//------------------------------//
// S5 Episode 37: The Playtime Through Evil 
// Story: JTHW: Journey To Hearth's Warming 
// by Lighttone GryphonStar 
//------------------------------//

The arrival in Pegasus Isles was an incredible moment, to say the least. Starlight looked outside to see rolling hills of fluffy clouds and the icy tops of cliffs rising from the canyons below. The elevator also moved differently from what she expected. This machine swung them around at an upward slope instead of straight like normal ones, allowing her to get a lasting view of each shot.

She knew Silver Pear was missing out. He should have come with her. She understood why Hermes and Red Steel stayed behind in the bar. They said they didn't want a fight, yet the view from above was by far the most peaceful she had ever seen land in this timeline.

The first thing that caught her attention was the guard stations. She knew from Hermes that the pegasi were at war with the griffins, yet these places only seemed to disprove that assumption. While she could see plenty of pegasi training in ancient fighting styles and flying through several obstacle courses, most were lying about. There was barely a weapon insight, especially in the hands of the one 'standing guard'.

Beyond that were thousands of fields of blank cloud bed. Each being monitored by an army of scientists of pegasi, checking the thickness and fluffy form. Calling them soldiers didn't seem right either, as most were wearing the lightest of clothing, thin bodysuits, or barely anything at all, possibly to ensure the least amount of effort when checking these lands.

Soon enough, they reached tall cloud structures with no roofs at all. Rainbows flowed out of these like vines on a tree, slowly descending to the ground miles down. Looking closer inside, Starlight could spot the smartest of minds within the pegasi species hard at work with multi-colored chemicals inside vials of ice and vessels of pure fluffy water-ice. They mixed them in the proper proportions to achieve the perfect reactions. It was the perfect view into the past that would one day lead to the many giant rainbow factories of the present Cloudsdale.

Further in, she could see several islands dotting the sky. The topmost cliffs of the canyons below. Nearly all had cities upon them and each seemed, by design, to be purely for peaceful living. Pegasi shown here were more relaxed with some tanning, stretching or even playing games. Colts and fillies floated over the massive opening of the canyons with no response or fear from their parents. The oldest children worked the small cloud beds they had like it was grass, while their parents readied the food at the barbeque or took care of the infants too weak to fly yet.

At the center of it all was the strangest sight of all. A lone cliff, no buildings at all, not even clouds. Instead, all the clouds swirled around this cliff as if it were the source of pegasus magic.

The surface was completely barren outside of a single dagger stabbed into the ground.

Starlight was glad to see all of it. Yet she found it strange that she was seeing so much of it so quickly. This elevator ride was beginning to feel like a tour. Tours by design are meant to show off the bests of places but if everywhere seemed peaceful... where was the worst? A place one spoke of in her time as the greatest warrior kingdom ever... shown to her directly as peaceful and fun loving...

As the elevator finally reached its destination, she couldn't help but wonder. Is all of this real?

******

The other elevator room was a bliss of silence as the two minds waited for the right time to strike. Sweat poured down his face as he waited for the first name to drop off or for the elevator to finally reach them. The thing was moving slowly but steadily up to them. They were unsure who was inside, nor did they care. It could be anything from their allies, random batponies, monsters of unknown origins, the enemy, or even off the bizarre chance... the undead.

Yeah, that was the least likely possibility to them right now, or at least that was their assumption.

The arrival would simply mean an end to the game. The two absolutely adored games ever since the serpent's first appearance. The old wizard could remember that moment like it was yesterday. Training Celestia and Luna as children, only for Celestia, always the most brilliant, to point out the strange shape on his shoulder. He started off small, but the more the old wizard noticed him, the bigger he got. The serpent was something only them two could see and ever since then Starswirl tried whatever he could to understand the creature and its power.

"Disassociation," a word echoed out between them. Neither knew which one started, but the other was sure to catch up.

"No, that's the word I left off at... Disassociative?" He flipped a page.

"No, that doesn't sound right." The other followed suit.

"Agreed," One nodded to the opponent.

"Maybe try jumping vowels."

"Okay." He flipped the pages by faster. "Disassure?"

"Shorter, but not quite. Keep trying." They both quivered with anticipation.

"Disaster?"

"Good, but aren't we both a disaster?"

"True, mustn't let us blend in too much. Oh, disastrous."

"An adjective now?"

"Right, let's stick to nouns. Disattention!"

"Now, that has my attention!" He hopped in place, celebrating his pun.

"Oh good, that sounds great." He agreed just as brightly.

"No, no," he quickly changed his mind, "it would be rather hard for them to pay attention to me with such a name, pun worthy or not."

"Double the puns!" They laughed at each other's jokes. "Hmm, disattire?"

"But I love my attire!" He poofed on a fancy orange suit.

"Good point, disattune?"

"That a verb."

"Right."

"Besides, I have an incredible singing voice," he phrased in a singing tone.

"Now, I'm jealous. I can't sing a single note."

"It's all talent."

"Indeed, disavowance."

"That could work. I don't like making a vow." Suddenly a green stand appeared with a buzzer. "However, I would like to buy a vowel, Jerry!" He pressed it loudly, screaming out to no one.

"Disazo!"

"That's an adjective. Jerry, I would like to declare this one disqualified!" He rang the buzzer louder, making his friend twitch with annoyance as a giant red x appeared on him. The voices of an audience cheered behind him.

"Fine, fine. disbandment."

The x vanished and reappeared on him instead. "I don't like being banned from anything!"

"Neither do I, it leaves us in... Disbelief."

"I am too, in the amount of time it's taking you to come up with a name." His words were draining his friend more.

"Disbenefit?"

"It would be beneficial if I were to help you in naming me."

"I can handle it... Disbound?"

"Adjective again. Disbursement!"

"Discalceate."

"I would if you would move faster, Discardment."

"You wouldn't dare." His eyes widened. "Discectomy."

"Surgery might be a bit messy. No removal is best," he gave an evil smile. "Disceptation. Oh, that word works perfectly for our current predicament."

"No, discernibleness."

"That's almost an adjective!" he hissed. "Discincture!"

"Disciple."

"You're the one loyal to the alicorns, far too loyal for my taste! Discision." He hissed in anger.

"Discission."

"Did you just make up a word?!"

"No, there are two ways of spelling it." He smiled wickedly.

"That is very mean! Disco!"

"Oh, that one is very good. But neither of us dance good at all." He strutted horribly in place.

"You have a point. Discoblastula?"

"I don't hate it. Discocarp."

"Yeah, that was close, too." He poofed the very same mushroom in his claw and bit down. "Huh, not bad. Discogastrula."

"Isn't that just another word for discoblastula? How about discohexaster?"

"Hmm, I'm starting to not like these longer names, discolith."

"Discomania."

"We can't dance, remember."

"Discophile!"

"How about we drop the disco part entirely!!" The serpent finally screamed.

"Fine..." Starswirl stopped and picked a good chunk of pages to skip the extra uses of the word disco. However, the pages dropped from his hand, landing him in the same spot but a name he hadn't seen before. "Huh, how about Discord--"

The image of the serpent faded and the old wizard was stopped by a loud beeping sound. All the old wizard could do was wipe the sweat off his face and take a deep breath. He turned his attention to the elevator that led to the Batpony Canyons.

His body had been increasingly shaking since the game started and didn't end with the serpent leaving. Either way, he kept a cool and calm composure to the door as it slowly wrenched open. He found himself unable to stop until he threw the checker board to the side, hitting the table to push the shaking away. It took him a solid minute for his body to stabilize.

"Damn it..." Starswirl grumbled. "That was too close." He hoped whoever was at the door didn't see his weakness. "I need to stop talking to that old troll of a ghost... I need to know what is going on--" His eyes came upon what lay on the other side of the elevator's doorway. "Hmm, and maybe you good folks can tell me."

Thousands of undead swarmed out of the elevator in mass and raced right at Starswirl. He charged up his chaos magic and readied himself for battle. "Looks like the fun has just begun."

******

Back up in Pegasus Isles, the other group had finally gotten past the front entrance and made their way into the capital. It was a large island of snow and clouds sitting at the center of the country and the upper part of the hourglass. It was most notable for its sharp giant blue spires or permafrost that surrounded the rim of the cliffside. The first sign of true defense Starlight had seen in the entire place. Lord Red had told Starlight these were a last line of defense in case of invasion, which again seemed so pointless to her in such a peaceful place.

"We need to make contact with the leader of this land as soon as possible," Clovis noted with an annoyed grumble.

"I understand there is a war on the rise, but can't we enjoy this beauty a bit longer?" Starlight questioned, spinning through the air with her magic.

"Find some solid ground, mare!" Clovis called out.

"Don't be like Silver Pear." Starlight tapped him on the head before flying around Lord Red. "Besides, the ground seems rather mute with places built in the sky." She couldn't help but enjoy this floating spell over the sights.

"I'm glad you are enjoying my first lesson." Lord Red admired Starlight's efficiency with such a complicated spell.

"Well, my friend Sunburst from the future would have better understood the details of such a spell." Starlight laughed. "I simply applied enough output to match your specifications."

"Indeed." He caught her from crashing into one of the spires. "But still, you picked it up faster than my son did."

"Wait," Starlight's eyes widened. "You have a son."

"Adopted, but a tale for another time." Lord Red turned his attention away. "As for your question..." He reached into the air and appeared to pluck something that wasn't there.

Starlight thought it was so strange as she heard the sound of a string, but saw no source at all. The sound it produced was also strange, being more beautiful than any instrument she ever heard, and yet, she seemed to be the only one that heard it. No one, not even Clovis, gave a note to the sound.

Lord Red dropped his hand in disappointment. "It seems the leader is nowhere in the entire hourglass."

"We came all this way for nothing!" Clovis kicked the surrounding clouds.

"Maybe you should have had some drinks with the rest of us earlier." Starlight floated above him and squeezed his cheeks. "Come on, grumpy. Trust in your master!"

"I do! It's you I don't!" He walked over to a table to take a breather. All this floating was getting tiresome.

Starlight was stopped by his insult. Caught so off guard she didn't even notice herself crashing into Lord Red's back. "Why are you so...?"

"I understand his concern." Lord Red flipped Starlight around right and sat her firmly on the ground. "Very few know of the prophecy around me and you, Clovis being one of them."

"I... I..." Starlight lowered her eyes. "I can't believe in a prophecy that said I will one day kill somepony." Her annoyance was just as clear in her last sentence. "When we first met, I must admit there was some distrust. You were odd at first... Just like Starswirl, but I sense no evil in you." She threw her arms around to hug him only for her to start floating upward again, making Lord Red turn off her spell.

"You truly do not sense evil in me, my little student?" He took the hug.

"No, not at all. In fact, you are the closest thing... to family in this time." Starlight lifted her eyebrow. She didn't know what made her say that... at all.

"Hmm, what was your family like? Any siblings? Parents? Grandparents?"

"No, I'm... I'm an only child." Starlight pulled away as if she was confessing. "I... I never knew my real parents. My adopted father let me keep my family name as my middle name."

"Intriguing." Lord Red rubbed his chin. "What is the name?"

"Well, I've only ever told my teacher, Twilight."

"Am I not your teacher, too? What if I were to introduce you to other masters of magic like Lord Stygian, Lord Vaster, or even Lord Grace?"

"You know the Shadow Pony, the Griffin Mage, and the last Minotaur Necromancer?" Starlight's eyes lit up at his agreement.

"You don't have to learn simply from an alicorn. Clovis himself has learned directly under each of those powerful masters. And there is more I can show you... if you are patient and trust in me."

Starlight turned to Clovis with narrowed eyes. "Twilight has taught me many things from spells and knowledge but above all, I've learned to trust my senses..." She blinked twice to calm herself. "I trust you, Lord Red. My full name is Starlight Constantine Hollow Glimmer."

"Thank you for that." He rubbed her mane. "How about you show Clovis you can be trusted through each other's knowledge?" Lord Red looked up for thoughts. "I know, compare your problems with his, find some common ground. Meanwhile, I will attempt to expand my scans."

"Sounds like a great idea." Starlight pulled away, rushing over to meet with Clovis.

She moved so fast she didn't notice Lord Red's claw extended as if reaching for her throat, only to the pluck a loose hair from her mane. "Hmm, her name is Constantine Hollow. Now where have I heard that before?" the wizard whispered carefully with a smile at the sight of the hair before vanishing into pure nothingness, with only the sounds of thousands of crawling limbs and strings following him.

Starlight followed after Clovis to a table. She stopped halfway as she heard the crawling sound for a second. Seeing Lord Red gone, she didn't question him anymore, or the uneasy chill she felt after he left. She needed to get other things done. She couldn't spend all her time fearing a prophecy.

She sat down with Clovis and called over a waitress. "Have you invented any cloud coffee--" She stopped herself, realizing what she had just said.

The waitress tilted her head and shyly smiled. "We have cloud coffee!"

"Good, two cups."

"Careful..." Clovis rolled his eyes at Starlight's mistake. "Had you shown up two thousand years early, such a line would create a destiny around the invention of cloud coffee."

"Sorry, Teach handles time traveling speech better than me." Starlight shyly waved it off.

"Sounds like Twilight Sparkle has given you no brains at all--" He was stopped as she kicked his shin.

"She didn't need to teach me sarcasm," Starlight mocked. "Besides, Lord Red told us to get along. After all, I did order your favorite flavor, right?"

Clovis gave a soft smile at the smell of the coffee as it was sat in front of him. "Yeah, that's somewhat accurate. Really, the only thing my siblings and I inherited from our father. A shared taste for this stuff."

"And since you know so much more about me, I want to balance things out." Starlight took a sip of her coffee.

"Fine. What do you want to know?"

"So, tell me everything about you and your sister, Clover?"

"Like what?" Clovis finally took a sip of his coffee.

Starlight rolled her eyes around her head for thoughts, unsure how to word this. When it came to Twilight's assumptions of the past, she couldn't be sure how accurate her teacher's calculations could be. Twilight's connections to Rex were obvious, but to Clover... far less was known. "So... let's start off with a random question."

"And?"

"Would Clover make a good mother--"

Clovis spat his coffee all over the table. "... No... you are?"

"What?" Starlight waved her hands back and forth, realizing how her phrasing of that made things worse. "Obviously not me! I mean..."

Clovis smiled at her concern and cleaned himself up. Ordering another cup with no annoyance at all. "You... you are a master of teleportation. Your teacher must be proud of giving you such a gift." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "I'm certain she inherited that mastery from the same place that I... and Clover did."

"Damn..." Starlight laughed at herself for failing again to word things properly. Clovis was right, she was terrible at this time travel stuff. "No confirmations, just assumptions from Twilight... about her lineage. We have proof on... Rex... but nothing on..."

Clovis stopped her from saying another word. He took his new coffee and sipped it carefully before answering her. "Did you know who my parents are?"

"No."

"Lord Stygian and Lady Cancel."

"Wait..." Starlight's eyes widened. "Clover's father is the Shadow Pony!" Her eyes widened even more. "And her mother is--"

"Isn't!" He stopped her instantly. "Clover and I have different mothers. In fact, every single one of my siblings have different mothers. Our family tree is so spread out by family lines that the nearest sibling to me and Clover are twenty years older than us. Really, I'm only so close to Clover's age because our mothers met our father at the same time."

"I..." Starlight fell back in her chair as her shocks faded completely. "I see. Wow, multiple wives."

"Husbands too, and even a few stranger choices, our father doesn't have a preference for gender."

"Sounds a lot like Silver Pear."

"And such is the curse of immortals," Clovis laughed at his own comment.

"So, Twilight's assumptions could be completely wrong..." Starlight took another sip of her coffee.

"That's also unclear." Clovis lowered his eyes. "Much like my father, Rex has had multiple loves, plenty before my sister... but nothing compared to the number of mates our father had... And frankly, as far as I know, Rex has no children."

"I see..." Starlight didn't know what made her smile so brightly. "So back to my question, then." She straightened herself in the chair and asked more clearly. "From your point of view, would Clover be a good mother? Could she be a good mother to my teacher's preincarnation?"

******