The Quandary of DisQord

by Kane Magus

Chapter 4

Almost as soon as we had disappeared, the king and I reappeared exactly where we had been before. The only difference now was that the king had lost all of his color. His fur, his mane, his tail, and his horn all were an indistinct shade of gray. The sparkling of the stars in his skin had become blackened and dull. He collapsed to the ground again and merely stared out at nothing.

Luna turned from me and rushed again to her father's side. "Come on, daddy," she pleaded. "Get up! What's happened to you?"

"There is… no point, Luna…" said the once proud and mighty Uran-Ra. "There is no point to anything, anymore. I am undone. Broken utterly."

"What are you saying, daddy?" said Luna as she struggled to get her father to stand. Reluctantly and very unsteadily, the Alicorn stallion rose to his feet, but that was about all he did. Luna pulled him toward the still open door through which she and Celestia had come before. As they slowly walked toward the palace, she turned to Celestia and said, "D-don't just stand there, Tia! Help me!" Celestia was merely standing there in shock, staring at me as through she had never truly seen me before that moment. "Tia, please!" Luna begged. Then she stopped and turned to me just as they reached the door. Her father staggered to the side listlessly and Luna had to shift her weight to keep both of them from falling. Still looking at me, she said, "You will p-pay for this, you horrible creature. When mother returns from her trip abroad, you are doomed!" She tried to retain her normal arrogance as she said this, but I could feel the terror and despair washing off of her in waves. She looked at Celestia one more time and called to her again, but realizing that her sister was still in shock, she turned away from me and helped her father into the palace.

I turned to Celestia. She was feeling the same terror and despair as her sister. For the first time, the slightest inkling of regret for what I had been doing began to take root in me. I floated slowly toward her. This broke her out of her trance, and she took several backward steps away from me. "My dear Celestia, please. I only did what I had to do to protect myself." Another lie, of course, and I think she knew it.

"What did you do to my father?" she said, in a small voice.

"I merely opened his eyes to the truth of his situation," I said. "He was arrogant to a fault and thought he was the most powerful creature in the universe. I simply corrected that mistaken impression."

"Please, Discord, change him back to the way he was before," she said, tears falling freely from her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Celestia," I said. "It is up to your father now as to whether or not he will recover from this. If he can overcome this ordeal, he will return. He won't ever be the same as he was before, but if he manages to recover himself, he will have learned his lesson fully and will actually be better off than before."

"I-I don't believe you," said Celestia. This hurt me, to put it plainly. Then she tilted her head as if struck with a sudden realization. "It was you, wasn't it? You are the cause of all of those other ponies that have been stricken with the mysterious illness over the past century. They were just like father. They were gray, the exact same as father, and began acting exactly the opposite from how they had been acting before, again just like father. And some of them just went completely insane. Many of them never recovered. Are you truly the cause of this terrible calamity? How can it be possible?"

"I wouldn't call it a calamity," I said, confirming her suspicions. "All of the ponies who I have… touched… were haughty, arrogant ponies. Some of them were flat out evil ponies. The ones who have recovered have been improved by this experience. Surely you can see this?"

"They're no longer themselves!" said Celestia. "You have changed their fundamental nature!"

"But can you deny that they are not better off than they were before? To society, at least, if not themselves?" I asked. I was somewhat surprised that Celestia could not see it my way. As I said, until now, she had proven herself to be an exceptionally perceptive and intelligent creature. Of course, in my own arrogance and blindness at the time, I simply didn't realize that she still had these traits in abundance and had indeed properly assessed the situation.

"Better off? They're not even the same ponies anymore!" cried Celestia. "Please, Discord, stop this madness! Change them back to the way they were before! C-change my father back to the way he was…" Her voice caught as she said this last. "P-please."

"I am afraid I can't do that, my dear Celestia," I lied, reaching a hand out toward her face, meaning to wipe away her tears.

"Don't touch me!" Celestia screamed, backing away some more. I let my hand drop to my side, the pain on my face clear. "You can't change them back?" she continued. "Or you won't change them back? Which is it?"

"I refuse to undo the improvements I have made upon pony culture," I said simply.

"You call these improvements?" said Celestia. "Have you seen how the ponies that you have 'improved' have been acting? I say again, they are simply not the same ponies anymore!"

"Better these new ponies than the old ones," I said. How could she not see?

"And the ponies you have driven mad? Many of them committed suicide!" said Celestia. "What have you to say about them?"

I sighed. "Their weakness was their own undoing. Ponykind is better off without them."

"W-what about their loved ones?" she asked. "What about the ones you are indirectly hurting when you inflict this madness on their friends and family?" There was an implicit "What about me?" in what she was saying, but it remained unvoiced.

"I…" I began, then lowered my eyes. "It is unfortunate that they have to suffer for the sins of the others, but in the long run it is for the good of all of ponykind."

"I cannot believe I'm hearing this," said Celestia, more to herself than to me. "Luna was right all along!"

That stung even more than her previous words. "Celestia, wait," I said, approaching her again.

"Stay away from me!" she shrieked, both in rage and fear. She backed up again, until her hindquarters pressed against the stone wall. I stopped moving once again. "I can't believe I trusted you, Discord! H-have you been lying to me this entire time? About everything?" Her eyes widened a bit as though this thought had only just occurred to her.

"My goodness, Celestia, how can you believe such a thing!" I said, even though in very many ways, I had been doing exactly that. "You mean everything to me. I… I would never hurt you."

"But you have hurt me," she said. "What you have done to my father and the ponies of this land has hurt me more than you can possibly know! I have been hurting for the whole time we have been together, though I only just now realize that you were the cause of it. And now that I do know it was you, it racks me all the more. How can I ever believe anything you say ever again? I… I can't believe I even fell in l-" She stopped herself at that point, averting her eyes from me in shame. As I watched, she simply turned and galloped into the palace. The door slammed shut behind her.

---

"No really. What made you think you had the right, Q?" said my companion. "You know as well as I do that it is not the place of the Q to go around 'testing' lesser species like that."

I turned in full and faced Q straight on. "You have the gall to say such a thing to me, especially after having personally given me this new 'assignment'?"

"That's different, and you know it," said Q, with the tone of a frustrated teacher trying to correct a wayward student.

"How is it different?" I said. "Please enlighten me."

"For one thing," Q said, "in this new endeavor, you have the full backing of the Continuum. Or, at least, you did, until you went overboard again. You were lucky to be reinstated this time, despite my word on your behalf, and especially after all the horrible things you had already done in Equestria and elsewhere beforehand."

I snorted in disgust. "Oh, so because the Continuum approves of it, it makes it all right, but if I do the exact same thing of my own accord, that's a big no-no?"

Q sighed. "You still think you can equate the two things? Q, the things you did to the ponies and the things you are doing now are orders of magnitude in difference."

"I was testing one species before, and I am testing one species now. How are these any different at all?" I asked.

"Well, for one thing, in this case you are not driving the test subjects to madness and suicide," said Q. At the mention of suicide, all of the belligerence drained out of me. It dredged up the bad memories once again. Q recognized this and said, "Are you ready to continue your story?"

"All right, if you insist. But I warn you, the worst is yet to come, as you well know."

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[Snowdrifter]

AdSense struck whilst I perused pony prose. Hoofjack hoof stands are clearly relevant to my interests.