One: I've Known for a While
Chapter one: I’ve Known for a While
“So, you mean...all of it?”
A nod.
“Not a single spell? Nothing?”
A shake.
“But...how?”
A sigh. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be here.”
Twilight pranced about in front of Discord, himself awkwardly sitting on one of the many pony-sized chairs strewn about the library. It had been only a few precious minutes since he told Twilight of his problem. She had met the issue with some understandable skepticism - Discord was a magical being, after all, so his very existence would have trumped his worries.
The purple pony princess ducked behind a nearby doorway, soon returning with a small device that would have outdone any Nightmare Night decoration. It was metallic, angled with various tubes and gauges, and sported anywhere from two to twenty small nodes held in place by plastic clamps. She struggled with lifting the apparatus in her magic, showing just how heavy it really was. To his surprise, many of the gauges and readings were active within her aura of magic. Twilight set the device down on the floor in front of Discord, then turned her attention to the various nodes. With the magic gone, the gauges immediately sped to zero.
“I hope you don’t mind if I make sure. Uh, from where is your magic usually controlled?”
Discord didn’t look away from the intimidating device. He swore it was smiling at him. “What's that now?”
“You know, the part of your body that usually controls your magic. On a unicorn, it would be her horn. Do you have anything like that?”
“Hm...” Discord took a moment to look over his body. “You know, I’ve never needed to find out. My magic has always been a part of me, and I controlled it as naturally as breathing. It never felt like it was in any one place.”
Twilight groaned. “It was never centralized? Like, in your fingers when you snap? Your wrists? The back of your head?”
The draconequus shrugged, then went back to staring at the grinning machine. “Why do you need to know, anyway? And what will this thing do?”
“This?” She casually lifted a selection of nodes in the air, inspecting them one by one. “It’s my personal Thaumatic gauge. There’s usually one in any hospital that accepts unicorn patients, and it's meant to measure their magical output in case an overload occurs. This particular one I got on special order. Like any other gauge, it can measure magical potential, but it’s also been modified for the Elements of Harmony...that is, back when we had them.”
“So you’re saying I’m sick?” Discord asked. The device seemed to smile wider with the nodes detached.
Twilight shook her head, then moved on with her inspection. “I don’t know yet. This device should tell me how much magic is still present within you.”
“I just told you, though...”
“I know, I know. But if I’m going to help you, I need data. Readings. As many Thaums as I can gauge.”
“Are you enjoying this turn of events?” Discord asked. He instinctively sunk deeper into the too-small chair, trying to distance himself from the device.
To her credit, Twilight gasped and looked him square in the eye. “Don’t be absurd! Anyone who loses their special talent would be lost and frustrated! I know that from personal experience. Losing magic is like losing a part of yourself.”
Discord nodded and relaxed, inch by inch, back into the chair. Then promptly tensed again when Twilight added “I can’t say you don’t deserve it a little, though.”
“Wait, what-”
He was cut off by the sight of plastic and metal waving in front of his elongated muzzle. Twilight was speaking again, and he had to focus to catch her words. “-ince you’re a magical being, I guess I can just place these anywhere. You’re not ticklish, are you?”
Discord blanched. “You are enjoying this!”
Cold. The nodes were cold. The first one pressed right up against his forehead. Then another - cold! - at the top of his snout. Then more, all over. He swore there were more nodes on him than there had been on the machine when Twilight had brought it out! ‘And are some of those color-coded?’ he thought.
Discord, shaking off the shock from the contact, looked at Twilight while she moved behind her device. Several web-thin cords fed into the apparatus, each one connected to a node on his body. The machine truly looked like a predator happy to have caught its prey.
“This won’t hurt, will it?” he tentatively asked.
“Well, in theory, it-”
“Nevermind, I don’t want to know.”
“...hm, suit yourself. Now, all I need from you is to keep breathing normally. If you start to feel panicked, let me know. Heightened emotions tend to affect the readings.”
“Breathe. Okay.”
Twilight’s horn sparked to life one more, and this time she magically gripped just one part of the gauge: a small green lever. “Seriously. I’ve used this machine on many unicorns, but never on a creature quite like you. My machine is harmless...I just don't know for sure what will happen. Stay calm for me, okay?”
Discord closed his eyes, ignoring the toothy grin. “Breathe. Okay,” he repeated.
With a nod, Twilight turned to look at her Thaumatic gauge, waited a beat, then willed the lever down. The machine instantly began to whir, and the pins in a few small readouts began to spin as they initialized. She split her focus between three particular gauges, each of which was meant to measure a different aspect on magic. For a while, all three of them remained at zero.
The draconequus focused He shut out the noise of the apparatus and the image of its manic mechanical mouth. For several moments, he only paid attention to his own breathing. He prided himself in that - learning to remain calm was among the first crucial skills he had gained after losing to Celestia and Luna. Spending time as a statue for a millenium was nothing to sneeze at.
A few minutes passed before the whirring of the Thaumatic gauge finally quieted. Discord opened one eye, immediately noticing that Twilight had her back turned to him. She was still considering her readout. With another deep breath to prepare to the facts, Discord opened both eyes properly.
“Well?” he prompted.
Twilight began to tremble. It was subtle at first; Spike, watching from upstairs, didn’t yet notice it. But after a moment, the trembles intensified. Twilight was slowly shaking her head, denying whatever it was she saw.
Discord let out the breath he had taken in. ‘That can’t be good.’
“I...wait, but this...” she was muttering to herself. Lifting a hoof, Twilight tapped on the glass to her gauge, causing the pins inside to shake within their housings. There was one that she kept returning to, as well - a larger, half-circle readout that sat above the set of three, a set of stars within the trunk of a tree resting in its center.
Discord craned his neck, noticing that the pin rested at zero. A second later, Twilight slowly turned to face him. She looked mortified.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought you were joking.”
The draconequus gave a sad but knowing nod. “I thought so.” The reply was both in response to her, and to what he now knew was fact.
“Discord, you...”
“What can you tell me?” he asked, just as eager for data as she.
Twilight blinked. She couldn’t help but notice a change in his posture. Despite sitting on a cramp-inducing chair, Discord looked entirely defeated. Nothing about him was tense or prepared for an argument...he was just there.
She turned halfway, and began to explain after a moment. “I...” She cleared her throat and tried again. “There was no Thaumatic reaction whatsoever. The three main gauges...uh, the ones that measure unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony magic respectively, all stayed at zero. I was...expecting that.” She shot him a guilty look. “Sorry, it’s just that you’re not like us. I had no reason to expect those to move."
Discord gave a sigh. Of course he had to be considered different by pony standards. Then again, he couldn’t - and indeed didn’t - fault her for the assumption.
“But this one here-” she turned and tapped on the final gauge, the one with the odd symbol, “-is what’s worrying me the most.”
“What’s that one mean?”
“I had to modify this one for the machine. It measures the connection somepony has to the essence of Harmony as a magical force. Essentially, how closely aligned he or she is to the power from the Tree of Harmony itself. And, well...”
Discord huffed. He knew exactly what had happened. “Let me guess. It didn’t move either,” he said as he gently popped off the various nodes.
Twilight gave a violent shake of her head. “It doesn’t make sense! Our culture has centralized the virtues of harmony! Everyone has some measure of it within, but it didn’t work.” With a sudden jolt, she moved to the back side of the Thaumatic gauge. She was frantic, yet focused, an odd combination to see. “This isn’t broken, is it? Have I missed something? Spike, I need your help!”
The draconequus reached out his lion paw and gently laid it across Twilight’s withers. “Your contraption isn’t broken, Twilight Sparkle. I’m certain it’s working just fine.”
She shook him off. “No, that can’t be right. How could it possibly not register the power of Harmony? Even Spike has been exposed to enough magic to cause it to jump! What am I missing?”
“I’m over here.”
“Huh?” she grunted, looking his way again. “Wh-what do you mean?”
Discord gave a small laugh. ‘I thought she would have figured it out by now.’ “Well, what am I? Not a pony, as you already said. What else is there?”
Twilight, confused by the sudden question, looked him over. She took stock of his figure, all the different animal parts that made up his body. In the back of her mind, she remembered the first time she had laid eyes on him.
It had been right as she and her friends had reached the entrance to the hedge labyrinth in Canterlot. He had appeared before them in a flash of light, reared back, and gave a gleeful laugh under branches of lightning. He had been quite intimidating back then, and in some respects still was. But that was just what she had seen. What else was there? The personality, the history with Celestia, the particular kind of magic he-
Her eyes sparkled with a realization. “Oh...no...”
“Now you get it.”
“But that...that means any method I have to help you won’t work!”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Discord! This is serious! If your magic is the opposite of Harmony...!”
Once again, he set his paw on her withers, calming her down a little at a time. “Then you were never able to return it when you returned everypony else’s. I know.”
“But-”
“I’ve known for a while, actually. ‘Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony’ and all that. I just wanted to make sure, to hear it from somepony I respected.”
It was Twilight’s turn to look defeated. She had never, never considered this consequence to her actions. When she had harnessed the gift to defeat Tirek, the pure power seemed to tell her exactly what to do. It was otherworldly, yet more thrilling than anything she had ever experienced. She didn’t have to think about what to do - she just acted.
Of course, that was all for the magic of ponykind, the residents who shared Equestria and called it their home. The Tree of Harmony and the power it contained helped give strength to the land, and it was that same power that had allowed their stolen magic to be returned when Tirek had been beaten. And the one creature she knew whose power was the antithesis of Harmony’s virtues had been completely excluded, despite the fact that he was just as much a victim.
For once in her life, a problem had arisen purely because she had relied on the magic of friendship. Harmony had left someone out.
She blinked back tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
They were silent for a while. Discord took his paw away and rested it on his lap instead, coping with the fact that he was as powerless as a common woodland critter. He entertained the thought of behaving like one for the amusement of Fluttershy, but of course she would never stand for that. Besides, he would sooner eat paper again than alfalfa pellets.
Eventually, he stood up, stretched his cramped limbs, and turned to leave. As he walked - dragging his feet, no less - he spotted little Spike, looking his way from the library’s staircase. Discord gave him a small smile, one that simply thanked the dragon for letting him in.
“Wait!” Twilight called.
Discord turned his neck to look at her. She stood among the dropped nodes and their cords, ignoring them and what they had shown her. Instead, she looked directly at him, her gaze still pitiful but with a small glint of desperation as well.
“I want to help,” she said. “Is there anything I can do? Can I make this better?”
Discord hesitated, then shot her a sidelong smile. “Don’t lose sleep over me, Twilight. As you said, maybe I deserve this.”
“I didn’t-...no, I didn’t mean that!” she shouted, stepping over the nodes like they were brambles. “It was a joke, and I feel stupid for making it. You’ve changed, Discord! You were going to use your magic for good, right? What you deserve is to have it!”
“I betrayed you, didn’t I? And this is my way of paying the price.”
“Well, I don’t like it. You may have betrayed us, but we’ve forgiven you. I’m going to find a way to make this better, I promise.”
Discord’s smile widened, warmer in the face of her genuine concern. “I don’t think it will be of any use. But...thank you.”
Without another word, Discord left the library and shut the door behind him. Twilight and Spike were left alone in the library amidst the silent books and still-grinning Thaumatic gauge. It was a good minute before the pony moved. She looked down at her hooves, finally noticing that she had been standing on her books. Some of the pages were being pulled out of the spine due to the pressure.
Twilight swallowed a lump, took a deep breath, and focused. She looked at her dragon friend. “Change of plans, Spike,” she said in a shaky voice. “Shelving day will need to wait. Right now I need to send a letter.”
End chapter one
Stats
Page generated in 0.021 seconds
Total duration
992 users online
181,870 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
5279076 Yes, but that's off-screen. For all we know, that bouquet could have risen with Castle Toy Set. My main source is the fact that he was walking with the group rather than his usual floating/flying, and the fact that he let himself be carried by Twilight's magic to join in their group hug. Even for him, that's pretty helpless.
Well the Elements have shown that they can help Discord, his presence as not-a-statue is proof of it. But even if he doesn't have his chaos magic... then where is it? It's clear Tirek doesn't. The 'ball' of Rainbow Power seemed to drain the power out of Tirek for itself, then disperse it to where it needed to go. If it didn't give out Discord's magic it must've kept it...
5279124 Right? It's all a little source of wonder. I've got my own theories that I'm going to explore, but feel free to share your own if you like.
5279135 Well I maintain it wasn't part of the scenery, because Discord was standing there with no flowers in sight, then BOOM! Flowers.
Of course it's never explicitly shown, and makes for a wonderful story idea. Though I wonder what's to stop them from getting together and Rainbow-ing the magic back into Discord; like I said, we've seen it can help him. And the end-song of S4 shows that they can call on it more or less at will.
I love this, and by extension, you.
this is epic