It was unspeakable. It was impossible. But that’s what this had all been about, wasn’t it? Chaos, impossibilities, death. Inside Discords mind, I died in many ways, all of which I would have thought far greater than impossible. And this was in a matter of five seconds. I don’t know how to explain it while doing it true justice.
Imagine darkness. Not hiding under the bed darkness, or locked in a toy store after closing dark. Not even blindfolded-at-midnight-in-an-unlit-alleyway-while-unconscious dark. Try the devils soul dark. Then make that 30158642 times darker. You aren’t very close yet. It was actually physically, mentally, and emotionally painful. I mean… the extent of it is unspeakable.
Five seconds. That’s all the time the true darkness lasted. That’s all the time it had to. Yet I think that’s all the time it could. After those five seconds, everything lifted. The darkness, the pain, the torture of it all. It all subsided. But didn’t leave. When it lifted, the world was clean. Too clean. I was in a meadow. A beautiful meadow. The grass was that perfect length. The length that parents want cut because they think it looks trashy, but children know is perfect for laying down in so that it settles over your face and tickles your nose. It was healthy and green, and flowing in a warm, gentle breeze. There was nothing but that meadow. You could see forever: literally. It stretched as far as the Crossroads, and was entirely meadow grass. It was as close to a perfect place as I had ever seen.
There was a tree. A small tree, but a nice tree. Just a little willow tree, standing alone. It was swaying just as much as the grass, despite the breeze not being very strong. Discord sat underneath it, seemingly asleep. I didn’t walk right up to him, but instead took a few walking laps around the tree, getting a little closer every time. After about four times around, I took the chance of lying down by the tree, keeping a shield ready to raise just in case.
“Nice, isn’t it?” His voice startled me. It was soft, gentle. Calm, even. It was everything that Discord wasn’t. I heard him settle into his spot before continuing. “It isn’t what you expected, is it?”
I sighed in what was almost contentment. “No, it wasn’t,” I admitted. “Especially after the scream fest that you put me through in just getting here. What was that, anyways?”
He gave a low chuckle. Not his usual twisted one, but a gentle, regretful one. “That was the darkest reaches of my psyche. It isn’t something that even I dig through often.” He gave a shuddering sigh, like he was really as traumatized as me and just not hiding it as well. “”Not even when I was encased in stone.”
I let out a long, slow breath. There was something normal about his behavior. By the standards of a normal person, which was abnormal for him. “The darkest reaches, huh? We go through pure evil to get to the most beautiful and peaceful place I’ve ever seen? How does that work?”
“It’s, uh… complicated.” He spoke hesitantly, like he was trying to decide how to phrase his words. “You know, I wasn’t always like this. The ‘this’ that you know and pony-kind remembers. I used to be peaceful. I was kind. I liked order and logic.”
“So what happened?”
“Celestia happened. The myths about she and I were true. To a degree.” He was speaking very softly now. I was straining to hear him. “We weren’t a couple. It was that I was infatuated with her. Nothing more. She didn’t feel the same way. We were kids though. It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did. Gods, it did. It ate at me for millennia while we lived as friends… You know, I’ve never spoken of this before.”
I nodded. It was in his voice. It was the truth. “I know. You wouldn’t lie about this.”
“Good. As long as you know that.” He propped himself up on the tree and sat with his arms crossed across his knees. “So, really you can guess the rest of it. It just drove me mad. I started practicing with my magic more, I developed greater and greater power, and eventually she had to seal me away. Luna was there, but didn’t participate. She was truthful when she said I hadn’t played any games with her. Tia insisted on doing it herself. She was always so brave, my girl. Ever since we were young.”
As he spoke, it seemed as if the area around us was slowly brighter, like the sun was rising. “When she put me away, I snapped in the truest sense. I felt… betrayed. How could she have done that to me? It was cruel. Those years of solitude… it’s hard on a man. I wasn’t imprisoned for too much longer than Luna, but it was very hard. Do you realize what kind of strength she must have to be as she is now? After what she went through?” He turned to face me, to look me squarely in the eye. “Do you really?”
I sat up and sighed again. I thought for a minute, then stood. I didn’t bother brushing off; there was something nice about even the dirt in this place. I resumed my circular path while I thought and spoke. “You know, I haven’t really thought about what she went through. I try not to think about it. I don’t like the idea of her locked in the moon with the parasitic spirit of Nightmare Moon festering within her. I mean, you wouldn’t want Celestia to go through that, would you?” He shook his head slowly. “Exactly. When I think of what she deserves, it’s a daunting task. Thinking of every single thing she should have, that she deserves to have. Because then I have to try and wrap my brain around the concept of infinity and eternity. She deserves every good thing in existence, this world and the next.”
He looked puzzled for a brief moment. “But isn’t there a finite number of good things in existence?”
I laughed quietly. “Depends on your line of thinking. See, I’m a very ‘up’ person. I like to think that there is more good than evil in the worlds. And all things considered, there’s a hell of a lot of evil out there. But I also believe that everyone is good at their core. And really, this little sojourn through your noggin makes me believe it all the more. I mean look at all this!” I gestured to all the grass around us.
He just looked around sadly. “This is just grass, my friend. Nothing special about it.” He tore up a handful as if it proved his point.
I smiled wide and took the torn grass from his hand. “Naw, man. This is peace. Like, more so than the fishing pole was. This is something that exists within the purity of chaos, yet remains totally at peace with itself.” I threw the grass clipping into the wind and watched them blow away. “See? Lookit that. You try to hurt a little part of it, and it just keeps moving. The world keeps spinning. Time keeps flowing. The wind sings its song forever, and the grass never tires of the dance.”
He snorted with a chuckle. “You sound like a damn hippie,” he muttered. His expression was sour, but when he looked at where the grass had faded into the distance he looked like he almost understood. But only until he looked away.
I laughed with him for a second. “Well, I am a bit of one, truth be told. I like the idea of the existence of a utopia. Until now, I had thought that the Crossroads might have been the closest possible. But now, looking at this, I think this is even closer. And all the more miraculous.” I sat next to him, the new dirt patch between us on the ground. “Made out of chaos magic within you, right?” He nodded. “Peace from chaos.” I ran my hand through the shreds and roots still left and used my own chaos magic to grow them back to perfection. “Everything moves in its own, but accepts help from the rest.”
He smiled and sighed, finally looking as if he understood. “I suppose. But time doesn’t move here. The wind’s song isn’t music, the grasses movements aren’t dances. They want to be, but they can’t be. Music doesn’t work here anymore.”
I didn’t buy that. “Music not only works everywhere, but it is everywhere.” I leaned against the tree and listened to the wind. As I did, I tapped a tune out on the wood. Just a simple tune, not any specific song. But as I did, Discord listened intently. “Don’t try too hard to hear it,” I cautioned. “In fact, join in if you want.”
He settled back next to me and began to tap a tune of his own. As we drummed, the change in the light was most noticeable. The sun grew so much brighter in the sky that I would have been sure that when I arrived it had been night. We made a simple melody between ourselves, the hum of the wind, and the whistle and rustle of the grass. I kept drumming for as long as he did, never really sticking to a certain single pattern, just playing what felt right. We may have played for five minutes, and it may have been weeks. The only things we knew were ourselves and the song. It was the most peaceful time I’ve ever known.
After a while, Discord stopped drumming and let his claw fall into his lap. He breathed out a sigh of happiness. “I’m not the Lord of Chaos anymore, you know.”
It was my turn to be confused. “What do you mean? Despite what I said to push you into lending me a little bit of power, you have certainly earned that title here today. And in fact, if I’m not mistaken, it’s still going on out there.”
He began to chuckle and let his head roll from side to side in disagreement. “No, I don’t deserve it anymore. To control chaos, you have to understand it. I think I did, a long time ago. But not anymore. Not like you do. When I gained the power I have now, I discovered this place. I never understood why it was here. Never, not in all my years, even while I was trapped in stone. And you held your own out there. I mean, while you were trying to figure out what Ben meant by you existing in life and death at the same time, you were spinning in circles yelling jokes and insults at him while evading my killer bees. We may very well have been locked in that battle for years if you hadn’t seen that by existing as a spirit you could invade my own, and therefore invade my mind. You did the one thing no one really expected, and made it work. You know chaos. You are the Lord of Chaos.”
I blew a raspberry and put my hand to my face. “I don’t want to be. I’m already called a hero against my will. If I get the title of ‘Lord’, then I should hang up my pony form now. I just want to be a regular guy. Like I used to be. Plus, you know, my wife. A regular guy with a wife who also happens to be a shape-shifting pony princess from another universe. Is that so much to ask?”
He laughed once, almost scornfully. “Yes, that is a bit much. But the fact is that you still have that wife. You’ll be with her soon. I’m going to expel you, body and spirit, from me. Then I want you to use the same magic I’ve given you to do something that gets rid of me. I have to keep up the mad-man act, but it will be severely toned down. If it kills me, so be it. I’d really rather it didn’t, but if it does I’ll live. So to speak.”
I only had to think for a second before I knew what to do. “All right. Do it. I’ll see you in a moment, my friend.”
…
When Discord tells you ‘expel’, take that as ‘do everything but stick a grenade in your ass to remove you’. Coming out of his head, I felt none of the exuberance that I felt just earlier before. What he had said about time not passing the same way inside his mind was true, because by the looks of the sun not even a half hour had passed. Everyone was still there, waiting for some kind of change in the situation I guess. My parents seemed to be the only ones who were surprised to see me again, though. Everyone else simply waited for something to happen, like they knew I probably had some kind of plan. For once, they were right.
Discord soon appeared in his full, tangible glory. He was right, he still appeared to be insane, but in a dramatically decreased way. He floated down to the ground and rested his hands on his knees, resting. “Well, my boy,” he panted. “You are impressive. I can’t believe you lasted this long. This is the best anyone has ever done. So, what’s your next play?”
I pushed myself shakily to my feet. All the injuries I should have sustained by that point seemed to have been had in my flying across the battlefield. I could feel fractures, cuts, and all sorts of physical trauma starting to creep up. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on my spell. I brought my hands together, a soft, silver glow forming between them. As I drew them apart, the glow turned into a ball of light. As soon as it was ready, I looked up at Discord. He was still waiting, still panting and tired. He smiled briefly and nodded once. I just hoped that no one noticed.
Finally, a beam of light shot forward from the ball, striking Discord in his heart. His face took on an expression of surprise and pain, similar to that of his first two stone incarcerations. With any luck, it was a position he was satisfied with, because it, too, turned to stone. All that effort, and I locked him away again just like before, this time just using his own magic. As his face hardened, a last smile formed across his lips. One of actual happiness, which was rare for him. It was good to see.
The spell ending, I stumbled back towards the group of people and ponies standing where my parents had first shown up. Luna ran forward to help me first, turning into a human as she moved, which is no easy feat. She wrapped her arm around my back and gave me a bit of support, prompting a groan as she set her arm on a particularly nasty gash.
“Oh, stop whining, you big baby,” she muttered with a smile. “You want to impress your folks, don’t you?”
“I had really hoped I had done that when I informed them I had come back from the dead twice.” I took her hand and moved it to a better spot on my side, stealing a quick kiss as I did.
She sighed and kept right on smiling, though she did wipe a bit of dirt and what was likely blood from her lips. “Yeah, they’re still in a little bit of shock at that one. And if you did it again while you were gone, please tell me now and them later.”
I spat a glob of blood at the ground and grimaced. “Yeah, don’t worry, me and Discord just had a little chat. Everything is fine. This is all from being shot out of his psyche and across a battle-worn field. I’ll fix myself up later when I feel up to it.”
She rolled her eyes as she sat me down in front of the group. “We’ll take care of you later. You aren’t doing your own stitches.”
“Who said anything about stitches? Can’t the Lord of Chaos heal his own wounds magically?”
That stopped any movement from the group. Everyone who realized what that meant stared at me for a while, and my parents just kept looking around like they had been clubbed over the head.
“What?” I was the one to break the silence. “Do I have a booger?”