//------------------------------// // Bonus Content 3 // Story: Trust Once Lost // by Greenhorne //------------------------------// **For those who skip the author notes, this is not canon** “No. Absolutely not. Never.” Before, Discord had seemed playful, if interested. Now, he looked offended, hovering above the Cutie Map. “Why not?” Twilight asked. “You know she’s not truly happy here. You confirmed that she was an adult-“ “By her standards, Twilight,” Discord growled, his face suddenly an inch from hers. “Adulthood and maturity aren’t the same thing. I refuse to take the chance for the latter from her, just as I won’t take it from you.” “What?” Twilight then thought back to an earlier conversation. “Discord, this isn’t about you telling me the secrets of magic!” She had tried to ask him to teach her more, including some of the strange abilities he claimed she could learn- only to be told, when you hit your first millennium. She decided to bring out the big guns. “This is about being kind to a friend! If she asks for it-“ “I’m being kind by refusing to consider this!” Discord hissed. “She’s nine, Twilight! Nine. Years. Old.” “But- but- but humans grow up faster!” she shouted. “You said so yourself!” Discord nodded. “So she was an adult! You said you could cure her medical condition if you sent her back, and she knows she’s giving up magic and a longer life. She is, in fact, mature.” Discord seemed to deflate. “No, she isn’t, Twilight. None of them are.” “I- what?” Twilight, first simply confused, then found her face then contorting with anger. “It’s not very nice to disparage an entire species! You even said that they built an incredible society! Knowledge nopony has ever conceived of, all from a race with no magic.” “No, I didn’t, Twilight,” Discord said sadly. “I said that they built an incredible society using no magic. Surely, if their world had no magic, Greenie couldn’t be here, could she?” “You caught that too, then,” Twilight said. A simple, but true, fact; interdimensional travel without magic was theoretically impossible. Discord raised a paw. “I didn’t catch it, I knew. I didn’t help make them- I’m not old enough for that- but I do know something about it.” He’d turned away at this point, looking at the ceiling in a gesture Twilight had learned was him reminiscing. “In English- their version of Equish- the being that Green met is called a fae these days. My progenitors.” “The humans were made in their image. No- not their image, but the image of themselves at their finest. Not in body, but in soul, in spirit, in coding. Humans are brilliant, Twilight. Green’s barely ten, but she’s as qualified a nurse as any pony in Ponyville! Give any human a pony body when they're young enough, and every one of them would become truly great, as much as you and your friends. Raise them right, and many would gain some form of immortality- whether as with you or as me or as Sombra would still be their choice, of course, but one they’d be able to make.” Twilight opened her mouth to speak, only to find that no sound came out. “That’s the only reason why humans aren’t grunting in the caves we found them in, chipping rocks like birds make nests," he continued. "Remember Green’s story, Twilight? Think! Humans the world over popping out foals at five, all to be dead by thirty. Remember what I said when I wouldn’t tell you, ‘Tia or Lulu the secrets of my magic?” “’The body grows the soul,’” Twilight Recited. “’Stunt the body, and your magic won’t change; that’s why you need to grow. Why, a mere thousand years, and Look! ‘Tia’s now a head taller than her sister!’ Well, yes, but... “ Twilight paused. “No, that doesn’t work- even donkeys and diamond dogs can do magic, and they don’t grow that much slower. If they’re that powerful, they should be showing some magic!” “No, it’s not just their age,” Discord replied. “There's a trillion times the magic, but unevenly spread through a quadrillion times the volume. But it still mostly is; if you were full-grown at four, you wouldn’t have much magic at twenty. And some few do use magic, though they don’t see it for what it is.” He shook his head. “Not important.” “You’re right,” Twilight said, “it isn’t. Even without magic, even if she only lives to thirty, she can still live a fulfilled life.” Discord guffawed. “No she can’t! That’s the point! I send her back, and she’ll have her composure back- and she won’t be able to grow out of her anxiety!” He was literally red-hot with anger by now, steam pouring off of his head and out of his ears. “She doesn't even have a cutie mark! Full-grown, pony magic, and no cutie mark! All are like that! Humans almost never truly learn to be themselves! They burn hot, but so fast that they can never see half the lies they tell themselves!” He was still angry, but had also returned to giggling like a madmare- a truly terrifying sight, if there ever was one. “Like ponies, they’ll spend fifteen years doing something they hate- but because those are fifteen of their twenty-five, they never can become anything more! Their grandest arts are always put off, never to be completed- and every one is an artist after mine own heart, I’ll have you know! Foolish and evil actions simply don’t have time to bring consequences! Tartarus, their whole economy is based on fossil fuels and fiat currency!” Discord’s manic grin grew to encompass the whole room. “Delightfully chaotic, certainly not something as boring as you ponies would try. Why, I’ll bet you’d complain about the smog alone, let alone the warming from carbon dioxide.” He settled back down to the floor, directly in front of Twilight. “And yet, huge numbers of humans don’t believe that they’re ruining their own climate! Even more simply don’t care! Utter foolishness, and the numbers written in ones and zeroes they call money- value from future taxes and faith in their own inconstant selves!” The scene of an endless office filled the room, Discord and Twilight floating around it. “So intrinsically stupid that a pony would never try it, but so powerful that they built marvels with it! With a conman called Made Off running their biggest bank at the same time!” The office scene disappeared, pony and Draconequus back on the floor. “So grand, so beautiful, so chaotic and harmonious and all that stuff,” Discord murmured, looking at the crystal floor, “that it might even survive the inevitable collapse. But I wouldn’t want to live there during it.” He looked into her eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. Chaos, I can take. True suffering, with beings for whom life truly is cheap? Green only has ten years in her past. If she takes care of herself, she might live another three hundred.” “She may not see it right now, Twilight, but she deserves that much. Be kind to her, Twilight, and tell her no.” _______________________________________________________________________________ A/N Lines I couldn’t fit: “You think, Twilight! Of course they have a weird attitude; do you have any idea how hard it is to get five-year-olds to have foals? Most humans- male and female both- are physically capable of having foals at four. ‘Teenage pregnancy,’ they call it.” He gave her a lecherous grin. “They can’t actually control their pregnancy cycles, either; a good human mare can have a dozen whelps in her lifetime.” “Wha- but how can they take of all of them?” “Who says they do? That anyone under the age of eighteen can be a good parent is a miracle. That raising foals is so hard is why you ponies don’t have estrus until then.” __________________________________________________________________________________ “Shut up and listen, Green.” Discord loomed over Green. “Apple Bloom is older than you are. Macintosh was born on the same day the Titanic sunk. That old green mare is older than the United Kingdom.” He leaned down towards the floor, glaring eye-to-eye with the filly. “And you want to give that up because your first seven days here have been embarrassing? Ask again, and I might just be offended enough to grant it.”