This Quiet Earth

by Dafaddah

Lessons and Tests

This Quiet Earth

by
Dafaddah

Chapter six: Lessons and tests

Edited by and based on an idea proposed by Sharp Logic

---

“What!?” Twilight glared at Discord. “You created me? How is that even possible? I have parents. I was born in a hospital. A doctor signed my birth certificate!”

“Discord, please explain yourself.” Starswirl was looking far angrier than Twilight had ever seen him. But then, discovering over the last two days the dismal fate of his birth world, and that despite his and Celestia’s efforts that fate could not be avoided, had been very hard on the old mage. And now he had just been told that it was all due to a willful error in judgement on Discord’s part. If she were in his horseshoes she would probably be fit to be tied!

“Yes, Maestro, I will,” replied the draconequus. “But I have to ask both of you a question first.”

Starswirl nodded. In his tight withers and clenched teeth Twilight saw how much the effort at restraint was costing the old unicorn.

“This had better be good,” she said in lieu of a straight affirmation.

Discord had the good grace to say “I thank you, both.” He turned and began pacing the width of the stage, claw and paw in their respective jacket pockets. “When I realized what my stupidity had done I was despondent. I truly loved humanity, Maestro, you must believe me!” When, after a long pause, Starswirl still hadn't responded to his comment, Discord seemed to shrink in on himself. He resumed crossing the stage at a slower pace.

“I scoured the memories of myselves throughout the multiverse, looking to find a way to fix this, and found none. I was in a quandary. However, I had noticed one thing of interest. Those futures where ponies and humans had somehow combined seemed to be more open ended. In fact, ALL those instances where the two cultures stayed separate seemed to... very much resemble this world.” He nodded once emphatically. “And yes, I mean on Equestria as well as Earth.” His expression became very serious. “This is my question to you both: why?”

Starswirl grew still and his gaze focused inwards, then his eyes grew as big as saucers and his forehooves clenched the seatback of the chair in front of him. Still he said nothing. Several different motions played over his face. Finally, his hooves relaxed and he leaned back, the anger gone from his eyes. “Because neither Harmony nor Chaos is enough,” he said quietly.

Twilight turned her head to look at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean? Harmony is the answer, Maestro! Don't let this joker mislead you!"

He thought for a moment. “Lass, when you’ve lived as long as I have, and you’ve looked at life as closely as I have, you learn some unexpected truths. Some of these truths I learned before I came to Equestria, and I have wondered about them ever since. Nevertheless, I have also explored many other worlds, and common themes abound in the fabric of the Cosmos. One of these is that life itself is reaction to change.” A glance in Twilight's direction revealed her confusion.

“The winds, the rains, the seasons, the tides, all push life along, and force all of creation to greet every day as a new one. Death is what happens when living things can no longer change.” He smiled wistfully. "This is how things are on most worlds that I have explored, even the ones with magic. Celestia's Equestria may be a font of Harmony now, but it wasn’t always so. For most of the time since its creation it has in fact harbored its own share of Chaos as well."

“This is true not only for entire worlds, but also for the inner life of every being. The worth of men or ponies is defined not by where they stand, but by the obstacles they have overcome to get to where they are, the things they have created, and the love they have given to others.”

His gaze turned inward. “Finally and most importantly, to me and I think to you also, lass, the purest and greatest joy of all is discovery, to learn something new. How can there be something new every day where nothing ever changes?”

Twilight was quiet for several moment as she absorbed and reflected on Starswirl's words. “I think I understand what you’re saying, Maestro, but what does that have to do with the extinction of both humans and ponies?”

He leaned back in his seat. “Lass, imagine a world where everything is completely predictable, where all events happen exactly as foreseen. Every day, you get up and do exactly what you had planned. Every day, for the rest of your life.” He tilted his head back and stared at Discord. “How would you feel?”

Twilight smiled sheepishly. “Honestly, it sounds pretty boring. Half the fun of making a daily checklist is in seeing how it differs from the previous day's.” At a noise onstage she turned her head back to see Discord holding up twin pink pom-poms as if in mid-cheer. A t-shirt sporting a printed image of Pinkie Pie in the same pose peeked from between the lapels of his tweed jacket. A caption above her head read: ‘By George, I think she’s got it!’

Starswirl’s voice reclaimed her attention. “Now, imagine ponies have been living in such an environment for generations, and then suddenly there is an unexpected change. What would likely happen?”

“I guess they would be very confused. They probably wouldn’t have a clue what to do, assuming they hadn’t died of boredom by then.” Starswirl didn’t even smile at the joke.

“Indeed. How vulnerable a place like this would be! The first victim of such a static lifestyle would be the very idea of vigilance. Any unforeseen change, no matter how small, could become a major disaster. Consider how easily it would be for ponies who no longer look where they trod to blindly step into a raging river or a newly formed precipice.”

“But Chaos has its dark side as well, as the ruin of the Earth attests.” He took out Maximilian’s diary from a pocket in his cloak. “We know from this boy’s diary that Chaos unrestrained has led to the death of this world. And I have reason to believe Discord when he says that Harmony unrestrained could lead to the same fate for Equestria.”

Twilight nodded. “I see what you mean. But surely Princess Celestia sees this as well. Didn’t she say so when you two spoke in the garden of the Castle of the Two Sisters?”

“Yes she did,” said Starswirl, “but after Luna’s banishment to the moon Celestia became rather obsessive about avoiding surprises. During the time between that event and my retirement from public life, she spent ever more time setting up rigorous schedules for every facet of Equestrian life, from the climate to every seasonal activity. Most of these as Minister of Science I favoured, so I was a willing and active participant in their implementation.” His ears sagged. “Now I wonder if this was indeed the right thing to do.”

Twilight looked askance at Starswirl. “How can you say that, Maestro? Princess Celestia has been the wisest pony in Equestria for thousands of years. Everything she does is solely for the benefit of all Equestrians. She is selfless, and generous, and she would never do anything that was not in our benefit.”

He paused a moment to consider his next words carefully. “Lass, the Celestia you know seems so perfect because she has had all these centuries to learn from her mistakes and grow her wisdom by seeing its play amongst the ponies she rules.” He smiled apologetically. “She was not always so sure of herself. In fact she has made many mistakes, a fact to which she will easily admit should you but ask her about it.”

Twilight did not reply, but her ears drooped and she looked away. Nopony spoke for a few moments.

“She may be dedicated to Harmony," said Twilight, "but at her core she is a pragmatist. How could she rule, otherwise?”

“You are talking about the Celestia of your present," said Discord from onstage. "The one who chose to free me from my imprisonment. But don’t make the mistake of thinking she was always thus. When still a filly, Celestia made a vow to her mother about ending the strife between the alicornian septs. She was still very young when our battles resulted in the banishment of her mother and the other remaining members of the Sept of Harmony, or so I thought. But then, after she and Luna came out of hiding and defeated me with the Elements of Harmony, her dedication to order was amplified manyfold. Even from my disadvantage point in Celestia’s garden, I bore witness to some unsuspected consequences.”

The draconequus stood very still behind his lectern, looking grim but determined. “What I am about to show you happened shortly after my original defeat, and it has not been seen by any other being until now.”

The image on the screen flickered and switched to a moonlit garden. Behind it stood the Castle of the Two Sisters. A light flashed as a door opened and out strode a regal white alicorn mare. As she approached it became clear that it was a young Celestia. Twilight noticed a certain stiffness to her mentor’s gait and stance that made her uneasy. On the screen the Princess approached.

“Art thou having a pleasant evening, Discord?” she said, her voice colder and sadder than Twilight had ever imagined coming from that beloved mare.

Celestia stopped short in front of the statue. Twin tracks traced lines down the alabaster fur of her face from the corners of her eyes to the bottom of her muzzle. “I cannot sleep again. Luna weeps in her slumber and cries out for her father. Half of the crops have failed this summer as well, as drought takes one field and flood takes its neighbour. There will be starvation, so everypony blames me for bringing more mouths to feed to Equestria and for every clumsy false step by our diamond dog refugees. And our little ponies cannot cease arguing incessantly about it all and about each other.” Her eyes became slits. “What has happened to Harmony? This is not the life that I imagined awaited us after Luna and I defeated thee.”

She began to pace back and forth before Discord’s frozen shape. “We tamed the wild zones thou left like festering sores on the body of Equestria. We healed the land and drove into Tartarus the creatures of nightmare thou madest to provide for thine amusement. We ended the terror and brought order to the tribes, and gave them each a purpose to fulfill. We brought peace to those whose minds and hearts had been broken by living under thy inconstant rule.” Celestia stopped pacing and again faced the statue.

“But all of this does not suffice! Despite how hard Luna and I try, the things we fix break down the moment we turn our eyes away to heed the call of all the other myriad imbalances and traps thou hast laid in thy reign. Despite all this, Harmony remains a fleeting thing, and I blame thee, Discord,” she growled. “I blame thee for our mother’s banishment, I blame thee for the chaos, I blame thee for Luna’s nightmares, I blame thee for ruining my life and my dreams, I blame thee for IT ALL!” This last was a scream of pain and anguish.

Looking up at the screen Twilight was aghast. This wasn’t the Celestia she knew, the patient, rational alicorn with a preternatural sense of calm competence. This was a hurt filly, this was a being who had been grievously hurt and was truly afraid. She could literally feel her mentor’s frustration and angst rolling off of her. And then Twilight’s eyes grew huge as she saw a black mist swirling at the edge of Celestia’s familiar magenta irises. Something that resembled very much what had happened to her on her first visit to the Crystal Empire.

“Mayhaps thou art powerless in thy new home on that pedestal.” With a sneer on her face, Celestia took another step closer to the statue. “But then mayhaps thou art not. Indeed, what better place to hinder all our efforts, and shower ruin upon our ponies, than sitting here, unmolested in our garden.” The black in her eyes grew thicker, shadowing a good portion of them. “Mayhaps we erred in thinking thee impotent.” She took another step forward and the darkness nearly eclipsed the whites of her eyes. “Mayhaps the author of our troubles sits here and all we need do to meet our ends, is to end thee in thy estate.”

Twilight cowered against Starswirl, finding it unbearable to see such anguish and hate consuming her mentor, yet powerless to look away.

On the screen Celestia drew even closer. Her horn began to glow and then charge up for a spell. The expression on her face clearly demonstrated her intent.

The glow of Celestia’s horn increased tenfold in amplitude, and just as she leaned forward to discharge her spell, her eyes opened wide and the black drained out of them as the glow from her horn faded. Behind her, a black mist coalesced, almost invisible in the moonlight, and slunk away to hide in a nearby bush.

Celestia’s mouth fell open in horrified dismay. She shook her head. “No!” she said. “I cannot do this! I will not do this!” Her expression regained some of the anger it had previously held. “Thou cannot make me break my vow! I will not be tricked into plummeting down into thy precipice. I still follow the Principles of Harmony, and ever will I be true to my ideals and those of my mother, until I take my dying breath. Do you hear me, Discord? I will not bend!”

She turned around and galloped back to the castle. The door in the castle wall shut and the light went out.

The dark glittering cloud crawled tentatively out of its hiding place. The voices of some stallions could be heard in the distance. The cloud slunk off in that direction. A low sinister laugh could be heard as it disappeared around a corner.

---

Starswirl put a forelimb over Twilight’s back. She shuddered and gasped as she wept. “Oh sweet Harmony, it came from her! It came from Princess Celestia!” she cried.

“What? Do you mean that black mist?” asked Starswirl.

Twilight hid her face in her hooves. “Yes. I’ve seen it before. In a vision of the past, when it overcame Princess Luna and turned her into Nightmare Moon. What is it, Discord? And why did it come out from Princess Celestia?” The mare shook as she continued weeping.

Onstage Discord held his head low. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I truly am. What you saw is the Spirit of Tyranny, the dark side of Harmony. And yes, this is part of the alicorn heritage as well. Many are those who have fallen to its siren call, including our Luna.

“In my younger days, when I founded the Sept of Chaos, I was a brash warrior fighting the good fight against Tyranny. To be perfectly honest, I saw little difference between Harmony and Tyranny. Both sought to place hobbles on the imagination and to limit the expression of so many of the possible wonders that could exist in our new world. So I cursed the Sept of Harmony for I thought it could not exist without Tyranny. But then, even after my defeat at her hooves, Princess Celestia proved me wrong.”

He smiled sadly. “It is to Celestia’s eternal credit that even in her darkest hour she did not succumb to Tyranny. You know, it was at that moment I understood that such a thing as non-tyrannical Harmony was possible, and that in resisting all Harmony I was in fact throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

“From that moment onwards I decided to never again truly contest Celestia’s rule of Equestria. She is our steadfast light against that darkest of places. She was right, I had run riot in my reign and left her and Luna a ruined world of consummate disorder and mayhem. I was blindly bound to Chaos, and I deserved the punishment I received.

“But you must realize that Celestia is just as bound to Harmony now as when she was a filly. For over a millennium she has walked a tightrope, trying to both keep the rule of Harmony intact and strengthen her little ponies by feeding them innovations from Earth’s more chaotic culture and science, one spoonful at a time. Maybe she could have continued doing so for hundreds of years, if I had not intervened so disastrously. But with the Earth out of reach and humanity expired, it won’t be long before all true change in Equestria ends. Our world will stagnate, its ability to self-regulate will fail in progressively more spectacular fashion, each generation starting smaller than the last, until finally, Equestria expires in its turn. I have seen it too many times to count.”

“But what about the Elements of Harmony?” asked Twilight.

“You know the answer to that already,” replied Starswirl. “The Elements enforce order, they do not actually fix problems, rather they restore things to their previous state, and the issue at hoof is a surfeit of order. In the end, their use will only compound the problem.” He looked up at Discord. “Surely by your time, Celestia knows this.”

The draconequus nodded. “I’m sure that Celestia knows that she must reintroduce some Chaos into Equestria, but she is bound by her oath to Harmony from dispensing it herself.”

“Princess Celestia would never directly expose her subjects to Chaos! That would go against everything she is!” groused Twilight.

Discord drew back and his eyes narrowed. “Every alicorn has both Harmony and Chaos within them, even our dear perfect Princess!” One corner of his mouth rose in a wry smile. “I believe you’ve been a witness to some of her practical jokes in the past, Twilight. Maybe you’ve even been on the receiving end of one of her gilded Gotchas!”

Twilight snorted.

“I see you have.” A smile briefly split the draconequus’s face, but his serious mien resumed after a moment. “Celestia knows that her hooves are tied, as are those of Princess Luna. That is the real reason why she restored me to flesh and blood. Even that brief interval of my earlier escape helped reinvigorate Equestria for a short period, which I am sure she felt.”

His ears drooped a bit. “But then, her generous action came too late for even moi to save Equestria. You see, by the time of my release I had passed on a large part of my chaos magic to somepony else.”

The screen flickered to life again. It showed a bedroom with a foal’s crib, and a tiny lavender unicorn with a dark blue mane streaked with pink and purple. The foal was on her first legs, and strode tentatively forward. Just as her face seemed to fill the screen there was a flash. Her eyes became awash with red, and then faded back to their normal white with lavender irises. She shook her tiny head, smiled and bounced off to grab a small rag doll in her tiny hooves. It held a quill in one forehoof and a clipboard in the other.

“So what’s next on our checklist, Smarty Pants?” said the filly with a giggle of anticipation. The screen faded to black.

“Now that was cute, although slightly horrifying at the end, if you ask me,” said Discord.

Starswirl turned to look at Twilight.

“What did you do to me!?” she growled at the draconequus.

“I planted a seed,” he said. “Well, to be honest it was a tad more than a seed. As a matter of fact I transferred most of my remaining chaos magic into you.”

“What!? Why?”

“Two reasons. First, because I’m dying and lack the power fix things myself.” He went down on one knee. “Help us, oh Twilight Sparkle, you’re Equestria and Earth’s only hope.”

“Wait a minute!” Her anger flared. “You escaped after I moved to Ponyville. You ensnared all of the Elements of Harmony in your trap.”

“Twilight, Twilight, Twilight.” Discord sighed dramatically. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I stayed in Ponyville and kept my ravages to mostly chocolate milk rain and running a bunch of sight gags on you and your friends?”

She shook her head.

“Well, by that point I couldn’t have managed much more than a few such parlour tricks, comparatively speaking. And didn’t you ever wonder where Princess Celestia went during that whole episode?”

“Well...”

“Well, la-di-da!” said Discord. “As any...pony who witnessed the event can attest, she hung back, Twilight my dear, because that was a test.”

“A test!?” Both of Twilights ears shot forward and she straightened up in her chair. “What kind of test, and who exactly witnessed it?”

“Never mind whom.” On the screen above his head a close-up picture of his face appeared and winked theatrically. “A test to see if you could actually overcome chaos magic through the Power of Friendship. Do you remember what you said to me before resealing me in stone?”

Twilight glanced upwards for two seconds. "I'll tell you what we've learned Discord. We've learned that friendship isn't always easy. But there's no doubt it's worth fighting for," she said.

“Have I ever told you that you have an impressive memory? But yes, you had to learn that Friendship was by far more powerful than Harmony and its Elements, and more powerful even than Chaos itself. Friendship is the moderator between Harmony and Chaos. Both are needed, but neither must predominate. Friendship maintains the balance between the two and brings them together. Friendship has empowered the magicless and deliciously chaotic humans to achieve great things, before their civilization burnt out. Friendship makes it possible for harmonious but boringly conformist ponies to accept new ideas so they can better deal with change, but it cannot produce those ideas.”

Starswirl felt his jaw drop. “I KNEW IT!” he rose up on his hind legs. “I’ve always said that the foundation of magic is the principle of mind-over-matter, and so a pony’s magical ability is directly tied to his or her ability to visualize and strength of will. When I studied the Elements of Harmony, I discovered that Friendship binds and amplifies the will of the ponies bearing the Elements in a multiplicative fashion, so the resulting merger of wills is much more powerful than the sum of their individual wills. In fact this is why I recommended to the Princesses that they actually place each Element with a different pony. I even concocted a spell that would let the elements choose their bearers from a group of ponies whose fates were linked in friendship.” He sat back down. “After Luna’s banishment Celestia and I never spoke of the Elements again. It was too painful a subject to discuss with her. I wonder if she’ll ever cast the spell.”

Twilight looked fondly at him. “That is one of the subjects I think we agreed that we mustn’t discuss, Maestro. But, thanks for making it possible for me to become the Bearer of the Element of Magic!” Still smiling, she leaned over and gave him a light peck on the cheek.

“Ahem.” Discord was studiously examining the theatre’s rafters. “There was one more individual who learned about the Power of Friendship on that occasion.”

“Really?” asked Twilight. “Who?”

“Me!” said the draconequus. “One of your friends could not be shaken from her friendship, no matter how I tried, and to my shame I ended up having to hypnotize her. Hers was friendship founded on the most profound kindness I have ever experienced. It shook me to the core of my being, and I dare say that pony changed who I am. That’s why, when Celestia released me, I asked her to stay with my dearest friend Fluttershy. I knew for a fact when I met her that I could no longer be satisfied with just being a statue.” He sighed. “And, Princess Twilight Sparkle, that brings us back to you.”

“Discord, you still haven’t said how transferring your magic to me can save Equestria.” She rubbed her chin with a hoof. “Although come-to-think-of-it, the influence of chaos magic might explain some of the wilder occurrences of my life, like turning my parents into potted plants.” She grinned. “Princess Celestia was as surprised by that incident as I was. I guess I now know why.”

“This brings me to my second reason: I could already feel your magical potential at that age. So could Celestia, I imagine, but then you were but one amongst a great many talented unicorn foals. My idea was to empower a pony to encompass both Harmony and Chaos and rejoin the broken halves of the alicorn race. Of course having a shot of both harmonic and chaotic magic gave you a leg up on the competition, so of course you did eventually come to Celestia’s attention, and in a rather spectacular fashion I might add!”

Twilight’s eyebrows rose. “Do you mean to tell me that Princess Celestia only noticed me because of what you did? That without you I would have never become her personal student? Or Cadence my foal-sitter? And that I might never have received my unlimited access and borrowing card for the Royal Archives Library?”

Onstage Discord was buffing the claws of his bird-like limb. “Yep! But, Twilight dear, despite the fact that you bear the Element of Magic, your true power has been the Magic of Friendship, which can bind Harmony and Chaos together to produce the conditions needed for life to thrive. The long term survival of Equestria depends on this balance being maintained, as does the fate of Earth in this universe.”

Starswirl’s ears pricked up. “What hope is there, Discord, for a world already dead?”

He looked down at his mismatched forelimbs. “There is a chance that somepony could go into its past and change what is to come.”

Twilight was taken aback. “But everything we know about time travel says that it’s impossible for a pony to make any significant changes to the past.” Her cheeks reddened and her ears fell to half-mast. “I should know! I’ve tried to do it before and failed.”

“Using my time travel spell,” added Starswirl. “All my investigations show that the past cannot be changed.”

“Well, my dear friends, that’s true for ordinary ponies,” said Discord, “but not for ascended beings.”

Twilight’s ears rocketed to full attention. “What do you mean?”

“As I said earlier, alicorns and draconequi are connected to all versions of themselves across the multiverse. In my case, with a little effort I can access the memories of all these Discords from other universes.”

Starswirl felt his pulse increase. “So then, can you keep track of the histories of these multiple universes you can see?”

Discord looked at him with concern in his eyes. “Yes, and I know which question you want to ask me next, Maestro. And the answer is – I don’t know.”

“But –”

“I’m sorry, Maestro. I pulled you from a past that is common to many universes. We and countless variations of us three, and sometimes even other beings, are having this conversation in other universes. I cannot tell you that this is the future of your world, it is only one such potential outcome. Similarly I cannot tell you that it is not.”

Starswirl let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. Discord turned his gaze to Twilight.

“But the same is not true for you, Princess. This is indeed the same multiverse that harbours your Equestria. Even though this time and place is in your own future, the decisions that led to it have already been made in your reality, and the course that leads to the death of Earth and all its wonders is irrevocably set.”

Twilight’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment, and then her eyes widened. “Oh, it’s as if Starswirl and I were sitting in a tree. I’m further up than he is, and we can’t tell if the limb I’m sitting on is a branch of the limb he’s sitting on. But when it comes to Earth my limb doesn’t branch out any further, it just continues on as one limb until it tapers out.” Her expression darkened as she realized the implications of her words.

“Bravo, Princess,” – Discord applauded with his mismatched limbs – “you got in in one!” He reached behind his back with his claw and pulled out a piece of paper that had Twilight’s name and ‘100%’ written in red pencil at the top. “You get a gold star for that!” With his paw he pulled a star from the air above his head, licked its back and pasted it on the paper next to her name. He handed Twilight the paper which she accepted with a sigh.

Twilight stared down at the sheet and touched the star with her hoof. “If this was an attempt to cheer me up –” she glanced at the draconequus and smiled feebly “– then it totally worked.”

There was a twinkle in Discord’s eye when he peered back at them over his lectern.

“But since you are an ascended being, Twilight, you get to cheat. You can shinny down the tree and change something on the trunk lower down. You can change the fate of universes, but if you cause a paradox or a time loop in the process, you might condemn countless beings to an untimely death, or rob them of their future.” All of a sudden Discord expression seemed a bit sad.

Twilight’s smile died. “But wait, how can I avoid creating a paradox if I’m changing the very things that led me to take such an action?”

The humour drained from Discord’s face. “In essence, this timeline will be erased, except for you that is. You will never be able to return home, because the home you know will never have happened.”

Twilight’s eyes widened and the corners of her mouth drooped down. “Wait a minute! You mean that my universe, the universe I grew up in and that contains everypony I know and love, all my friends and my family, will never have existed?”

“Yes, child,” said Discord. “The price to save two worlds is for you to become an orphan in time, a branch without a tree.”

Starswirl felt his anger rise again. “And why do you not do this yourself? Won’t this version of you be erased along with this universe?”

“Alas, if only I could! To my everlasting shame, in preventing the physical convergence of Earth and Equestria I nearly drained myself of magical energy. My incarceration in Celestia’s garden has prevented me from fully regenerating for over a thousand years prior, and even now, the placid state of Equestria means that its ponies no longer produce sufficient chaos energy to revitalise me. This version of myself will expire when my reserves are totally depleted.

“So with nothing to lose except perhaps the larger portion of my few remaining millennia of life, I have attempted the Hail Mary pass, and invested my hope and my life energy in Twilight Sparkle.” He left the lectern and sat down on the edge of the stage.

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve figured out the minimum that needs to be done in order to restore this universe, so in fact much of the life of that other you who will remain here in this altered universe will be the same as yours was, as it will for everypony, up until the events of my ill-fated intervention, and afterwards things will go back onto their original trajectory.”

Starswirl trembled as he stood. “How could you do this, Discord? She is a filly barely in her majority! How could you place such a burden on a child! Why not me? My own life nears its end for the second time.” He fell back into his chair. “Why not me?”

He felt a hoof on his withers. “Please, Maestro. Discord said it. This requires an ascended being.” She smiled and feebly flapped her wings. “Looks like I’m the only game in town.”

“Then why bring me here, Discord? What role have I to play in your twisted game?”

The draconequus smiled. “You sir, have that!” He pointed with a claw, and the portal frame emerged from under Starswirl’s cloak.

“To undo the damage I caused you must replace the bridge between Earth and Equestria that I closed – and Starswirl's portal frame fills the bill to a T! However, somepony has to go place one half of the portal frame on Earth at the right time, and the right place. Only an ascended being can do so, but at a price.”

“I know, Discord.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “I get it. This universe disappears and only I remember it.”

Discord’s smile turned sheepish. “And... there’s one more thing.”

The mare’s face clouded. “There’s more? You’re asking me to give up everything, my friends, my life in Ponyville, and to erase the last ten years of life of everypony in the world. What more could you possibly want?”

Discord winced under her glare. “Uh, there’s a good chance you won’t be a pony-shaped alicorn anymore.” The screen flickered to life above his head, showing again the pictures of the two alicornian septs. “You’re shaped like a pony now because of your alignment with Harmony. A pony-shaped alicorn who acts against Harmony and assists Chaos usually turns into a draconequus.”

“WHAT!?” Twilight stood up. Starswirl could see the revulsion and fear in her eyes. “But, I won’t be me anymore!” She crumpled into her seat.

“How can I do this?” Twilight whispered. She hid her tear-stained face in her forehooves. A moment later she lowered her limbs and stared at them in dismay.

She rose again from her seat, shaking like a leaf in the wind. “No! I can’t do it! I won’t do it!” she shouted at Discord. She seemed about to say something else when she froze for a moment and turned to Starswirl, eyes swimming. “I’m sorry, Maestro. I can’t save them,” she said and let out an anguished sob. With a flash she teleported away.

Starswirl looked at Discord, who still sat onstage, his mouth agape.

“Foal!” shouted Starswirl at the draconequus before teleporting in turn.

Comments

[frostfiresnow]

fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/059/2/3/twilight_the_lost__queen_of_chaos_by_gatesmccloud-d5wirwf.png

Twilight the draconequus huh?

More like Twilight the Lost, Queen of Chaos

[Saberus9]

C'mon Twilight Ya gotta save the Earth!

4286715
This.....

I HAVE NOW SEEN THE FUTURE AND IT IS AWESOME!!!

[Chatoyance]

I have to say that you have done some amazing Noprize worldbuilding here. I am impressed with your supporting show references, references to other works (including mine) and the overall way that you have fit the puzzle pieces in so as to create a powerful, plausible scenario. Kudos!

This is quite a situation, and a very imaginative construction overall. Wow. Wow, I say.

[frostfiresnow]

4287118
Then she'll corrupt her friends and become the Lords of Chaos!
fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/108/5/b/the_chaos_lords_by_gatesmccloud-d627wjg.jpg

[metallusionsismagic]

Oh come now Twilight, it's not so bad... Double the horns, double the fun!
24.media.tumblr.com/d46662f10f4968de09606cac8b14dd69/tumblr_mn5iy9xmG71sovcpwo1_1280.png (It's a big pic so click it twiiiiiice)
Fixed!
Worldbuilding? Perhaps. However, they sat around and talked all chapter. Nothing happened in the setting around them.

[Dafaddah]

4288437

Thanks for the edit - fixed!

[Dafaddah]

4286715, 4288437

I'm sure those images are exactly what Twilight was picturing in her mind at the end of the chapter!

4287825

Awe, shucks.

[Dafaddah]

4287118

You gotta wonder what Starswirl thinks of all this. He certainly wasn't happy with Discord at the end, there.

[StormyVenture]

Not a very satisfying ending I'm afraid. Not that I've ever been a huge fan of multiverses. Asking someone to destroy, technically, their world and cease to have a place where they belong anywhere in the multiverse is just too much of a burden to ask of anyone. It's cruel to make Twilight do it since the other princesses are either somehow too harmonious to go chaotic or if they left it would wreck the world worse than the one new alicorn who has barely had any impact yet so to speak. Besides, depending on your view, they could just use the EoH to create some more alicorns and then all go chaotic and tip the balance up pretty easy.

It's interesting, but it feels a little contrived to produce feels about Twilight's misfortune and Starswirl plays a largely ancillary part.