The Rending and the Sundering of the World
It is said that before the universe existed, there was only a purposeless emptiness in its place. In this immeasurable void, there existed a single minute, near invisible point of consciousness. Within this point, existed the elements of reality: Light, Darkness, Chaos, Energy, and every other possible material or immaterial element imaginable; condensed by the void like a prison of pure nothingness. One day before the dawn of time, the consciousness realized that it would remain within its prison of nothingness for all of eternity unless it did something drastic.
It devised a plan to free itself by splitting parts of its own mind into the elements of reality, and giving them their own consciousness, and having them break away from the void. Once the spark was set, the elements of reality began to break away from the hold of the void and began to expand out into the emptiness. In one millisecond, the slow and sluggish expansion became an explosion of matter and energy that radiated into the nothingness and coated immeasurable amounts of space with the particles of the once bonded elements of reality.
As the elements soon moved throughout the newly created universe, most powerful of them, and final vestige of the initial consciousness, Harmony, began to recall the elements to the initial point where they began their expansion. As the elements of reality returned back, Harmony warned them, that if the universe were to continue to expand too quickly and uncontrolled, then an inevitable compression of the universe would soon follow from the weight of all of the energy and matter of the elements. Harmony willed to its sisters and brothers, that in order to maintain the universe stable, the elements of reality would need to remain at the central point of the expansion in order to expand the universe further without causing a massive catastrophe, while under temperate balance of Harmony’s will.
And so for millions of years, the elements of reality remained at the navel of the universe, attached to the primordial Harmony’s nebulous embrace, expanding the cosmos and crafting the universe from afar. Until the day that the will of rebellion and chaos, changed the course of the universe forever.
In the navel of the universe, the great primordial Harmony stirred with tectonic forces that willed to shake its ethereal-body apart. The great primordial Harmony, part of the initial source of all things in the universe, had undergone several quakes like this, though even it did not know what they were or how they were occurring. Upon the greatest of these quakes, a crack formed in the center point of Harmony.
From this crack arose the first of its brethren, the element of chaos and the bringer of corruption: Discord. An amorphous, and unstable blob of pure chaotic power, Discord lived for nothing more than to break from the mold of harmony and create his own twisted reality of eternal, rapturous chaos where he would live and taunt his sibling that stood for the temperance of the universe and the balance of power. As he moved at great speed, away from the universe’s navel, he noticed that the great harmony began to collapse, no doubt breaking down from the strain that Discord had put it under. With a mischievous laugh, like a filly that had just eaten the last slice of birthday cake, Discord left behind the husk of harmony towards an endless void of space, and a world he could claim for his own.
His journey of a thousand stars took him to a blue and green planet that orbited an incandescent sun and was orbited itself with a gray, lifeless moon.
‘How very wonderful,’ he thought as he overlooked the world, ‘this’ll be fun to turn to my tastes, though I doubt anyone will mind.’
Discord was strong in his current state, as his mere presence could partially bend reality to his will, but in order to completely tap into his power, he required a physical form. As he surveyed the planet, he took note of all of the different life forms that existed on it; curious but not interested on any of them as an avatar. As such, he chose his favorite parts of the animals that he came across: the dragons, the griffons, the elks, the equines, the bats, and the goats; and from them he made his form a hodgepodge of the parts he collected, adopting an appropriate chimeric aspect to his image. With his form now realized, Discord set out on his goal to corrupt the planet into his own chaotic, insane image.
Though he could take pieces of reality from the planet apart and craft them into his own warped style, Discord thought, ‘One piece at a time seems too slow and boring, though I know of a way to turn up the fun however…’
Discord decided that his influence could be better spread through the planet’s veins, spreading his influence into the molten earth itself, and spreading it all the way to its core, where it would take shape, erupt to the surface from the pressure and cover the whole planet in seconds. With a plan now set for his own twisted utopia, Discord began to work to corrupt the planet from within; with little knowledge that he would no longer be the last to notice the little blue and green planet.
Discord is said to be the negative aspects of Harmony coalesced into one being. As a clear antithesis to the temperance of harmony, he was made to be stronger than many of the other elements. However, as a means to control the more negative elemnents, harmony had two sisters to keep watch over the rebellious Discord: the elements of law, Celestia, and the element of justice, Luna. Since the beginning of the universe, the sister elements kept Discord under metaphysical lock and key, through their combined powers of smiting light, and punishing darkness. While it is unknown what finally gave Discord the power to break from the primordial harmony, what is known was what happened afterwards.
As the great primordial harmony shook itself apart from Discord’s destructive tantrum, Celestia and Luna found themselves trapped in a vortex of chaos within Harmony's body. As they tried to make their escape, Discord had made the mistake to leave a tear out of Harmony, and both Celestia and Luna decided to leave through it. As they made their way out of Harmony's nebulous form, they looked back to it and found it was soon consumed into nothingness, a vortex of the blackest color now twisting where it once was, attracting everything to its center. As Celestia and Luna left the navel of the universe, they mourned the loss of their progenitor, and prayed that some of their other brothers and sisters had hopefully escaped. With sorrow in their hearts, but duty on their minds, Celestia and Luna sought to find the rogue element, responsible for harmony’s downfall, and have him answer for his crimes.
Discord was not subtle when it came to his twisted image of fun, often leaving a rust colored trail wherever his form moved in space, and as a result it was not a difficult feat for the sisters to find his hiding place. Like Discord before them, Celestia and Luna needed to take on a physical form in order to fully realize their powers. They descended onto a mountain, overlooking a beautiful green valley; there, they found their avatars. In the valley, they saw two strong unicorn mares, white and black, with the black one smaller than the other, and decided to take their forms for themselves. However, as they completed their new physical forms, an earthshaking crack began to form around the mountains, until one of the peaks exploded with fire and molten rock.
Knowing that their brother was beginning the complete corruption of the planet, Celestia and Luna followed his trail. While fast on their hooves, the sisters found their new forms insufficient to cover the vast seas that separated them from Discord’s hiding place, their salvation however came to them in the forms of swans that descended into a nearby river; from them the sisters took their wings, in respective colors, and closed the final distance to their rogue brother. As more explosive eruptions began to shake the planet, the sisters finally found Discord in the caldera of what would become the Gloom Volcano and gave him one final moment to surrender.
“You deserve nothing less than oblivion for what you have done Discord,” boomed Celestia, “but since you are still our kin, we will allow you to submit to us and allowed to be sealed of your powers.”
Discord laughed at their offer and said, “To submit to the same will that bound us together, to eternal purgatory, would be something that I would not wish to repeat, my dear sisters; I’m afraid that my new freedom is something that I would like to keep; I’m having too much fun with this planet anyways, so if you two could just trot out of here and let me finish my work, it would be very appreciated.”
Celestia frowned at his words, but did not move an inch. Luna, however, lunged at her brother and began to channel her darkness at him point blank, only for Discord’s body to disappear and reappear behind her, assaulting her with a fist coated in chaotic energy. Celestia attempted to intervene but an apparition of Discord appeared behind her and swiftly knocked her to the ground. Trying to recuperate from Discord’s assault, Luna flew towards the summit of the volcano, and began to reign down bolts of darkness at Discord, only for him to teleport behind her again. As Luna tried to fend off Discord, she realized that her power began to wane at such close proximity to the sun’s light, and was quickly overpowered by Discord’s ruinous power.
At the edge of the volcano’s summit, Discord held Luna’s body by her neck and spoke, “You’re too brash to act sister; there is little darkness for you to draw upon from here.”
As Celestia fought off the apparition, she saw a red and black explosion over the summit of the volcano. Discord descended from the summit to Celestia’s level and jeered, “Our sister could have learned much from you, such a shame that she could not think before acting.”
In an explosive flash of light, Celestia’s body was encompassed by a burning radiance and Discord was thrown back against the wall of the volcano.
Celestia’s voice boomed again, “Is it not enough that you destroyed our home, murdered our other siblings, and tainted an entire planet, but you have the gall to speak to me of my sister in such a way; you are not fit to exist any longer!”
Celestia slowly moved to Discord and surged a stream of energy from her horn into Discord’s head, which made Discord fly away in fear of this new power. He did not get any further than the slope of the volcano, as he found all of his strength sapped away from his body, the surge of energy cast upon him had drained him of any energy for his body. As Discord lay crumbled on the slope, Celestia flew down to him and charged an incandescent light from her horn to finally destroy her rebellious brother. No sooner than she began to cast her spell, the ground erupted beneath her in an eruption of fire and molten rock and Celestia was thrown back.
“Is it not wonderful sister,” Discord said, “the corruption of this world is imminent, and with it, my powers grow two-fold.” As clouds of ash began to shadow the sun’s light, Celestia now found her powers waning. While trying to regain her composure, she soon found herself staring at Discord, and next to him Discord, and next to him yet another Discord.
As Celestia stood up, she discovered that Discord had surrounded her with himself, and they all started to speak in unison, “It seems that the tide has turned in my favor, sad that you lasted even less time than our dear sister Luna; do not worry though, you will soon join her.” Celestia found herself assaulted from every angle by the chaotic power from each of the clones and, by its end, she lay unmoving in a heap.
Discord grabbed Celestia by the neck, and hoisted her up above the newly open crevice of lava and said, “Now, you will know a fraction of what I felt inside of the great harmony’s embrace; as the tainted lava seeps into your throat, just remember that you will never truly understand-“
Discord found himself encased in a gray light but exploded a second later into a dark ray of energy. Discord reeled back, and dropped Celestia onto the slope and looked for the source of the light. He found Luna, flapping her wings above him, and she spoke to him in a caustic tone, “The light of sun can no longer sap me of my strength Discord, and no, my sister will not feel that, instead I will make you feel much worse.”
Luna then charged into the mob of Discords, and caused dozens of rays of gray light to explode onto them, and very soon, Discord found himself alone. Discord was then burned alive by the dozen beams of light that all exploded into darkness; he then fell to the ground, his coat now flaking off, and laid completely still. As Luna moved to deliver the finishing blow, Celestia stood back up to her sister.
She spoke in a calming tone, “Enough sister…we have shed enough blood for this monster, killing him now will not fix what has already occurred.”
Luna looked dumbfounded to her sibling spoke out, “It will fix what he has done to this world, it will fix what was done to everyone, and it will fix what he tried to do to us!”
“Look around you Celestia, do you not see what he has done,” Luna spoke out again, “he may have been our brother once, but not anymore, and I will uphold the duties that were place upon me.”
“At what cost Luna,” Celestia retorted, “to become as insane as him, to repeat his violent streak, to follow in his path of chaos by doing what he did?”
Luna began to step back away from Discord’s body, she locked eyes with her sister and spoke, “What of him then, you know that he still carries power, and the world is feeding it to him, what of that sister?”
Celestia looked away from her sister and towards Discord, and said, “We will seal him in the earth and stone that he planned to seal the world in, we will close all of the gaps that he has opened, and help this planet to recover so that his power no longer courses through here.” Luna nodded in begrudged agreement and levitated Discord’s body to into one of the open crevices and coated him with obsidian glass from the volcano, so it could be not damaged but his powers would be sealed within the stone, and dropped him in.
Celestia and Luna now found themselves without a brother, and alone in a world where his actions had nearly lead to its complete corruption, but without any other thought on their minds, they flew away to wash away the taint that Discord sought to unleash; however, they would not be as alone as they initially thought.