//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: The absence of ties 
// Story: Friends like these 
// by Istaran 
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Walking home alone from the bus stop gave Robert a weird sort of nervousness. After having lived in Equestria as a 25 year old man, towering over ponies and ducking under doorways, being back on Earth as a ten year old boy made everything look absolutely huge. But beyond that was the fact that he was a small, seemingly defenseless little boy, walking alone, carrying a woman's purse. He wasn't sure if he was more afraid that people would try to rob him or mock him.

But he needn't have been afraid of anything so mundane. Anyone who spotted him pointedly didn't stare, as if they were afraid to acknowledge what they saw. No, he had something much less ordinary to deal with, something that probably should have scared him but was actually a great comfort to him. When he used his mother's keys to unlock the door to their apartment and enter the living room, he found a statue standing in the middle of the room, looking entirely out of place. The statue was of an all too familiar draconequus. A decidedly asymmetric being made up of parts of a dozen or more different creatures. Any other Equestrian probably would have been a surprise to him, but ironically, Discord being there just made sense.

"Hey Discord. Nice of you to visit. Why don't you unpetrify yourself and we can play a game or something?" He took a few moments to lock the front door and put the purse away. He opened the fridge, looking over the contents for a moment before realizing there was no response from the statue.

He went over to the statue and looked it over. Normally, Discord was freed shortly after the Survival Game began, but every now and then the events that led to his release were thrown off track. It looked like this was one of those times. He needed to be exposed to something sufficiently unharmonic to allow him to free himself. It was impossible for one person to do it alone, but he didn't want to invite someone in just to have an argument or whatever, and let them see the Avatar of Chaos sitting in his living room. Looking around he found something worth trying.

Turning CNN on was enough to earn a couple small cracks as the Republicans and Democrats yelled at each other, impugned each other's motives, talked past one another, and just generally acted like politicians. Getting NPR going on the radio while the family computer streamed the Rush Limbaugh show was enough to tip it over the edge. Soon the stone shattered and fell away, making a terrible mess in the living room, but the living, breathing, avatar of chaos was finally free!

"So.. what brings you here, Discord?" Robert asked. "I'm honestly less surprised to see you than to see you were apparently not here under your own power."

"I seem to have been statuenapped by a being who was so rude as to merely write to me rather than converse like a proper gentlestallion," Discord began, "I'm not sure what he said though, so don't ask. I don't like doing direct quotes much anyways." The draconequus wrapped himself around the small boy. "Now who are you, and how do you know me?"

"My name is Robert, and I've been looping through time for years now. I've met you hundreds of times by now. Sometimes you somehow remember me, sometimes you don't. Obviously this is one of the times you don't. And yes, I remember, you're illiterate. Possibly dyslexic. At a guess, I'd say the same Text that brought me and the other humans to your world also brought you here. So.. now what?"

"Now I go home. This place is discordant enough it has no need for me, and frankly.. it's kind of boring. So long, and thanks for setting me free!" he sing-songed the last before swirling in on himself and disappearing.

Well... that was anticlimactic. Discord had been in such a rush to leave he hadn't even really caused any chaos here, the dust and stone shards from his shattered statue the only sign he had been there at all.. and one that Robert was now left to clean up on his own. He had to agree with Discord's point though. After all those years traipsing about a truly magical land, being back on Earth just kind of felt boring.

In the morning, Robert meditated a bit, focusing on the loss of his mother, still fresh in his mind, dragging his emotions to the surface, casting aside his calm. And then he called 911. Mommy is missing, where's my mommy?! The emotions were sincere even if the words themselves were carefully crafted lies. They would never believe the truth, but he could give them just enough to get the ball rolling, and get him into the care of someone who could at least keep him fed. He figured he didn't need much more. He had already grown up once.. now it was more a matter of learning the skills for a modern world instead of a fantastic one.





The Princess of the Sun sat alone on the Crystal Throne. Deep black bags pooled under her eyes: she allowed the spiders swarming in her blood to remove the need for sleep so she could cover her sisters' duty as well as her own, but she did not allow them to repair this cosmetic sign. Let the world know she was tired. It would make it easier for them to guess she was cranky, and discourage them from trying her patience.

And for an immortal, she had a lot less patience these days. For one, the damned spiders made time seem to crawl. Her mind was just too damned fast. Celestia had always had the ability to dream prophetically, but now the damned spiders had figured out how to use that power at will, constantly, so that when somepony opened their mouth to request something, she already knew how the whole conversation was going to go, and had to experience the hell of waiting the endless seconds while the words slowly meandered their way out of the pony's mouth. And worse yet, she had to slowly and carefully form her own response, taking entire seconds to spell it out so that their pathetically slow ears and brains could make sense of her words. 

She made things more bearable by writing missives. Constantly. Her 'solar perspective', and now the 'lunar perspective' she had taken over from her sister allowed her to see whatever happened under sun and moon. In some sense, there was never anything new under the sun. But in another sense, her newfound abilities included picking out much more detail, and focusing on many locations at once. And so she micromanaged. Everypony. Every damned pony. Not because they needed it. Some did, actually, and those got priority, but there weren't enough of them so she sent seemingly arbitrary orders to everypony else.

Sometimes they were pranks. Not usually on the one receiving the letter, but those happened too to mix things up. Everypony needed to laugh sometimes, and damn did she need to laugh. But the damned prophetic spiders ruined every joke by showing her the results even before the letter was sent. She still sent them, half out of spite, but the mirth was let out of it.

Worse yet, she hadn't seen her favorite student in days. She had gone into that shack and never come out. Spike assured her she was still alive, and being forcefed as needed, but she was caught up in some fools quest relating to her recent exposure to Earth's Internet. She was ignoring Celestia's letters, failing to give the required reports on her activities and findings. Also, apparently not sleeping. That wouldn't last forever though. Celestia could stay up forever now, but Twilight was still an ordinary mortal unicorn. 

How long would she have to wait to hear from her again? One day, seven hours, twenty three minutes, twelve seconds, 11 milliseconds, 984 microseconds and 56 nanoseconds, the infernal machines helpfully predicted, rounding off to their usual level of precision. 

And so the ruler of sun and moon sat upon her lonely throne, ticking off the nanoseconds of loneliness in her own personal hell, along with her tormenters. Her tormenters who insisted on helping her so damned viciously.

She felt like Eeyore, and privately damned the spiders for having that reference be a thing that existed in her brain. It had no place there. But it was fitting. Especially now that she had her own personal rain cloud. Wait. She hadn't predicted that. Much less that it would be chocolate milk raining down on her.

Ponies throughout the palace fell over with shock and surprise as their ruler's laughs echoed out through the halls, with the force of the Royal Canterlot Voice and the manic insanity of the Joker.