Lost Fate

by Fluxxdog

Chapter 20: In the Name of the Moon

Chapter 20: In the Name of the Moon

“START EXPLAINING DISCORD!” Twilight was furious. He assured her that Rarity and Slipwind would be okay. That did nothing. Cantrip’s spell protected them like it was designed to. Didn’t matter. Rarity’s and Slipwind’s condition were an unexpected side effect of the Gap. So what? Cantrip just needed some rest, which he was getting in Ink Nose’s room while they chatted, and he’d be fine. Irrelevant.

She wanted to know why Discord looked like he wanted to kill Celestia.

“It’s not Celestia! She has her own punishment to pay if I think all of this is correct, but the real source of all this that scroll! The reason Cantrip couldn’t remember it correctly is because it was literally changing. And for the record, it’s your fault all this started to begin with!”

Twilight was suddenly taken back by this. “My fault? How in Equestria is this my fault?”

“You tampered with time! You went back one week and caused a chain of events to occur. It may have been unwitting, and I don’t blame you, but you do share a small load of responsibility. Like knocking over a lantern that burns a house to the ground.”

“Now hold on,” Applejack interrupted. “We need to know what’s going on to begin with.” They had already been told the events that were witnessed. That still left questions. “If what y’all are saying is true, Celestia set a bunch of events to fall like dominoes. Big question is, why?”

Discord scoffed, “It’s rather obvious. The event that had the common result was you six facing Nightmare Moon and freeing Luna. That meant everything had to be manipulated for that! Wouldn’t you do anything for your precious Apple Bloom?”

Applejack seemed offended. “Well of course I would! There’s nothing I wouldn’t do!”

“Even kill?” The throne room went silent. “I’ll let you all in on a secret, especially since that secret has been found already. The piece of paper that tried to rip apart Cantrip was a page from the Book of Destiny.”

The awkward silence was finally broken by Ivy. “And that means what exactly?”

“The Book of Destiny holds one existence. It is also my… don’t laugh. Rulebook.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “I don’t think this is the time for jokes. Everypony knows you don’t have rules!”

“Not rules as far as you can comprehend them. I have two simple rules that allow my existence. First, never take a life. I could skirt that rule by knocking a boulder loose and just happen to have it roll over a pony, but I’d rather not do that anyway. The other is never change what is already written. Rather simple really, I just never looked inside the book, so I can’t change anything.”

“If you’ve never looked inside,” reasoned Ivy, “then how do you know it was a page from the book?”

“The same way you know a pony is a pony even though you’ve never met them before. It’s a part of who I am! And Celestia got her hooves on a piece of it. It’s been re-written. All to free her sister from the clutches of Nightmare Moon.”

Again, Ivy asked, “Why is that so bad?”

“If a page is rewritten, the effects ripple through time. Ponies that were supposed to exist, be born, are suddenly wiped clean. The book has to rewrite itself in order to keep things clean. However Celestia got it, she altered it so that Luna could be freed. That caused a rewrite that showed what she would have to do. If my guess is correct, she had to do the Summer Sun Celebration in Canterlot that year, be there when your magic started surging to offer you to be her student, then send you to Ponyville on that last day to ‘make friends’. She RIPPED your life away so she could get her sister!”

Everyone just looked at Twilight. She smiled and said softly, “And if she hadn’t I’d have never met my friends.”

“YOU’RE A FOOL, TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” Discord roared. “What happened after you saw her raise the sun that day? You dived into the books and never came up for air! What about the friends you would have made? Never met them because she made you her student! What about the life you would have had? Never happened because she sent you to Ponyville! There are children on that page that will never be born because she changed it! That page said you were supposed to die a happy great-great-grandmother, and those lives NO LONGER EXIST BECAUSE SHE CHANGED IT!” Discord just collapsed and started crying. Fluttershy dashed over to him, holding him as tight as she could.

Twilight had a look of confusion and misery on her face. She finally understood. Discord knows of these lives and he wept for them, not simply because Celestia made changes. All those lives were as real as if they were in front of him.

“She doesn’t know.” Almost everyone looked at Lookout. “She couldn’t have known. If she did, she wouldn’t have done it. She never knew. That’s why she made those changes. She thought she was helping her sister and it just happened that the way to do it was to make Twilight her student.”

Pinkie zipped over and looked her in the eyes. “And just how do you know? Did you peek inside her head?”

“It’s what I would have done.” Lookout just hung her head. “I would have rewritten everything just so I had a family. One that loved me.”

“Slipwind.” Everyone turned to the sudden voice. Cantrip had drug himself out of bed, still obviously woozy from everything. “I realized something a moment ago. The future. Neither Celestia nor Queen Twilight recognized Slipwind. Why is that?”

Sledge thought for a moment. “They never met us.”

“Exactly. We never stole the scroll. We never ended up in Ponyville. We never met anybody here.”

Ink Nose asked the obvious question. Well, obvious to her. “So what? That was an alternate timeline, right?”

“Of all possible realities, the book was rewritten so that we would steal the scroll. Why? Now, somebody mind telling me why Discord was so loud I could hear him in the library?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, let me just take him to my home. He really could use some rest. I think we all could. Discord, can you make yourself small so I can carry you?” He just nodded weakly and turned into the size of a lizard. She settled him on her back and started leaving. “Let’s all get some rest and meet back here tomorrow.

---

Sleep that night was difficult for everyone. Their dreams made them question so much about their life. Twilight, in particular, dreamt of children. She had toyed with the idea before, thinking if she had a son, she would name him Silver Light, after her great-great-grandfather who discovered a new formula for plant growth.

The moon kept its vigil over all of them.

Comments

[Sunlight Blaze]

Alright...So, to summarize this chapter: When Luna became Nightmare Moon, Celestia somehow managed to get her hooves on a page of the Book of Destiny and changed it so that the events of Twilight getting her Cutie Mark were set so that the rest were planned out for Celestia to be able to free Luna.
understandable, but the way Discord puts it... that's deep....

So after Discord breaks down into tears (never thought I'd see the day...), everypony breaks away to get some sleep and to take in all they found out.

So, let me get this straight: this pony who set them up to steal the page is using said page to tamper with time?
........................................That's actually one of several kinds of plotlines that I try to avoid, because Time Travel is so
fking confusing.................But I have a creed where once I start reviewing a story I take it to the finish.....So let's keep going.