//------------------------------// // The mortals ponder // Story: Stars in our Shadows // by ReadDEMOh-17 //------------------------------// "Discord." Discord was truly amazed how much accusation could be fit into a single name. One mortal would think it would pose quite a challenge even to a sharp and trained mind to summarize millennia of political unrest, economic instability, natural disasters, assassinations, resurrections, re-resurrections, diplomatic incidents, baking incidents and violence that comes with them, general confusion, anomie and straight-up stupidity in a single word less than ten marks long. Yet the Supreme Princess of Equestria Twilight Sparkle nailed it. He would feel like giving her a medal for that. Instead, he sweated profusely. He felt n... What's the word? The one mortals use, when they feel like they have no control over their lives? Nauseous? Annoyed? Nervous? Yes, that's the one! He was nervous, he was afraid. He was afraid, because he knew. He knew that this particular set of enormous blazing green letters on the sky was a problem he could not simply snap away. First meeting with omnipotence of higher levels is always like that for the rookies. Absolutely adorable. "Discord!" the Princess' voice shook him out of the trance. "What is the meaning of this?!" "I... I don't know?" he spread his arms helplessly. That was how he really felt. For once in all his time spent between the ponies, Discord had no idea how, when and where the spell was cast. Neither how to reverse it. From his perspective, that little rhyme, weaved out of green, strange stars, was always there. No signs of magic at all. Something far, far beyond his perspective. Someone, no - something created them in a blink, with no difficulty whatsoever. High up on the sky, for all to see and read was an enormous set of six lines of text that read: Choose: would it be truth or dare? Raise your eyes and hold the stare You, oh snake of lies and oaths Made those mortals think you care Show your Love and bleed your Heart Bring Her Here, we Want to Know But who? Which of his old friends would do something like that? None of them were powerful enough to smuggle a constellation onto his sky without him noticing! Yet it wasn't an illusion, this he was sure of. Also - strange stars! Spheres of strange matter, so abnormally dense, they shouldn't even exist outside of neutron stars' cores. This broke more rules of reality than he thought was even possible for any Lord of Chaos. This... This endangered the universe itself! This was so absurdly and unnecessarily reckless... who would possibly risk so much and spend so much energy just to carry a message?! 'Raise your eyes and hold the stare' He didn't know what to say. He stiffened and opened his eyes widely. He would just stay silent for a moment, pondering the galactic, no - cosmic, implications... "What do you mean 'I don't know'?! You put your dirty claw into all major magical shenanigans on this world! Name me, I repeat - name me! one other being that casually rearranges the celestial spheres overnight! I refuse to believe you had nothing to do with this!" Well, that was understandable of her. Discord indeed couldn't name another being with abilities of this kind. Not like it was completely beyond him... he just... Oh, for the love of Chaos, HOW. How is that even an option?! What are the odds?! (I dunno, never cared to check. This way, it's more entertaining to watch.) What to do, what to do... Run? To where? Hide? How? And even if he knew how, he couldn't possibly hide alone, could he? How long would it take for the Masters to lose their interest? Millions... millions if not billions of years... He could probably take Fluttershy with him, but... No! No, that's not fair! He couldn't do that to her! Oh, how he wished it was a different kind of threat. Anything, anything other than that. Anything he could simply snap away and be done with! (Oh, you wish, you wish, you little snake! / You're all doomed anyway! / Don't thrash around, nowhere to run, / nowhere to hide! Your fate is bound, / your time is up, your world has died!) "DISCORD!" He stopped. He realized his panic level was beginning to rise. One minute more and he really would start thrashing around senselessly, without any way to cope with his fear. He swallowed and looked around, stopping his gaze at the faces of his friends. Concerned, tense, waiting for answers that only he could give. There were only three of them in the room, himself, Twilight and her Royal Advisor, Spike the Dragon. Friends, good friends. It would make the whole thing much easier. Keep it together man. For them. For her. Regain your cool, don the mask. Breathe in, breathe out. "Oh, I didn't say that. It very much has something to do with me. But I didn't make that rhyme, Twily. No, no." He slowly closed his eyes. "Quite the opposite: this is a message to me. As for the meaning, I believe it is quite clear... You still find in your absurdly tight schedule, time to read?" Twilight's emotions stayed unreadable. She looked at the text again. She had, obviously, found time to read it. "For you?" she raised her brows. "'Snake of lies and oaths'... That would check out, then... But who is it from?" She was an ascended mortal of pretty entertaining features, especially when she got mad. Right now, she was very entertaining indeed. "It's written purposefully ambiguous. Which means that you know each other, or at the very least they know you well enough to be sure you knew what they meant." The narrator of this story is happy to let Princess Twilight's monologue flow, as it makes their job this much easier. "Clearly mocking. But friendly or hostile? They're either threatening or teasing you." Her eyes narrowed when she took in the final line. "'Bring Her Here, we Want to Know'... So a threat after all." She turned her head to meet his eyes. "This is from your enemies, isn't it?" "Enemies..." he clenched his teeth hard. "If only." Twilight's features softened. Her expression turned from angry to anxious. "Discord" she voiced. "What is happening? Should I be worried?" A part of him felt tempted to blurt out the truth and shatter her illusion of control, just to see her face. It would maybe make him feel a little better. He said nothing. "Bring Her Here"... "I should right?" A dash of fear crept its way into her voice. He remained silent still, which only caused Twilight to grow more anxious. "Oh, for the Stars! Say something, Discord!" He was almost ready to do just that, when he got disrupted by a commotion by the doors. "Twilight!, Spike!" came in words bearing a strong Southern accent. Discord turned to the arriving party. Five multicolored mares in their thirties - all of Twilight's closest friends, excluding Starlight. Sunburst tagged along a little behind. Dang, wouldn't it make it all the more difficult. "Girls!" Twilight hurried over to her friends. She spread her massive wings and pulled them all into a hug. It was still not long after waking hours and Twilight's friends' appearance testified it. Everypony's (except Rarity's) manes were frazzled and uncombed. Pinkie's (the fun one's) face was dirtied with leftovers from breakfast (unnecessarily hers.) Rainbow Dash didn't care enough to brush her teeth. "Whoever did it, we're gonna kick his flank!" "And then we're gonna PARTY!" "We came as fast as we could! We already saw, darling." This remark brought a little shade to Twilight's face. "Of course you have." She closed her wings and broke the embrace. "Discord here was just explaining this to me." "PARTY!!!" High-pitched voice of Pinkie cut the moment in half. "Like adults! No children allowed!" "Discord?" came the quiet, sweet voice of his very favorite pony. He unwillingly smiled. Fluttershy was looking up at him with her big, beautiful eyes. And concern. "What is happening?" Oh, He was so going to hug her. "Fluttershy!" he beamed, leaned down and took her in his arms. She cuddled in his chest. "My dearest, I will explain everything, I promise." He gently put her down and smiled once again, just to reassure her. "Well, you betta!" the one known as Applejack said. "We may not know what that rhyme means, but we ain't have no doubt 's nothing but trouble!" "You heard us, Discord! It's time for some explanations!" supplied Rainbow Dash. Well, no backing out now... "Of course girls, of course. I will be as clear and straightforward as possible." "And if you think you can..." Rainbow's expression rapidly shifted. "...wait what." "What you heard. I will do my best to shed some light on the matter" As he said it, his body flashed yellow light. He whirled a golden cane over his head. It had a giant decorative question mark on top. Probably no one got the reference. "Let me unravel this little riddle for you! What say you pals for a story?" It seemed no one had been really expecting that answer. "Am I dreaming?" Spike rubbed his eyes. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Discord just promise to explain everything, no strings attached? Like, for real?!" "Oh, oh! I wanna, I wanna story!" There was Pinkie, of course, eyes wide with caffeine and desperation, not fully awake after yet another sleepless night. "Please, finally a story not about dinosaurs! Is it about dinosaurs? Ah! Please say it isn't!" Twilight couldn't cast aside some dark, frightening thoughts. He acted... just like he always acted. Minutes ago he appeared stressed, frightened even. Discord is never scared for himself, only for us. So if he decided anyway to don his casual mask of polite mockery and self-confidence... He is scared not to scare us. The thought hit her like Tirek's fist and smashed at a mountainside. Whatever made this rhyme... Is beyond Discord. And beyond me. Everypony gathered around the draconequus. Twilight closest, her face equal parts expectant and worried. Spike and Fluttershy just beside her and the rest scattered around. Rainbow lazily flapped her wings, hovering above everypony else, though not Discord himself. The air of anticipation hung. He held the pose it He flung his green bowler hat high up in a theatrical gesture. "Then let's begin!" The room darkened. From his extended paw there came a beam of golden light, which manifested beneath the ceiling as a spinning holographic image of a spiral galaxy. Silence fell on the room. For a short moment, no one said anything. Everypony (and one dragon) just watched awestruck. "You, ponies, live bound to a single rocky planet, lost somewhere in the middle arm of a massive galaxy, which contains millions and millions of stars. Beyond that galaxy, there are other, flung near and far across the night sky. There are billions of billions of galaxies out there. They all form an incomprehensible network of light and darkness that is our universe..." The picture changed. A multitude of green, lively sparkles were sprinkled the galaxies. A few of those were flickering with violet, pink, neon blue and royal gold too. A particularly bright sparkle of angry purple light coursed between them. "This entire web, this universe, hosts millions of planets bearing life. Yet only a handful of those are full of magic. And only where there is magic, there is chaos. Wild, unbound chaos. So despite its seemingly infinite vastness, this entire universe roams only one Master of Chaos - me." His eyes glowed. Nopony would dare stare down them now. There were swirls of flashing yellow energy that juggled stars and swallowed planets. Those were the eyes which which knew all Time and Death and mocked them both. His gaze would travel from system to system across the universe, reducing civilizations to ashes. (He was so cute when he acted like he actually mattered.) The glow softened. He looked at the assembly, checking if he truly had their undivided attention. Their faces were full of apprehension, mixed with a good dose of confusion and unease. "Now, let me tell you about what lies beyond." The picture changed. Everything zoomed out, until no green sparkles could be seen anymore. An intricate web of light and darkness was reduced to a dark marble, dotted with tiny splashes of light. The marble hung between others, like a fruit in a bunch. Shimmering vines of energy snaked between all of them, "What I just described to you, is just a single link of the chain. Beyond the limits of this, finite universe, there lies an infinite network of other universes. Large ones, small ones, teaming with life and almost completely sterile. The Multiverse. Many of those worlds are in the power of Masters of Chaos. Emotions blossom, deals are struck, wars are waged." The picture changed again, darkening and becoming more vague, like enormous, ancient clouds of gas in space. The shapes that flowed in the light seemed so complex and dynamic that almost alive, sapient even. One could make out sinister smiles and dark, pupilless eyes. "Beyond everything that I just described, there they reside. The Masters. Beings that hold millions, if not hundreds of millions of worlds in their power. Their origins, motives and abilities are far beyond even my imagination. Every worthwhile master of Chaos recognizes the superiority of one of them. A master of Chaos of this status is called a Vassal." "Once every a couple of billion years, we organize a party. The Banquet, if you will. We are generally solitary creatures, but on this one night, we are all together. We celebrate creation and destruction; nurturing some civilizations and letting others fall. We mock all gods, tell crude jokes and relish in the all-embracing chaos; we show off. We let our magic free. Some of us are born there, some other die." He stopped and took a deep breath. The audience was beginning to sense where this was going. "This time, they sent me an invitation. I am asked personally by one of the Masters. They have written this rhyme on the sky. They want to settle a business between me and my ex-girlfriend, Cosmos." He looked down on his mortal, fragile, scared to death friends. He looked down this infinitely kind and patient eyes of Fluttershy and felt like he was going to break under their pressure. 'Show your Love and bleed your Heart'... "And they want to see with you, too, Fluttershy"