Twilight reached the palace with seconds to spare, entering through her study that looked out onto the main balcony. Hooves echoing on the smooth crystal floors, the princess proceeded at a full gallop towards the tall double doors, behind which lay the counsel room. All the while, the brief encounter with Discord and his question regarding the Tree of Harmony seemed to swirl around her like a lingering accusation.
In truth, Twilight thought she might have discerned music, though just for a moment while descending to the cave. But then that could have been Discord humming as he tended to the tree, and she had heard nothing afterwards—well before he had asked if she did. It would have been a lie to say she had amid such uncertainty.
Yet had she?
There was another prickle of guilt.
Discord had also been calm and serious. This frightened her. What had he meant? Twilight still had no idea.
She needed to calm down.
So before opening the doors, Twilight forced herself to pause and take a deep, cleansing breath. This was a technique learned from Candace, her sister-in-law, to relax when feeling pressured or overwhelmed. It had helped many times since then and seemed to do the trick even now.
Yes. That was better.
Everything would be fine. With the help of her friends, Twilight could figure out how to handle this latest development. While beginning to arrange their counsel chamber, they might have a quiet discussion on the topic, which should ease her mind and help put matters back in perspective.
The doors stuck fast for a moment, until Twilight used her magic to shove them open—and then wished she hadn’t a split second later when what seemed a wave of paper came crashing down upon her. Surprise overtook all other thoughts, alongside a struggle to break the surface. The letters parted with some difficulty, and at last she burst free headfirst to find utter chaos.
Twilight took in the scene. Aside from the letters crowding the floor, there were streamers (some long and bouncing gently besides others torn and hanging forlornly), Wonderbolts memorability (scattered across the walls in odd spot-like clusters), boxes crammed against the walls (spilling reams of cloth everywhere), birds and squirrels (playing about in the rafters), and intermittent apples (which smelled somewhat overripe).
Framed by all this confusion sat her friends, each holding letters and clearly finding great delight in them.
However, they did turn when Twilight’s head popped out of the pile.
“Twilight!” The ponies rushed over to help set Twilight free.
“Twi, are you all right?” Applejack asked.
“Yes. I’m fine.” Struggling to regain her footing atop the mess, Twilight scanned the room once more. “Huh—but what happened here?”
“We got mail from ponies all across Equestria.” Pinkie Pie beamed, bouncing on her puffy tail close to Twilight, she held up a cheese-scented (and hued) piece of stationary. The words were in bright red, loopy letters. “And guess what? Cheese Sandwich wrote to congratulate us and mention this great polka contest being held in Seaddle, and he wants me to join him for it tomorrow afternoon.”
“Well, I heard from my friend Coco in Manehattan.” Rarity displayed her letter, clean and embroidered in silver swirls. “Her business is really taking off, and she invited me to come see a special exhibition of her work at the Manehattan Museum of Art. Can you imagine? The poor dear says the thought of discussing her fashion before an adoring audience makes her nervous, and she wants me to be there for the opening night, tonight.”
“You oughta hear what Silver Shill has to say about his business.” Applejack looked proud, clutching a plain letter in her hooves. “He’s already earned a reputation as an honest, down-to-earth pony concerned about his customers. In fact, he plans to open an antiques/dress-up shop right here in Ponyville and wants my help setting it up soon as possible.”
“Spitfire sent me an order to report tomorrow morning in Cloudsdale at 0600 sharp for some special training.” Rainbow Dash crowed, zipping about so Twilight couldn’t even see her letter (although she could guess at its design—formal and printed in clear-set type. “She called me one of her top recruits. That means I’m practically her wingpony.”
“All so soon?” Twilight asked. At the same time, she couldn’t help but notice another coincidence. The ponies who had invited her friends to various functions had each given them their keys for the chest—and they wanted to celebrate their newfound friendships doing things they enjoyed together.
Meanwhile, Discord—the pony who had provided her key—was cleaning the Tree of Harmony and trying to communicate with it.
What if it were possible to understand the Tree of Harmony? Twilight had to admit how exciting that would be to discover.
Hmm.
“We would have known about them sooner.” Fluttershy spoke up. “But it seems there was a bit of a backlog at the post office. They received a great deal of mail, and the celebrations were like a long holiday, so they only just began sorting and passing out all the letters—” Something of Twilight’s absentmindedness must have shown through, though her friend misinterpreted it. “Goodness!” Fluttershy said, looking around at the letters cluttering the floor and the hodgepodge of decorations. “We really should clean up the counsel room. It’s a mess.”
“Ah, yeah. I guess we kinda forgot about it with everything goin’ on.” Applejack blushed in embarrassment. “Sorry about that, Sugarcube. No wonder you look so frazzled, or perhaps it’s from something the mayor had to say?”
“The mayor?” It took Twilight a moment to remember what had first kept her this morning. Using her magic, she began to gather a great portion of the letters and stack them, neatly, along the clearest wall. “Oh. The mayor just wanted somepony to listen to her speech for the coming elections. That really didn’t take too long.” She found Spike under a particularly heavy load, and the baby dragon reached his feet, looking grateful.
“If I may ask, Twilight.” Rarity put in, beginning to help stack the rest of the letters. “But it sounds and looks like something is bothering you.”
“Well, I don’t know if this is bothering me. On my way back from the mayor’s this morning, I saw Discord.” Twilight said.
“Discord is in Ponyville?” Rainbow Dash’s voice gained a harder edge, but she sounded less wary than usual whenever they had spoken about the chaos spirit in the past. “Okay. What is he up to this time?”
“He didn’t come to Ponyville.” Twilight continued. “I followed him to the cave where the Tree of Harmony stands. Discord said he was trying to communicate with it, somehow.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.” Pinkie was using her tail to sweep the letters into a corner.
“Trees can hear ya.” Applejack said. “I talk to my apple trees all the time. It helps ‘em grow. But do ya really think the Tree of Harmony is like a regular tree in that way?”
“I couldn’t say.” Working together, they had almost cleared the floor already. So Twilight began to pace, which seemed to make it easier for her to reason out tough questions. “But I suppose stranger things have happened, and the Tree of Harmony has given us a lot. The Elements of Harmony. The chest with its keys. This castle. Perhaps there is more the Tree of Harmony has to share with us.” Twilight paused, trying to sense make of the situation. There had been links between everything the Tree of Harmony had provided, and it had indirectly supplied the means to defeat serious threats to Equestria like Tirek. “Think of all the things we could learn.”
A vision of Discord with his odd assortment of materials before the Tree of Harmony (“TOH”, as he had called it) flashed through Twilight’s mind. He had been studying the tree in his own way.
“Is Discord doing okay?” Fluttershy asked then. “When you spoke with him?”
“Yes. He seemed to be enjoying himself.” Twilight managed a smile. “Actually, when I saw him, Discord was humming while cleaning the Tree of Harmony.”
It was interesting, seeing the surprised looks that appeared on almost all her friends’ faces. That is, except for Fluttershy. She simply nodded her head in a knowing way.
“Discord can be very helpful.” The yellow Pegasus agreed. “He really is trying his best to be good—I’m sure now, more than ever.
He’s just learning what being a true friend means.”
None of the ponies could dispute this, given the draconequus’ sincere apology after Tirek had drained most of Equestria, and him, of all their magic. He had appeared older and wearier than Twilight had ever known him at that point, and there was a vulnerability that must have been present even before the event occurred.
Now he was tending to the Tree of Harmony all alone. Overall, Discord had acted goofy as always. He had practically pushed
Twilight out of the cavern.
Still, Twilight had the nagging feeling she was missing something important, not only about the Tree of Harmony, but about Discord as well.
“You know how I feel about order.” He had said, while encouraging Twilight to rejoin her other friends—who would soon spend time with the ponies they had encouraged toward brighter futures.
She threw another glance around the council chamber.
The Key of Friendship, and Magic.
Suddenly, Twilight’s path became clear. The princess knew exactly what she needed to do.
“Hey, girls?” Twilight said, amid the meditative silence brought on by the turn in their conversation.
“Yes?” They replied.
“I have a favor to ask.”