Fate
Fate
Twilight raised her throbbing head. Unable to breath, she snorted, and a surge of blood spattered from her nose. Pinkie was shouting her name, but it sounded far away. She blinked, trying to clear her blurred vision. Hungry, she thought, though it was more concept than word, malformed and incomplete. She sensed emptiness – a pit yawning in the core of her being.
She licked her lips, tasting iron, and gathered her hooves beneath her. When she pushed off the ground, she listed, and crumpled onto her shoulder. Drained, she thought as her eyes slid shut. Breathing was hard. Her chest burned.
A part of her had been ripped out. A thorn had been torn from her chest. She clung to the tendrils of shadowy power that remained, hoping they would save her in her final hour as they had so many times before, but they fled from her grasp. She let her head slump to the floor, and it started to go dark.
“You have to keep your eyes open, Twilight,” Pinkie said. “I know how much you want to let go, but hold onto us. Hold onto me. We can stand together.”
Again, Twilight gathered her hooves beneath her. I will not go quietly into the night, Twilight thought. I will not abandon my friends. She gathered herself and pulled in a deep breath.
Twilight stood. With clarity, she opened her eyes. I will have what was taken from me.
Blood splattered from Twilight’s muzzle as she twisted her head. She spotted Fluttershy on a raised stone dias, not unlike an altar, where the yellow pegasus had been chained and gagged. Angel struggled uselessly against one of the manacles around her foreleg. Nullifying runes had been carved into the altar around her, resulting in a localized anti-magic zone. It was far more elaborate than a suppressor, but required to keep a druid trapped.
It’s up to me, Twilight thought. She put one heavy hoof in front of the other. As she placed her forehoof on the first step leading down from the raised platform, she stumbled. On the way to solid ground at the bottom of the stairway, she endured a bruising collision with each step. When she finally rolled to a stop, she found herself on her back.
Celestia, why? she wondered as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Why is it all worth it? They all turned on her. If she’d killed Trixie, back when she had the chance, this never would have happened. If she hadn’t trusted Trixie when she saw her again; if she hadn’t believed ponies could be better, she wouldn’t be here now. Why should I struggle for others? Why should ponies I never met be anything more than stepping stones? Why should I care how many bodies I leave in my wake?
She rolled onto her belly. Her ears throbbed with her own pulse. She could feel her life flickering like a candle, mortal and brief. Why should I care when I know they will go into the darkness? What intrinsic value does life hold? Why does it matter?
She dragged herself forward. Fluttershy’s alter blurred, just beyond reach. Her swords, still sheathed in their scabbards, dragged along the ground. They knew she’d be so fargone that they hadn’t even bothered to disarm her.
Equestria without a Goddess to rule it is a corrupt, desolate place, full of greed and violence. If ponies are good, why haven’t they done better? Do they need an iron fist to keep them in line? Do they need the Avatar of the Sun to come down and personally tell them keeping other ponies as property is wrong?
She reached to her side with her mouth, bit down on the hilt, and wrenched her neck to pull it free. Less than a hoofspan emerged from the sheath before she ran out of reach with her neck. She gripped the blade in her teeth, and pulled again. She needed to destroy the runes.
Because they are villains, she thought, because they betray me at every turn, I struggle. Are Shadowspawn really any worse than anypony else? Or are we all animals?
Solstice’s blade split her lip as it fell from the sheath. Triumphant, she gripped the hilt in her mouth. She clawed her way up the altar, rising from the ground, and scored a line through the runes before collapsing back down. Solstice slipped from her teeth.
Pale green light flared. Angel loomed above her, growing with elemental power. Within moments, he’d torn Fluttershy’s chains from the stone. Before Twilight could fade into unconsciousness, Fluttershy was at her side. The druid’s hooves pressed against her, soothing where they touched. Angel moved out of her view as her eyes slid shut, presumably to free the others.
Kindness, Twilight thought. Her friends were better ponies. Are they paragons, or are they simply representatives of what’s good in all of us, what pulls us together instead of driving us apart?
Calm warmth filled Twilight, and she let herself give in and sleep.
Twilight Sparkle stood with her hooves poised on the edge of a well. Deep beneath her, shadows boiled. She stared into them, and a shape resolved. It reached with tendrils and clinged to the sides of the well. Bone white claws flashed in the deeps. A maw of fangs, then a lupine form emerged, bounding up the sheer stone wall. Its eyes were gouged out of its bleached skull, leaving only voids. Wings of shadow spread from its back to touch the walls of the well.
She tried to step back, but the void-eyes of the figure transfixed her. Saliva built in her mouth, soon dripping from her lips in globule of dool. Sharp fangs poked against her tongue. Her hooves slipped from the precipice, and she fell.
When consciousness ebbed back, Twilight curled and groaned. A soft mattress yielded beneath her, and it seemed a shame to do anything but sleep while she was on it. She tasted blood. Who’s blood?
Her eyes shot open wide. It was all around her. It stained the pillowcase by her cheek and left red splotches spattered on the sheets. She jerked, trying to push herself up. Ropes bound over her pulled tight.
“Welcome back, Shadowspawn. You were hungry,” a voice she could not recognize, but that seemed familiar, said.
“Killer! Killer! Killer!” another voice shrieked, stinging Twilight’s ears with pitch and volume. “I want her dead!”
Twilight twisted beneath the rope to look around the room. Four ponies were with her in a lavishly decorated bedchamber. One sat on the nightstand beside her, a unicorn who was barely more than a foal, with a grey coat, green hair, and a green eye marking her flank. Screw Loose perched on a chair next to the only door. The third pony was right beside her bed, but as soon as her eyes fixed on him, he vanished. Twilight spotted her swords by the door.
The last pony, another unicorn, stood next to a corpse in the corner. She held a dagger floating in the air beside her. Blood stained her forelegs up to her elbows, marring her white coat. The body beside her had been shredded by some unknown force, its torso ripped open. Its face had been slashed and cut beyond recognition, and the head slumped to the side, barely attached to the body by a few in-tact tendons.
“If we come in there, and she’s dead, you all are gonna be too!” Rainbow Dash’s voice shouted through the door.
“If you come through the door she’ll be dead!” the unicorn in the corner shrieked.
“Wouldn’t Discord want her dead?” the young unicorn on the nightstand said. “They’re pretty much mortal enemies. Cosmic opposites.”
Screw Loose shook his head. “Discord doesn’t have enemies, only obstacles, and unlike Azrael, she’s not boring.” He looked over at the pony in the corner. “Calm down, Chastice, I rather like my eardrums.”
Twilight searched her mind. It didn’t surprise her that she hadn’t managed to hold onto any prepared spells. She felt refreshed, and she was certain she could manage some magic. She eyed her swords. The further away the object she was trying to manipulate with her levitation was, the less strength she could bring to bear, but all she had to do was pull them close.
“Blink!” the filly on the nightstand shouted.
Before Twilight could blink, the pony that had vanished loomed over her, a fire-poker in his teeth. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled as he rested the point of the poker against her throat. He was clearly a pegasus, but Twilight noted his oddly stunted wings. They were far smaller than they should be.
Twilight hesitated, looking up at Blink. She glanced at the filly on the nightstand. “How did you know?”
She grinned, flashing white teeth, and tilted her head. “I’m Spectrum! I can see what you’re probably going to do!” She tapped her hoof on the nightstand. “But I think I could have figured it out just from the way you were looking at those swords.”
What is this place? Twilight wondered, A prison for those who use magic without the Grey Wizard’s permission, or a place to contain anomalies?
“She killed Dream Seeker!” Chastice screamed. “Why are we even talking about this!”
Twilight cringed, wishing she could put her hooves over her ears. The voice was impossibly grating, and impossibly loud. Her head rang with its shrill pitch. “I didn’t kill anypony!” Twilight shouted.
“Twilight?!” She heard Pinkie shout from the far side of the door.
“She’s awake!” Applejack shouted.
“Twilight, hold tight,” Rarity called. “We’ll resolve this.”
Screw Loose chuckled, gesturing toward the corpse. “But you did kill that pony.”
Twilight shook her head. “I was unconscious!”
“Maybe,” Spectrum said. “But it wasn’t.”
Twilight glared at Spectrum. “It?”
Spectrum drew her knees up to her chest and folded her forelegs over them. She stared at the wall. “The Slayer. That which remains. That which consumes. Until you make it whole again, it will try to fill the void.”
Twilight blinked. She remembered snippets. Fangs in her mouth. Limbs of roots and wood holding her down. A pair of golden spikes puncturing her leg. Escape. Easier prey. Hunger.
Screw Loose tapped his chin. “Maybe she’s too fargone. Maybe this Trixie will be suitable.”
“Enough!” Chastice yelled. She stepped toward the bed. “She deserves to die! She took him from me!”
As the volume of Chastice’s shouts drove daggers into her ears, Twilight weighed her options. Spectrum’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to shout, but Chastice drowned her out. Twilight gripped the poker with her levitation, and jerked it. Before he could let go, Blink was flung into the canopy covering the four-poster bed. He vanished a moment later, leaving the poker behind.
Twilight launched the poker at Chastice and let go. The handle struck Chastice in the throat with crushing force, silencing her screams. Reeling, Chastice dropped the dagger and clutched at her neck with a hoof. Next, Twilight reached out for Solstice. Scabbard and all, it floated toward her. The moment it was close enough, she pulled it free of the sheath and slashed the ropes.
The door burst open. Pinkie stepped through first. As Screw Loose’s eyes began to glow, Pinkie’s hoof connected with his jaw. He crumpled.
Twilight jumped out of bed, snatching up Celestial Fury as she moved. Blink appeared next to Chastice and picked up the fallen dagger. Before he could disappear again, Twilight leveled Solstice's blade against Spectrum’s throat. Blink hesitated, dagger in his teeth.
“Don’t, Blink,” Spectrum said, cringing away from the sharp edge. “You’ll lose, and I’ll die.”
Blink dropped the dagger. Twilight lowered her sword. For a few beats, they watched each other. Without a second thought, Twilight turned and rushed toward Pinkie, wrapping the mare in a tight embrace. “I found you,” Twilight said.
Twilight clutched a cup of tea. She sat on her haunches in a heavy padded chair behind a desk, her cloak pulled tight around her. She looked at her friends, scattered throughout the study on the far side of the desk. They’d taken over Sombra’s office, and allowed Spellhold’s prisoners to go on their way. “What happened?” she said.
Rainbow Dash pulled a book off one of the study’s many shelves. She made a face at the title and dropped it. “Well, we were letting you sleep, then you kinda...”
Pinkie poked at a wire sculpture on the desk. “Kinda turned into a monster that wanted to eat everything.” Pinkie’s hair hung straight around her shoulders, but Twilight was glad to see the same demeanor she remembered.
“I hit it to slow it down,” Applejack said.
“And it ran off,” Rarity said.
“By the time we caught up, they had you,” Applejack said. She leaned against the desk, across from Twilight. “Sorry about wounding you, but I figured it wasn’t really you.”
Twilight shrugged. “I barely remember it, and I wasn’t wounded when I woke up. You did what you had to.” She stared into her tea. “What was I like?”
“What was it like,” Fluttershy corrected, oddly forceful.
“It was a bit like a big cat, or a wolf,” Rarity said. “A predator. It trailed shadows where it walked. Bony plates and black spines protected it, and it seemed to regenerate from wounds. It had wings, but it didn’t ever fly on them. It just used them to drown out the light.”
“I hated its eyes,” Rainbow Dash added.
I just won’t sleep, Twilight decided. We’ll catch up to Trixie before long. She sipped at her tea. How? And then what? How can you beat her? She’s everything you could have been.
“Alright,” Twilight said. “We need to find the Gateway Sombra and Trixie took. They must have left, or they wouldn’t be letting the inmates run wild.” Twilight set her cup on the desk and pressed her hooves together. Already, she could see the problems with her plan, if it could be called that. If I don’t sleep, I’ll never be able to replenish my spell resources, she thought. Not to mention the exhaustion. They needed to move fast. She climbed out of her chair.
“I might be able to tell where they went, if we get there fast enough,” Twilight said. She headed for the door. “How long was I out?”
“You were sleeping for at least eight hours,” Applejack said. “Then, this happened.”
Twilight’s paused mid-step. Too long. Maybe there’s a chance, she thought. She exited the study into one of Spellhold’s long, dark corridors. An unexpected chill carried on a wafting breeze dug past her coat.
“You need to get to the top of the tower,” a voice said.
Twilight turned to see Spectrum hidden beside the study door. She raised a brow at the filly. “Why?”
“Because it’s the only way any of us leave,” Spectrum said.
“How do you know?”
Spectrum shrugged. “I just do. Do you always ask this many questions?”
Twilight furrowed her brows. “No. But I don’t believe in fate.”
“I know,” Spectrum said. “It’s weird that you don’t, given that he’s all about fate.”
“What are you—”
“Talking about,” Spectrum finished for her. “Cause and effect. Drop something, it falls. Stab something, it dies. Say something, a pony reacts. Those are the rules. That’s fate.” Twilight opened her mouth, and Spectrum held up a hoof. “You think you’ve always had a choice. Maybe you’re powerful enough that there really are some things you can control, but you still can’t break the rules.”
Twilight thought back to the moment she teleported the Solitaire through the iceberg. “Maybe I can.” Spectrum blinked. Twilight raised a brow. Did I catch her off guard? “Maybe you can too. Don’t you change how things happen?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Spectrum said. “Only Screw Loose really breaks the rules though, but he’s a Cleric of Discord. So really, Discord breaks the rules.”
“Enough,” Rainbow cut in. “You’re making my head spin. Let’s just do what the filly says and get to the top of this tower.”
Twilight shivered. “It’s getting colder.” They took the Fragments, Twilight realized. Both of them.
With Spectrum showing them the way, Twilight found herself standing in front of an arched doorway. Beyond, a polished marble staircase wound up the inside of the tower. Two statues of armored earth pony soldiers flanked the door. She paused a the threshold. “What happened after Sombra tricked me?” Twilight asked.
“A lot of crazy black crystals, and probably some illusions for good measure,” Applejack said. “We weren’t ready for it, and before long we woke up captured in that room with you.”
“I felt something when they... drained you,” Fluttershy said.
Rarity nodded in agreement. “Maybe we were part of it somehow.”
Twilight glanced a Pinkie, wishing she had the time to really delve into what had happened to her friend in this place. Enough was self evident. Trixie and Sombra had toyed with her mind to bring out her divine essence. Pinkie had been worryingly quiet. You can’t expect her to be herself, Twilight thought. She’s resilient. She needs time.
Twilight stepped through the archway. A glowing line of runes lit along the inside edge. Trap, she thought, groaning in exasperation. The eyes of the statues filled with arcane light. She drew her swords as their mouths started to move.
“Only those of sound mind may leave this place,” the statues said in unison. Their voices pulsed with an arcane echo. “The first test is the test of logic.”
“Weird,” Spectrum said. “That must have been why he never let us come this way. Maybe he was afraid we’d get out.”
“In the following pattern of numbers,” the statues said, “One, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, what comes next?”
“Sixty four,” Twilight said. How could anypony not be able to figure that one out?
“My brother is twice as old as I was when my brother was as old as I am now. The sum of our ages is twenty-eight. How old am I now?” the statues asked.
“Twelve,” Twilight said. The question was deceptively complex, and required a bit of algebra to solve.
“Clearly, you can comprehend patterns and solve problems. The next test is of sanity. Lies will be punished,” The statues said. “You wake to the sound of a pony in your room. What does he want?”
“To kill me,” Twilight said. This is a waste of time.
“Paranoia, interesting. Some is healthy, but too much is insanity,” the statues mused. “What happens when—”
With Solstice and Celestial Fury, Twilight cleaved through both statues simultaneously. Decapitated stone heads thudded to the floor. She cocked her foreleg, waiting for some form of retaliation. When none came, she stepped forward and headed up the stairs.
“Well, you failed the test of patience,” Rarity said.
Twilight broke into a smile. “I guess so,” Twilight said, laughing. She glanced back at the statues. Why are they here? she wondered. Maybe Spellhold was first built for a different purpose than the one it is being used for today. She guessed Spellhold today was a laboratory for Sombra in the guise of a prison. She had yet to see an actual wizard kept here. Maybe he just got rid of them if they weren’t interesting.
A Gateway array greeted her at the top of the steps, along with a collection of familiar faces. Screw Loose, Blink, and Chastice all waited for her. Spectrum walked past the array to join them.
“How’d you get up here?” Twilight asked.
“Same way you did,” Screw Loose said. “Stairs. The statues don’t actually do anything anymore.”
“The least you can do is get us all out of here,” Chastice said, her voice surprisingly melodious.
“I need to catch Trixie. Do any of you know where they were planning on going?” Twilight said.
Screw Loose grinned. “I can help you.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “I think I’d rather take my chances than trust your magic. You’re probably the only pony who actually belongs here.”
Screw Loose gestured at the array. “Be my guest. It won’t work though. With the Fragments gone, the Grey Wizard’s teleportation network is collapsing. It’s all fueled by the Crystal Heart. That, and it’s not like you have a license anyway.”
Twilight sat in front of the array. She closed her eyes and lit her horn, trusting her friends to cover her if anything happened. Her eyes flicked open. The Gateway was unresponsive.
“All we want to do is leave. With your help and Blink’s help, I can get us all where we need to go,” Screw Loose said.
“And where is that?” Twilight said.
“For you, it’s where Trixie went, isn’t it?” Screw Loose said.
Another convenient offer of help, Twilight thought.
“Look, it’s this, or we all freeze,” Chastice said.
“Fine,” Twilight yielded. “Let’s do it.”
Screw Loose nodded at Blink. The pegasus hesitantly stepped forward to take up a position in the center of the array. “Cast the teleportation spell,” Screw Loose said.
“But I don’t have a destination!” Twilight said. She shook her head. “It won’t work.”
“Are you that afraid of breaking the rules, Shadowspawn?” Screw Loose said. “You’d rather just wait around until you can’t control yourself any longer?”
Twilight snorted and formed the teleport spell. Screw Loose’s eyes glowed yellow. A nova of light exploded from Blink.
When Twilight opened her eyes, a familiar sight rose before her. Beyond a castle wall, a keep with a slanted roof rose from a black plain. She dug her hooves into the hard obsidian beneath them, refusing to believe what she saw. Candlekeep, she thought.
She stood alone before her old home. The keep crumbled where her magic had torn it apart. Scars from the arcs of uncontained arcane energy caused the heavy structure to slump in on itself. Part of the outer wall was missing, cleanly cleaved. The foundations came complete with grassy earth smoothly melded into the black plain, though the grass itself was brown and dead.
“Are you playing games with me, Screw Loose!” Twilight shouted. Her voice echoed back at her, caught by an eerie echo. “Where are my friends!”
“Over here!” a rich, self assured voice said.
Twilight turned. A strange creature lounged on the flat obsidian, the chin of his goat face supported on the palm of a bird-like hand. His head bore an antler on one side, and a straight horn on the other. A stiff mane rose from the back of his neck, until his coat shifted from grey to dark brown. His whip-like, reptilian tail flicked casually against the ground.
“I have been just dying to meet you,” he said.
Twilight glared at him. “Who are you? Another servant of Discord, like Screw Loose?”
The creature smirked. “You could say that.”
Twilight pointed at Candlekeep. “Why this? Are you trying to unnerve me with memories?”
“Oh, that,” the creature waved it off with a lion-like paw. “I didn’t put that there. You did.”
Twilight blinked. She turned to look at Candlekeep and focused, casting a spell. The world shifted into a haze of lifeless. Every stone was real, and strangely familiar to enhanced vision. She looked at the creature. The entity she saw twisted and complex that she had to turn away. She cut her Truesight, gasping as her vision returned to normal. The spell wouldn’t help her here anyway. “Discord,” she breathed.
Discord laughed. “That’s me.” He rose up off the obsidian. Then, without taking a step, he was beside her, his long body coiled over her and dipping down until his head was next to hers. “Though, I think of Discord as more of a concept than a person.”
“What did you do to my friends,” she growled, grasping the hilt of Celestial Fury with her levitation. He should fear the Godslayer.
“Absolutely nothing.” He raised his paw and talon in gesture of defense. “I wouldn’t dream of it. They’ll arrive precisely where and when they need to be, as will you.”
“Why?” Twilight said. “Why would you ever do anything that would help me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Discord said. A scale appeared in his paw. He tipped it with a claw. “You’re an upset.” He vanished and reappeared in front of Twilight, an exact copy of her, except with yellow eyes, red pupils, and a pair of lavender wings. “Anything could happen,” he said. As she watched, her wings faded to black. His form twisted, returning to its original shape. He gestured at the obsidian expanse. “After the Alicorns failed to kill Azrael, I was afraid all I’d have to look forward to was more dreariness when he finally clawed himself back together.”
Twilight looked out into the distance. “Where are we?”
“Your domain,” Discord said. “It’s a bit drab. It could use some color.” He pointed at the ground, and green frond split the black earth. It rose and bloomed into a red rose, then wilted and died, fading black. Discord heaved a dejected sigh. “Even I can’t fix it. This place soaks up anything interesting.” He gestured at Candlekeep. “At least you spiced it up a bit.”
Twilight stared at Candlekeep. “My domain?”
“Your inheritance, such as it its,” Discord said. “Your own little slice of the Abyss.”
Twilight shook her head and stepped back. You’re standing in front of the instigator of the Time of Troubles, the Aspect of Chaos! She froze as Discord’s claw traced a line down her cheek. He’d appeared next to her again.
“You’re a princess, Twilight.”
Twilight pulled Celestial Fury from it’s sheath and lashed out at Discord.
The blade passed through his body. His lower half slumped lifelessly to the ground, but his upper half remained exactly where it was. Discord straightened, his torso floating oddly. “Ouch,” he said. The lower half of his body stood up and reattached itself. “That stung a little.”
Twilight retreated, her ears pinned back.
“Please,” Discord said, rolling his eyes. “You didn’t think that would actually work, did you?” He stared up at the sky wistfully. “Here I was, about to share with you the secrets of the world, and all you can do is try and kill me.”
Twilight’s ears perked. “I had to try. Aren’t you a God? It should have been able to hurt you.”
Discord chuckled. A gilded, peaked birdcage appeared around Twilight. Discord perched above her on a suspended bar, inside the cage with her. “Since I have a captive audience, would you like to hear a story?”
Twilight opened her mouth.
“Of course you do,” Discord said before she could respond. He flopped back, his back perfectly balanced on the perch. “A long, long time ago, there wasn’t time. There wasn’t space. There wasn’t form, or function. In this state of existence, all possibilities were one, overlapping, but distinct. Variety that you could not comprehend. No logic, no flow. No action, no reaction. No beginning, no end. Nothing existed, and everything did.”
How does that make sense? Twilight thought. She’d always assumed Equestria simply was. The prime material was a product of the outer planes. At some point in eternity, it arose, and it may end someday. “There has to be a beginning.”
Discord flipped and hung from his perch. Upside down directly in front of her, he chuckled. “You all see time as a line, marching ever onward, stretching back into the horizon, and forward to infinity. Or perhaps a circle, but it is ever-present, and independent. How do you measure time though?”
“Against a fixed cycle,” Twilight said. “Like the Sun and the Moon, or a pendulum.”
“But would time exist if there were no rules? If there were no cycles to measure it against? What if the pendulum was both at the bottom and the beginning of its swing?”
Twilight frowned. “There still needs to be a beginning. What started it swinging?”
“Ahh, now there’s a question for the ages. What started it swinging? So many have asked, and yet, no one has an answer,” Discord said. “But, the idea that you need something to start everything arises from one key assumption.”
Twilight raised a brow. “And what’s that?” You’re having a philosophical debate with the Aspect of Chaos, a little voice in the back of her mind reminded her. Discord was responsible for so much suffering.
Discord dropped lightly from his perch. “Causality.” He paused for a moment, letting it sink in. “What if I were to tell you that causality was an illusion. That jumping off a cliff would not mean you fell. That A did not result in B, and instead all the As and the Bs and the Cs existed everywhere that they had ever been or ever will be.”
“I would say you’re crazy,” Twilight said. “I can observe the consequences of my actions.” She sighed, eyeing the bars of the cage. “Get to the point.”
“You live in a world where everything flows logically, according to predictable rules. Everything is a result of some previous action. But the only reason the world you see exists instead of the one I described is because from everything an entity formed something,” Discord said. “He picked and chose from all the possibilities, all the possible rules, all the possible ways that things could work, and made a world that would serve him. One logical reality.”
Twilight tensed. “Who?” she said, even though she had a feeling she already knew the answer. “A god?”
“Not a god,” Discord said, “The God, Azrael.”
Twilight dropped onto her haunches. “How do I win against that?” She hung her head. “He controls everything.”
Discord burst into laughter. “Oh, that’s rich,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye with a scaly finger. “He wishes He controlled everything.” He reached down, tipping her head up. “Chin up, smile. He can only fashion the gears and set the clock ticking. He has to play by His own rules.
“So anyways,” he said, dropping onto the floor with his chin propped on his palm. “He and I are a bit different than any god or immortal you’ve met before. We’re the originals, so to speak. That makes us a lot harder to get rid of. I think to destroy me, you’d have to eradicate the concept of chaos, and then everything would be the same, with no gradients or differences, and all you’d be left with is a featureless soup of nonexistence. Or maybe you’d have to find some sort of replacement.”
Twilight raised a brow. “Even after you made it so that gods could die?”
Discord shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s still here, despite the Elements of Harmony, and I’d rather not test the theory myself. All the other immortals can... Well, die isn’t strictly the right word. They just cease to exist. You mortals get to die properly and be chained to His will forever. Every time one of you dies, He grows another eye, and gets a little stronger. Time is His ally, and given enough of it, He might control enough of you to actually control everything.”
Twilight frowned. “So we’re just a herd to be culled?”
“Well, that’s how it started,” Discord said. “The world was a pretty harsh place before He managed to get ponies in it. He segregated the Prime Material plane away from all the other planes – all the other possibilities – as a sanctuary for life, but the barriers were weak at first, especially with a bit of Chaos beating on His door.
“Then, Ponies. Freak accident, or grand design, you showed up after eons, and you forced the world into a shape to suit you, much like He had already done. Life exploded with your passage. But you resulted in emergent properties He never predicted. Alicorns, Magic, Gaia, and Harmony. For a time, they suited Him, because never before were there so many of you living and dying all at the same time, but then you grew strong enough to challenge Him, and you know the rest.”
“Wait,” Twilight said. “Where did the Alicorns come from? Were they ponies?”
Discord rolled and languished on his back. “Why don’t you ask her sometime?” he said. He pulled himself up and stretched his serpentine body in an arch. “Anyways, storytime is over, my little pony. It’s time for you to run along and play.” With a snap of his fingers, the cage disappeared. “And remember, no naptime. You have a sleepwalking problem.” He winked.
Twilight stamped her hoof on the flat obsidian. “That’s not the end of the story!” Twilight shouted. “After Celestia and Luna used the Elements of Harmony against Azrael, you tried to wipe us all out!”
“Of course,” Discord said. “If there was none of you left, there would be no Him. I knew He’d ingrained himself in His creation somehow. ” He sighed forlornly. “But Celestia had to be so selfish, protecting you all.” He turned and trudged away from Twilight, his arms hanging limply at his sides. “And I’m the bad guy here.”
“Of course you’re the bad guy!” Twilight yelled. “How is protecting others selfish? How is wanting to live selfish? And you expect me to believe that you’re somehow helping me? Why would you ever help me.”
Discord turned. He drew himself up and glared down at her. “Wanting to live is very selfish young lady. Life’s continued existence means His continued existence, and as long as He is around, He stops all the other possibilities from existing. How do you know there isn’t a better world out there, with better, happier ponies that don’t hate or fight or kill each other?” He dropped lower, and his tone turned sweet. “But of course I’m helping you, even if you are a selfish little pony, because if you don’t stop Trixie, the ending will be certain, and there won’t even be this world to enjoy.”
Discord resumed his slow trudge away from her again. “The thanks I get for sharing the secrets of the universe.”
Twilight glanced at the remains of Candlekeep. When she looked back at Discord, he was impossibly far away, his form fading into the endless distance of the black plain. Muttering, she kicked at a ridge. He told me more than Celestia would.
Twilight’s hooves clip-clopped on the cobblestone road leading up to the gate in Candlekeep’s outer wall. It was eerie, walking down a road in a sphere of normality surrounded by the Abyss. The gate’s dual heavy wooden doors hung open for her. Of course they would be open, she thought. Ponies were fleeing through them, last they were used.
She passed beneath the gate’s arch, eyeing it warily. Though it crumbled from damage, it remained sturdy enough to hold up the weight of the stone above. She gazed up at the library-keep towering in front of her. I teleported all of this to another plane, she thought. What am I capable of?
Studying every detail, she trotted down the main garden path leading to the library keep. Though the plants themselves were dry and grey, everything matched her memory. The same shops surrounded the dirt road immediately inside the outer wall. Over on a bench, an open book lay next to an overturned inkwell and the remains of a half eaten roll left behind in the panic.
She paused at the bench and nudged the roll with a hoof. Other than being dry, it showed no signs of age. Is being a Shadowspawn enough to explain how I was able to do this? she wondered. She shook her head and turned away from the bench. No matter how she looked at it, she was more than a Shadowspawn. There were two factors to a wizard’s power, raw magical power, and the ability to learn. Each could only get one so far individually, and she had both in abundance. Trixie was right.
She came to a stop at the doorway to the library keep. She swallowed, staring into the darkness beyond. There’s nowhere else to go, she thought. There has to be a way out of this place, unless Discord intended to trap you here forever. She shivered. The thought wasn’t comforting. She lit her horn and stepped forward.
A flare of noise and blinding light greeted her. “Suprise!” Pinkie Pie shouted. Twilight went down when a mass collided with her side. She landed with her limbs tangled with another pony.
“Gah,” Twilight grunted. “Pinkie!” Laboriously, she tried to pull free.
Pinkie slipped away and stood effortlessly. She reached down and offered a hoof to Twilight, a smile on her face. Her curled mane exploded around her head, like normal.
Twilight reached up to take Pinkie’s hoof, but something perched on her nose drew her attention. She went cross eyed trying to focus on the brightly colored object, then sneezed. A piece of paper floated away on the gust of air. “Confetti?” she said as Pinkie helped her up. “Where did you find Confetti?”
“In my room, silly,” Pinkie said. “It’s all here.” She paused, her expression falling. “Except for the ponies.”
Twilight’s ears went back. “How do I know you’re real?”
“Easy,” Pinkie said. “Solar!”
Twilight blinked. “Huh?”
Pinkie took a step back and dropped into a low stance. “Imposter!”
Twilight rubbed the base of her horn with a hoof and sighed. “What?”
“You don’t know the countersign!” Pinkie said.
“Countersign? We didn’t establish—” Twilight paused. She remembered. “Lunar.”
Pinkie grinned, relaxing. “Happy Birthday, Twilight Sparkle.” She handed Twilight a book titled The Compendium. “I’m sorry I put you to sleep with a crazy laughter punch and sacrificed myself which turned out to be what she actually wanted to happen.”
Twilight smiled. She took the book. It was actually only a few days off of her birthday. She hadn’t remembered. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I let myself get duped.”
Pinkie nodded. “She was really good at being all larger than life and dramatic.”
“And she fought us in a place that was perfect for her, with all of the reflections,” Twilight said. She wrapped a foreleg around Pinkie’s neck and drew her into a hug. “I missed you so much, Pinkie.”
“I missed you too,” Pinkie said, returning the hug. “How did you survive without your big sister?”
Twilight laughed, feeling warm tears on her cheeks. “Big sister?” she pushed away from Pinkie, feigning indignation. With a smile, she said, “I have no idea.” There’s always joy, Twilight thought. No matter what. She sighed, eying Pinkie. “How are you so... together? What did she do to you?”
For a moment, Pinkie’s expression turned dark. “It’s no fun not knowing the difference between what’s real and what’s not, and having your mind all twisted.” She smiled brightly. “But you’re back, and so are Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash. I could choose to be trapped by the past, or I can look forward.”
Twilight looked around Candlekeep’s entrance. “If you’re here, maybe everypony else is too.”
“So, where’s Spike? I haven’t seen him,” Pinkie said.
Twilight scuffed her hoof against the floor. “He’s in the Celestial Plane. He can’t be my familiar and a Dragon at the same time.”
Pinkie’s eyes went wide. “So he’s going to be a full-on spell-slinging fire-breathing lizard? That’s great!”
Twilight smiled. “I guess so. Though, it’ll take a while.” She looked at the stairs up to the next level. Rubble blocked the way. “They could be lost up there. Candlekeep is a big enough place without some of the paths cut off.”
“What is this place?” Pinkie asked.
“My domain, I think. My own little slice of the Abyss. A pocket-plane. I must have sent Candlekeep here,” Twilight said. “Now, we need to find a way to go wherever Trixie went.”
“Twilight! Pinkie! Applejack! Rarity! Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash’s voice echoed from above. “Where is everypony?!”
Before long, Twilight gathered with her friends in front of the door to Star Swirl’s study. It hadn’t taken long to find them in Candlekeep’s dusty hallways. The door was closed and locked, exactly as she’d left it. She hesitated.
“You’re sure this is it?” Applejack said, eyeing the door.
Twilight nodded. “It feels right.” Setting her jaw, she pushed on the door with her levitation. It buckled inward and ripped off its hinges. She let it drop. Beyond, dried green Changeling innards still clung to the walls and floor.
“Woah,” Rainbow Dash said. “What’d you do, pop it?”
Twilight grimaced. “Yeah. Swords are a lot easier.”
Rarity eyed the crusted goop disdainfully. “And cleaner,” she said. “If you didn’t kill it with Celestial Fury, why is it still here?”
“I think I ate it,” Twilight said. “The same way I ate the Skinstealer that bit me in the Copper Coronet.” She took a step into the room, trying to avoid stepping in Changling. There, in the doorway to her old room, a portal shimmered. She approached it.
“Neat,” Pinkie said.
“Where does it go?” Fluttershy said. “Somewhere better than here?”
“I have no idea,” Twilight said. She reached out toward it. Something drew her in. An insatiable desire, and a wholeness she felt beyond. Before she knew what was happening, she’d stepped into the portal.
Twilight Sparkle struggled to move. A crushing weight pressed down on her back, a heavy, thick depression. Regret so deep it was a mire. Still, she slogged forward, toward a shimmering patch of silvery moonlight. Gasping, she stepped into the light.
Her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and she focused on a blue blur in the center of the ring of moonlight. A tiny, frail Alicorn lay shackled on the floor. Blue eyes deep as the night sky turned to look up at Twilight. “You,” the Alicorn gasped. She cringed away.
Twilight glimpsed her reflection in the polished manacles around the Alicorn’s forelegs. She loomed against a backdrop of darkness, a hulking predator with empty eyes. Hunger.
But Twilight remembered something else. This reflected creature, she was not. She pulled on a rainbow thread, one that always shimmered just out of reach. Her reflection changed. Her own face stared back at her, her own eyes.
The Alicorn’s eyes widened. She looked up at Twilight with something else: hope. For a moment, the moonlight flared brighter. “You’re both,” she gasped, her eyes drawn to the Mark on Twilight’s flank. She stood up and moved toward Twilight, until her shackles jerked her to a stop. “Touch the Moon!” she cried. “I can protect you!”
Twilight opened her eyes. She lay on her back in the dark on a hard surface. Groaning, she sat up and clutched at her head with her forehooves. Around her, she heard similar groans. She lit her horn, illuminating a cave, and her friends all laying nearby.
“Ugh, where are we?” Rainbow Dash said.
Twilight stood. “Let’s find out.” She stepped toward a fissure in the wall. She shook her head, trying to clear the vision she’d had from her head as she clambered through the crack.
She pushed herself clear, and gasping, slid to a stop on the edge of a precipice. Beneath her, the drop faded into darkness. Before her spread a realm of smooth, rippling natural pillars that stretched hundreds of feet between the floor and the ceiling of a massive cavern. In the distance, a dome shining with silvery light lit the enormous space. Craters marred its face in the profile of a pony’s head.
Where are we?
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congrats on the feature~
YES luna finally showed up
Do you like bananas? Cause your on the moon bbbiiiitttcccch!
To the moooooooon!
Nice interpretation of Discord!
T
"You're a princess, Twilight."
"You're a wizard, Harry."
Don't go quiet into that good night...
(That's a good piece of literature right there! That is, if I remember the quote correctly. Don't quote me.)
Chapter of referendums is fairly reference-y. And good. I had a laugh with Discord revealing the secrets of the universe... heh...
'Saliva'
Not sure if she's named Chastice or Chastise.
Maybe get rid of the comma after "her".
So batponies = drow?
I'm betting they be all like:
dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw4896-woona_swag.png
5131355
Oh yes, this is probably my favourite chapter so far, mostly because of all those things Discord said about the world's history and current state. Also, nice combining of the whole thing with a bit of "Throne of Bhaal"
So next stop is Underdark... Mmm, I already can't wait. Outstanding work, this fic!
"Are they paragons, or are they simply representatives of what’s good in all of us, what pulls us together instead of driving us apart?"
Teared up a little here.
Azrael's motive in Discord's creation myth brings two lines from True Detective to mind: "Time is a flat circle" and "Death created time to grow the things that it would kill." Appropriate given the reference of Azrael's name.
Typos: "Unable to breath" => breathe
"It reached with tendrils and clinged" => clung
"The entity she saw twisted and complex that"
"If there was none of you left" => were.
"Why would you ever help me." - Needs a question mark
Great to get back to this story, and thank you for continuing it.