*Even I get stunned sometimes by the terrible turns some versions of Equestria take. Even more so when the ponies there remain so very much like the ones I actually knew.*
*This was a world that had humans together with the ponies; not too unusual in itself. I remember one 'me' who met Megan. But in this world... humans were the slaves of ponies.*
*Just tear it all down? Destroy the tyrant equines? No. For one thing, I could see into their minds and souls. Many of the ponies were shamed and disgusted at what Equestria was, even after 300 years to justify the punishment of all humanity for two savage humans who killed and ate one pony. It left noble and commoner alike neighing for the death of all the barbarians; the hatred between the Three Tribes, the loathing ponies once had for griffons, all was revived and set on this race. Celestia legalized their enslavement in desperation, as a way to save them from extermination, and it still sickened her even as it worked. These ponies weren't monsters, not all of them, and that just made it worse.*
*I wanted to try and stop that original act, but when I looked I saw that this had been building for centuries. If it hadn't been those two and that pony, it would have been another, and maybe worse. All I could do was to watch and point out by dreams so that ponies knew in their hearts that they were doing wrong.*
*And even as tempting as it was to Celestia herself, I couldn't have her just overturn that law by personal whim. We both knew why: because if she got used to setting the laws aside whenever she disliked them, or how they were being used, what was to stop her from making Equestria's law whatever she wanted it to be at any given moment? She'd done enough evil already. Celestia didn't want to become the Tyrant Sun.*
*I had to wait and watch until my mortal parents... bought the mortal me a human boy as a pet and companion. I, she, loved him dearly and regarded him as a friend. So many ponies loved and cared for 'their' humans. But they never questioned their right to keep them as slaves. 'It's for their own good!' 'We're civilizing them!'*
*Even Applejack on Sweet Apple Acres, and Rarity in her Boutique, owned some as extra labor and status symbols. They were still my friends, they treated 'their' humans with genuine kindness and decency -- and that made it worse. How could you convince them this was evil when they showed the humans they knew greater kindness than some ponies did their own families?*
*I saw only one way to bring this evil home to the ponies of Equestria. When Nightmare Moon returned, I was able to distract 'their' Celestia, ensured that 'their' Element Bearers got lost just long enough in the Everfree, that she was able to seize power.*
*Nightmare Moon was disgusted upon returning to discover that her Equestria had sunk so far. She took out her anger on the ponies by making slaves of them and setting the humans over them. I had some help from that timeline's Anarchy in this. He normally loathes slavery, but saw it as the sharp moral lesson these ponies needed.*
*The humans were as terrified as the ponies. Most had fond memories of the ponies they knew, and worked to defend them. At the same time, they had to make them work and labor under them at the Nightmare's command. And many a pony finally realized what it was like under even the kindest of masters to be used as a work animal.*
*It didn't last very long, only a week before my friends and 'their' Twilight confronted Nightmare Moon in Canterlot and healed her back into Luna. She promptly gave power back to Celestia -- only for Celestia to say that since the Diarchy was refounded, that meant that certain laws made since Luna's banishment would be abolished. And the humans of Equestria were free.*
*I'd like to say that was the end of it, but no. For a while it got worse. Equestria's economy had had three centuries to get used to slave labor as a basis, and when it was taken away things got difficult. Also, the only work many of the slaves were trained for was something they didn't want to do any more, and many ponies refused to "lower themselves" to doing "slave's work".*
*Some ponies didn't want to 'throw out' 'their' humans, and some of those humans preferred the certainty of bring fed and loved by their owners over hungry and uncertain freedom. Some others, only a few, hated Luna and Celestia for taking their wealth as slave-traders away, or that love of cruelty they indulged while running the gladiatorial games. Flim and Flam tried to use Applejack and the suffering without their accustomed labor farmers of Equestria to force the reinstatement of the slave laws, only to end up in jail themselves when their use of mind-controlling magic fed through one of their devices to make humans want to be re-enslaved came out. And their Discord, and Chrysalis, and even Tirek, all used the anger of both ponies and humans to their advantage when they tried to seize power.*
*But finally, in the end, human and pony forgave. And they stood united and remade their Equestria, greater than ever.*
*So I almost devastated Equestria and aided in the usurpation of power from its rightful ruler. All to end a system of organized oppression that was all the worse because of the decency of many of the beings involved, that allowed them to ignore the cruelties and abuse perpetrated upon some humans by some ponies as being 'aberrations' while treating sapient beings as animals to be owned.*
*If I had to do it again? I'd do it in a heartbeat.*
-
Rarity stormed home, her depression so deep it felt like a physical cloud hanging over her. She looked around her Boutique. Alone, all alone. Again.
She'd dated every single stallion in town, and somehow they'd all fallen short. Too loud, or too flashy, or too dirty, or too shy. She snorted to remember her attempt at dating Big Mac. The overgrown hayseed had backed away, ears down, until Cheerilee 'rescued' him. Even Spike -- he was a dear, and so sweet, but too young. By the time he became a young stallion or whatever male dragons became, she'd be ready for the glue factory.
And now all she had to look forward to was, was, what? Growing old and alone into a bitter old nag, with nopony around, no stallion in her life at all? No one to love like a mare, to make new life with...
The darkness arond her soul seemed to deepen as her gaze fell on a school book Sweetie left in the Boutique. The Monster of Frankensaddle? A voice seemed to hiss in her mind, yes. Why not? Neigh-cromancy wasn't impossible, after all. And if no ONE stallion in town was good enough, what about something from all of them?
Or did she want to die alone and unloved?
There were some very sharp knives in the kitchen, the seller told her they could cut through bone. If her friends got in the way, well, so much the worse for them. And she certainly knew how to stitch things together...
*No!*
Rarity froze as that voice, was it her conscience, spoke in her mind again.
*You think this will bring the perfect lover and partner, but all it will bring you is a loneliness and pain beyond anything you've ever known!* Rarity shuddered as the immensity of what she'd been planning bore in on her. She sank to her haunches as the voice said, *You can't be the only mare facing difficulty in finding that special somepony. What if you tried helping them find true love?*
"Rarity?"
She looked up to see Twilight before her, her eyes full of concern. And beside Twilight? Rarity felt her heart beat just a little faster at the sight of a handsome unicorn stallion, blue mane and tail, and in the off-duty uniform of the Royal Guard.
"Rarity," Twilight said, "we were so worried! The way you've been acting these past few days, we're frightened for you!" She saw how her friend looked, and said with a smile she didn't notice, "Oh, that's my big brother, Shining Armor. He had some leave time saved up and decided to spend it visiting me. I was hoping you'd show him around town tonight. Sorry I never told you about him before..."
"It's quite alright, dear," Rarity said. She blushed a little to see Shining Armor looking a little shy. And did she almost hear something slither away with a cheated hiss? "I, I think I'd love to help your brother... and maybe some other ponies as well."
*And Rarity did establish what basically became Equestria's first dating service, with the aid of her friends and a pink pegasus who seemed to give Rarity's husband Shining Armor such sadly longing looks at time. But it never affected the friendship Rarity and Cadence (who never became an alicorn in this world) had, or her fondness and love for Spike. Not even after she found a dear little dragonness to introduce to Spike. He and Jade became so fond of each other.*
*And as for that returned spirit of Loneliness that tried to turn Rarity into a killer, well...*
"Get in there and STAY THERE!" Anasi used the Royal Canterlot Voice as she drove the malicious force into a magical 'bottle' and plugged it with a cork. It roiled about like oil-scummed water as she said, "Anasi thinks that will keep you out of troublemaking for a while."
"Thanks, Anasi. I thought you'd like handling this one."
"Anasi feels that thought is correct, Amicitia."
-
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how bright her hope shone, some worlds could not be *given* a happy ending.
Power rose and took the form of an alicorn, barring Amicitia from a world that she'd been aching to help. "Hold!" cried a voice... the voice of Princess Celestia? "Twilight! And yet... not Twilight. At least, not my Twilight." Her eyes narrowed.
Amicitia bowed her head respectfully. "Please, let me pass. I'm here to help."
"Help? If you are willing to fight, then I will not deny you. This a world at war." There was something unsettling about this Celestia... she seemed more like the Concepts that had never lived a mortal life than the Princess Celestia that Amicitia remembered. "You are fortunate to have met me here, and not *him*. I left a small part of myself here long ago to keep watch, and our enemies have not discovered it yet."
Amicitia hesitated. "I don't fight. I... change things, nudge them into a better path."
Celestia arched a brow. "That is potent magic, for an alicorn so young, but I would be cautious..." Images swirled in the aether around them. Amicitia saw an imposing muscular alicorn with a stark white coat and black mane, an unadorned black circle on his flank. Beside him stood a lovely green alicorn with a crown of shifting plants and a cruel smile on her muzzle. "We fight against the oldest alicorns in this world. Even Luna and I are mere foals before them, and they do not love mortal ponies or value their lives. No whisper in his ear or appeal to conscience will change this."
Amicitia's face fell. "But, there must be something I can do, something I can change! I can feel so much pain in this world, so much suffering and death."
Celestia stepped closer, and Amicitia flinched, but held her ground. "Young, and naive. You aren't used to having your methods and motives questioned, are you? A goddess should be able to justify what she does, even if she will only be answerable to herself. Consider this." New images formed...
An army of strange, identical ponies marching through Ponyville. The Carousel Boutique, smashed to rubble. Battle in the streets of Canterlot, ponies fighting with magical blades and war spells, fully meaning to kill each other. A terrified Rainbow Dash being engulfed by darkness spreading over her coat, while the Twilight Sparkle of this world watched and laughed.
"Indeed, there has been pain," said Celestia. "Madness. Death. But your friends have risen to the challenge. They fight against the darkness."
Now she saw Applejack dressed in armor that must have weighed more she did, ramming her way through solid stone walls. Pinkie Pie leaping from rooftop to rooftop with the help of mechanical grapples and other clever devices. Fluttershy using the Stare through tear-filled eyes. Rarity dressed for battle, wielding a magical blade of interlocked diamonds.
"They have fought and argued," Celestia continued. "They have grown as ponies and accomplished things they never would have believed possible, before. Are you prepared to take that all away from them, to return them to their idyllic Ponyville lives?"
"I... I think so. If it would do more good than harm. I think that's what they would want." Amicitia hesitated. "But should I really be the one deciding that..."
"If not you, then who else? Look, and I will show you where to place your lever and move the world." Another image... a white stallion in armor, with a curly red mane and another magical blade, this one made of gleaming razor shards. "This is the pony who freed the eldest alicorns. He knew perfectly well what he was doing. He wanted the world to become what it is now... his special talent is war itself. Cause him to doubt himself, so that he never finds his mark or realizes that talent, and all of this will end. Your friends will never be put through all of that pain.
One more image... a young filly Twilight, choosing a big dusty book from a shelf, a book with "The Power to Destroy" printed on the cover. "My Twilight," said Celestia, "will never have to know what I made her, what I trained her to become, should the worst come."
Amicitia took a step back. "I don't know if I can do that... Besides, some other pony might free them."
Celestia scowled. "Indeed. Perhaps we should go straight to the root of this. Cast your power far back into time. Persuade Luna and I to kill the eldest alicorns when we had the chance, rather than imprisoning them. Make them understand that our mercy will cost thousands upon thousands of our little ponies their lives, someday. Do that, and Equestria as we know it will be saved... and all will be well."
Twilight sighed, but she knew what she had to do, now. "No, I won't. That's not what I do, and not what my mission is about. If I start doing any terrible thing I want and justifying it that way... no, never again."
Without warning, a black wind whipped through the aether, and a tentacled monstrosity arose! "There you are!" crooned Nyarlathotrot. "Vandal! Despoiler! Ruiner of all their fun! Let's see how you like a taste of your own medicine!" The black horror flowed right past Celestia and dove into the world.
Celestia shuddered. "No! Could that monster actually... make things worse?"
"Not if I have anything to say about it!" shouted Twilight, as she dove in after him.
...
On the grounds outside the palace of Canterlot, the General with the white coat and the red mane paused in mid-stride.
% Why should the foals be spared the realities of war? You should hunt down the families of the rebels and torture them! %
* Ugh, I can't believe I'm doing this... *cough* What a ridiculous notion! The rebel forces are pressing us hard here in Canterlot, and you need every soldier and puppet to defeat them.*
The General nodded to himself. "Indeed... it would be a powerful leverage against the rebels, but I cannot split my forces now."
...
In the streets of outer Canterlot, Rarity savagely disarmed the last of a group of royal guards, and held her magical blade poised over his throat.
% Kill him! This is war, and it's time you woke up to that fact. You know he'd kill you if he had the chance. %
* We're all still ponies, here! There will come times when we need to kill, but we don't kill ponies when we don't need to! *
Rarity's scowl softened. "Get up! You're our prisoner."
...
In the midst of one war, Amicitia waged another, all up and down the worldline. She couldn't reach the distant past now even if she wanted to, but there was still one spot of hope that she could see, one place where she might make a difference.
In the palace of Canterlot, Equestria's new Prince tapped the arm of his throne nervously.
* What your father is doing is wrong. *
He blinked. "What a strange thought. Right is obeying Father, and Wrong is to disobey."
...
On another day...
* Use your divine senses, look at the ponies outside these walls. See how they're suffering because of this war? You're their ruler... shouldn't you help them? *
The Prince scoffed. "They're suffering because they disobey. If they'd all just go along with the new order, then everything would be fine!"
* If you're sure that you're right... why are you afraid? *
"I... I'm not afraid! I am a god! Why should I fear anything?"
* You didn't earn your power or your place. They were given to you, and you know they can be taken away just as easily. *
The Prince had no answer.
...
* If your father came here and fought the rebels himself instead of using avatars, how long would this war last then? *
The Prince shuddered, holding his head in his hooves. "Stop it. I don't wish to think such things!"
* How long? *
He closed his eyes, choking back a sob. "Hours. It would all be over in a matter of hours."
* Why doesn't he? *
"Why indeed!?"
* Forget why, for a moment. What can we conclude from this? *
"He... he doesn't want the war to end," whispered the Prince. "I don't understand. He *wants* the mortals to suffer? Or... he just doesn't care?" The useless, hoof-licking nobles gasped, to see the Prince crying openly. The Prince scowled, noticing. "All of you, get out! Now!"
...
In the catacombs beneath Canterlot, troubled thoughts were keeping Fluttershy awake.
* Something's not right about Canterlot's new Prince. He looks like a grown alicorn, but he can't possibly be. *
"He could have been imprisoned, like the others."
* You know that's not true... Luna said there were only the two of them, the King and Queen. *
Fluttershy blinked. "That means... he's really just a foal!?" She pulled her blankets tighter over herself. "I know he's our enemy, but... that's so sad..."
...
At last, the day came when the rebels made their big push, and the Elements of Harmony attacked the palace. The Prince, who would have made a panicked, futile attempt to fight, gave himself up to them instead. They still took his stolen powers from him, but when the King would have broken his own son's neck, disgusted with his "weakness," Fluttershy dove in and *saved* him.
Back in the aether, Nyarlathotrot fled, disgusted, and at last Amicitia was able to leave that world as well, exhausted and worn. "I'm sorry I couldn't do anything to prevent the war. In the end, everything happened pretty much the same as it did before. Except for that one small thing..."
Celestia smiled, nudging Amicitia's chin up. "An innocent foal's life is *not* a small thing. Thank you... thank you for that, and for keeping their hopes alive."
Amicitia nodded, cheering up a bit. "I guess if I can't do anything else for them... then I'll trust in your Twilight Sparkle, and the ponies who are her friends in this world. If they're anything like my friends, I know they'll never lose hope, never give up. If there's a happy ending to be had, they'll *earn* it."
-
The Nightmare Twilight Terror dragged her hooves along the hallway of Nightstallion Thorn's palace in what used to be the Everfree, now the Neverfree, Thorn's island of sanity in Discord's mad Equestria outside. That weird red-lit half-night showed through the windows, with the swollen red sun and shattered moon in the sky.
The Sunnytowners slunk back against the walls as she passed, as did some of Thorn's students, both ponies from outside the Neverfree and some from that other world of his. Others bowed to their 'teacher' with broad smiles reminiscent of a shark's.
Twilight knew they desired to kill her and take her place as Master Thorn's chief apprentice.
As so often before, she hoped today would be the day they did it.
Twilight looked up to see Applejack and Applebloom, red-eyed and withered corpses, watching her with their usual mix of condemnation and pity.
But I thought Thorn was just some braggart, some blowhard like Trixie! She wanted to yell, I didn't know how powerful he was! Or that his curse could affect me even after Celestia thought she dispelled it! I didn't know…
For what must have been the thousandth time she headed towards them in the hopes that they'd drain her life. For the thousandth time the spell protecting her drove them back and they slipped into the ground like wraiths. She wondered briefly what ever became of Pinkie and Rarity and poor broken-winged Rainbow Dash out in Discord's Equestria. None of the new students could ever tell her, most of them didn't even know there had ever been such a place as Equestria.
Not that there will be for much longer. Thorn showed me the ritual. When he works it, what's left of this world outside the forest will die and we'll all move on to the next.
She hurried -- well, went slightly less slowly -- down the hall for her 'students'. Once she'd dreamed of being a teacher in Celestia's school, but now? When all she taught was curses and witchcraft and ways to pervert magic into a tool of abuse and control? She passed a pair of mounted pony skeletons, a unicorn with a harp and a pegasus with thee butterflies displayed with them (she felt some relief that Fluttershy was truly gone, not like her or AJ) and headed for the small hall where she'd find her dozen students, her coven.
How she wished she'd never heard of that word!
She looked up to see those coldly smiling faces, hate warring with fear in their eyes. One of Thorn's small stone idols rested against the rear wall, a ready to pounce horned faceless thing that somehow seemed to leer.
"Apprentices," she said, not bothering to hide her disgust.
"Mistress," they almost hissed back like poisonous snakes as she opened The Letters of Cold Fire.
*I'd seen enough. How could 'I' have ended up like this? A look back along the timeline showed me. Discord, seeking an ally and finding one in a human sorcerer from another world. Thorn coming to the Ponyville Library, tricking me and so many ponies, setting a curse on me that compromised my mind. Freed temporarily by Celestia before she returned to Canterlot to help Luna try and keep Discord in stone. Refusing any ideas of summoning help to deal with Thorn, someone from his world who knew how to handle his alien magic -- Ah!*
*I slip back along this world's timestream to 'my' past self as she stands in the library, shaken and weak from Thorn's magic and unwilling to summon help if it'll bring somepony else like him to Equestria.*
"For the last time, no!" Twilight looked around at her friends, her heart pounding and looking as disheveled as that time with the 'Smarty Pants Incident'. Spike and Applejack and the rest began to protest, but she shook her head. "I don't care what sort of magic Thorn has, I'm not summoning someone else like him for help. I, I won't let anything go wrong again..."
But what if something DOES go wrong? Twilight froze as her own voice in her head said, Yes, Thorn is evil, but that doesn't mean everyone in his world is! Remember how you once feared Zecora? Remember what you learned when Nightmare Moon returned. Sometimes you HAVE to trust somepony you don't know yet!
Twilight saw how her friends stared, hooves scraping against the ground uneasily.
"Maybe," she gulped, "m-maybe you and Celestia are right. Let's try what she suggested and see if the Elements can bring us some help."
*And they do. And 'I' meet my second human ever, and see how trustworthy he can be. John shows me how to defend against Thorn's magic and helps save me and then we save all Equestria from Thorn and Discord. I have to admit, I can be a bit stubborn at times. Sometimes even I need to be reminded that I can't handle everything on my own.*
-
My former self...Nightmare Eclipse, tied every alternate version of herself to her. How foolish we were, thinking absorbing all every Twilight in every loop could not backfire...in the end it did. Eclipse tied every alternate version of her self to herself. In the end, the walker of the endless wheel got tangled in the spokes and now it is a cosmic law that Eclipse will inevitably fall...but it is also part of my atonement to ensure that that fall turns out as happily as possible. The first worlds I sought to grant happy endings...were the ones that in their original iterations I doomed to destruction...One example? The one that showed me how I shouldn't defeat Eclipse.
"Honesty!" Said AJ.
"Laughter!" Apple Pie shouted.
"Generosity!" Rarity called forth.
"Kindness!" Fluttercruel cried out.
"Loyalty!" Added Rainbow Dash.
"And Magic!" Twilight finished.
The six lights within the ponies united as one and came together and the blast of rainbow light rose up to crash down on Nightmare Eclipse.
"Too bad." The Nightmare sighed. "Alright, everypony! All together!"
They came forth.
An inverted rainbow Nightmare of smoke and chains.
A clown Nightmare with crayon wings.
A flower haired Nightmare with butterfly wings.
A mirror winged nightmare with countless green eyes.
And a Nightmare of a dragon in gleaming gold and jeweled armor.
Elements of Harmony jewels appeared, each larger than a grown adult stallion.
"Loyal even into the gates of Tartarus!"
"A never-ending laugh on meanie-pants everywhere!"
"Kinder to end the pain than continued suffering."
"Face the truth you never had a chance."
"I give my soul itself to you all."
*Twilight, it'd be a fools errand to try and overpower them, wouldn't it?*
Poor Twilight gasped as she realized it.
'Six hearts filled with extremism...'
I felt her heart begin to waver...
'But...how can I...'
*In the end, should it matter if you can or not? Is that the most important thing?*
Twilight gasped and slowly nodded. '...Maybe it doesn't...'
*What does then?*
'...That...I'm here with my friends...Standing by them...That win lose or draw, in the end we stood together...'
Twilight slowly reached out her hooves and hugged her friends close as the Elements power grew. She'd resolved that whether this worked or not, she was standing by her friends and would die with them if that's what it took...
She looked up at Eclipse and realized something. "...There's something missing in your Elements, Eclipse."
=Seven Rings in Hand-Sonic and the Secret Rings=
"I don't see anything," Eclipse said as their perversion of the Elements continued to charge.
"You might care for your friends...but the Elements, how they are now..I can feel it, they're not MEANT to spill innocent blood or harm good ponies!! And the part of yours that knows that has rejected you!"
Fauna Luster, who's Fire took the place of the destroyed Element of Trust, had indeed abandoned Eclipse and her Gallery long ago. They'd used their extremism to allow the Elements to be used...but that didn't meant they were perfect, merely powerful...
Twilight focused. "Let me show you how important that part really is!...No, let US show you!"
Twilight, brilliant Twilight who had realized the Elements' truer nature the night in the Castle of the two sisters, now came to a greater realization. Hugging her friends close, she focused on another part, one that Applejack's heart recognized as similar to the Father of All Alicorns that had saved her soul. As for the others, there is not a being that knows Empathy that does not know Fauna Luster.
The Rainbow glow around the group changed shape, erupting into a brilliant flaming heart.
Eclipse's eyes went wide, seeing the massive image of a White Alicorn towering over Twilight and her friends, cradling them in her wings. The Alicorn looked...disappointed in her. In the six Nightmares. Like a mother saddened by her child's wrongdoing.
Empathy
The six perverted Elements drew it to them to complete them, not unlike when Shady's purified Element of Chaos flew into the six false Elements bared by the Sirens.
Eclipse and her Gallery screamed out in agony as their Elements sent off sparks of magic like a short circuiting computer, breaking their focus and draining their power. "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"Completed your set, but it looks like it's not getting along very well with the customization you made!" Twilight replied, the Fires of Friendship spreading outward, surrounding the six Nightmares. "You have six hearts lost in extremes, but separated yourself from the Heart of All, Eclipse!"
*Do it Twilight! Finish this!*
Twilight and her friend's Elements each projected their own magic into the Fires of Friendship, turning it into a rainbow colored inferno that became a beacon that was seen as far as Cloudsdale. It spread outward, racing over the world...and leaving purified beauty instead of desolate destruction. Healed ponies instead of scorched husks. Fauna Luster's guiding will even keeping Sky Ocean floating gently in the sky, untouched and unharmed.
And more importantly, pumped the six heroes Elements directly into Eclipse and her Gallery's hearts through their own Elements now connected to the Fires.
When the fires died down, the world was saved and purified of Discord's taint...but Eclipse was nowhere to be seen. The Mother of All, all loving...decided perhaps that now that she was purified, the Nightmare might be in need of a good talk from the Mother who she'd rejected for so long. Unlike my world, the other Nightmares survived, (I'd not even been able to find my friends' souls or shadows, and realizing they'd been obliterated utterly due to my sins) and one day would need a visit, but at least she'd have her friends…
But all that mattered is that world lived. And was not left a smoldering ruin as Eclipse had intended.
-
Applejack staggered out into the night away from Sweet Apple Acres. The cool, lovely darkness that she could see so well in now. Once it would have felt chilly, but now?
She licked her dry lips, felt the fangtips in her mouth, felt more the THIRST that devoured every thought inside her. Ah have ta find something, no, somePONY ta eat. Please, please, don't let it be anypony Ah know... Let somepony be able ta, she gulped, ta destroy me 'fore Ah make other ponies like me…
It all started a few days ago when she took a look at that forbidden grove of old, withered trees on the property. Her last mortal moments were a nightmare of lashing dry branches, biting into her, feeling them sucking at her, pulling her down into the dirt of her farm.
And that night, pulling herself out of it. The moon so bright above, like day to her new eyes. The apples on that once dead tree, looking so utterly delicious, big and thick with fleshy skins that parted under her fangs to fill her mouth with the most fiery and sweetest and satisfying taste of her life.
Until she realized just what taste filled her mouth, and where it'd come from.
What followed was vague. Her hiding in the basement of the old abandoned farmhouse, among broken tools and dust and cobwebs. Experimentally sticking her leg into the afternoon sunlight and hissing at the pain. Weeping when she heard her family and friends calling for her. Overhearing them say that they'd be checking in town that night, leaving the farm abandoned. And the night, the beautiful beautiful night along with that unceasing thirst that finally brought her back out when she knew what she'd become.
*Applejack, oh Applejack, now that I've seen this world, I wish I could have spared you this. I can't. But I can spare your family and poor Caramel what would have happened if you'd stumbled on them in this condition. And I can help you. You just need to meet the right pony.*
"Fair Applejack?" Applejack jerked back with a hiss as a dark alicorn dropped before her. "Hah! I have found you! Twilight was right to ask for my help and..." Luna broke off to look into her eyes. Her own eyes went wide. Her voice low, she said, "What has befallen you?"
Her answer was a hiss and a leap. Luna's horn glowed as she caught Applejack in midair, holding her helpless off the ground. More ponies began running up from the dark. Some held torches. Applejack winced against the light from them. A tiny filly with a red mane raced before them. She whinnied for joy to see Applejack.
"Big sis! Ah knew ya was okay -- Hay!"
Luna held Applebloom away from Applejack. "Be careful, child! Thy sister is.. not herself at the moment."
"AJ?" Twilight gasped to see her friend, snarling and snapping. "What's happened to her?!?"
"She has become a vampony," Luna said, her voice full of remorse. "A blood-drinker. At this moment the thirst is strong on her, enough so to control her mind." She looked at Twilight and the others. "Have ye any non-thinking beasts about for her to feed on?"
"N-no," Twilight said with a shudder. By now her friends stood close by. Rarity wept softly as she held Applebloom, Pinkie's mane hung straight, Dash looked like she desperately wanted something, anything, she could hit. "But we have a hospital..."
A while later
"..An' here Ah am," Applejack said, setting aside the last of the stored blood she'd been given. She winced to realize how short the hospital would be after this. At least now she could think again. Her family, Twilight and the rest of her friends, and Luna all waited nearby. Applejack looked at Luna. "Princess, Ah know what," she took a breath she no longer needed, "What Ah am, now. Could ya just please... make it quick?"
Applebloom began to cry. Most of the other ponies looked ready to start.
"Applejack..." Rarity said, trying to twine necks with her friend in a hug.
"I will not."
Everypony stared at Luna. She said, "There is, may not be, a need. Once before long ago this curse struck Equestria and I found ways of dealing with it. I thought it gone forever." She looked around at them all. "I can try, but it will be painful for Applejack and it may not work, for the spell 'twas designed for pegasi. Yet if it works, she will live again."
A moment later Luna and Twilight stood on either side of Applejack.
"We are ready, Abigail Jacqueline Apple. Art thou?"
Applejack just nodded. And a moment later, screamed.
She thought she heard her friends crying out but all she felt was the magic purging something from her very essence. No, not purging, but making it a manageable part of her even as her ears grew long and tufted, her canines extended past her lips, her coat turned a shaggy gray and her pupils became slits.
Frameworks of bone shot out from her withers, skin stretched over them, and it was over.
"Be careful," Applejack looked around at everypony. "Ah, ah feel better but Ah can't be sure - Hay!"
Applebloom shot into her sister's forelegs. "Yay! Y'all are warm! Mah big sis is alive again!" She looked at her. "An' ya got wings!"
"Yes," Luna said, "This is where my Bat Ponies came from. They were cursed with vampirism, but while I could not cure, I could put it under their control. As I have now and here."
Applejack didn't notice the last part. She was too busy embracing her friends and family.
-
A short while later Princess Luna asked.
"The trees you speak of are called blood apple trees. They are a remnant from a darker age in Equestrian history, one my sister and I thought mercifully extinct. Where precisely did you say this grove was located?"
The next day Applebloom woke up just in time for the sunrise. Though she normally needed extra prodding to get up so early outside of harvest season, it was worth it to see an enormous solar flare come down from the burning sphere to incinerate a single isolated grove without so much as singeing the surrounding trees.
-
Nightmare Dusk summoned a sword and thrust it towards Rainbow Dash, still wearing the all too real form of Twilight Sparkle...
And then she froze, her sword only inches from Dash's chest. Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks. "Impossible..." The sword trembled, then fell to pieces, iron fragments and dust sifting away into the void. The Nightmare lifted transparent hooves, staring right through them.
Rainbow Dash didn't hesitate twice... she roared and slammed right into her. The rainbow energies struck the Nightmare with an explosive flash, rippling over her and turning her to stone in an instant. Dash panted loudly in the sudden, eerie silence. "Is... is it over?" She stared at the statue in disbelief. "Did I... win?" The pegasus' face began to light up. "I won! I... won..."
The awful truth of her surroundings caught up to her. The world was gone, dead... Nightmare Dusk had torn it to pieces, leaving nothing but tumbling mountains of rock floating in this endless starry sky. Floating space junk and... shattered buildings and... drifting plants and dead bodies...
Dash felt a lurch in her stomach. "What have I done?" All gone, all dead... only the rainbow energies that her friends had given her were keeping Dash alive now, and when that was used up... "I was so busy trying to beat her any way I could, no matter what. I didn't think what I'd do after."
* This wasn't your fault. Nightmare Dusk is the one who destroyed the world. *
But it was Dash's fault that the world was going to stay dead. Maybe she should have... *gulp* ... let Dusk win, let her turn back time once more.
* That spell is wrong, and you know it! She would have murdered everyone all over again. There would have been another you and another Twilight, but they wouldn't have been the same. *
Rainbow Dash sighed, accepting that. "Heh. I guess there's no use dragging this out. I wonder what it would be like to fly into the sun..."
* Before you do something like that, take another look at Dusk's body. There's something strange there. Can't you feel it? *
Now that Dash thought about it, she *did* feel something. She glided over, catching up to the statue, and tapped it with a hoof. At once, the stone cracked and began to fall away. Rainbow Dash gasped. Inside the dark, crumbling stone was a sleeping purple alicorn filly, wrapped in a glowing violet orb. "Twilight?" Dash grinned, whooping. "It is you, Twilight! My Twilight! You made it... I'm not alone."
That's when someone, somehow started a slow clap behind her, scaring her half to death. Worse, it was a draconequus! Maybe Discord had turned out to not be the worst villain around, but after the last thousand years, Dash's first thought was to buck first and ask questions later.
Dash held herself back, barely, when she got a better look at the newcomer. Arms of a wolverine and a Tasmanian devil, wings of a dragon and an eagle, legs of a tiger and a wolf, with the tail of a killer whale. Yep, definitely not Discord. But who, then?
* Strife. She's the Lady of conflict, natural selection, and survival of the fittest. *
Yeah... Wait, how did she know that?
* Twilight Tragedy probably rambled on about the gods and all that while you were flying around. *
Oh, right!
"I have to say, I'm impressed!" said Strife. "Here I find a whole planet turned to gravel... and then there's you, the sole survivor."
"Um... I'm still beer." The voice was coming from the deflated balloon Derpy, still tied around Rainbow Dash's neck. "Can any-phony hear me?"
Strife paused. "Like I was saying..."
"A billion bottles of beer on the wall!" sang Nightmare Granfalloon. This voice came from a black gemstone, buried in the rubble of Dusk's statue until just now. "A billion bottles of beer!"
"Show some respect!" grumbled Nightmare Mirror from another floating chunk of stone. "Do you know how many folks just died? Cause Ah do!"
"You take one down, pass it around..."
"Ah swear, if Ah have to listen to *that* for all eternity..."
Strife cleared her throat, and gestured dramatically towards Rainbow Dash. "And then there's you, the last surviving pony."
"We don't count?! You're a mean, mean, meanypants."
"The Truth hurts, sugarcube."
Ignoring them, Strife darted this way and that, inspecting Dash. "Oh yes, I'd love to get you for my Arena."
Dash blinked. "Your arena? What kind of arena?"
Strife chuckled. "You'd love it there, Rainbow Dash. Yes? Yes, that's it... You could fight new battles against the biggest badflanks in pony history every day. Of course, all of ponykind is history now.... Eh, they had a good run." She teleported over by Dash's side and elbowed her in the ribs. "You could even lead your own squad. How does the Omegabolts sound?"
Dash beamed, eyes watering. "My own... Hey, wait a minute. Even if you don't count them, I'm still not the last pony."
Strife pulled out a scythe so sharp, it hurt just looking at the blade. "Oh, you will be." She floated towards Twilight. "Just as soon as I'm done taking out the trash."
"What!? No way!" Dash darted around Strife in a rainbow blur, getting between her and Twilight. "You keep that thing away from my friend!"
Strife facehoofed... facepawed... whatever it was that draconequui did. "Hey now, don't be like that. She could wake up and do that time spell again. I'm taking her out before she takes all of us out."
"She won't!" growled Dash. "She's Twilight, not Dusk!"
Strife shrugged. "So? Maybe it wasn't *that* Twilight, but it was still *a* Twilight that started this whole mess and *damned* you all. And Twilight Tragedy was no saint, and neither are you! I know how many mortals had to fight for their lives because of you all."
"I don't care!" insisted Dash. "I won't let you hurt her!" The rainbow light around her began to glow brighter, especially the ruby red of her Element of Loyalty.
The draconequus ground her teeth, flinching back from that light. "And now you're facing off against impossible odds, ready to bet it all... You're my kind of pony, Rainbow Dash, you really are." She spun the scythe idly. "Look, even if I did leave you alone, do you wanna get stuck *here*? Do you *know* how long it's gonna take to put another planet together out of this wreck and create a new race of ponies, even with all the alicorns pitching in? Ten thousand years, that's how long!"
Nightmare Mirror spoke up. "For what it's worth... Ah'm sorry you fought so hard for your world, just to have it all be for nothing, but Ah'm glad this nightmare is over at last. Please, just... make it quick, okay?"
Rainbow Dash smiled, tears brimming in her eyes. The ruby light grew, enveloping her and Twilight in its warmth. "I've betrayed everypony for long enough, don't you think? I'm going to be there for my friends when they wake up in that new world. All of my friends... *No matter what!*."
The sudden, brilliant red flare made Strife hiss, hiding her eyes. When she could see again, a huge ruby floated before her. Inside it, frozen in place, lay a taller Rainbow Dash with a long horn, a rainbow aurora mane, and wings protectively surrounding four sleeping alicorn fillies, all snuggled together... purple, orange, grey, and bubblegum pink.
Strife smirked and put the scythe away. "Eh, suit yourself."
Strife found this interesting . . . How hard Derpy become a newborn goddess? This was interesting. Strife would call it impossible, but then again, there was no such thing. She imagined Applejack had a gift for someone else when she awoke to the new world.
Strife noticed them, dragons,, semi-skeletal in their appearances, with long beaks and speared ended tails. They flew around the airless depth of space, among the broken chunks of the world and the dead bodies of ponies. "Space dragons. I always could count on Tiamat finding a way to make her species survive."
She also sensed the moon, strangely not wandering off, as if there was something letting it not wander off. And the deer, and their goddess, who had relocated to the backside of the moon following Discord's rampage.
And there was more . . . there was Sky Ocean . . . with a miniature Sun and Moon floating around it . . . keeping from freezing or dissolving . . . From the feathers of Princess Luna and Princess Celestia. The seaponies knew Discord had warned them the world was going to end soon and only they would remain. But it was still horrible for them to sea. They sang a song of lament for the loss of the world.
"Oh no."
Strife made herself intangible, and watched.
There was Luna and Celestia, a combined glowing yellow and blue bubble protecting Sparkler and Dinky.
"Where's Dissy?" Innocent Celly noticed the stone statue of him still floating in space. "There you are Dissy. You got so big . . . Who turned you to stone? Was it a wicked witch? I'll fix you up, I promise." She didn't think all the floating corpses around her were dead, she thought they were sleeping.
Dinky and Sparkler were too busy crying at the absolute destruction to notice anything. And the deaths of all those Luna and Celestia hadn't been able to save.
A blue box arrived in the middle of the cosmic wasteland, and opens it doors revealing a pony wearing a fez. Shocked at what he found.
Princess Luna, unlike her sister remembering her full life. And she spotted the giant ruby first. Containing the four sleeping Alicorns.
"WHAT THE TARTARUS IS GOING ON AROUND HERE?! WHAT HAPPENED! STRIFE! DID YOU DO THIS?!"
Luna bellowed, her little lungs still doing a great Royal Canterlot Voice.
Strife sighed and made herself visible. Much to Celly's confusion. "My apologizes. Princess Luna. Doctor. This is going to take a while to explain." And it did.
-
Luna sighed sadly, looking over the ruins. Celestia...would take awhile in her current state to comprehend what happened, but Luna felt a grim realization. 'So this is what would have happened had Twilight and her friends not won against me...lifeless devastation."
Dinky looked at her mother in the crystal with her mother inside it. "So...momma's an Alicorn now?"
Sparkler looked unsure of WHAT to do. "...So the world is destroyed but...mom's alive...that's...I..."
"...I will admit," said Strife, looking at the grey pegasus. "Your mother won."
Sparkler blinked, still a bit on edge with Discord's bucking sister. "What?"
"Life, in my perception, has simple goals: to endure. To survive. To grow ever stronger. And to pass it's line on to the next generation," Strife explained. "And your mother is somepony who never failed to impress me. A pony with survival itself as her Special Talent. And she never disappointed me. Surviving the end of the world and becoming an Alicorn?"
Strife gave a smirk. "She won. She SURVIVED. She's climbed the highest tower that a mortal CAN climb. And..."
She looked to the two. "You survived. Meaning she succeeded in passing on her family line. In all accounts, she survived. Even turned into living rubber and wittnessing the end of the world, she refused to break or die...and for that, she has earned my respect. And that respect I do not give lightly. You should be proud of her."
"Thanks...uh-"
"Strife Zelus Typhon. And you're welcome."
Luna blinked. "...Strife...did you just comfort something?"
The Spirit of Natural Selection shrugged. "This family survived all odds, they EARNED my respect."
She then turned, looking at Discord's statue. "Please excuse me for a moment..."
The Draconequus walked over to the statue. She slashed reality in front of her, opening a vortex to what looked like the harshest, deadliest jungle imaginable. Strife reached through the portal and produced a pitch black spear, ignoring the roaring of innumerable beasts from within.
Luna gasped. "The Concept Killing Spear?!"
Strife held it back in preparation.
"Dissy!" screamed Celly, noticing what was happening.
Strife trusted forward...and merely pierced a couple inches into the statue, no more. A roaring red energy cascaded out of the statue, Strife forming a sphere of energy and allowing the energy to be collected inside. "There..."
Strife took the spear and slowly slid it inside the sphere, the ravenous energy ATOMIZING the weapon in seconds. She turned to look to Celly. "Discord is...more open to certain things now, and without Destruction's power, Father believes it might be better to leave him here and perhaps you will be able to convince him to help rebuild this world as probation, since he no longer has the power to outclass your group...not my first choice, but, Father is Father, his word is law. His seal will break soon in time."
Celly cocked her head. "I don't understand, why did you hurt him?"
Strife sighed. "...I've already given more comfort this day than I have in a very long time."
"To put it in...simply, Dissy stole something that didn't belong to him and made some mistakes. He is to help fix things to repay those he hurt, and you are to make sure he does..." Luna explained.
"Oh...okay, if he was naughty, I'll help him make up for it," Celly said innocently.
"Now if you excuse me, I have to take Destruction's essence back to Father," Strife explained, teleporting away.
The Doctor trotted over to Sparkler as Celly began 'tending' to Discord's 'wound'. "...Look...I know we have not gotten along."
"To put it mildly," Sparkler said, hugging Dinky, the two still very clearly shaking up.
"...But I want to see Derpy again too...and the TARDIS has space for two...Care to skip ahead to when she finally wakes up?"
Sparkler's eyes widened. "...We can do that?"
"Time machine. We can do many things. We can even stop on the Muffin Planet on the way there to pick up some gifts for her if you wish."
"...Fine...I suppose it's better than waiting on a dead world."
Soon enough, an atmosphere was rebuilt. Discord, now weakened considerably and softened from his time as Eclipse's pawn, chose to join with the Royal Sisters and, while still chaotic, finally made Shady a proud mother.
The first plant life to regrow? A garden around Rainbow Dash's crystal. A bizarre and beautiful mix of plants. Zinnia to represent the sleeping Alicorn of Loyalty, Violas to represent slumbering Honesty, Gardenias to represent the Laughter that would one day sound again, Yellow Roses awaiting the Alicorn of Friendship's new life, and oddlest of all, cacti forming a hedge of protection while the ever enduring Princess Bubbles slept and waited to be reunited with her daughters when they one day returned to her.
Discord naturally loved this odd yet beautiful mixture. The Gods chose to make make this garden the new Eden of the world.
And the sea ponies and others, including the new fledgeling races rising up would hold a festival in that place, awaiting the reawakening of the five sleeping Alicorns. And paying tribute to the one to whom they owed their existence. It's no surprise that the virtue of loyalty was considered a sacred virtue.
Sleep well, Rainbow Dash. And wake up to a better world.
-
In the void between worlds, Amicitia smiled and sniffed, blinking back tears of joy. "I'd save every world she, I erased, if I could. Every last one, no matter how many eternities it took."
As another Nightmare Mirror had said before I lost her, this Rainbow Dash had come the closest. So close that the backlash from Paradox's ultimate defeat, just that little nudge, opened the possibility for her friends to bring forth a miracle. Amicitia took a deep breath, still smiling on. "I won't even get to see you all when you're reborn. By then I'll be... Ah, but Spike would say that I shouldn't get ahead of myself."
She took out a checklist that would have stretched across an entire universe, if it could all be unrolled, then made one more check mark. "One thing at a time."
-
"Cadence, you have to stop grieving! It's been months! It won't bring Shining Armor back, it --"
"GET OUT!"
The Changeling servant fled the room, closing the door behind him as a magically-hurled paperweight smashed into it hard enough to penetrate the solid oak and stick there.
Cadence stayed huddled in her bed. The bed she'd shared with her beloved husband for so many years.
And would now have all to herself for the rest of eternity.
Alone. Alone. Alone forever. At least Shining Armor has peace where he is, down in the dark emptiness that does on forever.
She cursed and kicked the bedsheets away at the thought.
If he really loved me, he wouldn't have died!
From somewhere outside the chamber came the sound of laughter, foals playing a game. That elicited another shudder from her. For whatever reason, she and Shiny were never able to have foals of their own. While he lived it didn't matter; they had each other, and they'd been 'aunt and uncle' to many of the servants' foals and taken joy in it.
But now?
More laughter, bright and clear as the song of a silver bell, penetrating the beloved emptiness she wrapped around her heart as a shield against love and joy and anything else that might distract her from the grief and pain of losing him. She almost snarled at it. How dare they be happy! Didn't they know what she felt?
As long as I keep hurting and feel nothing else, she told herself, he's still here with me. If I forget, that means I don't love him any more. Then bitterly, I wish I had never loved him, or anypony. Love says it's forever, but love lies.
She raised her head and looked into the mirror beside the bed.
Mane and tail unkempt, face gaunt and hollowed, wing feathers getting mangy, her coat uncut and unbrushed since the fu-fu-funer -- since that, she resembled a wandering madmare. Her once legendary beauty looked to be gone forever.
Good, I don't want to be beautiful any more, I don't want to be any more, I just want to feel nothing. Cadence didn't notice the shadows growing deeper in the chamber as she thought, her thoughts bitter and sour, I wish nopony ever felt love again, or joy, or happiness. You can't be hurt if you don't give the pain a way inside yourself. Darkness began to run along her limbs, her pupils turned to draconic slits as she felt something like an endless pit opening up within her.
All she needed to do was to leap into it, and all the pain would vanish. Just her and the darkness.
I want everypony to hurt as much as I do forever. More laughter outside, innocent and joyous. Cadence's eyes hardened as her cutie mark began to warp, the crystal heart cracking down the middle. That will teach them to be happy while I suffer!
She rose on her hooves and began limping towards the doors.
Cadence, STOP! Cadence froze as the voice -- of her conscience? -- continued. I know how much this hurts, but this pain isn't the world! And feeling it forever doesn't mean you loved Shining Armor more. And giving in to it so much that you become a monster won't prove anything!
"But, but I just want it to stop," Cadence said, grief filling her voice. "I don't want to hurt any more! I want to forget Shining Armor, or that I ever loved him, I want the pain to go away!"
Cadence, LOOK outside your room. See what those little ones are doing.
Unwillingly, Cadence did so. She opened the door and peeked out. Before her a young colt and a filly were playing nearby along with some Changeling nymphs. One wore a tinfoil crown on her head.
The filly and colt hugged each other and the crowned nymph let it fall.
"Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor saved us all again! Yay!" The little nymphs and the foals cheered together and cuddled. "An' they'll make it so we can live in the light and get love without stealing it! Because they love us all that much!"
"That's right," Cadence said, her creaky voice warming as she walked over to them. They froze, only to relax as she nuzzled them. "He does, and so does she. Thank you, my little ponies and Changelings. I've been sick, but," she smiled at them and they smiled back, "I, I think I'm starting to get better."
*That was what my sister in law needed, a reminder of what her love for Shiny and his for her had truly accomplished. She has a long road ahead, bringing herself back, but she'll be taking it now. Yes, his death... hurts, and part of that hurt will never go away. But pain isn't the only thing in the world. And shutting your heart down protects you at the price of losing everything that matters.*
%Oh, how sickeningly charming! You should write that on a card and sell it, that treacly sentiment will doubtless be a bestseller.%
*Nyarlathotrot, put a sock in it!*
-
Changelings are not universally ruled by malevolent queens in the multiverse, the law of averages dictates that in some universes, their kind had their good queens and their evil.
In one such universe, a bizarre thing happened. Fleur de Lis, Fancypant's wife, became a Changeling Queen who called herself Queen Papillon, but did not lose her good nature. In this world, there were multiple Queens besides Chrysalis (one of which would become her ally), so she was naturally able to amount a hive. Be it her odd nature or simply Changelings working on different mechanics in that world, her hive became self sufficient. And she desired to formalize her peace with Celestia...sadly, her intention to show a demonstration her hive, while not desiring war, was ready for one, backfired as such tactics can.
Sadly, Persecution, the son of Morning Star, also had his claws in his aunt's heart. Celestia, my teacher...she held a deep hatred for the harm evil Changelings, including Chrysalis and...combined with Papillon's 'gunboat diplomacy' tragedy struck. One of Queen Papillon's princesses would die at...at my teacher's hooves in defense of her mother.
Papillon's own mother didn't even see her as a person anymore.
The sad part was that my teacher wasn't a sadistic monster or evil bigot. She merely desired to protect her ponies from a recurring threat. She didn't hate Changelings for being Changelings, she hated them for all the damage and suffering her little ponies had suffered at their hooves.
However, the Shadow Who Makes for this world, as sometimes they do, changed its mind and desired this outcome to change. Let it never be said the Shadows have no hearts. Naturally, I decided to help out.
*Are you certain this is a good idea?*
The Changeling queen blinked. 'I just want to show her that my hive CAN defend itself if we must, I don't WANT a war.'
*You were THERE when Chrysalis invaded. You know the wounds she caused, don't you?*
Papillon looked down, thinking back. 'That glutton, she has made this whole thing...so much more difficult...'
*Celestia sees your kind as a horde of parasprites, is it wise to show up as what she expects? To give her a justification to see you as a second Chrysalis? Hate will grasp at straws. And what hatred is more terrible than a mother's towards ones who have harmed her children?*
Papillon had retained her compassion, but could be fierce and terrible if her hive was harmed. Why wouldn't she know this?
'...I hadn't thought of that...perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way.'
So instead of arriving with her entire hive as a show of force to discourage a war, Papillon and her ally Queen Vaspira (at least two Changeling Queen would be needed for this to work) came to Celestia in their civilian guises, only revealing their true selves once Celestia had saw them as her little ponies first, Changelings after. As an added precaution, this time her Princesses weren't present.
...And merely used a shield to withstand her kneejerk reaction, never making any counterattack or attempt to fight back. Once Celestia's anger had cooled, they could speak. Papillon's mother would come to her daughter's defense, in this new line of fate having seen and greeted her daughter as she'd always known her.
However, I knew it'd take more than one mother and sheathing her sword to overcome Persecution in this line of fate. And that help would come in a most unexpected place.
That corner of the multiverse is...strange. Very Very strange. Alternate realities and even past selves intertwine. As result, Discord's younger self had met Papillon and befriended her BEFORE his fall...but still fell anyway and was redeemed by Fluttershy and then...ugh...I guess this is why Rota Fortuna said that it's best not to think too hard about cause and effect in this corner of reality, and to ignore the little white boxes with questions in them unless they're directed at me.
All it took was to plant a little suggestion to Discord that it might be fun to visit Celestia today...and let it not be said that Discord is incapable of loyalty towards somepony he's genuinely befriended.
All that was left for me to do was whisper one last little thing:
*Celestia...you forgave DISCORD, didn't you? After all the pain and suffering he caused, you still forgave him, right?...How can your hatred of somepony who wants peace with you ever dwarf the hate you once felt for him? It doesn't make much sense, does it?*
Papillon ultimately came home to announce to her hive that peace had been accomplished instead of mourning a daughter.