“When you said you had literally piles of papers that maybe had some information on interdimensional travel, I thought you were lying,” Discord said as he observed the metric ton of dusty papers, notes, books and whatever else in front of him. “And I was right. This is a mountain…” He concluded with his ears drooping as he realised he might not see the outside for weeks to come.
“Thine words speak truth, Discord,” the blue alicorn beside him said, looking over the pile in dread at what she had gotten herself into. “It will take us months to search through it all.”
A loud groan was heard from the white alicorn who was also there as she stepped in front of them and gave them a big reassuring smile. “Oh come on, you two.” Celestia said in her most enthusiastic voice. “While Neltharion and Valissa solve their... differences,” she nearly cringed as unpleasant thoughts entered her mind. “We can get this over with in an orderly fashion.” She turned to the pile behind her that towered over her in the same way a bear would a bunny. From her angle it almost looked intimidating. Like it was glowering her for entering its domain and was about to open its enormous papery jaws and eat her.
They had all just arrived at the castle of the royal sisters. Somehow most of the bookshelves had been knocked over and had left books everywhere. This of course also meant that the two giant bookshelves who used to cover most of the walls had also been knocked down and had left it all in a big pile of paper, books and smashed old wood. Over five centuries of literature was in that room, and all of it in that pile.
Celestia cleared her throat as many organising thoughts entered her mind. “First we’ll divide the different papers after form, make groups of papers, notes, books, notebooks, spellbooks, lexicons, broken wood pieces and whatever else there is. Then we’ll sort them by age, material, paper type--” She stopped as a thought struck her. There were no groans, sighs, or flying chaos chickens popping out of the blue. Something was amiss.
Curious and suspicious, the sun princess turned around and was met with an odd sight. In front of her was a glowing ball that had enveloped the place where her companions used to stand, shifted colors by the second as if to some kind of beat. It also had a striking resemblance to a disco ball. Another thing was that she couldn’t see through it. Cautiously she moved forward and stuck a hoof into the disco ball. To her surprise it went right through as if her hoof was hitting nothing but air. So, naturally, she stepped through it. The first thing she noticed was the blinding colors bombarding her sight, but to her surprise there was no sound in the bubble, other than the voices of the dark alicorn and draconequus in front of her of course.
“Great now we narrowed it down to a noose,” Discord held up a short noose made of rope in his talon, “and hydra venom,” he held up a green bottle with a skull emblazoned on it. “Now, what do I pick, Moona?”
The moon princess looked at Discord with what could only be described as pure confusion. “How in Equestria did we get to this area of conversation?”
“Don’t know, don’t particularly care,” the chaos spirit replied. “Also how do you like my anti-sound bubble? Very stylish, don’t you think? i’m sure Rarity would approve.”
“This is your version of a soundproof barrier? Not very discreet, even for you.”
Discord waved the potentially lethal items in front of him dismissively. “Did no one ever tell you, discreet is boring? Sometimes you need flair, finesse, some-other-fancy-word-I-don’t-know -what-means, and colors so people know where I put my bubble.”
“The correct term for this specific type of magic is an soundproof barrier…”
“You have your way, I have mine, miss princess of the giant cheese wheel in the sky.”
“My moon is not a cheesewheel!”
“Sure it is,” Discord smirked mischievously, “at least it will be tonight,” he whispered to himself. “Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Hydra venom or noose?”
“None of those would have the supposedly desired effect you seek, although I could think of a couple of ways that might. Besides, isn’t this a little dark for your taste?”
Scratching his chin with his tail, Discord looked at the items in his respective limbs. “Hmm, you’re probably right. It seems a little out of character.” The items phased out of existence. “Wouldn’t want the readers to think I’ve turned a depressive leaf. I do wonder though if your sister is still on her rant.”
“Ahem.”
It only took that single word from the sun princess to stop the lord and master of chaos and freeze him on the spot.
Nervously, Discord slowly turned towards the sun princess and gave his best fake grin, hoping to avoid whatever judgement and/or punishment that was awaiting him. “Celestia, how radiant you look today! And that mane of yours! Are you by any chance using a new shampoo?” His demeanor crumpled as the stone cold expression of Celestia’s burned itself into his mind.
“...”
Discord glanced towards the moon princess for support, but of course, she was nowhere to be found. He turned his attention back to Celestia and gulped. “Uhhh, hehe, how much did you hear of it?”
“Oh I heard all of it,” she replied calmly.
“Uhhh, it was just a joke?” He said sheepishly.
Celestia’s look didn’t change.
“This is not going to end well for me is it?”
Sand and rocks whirled through the air as the two giants among mice landed in the warm and barren land of dragons. Jagged, sharp rocks and sand covered the ground, making the ground itself impassable to any non dragon who would dare to soil the ground with their presence. The air was hot and unwelcoming. Nothing should be able to live there, yet the sands, cliffs and the enormous mountain in front of them housed countless reptiles that were known to the world as some of the most frightening and vicious beasts that had ever existed.
Valissa took it all in as she looked upon her land in all its glory and a smile drew itself on her lips as she observed her people buzzing around the mountain, going by their daily routines. They were all tiny in comparison to her, the biggest only reaching roughly a third her own size. The glinting sands of her tall home reflected the sharp sunlight outwards, glinting like diamonds and shining like a beacon to all dragons near and far as a symbol of home.
The ruby dragon herself was glinting in the sunlight, letting the red light from her scales shine upon all of those she saw before her. Her people were going by their day as if she didn’t even exist. Such a sight gave her both a strange sense of relief and a small tug of fear, although she knew the reason. Some of her citizens were also glinting in the sunlight, not as brightly as Valissa herself, but enough to envelope the dull sandy landscape in a surprising array of colors that glinted onto the mountain. To Valissa, this place was the most beautiful place in existence. She had lived here for many thousand years and she never tired of looking at it, yet it also tugged on her heart strings in a sad way.
Looking towards her companion, Valissa’s eyes widened in pure confusion. Neltharion stood next to her, head tilted with a disbelieving look on his face as he watched ruby queen’s kingdom go by, but that wasn’t what drew Valissa’s attention. It was his scales and the armor. Unlike Valissa and all of her dragons, no light was reflected off of Neltharion. Not even the metal reflected light. All of it was absorbed by his scales and armor as if there was no sun to touch it at all. From his back smoke rose from his folded wings. A strange shiver went down her spine looking at him like that. He was unnatural, surrealistic, and powerful. His very existence seemed forced, as if someone had somehow mixed oil and water and created something new that shouldn’t exist.
Letting a toothy grin occupy her face Valissa spoke. “Is something the matter?”
Neltharion merely kept looking at the sight before him.
“They’re so...ignorant of our presence.”
Although he wasn’t making an effort to be loud, Neltharion’s voice still rang over the landscape before them and Valissa could swear she saw a few of her dragons flinch, others very discreetly making distance from the black dragon.
None of this made Valissa loose her face. She simply chuckled. “Nonsense. They’re merely busy. My people are dragons, ruthless and fearless creatures that fight for what they want.”
Although Valissa didn’t want it to be so, it was a lie. On her way from leaving Draconia she had instructed Razorscale to prepare her people as she would likely bring back a visitor. And it seemed that Razorscale had done what he could. The dragons that were normally swarming her everytime she left the mountain wasn’t there, and the sentries around Draconia had not intercepted them on their way there like they normally should. It was strange, but a necessity. If Valissa had arrived with Neltharion without any warning, there was no telling what kind of panic, chaos or confusion it could cause.
Valissa began to walk towards the mountain, cracking the jagged stone beneath her claws with no effort, making sure to sway her backside and tail in an alluring manner. Noticing Neltharion wasn’t following, Valissa turned her head, grinning. “Are you coming?”
A snort was heard from Neltharion as he reluctantly began to follow the ruby queen.
A thump sounded as another pile of papers and other things rumbled down the book and shelf mountain like a small avalanche. Looking each over carefully, Luna lit her horn and picked up the many items before beginning to sort the rubble from the paper, the broken pieces of wood and unreadable notes going into a large pile behind her while she read the readable pieces.
50 shades of Blue - by Cameron the Clerk
No.
How to make gunpowder - by Belle the sweet.
No.
Being your own Spell-weaver - by Clover the clever.
No.
A groan escaped Luna as she threw the books over her shoulder and into the pile. Faintly she could hear yelling coming from outside. The voices were annoyingly familiar. Her sister and Discord had engaged in a very verbal and not very adult fight ever since the moon princess had decided to leave Discord alone to face Celestia’s wrath. That was over an hour ago. Frankly Luna was surprised none of them had backed down yet. But they were both incredibly stubborn. Even from inside Luna could make out some of the conversation. Some of it was deep and a little emotional, then it became political with focus on Neltharion, and now it had reached a stage of name calling and then criticising each other. In the process Luna had simply decided to get some work done on the book mountain and she had barely even made a dent.
Their bickering reminded Luna a little of her conversation with Neltharion. Although the conversation barely resembled anything the two outside were having, it was something that she had been thinking about ever since she’d talked with the black dragon. Putting things in perspective and making it all less black and white.
Picking up another pile with her magic, Luna sorted the rubble from the notes and books once more.
How to make a mare fall in love with you.
No.
108 monsters and where to find them.
No.
A Nexus in the making - by Asogar Dins
Luna’s brow rose at the name of the last author, but dismissed it and threw into the pile to join the rest.
We’re never going to anything at this rate. Her attention was drawn to the increasingly rising voices of her sister and Discord. At the end of the hall outside a window she could see the shadow of Discord’s flailing mismatched arms.
A groan escaped her as the annoyance of her being the only one involuntarily working on a presumably lost cause. Unfolding her wings, Luna flew over the intimidating book and wood mountain that covered most of the library and over to the end of the room where a conveniently placed door was. Cautiously she opened it as the bickering of her sibling got even louder and slammed the door behind her.
As Luna found out this was not smart decision as dust rained from above and into her fur and mane. Eye twitching, Luna shook herself like a wet dog which barely did anything. Ironically, the bickering outside had also completely seized. Just my luck...
The dust eventually settled and Luna found herself in a compact room, containing a bed, a table filled with loose withered paper and a few books. It didn’t take long for Luna to recognise the room. This used to be Starswirl’s room. Long ago.
Sadness forced itself on Luna as a few memories did the same. Memories of laughter and mischief mostly.
Walking to the table, a smile found its way onto Luna’s face as she recognised the cover of one of the few books that laid on it.
A Brief history of Magic - by Starswirl the Bearded.
It was Starswirl’s first ever published book and the one he had always bragged about writing. As far as she was aware the only other remaining copies were at the Canterlot royal library.
Nostalgia filled the moon princess as she picked up the book in her magical grip and she opened it. But strangely, it was not what she once remembered reading. The book was filled with personal notes about almost every project Starswirl ever started.
Luna went through it page by page, until her eyes fell on a specific page filled with strange markings and pictures. She grabbed the book and ran out of the room, leaving everything as it had been left so many years ago with the exception of the book the old mage had treasured.
Hinges of metal and stone whined as the massive gates to the dragon capital opened in all of its glory. Noise berated the two companions as they looked onward inside. Murmurs, yells, growls and roaring fire as the vast amount of dragons inside went by their day. Yet all of it fell silent as a ruby light shone inside, captivating them all. Guards stationed inside stood tall as their queen entered, her very presence clearing a path straight through the countless numbers of reptiles that occupied the enormous hallway, it only dimly lit by sunlight shining through cracks in the walls of the mountain, reflecting onto large well placed gems that spread the colored light.
Murmurs stirred in the mountain once more as Neltharion bend his head down to not scrape against the gate ceiling, and stepped foot inside. All attention of the citizens were shifted onto him. The hall echoed with each step he took and he could silently feel the endless slitted eyes judging him, for better or worse he didn’t know, nor care for that matter.
The interior of the mountain reminded him of a crude version of a castle. Long large pillars stood tall towards the ceiling in six rows, carefully carved out of the mountain with markings and rubies, sapphires and fire opals that shone in the dark, each pillar a different length to accommodate the varying ceiling height. Above were holes in the ceiling, leading to separate floors of the mountain where Neltharion could see other dragons looking down at him with contempt. In the middle of the hall between the pillars marking his way, Neltharion could see two dragon statues, each respectively carved from blue and red marble.
Neltharion stopped in the middle of the hall, shifting his gaze between the two statues that stood perfectly on each side of him like two judging guardians, both almost as big as himself.
His eyes caught a glimpse of the dragon queen turning her head to look at the blue one with a sad frown before continuing through the hall.
“Is that the creature that is supposed to become our queen’s mate?”
“That thing will bring ruin to our kingdom!”
“Mommy, what is that thing?”
His ears in particular was drawn to a little red drake with oversized teeth protruding from the upper side of his jaw, standing with two drakes of the same age.
“Hey, who’s the weirdo?”
That word ‘weirdo,’ that was new, milder than the others but definitely just as offensive.
The drake’s friends smugly laughed, clearly not realising what was had walked past them. Laughing was new and not in a good way. It was disrespectful in every sense of the word. It was probably just to ‘show off’ to his friends or something ridiculous like that, but that was offensive enough. They had no respect for the monster that had walked past them.
As Neltharion walked through another walkway, he turned his head slightly, just enough to see the drakes and make eye contact with them. Through something even so insignificant as eye contact Neltharion had the power to turn their mind against them, make them insane enough to claw out their own eyes or simply crumble their sanity to dust, but he didn’t. They would have to live the rest of their miserable lives, knowing what they had gazed upon yet never understand. But that wasn’t enough, not to Neltharion. Ever so slightly, his enormous power flared within him and into the red drake’s eyes. Even though the red drake didn’t know it, he already feared Neltharion more than anything else he would ever meet in his life, Neltharion’s spell would make sure of that.
The noise was cut off from Neltharion’s ears as another gate shut behind him. He stood in a large room, completely black with no outside noise available, yet he could smell oil. Shuffling was heard as Valissa laid down on some form of metal that clinked as she made herself comfortable. Fire blew from her nostrils that ignited large bonfires beside her that rapidly spread to both sides. Neltharion got a clear view as his eyes adjusted to the light. Valissa was laying on a bed of gold and silver that was surrounded by a ring of stone. Behind her was three massive paintings carved into the walls that used gems for color. The left painting contained a massive dragon colored in a dark red and long curved horns that stood in a storm of fire surrounded by dragons, griffin’s, and some kind of sea creatures. The right painting contained a dark blue dragon with a kind smile, shielding ponies with its wings in a beside a frozen empire, itself surrounded by frost and ice, three icy shadows showering it from above. The third contained the blue and red dragons snuggling each other as a small golden egg sat beneath them, the trio surrounded by a united dragon people.
“So what do you think so far?” Valissa asked with a confident grin.
“Your kingdom is a wasteland.”
“But it is my wasteland. Isolated from beings of a non draconic origin, with little to no cover and clear defendable and unclimbable vantage points for my people. It is the best defence against those who would dare to invade my land. No one enters or leaves this land without me knowing about it.”
“Then I can assume you don’t get a lot guests”
“Uninvited guests to be exact,” Valissa corrected. “But why would we need guests? We have everything we need here. More land than we could ever inhabit and more gems than we could ever eat.”
Valissa noticed Neltharion’s face change slightly at the mention of gems, although she wasn’t sure if it because of that or simply one of the many scars in his face that was somehow bothering him. “Don’t you like gems?”
“Food is something that rarely enters my mind. But no, I don’t eat gems.”
“Why not? Don’t you like the taste?”
“My kind doesn’t eat gems.”
“Then what does your kind eat?” Valissa asked, not appreciating Neltharion’s almost condescending tone.
“Meat, fish and things similar.”
The answer was a little surprising for Valissa. At the dawn of her race they had also resorted to hunting, but because of their size and the amount they would need to consume daily it quickly became inefficient and almost endangering to hunt the ‘lesser’ races. Luckily her ancestors found gems as a good replacement. Imagining Neltharion hunt on a daily basis gave her a good picture of what his world was like, but also rose more questions. “I see. Do you enjoy hunting?”
“I don’t hunt.”
Raising a brow, Valissa’s mind went into overdrive. This answer could mean many things, though the most likely was that someone else did it for him. “So you have others gathering food for you?”
“No.”
Those short responses were starting to slightly irritate Valissa. Trying to be a good hostess was apparently harder than first thought, especially when the guest seemed to have little interest in being there. “Then how do you eat?”
“I don’t.”
Now Valissa was just confused. Very confused. All living things needed some form of sustenance. Especially something as big as Neltharion. “What do you mean?”
“I have little interest in answering every question you have about me. Tell me why you invited me here so I can leave.”
Taken aback by Neltharion’s bluntness, Valissa decided she had to change tactic, drastically and fast. Smiling as if his words had not affected her at all. “Very well,” she said. “Would you like to try some?”
It wasn’t as much a question as it was almost a command.
Turning She laid her open claw upon the middle painting and gently pushed. Cracking rocks and stone gave way as a door opened behind her nest, splitting the painting in half. A rush of air hit her as her eyes set upon the dark and narrow corridor revealed behind the paintings. Valissa motioned with her head for Neltharion to follow her and then she walked into into the darkness.
73, 74, 75,
The count went on as Discord went through the massive pile of literature. Most of the books were completely useless but even if he stumbled across something useful, he would never know because simply read the title and threw it in a pile.
It had been a few minutes since their ‘fight’ was over, and they had gone back inside in silence. Discord was slightly annoyed about the whole thing. He had just made one innocent little, perhaps dark, joke. Okay maybe a little bit too dark...okay maybe not the most thought out joke ever, but how was he supposed to know that she was standing right beside him and listening, it’s not like he could...just have moved his head and stopped talking…
Discord paused in his counting and deadpanned.
Alright maybe he should have factored in the oversensitive princes that’s might have been watching, but it was still unreasonable for her to start a fight with him. Of course he could have just teleported himself and Luna away from there and avoided this situation entirely, but noo, he couldn’t think that far. What were they, an old married couple? It was all just a long silly conversation about feelings, some words of scolding and even her mentioning that she cared about him and that making such a joke was cruel. He of course had found her ridiculous, right up until Celestia had put Fluttershy in the picture. Damn sun princess hadn’t fought fair. She had asked Discord to imagine if Fluttershy had heard him make that joke instead of her, and some of the deep and dark implication it could, but it in no way didn’t, have. Discord had already known the outcome of that conversation the moment Celestia had brought it up. If it had been Fluttershy, it would have followed a very predictable series of steps. First she would have been her bawling her eyes out and then it would end up with Discord having to comfort her instead of initial intention of doing the same to him. Then scolding, then hugs and him feeling guilty for weeks. Even though Fluttershy probably had no idea about it, she was very manipulative, and that was another thing Discord had thought about recently. Since he had been let out of stone, they had manipulated him probably just as much as he had them.
Shaking his head, Discord focused back on reading titles and counting.
827, 369, 420,
Okay maybe not completely focused.
He couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Celestia from moment to moment as she was trying to find books in her own way, although he wasn’t sure why. She was annoying in every sense of the word, even as she was just doing her process of picking up a book, scanning the insides for useable info before carefully putting it into a reassembled shelf. She also couldn’t take a joke, he had burns to prove it. Yet he couldn’t help but agree with some of the things she said, which only made his following actions all the more frustrating and made him want to gag.
Ever so slowly, he floated over to the sun princess and landed on the floor beside, waiting for her to notice him.
She simply continued the process.
“Ahem,” Discord coughed in an effort to get her attention.
Nothing happened.
Of course, why couldn’t anything just be easy.
Discord coughed again. No response.
Oh, for the love of…
Having had enough, Discord floated on top of the pile of which Celestia was collecting her books, finally making her stop and notice him.
Her face was hollow of emotions as she looked at him like a brick that had gotten in her way. “Discord,” she simply greeted before starting to pick out books from under Discord and continuing her process.
“Celestia, “ Discord greeted back before deadpanning again. “Do you want me to help you, or?”
“Do whatever you want.”
Ouch. If anything was an indicator that Discord had done goofed that would probably be his biggest pointer. A voice inside Discord told him to do as she said and simply leave because that is what he wanted to do. But would it be the right thing to do, was the more important question. Damn Fluttershy, reforming him and making him feel this way... He could feel guilt gnawing on his insides and the funny thing was that he didn’t know why! Why the heck should he apologise or be helpful for that matter? He didn’t agree to this operation...at least not voluntarily.
A sigh escaped him. This was not going to be easy. He had to make careful steps.
A snap of talons sounded and suddenly Celestia was floating suspended in the air in front of Discord. “Look, Lady sunprint, I’m not good with passive aggressive attitudes so cut the crap and tell me what you want.”
Celestia kept silent and simply stared at him with a disapproving glare.
“I mean what is it you want me to do exactly? Apologise? You should know me better than that.”
She kept the glare.
“I suppose that what I did was a bit insensitive, but you weren’t supposed to hear that! I was just trying out a new form of jokes. Even if it was as bad as you made it sound, I don’t see you going around badgering Pinkie Pie every other minute when she tries something new and physically harmful!” He was not getting through. “Alright, okay, I admit my joke was insensitive and that I shouldn’t have said it even if you hadn’t heard, but it still a poor reason to behave like this, Celestia. You are not a teenage filly!”
Still no reaction…
“Although that hasn’t stopped me from behaving like a child in the past, but that is part of my charm, you can’t blame me for that.” A sigh escaped him again. “Will you just say something, please?”
A brow rose on the sun princess’ face.
“Pretty, pretty please, with sugar on top?” He said with wide puppy dog eyes, but unfortunately for Discord it had no effect. His eye was beginning twitch not being used to this kind of lack of reaction. Her lack of reaction had more effect on him than he realised. Never before in all of his years had he been ignored and been this annoyed by it. In the past, no one could ignore him, for if they did, he would turn them into rabids and punt them towards the nearest desert. But he couldn’t do that anymore, noo, he was a good guy now, no matter how much it annoyed him. Discord’s face reddened in anger. “What do you want from me, woman?!” He yelled flailing his arms. “Is it an apology you want? There, I apologise for being an insensitive jerk and I will never make such ‘foul’ jokes again! Now say something before I do stuff that will make Fluttershy put me in the doghouse for the next millennia!”
A smug smile suddenly appeared on the sun princess’ lips. “That,” she simply replied.
Discord’s frustration and anger was completely wiped from the face of the world and replaced by just as much confusion. “Huh?” He blurted out and let his magical grip on the princess waver, letting her slowly land on the ground.
A giggle escaped Celestia at the look of Discord’s utter look of confusion. “That was all I wanted.”
“But, what the, huh?” More random words blurted from Discord’s mouth.
The conversation didn’t get any further as suddenly Luna burst into the room flying to them with a book in her blue aura floating around her.
“Celestia, Discord, we have found--” Luna stopped running towards them as she saw the looks on their faces. Discord sitting with disbelief and mouth agape upon a pile of books while continuously changing expression as if trying to understand something, while Celestia was standing in front of him with a smug smile that reminded reminded Luna of Discord’s signature grin. “Uhh, what has transpired in our absence?” Luna asked as she approached.
“Nothing much, Luna,” Celestia smiled at her sister.
“I think your sister just out me’d me,” Discord blurted out.
“Out me’d you?” Luna shook her head. “Tis not important, we have found something of use!”
“I think I need to lie down,” Discord said, taking his paw to his head.
“Thou can do that when we get back to Canterlot...”