --
-- the mattress shifted, pushed down on one end by handling claws. This was followed by the soft sound of springs compressing.
Scales gently pressed against her back.
"I'm scared."
It had been a rather plain sort of statement.
"You're not doing a good job of hiding it, Twilight." The words were half-whisper, half-sob, and the little dragon hugged her all the tighter. "I saw you dumping out that part of the catalog. I know you're stalling. And I'm scared. So if I have to, I'll burn my way out to find help. I'll do whatever I have to, because I remember too much about what happens when I don't. You're scaring me, Twilight, and... I hate being scared like this. I hate watching you hurt and feeling like there's nothing I can do. That hurts me. It hurts my stomach, it hurts my heart. It hurts..."
She couldn't move.
And then he said "I love you." A little gulp of air. "I don't... I don't think I say that enough. Because you're my sister, and -- sometimes I imagine what it would be like, to be with dragons. To have them for parents and siblings. But it would mean losing you, and -- I can't. I love Mom and Dad. I love you, and that's why this always hurts. Because when you love somepony, you want to help them. And I usually feel like I can't do anything. I can yell, or I can breathe fire. It... usually doesn't work. And I can think -- but it doesn't help right now. Not when I don't know what's hurting you. I just feel helpless, all the time, because I want to make everything better and I can't. And I wouldn't feel like that if I didn't love you, so -- love hurts too."
The storm in her mind did not abate. It simply tossed up a single word on currents of torment. "Spike..."
Soft. Pained. Sounding so very young. "Did I do something?"
Her heart broke.
"No."
He kept hugging her.
"How can I help you?"
"I..." Her eyes closed, and she felt the moisture begin to run down her face, soaking into the fur. "...I don't know if you can. If anypony can. There's just so much that's wrong..."
"Nopony." A series of short, sharp breaths, as if trying to keep his own sobs back. "Not me, not anypony at all?"
Nopony. Nopony in the world. Nopony who ever lived. Nopony and --
The storm sent out another streak of lightning, and the afterimage burned itself into her mind's eye.
-- that's insane.
The world was insane. Her life was insane, and she wasn't even supposed to have one.
"Nopony," she softly said.
It can't do anything but hurt. And the next sentence felt like a true one. It also can't make things any worse.
"But..." Twilight told him, "that doesn't mean no one..."
They stayed like that for a while.
"I love you too. I don't say it enough, Spike. I'm not good at saying it. So when I don't -- know I mean it. Even when I'm like this, even when things are bad. Please. Just -- hear me saying it, when I can't."
His face pressed against her mane. "I do."
Eventually, they fell asleep.
"I will tell him to expect you." With a not-exactly-faint note of disbelief, "And that nopony should interfere."
"Thank you."
"Which does not mean I consider our own matter to be settled. We are not done."
"I know, Luna. I just -- I don't know if I need this. Or if it'll help. I just feel like it's necessary. So please -- give me tonight to just sleep."
A long pause, looking at each other across the broken floor.
"May I calm your dreams?"
"Will it help me tomorrow?"
"I hope for it to help you tonight. Tomorrow will be -- chaos."
There was no good way to prepare. It could be argued that there was no true way to prepare at all: any checklist meant to deal with him might as well be composed with disappearing ink, just to save time. Twilight thought of a few questions, prepared to have none of them answered, and then packed a lunch. But there was something she'd been postponing and, seeing no way it could make things any worse, just before she left for the train, Twilight finally asked Spike to bring it to her.
It took him a few minutes to come up from the basement. His handling claws were behind his back when he emerged, and she could just see one end of the scroll sticking out on the right.
"It's..." He took a slow breath. "It's bad, Twilight. I was waiting for you to ask me, because I didn't want to show you this until you were ready. And I don't know if anypony could ever be ready. But... I couldn't risk Doctor Gentle seeing it. Ever. And after you read it, I think we have to either put it behind every security spell you know or destroy it."
"It's that bad," she softly said.
He silently nodded.
"Show me."
He brought the scroll forward, placed it on the desk between them, and unfurled the paper.
Cadance's fieldwriting was just barely recognizable. Jagged letters slashed their way across the surface, carved dark truth into the world. Fourteen words which told Twilight nothing even as they answered everything. Words that nopony like Gentle Arrival could ever be allowed to see.
they died
they all died
they chose me to live and they all died
Canterlot had been partially built into the side of a mountain (and Twilight was now wondering just how much earth ponies had been involved in that). But it wasn't the only level space available on the slope. It was possible to go around the curve of stone, find little plateaus and ledges which weren't being used for much of anything. There were even a few small valleys. But the majority of visitors never considered that, much less bothered to explore. She suspected the same was true for the bulk of the capital's natives. Ponies looked at the city, and forgot about everything around it.
It didn't take long to get away from the capital, especially given the hour of her arrival: there just weren't that many ponies on the street to stop her and in Canterlot, there tended to be a certain deference in the presence of horn and wings. She got out of the shopping district, went out of her way to avoid the palace, passed schools and Archive buildings. Paused, just for a second, in front of her old tower, then went around the dent in the soil at the base.
Further out. One last house tucked against a valley, one which seemed to host a surprising amount of birdsong. More trotting, following a trail around the curve of the mountain. Old stone. She wondered what it had witnessed, watching the city rise. If it had anything to say.
A little more climbing. She moved past a view-blocking ridge. And then the weary-looking Lunar guard intercepted her.
"Bulkhead," the unicorn stallion gruffly introduced himself: at least three decades older than she was, with his armor giving him the approximate build of a harbor-shielding wall. "You're sure about this, Princess? Last chance to --"
She felt something within herself rise when he addressed her, forced it to sink back down.
"I'm sure."
"All right," he said in that special Guard tone which made it clear he believed it wasn't. "Go that way. I won't follow. There's going to be Guards around the far border of the area, but I'm going off-shift." A yawn, followed by a shrug which somehow managed to display exhaustion and anger in equal measure. "And because you're conferencing and she's apparently doing something special today, Princess Luna told us to leave all of you alone. Total privacy. Every Guard out of sight and hearing. I don't like that, Princess. Not one tenth-bit."
"If he decided to do something," Twilight quietly countered, "what would a full squad of Guards do?"
He visibly thought about that.
"Die," he finally admitted. "But maybe we could get a witness away in time to sound the warning. Good luck, Princess."
And Twilight made the last approach on her own.
She heard him before she saw him.
"Now, here's how this is going to work! This is a versatility exercise! You will start at the far end of the valley! And then there will be -- obstacles? Challenges? Actually, let's just call them surprises. There will be surprises. And every time you encounter a surprise, you will deal with it. The goal is to reach me at the other end. Doesn't that sound like fun?"
"Er," she rather uncertainly tried. "Just -- reach you?"
Jovially, "Of course! But because we are doing this the pony way, there is going to be a rule. After each surprise, you change! Just to the next form in line, and you deal with the next surprise using that form. One change for each surprise. Also, you may not leave the valley. Including through going high enough to top the ridge. Because why would you ever want to leave when we're having fun?"
Twilight was just starting to see the setup: an inverted V of a trench carved into the landscape, about two hundred body lengths from end to end and perhaps a fifth of that across. There was a dirt path leading down, with a little freshly-constructed hut next to the entrance. Doors indicated food storage, restroom areas and, in the touch she felt indicated the creator, the confetti showers.
"Just trot down at your leisure --" and somehow, alerted by senses she knew nothing of or just acting by sheer random chance, that was when he looked up. "-- well! Right on time! Exceedingly, predictably, and boringly -- no, you just keep going that way, don't even check the ridge. We'll save our guest's -- yes, we have one! -- identity for a special treat. Assuming it qualifies as one. You'll see her when you reach the other end and turn around. Please don't consider her presence as a reason not to finish."
She forced herself to look down again, a few seconds before her search would have spotted Twilight. "Okay..."
"Oh, and one more thing. Once you begin, you are doing everything on the move. Don't stop galloping. Or what-have-you. Off you go!"
Twilight carefully made her way down the last section of trail, initially watching the earth pony as she trotted towards the starting line. But that wasn't the party she was approaching, and she finally looked at him.
Discord's talons crooked inwards, gesturing her in. Twilight forced her legs to keep working, crossed the last bit of distance.
"Yes, yes," the draconequus declared. "Here you are. And here I am. Something which was requested, and I am certain we are looking at an absolute minimum of ten fascinating reasons for that, especially as I often feel that for some strange reason, you still don't like me." He shrugged. "I chalk that up --" the chalk appeared, made a few lines in the air "-- to your horrible taste in friends. With one -- two? -- two notable exceptions. Possibly more, depending on just who else you might consider to be some manner of friend."
I have to try. "Discord --"
He leaned in, put a talon against her lips, silencing her. Two seconds later, it returned to his hand.
"-- not just yet. Let her get this in first. We were up rather early today: it's best to do a few things under Moon, and she hasn't quite learned to sleep when the sky advises her to do so. Especially as she's still not quite used to the whole 'sky' thing. So we may take a break after this, and then you and I can have our little talk." Discord straightened again, at least as much as he ever did. "In fact, if she does what I am rather sadly expecting her to, a break will be mandatory."
"What are you expecting her to --"
This time, his tail pressed itself against her mouth. "Silence from the audience, please!"
She reached the far end, turned and even from that distance, Twilight saw her eyes widen.
"Yes," Discord called down the length of the valley. "Look who it is! I'm sure you'll be looking. Very carefully. Which means you need to get closer. Are you ready?" The earth pony just managed a nod. "Then in ten, nine, six, what were you expecting, zero! GO!"
She jumped a little, started to run. His talons began to snap, and none of the beats produced were in tune with any of the others.
A pit opened in front of her, too wide to jump. A stone bridge slammed up from underneath, and she began to gallop across it.
"Boring!" Discord called out. "Predictable! And yes, I am being redundant!" Another snap --
-- the bridge cracked, dropped away, she began to fall --
-- and the pegasus soared out of the pit. Started flying towards them, rapidly accelerating, already about six Celests up and still climbing.
"Next surprise!" Discord shouted -- and at the same time, a softer version of his voice spoke directly into Twilight's left ear. "This is where it gets interesting..."
The ground heaved, and a spray of rocks and dirt launched itself at the pegasus.
She did exactly what she'd been told to do. She changed, and her horn ignited. Gold lanced out, blocked most of the barrage, kept her from becoming more than slightly muddy --
-- leaving her as a unicorn. One who had just lost all flight capability, was out of upward momentum, and was also about to see forward convert to down.
Twilight didn't have enough time to scream. Couldn't do anything in the split-second before the surprisingly-dense claws of the draconequus' paw tapped her unlit horn.
The unicorn's legs began to move, looking as if she was running on air --
-- the blue fur vanished. Purple returned. The soil heaved, rose up to meet her, rocks and small boulders adding extra density to the base, and she ran down the ramp.
"Oh, you think you're so clever!" Discord shouted. "Counting falling as a surprise! Just because most ponies get that shocked look!" Another snap, and wind blasted at her. She changed into the pegasus form, flared her wings and deflected the gust to the sides, the air came right back at her, arrived as the densest of fog, clamped around legs and torso, making her stumble just before the solidifying mass brought her to a complete stop, billowed up around her head, hid her from sight --
-- but that would only work on a --
-- and the unicorn raced out of the vapor, found jets of flame erupting from the valley's walls, the earth pony smothered them in soil. And then a wall of ice blocked the valley from base to ridge, about five hoodwidths across, too high to fly over with Discord's rules in play, with no way around it. The pegasus hovered for a second, thinking.
The temperature of the entire valley dropped by five degrees as the pegasus went up again. A portion of the wall near the absolute top began to drip water and the pegasus kicked at what was now the weak spot. It took a while to make a hole large enough for her form, and then she dove as quickly as she could, trying to reach ground level before the next surprise could be launched. It was barely enough to let tan hooves touch the earth before the talons snapped for the final time.
The unicorn stopped. Looked around. Continued to do so with open confusion, her ribs heaving as sweat dripped from her coat.
"Er," she tried again. "...where is it?"
"Where's what?" Discord politely asked from five body lengths away.
"The -- next surprise?"
"Surprise!" Discord grinned. "There wasn't one! Because sometimes nothing happens. And then you stand around fretting, wondering what's about to go wrong, because nothing happening gives you things to imagine and I assure you, whatever you came up with for what might happen next was probably very creative indeed. Come on in!"
Slowly, she began to trot forward, sweat still falling from her fur.
"All that changing," Discord softly told Twilight, "really takes it out of her, doesn't it?" At more normal volume, with the unicorn just about in front of them, "So there you go! Now, why don't you say something to our guest while I work on your grade? So let's see... I need a blackboard... mortarboard -- Twilight is here, so everypony will shortly be bored..."
He scribbled, looked thoughtful, erased one number, then rendered the other imaginary. The unicorn finished her approach.
"Hi, Twilight." Tone slightly shy, with her breaths coming too fast: she was nearly panting. "We're just -- practicing."
Not without stun, "You do this all the time?"
"No... it's only been three days --"
"-- and done!" Discord declared as the blackboard puffed away. With a smile wider than his face, "Congratulations! You failed miserably!"
She blinked, and both ponies looked up at him.
"I failed?"
"Miserably," he nodded, and a Last Place ribbon appeared around her neck. "Also spectacularly."
"But I reached you!"
"Yes, you did! And you followed the rules, too!" Which was when he leaned in, snorted directly into dripping fur. "The same way you followed every rule he ever gave you. I pronounce you an addict to rules." Nodded to Twilight. "It's actually-if-briefly fortunate that we have you here, as I'm told it takes one to know one and frankly, between the two of you, you count for fifteen." Back to her. "First, you just about exhausted yourself. Another change or two, and anypony could have knocked you over with a feather. Well, any pegasus. Second, you are hungry, and please don't bother denying it: you are currently a produce vendor's best friend and an all-you-can-eat vegetable raw bar's worst nightmare. Third: as soon as you went unicorn, you could have simply teleported to me and ended the entire thing immediately! Sun and Moon, Tish, you don't have to follow every rule! Especially not the stupid ones!"
She blinked a few times.
"...how do I tell which rules are stupid?"
Discord's talon came up, paw moving to hip as his mouth opened, the entire warped body moving into a lecturing pose --
-- his mouth closed. The uneven jaw worked a few times.
"Actually," he considered, "that is a very interesting question. Please let me know when you figure out the full answer, and then tell me immediately. But for starters, any rule which requires you to hurt yourself for somepony else's satisfaction is generally going to be stupid and for the majority of those occasions, you can safely assume the same thing of the pony. All right, Tish: that's enough for now. I'm sending you back for a little while, as Twilight has made a special request for my time, and that's such an unusual event as to prevent her mere presence from making me yawn." The unicorn's expression barely had time to start turning miserable before he added "But if she's willing, I'll make sure you get some time with her before she leaves." Followed by a very pointed side-eye at Twilight, which wasn't all that subtle with his eye jabbing into her side. "Just ask her now. Politely. More or less."
"Can I see you for a little while?" the unicorn asked. "Before you have to go back?"
Still more than a little stunned, "...sure..." Flames?
The unicorn smiled. Discord simply said "All right. Make sure you eat."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't call me 'sir'! Call me Discord!"
"Yes, s -- Discord. And -- " she hesitated. "-- if you two are going to be talking for a while -- may I please -- "
He waved a dismissive paw. "Oh, we both know you're going to do it anyway. Probably first. Go!"
Talons snapped, and she vanished.
Twilight looked up at him, and all of the questions she'd planned were momentarily put on hold.
"What was she asking permission for?"
He snorted. "Permission. Her father trained her to be gracious and polite: unfortunately, he succeeded. Well, give her a few minutes to get there, and then I'll show you. I deliberately sent her to the Solar kitchens, so she could eat." Another snort, and the valley's edge trembled. "And put the cape on her, because she's still worried about how the staff might react. The Grimcess and Countess Nocturnal Remissions have welcomed her into the palace -- which, of course, means everypony's secrecy documents just saw a few new lines. She's sleeping there, she's spoken with the Sisters Snore at least once already, and they're trying to get her used to being around groups. Which means any number larger than one." Which was followed by just about the last thing Twilight expected: a soft sigh. "I do not expect it to be a fast process. It will be quite some time before she can go out into Canterlot, and that is simply from her lack of experience in that kind of environment. Lady Shadowplay has offered to accompany, use her illusions and make it look as if no change is happening -- but eventually, Equestria will need to meet her. And vice-versa, of course, even though direct reversals aren't as interesting as you might want to believe. She wants to meet ponies -- but she's afraid to, and part of that is the reactions to her mark."
"How is she feeling?" It was an automatic sort of question, and so she'd asked it of an entity whom she could barely perceive as bothering to learn the answer.
"Uncertain. Fearful. Dreading contact with strangers, in case they should pull back." His voice softened. "Eager. Taking everything, everything in. Learning..." He leaned back against the dirt wall. "Just about everything she does with others is being done for the first time. Even some of the things she does by herself. The perspective of an adult and the newness of a foal: that's how she put it to the Grimcess, after she thought about it for a while. And for a foal, the world can be a very scary place. It's all new, and you don't understand..."
The red eyes briefly closed.
"And," he softly added, "she misses him." Before Twilight could speak, "She told me that. He was all she knew. She knows not to go back. She'll tell somepony if she's thinking about going back. But for ponies, even for her, it's hard to change all at once. She'll miss him, and she'll hate that she misses him. She knows he's the worst thing for her, and when a Solar pony sees her horn receding and pulls away from her, she still thinks about going back. That'll change. But it takes time."
A shrug.
"Time for things to change," Discord snorted. "You have no idea how annoying that is. As annoying as using low-temperature fire for safety. But if that's the only means available, then I suppose we'll have to work with it. Why are you here, Twilight?"
She thought about Applejack. About strength and stubbornness. Fluttershy, and moving forward in the face of terror.
"Because it was time somepony asked you some questions."
"Oh, really." More than a little snide, with talons tapping against the dirt. "And what makes you believe you can trust the answers?"
She'd expected something like that, and so had practiced the response. "I don't. But until you say them, I don't know what the lies are."
He blinked.
"Fine," Discord shrugged. "With the understanding that nothing I say is the truth. Or everything. Or some amount in between. And I reserve the right to ignore anything boring, which is making it rather hard not to ignore you. What's your first question?"
"When you broke out the first time, why didn't you just teleport us into lava as soon as you were free?" She was hoping he hadn't expected her to go that far back. That it would let her effectively sneak up on the present.
But instead, she got "What fun would that have been?"
You're not the only one who gets to be sarcastic. "A lot more fun than being put back in stone."
The talons carved furrows into the dirt.
"If I had killed you all on the spot," Discord finally said, "the Elements would have survived, and potentially attuned themselves to a fresh set of Bearers. After a while. And then I would have to locate that group. Inverting the group kept the Elements with the current Bearers while rendering them useless. Additionally, it was somewhat entertaining. And should you so desire, you might wish to investigate the difficulties involved in using teleportation around areas of extreme heat. The Grimcess can manage it. But Doctor Gentle left his own fire on hoof. Admittedly, that wasn't an extreme case, but he was also somewhat disoriented at the time."
She didn't ask how he'd known that. He'd shown signs of scrying abilities, the capacity for hiding unseen...
"Why did you attack Fluttershy directly?" It was a question which had been lurking at the back of her mind since the original fight, and it was also one step closer to her goal.
He snorted again. "Have you noticed that she is nowhere near bearing Honesty?" Changing the pitch of his voice, more imitation than mockery. "'...but I am weak and helpless!' Two lies in six words. She was resisting. Do you have any idea how rare it is to see a pony resist, especially in an era when none of you had experience with my power? It was frustrating, and frustration is seldom fun, at least when I'm going through it. So I decided to stop wasting time. I touched her mind --"
Stopped.
"-- I touched... her," he softly finished. "I didn't reach down to her core. I didn't recognize the contact, because it was so small. But it's in her, it's in all of them. That little fragment of my power, for as long as they live. I touched her, and..."
Slowly, the distorted head moved from side to side, with horn and antler phasing through the dirt.
"It makes her," Discord decided, "something less than boring. Is there a point to this? I'm told having a point makes conversations much more interesting."
Fine. "Why did you send us on the mission?"
"Equestria," he smugly said, "may be on the verge of the kind of chaos it hasn't seen since me --"
"-- you're lying."
He glanced down at her. "Oh, really."
"You said that in the Hall. I didn't believe you then --"
"-- wait." He raised his paw, awkwardly cupped it against an ear. "Yes, there she goes." An exasperated sigh. "Just as I suspected: she took her entire meal to go. Don the feedbag, and then she's at it again. Well, you did ask..."
The talons snapped, and when the memories receded, they were in --
"-- the Grimcess doesn't use this tower," Discord softly said. "So she can. And no, she cannot see or hear us. So she's at it again, because there was just one thing she asked the Siblings Ancient for, and it was this. According to the glossary she spent an hour paging through before the request, it's called an atelier. An artist's workshop."
And she was painting.
Still a unicorn, with the brush held carefully within the gold field, and -- not doing too well. The image didn't seem to be emerging all that smoothly, and the accuracy wasn't there. Twilight knew it was a painting of Pinkie because the mane had been rendered perfectly, every last curl captured in mid-bounce -- but the face just wasn't going well.
"What's wrong?" Because something had to be wrong. The painting of Primatura had been so beautiful...
"She's used to painting by mouth," Discord pointed out. "But she was told this was an excellent way to work on her field dexterity, as the movements need to be small and precise. So she's trying --"
The brush was slammed down at the edge of the easel, and she stared with open frustration at the ugly slash of blue which now ran from the side of the image's left eye. The golden corona intensified --
-- the blue drifted away from the canvas. Moved backwards, becoming increasingly liquid as it streamed towards the brush. Finally, it had coated every bristle, and then she tried again.
"-- and of course," he finished, "it let us discover her trick." Another snort. "Can you imagine? Barely any time-affecting spells known to ponies, and hers only works on paint. I suppose her concerns about wasting what was once limited supplies wound up at soul level. What a waste of magical potential. But this is what she does, whenever she isn't training or resting or talking, or trying to figure out how to stay in a palace cafeteria without breaking for the door. She paints." The paw gestured to the doorway. "Under supervision."
Twilight looked up, and saw the chaos pearl flash into amethyst. It had been mounted just above the top of the doorframe, giving it a full view of the circular room.
"He kept that one with him to the end," Discord softly added. "Discharged, of course, and she will never wear that necklace again. But she feels better, having it nearby. All that power, all that lovely potential for chaos, and what does she want to do? Paint." He shrugged. "Well, I suppose blood will out..."
The talons snapped, and they were back in the valley.
"She was actually working on that one for a few days," he casually added. "Didn't quite get the chance to finish. And did you notice the way she looked at you? Scrutinizing your features? That was reinforcing her memory. She'll get to you eventually. It's necessary. I'm told that some of the greatest works are painted on top of boring ones, and once Tish captures you, the first requirement for that accomplishment --"
It finally hit her.
"You... you called her Tish."
"Yes," he calmly stated. "Short for Triptych. A trio of paintings, rendered onto three hinged panels, with each of the images being singular and distinct, while still being recognizable in their sum total as a single larger work." And he smirked at Twilight. "Did you expect me to just go around shouting 'Hey, you!' for the rest of her life?"
She seemed to be blinking far too quickly.
"She picked it," Discord added. "From the glossary. Because she'd been doing things for so much of her life without knowing what any of them were called, so she just had to find out. 'Memories' for paintings... she's a little embarrassed by that now, but what else was she supposed to call them? And when she found that term, she felt it fit. So she named herself." Idly scratching at the dirt again. "Names limit. There's something horribly wrong with that. A name defines, and once you've been defined, then how are you supposed to be anything else? But at the same time..." The talons were now drumming, seemingly without his notice, although he did take a moment to banish the snare. "...'you' might have been a little too vague. And besides, who says you have to keep the same name forever?"
"Names define." She had to have more words than that.
"Well, to a degree," he shrugged. "I can say an apple is now named 'Orange' and unless I put a little dazzle into it, all I'll get is an angry lecture about how I don't understand farming or Manehattan family trees. But there are times when changing the name can change the basic concept. Under the right circumstances, a name can mean everything..."
Which was when he looked directly at her.
"For example," he innocently proposed, "what do you think would happen if we took the name 'Star Swirl' and changed it?"
She had wanted to be the one who brought them there. Who controlled the discussion. But she had been hoping to control chaos.
There was nowhere left to go but forward. Marching into fear, just like Fluttershy --
" --you're very frightened right now," Discord calmly observed. "It's easy to see. The set of your ears, the flicking of your tail. I have experience with frightened ponies. So tell me something, Twilight, or we end this right here." The twisted body loomed over her. "Are you afraid of me?"
And all she could do was nod. Just once, as her tail flicked and her ears tried to press themselves through her fur.
"Yes," Discord quietly said, and pulled back again. "You fear those things which you feel can hurt you. So you're afraid of me. And you are so very terrified of what I might say next. In your way, you have just as many fears as Fluttershy and despite having her as an example, there are times when you deal with them more poorly. Even with that singular example so very close to hoof, and closer still... So many fears, and one of them is the next question. Ask it."
She swallowed several times, felt the trickle of blood running down her throat from where she'd bitten her tongue.
"What was Star Swirl like?"
It got another snort out of him. "Arrogant, self-absorbed, thought magic was the answer to every problem, had no capacity for taking the smallest joke --" and stopped again.
"It has been," he softly observed, "a long time. I remember it perfectly -- but that recollection is from the perspective of one who, for quite some time, did not regard them as something worth knowing about. And afterwards, it took additional time to move into the category of 'know your enemy'. It was more towards 'Know your most active, occasionally amusing toys.' Who was Star Swirl? He was one of them. He was their Magic. On the occasions when he teamed up with that pegasus --" and there was a moment when the red eyes closed "--no, the other one: you're probably thinking of the mare -- they could work some marvelous jests, at least for ponies. Their Laughter had a wicked sense of humor, and Magic provided the power to back it up. Some of what they tried to get away with..."
It was, at best, half a chuckle. The sound of somepony remembering a joke which had been played long ago.
"You are asking me about him," Discord went on. "How much do you hate the Grimcess right now, to be speaking with me? And naturally, after everything that happened, you've been wondering about the rest of them. But that scares you, because you are afraid of many things, Twilight. You are afraid of your own mind. The questions it insists on presenting, the way it refuses to let go of your queries. You cannot have the bliss of ignorance, and the questions hurt to the point where no matter how harsh the answer is, at least it'll make the question go away. You wonder about him, and you wonder about them. You feel the Grimcess may only lie to you and tell her sister to do the same, so you can't trust either of them." Which triggered another snort. "So there's your next mistake, because Celestia doesn't control Luna. Even Zephyra had times when she failed at that. Perhaps Luna might have answered you -- but fresh from what you saw as betrayal, fearing the possibility of lies, you instead approached the near-certainty. There's a lesson in that -- but we'll get to it later. For now, let me guess at your questions, and see where the lies should go..."
A soft breeze whistled overhead, and Sun steadily shifted through the controlled sky.
"They were six," the draconequus said. "Or seven, really. I would hope that one of the smaller lessons from the mission is that you should never underestimate the value of having someone with hands around." He exaggerated the shudder. "And that axe!"
Their protector. Something with hands. And if it was carrying an axe, that means the most likely species would be --
But he was still talking. And where Celestia's words had shattered the world, Discord spoke as if he was recreating it. There was no light, no sound of talons snapping against each other. But his words filled the valley with perfect recollection, and she knew that within his mind, he was there again. It was now, and it was then.
"Once upon a time," the oddly steady voice said, "in the magical land of Eris, there were two sisters who went forth into chaos, for they could no longer remain within their barricade. There had been an intruder, you see -- and then they realized that the intruder was also a pony. Things change when worlds collide and to live, they would have to leave. They had learned something of the world, and they hated their world. They felt that things needed to change. That it was worth their lives simply to try, even if they failed, simply so that somepony would have tried at all. Ultimately, the elder pledged herself to the land, swearing to spend all of her days fighting to heal it, with no knowledge of the centuries required to fulfill her vow. The younger followed, freely giving everything of herself to her sister's dream, trying to bring succor to those cowering in shadow. That was who they were. And so they remain."
Eris.
He had named it, and the definition began to take shape.
"The pony who had crashed into their lives -- that was the third," Discord continued. "Eventually, another decided not to kill them, for theirs was the sort of madness which a true tactician loves: if there's going to be a crazed final push for victory, why not do it in style? Eventually, they begged for the kindness of a stranger, one who had no need to give it, and that kindness came with them. And at the last, they sought out magic." He puffed out what passed for his chest. "I take some credit here, of course: if I had allowed him to remain comfortable, he never would have gone anywhere! But he went with them, and... they became friends." A minor shrug. "I frankly didn't understand that at the time. I didn't realize that it was important. But they were friends. All of them. They never should have been, it never should have worked -- but they were friends. And then two changed..."
It took her a moment to realize he'd just read her expression. To once again reconcile that he could read expressions at all.
"Yes," he softly continued. "Before they trapped me." A long pause. "And incidentally, they were both earth ponies -- oh, get your hindquarters out of the dirt. Really, Twilight, you should have figured that out on your own! Two from each race! You knew they had a pegasus and a unicorn, and that mixed families were impossible! They were earth ponies. Perhaps that was part of why Doctor Gentle decided he had a chance, for as far as he knew, it was earth ponies who changed first."
This smile came across as rueful.
"Incidentally, despite any rumors you might hear to the contrary, one of the reasons they beat me is not because I was too distracted from laughter at watching them trying to fly." He snickered. "Oh, it took them a while to get the hang of that one! And their first attempts at projecting coronas... well, I suppose most of the craters filled in eventually. But they were earth ponies." Almost casually, "Cadance was a pegasus. And you, Twilight Sparkle -- you are the only unicorn to ever come this far."
Her entire body was trembling. But the swirling storm within her mind, given a single stable particle (positive or negative almost didn't seem to matter), began to spin into an accretion disc.
"What happened to Cadance?"
He shrugged. "I spent some time being somewhat distracted. Attempting to fight off total conversion into statuary has a way of occupying the mind. She wasn't there, and then she was. I only know of her former state because somepony mentioned it within my hearing."
She was next to what might be the oldest entity in the world and in the face of that great age, all she had was a foal question.
"...where do alicorns come from?"
And he laughed.
It was soft. It shook the walls. It turned the clouds pink, and then white again.
"...ah, there we are," he observed. "We come to it at last. What would you like to hear, Twilight? That all ponies were once alicorns, everypony possessing all of the magics? But then they fell to fighting and with Harmony lost, their arguments fractured them into the races you know? That alicorns have never existed as a natural species, and as two have refused to breed, one is just recently married, and it's hard to see you tumbling into another's bed any time soon, nopony knows what their children would be? The Grimcess sold her lie about one pony in every fifty generations being born if the conditions were just right, while never specifying what those conditions were: that's how the world accepted Cadance, as nopony knew anything else of her. But we both know your real question, don't we? What happened to you?"
He leaned in again, bringing the talon forward.
"What could have changed so much," he spoke in something close to dream, "that it wound up being you."
A tip gently poked through her fur, touched the sternum.
"You," he told her, "are six."
Her breathing stopped.
She couldn't move. She couldn't think. All Twilight could do was listen.
His voice was nearly a whisper. "You are Rainbow Dash, for you learned daring from her. Applejack, for stubbornness and practicality. Fluttershy gave you her courage. Instruction in subtlety taken from Rarity, because you needed somepony to teach you. Somewhere in there is Pinkie's joy. And holding it all together at the center is the one and only -- thank goodness -- Twilight Sparkle. You came to them as an empty vessel, looking to be filled. You took your lessons from them. You tried to think like them, for you knew nothing else. You took them into yourself..."
And now the hand was cupping her chin.
"But you want the technical part of the process, don't you? The Elements gave you a portion of their essence. It took them as they were at the moment of the change, and merged those shadows with your soul. Oh, it didn't hurt them: they would have been a little tired for a few days, weaker in their magic -- but the Elements allow healing to take place. And somewhere within them, they were willing. It never would have happened if the ponies who existed in that moment had not wished to help you with all their hearts. Those unchanging shadows are within you, and you will carry them for all the days of your life. Every time you reach for their magic, you touch them. You bring them back, as they existed in that single instant. You are six."
He let go. Looked at her, waiting.
"...I..."
Still waiting. It was unusual patience, for Discord.
"...I'm --- them."
"Just as the sisters carry their Bearers -- and each other -- and call on them still," he softly told her. "Just as you called upon Rainbow to fly, and Applejack to hear. And for them, it never would have happened had the Star Swirl who existed in that single moment not cared about them. If he hadn't loved them, as your friends loved you. Whatever he became... that which remains within them still waits for their call. The same way the Applejack of that instant gives you her magic, for it is what she always would have done. Out of love."
And he straightened again.
"Now you," he thoughtfully continued, talons stroking at his chin, "you're a little bit -- shall we say -- off? Because there were two hybrids involved. For the other three -- perfect, boring, orderly balance. But you're a little more unicorn than you should be, and somewhat less pegasus. I don't know what that does to your potential, much less your lifespan. It makes you interesting. And with Pinkie and Fluttershy involved -- it would be too small to do anything, with no power it could exert -- but is it possible that there's just the tiniest fragment of me in there?"
It made him grin.
"I am actually looking forward to finding out! And the first time you call on Pinkie... I want pictures. I insist that somepony take pictures. But only if nopony's managed to wrangle a movie camera." He thought about it some more. "Or you could just invite me. Actually, consider me to be potentially inviting myself."
And then the paw was rumpling her mane.
"As part of the family."
There was a moment when she searched through her soul (a soul carrying shadows), and found only two words. "...why me?"
"Because things changed," he told her. "You changed. Star Swirl... I would imagine that he took a few lessons along the way. But he was also arrogant, could quite frankly be a major buzzkill, and don't even ask about his feelings on the superiority of unicorn magic! When everyone knows that quite frankly, what the unicorns got was the scattershot leftovers. In the end, he believed in his magic beyond all else, and it buried him. Lost within himself: I imagine Luna had plenty of time to ponder on any degree of irony. He believed in his power -- but you, Twilight..."
He leaned in again. Not staring directly into her eyes: simply reminding her of how close he was.
"...you are afraid of it. Afraid only of the things which could hurt you, and so you are afraid of your own potential." Thoughtfully, "Well, I imagine that believing one had turned their parents into decorative plant life would leave something of a scar..."
I don't
I don't think about it
I can't ever think about
"You are terrified of what you might be able to do," he decided. "So there are times when you still push ponies away, because then there's no way you can hurt them. When you do perform research, it's frivolous: a power which might be able to reshape the landscape is being directed towards putting mustaches on scales, because at least that's harmless! You are incapable of seeking power for its own sake, because it's an additional source of terror. Many things changed, Twilight, because life is change and death is the state where nothing changes. Order is death. And no, decay doesn't count as a death change, as it progresses in an extremely predictable fashion and the dead one doesn't care. You lived, and you changed. Star Swirl is the past, and the past is dead. It never changes. You are the present. And in the future... anything can happen."
It was the worst smile in the world.
"That," Discord declared, "is what makes it fun."
She was standing on stable ground. He hadn't changed anything since their return from the palace. And still the world spun around her.
"But Celestia's spell..."
"So what?" he openly dismissed it. "Some ponies have always believed in reincarnation. Perhaps Star Swirl would have come back regardless. Perhaps the other three are here right now, scattered around the world. He's dead. His story was told, and the fact that the Grimcess decided to go for a twist ending doesn't change the fact that it ended! You're here now. You may be here for a while. And, to paraphrase a certain party..."
He casually waved a paw through the air, and so conducted the music.
"...to find who you will be. You know something of who he was. Who are you?"
""You'll never be like him."
"And how can you be so sure?"
"You admitted to it. He never did."
He was quiet for a while. Both of them listened to the music as it played.
"But then," he finally said, "I did promise you a lesson." The scroll flashed into existence, and ink-dripping talons quickly moved across the paper. "And here it is. 'The best kind of lie is the one where you can tell the absolute truth and nopony will believe you.'" He dropped it at her hooves. "Send that off whenever you're ready. So are we done here? Because if I don't fetch Tish back, she will be at this all day --"
I don't know what to believe.
It sounds right. It feels right. But it's him.
I went to him.
She had sworn by him.
I carry them with me...
"-- why did you send us?"
"I am chaos," he smugly said. "Being reformed chaos doesn't change or cancel the basic definition: it just adds a suggestion as to how that chaos should be channeled. I happen to feel this bit of disorder is good for Equestria."
And she decided that he would say nothing more.
"We're done."
"Glad to hear it," Discord told her. "Go bore somepony else."
She began to trot toward the path out.
"I still don't trust you."
Snidely, "Good. I look forward to a very long time of your not trusting me."
Began to walk up the gentle slope. She knew the train schedule, and if she didn't run into too many problems within the city, there would be time to --
The words were just barely audible. "You saw where he kept her, didn't you? At the very end."
Twilight stopped. Nodded without facing him.
"The same view, day after day," he quietly went on. "For a lifetime. Unable to move, no hope of escape, knowing only that she wasn't what she was supposed to be, and the only way she could ever be free was if she could just find a way to change..."
He took a breath, even as Twilight did not. The only breath he had taken at all, drawn in something almost like empathy.
"No one should ever be trapped in stone."