Chapter 4: The Original Occupant
Discord materialized within the landscape of his own mind.
Discord's mind was very large, and very ill-organized, like a vast house, built over centuries and inhabited for millennia by generations of occupants, each of whom furnished it according to his own tastes and engaged in random architectural modifications. Assume that more than half of these tenants were utterly insane, and that the decor was not limited by normal physics, and one will have as fair a picture of Discord's incarnate brain as one can have without going utterly insane oneself.
His Cosmic Self, of course, would drive one mad if I were to adequately describe it. So I shan't even make the attempt.
This particular portion of his mind might be likened to a large suite of rooms which had been inhabited by the same tenant for a very long time: over six thousand years -- longer than Discord had been alive in this incarnation. This was possible because she'd been in this brain longer than had Discord himself.
She was a highly-intellectual, very orderly tenant. Books and maps lined the walls, each in its proper place and giving the impression of a vast implicit reason for each one of those items to be there. They were interspersed with many pictures of all Five Kinds, including the two who were now thought of as the Lost Kinds, and many other creatures. In several prominent places were portraits of the same individual -- a bipedal creature with a bare, peach-colored skin, blonde mane and blue eyes.
In the portraits she looked friendly, but very highly determined, as if anything that stood in her way should probably move or get trampled. Discord knew from the histories he had read growing up on Paradise Estate that numerous hostile creatures who hadn't moved, had been trampled so thoroughly that their names had vanished from all histories save those kept in Paradise Estate itself. Some of them had previously been worshiped as gods: the Megan was still so worshiped in many locations, though her true nature had long since been forgotten.
Such was The Megan, the other being who had been most emotionally important to the oriinal occupant of Discord's body. The Megan had not been the original occupant of Discord's body -- if she had been, Discord was fairly sure that he would have wound up the one living in the back of her mind, rather than the other way round. Or simply being knocked back out of incarnation to the Cosmic level. According to the legends, she had a habit of doing things like that.
The Megan had been an early-adolescent when Paradise Estate had known her. Discord knew that, based on the time ratio between their universes, she was probably in her prime right now. There had been a time he had hoped to invade her universe, but -- looking at the portraits of her, it was probably better for him that he hadn't been able to do so. He might have gotten trampled. He didn't know how, but neither had any of the other powerful beings whom she'd defeated. Until she did so.
The bookshelves were in places inconveniently high for anything bound by gravity, and the accesses between rooms sometimes difficult, possibly only by climbing up or down steep, narrow ladders. Discord wasn't inconvenienced: he just fluttered his mismatched wings and the conceptual equivalent of his flight field let him pass from room to room. This was, of course, essentially what the occupant of these rooms did, as she was a Pegasus.
As Discord made his way toward the room within which was the occupant, he could not entirely suppress a shudder of horror at the sheer rationality and order of this apartment. It bespoke a mind very much unlike his own, a mind which thought in a very rigid and uncompromising, non-contradictory sort of manner. The truly frightening thing was how effective was that mind. Discord knew that the only reason he'd beaten her was because of his superior psychic power. On a level playing field, she would have outwitted him ten times over.
Discord wanted so very badly to change the decor. Make the rooms link in infinite loops, randomize the books, turn all the portraits into pictures of melting watches and gorillas in tutus. But here, in what should have been the main cognitive center of his own brain, here was the one place where he had no such power. She controlled these rooms, and while she couldn't actually hurt or confine him within them, anything he did to them she could reverse with a trivial effort of will. Ahd he couldn't really hurt her either, nor could he confine her save within this suite itself.
It was all so very unfair. A Draconequus ought to be able to be the master of his own mind.
Even if it had, originally, been hers.
The last room he entered was almost entirely filled from end to end -- and its measurements were both vast and rather vague -- with a complex, glowing multi-dimensional model. Focusing his full senses on the model, he perceived it to be an incredibly complex structure of lines that bundled, split, extruded sparks from one bundle or line to another, and occasionally merged. Within each line at any point there were worlds, galaxies, empires and individuals.
Many of the individuals he recognized. He could see himselves, Celestias, Lunas and many, many other beings, too many for even him to grasp at the same time. Some of the selves were identical from one line to the next. Some, however, were very different.
It was a map of the Multiverse. For a moment even Discord paused and gaped in awe at its beauty and complexity.
The other occupant of the room, of course, was the pegasus. As he entered, she was in the process of making a minute adjustment to one small part of the model.
"Ah, that's much better," she muttered. She landed on the conceptual "floor." Then she slowly, unhurriedly turned to face him.
Her coat was powder-blue. Her neatly but simply styled mane was purplish-pink. There was something about her which said that she would tolerate absolutely no nonsense. On her long and rather beautiful tail was her one concession to ordinary femininity -- a white bow that enticingly half-concealed her hindquarters as she shifted position. Her Cutie Mark was visible as she turned into profile -- three pink and three blue whistles.
Reddish-pink eyes came up to look into his own. They could be friendly eyes, he knew that from some of his earliest memories. They could be kind eyes -- he remembered that they had usually looked upon the young incarnate Celestia and Luna with extreme kindness. They had rarely looked at him with much kindness -- she hadn't had the knowledge then she had now, living inside his own mind, but some rational faculty within her had processed what he was the moment she saw him as a foal, the moment he had been impossibly born from Shady, and categorized him not as the new "Baby Shady" but as a threat. Interloper. Predator.
She had been right, of course. Too bad for her that she didn't understand the reason why until he fully woke up, until Luna woke up too because she'd been walking in his dreams, until he donned the mantle of his full incarnate power. Too bad for the Pony who stood before him that -- for all her famous ruthlessness, her devotion to pure reason -- killing a helpless foal, and one born of her own herd, was something strictly forbidden her by her ironclad code of honor, her unyielding morality.
He knew that if she had understood what he was, she might have tried to kill him anyway. And she would have done a proper job of it, too -- caught him in wards whose only way out led to the Cosmic level, where his own kin would have grabbed his soul with glad cries and dragged it off to indescribable torment.
Discord had a lot of enemies, and his own family were among his most persistent.
"Discord," the Pegasus said, her eyes contemptuous upon him, as always. "You've obviously done something seriously stupid, or are about to do something seriously stupid. Otherwise you wouldn't be here to see me. How have you botched things this time?"
There was no fear in those eyes. There was never any fear in those eyes. He remembered when he had killed her, over twenty-five hundred years ago. There had been no fear in those eyes then, only a cold and grim determination.
She was the epitome of rational courage. Fearless, but not because she didn't understand the dangers. Because she scorned the very notion of letting fear affect her ability to think clearly.
To her friends, she was intensely loyal. To her foes, utterly pitiless. She was a coldly calculating engine of creation and destruction, in equine form, with a pretty white bow on her tail.
There was -- and hopefully never would be -- any other Pony quite like her. For the day that any large number of Ponies ever became like her, Discord knew, their species would rule the Universe.
"Hello, Wind Whistler," he said. "Nice to see you too."
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4483720
I personally think it's hilarious that Jordan was using that name for Discord for quite some time before the season 4 finale, in which Discord takes the form of a pony with the cutie mark of... a twister.
*original
*And
*double space
This chapter. I like it.
4484077
I'm glad you did. Say, I wonder at what points you and others got that the Original Occupant, the Voice of Reason herself, is none other than G1 Wind Whistler?
4484274
I've been keeping a sort of side-score as I write my universe where it diverges from yours, and one of the POD's is that when Fluttercruel starts to surface, Fluttershy reflexively Stares her away from a full awakening without even fully grasping what's going on. This both helps and hurts Fluttershy -- she's not driven to become Nightmare Whisper with all the horrible attendant personal consequences, but she also doesn't have the advantages of being, essentially, a two-crew life form. She also is not yet aware that she's Gaia.
Discord can sense Fluttercruel within her because he knows what to look for. Discord wants Fluttercruel to awaken, but he also wants her to have a body of her own. His intent has been to provide her one the old-fashioned way. This -- beyond his hurt feelings -- is the plan that Bulk threatens. (He doesn't want Fluttercruel to consider Bulk her true father, and plus Bulk would "corrupt" Fluttercruel with his inherent lawfulness). Plus, a half-draconequid form would probably suit Fluttercruel better anyway.
Another POD, which happens during Discord's short rampage in September 1502, is that Discord is not able to experiment on Trixie because Trixie is in one of the few (relatively) safe places on Earth that day, namely the Pie Rock Farm, which is protected by Granny Pie's wards -- modeled after the Crystal Heart, which was one of the few artifacts actually effective against Discord. This is one of the reasons Discord loses that fight -- he doesn't know what to look for or do to ensure Twilight Sparkle is broken. My explanation for why he fails to grasp that the Element Bearers have been un-Discorded when they approach him the second time is that his Voice of Reason is deliberately feeding him bad advice.
Plus, Discord can be lazy. He could, of course, use his awesome powers to break through the wards in the hills of South Dunnich, or ordinary observational skills to back up his jammed instincts, but he doesn't bother. His laziness is probably his most serious limitation. He's never really lived a fully-mortal life, and it shows -- he can get very sloppy.
Five Kinds, including the two who were now thought of as the Lost Kinds, and many other creatures.
Earth Pony
Pegasus
Unicorn
Seapony
Flutterpony
Then Breezies, Changelings, and Crystal Ponies need to be added as tribes now. And the aquatic ponies have split into the mereponies and seaponies tribes.
--
Of course we now know the breezies SURVIVED the destruction of Age of Dreams, if in their own private pocket reality away from the deadly deadly world outside now totally unsuited to them.
the Megan was still so worshiped in many locations, though her true nature had long since been forgotten.
And the first and worst of the baddies Megan ended REFUSED TO STAY DEAD.
important to the oriinal occupant
important to the original occupant
On her long and rather beautiful tail was her one concession to ordinary femininity -- a white bow
Well it was tradition at the time.
I take it in this timeline, Discord doesn't give much thought to his mother, or half-sister (they have the same mother, even if he has no father)?
4484319
That's an extremely good point. Here both her kindness and her romantic feelings are converging to make her want to protect Bulk.
Pinkie Pie actually handles this better, because Pinkie is an extremely loving Pony, and she finds it incredibly fun to tease Twilight's sometimes rigid sense of order with deliberately chaotic humor. (Which is also what Discord likes to do to Twilight as well, Pinkie's just more good-natured about it). The one thing that Pinkie Pie is determined to do is make sure that Twilight survives whatever happens to her, and she's willing to exert all her reality-warping powers to make it happen.
Not that Luna isn't capable of strong love -- she is -- but she's definitely more selfish than is Pinkie Pie, and what she really wants is Dusk back -- but Twilight isn't the same as Dusk, just similar to him (but then, Luna's not really identical to Moondreamer, either). Luna doesn't understand Pony nature as well as does Celestia, but fortunately for her Twilight connects very strongly to Luna's intellectual and artistic sides (and, being no pacifist, admires Luna's warlike side as well).
4484395
I assume that the Crystal Ponies are simply other kinds of Ponies which have become imbued with the Lawful magic of the Crystal Heart.
The Breezies really are Ponies, but tend to get overlooked in the (official) list of Kinds.
The Changelings were derived from the Flutter Ponies, but really aren't Flutter Ponies any more. There also may be unmodified Flutter Ponies kept hidden by the Celestial Dragons of Chi-Neigh, that's a persistent rumor in my verse.
So yes, technically it's more than Five Kinds, you're right. Six or Seven Kinds, and more unknown, like the Deep Ponies who are originally the result of interbreeding between the Sea Ponies and the Deep Ones, but have essentially become their own race now (I mention them briefly in An Extended Performance).
That's okay. In the successful ending, where the Ponies spread out across the Universe, many new Kinds emerge on many new colony worlds.
Yes, well, that's an occupational hazard when defeating supervillains!
FWIW, if Megan hadn't beaten Tirek the first time, the Time of Extermination would have, really, ended in the extermination or transformation of all Ponykind, and the world might have belonged to Tirek's species instead. So it was still a worthwhile victory.
Heh -- Discord, who was raised by Ponies and has (a warped version of) their sense of aesthetics, totally gets why Ponies find the little tail-bow thing hot. What weirds him out is that the most impressively Badass Pony he's ever known -- the one who invented a good percentage of the Pegasus weapons, fought and won impossible battles millennia ago, and who he finds personally intimidating (remember, he spent 20 years as "weird little Dissey" on Paradise Estate before he remembered he was a Chaos God) wears a cute little white tail-bow. And still chooses to do so, even after he consumed her twenty-five centuries ago.
You make me wonder how many PODs you have for Chrysalis.
4484491
Well, for one thing, she's explicitly trying to awaken her Nightmare.
And wishes Fluttershy would do the same.
Mostly because she doesn't totally understand what this would imply, all she sees is "power!"
4484559
I thought the Nightmare Forces existed in this reality (thus earning Nightmare Eclipse's scorn) rather than the Nightmare being disfunctional Alicorns?
4484573
Both are true. The Night Shadows want to ride powerful but emotionally-flawed beings they can dominate, and that's practically the definition of a dysfunctional Alicorn.
In other words, I took your criticism to heart months ago. :)
4484113
Well, I had suspicions around chapter two when Discord described her as smart and prickly. Wind Whistler is the most obvious G1 Pony who fits those criteria; in fact, she's the only one I can think of who does. In addition, she was described as a pegasus on the story page, which also points to Wind Whistler.
So yeah, somewhere around then. Although I wouldn't have made any bets on it or anything until right up before the reveal.
4485307
I actually changed the story description now to make it a little less obvious, as I meant the last half of Chapter 4, and especially the last line, as a bit of a "wham."
With a pretty white tail-bow, no less.
Actually, i've thought of a fic to explain why she wears those. It's kind of a sad concept. I may not have the heart to do it.
Let's just say that, some 6000 years ago, Wind Whistler was young and (relatively) innocent, and living in a death-world for Ponies.
The time differential making each generation of My Little Pony roughly sync up with its point in our timeline was a stroke of genius, be it yours or Alex Warlorn's.
I knew who Discord had consumed once you mentioned the high-set bookshelves. There's something fantastically ironic about Pony Spock getting eaten by a chaos god. That she's in charge of the heart of his mindscape is entirely suitable. I would expect nothing less.
(Yes, I'm still chipping way at the Pony POV Series.
)
While I did love this chapter, especially Discord's thoughts on Megan, not much actually happened, per se. (Though the idea of Discord trying to invade the Hasbroverse is kind of fantastic. I can't help but wonder if the Matrix of Leadership could substitute for the Rainbow of Light/Elements of Harmony.) Discord basically just walked down a hallway.
Regardless, looking forward to more.
4484004
I think I got the idea to call Discord "The Twister" from one of Ardashir's stories, if it wasn't from one of Alex Warlorn's. I don't remember which now.
4486320
Alex's originally. I added about 500 years to the chronology to put some space between the fall of Discord and the fall of Luna.
Wind Whistler can be hurt or destroyed. She can never be dominated. She only serves those to whom she has given her loyalty willingly, which is something of which Discord really should be better aware, given that she was essentially his teacher (Celestia, Luna and Discord all learned most of their lessons about the formal arts and sciences from her).
Gotta say I'm not liking the lovecraftian vibes from your stories. They feel forced for a setting like the FiMverse and are shoved in your face every other paragraph.
Though they do add an interesting twist and an intriguing depth, admittedly but there are only so many eldritch cliches one can stand at a time.
I can think of one species who could give the old girl, and pretty any large group like her, a run for her money