//------------------------------// // All the World is a Stage // Story: This Quiet Earth // by Dafaddah //------------------------------// This Quiet Earth by Dafaddah Chapter five: All the world is a stage Edited by and based on an idea proposed by Sharp Logic Starswirl the Bearded looked into the eyes of the odd creature before him. He had always had a sharp eye and generally could read other beings with the sensitivity of the artist he was. This being in particular shared something with him. This being was in mourning. They stared at each other across a gulf of species, time and space. And then rushed into each other’s arms like life-long friends. “Maestro,” said Discord, “è vero un piacere incontrare finalmente!” “l piacere è mio, Discordia,” replied Starswirl. He looked back at Twilight a moment. Her facial expression seemed to be the result of a three-way collision between disbelief, confusion and  thoroughly creepy smile. Discord also shifted his attention to Twilight. He grinned, but it didn’t quite erase the sadness in his eyes, though Starswirl thought he detected more than a small degree of affection in it. This surprised him, given Twilight’s reaction when she first saw the draconequus. Then he belatedly realized another reason for her confusion. He and Discord had exchanged greetings in Italian. He spoke up in Equestrian. “I’m sorry, Twilight. It’s been so long that anypony... anyone has addressed me in my native language.” The mare seemed to recover some of her aplomb. "So, do you two know each other?" she asked with one eyebrow raised. "We've never met before, Princess Twilight," replied Discord. "And might I add that you look positively fetching with those wings?" Twilight glared back at the draconequus. "Cut the horse-apples, Discord. Why did you bring us here?" He put a paw to the side of his mouth. "Non mi gradisce," he whispered to Starswirl, sotto voce. The glint of humour in Discord’s eyes was short-lived though. He went back to the chair and sat down. “I did indeed bring you here. There are several tasks for which I beg your most gracious company and cooperation. First, we will be holding a funeral for young Maximilian.” Discord snapped the digits of his clawed limb. With a start Starswirl noticed that they were all outside the dome, standing next to a grave in the wan sunlight. The sky was partially overcast, with flashes of lightning every few seconds. Despite the ominous light show there was only a slight breeze blowing. At the front of the grave stood a rounded gravestone with an image carved in relief near its top. At first he took it for a cherub, but then he saw that it was actually the face of a young boy. Discord stroked the headstone. "It’s certainly nowhere near your level of artistry, Maestro, but I’m happy with it nevertheless.” Below it there were a few lines of text. Starswirl read the inscription out loud. “One small candle in the night, Though gone, in memory still burns bright. Maximilian Sachs 2271-2281" Starswirl looked again more closely at the carving. Perhaps not at a master-sculptor level, it still fairly glowed with the joyful exuberance of a happy child. He was genuinely impressed. “You knew the boy. How?” Discord gave no indication he had noticed the praise. “He was a lovely child,” he said in a gentle voice, “always friendly, ever cheerful, and he had such a boundless imagination!” He turned to Starswirl and grinned. “I visited him in his dreams, where we played together in a world of green grass, and flowers, and trees so tall we couldn’t see their tops.” Rather than mollifying her, the words seemed to only upset Twilight further. “Discord, if you could come here, why didn’t you feed him?” She approached the draconequus and stood practically nose-to-nose with him. “How could you... let him die?” She looked as if she was about to cry. Discord hardly looked any better. He seemed about to say something harsh, but then swallowed. “Princess, you will learn that with those wings you have been given great power, but there is a price to pay for it.” Twilight’s head pulled back, eyes wide. “Princess Celestia didn’t say anything about a price. What price?” “Don’t blame her, child,” said Discord. “There is much you need to learn, and some truths are best taken in small doses.” He sighed. “We ascended beings have limits placed upon us. Every act we take has profound consequence upon reality itself, and there are things the cosmos will simply not allow us to do.” He pointed a claw to the sky, where the lightning seemed to be intensifying. “Behold the price of our presence here – magic storms.” “The ones Maximilian mentions in his diary?” Twilight looked at the sky and shuddered. “The very same,” replied Discord. His gaze turned back towards the grave. “If I would have ventured physically close to the boy, so would the storms that would have killed him outright.” He smiled bleakly. “Imagine that, the mischievous Spirit of Disharmony afraid of spreading a little chaos!” The princess sank to her haunches. “But he was just a foal.” Although Starswirl couldn’t see her face he did see the glint of tears dropping from her face. “And he died – alone.” Discord sat on the ground next to the mare, his face hidden in shadow. “But he didn’t, gentle Twilight,” he said. “When the inevitable was coming, and my physical presence would at worst only hasten the end, I came to him and held him in my arms. Sometimes he thought I was his father, and sometimes his mother. Sometimes, he saw me in my true form, his friend from the land of dreams. I sang to him and told him stories like we did when I visited him in his slumber. Oh, how he loved to hear stories.” He became very quiet. The expression on Twilight's tear stained face transformed from sadness to a sudden realization, followed by contrition. Her ears sagged and she put a hoof on Discord’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply...” She then did something that pleased Starswirl tremendously: she hugged the draconequus. The pair didn't move for a long time. Then Discord spoke. "Once upon a time, a little yellow pegasus hugged me, and after millennia I was no longer alone." They broke apart, but stayed sitting close to each other. The draconequus dabbed at his eyes with his furry paw and gazed up at Starswirl. "Maestro, even though you are no longer human in form, in your barrel beats a human heart. You know the words that should be said over the grave of one of your own kind. Could you do me a favor, and speak them?" Starswirl nodded and walked to the base of the grave, facing the headstone. He thought for a moment while the other two rose to stand, heads bowed. "Here lies the child Maximilian, in his mother's bosom. In stillness they are joined, life denied but not forgotten. He was the last of his kind, but he was never alone, for friendship touched him, even here at the end of all things. And though his passage in it was brief, the universe was a better place that he shone his light upon it. May he be remembered.” “May he be remembered,” the mare and the draconequus intoned together in the ritual closing of an Equestrian funeral. Discord raised his head. “That was a very pony way to end a human funeral, Maestro.” “Funerals are for the living, Discord. Who do you see gathered here in mourning?" The draconequus had no response to this. Starswirl pondered his own words, and suddenly realized his lack of generosity. "Still, you may take this as a consolation: young Maximilian’s good fortune is that he will be remembered by immortals.” A moment later he saw the corners of Twilight's mouth turn ever so briefly upwards. He also noticed the intensifying lightning, as flashes brightened the sky almost continually despite the eerie silence. “Let us now go from this place.” “Thank you, Maestro,” said Discord. Before leaving he bent over the grave and placed a paw on it. When he raised it there appeared a single flower, a large, perfect daisy. It waved cheerfully in the slight breeze as the trio began walking back to the dome, a carpet of green and flowers in their wake as they strode forward. When near the dome Discord snapped his fingers and they were suddenly back at the art gallery. Twilight couldn’t help but feel a bit miffed at the uninvited and unannounced teleportation. “I can understand that you wanted to bury Maximilian first,” she said, “but now, we deserve some answers.” He sighed. “I suppose so.” Discord reached behind himself and pulled a pair of large sofas out from nowhere. “Let’s sit comfortably while we talk, shall we?” I guess the old Discord is still somewhere in there! thought Twilight. She and Starswirl sat on one couch and Discord reclined on the other. As they sat down the light coming from the ceiling flickered. “I’m afraid all this teleportation has attracted quite a bit of magic to the area,” said Discord. “We will have to depart soon if we don’t want all the magic sensitive devices in this facility to degrade any further.” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Discord, why did you bring us here?” she asked angrily, and immediately reddened as the question came out a bit harsher than she had intended. Discord smiled, however his expression lacked the mocking quality she had come to expect from him. Then again, he had changed since his reform and close friendship with Fluttershy. He sat upright and steepled his claw and paw. “The first reason was that I wanted to hold a proper funeral for young Maximilian. He deserved no less, and I fear I have little experience in holding a proper one.” Discord tilted his head. “For that, I thank you both." When he raised his head again its features seemed to reflect a bit more of the lively trickster she had come to know since his rehabilitation. "Next, something of which I think our dear Twilight will definitely approve, is a series of lessons. Last, but not least, is a philosophical discussion upon which hangs the fate of two entire worlds. But first, let’s provide some context, shall we?” He snapped his fingers again. After the tingling sensation of teleportation, the first thing Starswirl noticed was the stage in front of him. The second was Twilight seated to his right and looking irate. They sat in a theatre a scant three rows back from center stage. Discord stood onstage behind a lectern, wearing a tweed jacket and spectacles. There was a large white screen behind him. He coughed and tapped on the lectern for attention. “Welcome class to really ancient history one-oh-one. Our lesson today involves events that occurred at the dawn of Equestrian history, and involved most specifically the then two major factions of the Alicorn Ascendancy, the incredibly boring and tedious Sept of Harmony, and the fun loving, wild and crazy guys known as the Sept of Chaos.” On the screen a series of images appeared, the first a sepia coloured photo of some eight Alicorns gathered around a mare wearing a crown, which was followed by another of three draconequi wearing lamp shades on their heads in what looked like a very messy dormitory common room. “Queen Cordelia, the leader of the Sept of Harmony, lost a war against Discord, the leader of the Sept of Chaos. Thinking that he and his assistant were the last remaining members of the Alicorn race on Equestria, he then reigned as king for an indeterminate amount of time, nopony is sure how long as both clocks and calendars became quite delightfully arbitrary during that wondrous golden age, according to one unimpeachable source.” On the screen was the image of a bespectacled Discord dressed in the same tweed jacket. “Alas, nothing good lasts forever. Two sisters of Harmony, hidden away by their mother and a traitor to Chaos, armed themselves with the Elements of Harmony and ensorcelled the good king, turning him into a stone statue, which they put with much uglier statues in their garden. Talk about the lack of a sense of humour!” The screen showed the statue of Discord in the Royal Gardens, however with one claw over his brow in a tragic pose instead of mid scream as Starswirl remembered from his frequent visits to the garden. He was also flanked by a statue of a pony holding a ball, and another of a sea lion blowing a horn. Twilight rose from her seat. “Discord!” she called out. “Do you expect me to believe even a word of what you say about prehistoric times?” The draconequus leaned a patched jacket elbow unto the lectern. “No, and I’m not surprised in the least that Celestia has never seen fit to tell you about those days. But,” –he pointed to Starswirl– ”I expect you to believe him.” Twilight turned her angry gaze to Starswirl. “There’s no chance in Tartarus –” “He’s telling the truth, lass,” said Starswirl. “– that he’s telling the... What? He is?” Twilight looked dumbstruck. Starswirl nodded. “I don’t have the full picture, but Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have spoken to me of those days and the schism at the heart of the alicorns. So far he’s been accurate, at least in the important details. Equestria was originally the home of an alicorn colony, I know not from where. According to Celestia they somehow ‘made’ the universe in which Equestria resides. She also said that there were two main groups, those who favoured structure and harmony, and those who favored chaos and disharmony. The alicorns and draconequi are actually beings of the same race. They change form based on their sept association, which two were constantly at war with each other until all that remained were the sisters, Discord and one other. Yes, this means Discord is their cousin and closest living relative.” Twilight slowly slumped back down into her seat and crossed her forelegs over her barrel. “Just for your information, Princess Celestia has told me some of this. She promised to tell me everything when the time was right.” She glared at the lectern. “We’re a captive audience. You might as well continue this charade.” Onstage Discord had taken out a deck of note cards and shuffled nervously through them. “Well then, where was I?” One card lept from the deck and stuck to his forehead until he peeled it off. Glancing at it, he nodded. “Oh, yes indeed, no sense of humour!” “It was also about that time that the former king, having a lot of spare time on his paws, began to pay far greater attention to those aspects of himself in other universes where he was not so mobility challenged. You see, alicorns and draconequi are connected to all versions of themselves across the multiverse. It works differently in each of us, but in my specific case it’s as if I am present in all these universes at the same time.” “That sounds as if it could be rather confusing,” commented Twilight. “Tell me about it!” Discord laughed. “But then, as the Avatar of Chaos I have an affinity to confusion! My life is full of the most delightful surprises that way.” He crossed his forelimbs. “And besides, sometimes I can’t be bothered to keep track of which universes produce which perceptions and experiences. After all, there are so many versions of myself that have not spent the last thousand years as a statue, you know.” Starswirl raised an eyebrow. “So then, you can perceive multiple universes at the same time?” “Yes. It was in this process I, I mean he, discovered humanity. One of his instances had discovered the link to the human world. How he grew to love the humans and their manifold chaotic ways is a story in itself! Their thirst for knowledge of the unknown, their quest for truth no matter the personal or social costs, and the incredible daring of their undertakings. For the first time in his life the king was in love.” The screen showed Discord, paw and claw clasped before his bosom, eyes in the shape of lovers’ hearts. “But love wasn't the only thing he found on Earth. The more he looked into the works of humanity, the more he saw how somehow its fate and that of Equestria’s ponies were linked.” On the screen scenes from Earth began to flash in rapid succession. Starswirl recognized some, but not all. Some involved fantastical machines the likes of which he had only dreamt of. All showed human beings engaged in a bewildering array of enterprises. He observed each image hungrily, if only too briefly. “And then to his surprise he discovered that Princess Celestia had begun secretly introducing human technology and culture into Equestria.” Images started appearing of household items, brushes, scissors, tools, and then musical scores, plays, books, and that was when Twilight shot upright from her seat a second time. “Wait a minute, Discord! Are you saying that a good portion of Equestria’s cultural and scientific heritage is actually imported from Earth?” The image on the screen had frozen on a sheet of paper with music notation in the usual bars. “Why ask me, when you can hear it right from the horses’ mouths?” said Discord tilting his head to one side. Above his head the screen flickered. A younger Starswirl stood bedsides Princess Luna in a large, richly appointed room. Everywhere were motifs of white and gold, and mirrors reflecting the rainbow of colors of Celestia's mane and the star speckled black of Luna's. Starswirl recognized it as Princess Celestia’s apartments in the old Everfree Castle. Everything was just as he remembered it. In the center of the room was a table laden with food, surrounded by the low cushions. Princess Celestia invited them to the table with a gilded hoof. They each took a place and began to serve themselves using magic to handle fork, knife and spoon. "My dear Princesses,” said the Starswirl on the screen, “I cannot help but remark upon how much your meal etiquette, like so many other things in Equestria–" he gestured to the apartment around them "–is very much akin to that of the human world. Surely this is no coincidence." Luna glanced at Celestia, who simply nodded and continued daintily eating her meal. "What you see here in Equestria has been much influenced by Mundus in the last several hundred years. Ever since Celestia discovered the bridge to your world she has been visiting and bringing back with her ideas, mores, tools, processes, scientific discoveries, and even in a rare few cases entire individuals." She looked at Starswirl pointedly, then resumed with a mischievous grin. "Oft these have proven beneficial and been adopted and adapted to suit our own realm. My sister has under several noms-de-plume chronicled many of her trips, styling them the travels of fictitious ponies to foreign lands neighboring Equestria. These books are very popular and circulate widely." The younger Princess laughed heartily, warming to the subject, even as her sister began to blush. "I will have you know that many of our subjects think highly of France, Italy, Spain and England, imagining them peopled with their fellow ponies, even adopting many of the frivolous fashions my sister so enjoys describing in her fictions. Why, some of our more idle aristocrats even attend classes to learn to speak these languages!" Princess Luna almost fell over in her mirth. Celestia coughed politely into her hoof. "All these were devices for us to quickly disseminate ideas, and to enable me to perfect my own disguise, ensuring my access to the leading lights of Mundus nearest the bridge!" she replied a bit hotly, her embarrassment having lent a quite delightful rosé color to her muzzle. "Especially the fictions with all those randy princes and princesses!" laughed Luna. "She spent entire nights writing those." The moving image froze. “Is it true, Maestro?” Twilight asked him in a gentler voice. She pointed to the image on the screen. “Did Princess Celestia have an actual program for importing ideas and culture from Earth to Equestria?” It took Starswirl a moment to recover from his astonishment. “How did you do this, Discord? It’s as if my memories have become a play for all to see.” The draconequus removed his spectacles with his claw, and then taking a hanky out of his pocket proceeded to wipe his eyeballs clean. He bounced each one once on the floor before catching it in its respective eye socket. Re-donning his glasses, he grinned out over the pair. “I did nothing more than to show exactly what you remembered, Maestro.” Starswirl turned his head towards the Princess. “He tells the truth, lass. This is exactly as I remember it.” He paused a moment. “And to answer your question, yes, she did.” Twilight seemed lost in thought for a moment, then her ears rose high. “Knowing that she did it is not the same as knowing why she did it, and Princess Celestia does nothing without purpose. So please, Maestro, tell me what she hoped to accomplish.” The screen flickered to life again. Starswirl held Princess Celestia's hoof in his own while they shared a bench in the garden of Everfree Castle. She looked rather fragile. “I have put much thought to the assignment you gave me, Princess,” he said. Celestia sighed. “I presume you are referring to the rescue of the humans from the coming merging of our worlds?” “Yes indeed. Majesty, I have a very important question to ask. But first, I wish to let you know that your sister said many things to me about the nature of the alicorns. She called you predators. Was she telling the truth?” Her expression grew troubled, but after a moment’s consideration, she nodded hesitantly and began to speak. “The term predator is perhaps extreme... but not entirely incorrect.” She scanned the area with her eyes, and then with eyes closed and horn aglow. Seemingly satisfied that nopony was in eavesdropping range, she resumed a more relaxed demeanor. “Starswirl, amongst the Alicorn race there are some who can literally feast on the emotions of others. Any strong emotion will do. With such ponies the joy, love, pain and hate of others is the sustenance they crave, and so they become masters of deception and of sowing the seeds of discord. Some however were also truly superlative artists. As usual, such a gift is a double-edged sword. “For this reason our race is one that fosters many conflicts, and this was particularly true of those of us who established this world.” Celestia was silent for a minute, her gaze distant. She turned to look Starswirl in the eyes. “I told you of my parents’ devotion to Harmony. Before her passing I made a vow to my mother, Starswirl, that I would change things. And I did. When we had defeated all the other alicorns...” Celestia looked down. “Luna and I...” She sniffed and tears glinted on her elegant muzzle. “... we produced the first generation of new ponies. We split the Alicorn race into four tribes and the results are the ponies of Equestria.” “Four, Princess?” Starswirl raised an eyebrow. “I know of only three.” “The fourth lives hidden amongst the others, changing shape as need be to feed on emotions and then return to their hives.” Starswirl stared at Celestia in disbelief. “But, why keep them at all, princess?” The white alicorn sniffed again. “In all societies, Maestro, there have to be those with the passion to foster change and sufficient ferocity to defend it when needed. Our plan was to count on the natures of these changelings to help defend Equestria. We never imagined the difficulties we would have in keeping the tribes united as one nation, and that is only the first of our... of my mistakes.”[ Starswirl was deep in thought, absorbing this information. A thought struck him. “And is this why you invited those other races in, the dogs and the dragons and such?” “Yes, I sought resilience through diversity,” she replied simply. “Yet in all of these cases, instead of standing united, the other races and ponies mistrusted each other, and chose to live apart. In each case Luna was livid. She called me a foal to even hope for any other outcome, to believe that Harmony was possible.” Starswirl let go of her hoof. “And what role has humanity to play in this grand plan?” he asked, visibly angry. “Are we merely another scheme to provide a buffer between your precious ponies and a dangerous universe?” Celestia covered her face in her hooves. “No Starswirl! I swear it, that has never been my intention!” “Then what is your intention?” Starswirl stood up from the bench and faced her directly. “You have asked me to help save my race, Princess, and save it I would. But I will not betray it!” He trembled as he stood waiting for an answer. Celestia lowered her forehooves from her face. She looked... vulnerable. There were tear tracks down the side of her muzzle. Her eyes spoke of misery, loneliness and a broken heart. But there was also something else. A solid core of determination. “My intention is to save them, Maestro. Because that is what I promised to do, and because it is the right thing to do. It was the same with the gryphons, dragons, diamond dogs and the others. All these races faced their extinction and I do not regret my actions in saving them.” She paused and something else appeared in her expression. Doubt. “But with the humans, it is so much more difficult to keep my resolve.” Despite the words she had a smile on her lips. "I have loved humankind for so long, Maestro. Of all the thousands of worlds I have visited, yours has ever been my favourite! The ideas, the beauty, the ambition, the philosophy, the love, the music and the stories of your world have all enthralled me since I discovered it and foresaw the coming convergence of our worlds. And then by bitter experience, I learned that the magic of Equestria is a deadly poison to humankind.” She covered her eyes with a pastern. Her smile became a grimace. “The only way for them to live in our world is a bodily transformation, such as I have done to you, Maestro. But I am faced with a quandary: am I truly saving humanity if in doing so humans are changed at such a fundamental level? Or does my solution end humanity as surely as if I did nothing and let them all die when our worlds merge?” Starswirl stared severely down at Celestia. He raised a single eyebrow and waited. She was confused a moment, but then suddenly realized to whom she had asked her question. Her sweet laughter rang like silver bells, even though her eyes remained tinged with sadness. “Perhaps I was being insensitive in putting my question thus,” she quipped. “Perhaps,” he replied and sat back down on the bench. “But it is a good question, though a ponified human such as I might be less than unbiased upon the matter.” He decided to take a gamble. “I could however relate the comments made by another on just this topic.”[ Both of Celestia’s ears turned eagerly in his direction. He took a deep breath. “Its source is none other than your sister, Princess Luna, from the night of my kidnapping several months ago.” Celestia’s ears fell at the mention of her sister’s name. However they did not fall all the way to the back of her head, so he decided to carry on. “She said that she feared humanity, because we were not only predators but just as dangerous as the alicorns themselves. She also said that she thought our nature would not change with ponification. That a predatory species such as ours would remain so even after the transformation.” Celestia chewed her lip in thought. “Did she reveal her reasoning in reaching this conclusion?” she asked. Starswirl grinned. “I asked the same question, and was quite surprised when Princess Luna held me up as an example!” He leaned in closer to the princess as if sharing particularly juicy gossip. “She said that since my arrival in Equestria I had sought to colonize aggressively, had undermined the established class structure, and that I had made war upon my enemies with fiendish weapons conceived of my depraved but brilliant mind.” He tilted his head to one side. “She said that my actions revealed my true nature: that I was still a predator and human being, despite my equine countenance.” He lifted a single hoof in a classic pose of a destrier ready for battle. Celestia’s grin had become practically jolly. “Thou art a formidable stallion to behold, Starswirl! The bells on your cloak are particularly frightening, I must say.” The image froze, catching the two mid-laugh. Twilight slowly sat back into her seat. Despite a tentative smile she had tears in her eyes. “She seemed... so hurt,” she said, almost inaudibly. She swallowed, then continued more forcefully. “I’ve seen the place in this memory. It’s just outside the Castle of the Two Sisters. This was just after she had banned Luna to the moon, wasn’t it?” Starswirl placed a hoof upon the young mare’s. “Yes. We all took turns being with her. She needed company so badly then.” Twilight’s tears continued unabated. She sniffed. “She’s always been my pillar of strength. It’s very hard for me to have seen her like that.” After a moment she shook herself and looked up, her expression unreadable. “So you have my full attention, Discord. What now?” Onstage, Discord had removed his glasses. “I’m sorry that I had to subject you to such a thing, Twilight.” He did indeed look contrite. ”But it needed to be done, as you wouldn’t have believed my word alone. Thus Princess Celestia, consummate planner that she is, devised a plan to prepare Equestria to receive the human population, and engaged Starswirl's help in making it so. Even if the humans were physically converted into ponies, she feared they could easily overwhelm her little ponies unless Equestria’s own cultural and technological progress was accelerated. She wanted humans and ponies, when they finally met, to stand as equals.” At this point the draconequus’s smile bent, as did his posture. “Now I’m going to admit to something, but first, you must both promise me that you won’t stop speaking with me after I tell you.” “Oh, come-on, Discord!” Twilight’s anger resumed full force. “I’ve seen you at your worst. What could you possibly admit to that would make me even angrier?” The draconequus pointedly looked at Starswirl. Starswirl’s mouth went dry, and he felt the heat of anger building. “There is one aspect to what Discord showed us that has not been explained.” The draconequus cringed even more. Starswirl sighed. “You have my word, Discord.” From her expression the exchange had only managed to further perplex Twilight. Nevertheless, she nodded grudgingly. “And mine.” Discord loosened his shirt collar. “Er, thanks. Well, here goes.” He put his spectacles on again, although Starswirl noticed he had put them on upside-down. “As I have already recounted, the king, in his statuesque state, had grown to love humanity as a true expression of the beauty of chaos when he discovered that his captor and nemesis was also visiting Earth and sinking her metaphorical claws into these very same humans.” He placed the back of his paw against his forehead. “Concerned that the alicorn princess’s plan might be to make humanity more like ponies and infect them with her vile concepts of Harmony, the king grew despondent, and then desperate, looking for a way to help them avoid such a tawdry fate.” He took a deep breath. “So I... er, he... – found a way to irrevocably sever the physical bridge between the Earth and Equestrian universes.” Twilight tilted her head toward the stage, pointing one ear directly at the lectern. “What was that again?” Starswirl surged to stand on his hind legs. “What this irresponsible lout said, was that in a fit of jealousy, he irrevocably severed the link between the Earth and Equestrian–” he pointed an accusing hoof at Discord “–universes, and in so doing condemned to death the population of an entire world! Wastrel! Blackguard! Genocide!” Twilight’s eyes grew wide as comprehension dawned. Onstage, Discord looked frightened. He raised his forelimbs. “Please, don’t rush to judge me. I know what I did was incredibly vain and inconsiderate and... just plain stupid. But...” “But what, Discord!” Twilight fairly snarled. “I did not let matters stand! I did something to fix the problem!” Starswirl trembled. He purposely forced himself to sit down before his ire grew such that he would not be able to master the urge to lash out at the draconequus in a magical conflagration. “And what did you do?” he bit off through clenched teeth. The draconequus pointed down from the lectern at the alicorn mare with obvious affection. “I created her!”