A Blissful Garden Walk
Through the winding access halls of Canterlot Castle out of sight of wandering nobles, Zackery kept pace with Twilight as she led him to was ‘one of the most beautiful places in all of Equestria’. With a sickeningly hopeful face she had followed up her statement with ‘you’ll see, not all ponies, or the things we create are bad. I know you don’t believe me, and what I'm doing is not much but I want to try correcting some of the wrongs I’ve done.’
He forced back the urge to loudly gripe, no matter how much he was regretting his decision to ask for something so potentially dangerous. Worst, by this time he had no choice but to follow through due to the backstory he had weaved for himself.
An itinerant traveller not wanting to leave his tight confines and stretch outside? Impossible! Why, anypony could plainly see that he would be ecstatic at such an opportunity! With all the fidgeting he had been doing because of ‘cabin fever’ he had to be bursting at the seams!
While he cursed his own stupidity Twilight sent his covered face another happy grin. By the Three she looked so damn happy. She was basically walking on air, bursting with joy because he was giving her the chance to redeem herself.
It was unnerving seeing her like this not for her unsettling joy, but because of desperation in her movements. Her once easy walk was now nearing a jog. The pace was starting to effect his movements as his disguise was trying its best to trip him up with each step he took. All the while Twilight’s smile became more strained, as her ears swivelled madly at the slightest sound.
He knew she was hiding something. One moment she could scarcely look at him, and now she was to pushing what little luck she had to get him to pay attention to her. Whatever Luna had said to her had her on edge. Leaving a desperation that no amount of smiling could cover up.
“We’re here!” Twilight exclaimed as she walked through an open archway, stepping into the early afternoon light. “Isn’t it the loveliest thing you have seen?”
Grudgingly he had to admit that Twilight wasn’t wrong. The gardens were beautiful. It just weren’t the most amazing thing that he had ever laid his eyes on. It reminded him of the enclosures that Aria's richer nobles boasted over just bigger. One large garden sectioned off into smaller areas each area made to boast its specialty, and its speciality only. It was like an orchard beautiful in its simplicity but nothing else. Lovely but not the greatest thing he had seen.
That privilege was solely reserved for the treehouse city of Sequoia where thousand-year-old branches supported the weight of the sky.
Pulling back from the beauty of that city’s endless canopy and vibrant blooms he looked down at Twilight who smiled up at him expectantly, “They’re nice.”
If possible Twilights smile got larger. “I know it's great isn't it and the best thing is we, mostly you, have the whole garden to yourself. I had the whole place sectioned off. Absolutely no creature can see what’s happening in here or get in. You can do whatever you want and go wherever you want, as long as it doesn’t destroy anything here that is. So want do you want to do?”
In one quick movement he pulled off the offending cloth revealing a simple olive green shirt, courtesy of Rarity, and beige cargo pants underneath. It felt so much better to have free movement over his body. Which brought him to his latest problem.
What could he do that wouldn’t backfiring horribly? Zachery tucked the heavy cloth under an arm making up his mind, “I’m going for a walk.”
“I’ll go with you!” Twilight slightly withered under his frown, “The gardens are large and it would be very easy for you to get lost.” She stood up straighter the smallest hint of defiance in her eyes, “Even though no creature can get in here there is still some danger. I could be a look out.”
He thought over her proposal. The only cons he could come up with were based on how he felt about her. With her new found desperate bravery he knew she would spend the whole time trying to talk to him. Possible hours of her throwing ideas at him hoping to come up with something that stuck. He felt his teeth grate at the thought. He really didn’t want to spend more time than needed with her. Understandably he was still more then a little sore.
On the other hand she was a princess, and for once her title could be useful to him. If somecreature got past her arguably secure perimeter she would be able to quickly deal with it. It was better than becoming some sort of hyped up anomaly because some idiot couldn’t focus a camera. Not like a clear shot of him stomping around would be much better.
Zachery righted himself finding that Twilight still had a determined look on her face. “Fine.” He said looking away from the joy blossoming on her face.
“You want me to show you around?” Twilight asked.
“Might as well. I’ll probably get lost if you don’t.” He replied truthfully.
“You won’t regret this. I lived most of my life in this castle so I know my far share about the gardens here.” Twilight said before coughing into her hoof, and with extravagance she pointed to her left, “Over this way is the Flower Murals of Time. They’re like the glass mosaics in the Castle’s main halls as they depict Equestria’s founding.” She said before looking over at him, “I could show and tell you about them, and a little about the history of Equestria.”
Keeping a cool face, despite the emotions welding up in him, he agreed following her into the garden. His mind ran at full tilt as Twilight told him of every individual plant on their way to the murals.
For once luck was on his side.
Equestria’s history. Something that he wanted to ask about, but couldn’t find a chance to. Then again what were the chances of them openly speaking of a history which negated the slaves its country’s land had been built on so-much-so that said entire race was removed from their history books?
He was curious, morbidly so. How could two peoples histories that were so intertwine in the worst way differ so vastly? Every human from the moment they could understand complex thought was told of their history. Of the reasons why their whole race ran to the sea, and still to this day never stopped running. Every human was told of their history, of the origins their magic, and the ones who stayed behind to make sure that they had a future.
Yet if what he was seeing was true barley a handful of ponies knew about the existence of human until recently. What was Equestria's historical time-line like if it allowed for such a chunk of it's very founding to lie unnoticed for so long?
It turns out, very incomplete.
“…and when the winter was chased away by the harmony of the three tribes, they named the land they founded Equestria.” Twilight said pointing to a flower mural.
Zachery looked down at the depiction of a group of thin, ghostly pale blue ponies being pushed away by six smiling ponies two of each race. That’s it? This was the earliest records of Equestria’s history? Even if one was to include the demon kings rule this was way too short. What happened before?
“So this was how Equestria was formed?” Zachery said turning his next words over in his head. What he was about to do was dangerous and incredibly stupid. But a chance like this, were he could ask these things, wasn’t likely to come up again. “Why did they begin fighting in the first place?”
“Huh?” Twilight asked looking up at him, “I told you their suspicions for each other created anger and hate.”
“Yes, but what about before then?” Zachery slowly elaborated, “They couldn’t have had such suspicions for each other from the beginning. If they did they would've never worked together in the first place. How did the hate start?”
Twilight looked at him and he quickly covered his tracks.
“I’m just curious. Everything comes from something, and things don’t just happen randomly.” Zachery replied a hand reaching up to oh-so innocently brush his hair out of his face, “At least I don’t think things can happen randomly.”
“That’s, right.” Twilight said in astonishment, “Well, that is what many of the more modern schools of thought believe is true. But how did you come to that conclusion? It took years for the greatest minds to begin asking those types of questions. I don’t want to come off as rude, but I thought you didn’t have formal education. What with how you spend most of your time just traveling…”
Twilight quickly tried to cover her words, “I’m just saying from what I know your type of lifestyle doesn’t exactly invite deep thinking on complexities of the nature of random chance. Not saying that it’s impossible for you think on a level as the greatest pony minds of this century.” Twilight finished awkwardly.
Zachery absently mindedly hummed, a lightly sweating hand tugging a loose lock of hair back behind his ear. Anything for more time to think. “It’s common sense really, or at least for me it is.” He replied pulling on the knowledge he had implanted in him, “You’ve seen the forests on the Forsaken Islands. If you saw a tree suddenly bear fruit overnight in the coldest of seasons, would you really believe was random luck and eat from it?”
A weight came off of Zachery’s chest as Twilight shivered, “Okay, that makes sense. Where you live believing in anything remotely like random chance would be a dumb idea. Sorry for prying.” Twilight said before laughing ruefully, “I don’t even know what I was thinking. Rainbow Dash said you couldn’t read. It’s not like you are reading books from the Canterlot library. You didn’t even have the time to do so.”
“Yep,” Zachery said more than happily playing the ignorance card. “All words are just squiggles to me.”
“Yeah Equestrian words must seem like squiggles to you. Surely human words must make a whole lot more sense.”
“Nope.” Zachery said, “All words are squiggles to me.”
“The human’s don’t have a written language?” Twilight ask her ears falling down in what he could only guess was pity.
“We do, but I can’t read it.” Rarity did say Twilight was a librarian right? Here's hoping that she had the same ideals as every avid reader he knew, “I never had the chance to learn. Not that I would learn to if I could. I have no need for it.”
Zachery fought back a cruel grin as Twilight began visibly struggle between her want to teach, and want to not offend him and ruin a chance she was already bending dangerously.
“B-but why?” Twilight sputtered, “Why would you think that you don’t need to read?”
“I got this far without it, why would I need it now?” Zachery replied easily repeating what every dropout he knew told him, “If I want to know something in a book I could just get someone else to tell me.”
“No.” Twilight whispered, her hooves digging into the ground.
“What was that?”
“No!” Twilight’s voice raised, “You can’t live life like that. I won’t allow-” Twilight cut herself off, “You want to know what happened before the three tribes got suspicious of each other, right? There’s a theory that is widely held to be the closest to the truth. I’m not going to tell you what that theory is I’m going to show you.” Twilight continued, “We'll compromise. You learn to recognize some words in Equestrian, and I will lecture you on everything you need to know.”
“And why would I agree to that?”
“B-because you’ll get more out of this then I will.” Twilight said forcing herself to hold her ground at the sharpness of his tone. “I’m only going to teach you four words. That’s it. You learn four words for and I tell you everything I know about Equestria’s past.”
They both paid no head to Twilight’s obvious flinch. She didn't want him to ask questions, and he didn't want to hear answers that he had already knew.
Ignoring Twilight’s suddenly haggard appearance he thought over her arrangement. For a moment he pretended that his life wasn't an ongoing train-wreck, and entrained an outcome where he somehow makes it back to Standing Refuge alive. Such information would take unneeded suspicion off him. Hell, if he gave them enough they might even give him some downtime before scraping everything Equestria out of his brain.
With that far hope he made another gamble, nodding briefly to Twilight the smallest of smiles crossing his face. “I think I’m going to take you up on that offer.”
Twilight blinked clearly taken aback by his agreement, then surely a wide face spitting smile spread across her face, “Zachery you will not regret this. I mean how could you? All I’m going to have you learn is the name of some of the more important virtues.” Twilight walked deeper into the garden smile still wide as he followed after her, “It’s going be so easy. All you’ll be doing is reading and reciting some statue names.”
In a cool of the adjoining statute gardens Zachery and Twilight sat across from each other a stack of not-so-freshly teleported sheets of paper off to the side. They had been looking over the same words for over an hour now. It wouldn’t have taken so long if Twilight hadn’t insisted on him learning how to spot and understand similar connotations in other words.
“All right from the top.” Twilight said excitedly before shrinking at his pointed look, “Just so I know, you know what I what you to know.” She said before taking the paper she was working on and giving it to him. She took care to hold the paper in the edge of her hoof keeping the physical contact between them at a minimal.
Ignoring her verbal butchery, he took a hold of the paper one of the many Twilight has given to him to test his recognition and speech. He knew what the words meant and could easily say them out loud. But when he read them off a paper? Transporting foreign written word into thought, and then to pronounce those words into speech was too complicated for his translation spell. That being said he should probably recast said spell soon it would be annoying for it to collapse on him.
Putting that thought away he read directly from the paper. To his annoyance he still struggled. He learned words before without the spell, why did he strain now? “Ka-ur-rage, Eem-path-ey, Thei-enkfull-ness, Pur-pus, En-djur-eince.”
“Right.” Twilight said trying but failing to hide her winch, “Courage, Empathy, Thankfulness, Purpose and Endurance. Even though it was a little shaky it was a good for a time reader.” Twilight said sheepishly. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“We both know that was terrible.” Zachery said drily, crumpling the aforementioned sheet up and throwing it into the pile, “I’ve learned your words and embarrassed myself trying to pronounce them. It’s time for you to hold up your side of the bargain. You are going to hold up, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.” Twilight said pushing the notes around her away, “I would never-” Twilight cut herself off a pained look on her face taking a steady breath she changed her approach, "Earlier you asked what had happened before the conflict of the tribes. The truth is no one really knows. For a long time a lot of Equestria’s past was-is…shrouded in mystery.” Twilight said her eyes flickering away from him.
“What we do know from the oldest digs is that the Equestria, and the land around it was filled with spirits. These spirits may very well have existed within direct contact with the ponies and creatures of that time.” Twilight explained. “Or, the ponies really revered the spirits in so that the smallest contact with said spirits inspired them to create countless temples.” Twilight trailed off at his bored look, “I’m rambling. The point is the largest school of thought believes somepony, or creature that was either a spirit, or heavily influenced by them purposely did something malicious. This action indirectly or directly created a division between the ponies that gave rise to the hate, and suspicion which started the endless winter.”
Zachery held onto every word, yet found himself in doubt at the end of Twilight’s explanation because of one glaring error, “People can be indirectly influenced by spirits, and the ideas that they are based off of. I get that, hell, I’ve seen people do crazy things because something may have told them to. However, spirits can only indirectly influence people, maybe have something happen to someone who cursed or doubted them out loud, but to actually physically do something? To show up physically and stay among people? If they were weak maybe, but Spirits with the kind of influence you're talking about don’t do that.”
Twilight frowned as if remembering something unpleasant, “A lot of ponies used to think that, hay, I used to think that. Then Discord the Spirit of Chaos attacked, and I ended up having to fight him.”
He stared at Twilight creating a moment of silence. No matter how he twisted it, Twilights statement did not make sense. Maybe his translation spell was starting to fade. His disbelief must have showed because Twilight quickly replied.
“I know it sounds crazy but it happened!” Twilight said pointing to a statue-less pedestal. “He used to stand there before he was released into Equestria.” Zachery’s shock prompted her to continue, “Don’t worry we trapped him again…and then we released him so that we could reform him.” Twilight muttered, “But! Things are better now, kind of. Well they should be since he became friends with Fluttershy and promised not to plunge us into another era of chaos.”
Twilight laughed awkwardly at the constant astonishment on Zachery’s face, “So yeah the spirits do walk among us sometimes.”
Zachery sat still as thousands of stories of what happens when humans got too close to spirits played through his mind all stories ending with the same unpleasant warning.
‘Don’t tempt the spirits.’
Abruptly he got to his feet.
“I’m going back inside.” He said quickly walking to the statue garden’s exit.
“What! Why?” Twilight said quickly chasing after him clearly trying to get him to slow down, “T-there is so much more to look at, and things to do here!”
“I think I’m done with spirits and history for today.” Zachery announced with a little more force then necessary.
'And tomorrow, and the day after that, and the year after that.’
“Wait!” Twilight exclaimed running in front of him, blocking his path. “You can’t leave yet. This is because you’re not happy with my explanation isn’t it? Please, allow me to make it up to you.”
Once again his patience waned. His own fear of the unknown coupled with Twilight's stubbornness was not a good combination. “Twilight, move.”
Twilight stood up awkwardly on her hind legs giving her the height needed to stare him down, “No.”
With her declaration he broke his promise to Rainbow Dash, and snarled out his next sentence, “Why the hell not?”
“Because this might be my last chance to ‘build a construction over the broken gap of friendship by fastening the lines of trust and well-being with common interests’.” Twilight retorted, going redder with exertion with every second she stood up. By this this time her legs where shaking and threating to buckle. “I might not get another like this, not with everything that’s happening. I want to at least be at least on some level of friendship with you.”
“You’re doing a terrible job, you know that right?” Zachery replied, biting out each word. Why the hell was she getting into this now? “You have yet to start a conversation that didn’t end with us fighting on some level.”
“I know that, but I still have to try.” Twilight said her wings flapping haphazardly to keep her up right.
His eyes narrowed, and what was left of his good cheer left with his next exhale, “Twilight. Move. Or I’ll get past you by force.”
“I won’t move.”
His breath came out one long, heavy exhale. He very much hated his luck. In the next second he was covered in a fast moving pulse of black magic. Giving her no time to react he ran at her preparing to easily, or not so easily jump over her.
Twilight paled as she saw black magic, black feathers, and an impossible wingspan. In retaliation she raised her own wings even though she knew, they both knew, he was the stronger flyer. There was no way she would be able to catch up to him, and if worse came to worse-
“Stop!”
Zachery skidded to a stop, his wings awkward trailing behind him as tried not to fall over. Both he and Twilight looked towards the entrance of the statue garden and was reward with the sight of a huffing and harshly glaring Fluttershy.
“What do you think you’re doing? Twilight why were you blocking Zachery’s path? You of all ponies show know better considering everything that happened. Are you trying to make this situation worse?” Fluttershy asked walking toward them with purpose.
“I wasn’t. I was just trying to…” Twilight weakly muttered and faltered under Fluttershy’s potent glare.
He couldn’t help but smiled. Would there ever be a time when Twilight floundering wouldn’t bring him some sort of joy?
“You do realize I’m talking to the both of you right?”
Smile dropping, Zachery dumbly pointed to himself.
“Yes, you.” Fluttershy said glaring up at him, “I saw you. You attacked first. I know you really don’t like Twilight, hay, I’m still very much mad with her, but was doing such a thing necessary? Did you really need to escalate this into a fight?”
“Ah…” Zachery said. Saying Twilight provoked him into fighting her because she feebly stood on a path that he could easily get around didn’t seem all too smart. Adding that he purposely ran at her to throw her off…
“I can’t believe you two. Twilight you shouldn’t be anywhere near Zachery, so why are you? Zachery, I know Twilight didn’t force you here because the castle and gardens aren’t destroyed, so why did you follow her?” Fluttershy sighed when neither of them answered them, “And I felt so happy because of my picnic with Discord. If there is nopony else other than Twilight to watch you Zachery I’m going have to cancel with him.”
“What?” Zachery pushed forward, blatantly ignoring how he and Twilight spoke at once. “You going on a picnic with the Spirit of Chaos?”
“I was.” Fluttershy sad sadly, “But I can’t leave you with Twilight, not if you’re just going to fight each other. Oh I hope Discord won’t be too mad because I have to cancel.”
“You really don’t have to do that.” Zachery said, a twitching smile on his face. “We’ll be fine.”
“No you won’t.” Fluttershy answered sternly, “You just got into a fight.”
“That was nothing, right Twilight?” Zachery said blasting an uncomfortably fake smile at Twilight.
“Um, yes?” Twilight responded more in confusion than with agreement.
“See, nothing to worry about here. So go meet with Discord, you don’t want to be late right?”
“Oh, I’m not late.” Fluttershy answered gently, “Discord just went to get some biscuits. When he was talking to the guards he remembered that he forgot to get some. He should be back at any second now.”
As a bright flash of magic appeared a few feet away from them just out of his view, the last sentence of a thousand stories came back to him.
‘Don’t tempt the spirits.’
“Oh Fluttershy,” A voice just out of his line of vision said, “I am sorry I took so long. The line at the checkout was just ghastly. You should have seen…”
Zachery shivered as ice cold tendrils wrapped around his back. Slowly he turned around and found himself face to face with the greatest mishmash of animals he had ever seen. Two unfortunately disproportionate yellow eyes stared horribly deeply into his. He stood frozen as a griffin talon held his face keeping him from looking away.
Talons digging none too gently into his skin, grazing over mostly healed burns, Discord hissed low, “What is your name?”
He wheeze on a pressure that wasn’t there, and his body refused to listen to him. “Zachery Von Roderick.” He said barely higher than a whisper indecipherable to everyone but the spirit holding him.
As panic threatened to cloud him, Discord hummed inquisitively before releasing his face. Freed, Zachery quickly created distance between them. A hand touching marred but not freshly injured skin. How? How did he do that? Was this the power of the embodiment of chaos? If so, how could he possibly fight against it?
His leaden musings were cut off by Fluttershy’s stern voice, “Discord, why did you grab Zachery?”
Discord turned to Fluttershy smiling like he hadn’t just tore apart a mind, “Oh it’s nothing to worry about Fluttershy. It’s just that he reminded me of somecreature. A certain balding Diamond Dog whom I met a dreadfully long time ago.”
“A Diamond Dog?” Twilight asked, “Zachery looks nothing like a Diamond Dog.”
“Twilight why must you be so cruel? You know I have bad eyesight.” Discord said donning black sunglasses and a walking cane.
Zachery watched Discord display with no little trepidation. He was breaking all know laws of magic and physics and neither Fluttershy or Twilight seemed to care. What the hell was this creature?
“You do?” Twilight said breaking Zachery's thoughts with her skeptical tone,
“Yes I do.” Discord huffed, literally throwing the cane and glasses out of existence, “Why! This makes me so mad! I-I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. Leave me be.” Discord said with flourish.
“Discord-”
“No! I won’t have any of it! Fluttershy dear, you said you wanted to talk to Twilight yes? Well here’s your chance talk to her before she breaks anymore hearts.” Discord said disappearing in a flash and appearing near to Zachery draping a his forearm over Zachery's shoulder. “While you girls talk, we men will bond over tales of how absolutely cruel Twilight is.”
Zachery forced a smile through the grip Discord had on his shoulder, “While that does sound fun I have other things to do, so if you would just excuse me.”
“Oh but we have so much to talk about.” Discord said, tightening his grip, “The wonderful cakes Pinkie Pie makes, the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, the boring and monotonous life of the Canterlot elite,” Discord voice dropped into a whisper and Zachery knew only he could hear him, “Standing Refuge.” Discord pulled back smiling widely, “You know just random goings on in life.”
Zachery stood paralyzed of the thousands of outcomes playing out in his head and no of them ended well. He wasn’t going to make it out of this. Every carefully balanced word, thought and reaction he displayed came to nought with one phrase from the very spirit of chaos’s mouth.
He almost lost against the weakest ailcorn, how could he possibly fight a spirit?
Discord ignoring Zachery’s sudden paleness and wide eyed gaze, began to drag him away, “Now don’t worry about us. You two have fun now. Fluttershy I am sorry, but I believe this will cut into our time together, and after all that I did to make sure we could get into the gardens.”
Zachery limply allowed Discord to pull him farther away until they were out of ear shot and eye sight of Twilight and Fluttershy.
Discord released him in favour of free floating, “It’s such a shame that Twilight and Fluttershy’s friendship has become so strained.” Discord said pulling a tea cup and saucer out of empty air, “Well it’s not like Fluttershy needs Twilight. Not when she has myself of course.” He bit a chuck out of the cup chewing in thought, before lightly slapping his face in recognition and snapping into existence a floating tea cup by Zachery’s head, “Oh, where are my manners? Do you take one sugar or two?”
“How do you know about Standing Refuge?”
Discord frowned, “See, that right there is why I don’t like to hang around with you military types, you are military aren’t you? Always so serious, and with absolutely no sense of humour.” Discord said snapping the tea set out of existence, “Can’t you just sit back and enjoy life?”
Zachery's lips pulled back into a snarl as wisps of black magic leaked and twisted around his arms. “How do you know about Standing Refuge?” He said harshly. Maybe he couldn’t win against a spirit but he could still try. He had to.
Discord sat in the air his lips pursed, not a single change in his outward appearance to show that he even recognized Zachery’s unspoken threat. “Before we start you should really know two things. One, people tend to speak loudly when they think they are alone, and two, you shouldn’t take your own fear of ponies and direct them against me.”
His breath caught into his throat, and he covered his mounting worry with a snarl, “I’m not afraid of ponies.”
“Oh, but Zachery you should be afraid.” Discord said his voice lowering a deliberate octave snapping every hair on the back of Zachery’s neck to attention, “You should be very afraid since your people were afraid enough to enter into Equestria and see if ponies were a threat.”
“What!” Zachery shouted more than a little too loudly. His mouth snapped closed as Fluttershy call out.
“Zachery is everything okay?”
Sweating hard enough to darken his clothes, he answered back much more jovially then he felt, “Everything’s fine!” He called, goosebumps lining his arms as Discord inquisitively watched him whilst smoking a bubble pipe, “Discord just startled me.”
“Oh I know, but he does mean well.” Fluttershy said her soft laughter carrying through the garden, “If there is anything you need just call me.”
“I will.” He answered back his tone light and airy. When Fluttershy didn’t push further he turned on Discord eyes glowing blue and teeth bared, “What?”
“Hmm have you ever thought of going into theatre?” Discord said blowing into his pipe. “You’re really good at that two faced thing you do. The ponies at the Hayford Theatre would love to have you.”
Zachery bit back another snarl and forced himself calm. Discord was playing him that much he could see. He slowly breathed out. He wasn’t going to fall into his trap, not with so much on the line. “What do you mean my people are here?”
“Exactly what I mean.” Discord said polishing the pipe before letting it fall and smash into a hundreds of butterflies. “You are not the only human in Equestria, or even the first to come here recently. They came here before you did.”
Zachery forced to stay calm, no matter how much that impacted him, “How do you know that?”
“Please I’m the Spirit of Chaos.” Discord said one paw towards his chest, “Having hundreds of human’s dock at the edge of Equestria in a metal monstrosity, kidnap a pony then shake him down and toss him back, before converging into Equestria en-masse isn’t exactly harmonious.”
“Shit.” Of all the things that could happen. What the hell where they thinking? Why the hell were they here? “Shit.” He grabbed at his head as horrible possibilities for such an outcome played in his head.
Where they at war? Why would they go to war? Wasn’t the whole point of him giving himself up was so that they didn’t go to war? What the hell changed? “Shit.”
“I counted three shits. What is it with you human’s and the number three?” Discord said drily. “Not to mention the swearing.”
“You’re a spirit aren’t you?" He bit out vindictively. "Can’t you just reach in my head and find out?”
“Now, now there is no reason to be like that.” Discord said taking a few healthy bites out of a light bulb. “We’re having a nice conversation here don’t ruin it. Although it does seem more like a one-sided game of twenty questions.” Discord sigh extravagantly, “It’s hardly fair.” Then he smiled, “However, it does warm my heart for you to think that I’m powerful enough to read your mind.”
Zachery held his tongue. So the Spirits can’t read minds, or at least this one can't. That’s one question out of the thousands in his head answered. He needed more answers, and to get the answers he wanted he had to get Discord to answer him.
He winched. Of course he just had to skip the classes on spirits when he was in general education. Why? Because a powerful soon-to-be soldier like himself didn’t need to know about old spirit tales! All he needed was his two fists! If he could go back in time he would punch his younger self in the kidney. Thank whoever was listening he had Elizabeth as a friend.
He stood up straight and looking Discord in both his mismatched eyes he put to use everything Elizabeth had told him, “Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony leaned me your endless knowledge.”
“Well aren’t you serious.” Discord said in amusement. “Look at you, being all formal. However, I for one don’t care for pomp and circumstance. Though I will take you up on your request. All I want is for you to honestly answer a simple question for me. One for one. Nothing too bad just about life in general.” Discord’s voice shifted into a darker pitch, “You can do that, right?”
Zachery shivered, Discord's voice just didn’t sound safe. Then again he was well past the threshold for safety. “Right.”
The feeling of wrongness left as Discord smiled widely, “Great! Well than Zachery you start, ask away! What do you want to know?”
Zachery paused rolling the question in his head, something he needed to know. Hopefully Discord would inadvertently answer some of his other questions, “Why do you think I should be afraid of the ponies?”
“A very good question!” Discord said lounging easily on air, “You should be afraid because they are smart and inventive, terrifyingly so.”
“They barely have technology. Most of them still use gaslamps.”
“I said they were inventive, and smart. I said nothing about technology. Well not the kind you use. I’ve been on your submarine and I can honestly say, if that is what you are used to, that no creature has your level of technology.” Discord said easily, “What I’m talking about is magic invention. You see Fluttershy tells me a lot, we are the best of friends.” Discord steeped his paw and claw together, “So… I heard that Twilight almost killed you.”
“Yes, she did.” Zachery said stretching his neck because he could, just confirm that he could.
“Such a shame. I really thought Twilight was better than that.” Discord said, “You wouldn’t see me seriously physically hurting somecreature on a whim. What’s worse is she created said chains, and cuffs herself.”
“She did?” Zachery frowned forcing away a unjustifiable feeling of betrayal, “Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rarity lied to me.”
“Hmm, what would give you that impression?” Discord said materializing a glass of chocolate milk and slowly drinking the glass.
“They said they had only known about humans for two months before they left Equestria. Repressors like the ones Twilight made would take years to create.” Zachery answered trying to make out where Discords rambling was leading him, “They knew about humans for years, they had to be lying.”
“What if I told you they weren’t lying?” Discord said throwing the glassless milk away, “That Twilight designed and created those cuffs in one night by herself. That she created those cuffs with only the knowledge that an afternoon of reading four hundred year old information she had stumbled onto. That because a skeleton spooked her she made the fastest advancements in pony history. What if I were to tell you that?”
“I-I,” He was stuttering. How could he not his mouth had never felt so dry, or his throat so tight, “I would say that was impossible.”
“But it’s not. And guess what! That’s not all.” Discord said leaning close to Zachery’s ear. “What if I were to tell you Twilight is not the only pony who can do something like this? That out of many powerful unicorns she just happened to be the one that caught Celestia’s eye. And that with the notes and some innovation she could make thousands more in a couple of months.” Discord pulled back blatantly ignoring the horror in Zachery’s eyes. “You see Zachery my boy, while humans are great at creating technology they are not so great at utilizing magic. The others can’t see it but as ‘Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony’ I can.”
Zachery flinched back as Discord quickly pulled out a magnifying glass. “Ah yes.” Discord said, “There is severe disharmony within your magic. It doesn’t hurt you in any way. Hay, it’s probably incredibly useful to you, but it’s not balanced. Not in the way an alicorn is. More like a mishmash of everything pony plus other things to create something magnificent, but horribly imbalanced.” The magnifying glass then twist itself out of existence. “It must be hard to create magic equipment for everyone to use if everyone is so different. A problem that nopony has. Seeing how everypony is more or less equal at the most basic of levels.”
Discord looked at him a dangerous, intrusive smirk on his lips, “If I were to guess I would say you would make a wide arrangement of things for every possible level of strength. So that someone who is very weak would be able to use something similar to what someone very strong could. I wonder if a system like that causes problems when, for instance, someone overestimates themselves.”
Zachery kept his face straight as Discord’s prediction came too close for his comfort. Forcefully changing the subject he asked. “What should I do about Twilight?”
“Ah, ah, ah! You only had one question. Anyways I couldn’t answer that for you. What you do is entirely up to you. Now for my question.” Discord said tapping his face in thought, “You’re with a child, a very annoying one at that, who want’s let’s say candy. He or she wants it badly, and you know that if you don’t give it to him or her they would throw a terrible tantrum. However, you don’t trust the person giving candy away. Said person is so shady that their shadow has a shadow.” Discord paused, “Do you let the child have the sweet to save yourself the trouble?”
Zachery blinked caught off guard by the harmless, and very strange question. “No, I won’t. I may not like the kid, but I know better than to let them walk into danger.”
“Really.” Discord said, his voice becoming little more than a dangerous rumble.
Zachery pulled back, anything to distance himself from the unspoken, unknown threat in Discords eyes, “Y-yes, really.”
Discord's glare did not waver, and Zachery began to sweat. The old tales of deals with spirits going wrong playing in his head.
Then Discord pulled back a wide smile on his face. “Oh that’s great! A wonderful answer. I knew Fluttershy knew better than to hang out with bad creatures, but then again she hangs out with me so I do worry. I guess I must apologize for being so rude earlier. You see I thought you were someone else. Silly me.”
“Who could you possibly confuse me with?” Zachery asked the hairs on the back of his neck refusing to come down.
“I guess you do need to know since we do have a mutual friends with Fluttershy even though she does like me better. Don’t forget that.” Discord said sternly. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. You see I know why humans like to do things in threes. I don’t know what you call them, but I know what they call themselves. Preservation, Union, and Balance. Completely boring those three are. You would think with them being so old, older than me even, they would have let their hate go years ago.” Discord said absentmindedly.
“They haven’t though. I don’t think their hate has changed in the many, many years that I knew them. It’s good that they put themselves to sleep centuries ago. Could you imagine what would happen if they saw you here? Of course you can see why I had to make sure you weren’t any of them, and why I overacted a smidge. If you were any one of them Fluttershy, and I guess Twilight by proximity, would be in danger.” Discord sighed, "You humans have too many names and descriptions. How could I possibly know you, Zachery, the one Fluttershy spoke about belonged to the same species as those three, and the people in that floating tube?
Zachery gaped not connecting the heaviness of Discord’s words with his calm behaviour, “You know The Three-” Zachery was muted as Discord put his paw over his mouth, spinning him around to greet Twilight and Fluttershy walking towards them.
“It’s better if we don’t talk about the vengeful spirits that your people are devoted to this day in front of others, don’t you think? Considering said spirits' palate. I can’t tell you why, but for them to figure out your little secret now would be just as bad for you as it would be for me.” Discord hissed before flashing a winning smile at Fluttershy, “Oh Fluttershy! How was your talk with Twilight?”
“It was okay. I got some things off my shoulders,” Fluttershy answered, “Um if you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing with Zachery?”
“Nothing, nothing!” Discord said removing his paw from Zachery’s mouth, “I was just so happy that I gained a new friend in Zachery here. We have so much to talk about. Isn’t that right?”
Zachery flash a winning smile of his own as his stomach flipped in nauseating circles, “He’s right we have much in common.”
“Really?” Twilight asked a skeptical eyebrow raised. She changed tactics when Fluttershy bumped none too gently into her, “I mean that’s great! We should talk over tea or something.”
“Sorry there won’t be any tea or somethings today. Fluttershy and I have reservations.” Discord saw flashing over to Fluttershy’s side.
“He’s right. We were supposed to have this picnic a very long time ago.” Fluttershy said, “We’ll do something later.” Fluttershy looked between Twilight and him, her mouth opening to make one last protest, but Discord cut her off before she could.
“Well then now that’s settled.” Discord said, giving a small wave to Zachery that he stiffly returned, “Goodbye, Zachery, I am so glad we had this little chat.”
“So. What did you and Discord talk about?” Twilight asked nervously, her hooves making rhythmic clips as she walked down the marble floor of the inner castle.
Deming the Canterlot Gardens no longer safe since Discord so easily got in Twilight had cautiously called for them to go back to the shared room. After a very tense silence Twilight finally tried to breach a topic.
“Nothing important.” Zachery said a little too quickly still feeling the strength of Discord’s paw, “What did you and Fluttershy talk about?”
Twilight’s ears instantly pinned back, “N-nothing, just working some things out.” Twilight said just as quickly. She worried over her lip for a moment before saying, “If it’s any consolation I’m sorry for what I did back there. Sometimes I can get a little carried away.” She flinched at Zachery’s snort, “Rephrasing, I can get very, very, horribly carried away.”
“Hmm.”
“You’re just tolerating me until I show you the way back, aren’t you?” Twilight asked her eyes shifting down.
“Pretty much.”
“Oh.” Twilight muttered, “I know I don’t really have the authority to ask, but can we forget that thing in the garden ever happened? You know just put it behind us.”
“That wouldn’t work. Fluttershy saw the ‘fight’, and is going to tell the others.” Zachery replied.
Twilight deflated further, “Right, right. I just that I don’t want to give them another reason to hate me.”
He huffed, “It’s kinda late for that.”
“I know.” Twilight said regretfully before brightening alittle. “But at least I got you talking to me, I mean your still talking to me. Considering everything, today was a still a success. Now I can implement card number twelve.”
“Which is?” Zachery asked, feeling another headache come on.
A small smile crossed Twilight's face, “It’s ‘Now that the lines of acquaintanceship are held together by a better understanding it is time to lay the first plank on creating the bridge of friend-, of amity'.”
“Did you memorize every card you made?” He asked remembering the towering stacks of cards he and Rainbow Dash had went through during the trip to Canterlot.
“Well yes one has to know their work. It’s honestly wasn’t that much, only five hundred fifty.” Twilight said clearly pleased with herself until she saw his look, “Rainbow Dash gave me the same look. There is nothing wrong with knowing your material.”
Zachery opened his mouth to make a rebuttal to what he believed was an absolutely ridiculous statement.
“Twilight?”
Zachery's head snapped up his whole body screaming at him to run. The voice, that voice didn’t sound right. It was too breathless, too strained, it was as if someone who nearly drowned was being forced to talk past the water in their lungs.
Wrong in the sense that it barely sounded mortal, let alone alive.
Twilight quickly turned to the sound of the voice, her head snapping to look down an adjacent hallway. Her eyes widening at the voice that was more familiar to her then it would ever be to Zachery.
“Princess Celestia?”
Zachery followed her gaze to see it walking up to them. Finally understanding why Luna had been so vehement to call that thing anything but her sister.
Celestia looked exactly how Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy had verbally envisioned her. A pony larger than any other, with a coat that was pure as the falling snow, and a mane painted with the colours of the waning day.
He could see why Rarity envied her beauty. Anyone would. If one could look passed how she staggered with each step. How matted and unkempt her coat was. How dull, almost dead her mane was as it limply trailed beside her.
If one could look past all that they would see the envious beauty of Celestia.
Of course this only worked as long as said creature didn’t pay head to the cruel glaze thinly covering her lifeless magenta eyes. Only one that was blinded by what Celestia's spotless reputation promised wouldn't see the danger she now posed.
“Princess!” Twilight shouted, tears of relief streaming down her face as she ran towards the di-arch.
'Do you let the kid have the sweet to save yourself the trouble?’ Discords words echoed in his head as Twilight continued to run full force at the smiling, twitching, unpleasant shell.
“My wonderful loyal student.” Celestia said as an abhorrent darkness, which Twilight could not see, swam in her eyes. “Was your mission successful?”
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FUUUUUUUUCK! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCKETTY FUCK, FUCK!!!!! And our Human protagonist dies slowly and horribly in the next chapter.
...o
................shit
Well Discord was right though, how was Celestia able to wake up given that she was basically in a Coma
.......well shit.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh shit~!
Action time! Well, it would be if not for the cliffhanger! Moar plox!
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Celestia wasn't in a coma she was confined to her room because she was/is dangerous.
*Lets out unnatural squeal then hides in basement, with a blanket*
"He's alright... He's alright... He's all-"
*squeal!*
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6045575
Ditto boys.
Who is the three? Was that explained?
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The ponies may have magical inventiveness, but humans have the same for technology.
Tell me, do these humans know of Atomic Theory yet?
http://24.media.tumblr.com/6dfe80c41d8bddff25a99986d096b690/tumblr_ml0u8uo38E1s852lfo1_500.gif
So apparently Discord is testing Zachary here, with this he will be able to see if Zachary answered truthfully or not. I hope he did.
the ponies may have magical inventiveness but the Humans have submarines ,chainguns and possibly atomic bombs yeah the ponies are screwed if a war happens.
6045751 and how in Sam's Hell is she out and about?
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A wild Celestia appears!
What...
I don't even
But yeah, you might want to fix that sentence
What's the point of making- and then memorizing- cards, when you already have all the material memorized?
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Twilight made the cards for Rainbow Dash to use, while making said cards she memorized them in case a situation where Zachery wasn't angry/frigid with her came up. This way both her and Rainbow Dash are mostly prepared to talk with Zachery in any given situation.
6060897 okay, just this once I get it, but isn't this a common occurrence?
Eaackh! No mas chapters! Esta no bien! Egads. Can't wait for more. My only real problem so far is the lack of information on humans. It feels like we are expected to know certain things about the cuture and personal background of the character that were either nit mentioned or only brought up briefly. As the story progresses certain things have been clearing up, but I felt that I sould put that put there.
All together now....
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6238723 Caution: First sentence contains spoilers.
SPOILER BLOCK
Things do change, and for a lack of a better phrase get ‘back on track’ in terms of Twilight's, Rainbow Dash's and to a point Applejacks reactions. Now on to my over exaggerated sizes. I based Aria off the Tibetan Mountains, and Dissimulare off the furthest point a human has gone underground the TauTona mine in Carletonville, South Africa. I wrote the actual number then changed it to be vaguer, and seeing and understanding your confusion perhaps I was too vague.
The Submarine is based off the Russian Soviet era Typhoon-class submarine 'Akula', and made it a little bigger because why not? Humanity, in this context, worked together to make a massive sub that can quickly reach and sneak up on the enemy while holding hundreds of ready fighters. It seems plausible, but then again I don’t know that much about subs.
The size of the largest swell of the underground cavern, lengthwise not height-wise is based off of the Greater Toronto Area. Once again my vagueness is to blame for the confusion. For a man-made cavern system made in world were humans have access to magic I believe it is sustainable enough. In other terms a wizard, or rather multiple wizards did it.
Now for the entire top floor and the whole sunroof thing it has going on, plus the island continent thing. The island this all takes on is divided as such. Woods that cover the one coast of the island. Past those woods is a large clearing which is at the foot of the three large hills that mark Dissimulare. The sun-holes cover the three hills, the clearing between the mountain and the forest, and spread a ways into Dyffryn Valley which is between Dissimulare and Aria. Dissimulare doesn’t spread out into the ocean it spreads under Dyffryn. The Island ends abruptly after Aria. Kind of like, mountains, Aria, mountains, sheer drop, and sea. If it helps don't think of the island as a perfect circle.
That being said, the island is still big. Which makes sense since its design is one thing that I didn’t base loosely on real life. I based it on the mechanics that are used in One Piece (I know). Strange places with even stranger people held all together by that world’s strange logic. So the island that holds Dissimulare and Aria is based on how I believe a large island, which is deemed too strange and dangerous by magical creatures on a magic filled planet, would look like.
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I do hope so. I have yet to continue on, but will do so soon.
Never saw an issue with the mountain hieghts in previous chapters.
Tau Tona Mine is only 3.9 kilometers (2.4 mi) deep. Even then... its hot. The rock face temperature currently reaches 60 °C (140 °F). Natural light will not filter through holes that deep, unless they were gigantic. Also those are shafts/tunnels in the mine, not enormous, open caverns. Shafts that are not much taller than an average human.This is Tau Tona i.imgur.com/ICTwyOe.jpg
That's why I said I am assuming a typo for the hundreds of kilometers underground in this chapter, when it was thousands of meters in earlier ones (still way to deep). The same goes for your mountains being thousands of meters earlier to hundreds of kilometers tall. A few hundred meters underground would work, and several thousand meters for a mountain (like you already had in early chapters) is easily acceptable (Everest is about 8800 meters tall, or 8.8 kilometers). And the oxygen is mighty thin up near the height that Everest is.
Here is another example, your mountains in this chapter are tall enough to have the International Space Station slam into them as it only orbits at between 330 km (205 mi) and 410 km (255 mi) above earth.
That sub and the replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile subs is what I was comparing it too. The larger the sub, the harder to hide. 45 meters (147.7 feet) is a lot of extra boat, especially to submerge, operate, and hide. Doable, yes... stealthy, not as much. Plus there are a lot of highly technical changes when adding to a boat size that need to be accounted for. I mean the sub would probably work, just seems a little... ambitious. There is no other mention of any other technology even similar so far in terms of transportation, not even a car, tractor, or regular ship. Television is about the only technological thing they have that I can remember. No need to change it, just seems out of place to all the sudden have this massive sub.
Yeah, no. There is zero confusion or vagueness in length. You have in the first chapter.
2000 kilometers is 1242 miles, or almost the size of the entire USA Gulf Coast (probably is if you cut off the Florida when it starts going south. Again, maybe you only meant a couple hundred kilometers in one direction as the largest swell, as you never gave how wide any of this is. i.imgur.com/Kz6oymC.jpg As you see Hamilton, ON to Peterborough, ON is only 206 kilometers, and that's with an out of the way bend. This is another view that comes with a scale in the corner i.imgur.com/ylpVTRP.gif
I know you didn't mean 2000 kilometers high, but to have the farms and the military building in the middle of the first floor, the ceiling will for sure be significantly more than 5 meters (16 feet) high like a large mine shaft. Otherwise it would be like trying to grow an apple tree in my house. And I know my apple tree out back would not fit in my house very well without chopping the top off and reducing its yield. A tall ceiling for the cavern is easily acceptable if you ever do put it down. Its a cavern/chamber the ceiling should be, even 100 to 200 meters maybe.
The largest chamber/ cavern we know of (I may wrong on this) on Earth is just over 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) long, 200 meters (660 feet) high, and 150 meters (490 feet) wide.
I already accepted magic being part of the equation for how they have the caverns, but even magic has limits. Also, this goes with the depth above. Trying to cool something as deep as you have it with magic, (Not counting the technological scale if going that route) would be such an undertaking that it would have been noticed. Pretty sure the magic scale needed would draw the attention of someone by now.
Pretty much how I pictured it for the most part. The only difference is whether it is well over 2000 kilometers long making it a small continent, or only a few hundred kilometers long, keeping it an island. The islands in One Piece are mostly pretty small.
Do not misinterpret my comment. I am not bashing the story, I am just pointing out things that to me, seem to be wrong, and unbelievable for the story presented. Part of it may be you using the wrong measurements, like kilometers when you only meant meters, but that presents a huge problem if that's the case and needs to be fixed.
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I've seen your concerns and will change the size descriptions to be less far fetched. I.e. Kilometers to meters, among other things.
Thanks for the feedback.
6248261
Alright.
I figured that was narration to mean he just made stuff up, not what things he actually said, guess that was wrong. The pressure change one still seems strange for one to use since even the ponies know he can, and likes to fly. Fluttershy would have picked up on that one.
Oh well.
So I have a couple of questions:
1. Can humans absorb the magic/genetic traits of everything they eat, or just sapient creatures? Is there a limit to how many powers they can manifest? I can't recall if this was mentioned.
2. What's the size of the human population? They've been around on the island for about than 4,000 years, right? seems like more than enough time to adapt and grow. Now that I think about it I don't even know how many equestrians there are.
I can see why the whole "thousands of magic nullifying chains" thing would be more than a bit terrifying for the humans, but at the same time the equestians have to beat them in order to chain them, and human magic seems to be more geared for combat than Rambo with an AK-47.
European or African Swallow discord?