Part 1: Chapter 22
Chapter 22: A touch of Chaos and a spoonful of knowledge
I woke some time later in another room. It was hard to tell how long I had been out for but the light from the window proved it to be later in the afternoon. I recovered quicker now that I was an alicorn and it stood to reason that it was just later that evening. Bon Bon was sitting on the bench. This was far to frequent of a occurrence.
“Sorry,” I said. “I hope I didn’t worry you too much.”
“Only a little bit. No the major panic was when a random stranger comes up to our house and tells me you are in the hospital and that they needed Lyra to come to the hospital. The message wasn’t well delivered,” said Bon Bon. “I was so worried that you had done something particularly bad. Magical burnout though is a thing that seems tame at this point.”
“Yeah. It was a really busy day,” I said. “Um sorry for ruining diner.”
“We get to spend time with you that is all that matters,” said Bon Bon. “Though apparently you need a bit more supervision.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Did the doctors say why I was here in the first place?”
“No,” said Bon Bon. “But Lyra did. More humans. How did that happen?”
“We don’t know,” I said. “They just came out of nowhere by no means native to Equis. Discord might now more but that is all I do. I hope that the ones that we couldn’t get to directly survived their entry to Equis. There was three groups that weren’t being directly dealt with that showed up elsewhere around Equestria and beyond. The ones in Gryphonhelm are probably the ones worse off. That or the ones near the Crystal Empire. Maybe Cadence got to them in time.”
“Right now we can’t worry about that,” said Bon Bon. “The doctor said that when you were awake that they needed you back downstairs. But I was to inform you that you weren’t to be using your magic. For anything.”
“Fine,” I said. I hopped out of the bed and headed to the door. “Can you come with? I could use some help deciding on what to do. I don’t know how anyone expects me to be good at this.”
“Your heart is in the right place,” said Bon Bon. “Besides I think you're selling yourself a bit short there. You have some mistakes under your belt but you do try to make up for most of them. Even if you don’t seem to learn the don’t push yourself so much one.”
“That is never going to be a thing I get through my head. Sorry for how much stress I have been. Especially in the last month and a half,” I said. “Thanks for having always been there for me.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that,” said Bon Bon. “It is just what parents do.”
We left the room and headed back downstairs the hospital was relatively quiet which was good for my nerves. Downstairs was much less so but there wasn’t much frantic movement more lots of talking. Everypony was talking about the humans that were just a room over from the lobby. Each of them though paused at me. It looked like I wasn’t going to get away from the bowing for a while.
The room where the humans were was much more calm than the lobby had been. A few nurses were checking a couple of the humans but there wasn’t any sense of urgency in their movements. The glow that had engulfed the humans earlier had all faded leaving them look like they were sleeping. No the strange sight was rarity shifting through a pile of clothes off to one side.
“Oh hello dear,” said Rarity. “Oh and you are looking magnificent as always Bon Bon.”
“Looking for inspiration?” I asked.
“No mostly trying to figure out how much of this is salvageable till I can get more made up. Belle sent me a request saying the crown was going to need several hundred clothes for the human refugees. WIth the seven here and that order I have a lot of work ahead of me,” said Rarity.
“Is there anyway I can help? Surely an assistant for this large of a job seems necessary,” I said.
“You aren’t to be using magic,” said Bon Bon. I shied away from that comment. It was right I wasn’t much use right now.
“Oh don’t worry about that I sent a message to a friend in Manehattan who should be able to help,” said Rarity. “Coco is always reliable.”
“That is good,” I said. “Sorry about skipping out on lunch earlier.”
“Oh don’t fret,” said Rarity. “We will just have to get lunch some other time. Do you know where Twilight is? It isn’t like her to be out of the picture for such an emergency.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She had a bit of an episode and then teleported away.”
“Don’t worry then I’m sure that she will be here soon. Twilight doesn’t like to deal with her problems sometimes,” said Rarity. “But if she hit the breaking point then she is close to coming around. I wish she had a more productive model but you should have seen her two years ago. Why she got half the town chasing a doll that she enchanted. Suffice to say Twilight doesn’t always deal with stress in the most healthy ways but she does come around eventually.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I can’t do this by myself. I have too many things to try to juggle and I slept through the last month. I can only imagine what Twilight is dealing with.”
“Right now isn’t the time to dwell on that,” said Bon Bon. “We can only move forward. Besides Lyra and I will be here for you. No matter what.”
I leaned up against her in a pseudo hug. Her warmth and love helped keep me sane. Well the love of all of my family did so. I couldn’t put to words how much I needed them. Even the new additions.
I walked around looking at the clipboards at the end of each bend and checking each human with my magical sight. I would need to ask Luna or Twilight about that eventually. It was definitely a new thing since I ascended. But being able to check in on the human’s leylines was not a gift I would look in the mouth. Each of them had complete leyline systems that I could see there mana slowly flowing through. There was a larger number of lines in their arms and hands similar to that of a unicorn’s horn. Would they be able to do magic? It would be quite interesting to figure that out.
A royal guard entered the room and rushed over to me. He looked like he had ran the whole way and must have been a new recruit as that distance wouldn’t have been a problem for some of the more veteran guards. He paused for a second to catch his breathe the said, “Your highness, your presence has been requested at the castle. There are more of these creatures there.”
“Okay I’ll be there in a second,” I said. I walked back over to Bon Bon who was helping Rarity. “Rarity can you make sure to have some sort of simple gown for that one there-” I pointed at the german “-They need it the most. Before everyone wakes. Please.”
“Of course,” said Rarity. “I can throw something together in a few. It won’t be up to my usual standards but that will just be temporary.”
“Thanks I have to go to the castle,” I said. I instinctively pulled on my magic but a pain came with it as I pulled and I stopped. “Right no magic.”
My walk to the Castle was relatively pleasant. Tuesdays were a relatively quiet day from Ponyville but it was still busy enough to make me wish I could teleport. Thankfully it was relatively quiet on our walk back to the castle as everypony that saw me quieted down and most of them bowed too. I would need to make a public announcement or something to get them to stop that. I was pretty certain that Twilight had done that but that was before Ponyville was the de facto Capital of Equestria. That might change things.
Outside of the Castle stood a large group of Royal Guards. They saluted as I strode into the castle. There was something off about them. A sense of nervousness amongst them like they were expecting an attack or something. Maybe I was just reading into it too much though. The inside of the castle was a mess as there were some forty humans scattered around the room. All of them were unconscious and were being attended to by a large number of Pegasus and Unicorn doctors. Each was on a cot that looked like a military one. Where all these cots came from was beyond me but that wasn’t a question worth asking.
Belle was sitting in the center of it all talking with Discord. Spike was there as well but he was busy sending out messages. Discord looked even more tired if that was possible. I walked over to them quickly.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” said Belle. “I don’t want to be a princess anymore.”
“Too much work?” I asked. “It wasn’t fair to leave you in charge. After all Twilight has had years of training for this and she still seems to think she isn’t ready for this.”
“I had to kick someone out of the Castle. This blond unicorn came in demanding to speak to Luna but I said she wasn’t here. He got angry and well he was just yelling so I just tossed him out the front door,” Belle said. “Which by the way was way easier to do than I had thought it would have been.”
“Did you actually throw Blueblood out of the castle? Like litterally throw him?” I asked.
“Uh yes,” Belle said. “Please don’t be mad. I didn’t know what to do and like I just wasn’t thinking. Maybe we can just not tell Luna or Twilight.”
“Tell me what?” asked a familiar voice from above on the stairs. Twilight came down the stairs with a look of confusion as she looked at the chaos of the castle’s entrance. “Sorry for my outburst earlier. I will give you a better one later but it looks like we have work to do. Oh and Belle, good job. Blueblood is such a jerk.”
“That we do,” said Discord. “There is two groups of Humans unaccounted for. The one in Gryphonhelm and the one near Seaddle. Twilight if you could go to Gryphonhelm and help that one. The humans need magical assistance and mine causes some weird effects in them. As there are no Unicorns in Gryphonhelm you should go there and I will get Seaddle.”
“Okay,” said Twilight. “What sort of help do they need?”
“Their bodies are trying to create leylines for the mana their souls are absorbing but the process is too slow and stressful for the body. If you channel mana into them it speeds the process considerably,” I said. “What happened with your magic Discord?”
“Chaos magic sometimes has a mind of its own,” said Discord. He snapped his fingers and a human popped into existence next to him. “This happened.”
Ze had dark maroon red skin that was unnatural in its coloration. Light nearly white freckles tickled zirs checks. Flowing similarly to Luna and Celestia’s hair, zirs pastel rainbow of hair billowed in an invisible wind. It was nearly as long as I was from head to tip of my tail. One side of zirs head was shaved nearly clean. Ze was wearing a lime green t-shirt and a pair of capris. Ze was strangely happy and nearly dancing in spot.
“Hi. So this is weird like Dissy here says that this isn’t Earth anymore and I am not going to pretend that I know what is going on anymore,” said the person Discord had summoned. “Oh oh, where are my manners. I am...Pandora. I was something else but here I am now. Like am I a human anymore? Does that matter? I don’t think so but it is a question i guess. So like who are you? Are ponies the like humans of this world? I mean I used to watch this show about ponies I think but like I don’t know if I am remembering right at all. Am I?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m Lilac Splash, and this is Armored Belle. The two of us used to be humans. But yeah not anymore and before you ask I don’t think we can go back and I don’t want to. Um it is nice to meet you.”
“Oh yeah you too,” said Pandora. “Um can I pet you? Like I get that you are talking and all that but like you are such a cute little unicorn pegasus thing and I just want to pick you up and give you hugs and all of that but like I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and what not.”
“You would not be the first person to pet me today so I guess go ahead,” I said. Somehow Pandora was right behind me in a moment and she scooped me up in a hug and and started to pet my head and neck. There was a bit less awkwardness to it this time. I couldn't help but get caught up in zir joy. “This time is much better. Oh and I can say for certain fingers are in fact the best at this.”
“Can I have a turn next?” asked Belle.
“Um, maybe later when there aren’t a bunch of ponies watching a princess being treated like a pet,” said Twilight. “But it is time to go.help some other humans. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Oh don’t throw anyone else out of the castle.”
“No promises,” said Belle. “I don’t have time for jerks.”
Everybody laughed at that but shortly thereafter Twilight and Discord disappeared out of the castle with a sudden pop. A few ponies had in fact stopped what they were doing and had been watching us. To be fair Pandora was a bit of a surprise and I was pretty certain many of the ponies here were from out of town so we were all a bit weird to them.
“Pandora, maybe it would be a good idea if you and Belle went upstairs and maybe told the kitchen what sort of food they should prepare for the humans. After all we don’t know when the rest of them will be awake and food can take a while to make,” I said. “Don’t want a bunch of cranky humans who are hungry and scared here. Can you two go do that?”
“Yeah that will be fun I guess,” said Belle. “I am a bit hungry as it is. But after that I am going to bed.”
Belle wheeled herself over to the stairs and then signaled a guard. Before a guard could come Pandora just picked up the chair and all and ran up the stairs. It was clear that Discord’s magic had altered Pandora in ways that were going to be hard to predict. Though we would cross that bridge when we had too.
I wasn’t even certain what was necessary to be done at this point. We would need many more sets of clothes and Rarity needed to informed. It would probably do well to gather all the humans in Ponyville into one place for easier time keeping track of them but I wasn’t certain how to do that without potentially causing a panic in town. There was no way around that right now.
“I need who ever is in charge of the guard to come here,” I said loud enough that plenty could hear it. A earth pony mare walked up to me and saluted. “Are you in charge?”
“Yes your highness,” said the mare. “My name is Steel Sword. Captain of the Guard. What is your command, Your highness?”
“Uh, get a group together to escort the humans from the hospital here in tow to the castle,” I asked. “Try to make it look like an honor guard or something instead of prisoners or anything but the hospital staff is going to need help getting them here as they have likely not woken yet based on the ones here. Is there any carts or something that you can use to transport them easier? There are seven there. Oh and do we have room for seven more?”
“We have the room and beds to spare for now. I don’t know if we have the room for much more than that though. Not without having to make use of other rooms in the castle. I’ll get on that right away,” said Captain Steel. She saluted at me and then marched off barking orders.
This was going to be a long night. I sat there observing the ongoings as ponies kept tending to the humans. There was much I could do but watch. Belle never returned and it was nearly an hour before the humans from the hospital arrived. None of them were awake yet. Rarity showed up some thirty minutes later with a cart full of cloth. It looked like nearly her whole stock of it based on earlier this morning. She waved at me but then got to work on crafting what amounted to dresses for every human.
I hadn’t meant to but I feel asleep there watching everybody work. It had been relatively quiet for how much was happening and I was exhausted. As I let sleep take me after shaking it off for the tenth time, I couldn’t help but worry about how everything was going to turn out.
Twilight stood over me with a twisted grin on her face. Her teeth were pointed and sharp and bits of flesh poked out between them. She was much larger than she should have been. A loud yell that was deep and harsh came out of her. There was no words to it just screaming. Then she stopped and her horn lit up with a dark green wispy glow. The magic started to envelope me, burning as it did so. I screamed as the magic finally engulfed me. An indigo light washed through my dream and it faded into nothingness.
I woke on my bed with Belle and Hope next to me once more. Morning light spilt through the window playing lazily with the currents that were being blown by the slight breeze. The air was quite crisp and cool. Winter was almost upon us.
I squeezed out of bed and out the door. The bathroom was calling me. I start a warm bath. I had just gotten in when there was a knock at the door and I beckoned them in. It wasn’t like bathing was a private thing for ponies. Besides if they were in the upper part of the castle they were welcome here.
“Oh good,” said Pandora. She had escaped my mind. “Sorry just this is the only bathroom I know where is and I really really got to go. So yeah gonna go do that.”
The bath area was separate from the toilet area. A few minutes later Pandora walked back over to the bath area. Ze looked at the bath with longing in zirs eyes. Ze put zirs hand into the water.
“Can I join you? I need a bath and why waste the water,” asked Pandora. “I was reading last night on pony customs and apparently communal bathing is a bonding exercise.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean if you are comfortable bathing with me I don’t mind.”
“Cool,” said Pandora before stripping off zirs clothes and hopping into the bath. The water was a bit shallow for zir when sitting but when laying it was more than enough. Pony baths were made to accommodate multiple ponies at once most of the time. “This bath is so awesome. Way cooler than the ones at home.”
“Yeah they are. This one even has runes that keep the water warm,” I said. “Can you read Equish? If not I can help you with the soaps. I am not certain how the fur shampoo is going to work for you but the mane and tail should work fine.”
“Eh give it here worth a try at least once right?” said Pandora. “Besides somebody has to figure this stuff out and I am as good as anyone. Or at least I think so. Maybe not. I mean my skin is way darker and way more red than it used to be before. Things are so weird. Like I didn’t use to have vagina. Or at least I don’t think so. I mean everything is all weird but in a strange way it feels right. It feels right for the first time ever. This world may be a bit weird to me but I don’t know maybe here is home. Finally.”
“I know what you mean on the things finally fitting. Like I used to not be like this. I am from Earth too. I attempted suicide and Twilight saved me. Well to do so I ended up in this body. I wasn’t a child before. Not much of an adult but still and now I am stuck in an eight year old's body,” I said. “And yet despite a change in gender or something, I feel more right in my body then I ever did before. I’m sorry I didn’t really know about myself before coming here so I don’t know the right words to use.”
“That is fine,” said Pandora. “Like there are plenty of words out there but the context of what they were may not really fit this world. After all so many things are different. I mean there has been a female ruler of this country for the last like what couple thousand years. That is some crazy stuff. It is easier to do when you realize it has been the same ruler for that long but still.”
“How do you know so much about Equestrian History?” I asked. “Like I have been here for six months now and my understanding is sketchy at best.”
“Photographic memory and speed reading,” said Pandora. Ze sat up in the tub and grabbed the shampoo. “The room they tried to get me to sleep in had like forty boxes of books in it and while I only got through maybe ten boxes it was mostly non-fiction.”
“I think I am jealous,” I said. “Is that new? Like from the magic and you changing?”
“Yeah,” Pandora said. Zirs head was covered in suds and bubbles. “Like we are talking but no one ever taught me how to speak Equish or for that matter how to read it. Or Griffon. Yet I read a book in Griffon last night. I didn’t sleep at all and I am not tired at all. Everything is so clear to me right now but it is so blurry at the same time. I am so messed up and like I am high on LSD and yet I am the most right that I have ever felt.”
I grabbed one of the towels from the rack and dipped it in the water then started to rub down Pandora. It was almost just habit now helping the other wash when in the tub. Pandora seemed to enjoy it so I didn’t stop.
“Okay communal bathing is so much better. This makes up for everything that or magic is just the best,” said Pandora. “Thanks do you want me to do you?”
“Sure, when I am do with you,” I said. A strange thought occurred to me. I was washing the nude form of someone I would have found highly attractive before my transformation but there wasn’t any. No heat that I was used. No reaction at all. I wondered if it was an effect of my physical age or something else. “You said you used to not well be a girl? What were you? Do you know more about well being something other than what you thought you were?”
“I know enough,” said Pandora. “But first off, I am not a girl. Well not completely. I am what on earth one would call non-binary. Neither female nor male. But closer to female than male. Much closer. If you would please use ze, zir, zirs pronouns for me.”
“I’ll try,” I said. It was a bit beyond me but it didn’t matter not really. I would do my best to call zir what ze wanted. “But do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“No go ahead,” said Pandora. “What has your mind burning to know more?”
“I haven’t had much time to think through any of this very much and now that there are humans here for Twilight and Luna to go off of they could turn me back into a human but now I don’t think I want to. I don’t think I am who I used to be. I don’t know how much of Alex is left in me,” I said. “Is it weird that if I could I would trade all of my past away. I don’t want it anymore.”
“I am not who I was before walking in here. Like not much of a difference but still a difference. Life changes us in ways we can’t understand. I don’t think you would be the same person anymore without your past life. That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be better without that but it is in part what makes you you. So what does it matter if there isn’t much of Alex left but their pain because that just means there is a whole lot of Lilac instead,” Pandora said. Ze pulled me nearer to them and started working on cleaning me. “We don’t get to choose what baggage of the past we get stuck with just how we deal with it. Some let it go and try to forget and others hide it. But I think you need to deal with it more directly.”
“If only I knew how,” I said. I just leaned into zirs hands and let zir work on my fur and back. It was a wash and massage all at once and with the warmth it was like heaven.
A few minutes later and the two of them were finally getting out of the bath. Pandora tagged along as I walked back to my room just down the hall. Inside Hope was up cradling Midnight. She had escaped my mind this morning and I felt guilty for not having been the one to take care of her. Hope despite my guilt looked like she was having fun feeding Midnight.
“Can I feed her?” asked Pandora as ze rushed over to Hope. It was plain to see how big Hope was when Pandora was right next to her. Hope stood nearly three feet taller than Pandora and Pandora was not that short for a human. Passing over the baby, Hope smiled.
Belle flopped around on the bed for a moment before giving up on more sleep. She pulled her chair next to her with her magic and scooted into it. She wheeled over to me and smiled as we looked on at the two gawking over Midnight.
“Let's go get breakfast. I am starving,” said Belle.
“Alright,” I said. We headed to the door and I called back at the two stragglers. “You two coming?”
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I've caught up. Yea
8354141
The thing that confuses me about Entropy is that if he is a demigod of chaos, he's a very bad one. Chaos requires life and order to be exist, yin and yang and all that. By destroying everything, there can't be chaos. Discord might be a bit sappy now but his kind of chaos does the job well, it mixes things up while not irrevocably changing things for the worst.
how far is this story from being finished?, do you plan to add another sequel to it?
I just noticed there are new chapters and I'm not sure if I stopped because I thought the story was dead or because I didn't liked it at some point.
WHY cancelt noooooooo :(
8644734
Read the blog post I wrote about this. the I don't want to version is that I moved on to original work and this just feels old and not in the same place I once was. I don't know maybe you can all convince me to continue but I'd rather start fresh. It will be a similar story just different. Oh and more of my current inspirations in it.
Continue plz or at least rebirth it. Just please do one or the other because i really liked the first one and was waiting for an update on book two
Too bad, found this story and is cancelled.
8857741
I know, right? I was really enjoying it.
Cancelled?! NOOOOO
9037202
I mean I can enlighten on that. Mostly at the time it was that I felt like i had made a mistake taking the story where I did and that I felt like I couldn't really take back chapters. Now it is more that I think the whole thing needs a rewrite but I have a hard time focusing on projects to do so. I am working on one very slowly but yeah I will put more effort in to it.
9037386
Also you could probably rewrite it, and only keep the chapters that are okay with you, or even put it on hiatus.
Well still you could of inform others on why you did so.
Okay. I'm bookmarking in the hope that we get a continuation.
9131165
I am working, or well was working on but will return on a full rewrite of this and the prior one.
So, is the story cancelled?
Forever?
hay do continue this story
10388681
Indeed. A good line.
hay I like this story so do continue it so that I can read more of it
come on continue it I like it so far
continue it
hay do more chapters we all want this story to continue and don't say no I want to see more soon as well
