Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Discord smiled as he stepped fully out. Wearing a suit that was part blue argyle, part mauve tartan, and all garish, the Spirit of Chaos looked as he ever did. Perhaps. The streaks of white in his hair and pointed beard were wider than before, and when he smiled, the single fang that had defined his smile for so long was distinctly absent. Nevertheless, those small changes didn’t keep him from plopping into one of the open seats and casting his slippered heels onto the side of the marshal’s bed, for all the world treating the infirmed's resting area as his own personal footstool.
“So, the conquering hero returns,” the elderly youngster grinned as he crossed his heels and leaned back with a satisfied sigh.
“Yup. No small part thanks to you.”
“Me? Please,” Discord smirked. “You did all the heavy lifting. I merely provided a bit of insurance.”
“That so?” Graves smirked. “So guiding me through the gap between worlds was just… insurance?”
“Well, maybe not that part,” Discord chortled. “Keeping your fleshy bits from drifting apart when you crossed that event horizon certainly took some doing, among other things, but I’m sure you would’ve found a way.”
“Probably would have,” Graves smiled. “Still. Thanks.”
Discord didn’t exactly react at the comment. Then again, he didn’t… not react either, and considering that he always had a snide remark or sardonic quip in hand, that probably said more than anything he could have said.
For a while longer, the two simply sat there, simply enjoying the peace and quiet that comes at the end of a long and tumultuous trip. Then Graves broke the silence.
“Why?”
“Hah?” Discord blinked.
“Why couldn't I tell them?”
It was a sensible question really. No soldier, no matter how good, could reasonably be believed to have escaped an alternate reality by means of using cosmic creation to facilitate interdimensional travel. The only way that could ever possibly have worked is if he had gotten help from some a decidedly unorthodox source. A source that, just before his return, had made him promise to tell nobody of his involvement.
“Reputation, of course,” Discord smiled. “Have to keep up my image.”
“You like playing the villain?”
“Why not? I’m so very, very good at it.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Graves snorted, a reaction that raised the eyebrow on an elderly youngster’s face.
“No? Let’s not forget, it was I who set Nul free to begin with. I certainly think that sort of action would qualify as the decidedly villainous type?”
“Maybe,” Graves shrugged. “Maybe it was just a mistake.”
“I’d hardly call bringing about the end of the world a mere mistake,” Discord chortled.
“So it was a big one,” Graves grinned. “But seeing how much work you put into fixing it, I figure it balances out, right?”
Once more, Discord began to laugh off the comment, but something in the marshal’s tone arrested the act.
“You know something I don’t?” he asked as topaz eyes bubbled with curiosity. To this, Graves slowly nodded as he worked to pull aside the swath of bandages on his chest.
“Funny thing, reputations,” he began as his index finger came to rest on a large burn scar, one crossing his chest like a sunburst, now faded with the passing of time. “One day you have one, but it’s pretty hard to figure out when it started. Usually.”
“And yours is an exception?” Discord smiled. Graves nodded.
“I go fight Nul ‘cause I’m 'the best'. They think that because I did good solo work. I did good solo work, because I survived Operation Elder. And the only reason I did that, was because of sheer, dumb luck.”
Grey eyes met gold in a moment of clarity.
“You think that was me?” Discord smiled.
“Fits your profile,” Graves smirked. “I make the shot, but I’m going dark and so full of magic backwash, I’m fit to burst like a heated mortar. To make it worse, Typhon’s tearing up the valley in his death throes, and I can feel the cliff I’m standing on crumble away beneath my feet at the very same time.”
“Well that certainly doesn’t sound very lucky to me,” Discord smirked.
“You’d think not,” Graves nodded. “And yet it was. I pass out, which just so happens to relax me enough that I can surf down a goddamn landslide with only a few broken bones to speak of. Then, even though my heart’s stopped from overuse, the lightning magic in my body just so happens to be perfect for shocking it back to ticking. Then, instead of staying trapped like it usually does, turns out I land on a rock just hard enough to punch a hole. Right here,” he said, pointing at the center of the scar, “which lets me bleed off the rest of the magic before it can fry me from inside out.”
Once more, grey eyes rose to meet golden ones, only this time, there was clear challenge, and just a hint of amusement lighting them up.
“We could go farther back and ask how I joined the team that made sure I got my start, how I survived before even thinking of joining, and who knows what else. All I know is that after Elder, I get sent to Ponyville and meet the one group of girls who could put up with me long enough to get me fit for service again. Now you tell me that’s not Luck, and I’ll eat my own cast.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t say it’s not lucky,” Discord smirked, “but you might want to get some hot sauce ready, because you’ll be scarfing at least half of it down.”
“Oh?” Graves intoned, now it being his turn to arch eyebrow in curiosity. “Do tell.”
“Funny thing about Luck,” Discord smiled. “Or Fate. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it. They think it’s a one way river that carries you from start to finish, A to B, simple as that.”
“And it’s not?” Graves asked as Discord laughed.
“Hardly. Do I even look like an A to B sort of fellow?”
Graves smiled.
“Not even close.”
“Exactly. Luck is strong, yes, but it’s more like… an ocean. Currents can pull you one way or another, quite powerfully in fact, but it doesn’t mean you can’t make it to shore if you really want. People have a lot more pull over their sails than they give themselves credit for.”
“So where you going with this?” Graves asked.
“Funny thing, your Lazarus Pits,” Discord grinned. “Did you know that a minor twist there, a dash of concoction there, and you get the perfect preserving liquid for making a revenant?”
A pause.
Then grey eyes blinked.
Twice.
“You serious?”
“Indeed I am,” Discord laughed. “It’s amazing the knowledge that gets lost in a civil war from a thousand years ago. Yes, what your Academy uses as a powerful, yet painful healing brew is actually the dilution of a potion used to make the strongest undead warrior ever known. Of course, the pure stuff took weeks of soaking to work, and it was strong enough that open exposure would make you full dead if you weren’t already. But if a certain, stone-brained fool managed to slowly acclimate himself over years of constant use? What does that leave you, hmm?”
“One tough son of a gun,” Graves whistled as clarity suddenly came to mind. “And here I thought it was ‘cause I was too just ornery to quit.”
“Oh, nobody’s denying that,” Discord chortled as golden eyes roiled merrily away. “Probably why I liked you so much in the first place. But the point of it all is that you beat the odds because of the choices you made. You cured your hide like a good leather coat to survive things that would kill lesser mortals. You learned lightning magic, and that allowed your ticker to keep on ticking. You made friends with the ones you needed to because, well… honestly, I still don’t know how you managed that.”
“Must be my sunny disposition.”
“Yes, that must be it,” the old man grinned. “All this to say, is that luck opens doors and can often pull you through, but your choices decide whether you’re close enough for it to even matter at all.”
“Which, if I’m hearing it correctly,” Graves pressed on with piercing intent, “means that Luck did play a part in it after all."
“Perhaps,” Discord smiled. “And perhaps not. Who can really say?”
“Who knows,” Graves sighed with a smile. There was one person who could actually say, but it was clear that there’d be no answers any time soon. His satisfaction, however, faded slightly as one final question came to mind.
“Still, there’s one thing I want to know,” the young soldier said. “You can deny everything else if you want, but we both know I’d never have made it back if it weren’t for you. Hay, we’d never even have beat Nul if it weren’t for you.”
“You could say that yes,” Discord nodded slowly, “but I’m not exactly hearing a question.”
Turning his head, Graves gestured with his eyes to the personal effects box beside his bed. Curious, Discord approached and opened it to reveal the few contents it contained: a worn, burned out silver star, a polished stone that glowed with an otherworldly light, and lastly, a heavy ring of gold and silver that swirled as freely as the clouds in the sky.
“That,” Graves continued as Discord carefully picked up the ring. “You gave a lot to help us. Me, most of all. Why exactly did you do it?”
“What, I can't help out a fellow because I find it fun?” Discord smiled.
“You could," Graves nodded. "But I think there's something besides my winning personality. Isn't that right, D?"
The elderly youngster’s golden eyes widened ever so slightly at the change in the marshal’s voice, a transition from light banter to something that sounded of knowing. It gave his voice an almost piercing quality, and for a moment, Discord looked shaken.
"Why'd you do it?" Graves asked lightly. "What were you really after?"
“Maybe..." he began with a faded smile, "maybe I just wanted to make a happy ending for once.”
“For who?” Graves asked.
“Anyone. Everyone. Who knows.”
Graves paused in thought for a while.
“Once, you said we were alike.”
“Did I?” Discord remarked.
“You didn’t want me making the same mistake you did,” Graves answered. “One where I lost the one thing I was trying to protect by going too far.”
“Ah, yes. I suppose I did say that, didn’t I?” Discord nodded, absentmindedly, as if there were thoughts that took him away from the here and now.
“If that's the case, then you must have lost something," Grave began once more in his steady, gravelly rumble. "Is that what pushed you here? To do what you did?”
Discord paused and stroked his chin in thought.
“She always loved you all,” he said, softly, almost too softly to be heard by anyone but himself. “I’m starting to see why now, but I didn’t then. All I know is that my mistake almost cost her what she cared for most. If a little effort’s all it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen, well then… I suppose I can call that a happy ending.”
“For her,” Graves nodded. “What about you?”
And Discord smiled. Only this time, it was a slow, weak smile, one that seemed to show every year of his very, very long life.
“Well, even I can't have everything, can I?"
Graves wanted to say something. Perhaps a nice statement about how everybody could have a happy ending so long as you really believed it could happen. He didn’t believe it of course, and the lack of conviction probably would have made any attempt an abysmal failure. What he did know is that mistakes, especially big ones, weren’t things you could necessarily fix. Sometimes, when the damage was done, there was just nothing you could do to change it.
So instead of something nice, Graves said,
“Well, can’t help you there. But maybe you could do a couple of things for me?”
“… Hah?”
And Graves made his first request. Discord’s golden eyes widened slightly when he heard it, but perhaps because he was in a rather pliant mood, having gone whimsical and nostalgic for a spell, he did as the marshal asked.
“Now, is there anything else I can do for you, mastah?” Discord asked as he threw the most outlandish of bows in the marshal’s general direction.
“Yes, yes there is,” Graves nodded calmly as he raised his left hand slowly. “See that door over there? Walk through it.”
“… I’m sorry, what?”
“I want you,” Graves said, slower, and with far more enunciation, “to walk. Through. That door.”
“Okay, so I definitely heard that right,” Discord frowned as he finished cleaning his ear with a rolling pin. “Now what I want to know is why.”
“What, you can’t figure it out?” Graves smirked.
“Please, I’m the Spirit of Chaos, not the Sultan of Inane Trivialities.”
“It’s not trivial to me,” the marshal retorted. “In fact, it’s really actually quite important.”
“And why, pray tell is that?” Discord pressed.
“I’m tired,” Graves said. “My life’s going crazy, and I’m sure that fairly soon, it’s about to get even worse. That’s why instead of having you pop in and out like a fever dream before I pause to catch my breath, I’d appreciate a little normalcy and have you leave through a door like all my other friends do.”
“Oh, I see, so all this is because–” Discord paused. He’d been so worked up in preparing his witty retort, that he hadn’t listened to the end of the statement. When he did, however…
“What are you trying to say?” he asked, with eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Nothing,” Graves smiled innocently. “I just figured I’d ask a friend for a simple favor.
“And… is that what we are?” Discord asked again as a peculiar blend of emotions played across his aged face.
“I’d say so. May not be the ending you were looking for, but it’s not the worst one, right?”
“No,” Discord smiled. “I suppose not.”
Once more, Graves raised his hand, only this time, he extended it forward. Needing no prompting this time, Discord made the motion of taking it in his own as real shook in time with the ephemeral.
“Don’t be stranger,” Graves grinned. “Maybe come by when I'm not in mortal danger."
“I make no promises,” Discord chortled, "but I can certainly try.”
The two hands parted. Gunmetal greys shone, gold twinkled, and with final nods to companions who’d been through much together, Discord put hand to knob, magicked open the ward’s door, and walked out.
Right into the last person he expected to see.
*****
“Hello Discord,” Princess Celestia said in tones cool and crisp enough for a winter morning. “I can’t say I expected to see you here.”
“… Cessy. What a surprise,” Discord started with eyes open wide, and for once, meaning every word. “I was just, ah…”
“Having a pleasant conversation with our injured marshal?” she asked with elegant eyebrow raised.
“You could say that, though I personally prefer to–” Once again, he’d been so preoccupied with coming up with his comeback, that he forgot to listen to the entire statement.
“… How much did you hear?” he finally asked.
“Enough,” she sniffed. “Ironside said that I should stick around for a minute. I wasn’t sure why until you decided to make an appearance.
Ironside? The big fellow with the unruly facial hair? Why would he have…
...
Graves.
He’d set him up. Somehow or another, the marshal must have had signaled the general, who’d passed the message onto to Celestia. Confound it, and after he’d promised that he wouldn’t say anything, here he went and… and…
... and actually kept his promise. Technically, Graves had promised not to tell anyone else about his involvement. He’d never actually said anything about letting other people hear a conversation between two privileged parties, had he? Then all the questions, all the probing, and that ridiculous request at the end had all been part of an elaborate and devious setup that had Discord played like a fiddle.
Hmph. If Discord hadn’t known any better, he would have said that the strange, bubbling feeling inside was a swell of pride.
“… Did you mean it?”
“Pardon?” he asked.
“What you said in there. Did you mean it?” she repeated, each word coming out crisp and clipped as shards of chipped ice.
“I had no reason to lie,” he shrugged. “Whether you trust me to do otherwise is a different question.”
“After everything you’ve done, I’m not sure how I can.”
He knew that was how she’d respond. That’s how she always responded. But on today of all days, that frost in her tone and the cold glimmer in her eyes seemed to hurt more than–
“That’s why,” she continued, “it’s only prudent that I look into this matter further.”
“... I’m sorry, what?”
“I said, I must look into it further,” she repeated, although no longer in quite the same fashion. For one thing, she no longer met his gaze as her eyes were now somewhat downcast, somewhat evasive. For another, her expression had somewhat twisted as her aurora of hair fluttered under the winds of some unknown turmoil. “You will be severely restricted of course, and every precaution will be made against any sort of chicanery on your part, but beyond that, I see no reason why we cannot be civil, do you?”
“Um… I don’t see why not…” Discord responded, although still not sure what exactly he was responding to. Nevertheless, his agreement seemed to suit the princess just fine as she gave him a firm nod in response.
"In that case, I will expect you for tea at four tomorrow so that I can investigate the nature of your current character. You…” And then she paused, hesitant as she teetered on the border of indecision. “… You still like sassafras, don't you?”
Discord gaped, at such a loss for words that he could only nod in assent. Her response was similar, but brisk and to the point.
“Very good then. Tea. Tomorrow. Do not disappoint me again.”
And as swiftly as she’d decided, she was off, slippered feet tapping so swiftly against the marble floor that one had to wonder where she was off to in such a hurry. Or perhaps, where she no longer wished to be.
As for Discord, an unbidden smile came to his lips. It wasn’t a smile or smirk, sarcastic or sardonic, but one that so lit up his face that some of those years creasing his brow seemed to fade beneath its brightness. It was a small step, one tiny move forward after an age of stillness, but it was definitely, positively, without a doubt, a step forward. And if she’d been able to bring up memories so old that they outdated history itself, well... what was another few ages of patience when you had eternity to spare?
So with a flourishing bow that would have done any ball in the universe proud, Discord simply said, “As my princess commands,” as he disappeared from sight.
And this? This gave a visibly shaken Celestia a few moments of privacy to compose herself before she strode off to find the waiting one who had waited far too long already.
**********
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and so the student has become the journeyman
I am expecting my insurance company to call me about 'complications' any minute now. Because apparently damage from, and I quote: "Screaming YES repeatedly while attempting to punch a hole through a computer monitor with wads of cash, tears, & smiles," Doesn't get covered by standard fees.
(In all seriousness, I'm loving this story so far, keep it up!)
~Valvatorez
Dude, I am loving this ride. Keep it coming!
Graves becomes the man, the World Magic Remnant, the Avatar of Deal With The Faust itself?
Hah, elderly youngster. Oxymoron. A chaotic concept. Just like Discord. Clever.
Graves and Discord have more in common than one might think. The latter is being allowed out of the doghouse on a trial basis, while Graves is about to be shoved so far into the doghouse (after the huggings and tears and recriminations of course) that he'll come out of the rear wall with a head full of splinters.
This continues to be superb, the interactions are marvelously entertaining.
Readers:
Gentlemen J:
You've always been irritatingly good at cliffhangers.
Brace yourselves for the Epic beatdown of a soldier who made a Lady wait,
which is THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING! 
It is gonna be a Doozy!
I cannot wait to see this happen! Ready the Feels Shield!
Haven't read the story yet, but I knew you'd give us a more satisfying ending.
Said as much on the last story.
Nice way for Graves to repay the deity who helped him get back to Equesteria in one piece.
Hope Rarity doesn't shove him too far in the doghouse…Carousel Boutique. Same difference in his case
Yeah, makes sense that Discord was helping him along.
So, Graves is almost but not quite a revenant? Huh. Well, that does explain a thing or two.
That was glorious! Graves, you magnificent bastard!
Unnatural endurance thanks to chemicals, covered in scars, brought back to life at one point with lightning...
Graves, you sly dog.
Interesting nickname for her there.
Uh......wow. didn't see that coming
My... my favorite ship... given fuel. YES! Dislestia OTP! Oh glorious day!
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