The Other Side of the Bit
“How could this happen?! You were sealed in stone by the Princesses themselves!”
Discord eyed the bamboozled unicorn with faint disdain.
“Really now, is this the level of education in today's youth? I'm so TERRIBLY disappointed! Use whatever passes for your thinking muscles-” He leaned down into an upside-down U shape and rapped against Twilight's head with a sound like a coconut being knocked. “-little filly! Harmony got me in. The lack of it got me out. It's as simple as that.”
“You're welcome,” Spike said pointedly, which made Discord raise one shaggy eyebrow. “So hey, as long as you're out, I hear you're good at making cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain. How about getting us in on some of that action?”
“What do you take me for, a common parlor magician?! Having the avatar of chaos perform on command whenever you snapped your fingers would go against the very essence of who I am, my boy!” Discord scratched his chin with a suddenly-appearing third arm. “Althooouugh, since you mention rain....”
Discord's talon snapped, and suddenly dozens of pegasus ponies fell screaming out of the sky, apparently in the middle of their cloud-managing work. They didn't seem hurt, but their wings were clothespins and their hooves were fitted with oversized lead horseshoes so heavy that they couldn't even take a single step, no matter how they struggled in their pony-sized holes of impact-burst dirt. Discord threw back his head and laughed while Spike chuckled a little.
Okay, so that had been kinda funny, but it still would've been dangerous to the ponies if they'd been really high up....
“Now, now, what am I forgetting? Ahhhh, yes. The cats and dogs.”
Figuring what was coming just a second ahead of time, Spike grabbed Twilight and pushed her over underneath Discord's statue, which offered a little cover from the ensuing aerial onslaught of confused puppies and kittens. Discord had given himself a tiny little polka-dotted umbrella, of course.
The ponies, being ponies, immediately dove in to what looked like a good free meal, heedless of the pathetic yelps and barks and squeaks and meows. Spike closed his eyes and tried not to hear, but he couldn't cover up his ears hard enough.
“Hey, that wasn't funny at all Discord! You've gotta think more about the consequences of the tricks you pull!” he said in his best imitation Twilight voice.
“Ah, but why waste time THINKING when you can be FEELING, eh Spikey-wikey?”
Spike's eyes shut open and he shrieked as he suddenly found himself upside down being spun like a record, Discord's talon impossibly balancing him by the middle of his head. He flailed around until he got a grip on Discord's beard and hung from it dizzily, his bad arm burning in protest of the action.
Meanwhile, Twilight looked up from a mouthful of Siamese kitten, shook the hunger out of her face (along with several stranded whiskers) and assumed a battle-ready position, horn down and sparking as she conjured up sheet after sheet of sharp curvy forcefield aimed at Discord.
“You should have run while you had the element of surprise on your side, Discord! You may have been pretty scary centuries ago, but we ponies have come a long way since then. Right, elite guard of Princess Celestia?”
The encroaching guards who'd been drawn closer by the commotion formed a semi-circle around Discord, looking every bit as grim as they'd always seemed when standing still. Spike gulped at how sharp their hooves and horns looked, and was grateful when Twilight teleported him from Discord's beard over to atop her back so he wasn't directly clinging to the ponies' enemy anymore. As soon as he got over the total disorientation of being teleported to realize that was what she'd done, anyway.
“MY emergency food supply,” she mumbled under her breath.
Okay, maybe not that grateful.
Before Spike could get worried about whether or not Discord could defend himself, at the snap of taloned fingers, the golden armor every guardpony was hulking around in sprouted buzzing propellers, the spinning things sending the ponies far up into the sky that the pegasi had just vacated, screaming.
“I'm sure there's some universe or other where sending a vast swarm of identical guards to overcome a lone nigh-invulnerable individual has achieved productive results,” Discord commented dryly, “but not this one.”
Then he snapped his fingers again, and Twilight's forcefields vanished – along with her HORN.
Spike looked up at the ponies screaming in the sky, then back at Twilight, his feelings conflicted. Finally somebody who could stand up to them! On the other hand, Discord wasn't exactly playing safely, and he didn't want all the ponies hurt or anything....
“What did you do to my horn?!”
“Oh, I just stashed it in the same place you're hiding your sense of humor, dear. And your sense of fashion. And your creativity. And your actually competent script writer.” Discord grew additional digits as he counted his hand the wrong way, instead of counting through fingers from one end to the opposite like a normal person.
Spike snickered behind his hand.
“So hey, since we did free you and all, maybe you can-” he started to haggle, and facepalmed as Princess Celestia burst onto the scene, wings flared and horn glowing.
“Discord, how did you free yourself from your prison, you wretched creature?!”
“Oh, not this again!” Discord rolled his eyes completely around in their sockets until the pupils went from the top all the way to the bottom and back to where they'd been originally. “Look, Princess, I'll be honest here: I've missed you. It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but if that's the best greeting you've got I might as well replace your tongue with a smooth jazz accompaniment.”
Twilight huddled up the Princess's side, giving Spike a good view of the Princess's fanged smiling sun Cutie Mark, while the Princess stomped her hoof and gave her mane a brief, angry shake. She opened her mouth to say something else... but only romantic, peaceful saxophone sounds came out. While Twilight and Spike were busy gawking over that, the Princess shook her head again, horn glowing, and the next time she opened her mouth it was without musical interference.
“Enough! What have you done to my little ponies?!”
“Terrible but hilarious things. You know, the usual.” In a puff of smoke and a sound suspiciously like someone stepping on a mouse, Discord vanished and reappeared hovering just behind Celestia, peering at her backside shamelessly with a gimlet. “My word, Celestia, you appear to have put on a few in the past millennium! What haaave you been eating,” he drawled out with a vicious grin.
Whether he'd expected it or not, his new position put Discord in the perfect spot to be bucked, and Celestia was happy to oblige. Spike and Twilight both winced as two golden-shod hooves slammed into the mixed-up creature's belly and sent him flying head over heels out of sight... at least until he came spinning back through the air from the opposite direction, landing on one toe with a graceful ballerina-like twirl, one heel stretching out three times its length to lift head-high in the air.
“So, where shall we begin?” he asked, none the worse for wear. “Shall I finish what I started and turn Equestria into my unfettered sandbox once more? Or should I just lock up all my living toys and find a new playroom for the gentlepony's sport of chaos and mania?”
As he talked, he snapped his fingers, and Spike watched ponies fly through the air at random, shrieking as they were attacking by their own top hats, canes, monocles, dresses and parasols, all of which had grown mouths. A second snap, and a good chunk of Castle Canterlot itself transformed into a huge wooden wardrobe that slammed shut, trapping countless ponies inside with equally-giant coats, dress shirts and winter boots. Meanwhile, the sun appeared to be zooming around a lot more erratically than it was supposed to be doing.
Spike swallowed. Maybe he'd bitten off a liiiittle bit more than he could chew here.
“I won't permit either,” Princess Celestia said with a regally chilly expression. For a second Spike almost forgot the conversation they'd had and felt the same warmth and trust for her that Twilight must have all the time, judging by the hornless unicorn's face. “The Elements of Friendship aren't the only way to deal with you, trickster spirit!”
Her horn glowed even brighter, and out of that golden flare shot countless lassos made of molten sunlight. They wrapped themselves around Discord's arms and legs and torso and neck, and he twisted his spine through several impossible shapes trying to get out.
“Oh, I've forgotten how... huff... grim you could be, Celestia!” he said reproachfully through his struggles. Then he suddenly relaxed. “It's really quite booooooring.”
He snapped with his toes now, and the glowing lassoes turned into ropes of grasping crabs, starting with the parts touching his body and moving back down the lines. Princess Celestia had to terminate the spell before they reached her, and set up a small forcefield of her own over the creatures while they clawed towards her mindlessly and viciously.
“Huh, that was actually pretty cool,” Spike muttered, leaning over Twilight's head to get a closer look at the cute lil crabs. Then he realized that Twilight had turned her head around to glare at him and he smiled sheepishly. “Maybe just a little cool?” he amended. She still looked mad, but forget her, she was gonna eat him!
Discord puffed up... literally, his chest swelled up to triple size. “Oh, we have a fan of my noble works in the audience, do we? Pray tell, what do-”
And then, just as hope for a dialogue was getting reestablished, the Princess had to be a spoilsport again. The magic of her horn reached out to the nearby shadows of the statues and hedges now, molding them like clay, solidifying them into dark cuff and chain shapes that latched onto Discord and stretched him out in the air, leaving him helpless no matter how he wiggled. Tinier cuffs even chained each individual talon, paw claw and reptilian leg claw, so he couldn't so much as snap.
And for a change, Discord seemed surprised, even if Spike couldn't tell why exactly.
“Shadow magic, Celestia? Not your usual cup of tea, now is it? Personally, I like mine with twenty sugars and just the lightest dash of hemlock.” As the Princess loomed over him, he grinned and somehow managed to drop a pair of thick black glasses from within his bushy eyebrow down to his eyes just by wiggling his face muscles. “You wouldn't hit an anthropomorphic personification with glasses, wouldja?”
“Why, Discord... whoever said I was going to hit you?” the Princess replied with a tiny smile.
Discord raised his eyebrows so high they actually kept going off of his face.
Just as it seemed like chaos was doomed and Spike had resigned himself to figuring out a new way to beat the pony meat-eating madness, Princess Celestia stiffened with a strained expression. Then she... didn't so much cough, as explode with blood from her nostrils and mouth, the liquid pouring out darkly red in fast streams. Twilight screamed and rushed to her sovereign so fast that Spike fell off her and caught himself on the ground on his hurt arm, sending shock waves of pain through it. He watched the Princess in alarm through fear-squinted eyes as she kept hacking, bent over with it. After a few moments the blood slowed down to mostly stopping, except for a little dripping from her nose and the occasional spray from her terrible coughs. His eyes drifted to the pool of red beneath the formerly-beautiful, invincible-seeming pony's head. It was writhing with small, sleek, wormlike shapes that moved as chaotically as anything Discord could have made, flopping in the shallow liquid like fish out of water. Twilight didn't look at it, Twilight was too busy crying and clutching at the larger pony, for all the good that did, clearly wanting to help but having no idea how to without a horn.
“Well, what do you know, so that's how alicorns have their periods,” Discord shot out with such crude flippancy that even Spike flinched and then glared at the rude jerk. “Ah, but life is the very best of all teachers, right Spike?” he added in Spike's direction with a leer, shrugging off the dissolving cuffs of shadow. “Some lessons do bear repeating, however. Over and over and over again.” He narrowed his eyes, glaring at the still-helpless Princess, and snapped. A huge white cottony cylinder with a string dangling out of it, approximately the size of a small battering ram, floated in the air. “Let's start with seeing how far we need to cram this tampon to teach you hygiene, Celestia.”
To everyone's surprise, including his own, it was Spike who jumped between the Princess and cotton-based assault.
“WAIT! YOU OWE US!” he yelled angrily at Discord, waving his arms for all they were worth. He didn't like the Princess, but that didn't mean he wanted to see the crazy pony get hurt more than she had to be. It was bad enough watching her tremble and make those awful sounds from her mouth.
One of Discord's eyebrows returned to his head long enough to spin in circles before flittering off again, mothlike.
“How so, my cold-blooded bro?”
“Without me and Twilight, you wouldn't even be free in the first place! That's gotta be worth something to you!”
“Hmm.” Discord spun his beard into an impossibly long and detailed spiral. “Technically true, and technicalities can be wonderfully chaotic in their own ways, like the most beautifully nasty pranks constructed entirely out of red tape.” His eyes flicked down to where one of the Princess's coughs had gotten a bit of her blood on his tail and he stepped away with a grimace. “Eww. Very well, Spike, I'll permit you this one leniency: since you and Twilight both were responsible for the wonderfully pointless, ridiculous, reckless and self-centered argument that loosened the bonds twixt moi and that granite, I will grant you each a favor. Each of you think of one thing you want that I can grant, and only one, and the avatar of chaos shall make it so!” He rubbed his mismatched hands together by the palms, grinning. “And then I shall resume the work of all true artists, by which I mean creation through disharmony in all its fabulously diverse expressions.”
“Don't hurt the Princess!” Twilight begged with tragic, unhesitating desperation, both her front legs wrapped around the Princess's white neck as though she could actually support her.
“Oh, so boring, Twilight, really!” Discord snorted in disgust. “Very well, I was quite looking forward to tormenting our royal dear in a very personal way... but I suppose I can settle for merely making her life's work meaningless by destroying her possessions and her home and her kingdom and her ponies and her laws and everything else that she ever cared about within the span of, well, let's say the weekend. Maybe up to the middle of Tuesday morning if I feel like savoring it.”
Spike wasn't aware of how angry he was until just this moment, when his clenched claws started to stab at his palms. That also brought him into enough alertness to realize he'd been grinding his teeth and lashing his tail for who knew how long now.
Discord was a terrible person, not the playful, fun guy he'd been hoping to get. Or really, he was playful, but being playful didn't stop him from being mean. This was barely any better than fighting for his life against ponies.
Ponies....
He looked around and saw ponies being swarmed by waves of bananas buzzing like bees. Hedge bushes coming to life and stomping on ponies with roots. Pony hooves turning into ice skates, manes into snakes, tails into badgers. Houses folding like giant accordions, rooftops popping off like fireworks, walls wobbling like jello. It was madness. It was chaos.
But it had been madness all along, so one poison was as good as the other to him, right?
Except that he didn't want them to hurt, even if they deserved it.
Dang it.
He looked back at the Princess, who had only just stopped coughing but still looked bleary, pained, and just plain simply not there in her head. Even knowing what she was, he felt bad for her and was glad that Twilight was hugging her. Her wings were visibly shaking, her legs shifted unsteadily to try and find a position to comfortably support their weight that seemed nonexistent, and her breathing was a series of coarse pants that were completely unlike the controlled, peaceful majesty of her usual presence. He felt even worse for Twilight, though – even knowing what she was, and that she might be the mouth that'd be his end sooner or later. Twilight looked like the only thing keeping her from having a complete meltdown was knowing that it would only hurt the Princess even more. And then, of course, there were all the pegasus ponies still stuck in place, whinnying and snorting helplessly and unable to move their too-heavy hooves from their craters. Even if all they'd do when they got free would be to eat something else that didn't deserve it.
He loved all the poor, stupid, evil little ponies.
“Well?” Discord snapped, causing Spike to jump and instantly realize that he'd been missing the avatar of chaos guy talking to him while he was busy 'admiring' all the works of chaos.
This wasn't the way he'd wanted it to go, it wasn't the way it shoulda been, but Spike knew he wasn't gonna get a better chance. The ponies didn't know, but Discord looked like his tiny supply of patience was dwindling, and if confessing why he really was in Canterlot in front of the Princess herself was the only way to get things done, well... Spike, ol' boy, you've done crazier things this month, haven't you?
Spike set his feet in the ground firmly and did his best to look like he wasn't a sucker.
“I wanna know how to get the ponies to stop eating everything that isn't them!”
He practically felt the Princess's eyes shift over to him, narrowing and focusing in their struggle for clarity, brought alert by a surprise that she might think of as no better than... whatever treason was when it was done by food instead of ponies. He didn't mean to threaten her or her kingdom. He just wanted to change everything about it, and she knew why, so she couldn't hold it against him. He hoped.
Discord didn't seem to like that answer. He frowned and grabbed at his still-flying eyebrows, slapping them back where they belonged as he slithered through the air to stick his face within inches of Spike's. Spike smiled nervously and very carefully did not step back.
“And here I thought you were a true connoisseur of the fruits of frivolity.” Discord wrapped his neck snakishly around Spike's own till they were looking each other in the eyes again, his breath a little colder than it should have been and, for some reason, smelling of a mixture of strongly formented vegetables and fresh syrup. “Come come now, can't you see the sheer ENTERTAINMENT VALUE in carnivorous ponies, my boy?! Where's your sense of dramatic irony, eh?!”
“What's ironic about ponies eating everything else?! That's not ironic, that's just dumb!”
Discord withdrew himself back into the air, tapping at his chin thoughtfully.
“Oh, yes, I forgot, a BABY dragon wouldn't have the perspective to appreciate the full maturity and depth of my craft,” he said almost as if to himself, the condescending sneer very subtle. Then his eyes sharpened and refocused back on Spike, and Spike twitched, very conscious of being pinned between the stares of two immortal things. And wait, what had he meant about HIS craft.... “These ponies are truly my greatest masterpiece, Spike! I hope you have an idea of how much I'm humbling myself by even CONSIDERING your request.”
Wait.
Hold on a second.
“What do you mean your masterpiece?! They've always been like this!” The Princess and Discord both were so quiet. “...haven't they?”
“A hooved, flat-toothed herd animal, carnivorous?” Discord snorted. “Please, you little scaly eggplant, they were all daisies and roses and, feh, APPLES until I worked my magic on them.” He wiggled his fingers as though pulling on puppet strings while Spike's jaw hung loose and, somewhere near the Princess, Twilight audibly gasped. Discord blinked. “What? Did I ruin the SURPRISE? Your Princess takes delight in erasing me even from the history books! What a shame, what a shame.”
“That... that can't be true! You're lying, Discord!” Twilight yelled, full of heroic but helpless anger.
“Usually,” Discord replied flippantly.
“The history books never-”
“Do you believe everything a BOOK tells you, Twilight Sparkle?”
“Yes!”
“Ah, I see an elegant solution to our quandary, then.” Discord snapped and conjured up a blank book, quill and ink pot, his left foot moving in a blur as it scribbled impossibly fast. Then he rotated the book over and shoved it to the hornless unicorn.
“Except for fiction,” Twilight replied stiffly, lifting her head primly.
“He... may be telling the truth, Twilight Sparkle,” the Princess said, and something in Spike died a little more. The huge pony shook herself bodily and heaved a sigh, regaining something like her normal control even if she looked too weak to do more than just stand there and cough erratically. “Ponies once ate fruits and vegetables, and never meat. I never sought to suppress that knowledge, but it was so long ago, and ponies are sometimes forgetful. The change came upon us... my little ponies and the alicorns both... shortly after Discord was imprisoned. It was gradual, and nopony knew what to make of it until its work was done. I always suspected his influence, but there was nothing to prove... until now.”
“How could you do something so... so MEAN?!” Spike shrieked. Discord didn't seem nearly as upset as Spike wanted him to look. Spike wanting to hit him. To hurt him. To DESTROY him.
“What, don't you think it's funny? Silly little harmless ponies gobbling up everything in sight, om nom nom! Hahaha!”
“NO! I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING LESS FUNNY IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!”
“Well, I think it's hilarious. You should see the looks on your faces! Priceless! I'm oh so very proud of it,” Discord bragged, giggling and toying with his beard. “As I was confronted with those SPOILSPORT Elements of Harmony wielded by the two Princesses, I realized their love for their subjects was so absolute that I couldn't break it even with all my whimsical might. The face of certain defeat was very inspiring, however. In a stroke of genius, I chose to make my inevitable defeat into my victory as well. I succumbed of my own accord, reserved all my remaining strength for stealthily changing those irritatingly cute little ponies into more suitable subjects of discordance, and voila! Tidy little meat-munching machines with all the superficial trappings of harmony amusingly still intact.”
“But Equestria is a well-developed, diverse and thriving civilization full of peace, and love, and, and singing! We sing a lot and it's fun! Whatever you were planning with our change in diet, it FAILED, Discord!” Twilight pointed out self-righteously.
A cold, unquiet feeling grabbed onto Spike's gut and the back of his head and wouldn't let go, warring with the almost blinding heat of raw molten fury.
“And such haaarmony it iiis,” Discord said slowly, chuckling. “Ponies killing. Ponies eating. Over and over. Without compassion. Without restraint. Things are fine NOW, aren't they? For the ponies, heheheh. Call me again in a decade, in a century, when your borders have eaten up the world. When your ponies have eaten up everything worth eating.” His snaggle-fanged grin was impossible sinister in its pure happiness. “The time'll come, you bookwormish brat, when ponies will have nothing more to eat... except each other.”
“The Princess would never let that happen!”
“Whether you did it like you said or not, that's still the favor I want from you,” Spike asked, clenching and unclenching his claws. He was staring right at the reason his life was the way it was. The monster he'd hated so... the cause of it all... in every pony's gaping mouth... it was Discord. Who he'd freed. Spike hated himself suddenly with an intensity that was only matched by his hate of Discord. “I want to know how to make the ponies like everyone else!”
“Hmph. I must admit, I'm not much inclined to reverse my finest masterwork of vintage vengeance... but methinks that glint of fury in your eyes suits me, Spike my boy,” Discord said, drawing near and dragging a talon under Spike's chin before hovering off again. “Fine, I'll tell you, but I'll only tell you MY way. When ponies contemplate listening to their hearts or heads, the imps of their bellies tell them what to do instead. To retrieve all ponydom's missing empathetic thoughts, all you must do is find the finest dish in Canterlot.”
“What's that supposed to mean?! What does the finest dish in Canterlot have to do with anything I asked you to tell me?!”
“It's a riddle, Spike,” Twilight said earnestly, seeming less wholly freaked out now that the Princess wasn't looking like death warmed over. “Or I guess you could call it a challenge. Discord wants to know what the best food in Canterlot is, and when you can tell him that, he'll tell you what you want to know. Right?”
“Sure, let's go with that,” Discord declared mildly. “You're very hot to trot, my unfaithful non-student!” He snapped and a white dunce cap appeared on Twilight's head. “Although I'm not entirely sure what class it is you're supposed to be taking. I do keep forgetting, Celestia dear, what is your lesson plan for the wee one again? Hypocrisy, Obliviousness and Condescending Platitudes 101, perhaps?”
“Leave her alone!” Twilight burst out, bravely putting herself between the Princess and Discord.
“Goodness, you're even more painfully serious than your mentor. We'll have to do something about that after I've finished humoring the reptile. Oh, and you'd better get a move on,” Discord added to Spike mock-conspiratorially. “You have until sundown before you're disqualified. I found my greatest stroke of genius under strict time pressure, so it seems only fair to spread the inspiration, eh?”
Spike looked up at the sky again. The sun and moon were doing loop-de-loops around each other.
“How'm I supposed to know when it's sundown?”
“I have no idea! That's what makes it so fun!” Discord said jubilantly, cracking up in laughter, hands over his belly and feet kicking in the air.
“Jerk.”
“Well, if you want to just FORFEIT....”
“No, no, I'll play!” Spike clasped his hands together pleadingly, seeing his chance, however measly and pathetic it was, slip away from him. “I'll do it your way, just... don't do anything crazy, okay?” He paused. “Crazier.”
“Chop chop, then.” Discord's hand briefly turned into kitchen knives as they mimed the motion. “The ticker's ticking, hahahahaaaa....”
“I guess I'll head over to the fancy restaurant section of town then....” Spike said hesitantly, looking over at the two ponies closest to getting in his way. “Uh, no hard feelings about trying to revamp your whole society, right Princess? I mean, it was like that before, so....”
“I don't think you'll find any advice Discord gives to be to your liking, Spike,” the Princess said, wiping the last traces of blood from her mouth with a grimace. “But for now, perhaps it's best that you play along and temper his sense of mischief with structure. Go with him, Twilight Sparkle. He'll require somepony to be his escort, and perhaps you can learn something from each other in this trial.”
“Yes, that's right, sort everything into your precious lesson plans,” Discord cut in sneeringly.
Princess Celestia just smiled at Discord silently. It was a strange smile – only half her mouth moved, and it definitely didn't reach her eyes. Discord blinked at that and tilted his head, waiting for a response that never came.
“But Princess Celestia, I can't leave you, you're-”
“I am fine, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said firmly, making an effort to stand with as little wobbling as possible. For a moment there she almost even looked fine too. “It's just a flare-up, these things are expected periodically.” She gave a smile to Twilight in turn, and it was an equally strange one for different reasons, somewhere between genuinely nice and the sarcastic Spike associated with bullies who wanted to pretend to be friendly before they started being mean. There was still a pinkish hue to her teeth. “I've been on this earth for centuries. Trust me when I say that I'm not going anywhere just yet.” She closed her eyes and then opened then again, a subtle shift in her posture making her seem as regal as usual. “Hurry as best you can. One way or another, it seems that the fate of Equestria is in your hooves.”
“We won't let you down, Princess!” Spike was surprised Twilight didn't actually salute, she looked so serious. “Come on, number one emergency food supply, we've got a riddle to solve!” She paused and glanced back at Discord. “Can I, um... have my horn?”
“You know, I thought it would be funny to make you go through a challenge without your primary characteristic as a unicorn,” Discord mused aloud, “but something tells me that I've already done that at some point or other. Past life or alternate universe maybe. It's your lucky day, Twilight Sparkle!”
Snap!
And her horn was back. Just like that, Discord had taken away what defined Twilight Sparkle... other than her OCD, her books and her devotion to the Princess, anyway... and just as thoughtlessly given it back. And with it, given back her ability to turn Spike himself into chop suey in the blink of an eye if she felt like it.
“Great, let's get going,” he growled, hoping that she wouldn't sabotage anything.
So they left the two immortals to talk about... whatever immortal things talked about. Probably politics or philosophy or something. They were off at a brisk pace, dodging marshmallow paving stones and bubbling honey potholes as they headed out of the Castle grounds to the rest of Canterlot, which was looking only slightly less insane than the Castle itself. He hopped down when she teleported him up to her back again.
“We'll go quicker if you let me-”
“I wanna walk on my own.”
“Spike, this is serious! The fate of Equestria-”
“What about the fate of Spike, huh?”
“Oh. I see what this is about.”
Spike said nothing.
“Spike, I'm willing to admit that maybe I went a little overboard threatening to eat you just because you said some obviously untrue things about the Princess.”
Great, she was in lecturing mode again. He hated lecturing mode. It could only be worse if silent Es were involved.
“Even though what you said was awful and untrue, you were right, it was no excuse to just throw all of our hard work on teaching you to read out the window! So I'm sorry I almost ate you. Even though you smell delicious, like cinnamon or something,” she mumbled to herself, almost quietly enough for him to not hear.
Spike said nothing.
“Spike? Spike, do you have anything you'd like to say to me? So we can get past this and focus on what's important, like helping the Princess and Equestria?”
“...is it left or right to that street with all the big name restaurants?”
“Spike,” she said more firmly, nudging him to the rightward lane and putting up a shield as a tsunami of pink trouts rained against them from out of nowhere. “Spike, maybe you'd like to say you're sorry for lying to me about what you and Princess Celestia talked about?”
Spike bit his bottom lip, every muscle tensing.
She could eat him any time she wanted, and had the power to do so.
He needed her to stay safe in Canterlot.
But, more than anything, he just didn't want to fight.
“I'm sorry for lying,” he lied, deciding that the whole Princess thing could be sorted out later, when nearby lamp posts weren't turning into rattle snake tails and the sounds of screams and chicken cluckings weren't Canterlot's major noise ambiance.
She hugged him lightly with one hoof, and he hated himself a little for liking it, then sighed and let the feeling go.
“So you don't mind that I wanna make all ponies vegetarian again?”
“The Princess said it was okay to play along, so that's what I'm doing. And it's the logical thing to do from your perspective,” she replied neutrally. “Hmm, Chateau de Foie does have awfully good scallop-butter biscuits... nah, too middle-class. I wonder if he meant 'finest' as in most expensive, or as in most rare. Or maybe he intended it to apply to difficulty of preparation, there are certain highly toxic oceanic creatures that would be fit the bill in that case.”
“And you don't even care that you're only this way because Discord MADE you?” he asked, ignoring all her overthinkingness, which was a necessary life skill around Twilight. Discord'd probably just meant whatever dish ponies liked the most, he thought.
“Spike, maybe Discord was the original trigger, or maybe he was just lying to take credit for a coincidence, who knows, but either way, ponies have been this way for centuries. It's, it's just normal, okay? The Princess doesn't see anything wrong with it, our entire civilization is based on how delicious meat is!” She sighed like a lovestruck little filly, undoubtedly imagining steak or a burger or something. “And it's soooo good, Spike.” Her voice was almost drunken in its naked hunger.
“That's just the Discord in your tummy talking. Hey, what about that place? It looks fancy.”
Spike was pointing to a two-story restaurant that currently was covered in what looked like a combination of soap and banana cream pies, staff and customers alike running around and slamming into each other in a slippery, dizzy, messy panic. All the chaos couldn't hide the expensive marble pillars, though, or the way the tables seemed to go on forever inside through the ample view afforded by one glass-paned wall.
“Hm, I've never been there before. It looks likely though. Let's recon and see if we can find a chef, they'll know what's the best on the menu for sure. Or at least a maitre d' – that's the fancy name for a waiter at places like this, Spike. It's spelled-”
“M-A-Y-T-R-U-H-D-E-E?”
“Not even close.”
“Whatever, let's just do this thing before Discord starts turning all the gemstones into porcupines or something!”
Try though they might, there was no way they were getting anypony's attention in that building. The staff were freaking out over the customers freaking out, the customers wanted their money back, the ponies in charge didn't want to give any refunds but DID want any damages taken out of the customers' tabs... it was a real mess. For Spike, there was something unhappily, guiltily satisfying about seeing ponies fight each other for a change. But even as distracted as they were, they found the time to eyeball him and lick their lips whenever he got too close, so he did his best to hide behind Twilight while she asked all the questions, using her magic to clear a neat little path in the mixture of soap and pie filling with criss-crossing telekinetic sweeps.
They couldn't even find a readable copy of the menu in all the chaos.
At last, defeated, they stepped out back where Discord's magic hadn't messed anything up yet, Twilight leaning her head against the wall and knocking at it as though she could knock some good ideas loose, Spike watching her with faint concern.
“Ugh, this is impossible! Everypony's so busy blaming everypony else for what's gone wrong that we can't even have a simple conversation! I could understand if they were scared, but that seem just....”
“Mean?” Spike suggested.
She looked at him.
“Yeah. Yeah, that's it. They're just being mean to each other for no reason. It's so petty!”
“I like to think of it as arbitrary.”
“That's a big word. Can you spell-”
“You know I can't,” he snapped, then apologized for it after getting a hold of himself. “Every place we passed was just as bad as this one, we'll never find the best food at this rate!”
“S'all right here if good eats is whatcha want, dig in,” wheezed a squeaky geezer pony as he passed by them, pushing a rusty cart towards the far end of the back where the garbage bins (and attendant giant-sized pipes trailing vaguely downwards) sat.
Geezer pony was very obviously one of the rarest things to see in Canterlot, a hobo pony, most obviously designated by his Cutie Mark, a can of pork and beans. Top hat missing the top, green candy cane-themed tie that was a few sizes too large and a pair of cracked glasses several sizes too small all made up the costume that distracted from the pony's shaggy, stained hide, but what attracted Spike's attention the most were the pale gray bushy eyebrows and long, straggly beard. Why did he feel like he'd seen those somewhere else before?
Twilight took charge, as usual.
“Sir, you should get indoors as quickly as possible, it may not be safe here! Aren't you bothered by the... the uh...”
A pony ran screaming past them, chased by a herd of squirrels bouncing along on their unnaturally extended tails, chattering up a ferocious storm.
“...the everything?” Twilight finished awkwardly.
Hobo pony shrugged and started rummaging through the nearest bin, his head vanishing and making disgusting gobbling, smocking sounds that echoed through the bin's interior.
“Can't say as I how I yam. M'sure the Princess will set it all to rights soon enough.”
“Yeah, she will!”
“On account of her bein' perfect and all,” hobo pony went on mildly.
“Exactly!”
“Aaaabsolutely perfect.”
“Mmhmm!”
“Yesiree, never has her highness Celestia ever let anypony down or done anything to hurt or betray her little ponies even a teensy weensy little itsy bitsiest bit!”
“Well, that's obvious, so I don't see why you need to emphasize it so much,” Twilight said suspiciously, forehead wrinkling.
Spike walked up to the bin and knocked, figuring hobo pony wouldn't be hungry for dragon if he was currently stuffing his face with garbage.
“Excuse me, mister pony? Do you eat a lot of restaurant garbage?”
Hobo pony whipped his now alfredo sauce-covered head up, rolling his tongue around his outer mouth.
“Shore do, sonny!”
“In your opinion, then, what's the best food you've eaten here in Canterlot?”
Oops, looks like he'd been dumb to get hopeful about a pony not wanting to eat him. Hobo pony already had a string of drool slipping out of his mouth as they stared at each other.
“M'not sure, but you're lookin' pretty good to these rheumy old eyes, heheh. Say, missy, is your dragon for sale? Give ya a whole shiny bit for 'im!” And it was, indeed, a very shiny bit.
“I'm sorry, sir, but my dragon's not for sale. You've sampled lots of, um, leavings from this restaurant, surely there must be something that sticks out! Something with an exceptionally well-balanced food chemistry, or sophisticated presentation, or-”
“Just tell us what tastes the best,” Spike demanded impatiently.
“Tell ya what, I'll do you one better. Call a flip with this here exemplary example of currency, and if you get it down to the exact degree of correctitude, I'll tell ya the best thing in Canterlot these old teeth've ever noshed. And if ya get it wrong, I get just one bite out of your whatchahooey, spare food supply.”
“Deal,” Twilight said immediately while Spike, unaccountably, felt furiously betrayed.
“I don't want him to take a bite out of me!”
“Oh, don't be such a baby, Spike, it's just one bite,” the unicorn replied testily. “The sooner we get this done the sooner we can get back to the Princess, who knows what Discord is doing to her while she's so weak! It's the duty of everypony to make sacrifices for their Princess!”
“...s'not my Princess,” he growled, but too quietly for her to hear.
“...and besides, it's only a fifty percent probability, discounting the minuscule chance of it landing on the edge, of course. Do you want heads or tails?”
“I don't wanna do this at all! He probably doesn't know any good food anyway, let's just go ask a chef or something!”
“Which chef, the one flailing around in animated soup or the one screaming at fire-breathing jerked chicken?! We don't have time for this, this obstructionism!” She clasped her head in her hooves. “Look, he'll take tails. Flip it.”
Spike watched the coin like it was the tooth of a hungry pony shining in the sunlight, memorized the way it spun and flew up and down in such a sharp, smooth arc... and very definitely burned in his mind the picture of it landing on heads on the hobo pony's upturned hoof. She had sold him out for a clue, not even a very good one, just a possible one, and she didn't even have the dignity to look ashamed.
“Whelp, them's the breaks, juicy! Now, your rump looks a mite steakish, so if'n ya don't mind....”
Momentarily leg-locked and shaking as he stared wide-eyed at yellow teeth and an opening mouth so dark, so hungry, framed by eyebrows and a beard like tentacles, Spike's lifelong run-away skills broke into things and made him jump behind a disapproving Twilight Sparkle. One furious look at her reproachful face told him that he wouldn't have any help there, so he didn't bother arguing. He just ran off, hoping that she would be too busy trying to do her own thing to chase after him through streets and alleys suddenly unrecognizable due to Discord's weird magical transformations.
Giant pats of butter floating in syrup made okay ice skates, and allowed him to just barely keep ahead of Twilight's yells, periodically jumping in volume after a teleport. Going at breakneck speed made the madness of Discord's version of Canterlot a lot easy to take – it was less like a city gone made and more like a silly obstacle course. That just happened to have life-threatening dangers in it, but that was his life every day anyway, right? The staircases of snapping joke teeth were particularly cool until he got to the last step, an actual bear trap with nasty steel jaws. But his feet hadn't gotten so buttered that they couldn't jump over it, which somehow caused the rest of the 'architecture' to crash down. Maybe just to keep him from having an escape route or knowing a way back. Keepin' that uncertainty high was Discord's gig.
The finest dish in Canterlot. The finest dish in Canterlot.
She was delicious.
A chill ran down Spike from the back of his head down through his spine. What had the Princess and Discord both called it? Alicorn. That was what the answer was, the best thing you could possibly eat. It was alicorn, a winged horned pony. The dish you only got to eat once. What could possibly be better?
But he couldn't tell Twilight. She'd freak and think he was being dishonest or something again. He'd just have to leave her to fend for herself, and she was pretty qualified at that after all, as long as she didn't get distracted by a passing Anything With Words Written On It, while he ran back to the castle. Hopefully before encountering tons of more ponies.
If he was right about this, he could save all the little ponies from themselves, and make everything right, and it would be like a magic happy fairy tale ending just like the ones Fluttershy liked. And they'd be so grateful to him that they'd make him their king, or maybe give him a million gems, and maybe even Rarity could forgive him and he would forgive her and they could hug and snuggle by a fire and....
Okay, Spike, head on the ground buddy. Well, not literally on the ground, 'cause right now it was a bunch of paving stone crocodiles, but you know. They were cute little things despite their sharp teeth and rolling pebble eyes. Not too different from the ponies they were snapping at. He watched the ponies closely as he passed them with dizzyingly spontaneous hops, wondering if Discord's 'pranks' were giving them anything like a sense of empathy for the things they ate. But as far as he could tell they were just scared and mad about being scared. And maybe a little grayer and humdrum than usual. Weren't Canterlot fashions brighter than that, especially for the mares? Oh well, maybe this was the conservative neighborhood.
Okay, so it was a left-right-right, then a kind of half-left... no wait, there wasn't supposed to be an intersection here! And he was pretty sure that mice espresso shop was supposed to be two streets over (and not upside down). His heart pounding in panic at the unexpected concept of being lost in a Discord-warped Canterlot and missing his vague deadline, Spike stopped to look at a street sign, elegant wrought iron.
The sign just had a traced picture of Discord's face on it, his tongue sticking out.
Terrific, because his life wasn't hard enough, right?
He kicked the sign, leaving small dents with his toe claws, and scurried along with an eye to the horizon, trying to find the castle that way. But for all that the weather ponies had been kicked out of the sky, the clouds weren't exactly drifting apart. They were making things so dark and gloomy that it was hard to see past the immediate buildings, and he thought he could even hear Discord's laughter echoing in the low booms of distant thunder.
The stupid chaos guy had seemed like so much fun in the story. Of course, maybe all this would still feel like fun... if he weren't right in the middle of it with all the ponies, feeling like the great carpet of life had been yanked out from under his feet anew every second!
Going by a small bank that he was ninety-nine percent sure wasn't supposed to be there, Spike saw tellers cowering behind desks and giving a trio of black half-masked robber ponies all their bits. Closer inspection revealed this was even stranger than it appeared: one of the robbers clearly had on a nurse's uniform and cap, another one was a wobbly old pony with a cane and inch-thick glasses, and the third was a clown. These were not ponies who would've been stealing normally, were they?
It was like the madness of Discord was in the ponies as well as everything else. Maybe the jerk was telling the truth about the ponies after all. But it didn't matter! It was all in the past, as long as there was a way to undo it, that was what mattered.
As the triumphant robbers ran past him without glancing down to see the morsel at their feet, some bits spilled out from their sacks. A trivial little detail caught Spike's eye, setting his brain abuzz with suspicion, and he picked up one coin.
Heads....
Then he turned it around.
And the other side of the bit was also heads.
Angrily, he dug through the pile. Double heads, every single one. Rigged. The clink of money caught the ears of the tellers, who were already climbing over their desks and looking at him with lamprey-like grins, so Spike scampered off, throwing the money back in their faces.
Was it just that bank? He had to be sure. Spike ran up to a nearby gentlepony with a 'proud to be a pacifist' button who was engaged in hooficuffs with a three year-old dimpled filly, and rifled through the ex-pacifist's pockets. More bits. More double-headed bits. The regal head of what was probably meant to be Princess Celestia taunted him with its outlined faint smile, and he threw the money down and ran.
Following the tellers who had zero problems abandoning their jobs to chase after some munchies, the ponies had caught sight or sound of him en masse. He could hear them – some bellowing as if to scare him into giving up, others cooing like they could persuade him to let himself be eaten. Twilight would have kept him alive, but she wouldn't have kept him safe. Now he was on his own again for this little adventure, no matter how much he'd rather not be.
This was just so like his life. Heads he lost, other-heads he also lost. No matter how he tried, things always turned out sour in the end. He'd hurt Rarity. He'd lost Fluttershy's gift. He'd accidentally screwed over a griffin. Little Strongheart was probably dead.
He deserved better than this.
They deserved better than this.
It was all Discord's fault.
And speaking of which, Discord was pedaling by on a unicycle this very moment.
“Jolly good day to be eaten, don't you think, my little Spikey-wikey?” Discord called out, closing in on one side and keeping apace (which wasn't hard, since his legs were many, many times the length of Spike's).
“I know the answer to the riddle!” Spike burst out, panting extra hard after to make up the expended breath.
“Rrrrreally?” asked Discord, who was now sitting on his head and pedaling with his hands. “Do tell. I'm all e-”
“Do not turn yourself into a bunch of ears, that's just gross,” Spike snapped, causing Discord to blink and chortle a bit at being anticipated.
“Very well! You'd better be succinct, though! The ones up front look quite famished,” he noted, jerking one toe in the direction of the chasing ponies, who were leaving trails of drool behind them.
“It's alicorns! The finest dish in all of Canterlot is alicorn, right?!”
“WrrrOOOOOOooooonnnggg,” Discord sang out gleefully, the little flap of pink flesh in the back of his throat rolling like a tower of gelatin in a tsunami.
“Oh come on, what could possibly be better than that?!”
“I'll grant you, it's high up there,” Discord conceded with a winner's cheerfulness, “but not having alicorn flesh isn't what keeps ponies up at night, their bellies growling with a longing for a midnight snack they can't name. And look, Spikey my boy! The sun is going down! Guess that means you LOSE.”
“It's going down because you just made it go down!” Spike shrieked in a rage. “I even saw you snap your fingers behind your back!”
“I said I'd go you a chance, I never said it had to be a very big one,” Discord responded with a dark chuckle, doing a wheelie around one pony who had gotten ahead of the pack, leaving the pony dizzy and stunned with little yellow birds flying circles over his head. “But tell ya what, my beamish boy – since you gave it such a good effort, I'll give you a consolation prize. How would you like to see how your life would've been if ponies really had stuck to their revoltingly boring vegetarian manners, hm?”
At the same time as he was talking, Discord was snapping toes and fingers, creating random obstacles to block off ponies and random bulges in the street to elevate the two of them. Higher and higher they went – one story roof height, second story roof height, up and up till Spike no longer had any trouble seeing the peanut butter-leaking, flamingo-plumed remains of the castle. And he didn't dare to run any more because there was nowhere to run TO... unless he wanted to hop off of five feet of raised pavement and take what looked like a half-mile drop.
The skies were clear of pegasus ponies, undoubtedly having their own troubles. For the moment, he was 'safe,' if he wanted to define safety as 'being with Discord.'
“Did you really make them like that?” he asked, hugging his arms around himself and shivering at the cold air.
Had to focus on the little stable patch of cobbles underneath him. Looking at Discord's unicycle tricks, or Canterlot below, or the crazy twirling and colliding of the stars now unaccompanied by either sun or moon would just make him dizzy.
“Please, you think my accomplishments are so meager that I need to tell a whopper to receive all due adulation?” Discord snorted and hopped up to a stand, jamming the unicycle in his mouth and swallowed it with a sound like a horn honk. “I am the master of disaster, the brainiac of bedlam, the puppeteer of pandemonium! Even the Princesses couldn't beat me without resorting to that wretched hAAAArmonYYYY.”
“Twilight doesn't even care about it,” Spike said glumly, bitterly. “She's so curious about knowing stuff that I thought she would've jumped on it, but it's like it's irrelevant to her, she didn't even think about it!”
“Oh, I'm sure she'll appreciate it in a strictly clinical, detached sort of way. Long-dead history and all that,” Discord said mock-sympathetically, sneering as he snapped and started playing with a miniature Twilight puppet and miniature Spike puppet, handling the strings with boneless deftness. “What did you expect to happen, hmmm? 'Why my number one emergency snack pack,'” he said in an absolutely freakishly good Twilight voice, “'thank you so much for struggling to save us ignorant, lost ponies from ourselves! Now I have seen the light and will work to systematically undermine my entire society! I must share this deep, spiritual revelation with everypony immediately, especially the Princess who I've idolized all my life and who is sure to get all on board no questions asked!'”
“Maybe... maybe not exactly like that...”
Spike hugged his tail.
“Face it, kid, when you play against Discord, even when you win, you lose.” The avatar of chaos's voice had a nastier tone to it now. “You can hope anew every fresh day, flip that coin of fortune as many times as you like, but every time you'll find that the other side of the bit is also chaos. So howzabout that consolation prize, mmm?” He draped his tail over Spike's back like it was an act of comfort. “Even if you'll never get there, you can at least get a peek and see what you're missing. Better than nothing, wouldn't you say?”
Spike closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again.
“I guess. Go ahead and show me.”
A snap, and colors bubbled and writhed in the sky in front of them like an immeasurably complicated oil painting spontaneously coming to life.
***
“Happy birthday, Spike!”
“Man! First I get a bunch of great presents from my best friends, and now an amazing sapphire cupcake! Oh ho, what a day!”
“Rarity! I need to tell you something, just in case we don't make it! I've always sort of had a cru-”
“I'm comin' for ya, m'lady! High ho Twilight, awayyyy!”
“Don't we have Spike to thank again for this amazing spread, isn't it simply amaaaazing?”
“Little Spikey wikey, who knew that big ferocious dragons started out so cutesy-wutesy!”
“P.S. Obviously Spike did not have to learn a lesson because he is the best and most awesome friend a pony could ask for!”
“I'll rip you to pieces if you touch one scale on his cute little head!”
And then they hugged.
And hugged.
And hugged some more.
Pony to dragon hugs.
Dragon to pony hugs.
Big old group hugs.
A sleeping basket on Twilight's bed.
Dancing at parties with lampshade hats.
Flapjacks flipped on a frying pan... heated with his own dragon fire.
Presents.
Snuggles.
Nuzzles.
Kisses on the cheek.
Tickets to galas.
And some more hugs.
***
After the vision ended, Spike played it back in his mind, going through every scene of lovey-dovey-not-eating-everything-that's-not-a-ponyness in reverse. Really taking it all in, the happiness, the friendship, the harmony of it all. It'd been everything he could've ever wanted or imagined wanting. More, even. He could never have imagined so much of it, such a complete and total peacefulness and joyful togetherness that went beyond compromises and cautious truces and forgiveness, all the way down to a deep-seated sense of belonging together. From the humblest farmpony to the Princess herself, but not just them. The zebras and the dragons and the birds and the otters and the squirrels and the alligators. It was no more 'predator and prey,' it was 'friend and person I haven't gotten to befriend yet.'
Discord watched him expectantly, awaiting an opinion, his shaggy eyebrows waggling.
“That was bullshit,” Spike said calmly.
“Tut tut. Such language. I suppose that's what happens when you don't have a supportive authority figure around to teach you right from wrong.” Discord smiled so innocently. “Or tell you that you're her number one assistant. Or let you sleep on her bed at night. Or give you birthday presents that you won't feel obligated to pretend to like because you don't live in perpetual fear of being devoured at the drop of a hat.”
No, he was not gonna stand for this. Discord might have been an all-powerful, one-of-a-kind immortal magic personthing, but that didn't give him the right to play with a dragon's feelings like that!
“That was totally unbelievable! Why would Rainbow Dash be friends with a bookworm like Twilight?! And Rarity would never mess up her hooves for me, or even go out into the woods, she's way too ladylike for that! And everypony having a bunch of pets that never seem to need taking care of, what's up with that, huh?! And what was with Pinkie appearing out of nowhere all the time?! ...actually, wait, I can maybe buy that one. But the rest of it is junk. How dumb do you think I am?”
“Adequately,” Discord replied unruffled, his smile sharpening a little. “Well, I suppose it's pooooossible that I just fed you a bunch of grade-A Ample Acres hooey just to see you choke on it. Or perhaps your life on the run has left you too ungrateful to even appreciate a good thing when it's handed to you. But the POINT, my dear boy, is that whether you believed it or not... I saw those green eyes of yours widen and shine with longing. Like looking at a present you'll never get to unwrap. Allll gone, Spike. Allll gone. Heheheheeeeeh.”
Spike's eyes narrowed as he looked up at the chuckling embodiment of disharmony.
“You're just making fun of me, aren't you?”
“Really? What was your first clue?” Discorded asked dryly, snapping his fingers and causing acorns to pour out of Spike's ears.
Spike plugged up both sides of his head with flattened palms.
“I don't even know if anything you've ever said is true, there's no proof! I don't even know if you would have given me any help if I'd solved your stupid riddle! It might not even have an answer for all I know! What is the finest dish in Canterlot, huh?!”
“Uh uh uhhhhh.” Discord wagged one talon in Spike's face with all the slow leisure of a wealthy gentleman who knew the world would wait on his pleasure. “That would be telling. By the way, you can take your hands off your head now, I stopped the acorns.”
Spike hesitantly put his head down, and walnuts began waterfalling from his skull to join the small twin piles of acorns at his feet.
“That's not funny. In fact,” Spike went on, getting his bearings back, “no one thinks you're funny except you!”
“Ow. That gets me, right here in my third spare heart. But if you're really not interesting in appreciating my brilliance....” Discord shrugged. “I suppose there are plenty of others I've been neglecting to torment all this time. Have a nice climb back down, by the way... Spikey-wikey.”
Discord vanished in smoke and a dark, echoing chuckle. Fortunately, the walnuts trickled gradually to a stop shortly after that.
Spike looked down and swallowed. One wrong step would make him the brokenest dragon ever.
After some thought and a few tasty cracked walnuts, he wiped the tears of defeat from his eyes and started climbing down. Back to where absolutely nothing awaited him except for certain death... and hope, senseless, cruel, unrelenting.