//------------------------------// // What happens when chaos becomes the norm? // Story: Chaos Cooldown, an Equestria Origin Story // by JeckParadox //------------------------------// "Hello there Twilicorn!" Discord called from above. Twilight's head turned up to see the Draconequus lounging in a large comfortable chair, along with a mahogany table, tea set, and a fireplace on the underside of a cloud. "It's just Twilight, Discord." "But that's not as fun! You need a new name to symbolize your alicornship!" He said playfully, sliding out of the armchair and snapping his claw, making the whole setup evaporate. "So I suggest Edward Von Twilicorn!" Twilight sighed but she cracked a smile. "I think Twilight Sparkle is good enough." Discord gave a short laugh. "Alright, but can we get rid of the 'sparkle' bit?" "What? Why?" "It just doesn't fit with the pattern." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Okay, two questions." "Three, final offer." "..." "..." "Okay... first off, since when have you liked keeping anything within a pattern, isn't that the opposite of chaos?" Discord made a motion with his claw. "Kinda... but this particular pattern I've grown kind of attached to. Just think about it; Celestia of the Day, Luna of the Night, and in between: Edward of the Twilight!" Twilight sighed. "What do you mean, 'of the twilight'?" "The time between day and night, in this world it's the perfect title.... maybe I'm wrong about it... we could just call you Sparkle! That way your name works with the pattern: Twilight's the time you have control over, Sparkle is what you're called! Princess Sparkle!" Twilight shook her head. "Could we not talk about my name? I like it how it is, thank you. What do you mean you're attached to the pattern?" "Well, me, Celestia, and Luna, are very, very, very old. Even I can get attached to things that have been the same for so long..." he gave a warm smile. "You'll feel the same in a few million years." Her eyes widened. "Millions?" "Or billions, or trillions, or eternities.." he gave a wide grin. "Celestia's quite the old hag, you know!" "...th-that long?" "Yerp!" He said gleefully. "Next question! You have two left!" "Uh... Well, my other question was why you wanted my name to fit the pattern, I mean, why can't I just have it stay the same?" "Well of course you could keep the name, I'll grow attached to it eventually, or I could just call you Edward for a billion years until everypony's forgotten what your original name even was!" Twilight frowned. That was actually a scary thought. "Have you ever done that before?" Discord's grin kind of disappeared. "...only to myself." "Oh?" Discord looked her over again, and he began thinking deeply, an expression that didn't seem to fit on his face. "Twilight.... what I'm about to tell you... nopony in this universe knows. Nopony in this universe should know... Celly and Luna kind of know... but..." he frowned again. Twilight was worried. The Draconequus seemed genuinely torn up about this. "What's wrong?" "Well... I was just hoping we could wait a while, we have all the time in the universe, why not enjoy it? You'll learn most of it along the way anyway, if you're patient and you pay attention." "What are you talking about?! I don't get it at all." "Nah, it doesn't matter, go ahead on your way, I have a bubble to read." He said, summoning a large flattish bubble that he opened into pages that suddenly came into existence. "Discord!" He turned to her, the bubble-book popping as his claws flinched. "You can't just leave me hanging like that! I'm more curious than ever." "... promise to not let it bother you?" "...I promise, if I can." "No. I need you to promise. If this still bothers you I'll erase your memory or prove that this was an elaborate prank. Okay?" "...okay..." "No. Promise." The Draconequus had risen to his full height. "I need to know that this won't change the way you act. Alright?" "...alright. I promise I won't let what you tell me bother me." Discord let out a long sigh, stroking his beard. "Alright. I trust you. Now then... where to begin... where to begin... well, I suppose in the best place: chaos." He was about to snap his claw, but Twilight stopped him. "No, just tell me with words, if you show me images it'll leave a much longer-lasting and more emotionally invested response. It'll bother me even if I don't want to think about it. I've read enough books that I'm mostly word-proof. I'll absorb the information, but I won't think about unless I need it." "...you're too smart for your own good, Twilight." He cracked his neck and began flapping his wings. "We might as well find someplace comfortable, it's a long story..." Twilight nodded and unfurled her wings as well, taking to the air after the Draconequus. The two flew high up, where Discord stopped before a particularly massive cloud. He snapped his claw and a log cabin appeared on top of it. He fluttered down, stepping on the cloud and opening the door. Giving a gesture for her to enter. Twilight giggled and walked in, finding a similar setup to before, with a fireplace, a tea set, and an armchair. But this time there was also a purple sofa for her to lie on, as well as a cake on the table. She also noted oddly that the fire was upside down inside the fireplace. A solid ball of shifting smoke absorbing logs and spitting a nice warm fire upward into the chimney. Discord admired the strange fireplace as well. "That there, is a perfect example." "Of what?" Twilight asked. "Twilight... what if, okay, remember when I first escaped? There were clouds of cotton candy that chased ponies and rained chocolate milk. The roads were covered in soap, the ground was checkered in some spots, houses occasionally would get up and begin to float. Day and night passed incredibly quickly..." Twilight nodded. "What if, I disappeared the next day, and you had no way to change it back." "Huh?" "Just think about it Twilight... just think, what could you and your pony friends and Celestia and Luna actually do?" Twilight frowned. "We could release you again, and try to convince you to turn it back..." "Okay, say you couldn't. Say I was gone, no way to come back. No way for you to reach me. What would you actually do in that chaos world?" "Well..." Twilight frowned, thinking deeply. "We'd try to keep in contact, and then we'd try to slowly rebuild. We'd be able to handle the clouds eventually, we could build new houses to replace the ones that float off... we wouldn't starve, that's for sure... but it might be more difficult to get around..." "And that's what you have Celestia and Luna for." "Huh?" "They figure all that stuff out. All that stuff you were just talking about; those two would have helped the ponies adapt to the conditions they can't change back, and help them figure out how to wrestle the elements they don't like into something they can control." "Okay, you've lost me again." "Twilight... alright. I'll start at the beginning, that was only an example anyway." Discord said with a smirk, snapping his claws. She watched as the fire turned the right way around. The room got to a cozy temperature now that the heat-producing part of the furnace was exposed. "The very... very beginning. Oh, and when I mean don't tell anyone, your friends I suppose are exempt, as well as the other alicorns. They might as well know too." "..but wouldn't Celestia and Luna know if they are as old as you?" "no..." he leaned in close. "Don't tell them, but their brains aren't exactly of the highest quality... they can't remember much more than a few worlds." "Worlds?" Twilight asked. "I'm getting to it! Darn you, you're persistent." He leaned back into the chair, serving himself some tea with his tail. "Mountain dew?" He asked. "...uh, no thanks. I'm good." "Suit yourself. Alright, very beginning: there was nothing. Then, something unexpected happened. That was when it first started, that's where my memories begin." "By 'there was nothing' what do you mean?" "I mean there was literally nothing. Not even emptiness. Emptiness and space hadn't even been freaking invented yet... just... nothing had happened yet. It was infinitely nothing, maybe there was something before that time, but there's none of it left. Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself." "Something unexpected happened.... I wasn't really sure what I was yet. I wasn't really even conscious yet, but I existed. Something unexpected happened, I think it was just some energy, but that was enough. Just some energy, the most simple, simple thing, it just came out of nowhere, and with it's arrival I came too. The energy eventually turned into almost an atom. But the structure for an atom didn't exist yet, so it worked. "It wouldn't be possible in this universe," Discord said nonchalantly, "but that's not really important." From there my consciousness began forming. I started playing. At first I could just summon more energy, and had to wait for the shapes later. Thank goodness time didn't exist yet, or I would have been unbearably bored waiting for them to form shapes from pure energy naturally. But they did, and they reacted to each other in ways that were unexpected... and with each unexpected thing; (basically everything was unexpected considering the emptiness), I grew stronger, more whole. Finally, I created the first 'world'. I don't really remember it that well, I think it would be boring compared to my more recent ones, but it was the opposite of the Nothing, so I was satisfied. It was mostly just fire and ice. And Nothing in between. Then more unexpected things happened in the icy place. I gave a few more pushes, and with some experimentation, I got it to work. I could make whatever I wanted, I understood the way 'existence' worked. Sadly, I had no inspiration to make anything. So I did the obvious next step: I threw the two places together. Let me tell you: the first universe's first real explosion has been unmatched in magnitude and beauty by any other explosion since. And I haven't dared try to recreate it. Well, I went to sleep as the dust settled, and when I woke up, everything had cooled down. Let me tell you, I was surprised... and that was all it took. I grew in power, in intelligence, and my consciousness was complete. I had never been surprised before, and that last bit of inner chaos completed the whole ensemble. From then on the process was a lot smoother: wake up and see the world around you. Find out what's different, what parts are fun, that kind of thing... then amplify it, destroy parts of it, change parts, randomly leave things the same, build up more and more randomness and craziness and madness, and then... go to sleep again. Let it cool down. Let the dust settle. When I wake up... That madness, that mishmatch of stuff I made up on the fly and the world before it, it will have become a universe that made sense. Do you understand that Twilight? That's the main part you should get from all this: even if I had left that chaos world the way it was, it would have eventually calmed down, and the universe, it's inhabitants, and even Luna and Celestia would agree that the new world made sense. That it had it's own order. That it had it's own rules that had formed around that world. Discord was grinning wildly. "Celestia and Luna know some of this of course... they know their job is to bring order to the chaos, but they don't really get or remember why..." Well, I went along like this for millenia, but truly the first really interesting thing happened was when life first started appearing. I mean, I realized I was alive, but this was the first time something else was alive. Let me tell you, after that first accident it took so long to do it again. I was devastated. When I shifted the world again, it died. And I was alone again for nearly a trillion years before a different life form appeared. This time I took things slow with it. I improved it slowly and subtly until it was, in the terms of it's own universe, immortal. Not like me exactly... but it would last a long time. Discord's face was covered in a warm smile, deep in nostalgic memories. That was the first time I watched a cooldown. I stopped changing thing on a wide scale, and the universe changed it's laws to fit the changes I made in the burst a few thousand years before she and I decided it would be okay to just live in the new universe a while... but after only three million years she and I decided it would be okay to change the world again. After all, in that world, she was the only interesting thing that appeared... Soon we began to fit into a new method. I'd shift the world, make it as chaotic as I could, break plenty of physical laws, and basically fill it with whatever I wanted, change whatever I wanted... and then as it cooled down, and I became sleepy, she would keep it orderly. She'd shape it in a certain direction... and say goodnight to me when I fell asleep. When I woke up again the world had 'cooled down' long ago. She was magical, even before magic existed.... would you call her 'miraculous' then? Her mere presence seemed to have a calming effect on the very laws of nature....Oh... I wish I could've seen her in action, but I fell asleep so easily back then... I was so young... I barely even got to know her... Twilight's eyes widened as Discord's eyes began to water. He cleaned them with his paw in a quick motion. Well... my methods of making her immortal were flawed. She was aging, and while she helped the universe cool down, and helped the laws of physics adapt to the new world, she just made her own body less and less suitable for living in the new worlds. In the end, she died. I tried to remake her... and made Celestia instead. Together we tried again a few worlds later, and made Luna... but even though she died, what we thought of as her children, Celestia and Luna, were truly immortal. Not perfect like me of course... But close enough. They could survive the chaos and the new rules that followed. Unfortunately their memories aren't eternal. They don't remember much farther back than the world before this one. I stopped explaining all this to them after every change, because eventually they don't remember the details. I prefer they don't try to remember their mother. It just means less regrets. One thing that arose from it is what they thought of me, and their... hehehe... mission. They began to think I was a monster! That by modifying what was originally my creation that I'm destroying their world! Let me tell you, when it first began to occur to me that that's what they thought... hoo boy did I have fun with that! A whole new brand of chaos, an almost cruel one. They thought that they were the guardians of the poor pink rocks I was going to change when I remade the world? Well! Time to change them the same color as all the other ones! Pranks, tricks, it was new to me. I had never been surprised before, remember? But when I was, there was a burst of inner chaos. I found out I could trigger the same things in Celly and Luna! It was tons of fun, some of my best memories of us together.... and, a world later, their only memories of me. I thought it was funny that they called me a villain they existed to destroy, considering we were fulfilling the same exact purpose as when they saw themselves as her and my daughters... but they took it seriously. They thought that by helping the universe adapt to my chaos they were healing as much of the damage as they could... and polishing the scars afterward. They didn't see it as creation any more. Just destruction... a sentiment that their siblings got as they appeared. "Siblings?!" Twilight asked. "You mean it isn't just Luna and Celestia?" Well... they were the closest to each other, but the new spirits, as they appeared one after another, are just as much brothers and sisters to her as she and Luna are sisters to each other. The first was Triumph, the Spirit of Victory, from the first time they actually 'defeated' me. They created her to show that they won. She was the first generation of 'pony' as well. Made in their image, sent to wander the lifeless wilderness recreating herself from rocks and clouds and magma. There was no other life yet... just the four of us. And the three tried to stay away from me as much as possible. I spent more time sleeping, taking multiple naps in the same world. But I saw problems they didn't. Worlds collapse Twilight, they wither and die, just like anything else. It's me constantly revamping them with chaos that makes sure there's a world that comes after! I tried to explain that to the three of them, but only Triumph agreed. So then we started making war, me and Triumph versus Celestia and Luna. I found that that was enough of a chance for me to use my powers that I could make the world sufficiently chaotic! And then me and Triumph would sleep, and the two of them would try and fix it... and that was our new pattern. That is, until life began on a wide scale for the first time! It was beautiful Twilight, watching it. I didn't dare change anything for a trillion years, watching every little change... we even called a truce! And when I changed the world I did it on a smaller scale, so that the life could survive transitions. It just got wilder and wilder from there, Twilight. The life got bigger and bigger, and smarter and smarter. As new things appeared new immortals were formed and chosen and rewarded. We created ponies in the image of Celestia and Luna and Triumph, and by extension, her... we created dragons, we made trees, we created goats, we created leaves and flowers, minotaurs, griffons, grass, cockatrices, mushrooms!... all kinds of things, things you can't imagine, things so majestic, but you don't even notice. We made the sun and the moon last of all. We awarded 'spiritship' to a few ponies who represented a new element that shaped the universe:the triumvirate of Friendship. They don't even have their own names because they don't like to separate each other. Each one's personality is represented in five elements of harmony: loyalty, kindness, generosity, honesty, and laughter... which is technically representing being 'good natured' and being able to take a laugh and forgive mistakes. Those three are boring. I could prank them nonstop for years, and they'd merely laugh while undoing each one slowly on their own time. Ugh. Triumph hated them. So they froze her in stone. And thusly ridding the world of war: friendship overran the world. That was the first time I realized there was a balance to all this, and that it shifted along with each world. As each new spirit was added to our slowly building pantheon, the ways they controlled the world shifted too. Celestia and Luna lost power, not that they remembered. But I didn't. I just got tougher and tougher and smarter. That was also when my form became static. I could transform into whatever I wanted before then, and I still can now, but that was when I got this form. He gestured to his own body, the mismatch of animals. Having a form however, means I'm part of order, so I had to at least make sure I don't work. As if to prove his words he tipped his head back and showed Twilight he was completely smooth and hollow inside. Like the inside of a vase. She shuddered, and Discord put his head back in it's proper position. "Sorry." he said. "But I digress... I found starting fights between spirits, or sealing them away, I could cause huge, dramatic, unexpected changes in the natural world as the other Spirits try unsuccessfully to fill in voids or deal with matters they're not attuned to. It's subtle chaos that grows and explodes over time... but when they wake up, the cool down is so much faster, and I can get started on making more chaos the very moment I wake up! It continued like this for dozens of worlds, up until the last one... Discord gave a sly smile. The world before the world before Equestria. Your granddaddy world. That was when Friendship got fed up with everypony, her infinite patience somehow used up, and she systematically sealed away every single spirit beside the big three: me, Celestia, and Luna. Let me tell you the chaos was palpable. And it wasn't even directly my fault! I just pushed them a little. The most chaos in the universe for trillions of worlds, and it was the Spirit/Spirits of Harmony that set it off! Oh the irony, I was proud of them, let me tell you! All that delicate balance between spirts: poof! Gone! Yadda, they're out of there. The entire world fell into discord. Gravity threw up, light decided that it would do whatever the heck it wanted, reflecting off of things that don't reflect, passing through things it shouldn't, the plants and animals changed and shifted in absolutely insane ways. And if you don't believe me, look at a manticore or a Cockatrice. Heck, just look at an ordinary giraffe! The laws changed again, in a way more extreme than ever before. And after one of the longest cool downs in trillions of worlds, after all, there were only three... or five, if you look at Friendship as individuals, spirits trying to bring back order this time. Not that they didn't make more to help them along the way, like the Windigoes. But it worked, and we got a world with plants that ate soil and sunlight, animals that had to eat the plants, and animals that had to eat animals. We had clouds that would eventually collect too much steam and explode, releasing rain and lightning. We had rocks that could be compressed into gems, it was a very ordered world, but a very wild one. I liked it, despite the savagery that went on between different species. It had very clear boundaries and rules, but within those rules tons and tons of freedom. Actually, when I messed up that world to create Equestria Celestia managed to keep a bit of the world intact. You might recognise it. 'Everfree Forest'? The reason it's so scary and weird is because it comes from another world. Or rather, it's built like another world. It doesn't follow your rules. Through Celestia, Luna, and Friendship's work, they managed to rebuild civilization. They brought order to one of the longest-lasting worlds in my memory. And despite the fact I stayed awake during the majority of the cooldown, I went to sleep seven times during that world, just so that they could build it up so well. And then I twisted it around and made it go insane and colorful and fun, just like always! I did a whole bunch of hilarious changes, I gave a third of the ponies either wings or horns, not both, because that would have made sense, and actually made them work! I made ponies made of crystal, I made ones that were half-dragon! I made it so that the rocks grew and the plants didn't! I made the sun and the moon stay in the exact same position, the sun on one side in the day, and the night literally attached to the moon on the other! Ha! I made it so that the ones with wings could walk on clouds, and I made it so that the clouds would just grow and grow and grow, never releasing water or lightning until you squeezed it out of them, like a grape! And then, as the final kick in the flank to the spirits of Harmony, I gave a little spirit-like power to every single creature of the whole world. Let's see them deal with that! The ponies with horns got a little bit of an unfair share, but I felt guilty because all they got up to that point was a useless tiny horn. I made it so that the regular ponies could force the plants to grow, but that was a mistake, it made it far too easy for Celestia to abuse that power in the cooldown, making sure the plants would grow almost the same as before. And that spirit power didn't just belong to the ponies! I gave powers to zebras, so they could do things like a unicorn without wings or a horn, I made it so that dragons shrink and grow with their emotions, and ate rocks... that was another mistake by the way, Celestia used that to mostly counteract the fact that my rocks grow. She keeps the ground almost completely level by having dragons constantly eat the rocks that grow underneath the crust... growing upside down! How could she turn that into something orderly!? Ah, anyway. I didn't find any of that stuff out until I woke up, that was when the fun began. I tried to mess things up right after they finished cooldown, but Friendship, Celestia, and Luna were waiting for me! I brought chaos to the land, but the two of them actually joined their powers with the Spirits of Harmony, and they used the magic I gave everything against me. They actually sealed me, Discord, oldest and most powerful of Spirits in stone! While I was singing no less... It was three thousand years that passed, and I decided to play things as a new game. Oh, by the way, that was three years ago. You kind of know what happened. I set off the first wave of chaos, and then you and your five friends managed to use the elements to beat me. Honestly, I was intrigued that they even worked. I wanted to see more of this world, and it wasn't the first time I was patient and merely lounged through the order instead of sleeping through it. That was why I allowed Celestia to 'reform' me. Oh that poor, poor, mare. Discord laughed. She genuinely thinks that I was a monster who she sealed away with a bunch of magical artifacts. She doesn't even remember how Friendship sacrificed herself, sealing herself in stone like all the other spirits, in order to make those pieces of jewelry. Well, now that I've told you the history of everything, I'm going to tell you what part you play in it. Twilight, you and Cadence are the first two alicorns that have been made since Luna. All the other spirits were former 'regular' ponies. That's because of magic. Cadence was born a thousand years before you were, I was in stone at the time, but I'm told it was a fairly crazy decade. Luna decided to rebel and change the world, one that would have made for a nasty cooldown, but not enough chaos, it's not something I would do. I mean, why have just one time of day? Why not three? Day, Night, and Edward! Hmm... we'd need another orb too... nah, but like I said. Day and Night, and the sun and moon representing them, are two things I've grown attached to. But I'm getting carried away again. Well, because love had become a physical force, and because of how interconnected it was to magic, a spirit of love was created: Mi Amore Cadenza. A certain bookworm unicorn filly though, quickly changed her ancient and holy spirit name into the easier to pronounce 'Cadence'. Cadence exists because love has become something that literally shaped the world just as much as friendship or victory or knowledge or my chaos.. well, not as much as my chaos, but close. Love existed before, in previous worlds of course, but never on a scale where it was important enough to warrant a spirit. I thought that was it for then, I mean, two spirits in the same world? It had never happened before, unless you count Friendship's three bodies springing forth at once. Magic had also, finally, become important enough that it warranted a spirit as well. Personally, I'm mad that one wasn't made instantly, but hey... at least she found a good one. Discord leaned in closer. "I don't really mean to insult you, but Luna was hoping for Starswirl..." Twilight made a happy sound and she put her hooves together. "You mean I'm in the same magic class as the Great Starswirl the Bearded?!" "Twilight. You're the Spirit of Magic. Starswirl the bearded would have wished he was in the same magic class as you." "...really?" "Really. So... essentially, that's the gist of it. I mess up the world.. go to sleep... and the world, just kind of... accepts the new messed up version as 'normal'. You, Luna, Celestia, the Windigoes, Cadence, and the Elements of Harmony... all of you exist so that when the world gets messed up again, you can help the ponies adapt to it." Twilight gulped. "This... is a lot to take in..." "I know. But don't worry... eventually you'll forget about this conversation..." Twilight frowned. "I... I will?" "Yes. You will." "Will..." Discord frowned. "Hey! No frowns! I told you to not let this bother you! You promised." "no, no... I'm not going to let this bother me... but.. will I eventually forget about my friends? Are they immortal too?" "...No. They aren't." "..." "Twilight, everything passes... the idea is, that, well." Discord turned toward the small alicorn. "The idea isn't that you focus on what's gone. The idea is that you keep making new things. Your friends are going to die someday Twilight, and you're not. But you'll have to make new friends." "I... you want me to replace my friends after they're dead?" "No, no, no! Nothing as heartless as that, Twilight, who do you take me for? I know how important friendship is." He gave a warm smile unbecoming of the Draconequus. "Your friends are individuals, they're special, and you can never replace them. But after they're gone, that shouldn't stop you from finding new friends." Twilight sunk into the sofa, thinking. "Discord...?" "Yes?" "Can I ask you a question?" "I don't know, can you?" Twilight rolled her eyes. "Discord... are you God?" The Draconequus' eyes widened in surprise. He opened his mouth, but shut it again. "Well... I hope not. I don't think so." "But you created the world! You created Celestia and Luna!" "Yes... but... they were random. I'm chaos, Twilight. I can control what I do, but what comes naturally isn't anything I put thought into. I'm not God, Twilight. If I'm going to glorify myself, I might as well say I'm his favorite paintbrush perhaps... or perhaps the guy giving him the parchment." He gave a sly smile. "Maybe I'll meet him someday. There seems to be too much intention in every world.. and when a world really works, something stops me from spreading too much chaos, be it a new invention from a different Spirit, or my works ending up turning against me. I can make things random, but those 'random' things always turned out to work.... even before I had all the other spirits around to speed up the cooldown." "Alright... a second question... what do you think of Celestia and Luna? Are they... siblings to you? Children? You said you created them." "...I don't consider them my children, even if that's what they're closest to. We don't share any genetic material. But then again, a few million worlds back, genetic material didn't exist! 'Life' was closer to what fire was. Moving, affecting it's surrounding, but created out of a reaction as it's own individual flame..." Twilight smiled. "You can get pretty poetic, when you're not trying to be funny." "Oh? Is that what you think of my jokes?" He gave another sly grin, snapping his claws. Twilight was now bright blue. "What about that?!" "Slightly irritating. Please make me go back." "I did it to you with magic, turn it back yourself." Twilight frowned, but concentrated for a few seconds, her colors gradually turning back. "Amazing!" She turned back to Discord. "But, if not your children, what do you consider the Princesses?" Discord sighed. "I think of them as her children." Twilight blinked. Surprised. "But I thought you said that you made them." "I did. But I was trying to remake her. They didn't come out wrong though... just... the same person can't exist more than once. Celestia and Luna slowly individualized themselves, but I can still see the resemblance between them and her. I made them to be what she was, so she could continue to live... and I kind of did, kind of didn't. She was passed on, they're the same thing as her children. She remains through them, what she taught me, I passed on to them... I kind of like to think of myself as their uncle." Twilight smiled. "What about me?" "Oh, I never really felt the same about the other Spirits as with them... Triumph was a creation of theirs, but she took to me much better... I suppose I could consider her my daughter, she doesn't consider Celestia and Luna her mothers... as for you... you have your own family. You were born from two ponies, you lived as a pony, you're a pony. You've joined our ranks, so you're kind of like family, and I'm sure you'll get to know us better than anypony you've ever met before... but you're still a pony at heart. That might change over millions of years, and eventually I might think of you as a spirit, and you might think of yourself as a spirit... and then, I don't know. Maybe you could be my niece, or my daughter, or just... 'family'... to me. I don't know. We have all the time in the universe to find out... but right now. I think you're just my friend." "Just your friend?" "Just my friend. And that's not too bad of a thing to be, is it?" "...no, it isn't." "So, what else were you doing today?" "Well, I was going to see Fluttershy and Applejack over by the town square for-" "Sounds like fun! Can I join in?" "...well, I thought maybe I should call it off, take a day to think about this..." Discord shook his head and laughed. "Twilight, Twilight, Edward, Twilight, Twilight... you'll have all the time you want to think about it. You could spend eleven hundred years thinking about it and nothing else, someday. But if you did that you'd go crazy from boredom. But today? Let's go talk with Fluttershy and Applejack. Days like these don't last forever." Twilight smiled and nodded, but before they left the cabin on the cloud Twilight nudged him with her hoof. "One last question?" "Shoot." Discord said. "How much longer will this Equestria last?" "Twilight, this world is young. Not even a million years old yet...The world Everfree was from was ancient, it lasted for more than thirteen billion years... and I like this world a lot more. And have more reasons for letting it stay the same. Who knows? Not in your friends' lifetime. Not in their descendant's lifetime... I think I'll wait until Fluttershy's line is gone from the world, or maybe just until she's related to everypony." "That long?" Discord smiled. "Maybe sooner, maybe longer. Who knows? It's part of my nature to be sporadic and unexpected... but I plan on relaxing a long time. Maybe I'll take a nap, or just lounge through it for a while...nothing needs to be decided today. And I won't know when until it happens. Until then, why not enjoy ourselves?" Twilight smiled and wiped her eyes with her hoof. "Let's go see what Applejack and Fluttershy are up to." Discord nodded. "I'll race you there." "No teleporting!" Twilight said jovially. "Fine, then no flying either." With a snap of his claws both of their wings disappeared, the cabin disappearing as well. The two plummeted through the cloud, Discord screeching with joy, Twilight screaming in fear. They both crashed into the field below, leaving a pony-shaped hole and a jumbled mess of a hole in the ground. Discord slithered out, dusting himself off before reaching down the other hole and pulling out Twilight. She shivered for a second, but she dusted herself off afterward and concentrated, bringing both her and Discord's wings back. "That was mean, Discord. I wasn't prepared." "You're fine." He snapped his claw and the hole behind them filled in with water. It overflowed slightly, forming a new pond for the park. He put in a lilly pad for good measure. "We should jump from the moon next time!" Twilight shook her head. But she found that after the shock stopped she began to laugh. "Okay... that was a little fun." "Then it was worth it." The two spirits walked down the path to Ponyville, not caring about their race, or the pond they just created, or the fact that they were spirits. They were off to spend the day with two of their pony friends. And what better way could a day be spent?