//------------------------------// // Of Little Talks... // Story: Discord and Rhyme // by Phoenix Quill //------------------------------// Twilight looked at Discord with her eyes narrowed once he had finished talking. "Did you just mash together about seven different religions into one story?" Discord tried his best to keep a straight face at the question, but soon enough a grin that could only be described as villianous spread across his muzzle. "Maybe," he said in a voice that feigned innocence. Twilight's face seemed to contort in unnatural ways for a few moments before finally giving up the ghost of politeness that was left in her. She threw the stack of notes she had taken from Discord's story in her magic, and threw them in his face. "I swear to all the gods that could or couldn't have existed, if I wanted some sort of made up religion forced down my throat, I would have gone to the church of magic-ology!" "Oh I like them! Isn't that the one that a bunch of celebrities join, and you pay them a few hundred bits a month to be a member?" He then chuckled slightly and wiped a tear from his eyes. "Oh, they are priceless!" "I don't believe you," Twilight said with a frown. "I thought for once I would get the truth from you. But, silly me! I forgot you needed to turn everything into a joke!" "Well sorry to step on your tail Princess, but there's a basis of fact in every religion of this world. I'd like you to keep a story straight after having it told by word of mouth for centuries. Not to mention all the translations for all those races. Yes, I would love to see what they say you did in a few centuries." Twilight wanted to leave, she didn't want to believe what Discord was saying, she wanted to yell something in his face and never speak to him about this subject again. But she did none of those things, because of one small voice in her head spoke up among the storm of anger. He's right... What will they say about me and my friends in a hundred years? Or a millennium from today? The voice was quiet, but what it said spoke volumes to her. She turned to face the elephant in the room. "Listen, I'm sorry. But this is kind of hard for me to believe in. Gods drew the universe into existence? Are you trying to say we are all just animated pictures or something?" The strangely colored elephant gave a shrug before answering her. "It's not for me to say, I wasn't actually there for that part." He then snapped the end of his trunk as if they were fingers, and Discord changed back to normal. "All I have is what I was told happened before I was awoken, and the stories that were told and retold over the generations. What you see before you," he waved his arm over the pile of books. "Is all that we have left on record. A single religion, broken by many peoples into fractures that are unrecognizable to the gods themselves." Discord stopped speaking suddenly when he noticed something. The silence had been filled back up with the scratching of a quill on paper once more. "So, would you consider yourself to be religious?" Twilight asked as she finished her notes with a flourish. "Me? Hardly," he said with a scoff. "Religions are made up by cultures, a dogma with more rules than spirituality." As he spoke, he suddenly appeared in the robes of a priest of the pantheon. "Mindlessly following the laws of gods written by mortals, never questioning it beyond that holy people say that it is so, and that redemption in the eyes of the gods only are through their church. A dogma with no progress, and very little truth. No my little princess, I am a spiritualist, and I have a great relationship with the gods." Twilight couldn't help but scoff a little as she continued to write down what he said. "And I suppose that turning everything upside down is what they would have wanted." "If a devil is created to do harm, is that not the gods will?" he rebutted with a frown. "But, I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get there," he said to himself. "I'm not going to defend myself for my actions. After all, I am the opposing end of Rhyme." He then suddenly coughed, and Twilight knew he was trying to clear the air itself with that action. As if to disspell the awkwardness that had suddenly come up between them. "Well now, let's get some more coffee and snacks in here." With a snap of his talons a couple cups of coffee appeared on the table with a small waffle sitting on top of the cups. "I hope you like stroopwaffles, cause I bought way too many of them last week." And with that, he poured some milk into his coffee and took a delicate sip before he continued. "Now, the first thing that I became aware of when I woke up..."