While the Doctor and his companion stared in horror at the moon’s new features, the Master was busily setting up a complex array of equipment. At the center of this pile was Discord, frozen in his stone prison. Chrysalis stood nearby, her horn slowly mending from the torture inflicted on it. Channeling chaos energy was not in her nature, and it had taken quite a toll on her. She desperately needed to feed.
She would get her chance, but only if the Master could complete his work while Celestia was distracted trying to track down her student. Twilight Sparkle and five of her friends were essential in some sort of magical ritual.
The Master wasn’t really sure what Celestia intended to do with this ritual, but he had the luxury of not needing to care. Celestia could search for her student all she wanted, but with any luck she wouldn’t find Twilight until it was far too late. After all, why would the princess think to look in her own dungeons?
That did not, however, mean that he could afford to dawdle. If Celestia happened across the pile of equipment scattered on the castle’s lawn she would immediately swoop in and foul up all of his carefully laid plans. That could not be allowed to happen.
“This would be a lot easier,” the Master hissed through gritted teeth, “if you were not constantly bothering me!”
Screwball flinched as he slapped one of her hooves away from the dial she was playing with. She floated away with a wounded expression, pouting like a scolded child. The Master went back to work without paying her any more attention than was absolutely necessary to ensure that she wasn’t messing anything else up.
Chrysalis turned to stare at Screwball, her expressionless face registering something for the first time in hours. “Hungry,” she declared, and was consumed with a green torrent of flame. Her form twisted into Discords, but Screwball didn’t look at all impressed.
“Finally!” The Master exclaimed nearly an hour later. “What a relief. I don’t know about you, Chrysy, but being this exposed makes me anxious. What do you think?”
Chrysalis didn’t answer. “You’re no fun anymore,” the Master sulked. He handed Screwball a pair of earphones while at the same time twisting dials on one of his machines. “Put these on his ears.”
Screwball recoiled in horror. “No!” she shouted. “I remember those!” She pointed to Chrysalis, who had hardly blinked in the last hour. “Those are bad, Mr. Master! I won’t let you put those on my daddy.”
“You don’t have a choice.” He drew out the metal device he carried, a screwdriver similar in function to the Doctor’s but with much more lethal capabilities. Screwball saw that he was aiming it at her and rolled aside, but the blast burned a grisly wound into her shoulder. She collapsed, half unconscious and crying pitifully as the Master fitted Discord with his earphones.
“Y-you still can’t have him,” Screwball whispered. Deep breathes hurt, but she managed to squeak out one last insult. “You aren’t clever enough. Only daddy knows how to break the spell.”
The Master sputtered indignantly and made angry throttling motions in her direction. “What do I have to do to get some respect on this pathetic little planet?” he demanded. “I broke into a secret vault that isn’t supposed to exist! I banished a goddess to the moon and enslaved the mightiest changeling in history! What does a pony need to do to earn a little recognition around here?”
“The s-spell-”
“Oh, the spell!” The Master exclaimed. “By all the gods that ever were, it would take a miracle to save me now! How could I have been so foolish?” He glared at Screwball and sneered. “See? Isn’t that annoying? That’s what you sound like.” He pointed his laser screwdriver (a bit impractical, he had to admit, but it looked better than the Doctor’s and that was what mattered) at Discord’s statue.
Magic, like nearly everything else in the universe, could not last forever. The spell keeping Discord imprisoned was powerful, but under the weight of thousands of years the enchantment weakened and succumbed to the ravages of time. The delicate framework of magic slowly dissipated as a time distortion field wore away at its strength.
Flakes of stone peeled away from the Draconequus as the spell finally died. Discord yawned and stretched luxuriously, looking drowsily around before noticing the Master watching him. His clawed hand scratched behind his ear before curiously examined the earphones. “What’s all this?” he asked, indicating the collection of machinery around him. “Is Celestia having a yard sale?”
“Sorry about this,” the Master sighed. “I’d love to hear whatever inane prattle falls out of your mouth next, but I’m on a tight schedule.” He turned around and looked for Screwball, intending to make a joke about having a family reunion, but she was nowhere to be found. “Well that’s disappointing,” he grumbled.
Some ponies just had no taste for drama.
*****
Far below the city of Canterlot, hidden safely away in a labyrinth of tunnels that hadn’t been used for hundreds of years, Screwball cowered in the darkness. She was almost glad that her shoulder hurt so much, because it stopped her from thinking about what the Master was planning.
The cavern was silent apart from her quiet sobs and the occasional drip of chocolate milk as it flowed from her wound.
Light pulsed in the cavern and Screwball sat bolt upright. Was the Master coming for her? Could she escape a second time if he had her ‘daddy’ under his control? Probably not.
The light faded in and out, growing brighter with every flash. A strange wooden box materialized beneath it, lit from within by an eerie glow. The doors opened and a hurried pegasus stepped out. “Hello there!” The pony said. “You’ve probably got a lot of questions. Would you come with me please?”
****
Ditzy and the Doctor found Celestia in the gardens. She was making the silent, desperate sounds of a pony that can’t afford to have others know that she’s crying, no matter how badly she’s been hurt. In front of her was an ancient stone pedestal, partially overgrown with ivy.
“Celestia?” the Doctor asked. “What’s happened? Where’s the Master?”
Ditzy pulled away some of the ivy clinging to the pedestal. Beneath was a single word carved into the stone: chaos. “Doctor!” Ditzy hissed. “Look!”
The Doctor ran his hoof over the stone, looking almost awestruck as he stared at the place where chaos itself had rested. “Oh no,” he said in a tiny, sad voice. “You poor, tormented thing. I’m sorry that I wasn’t here. I’ve let you down already and you haven’t even met me yet.”
“Doctor, what are you talking about?”
“Discord.” The Doctor sat down beside Celestia and put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. Judging from her reaction, or lack thereof, it didn’t help. “We aren’t supposed to meet for another six hundred years. Guess the universe got tired of waiting.”
Celestia spoke for the first time and startled them both. “They’re all gone, Doctor.” She finally looked away from where Discord used to stand. She looked haunted and hollow, emptied out by grief and the fear that the ponies she cared for were lost to her forever. “Luna is banished. One of the Elements of Harmony, a student very dear to me, has been kidnapped. What’s he done to her, Doctor? What might he be doing to her at this very moment?”
The animals living in the royal gardens went quiet as the sun goddess spoke. “Now he’s taken Discord as well. I don’t know how to stop him, Doctor. I’m scared, truly scared for the first time in a thousand years.”
“I know,” the Doctor sighed. “I’m sorry, Celestia. I’ll find a way to stop him. I’ll help your student and your sister as well, no matter what it takes. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll find a way.”
“And Discord?” Celestia asked.
The Doctor looked her over curiously. “What about him?”
“H-Help him too,” Celestia pleaded. “Please. If there’s anything you can do for him, do it. He’s worth it. I know you may not agree but-”
“No buts!” the Doctor interrupted. “Don’t beg, Celestia. Seeing you beg hurts. He’s worth it to somepony, and that’s all it takes. Do you know anything that might help us? Has anything caught your attention in the last few days? A friend said that we should look for the Master here, but it looks like we were too late.”
Celestia began to shake her head, but then paused. “Some of my subject saw changelings in the Everfree Forest,” she said. “Does that help?”
The Doctor grabbed Ditzy and made for the TARDIS. “It might!” he exclaimed. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve talked to them. Just you wait, Celestia. I’ll figure this out, I promise!”
*****
The Doctor was eager to take off once they reached the TARDIS, but Ditzy had to stop him. She wanted to know more about what was going on, and she wasn’t traveling one more inch until she got some answers. The Doctor recognized her pensive frown and accepted his fate, lounging in the captain’s chair as she tried to put her thoughts in order.
“Why can’t Celestia do anything about this?” Ditzy asked. There were many questions vying for dominance in her mind, but this seemed like the best way to appease several of them at once. “She knows the spell that banished Luna to the moon, and she’s the one that locked Discord away. Can’t she just bring Luna back?”
“The spell that banished Luna is extremely complicated,” the Doctor answered. “It has to be unlocked with the same magic that cast it. In this case, that means changeling magic.”
“And Discord? Who would try to form a partnership with someone like him? He’s insane!”
The Doctor began to shift uncomfortably. “Most of the time.”
“And that means what, exactly?”
“Well, he’s the god of chaos.” The Doctor took a moment to adjust his tie. He was stalling just like he always did when confronted with an uncomfortable subject. “His mind is constantly changing. Celestia thinks he’s insane, and he is, but only sometimes.”
“That’s really sad,” Ditzy said. “They were friends, but she had to imprison him when he lost his mind.”
Once again the Doctor began to fidget. “Something like that,” he said. “They were quite a bit more than friends. Haven’t you ever wondered why Celestia doesn't call herself a queen? It would require getting married, and she’s only ever loved one pony…thing.”
He stared at the TARDIS’s view screen, which at the moment was focused on the pedestal where Discord had stood for over a thousand years. “Poor Celestia. The other immortals used to call her the Weeping Goddess. She’s spent almost ten thousand years with an objective perception of time, and the only two constants have been Luna and Discord. First her lover goes mad, and then her sister betrays her. She was inconsolable both times; imagine spending hundreds of years with someone, then having them turn on you in the blink of an eye.”
Celestia was apparently finished mourning; she dried her eyes, straightened her regalia, and put on a remarkably brave face. “That’s my girl,” the Doctor whispered.
“She doesn’t know about Discord’s condition,” he continued. “They never got a chance to talk about it. I’d bet my snazzy tie that imprisoning him breaks her heart. She doesn’t know how to help him, so all she can do is lock him away and pray for a miracle. At least her sister helped cure the loneliness, but now Luna’s been banished. She’s all alone again.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Who does a goddess pray to, I wonder?”
“Can I ask one more question?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” the Doctor snapped.
Ditzy forced herself to smile. The Doctor usually relaxed when she was smiling. “Rule number one, Doctor.”
Her friend raised an eyebrow. “Don’t wander off? What does that have to do with me being fine?”
“You told me that rule number one was ‘the Doctor lies!’”
“Did I?” The Doctor grinned nervously. “I suppose I lied about the rule about lying. Sorry.” He jumped out of his chair and trotted over to her, putting a comforting foreleg across her shoulders. Having him so close made her heartbeat quicken, but she ignored it. “Ditzy, I have to be fine. Equestria is too important for me to not be fine right now. Do you understand?”
“But you aren’t,” Ditzy argued in an annoyingly vulnerable voice. She hated sounding so helpless. “What’s happening to you, Doctor? Is it the drums?”
The Doctor pulled away and went to work on the TARDIS’s control panel a bit more forcefully than was necessary. His lip curled into a snarl and, though she might have been imagining it, Ditzy thought she saw a puff of golden-yellow vapor wind its way out of his mouth. “Let’s just get moving.”
*****
Despite being one of the most amazing creations the universe would ever see, the TARDIS was not always a smooth ride. Ditzy had long ago wondered if it had something to do with the Doctor’s mood; the TARDIS seemed like a much more exciting way to travel when he was excited or frightened, but it flew straight and true when he was relaxed.
What did it say about his mood when the TARDIS arrived upside down? Only a quick and clever bit of piloting kept the entire ship from tumbling end over end as it crashed through trees and thickets of brush. Ditzy said nothing as the Doctor righted his ship. He was already under a lot of pressure and she didn’t want to upset him.
When they stepped outside the Doctor glanced up at the sky, then stuck a stick in the ground. “What are you doing?” Ditzy asked as he marked the shadow in the dirt.
“Not sure,” the Doctor muttered. “I think a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track.”
The Doctor waved his sonic screwdriver to and fro, scanning the area for changeling magic. Ditzy was content to walk patiently beside him, lost in her own concerns. She worried about the Doctor, about his tendency to feel guilty for circumstances beyond his control. How long could he keep going if he continued to bear the weight of the universe on his shoulders?
Obviously a very long time, she thought as the Doctor trotted ahead. She wilted a little as she thought about how old he really was; nine hundred years was a long time, longer than she was capable of understanding. The Doctor looked like an ordinary pony, but he was so much more complicated on the inside. Or maybe less complicated, Ditzy reflected. He’s a broken pony that misses his home. He can’t forgive himself if he fails to help somepony. That isn’t very complicated at all when I think about it.
Ditzy was so distracted with her own thoughts that she didn’t notice a pair of glowing green eyes watching her. Something black and shiny rocketed out of the undergrowth and smashed into her, shoving her off the narrow path and away from the Doctor. Ditzy felt the ground slope away beneath her and realized that she was in for a long, unpleasant fall.
It only took a few moments for Ditzy to become completely disoriented. The world spun around her and the unforgiving ground rushing in to assault her every now and then as she tumbled helplessly through the forest. Ditzy flared her wings and instinctively tried to leap into the air.
The long fall came to a sudden end the moment she spread her wings, pinning one of them beneath her when she finally hit level ground. Ditzy felt crippling pain shoot across her back and screamed. Rolling off her wing hurt almost as much as landing on it and soon she was reduced to a sobbing, helpless pile of grey fur and feathers.
Ditzy saw the creature roll quickly to its hooves. It was shaped like a pony, but that was where the similarities ended. It had a sleek, glossy body and eyes that glowed a sinister green. Its legs were so thin and porous that they seemed far too fragile to hold it up. A pair of insectoid wings fluttered on the monster’s back as it bared its fangs and hissed.
The threatening display made little difference to Ditzy. She was in so much pain that she almost wished the creature would kill her quickly and be done with it. She couldn’t keep air in her lungs long enough to scream and any movement at all shifted her injured wing.
Seconds passed in agonizing silence. Ditzy’s panicked gasps were the only sound as the creature eyes her warily. It seemed reluctant to attack, unsure if she was a threat or just a hapless animal that had stumbled into unfamiliar territory. After a while it backed away and faded from view, green eyes still watching her suffer.
Something crashed through the undergrowth and paused just out of sight. “Ditzy?” the Doctor called. “Is that you?”
Ditzy would have cried if she hadn’t already been sobbing quietly. “Doctor! H-Help!”
“What was the first thing I ever said to you?”
“What!?”
“You have to answer the question so that I know you’re really you.”
“You told me to run! Help me, Doctor! It hurts! It h-hurts so bad!” She begged for help, shamelessly bawling like a foal and wincing as her shaking chest scraped against the rough ground. It was a mercy when she felt the Doctor’s hooves on her back, steadying her while he looked her over.
“I need you to relax,” the Doctor said. “Can you do that? You’ve pulled your wing out of its socket. Take a deep breath for me and count to three.”
“One-
Her wing popped back into place without warning, causing a fresh wave of pain followed by…nothing. The crippling pain was gone, leaving behind a tender ache. Ditzy spun around and grabbed her friend, clinging to him as the knots of tension in her back slowly loosened. “It’s alright now,” the Doctor soothed. “You’re alright.”
“Something attacked me!” Ditzy whispered. “I think it’s still here!”
“I can see that.” The Doctor met the creature’s gaze fearlessly as it trotted toward them. Another came with it, followed by several more. Soon Ditzy and the Doctor were surrounded by a hoard of the chitin-covered ponies. “They’re changelings. Try to stay calm.”
Ditzy leaned against the Doctor and shivered as the changelings examined them. “What do they want?”
“I’m working on that.” The Doctor draped a protective leg over her shoulders. “We’re going to have to immobilize that wing for a while.”
For the moment Ditzy allowed herself to be weak. She leaned against the Doctor and dried her eyes, taking comfort from being so close to him. Once again he had showed up and taken away her pain. The small ache of unrequited love was nothing in the face of their friendship.
*****
Bit of a title drop there, with Celestia’s praying. I personally like the idea of Celestia carrying a torch, especially since it would be nigh impossible for her to have any kind of age appropriate romance anywhere else. Anyways, so sorry that this took so long. I considered lying and saying that I had to work a lot or that my job hunt took up a lot of time, but I don’t want to lie. It was video games. Video games are why this chapter took so long.
Anybody have any thoughts on the writing style? One of the major reasons that I’m doing this is so that I can get better. And because ponies are awesome, but that goes without saying.