//------------------------------// // Prologue: The Vanishing // Story: Starfall: Dominion of the Night, Part II // by AuroraScribe //------------------------------// Current Day, Everfree Forest “If I simply finish the restoration on these last few tapestries… could you just imagine how wonderful they would look in your new home, Twilight?” Rarity said with a longing sigh as she pictured it. “It’s an injustice they’ve had to wait this long, but I can fret over it no longer… I simply must finish this project!” The white unicorn blinked and looked at the bare rear wall of the old throne room then, with her lips twisting in confusion, she glanced to each of the equally bare side walls. “That is, if you could direct me to them. I thought they were here just a moment ago…” Twilight Sparkle, covered in dust and cobwebs peeked out from the entrance to the side hall. “Oh, I’m not sure, Rarity. Maybe Fluttershy or Rainbow took them down while I was busy in the basement. You wouldn’t believe all of the great things I found down there!” Trying to hide her shock at her friend’s appearance, quickly Rarity looked once more to the adjacent wall. “Yes, yes I’m sure… please do tell me all about it in a moment. I’m in the zone, so to speak, and before I lose my train of thought I need to find these tapestries and finish… falling?! Fallllling!” Rarity begins to scream as she tumbles backwards then gasps as purple magic surrounds her, keeping her suspended in the air. Gently bringing her friend to a safe spot to land, the magical glow of energy surrounding Twilight’s horn vanishes. “That was close! Are you alright?” “My word… I am, thanks to you.” As the energy surrounding her begins to fade, Rarity points a magically glowing hoof toward a gaping hole in the floor. “But where in the world did that come from?” Taking a second to remove a cobweb dangling from her hair, Twilight tapped her chin and thought a moment. “We both know this place is full of hidden chambers and booby traps - maybe you triggered one of them somehow?” “Perhaps…” Rarity looked from the hole then back to her friend. “But… I was just standing there. I don’t think I touched anything, well, aside from the floor, that is.” “In this castle you never know…” A voice overhead began. “You should see some of the crazy places me and Fluttershy found.” Rainbow Dash lands with a dusty skid between the old thrones. “Oh my, Rainbow and I were looking through the old tower when we thought we heard screaming.” Fluttershy lands as softly as a feather near Rarity. “Are you both alright?” “I am, thanks to Twilight.” Rarity gave a warm smile to the purple alicorn. “Luckily she was here… but it was the strangest thing. Suddenly, it was like the floor beneath me just disappeared.” Rarity nervously looked from her friends back to the hole as she noticed they were moving to inspect it. “Woah… I can’t even see the bottom!” Rainbow Dash said, a hoof bridged above her eyes to block out the morning sunlight. “It’s like it just goes on and on.” “Perhaps it would be best if you all didn’t get so close… After all, we still don’t know how it got there.” Grinning, Dash lets out a squeaky giggle and displays her wings. “I don’t think that’s something we need to worry abou-” She begins and falls forward as another section of the floor vanishes from beneath her in a white pulse. Before falling in too far, with a quick flip and a spiral of rainbow hair, the blue pegasus spreads her wings and quickly bolts back out of the hole. “Hey, what the heck just happened?!” Everyone takes a step back, unsure of what to make of the strange event. “Maybe Pinkie is playing that organ again?” Fluttershy says and shyly lowers her head, seemingly trying to make some sense of what was happening. “I think it did some really strange things last time…” “Nope, wasn’t me!” Pinkie Pie announces as she happily bounces into the throne room from the opposite side hall, Spike following closely behind her. “If I had been you probably would’ve heard me playing, but since there’s no organ that’s pretty unlikely.” Twilight waves her hoof for Pinkie to stop. “Wait, wait… There’s no organ? What are you talking about, Pinkie?” “Notta, not there, history, gone…” The pink pony bounces one last time then lands on her rear hooves. With a quick glance about the room she points a hoof toward the rear wall. “Like the tapestries, the doorway to the kitchen, that spot in the floor, the throne that used to be on the right side … Oh! And that really creepy dragon statue that always gives me weird looks.” She giggles and tilts her head towards Twilight. “Between you and me, I’m totally glad that one’s gone.” “She’s right, Twilight. Pinkie was going to show me some of the things she found out about the organ and it really wasn’t there…” As Spike finishes he looks around, apparently well aware of the disapproving looks he was receiving. “And I know what you’re all thinking… it definitely wasn’t an enchanted comic! I wasn’t even reading one!” Twilight laughs then gives a tiny sigh. “It’s okay Spike, we believe you… it’s just that none of this makes a whole lot of sense.” She says but her shoulders slump as she looks to each of her friends. “For now though, no matter how much I’d like to stay, I don’t think the Castle of the Two Sisters is safe enough for us to be here. At least, not until we find out what’s causing things to up and vanish.” “Very astute - as always - Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Discord’s head peeks up through the gaping hole in the floor. “Discord!?" Twilight says in surprise and raises a front leg as her eyes narrow. "I should’ve known the whole hurt thing was an act… This seems like something you would do!” “No, goodness no… Whatever do you mean? I’m simply here to help my friends.” In a flash of light Discord vanishes then reappears upside down above Twilight. “I’ve made many mistakes… but I’m here to prove that I’ve learned from them, and if you’ll let me, hopefully set things right.” As he finishes he flips upright then bows before the princess. “Most of all, above all else… I just hope in time you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.” Rarity sighs as she notices the draconequus glance sadly to Fluttershy. “But if you aren’t the cause, then who’s the one doing this? Surely this has nothing to do with that awful monster, Tirek.” “Right you are, lovely Rarity.” Discord vanishes once more and reappears next to the white unicorn and she quickly does her best to back-pedal from him. “As you know, the devourer of magic is once again caged in a place where he can do no harm.” “Which is probably where you should be…” Spike mumbles. Discord clears his throat. “Let’s try not to dwell so much on the past… except in the case of the current problem, because that’s exactly what’s required.” Rainbow Dash hovers over close to Discord. “What does that even mean?” “Well, let’s look at the facts shall we.” A book magically appears before the draconequus and he dons a detective hat and a thick pair of bifocals. The book opens in a shining orange glow and he quickly scans over a few details. “We have items going poof here, there…” he points to a torch sconce which in a white flash disappears along with the book in front of him. “Everywhere. And this isn’t just happening here in the Castle of the Two Sisters… No, no… It’s a phenomena occurring across Equestria, as I’m sure even our friend Applejack would tell you. If she were here, of course.” “Oh my, Applejack?” Fluttershy meekly begins. “Is… she alright?” “Wait a sec… When I asked her earlier if she wanted to come, she said she needed to take care of something at the farm.” Dash thinks a moment. “Come to think of it, she said something about missing zap apple trees.” “Exactomondo!” Discord exclaims. “Applejack is fine, but the Apple family farm, and many of the other farms near the Everfree forest… not so much.” “Goodness! If she’s having these kinds of problems, we must go help her at once!” Rarity says and looks to her friends as she readies herself to leave. “That sadly isn’t the worst of it… as I’m sure you’ll learn in three, two, one…” Discord says as he hovers on his side, tapping his hooves to the countdown. Spike looks left and right then grabs his stomach as he burps up green flame and a scroll. In a flash of purple magic, the scroll’s seal is broken as it quickly hovers over to Twilight. Wasting no time, she scans the contents and gasps. “Princess Celestia has requested me to come to Canterlot as soon as I possibly can…” “But why, Twilight?” Dash says and everyone looks to the purple alicorn. “Because Princess Luna has fallen ill… she’s currently unable to perform her duties.” Twilight looks once more over the scroll then her eyes narrow as she looks to Discord. “If you knew all of this was happening... Are you playing games with us? Are you involved somehow? I never thought you’d stoop so low as to harm Princess Luna – Tell us what you’re up to!” Her horn shimmers with purple magic. “Princess Twilight… you’ve held the combined magic of four alicorns. You’ve possessed virtually unlimited power in those tiny – yet wholly adorable – hooves of yours.” He pauses to point a clawed finger at the top of her head. “Oh, and within your horn too, of course. With your abilities, you should already know this has nothing to do with me.” “Get to the point, Discord…” Dash buzzes by and lands next to Twilight. “Well… It’s actually quite elementary.” With a wave of his paw, a smoking pipe appears and he quickly raises it and blows bubbles. “Twilight should feel the same, but perhaps it’s a form of magic she’s not as familiar with – I’m speaking of the magic of time, of course.” He closes his eyes and nods. “With the princess’s brief but almost unlimited connection to the arcane, she should’ve sensed how out of balance things were… Just as I have.” His brow furrows as he gives a look of distress to Twilight. “And I’m not just speaking of the elements or the problems caused by the incredibly not-so-friendly Tirek.” Twilight nearly stumbles backwards as everyone else looks at Discord as if he had just gone crazy. “Okay, Twi – Discord has clearly gone coo coo. So wuddya wanna do?” Dash covers her mouth with a hoof and whispers as she leans in close to Twilight. Twilight glances to Dash then looks to each of her friends, stopping on Discord last. “No, he hasn’t… If anything, he’s starting to make sense for once. A long time ago, I used a time scroll I found in the Canterlot library. It created a small paradox that almost made me go crazy.” “Yeah… I, uh, don’t know what a paradox is.” Dash says and apparently looks to Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy for backup, both of which shrug. “The spell was incredibly difficult to pull off… but basically, it gave me a very brief chance to speak with myself in the past. Because of that, I created a loop in time where I tried to find out what my future self was trying to warn me of.” Twilight says, recalling the matter. “But… how did you manage to fix it?” Rarity quietly asks. Twilight looks to Rarity, concern in her eyes. “I couldn’t fix it… that’s the thing. It had to play out for me to finally understand what I had done. But… how does this connect to all of the things disappearing?” “Oh, don’t worry yourself over that. What you did wasn’t even a tiny drop in the ocean compared to what’s happening around us now.” Discord says and plucks a bit of webbing from Twilight’s hair. “Time can scatter in so many directions…” He weaves the webbing into a spiral that connects to each of his hands. “Every event tied to one another, all part of each other. That is… until…” He pulls a single strand of the webbing and hangs the full spiral from it atop crest of the doorway. “A single important event is severed, bringing an end to anything that connected to it from that point on.” A pair of scissors appears in his paw and he snips the single fastening thread, sending the webbing drifting to the floor. “So you’re, uh, saying something in the past has been changed?” Dash says, her lips twisting as she tries to make sense of it all. “He’s sayyyying, that somepony connected to all the things that have been disappearing has been removed from the course of time. So everything after that, poof, is vanishing.” Pinkie Pie says and blows into a smoking pipe sending bubbles into the air. “It all makes perfect sense.” Discord nods and blows into his pipe as well. “Uh… if you say so.” Dash says with a cocked eyebrow and scratches her head. Twilight takes a step forward. “But how do I stop it? My attempt at fixing time didn’t exactly go very well for me last time…” “First… You’ll need to discover who or what is the cause, which I’d say is likely something connected to the surrounding forest, this castle and even Princess Luna herself. Perhaps Princess Celestia could help give you a clue or four.” Discord says and looks about the throne room. “Tell her what you’ve learned so far… and because of it, perhaps she can give you even more insight. But whatever you decide to do, I’d make it quick… I don’t think we have much time left.” He chuckles at the pun then, apparently noticing nobody else found the humor in it, he coughs.