A/N: Ah, a long time in coming, this. I'm a student first, fanfiction author second, so sometimes this is the best I can do. I'll keep trying to minimize the time between updates. Thank you for waiting so patiently. Also, kindly disregard some wayward indentations in the text. I cannot for the life of me figure out why they are being formatted like that. They should not be there, and are not during editing. Thank you.
Chapter 5: In Which an Old Story Begins
All around her, darkness pressed in. Gone were the waving grasses of the meadow and the silver beams of moonlight that had lit her path. No matter where her eyes darted, they met only the deepest black, and Twilight Sparkle's breath quickened as she tried to make sense of how this could be. A mere moment ago, she'd been glaring warily at Discord's stone face, oblivious to the serene night around her as every shred of attention worked towards anticipating his next move. Now... now all that had been was gone, swallowed up in some sort of shadowed void. Despite her best efforts, Twilight's breath came in the frenzied snorts of a terrified equine.
What had he done? What in Celestia's name had she agreed to? What nefarious spell had she allowed Discord to cast, stealing away all sight and silencing even the barest whisper of--
A snicker to her right, concealed in the dark. Her ears swiveled towards it instantly, head following as Twilight bared her teeth in its direction.
“Discord! You jerk, what did you do?”
More snickering. Giggling. Familiar cackles seemed to come from everywhere at once, and though Twilight tried to keep her courage in their face, her fortitude was rapidly failing. Her ears quivered where they lay against her skull, hidden amongst a bristling mane. When she called out again, her voice carried a weak waver she could not conceal.
“I know you're here, Discord. Whatever you've done, you don't scare me! Come out where I can--”
“Ah, Twilight Sparkle.”
Soft and eerily sibilant, his voice silenced her with no effort at all; speech died in her rapidly constricting throat.
Every muscle quivered in anticipation as Twilight strained to see something, anything, that would tell her what her opponent was planning, but it was to no avail. No matter how she tried, she could not discern Discord's form from the surrounding void, and so she was left waiting for his next move. Fortunately, or perhaps not, he rose to expectation.
A feather-light caress trailed down one side of her neck, companion to warm breath tickling the inside of her ear. Both sensations were punctuated by a chortle who's source was far too close to her face.
Twilight could withstand no more; with a piercing shriek and a fear-fueled thrust, she leaped what she hoped was away from her tormentor. Her hooves flailed aimlessly, striking without sight to guide them. She hoped to at least hit him if not find solid ground again, only to... land very loudly and gracelessly on her back. Kinesthetics painted a very humiliating picture of her hooves waving haphazardly in the air, and she growled as she rolled over in hopes of regaining lost dignity. Already, she could hear the unseen Discord's snickers grow into helpless guffaws.
Embarrassment toppled fear for a moment, and she snarled in what she hoped was his vague direction.
“Don't you dare touch me you... you...” She grit her teeth when a suitably vile word failed to come. “Undo whatever you've done! This wasn't part of our deal!”
“Oh, it wasn't? Are you sure about that, Ms. Sparkle?” His oily tone made her shudder, but she kept turning to face it nonetheless.
“Yes, I'm sure! Take us back, now. Or... or bring everything else back. Or... you... gah!” Aggravation escaped in a frustrated snarl, only to provoke another bout of taunting laughter.
“Come now, Twilight Sparkle! I thought you wanted me to answer your questions. You certainly aren't--”
“Exactly! I wanted you to answer my questions, not... not take us to some... I... you... will you stop laughing?!”
She may as well have been yelling at a very obnoxious wall. Discord's cheerful laughter continued to echo in the blackness, unbridled and unhampered by even the angriest of her growls. Twilight could only stand snorting and fuming, anxious in the knowledge that while she could not see him, he seemed to have no trouble finding her. She could pinpoint his presence by sound of voice alone, and it circled her again and again, clearly able to navigate with ease while she was forced to blind stillness.
The situation should have terrified her far more, but anger fostered a defiance that kept her mind startlingly clear as Twilight did the only thing she could in her wretched situation: waited for Discord to, once again, tire of laughing like a mad thing. It took him a woefully long time to oblige her, and by the time he quieted she could only express her disdain with what she hoped was a very dramatic sigh.
“Are you done? Great. Now, could you please just...” she trailed off, suddenly uncertain. Silence had fallen too abruptly, too completely. Without Discord's laughter to give her something to focus on, disorientation returned, and she swallowed against the fresh pang of fear accompanying it. Her ears began to swivel this way and that, searching for a new sound to act as an anchor for her attention. They found only utter quiet, and the sudden change was enough to... what was that?
Her entire body tensed with the instinctive awareness of a prey animal, disturbed by a sudden disquiet that tainted the air. A sense of danger flared in her mind, a feeling that existed in disturbing contrast to what had been, a moment ago, mere annoyance. His continued muteness only served to feed it.
“D-discord?” The tremor crept back into her voice. Her ears strained. “Discord, I'm serious! If you... if you want me to keep my end of the deal, you have to keep yours. And... and you... where are you?”
More silence, somehow unbearably thicker now than it had been when she'd first woken up to the darkness. As easily as anger and annoyance had grown before, fear did now, finally taking its rightful hold of her as no answer came.
“Discord, please!”
“You wish for me to honor our deal?”
A tremor raced through her.
Gone was the nasty teasing, the amused tone that had served to inspire only frustrated indignation. In its place was a voice so deadpan and cold, so starkly serious that it threw a chill down her spine. It remained his voice, yes, but it was so unlike its usual nature that it inspired nothing but the deepest, ugliest fear within her thudding heart. This was the voice of the creature she'd expected when Celestia had detailed his crimes, and his sudden, unexplained appearance filled her with acute dread. Her whole body tensed with new terror, and she could hardly force words through her constricted throat.
“Y-yes. Yes, I...”
“You are absolutely certain?”
She trembled all over now, horrified by the snakelike hiss carrying his words. Each syllable came in another warm puff of air against her muzzle, once more revealing his position as being right before her. This time, however, frantic terror rose in place of the righteous indignation of before, and the urge to scream came not due to being suddenly startled, but because Twilight was legitimately afraid of the unseen monster before her. Fear had never been something she'd truly associated with Discord, relegating him instead to the realm of severe anger and annoyance. Now, fear paralyzed her. She could not even gather herself enough to analyze the change, all effort dedicating to simply facing him in the total darkness. The strain left her lightheaded, but duty and determination endured. Thus, so did she. Adamant was the need for success; clearly, she'd already sacrificed something for her chance.
“Yes,” she continued breathlessly, willing herself to ignore the rasping breaths warming her muzzle, “I want you to honor our deal. Reverse... whatever you've done here, so we can get started. Bring us back to Equestria.”
The moment she said the words, her mind pounced upon how little sense they made. There was no way he could have taken them somewhere, no way he could have exerted that sort of magical force while trapped in his prison. The deal could not have freed him... right? Sweet Celestia, what had she done? What had she done, and was it worth the price of the answers she needed?
Doubt formed a nauseating partnership with her fear as the breaths tickling her muzzle came in the halting puffs of a sinister chuckle.
“Well, my little pony.” His voice was deeper now, and the blackness around her seemed so much darker, so much more threatening, with the sound of it filling the silence. Dimly, for too much of her mind was devoted to maintaining control rather than sensing, she felt his claw trailing down her cheek.
“You truly wish for me to break the spell I have wrought here? You wish to continue with our bargain?”
His claw stopped, and she felt the palm of his feline paw caress her instead. On the other side, the rough scales of his talons cupped her other cheek.
Terror wrestled with need. Guilt fought resolve. Doubt matched against firm determination. In the end, though, it was Twilight's one constant, her love for her princess, that coaxed words from her once more.
“I do.” Her words still trembled, but the voice behind them grew stronger with every syllable. “I want you to answer my questions about the princess.”
Mentioning the reason for the whole mess granted a new level of empowerment, and she puffed her chest out as confidence granted her a fierce warmth.
“Now, Discord! Honor your bargain now!”
A stomp of her hoof punctuated the bold statement, helping her summon reserves of defiant courage as Discord, very obviously only a few inches away from her face, began to chuckle, an evil sound guttural in its quality. Despite her renewed bravery, Twilight began to tremble again as he stroked the sides of her face.
“Very well, Twilight Sparkle. I shall keep my word. Dear Twilight Sparkle...”
She struggled desperately to hold an image of Celestia in her mind, hold it steady and strong, as his claws ran very gently through her fur. The sick sensation of those claws against her skin warred fiercely with that image, each vying for control of her nerve. The effort to remain still was monumental, but so was Twilight's will. She steeled herself against the revolting touch, though she did not dare to answer; will was will, not invincibility.
His fingers stopped at her temples and traced lazy circles there. Round and round they went, stroking, rubbing, caressing, and the bizarre regularity of it added enough fear to birth vertigo. Still she persevered, focus on Celestia never wavering. Duty kept her. Duty saved her. Duty... love...
“Dear Twilight... we shall begin as soon as you perform one task for me. A simple task. Can you do that?”
Warmth in front of her, not only that of his breath, but that of his body. Warmth mere centimeters away as she spoke with a voice barely holding tone.
“Do... do what?”
He chuckled again, fingers sliding to rest around her eyes.
Every last muscle fiber begged her to flee, but fear had grown to the point of joining courage in a form of bizarre hypnosis, and she took his actions in quivering stillness.
“I want you...”
He leaned in even closer. She could smell him, musky and strange. For a faint moment, she thought she could feel his fur just barely brushing her muzzle.
“...to open...”
What were his claws doing? Drawing together as they were, applying pressure right over... but wait, how could they, right there? They should have... wait...
“...your...”
What--
“...eyes!”
The body before her lay totally still but for the rhythmic rise and fall of its chest. Her blue eyes remained fixed on it, never straying even as the moon continued on its steady path across the midnight sky. The sounds of the night went utterly ignored in her intense concentration.
Finally, after countless minutes, she made her move. With agonizing slowness, she inched a pearly pink hoof forward, tongue peeking out from between pursed lips. Closer and closer she dared, until at last it hovered mere millimeters above the furry chest. She kept that position for a few more seconds before, exhaling sharply with effort, she thrust her hoof out with lightning speed.
Pinkie Pie jabbed Twilight's prone body and jumped aside, waiting. When nothing happened, she pouted and jabbed again, a little harder. The purple form twitched a bit, but beyond that, remained quietly unconscious at the foot of Discord's statue. With no response forthcoming, Pinkie was left to frown accusingly at the motionless unicorn.
“Really, Twilight! Falling asleep in the middle of the meadow... hmph!”
She gave Twilight another experimental shake, and when a response still failed to manifest, she gave an exasperated sigh.
“Well, if that's what you want. Just don't blame me when you're all stiff in the morning. Silly! Though...” Her expression relaxed into a gentle smile. “I guess you have been awfully busy lately. Sleep tight, then!”
With a final pat on Twilight's head, Pinkie Pie left, continuing on her late night stroll with customary bouncing enthusiasm.
Twilight Sparkle remained where she lay at the foot of the great statue, for all appearances slumbering peacefully in the light of Luna's moon.
“I... I can't... You... you thought... oh my sides!”
Twilight watched as Discord proceeded to, for the fifth time in so many minutes, collapse onto his back, rolling about wildly as his short legs flailed about in the air. Gales of raucous laughter made it impossible for him to string more than a few words together, and in the end he gave up, resigning himself to wild mirth. Twilight, needless to say, was far less amused.
Sitting stiffly on her haunches, she granted him another unimpressed look. When that failed to urge him into some semblance of calm, she indulged herself with a roll of her conspicuously open eyes. At the sight of that, Discord finally managed to roll over onto his side, fixing her with an impish grin as his laughter reduced to hiccuping giggles.
It was too much. She snorted angrily, hoof stomping against marble tile in a fit of temper.
“Will you stop? How was I supposed to know you'd do that? It's not like I've ever seen--”
“Your subconscious?” he offered, bravely attempting to put on a straight face. Her answering scowl ruined that; with a very shameless giggle-snort, he returned to rolling around like an overly exuberant foal.
“Ugh...” Recognizing futility when she saw it, Twilight grudgingly accepted failure. There was no stopping him in this state, she understood, and so she gave her attention to their surroundings.
A hot blush blossomed across her cheeks as she gazed about the great room. What had manifested as a confusion of color and light when Discord had wrenched her eyes open was now a very clear view of an enormous room, walls lined with golden bookcases that rose from the marble floors to the vaulted ceilings. All manner of books lined the shelves: ancient tomes, thin paperbacks, hardbacks with multicolored spines. On and on they stretched, so numerous that her mind spun just gazing upon them. Now that the shock of the previous moment had worn off, she understood that they were a physical manifestation of her own thoughts and memories. Indeed, the entire place was an embodiment of her mind, a fact that she had studied carefully during her bout of research earlier that evening.
It was a fact that she'd completely forgotten when panic gripped her, so deep had been her fear when she'd awoken to total darkness.
How was she to know that mental eyes had to be almost forced open the first time around? How was she to know that she wouldn't be able to feel them, or to tell the difference between mental and physical reality?
Discord's bizarre behavior hadn't helped either, of course, and so she'd remained clueless until he'd completed his infuriating joke by forcing her eyelids open. Then... well, then all of the information she'd studied had returned in a flood, and she'd laid there in furious shame while Discord had succumbed to his paroxysms of laughter.
Now secure in understanding of what had happened, she was quite tired of indulging his humor.
“Okay, okay,” she sighed, “are you done? I get it: really funny. Can we move on now? Please?”
“Oh, but you should have seen yourself!” He proceeded to float circles around her, settled comfortably on his back and gesturing animatedly with both paw and claw. “Your face! Oh, absolutely priceless; I'll never forget it. As if you'd never seen your own--”
When her expression indicated that no, she hadn't ever seen her own subconscious, and would he please cease ridiculing her for it, he threw a paw over his muzzle to smother the guffaws threatening to burst forth.
“Discord! I'd really, really like to get on with this, if it's all the same to you.”
He seemed to have finally tired of laughing, for he wiped his eyes and obliged her with an ingratiating smile.
“Yes, I suppose you have filled my quota of fantastically humiliating entertainment for the day. Very well.” He lowered himself to her level, again too close for comfort. She held her ground, utterly fed up with his antics, and he grinned at her tenacity.
“Well, shall we begin then, my little pony? I'm certain you are just bursting with questions for little old me, aren't you?” His eyes glinted in a way she disliked, and she scowled in admittedly pointless warning that he totally ignored.
“Go ahead, my dear; ask away. I am,” he paused, pulled a pair of bright red sunglasses from nowhere and settled them on his bony face, “quite at my leisure.”
This was it: the moment she'd been waiting for. This was the chance she'd taken so many risks for, worried away so much sleep for. Finally, after doubt and shock and fear, she would get the answers she so desperately needed to understand recent happenings. Salvation for the princess was just a few bargained conversations away.
With a steadying breath, she looked Discord straight in his mismatched ruby eyes.
“Okay then.”
Another breath. He was still rather intimidating, after all, amused mood or no.
“What I want to know is...”
His grin widened, exuding a game readiness. She took another breath, trying to ignore how close he'd gotten again.
“...what is wrong with Princess Celestia?”
There; it was out. The question that had been plaguing her for over a week had finally been spoken aloud, and with it, a peculiar weight left Twilight's shoulders. Apprehension immediately replaced it as she leaned back, waiting for an answer.
The smirk vanished from his face, countenance turning unnaturally serious as he pursed his lips in thought.
“You wish to know what is wrong with your princess?”
Twilight nodded. “You said you'd answer anything. That's what I want to know.”
“Well now...”
He turned over in midair, laying first on his stomach, then on his back. His sunglasses fell when he flipped over, only to float back up to their perch as he righted himself. Over and over again he did this, appearing quite deep in thought as he went, while Twilight shifted weight from one hoof to the other in an attempt to quell her nerves. Deep thought was hardly something she was used to when it came to Discord, and the sight of it suggested that whatever answer she'd be granted was a grand one indeed.
He eventually settled on his stomach again, looking quite grave as he twisted his beard around one eagle talon. With a final sigh, he waved the glasses away and turned back to Twilight.
“Very well, Twilight Sparkle. An appropriately profound question, and I do believe I know the answer you seek. Ahem...”
He drew himself up to quite an impressive height, taking advantage of every inch of spine to tower over Twilight as she waited, now quite convinced that what she was about to hear would result in some sort of life-shattering revelation. Her ears tilted as far forward as they could, eyes fixed on Discord's pensive face.
“What is wrong with Princess Celestia is...”
Her eyes widened; her muscles tensed.
“...one slightly weak tendon in her back left hock. She does cover it quite well; one can only tell if she's trots just so for about half an hour.”
Twilight was certain she could hear a cricket chirp from back on the physical plane.
For a moment she was sure that, in her stressed eagerness, she'd hallucinated that response, but as he floated there with a look of total satisfaction on his twisted face she realized that that was not the case. He really had just given her a useless, pointless, senseless answer to her all-important query, and when she gathered the wits to speak, she let him privy to the fact. Articulately, of course.
“She... you... the... the hock... what?!”
He merely gazed down at her, unconcerned, and the sight of his face remaining completely impassive only fueled her ire. Her next words came through grit teeth as she strove to keep control on her fraying temper.
“You said you'd answer my questions about the princess, Discord. You're not--”
“Playing fair?” He turned over again, craning his neck to regard her upside down. “Now how would that be? I answered your question, did I not?”
When no answer came, Twilight left with mouth comically agape, his lips twisted into the smallest smile.
“Didn't I, Twilight Sparkle?”
“But--”
“You asked me what was wrong with Celestia, and I told you.”
“But--”
“If you don't believe me-- and I assure you, I'm quite above lying; abhorrent practice, that-- then you can go ask your princess yourself. Left hock, as I said. I suppose it is a little embarrassing, so perhaps she won't own up to it right away, but--” He shrugged, utterly nonplussed by her spluttering.
“No! That's not what I meant!”
“Wasn't it, now?”
She glared up at him, patience just about spent, as he flippantly ignored her mounting anger in favor of floating over to a bookshelf. With a flick of his wrist, several books flew off the shelves into his paws. Humming to himself, he began to juggle them.
All of her nervous energy had to go somewhere, and as Discord tossed about books that contained her very essence, it went into fury. If she'd been angry before, she was livid now.
“You... you... dumb draconequus!”
The books clattered to the floor. Discord ignored them, instead turning around to stare at her, wide-eyed and silent. She lifted her chin in triumph, gleaning what satisfaction she could from the clear verbal wounding she'd just managed to--
“'Dumb draconequus?' That is the best you can come up with? I... really? Celestia's little prodigy, and you...”
His words were lost in a snort that signaled yet another dissolution into a giggle fit. This time, however, Twilight would not stand for it. Furious and crushingly disappointed as she was, she could not.
“Now you listen here!” she yelled up at him, “I made a deal with you, and your end of that deal was to answer my questions. You and I both know that that was not what I meant. If you won't hold up your end, then I am leaving!”
With that, she turned her back on the snickering creature and, eyes hard with resolve, began to walk. The soft click of hooves on marble slowly rose above the sound of Discord's laughter as she left him behind. She refused to give him the satisfaction of a parting glare, instead focusing her eyes on the polished wooden shelves passing her by, each lined with as many books as it could hold. Only when his voice faded into the distance did she slow her pace to a dejected trudge. Her eyes left the myriad books and focused instead on her dragging hooves as she let out a tired sigh.
There was no denying it: she should have known better. Without Discord's infuriating voice and her own panic to distract her, she could see that quite clearly. The idea of actually trusting the draconequus to deliver useful information was a ridiculous mistake from the start.
The only reason she did not actively berate herself was because the answer to that question was quite obvious, even if she would not voice it. Love and concern for her mentor were not feelings to be scorned; after all, Twilight had learned far too much about love and friendship to attack a heart put in the right place.
That knowledge left her rather at a loss, for how could she truly solve her current predicament when the root cause was not something she wanted abolished? Furthermore, she still could not see a solution to her worries that she could be comfortable with. This foray into a dubious agreement hadn't been made flippantly, after all, and all outside factors remained as frustratingly discouraging as they had been at the outset. Indeed, even the slightest thought of speaking directly to the princess about all of it made Twilight as nauseous as Discord's chilling voice had.
It all left her hopelessly confused, and when she finally tired of walking and sat down, it was with a very dejected, frustrated huff. Her tail twitched in agitated spasms as the furious jumble of her thoughts descended upon her, and she began what was quite literally a mental rant.
The great library's books played audience to her frustrated tirade, standing silent as she paced back and forth, furious gestures punctuating a very loud rant that touched upon every last thing that had been bothering her as of late: Celestia's aloofness, Discord's antics, the situation currently brewing in Ponyville, her friends' disturbing lack of concern. Gaining anxious momentum, she vented every last shred of insecurity she held towards all of these things until her throat felt dry and her tongue twisted. The entire debacle ended with Twilight sprawled out on her back, hooves reaching beseechingly to ceiling as she yelled one final question to the many books bearing witness:
“And how am I supposed to get out of here, anyway?!”
“Why, don't you know?”
Books were silent; Discord was anything but. His voice startled a squeak out of Twilight, but she quickly recovered her composure, scrambling to her hooves and searching her surroundings for his serpentine body.
She finally craned her neck and found him floating overhead, clearly quite amused as he wiggled his talons in a cheeky greeting. Her neck fur bristled in renewed anger, but she kept it in check. Despite her fraying temper, she'd understood his words, and the possibility of escape demanded she control herself.
Thus, she grit her teeth and forced something resembling civility.
“What do you mean, 'don't I know?'” When he failed to respond, instead taking a keen interest in his lion claws, she pushed further.
“How could I know? I thought,” she failed to keep a faint snarl out of her tone, “that we'd already established that I've never done this before. How could I know how to get out?”
The allusion to her previous flailings seemed almost too much for Discord, and Twilight momentarily feared that she'd have to wait out another laughing fit before getting anything substantial out of him. Oddly enough, he decided to mimic her attempts at control instead, and though he chortled while he spoke, he answered immediately.
“Why, Twilight Sparkle, I'm surprised at you! I'd have thought that you, such a well-read young unicorn, would surely have done some research on leaving your own subconscious. You did read up on the subject before paying me this lovely visit, didn't you?”
“Of course I did!” she retorted with a sharp hoof stomp, “I read all about mental magic, but that didn't help me before because you nearly scared me to death. And it's not helping now!”
He tapped his chin with one long talon, gazing at the ceiling with an air of intense contemplation.
“Hmm... yes, you are quite right. Well my dear, seeing as we are in your subconscious, that knowledge should be right here for the taking, no?”
She faltered; his words were not the further ridicule she'd been expecting. They seemed almost... helpful, and though her eyes narrowed in instinctive suspicion, her mind quickly latched onto them and searched for some deeper meaning.
Despite his reputation for nonsense, what he'd said seemed anything but. From what her advanced studies had taught her, anything she knew should have been readily accessible from where she was. It was just a matter of... asking for it? Wishing for it? Demanding it? She bit her tongue as her brain scrambled for the right answer, ignoring Discord's ever-present smirk.
Her eyes began to roam as she concentrated, drawn to the many books stretching as far as she could--
The books.
“Ah ha!” she rounded on Discord, pure triumph lighting up her face, “It's in the books, isn't it? These books,” she waved a hoof at a nearby shelf, “are a manifestation of different pieces of information I know. Like this one, here.”
She focused on one book out of the thousands, a bright red hardcover, and knew instantly what it contained. Levitating it off the bookshelf, she rotated it until the title stared up at them in bright gold lettering.
“The Life History of the Black-Billed Capercaillie. Ha! See? I can call up whatever information I want here; all of it's in these books, because all of it's in my head. And this is my head. So--”
“What, by the curl of Celestia's beard, is a black-billed capercaillie?”
Twilight was too focused on her triumph to pay any attention to the frowning draconequus. She began to scan the shelves further, but her eyes instantly fixed on a leather-bound tome about halfway up to the ceiling. Instantly, because this was, after all, her mind, and so she knew where everything was the moment she wanted to know it. The thought made her smile wider, and she brought the book down with the comfortable certainty that her problems were a few page turns away.
Sure enough, as she flipped through the text, familiar information came back to her: initiation of mental contact, barriers, illusions. It all came back to her with the air of a recalled memory, which, she supposed, was precisely what the book before her was: memory made tangible.
She neared the end of the volume.
“Ha; you thought you'd won, but here it is! Right here: how to leave the... manifested... sub... conscious?”
The pages were blank.
Twilight stared at them, uncomprehending, and when words still failed to appear, she turned a few more pages. Nothing. She backtracked through the book. The most recent text plainly described advanced memory recall procedures, its last few paragraphs making a clear segue into the principles surrounding exiting. Once that section ended, however, only blank parchment followed.
Confusing. Perplexing. Infuriating.
When continued glaring at the book failed to bring up what she wanted, Twilight turned accusing eyes on a smiling Discord.
“What did you do?”
“Moi?” He rested a leonine paw on his chest, face the picture of innocence. “How could you even consider such a thing, Twilight Sparkle? Why, what possible motive could I have to keep you here? Furthermore,” he cut off her very affronted attempt at a reply, “how could I do so? I am, after all, still quite incapacitated. Why, the only reason we're here is because of our little deal. Without that, I'm still--”
“'Powerless.' So you say, but why should I trust you? If you're not doing anything, then why can't I figure out how to get out of here? Why is my own mind not giving me the information I want?”
He sighed, easing himself onto his back and floating a wide arc around her, half-lidded eyes fixed on her suspicious face.
“Ah, Twilight, Twilight, Twilight. Where's the fun in my just telling you? You're a bright student; why don't you tell me?”
“Why don't I... why... I... you... gah! You are so annoying.”
“Annoying? Why, you wound me! I would go with 'rigorously challenging.'”
Twilight nearly gave in to the renewed urge to turn tail and leave the infuriating creature behind. She abstained, though, logic winning out as she correctly identified such action as cathartic yet pointless. Instead, she contented herself with a scowl in his general direction, something that he, again, pointedly ignored.
Besides... he had something there. She was loathe to admit it, but there was an annoying touch of logic to his taunt. If she could just understand it...
“I know I studied that information,” she muttered under her breath, “so why can't I access it? I should just be able to read it right here, but...”
Slowly, her eyes began to widen.
“...but I can't, because if this is my subconscious, and it responds to my wants...”
Discord watched with an expectant grin.
“...then it would only show me that information if I truly wanted it!”
Her face lit up with a victorious smile.
“That's it, isn't it? I don't want to know how to get out, so the books won't show me!”
The joy of discovery was almost enough to make her forget whom she was speaking to, but when she glimpsed his leer, the joy bled out of her, and she met his beaming face with a renewed scowl. Discord ignored the shift and latched onto her prior energy, clapping his hands with cheerful enthusiasm.
“Wonderful! See what you can do when you put your mind to it, dear? And you wanted me to tell you. Why, it would have ruined this spectacular feeling of accomplishment you're experiencing, now wouldn't it have? I do believe you owe me some gratitude, hmm?”
A glare.
“No?”
A growl.
“Oh, fine. Be that way.”
He looked as if he wanted to say more, but Twilight suddenly gasped. Epiphany flit across her face once more, and she rounded on him as the final piece of the puzzle settled neatly into place.
“The reason,” she continued her explanation from between bared teeth, “I can't leave is because I don't want to. And I don't want to leave because I still want what you promised me. I want you to hold up your end of the deal, Discord, and I'm not going to let myself, or you, leave until you do.”
The rather pleasant smile on his face twisted into a gleeful sneer, and he alighted in front of her, leering down with more malice than he'd shown since his little game in the shadows.
“Oh, will you now? And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that?”
She cringed a little, and one could hardly blame her, for the truly did look the picture of cruel intent, face twisted into a snarl to mirror her own, snaggletooth gleaming between wrinkled lips as his unnatural eyes bore down on her in a gaze that could only be described as predatory. This was the creature that matched that voice he'd used in jest, and faced with it now, Twilight felt equine instincts urging her to flee.
Drawing on stubborn courage, she ignored them, squaring her hooves and meeting his unspoken challenge with a very plain one of her own.
“I... I have no idea. But hear me, Discord, I'll think of something. And,” she drew herself up, privately envisioning herself as a confident Rainbow Dash, “if it comes to it, I'll fight you for it. I helped defeat you before; I can do it again!”
There was no doubt she meant it, too, for all around them the endless library began to shift, hues becoming darker, shapes warped, air thickening with a violent tension that mirrored the aggression on her face. Discord watched, eyebrows raised nearly to his horns, as their surroundings twisted and smoldered with the intensity of her emotion. He watched as Twilight lowered her horn, aiming it right at him, concentrating until its tip glowed fiercely, watched... and began to laugh.
Again.
Twilight's subconscious snapped back to normal as she raised her head, incredulity replacing fury on her face only to dull into deadpan annoyance as Discord reached out and patted her head.
“Oh, Twilight, you're so cute! That's the third time. The third! Oh... and you were really going to do it! I take it you're an accomplished little warrior, aren't you? You darling little...”
“Okay.”
He quieted just enough to speak. “Okay what?”
“Okay, what do you want? What is the point of all of this? What was the point in making this bogus deal, dragging me into my subconscious, and scaring the hooves off of me for the last... what, hour? What. Is. The. Point?”
Her voice came in a tired monotone, and when Discord finally focused on her expression longer than to just laugh at it, he realized that it was one of melancholy defeat. He sighed.
Fun time was over; time to get down to business.
“Well, Twilight Sparkle, the main point was personal entertainment, as I'm sure you would have guessed if you had just the slightest iota of a sense of humor.”
She narrowed her eyes, ignoring his silly display and trying to control annoyance that even exhaustion could not quite keep at bay.
“You already had your fun before. When you refused to answer my question. After making me think I was blind. Remember?”
Smiling with comfortable satisfaction, Discord leaned back to sit in midair, crossing his legs with an air of fond reminiscing.
“Oh, I do. I do indeed. But really, one cannot have too much fun, can one? At least, I can't. Again, I feel you'd know this if you'd just--”
“So is this what you're going to do? Trap me here using my own desire to help the princess? Play with me for eternity? Is that it?”
He blinked, mild surprise invading his equine face.
“My goodness, whatever gave you that idea? Not that it is without merit, of course, but who ever said I would go back on my word? I certainly did not. Quite the contrary. I do believe I mentioned that I was a draconequus of my word, and I am.”
They were going in circles: uneven, wobbling, sloppy circles, and Twilight's exhaustion was swiftly mixing with outrage, and frustration, and the paranoid sort of panic that came when a particular academic problem failed to unveil its solution. She took a deep breath, then a second, as Discord watched with ears impishly tilted forward.
“Then why aren't you keeping it?”
He chortled deep in his throat and leaned back further, resting his head in his folded arms: the picture of relaxation juxtaposed against her stressed state.
“Ah, but I am. Did we not agree on two hours of your day in exchange for my priceless information?”
That did it.
With a long-suffering moan, Twilight Sparkle slowly leaned sideways until, with a thud that actually managed to sound depressed, she fell to the floor. She did not even bother gracing him with another glare as she answered in a tired mumble.
“You are impossible.”
“Ha!” He craned his neck, and it elongated enough so that he could look her in the face. “How kind of you to notice. I am, after all, the spirit of chaos and disharmony. Surely you did not think that this charming bargain of ours was going to be easy, hmm?”
“Ugh.” Twilight covered her face with her hooves, partly in exasperation, partly to escape the nearness of his smirking face. “So, if you're telling the truth, then I have another hour of your antics to put up with before I get anything useful out of this?
“Well.” He pulled away, neck shortening back to what passed as normal as he settled on the ground again. “I suppose I could take my other hour now, but I can see that your poor little pony mind simply cannot take the undiluted splendor that is me. So, in order to preserve your delicate constitution, I shall indulge a question the moment you are ready.”
Silence. With the air of a wary rabbit, Twilight lifted her head to peer suspiciously at him. With a noncommittal huff, she dismissed what she could only see as another invitation to humiliating disaster. Her head fell back down with another dull thud.
“Liar.”
“You're never going to get anywhere with that attitude.” The sunglasses reappeared in a flash, and he settled them on his face. “What happened to all of that princess-saving spunk you were so confidently exuding a few minutes ago?” He grinned, and that grin showed far too many teeth. “Did your oh-so-precious love for Celestia decide to take a vacation?”
Oh, now she'd had it. She could take ridicule of her intelligence, of her ignorance, of her fear; such low blows could be expected from a creature as vile as Discord. It was the insult to her devotion that truly cut deep enough to tap dormant fury, and Twilight shot to her hooves with a strangled shout, teeth bared anew.
“How dare you?! I will never, ever stop loving the princess, you hear me?”
The dignified response she received was, of course, more laughter, laughter that seemed particularly patronizing when laughed by a draconequus in snazzy sunglasses. The burning feeling in her chest devoured all remnants of hopelessness and fear. Revived, she marched right up to him and ended his guffaws with a powerful stomp.
“You... you... fine! You want my question? It's the same one!”
Around them, the air sharpened again. Both could feel the energy of it raising the shortest strands of their manes. Twilight ignored the sensation; Discord gleaned from it a shiver of satisfaction, and his grin twisted into a ready smirk.
“Tell me what's wrong with Princess Celestia!”
His answer came in two parts.
The first was words, broken up by a dark chuckle that reached through her ire to throw a chill down her spine.
“As you wish, Twilight Sparkle.”
The second was the sharp snap of his eagle talons.
For the second time that day, Twilight Sparkle's world faded to black.
Rays of sunlight filtered through the thick canopy, borrowing the hues of its leaves to paint the forest floor in dapples of yellow-green. The interplay of light and shadow danced across soft moss beds and curled ferns, fallen branches and rough grey stones, as tree boughs rustled and sighed in the summer breeze. Sparrows and finches, jays and robins, flitted amongst the foliage, their brilliant feathers gleaming in the light as they filled the air with their songs. An unseen woodpecker added its percussion to the avian chorus.
Below, a dormouse scuttled through the leaf litter on its daily forage for food. A rusty red squirrel watched from a tree hollow, eventually scampering down the trunk to begin its own search for a meal. Beyond the thick underbrush, in one of the many clearings dotting the vast woodland, a family of deer browsed, delicately nibbling at shoots and twigs. The youngest, a fawn barely out of its spots, dipped its head to sip from a clear coldwater brook.
It was a forest at the height of diversity, a habitat absolutely teeming with every sort of woodland life imaginable. The pair of wide orange eyes regarding its splendor could have belonged to one of its many great owl denizens, but the glint of amusement dancing in their depths hinted at a creature of greater intelligence than a simple beast.
“Hmm...”
She clicked her falcon's beak in concentration as she peered through the thicket concealing her form, eyes roaming the clearing before her. Unseen ears screened out the chatters of rodents and chirps of birds, straining to catch any noise that might reveal a threat. A few moments of listening found none.
“All clear, Maggy!”
At the sound of her voice, a curious thing that was part squawk and part hissing growl, every visible animal froze, ears swiveling forward to fix on the offender. Once their eyes caught up with their ears, swift pandemonium broke loose. Every single one picked whatever direction would lead furthest from the newcomer and fled. Within moments, what was once a vibrant forest environment was silent and still, save for the lonely buzz of a few insects.
Ruffling her great multi-hued wings in faint annoyance, the bizarre creature stepped out into the clearing with a haughty sniff.
“Hmph. You'd think they'd seen some sort of demon, the way they act. No manners at all. Why, how could they not appreciate this glorious sight?” She gave a little swing of her leonine hips, ensuring that the sun caught their striped rosette pattern just right as she pouted back at her companion.
He stepped up beside her, pure black coat a fine contrast to the myriad colors covering her form. Swinging his massive head back and forth, he surveyed the empty scene and gave comment with an equine snort.
“I cannot imagine why they should run, Harpy,” he rumbled in a deep baritone, and while the sound of it remained humorlessly even, a faint light in his eyes indulged his companion's jest.
“They should have remained to pay homage to your exquisite beauty. Surely, you are the loveliest creature one could ever hope to lay one's eyes on.”
Harpy giggled, flapping her massive wings and landing on a nearby tree branch... upside down. She batted her eyes at him over her shoulder.
“And don't you forget it, lovey!” With another laugh, she began to trot along the branch, and though she remained decidedly flipped, her mismatched front feet, one the clawed foot of an eagle, the other the webbed foot of a duck, made no effort to grip the bark.
Magnus shook his head at his mate's antics. He ignored her haughty prancing, turning back instead to call through the thicket. The leaves trembled as his voice echoed through the forest.
“Celestia! Luna! You may come; it is safe.”
With that, he turned away, crossing the clearing to join the still-flipped Harpy. He had to lower his great head to prevent his horn from catching the branches above, stepping carefully to avoid tripping on the great black curls of mane that dragged along the ground. Harpy waited up ahead, snickering to herself at the sight of such a massive equine picking his way daintily through the underbrush.
As he made his way across, two little fillies poked their heads out of the thicket, glancing about nervously before stepping out into the patchy sunlight.
One was as dark of coat as Magnus, but where his fur was truly the blackest black, never shifting even when the light touched it, hers held subtle tinges of dusky purple and midnight blue. Her mane possessed the same glimmering sheen, but grew lavender instead of black. Like the stallion who now stood watching her, she possessed both feathered wings and a horn, though hers was short and still-growing. As it became clearer that her surroundings were safe, a playful spark entered her bright blue eyes, and she trotted forward with a smile on her face.
The other filly remained at the edge.
Though white instead of black, she held far more similarities to Magnus than Luna did. The color of her coat was absolute: not a strand of fur even a shade darker could be found on her entire body. Her wings and horn were likewise, perfectly colorless and immaculately groomed. Only her mane and eyes, both a deep magenta, had any color at all, but even they lacked the natural variation in pigment another equine's would possess.
Though she remained at the edge of the glade, her features showed no fear that might keep her there. Rather than wary, her face was quite serene, almost pensive, as she allowed herself plenty of time to observe her surroundings. Only when Magnus cleared his throat did she break free of what seemed almost a trance, finally looking up at her two guardians with a cheerful smile.
“Oh, thank you, sir. And Harpy, too, of course!” She giggled, for Harpy had suddenly teleported from her perch to her side and plucked her from the ground.
“Ah, don't mention it, kitten. Why, it's about time you two were allowed to frolic about like the proper little imps you are.” She gave Celestia a tickle, grinning when it earned her a happy shriek.
“Now, off with the both of you! Off, off, off, to play. Go on!”
She gently tossed Celestia into the air, watching as she fluttered to her waiting sister. Both fillies glanced at Magnus, whose slight nod granted the final permission they needed to run shrieking off into the surrounding woodland. Once they were out of sight, Harpy's pleasant grin turned into a satisfied smirk.
“There now. As planned.”
“You are certain it is today?”
“Ha! Of course not. When am I ever certain of anything?”
"Harpy..."
"Oh, shush. Just wait. Wait and see..."
“I'm beating you! Ha, I'm beating you!”
Luna streaked through the forest, weaving between bushes and leaping over fallen branches as she maintained an appreciable lead on her older sister.
“Not fair!” Celestia called after her, struggling to keep up despite her longer legs, “Celine always takes you out to run. Between Magnus and Lumina, I never have a chance to practice!”
Luna giggled as she glanced back over her shoulder, giving her tail a sassy flick as she merely increased her speed.
By the time she skidded to a halt in the next clearing, both were out of breath, sides heaving with exertion as they sat down and took a moment to recover from their mad dash through the forest. Above them, a family of squirrels played in the branches. Birds twittered in the treetops, singing half-verses of their territorial songs. Not yet cleared by Harpy's raucous voice, this clearing was as lively as the last had been, and both fillies took a moment to revel in the natural splendor around them as they cooled down. Luna broke this comfortable silence with a teasing snort.
“If Magnus would let you out more often, maybe you'd run faster,” she finally managed, prodding Celestia with a hoof in playful jest. “If he weren't so--”
“I'll have you remember,” Celestia retorted, muzzle daintily turned skyward in haughty disapproval, “that coming here today was his idea.”
Luna rose to her hooves with a cheeky flutter of her wings.
“Nuh-uh. It was Harpy's! Only reason he can have any fun is because Harpy's around. I bet if she wasn't... if... if she...” Luna trailed off, suddenly nervous, suddenly wide-eyed as an unfortunate realization dawned on her. Ears flat, lips trembling, she tried to appeal to her sister, but already she saw that it was too late.
Celestia was glaring at her, but not with the fleeting annoyance of a young filly. Her eyes had turned steely, her body rigidly still as she stared down her younger sister with such a cold disapproval that Luna shuddered.
“There is nothing wrong with the desire to educate one's charge in the proper manner.”
Even her voice was steel; its unnatural monotony made Luna's scalp prickle, and she lowered her wings in anxious submission.
“I... I know. Sister, don't... I didn't mean... please, Celly don't--”
A rustle of leaves broke the strange spell, and as quickly as Celestia had adopted her blank facade, she dropped it, adopting an expression of strangely intense curiosity. Luna had only a second to breathe a sigh of relief before she, too, was acutely aware of a very loud trembling of branches somewhere to their left.
By the time Luna had truly registered the sound, Celestia was already approaching the thicket it emanated from, ears tilted as far forward as possible, eyes narrowed in intense concentration. One hoof in front of the other, she crept forward, dismissing Luna's frantic whispers of caution with a flap of one wing. The same bizarre energy that had clung to her trance a moment ago tainted the air now, and Luna found herself backing away even as she whispered, a part of her already considering running off to call Magnus and Harpy.
Something about this was terrifyingly wrong to her.
Conversely, Celestia seemed invigorated.
Her sister's obvious fright had no effect; she seemed to have fallen into a second trance, one certainly less chilling, but equally as bizarre, for it kept all of her focus firmly on whatever was disturbing the thicket.
“Hush, Luna,” she hissed, never taking her eyes off the quivering leaves that lay only a few steps away. Two steps. One.
“There's something in there!”
As Luna swallowed against her incomprehensible fear, Celestia's eyes widened in an equally nameless anticipation, and without even the slightest hesitation, she reached a hoof between the branches and into the darkness beyond.
“Celly... Celly, I'm not sure...” Luna's voice trembled, yet she could not understand why; there was, after all, no reason that a quaking bush should frighten her. The forest was full of small animals, and the inhabitant of said bush was likely to be a squirrel, or a possum, or perhaps just a lowly dormouse. She tried to reason with herself, but no matter what scenario she envisioned, she could not assuage the terror tying knots in her throat.
No matter what Luna whispered, however, Celestia was undeterred. She reached in further, further, only to halt when the leaves gave a mighty shake, then suddenly stopped. Curiosity turned to confusion when her hoof reached wood without resistance. She peered in and found nothing.
Luna watched all of this with wide eyes and trembling lips, even when Celestia turned back empty-hooved and frowning in perplexed dismay. Instinct was this fear's creator, and while she did not know that, she felt its effects all the same.
“Celly, we should go. Please?”
“No,” her sister shook her head, but her reply was only half-focused as her eyes searched the quiet thicket. All of the animals had disappeared, something else that made Luna's flanks quiver with the need to run. Celestia was oblivious. “No, there's something... something...”
Another rustle, to the right. Another, above. Both fillies tried to find the source, but it kept shifting, shifting with impossible speed and direction as they whipped their heads back and forth in an effort to keep up. They stopped only when the rustling came from behind them.
Very close behind them.
Only a couple of feet away.
Both froze, Luna's face drawn in her mask of fear, Celestia's alight with a breathless excitement. They both took a deep breath and, in one fluid motion, turned around.
Luna gasped.
A creature neither had ever seen stood before them. It had the head of a pony, and the reptilian tail and foot of a dragon, but beyond that, it seemed an exercise in confusion. Instead of a proper twin, its dragon leg was paired with the hind limb of a goat, while its front limbs had no reptilian resemblance at all: an eagle claw and a lion cub's paw. Its body, while snakelike as it should have been, was covered in coarse brown fur, not a scale in sight. The oddness of it extended to its wings, for while one was the correct reptilian shape, the other carried the colorful plumage of a bluebird. Two horn nubs crowned a face decorated in white eyebrows and wide, yellow-red eyes that stared at the two fillies in tense silence.
Luna took a trembling step back. Celestia, transfixed, took one forward.
The creature took one forward, too.
As Luna watched, immobile with fear and a growing wonder, her sister and the creature slowly closed the distance between one another, inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, until their twitching muzzles nearly touched. It was the most peculiar sight: the pristine white filly mesmerized by that unknown creature, the creature likewise bound by the sight of the filly.
Even though the need to run filled her, Luna could not look away. What caught her, however, was neither the sight of her sister nor that of the newcomer, but the strange image they made together. Strange, yes, but somehow... right. That was what a distant part of her whispered: that there was something here that belonged here, and so she stayed.
The two stared at one another for what seemed like a lifetime to the paralyzed Luna, until Celestia's voice finally broke what had become an almost ethereal silence.
“What are you?”
It was a mere whisper, filled with the naked wonder that illuminated her face, but it might have been a shout for how it made the creature's goat-like ears spasm. For a moment, it simply continued to stare, but then it finally parted its lips in a warbling purr.
That was when Luna saw the fangs, and upon glimpsing those gleaming needles in its twisted muzzle, her equine instincts threw their panicked focus onto the talons and claws that the small creature possessed, finally defeating captive wonder with an intense shock of renewed terror.
With a shrill scream that pierced the woodland calm, Luna reared back and shot out of the clearing, already calling for their guardians.
Alarm broke Celestia's trance, and she turned to call after her sister only to find that it was too late. Behind her, the creature gave a strangled yelp as the great black form of Magnus leaped into the clearing, a flurry of furious snorts and thundering hooves. He crashed through the underbrush, leaves flying up from beneath his kicking hooves as he swung his massive head to and fro, searching for the source of danger. When his mad eyes fell on the trembling creature, he immediately put himself between it and Celestia, pushing her away with horn-borne magical force.
With a stallion's roar, he aimed that horn at his adversary.
“Go to Luna and Harpy, Celestia. Now!”
He reared up on his hind legs, wings magnificently flared, horn brilliant with crackling, raw energy that twisted and tore at anything it managed to touch.
Electric fear filled Celestia, and she cried out against this sudden madness.
“No! No, Magnus, wait! He wasn't doing anything! Please! Stop!”
“Yes, stop, Maggy, for goodness' sake!”
Harpy had appeared with her customary pop, and her laughter joined the din, bubbling forth as she landed heavily on Magnus' back and began to force him back onto all fours. This, as might have been expected, did not go over well with the second party.
“Harpy! What are you-- Stop! Take the fillies; get them to... what are you doing?!”
He tried desperately to keep his guardian's stance, but the weight of a snickering gryphon was too much. With an undignified thud, he found himself quadruped again, pawing at the ground with residual agitation as Harpy continued to chirp and squawk her merriment.
“What... Harpy. Harpy!” He began to turn 'round and 'round, trying to face the giggling fool on his back. When that didn't work, he gave a frustrated snarl and, in one furious motion, bucked her off.
She, of course, remained floating in midair, holding her sides as her laughter only intensified.
Luna watched the spectacle from a hiding place under a fallen log. Celestia and the newcomer, having come together again upon Harpy's appearance, watched from the middle of the clearing. All three children stared in amazement as the gryphon cheekily subdued her towering mate.
“Harpy!” Magnus finally choked out, “what is the meaning of this? Do you have any idea what that thing is?” He stabbed at the air with a trembling hoof, pointing off to the side. Beside Celestia, the creature cringed, and the little filly automatically leaned down to nuzzle it.
“A draconequus, yes?”
“That thing is a draconequus. A draconian horse, whose chief diet is... is... you know?” He snorted in blatant disbelief. “Harpy, you--”
“Odd-looking draconequus, though, isn't it? I've never seen one with feathers. Or with a lion's paw. And that other foot looks an awful lot like mine.” A grin was spreading across her avian features as she spoke. “Now, I wonder where we've seen this sort of oddity before...” With a cheeky giggle, she wiggled both fingers and toes in Magnus' face.
Realization slowly infiltrated his shocked expression, and he looked back down at the little draconequus curled up beside his charge.
“Blasphemy, Harpy. It cannot be. This creature... it cannot be the next--”
“Oh, what did you think? That it would be another gryphon? You know it doesn't work that way! Look at them, Magnus. Just look at it! Look at Cel--”
“He is not an 'it'!”
Both adults fell silent, turning surprised gazes onto the little filly. She faced them with spirited defiance, standing protectively in front of her apparent new companion. He, too, had risen to his mismatched feet. Though behind Celestia, he glared at the two guardians with a brave glare accentuated with the curl of his lip, tiny fangs gleaming in the afternoon light.
Harpy broke the tension with another squawking laugh. She landed in front of the children and, with absolutely no hesitation, began to ruffle the draconequus' black mane with a webbed hand. At first, he reacted with a startled yip, but strangely enough, quickly accepted the action. He looked up at her with a cautious trust that blossomed into genuine like when his eyes met hers for the first time.
“Of course he's not,” she reassured Celestia, who by now was also smiling at her antics. “So, what's your name, little kit?”
The smile faded from his pony face, replaced with a frown and a quirked eyebrow.
“Your name,” Celestia prodded gently. “You know: what your mother calls you.”
“He does not speak the common tongue. None of them do.”
They all turned at Magnus' voice, and he stepped up to join the little circle that they'd formed.
He remained the only unsmiling one of the group. Even Luna had emerged from her hiding spot, emboldened by Harpy's cavalier attitude and offering a tentative smile of apology to the little draconequus. He'd accepted with a toothy grin of his own, and though she'd winced, a pat from the gryphon had reinforced her confidence enough to ignore the new wisp of fear. Only Magnus stayed aloof.
Still, while he remained stern, all violence had left him, and he was calm enough as he circled the children, studying Celestia's new partner.
“We shall have to teach him to speak our tongue, if he is to stay.”
Celestia brightened at the statement, and Harpy snorted.
“Of course he's to stay! Plain as the hoof on his foot.” She stuck her tongue out at Magnus, who contented himself with just the slightest roll of the eyes.
“Well,” she turned back to the draconequus, “I think we'll just have to give you a name for now. Can't just call you 'draconequus' until you learn our language. Hmm... since you're to be mine, I think I'll take the honor.” She tapped her chin with an eagle talon, gazing skyward in thought. After a few moments, she clicked her talons together in excitement.
“I know! In honor of all the pandemonium you've caused today, a wonderful start, I must say, I'll call you Discord! How's that?”
Though the draconequus clearly could not understand a word being said, he grasped the tone, and a wide grin spread across his features at Harpy's enthusiasm and Celestia's answering giggle.
“Discord,” Celestia repeated, poking him in the chest with a pearly hoof. “You're Discord. Understand?”
To everyone's amazement, he furrowed his white eyebrows and slowly, carefully, moved his lips in mime. Voice eventually backed the movements, and he managed to get out a growled approximation of his new name.
“D-discord.”
Now he grinned hugely, chest jauntily puffing out first at their shocked expressions, then at the delighted laughter that followed. Celestia embraced him, and their mirth echoed through the forest. Luna soon joined in.
Beside them, even Magnus allowed a small smile, and Harpy resumed her floating position beside him with a satisfied nod.
“There now,” she purred, rubbing up against his thick neck as they watched the children begin to play, “just as planned.”
“You... you were...”
Marble floor and endless bookshelves faded back into blurry view.
Twilight did not wait for her vision to sharpen. She struggled to her hooves the moment she could, ignoring the vertigo that threatened to pull her back to the floor.
“You...” she tried again, tongue still heavy with semi-consciousness even while she searched about for Discord.
Images came and went, images she knew she had just seen. Images that were already fading but for one, the one that Twilight knew was utterly central to what she had just seen. Two young fillies. A young draconequus. Impossible. Impossible, but there it was.
She finally found Discord lounging directly above her, sunglasses in place, head resting causally in his folded arms.
“You were there,” she finally managed, pointing a trembling hoof at him, every muscle quivering with combined shock and disbelief. “You were there, when she was young. When... when you were young. You...”
She could go on no longer, too dizzy to continue. With a sick groan, she sat back down.
Luckily, she did not need to continue, for her little outburst was enough to provoke him into speech. With a short chortle, he took off his sunglasses, tossing them away into oblivion before rolling over onto his belly. Twilight grimaced as he reached down and, satisfied smirk firmly in place, tapped her lightly on the nose.
“Why, yes, my dear Twilight Sparkle. Yes, I was.”
A/N: Thanks for reading. Any and all comments will be showered with gratitude and appropriate amounts of internet affection.