Pinkie’s voice blasted over the loudspeakers. “And the winner of Ponyville Mayor for a Day is… Pipsqueak!”
Fluttershy smiled. She’d only met the little colt a few times, but he seemed very nice, and deserving of the honor. As his childish voice came over the loudspeakers, delivering his acceptance speech, the moon came out – despite it being mid-afternoon – and proceeded to roll all over the sky, wiggling.
“Discord? What is the moon doing?” Twilight asked, slight horror in her voice.
“You can’t tell?” Discord pouted. “It’s dancing a hula. Do I need to add a grass skirt?”
Fluttershy giggled. “That might be a little much…”
“Why is the moon dancing a hula?” Twilight didn’t sound particularly mollified by the knowledge.
“It’s celebrating! Luna’s biggest fan just won Mayor for a Day!”
“Wait, how do you know about Pipsqueak being friends with Luna?”
Discord rolled his eyes. “Did you forget that I can hear while I’m in stone? Plenty of foals go traipsing through the Castle of Purpleness’ gardens.”
“Good point.”
He looked up at the sky, lying back on the air, floating horizontally. “You know, I really do think it needs a grass skirt.” A snap of a talon, and the moon had one. It became obvious that the moon was spinning rapidly from the motion of the skirt. Stars appeared, despite the afternoon daylight, surrounded by spots of darkness so they’d be obvious, and spelled out the words “CONGRATULATIONS PIPSQUEAK!” “There, now Luna won’t be mad at me because she’ll know it’s for her pal!”
Flurry laughed, pointing her hoof at the moon. “It’s dancing, Auntie! The moon is dancing!”
“I see that,” Twilight said. “Discord did that.”
She stomped her hooves in the pony gesture of applause. “More!”
“It’ll go on for a while,” Discord said, contorting his body until he was more or less upright, although he could have just stood up the normal way. “Let’s get going. There’s plenty more chaos for me to watch over, Flutters.”
“Okay.” She got to her hooves and followed him as he floated off.
They passed a booth selling lollipop suckers on strings instead of sticks. Some dangled from strings attached to sticks. “You were really good with Flurry Heart,” Fluttershy said.
Discord chuckled. “From the stories I’ve heard of that one, I always thought she’d like me. Breaking the Crystal Heart when she was a week old? That’s some amazing chaos. I’d think she was destined to be the Princess of Chaos, except it’s taken.”
Fluttershy nodded. Screwball wasn’t Discord’s daughter, but Discord had once explained to Fluttershy that Screwball was actually the Alicorn of Chaos, that it had damaged her mind and memories, and that she’d given up her wings and horn because she didn’t need them. Privately Fluttershy thought there was undoubtedly more to the story than that, and that the actual explanation was likely to be much darker. One of the problems she had consistently with Discord, though, was that he kept trying to hide things from her if he thought they would upset her or that they’d give her a bad opinion of him… despite the fact that she’d suffered at his paws when he’d been a villain, and again when he’d betrayed her and her friends, and so she knew quite well what he was and what he was capable of.
Abruptly Discord stopped. “Did I just…?”
“Just what?” Fluttershy asked.
“Rarity’s banner.” There were, of course, several of them throughout the fairgrounds. This one appeared to have just started… which, of course, suggested to Fluttershy what it was Discord had just caught a glimpse of. She watched Discord’s face as he watched the banner, studying it intently. The animation ran through its full cycle, beginning with the large WELCOME TO TOPSY-TURVY DAY and ending with a smiling Discord giving a thumbs up… except that that wasn’t actually where it ended. The water from the earlier part of the animation suddenly fell down from the top of the banner, drenching the animated Discord completely. He stood in the water, which came up to the halfway point of the banner, looking disgruntled and very, very wet. Drips from his ears, horns and muzzle plinked on the surface of the water. Then the water rose again, closing over his head. With a look of total surprise on his face, the animated Discord was first engulfed by the water, and then dragged off by it as it all flowed off-screen, as if somewhere beyond the banner someone had pulled a plug. As the water receded, the WELCOME TO TOPSY-TURVY DAY letters were left behind.
Discord started laughing uproariously. “Oh, my! That little minx! She warned me she was going to get revenge, but who would have thought Rarity capable of such nefarious deeds?”
Fluttershy giggled. “I thought you would like that.” Either that, or he’d get into a huffy snit if he thought Rarity was mocking him with cruelty rather than in friendship. What he’d done to Pinkie when he’d attacked the Bearers all those years ago was apparently rooted in his own experiences; as a villain, he hadn’t had to care that he was being mocked, because he would always come out on top over whoever was mocking him, but it had apparently been very, very rare in his life for anyone to tease him without him feeling it to be mean-spirited, and when he didn’t have the option of turning the ones who mocked him into turnips, it hurt him. But Fluttershy had thought he had progressed far enough to recognize a friendly prank in the spirit given, and it seemed she had been right.
“When did she put this in place? It seems as if she wouldn’t have had time, unless she’s far quicker on the enchantment draw than I assumed.”
“It was always there, Discord. She just left enough of a delay on the image of you with a thumb up that she could stop the animation there and make you think that was the end of it.” Fluttershy would have known better even if she hadn’t known Rarity’s plan; Rarity was too much of a perfectionist to not have a smooth transition back to the beginning of a repeating animation sequence. Something had to happen to get the screen to clear and the words WELCOME TO TOPSY-TURVY DAY appear. She was actually surprised Discord hadn’t seen it coming.
A small colt trotted up to the two of them. “There you are, Mr. Discord! I’ve been looking all over for you!”
Discord turned and looked down at the foal. “Do I know you?”
“I sent you a letter. I sent jellybeans with it. I got them from Hearts and Hooves Day; they were the only thing I got.” The colt looked up at Discord expectantly. “My name’s Small Fry, but everypony just calls me Fry.”
“Jellybeans. Not ringing a bell, I’m afraid.”
“Miss Pinkie said she would get my letter and bring it to you, but now that I’m here maybe I can just tell you about what I asked for?”
Discord’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t just hand out wishes to every pony who wants one, you know. And jellybeans hardly sound like a particularly chaotic offering.”
“But… it’s really important.” Fry’s eyes glistened, as if he were about to cry.
“Discord, be nice,” Fluttershy said. “Whatever this is, it’s obviously very important to him.”
“Oh, very well.” Discord bent down so his head was just above the colt’s. Fluttershy frowned. She didn’t think Discord was trying to intimidate the foal, but having a draconequus’ head hovering just above yours could be very intimidating, if you didn’t know better. “What’s so important that you had to hunt me down on my holiday to ask for it?”
“I asked in my letter if you could bring my daddy back.”
Discord blinked, lifting his head back in surprise. “Back from where?”
“Well, he had a problem with his kidneys, so the doctors were going to magically repair them, but you can’t magically repair the organs inside you unless you get opened up so they can reach with their magic, so they were doing an operation…”
“Oh, no,” Fluttershy whispered. She could see where this was going.
“And he died?” Discord said – not harshly or flippantly, but too matter-of-fact to be appropriate for talking about a pony’s death to that pony’s young child. “I’m sorry to hear it, but there’s nothing I can do. I can’t bring back ponies that died.”
“But you have to be able to!” The colt stomped his hoof. “They said you were sorry! They said you’d do anything you could to fix things that that centaur did!”
Discord’s eyes went wide. “That… centaur?” A paw went to his mouth – often a gesture he adopted when he was mocking something, but it was genuine this time, Fluttershy could tell. “Tirek… was involved in this?”
“Yeah. He sucked all the magic out of the hospital. The doctors couldn’t stitch my dad back up and all the magic they were using to keep his blood inside his body stopped working. So can you bring him back?” The colt leaned forward, an eager expression on his face. “They said that if something got broken because of Tirek taking ponies’ magic that you would fix it because you’re sorry that you helped him take all the magic, so will you?”
“I—I’m sorry,” Discord whispered. “I – I didn’t realize anypony had died. I was trying to make sure he didn’t kill anypony… I don’t even remember a hospital, but there were so many places…”
“It’s okay,” Small Fry said. “The princesses said you didn’t mean for anypony to get hurt and that’s why they weren’t going to turn you to stone for forever and they were going to let you out sometimes. But they said you’d fix whatever got broken. My daddy died, but everypony says you can do anything! So can you bring him back?”
“I can’t—” Discord’s voice was on the verge of breaking. Fluttershy had seen him break down and start crying on more than one occasion – being the Lord of Chaos made his emotions extremely volatile – but never in response to something a strange pony said. “That’s not – that’s not a thing I can do. If a building is smashed or heirlooms are broken or somepony gets hurt, I can fix those things, but – but I can’t fix dead ponies. I can’t bring him back.”
The foal’s eyes grew wide. “But – but you have to! Everyone says you’ll fix everything that Tirek did! You have to bring my dad back!”
“I’m sorry—” Discord choked up on the words, and then shook his head frantically and vanished.
Fluttershy looked around, trying to find where he’d gone, and saw him up above the entire celebration, holding a bullhorn.
“ATTENTION ALL PONIES!” There was still a crack in his voice. “TOPSY TURVY DAY IS HEREBY CANCELLED FOR THE REST OF ALL TIME!”
What? Fluttershy launched herself into the air, heading for him, but long before she could reach him, Discord snapped and all of the carnival rides, booths, and everything else suddenly vanished, leaving only Rarity’s banner. The flash of light below her drew Fluttershy’s attention away from Discord for a minute, and when she looked back up, he was gone.
Ponies milled around in confusion below her. “What’s happening?” she heard more than once, and “Are we under attack?”, which was a sad but predictable Ponyville reaction to a party being interrupted.
He could be anywhere, she thought. Hurting. Overwhelmed with guilt. Having a really stupid reaction to being overwhelmed with guilt, that would make every part of this worse.
Grimly, she went to find Twilight, to let her know why Discord had pulled the plug on Topsy Turvy Day.
***
Everything vanished.
Twilight looked around frantically. What had just happened?
Ponies on rides found themselves sitting on the ground. So did the ponies with rented temporary wings. The goods for sale and the tables they were sold at didn’t vanish, but all of the ridiculous decoration Discord had festooned them with was gone. Booths for carnival games were gone, all the prizes piled on the ground.
Around her ponies murmured in surprise, and then discontent, and then wth rising voices that were heading toward panic. This needed a Princess to take quick action. She lifted herself into the air, casting a megaphone spell. “ATTENTION PONIES! THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY! THIS IS JUST TEMPORARY! PLEASE STAY CALM AND TOPSY TURVY DAY WILL RESUME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!”
Before she could set back down, Fluttershy caught up to her. “Twilight!”
“Is this a prank?” Twilight demanded, sans megaphone. “What is he playing at?”
“He’s not playing,” Fluttershy said softly. “He just—can we land on a roof or something? I don’t like hovering up this high…”
Twilight agreed, and they landed on the roof of a nearby house. “What’s going on?”
“A foal came and asked him to bring his father back. The father was being operated on when Tirek took the magic, and he—” Fluttershy swallowed. “He didn’t make it. And Discord didn’t realize anypony had died.”
“How did he not realize that?” Twilight asked helplessly. Discord was so intelligent sometimes, and so incredibly stupid and short-sighted so many other times. “Every hospital where a pony was in surgery lost patients. Unicorns dominate surgery and we depend so much on our magic.” She shook her head. “If he hadn’t wanted any ponies to die – well, he shouldn’t have done any of it, but if he was going to do it, he should have sent warnings to the hospitals. There were a handful of other ponies who died too… a construction team of pegasi in Manehattan on a skyscraper fell from their scaffolding. They weren’t in the air, but they collapsed on the scaffold and it wasn’t big enough.”
Fluttershy’s eyes were tightly closed, tears leaking out from under them. “I know. I know. I didn’t know he didn’t know. I never – I never wanted to bring it up.”
“I don’t know how he didn’t know…”
“We never brought it up at the trial, Twilight,” Fluttershy said softly. “Remember?”
Twilight frowned, remembering. Discord himself had tried to manipulate the trial so he would be sentenced to eternity in stone, because he felt so much guilt over what he’d done. But Twilight herself had agreed with Fluttershy – and the reluctant agreement with the rest of their friends – that an eternity of stone was far too harsh. A pony who committed murder would at most get imprisoned, in a prison where they could move around and eat and drink and interact with other ponies, for a pony lifespan, and that was reserved for only the most hardened and remorseless of criminals. Most ponies got some combination of imprisonment and rehabilitation. And they needed to take into account that Discord was plainly very remorseful, and – pragmatically – that the Elements of Harmony had already proven they couldn’t hold him forever. Regardless of what he thought about it now, putting Discord into the torture of permanent sensory deprivation would probably destroy all the progress he’d made toward empathy.
But when they’d presented their ideas to Princess Celestia, and she had agreed, Celestia had warned them that if the prosecution spent too much time on the deaths that Discord’s chaotic decisions had caused, and then the verdict was not for an eternity in stone… ponies could understand leniency being given to other ponies who showed remorse, but Discord, a strange-looking alien creature who was best known for causing disruption and chaos, wouldn’t get much empathy. There were more than enough charges that could be brought against Discord, actions far more deliberate and cruel than the accidental deaths he’d brought about. And the fact that Discord had gone out of his way to save lives, that it was well-documented, and that he’d done it for groups as high-profile as the Wonderbolts, counted in his favor.
So the prosecutor had made much of the pain and suffering living ponies had suffered when their magic was stolen, the property damage, the fear, the weakness and exhaustion the ponies who’d been attacked had suffered… but not the ponies who’d died because they were depending on magic for survival when Tirek sucked them dry. Twilight had never imagined that Discord didn’t know about those.
“So he’s overreacting out of guilt and punishing everyone else for his own crimes?”
“I think… I haven’t had a chance to talk to him. But Topsy Turvy Day is a celebration of chaos. I think… he just decided, without talking to me or anypony, that chaos doesn’t deserve to be celebrated.”
Twilight sighed. “See if you can find him and talk him down. We’re going to finish out this day’s celebration and not have it end on a note as sour as this, even if we have to take over running everything from him.” Inwardly she cringed at the thought of having to use magic to create the rides and booths that Discord had vanished. His power was near-endless; hers was not, and even if she got “Sunny” and Cadance to help, making things out of nothing was not really what alicorn magic was good at. Luna would be better than any of them, but Luna was overseeing the celebrations in Canterlot, presumably, since Twilight was reasonably certain that Sunny was Celestia.
***
The Castle of Friendship was an instance of the Harmony Tree, a relay station that allowed it to broadcast harmony magic further, and a magical battery for the Cutie Map, which Twilight, Fluttershy and their friends used to solve friendship problems and spread harmony. It was actually fairly unpleasant for Discord to be inside it; the harmonics suppressed his magic, leaving him at the level of a powerful unicorn mage rather than the Spirit of Chaos, and gave him a headache.
That was exactly why Fluttershy thought she’d find him there, and she was right.
Normally the lights in all the rooms automatically turned on if it was nighttime and someone walked in. Fluttershy opened several doors before she found a room where the light did not go on when she opened the door and stuck her head in.
“Go away, Fluttershy,” the dark room said.
“Discord? Can’t we talk about this?”
He sounded like he’d been crying, his voice hoarse. “No. Go away.”
“I just want to help you. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that. You’re a wonderful pony. You can feel compassion for even a creature like me. But I don’t deserve it. You should find someone else. Some pony who can actually stay with you. Who can give you a family.”
“I don’t want someone else,” Fluttershy said, picking her way carefully through the dark room. There was a window, but it faced north, where there was never any moon, so even when her eyes adjusted there was barely enough light to make out shapes. It was one of the many bedrooms in the Castle that wasn’t actually in use. There was something blobby and irregular on something long and rectangular.
Fluttershy put her hoof gently on the blobby irregular thing and felt the soft, thick fur of Discord’s torso. “I know you’re hurting. I know it was a shock, to realize that some ponies died—”
The blobby irregular thing shifted, and now Fluttershy could make out glowing yellow eyes. “How stupid could I possibly be?” he said harshly. “I should have known. I should have guessed. I should never have let Tirek near any hospitals.”
“It’s all right—”
“It’s not all right,” he snapped, interrupting her and cutting off what she meant to say, which was that it was all right to grieve and feel guilt for his mistakes. “That colt’s father is dead. I can’t bring him back. I – I have a technique I can use, I can do necromancy, sometimes—”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea at all.”
“It’s not, usually, and it wouldn’t work now. It works if somepony has just died. And it’s dangerous, and I can only do it for ponies I know well. I could never find that colt’s father, I don’t even know what he looks like, and he’s been dead far too long. There’s nothing I can do.”
“We all understand that, Discord. Nopony expects you to bring back the dead.”
“The colt does.” His voice caught in a sob. “Go away, Fluttershy.”
“I want to help you.”
“I’m going to jump out that window and teleport away if you don’t leave.”
He couldn’t teleport in the castle. But he absolutely could jump through the window and teleport as soon as he was out of the castle, and then she wouldn’t know where he was anymore, and he could go anywhere. “All right, I’ll give you some space,” she said, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
If he wouldn’t talk to her because he was overwhelmed with guilt… Fluttershy knew someone he might be willing to talk to.
***
“What would I even say to him?” Starlight asked. “’Ponies die, get over it?’ ‘Yes, that was really stupid of you not to think of that?’ ‘Poor baby, just don’t think about it?’ I mean, you know he hates me, right?”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
Fluttershy sighed. “He resents you. It’s not the same thing.”
“Because I got off with a lesser sentence?” Starlight winced. “I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t expect Twilight to make me her student. I mean… I’m ten years older than her, and I actually know more magic than she does. I never thought for a moment that she’d offer to teach me anything.”
“I know,” Fluttershy said gently. “He knows, too. But he’s Chaos. He feels what he feels regardless of the logic.”
“So what am I supposed to say to him? ‘Sorry I got to be a friendship student and you got locked in a statue for four years with just twelve parole days a year?’”
“No.” Fluttershy was patient like a drip of water wore away stone. Quiet, gentle, and relentless. “You played with time and destroyed Equestria. You caused a lot of ponies to die, by accident, and the fact that they’re all alive now or else they never existed… Discord travels in time and in alternate universes. I don’t think he looks at it that way. But he didn’t know until today that he accidentally killed ponies while he was working with Tirek.”
“I mean… I sympathize, but… that’s a little stupid. How could he not realize ponies might die if you cut the supply of magic to a hospital? I mean… I thought I was breaking up a friendship, not destroying the world. He had to have known better.”
“Discord is the Spirit of Chaos,” Fluttershy sighed. “Not the Spirit of Thinking Things Through. He doesn’t… that’s not how his mind works. He thinks things out to the point where he believes his plan will get him what he wants, and he doesn’t consider more implications past that, because before… when he had no friends, when he didn’t care about ponies… it didn’t matter to him. He could fix almost anything he broke if he didn’t like it being broken.” Her voice grew quieter and quieter. She hated talking about this part of Discord. “Ponies were just toys. If you accidentally break a toy… that’s too bad, but you can get another toy.”
“No offense, Fluttershy, but that’s terrible.”
“I know. He doesn’t think that way now. But… you know how ponies who drink too much will tell everypony they love they’re quitting, and they mean it? And then one day a pony offers them a drink, and… they revert. They go back to their addiction. That’s a normal thing. Not every pony can walk away from an addiction, first time they try, because it’s become part of their life.”
Trixie, in the doorway, said, “This is ridiculous. Starlight, you should go talk to the draconequus because you’re the only one who did something as terrible as what he did, and Trixie would be very grateful to get her stage back! I have another show I was going to do tonight!”
“I want to get him to fix this, but it’s not that simple!” protested Starlight. “I’m not good at talking ponies into doing things!”
Trixie and Fluttershy, both well aware of Starlight’s history of talking ponies into giving up their cutie marks to live in her village, just gave her looks. Both looks had considerably skeptical eyebrows.
“Well, doing most things,” Starlight said feebly, her voice trailing off.
“He’s in too much pain to listen to me, because he knows I love him and I’ll try to comfort him,” Fluttershy said. “You’re the only one with the history of similarly strong guilty feelings.”
“Trixie did once go mad with power and take over Ponyville…”
“Yes, but nopony died. And everyone knows the only part of that which was your fault was your decision to put the Amulet on,” Fluttershy said.
“Whereas I… really did kind of walk into the things I did with my eyes more or less open. Yeah, I guess it has to be me,” Starlight said tiredly. “I’ll… go see what I can do.”
***
“Whoever you are that isn’t Fluttershy, go away.”
Discord’s voice was a deep and frankly rather scary growl, but Starlight held her ground. “It’s me. Starlight Glimmer.”
“Oh! I don’t rate a Princess? Twilight has to send her apprentice to come talk to me because I’m not worthy of her time and attention?”
“Fluttershy asked me, specifically. Not Twilight. We all agreed you’d probably never listen to Twilight.”
“And I’m supposed to listen to you? I don’t even like you. And I don’t think I believe you. Why would Fluttershy send you instead of Twilight, or Pinkie, or someone I consider a friend rather than an annoyance?”
“Because I know what it’s like to suddenly realize you are accidentally responsible for ponies dying,” she said.
By now her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that she could see him stiffen up. “It’s awful,” she continued. “I mean, up until the moment I realized that Equestria being a wasteland was my fault, I thought everything I did was justified and I didn’t realize anyone had even been harmed. It was Twilight who kept ending up in the alternate universes; I just kept bouncing back to what seemed like the same place, thinking I’d failed, so I went back and tried again. It wasn’t until Twilight pulled me in to the same timeshift as her that I saw what she was seeing… and even then, I wanted to believe it wasn’t my fault, it was justified. But I couldn’t. Everything was dead.”
“Yes, that was remarkably stupid of you,” Discord snapped.
Starlight knew better than to get offended by anything Discord said to her, especially when he was this upset, and most particularly when he was right. It had been stupid. So her voice was casual, not angry or upset-sounding at all, when she replied, “You’re right. But so was thinking you could take all the magic from Equestria without any ponies dying from it.”
“You think that’s so easy, don’t you? The simplest thing! How was I to know how often ponies are being operated on with magic? I don’t go to hospitals!”
“Oh, I understand. I’m not saying you were stupid. Chaos doesn’t think things through, right? And honestly, maybe it’s a powerful magic user thing! Twilight told me about the time she cast a spell to keep parasprites from eating all of the pony food, and instead they ate everything else – buildings, furniture, vital records… She thought she could just cast ‘parasprite category “food” not equal to pony category “food”’ and that would do the job. If she hadn’t used the unicorn-specific sigil for “food”, which includes animals, and she’d used the generic pony sigil instead, she might have made the parasprites eat everypony! And she told me she didn’t pick the unicorn sigil on purpose; just that it’s the one in most old books of magic spells. If she’d cast it using more modern sigils, everyone would have died.”
“Yes, I remember being very amused by that. At the time.” He sighed. “And that’s why there shouldn’t be a celebration for me. I should just go back to stone. All the time.”
“I don’t think that would make Fluttershy happy.”
“No, but it might make the ponies whose families died happier.”
“Really?” She walked deeper into the room. “Small Fry isn’t happy. He thinks he did something bad. He’s bawling his eyes out because he thinks it’s his fault you ended the celebration.”
“What – no!” Discord uncoiled from the shapeless pile he’d been in, rapidly. “I never meant – he shouldn’t think – it’s not his fault! He just… reminded me of something I was an idiot for never realizing.”
“And you think you deserve to be stuck in stone forever because you didn’t realize it?”
“Not because I didn’t realize it. Because I did it. Whether I realized it or not. I have no idea how many ponies Tirek killed. I thought I was being safe and careful. I kept him out of CLoudsdale, I kept him away from Las Pegasus, and if he’d shown the slightest sign of guessing that pegasus cities existed, I was prepared to send them evacuation notices. And maybe cast my own spells on the clouds to turn them into slowly leaking balloons, so the pegasi wouldn’t fall through and the balloons would descend gently to the ground.”
“That’s hard,” Starlight said. “When you think you’ve thought everything through, you’ve taken all the factors into account and you’re doing things the right way for what you’re trying to achieve. And maybe pony society thinks what you’re doing is wrong, but maybe you think pony society is wrong, or maybe in your case you don’t care, but you’re holding to your moral beliefs anyway… and then you discover that there were consequences that you never imagined, and they horrify you. Because you were so sure you were right. You thought you’d taken every precaution you needed to, but there was a danger you hadn’t even imagined.”
“Oh, rub it in, why don’t you.”
“Discord, I was talking about me. And you, but mostly me.”
He sighed again. “Fine. Whatever.”
“What I learned from Twilight – the first thing I learned – is that there’s a difference between justice, and punishment. And justice makes the world a better place. Punishment doesn’t. You can make the world a better place by banishing a villain without remorse, who would do it again in a second – like sending Tirek to Tartarus. But that doesn’t do something good, it just prevents something bad. If you can – if the villain is remorseful, if they see what they did was wrong, then rehabilitating and reforming them is the better strategy. Because that keeps them in the world as a better person, who can do good.”
“And what good have I done in my time out of stone? Hmm?”
“You helped Twilight understand what was going on when your vines came up,” Starlight said. “They would have done that anyway, because you got them started when you were still a villain. Helping to solve a problem you caused is a good thing. You prevented a re-outbreak of the blue flu, because you knew it had been extinct before it came back with the Crystal Empire, and you caused ponies to start getting vaccinated against it again. That led to numerous vaccinations against different diseases, because the Crystal Empire still had everything that ponies had extinguished since their disappearance, so who knows how many potential pandemics you stopped before they even got started, by leading Twilight into looking into that?”
“You seem to be well informed about things that you were never there for.”
“I mean… Twilight teaches a lot of friendship lessons that are based on her own experiences. I don’t think I know everything, but I know a lot.” She found his eyes in the darkness, and looked directly into them. “And Topsy Turvy Day is important to a lot of ponies. Hearth’s Warming is about friends. Hearts and Hooves Day is about special someponies. Nightmare Night is about overcoming fear. The Summer Sun Celebration and the Longest Night are both parties. Those are all great, but there’s no other day where we have carnivals, where we play with the potential of magic to create fun. There’s no other day that’s about disrupting social order. For many ponies, the invention of this holiday was the best thing that ever happened to them. And you did that. Twilight might have suggested it and Celestia and Luna signed it into law, but you made this holiday into what it is today.”
He looked away. “I wanted everypony to see the beauty in chaos. To see what I see. But… chaos kills. Without thinking. Without consideration.”
“Chaos does what it does. That’s why ponies have historically been so afraid of it. It can’t be predicted or controlled. But you can control yourself. Even if ponies can’t predict you, you can.”
“I don’t think I can! I thought I was being careful enough… I thought the only stupid mistake I made was trusting Tirek in the first place.”
Starlight reached out with her magic for the dimmer plate that controlled the light, and let the lights come up, a little bit, not enough to hurt either of their eyes. “Whenever you make a decision that you’re going to do something that hurts ponies, you run the risk that something’s going to go wrong and worse than that will happen. I thought I was just going to stop Twilight from having any friends. And instead… I destroyed the world.” She hung her head. “I was luckier than I deserve that Twilight was able to get everything to revert to normal, but… I still have nightmares. I know, somewhere in my heart, that those worlds existed, even if they don’t anymore. I imagine ponies looking to the horizon in terror as some kind of blast wave came their way, and then magic and shrapnel and a dust cloud moving at high speed hits them and tears them apart… and I know it happened. Or something like it happened. That billions of living creatures died and it’s my fault.”
Discord raised his eyebrow. “Did Twilight tell you that?”
“No. Twilight says we fixed the timeline and those things never happened. But I know, in my heart, they did.”
“Well, you’re right,” Discord said. “As soon as you create an alternate timeline, it has always existed and always will exist. It’d be rather more horrifying the other way, don’t you think? Make a small change in time, wipe out every foal who was born between the time you made the change and your origin time? Talk about mass murder.”
“Every foal?”
“The conception of a specific foal is random, and very sensitive to initial conditions. The slightest change in a timeline can change who is born. Obviously everypony born before that change still exists, and they’ll just have a completely different life. But most of the foals born in an alternate timeline are different… at least if you can identify the change point. There are other alternate timelines where you can’t figure out where the change occurred or what it was and sometimes there are absolutely radical differences to things like your own personal history, and in those, there’s a surprising amount of consistency around who gets born, though sometimes how they got born varies. But… just by way of example… that colt who won the Mayor for the Day for Ponyville probably didn’t exist in any of your alternate timelines, and there were foals in those timelines who don’t exist in ours.”
“And none of the ponies in that last timeline survived, regardless of who was born or not.”
“Correct!” Discord put a paw on her shoulder. “Or not. To be fair we don’t know that. Maybe they all evacuated to the moon. Maybe Equestria was destroyed but all the ponies within it got away and are living in South Amareica. Maybe they’re in underground shelters. Maybe I sent them all to alternate dimensions where whatever disaster you caused didn’t happen. Who knows?”
“I guess there’s no way to find out… but I have no reason to believe any of them lived.”
“Right. And yet you get an invitation to be Twilight Sparkle’s star pupil, and I get locked in stone.”
Starlight looked up at him again. “You know why that is? Really? What the difference is between you and me, when I must have killed so many more ponies?”
“None of the ponies you killed have family members who can complain about it?” Discord guessed. “Or, or, maybe, just maybe… you’re a normal looking unicorn and I am, in the eyes of most ponies, a bizarre freak, because ponies have no taste and can’t recognize my beauty?”
Starlight had always wondered if he was sincere about his over-the-top proclamations of his own good looks, or if he was compensating, but now was not the time to ask. “It’s because I came second.”
“Came second to what?”
“To you.” She tilted her head. “Twilight… no longer approves of what she proposed to Princess Celestia, with you. She’s told me… she thinks it was a mistake. That you are genuinely remorseful, and it would have been better for you, and for the world, to let you make up for your mistake some other way. But the sentence was passed, and Princess Celestia might have absolute power on paper – or absolute power shared with Princess Luna, at least – but as a matter of practicality, she can’t go back on the sentence now. Not without a reason, and ‘Princess Twilight doesn’t think it’s fair anymore’ isn’t a good enough reason.”
“I suppose not,” Discord said tiredly. “So you benefited from coming along second?”
Starlight nodded. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t have been turned to stone, but I could have been thrown in prison with a suppressor on my horn for who knows how long. That’s what I expected. Instead, Twilight forgave me and gave me a position as her student.” She put a hoof on his hip, which was about as high as she could reach comfortably. “You’ve done terrible things, and so have I. But what’s important is not that we get punished properly, but what we do to try to make up for what we’ve done.”
“I can’t bring that foal’s father back.”
“I can’t bring back any of those billions of people in that one timeline. And I don’t know how many might have died in the other timelines, the ones Twilight saw that I didn’t. That’s not how we make up for what we’ve done. We can’t undo it. Twilight thinks she undid what I did, but I know better, and no one ever thought you could bring back the dead.”
“I… can, technically,” Discord said. “But it has to be right after they died, before their body decays. And they have to be a pony who knows me, and who, um, wouldn’t run away from me if I came for them. Because the trick is – no, you know what?” He leaned down into her face and said, almost accusatorily, “I am not going to tell you how to commit responsible necromancy. Not you of all ponies.”
“I… wasn’t asking, but okay.” Starlight backed up slightly. Discord’s face in her face was not a thing she expected she’d ever get used to, or be okay with. “The point is, whether you can do it sometimes when the conditions are perfect or not, nopony expected it of you. All anypony ever expected is that you’d bring some fun and joy and excitement into pony lives by running these celebrations every year, and that you would never do anything like what you did with Tirek again.”
“That hardly seems like a fair trade for pony lives.”
“It’s not. Nothing’s a fair trade for pony lives,” Starlight said. “Nothing can ever be. But you’re immortal. Maybe you’ll figure something out, someday. I know I’ll never be able to make up for what I’ve done, no matter how hard I work, but… this isn’t some kind of trading post. What’s required of us is not that we actually fix what we did, because we can’t, and not that we do something that makes up for what we did in full and makes the sacrifice worth it, because nothing could ever be that. Just… live on and try to make the world a better place, and remember the mistakes we made and don’t make them again.”
“That seems too easy.”
“Well, maybe for me. You have to be a statue for ten years and you only get four holidays a year. That doesn’t sound easy at all.”
“It’s not.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Look… I know. It’s the hardest thing ever, to realize, you made a terrible mistake and you can’t ever fix it. I think maybe it’s worst for powerful magic users… like me, and obviously you’re in a whole other category! But my whole life… there were no mistakes I couldn’t fix, or pretend weren’t mistakes. Things happened I couldn’t fix, like… like Sunburst leaving me, but that wasn’t my fault. Twilight ruining my relationship with my town… I convinced myself I could fix that by ruining her friendships in the past and then she wouldn’t be there to stop me. And that was how I made the worst mistake anyone could possibly make.” She went closer to him again, looking up. “Discord… I know you must have felt the same way. That you could fix anything you ever did, that you could recover from any mistake. That your magic and your mind were strong enough to solve any problem you created, if you didn’t like what you’d done. It must have been horrible to realize you’d made ponies hate you and you couldn’t fix that… but that was why you went on trial, that was why you submitted to punishment, and it’s working. Ponies don’t hate you anymore. So I understand why learning about this was such a kick in the gut. Because you’re right, you can’t fix it, and probably this is the first time you’ve ever encountered anything where you couldn’t. But you don’t solve it by trying to punish yourself harder. Or taking the celebration away from ponies who were looking forward to it, because suddenly you feel like you shouldn’t be celebrated.”
“Then how do I solve it?” Discord asked. “How do I make this feeling go away? It’s… it’s like the nightmares I kept having where Tirek killed Fluttershy or destroyed the world, except I can’t wake up! Or how I felt when I realized Tirek had betrayed me, and then there was nothing I could do about it, and he might kill Fluttershy and her friends and I could do nothing. But Twilight saved me, and them, so that got resolved and I helped. And… I could at least hope for Twilight to do that, when I was helpless. But Twilight can’t fix this. No one can.”
“I know,” Starlight said. “It’s… hard. It’s really hard. You just… live through it. It doesn’t go away, but it gets less strong, over time. And you just have to try to live the best life you can, and help ponies in the best way you can, and hope that in the end it’ll be more good that you brought than bad.” Tears pricked at her eyes. She’d destroyed an entire planet. And she wasn’t immortal. She didn’t have enough time in her life to do more good than bad. Discord could potentially save millions of lives, over the course of his existence. Maybe he could actually balance the scales that she was trying to convince him didn’t really exist at any level of precision.
“I’m not well known for helping ponies.”
“You’re better known for it now. Ponies send you letters and presents, hoping that you’ll give them good luck.”
“That’s not a thing I can actually do, though.”
“Right, but ponies who think they have good luck will be happier in life. Because when good things happen, they’ll assume they had good luck, and when bad things happen, they’ll think ‘wow, that would have been so much worse without my good luck!’ As long as it doesn’t make them do reckless things, it’s a harmless belief that can actually do some good. And you do actually help ponies. The Topsy Turvy Day celebration has become one of Equestria’s most beloved holidays despite the fact that it’s literally only four years old. Fun is good for ponies… and learning that a little chaos won’t hurt them is good for ponies, too.”
Fluttershy came in, startling Starlight, who hadn’t heard her approach at all. Somehow that mare managed to walk on hooves like she had padded cat feet, even on the crystalline floors of the Friendship Palace. “I agree,” she said softly.
“Fluttershy!” Discord smiled broadly on seeing her, and then lost the smile, presumably remembering that he was supposed to be beating himself up with guilt. “I don’t know… everything you’re saying makes sense, Starlight, but I’m not about making sense, and I feel like this is bad and I shouldn’t be celebrating chaos and neither should anyone else.”
“Please, Discord,” Fluttershy said. “Everypony is so disappointed out there. And you should know… Twilight knew that ponies died. She kept it out of the trial because she wanted to give you a chance for ponies to forgive you. I knew it, and I forgave you.”
“The dead ponies can’t forgive me, and I doubt their families would want to.”
“Maybe not,” Starlight said. “But my guess is, there were a lot of ponies back in the old days when you ruined everypony’s lives who wouldn’t have forgiven you if you had wanted them to. You know there will always be ponies who hate you for what you represent and there’ll always be ponies who hate you for what you’ve done, and you agreeing with them that something you did actually was awful doesn’t change that. So it’s not about the ponies who will forgive you, or not. It’s about, can you forgive yourself? Can you try?”
“Discord, I love you,” Fluttershy said. “Seeing you being self-destructive and self-hating like this hurts me. I know how guilty you feel, I know how horrible it must be to know that something you never wanted to happen, happened because of you, and you can’t fix it. But you can’t fix it by tormenting yourself over it, either. And there are so many ponies who want you to come back and re-open your Topsy Turvy Day celebration. Please. For me, if you can’t do it for yourself, and for them, if you can’t do it for me?”
Discord sighed. “You know I can’t say no to you…”
He stood up, the light in the room coming to full strength. “I am still not convinced that this is the right thing to do… but I don’t want to disappoint my audience, and I can’t refuse Fluttershy anything, so… here I go.” He pushed open the window, which should not have been push-open-able, and flung himself outward, vanishing from midair in a bright burst of teleportation.
By the time Starlight and Fluttershy made it out of the castle, Discord had already started everything back up. Ponies were still cheering, and fireworks were going off. Lines were already starting to queue for the rides that had vanished, which were now back.
“I’m kind of surprised you didn’t do that ‘do it for me’ thing to start with,” Starlight said.
“That’d be manipulative, if I tried it when he was still miserable and convinced he was right.” Fluttershy looked down at her hooves. “I have a lot of power over Discord, but I won’t keep it if I misuse it. He only listens to me because he knows I love him and I want what’s best for him. If he ever gets the idea that I’m telling him to do something that he considers wrong, because it’s convenient for me or my friends, I don’t know if I’d ever get his trust back.” She lifted her head and looked at Starlight. “You had to give him a framework. He doesn’t want to feel miserable and guilty, but he feels guilt so rarely, he doesn’t have a lot of resistance to it. You had to give him some reason he could use to accept not letting guilt destroy him before I could give him that final push over the edge.”
“Glad I could help.” Starlight swallowed. Talking to Discord had brought up emotions she normally tried to push away. Most of the time she could pretend that Twilight was right and everything she’d done had been wiped away as soon as Twilight had corrected the timeline. But she’d never truly believed that… and Discord, who probably knew a lot more about time travel than either Twilight or Starlight, had confirmed that she was right. She really had wiped out all the ponies in Equestria. It wasn’t this Equestria, but it was close enough that it couldn’t realistically make a difference.
She wished she could believe the things she’d told Discord as wholeheartedly as she’d made it sound.
***
“You, uh, wanted to see me… ma’am?” “Bon Bon” said nervously to “Sunny”. None of her training had accounted for how to deal with Celestia herself being in disguise. She had to resist every instinct she had, not to bow, not to say “Your Highness” or “Princess”.
“I did,” Sunny said. “Relax, Bon Bon. I just need a little favor. You’re acting like you’re afraid I’m going to do something terrible!” She smiled. “We’re just friends having a little chat.”
Bon Bon wanted to tell Sunny to stop smiling like that; she couldn’t imagine anyone seeing that smile not guessing who Sunny really was. But on the other hand, she also couldn’t bring herself to tell her Princess what to do.
“Sorry, I, uh, I’m just kind of thrown off because I had to spend the day selling quills instead of candies,” Bon Bon said. “It’s been stressful.”
“You poor thing. I hate to add to your burdens, but it’s just a little favor. Be a sweetie and do this for me?”
Bon Bon smiled tightly at the reference to her real name. “Sure, Miss Sunny. What did you need?”
“I’m worried about Princess Twilight’s garden,” Sunny said. “You know which one I mean, right?”
“The, uh, the kind of crazy one, I guess?”
“Exactly!” Sunny beamed. “I feel like there might be a bug problem with it soon.”
“A bug problem.”
“Yes. Sometimes some very large bugs can get into a garden and wreak havoc, and we don’t want that. Not in Princess Twilight’s special garden.”
Bon Bon wasn’t sure whether this was a reference to changelings or bugbears. “How big are we talking about?”
“Oh, not that big. Just, you know.” Sunny held up a hoof at the height of a small pony. Changelings, then.
“I know what you mean. The ones that come out around Hearts and Hooves Day, right?”
Changelings did not in fact do this, not to Bon Bon’s knowledge, but if Sunny was being this circuitous, then “love bug” might itself give too much away. “Yes, those are the ones,” Sunny said. “Did you know, I’ve seen those ruin a garden to the point where they even damaged the statuary?”
“I thought Princess Twilight’s statues were magically protected.”
“I thought so too, but you can never be too careful with such unique pieces. I wonder if you know anyone who’s good at gardening and has experience dealing with bug infestations?”
“I do,” Bon Bon nodded. “It’s not my area of expertise, but I definitely know somepony. You want me to suggest to Princess Twilight that she keep a pony on hand who’s good with dealing with bugs?”
“Oh, Twilight won’t want to hear about bugs. She’d hit the library, she’d go to Fluttershy, you know how seriously she takes everything.” Read: do not tell Twilight about a potential Changeling threat because the librarian was not good at opsec. Which made sense. Secrets were anathema to friendship, so of course the princess of friendship was bad at them. It actually had haunted Bon Bon for years, the fear of what secrets could do to friendship. Lyra knew the truth now, and Lyra knew how to keep secrets, but she had a lot of other friends and none of them were supposed to know.
“Right. So I just recommend my friend as an excellent gardener, and tell her to watch out for bug problems, without bothering Princess Twilight with the details.”
“You understand exactly what I’m asking for,” Sunny said, still smiling like a benevolent immortal Princess and not an average private citizen. “Bon Bon, I’m always happy with your work every time you’ve done me a favor. You’re one of the most competent ponies I know.”
“I do my best,” Bon Bon said modestly, her cheeks reddening slightly. “Is tomorrow soon enough?”
“Oh yes, it should be. I wouldn’t expect to find a bug infestation this quickly. But within a few days would be best.”
“It’ll be tomorrow.”
“That would be wonderful. I know Twilight will appreciate having the help with the garden. Especially some of those more chaotic areas!” She laughed gently.
Bon Bon wanted desperately to ask Sunny why they needed to be worried about changelings getting in to see Discord when he was in stone; Discord was supposed to be completely impervious to harm when he was bound by Harmony, and he could more than take care of himself when he wasn’t. But this wouldn’t be a safe venue to ask even if the chain of command allowed it, which it didn’t. Bon Bon’s job was not to question the Princess of Equestria, but to do what she or her authorized commanders over Bon Bon asked of her.
***
Topsy Turvy Day was not a holiday like the Summer Sun Celebration or the Longest Night, when part of the point was to stay up all night. But it was also not a holiday like Hearts and Hooves Day where parties were supposed to discreetly wind up shortly after sunset to let lovers be together alone, or Hearth’s Warming where everypony went to bed early because foals had stayed up late the night before and exhausted themselves in anticipation of the morning, and parents had stayed up even later to get the presents out while the foals were asleep. (Hearth’s Warming, unlike Yule in Neighropa, did not have legends of the benevolent reindeer Sinterklauss flying around giving presents to foals, but it was tradition that the presents wouldn’t be put out until the foals were asleep because it was the only way to get them to go to bed.)
Many ponies, including most of the foals, had left the celebration to go to bed, but many more were still awake, and ponies who hadn’t been able to get off work for the daytime portions of the celebration had shown up. The entire character of the celebration changed, as the games shut down (except for the virtual games, which used magic to display an interactive animation on a glass window, and ponies could manipulate what happened on the screen by hitting buttons with their hooves), and the food stalls closed, and the beverages that foals were not supposed to consume had come out. There was still food – large communal bowls of potato chips and pretzels, a handful of stands that would sell cold food like sandwiches, and one rather disturbing stall labeled “FRIED DRACONEQUUS STRIPS!” where a copy of Discord would fry up strips of meat that had been magically conjured by Discord. According to the grinning copy, the meat was identical in every way to Discord’s own body. Only a few ponies were brave enough to try that.
The lighting changed as well. Previously the streets had been lit by relatively normal street lamps (relatively being the operative term -- they wore hats, and would tip them to passing ponies, or bow or curtsy, and sometimes they strolled across the street and took up position elsewhere). Now there were multi-colored miniature stars floating about four pony-heights above ground, and disco balls, and birds with glowing plumage. Vinyl Scratch had turned up with a sound crew around sunset, and now she was at the turntables, speakers blaring music loudly. Many ponies were dancing in the street. Many others weren’t, but they had to dodge around the dancers if they decided to cross. Some ponies had decided to dress up, in clothing that was designed to remind everypony that in fact they were basically undressed. It was hard to wear sexy and revealing clothing in a nudist society without going over the top into absolute crudity, but the fact that it was hard to do made it an enticing challenge for many ponies.
Twilight had a personally designed potion, made under Zecora’s supervision because no one quite trusted Twilight on her own with potion making of this nature, that when activated with a little magic, could help a pony stay alert and awake all night, and she had taken some for herself and given some to Starlight. She hadn’t offered any to Trixie but Trixie had taken some anyway. She had offered some to Vinyl Scratch, who had specifically asked.
Fluttershy leaned against Discord, yawning.
“You know I’m not going to sleep tonight, right?” Discord asked, eyebrows raised.
“I know,” Fluttershy said, yawning again. “I’ll stay up with you as late as I can.”
“Twilight and Starlight are abusing magic to stay up.”
“It’s a unicorn potion. You have to—” she yawned again “—activate it with your own magic for it to work. Keeps ponies from being able to dose other ponies against their will.”
“Well, that hardly seems fair. I could give you a horn for a few minutes so you could activate the potion for yourself?”
She looked up at him. “I don’t like them. They make me nauseous – I tried one Zecora gave me, it could be activated by pegasi or earth ponies with a wing or hoof, and I felt sick for two days. But if you really want me to—”
“No.” He shook his head. “Not if it will make you sick. I’ll be managing the party anyway, so it’s not like we’d have a lot of time to spend together.”
“Managing?” Despite the sleep-hoarseness of her voice, the teasing note came through. “Isn’t that really not a thing chaos does?”
Discord chuckled. “Well, I didn’t say micro-managing, now did I?” He glanced up. “Oh, look. Trixie’s doing something entertaining.”
“Really?”
“Was that a touch of skepticism I just heard?”
“I’m sure some ponies find Trixie’s work entertaining, but I just don’t really like the boastfulness.”
“And yet Rainbow Dash is your oldest friend.”
Fluttershy grinned. “Rainbow can back it up. Trixie… not so much.”
“So you’re fine with me being boastful because I can also back it up?”
“How can you be boastful when you really are incredible and amazing and very handsome? Boasting implies saying things that maybe aren’t exactly true.”
Discord beamed. “I won’t argue against that point.” He pointed at fireworks going off. “But I absolutely have to go check that out.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Why don’t I carry you? You’re tired. Rest your wings. Besides, I was going to teleport.”
“OK…”
Discord gathered Fluttershy up in his arms and vanished, reappearing on Trixie’s makeshift stage.
“…ferocity of a Scorpius Major—” Trixie was calling out, as her fireworks took the form of the scorpion constellation.
“Hardly as ferocious as all that!” Discord said loudly, and snapped. A collection of stars in the vague shape of a lizard twice the size of Trixie’s Scorpius exploded into existence and attempted to eat the Scorpius Major. “Lizards are a well-known predator of scorpions!”
The Scorpius Major vanished – being that it was made of fireworks, it was ephemeral in the first place. Trixie glared at Discord. “There are no lizard star-beasts!”
“Yes, but what if there were?”
Another Scorpius Major exploded into existence behind Discord. “Star-beasts are not so easy to defeat as all that!” As the lizard, which hadn’t vanished, went for the scorpion again, a Crab constellation beast boomed into being in the sky and went after the lizard, slashing at it with its claws. “They have been known to fight in packs!”
“They really haven’t been,” Fluttershy whispered. “Also, I don’t think the Crab and Scorpion are actual star-beasts.”
“Nature is a dangerous place!” Discord called out, as a snake made of stars wound its way through the sky, heading straight for the crab.
For a while Discord and Trixie dueled with fireworks, each coming up with reasons why their star-beast would beat the others in play. But eventually Discord got bored and had his own star-beasts start eating each other, leading Trixie’s to successfully “escape”. He then handed Fluttershy a microphone. “You’re the nature expert, say something!”
Normally Fluttershy would be deeply unhappy to be put on the spot like that, but she was too tired to feel anxiety, right now. “Nature is a wonderful thing,” she said, and passed the mike back to Discord.
Discord bowed, as did Trixie once she saw him do it, and he and Fluttershy took off – he had more of the celebrations to oversee, and occasionally stick his snout into.
At some point Fluttershy nodded off, sitting next to him. The next thing she knew, the world was getting very big, including Discord’s head and hand. He picked her up with delicate if gigantic fingers, and carefully deposited her in a breast pocket that he hadn’t had a moment ago, snuggled against the fur of his chest. It was warm, and she could hear his heartbeat, loud and irregular and deep, the same way it sounded when she laid her head against his chest, except louder. She frowned at the noise… and then it went, not quiet, but quieter at least, and there was a soft wrap around her head, blocking her ears without putting pressure on them. The wrap was pillow-soft and the pocket was warm.
“Sleep, ‘Shy,” she heard – he was whispering, but this close, she heard him perfectly well, even through the head wrap. “You need your rest.”
And then she was asleep.
***
The pre-dawn light of Celestia’s sun hovering below the horizon, waiting for her to pull it up, was beginning to light the sky. Most of the ponies had gone home. The snacks were eaten, and last call had been a few hours ago. Fluttershy’s oversized rat friends were all over the place, gathering up abandoned food and putting it in… carts?
“Why are the rats putting the garbage in carts, Discord?” Twilight asked.
“To take it home with them, of course,” Discord said. “Did you really think rats were going to leave all this delicious garbage behind? It’ll shrink back down to manageable size once they do.”
She looked around. Almost no ponies were left. “You should go home with Fluttershy.”
“Well, typically, I don’t end this until dawn…”
“You have about four hours left until your parole ends. You should spend them with her, not overseeing a cleanup job. I can do that part for you.”
“Well. When you put it that way, it seems like a great idea, doesn’t it? Thank you, Twilight.”
He vanished, and Twilight looked out over the grounds. The rats were missing the trash that didn’t have food on it. She sighed, and went to see if Starlight was still awake to help.
***
Fluttershy blinked as the dawn sunlight struck her face. She was still very tired, but there was something… some reason she had to wake up early…
Warm, thick fur at her back. Right.
She jerked awake and rolled over. Discord was lying in bed with her, but not asleep; he was propped up on an elbow, looking down at her, while the rest of his body lay coiled in a circle around her, his middle pressed against her back and his tail by her hooves.
“Oh, no! What time is it?”
“It’s dawn. We have a few hours.”
“Why did you let me sleep?”
“You needed it,” he said.
“But your parole is over today…”
“What kind of special someone would I be if I woke you up when you were exhausted just because I’m going back to being a statue later today?” he asked.
“But I should be spending my time with you…”
“You did,” Discord said. “When you fell asleep last night I put you in my pocket.” He patted his chest, where there was no longer a pocket. “And then Twilight told me to go home with you, and I’ve been watching you sleep ever since.”
Fluttershy shook her head. “I’m so sorry, I should have woken up earlier—”
“Fluttershy. Don’t apologize. You’re mortal and you need sleep.” He shrugged. “Technically, I’m immortal and I need sleep, but I can go without for a lot longer than you can.”
Fluttershy still felt she should apologize, but she didn’t want to waste his time, either, so she hugged him. “Well, I’m awake now. Let’s… try to make the best of the hours we have left, okay?”
“That sounds absolutely splendid.”
***
It was 9 am when, reluctantly, Fluttershy left her cottage with Discord. He could have teleported them, but they were very much not eager to reach the destination, so they walked together. Along the way, Fluttershy nervously talked about the various plants and animals they encountered as they passed, and Discord told her anecdotes about strange and unusual plants and animals that he’d created in his lifetime, like trees that grew meat or pies as fruit and spiders with dog-like intelligence and size he’d once made to be guard animals. “It worked as long as there were giant insects around for them to eat, but they didn’t do so well when ponies managed to poison most of the giant insects.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because the giant insects were eating all the pies off the trees, of course.”
It was nearly half an hour later that they reached Twilight’s Castle. The other Bearers were all already there. None of them commented on Fluttershy and Discord being late; it happened pretty much every time.
“I made some cupcakes for you if you’d like something,” Pinkie said.
“Thanks, but no. Having food in your stomach turn to stone can give you an awful tummyache,” Discord said, which was probably a lie because he’d eaten the breakfast Fluttershy made him eagerly. Fluttershy guessed that either he wasn’t hungry or he was feeling somewhat sore at Pinkie and the others and wasn’t going to do anything to make this emotionally easier for them. She couldn’t exactly blame him.
“All right then,” Twilight said. “Do you want to step up into position?”
“Do I want to? What an utterly bizarre question to ask, Twilight, of course I don’t want to. But I suppose I’m going to.” Discord walked, rather than flying, up to the pedestal, and hopped up onto it, wearing a black and white striped bodysuit. Several copies of Discord played a funeral song in the background. “Now let me see.” He contorted into an ouroborous position, sucking on his own tail. “Nope, without magic I’ll just fall over.” Next he tried standing on one hand. “That’s not going to be stable either.” He stood at parade attention, giving a salute. “Boring!” Two-fingered V symbol. “Did that last year.” All fours, backside up, giving the audience what was probably supposed to be a sensual look. “Nope, only Fluttershy deserves to see that.”
Rainbow Dash shifted impatiently. “Uh, I know it sucks to have to do this, but…”
“But can I hurry it up because you want to get back to your exciting nap schedule?” Discord asked sardonically. “Why, of course, Rainbow Dash, we would never want to keep someone as awesome as you are from your rightful naps.”
“Rainbow,” Fluttershy said chidingly.
“All right, all right, take your time,” Rainbow said, still sounding too exasperated to actually be sincere about it.
“I have it. How about this?” Discord sat down on the pedestal, biped-style, his chin in his hand and his arm propped up by an elbow on his leg, slightly hunched over and his gaze pointing down, as if he were lost in thought about something. “This should work.”
Twilight took a deep breath. Six more years. How long would Discord play along? How long would Fluttershy? She knew her friend was increasingly more and more miserable at having to do this. Sooner or later, Twilight suspected her emotional state would simply not allow Harmony to work to turn Discord back to stone. To be completely honest, Twilight herself didn’t feel good about it either.
Ponies died because of him. Ponies were traumatized. This is bad, but it’s only six more years, and only three months until he gets another parole holiday. We have to stick this out.
“All right, places, girls. Let’s do this.”
Power rose up. She could feel Fluttershy’s unhappiness through the bonds of Harmony that connected them. She could feel sympathy radiating from Pinkie and Rarity. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were the only ones left that didn’t seem bothered by this. But determination and duty held. Twilight herself had come up with the sentence. Princess Celestia had passed it, because ponies were agitating to have Discord turned to stone forever… largely because Discord himself had deliberately whipped them up against himself, while in disguise, because at the time he’d been crushed by guilt and the fear that he’d do this again, but it didn’t change things. He couldn’t simply be let free, not this early.
Maybe she would talk to Celestia about early parole for good behavior. Let him free at seven years, not ten. But that still meant three more years of enduring this.
And then it was done and Discord was a statue again, sitting on the pedestal.
Fluttershy said, in a wavery voice like she was holding back tears, “I’m very tired, I’m going back home.” And before anypony had a chance to say anything to her, she was lifting off and flying away, faster than Fluttershy generally ever flew.
Because she doesn’t want us to see her crying, Twilight thought. Because we’re also participating in this, holding her to her duty, to punishing the one she loves, and she doesn’t want to turn to her friends for comfort because we’re part of what’s hurting her.
And that hurt. Was it worth it to punish Discord, if it was doing damage to their friendship with Fluttershy? But would ponies truly feel that Celestia and Luna and the Bearers were able to keep them safe, if they let someone who let a monster steal nearly all of Equestria’s magic have his freedom so easily?
“Doesn’t anyone want any cupcakes?” Pinkie asked, her own voice wavering.
“As terrible as they are for my figure, I do believe I’ll indulge in just one,” Rarity said. “Twilight, you’re an alicorn; if Princess Celestia can keep her figure despite the amount of cake she consumes, you can certainly have a cupcake or two yourself.”
Which was code for “I cannot take the time to explain it to you logically, Twilight, just trust me that you need to eat the cupcake.” Twilight guessed that Rarity – who wasn’t even a huge fan of cupcakes; her preferred treat of choice was ice cream – was telling her to eat the cupcakes to comfort Pinkie, who looked like she was very close to an emotional breakdown herself, and maybe was depending on her friends eating her food to feel better.
“Sure, Pinkie, I’ll have two,” Twilight said.
“Reckon I’ll have a couple as well. Rainbow?”
“Ohh yeah. I’m not turning down a Pinkie cupcake. Gimme some extra to bring to Fluttershy later today, after she’s gotten some sleep.”
***
After her friends left, Twilight was about to head in when one of the Friendship Guard that Celestia had insisted on assigning her before Spike left came out. “Princess Twilight? Bon Bon is here to see you with another mare!”
Please don’t let this be a complaint about how Topsy Turvy Day went. In fact please don’t let this be a complaint, at all. I can’t handle a complaint right now. “Uh, all right, um, do they want me to come out to them or do they want to come see me here?”
“They said they wanted to talk to you about the garden, so… I should bring them out here, I assume?”
Please don’t let this be a complaint about Discord! “Sure, go ahead.”
Bon Bon’s companion turned out to be a youngish earth mare, smaller than average, with a curly purple mane and a coat so pale green it almost looked yellow. “Princess Twilight, this is my friend Thorn Blossom,” Bon Bon said, “and she’s looking for work as a gardener. Do you think maybe you might be able to give her a job?”
“Please,” Thorn Blossom said, her voice high and soft, a similar tone to Fluttershy’s. “This would be my dream job!”
Twilight blinked at Thorn Blossom’s cutie mark. “Is that a… plunder vine growing a flower?”
Thorn Blossom beamed. “It sure is! I guess I don’t need to tell you why I wanted to work in your garden so much!”
Twilight revised her opinion of the pony’s age; she was probably a nearly-grown filly, with a cutie mark she could only have gotten five years ago at most. “You got that when the plunder vines came up?”
“I did! I ran into the Everfree because I thought they were interesting. My mom yelled at me to stop, that our earth pony magic wasn’t working on them, but I wanted to get a closer look. And then one of them bloomed.”
“If I recall correctly, those blooms were trying to knock us unconscious.” Although the blooms she remembered had been black, not the bright orange and blue of the flower on the cutie mark.
“Oh, those are late-stage flowers, after they’ve already bloomed and been fertilized. The pollen can put ponies to sleep. But when they’re like this, they’re safe. It was only the ones in the Everfree that bloomed, and they went through their whole life cycle within an hour or so. I watched.”
Well, that would certainly explain why she wanted to work with Twilight’s garden in particular. Very few gardens made any attempt to make use of Everfree plants; they were resistant to earth pony magic and very hard to work with. Fluttershy and Zecora had done their best to make this garden as chaotic as possible and still make it something they could keep up after, and that had included a substantial number of Everfree plants.
“Do you have job experience, or just experience at home?”
“Yeah, I garden a lot at home.”
“Thorn just moved out of her parents’ house,” Bon Bon said. “She hasn’t had a job per se before, but I can vouch that she’s a hard worker.”
Twilight smiled. “Well, I certainly could use some help with it. My hooves are, mm, more purple than green.” She laughed slightly at her own joke. Bon Bon chuckled a moment later. Thorn, her eyes wide and fixed on Twilight like Twilight was the solution to all her problems, didn’t. “Fluttershy and Zecora are here frequently to help out, but they do both have their own jobs. And Spike used to do a lot of work here, but he’s down in the dragon lands to the south, so… yeah, now that it’s springtime I think there’s gonna be a lot of work in this garden I could use help with. But, uh…” She nodded her head in the direction of the statue. “You’re not bothered by working around Discord, right? I mean, in this form he’s harmless.”
“Oh, no, that doesn’t bother me at all!” Thorn said eagerly.
Twilight believed her. A pony who’d gotten her cutie mark from observing plunder vines probably had a much higher tolerance to chaos, and she’d observed from Pinkie, Cheese Sandwich and several others that curly-maned earth ponies had a tendency to have an affinity with chaos magic themselves. “All right, then, you’ve got the job.”
“Thanks, Princess Twilight! And thank you, Bon Bon. I won’t let you down.” For a moment her voice went deeper, and she sounded much more serious and intense than she had seemed so far. But then she lightened up again. “When can I start?”
“Well, if you want to start today, come back after lunchtime when I have some time to show you what to do, and I can get Zecora to come out and show you around.” She wasn’t going to impose on Fluttershy, or make her come back to this garden today. Not today.
“Great!”
She bounded off, almost but not quite bouncing like Pinkie did, and Bon Bon followed. Twilight sighed, feeling much older than she was. All the paperwork and projects that had been put on hold for Topsy Turvy Day were about to crash back down onto her, and she didn’t even have Spike to help out.