The world of white was the complete opposite of all of my nightmares. Whereas the world had all been dark in my dreams, and a single light picked me out, in this world there was nothing but light. I looked around, where was Princess Luna? My friends? The garden of statues? Equestria itself? I wasn’t dreaming, I knew that! Maybe I’d finally lost my mind? Was this the way I would see the world from now on? The thought should have scared me, but it didn’t. This place was serine, peaceful, tranquil.
I heard the echo’s of FOOT steps behind me. I turned to see Tom striding towards me. He was wearing his white buttoned shirt, though it was undone almost to his stomach. And he held his coat over his shoulder as though it was hot. He smiled at me, and my heart filled with warmth. He didn’t say anything yet, he just walked straight up to me and kneeled before me.
“You have been so brave baby.” He said softly. Dropping the coat and taking hold of my face with both hands. His fingers were still as warm as they had been in the days we’d spent out in the sun. I closed my eyes, a small moan of happiness escaped my lips as I twisted my head within his fingers. Making them ruffle my fur, to make sure he was really here. “Just a little more bravery. And then it’s all over Dash, you can do that can’t you? For me? Just finish off Nightmare Moon, and it’s all over!” I nodded happily. I would have agreed to anything at that moment. I was with Tom again, not in a dream, but in reality. His touch was too noticeable and his voice was too clear to be anything else but real.
When I opened my eyes tears of joy brimmed at the lids. “I love you Tom.” He smiled at me, and picked up his coat, he lowered it over my shoulders and let it hang over my body, like he had done on that night so long ago.
“And I love you. You damned fast Pegasus!” I laughed at the similarity of this convocation and that one eleven months ago. I wanted to kiss him. One more time before I went and showed this ‘last bit of bravery’ for him. I leant in towards him, my eyes half closing as I did. He mirrored my actions, and we began to move towards one another.
A voice cut us short, shocking me out of my trance like state. “THAT’S ENOUGH!” the voice was familiar, and yet I’d never heard it so angry before so it was hard to place. The white around us dissolved away into the statue garden I had just been in moments ago. We stood by an empty podium, and at its base lay the blue Alicorn Luna/ Nightmare Moon. I looked around and saw my friends all looking on in pure surprise as they saw Tom –the only thing not to dissolve from the world of white- holding me close. I was glad, they now knew I had done the right thing. Or how would I have gotten Tom back?
I looked back into Tom’s eyes, mine still full of tears. The question that had been on my mind for weeks now passed my lips for the first time. “Why? Why did you have to go?” Tom simply smiled, he took hold of my chin and said quietly.
“It wasn’t my choice. I’d never go anywhere without you Dash. She’s the one who made that decision for me.” He glared down at the unconscious body of the night Princess. “Just one last blow to her little blue head, and then I’ll be back forever.” He smiled and leant in to kiss me.
“THAT’S ENOUGH I SAID!” Celestia was standing just behind Tom’s back. She looked furious. The two of us looked up in fear of her angry expression. She glared down at Tom and said quietly, but with more power than any yell I’ve heard in my life. “let...her go.” Tom didn’t obey but continued to look up at the pearly Alicorn. “DISCORD! THAT’S ENOUGH! LET HER GO!” What did she say? I looked down to Toms face once more as he looked down towards me. His look of fear replaced by a smirk of satisfaction.
He sighed, and melodramatically flung his arms away from me and bounced up to his feet. “Now really! You never do let me have any fun Celestia!” His face rippled, and the ripple continued down his body all the way to his feet. At the same time, the coat around my shoulders became lighter and lighter, I looked down to see it fading away like a mirage. When the distortion passed, Tom was gone. There stood the grand master of chaos. Discord the Draconaquus.
“So, Celestia. Do you think I did a good job at playing that sappy little whelp? I’d like to think I did.” He clicked his fingers and a skull appeared in his hand. “Oh the art of acting has always been a passion of mine!” he held the skull at arm’s length and looked deep into its eyes as he carried on mocking us all. I kept staring in disbelief, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Discord had been in stone only minutes ago, how had he...
My mind finally registered the empty podium near Luna’s unconscious body. That had been where Discord’s stone coated body had been. How had he escaped? And why now? What was he doing acting like Tom? Was it all just to spite me for helping defeat him? Discord vanished from in front of us all with a loud bang and a white flash. Another flash of light appeared quickly and I felt a taloned hand grip my shoulder. “Confused dear Rainbow Dash? Well you should be, after all you can’t be expected to understand anything that’s going on at the moment.” He twirled around the air so his face came centimetres to mine, his eyes shifted into mock sorrow. “After all... you’re just so riddled with g-g-grief!”
“I said leave her alone Discord, she’s been through too much!” The Droconequus laughed loudly at the command, with a click of his fingers a pair of sunglasses appeared on his head. He pulled them down over his eyes and laid back on the air and floated backwards towards the Alicorn.
“My apologies my dear, but I’m not taking requests today. You see I’ve just gotten out of a stone prison for a second time. So I think I’m going to enjoy myself.” He turned his gaze on me once again. “I don’t suppose your little bird brain has figured out what’s going on yet has it?” amidst the confusion my mind flared with anger. This monster had posed as Tom! To taunt me! And now he insulted me!
The chimera sighed slowly. “I never pegged you as the smart one Rainbow but honestly I didn’t think you were stupid.” He soared into the air high above all of us and looked down at the scene before he continued. “Thanks to your little attack on dear Princess Luna, you made enough turmoil to allow my return. Your friends wanted to stop you, but at the same time they were unsure if your dream was right or wrong and so they were in turmoil. One of the monarchs lives were in jeopardy which put the fate of Equestria in turmoil. And...” he paused and licked his lips as he looked down on me. “You had lost your love, and so you replaced that love with hate. Which put your heart in turmoil against your sense of loyalty as well.
He knew about my dreams? What was happening? How did he know so much? Celestia finally spoke up. “Girls, listen to me I know what’s happening, Discord is”- her lips disappeared in a flash of white light, replaced by a zip which magically shut itself.
“Now Celestia, you’ve already ruined one of my games today already! If they are going to find out, let it be from me at least. There’s no need to be a spoil sport.” He descended slowly, addressing everypony now. “You all know what dear Celestia represents don’t you? That’s right harmony, and we all know what I represent. Chaos, and marvellous DISharmony.”
“Now even though I was locked up in that stone statue, didn’t you ever notice that there was still conflict in some form or another? Ponies arguing with one another, rivalling each other.” He paused, and his eyes glinted as he looked from me to Twilight. “Having the same crush on another being.” My stomach churned, did he know everything? I glanced over and Twilight looked just as shocked as I felt. “Well my little ponies, the reason why this happens is because ‘discord’ and ‘chaos’ are natural things and cannot be defeated, the same as harmony cannot be defeated. In the world there must always be BALANCE!”
I’d never listened to someone with such baited breath before. Why was I so entranced by his words? My gut told me there was something important about to be said, and so I listened to it, instead of bowling the chimera over and laying into him. He continued slowly and patronizingly. “Balance between harmony and chaos is always in flux, Celestia does her best to tip the scales in her favour, while do the same for chaos. This is because we were made to do this! We are immortal only because we are meant to carry out an endless task, and that is why you or any other elements of harmony wielders have been able
to truly beat me.”
He yawned and stretched his mismatched limbs. “But I’m getting boring with all this teaching, so I’ll cut to the chase. Your dear ‘Tom’ came to this world and threw it into unbalance.” This is what I’d been waiting for. “Now even when encased in stone, I can still sense what happens in Equestria, it is after all my job. I sensed him come into this world, and I expected him to be taken back to his own world by your fearless ruler here.” He pointed to the princess, her mouth still zipped shut. “But after a month of him still being here I began to feel something. Harmony was returning, the princess made your little boyfriend realise he could have a place in this world. So he stayed, and once he found his place. Harmony was far outweighing chaos.”
He looked at me almost with a look of disgust, “And then he fell in love, and the one he loved, loved him back. Eurgh, that is the one thing that creates harmony above all else. I had to bring an end to it, I had to bring ‘balance.’” My stomach seemed to flip as the realisation hit me hard. It was him, he’d done it! He’d killed Tom! I looked down at the blue bleeding Alicorn, and I felt sick with myself. She HAD been innocent; it hadn’t all just been an act. Discord chortled at my final realisation. His voice echoed, across the empty grounds ominously.
“Tom being here created too much harmony, by killing him I created the unbalance to balance out that harmony. Confusing? I know, but merely meant for us guardians really.” He floated over to me and ran a lion paw finger up my neck towards my chin. “Heart break creates the best chaos of all Rainbow Dash!” I pulled myself away from him.
“You used me. You used Tom.” He smiled at me but there was no warmth in it only mirth.
“Yes, I did. Because it’s my job. But then what I did next was just for fun...” He winked at me and with a flash of light he was holding the picture of me and my friends at the gala. He threw it to the floor so that all could see it. “Look in the top left corner little ponies, you’ll see Rainbow was telling the truth. She THOUGHT she saw Luna and her beloved talking. When actually...” As his sentence came to a close, the image of Tom and Luna flickered out of the image. “That was little trick of mine. Now I can’t alter anything big when imprisoned, but I can still influence perception and little aspects of life. Understand?”
He looked over at the Princess, who was struggling to breath. He sighed and clicked his fingers in a bored fashion. The zip disappeared, and Celestia gasped for air as her lips returned. We all watched as she recuperated and looked lividly at the chimera, it was a look I’d never seen on her face before. “You then framed my sister! I knew when I was looking through Rainbow’s mind, I could...sense something foreign. You altered her memories through her dreams didn’t you?!”
Discord clapped sarcastically. “A simple patch of ice on a road, hardly any task for me Celestia, even if I’m stuck in stone. And altering memories and perception?” He snorted, “I could do that in my sleep, in fact I tend to do just that.” He began to float into the air once again. “Then it was all just a case of getting Rainbow here to confront her ‘enemy’ then I could see it all play out in front of me. Now, I didn’t expect to be so close to the action that I could escape, but that’s just a bonus!”
He looked across us all, “Well my funs over for now, I find myself bored with THESE element wielders, they’re far too serious for my taste! I’m free, and Rainbow is entirely to blame for that! Enjoy living with the guilt my dear!” He turned his head to the white Alicorn princess as he rose ever higher into the sky. “I’ll see you in another hundred years or so Celestia! I’d rather talk to you when these annoying pests are all long dead!” He smirked maliciously at us all. “Goodbye my little ponies! Oh and thank you again Rainbow, you really were a great assistant.”
He began to laugh, his laugh continued long after he had vanished with a flash of light. His voice continued to ring out across the empty gardens, his plan had worked. He was free again, and he had caused plenty of chaos in his path to freedom. It had never been Tom, I had been a stupid, hopeless fool! All I could do now was pray for forgiveness from everypony, and to the memory of Tom!