//------------------------------//
// [11] Order 
// Story: Queen of Storms 
// by Via 
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Order





...I already have.




Why isn't Order dead?

Pretend you're Discord for a second. A being of unfathomable power and might: one of the essential spirits themselves. As Life and Death retreated from the Corporeal realm, the only creatures that possess the ability to counteract your power through means that aren't just brute force are Harmony and Order. Harmony is the lesser threat of the two: her power counteracts yours and weakens it, but it doesn't destroy it. Order, on the other hand, is antithetical to you. Order destroys Chaos, and Chaos destroys Order. So in a vacuum - assuming that both Order, Discord, and Harmony are of equal power - there are three possible outcomes.

Order against Harmony is a stalemate. 
Discord against Harmony is a stalemate. 
Order against Discord, on the other hand, would result in the absolute annihilation of both. To sum up the issue - Order can kill Discord. And not only that, he wants to. Discord and Order are conflicting, opposite spirits. As one waxes, the other wanes - their very existence harms the other, and so it's natural that they instinctually seek to destroy one another.

So why is it that Order is still alive?

It's actually due to how deadly Order is to Discord that he's alive. Discord can't just risk killing him and letting him reconstitute - if he intends to rule over as the sole Spirit, then he has to eliminate all threats. So he has to trap Order in a place where he can't escape but can't die either. He has to bind him. And what better place to bind a Spirit of Order than the most chaotic place on the planet - the bottom of the ocean?

It's more than just the physical location that's important to this scenario. It's the idea. Water is the element of shifting - constant erosion, constant movement, constant change. That idea is inherently chaotic, and as such: the ocean is a place of chaos. It's not that the ocean is actually rich with tangible chaos magic, but rather it's a strong conductor for chaos magic as a whole. And considering that Spirits are made from their magic, being in such a place would simply erode Order's magic. 

But this was good news. Order was such a threat to Discord that he couldn't just kill him - he had to bind him. To keep him locked up in captivity so that he could never reconstitute. Which means - that he was an ally. And a strong one at that.

It felt good. Warmth in my chest - a swelling of giddiness, similar to the kind I felt every time I channeled the power of a storm. It felt like some part of me knew that this was the next step, that this was something I just had to do. But more than that - with the realization that Discord truly wasn't looming over us at the slightest glimmer of magic from the girls, I had an opportunity.

As we traveled, we stuck to the forests and places with cover from overhead. Right now, we were in a small grove right at the base of a cliff overlooking the river that leads to our destination. Creut and Ter made carving a form out of the rock rather easy, and simple brute strength did the rest. Thunk. Celestia jolted up and caused Luna, who had been leaning against her, to sort of flop onto the ground before she joined her in standing up. The boulder that I had created, nearly half my size, fell to the ground. 

"Lift this, or destroy it." I stepped backward.
Both of them stared at me, then looked at each other - as if they weren't sure who I was talking to.
"Both of you." I clarified. "Discord is -" I trailed off for a second and glanced at Celestia. "...Busy, for a bit." Her face was stony, but there was a glimmer of pain in her eyes for a split second. "And so, you can use magic."

"B-but...I don't know...how." Luna said. Celestia slowly ran a hoof through her hair.
"Luna didn't have magic. And - I haven't used magic. Since..." Celestia spread her wings slowly. Since her ascension, I finished.
I grinned a smile that showed too many teeth, and Celestia visibly recoiled. "So I'll teach you," I whispered.





I've come to the rather obvious conclusion that Spirits are scary.

I am a draconic mage. Well - I'm not really sure if I can hold the title of mage. I'm definitely more than above average with my magic, but I have no formal education. Considering that my kind must number in the single digits, I'm sure no one will mind if I take the title. But my magical pool is fearsome - that's just the privilege of someone with draconic origin. I don't really have a frame of reference, but the only creatures I've met that have outpowered me were the strongest mortal mage in history and Spirits.

And let's speak about Starswirl, for a moment. Starswirl the Bearded. Who didn't know about him? Father Time, the Sealer of Tartarus, Binder of Tambelon, Creator of the Amniomorphic Spell, and the Strongest Mortal Mage Alive.

As a draconic grows older, its magical pool increases. As an equine grows older - its magical pool increases...until it starts to drop sharply. One hundred and seventy-three years old, older than any mortal had the right to be - and he still had more than twice my magical capacity. The sheer amount of power and knowledge he had is unthinkable.

And despite this: we're both outpowered by literal children. A boulder that I could barely lift with my magic, the sisters could fling around like it was a rock. I conjured a shield with all my might - and their hold was so powerful that they passed through it with ease. The words that he said to me echoed in my ears.

The two people with any meaning. The two people with any power.
There was a reason why he had given them to me. Not because I was strong, not because I was smart - but because he needed someone to guide them while he could buy time. That was the grim reality of the situation he was in, and the sheer strength that the sisters displayed was proof of that.

I did my best to teach them, regardless. I taught them all the glyphs I knew as we walked - I offered to let them read my books, but they didn't seem particularly interested in it. However, I did force them to learn a few spells, namely, a simple energy bolt and shield. Ideally, there would never be a situation where they have to fight: but in a worst-case scenario...

I didn't want to think about a worst-case scenario.

Eventually, we made heavy progress towards Horseshoe Bay - in just a week, we were nearly three-quarters of the way there. But traveling at the borderline breakneck pace that I was pushing them to - that we had to be pushed to had left them exhausted. Had left me exhausted. We needed a break, and we needed a break soon. I reluctantly agreed for a day's rest by a rather cozy cliff that I had chosen. 

"Y-you promise?"
"Yes, Luna." I nodded. "I'm here to catch you."
"But what if you- what if you don't?" She whimpered.
Celestia put a hoof on her barrel. "Then I'll catch you."

You know, she was surprisingly hesitant to jump off a cliff considering it was her idea. At first, I had been strictly opposed - I didn't particularly want the two to dive face-first off a ledge to practice gliding. However, it had only been due to Luna's well-reasoned argument of rolling over onto her back and staring at me with the biggest eyes that I had reluctantly given in. Celestia further reasoned that I could make it safe with my magic - as well as a rather uncomfortable, scaled cushion in a worst-case scenario.

"You're safe, Luna. I promise." I whispered. She shifted around uncomfortably in her spot before raising a hoof to adjust the flower I had placed in her hair. 
And then promptly dove off the cliff, face-first. Celestia let out a choked noise, and my eyes widened slightly. I hadn't been expecting her to dive into it that fully, after all. Immediately, her pegasus instincts kicked in - her body steadying mid-air, her wings snapping out and catching the wind underneath them...

And then she flapped. And flapped. And flapped.	Luna wasn't just gliding- she was flying.
"I-I'm...I'm flying! I'm flying! Cellie, look! I'm flying!" She squealed as her wings began to beat more frantically. 
"You're doing it, Lulu!" Celestia cheered. For maybe the first time since I had met her, there was a true, genuine smile on her face.
And with Luna's next sentence, there was one on mine, too. "Tempest, are you proud?"

She was asking me if I was proud of her.
Me. Me, in all my mess. The confused, monstrous wreck that was barely shambling along without a semblance of a clue what to do next - and she looked past all of that and just wanted to know if I was proud of her.
Me.

"Yes, Luna," I whispered. "I'm proud of you."
I couldn't have been more honest.



It was a cyclic motion. A repeated, soft movement of the hoof - running slowly through her sister's mane as she rested against my scales, pushing away at any strands out of place and keeping them all neat and ordered. My eyes were heavy as sleep's siren song roped me in - but the Sun's words broke through my weary haze and pulled my attention onto her. She had a way of doing that - a sort of soft strength in her voice.

"You know, we weren't always named Celestia and Luna." She glanced up at me. "I was Indomita and she was Astrella. Starswirl gave us our names. They felt - they felt more right." Her eyes wandered down towards Luna. "...but...I wanted to keep the old ones. Lulu - she, she doesn't remember, but...our mother gave us those names. Before she..." She trailed off.

"...She was a noble." She whispered, her voice a whisper. "I don't remember my father. He was busy a lot. When Luna was born, he...he was already gone." She glanced up at me and saw my somber expression. "No, not like that. I wish." She snorted. "He left. He left our mother alone. Mom was busy, but - but she cared for us. Made time for us. She was a diplomat. And there - there was this meeting. It didn't go right."

"A dragon followed her home. The shouting waked me up. She told me to take Luna and run - and I did, but...I could still smell it." She whispered. Her hooves were shaking. Trembling. I stretched a claw out towards her, desperate to soothe her - but she visibly recoiled, and I immediately retracted.

"I don't hate you, Tempest." She whispered. "I don't.  But - but whenever I look at you, I..."

"...I see the dragon that ate my mother."

I thought Celestia was like me.
I was wrong. Celestia wasn't like me - she was stronger. If I saw the face that murdered my mother every time I looked at her, I-
I'd kill her.
...
I'd kill her.

Celestia cried that night, her face buried in her sister's mane.
If I had the ability to cry, I would have too.



I asked more about her vision the next night that Luna had dozed off.

"I was under the impression you knew." She spoke softly. After opening up to me, our relationship had improved a little bit. Every movement I made no longer made her flinch - no, flinching was reserved for physical contact. It was better than her roughly pulling away from me, and I was under no desire to push her. The fact that she could look at me without breaking down was more than I could ask for.

"Only vaguely." I shrugged. "He said he would buy time. I didn't exactly know what that meant."
"Buy time?" She tilted her head to the side. "Was that his exact wording?'
I shook my head.
"Ironic." She shut her eyes. "When - when I entered the throne room. There was this...pull. It was pulling at my horn, but it was reaching deeper than that into my soul. I tried to push it away, but it was strong. And then I wasn't with you anymore."

"It was a whirlpool. I was in the ocean - little dots of land surrounding the center. It was saturated. Like everything was so rich with magic that it was in the very air. I honestly can't describe it to you. You have to see it, but - there were colors. Colors I couldn't understand. And the pull wasn't in my horn anymore; it was in my chest. Like I was supposed to be in the whirlpool. I couldn't keep looking at it because it hurt to look at."

"I don't know what it was, Tempest. But some part of me knows that it's a heart—the heart of the world. And there was so much magic - recycling, regurgitated, repurified. He was there too." She grimaced. 

"It's like...the whole world is a painting. And he's just wrong. Mismatched. Like, someone drew him on with a crayon. It's like he doesn't belong here. He - he was ugly."
"He is." I agreed. That seemed to lighten her mood a little bit, the faint glimmer of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "It's worse in person. But you're stalling." 

"I know." She whispered. "There was this big ball. Like a balloon. Red, pink, and yellow. Looking at it hurt my eyes. It was like some part of me knows that it's just wrong. I never want to look at something like that again." She said resolutely. "And then he threw it into the heart, and there was this - this shadow of him that followed. And then he laid down."

"Starswirl came a bit later. There was this - shimmering in the air. And Starswirl just came out of the blue. His horn was glowing; his eyes were glowing. They had a conversation - they traded words, snippy statements. And then Starswirl said - Don't let a Chronomancer stall for time."

"...I watched him die, tempest." Her voice was small, so small, so -
weak, lost, hollow-
"-He died for me-"
-she died for me-
"-and now-"
"I don't know what I'm doing." We spoke in unison.

I put a claw on her hoof.
For the first time, she didn't pull it away.




Elsewhere

Crack. Snap. Pop.

No, not cereal. Magic. Starswirl's cage was strong, my almighty was it strong - his work was always something of beauty. I hadn't had the chance to admire it since the age of Tambelon, but with my corporeal form trapped in an instance of time, I didn't quite have the desire to admire it.

He had chosen his time to strike perfectly. Only at his very best would Starswirl be able to trap me at my current power. But now he was a washed-up, old stallion. He had to give his very life to fuel the spell: and he had to wait until I was nearly drained dry of my power to strike. If I weren't on the receiving end, I'd almost be amused. 

Almost. 

Because I was in trouble, the second my cage snapped - and as I inspected the magic, it was going to snap soon, the escape would send me into freefall. And the Nexus would consume me. It would chew me up and spit me out as a swarm of chaos magic - and this would all be for nothing. I had this one chance to get this right, and it would be wasted. Glory would-

I had to get this right.

A good thing, then - that Starswirl's timing was perfect...but so was mine. It was nearly impossible to weave my magic with his, especially when I only had a fraction of a millisecond to cast a spell that would take any other being hours. But I was very good at the impossible. All I had to do was wait until my little surprise hit the world full-force: and the surge of chaos that would come through would give me enough strength to teleport away.

And then I'd have some clean-up duty to do. There was a certain drakon who was very overdue for a trip to the sun. No, that was too impersonal. Maybe I'd drag her broken, battered body across continents - watching as layers of scales peel off slowly and her flesh begins to slough off her body from friction. Mm...too boring.

It was good that I had all the time in the world to think about this.



I hated that I was able to recognize it before I heard it.

There was this stinging, at first. A shift, a twist in my stomach. My leg began to burn, and the mark of spirits was like a hot brand on my throat. I hated that I had felt this before; I hated the memories it brought - of utter powerlessness, of death. I hated that I was able to recognize the soft wrongness of chaos magic long before the crak-thoom echoed over the horizon with such power that it felt as if the world itself split in two.

It had been peaceful. Too peaceful. It was like the eye before the storm - there was too much time to travel, too much time to teach the sisters without Discord looming over my shoulder. I had felt something wrong building up, but I had hoped that there'd be more time. We were nearly there - just at the edge of the forest, within the view of a town. 

My head shot up before I felt it. Celestia and Luna's head went up a few moments after mine as it hit us, my neck and hind leg beginning to burn with a familiar stinging. It felt like insects wriggling around on the inside of my scales, pushing at them and bulging the flesh - threatening to rip it as it itched and burned. Moments later, it was followed by an even stronger one - one so strong that I didn't even need any magical senses to see it. A wave of pink energy threw Celestia and Luna onto their back and caused the ground to crack underneath me as I tried desperately to hold my ground.

He was here. That was my first thought. My heart beginning to pound as my magic started to course through my horns - but the conflicting chaos magic in the air made my horns begin to burn with pain, and the spell fizzled out as quickly as it came. My fears quickly faded - but then worsened as the third, strongest wave hit. In its path, the world was turned to madness. The ground was flesh, blood, bone mixed with candy in a checkerboard pattern. The trees were gigantic, wiggling tendrils made of wood with branches that reached the sky that belched out smoke clouds shaped like butterflies. The world was chaos, madness - and it could only mean one thing.

Discord was free.

"T-T-T..." Luna stammered as she buried her face into her sister's chest, desperately trying to avoid looking at the madness around them. Celestia stared up at the sky fearfully - staring at the clouds that were swirling around in strange patterns, forming vaguely quadrupedal shapes that rammed into each other at high speed. This much chaos magic hurt to look at - I understood what Celestia meant now. The whole world was a canvas, but this was a different art style that had been messily stitched on. It looked wrong, it didn't quite have the right angles, it was fuzzy- it was chaos.

Not only that, Discord was looking for me. I could tell because of the burning on my throat - chaos magic pushing and rubbing against my neck, the mark of spirits glowing so brightly it illuminated whatever I was looking at that. So it could only mean that Discord wasn't just freed - but he was searching for me.

-prosr, creut- the teleportation spell fired off by instinct as one of the trees went smashing down towards me.

-burning, burning, burning-

- the three of us exited the teleport nearly sixty meters away from where we entered. I grabbed onto both of them tightly and steadied them. Luna shaking like a fearful leaf. Celestia's head buried into the nook between my scales and Luna's neck - desperate for any warmth she could manage.

The rest of our trip would be the shortest, but it was by far the longest.

The details begin to blur together. Dodging the whipping tree-tendrils during the day: cowering among them with a blanket of illusion over us at night as chaos beasts lumbered around the woods. Not a peep uttered from any of us, out of fear that somewhere, somehow - Discord would hear. But my hands weren't idle this entire time. I wasn't quite content to sit back and do nothing as Discord wreaked havoc: no. I had to do something.

Weaving the spells came naturally to me. Unlike other spells, where I struggled to find the correct sequence of glyphs that I wanted - spells of the storm just made sense to me. I knew where to chain, how to configure, how to place. I quite literally had the affinity for it in every sense of the word. A drakon's name meant something, and I was determined to push myself to see just what I could do.

I had toyed around with the idea of Storm Grenades.  Blending golemancy with storm magic to create the catalyst for a storm. But, at first, I couldn't quite get it working - until one night.

Luna's head pushed up into my neck. For once, Celestia had dozed off first. After that, it was dark - so dark that the only light was coming from the burning mark on my neck. I had torn the core of the golem out and placed it in the bag of holding and was using the clay from its body to form the outline for a storm grenade.

"What are you doing?" She whispered right into my ear, her breath warm on me. I glanced at her.
"I'm trying to make a storm. I can't get it to work." Not to bore Luna with the intricacies of magical theory - but this was by far the most complicated thing I had done. Physical components and magical components rarely played well together, and when they did - it was in specific circumstances. Physical casting magic, or magic controlling physical. But this was uncharted territory - a physical catalyst becoming magic. And weaving together that many spells in a physical space - it was hard, to say the least. 

"Why not?" She rolled over onto her back.
"Shouldn't you be asleep?" I responded snippily. 
"Shouldn't you?"
"I'm older."
"Cellie is too, and she's asleep."
I snorted lightly. "I suppose." I sighed. "...It's too complicated," I added. "I can have clouds, I can have lightning, I can have rain - but I can't have wind. So I have to chose which one to drop." 
"...well..." Luna thought for a second. "...can't you just use two?"

...
Huh.

Luna dozed off soon after that. But as I mulled over her idea, the more sense it made to me. I didn't have to put every component of a storm in one: I could instead just imbue one physical component with one aspect of a storm, then activate them all. In fact - it might even be more powerful, considering I could dedicate the entire physical component to storing the spell instead of just an aspect of it.

When I say storing the spell - it stores the glyph sequence, engraved on its clay. The actual magic is still supplied by me, as clay has no ability to store magic. But it would save me the focus of using that many glyphs simultaneously - creating a storm took effort. A constant struggle, a drain on your attention to keep all the parts flowing. This? This would just take raw mana, and I had plenty to spare.

So as the Spirit of Sun and Spirit of Moon slept by me - I shaped clay into dozens of orbs as I started to create a storm.
The storm.
The Storm of the Century.



"Tempest." I was woken up abruptly by Celestia hissing my name right in my face - her eyes wide, wings flared. Luna was right by her, holding onto her so tightly it felt as if one of them might snap at any moment.
"Celestia?" I whispered. "What's happening?" I blinked a few times to lift the groggy daze of sleep away from my eyes.
"L-look." She pointed out with her hoof. She gripped Luna's head as if to still her gaze - but Luna's eyes followed, and then immediately she buried her face back into her sister's chest.

We were by a town. We knew this much - but there were equines in the town.
And there was a chaos beast, rampaging. It was quite like the monster I had fought at the gates of Gryphum - only twice as large. It was made from blackened bone, with translucent red sinew connecting its bone as its three-jointed legs ended in sharpened points. Everything it touched was coated in a pool of lashing, hissing, burning black sludge - and god, the corpses. Even from here, I could see piles of half-melted ponies, organs slewing out in a sick, stewing mess slick with blood.

"You have to help them." She said resolutely.
"I-I...we don't- we don't have-" we don't have time. We didn't. We had to get to Order as fast as possible. We had to end this as fast as possible. But - could I really leave innocents to die when I could do something about it? 
Celestia chose for me.
"If you don't help them, I will. Discord be damned." She hissed and squeezed her sister in a hug. 
"...Go," I whispered. I ran a hoof through her hair. "Take Lulu and run. I'll follow."
"W-what? I didn't mean - I didn't-"
"Celestia," I said resolutely. "I'll be right behind you." I glanced at the chaos beast. It was over ten times my size. I honestly wasn't sure if I could take it. "Go to Horseshoe Bay. I'll catch up. I promise."
"...You promise?" Luna whimpered, her voice weak and trembling.
"I promise." I lied. I exited the teleport before they had the chance to respond. I stood behind the ruins of a building - glancing for a moment to make sure that I saw the faint outline of a white and blue shape running towards the ocean.

Good. At least they'd live.

From my bag of holding, I pulled out a set of clay orbs. One for each aspect of a storm - the howling wind, biting hail, hissing lightning, and booming thunder. I had been up nearly all night preparing them - they weren't the best ones I had made, no, those would be reserved for another time.

More importantly - I imbued all of them with a single aspect. I channeled as much of my magic as I was willing to spare for the activation and channeled it into one concept.

Dos. It wasn't my specialty, so that the effect would be quite weak: but I focused on everything Ordered about my life and channeled that into my magic itself. Telekinesis sent the orbs sailing into the air - and a simple pulse of magic activated them.

Within instants, it began to rain. Within seconds, it began to pour. In ten - it was beginning to pour. More than that, clouds began surging out of the point of initialization. But they were infused - so infused with the idea of order that the rain that struck the ground began to purify it. Candy, flesh, and blood were turned back to sopping wet dirt and rock. If Discord had been here, actively maintaining this magic, then a spell-like that would have done nothing - but considering how widespread this influence was, he clearly wasn't doing it actively.

I exited a teleport right above the Chaos Beast as it looked up at the sky with a strange gaze, steam hissing through the air as it formed on contact with its bone. A radius around the Chaos Beast was unaffected by my order-infused rain: they were beings of such concentrated chaos that simply being around them reinforced the chaotic matrix that ran the distortion of the world.

I came hurtling down into it with the force of a lightning bolt. Literally, as I channeled Mys, Dos, Tesfyrd directly into its skull - a bolt of brilliant white lightning tearing from an orb above my horns as it struck its bony maw and rebounded off with a resounding boom. I didn't let up on my assault as it stumbled for its balance, grabbing onto its head and seeking to end this as quickly as I possibly could. Instead, I dug my claws into its head and let them burn with order-infused flame.

I began pulling in both directions, seeking to tear its head right down the middle. I didn't expect it to chitter and for my grasp to feel so weak-

Oh. 

I exited the teleport with a section of the second Chaos Beast's leg still embedded in my chest, landing in a puddle of blood and flesh. It had come out of the blue - and more than that, it had come with friends. None were quite as big as the initial one, taking the form of wolves, spiders, scorpions - all sorts of feral animals. But now, instead of focusing on the Equines, every single Chaos Beast was focused on me.

I tore the sharpened point out of my chest and cast a spell of Reosr on myself. Unfortunately, the wound began to seal up forcefully and haphazardly - I didn't have an in-depth understanding of biology, so the mass of scar tissue and muscle that regrew did little more than keep my blood inside my body. On top of that, a section of the scale was missing and presented a rather prevalent weak spot to my attackers.

And the Equines were running. Not just from the Chaos Beasts that devoured them - but one look at me, one look at the storm, and they went running with a cry. "Storm-Demon!"

I was outnumbered—at least twelve to one. 
I was going to die here.

...

No.
No.
No.

I had made a promise. I had made a promise. I was not going to die here. If I were to die, it would either be at Discord's hands or Death himself. Not to these - these...monsters. And besides. I wasn't the one who was outnumbered.

I had the storm on my side. The rain washed over me, cleaned my scales, and sent watery blood oozing and swirling down grates. The weak haze of order that hung in the air was a refreshing break from the constant stinging of chaos. I enjoyed it. I felt strong in this. And more than anything - I wanted to show it to my- to the sisters.

Fear. Dominance. Intimidation.
I planted my claws down into the ground. My throat glowed with magic as I let out an earth-shaking roar, the entire world seeming to tremble - and for a moment, it almost looked as if these monsters were afraid. But no - chaos beasts could not feel. And they proved this as they began to charge at me.

The biggest threat was the spindly-legged creature that was ten times my height, and its twin was nearly seventy percent it is mass. Their sharpened points had proved to be able to cleave through my scales nearly effortlessly - so as such, I had to conserve my magic for them alone. My mana was beginning to restore within the downpour of the storm, but conservation of it was still key if I wanted any chance of winning.

Two chaos wolves charged at me. I thought it was amusing that there were two of them - if there were three, then one would be able to be front and center. But this way, they were equal.  They were equal as they died, too - I grabbed onto one's head and squeezed so tightly its eyes came popping out of its head. I smashed it down into the other so violently that it disintegrated, making sure to move my entire body with the motion - sliding across the impromptu battlefield with my motion. The second wolf I pinned down to the ground - and with a bloody rip I tore through its mouth, into its innards, and pulled its spine out of it. I couldn't threaten to have them regenerate, though, so I froze them with a spell of cyrd.

I narrowly dodged the sharpened point of a scorpion stinger slamming down into where I had been just a second ago. I didn't waste a moment - slamming my tail against the ground to whip the blade out and retaliating with my own fluid motion that sent the stinger, along with squirts of chaos venom to spray onto the floor. I grabbed onto the pincers of the scorpion that were nearly the same size as me each, disproportionately large compared to the rest of its body - and started to spread. 

There was a bloody crack that made me wince as I split the claws right down the middle. Had these creatures had any sentience, I would've felt bad. But they were just magic. There was another scorpion, just as large as the other one - but a torrent of magical flame quickly cooked it alive.

The spiders were the worst. Just as big as the wolves, but there were six of them. And they jumped. As I stood in a pile of bodies, panting with physical exertion - a spider leaped at me from behind, so fast that the impact sent me stumbling back a little bit. My fingers dug into it and dug at my own face - tearing at my scales as I began scratching the spider into bloody bits, even as it sprayed its chaos fluid all into my mouth.

I filled my insides with fire and burned every drop of it out of my system. But there were more, they were swarming me, biting me -

Killing me. I summoned up every drop of my magic I had spare and cast a warspell. Thunderous Discharge came from me so forcefully that the sound alone lacerated the flesh of the spiders around me and sent them sprawling away from me. From there, it was a matter of stomping them - crushing them, tearing them apart.

I fell to the ground, panting, even as the spindlers approached me. I had taken out ten chaos beasts, at least - on an empty stomach, unprepared, and with a lack of sleep. I was proud of myself. Not that being proud of myself would do much before my imminent death. I glanced up at them, even as they approached me faster, and faster-

Mys, Cel. The force of the spell was so powerful that I could feel the glyphs used to formulate it even without actively casting my magical senses out. It was the force of the sun itself - a beam of solar energy so powerful that it tore through both spindlers and vaporized them instantaneously. Moreover, the solar energy parted the clouds themselves in the wake of the beam.

Celestia stood, her horn glowing and her hooves planted. Luna stood behind her - and I was thankful that rain had washed away the blood and organs. Celestia said something, and Luna looked afraid but at the same time in awe of her sister- but I couldn't hear it.

My vision began to blur, and I promptly passed out.





As I came back to a foggy consciousness, the first thing that I had felt was fear course through my body. Celestia had used magic. We were- we were...

Immediately, my fears were soothed by Celestia planting a hoof on my chest. Luna was asleep by my side - her face pushed tightly into my side, not an inch of room between the two of us. I blinked a few times as I glanced around and found that I was in a rather nice-looking building. "w...what..." I groaned, my throat feeling painfully dry. I could taste my own blood.

Celestia levitated - levitated a glass of water up to me. I drank the entire thing before I fell into a coughing fit. "m-magic," I managed to groan out.
"He wasn't near. I - I can't explain to you how I know. But he wasn't. But he's...coming."
"Where?"
"We're in the town hall. You're safe." I immediately relaxed.
"...I didn't know you could do that." I wheezed out.
"I didn't, either." She admitted. "I didn't know you could make it rain."
"I didn't, either.' I admitted. I smiled lightly.

"...But...it's not changing back." She glanced through a window. I wasn't quite at the angle to look through the window, but I could extrapolate her meaning from the limited information I had. The landscape itself wasn't changing back to its "default" chaotic state. It was staying as it should be - ordered. And Discord was going to notice.

"I can make more," I suggested. "Spread them out. Make him search longer." I glanced down at Luna on my chest.
"...You would've died." She said softly. "If I hadn't helped. Wouldn't you?"
I thought for a moment. "I-"
"Don't lie." Luna growled from my chest. Hadn't she been asleep a moment ago? 
"...I would've." I nodded. I turned my gaze from both of them. I didn't want to look her in the eye - see that pained look in them.
"You lied. You said you'd be right behind us." Luna whimpered. She pushed her hoof down on my chest. "I'm young. I'm not dumb." There was so much pain in her voice that it hurt to listen. I was silent for a moment.

"...That makes one of us," I said. Celestia's head snapped up as she stared at me, having caught the implication quicker than her sister. Luna thought on my words for a moment before she snorted.
Then giggled.
Then cackled. And Celestia's look of surprise that I had called both me and her dumb gave way to a slightly amused expression.
"I just didn't want to scare you," I whispered. I slowly ran my claws through her mane, taking care not to cut her.
"You did." She whispered in kind. "We don't have auntie. We don't have Starswirl. Please don't go too." 
"I'll try my hardest." I tilted my head up and stared at the ceiling.

After a minute, I slowly stood up - letting Luna clatter to the ground with a soft thoof. "...How'd you get me in here?" I stared down at Celestia.
"I levitated you," the filly an eighth of my size said.
"Huh," I spoke weakly. Spirits are scary.

Three more days of traveling, after that. I dedicated every waking moment of my time to creating more and more storm-orbs: I couldn't run the slightest risk that Discord could find where we were. So during the night, I activated them and sent them sprawling into the atmosphere as far as I could - even having Celestia and Luna throw them as far as they could. It was a fun little game to entertain the children.

The entire surface that the storms covered were covered in a low-level dispellment aura. Unfortunately, it had the unfortunate side effect of attracting the chaos beasts - leading to them following wherever the rains went, but the fortunate side effect of destroying chaos magic. So there were huge swaths of land that were bastions of order in a sea of chaos - although, considering how drenched they were...maybe they were seas of order in a bastion of chaos.

I moved while the two rested, carrying them in my arms. And as I stood by the hill that overlooked Horseshoe Bay - up in the sky, I saw a faint squiggly line amidst the darkness break through a layer of clouds and zip overhead. It moved fast - so fast. So fast.

Discord was looking for us. Not only that, but he was in the area - he knew why we were here. Undoubtedly.

We had to be quick. I let out a breath that I didn't realize I had been holding and exited a teleport - right at the edge of Horseshoe Bay. I let out a soft gasp as I finally was struck by the realization - that I was here. Finally. We had arrived.

My excitement was only slightly quelled as a noose of water tied around my throat and whips curled around my arms and legs - stretching me out with such force that even I couldn't move. I gasped and strained, and the two Spirits dropped from my arms. There were shapes amidst the darkness - moving through the beach, and I heard faint whispers.

"-storm queen-"
"herald of discord-"
"the children, look at the children-"

With a violent roar, I yanked on the water bindings that held me. Two of the shapes went flying towards each other, and I grabbed onto them with my claws. I then let out a gasp as I saw what I was looking at - seaponies. Long, strange, and slightly translucent creatures - amulets around their neck that kept them in a transmogrified state so they could walk upon the land.

"Wait!" I hissed out but was drowned out as jets of water began sliding down my mouth and into my nose - threatening to fill my lungs. I could easily fill my insides with fire and vaporize it - but I would risk burning the seaponies in my grasp. I was fine killing chaos beasts; I was fine hunting - I had even justified eating the dead.

But a sapient creature? No. I couldn't justify that. I threw them away from my grasp and stumbled backward as I gurgled on the water, trying to call up my magic-
"Stop!" Luna shrieked, and she spoke with the force of the moon. I was afraid that she had used magic - but thankfully, her horn hadn't glowed in the slightest. Immediately, the water was pulled out of my mouth and sent hacking onto the ground.

"Spirit of Moon, Spirit of Sun." A seapony spoke as she stepped forward. "Why do you impede our assault on the Herald of Discord?"
"Herald?" I hissed.
"The White Drake." The seapony explained with an even gaze, water slowly swirling around her - ready to lash out at a moment's notice. "Storms follow in her wake. The beasts follow in the wake of the storms. The trickster follows behind that."
"That's - that's just-"
"-a misunderstanding," Celestia interjected for me. "Tempest is working against Discord. We came here - looking for Order."

The seaponies glanced at each other.
"Order?" The lead one tilted her head to the side. "I am sorry, but - he is not here." There was a slight pause, though - she was hiding something.
"Uh-uh!" Luna spoke for me. "I saw it. And I know it was true. Order is in the ocean, and he's there." She pointed at the water.
"If you aren't going to help us - then step aside," I growled, adding a bit of magic to my tone to make it deeper - more gravelly. I was rather upset, considering they had tried to drown me. "We'll find him ourselves."

"You'll drown." She sharply interjected. "No land-dwellers magic can survive in the depth at which Order resides."
"So he is here. Why lie? You must have no love for Discord." Celestia stepped forward. This steel in her voice made me shiver slightly.
"He- he threatened us. We must defend it with our lives, or...or he'll destroy our kingdom. I am sorry, Sun and Moon - but I cannot let you pass." The seapony let out a soft sigh.
"He'll destroy your kingdom the second he thinks he doesn't need you anymore. You understand that, right?" I growled and stepped forward - keeping myself low to the ground and pushing my snout into her face. Considering our size difference and my draconic heritage, I respected that she didn't so much as flinch.

"Be that as it may - I will not have that on my conscience." She whispered. "I am a good soldier."
"We're here to free Order. We'll kill Discord. You'll save your kingdom-"
"-a, gamble I'm not willing to take-"

"Then I'll take it." Another of the three seaponies interjected. He promptly rushed over to us. 
"Private-"
"No, captain." The private growled. "They're right - and you know they're right. You're blindly trusting the words of the trickster when it's in his name. The Trickster. You can't-"

Water swirled around the captain as she stepped closer towards the private. "I can, and I will, and you cannot stop me."
The private stumbled backward.
"No," I growled softly, "but I think I could." I let a small exhale of steam rise from my nostrils. It burned on the way up, but a display of intimidation was more than worth it.
"As can I." The third seapony stepped out of the shadows. "You're wrong, Captain. You know you're wrong. I don't understand why you're putting this up to a fight-"

"Because of my daughter!" She hissed. "He turned my daughter into a monster that guards Order, and you're going to have to kill her to get through!" She stomped her foot. "I- I can't let you. I'm sorry, but I-" 

"We won't kill her," I said resolutely. "I promise."
The captain snarled and stepped right up into my face. "You're lying."
"I swear on the soul of my mother, Pulsera. I will not kill your daughter." I stepped forward. There was a tense silence for a second - before her shoulders sagged.

"No land-dweller magic can survive. But- can your magic?" I had caught the rather obvious implication from the captain's words.
The captain nodded weakly. "We can take you."

A wave of blue mana washed over the three of us - and like that, we found ourselves able to breathe and see in the water. As we waded through the waves, lead by the Captain and her entourage - the expected cold or warmth of the water was gone, replace with this feeling of...push. This push - well, pushing against us, reminding us of our location in the ocean at all times. It's one of those things you can't really explain without experiencing it - how could you explain seeing to the blind, after all?

Seeing in the water was a strange experience. It was as if I was looking through a foggy pane of glass - the details there, but not quite as powerful as they once were. Breathing was a challenge of the instincts yourself - at first, you felt the desire to hold your breath...but as the burning set in, and you were forced to hack for air with a pounding heart, the water filled your lungs the same way oxygen did, and the burn began to fade.

Bioluminescent flora and fauna thrummed in the abyss at the corner of our vision. Vibrant, saturated colors - swirls of saccharine red, mystic purple, and chaotic yellow rising as disturbances in the water. Celestia and Luna were pushed against me - wings nearly locked against their body as they squeezed me so tight my scales felt as if they might crack if they were any weaker. 

The water began to darken as the sun's rays began to fade - and the only light was the soft aforementioned pulsing of bioluminescence. 

"We can take you no further." The captain spoke. "My daughter is down below. Past her, Order lays chained. Please - please." She whispered. Beyond a capability to say what she meant - reduced to just that one word. Please. I nodded. "I'll bring her back to you." The seaponies began to swim up - and we were left in the abyss.

"Tempest?" Luna whispered.
"Yes, Lulu?" I adjusted the flower on her mane.
"I'm scared." She whispered. Celestia pushed against me, and I knew she was too.
"...I know. I am too."
"But...I thought you were brave. How...how do I..." Luna trailed off.
"Bravery isn't not being afraid. If you aren't afraid of Discord, then you're a fool. Bravery is knowing that you're afraid and doing it regardless."
Luna shut her eyes for a moment. When they opened, she had steeled herself - as much as a six-year-old could. I glanced at Celestia. And then there was this bubbling-

I threw Celestia to the side as roughly as I could and only narrowly managed to grab onto the mouth of the serpent. The gigantic, coiled sea-serpents teeth were all needle-like and long - each one the length of my head. On top of that, they were sharp, and they grazed against my scales. The sea-serpent was pitch black, a coiled and wriggled mass the size of my mother that looked less like it was covered in black scales and more like an absence of light the water. Luna let out a shriek, and Celestia flailed to regain herself.

This thing was huge. For once - I don't think that I had the physical advantage. That much was proven true as I struggled with all of my physical might to keep its colossal jaws open - but they slowly began to sink into me, and the dagger-like teeth scratched at my scales.

A good thing, then, that I had magic. The spell Starswirl taught me, Body Movement and Strength, flowed over me as I cast it as a tight-woven net around myself. And immediately, the tables began to turn as I threw its mouth open with such force that it physically recoiled - only to slap me across the side with its tail so fast that the water bubbled with heat in its path. I let out a yelp and flailed to steady myself. Even with an enhancement spell - I hadn't so much as glimpsed the tail-lash coming. There was a sharp scratch across my scales.

My horns began to glow - but slowly, the stinging of the chaos magic pushed against my horns and caused my spell to fizzle out. The serpent lunged forward and bit down around my midsection. A shriek of pain tore from my mouth, but I didn't waste the opportunity to act - spinning around and grabbing tightly onto its head. My claws began pushing down into its neck, threatening to draw blood. I turned to look at Luna. I opened my mouth - but I couldn't find the right word as the needles began to push through my scales like butter.

A good thing that Celestia intervened when she did, or the bite would've struck my heart. A beam of solar energy came tearing from her horns - illuminating the entire abyss in a vibrant light that caused the sea-serpent to hiss and recoil. I cursed internally. There was no way Discord hadn't felt that. None. A good thing that we were so close to Order.

The serpent pulled its teeth from my chest with a healthy pool of my own blood following in its wake. I let out a soft hiss - I was a drakon. I would not be left embarrassed by some serpent.

Luna followed up with her own blast. Unlike her sisters - a radiant mass of heat and light that hurt to look at, Luna's was a swirling bolt of energy that drew your attention in - but it was sharpened to a point and carved through the water with deadly intent. Mys, Lun. The sea-serpent only managed to dodge a fatal blow narrowly.

"No!" I hissed out. "Don't- don't kill it!" Luna recoiled from my words. I winced at her reaction, but I had made a promise -

The tail slapped against my face, and then the sea-serpent changed course. Instead of lunging towards me, it lunged towards Celestia. Maw outstretched, aimed at delicate flesh-

-creut, the teleport fired off - an inch too late. The ocean weighed down on me - my bones feeling heavy, as the coiling muscle of the serpent twined itself around me like a rope. Its teeth sunk into my neck, and lifeblood began to drain out of me - my vision began to blur.

And then there was heat. I blinked the haze of blood out of my gaze. No - it wasn't my blood. That was pooling up and rising to the surface. This was the blood of something else - it was the blood of the sea serpent that Celestia had just vaporized.

Her horn glowed with righteous fury, but her eyes were wide and shocked - only its top half had been targeted, fragments of bone beginning to drift down to the bottom of the ocean as a mess of limbs and a slough of watery blood and organs drooped out onto the abyssal floor.

"I- I didn't-" Celestia whispered. I had never seen her so terrified - not of me, not of something else - but of herself.
"You did- what...you had to." I wheezed as the wound in my neck made it hard to speak. Thankfully, it had avoided my major vitals.

Celestia buried her face into my chest. "I never want to do that again." She whispered. Such pain in her voice, and Luna was there too - wiggling her snout right into her sister's fluff.
"You won't have to," I whispered. "It's going to be over soon."

I turned to Luna with a soft groan. "Where - do you know where he is?"
"Deeper." She managed to whisper. "Can - can I stay here? I don't...I don't want to..."
I glanced at Celestia. "Okay." I winced and rolled my arm experimentally. "Stay here." And with that, I dove down into the depth of the water.

It must have been minutes, at most. But it felt like hours - each inch deeper, time beginning to distort and - for lack of a better term, wriggle. The pressure of the ocean had been mitigated by the spell of the seaponies, but now I could feel every inch of it weighing down on my skeleton. More than that, though - there was something searching. A consciousness that moved through the waters, brushing up against whatever it could, until it found mine.

It inspected me. There was no other way to put it; it peeled me like an onion as it inspected every inch of my magic, every inch of my memory, every inch of my very being. It was uncomfortable, it was humiliating - but despite that, I pushed through deeper until I saw a faint glimmer of light in the distance.

Order wasn't like the other spirits. He was the slowest to change - for he was a force of primordia. A remnant of the very power that created the world, and he carried that authority with him in all things he did. It was less like he was a mortal ascended to divinity - but more so that he was divinity incarnate. And as I saw him: this was reflected in his appearance. He was larger than any alicorn, only a head shorter than me. His body was gray and metallic, save for his eyes - piercing orbs of white light that stared into my very soul. Power radiated from him, the power of an essential spirit. More power than I had felt from Starswirl, from Gryphum - from both the Sisters. 

Order spoke. It wasn't with words - but more-so with thoughts. Feelings, emotions, meanings. He spoke directly into my mind - and his sentences were absolute. There was a force behind them that gave no room to wiggle. He didn't say, he didn't ask - he just spoke, and what he spoke was truth.

To convey what we spoke in words would do a disservice to the mode of communication. It was more than that - Order communicated everything to me. His rage at his helplessness in the face of Discord, and the growing lack of Order in Liogella. His fury at his discovery of Discord's plans - and most of all, his distraught in his inability to do anything. Discord had chosen this place for a reason: if Order was freed, he would be so weak that Discord could either kill him at best, or bind him again at worst.

Order was no help. But he gave me an offer - and I knew I heard the first words Order audibly spoke in centuries.
"Air. Chaos. Order. Light. " My affinity, but with something attached to it - with Order attached to it. Order was offering himself. All of his magic, taken into me. The ability to repel Discord, to fight back: and to allow the Spirit of Order to reconstitute himself in a different location.

That was communicated through more than just the four words. There was this - this pressure behind them, for lack of a better explanation. One that guided my mind into the same thought patterns as Order, the same logic.

I did the only thing I could, and accepted. Order's eyes pulsed, and my soul began to burn-

I see the world.
The hateful serpent, lying in wait.
The alicorn underneath the churning waves.
The cowardly king who saw that face of death.
The ancient wizard, long past his prime. It burned, it hurt, it broke - energy coursed through me so violently that lightning-like webs of cracks began to spread over my scales. It threatened to consume me as it pulsed out of me - a pulsing in my chest, beyond my chest, in my soul-


Two fillies lost in a world.

The pain melted away as I began to force Order's magic in-line with mine. I focused solely on that - allowing everything else to fade away. My entire world shrank down to the point of a pinprick as Order's magic threatened to consume me. I focused on them. The pain was gone - a swirling nexus of magic drinking up the water around me. I felt strong. I felt-

Ordered.

I exited the teleportation with the two fillies in claw. They looked scared at first - but relaxed once they saw me, then paled as they felt the energy course from me. It was intense, it was burning and desperate for release: my mortal body was beginning to fade away, and if I had been anything less than a drakon I would've been blown away to ash.

It hurt. But it felt good. I felt strong.

Yet, the slow-clap of paw against talon still cut through my excitement.



"Tempest Pulseradottir." The words came like slime from his mouth. He was horrific - hovering a few dozen feet above us, his wicked form illuminated by firelight. Firelight? A cursory glance around the beach showed the signs of destruction - the seaponies body mutilated, torn apart in ways that I could barely comprehend.

"You really are something, aren't you?" He teleported down with a pop. Celestia and Luna stared at him with a look of horror, and I shifted them behind me even as Order's magic broke through my scales and began to burst through my skin.

"You're almost beautiful," he whispered, and my skin crawled. "Legs of chaos. A soul of order. Throat of air. You're an amalgamation Tempest, just like me. Maybe - in another life, you could've been something good. But you have to die." He spoke coldly, and coiled through the air with a sickeningly fluid motion.

I could sense his power. He was strong - so strong. Even pushed to my very limit, my soul stuffed with so much magic that my physical form was threatening to decay...and I doubted I could do anything more than stall him. But there was something wrong. He was slow, he was on edge - he wasn't springing up chaos into the air.

He was scared.

"And so do they." He snapped his fingers. There was a cracking noise as the Spirit of Chaos overpowered both the infantile Spirit of Moon and Spirit of Sun, grabbing onto their necks so tightly that their flesh began to bruise. Their horns began to glow - but chaos magic in its purest form snuffed their glow out. Their wings flared, their bodies wriggled - but there was nothing they could do.

They were going to die. And I had nothing that could stop him.
No, a voice that was assuredly not mine agreed, you cannot.

And there was a thrum - a pulse of something in my mind, and my throat began to glow-

A torrent of order-infused flame burst from my throat. It came with such violence that I felt that if I had not opened my mouth, the flames would've simply carved through the inside. Discord didn't have a chance to dodge as the flames washed over him, burning him -

and when the flames settled, Discord was left intact. With ash in his hand. He looked shocked. He was silent for a few moments -

and then he began to laugh. He began to laugh maddeningly. He threw his head back, he lounged back in mid-air as laughter so violent blood began to ooze from his throat echoed from him. It sounded multi-layered; like it was the laugh of a thousand creatures rather than the laugh of one.

"You killed them!" He shrieked out with laughter. "You killed the one thing that could hurt me, and did nothing to me! My oh my, Tempest. Had I known you were so violent - I would've waited until you've done my work yourself."

"But now you're going to die, Tempest." His voice dropped from manic laughter to ice-cold malice.  "And you're going to die-" I decided he talked to much, and didn't give him the chance to strike first.

I exited the teleport behind him and struck him with a simple bolt of Mys, Fres, Dos. Evidently, he hadn't been expecting it - since instead of noticing my teleport like usual, he had barely even spun around as my bolt struck him in the chest. He was sent sprawling, steam rising from his chest - but he didn't wait for a moment, teleporting right to my side and seeking to end this as fast as possible. His teeth snapped down where my neck had been only moments ago - but I had dodged instinctually.

Advantages. Superior strength. Me.
Disadvantages. Inferior magic. Lack of experience.

Was - was this Order? The manifestation of his magic still speaking in my head, guiding me what to do?
Focus. His words snapped me away from my thoughts, and I immediately lunged out with my tail - stabbing it right into Discord's chest. It sunk into his flesh like it was candy, which it was. Unlike the rest of me, my tail-blade wasn't infused with order magic, and so he could toy with it and defend against the rest of it. He tore Drael's armor off me with a pulse of chaos magic, and infused the very air itself with a surge of raw force. I wrestled the spell from his control with ease - he hadn't expected me to be able to do as such with Order's magic. Instead of cancelling it though, I increased it's strength.

An explosion of air sent both of us sprawling backwards. I fared a little better through my scales. I heard a bloody crunch come from Discord as he caught himself mid-air, his body beginning to pull itself back together messily. I exited a teleport behind him, planting my claws down and staring at him.

No small-talk. That was the surprising part. Even when he had been fighting Bellum, he had gone for these tricks and snark - snippy spells, unique methods of deflection. But against me, now? It was just brute force. His intent was to kill me, and to do it as fast as possible.

And even with a magical pool over ten times my usual size due to Order, I wouldn't stand a chance. 

I narrowly dodged the sand itself bursting into flame and forming an inferno of razor-sharp glass like the one that had torn Bellum's scales apart. I exited a teleport by his side. It was a good thing, then - that I wasn't supposed to stand a chance. All I had to do was buy time.

I glanced at the leylines. Discord hadn't noticed, he hadn't noticed that there wasn't as much ash as there should be, he hadn't noticed that their magic hadn't faded - and maybe if I kept him busy for a few more minutes, he wouldn't notice that the leyline I had sent them through was still saturated with their magic.

He teleported in close, and slashed his claw straight at my face. I instinctually tried to dodge - but something else took hold over me, and with speed I didn't know I possessed I grabbed onto his claw and squeezed. And Discord looked surprised. I took advantage of this moment and grabbed onto his other claw, pinning him down and shifting my weight awkwardly so I could plant a foot on his stomach. 

I pinned down the god of chaos underneath my weight. He wriggled like an eel- slippery, biting, snapping and trying to get free - but I wouldn't let him. There was something feral in his eyes - but that began to fade, as he remembered just how much magic he had.

It wasn't fair.
It was simple subtraction. 
A thousand minus ten. I was the ten. He was the thousand. Chaos magic surged into me, breaking away my added boost of magic - until it just got to my very core. Until it got to the Air. Chaos. Light.

I was going to die here, I realized. He was overpowering my hold. I couldn't - I didn't have the energy to teleport away without him following and turning me into a boiling soup of organs. It wasn't fair.

A spell. Some part of me whispered. I wasn't sure if it was Order or me, but I agreed. There was - there had to be some spell. Some spell that could do something. It hurt, it hurt like hell - but there was a soft sigh of resignment as Order took the pain onto his part of my consciousness. Allowing me to focus.

It was strange, watching my body decay. Watching my scales turn to ash and my flesh beginning to burn as webs of order and chaos magic threatened to burst my cells individually. I had milliseconds. No, I had less than that- I needed a spell. I needed to formulate a spell. I needed - I needed a glyph. One glyph.

One glyph. My entire soul. My entire life. My entire magic. My entire mind - most important of all, them. I poured it all, I put everything into one glyph - a surge of something in my chest, a howling filling the air -

Tesrun. 

And then oblivion, as Discord killed me.

-