Turning Back the Winter

by Dinkledash

Dreamweaver, or Celestia Goes to the Dentist

"Oh, hello! Who are you?" The disembodied voice rolled across a gray, empty landscape.

"I am Celestia. Who are you?" She looked around at oblivion.

"You know something? I'm not certain! I must be a product of your imagination! Or perhaps the imagination of that dark thing that is riding you."

"What dark thing?" Pain spasmed through her and she felt cold all over.

"That dark thing. Still, I don't think that thing has much of an imagination. It's mainly just hungry." The voice had a sarcastic, sing-song sort of quality about it. "If I were you, I'd try to get rid of it. Your friends are trying to help you, you know, but it has penetrated your heart and that seems to be a problem. Inconvenient things, hearts. I'm sure glad I don't have one!"

"I can't see you." She felt around but it was like trying to touch fog. Chilling but without substance.

"How could you see me if I don't even know what I am? Tell me, what am I?" The voice chuckled.

"How am I supposed to know?!"

"You're the one with the imagination, you tell me!" The voice was demanding and childish, infuriating Celestia.

"Fine! You are everything and nothing. You are all things that have never been and could never be. You are the living embodiment of chaos. You are a royal pain in my flank! And you have the power and the inclination to get me out of this mess!" She flailed around in the nothingness. "Alright?"

Delighted laughter rolled across the nothingscape. "HOW WONDERFUL! THANK YOU SO MUCH! Now, I just need a name! Can I have one? Pleeeeeaaase?"

She rolled her eyes. "Your name is Discord!"

"PERFECT! I was afraid you were going to make me some sort of pink, fluffy teddy bear named Mr. Boo Boo who grants three wishes and lives under a rainbow or something sickening like that, but this is going to be so much more fun!" The gray mist started to resolve, bulbous yellow eyes forming first, followed by a grinning, snaggle-toothed mouth, a draconic face and neck with mismatched deer and antelope antlers, bat and griffon wings, a snake-like body with the scales and fur of several creatures, equally bizarre upper and lower limbs, terminating in a fluffy lion's tail. Discord felt around himself with his paw and claw, smiled, glancing at his tail, and suddenly he was holding a looking glass, admiring his reflection.

"Celestia, I have to say, you have absolutely exquisite taste in madness! Hellooo, handsome!" He preened in front of the mirror.

"Thank you, now about this thing in my heart.,,,"

"Oh, the Nightmare? Psh! I am now the master of unreality and it is in my dreamscape! Hmm... what sort of visual would work well here? Ah ha!" He snapped his talons, there was a flash and suddenly she was leaning back in a dentist's chair, light glaring in her face, and Discord leaned foreward, a reflector shining on his forehead.

"What do you think you're doing? Oh!" The Nightmare writhed in her chest.

"Now, Celestia, my reality, my rules. You may well be my creator... my mother? Oh, how splendid! But even though I have the power and inclination to help you, you have to play the game first. And today, the name of the game is Celestia Goes to the Dentist!" There was another flash of light...

CELESTIA GOES TO THE DENTIST
by Discord

Celestia sat up in bed, her jaw throbbing. Wait, what am I doing here? She went downstairs and there was a bowl of cold cereal and a note from her mother saying she had to work, one from her father saying he had to work and one from Luna saying she had run off to join the circus. This is a strangely irritating dream. Or perhaps it is a strange and irritating dream. Her tooth throbbed. Do you feel pain in a dream?

She ate her cereal and chewing around the throbbing tooth made it an unenjoyable chore. Mom should have made me some hard boiled eggs. She knows I have a bad tooth. There was another note on the table. "Don't forget your dentist's appointment!" The day is now perfect.

She headed off to the bus to ride to the dentist and there were no seats. Every time they hit a pothole it jarred her tooth, sending fingers of pain into her brain. The pony next to her smelled like he hadn't bathed in a week. She thanked the stars when she got off the bus. As it pulled away, it hit a puddle and she was soaked with muddy water.

"Argh!"

There was a little coffee shop next to the bus stop so she went into it, dripping. "May I use your bathroom?"

"Paying customers only, kid." The thicketset blue unicorn mare looked at her with a flat expression.

Celestia sighed and reached into her saddlebag. "A glass of milk, please."

"Ain't got no milk."

"Um, coffee?"

"Four bits."

"Four bits for coffee?" Celestia was shocked. It was usually one bit.

"Four bits." Celestia rolled her eyes and put it on the counter, her tooth screaming at her she clenched her jaw in frustration. The bits were scooped up and a cup of black coffee was presented.

"Now, where is your bathroom please?"

The waitress smiled. "Sorry, the bathroom is out of service." Then she turned and walked away.

Celestia stood there and counted down from ten to keep herself from blasting the coffee to atoms. Then she grabbed all the napkins in the dispenser, stuck her tongue out at the waitress' back and stomped out, slamming the door. She marched to a garbage can and mopped up all the water she could from her face and mane, depositing the soaked napkins into the can. She then went back and combed her mane in the coffee shop window, sticking her tongue out once more at the waitress as she poured the coffee back into the serving carafe and dropped the four bits into her apron.

Celestia walked the two blocks to the dentist's office, her tooth pounding with every step, her nerves frayed, her temper at a boiling point. She opened the door and a bell rang, somehow at a frequency that matched the throbbing pain in her jaw and amplified it. She moaned.

The receptionist looked up. "Have a toothache?"

"No, I'm here to get a hooficure!" she snapped.

"Oh, then you want Hoof'n'Buff, that's two doors down." The receptionist went back to filing her own hoof.

That tears it. "Now listen you, I've been in agony all day, I've been subjected to any number of indignities, I've been ripped off and laughed at and now you are getting on my last nerve! Of COURSE I have a toothache!"

"Oh." The receptionist shrank back in her chair, a tear forming on one eye. "The waiting room is through there." She indicated the door with a shaky hoof.

"THANK YOU!" Celestia tromped through the door. Then her perspective changed. The world spun and suddenly she was sitting at a desk.

Prima Dona looked down at her cutie mark. Ballet slippers. What a joke! Your cutie mark doesn't help you once you've had a spiral concoidal fracture of the distill tibia. Three jobs in three months. My savings are all gone. My no-account husband has left me. Can things get any worse? At least I can do my hooves here.

The bell rang and somepony moaned. "Have a toothache?" She tried to smooth the last little bit of cuticle.

"No, I'm here to get a hooficure!"

"Oh, then you want Hoof'n'Buff, that's two doors down." Third time today. The dentist really needs a new sign.

She looked up with a start when the yelling begin. "Now listen you, I've been in agony all day, I've been subjected to any number of indignities, I've been ripped off and laughed at and now you are getting on my last nerve! Of COURSE I have a toothache!" The enormous white unicorn with a muddy, wet mane had a crazed look on her face and truly looked like she had been through an awful day.

"Oh." Oh no. "The waiting room is through there." The immense mare stomped through the door, the room shaking. The door slammed behind her. Then the office manager buzzed. "Yes sir?" she said in a small voice, choking back tears.

Fired again.

The walk back to her apartment with the rent due notice on the floor and the pile of bills. The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The pain throbbing in her leg. The black cloud over her head, depression bearing down on her. Enough. Tonight.

She walked to the closet, and climbed up on a chair to reach the shelf at the top. She got down the rope. No point in putting it off. I have half a bottle of wine left. May as well watch the sunset.

No. Wait. I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!

It's been a good life, until recently. I really wowed them two years ago at the Poloshoi. The wine wasn't very good, but it did get the job done. The sun set, red rays painting the undersides of the clouds. Pretty. A good last memory. It took a while to figure out how to tie a noose. Easy enough to throw the rope over the rafter, crossing back and forth. That will hold my weight.

Stop... please! You can live with me and my parents! My dad can get you a job at the factory!

The rope was rough against her throat as she climbed on the chair. She watched as the glow of the sun faded into the purple horizon.

Nonononononono!

The chair went out from under Prima Dona's hooves. There was the sensation of falling...

Into a dentist's chair. Celestia was looking up at Discord through a tick veil of tears.

"By the moon! What have I done!?" she sobbed. "Please tell me that didn't happen!"

"No, Celestia. It was a game, remember? A lesson. It wasn't real, but that sort of thing happens every day, all over the world, to real ponies." Somehow, his immense yellow orbs were very sympathetic.

"It has to stop! How can I stop it!?" Tears flowed down the face, soaking her mane behind her head. "Oh, stars and moon!"

"By being kind to ponies, to all people of all species and races, every day, every chance you get, no matter how you feel. No matter what you think of them. This nightmare that is in your heart has a hold on your anger. You have to let it go."

"You're saying I can't get angry anymore? How is that possible?" Celestia's tears were drying.

"Oh, I'm not saying that, Celestia. I'm just saying you have to let go of the anger you always carry around. Your anger with your mother, your jealousy of your sister, and most especially your anger with yourself for being angry with your mother and jealous of your sister."

"I'm not angry with my mom! I'm over that! And I'm not jealous of Luna!"

"Then what is the nightmare holding on to? The anger that you carry around with you makes it easier for you to lose your temper with other ponies. Like I said, hearts are inconvenient. Have you ever visited your mother at work? Have you ever surprised her for lunch? Are you seriously saying you aren't jealous that Luna is your father's favorite? That she's beautiful, exotic and more or less normal sized, while you tower over everypony else and have a plain white coat?"

"That's none of your business!" The cold blackness in her heart froze her to her core as the words passed her lips. She was more frightened than she had ever been before. Tears broke over her eyelids once more as the realization struck home. "Yes, I am angry with my mother! I don't want to have anything to do with her! She almost killed my dad! And Luna took him away from me!! And how can I think these things about my own family? I'm such an awful pony..."

"Hold that thought. Now open up and say ahhh..." Discord leaned forward with ludicrously long forceps. He plunged them down her throat, the cold steel warm in comparison to the ice that consumed her heart. He grabbed something with them, and pulled. There was pain...

The End

Celestia woke up in the infirmary. Her parents were asleep in chairs next to her. Luna was curled up on a blanket on the floor. Starswirl was pacing, looking at a sheaf of papers. She felt very weak, exhausted. But not cold. Not at all. Everything that warmed her heart was here. She smiled and drifted back into sleep.

Comments

[NobleValor]

Great chapter though 'hear (near the end)' should be 'heart.'
So, if that was Discord, (and I'm not saying it wasn't. Who else would come up with such a ridiculous turn of events?) what changed him? He seemed... helpful (for lack of a better word). I realize, as the spirit of chaos, he is thoroughly unreliable (seriously, he and Jack Sparrow should get together and bowl or something), but he didn't seem evil nor jerkish really. What made him jump from the slippery slope (undoubtedly doing the backstroke all the way down)? Can't wait to read to find out!