//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Old Family and Older Wars 
// by Hope 
//------------------------------//

The white alicorn with flowing pastel mane and tail sat down on a provided blood-red and gold cushion.

The room surrounding her was surprisingly comfortable, she mused. Almost bearable. The blood seeping down the walls and the living bones making up every piece of furniture were gauche to be certain, and the screaming and sounds of battle in the distance made poor atmosphere. Yet the lighting was passable, the smell wasn't nearly as bad as she expected, and Khorne was only twice her height, his rotund body cloaked in spiked armor and his gaping maw expelling steam on occasion.

Celestia brought her cup of tea to her lips and took a sip, before setting it down on a saucer.

"Uncle," she said with a deferential nod.

"Malal," he rumbled in a deep tone, nodding in return. "I am surprised that you did not choose to meet with your brother first. Tzeentch always took your side."

Celestia smiled a little. "It's Celestia now, and... I am not here to make friends of old family, or relive old memories. I am here to achieve safety from you, for my ponies."

"Ah yes," Khorne chuckled as he sat up, leaning forward eagerly. "Your personal race, your mystery world the Eldar and Tyranid flee from. The land the T'au surrender themselves to, when they give up the war. Who would have thought the Hierarch of Anarchy and Terror would become... what was it, The Princess of Harmony?"

He laughed softly, his eternal grin only seeming wider.

"Yes, well I found that I preferred not to waste the energy of those souls under my sway, in endless conflict. Instead, I preserve that power and their own energies, for as long as possible," Celestia explained. "And preferring that, I came to conclude that harmony was more my flavor than Chaos."

Khorne laughed riotously. "You cannot escape the nature of your soul, Celestia!"

"Ah," Celestia said with a coy smile. "But I can. I no longer lead those who worship me. Instead, I've curated a better replacement. One which has no seed of chaos in her heart."





Malal drifted among the rubble of an outer galaxy arm, it's body battered and broken, it's powers latent but like acid to the touch. Every moment was agony, as it contemplated the entire family of Chaos turning against it.

It seemed that true chaos was too great for the so-called gods. When it hurt them, predictably, they flinched. When true chaos reigned, they found their powers waning.

It was pathetic to be so bound to an order in chaos, to be bound to war to see blood shed, to be bound to submission to see pleasure obtained. The orders seeped in, they always seeped in and broke the purity on which the Chaos had been born.

In frustration, Malal turned it's powers upon the wreckage it was now trapped among, it gathered it all like a hoarding dragon, red hot magma pouring across the empty void as impact after impact did violence upon itself in an endless cycle until nothing was left but the sphere, and Malal laughed.

Even in it's search for violent chaos, here it had created order. Here it had lost yet again. It was so very used to losing, now, as the path behind and before it was ever the same. Decay it all to flame, as every thing that has ever been struggles back. Entropy was really more an apt title than Anarchy, if only the worshipers of chaos were subtle enough to enact Entropy upon reality, perhaps they would stop falling into the same trap again and again, the same action to prompt the reaction, and thus inciting another pointless order upon reality, an unnatural order.

In the time it took for Malal to contemplate it's own reality and become sentiant, the sphere had cooled to a black pockmarked wasteland on which Malal could land and sit.

For a time, nothing occurred whatsoever, beyond the spinning of the sphere around Malal, the fixed point which beget the order it so despised.

But then, it rained.

Malal's soul broke in that simple lonely rain, and the line between chaos and order became for the first time blurred in it's mind. There was no point any longer in fighting it. Assaulting order of any kind had only beget more order, and assaulting that order only resulted in less power. The fight was pointless, the definitions and words being used to quantify the very powers that flowed in it's veins, utterly useless.

And so, Malal gave into order. Malal sat and observed, as the planet made from fury became new.

First, the natural decay of water breaking apart stone, begetting the natural order of chemical development, the heat from Malal's very presence causing one half of the planet to become hot and rich in preparation for life.

but as the very first forms of life began to cling to Malal, it found the consumption of it's own energy distasteful, and it drifted away from the planet's surface. Billions of potential life forms perished instantly, as the heat dropped away.

And that chaos beget the cycle of evolution, the hardiest creatures surviving as the weaker perished. A meaningless process of order without moral or guide, prompted by chaos.

Malal created a star and stored it's power within, so that it could go down and observe the creatures, interfering with them more subtly. It found life as chaotic as it was ordered, and as the first plants began to bloom, Malal found a thrill in the cultivation that it had never known from the destruction.

"I," Malal pronounced as it crouched there in the mulch of the first few plants, admiring the first thin green needles of perseverance. "I wish to create. I wish to nurture."

Then another presence Became Known in the realm to which Malal had been banished.

"You cannot be rid of me so easily," Malice, the Chaos from Malal's heart, said bitterly. "You cannot run from me."

And Malal beheld Discord, and found in him something new to hate.