Stars Relit

by Rocinante

Sleep Perchance to Dream

Tranquility paused to stare out the hospital window. The Hearth's Warming decorations, glowing in the falling snow made her want to curl up with a book and a cup of coffee. Maybe she’d visit one of the girls after work.

Thankfully it was quiet in the hospital today. Walking back to her desk, she sat down to sort through the day’s paper work.

*POP*

Tranquility’s ears jumped at the strange sound reporting from the waiting room. Clamoring hooves and confused voices echoed around the corner.

“Somepony help her!” a tenor voice yelled.

Stampeding down the hall, Tranquility burst into the waiting room, only to slide to a halt. Her and a dozen other ponies stood gaping at the bizarre and macabre site. The creature stood tall enough that he had to stoop to not hit the ceiling, and no two parts of him matched. Tranquility knew she was looking at Discord. A very tattered looking Discord; but there was nothing else that it could be.

Discord was not what she or anypony else was looking at though. They were looking at what he was holding. She couldn’t even call it a corpse; a mummy maybe. A hide of yellow, stretched over desiccated flesh. Clumps of ice still clinging to its pink mane. The poor thing looked to be desperately clinging to something frozen around her hooves.

“Do something!” Discord said, thrusting the frozen body towards the shocked crowd.

One of the doctors rested a hoof on Discord’s paw. “There’s nothing to do. That pony has been dead for a long time.”

Discord clutched the lifeless thing to his chest, then screwed his face up with determination. “If you won’t, I will.” Holding the body at arm’s length, magic coalesced in the space between him and the frozen pony. Unworldly sounds echoed and crackled as a fog of blue ink grew around the two.

Long ago, Discord had made an enemy of The Weaver. That was the function of his immortality, to be the foil to the middle fate. Today, he would make an enemy of The Maiden and The Crone by his own free will. Those three formless sisters had conspired against him; forced his hand to kill his one true friend. Now he would shred their precious loom.

The ice resisted his will. The the crystal heart frozen to her hooves had died at his command that fateful day, but its dying gasp of magic still lingered in the ice it had made. Twisting his magic into the fabric of creation, he unzipped the ice from Fluttershy, sending the dead heart ringing against the floor.

The flesh was simple. Even as the crystal heart rang from hitting the floor, he found the threads of fate that had set her body to ruin. Plucking them from the loom, her body rippled. Cut free of fate, Discord’s whim returned her body to what it had once been.

Life … here Discord had never ventured. This was not his place. Animating the inanimate was just a trick of letting magic have a bit of free will. This was resurrection; forbidden even to gods.

Reaching into time, he touched the soul of his friend. This was not his chaos. His own magic rebelled at his actions, but his will held it to its course. That little spark of uniqueness that was Fluttershy danced in Discord’s paw. Every fiber of his being told him he had stepped past his authority. Pulling at the spark, he felt the cord of fate that tied it to the loom.

His magic traced the line through the loom. It was a long and thick line, not something he could break. Forcing his magic against its will, he found the thread’s end. It ended in this very room, attached to one of the mares watching him. It continued on into the future as well, but that was beyond his magic to follow.

Frustration turned to confusion as he pondered the connection from the Fluttershy in the past, and the mare in the room watching him. He pulled the thread of fate: she took an involuntary step forward, quivered, then fainted.

- - -

Twilight raced through the hospital halls. She had no time for memories.

“She’s over here,” A nurse called to her.

Following the mare, she bolted through the door. Inside, the beep and hum of medical equipment readied her for the worst.

“You didn’t have to come so fast,” Tranquility said. “I just fainted.”

Twilight smiled at Tranquility’s greeting. Almost laughing with relief. “What happened?”

“We need to talk.” Discord’s voice jolted Twilight. She hadn’t seen him sitting in the far corner. Her eyes went wide, and she could only muster a nod for a response.

Twilight’s eyes never left Discord, even as she walked over to Tranquility and gave her the best hug she could from the edge of the bed. “You’re alright?” Twilight asked, finally looking at Tranquility.

“Just an odd reaction to Discord’s attempt at healing magic. I’m fine. They’re just making sure I don’t have a secondary reaction.”

“Again, I apologize about that,” Discord said, raising from his seat. Striding across the room, he gave Tranquility an odd smile before leaving.

“He hasn’t been bothering you has he?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, no,” Tranquility said. “He seemed genuinely concerned about me.”

Twilight nodded, patting Tranquility’s foreleg with her own. “I’ll be right back,” Twilight said to Tranquility, before turning to follow Discord.

Catching up to Discord outside the room, Twilight’s head swam with questions. Before she could ask any of them, Discord snapped his fingers. It had been a long time since she had felt that magic.

As the light of his magic faded from her vision, Twilight found herself in a different room; the hospital's morgue. Discord walked over to one of the drawers, and rested his claw on it, but stopped short of opening it. “She told me to do it. I didn’t want to. She was right though, I had to.” Discord said. His voice held none of its old humor. “I really thought it would kill me too.”

Sliding the drawer open, Discord looked at the old Fluttershy. “Then I woke up and she was … So I came here, to get help. But she was gone already. I guess I knew that. I tried to bring her back anyway.”

Twilight couldn’t look away from her friend’s body. It made her want to go upstairs and hug Tranquility and never let go. “That’s when Tranquility fainted.”

“You know, don’t you?” Discord asked. “Why can’t I tell her? I tried, but something stops me.”

“It’s the Fates. Death is to be a mystery, they won’t let you talk about it.” Twilight paused for a moment, she had to test something. “Reincarnation is real, Tranquility is Fluttershy.”

Twilight and Discord stared at each other for a moment. “Tranquility is Fluttershy,” he repeated, looking a bit surprised at his own words. “It appears my discovery has made a loophole in the rules.”

Twilight smiled softly. “Leave it you,” she said shaking her head. “I can tell Celestia and Luna a bit more than I can mortal ponies, but I’ve never been able to say that much. I guess we can talk to each other about it, since we already know.” Looking back to the body, she frowned. “So what happened?”

Discord reached over to a table, and picked something up. As he removed a cloth wrapping, she recognized the Crystal heart. Its gleaming magic gone, and a crack running through it. “She held it in place, and told me to break it,” Discord said, laying it next to Fluttershy.

Twilight drifted into thought, playing the old memory over in her head with this new information. “The ice, it came out of the heart after your magic broke it?”

Discord nodded. “The instant it cracked.”

“How did you finally get out?”

“I just woke up, the room was mostly thawed.”

Twilight paced for a moment, then stopped to look at the body of her friend. “This is bad. Black Heart could be waking any day. We need to be ready.”

“Getting the band back together?” Discord asked, some of the old mischief creeping back into his voice.

“No! We can’t use the elements …. We’re going to have to fix the heart, and hope it can cure Cadence,” Twilight said, floating the crystal heart next to her.

Pushing the drawer shut, Discord shook his head. “Saving the world is your gig. Do what you want. I’m going to go spend time with Tranquility.”

“Celestia and Luna need to know what happened,” Twilight said, turning to leave. “Tell her I’ll be by later to visit. If she’s out by then, we’ll go get dinner.”

Comments

[mimimi]

yay!

[Shisarakage]

Discord is back among the living and waking world!?

Things are about to get rather interesting in the near future! I'm ready!

[Arnjol]

way too much crammed into one chapter in my opinion. IM SORRY I STILL LIKE THE STORY THOUGH

[Rocinante]

4742859

Fair criticism. This chapter was paced at a full run.

Next chapter will be back to my normal pacing.

[The_Foreman]

i gotta say you give plenty of knowledge of whats going on in each chapter to follow along and enjoy to an extent. the only issue i have is you never give enough details of what the characters are doing. its almost EXACTLY how i typically write so i cant really criticize it...

[djthomp]

Woah, speak of Discord and there he is. Interesting that Twilight can speak with him about Fluttershy, makes me wonder if he can talk to her about the other reincarnated Bearers too.

Still curious if we're going to see Shining show up.

[Loeden]

Tranquility gained the Creepy Immortal Boyfriend perk! In combat the mysterious Discord may appear.

XD