//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Following Through // by Alaborn //------------------------------// Following Through By Alaborn Standard disclaimer: This is a not for profit fan work. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyright Hasbro, Inc. I make no claim to any copyrighted material mentioned herein. Chapter 6 The statue of Discord loomed over me. He was probably a bit taller than me, in my normal form. But being on four legs meant I had to strain my neck to look in his eyes. It was a sensation I hadn’t experienced since I was a small child. I wondered if ponies, as a rule, felt the same way when seeing bipedal creatures. I realized I was stalling. It was my old enemy, fear. Looking back at my life, I recognized that I was often paralyzed by fear. Fear of rejection, fear of embarrassment, fear of the unknown. It impacted many of my decisions growing up. I started off at community college because of that fear. Neither of my parents went to college, so I wasn’t being pushed by them, and school counselors weren’t very forceful on the matter, either. Community college was the easy path. Had I been pushed, I probably still would have started at community college, but because I planned it that way, to save money. I was still stalling. After my first trip to Equestria, I had a response to this fear. “Whatever might happen to me, it can’t be worse than facing a sadistic god of chaos.” And it worked. Taking the class with the legendarily difficult professor. Joining an organization where I knew no one. Talking to someone at a party. Unfortunately, that response didn’t work when the event striking fear in me was facing a sadistic god of chaos. I stomped my hoof to remind myself that I still needed to stop stalling. I looked up at Discord. Just a statue, completely incapable of harming me. I concentrated on the arcane symbols, shaping the empathy spell in my horn. I felt the magical energy touch the statue, and then felt it returned tenfold. I saw in my mind the image of Discord superimposed over the statue. He sneered at me. “I thought I smelled something,” I heard in my mind. “Hey. I showered!” I responded. Discord chuckled. “Ah, yes. Seven creatures from your world, and not one of you figured out how to use a bar of soap. And here I thought you were some sort of technologically advanced species.” I glared at the image. “Oh, lighten up, John. I wasn’t referring to you, or rather, not how you were thinking. You bring with you a peculiar odor, the scent of my own failure.” “From what I’ve learned, that’s not a unique occurrence.” “You wound me,” Discord said. In the image I saw, blood started spurting from his chest, comical giant teardrops of blood, like in a cartoon. “Yes, I’ve lost before. I lose all the time. No, this smells precisely because it was solely my failure.” “Now you wound me. I thought I had a hand in your defeat,” I said. “Yes, and that’s what made it worse. As an eternal being, to win against mortal ponies isn’t much of a win at all. I can squash them like bugs.” The image of Discord now held a flyswatter, and he was swiping at miniature versions of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, all with compound eyes and gossamer wings. “The only real victory comes when a pony embraces discord of her own free will.” “Yes. None of us were buying what you were selling,” I said. “I wasn’t talking about you, Johnny boy,” Discord said. “I said ponies. Ponies are always talking about choosing between harmony and discord, as if they were opposites or something. My brilliant plan, the one you weren’t around to see, required everypony to choose discord, with a little prodding from a certain handsome draconequus, of course.” “So what happened?” I asked. “My plan was working, of course, at least until I ran into a certain pegasus. She was so kind, she refused to abandon harmony, even with her friends abandoning her. And that’s when I heard a little voice in my head. ‘Why are you wasting your time? Just discord her, and move on.’ So I did.” I thought back to Twilight Sparkle’s little lesson. “That was malice speaking?” “Oh, certainly. But he’s like that neighbor who always crashes your party. Once he knows you, he keeps coming around. ‘You know this prison can’t hold you, Discord.’ ‘You never have to lose.’ ‘You can just defeat harmony by countering it.’ I suppose you know the rest.” I nodded. “You know, I never thought you’d be so talkative,” I said. “I am quite aware of the peril of the revealing monologue, but I happen not to be playing the role of villain today,” Discord replied. “And I know you know that, since I noticed I’m not surrounded by six ponies with gaudy costume jewelry.” “And you’re doing this out of the kindness of your heart?” “Well, you are talking about my favorite subject, moi, and my entertainment options at this time are rather limited,” Discord said. “But I do tend to grow bored after a spell.” The image of Discord pulled out a nail file, and he started sharpening the talons on his eagle claw. “So, just to confirm, you didn’t bring any humans to Equestria?” I asked. “A bit blunt, wouldn’t you say?” Discord said. “Well, if that’s how you want to play, then I’ll say no. I refuse to repeat myself, you know.” “Then do you know who did?” “I’m afraid I haven’t had any involvement with interdimensional magic since your last visit,” he replied. I paused. That wasn’t quite an answer to the question I asked. Discord’s lips curled into a slight smile. I wondered if our connection meant he knew what I was thinking. “Yes, I do know, and really, John, you shouldn’t be imagining Twilight Sparkle in those clothes,” Discord said. “What? I’m not, I mean...” I sputtered, but the seed was set. The thought of Twilight Sparkle as a naughty nurse filled my mind. Discord rolled on the floor, laughing. The letters “ROFL” blinked above him. I scowled. I decided to share with Discord the power of human imagination, by imagining all the things I ever wanted to happen to Dolores Umbridge happening to him instead. “Okay, okay, point taken,” Discord said. He extended his lion’s paw. “Truce?” “Truce.” I didn’t take the bait, leaving his paw hanging there. He huffed, and his appendage popped like a balloon. “So, do you get a lot of visitors?” I asked Discord. “Oh, not too many,” he replied. “Any of them talk to you? Like, try to hold a conversation?” “There have been a few.” “Any of them talk to you about magic? Like, how to open portals to other worlds?” “I hardly think a kind of magic that was beyond the normal unicorn’s power would make for a good discussion,” Discord replied. “But I do happen to be quite the expert in magic. I find my chaos magic is most effective when it takes a known spell and presents it with my own little twist.” There it was again, a non-answer to my question. “So let’s say someone did want to discuss the finer points of magic with you. You’d be up for it?” Now Discord appeared with a tweed jacket, pipe, and bifocals. “Office hours are every day, 12:00 AM to 12:00 AM.” “So, Professor, reaching across dimensions with magic is a difficult task?” “Indubitably.” “Difficult enough to challenge the magic of the average draconequus?” “Pshaw. There’s only one draconequus, and ‘average’ is hardly a term I’d use to describe him.” “How much more difficult would it be to cross dimensions and time at the same time?” “To be honest, once you’re talking about crossing dimensions, it’s hard to get any more difficult,” Discord said. I thought back to my first meeting with Discord. When he was acting the role of villain, and monologging like a bad villain would, he did reveal a few things. One was that he reached into the past because he didn’t want to get someone who wanted to be here. He had also mentioned something about a recent strong connection between my world and this one. Those were details I had written down when I documented my first trip to Equestria, even though they didn’t make any sense to me. Now, thinking about Jason and Amber, I finally understood. “Discord, have you ever mentioned to any of your visitors why you chose to pull us from the past?” I asked. “I have. Bravo, John. You get a gold star. But I’m afraid office hours are now over.” My senses shifted, the squink from my horn disappeared, and now I saw only Discord’s stone statue. I found Twilight Sparkle a distance away, sitting on a bench. She looked a bit bored. “How long was I there?” I asked. “No more than ten minutes,” she replied. “What did you learn?” “I learned that Discord knows more than he’s willing to reveal. Or maybe he can’t reveal it. I don’t know how that works in this world,” I said. “But I have some suspicions.” “Do tell,” she said eagerly. “This goes back to my last visit. When we were all facing Discord, he said a couple of things. He said there was a strong connection between out worlds, and said he reached into the past because he didn’t want to find someone who wanted to be in Equestria. At the time, I didn’t know what he meant, but now I think he was referring to the show, and people like Jason.” Twilight Sparkle nodded. “I think it’s possible Jason would have had the same effect as you, in that particular situation, but it makes sense that Discord would have wanted to remove that unknown.” “As for what’s happening now, it sounds like Stalwart Shield did speak to Discord, including learning that he targeted the past because he didn’t want to bring someone who wanted to be here. I still don’t know how he, or whoever is responsible, did it, but I note that Jason was asked if he wanted to go to Equestria.” “The opposite of what Discord wanted,” Twilight Sparkle noted. “But who did this?” I wondered. “That’s what we need to figure out,” she said. “To the library!” The library, which Twilight Sparkle mentioned was technically the Canterlot Royal Library and Archives, looked exactly like an old-fashioned library one might see in a movie. The main room was two stories high, with tall bookshelves reaching to the ceiling, those ladders on wheels used to reach the books on the higher shelves, and lots of uncomfortable-looking wooden furniture. I had spent plenty of time in libraries at college, but all of my searching and a good portion of my reading was done online. Here, we’d need to use the card catalog. I didn’t get a chance to see the card catalog, as we apparently didn’t need one. Twilight Sparkle knew what books she was looking for, and knew exactly where to find them. Well, she did live in a library, after all. “I’ve picked up books on as many of the powerful creatures of Tartarus as I can remember,” Twilight Sparkle said. I winced as the huge stack of books landed with a thud on a wooden desk. Sure enough, from somewhere, a librarian shushed us. We got started, although it was mostly Twilight Sparkle quickly checking and then discarding books. Some of the creatures were just ridiculous. A demonic centaur? How would a world of ponies, but without humans, conceive of a centaur? A giant green blob, straight out of a 1950s B movie? Twilight Sparkle sighed as the last of the books went to the discard pile. “There are only a few creatures who could even conceivably gain power of Discord’s level. But that creature would first need to escape, and surely Princess Celestia would have warned me if it did.” “Did she tell you about Nightmare Moon? Or Discord?” I said. “Princess Celestia was... less than forthcoming about them,” she carefully said. “What about the changelings?” “No, but.... Look, John, I trust that Princess Celestia has everything planned out. I know I’ve been saying this a lot, but I really hope she knows what she’s doing.” “Wait. What about the changelings?” I said. “Could that queen of theirs....” “She’s defeated, John,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted. But from the way she spoke, she didn’t sound convinced. “Okay, maybe that’s so, but what about changelings working together? For that matter, what about ponies working together?” “The ancient unity spells, used by the unicorns to raise the sun and moon in the days before the arrival of Princesses Celestia and Luna, are still taught, but never used, at least as far as anypony knows,” she replied. “Outside of that, a pony would need to gather power from a source, something like the Alicorn Amulet. And as for changelings....” Twilight Sparkle sighed again. “I just don’t know.” “What do you mean?” “There’s not a lot of written works about changelings. Believe me, I’ve looked,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Changelings were thought to have disappeared, and the books we do have are centuries old, which means you can expect scholarship of a dubious quality.” “Let’s see what we can learn anyway,” I said. It wasn’t much. There were a few consistent details in the several books Twilight Sparkle found, such as their shapeshifting power, their feeding on love energy, and their social structure, like ants or bees. But the authors were just speculating about all the hows and whys of the changeling race. Like many of the things in this world, changelings didn’t make sense. But shapeshifting could be a useful power. It sure would be a lot more convenient than brewing a polyjuice potion for infiltrating Slytherin.... “What if Stalwart Shield were a changeling?” I asked. “What? The Guard would be a terrible place for a changeling,” she said. “How would he feed?” “One night stands? Would that be like junk food for a changeling?” I mused. “In any case, it looks like no one knows anything about changelings and their magic, but in my world, a character in a fantasy novel with changeling powers would make the perfect spy.” “And then he joined in on the attack?” “No, a spy in position is too valuable a resource to give up,” I said. At least that’s how spy movies worked, right? “But did that actually happen, that big love wave blasting the changelings?” “Yes, the power of Princess Cadance’s and Shining Armor’s love drove away the changelings,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Which would also catch any changeling spy in Canterlot,” I said. “But not before passing on this information to his hive?” “If so, then Queen Chrysalis didn’t act on it.” She drummed her hoof on the table. “I think we’ve learned all we can here. But there are a few questions I want to ask Princess Celestia before we go. In private.” I waited by myself in a different cafeteria, enjoying a light snack, while Twilight Sparkle met with the princess. I was in the company of a member of the Royal Guard, who was trying his best not to look conspicuous as he kept an eye on me. It didn’t work. About half an hour later, Twilight Sparkle returned. She grabbed a sandwich, finishing it off in less than a minute, and then we departed. A pair of royal guards escorted us to the train station. I looked at Twilight Sparkle, but the mare shook her head slightly. Again, she talked about other things, in this case the history of Canterlot, while we were around other ponies. We had a private compartment on the train back to Ponyville, and once we were inside, I asked her what she learned. “I spoke to Princess Celestia, a lot more forcefully than I ever had before, and she did reveal three things. She stated Queen Chrysalis was dead, that the changelings were not, and then she mentioned that she had known many queens of the changelings in her years.” “How does she know Queen Chrysalis was dead?” “She didn’t say, but she said those words with the same certainty as she says ‘I have raised the sun and brought about a new morning’.” “And the rest of it?” I asked. “I gather she knows more on the subject than those old scholars, but I don’t think she knows the details.” I watched as Twilight Sparkle paced around the small cabin. She was full of nervous excitement. “So what happened when you challenged Princess Celestia?” I asked. She smiled. “Oh! I asked for a private meeting, and once we were alone, I asked her directly to tell me what happened to the changelings! I mean, I wrote out what I wanted to say several times, because it was important I stayed respectful, but talking to you reminded me that I was tired of saying that I hoped Princess Celestia knew what she was doing, when in fact I don’t know! So I said it, and waited, and Princess Celestia smiled at me! I know that smile! I passed the test!” It looked like Twilight Sparkle wanted to jump up and down, but given the size of the cabin, all she could do was rear up. And then she embraced me. The hug didn’t last long. She blushed and broke it off, backing as far away from me as possible in this small room. “Sorry! I wasn’t thinking! Ponies do... I don’t know if humans... that was presumptuous of me! Sorry!” “It’s okay, Twilight Sparkle,” I said, nervously shuffling my hooves. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” I don’t really like being hugged. I have this aunt who greets me with a big bear hug, which was one thing when I was eight, but now it’s a little uncomfortable. But this wasn’t like that. The pony in me was telling me that it felt... kind of nice. We spent the rest of the trip in the cabin, seated as far away from each other as possible. “Spike, we’re home!” Twilight Sparkle announced as we entered the library. “Was everything okay while we were gone?” “Sure was! Everything’s in tip-top shape, Twilight!” the young dragon said. “Good! Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m beat,” she said. “So what do we do now?” I said. “I guess we wait until tomorrow, when hopefully you’ll go home.” “But what about what brought us here? The changelings?” “You’ll have to trust us to catch them later,” Twilight Sparkle said glumly. “We don’t have anything but suspicions, and unless you know an expert on changelings, there’s nothing we can do.” I smiled. “You know, there’s someone who might know something.” It was late as I walked through the quiet streets of Ponyville. Only a few ponies were out, and their hooffalls seemed muffled by the cool night air. Gas lamps and the light from the windows of the nearby houses cast a pale glow over town. I reached my destination, Jason’s house, but paused before I reached the front door. The curtains on the nearby window were open, and inside, I could see Jason and Lemon Spark. They were seated next to each other on the same couch. A blanket covered their bodies, and they were reading from the same book by the light of a lantern. It was a scene that could have played out on Earth, save for the people being ponies, and that the book was hovering in the air, suspended in a light blue magical aura. They didn’t notice me outside. I knocked, an action that was hard to do quietly with hooves. I heard no movement inside. Peeking in the window, I saw the two ponies look at each other, as if deciding whether or not to get up. I pounded on the door more insistently. Finally, Jason answered the door. “Jo... Strange Brew? What do you want?” “Can you come walk with me? I have some questions I’m hoping you can answer.” He glanced back to Lemon Spark. “Can’t it wait?” “It’s important,” I said. “Not as important as distracting Professor Kaplan so you could sneak your paper in and avoid having it marked late, but, you know....” Jason grumbled. He turned to the mare. “Sorry, Sparky, but I need to go out for a bit.” “Come back soon,” she said. “This couch is chilly without you.” Jason closed the door behind him. I pointed to him, and then to the window. “You? Her? Already?” “She makes me happy. I haven’t felt this happy since before graduation,” he replied. “But if all you’re going to do is criticize me, then I’ll go back inside.” “No, I do need to talk to you,” I said. “Let’s walk.” Once we were a distance away, and no ponies were within earshot, I spoke. “What do you know about changelings?” Jason stopped. “What? I thought you said this was important.” He looked ready to turn around. I placed a hoof on his shoulder. “It is important. It concerns how we got here.” “It was changelings?” “We don’t know. All we have are suspicions,” I said. “Whether this world is an actual separate dimension, or just the construct of a group of human television writers, there exists a library with all sorts of books, but nothing definitive about changelings. You know this world better than me, so what do you know about changelings?” “I know very little. Changelings only appeared in the wedding episode as the villain of the week.” “I gathered that. What about fanon? I want to know everything about how changelings work, and the ideas of your fan community are worth exploring.” We started walking again as Jason composed his thoughts. “I normally see changelings portrayed like insects, with a hive mind controlled by Queen Chrysalis. There are often work roles, like warrior, drone, or collector. A lot of stories show them as sensing all kinds of emotions, not just love, though they vary on whether they consume only romantic love, all love, or positive emotions in general. Negative emotions are sometimes just foul tastes, and other times actively harmful.” “Are there more changelings than just the one hive?” “It would make sense, but then again, it would also make sense that there were more pony nations than just Equestria, which we haven’t seen, so they’re both something left to the writer’s imagination.” “How about royal succession? How does a queen get replaced?” “No idea,” he said quickly. “Really? Not one story about it?” “Well, the only ones I remember were, uh, stories of a mature nature.” I shuddered, remembering some of the Harry Potter fanfics I had read. “So, yeah, I don’t think there’s anything to learn, and I’d rather not talk about it,” Jason said. I decided to try something more specific. “Say that Queen Chrysalis died in that wedding episode. What happens to the rest of the changelings?” “There’s a power struggle, and a new queen rises?” He shrugged. “What happens when a queen bee dies?” “Doesn’t the hive die? I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think the changeling hive died.” I thought for a moment. “How would you identify a changeling?” “When they change form,” Jason said. “Other than that, you can’t detect them. No magic spell or anything. It’s mostly handwaved away, because it’s the only way for that whole episode to make sense.” “Oh.” “Sorry I couldn’t help more,” Jason said. “No, this helps a lot. A different perspective is what we need to get home.” Jason came to a stop and shuffled his hooves. “Yeah, home.” As weird as this whole situation seemed to me, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. “Look, Jason. Like it or not, some time tomorrow, we’re going to be summoned to Canterlot, and we’re going to be sent home. So, it’s best that you treat this like your last night in Equestria.” “Okay.” “Promise me you won’t do something stupid?” “No promises, but I will go with you, and I will obey whatever Princess Celestia decides. But I’ll take your advice. I’m going home tonight, and treating it like my last night in Equestria.” “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jason.” And as I headed back to the library for my own last night in Equestria, I tried my hardest not to think about how Jason was going to spend his.