The Affection of Princess Nightmare Moon
Part 21: Big Brother, Bandaid!
“An excellent new design, Princess! Very elegant and thoughtful!” One stallion praised.
“Even more beautiful than the one before!” A mare gushed. “What are your plans now?”
Nightmare Moon was surrounded by praise and interested ponies at what could only be described as a cocktail party. As nopony had really seen the night-sky rearrange itself because of the super-storm from the crystal empire, a few days later they were all seeing it now. She tittered in delight, already a bit wine-touched in her merriment. “Well I of course will humbly await the applications for new constellations!” she told them all. “Twas I who arranged the sky, but tiz ponies like thee that will make it friendly with pictures and shapes that you see in it!” This earned scattered applause and more merriment all about her.
Bandaid appeared at her side with his medallion and cufflinks. The black tophat didn’t look bad either. “Doing okay, Nightmare?” he asked, offering her a tray of Cloudsdale wind-fish wafers.
She took one and nodded, throwing an arm about him. “Ah yes! And many thanks to my beloved, putting up with me while I toiled away at the endless calculations and angles. No two stars too close together, and no two wisps of cosmic vapor too far apart! This stallion certainly kept me sane throughout! Huzzah!” There was more applause and she drank it in like all the rest. Bandaid snickered just a bit. Party Princess indeed, the papers had said more than once before.
“Any special stars in the sky named after your beau, Princess?” somepony in the gathereing shouted, gesturing.
“Why no!” Nightmare said, lifting a hoof in shock. “We should though! We should! Come, Bandaid!” she steered him to the nearby balcony. “Come friends, let us find a perfect star to call ‘Bandaid!’”
“Y-you don’t hafta!” Bandaid tried, but ponies were already peering at him, then peering skyward. He blushed but smiled nonetheless.
“Hrm, too bright… too narrow… too much orbital wobble…” Nightmare closed one of her massive black wings about him. “What do you think?” she looked down at him.
“How about that one?” Bandaid said innocently, gesturing vaguely at the sky. He grinned at her blank look until she got his joke and she elbowed him with a snort.
Nightmare stroked her chin a few times. “Ah, there! That one!” she gestured. Everypony craned their necks to see. “See that belt of stars there? The tiny white ones? Look to their four o’clock. Then over three stars, now down two! See that lovely blue one? It twinkles now! It knows we speak of it! We shall call thee Bandaid!”
Even Luna looked at the star that was being named, for it twinkled in delight and shone all the brighter. Ponies ohhhh’d appreciatively, and Bandaid smiled despite himself. Wasn’t everyday you got a star named after you. How flattering! “Thank you, Nightie,” he whispered, leaning against her. They shared a chaste kiss, which made everypony d’awwwww in delight. Bandaid quickly broke it when he heard them, and there were loudly giggling mares in the crowd.
“Hey hey! Look at it now! Something’s changing! It’s changing color!” Somepony shouted, pointing.
“What?” Nightmare looked up sharply. The blue-ish star turned pink, then orange, then white, then over to purple. “What’s happening?!” Nightmare demanded angrily. “Who dares meddle with the heavens as I?!” The star fwicked back over to blue, as it belonged, and a curling black mist began to roll across the floor. Nightmare looked down, frowning. She turned about. The ice-carved swan on the feasting table was smoking… neigh, the wok that it sat in was boiling over with black smoke. “What is that…?” she whispered.
Ponies began to back away, like the smoke might be poisonous. Bandaid looked over at Nightmare, uncertain. “What’s happening…?” He whispered, wandering forward as though hypnotized.
A great, billowing form began to emerge, and the lights around the room sputtered and faded. A spotlight formed as the shape reared up, grew horns and appendages, and a voice. “I’m happening, I like to say, I’m happening finally!” Nightmare’s eyes widened and her pupils turned to pinpricks. Suddenly all the smoke poof’d away, revealing the most mismatched, puzzle-created creature anypony had ever seen! He spun about, then landed on the white tablecloth. “Discord! Faust-born child of Chaos! At your service!” He sat on the table, crossing his legs and seized a glass of wine. “To the new night sky! And my sweetest baby sister!” Drinking the glass and throwing the wine itself to one side, he let out a guffaw and at last slid to his feet.
Bandaid leaned back a little fearfully, for the carpet curled and blackened everywhere he stepped. A flower bloomed here. A crystal jutted from the ground there. A passing beetle-bug flipped onto its back and skree’d in agony, brains scrambled. “Big Brother?!” he looked up at Nightmare. He knew that body language, though he’d only seen it a few times. Nightmare was screwing up her courage for something. “Big Brother!” she dashed forward and threw her arms about his shoulders. The strangely shaped creature bent forward, hugging her with the arms of a lion and a griffon. “Such a delight to see you out and about again!” she kissed either of his cheeks, wings fluttering about in a joyous display.
“It’s been too long, Nightie, far too long,” he held her front hooves in his massive paws (claws?). “Celestia’s imprisonment finally wore off, so here I am to clear my good name at last.”
“Oh?” Nightmare tilted her head. Bandaid carefully said nothing. Was she… shaking?
“You remember, she imprisoned me for the death of her husband, Mountain Blood, and the deaths of all those others?” he turned, and the punch bowl emptied itself. The crimson liquid turned red as blood, floating along like a globule of death. It hardened, morphing itself into a little model. Anypony with a basic knowledge of geography saw it was Equis.
“Y-yes,” Nightmare acknowledged. “She said you were the one who reversed gravity on the planet, resulting in millions upon millions of deaths.”
Discord’s lip curled, and the model reformed itself to show only a landscape of fair Equestria. Little flailing dots that must’ve been ponies were drifting off of it, screaming in tiny voices as they drifted higher and higher to their doom. The ponies gathered in the room slowly pressed themselves back and back until they were against the walls. What horror! Only Bandaid stood among the gods. “True enough, true enough, baby sister,” Discord said, watching the little flecks of life go out, one after the other. “Celestia was all too eager to be rid of me, full of righteous anger and the fury of justice and blah blah blah,” he said, looking rather bored. “I don’t suppose anypony saw exactly who died, did they?”
“Many, from many different nations,” Nightmare took a cautious step forward. Bandaid could still see her undercarriage shaking. “Y-you’re not… you’re not going to do it again, are you, brother?” she touched his shoulder with a massive hoof, looking worriedly up at him.
Discord leaned over her with a scowl. “I love how even now, nopony bothers to wonder why I did it. Was ‘well he’s Discord’ good enough for you too?” he frowned at her. Nightmare coughed, looking guiltily to one side. “Such as a shame,” he grumbled. He snapped his fingers, and the floating red model of Equestria condensed into nothing. When it reformed, it looked like a series of hairy blobs. They nipped and fought each other, and whenever a smooth blob wandered by they would viciously tear it apart. “Do you know what this is?” Discord said flatly, staring at Nightmare. Her face said she did not, and he sighed at her.
“It’s a virus,” Bandaid said before he could stop himself.
Discord looked over at him, smiling at last, “Why look, medicine has advanced in the passing of the centuries! Very good!” he brought the model floating along. “Go on?” he offered.
Bandaid, swallowing now that he was the center of attention, walked around it a couple of times. “It’s a… simple virus, probably doesn’t exist today. I’ve not seen such big cells before. If those are supposed to be red blood cells and tissue…” he stopped, putting a hoof over his mouth in horror.
“Flesh-eating,” Discord nodded. “Very fast. Very deadly. Very messy. And let’s not forget,” he snapped his fingers, sending it all back into the punch bowl. “Very, very contagious.”
“Such a thing would’ve wiped out the planet back in your time, I don’t understand!” Bandaid said. “If a virus like that struck Equestria, with our lack of medical knowledge back in that era…!”
Nightmare looked over, for it was slowly dawning on her. “An extinction event,” she said aloud.
Discord patted Nightmare on the head like a good dog, and she growled at him with all her fangs showing. “Very good, baby sister, very good. This plague was unearthed someplace, having evolved well below the surface…” he gestured to a hanging tapestry that had a map of the world on it. Darkest Zafrica began to blacken and curl as though it were on fire. “And it spread… and it spread… and it spread further. None were immune save a very strange and lucky few.” Discord flew up and encircled the map with his long, serpentine body. “I reversed gravity on the planet for five hours. Enough time to send most of the carriers, victims, and animals that bore such a plague out into space to be freeze-dried and die. Then they fell back to Equis and burned up in the atmosphere.”
“You purged millions!” Nightmare said in horror. “Over a plague?!”
“A world-wide plague that would’ve consumed them all,” Discord said, gesturing to the ponies cowering against the walls. “Funny how I ended up portrayed as the selfish, murdering older brother. Celestia does have a way of doing that to her siblings, no?” he offered a paw to stroke Nightmare’s withers. “I saw you get banished, and I watched Chrysalis die. Cadence hides in the frozen north. Is there no low she won’t stoop to? Even accusing her brother of murder?”
“You killed Mountain Blood, though, didn’t you?” Nightmare stared, starting to feel rather ill.
Discord slowly walked up the wall, stroking his chin. “Yes, I suppose so, but not as directly as you might think. We gods are in a constant state of regeneration, you know that, that’s why we live forever and can’t be killed.” Bandaid blinked, trying to follow along. “Mountain Blood contracted the plague from Celestia, though, not I.”
“What?!” Nightmare gaped. “Impossible! We gods do not get sick!”
“Oh no?” Discord said. “You’ve gotten colds and cutie pox in your own time, baby sister.”
Nightmare blushed when Bandaid looked over at her, trying to imagine her covered with cutie marks that weren’t hers. “Well, not as often as mortals do!” she amended.
“Well imagine this plague, then,” Discord says. “It’s not powerful enough to overtake a goddess like our sweet Celestia, but she could certainly carry it in her body and spread it among others,” he sneered over his shoulder, for now he was walking on the ceiling. Selecting a crystal from the chandelier, he plucked it and ate it like a grape. “Mmh!” he commented before floating back to the ground, upright. “Celestia went to visit the sick, thinking herself immune, to raise the morale. Then came home to hubby dearest and passed the virus right along to him. Showers don’t exactly wash such things off.” He grumbled. “I killed a third of the world, yes. To save the other two-thirds.” He spread his arms wide. “You’re welcome.” He said, hunching forward to frown at Nightmare and fold his arms.
“Thank you…?” it came out like a question from Nightmare Moon. Bandaid came and stood next to her, putting his head under her wing and then walking forward a step so it would lay over his back. She looked over at him and he smiled a bit.
“P-p-princess what do we do?!” Somepony squeaked from a dark corner.
“The god of chaos is back!” somepony else whimpered, pressing into her husband’s barrel.
“He’s scary!” a foal whimpered, dashing under his mother to hide among her legs.
“Everypony pan-i-i-i-i-i-i-c!” shouted a pink mare, throwing her serving tray and losing her head entirely. Screams and shouts started going up and ponies started stampeding and shouting in all directions.
Discord’s ears splayed and he scowled angrily. “You craft a planet for them and what do they do? They panic when you purge a plague or two. Pfft,” he grumbled. Leaning and kissing his sister’s on the head, he started towards the balcony. “I’ve other, more receptive siblings to visit, thank you,” he huffed. Ponies that he passed turned into lamps, ferns, statues, box-fans, and other random objects. Nightmare watched him go, thoroughly cowed. Snapping herself out of it, she rushed to the balcony with him. The railing warped, groaned and shifted until it became a bizarre sort of ballista. Fitting a bolt the size of a tree with one paw, Discord seated himself and fastened his seatbelt. “What?” he asked innocently.
“Did you do something to Celestia?” Nightmare demanded.
“No worse than she did to me. As soon all five of us know the truth, I’ll let her go. Shouldn’t take more than a few days,” Discord conjured tea and biscuits on a tray for himself. Slathering jelly as he pleased he took a bite. “Until then, I’d stay out of the palace hedge maze if I were you.” He turned and frowned at her rather seriously. “And I’ll know if you go in, Nightie.”
“Y-yes,” Nightmare said, looking to one side. “I know you have Mother’s eyes.”
“I’ll visit again soon, I need to stretch these old limbs of mine!” Discord said, conjuring a seat and pillow onto the ballista’s bolt. “If you’d be so kind?” he gestured.
“Oh, erm…” the black alicorn fumbled, then released the catch. The ballista fired, launching Discord skyward and towards the south horizon. He must’ve been heading for Chrysalis first. When he was gone and well out of sight, Nightmare gave a shuddering sigh of relief and sank to her haunches.
Bandaid rushed to her side from inside , putting his arms around her. “Are you okay?” he asked worriedly. “You’re trembling, Nightie,” she whispered.
“Ever wonder why only one of the children of Faust is male, my love? He is not the oldest, but he is the strongest, by design.” she whispered, watching the horizon. "Those that know him, even I, know well enough to fear and respect such a power..." He looked up at her in awe of the revelation. He'd always thought Celestia, or perhaps Nightmare... she embraced him slowly. He nuzzled her, and she seemed to gather strength from this. “C-come, we must right what he’s done.” She turned quickly and strode back into the room. “Silence!” she cried. “Silence all of you!” she stilled the room with a stomp of her hoof. Lighting her horn, she turned everypony that had been transformed back to normal. “My brother Discord walks among us again, and you shall respect him as you do myself!” she shouted over the frightened crowd. “He was painted as a murderer and is trying to clear his name. Death count withstanding, he is now the main reason there is any life on this planet at all!”
“But Princess! He’s-!”
“—been encased in stone for hundreds of years, just as I was sealed on the moon for a thousand,” Nightmare interrupted. “He has served his dues. Do not speak ill of him, for he shares my Mother’s eyes.”
“What’s that mean?” Bandaid asked, looking up at her.
“He can… he can…” Nightmare made a circular motion with her hoof, as though puzzling out how to put it so everypony could understand. “He can see all things. Past. Present. Here. There. And everywhere. Whenever he wants. Be wary, for speaking his name may draw his eye upon you, and to speak ill of a god may bring torment upon you!” she gave shrill and dire warning. “My brother Discord shaped the very planet you stand upon with his strong arms! Show him respect, as is due! And perhaps he shall be merciful when you are in his presence!”
Everypony gulped, even Bandaid.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sombra found fresh grass for the first time in several days and dove upon it ravenously. He’d long since lost his winter coat to a thorny bush, passed over the Equestrian border and even ditched his goggles and windbreaker. He’d always lived in the north, so seeing the warm sun and the deep flowing rivers was new and exotic to him.
He mooshed his nose against the dirt, not caring if anypony saw. He was not a good traveler. His food had run out a day before he’d gotten to anyplace temperate. He was lucky he hadn’t starved or frozen to death. He was panting by the time he was done stuffing himself, and he flopped onto his back in the moonlight. Brushing some of the grass from his muzzle with a sigh, he stared at the new night sky. Even as the travelling vagabond, he’d heard ponies talking about the new night sky. He’d not been outside when it had happened. Then again, the mega-storm he’d conjured… he winced, the wave of guilt hitting his stomach again. Groaning, he merely lay prone staring at the sky. His iron, eight-pointed star medallion jingled lightly on its chain.
Something was moving across the sky. He stared at it, frowning. That was no bird. He slowly sat up, pushing his black mane out of his eyes. A ballista bolt suddenly crashed from the sky before him, mounted by a creature unlike he’d ever seen. The monster turned, his eyes shrouded in black, endless images flashing across his vision like a video reel going at super-sonic speeds. “One moment, just a second!” he held up a lion’s finger. “And… there!” he bopped himself over the head to reveal yellow eyes with red irises. “All of Equestria looked over and you are the ONLY one wearing my symbol! A shame!” he gestured to the eight-pointed star around Sombra’s neck. “Well met, my little pony,” he said, drawing himself up.
“Who… what are you?” Sombra said before he could stop himself.
“Don’t judge me by race,” Discord said, floating by on a cloud. “You of all creatures on this Equis can respect such an idea.” Sombra felt his cheeks color. Even now he was hiding his changeling feelers. He let them flex forward and into view, his fangs melting out of his lips and below his jawline. “Good boy,” Discord said, turning upright. “I am Discord, son of Faust, god of Chaos, crafter of the planet.”
There was a long silence.
“You are not!” Sombra snorted. “Away to me, strange creature, I’ve enough misery without a trickster hanging onto my tail!”
“Not a bad idea, but perhaps you didn’t hear me,” Discord pulled Sombra’s tail from his backside, as though it were attached with velcro. The stallion squawked, flailing after him, but he levitated out of the way. Sombra’s red horn lit and he lanced the sky with red magic. The hole that appeared in Discord’s chest vanished like smoke, bloodless.
“Give that back!” Sombra demanded.
“You know how hard it is to be shot from a ballista going south and end up in the northern part of Equestria? It’s quite difficult, let me assure you,” the odd creature said cryptically. Sombra didn’t follow, merely snarled and lowered his head as though to gore the intruder. “That necklace, where did you get it?”
“This?” Sombra looked down for a moment. “I… I don’t know, a fair perhaps? A festival? Back when I’d met… someone important.” He tried not to think of Lemon-Lime, and crushed the wave of guilt before it reached him.
“The eight-pointed star is the ancient symbol of chaos. There were certain periods in history where wearing it could get you hung in the gallows, you must be powerful indeed to wear it so openly,” Discord chuckled, hovering about him to see the stallion from all sides. “Then again you are a strange-looking half-breed so perhaps others pay you no mind…” he trailed off, resting his chin on thumb and forefinger. “Let’s have a look at you…” Discord’s tail suddenly burst from the earth under Sombra and grabbed him up like an anaconda!
Sombra burst into smoke, reappearing nearby, horn lit. “You want to fight me?! Fine! I’ve plenty of frustration brought to bear!” Hunching in concentration, the black stallion’s outline flickered red, then bright crimson. Flecks of flame began to rise from his shoulders. Pebbles began to roll away from him. Drawing on a rather deep well of magic and love-energy, he let the two intermingle, mix and toss over one another. His mane drifted upward, and his red eyes began to glow. The very earth beneath his hooves began to groan and grumble with tremors.
“Ooooh,” said Discord, donning sunglasses to watch.
Phantom armor, intricate and outlines only, appeared all over him. A mace and shield burst into existence, forged of pure willpower. He raised the weapon high and with a righteous roar of fury, brained Discord into the earth. The puzzling creature pancake’d into the ground, feathers and fur flying in all directions. Sombra reel’d a bit in the recoil, for he’d received no resistance. He stood there, panting. “Some god you are,” he spat, armor and weapons melting away. “Though that did make me feel better…”
“Good, perhaps you’ll be more open to talk now.” Discord unsplatted before Sombra’s very eyes, standing and starting forward with authority. Sombra startled but Discord grabbed him about the neck and lifted him high. Growing and growing in stature, soon they were above the treetops of the forest clearing. “Now then,” his voice matched his new height. “Let’s have a good, long, look at you.” Discord’s pupil’s expanded horrifically wide until they took up all of his eyes in their blackness. Sombra stood paralyzed in his palm.
Hey Sombrero we need one more for hoofball, c’mon! Someday I’m gonna be the bestest science pony there ever was! Sombra! Run! Run before it caves! Daddy! Daddy help me I’m stuck! The roof is going to cave, the ice is too thick! Use the escape tunnels, I can only hold it for a few more moments! May I present the new Lord of the Dark Pelt herd, by right of birth and merit, Sombra! Erm, I am Lord Sombra. What is your name, friend? I-I’m Lemon Lime. Would you like to dance with a Lord of the Crystal Empire, Lemon-Lime? I-I would, yes, yes of course. Yonder tree branch be my gallows, be the one to end my sorrows. Must you sing something so depressing? That’s Neighzart, he was a genius I’ll have you know. Will you be mine, then, Lemon-Lime? Oh, Sombra! Ohh, Sombra’hhh! Do not let my city freeze over! The only reason, Lord Sombra, the only one, that you are not on the gallows right now is because nopony died last night. I feel like tacos…
Discord’s eyes snapped back to the present. “You have led an interesting life, very interesting!”
Sombra moaned, slowly leaning to one side and holding his temple. Reliving his whole life in a few moments had been draining. “What do you want with me?” he burbled, trying not to be sick now.
Discord put him down to lay in the grass, “Do you believe I’m a god yet?”
“If you won’t do that anymore, I’ll believe whatever you say,” Sombra groaned, holding the grass like a drunkard might to keep from falling off of the earth.
“If you’re going to wear my symbol, you’d best,” Discord said, folding his arms. “Now then!” he snapped his fingers. Sombra’s fur slicked down and cleaned itself. The grass around them cut itself, warped, then hardened into a very familiar silvery regalia. The black stallion looked over in shock as the pieces levitated about him, orbited, then fastened themselves to his body. Soon, he looked every bit Lord Sombra has he had before he’d been exiled. Discord snapped his fingers again. Sombra was shaven and brushed. Snapped fingers again. His belly felt heavy with food and his thirst vanished. “There now, all better.” He interlocked his fingers and grinned devilishly.
“Wh…why do you help me?” Sombra asked, staggered at the weight of the no doubt solid-silver regalia. He looked himself over, then up at his benefactor.
“Like I said, you’re the only one wearing my symbol in all of Equestria. Whether by fate or by my Mother’s machinations,” he glanced skyward, “Maybe you deserve a boon, huhm? That storm was really something. Hard not to call something like THAT chaos!” he laughed, drifting about.
“I-I meant well, not to bring about all that madness!’ Sombra shouted, miffed at him despite all the gifts.
“The weather can be controlled, Sombra, but not in the way you wanted to,” Discord said. “It’s like a tide, there’s no stopping it. Not even in a small area like a single city.” Sombra opened his mouth to argue about the countless calculations, so Discord stole his mouth and zipped it closed. Panicked, Sombra pawed furiously at his face. Were his teeth even still there?! “You would have killed everypony, trust me. I know. I made this planet and put out the rough drafts for the weather.” He chuckled at the panicked, frightened look the black stallion gave him. “You are just going to have to accept my cold, hard charity, and be on your way southward as you were.” He slapped Sombra’s mouth onto his face, and gave his butt a good smack to put his tail back. Sombra yelped, rubbing his flank.
“Y-you’ll be wanting something from me in the future, won’t you?” said the stallion warily, slowly backing away from Discord. “For all these gifts and food. Nothing is free. Nothing!”
“Maybe, maybe not. I’ve not decided yet,” Discord lazily floated about, smiling. “But I have some siblings to visit and no time for you at this precise moment… unless you’d like to come with me, of course?”
“I think not,” Sombra grumped, turning from him. “I’ve a heading, anyway.”
“Ah yes, the coordinates in your backpack. My sister Nightmare Moon had them put there. Do you know where they lead?”
Sombra tried not to let his face show his shock. “Where?” he barked.
“To the very same place I’m going. I’ve been watching it for some time recently, so it should be very interesting,” Discord unraveled himself into a snaggle-toothed map. “Have a look!”
Sombra leaned over the world map, pulling the scroll of his coordinances. Taking the sextant and running a few calculations in his head, he traced his hoof south… south… south… past Canterlot, past Ponyville, past Appleoosia… past the southern border. “The Badlands? Why would the Princess of the Night send me there?”
“Perhaps out of pity?” Discord rolled himself up and poof’d back to normal. “If Lord Sombra could not find his place among ponies, perhaps it is to be among the other half of his heritage?”
Sombra touched one of his fangs, his feelers flexing a bit. He tucked them back into his mane, slicking them back as best he could. “I am no love-sucking monster,” he mumbled at the ground.
“I thought we agreed not to be speciest?” Discord frowned down at him.
“I’ve no place among them, or anypony else,” Sombra grumped. “Perhaps I could find a quiet place…”
“To do what, pray tell?” Discord morphed into an elderly stallion on a rocking chair. “Fritter away your life, pine after your lost love and status, and waste what precious years you have? Please!” he snapped his fingers, returning to his normal glory. “Between you and me, I’m willing to bet my sister Queen Chrysalis would be delighted to meet you.”
“What? Why?”
“Our Mother told her you were coming,” Discord grinned cryptically.
End of Part 21