Pinkie Pie trotted out of the room, her head held a little lower than usual. Eos remained silent.
“... he’s not as much of a meany pants as you think, Twilight. Sometimes when we don’t feel too good, we take it out on others. Ol’ Disco’s just had a really hard life.”
The two mares made eye contact, and for a brief moment there was almost a tear in one of Pinkie’s eyes.
“I’m really happy that I’m able to make him feel better, even if it’s only a little bit,” Pinkie said, her cheerful demeanor returning as she bounced away.
Twilight smiled and watched her friend leave. Pinkie was a good pony, and as frightening as Discord could be, he always seemed a lot more calm after talking to her. It was surprising how readily he complied with any requests, given his hatred of predictability. He was only ever cryptic when discussing pre-Celestian history, and he hadn’t once tried to escape. None of the contingency plans were necessary.
Within one month of contacting Discord, a basic computer had been constructed. DNA had been isolated, and efforts to map the equine genome were underway. Scientific progress had skyrocketed. Literally. The space program was an astounding success.
It was utterly ridiculous that Twilight Sparkle was still unhappy, and she could not understand why. Eos had led Equestria into a glorious age of science. Ponies were more prosperous than ever before. A team of ponies had flown to the moon and back in a screaming, flaming chunk of metal and were completely okay. Princess Eos was lauded as an incredible ruler who wielded the magic of ten thousand unicorns, had more knowledge than every library in the land, and cared more for her subjects than many ponies did for their own families. These were exaggerations, but not by much. What had happened to make happiness so difficult to hold onto? When and how had it escaped?
---------------------------------------------------
“So, you’ve had time to catch up on the reports?”
“Yes, I have. I am as well versed in biology as I’m likely to be for the next decade.”
“Good. It’s overkill, but if I told you exactly what you needed to brush up on it’d be too easy to figure out what I was going to tell you. Today’s lesson is all about magic.”
“I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the nature and manipulation of arcane energy, but okay then. Unless biology factors into its origin?”
“Afraid not, but haven’t you ever wondered about the exact mechanism by which you’re able to use it?”
“It all comes down to pushes and pulls, like anything else. Even conjuring something from thin air is really just rearranging the atoms from molecules in the atmosphere into the desired configuration.”
“That’s not what I was talking about. Haven’t you ever wondered how your thoughts are converted into such a complex chain of actions?”
“It... it’s like anything else a pony does. We don’t calculate out all the vectors of force involved in standing up. We think it, and the more automatic parts of our brains generate the necessary nerve impulses.”
“Nerve impulses make the muscles in your legs move, which in turn make YOU move. Yes, that’s easy enough. Now how do nerve impulses in your horn make something a fair distance away move? There’s clearly energy transfer involved, that much is visible, but what exactly goes on?”
“Aren’t I supposed to be asking you?”
“You weren’t going to. I had to give you the idea, as always. You ponies so rarely come up with anything interesting by yourselves.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
“Doing what? Drip feeding you the knowledge you’re after, a little bit at a time? You’re getting some of what you want, and I’m getting a little of what I want. It’s not like there’s a whole lot else I could do right now besides tell you everything or remain totally silent. If I was silent, you wouldn’t be particularly willing to help me, but I can’t very well give it up on the first date. It’s just not ladylike.”
“What?”
“Doesn’t matter. Now do you want to know or not?”
“You know I do. I’m predictable, remember?”
“Now you’re learning! It’s time for your lesson, but I still don’t think you’re quite ready for the detailed version of this... let’s see if I can get the basic idea across. Ponies have a small... organ’s not quite the right word, but it will do... you all have an organ disguising itself as a part of your brain. It acts a bit like a sponge, soaking up arcane energy from the world around you as you mill about. This energy is stored until needed, and when you’re injured some of it is released to help heal the wound. There’s a slow, steady drip coursing through your whole body at all times keeping you youthful and energetic, repairing the ravages of time. As you age, this drip increases because the sponge dries and cracks, losing its ability to hold water. Fortunately for you, this masks the rapid deterioration a pony would naturally undergo toward the end of their life and keeps you relatively healthy right up to the end. Eventually, the sponge gives out completely or the energy stops being sufficient to keep you repaired.”
“So... a lucky coincidence is responsible for preventing ponies from suffering when they’re dying? That’s... kind of sad, but I suppose it’s comforting to know that ponies get to die peacefully by default.”
“This may sound strange coming from me, but nothing that has ever happened to any pony has been a coincidence.”
“You’re right... I would never have expected you to skip the opportunity to chalk one up to chaos.”
“Because you’re predictable and I’m not. But that’s besides the point; I haven’t told you anything that I wasn’t sure was true.”
“Now, no good sponge sloshing around a veritable ocean wouldn’t hold onto a lot more than what naturally seeps out. Some ponies hold more than others, as I’m sure you could have guessed, but none of them just let it sit there. You have all sorts of uses for that energy. Pegasi direct it toward their wings to provide lift and thrust. Earth ponies bounce it off of and through their environment to get a literal feel for the land around them. And you unicorns do something you’re going to think is incredible.”
“More incredible than reflecting and refracting waves of energy to sense objects?”
“Unicorns send that energy through their horns, where it is packaged for its most clever use. You know how a firework can have all its chemicals tucked in just right so that the color and shape of the explosion are determined before it goes off? Same thing. You ball up the energy, stuff it into a thin shell that will only hold it for so long, and launch it in the right direction. When the barrier dissipates, poof! Magic.”
Twilight’s eyes grew wide and she started shivering, her breathing coming in short spasms. “That’s incredible! The sheer complexity we subconsciously work through for even the simplest spells... the possibilities, knowing that there is nothing inherently special tying arcane energy to unicorns and that a spell could be applied by anything able to package the energy correctly... we could build machines! Oh, how much energy is AVAILABLE? If we don’t need to worry about straining the caster and it’s all mechanised, powered by an easily renewable source like sunlight... why did we waste our time developing chemically fuelled rockets? This is... this is absolutely... I can’t even-”
“I knew you’d think so, but you will need to be careful. The supply is limited. As you’re using it now, there’s enough to last a very long time. There’s plenty of magic to go around and no reason for you to worry about rationing the use of it. The only significant drain is when you need to beef up the sun, but that’s all accounted for. If you start burning through it at many times the current rate, however, that could be a problem.”
Eos’ breathing slowed and her pupils returned to their normal size. “What source are we drawing from?”
“The same one I am.”
“And that would be?”
“Irrelevant. It’s enough for your current purposes, but not enough for much more. What are you going to do about it?”
“...find another source?”
“You are SUCH a smart cookie. Now, for all the bits: if you’ve run out of energy on your planet, where are you going to go looking?”
“S-”
“SPACE! That’s right - you win the prize! You have the technology, and you have my guarantee that there’s more out there. All you have to do is come up with a way to detect it, and that shouldn’t be very hard at all for a race that’s powered by the stuff. Oh this IS exciting, influencing you to go do things you never would have thought of. For the first time in quite a while, I’m not entirely certain what state your society will be in a hundred years from now! More importantly, if I don’t know,” Discord grinned maliciously, “no one does.”
“I’m happy to be of service? It looks like we both got what we wanted, and nopony got hurt. That’s... that’s good, right?”
“Oh it IS, Eos. It IS. In fact, we should celebrate.”
Discord snapped his fingers and a festive hat appeared atop the baffled unicorn’s head.
“How did you do that? There’s no background energy in here, no way for any to get in, and you were fully drained before we set you free!”
“Oh I’m just FULL of surprises, unlike you. Next you’re going to ask why I didn’t escape earlier if I could do magic at any time, or you would have if I didn’t just say that. Instead you’re going to stand there and stammer uselessly, unable to form a coherent thought due to sheer shock. You can relax, though. I’m not going to do anything to harm any of you. In fact, I’m leaving. Bigger fish to fry and all that. You’ll be fine. I taught you everything you need to know. You could even chase after me if you want, but you won’t.”
“W...w-what makes you s-so sure of that?” Twilight stammered.
“Because you’ll be too busy trying to find out who made you. Oh, did I forget to mention the big twist? I did, didn’t I? Ponies as you know them aren’t a natural occurrence. The first batch of you was placed here along with me. I was supposed to watch over you, but I can see you’re ready to move on. Go on out there and make your Uncle Discord proud!”
The draconequus disappeared in an explosion of confetti and frosting.