Discord Raising Questions
Twilight was hesitant to walk down the dark library corridor and was about to turn around and head back out the way she came when she felt the warmth of a midnight blue wing draped over her.
“I don’t want to go down there,” she verbalized her feelings.
“You must gain control of those memories if you are ever to escape the nightmares that plague you,” Luna said in a comforting tone.
“I’m not sure I can,” she said before swallowing hard.
“I am,” Luna said. “You are a strong and amazing mare. You can do this.”
“But, how?” she looked up to Luna.
“Discord represents all you stand against,” Luna said using her other wing to point to the rest of her minds library. “You represent harmony and order, just like the books on the shelves of you library.”
“What does that mean?” she asked and Luna simply pointed down the dark unorganized aisle.
Twilight looked once more at the sign on the side of the book case, it had no words on it simply a symbol, the simple outline of the Discord. She looked at the shelves the books looked as though they were just tossed on the shelves some were on their sides, some on the floor, some placed spine toward the wall. She need to “bring order to chaos,” she told herself. She lit her horn and began to remove the books on the shelf nearest to her by using her magic and placing them correctly on the shelf. She worked slowly, methodicly and quietly as if she was afraid of waking the god from slumber. The books bore titles like, statue in the garden, chochlate rain, mean Fluttershy, lying Applejack, Disloyal Dash, Covetis Rarity, Party Pooping Pinky. She winced each time she picked up one of the books a flood of bad memories coursing through her as long as her or her magic touched them. She tried to focus on the task at hand, organize the library. She glanced at Luna from time to time to gain reassurance that she wasn’t alone. She breathed a sigh of relief as she looked at the final book on the shelf and reached out with her magic to turn it around and place it correctly on the shelf. She froze as if she had put her hoof through a storm cloud and the lightening was electrocuting her. Twilight tried to move as the memory filled her conscious mind her eyes widening in horror.
“Twilight!” she could hear Luna scream as she stood there unable to move. The alicorns of dreams charged forward in to the aisle. She was suddenly out of breath as she was struck in the side by a book, but she shook it off and continued toward Twilight, but was struck again. The books in the discord section were flying off the shelf, literally, flapping their covers like birds and dive bombing the alicorn.
“Twilight! Focus! You need to Focus!” Luna shouted as she continued to fight her way to Twilight.
The lavender unicorn was overwhelmed as the memory continued to eat away at her conscious thought until she found herself walking down one of the soapy streets of Discords Ponyville. But, she wasn’t her, she was watching herself the color faded from her mane and coat disheartened because of her failure to solve the chaos gods riddle. She had survived the longest holding onto her hope and optimism in the face of Discords challenges as they worked their way through the maze. “It’s all my fault. I just wasn’t powerful enough. I should have been able to stop him. I lost all my friends. I-I-I failed,” she told herself until simply stopping and slumping down in a patch of cotton candy and looking at her muddy reflection in puddle made of chocolate milk.
“You really shouldn’t look so glum, chum,” the taunting voice of the draconesque called from behind her. “Chaos rules, the world is now filled with the fun of random acts of randomness.”
“I don’t care,” she said as tears dripped down her muzzle diluting the chocolate puddle.
“You don’t care,” he smiled towering over her, before reaching down to scoop up the unicorn and squeeze her in a hug and dancing around. “You don’t care! How wonderful! Not caring is exactly the mindset you need to embrace chaos.”
He held her at arms length and smiled, “You don’t mind if I gloat do you?” he said before turning her to face himself on a stage accepting an award with roses being tossed at his feet.
The pony handling of her body and the unbearable sound of the gloating god of discord in her ears had pushed her past the point of not caring and to the beginnings of anger. She sent a charge through her body that shocked the gods claws and causing him to yelp and drop her in surprise. The landing had been soft as she ended up in a bush of marshmallows.
“You really shouldn’t have done that, that hurt,” he said sucking his thumb.
“What are you going to do? You already won,” she said a twinge of anger building in her tone.
“I know, its grand isn’t it?” he said with a toothy grin.
“Now, I understand why mother turned you to stone,” Twilight muttered.
“Mother did you say?” he leaned in to her with a listening horn next to his ear.
“Yes, mother,” she said plainly.
“Well, I’ve only been defeated and turned into stone once that I can remember, though I’ve been around a long time and am bound to forget things, but you’re kind of young, so it must have been recent,” he continued pulling down a chart that displayed a timeline of his life and muttering to himself as he laughed at memories and traced the almost infinite line backwards. “Did I know her?” he asked looking through his little black book.
“Yes,” she said.
“Well who?” he asked. “Let me guess, Luna? I knew that tease didn’t just play hoofball for the other team.”
“Celestia! You demented demon,” she shouted exasperated with his antics.
“Really? Who’s the father?” he said as Twilight found herself sitting on a stage in front of an audience with Celestia and discord with a microphone and two stallions and another discord.
“So,” he said taking a serious tone looking to the audience. “Welcome to another edition of Who’s my Daddy? Celestia, we know it must have been lonely ruling a kingdom and that even you aren’t immune to urges.”
Celestia began to open her mouth to speak and suddenly found she had no voice and the draconesque smiled and waggled his eyebrows before.
“I’ll do right by you,” Discord said rushing to Celestia on his knees, now appearing with a flannel shirt and trucker hat. “I’m sorry for all the years I’ve been away.”
The look on Celestia’s face was one of horror at the sight.
“I’ll take care of you baby girl,” he said lifting Twilight up once again this time cradling her in his arms and shoving a bottle in her mouth. “Daddy’s here.”
The words made Twilight gag and she spat out the bottle, “I. AM. NOT. YOUR. DAUGHTER!!!!!” she shouted her skin crawling. The princess, the stage, and the audience vanished twilight reappeared on the ground and a now flannel free Discord stood across from her in the field of marshmallow bushes.
“I can’t believe she got her self knocked up while I was gone?” he said.
“She said she’d wait for me,” he said holding out a heart shaped framed picture of Celestia.
“You and my..my .. mother?” Twilight said her brain about to short circuit.
“Well, I guess we were on a break,” he said literally drawing quotes in the air around the word break. “I guess, I shouldn’t have tried to ask out Luna.”
“I’m through talking to you,” she said trying to stop off through the fluffy white field of shaped sugar, not getting very far before a magical field lifted her off the ground an back towards the god. She was unable to move, not that she struggled much. He rotated her clock wise, counter clock wise, as he compared her to a diagram of Celestia.
“Humph you are 100% certified princess. I just don’t think you’re her princess at least not in the way everyone thinks,” he said putting a big red X through the diagram of Celestia and replacing it with a large black question mark. He let the field dissipate and she returned to the ground. “Oh Twilight,” he laughed, “I thought I was the expert in warping reality but this doozy would have Pinkie twitching like a jumping bean.”
Twilight tried to zap him with her magic again but he easily dodged the bolt and sat on a cloud. “Discord get down here!” she shouted.
“Oh, why don’t you just use those wings of yours Princess Twilight Sparkle,” he said mockingly.
“I don’t have wings you senile old god,” she yelled back her frustration building.
“I see them now, not that I noticed them before, but now, I see,” he said.
“I assure you you’re the one that doesn’t see,” she said. “I’m not in the mood for your tricks anymore, just go and leave me be. I just want to be alone.”
“Oh, dear Twilight, the trick I can play are nothing compared to the one great cosmic trick being played on you,” he said from his cloud as he began to float farther and farther away leaving the unicorn more and more discouraged and confused.
“Twilight? Twilight! Wake up,” Luna said shaking the pony sitting next to her on the bed.
“What? What?” she muttered as she slowly came back to consciousness. Twilight looked around the bedroom, her bedroom, no sign of the demented god. The next thing she felt was the warmth of an embrace wrapping around her neck.
“What happened?” Luna asked not able to hide the concern in her voice.
“I think it was Discord, or at least a piece of him,” she said letting go to look at Luna. “It’s like he set a trap in my own mind. He buried a memory in there, a conversation that I don’t remember happening until now.
“Whatever he said you shouldn’t listen?” Luna said trying to comfort the unicorn.
“I think he said Celestia isn’t my mother,” Twilight said her face ashen the bedrock of her reality feeling as though it had become cracked.
“Don’t worry. We will get to the bottom of this,” Luna said wrapping Twilight up in the cocoon of her wings as the pony began to sob.