//------------------------------//
// Heart of the Matter 
// Story: Mind and Matter 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

Applejack stopped at the edge of town, panting for breath. Apple Bloom wasn’t faring any better. “We’re -- too late!” Applejack said. “He’s -- made it -- into town already!”
Apple Bloom nodded. “You -- keep -- trackin’ him. Ah’ll -- get -- th’ other -- Crusaders.”
“Why? What d’you think -- you’re gonna do?”
“Dunno. Friendship blast ‘im?”
Applejack grimaced. “Ya think you can avoid sendin’ him t’ live on the moon?”
“Er…” Bloom thought about that. “Alright, save that fer a last resort, then. Ah’ll gather ‘em up, anyhow. Now get after ‘im!”
Applejack nodded and ran off, following the trail of mild destruction through the town, a mixture of ozone-scorched earth and red-inked corrections on greengrocers’ signs forming the clues by which the rogue alicorn could be tracked.
She slowed as she reached the point where the trail suddenly diverted from the road. Her eyes traced the path up to the schoolhouse and saw the massive hole in the timbers. Of course. Where else would the alicorn of knowledge be drawn?
“Fer such a brain-case, y’all’d reckon he’d know how t’ use a door,” Applejack said sourly, before trotting up to the one-room schoolhouse. She peered warily around the corner and saw a tan filly sitting alone in the classroom, staring at some rectangular thing on her desk.
Applejack trotted over to her. “Scare Crow?” she asked.
The filly jumped in her seat for a moment, then relaxed, nodding.
“Are y'all alright?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Applejack drew in a deep breath. “Where did everypony else go?” she asked softly.
The filly looked up at her, slightly unsure of herself. “I… well, I ate them,” she said.





Cheerilee had to admit, grudgingly, that it wasn’t the worst field trip that she’d ever experienced, even discounting the time Discord awoke on her class trip to the Canterlot Gardens. The guide was entertaining and well-informed, and despite his manic demeanor, he paused and ceded her the floor when she made it clear that she had something to say.
Obviously, the situation itself was far from ideal. Her entire class, save one, had been more or less abducted and sent into the body of the sole pupil spared from the trip -- though he had conjured up some kind of two-way communication screen so that Scare Crow could ask questions as needed. The alicorn’s cheerful grin as he had announced, “Through the teeth and over the gums, watch out stomach, here we come!” would be forever burned in Cheerilee’s mind.
Playing Discord’s advocate, however, she had to admit that her class had never been more engaged by biology. Also, Mentiad had promised that he would take the class out by the same route they had entered, which was quite a weight off Cheerilee’s mind.
So really, as far as field trips went, this was a good three, perhaps three and a half, stars. If none of her students threw up before they got back to the classroom, she might even consider raising that rating to a four.
And then the voice echoed like thunder from the communication screen. “Mentiad! Get out here right this second!”
All that could be seen of the speaker was a big green eye. It looked furious. For the first time Cheerilee had seen, Mentiad actually looked slightly concerned. “Was that…” he began.
“Applejack?” Cheerilee finished. “Yes. Yes, I do believe it was.”
“Mentiad!” Applejack roared again. “Get that class back out here right this second! They got learnin’ to do!”
“I know! I’m helping!” Mentiad replied.
“Did Miss Cheerilee ask for your help?”
“Er…” He paused. “Well, no. But she doesn’t mind.”
He paused again and glanced at Cheerilee. “Do you?”
She stared at him for a moment. When it became clear that he wasn’t kidding, she said, “I do, actually.”
“Oh.” He coughed. “Oops.”
“‘Oops’? Y’all knocked a hole in th’ school, you foalnapped th’ whole class, an’ all you can say is ‘oops’?”
Mentiad’s eyes flicked up and down the rows of seats. “Ah. Hm. I mean... they've never actually left the building, so legally speaking I'm not sure --”
"I feel pretty foalnapped, Mr. Mentiad," Pumpkin Cake said. Several other voices murmured their assent, much to the alicorn's horror and dismay.
Applejack sighed. “Jus’... get out here, alright? It’ll be fine, Ah promise, but we are gonna need all them foals back.”
Before she had finished speaking, Mentiad had already wheeled the cart around and set off back the way they had come. Cheerilee noticed he was sweating profusely. “Are you… alright?” she asked.
He said nothing, but shook his head. His eyes were fixed on the esophagus ahead, but all the same, Cheerilee suddenly felt that he was studying her from his peripheral vision. She heard him murmur something to himself.
“Come again?” she asked.
He did look at her now, and she almost stumbled back under the weight of his gaze, his scrutiny an almost physical force. “I shouldn’t have come back,” he said simply.





Fluttershy and Treehugger were dumped unceremoniously on the banks of a river of chocolate. “This is as far as I go,” said the cabbie shortly. “Good luck.”
And without any further fanfare, he was winging off back the way they had come.
“Dude,” Treehugger said, her face pale. “What the fuck.”
“There, there,” Fluttershy said, distracted. “Have some chocolate, you’ll feel better. Now, Discord can’t be too far away from here. I’ll need to scout around a little bit, see if I can find any trace of them…”
“Uh…” said Treehugger. “Dude?”
Fluttershy glanced at her, and the other mare gestured to the top of a tall, purple tree on the other side of a river, where something akin to a massive serpent lay in coils over the top branches. 
“Oh,” she said. “Good eye, Treehugger. Here, I should be able to fly you to the other side easily enough once my wings are clean…”
“Wait,” Treehugger said. “Are you, like… sure you want to be doing this? That cat doesn’t look like he wants company at the moment, you dig?”
Fluttershy considered this. “You may have a point,” she said. “But I’ve known Discord long enough to say with confidence that until and unless somepony goes to talk to them, there’s no way they’ll snap out of whatever mood they’re in.”
Treehugger still looked doubtful. Fluttershy sighed. “If they really don’t want to talk, I won’t force it, but if we don’t talk to them at all, we’re not getting back to Ponyville.”
“...You make a good point. Fine, dude, let’s give it a shot.”





Applejack watched, incredulous, as Scare Crow coughed into her hoof once or twice, before a miniscule yellow cart pulled by no pony came flying out of her mouth and soared across the classroom, landing on the floor. Then, slowly at first, then faster and faster, it began to expand into a full-sized vehicle, with Mentiad, Cheerilee, and the entire class inside.
As soon as it stopped growing, Mentiad rose on wobbly legs. “Please exit the cart in an orderly single-file line, thank you all for traveling on the magic school cart today.” He attempted to climb out of the vehicle, but fell over the edge in a tangle of limbs, squawking as he hit the ground.
Applejack hurried to his side. “Mentiad? Are you alright there, pardner?”
He certainly didn’t look well. His coat was growing damp with sweat again, and as Applejack helped him stand, she noticed that his skin was as cold as ice. He managed a small, weak smile, nonetheless, and nodded at her.
She almost fell over as his eyes raked over her. “I’ve been better,” he muttered. “Memories… I spent so long forgetting that I forgot there was ever anything to forget, you see? But here, the sense memories are so strong. The world… I forgot how present it was.”
Applejack patted him on the withers. “Okay,” she said steadily. “We’re gettin’ you to a hospital. Miss Cheerilee, Ah apologize fer th’ inconvenience, but we’ll have to sort this out later.”
Cheerilee nodded, watching her pupils trot out of the cart. “Of course. But we will sort this out later.”
“Naturally. Ah --”
“Mentiad.”
The conversation stopped. Everypony turned to look at the hole in the wall. There was a glowing inferno behind it. “Step back from the citizens.”
Mentiad did so, hesitantly. “Of course,” he said. “I’m really so very sorry I don’t think I’ve been thinking quite clearly because everything is too fast and too many eyes to take it all in and --”
BE SILENT.
Mentiad’s jaw snapped shut for a moment, his legs quivering like jelly.
The creature of light stepped forward, and Applejack recognized it. “Princess Celestia?” she asked, her voice hoarse with a sudden oppressive fear.
Sunset Shimmer poked her head in through the hole in the wall, shaking her head frantically. “I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “I think she wants to kill Mentiad, and I don’t know if I can stop her.”
Mentiad took another step back towards the door of the schoolhouse. He seemed thinner than he had before, and taller, as though he’d been stretched. Had he always had so many eyes?
“I k̸n̸o̸w̷ you,” he said, his voice shaking. “I… k̴̞̋ñ̸̤é̷̺w̷̙͗ you. I don’t --”
Celestia stepped forward. Mentiad turned and fled, galloping through the door, his pursuer hot on his heels. After a moment, Sunset, Applejack, and Cheerilee raced after them.
Overhead, the sky began to roil, dark clouds rolling in from nowhere. They obscured, but failed to hide, the sun, glowing an unnatural shade of pink in the sky.





After the two mares spent a few minutes preening enough of the marmalade out of Fluttershy’s wings for her to fly, the pegasus was able to airlift her friend across the river of chocolate and up and around the tree in slow corkscrew spirals, dodging around the great limbs as they shot off into fractal branches and twigs. When they were about halfway up the tree, Fluttershy let out a long sigh. “I need a break,” she said. “We’re stopping at the next limb that’s big enough.”
“Roger-dodger, dude,” Treehugger said.
Fluttershy managed to set them down close to the trunk of the great tree and allowed Treehugger to disembark before she sprawled out on the vast branch on which they rested. It was truly enormous -- Fluttershy suspected that its cross-section would be larger than her entire sitting room -- and flat enough for the mares to comfortably walk on without fear of falling off.
Treehugger frowned as she paced toward the trunk. “Dude,” she said. “This isn’t a tree.”
Fluttershy glanced at her. “Well, no. It’s purple.”
Treehugger shook her head. “No, dude. I’m not saying it’s a weird tree. It’s not a tree at all. My mark says so.”
“Strange," Fluttershy said, frowning. "But then again, this is Discord’s realm.”
With a nod of assent, Treehugger pressed herself up against the trunk. “It’s alive, though,” she added. “I can feel it. ‘S like lightning in there.”
Fluttershy sat up. “...Treehugger? Are we going to get eaten by this not-tree?”
Treehugger paused. “Uhh. Maybe?”
“Okay, then let’s just keep moving --”
“No, dude,” Treehugger said firmly. “You gotta rest, rest. If you’re too tired to fly us out of here, we’ll be kinda screwed, you dig?”
Fluttershy frowned, but nodded. “Alright. But get back over here by me in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
“Righteous.”
After fifteen minutes of watchful rest, nothing had happened and Fluttershy felt strong enough to continue, so the two mares continued their spiraling flight upward.
After a few minutes, Treehugger leaned over, almost making Fluttershy lose her balance. “Careful!” she warned.
“There’s a knot in the tree,” Treehugger said.
“I see,” said Fluttershy, flapping frantically. “How very interesting Treehugger, a knot on a tree. Please sit back up straight.”
“It’s the only one,” Treehugger mused. “A tree knot on a not-tree.”
“Poetic.” Fluttershy twisted her torso hard to the right, forcing Treehugger back upright. “Please sit still, Treehugger. You might fall off if you do that.”
“...Right,” said Treehugger, still clearly distracted by the tree. “It just looked… familiar. I dunno.”
Fluttershy sighed and kept flying.
Eventually, they reached the top of the tree, where Discord lay entwined around its limbs. They seemed not to notice the mares, focusing instead on fiddling with something in their leonine paw, but as Fluttershy flew closer, they snapped their talons and conjured a pair of overstuffed armchairs, wedged firmly into the crooks of the branches.
Fluttershy paused for a moment, then moved to deposit Treehugger in one of the chairs. She herself flew over to Discord and perched on a branch above their head.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Discord grumbled, not looking up at her. “I didn’t know you were here, I couldn’t have protected you -- You realize that my lands aren’t exactly OSHA-compliant, yes?”
Fluttershy nodded. “I know. But I needed to make sure that you were alright.”
They visibly tensed up and shoved the item in their palm, which Fluttershy saw only a yellow-green flash of, back into a box that sat on one of the other branches. “Fine?” they spat. “Me? I am a god! I have lived through cataclysm and destruction, sown chaos and madness the likes of which your mortal mind could not begin to comprehend, created beauty and wonder that would make your heart sing -- you think I of all creatures might need checking up on?”
“Last week you threw yourself into the river and wouldn’t leave because I was out of your favorite tea,” Fluttershy said flatly.
“A perfidious mischaracterization,” Discord said, jabbing a finger toward her. “I did that because all you had left was Oolong, which you know I despise.”
Fluttershy arched an eyebrow at them. 
“Urgh,” Discord muttered, relaxing back onto the branches. “It doesn’t matter. Just… go back to Ponyville. I’ll be fine.”
“I want to be here for you,” Fluttershy said. “Please… tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Nothing’s bothering me,” Discord grumbled. “If you want to talk… fine. You can stay.”
“Rad,” said Treehugger, sitting awkwardly in her chair. “Whaddya want to talk about?”
Discord merely flopped on the branches and made an indistinct grumbling noise.
There was a pause. Then, Fluttershy said, “You never mentioned you had a daughter.”
“Didn’t I?” Discord asked.
“Was there…" Fluttershy fidgeted, twiddling her feathers as she searched for the right words. "You know, she told me, um, apropos of nothing, that I would be a good mother. Was there ever a, you know, another parent?”
“Oh!” Discord sat bolt upright. “No, no. No, nobody you’d need to worry about." They let out a short, artificial chuckle. "Worry about? Oh, that’s a funny way of putting it. No, nobody like that, at least no one who’s around anymore. Well, except Celestia, I suppose, but we never really… got together, so does she really count?” They grinned widely at Fluttershy.
She leaned back slightly. “Well, I, um, suppose not? I’ll take your word for it. Screwball also mentioned a cat goddess?”
“Oh, yes," Discord winced slightly and relaxed. "Ba’ast. She’s been gone for some millennia now, and she wasn’t exactly… good for me, anyway.”
Treehugger tilted her head. “So like… if there was no other parent, like… how did you have Screwball?”
“Oh, she sprang out of my head,” Discord said. “Out of this very tree, as it happens.”
There was a long pause. “I’m not sure what part I need to ask about first,” Fluttershy said.
“It’s very simple,” Discord said. “The tree is a part of my mind. Fluttershy, you know enough about animal biology to recognize the similarities, surely.”
Fluttershy tilted her head, thinking. The way the tree branched off at odd angles, the color, the way Treehugger had spoken about it -- like lightning under the surface… 
“...It’s a dendrite,” she said, hardly believing it. “An axon dendrite. Have we been walking around inside your brain this entire time?”
“Not ‘inside’, per se,” Discord said, waving their paw idly. “On top of. Around. There are so many of these trees all over this realm, permanent fixtures amidst the chaos that I can only alter unconsciously, all of them connected in a great root system that leads back to -- well, that's rather metaphysical, not to mention personal.”
Fluttershy nodded slowly. “And Screwball… came out of that.”
“Indeed.”
“How?” Treehugger asked.
Discord shrugged. “Oh, the usual way. One morning I woke up with a screaming headache, had to get one of the others to smash my brain open with a hammer. It was probably Mentiad, now I come to think of it, though I can't be sure. Trying to force new life out of your brain tends to distract from the minutae. Anyway, out pops a full-grown goddess, the manifestation of all the world’s artistic talents reflected through my own particular warped lens of twisted humor.”
“So she was born from your mind,” Fluttershy said, marveling. “That’s incredible. She must have been just like you.”
Discord pursed their lips tight. “You could say that,” they agreed. “I remember when we were inseparable, her and I. Eventually, she became much more… herself, as it were. Got much closer to Mentiad, but still had plenty of time for her old par.”
Fluttershy said nothing, but kept watching them. “Now, though,” Discord said, their voice gruffer. “Now, she’s different. Distant. Not… fun anymore.”
“You don’t have kids for the fun of it,” Treehugger said, perhaps a little more sharply than she meant to.
“...No,” Discord admitted. “Perhaps that’s not the right way of putting it. She’s not… willing to have fun, it seems. After all this time, all this waiting, and she seems so…” their voice faded and they sat heavily against the tree.
“It feels,” they said, “like they don’t want me anymore.”
There was a long pause. “Is this teen rebellion?” they wondered aloud. “Or perhaps it’s a midlife crisis. Aging works differently when you’re eternal.”
“Aging, maybe,” Treehugger said. “But I think this is just a matter of time.”
Discord glanced over at her, eyes questioning.
Treehugger sighed. “Look, dude. You were a statue for like… a thousand years? And she’s been off growing and changing and living, and you were just stuck in a garden with your memories of her. It’s no wonder you feel like she’s different, ‘cause she is.”
Discord sat upright. The sky began to darken. “Are you saying that I, the very embodiment of chaos itself, the physical manifestation of change and growth, can’t grasp the development of my own daughter? Hm? Are you saying that I, like some C-tier sitcom dad, cannot come to terms with the fact that my Screwball is her own person? That she has had time, more than ample time, to build a life without me? Hm?”
“That’s the way it looks, bud,” Treehugger said.
“Oh. Fuck,” Discord said, sitting back down. They crossed their arms, scowling. “Well, I never claimed not to be a hypocrite.”
“Yes you have,” Fluttershy said.
“And what of it?” Discord demanded. They lay back, throwing an arm over their eyes. “Ugh. I suppose… I suppose you’re right.”
“She is,” Fluttershy confirmed. “So. What do you want to do about it?”
Discord peered up at her with one eye. “I don’t suppose that ‘malinger’ is an acceptable answer?”
“If that’s what you want,” Fluttershy said, without rancor. “It won’t fix anything, but it’s certainly an option.”
“Fffffine,” Discord muttered. “I’ll go and see if there’s anything left of our relationship to salvage. One-way ticket back to Ponyville, coming right up.”
They clicked their fingers and a glowing rift opened in the air. Through it wafted the powerful stink of ozone and plasma. 
“Duuude,” Treehugger said, gazing through onto a stormy sky, backlit by a too-bright sun. “Maybe your kid isn’t out of her chaos phase.”
“This isn’t her,” Discord said, their face suddenly grave. They hesitated. “Just… stay here for a minute. It’ll be easier to shelter in place.”
“Shelter?” Fluttershy asked, alarmed. “From what?”
Discord grinned, but there was no humor in it -- only teeth. “I do believe we’ve got another family reunion on our hooves,” they said. Then they slipped through the portal and shut it behind them, leaving the two mares staring at nothing.





At one end of the street, Mentiad stood, vibrating, as lightning flickered over his skin. At the other, Celestia stared at him, surrounded by a corona of solar fire. Sunset stood well back from the duo, quietly urging Applejack, Cheerilee, and a few other curious townsfolk to keep behind her.
Mentiad stayed rooted to the spot as Celestia walked toward him slowly, almost stalking towards him until finally she stopped only five feet from where he stood, still quaking. He looked up at her, his many eyes wide and wet with tears. “Are you really going to kill me?” he asked softly.
Celestia hesitated for a long moment. She opened her mouth.
Then a pink presence forcibly inserted itself between the two of them and grabbed Mentiad by the cheeks, forcing him to stare into her eyes. “Mentiad,” Screwball said. “I need you to find Lucy.”
“I --” Mentiad stumbled back a few paces, confusion overtaking fear. “What? I don’t…”
She shut her eyes. “Oh for Shub’s sake. Has everypony taken amnesia pills today? Do none of you remember what happened to cause the Age of Abeyance?”
“No,” Twilight said coolly, trotting up to the scene. “But I think that I’d very much like to.”
“So would I,” Sunset said, moving to Celestia’s side.
Celestia’s eyes darted from face to face, the sudden oppressive heat evaporating as she drew back into herself. “No,” she said. “No, not like this. Screwball, please, don’t tell them like this.”
Screwball looked up at the alicorn for a long moment, then shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, but this is frankly ridiculous. It’s time they knew the full story, especially Mentiad, who has absolutely no excuse for forgetting in the first place."
She frowned at Mentiad, who shifted uncomfortably on his hooves. "You didn't even die," she accused.
"Oh," said Mentiad. "Um... sorry about that? If it helps, I think I'm about to." He glanced at Celestia.
Screwball narrowed her eyes at the princess, who now looked very uncomfortable indeed. "We'll see about that. Later. For now... CONTACT!”
She clapped her hooves together and haloes of violet flame appeared atop the heads of all five of those present. Their eyes all went pure, blind white as their minds hurtled back, back through the ages.