//------------------------------// // Chapter Eight: The End // Story: An Investigation Into Chaos // by Forgoten Null //------------------------------// The meeting Discord had proposed to Celestia was simple enough; at least it didn’t have any obvious strings attached. Then again, the best bait never did. Discord simply asked to speak with Celestia at the end of the day, in private. Celestia was free most nights after court was dismissed, so Discord asked to meet her in her chambers an hour before sunset. It gave her plenty of time to finish her paperwork and plenty of time to talk before she set the sun and went to sleep. Discord accounted for everything, making perfectly sure that there weren’t any conditions that would inconvenience her unnecessarily. Even though Celestia only had a few hours’ worth of notice there wouldn’t be any real reasons for her to reject his proposal, all according to plan. The best part was that it was inconspicuous, at least for him. If he had asked her weeks in advance it would have seemed out of character for him. The short notice gave the request a rushed and impulsive air that implied a certain playfulness and informality, classic Discord. He took every possible precaution to ensure that Celestia felt like she was in control, to make her feel like he was accounting for her. Of course, that’s only what Discord wanted her to believe. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. That was the plan, more or less; to lull her into a false sense of security, to get her guard down, and then pounce. She would never expect her precious pet to bare its fangs. She would never expect him to strike her down when she was at her most vulnerable so he could extract her darkest secrets straight from the source. It was simple, he would win and she would lose. And he would accept nothing less. Everything had been leading up to this moment; Discord made sure that he dotted every i and crossed every t. He wouldn’t allow himself to spoil his moment of glory by making some petty mistake or miscalculation, this was the moment where he would finally get the answer he was looking for. “Why?” “Truly,” he thought to himself as he looked over at the final report that lay beside him, “why did Celestia have to release me? After a thousand years of bondage and after all the Havoc I caused when I escaped, how could she possibly justify the risk my freedom posed to her?” Discord had already made all the necessary preparations, the report was finished and ready to “present,” Celestia would have received the request from Luna, and he had already planned out every move he would make. Now all he could do is waiting for the endgame to begin, out of habit he had turned to his report turned journal. His mind roiled with endless possibilities, they taunted him mercilessly as he confessed to the worn tome. “Perhaps this is her way of atoning for the all of those years of torment she put me through?” He scrawled his thoughts on the page reflexively. “But why hide it from me in that case? What possible reason would she have to lie about it? Was she afraid I would reject her apology; was she afraid of how I would react? If that’s the case then she might have just lost her nerve now that the elements are locked away…” Discord thought back to the incident that had conveniently removed The Elements from the equation, returning them to their rightful resting place. He tapped his quill loudly on the bottom of the page. Frowning at the lack of empty space on it he flipped to the next page to find that there wasn’t one, without thinking he snapped his talons and new pages appeared out of thin air and fused with the book. He didn’t waste any time filling them out. “Imagine my surprise when I was suddenly surrounded by The Elements while they accused me of kidnaping the princesses after I actually did it! I was sure they would simply trap me in that damnable prison for all eternity. Luckily for me that zebra showed up with that potion, it turns out a potion that supposedly rips someone out of their body and induces prophetic visions leaves them quite susceptible to hypnotic suggestion; who knew?” He was still surprised how well it had worked out, for all parties involved. Discord’s thoughts drifted back to the circumstances of his release. He knew all of the official reasons and he had his own theories, but none of them seemed to satisfy him. “Celestia did tell me that after I was “reformed” my abilities would be for the defense of the empire and the betterment of its citizens; but is that all? Am I really just a tool to her now? Was I some pawn that could be thrown away when it was no longer useful?” The thought struck him deep. He still had more power than she did. Without the elements by her side she didn’t have any real control over him anymore. He could bring her to her knees at any time, but even that didn’t give him much peace of mind. For as long as he could remember, Discord had power. With just a snap of his talons, reality would literally bend over backwards to serve his desires. Discord had the power of a deity, the power to raise civilizations and dash them on a whim. Because of this power, for as long as he could remember, everyone else just saw him as a means to an end. To all those who could possess him, Discord was an engine of true revolution. With his power behind their will they nothing was beyond their reach, provided that they had the insight to utilize his unique talents. Some were paragons and some were reavers, more still were somewhere in between, but most all of them had one thing in common. Discord was nothing more than a tool to them, a powerful tool but a tool all the same. To them Discord was like a Primordial Flame, some ancient artifact of limitless power. In the right hands, such power could be sued to build great empires or destroy them outright. The heat of the flame would allow the holder to forge a destiny that they could not attain by their own means. However, great power comes often comes at an even greater price. The closer one holds the flame to their hearts the more powerful it would become, burning brighter and brighter until one day it would consume them entirely. That’s what Discord was to them; he was a chance at greatness, the ultimate gambit. He was something to be used and then cast aside as quickly as possible. For almost as long as he could remember that was just the way it was, and with no one to show him a different way that’s the way it would always be. Even though he didn’t know anything else at the time, he knew he wanted more from life than to be some object of favor He had seen his chance all those years ago, back when the Ponies asked him for his help. There was something strange about the whole affair that he couldn’t quite pin down; perhaps it was in the way they had asked him on bended-knee, or perhaps it was simply how they carried themselves. Regardless of the reason, he knew that there was something there. There was something that made him say yes. There was something that made him stay. It took eons of waiting but he found it, the day two mares stepped forward to challenge him. Luna had a sort of ethereal elegance about her, even then. The first time he locked eyes with her she immediately backed down, but her reservation wasn’t due to cowardice. No, Discord saw a flame that burned deep in her heart. He could see that she wanted nothing more than to find peace in this world; she wanted to find a sanctuary from all the horrors and evils of this world and use it to protect that which she held dear. Then when she turned back and looked him dead in the eyes he could feel her determination. She would find what she was looking for; even if she had to carve her peace out of his hide, she would find it. She still had that flame in her soul. When Discord looked into her eyes he could still see it burning bright, blasting straight through the darkness within her. Celestia was different. When Discord first saw her he could see a fire burning within her as well, a purpose that consumed her every thought. Where Luna asked only for peace Celestia wanted prosperity, simple survival wasn’t enough for Celestia. She saw a world full of potential just waiting to be unleashed. Where Luna wanted to reignite the forgotten flames, Celestia wanted to watch the world rise like a born-again phoenix. Even then, he could tell that she wanted to touch the sun. But now, that desire that burned so brightly before was obscured. Maybe it was still there, still burning deep in her heart, maybe she just hid it away. Still, a thousand years was a long time and he couldn’t be absolutely sure. He needed to know if it was still there. He needed to know if she still had that fire in her soul. “If that’s the case, if I’m just a means to an end to her, then the Celestia I knew is well and truly dead.” “And if she couldn’t last just a thousand years, with all that vigor and determination, what chance do I have against eternity?” Discord sat there, staring at the words in front of him. Once he decided the ink had dried enough he closed the journal and looked out the nearest window. He could see the shadow from the trees beginning to creep through the glass as the sun fell closer and closer to the horizon. He got up and stepped through the nexus. Discord was the self-styled Lord of Chaos, with a snap of his talons the world’s order would bow to his whim without question. But Discord wasn’t omnipotent; there were things he couldn’t control. For example, Discord couldn’t control what he was afraid of. Discord was afraid of change. When Discord stepped out onto Celestia’s balcony he realized that he was still a few minutes early. Deciding to take advantage of the situation, and to get a head start, he silently floated into the room, searching for his mark. He found Celestia sitting at a modest desk, doing paperwork. He took a moment to decide exactly how to deal with her. Once he had a plan in place it took a concerted effort to stop him from snapping his talons, he silently conjured everything he would need. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise. Slowly, he moved himself into position. A wicked grin spread across his face as he imagined the look on her face. He steadied himself against the air and coiled up his body and- “Hello, Discord.” He proceeded to stumble and fall to the ground into a pile of sentient, and extremely agitated, air horns. After a brief, and decidedly one sided, battle he dispelled them and dusted himself off. “How did you know?” He asked with a mix of annoyance and disbelief. “I didn’t make a sound.” Celestia, calm as ever, just glanced over to the side. Discord tracked her gaze and noticed the full length mirror mounted on the wall. He could clearly see Celestia’s desk reflected upon its surface. He grunted an affirmative before he moved up to inspect the mirror in detail. After a taking a bit of time to admire himself he noticed Celestia looking at the mirror with an amused expression on her face. It was then that he thought of a much better use for the mirror. If she could do it, what was stopping him? “I believe you wanted to discuss something with me?” She asked with her trademark smirk. “Right,” he said in a serious tone, “of course.” He made a point to glance over at the papers on her desk. “That is so long as you aren't too busy. If you have more important matters to attend to then we could always reschedule.” He huffed and turned back to the mirror, feigning his own vanity as he carefully studied Celestia’s expression. He waited patiently for her carefully maintained mask to crack before his eyes. She simply shook her head with an unfettered grace. “Don’t worry, Discord, I made sure that I took care of everything else before you got here.” She hesitated a moment, obviously waiting for him to make some witty remark, before she quietly sighed and continued. “You know, you don’t have to go through all this trouble just to talk to me,” she took a tentative step towards him adding to the sincerity of her address. “My doors are always open to you, Discord.” With all his willpower he managed to suppress a devilish grin as he quickly spun around and started floating over to her. “Why of course, Celestia! Of course I know that.” He said, rolling his eyes for added effect. “Besides, it’s not like you could stop me from waltzing in here even if I wasn’t welcome.” When he was directly in front of her he stopped and silently touched down. “You and I both know that I normally wouldn’t bother with all of this. However,” he said casually before he moved behind her, “I’m here on business.” He smiled to himself as he waited for her to make her move. “Oh,” she said softly before moving on with a bit more confidence. “Then I assume you’re here to discuss the nature of your assignments.” There was a slight edge on Celestia’s words what Discord couldn’t identify, impatience, annoyance perhaps? He scolded himself for his inability to read her from her voice alone. He decided to flip himself over to address, and observe, her properly. Discord nodded curtly. “Precisely, I thought it would be prudent to make sure you aware of my progress so far.” He carefully chose his words to make doubly sure his façade wouldn’t slip. “I’m sorry to say that I’ve run into some unexpected delays in writing up my full report of the properties of Chaos; however, I trust that you’ve heard of my influence on the artistic community.” Discord briefly rubbed his paw across his chest, exaggerating the motion and making it more obvious than it needed to be. At the same time he kept a close eye on Celestia, watching her closely. Though, for all his subterfuge she simply smiled and nodded at him. “Yes, of course, I find myself quite taken with some of the new art spreading through Canterlot.” For a moment Celestia seemed to become distracted as she looked up and down the wall beside them. “In fact,” she said as her horn flared with an amber light, “I even went through the trouble of commissioning this piece for my personal collection.” Discord watched as Celestia carefully removed a painting from the wall and passed it to him. He picked it up out of the air and stared at it intently. The painting seemed to depict a forest at dusk, though the colors were all wrong. They mixed and clashed violently at times but they somehow managed to hold together well enough to make the scene obvious. The focus of the painting wasn’t much more than a streak, a serpentine blur of motion that seemed to make the paint around it warp and distort strangely. The odd thing about it was its contrast with the rest of the scene; whereas everything else was painted with reds, blues, and other vivid colors, the specter in question was strictly earth toned. It seemed out of place to him, it was almost as if the scene and the figure were painted by two different Ponies. The figure didn’t seem to belong, it seemed wrong to him. It took him a moment to collect himself enough to respond, he couldn’t afford to become distracted by such trivial pursuits. Celestia, however, took advantage of his moment of hesitation. “I can’t say for sure that I really understand it; however, I must admit I do find this new style rather striking.” She carried on despite herself. “I suppose it just has a sort of je ne sais quoi to it.” Discord frowned at the painting and handed it back to Celestia. “I suppose you could say that,” he said with a hollow tone, “I found the “traditional” styles lacking so I just offered them a different perspective.” He shrugged. “All I did was to offer them a chance to see the world as I see it, fluid and Chaotic.” He emphasized his point with a minor flourish as Celestia mounted the painting on the wall. “To you it might seem new and different, but to me,” he paused for a moment searching for a word, “it just screams of normalcy.” Discord decided not to waste any more time thinking about it and he turned to the mirror, continuing his covert surveillance of Celestia. She stared at the painting blankly. “Regardless,” Discord continued, “neither of those assignments have anything to do with what I wanted to discuss.” He continued to watch her through the mirror as she turned and stared at him. “Then I suppose that you’re here to discuss the other report then?” She said with a touch of aversion evident in her tone. Discord frowned, if only to keep up appearances in case she was paying as much attention as he was. “Yes, I finished the report several days ago and I’m prepared to deliver a full presentation on the issue.” “I have to admit that I’m impressed by your progress Discord.” Celestia said “When I gave you these tasks I wasn’t sure if you would actually follow up on them, let alone complete them so quickly.” Discord scoffed. “You wound me, Celestia, you truly wound me.” He made a show of being distraught at her comment; she took it in good form up until he decided to twist the knife. “And here I thought that you actually trusted me.” Discord barley managed to suppress a grin when she flinched at the word ‘trusted.’ “But, here you are implying that I couldn’t perform.” He decided to milk it just a bit more. “Do you doubt my ability, dearest Celestia?” He couldn’t help but smile at her when she hesitated. “Not at all, Discord, I have complete and total confidence in your ability and your loyalty to the crown. What I meant to say is that I’m proud of how far you’ve managed to come since your release.” Discord scoffed. “So what you mean to say is that you’re surprised that I’m not some snarling, self-obsessed, lunatic?” He turned back to the mirror and struck another pose. “I’ll have you know that I haven’t snarled in months.” He quipped, seriously. “Discord, that’s not what I mea-” “As much as I enjoy our little talks, Celestia, I would like to remind you that I’m here on business.” Celestia straightened up behind him. “Well, if you’re ready to present your report, them by all means, I am ready to receive it.” Discord, ever the professional, didn’t miss his cue. “If you insist,” he said, in obvious mock submission as he bowed before her, “here it is. “When I first arrived on the scene in Canterlot there wasn’t really much to go on in the way of any leads. Everything seemed to, more or less, follow a carefully constructed system that was designed to promote the wellbeing of its citizens. Just in the way that you, and to a lesser extent Luna, intended when you constructed the system.” He turned around and suddenly stopped in order to build up some dramatic tension. “However, if you dig deep enough chances are you will find some dirt anywhere.” “There are some actors in the system whose motivations are far from altruistic. As far as it’s mostly individuals from the more archaic portions of the aristocracy, but there are a few, well to do, industrialists who aren’t above getting their hooves a little dirty. Either way, they only seem to be interested in climbing the ranks of their respective circles and gaining more power within the system. Keep in mind that a little self-agency isn’t a bad thing; however, the real issue is that there are those among their ranks who are willing to abuse their rank or ply their power in nefarious ways to get what they want. As far as I can tell, this has been going on for quite some time, and, as one would expect some of these individuals have managed to garner a stranglehold on important sectors of both the sociopolitical and economic realms. “Again, generally speaking, this sort of thing isn’t much of an issue in itself. Despite their questionable methods, acquiring these positions of power is no easy feat, so it’s only natural that they would want to properly maintain their holdings. By keeping everything in line for, themselves they inadvertently make sure that the system runs smoothly for everyone else. Besides that, there is also that fact that for every individual that abuses the system, there are a hundred, honest and hardworking Ponies that want nothing more than to do their jobs and to serve the rest of the community.” Discord took a moment to catch his breath and make sure Celestia was still paying attention. Ploy or not, he still worked hard to get this presentation together and he didn’t want to waste his time. He looked up at her and noticed that she was staring blankly at her own reflection, painted in the mirror behind him. He was pleased to note however, that her ears were subtly turned in his direction, signifying that some part of her was still listening. Pleased with his rapt, if somewhat disconcerted, audience, he continued. "However, while this may not cause any problems in the day-to-day, it does allow certain unpleasant “eventualities” to occur, and believe me they will occur.” He took another short pause ensuring that Celestia had enough time process what he was saying before moving on to the important part of his address. “For example; it’s not rare for individuals with egregiously large holdings to spontaneously lose control of their estates. Once this happens either someone, like a family member or partner, has to step in immediately to fill the power vacuum, or it will draw everyone around it into a massive struggle for dominance. The bigger the power vacuum the bigger the resulting struggle, and the bigger the struggle the more it affects other, innocent, parties.” “Then again, assuming my ancient history is up to par, I suppose I shouldn’t have to tell you how a power vacuum works.” Celestia nodded slowly, still obviously distracted but now occasionally glancing in his direction as he spoke. “As I was saying, it’s normally a minor nuisance at best, but sometimes individuals can garner huge amounts of power and this can lead to catastrophic failures when they lose it. The worst case scenario would be if such a struggle leads to the destabilization of other’s spheres of influence, this could cause several important sectors in your empire to simply collapse. I’m sure you can imagine what would happen if even an auxiliary sector of the economy stopped production for length of time.” “Another scenario involves the unique codes of conduct that exist within these isolated power structures. As I’m sure you can ascertain All of those involved play complex and dangerous games that, while personally gratifying, has no real effect on the average citizen’s livelihood; however, there is the very real possibility of scandal.” Discord watched carefully as Celestia’s expression grew darker, and darker still, as he spoke. “Imagine, if you will, a situation where all the good, honest, Ponies of Canterlot suddenly discovered that a certain, high ranking, noble house was involved in some suspiciously legal and morally incomprehensible plot. They, as responsible citizens, would demand that the house and all their dealings be investigated, and they would not stop the investigation until every bit of corruption was rooted out. It might seem like a good thing to do, and it probably is the most ethical course of action; however, something like that could have far reaching consequences. For example, a large enough investigation might uncover that someone’s fourth cousin, twice removed by a fifth cousin, is involved in another conspiracy. At that point you have teams of investigators hop scotching all around Equestria, shutting down valuable sectors in order to do their work, and while they are at it they are off dismantling a corrupt, but functional, power structure that keeps Equestria from falling into Chaos!” Celestia raised a curious eyebrow at him and he turned around and stared back at her. “What? It could happen,” Celestia continued giving him a disbelieving look and he threw his arms up in surrender. “Alright, alright, so it’s not the most likely scenario, but believe me when I say that is the best possible scenario.” Discord spun back around just in time to see Celestia cock her head at him, obviously curious. “So, let’s go back to the beginning of that scene then. Now, we have a horde of Ponies demanding a full scale investigation on a noble house and they won’t stop their demands until justice is served. Well, what do you think they would do if, for example, some archaic bylaw prevented any the public from taking legal action against them? I’m sure you’re aware that your judicial system can’t take much pressure from the outside before it collapses entirely. So what’s to stop the house from using its resources to buy lawyers to lobby the courts and stop an investigation before it’s even started, hmm?” Discord started picking between the pads on his paw as he waited for an answer for his obviously rhetorical question. “So if the courts can’t deliver the justice that everyone is clamoring for, what then?” Discord turned around and started stalking over to her. “I’ve seen it, Celestia, and I’m sure you’ve heard about it at some point. An Empire burning from the inside out, protests turning into riots, martial law is declared, a coup is sprung and soon the whole country falls into civil war.” He passed Celestia and stopped right beside her, running a talon all the way up her spine and stopping right on her withers. A brief moment of inspiration suddenly struck him and he chuckled darkly. “Of course, you won’t ever have that happen, not all of it anyway. I’ve seen more than my fair share of coups and there weren’t many that ended peacefully,” he smiled down at her as he pressed his thumb against her, holding off the pressure just before he would pierce the skin. “They aren’t pleasant in the least, but I think I certainly learned from the experience. For example, Celestia, do you know the best way to kill a snake?” At that, Discord quickly cut his thumb across her neck. He only pressed hard enough to just graze her skin, but to her it would have felt much more real. “Need I go on, Celestia?” He said as she sputtered and coughed for a few moments. He patiently waited for her to regain her composure. She rubbed at her neck protectively. “No, no, I think you made your point quite clear.” At that point she was still hyperventilating; they both waited a few minutes until she let out a slow and dignified breath, shaking her head. “However, I would like to hear what you would do about the situation. That is to say, Discord, that if you were in my place, what would you do to rectify the situation?” “I suppose that if I were in your situation that I would probably try to strengthen the judiciary to the point where it can effectively function without me.” He thought about that for a moment. “Me as in you, of course, as much as I hate to admit it the system would probably run a bit smoother if I weren’t part of the picture.” He shrugged. “I’m sure that your judgment is better than most court officials when it comes to small disputes; however, if you could spear head a major investigation and allow other Ponies to take up your day to day duties as a Princess, then you could handle the investigation quickly and quietly on your own. That way there isn’t any risk of the whole situation boiling over, and you can deal with it on your own time.” “Also, I would try to put a muzzle on the press. If they reveal a situation to the public before you are ready to deal with it, it might lead to trouble in the long run.” Discord stroked his goatee thoughtfully. “Though I suppose you can’t really do that without anyone asking too many questions…” Discord hummed in annoyance as he wrestled with the issue. “Ah-ha! You don’t have to eliminate the press so much as you just have to keep it from poking around in the wrong places. If you offer them grants to pursue different topics, for the education of the public, then for the most part they should be more interested in going after the stories you ask them to then the ones you would rather not have published.” Discord nodded and scratched the side of his face. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it might just delay the inevasible until you can deal with it properly.” He heard a small giggle behind him; he turned around and stared at Celestia in annoyance. “What? What’s so funny?” “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude about it. I just find it funny that here you didn’t give me any advice about actually dealing with the problem, you just told me what I could do to ignore it.” Discord pouted at her. “Well, you didn’t ask me what you should do; you asked me what I would do.” He crossed his arms. “If you don’t like the advice I gave you then that’s your problem, not mine.” “Thank you, Discord; it was all very good advice. Though I will admit, I have known about most of what you said for a while and your solutions, mostly, match up with my own.” She shook her head at him. “Either way, it’s nice to hear your perspective on the matter.” She smiled up at him.” I trust that you have a full written report on the subject ready for me as well?” Finally, he could get to the real reason he was here. “Of course, Celestia.” He said as the report materialized in his claw with a muted pop. “I have it right here.” He made a show of looking it over and he frowned. “However,” he stated grimly, “there is one more thing I wanted to discuss with you before I leave.” He held the report, his bait, close to his chest but still in plain view for Celestia to see. “Of course, what exactly did you want to talk about?” “Fraud.” Celestia took a half step back when he spit out the word with obvious disdain. He took advantage of her moment of shock as he continued, with a macabre grin slowly spreading across his face. “Fraud, Celestia, is the act of falsification; at its core it’s an act of dishonesty. Fraud is the act of disregarding a hard truth in favor of a convenient lie.” It a great deal of effort for him to keep the excitement from creeping into his voice as he talked down to her in a clear monotone. “It’s really just another unfortunate issue in society. Wherever there is power to be gained there is someone who will stop at nothing to grab hold of it, and there is always someone who would do anything to keep hold on something once they have it in their grasp.” He shook his head in a show of mock disappointment, still grinning like a demon. “It happens, and it will always happen. There is nothing either of us can do about that. However, I believe that I have found a particular case of it that demands your immediate attention.” He bluntly waved the report in the air in front of her before carefully placing it on Celestia’s desk. He took pains to move her paperwork out of the way, so that she had nothing to distract her, before he silently asked her to sit down. His grin faded and was replaced by an expression of serious determination, something that would fit his tone; she nodded at him before going over to the desk, taking a seat. He didn’t need to doctor the report after he liberated it from Dual, not too much anyway. All he really had to do was splice a page or two in and for him to place a very “specific” enchantment on them. It was simple enough; all it did was allow him to tell when someone was reading it. It allowed him to track Celestia’s eyes as they scrolled across the page, right down to the punctuation. It wasn’t much, but it was all he needed. Despite the fact that he wasn’t even looking at the report in question, he immediately noticed when Celestia’s eyes froze on a particular name. “Dual Vision has proven to be an invaluable asset to my investigation. His expertise is what allowed me to complete this report so quickly.” He waited. He waited just long enough for Celestia to catch her breath, just before he stole it again. “As it turns out, he happens to be an expert on fraudulent documents.” Discord heard Celestia say something under her breath; “I’m sorry, what was that?” He asked, finally taking the time to look down at her. She just shook her head and turned away from his gaze. “Nothing, it was nothing…” “Please, continue.” “You’ll find the description of the incident in question on page three-hundred seventy-six.” He watched her intently as she flipped through the thick packet of paper. Eventually she stopped on the correct page, and after only a brief moment of hesitation he felt her eyes begin to take in the words. He felt her gaze wander across the page and he quickly placed his claw down in front of her. She stopped and stared at his claw as he extended a talon, pointing at the beginning of a paragraph near the top of the page. “You can start here.” He commanded softly. He carefully removed his claw, allowing her to begin reading in earnest. He tracked her progress as he mentally prepared himself; this was the moment he had been waiting weeks for. The carefully choreographed words were designed to provoke a specific, visceral, reaction from Celestia once she made her way to the bottom of the page. He would only have a few moments where the emotional backlash from her reaction would be strong enough to show through her own mental warding. As she drew closer to the climax of the passage he could almost taste the fear in the air. However, he still didn’t stop her. Fear alone wasn’t enough. Fear of discovery was hard to distinguish from a fear of persecution. He needed something definitive before he could go forward. As she sped through the final lines of the page and moved onto the final sentence he quietly pulled his lips up to her ear and whispered just two words. “I know.” Once the words escaped his lips Celestia physically leapt out of her chair. She nearly fell as she took several, panicked, steps back away from him and the report. The cocktail of the emotions venting out of her almost seemed to take on a physical dimension for Discord just from the sheer intensity of the emotions Celestia was feeling. Her shielding hadn’t failed completely, but it had failed catastrophically. The emotions that showed through were warped and distorted, almost beyond recognition; however, it was more than enough to prove her guilt and far more than Discord needed to move on to the final act. He looked over her pitiable form, contemplating his next move. Her legs were literally shaking as she, barley, stood with her back against the wall, franticly gasping for air as her wings flailed pathetically. Partially moved by pity and partially inspired by cunning he snapped his talons and conjured a small bit of magical anastasia in her system; just enough to ensure that she wouldn’t collapse from the stress of her panic attack. “Celestia,” he began sympathetically, “please, I only want to know why you did it.” He held his arms up and approached her slowly, trying not to push her in her any further in her fragile state. “I’m not mad at you; I just want to know why you had to hide the report from me. I just want to know why you lied to me.” His voice and her labored breathing were the only noises in the room. Celestia stood in front of him, locked in place, offering him no answer. “Why won’t you answer me,” it was becoming more and more difficult for him to keep the edge out of his voice, “Celestia!” Suddenly her back legs gave out and she fell to an awkward squat against the wall. As he grew more and more frustrated with her he rose higher into the air until he was almost directly above her. She turned her head down and began staring at the ground by her hooves, avoiding his gaze completely. “Are you afraid of me, Celestia?” He said, in as calm a voice as he could manage. “Is it that you don’t trust me? Can’t you just tell me what’s really going on, don’t I deserve that much?!?” Her only response was that she to begin shaking her head franticly, while still staring at the floor. “No! No! No! No! NO! NO!” Celestia shouted as she bolted upright, throwing the same word at him over and over again like a spoiled child having a tantrum. Discord could no longer contain himself, his anger and frustration boiled over. “NO, What? Are you saying that I don’t deserve to know the reason I am EVEN HERE?!? Answer me! CELESTIA?!?” This time he didn’t have to wait for a response. “I can’t tell you,” she barked out quickly, “I just can’t!” At this point her whole body was visibly shaking. Discord could feel his own body begin to shake with pent up rage, he couldn’t take it anymore. He felt rejected, trivialized. He had caught her, red hoofed, and she couldn’t even give him the time of day. He couldn’t understand why. There was only one explanation that came to him; the very implication of it all sent him into frenzy. “Is that ALL I am to you?!?” He shouted. “Am I just a tool, just a means to an end?!?” He began slowly backing away from her as he his voice rose in volume. “I am DISCORD! Lord of Chaos and the very Spirit of Disharmony! I bow to no one and I answer to no one! I will NOT be used by someone like you!” Without a second thought, Discord vanished from the room. He left Celestia alone. Discord popped back into reality in front of his home in the forest. He was livid, absolutely furious at the very idea that Celestia would use him like that. He was even more upset at the thought that she could use him like that. That she had used him like that… He chastised himself for his own ignorance and sheer stupidity, he asked himself if he actually believed the lies he had been feeding himself or if he was simply punishing himself for some forgotten slight. He knew that he should have seen this coming. He knew that he should have seen it and he should have taken control of the situation sooner, laughing as he took everything away from her for her insolence. He should have just taken everything he needed and anything he wanted from her. That’s what the old Discord would have done. Yet, here he was. Staring at his every worldly possession, just wondering what color it would burn. He felt angry. He felt betrayed. He was alone. And above all else, Discord was tired. He was tired of the inane assignments, out of the corner of his eye he noticed his report turned diary being consumed by a vicious green flame. So he decided that he would just stop caring about them altogether. He was tired of pretending that he could fit in, that he could be a productive member of society, he barely noticed the chunks of wood and masonry smashing through the floor around him. He decided it would be best if he just didn't bother anymore. He was tired of all his, so called, friends using him. A distant part of him registered the searing sensation he felt when the strings that tied his nexus together twisted and snapped as they were torn away from him. He decided it would be best if they stayed away from him. Discord was tired. In the center of the rubble filled clearing Discord fell into a deep and fitful sleep.