She felt the shift, and spun to look for Pinkie Pie. Why had she...?
Oh.
She felt a sudden chill as she saw Discord standing there, lion’s paw raised as he smiled innocently. “Hello, Princess.”
She bit back her surprise. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Where’s Pinkie Pie? Where’s Pinkie?”
Discord raised an eyebrow in mock-astonishment. “My, my, Princess, awfully quick to the draw. Why, aren’t you glad to see me?” He took a step forward.
Luna swallowed, glancing back at the door as her mind raced.
He took her silence as an answer, and sighed sadly. “Alas! Woe is me. Forever despised!” He cracked open an eye to see if she was watching. She looked away. “Ah! Poor Pinkie Pie! Betrayed in the last act by the pony closest to her—herself.” He gave a little giggle at some joke she didn’t get. “Needless to say, your friends are no longer with us. Sad, sad day.”
“Oh, stop hanging your head,” she snapped. “You know well they yet live, so spare me your fool’s sorrow. You were always a poor player.”
“Ack!” An arrow sprouted from Discord’s breast, followed by another, and another. He stumbled back until he lay on the ground, his breathing loud and rasping. “You wound me, Princess! In any case...” he stood, brushing the arrows off his chest as if wiping a snowflake from his coat, “I am sorry about it. Genuinely. Pinkie Pie was quite distraught. I have a heart, you know.” He blinked, like he hadn’t meant to say that. Luna frowned.
“What’s the expression they use in Saddle Arabia? I don’t want your crocodile’s tears.”
“How cruel.”
“Eat me.”
Discord laughed. “You are well-travelled. You know, I always considered you the rather shyer, bookish sort. I assumed that’s why Celestia chose Twilight as her pupil while you were away.”
Rolling her eyes, Luna stepped forward. “That’s not going to work, Discord.”
“Ah, but it might! That’s the thing with you ponies, one never knows.”
There’s something more going on here. Luna couldn’t put her hoof on it, she couldn’t even really say why she felt it, but it was there nevertheless. An undercurrent. Almost subconscious. She blinked, suddenly wondering just how far down they were inside Discord’s mind at this point, at any rate.
“What’s behind this door, by the way?” she tried, casually. “Anything important?”
He shrugged. “You tell me. You must have thought there was something in there worth all this. You brought it up, with all your mind-trickery. There was nothing specific in your head for me to hide from you, so whatever’s in here, some part of me sure thinks it’s important.”
Taking a risk, she turned to face the door, to examine it once more. Come on, she willed him, don’t let it end here. After a moment, he stepped up beside her.
“I’d forgotten, you know,” she said quietly. She hoped it wasn’t the wrong thing to say.
Discord was silent for a moment, until simply, “I never did.”
For some time they just stood there, these two immortals, within a dream, staring down an imaginary door. Her time was running out, she knew. Discord’s patience was far from infinite, and he didn’t actually want her to break the seal. Not consciously, anyway.
“And what’s the deal with this riddle?”
Discord scratched his beard, as if in thought, then pulled out a flea. “That one’s on you again,” he said. “Some mutation of your games, as far as I can tell.”
That...wasn’t how that was supposed to work. Why was she in here? What had her past self wanted to know so badly she’d wipe her own mind to find it out? What was she missing?
“Well!” Discord clapped his paws, breaking her trail of thought. “I’ve enjoyed this, I must admit. But all good things must come to an end, and sadly...” He looked over at her in feigned anguish. “Your number’s up.” He raised his paw to snap his claws.
“Wait!” She held out a hoof, desperately rereading the riddle.
Find it well, I trust. Find what well? A well of feeling? Sadness? Happiness? If open it you must. Why must she? What did she need to know—why did she still need to know?
Speak only that you wish to find. It would only open if she knew what she was looking for from the start. She stared at Discord in dawning realisation.
What lies inside is inside.
I have a heart, you know.
“What?” Discord asked, paw still raised. “What is it? Why are you smiling?”
Luna found herself unable to stop, the grin spreading as far across her face as any of Pinkie’s best. For that instant, she knew, with absolute certainty, with an undeniable passion, the answer to the riddle. Or, at least, she hoped she knew it, because it would be really embarrassing if she were wrong.
She turned from Discord to the door, staring at that ancient symbol, scanning over the newer inscription. She wondered just how long it had been there, anyway. Had it just appeared today? Or had it been there from that day? She decided, like her own, that it had formed somewhere in between. Yes, she liked that answer.
And, as she stepped forward to voice her solution, a final thought occurred to her. Oh. That’s why it’s written in Old Ponyish.
Her voice was loud and clear as she spoke.
“Love.”
There was a sharp intake of breath as Discord gasped. For a moment, nothing happened. He let out a relieved laugh, and Luna felt her certainty waver. It only lasted a moment, however, until, with a creak, the great stone doors swung open.
The shadow of a pony emerged from the light. Dark blue. Short, for an alicorn. Big, blue eyes—or were they green? It was hard to tell. Discord trailed behind, the vast murky space of his old prison shimmering down at him.
There were cages, along the walls. Luna recognised them from her most recent visit to the place—when Tirek had thrown her through, and Discord had come to rescue them. Because he knew what it was like it here. She wondered why his greatest secret was kept in his old prison, of all places, but deep down she understood. You couldn’t get out of this place on your own. Somebody had to let you out.
The cages echoed with memories. In one, a sliver of light, with a dark blue alicorn at the end. In another, the days after, when she’d nursed him back to health. She remembered, of course, but...she had forgotten. A thousand years on the moon, and not a one of them spent on him. There had been so much after that.
In another, larger, there was her and her sister, looking up at him, perched on his throne, and she saw their young, defiant faces scrunched in concentrated defiance.
More and more she passed, and on and on she went, through their whole history, until she reached the cages at the end. Here lay things she didn’t remember, which hadn’t happened. Secret dreams, desires. She should look away—these felt somehow more private, more bare—but she found she couldn’t. What was there left to hide, in any case? The brush of hoof against claw here, the glimpse of a kiss there, a movement between the sheets—raw, naked, genuine hope.
She was used to seeing ponies’ desire—it was hard not to, walking dreams every night—but this was somehow more personal, more intimate. There was no veil of decency or pretence. It was simply...Discord.
The final cage was glowing. Set in its platform across the chasm, where he had once lived his years, it was far larger, and far brighter than the rest. Discord hung back as she trotted across the jagged path, and simply waited as she approached the bars. Inside, surrounded in so much white, so much hope, she almost couldn’t see it, was the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal. She was looking at the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal. She was looking at the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal... She turned to look, across the chasm, at Discord.
“Is this...” she struggled for words, fumbling at what she wanted to say. “Is this is how you really feel?” Discord, across the bridge, only nodded.
She turned back to the cage, and the pony in the image did the same. And the pony in that image, and that pony in that. A smile touched the edge of her mouth.
“You know,” she said, spinning to cross back over the path, “I think I know why I needed to come here so badly.”
“Indeed?” he raised an eyebrow at her smile. “I’m all ears.” She could see him physically resisting the urge to sprout more. She couldn’t help it, she laughed.
“Yes,” she said, as she drew closer. “I do.”
He swallowed, and she was close enough to see his throat move. “And for what, pray tell, was that, Princess?”
She smiled, stepping closer. He had to bend down to look her in the eye, until their muzzles were almost touching. “I think I wanted to see if a certain draconequus...felt the same way I do.” She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face.
“And does he?”
“Does he what?” She smiled, looking into his eyes, the strangeness, the familiarity of them.
“Feel the same way she does?”
“Well,” she said, moving closer still, “I suppose we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” Her eyes closed as she felt the softness of his lips against her own, and a moment later she felt his arms close around her, pulling her in.
It lasted only a moment, but it felt so much longer, and that was what really mattered. It felt, for a breath, for the instant, like time had stopped, and there was only one other person in the world—and, in a sense, she supposed that that was true.
They pulled apart, and Discord’s eyes were wide and soft and beautifully warm. “You know, Princess,” he said, his smile matching her own, “this may in fact be one of the better dreams I’ve had.”
She chuckled at that, nuzzling up against his neck. “The good thing about this one, you see, is that it doesn’t have to end when you wake up.”
“No,” he said, and she could feel the vibration of his words rumble through her body. “The good thing about this one is that it’s got you in it.”
“Ah, well, that too, of course.”
“Of course.”
She rested there, feeling delightfully calm, wonderfully mellow, as she just let herself sink into him. Soon, they would have to wake up, and explain what had happened, and why—which always seemed to be the question, really, yet at least now she had found the answer—but for the moment, for a while, they simply stood, and basked in the glow of each other’s presence, and left those worries for another time. For those such as them, there was always time, and now they had a use to put it all to. The glow of the memory grew brighter and brighter, blindingly bright, until perhaps there was no memory left, and all there was was hope, as they stood, and loved, and dreamed awhile longer.