Progress: Luna versus the Dreamlands
Part Two
By Andrew J. Talon
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan-made work of prose. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro. Please support the official release.
- - - - - - - -
Across a wide, endless plain Discord trudged. His mismatched limbs provided him with sufficient locomotion to go across the tightly packed sand, and his eyes scanned the horizon in all directions.
The sky was blue, clouds rolling lazily overhead. The sun shone, never quite through those same clouds but enough to softly illuminate the desert landscape.
“This bites,” Discord muttered to himself, for the umpteenth time. For the fifth sixtieth time (or eightieth fourth time-Discord didn’t bother to keep track of what order things went in unless he had to) he lifted an arm, summoned up a bit of chaos...
Nothing. He lowered his arm and didn’t bother stopping the pout on his face.
Over the flat plain he continued, muttering to himself but never bothering to remember what it was about, or why he should care. The answer always came back, like a particularly annoying boomerang. Or a particularly annoying purple unicorn.
“Can’t believe it... Here I am, lost in the desert without even a horse to name,” he grumbled. “Well... I suppose it could be worse. It could be raining...” He looked up. The clouds remained pure, fluffy and white. “Well, wherever this place is, it at least lacks dramatic irony.”
He lowered his eyes... And froze in his tracks. “Of course, I could be wrong,” he said dryly, as he took in the figure standing before him.
She was an alicorn, with sleek soft blue fur and short, lighter blue hair. Her green eyes stared at him, and her lips were turned upwards in a soft smile.
“Hello Discord,” greeted Luna.
“Hello Luna, so nice of you to drop by wherever I am now,” Discord said dryly. “Been a long time, you seem to have shrunk since the last time I saw you.”
“Oh, I lost some power when I was freed of the influence of Nightmare Moon,” the alicorn explained. “I’ve since regained it, but this form allows me to better associate with others without being quite so intimidating.”
“Aw, isn’t that sweet? Little Luna afraid of intimidating others!” Discord mocked. “Making herself look so adorable just for her little subjects! Isn’t that pwecious?” He lowered his gripped hands and frowned as Luna just kept smiling. “Well? Are you here for something or are you just going to stand there and mock me?”
Luna remained silent. Discord’s furry brows twitched, but he stayed on the offensive.
“Because there’s so much I can mock about you. How about the fact it wasn’t you and your sister who defeated me this time? No, no, she outsourced the help to her neurotic little apprentice and her crazy friends! She didn’t care about you enough to reestablish how everything was a thousand years ago! Bet that had to rankle you?” He moved to her side and lowered an arm around her shoulders.
“Bet it rankled you enough to come here, wherever here is, to spring me. So, here’s the deal: You and me, equal partners in total chaos! We get out there, we throw Celestia off, we have some revenge time with those six brats-The purple one’s mine, and so is Fluttershy and the pink one but the rest are yours-and we just have a gay ol’ time for the rest of eternity!” Discord grinned at her and tried to exert his power over her. “What do ya say, eh?”
Luna shrugged nonchalantly. “Whatever.”
“Wh-Whatever?! This is the chance of a lifetime, to be on the winning side! I’m not done for yet-Just get me back to Equestria and I’m sure my powers would be back up to full snuff!”
Luna’s shoulders shook, and for a moment Discord thought he might have her-She might be cracking or falling apart or something.
Instead, she was... Laughing?
“What?! What’s so funny? What are you laughing at?” Discord demanded.
Luna continued to chuckle, before wiping her eyes. She took a sip of a dark, smooth liquid contained in an elegant glass, and looked across the table at him. “You, my dear Discord. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing! I’m the same lovable ball of chaos I always was! Chaos incarnate! It is my nature, I’m unable to help being so fantastically discombobulated!” Discord retorted with a grin, gulping down a glass mug and then tossing it back at the bar they were sitting in. It was warm but shadowy, with indistinct voices drifting through smoke clouds. “Sure we’ve had our differences but I’m certain we can work them out. I have power, you have power... Not as much as me, of course, but all the same...”
“I’m afraid you miss my point, Discord,” Luna said calmly. Too calmly. She rested her hooves on the table and leaned forward a bit. “Things aren’t what they seem.”
“What do you mean they aren’t what they seem? Of course they’re how they seem-They need a bit of chaos, the spice of life, to be turned inside out and upside down and-”
“I mean where we are,” Luna explained, as she left cute hoofprints in the sand. Discord blinked and shook his head. He looked around at the picturesque beach.
Luna laughed again, and gave him an almost pitying look. “Poor, poor Discord... We’re finally somewhere chaos could reign, and you’re four steps behind.”
“Where are we? Tell me!” Discord snarled.
Luna shrugged, and turned around to sniff a shell. The Lord of Chaos snarled.
“Don’t turn your back to me! I’ll break you, twist you, turn you into my little toy for all eternity and make you love it! Make you love destroying everything you hold dear!”
“Go ahead,” Luna said, examining the shell without paying Discord any mind at all. “I won’t stop you.”
Discord lunged forward and smacked Luna across the rump, hard. The blue alicorn, still the same color as before, looked back over her shoulder with a saucy smile.
“Do you want to try it a little harder? Maybe that will get a reaction out of me.”
“Where are we? What’s all this, what’s going on?!” Discord snarled, stomping his feet. They called back with wooden thumps and Discord looked around with wide eyes. They were standing in an expansive wooden room, overlooking a vibrant forest. Luna was sitting on a couch and sipping a cup of tea.
“We’re still in Equestria,” Luna said after taking a sip. “You’re a statue. Twilight Sparkle and her friends turned you back into stone.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Discord snorted. “This isn’t what it was like when I was stone last time.”
“No, it isn’t,” Luna agreed. “And there’s a reason for that. Twilight managed to really put you to sleep, rather than just in stasis as my sister and I did.”
“That’s nonsense! I can’t sleep! I’m a Chaos God, what do I need sleep for?” Discord snarled.
Luna finished her tea, and looked at him over the edge of the cup.
“Exactly. You don’t.”
They were standing in the middle of a vast desert once more, and Discord looked around.
“Wha-Why do you keep moving us around?”
“I’ve been moving us down, actually,” Luna explained calmly. “Deeper and deeper into the Dreamlands. Given it’s my domain, I can take us as far down as I like. And each time I do so, time passes faster than it does in the level above.”
“How much faster?” Discord asked.
“Mm... Ten to twenty times faster each level down,” Luna said with a shrug. “Right now time is passing thousands of times faster in your dream than it is outside.”
“And you’re doing this why? To give yourself enough time to rehabilitate me?” Discord asked with a mocking grin. “I remember you tried-tried-to reason with me before! You were so cute then. Doing this for Big Sister then? I knew you still-”
“You know nothing,” Luna said. It wasn’t angry, it wasn’t cold, it was simply a statement of fact. “You know nothing of what I went through in the last thousand years, or in the last year for that matter.”
“Sensitive about it, are we?” Discord smirked. “Getting defensive! You’re getting defensive!”
“And you’re scared,” Luna said calmly. Discord’s jaw dropped, before he fairly exploded in rage.
“Scared?! SCARED?! HA! What do I have to fear from some pitiful second rate Celestia, huh? Some two bit, soft blue has been! You move the moon around, you move the stars and yet nopony loves you! None of them will pay you the due they do Celestia! None of them care for you! None of them will ever care for you! You’re just one big miserable joke to all of Equestria AND THEY ALL KNOW IT! AND SO DO YOU!”
Discord found himself panting for breath after his outburst. It was a new experience for him. Luna took his rant without any reaction, just staring at him.
“... You know Discord, a thousand years ago I started my war with Celestia with Nightmare Night,” Luna said thoughtfully. “I gave every pony the worst possible nightmares I could imagine. Countless horrors were visited upon them, to the point a whole generation of ponies were scared to go to sleep afterwards.”
Slowly, she raised her head and locked gazes with Discord. The Lord of Chaos felt another new sensation-A chill running down his convoluted spine.
“They eventually recovered, when they realized that they would all wake up again when they went to sleep,” Luna said in a soft, flat tone. Her eyes narrowed, and a feeling Discord had only experienced twice before gripped his insides like an ice-cold fist.
“Say it,” Luna whispered.
“... I-I don’t... I don’t know what you mean,” Discord stammered.
“Say what you can’t do... That they can,” Luna ordered, in the same harsh whisper.
“... I can’t wake up...?” Discord asked in a strained voice.
Luna nodded, that small smile she’d worn when she first appeared to him back on her face. The chill was getting worse, flowing up his feet. He looked down and his eyes widened in horror as he saw he was transforming into stone once more.
“Now-Now Luna! Luna, let’s talk about this! S-Surely I can be redeemed! Isn’t that what all you ponies believe, second chances? I-I’m really regretting this, haha! The-The guilt is just eating me alive, you wouldn’t believe how sorry I am!”
“You are the embodiment of chaos. You can’t help what you do, it is your nature, your very reason for being. You said so yourself,” Luna replied. “By definition, you can’t be redeemed, and even if you could... You don’t deserve it.” Her green eyes seemed to glow as everything below his waist became stone. Discord struggled furiously.
“It wasn’t personal! It was just my nature! You can’t punish a storm cloud for being a storm cloud!” Discord cried, as everything below his chest transmuted into rock.
“And when a storm cloud approaches, it is contained. This is no different.”
“D-Don’t you realize you’re just as bad a monster as I am?! Doing this to a thinking being?!” Discord shouted.
“That’s the difference between us, Discord. I stopped being a monster. You can’t, and you never will,” Luna retorted, as Discord’s arms were frozen in stone. He lifted his head up, as though trying to escape a rising tide by sucking in the last few breaths he could.
“I’m begging you, have some mercy! MERCY! MERCY!”
To this, Luna said nothing. She only watched as Discord’s head was encased in stone, completing his transformation and silencing his cries. She then lifted her right hoof, and the sands around them began to change.
The desert floor became white-The purest, plainest white any being could imagine. It spread out underneath her, and grew up into walls surrounding them both. A roof flowed into existence above, completing the sterile, colorless room. Luna gave Discord a long, hard look. She trotted up to his face, and looked him right in his terrified eyes. For an endless moment they just stood there, vengeful goddess and frozen statue.
At last, Luna gave Discord a small, vicious smile.
“Sweet dreams,” she whispered, before she vanished.
Discord sat there in the pure white room’s center.
Silent.
- - - - - - - - -
Luna woke up once again in her room. She stared up at the ceiling for several minutes, the quiet ticking of her alarm clock the only sound she could hear. She slowly slid out of bed, and after a quick check on Abacus in his bed, she trotted downstairs.
In the kitchen stood Sundance, cooking some breakfast. Her free hoof was on her stomach, pressing into the slight bulge. The blonde pony’s breathing became deeper when she did so, and a tremble went through her spine.
Hoyden nearby was pacing around the table, his eyes always on his marefriend. He winced with every stroke she made of her stomach, and his muscles tensed up.
Luna took a deep breath and trotted into the kitchen proper. Sundance and Hoyden both looked up at her, anxious. Luna gave them both a small, tight smile.
“It’s okay... He’ll never hurt anypony ever again,” she said quietly.
Her two best friends in all the world stared for a moment, before they moved to either side of Luna and embraced her in hugs. Luna wrapped her forearms around them both too, and all three stayed that way for a good, long time.
“So... What are you going to call it?” Luna asked quietly.
Sundance smiled at her. “We... We were thinking-”
“Not Luna,” the moon princess said quickly. “Please? Besides, I didn’t save you... Twilight Sparkle and her friends did.”
“All right then,” Hoyden said jovially. “We’ll name it Twilight Sparkle.”
“Yeah, us and every other pregnant mare,” Sundance huffed. She gave her coltfriend and her princess a sly smile. “We could always name it Selene.”
“Assuming it’s a filly,” Hoyden returned. “Hoyden’s always a good name!”
“We’ll talk about it more later,” Sundance said quickly. “For now, we should finish up breakfast. I don’t know about you but I’m starved.”
“Same here!” Hoyden cheered.
“Me too,” Luna said with a smile. “Me too...”
- - - - - - -
Geh. I tried for months to figure out a good story to reveal Sundance's pregnancy in, and I've come up with squat. So I decided to instead write this and then write something else for this story later. I am sorry for this guys but I think you'd prefer to have something to read that's not according to plan rather than no hope of seeing anything from Progress ever again, right? Right...
And if you don't feel that way, there's a torch and pitchfork store over there with decent rates...
15933
That was incredible!
Glad to see this arc hasn't given up the ghost quite yet ^_^
here's hoping for more eventually
I fell kinda bad for discord =/
I mean he's crazy and all
but still
imprisoning your Psyche in like the 15th dream level seems...
cold?
:<
Anyways i'm so glad this story updated :D
OMGYAY! *goes to read it and falls in love all over again*
Time to get the torches and pitchforks, don't know what to do with them but they were on sale.
Glad it updated, even happier it was a good story. Well worth the wait.
Just goes to show, don't piss off the goddess of the moon.
Oh, look who finally decides to update. You fucking faggot, making us wait so long for a new chapter FUCK YOU FUCK YO- nah, I'm kidding. This chapter was too serious for my taste, but whatever. Now, about the other chapters on fanfiction.net...
I think it was a great chapter, a great characterisation of a fearfull Discord and a Vengeful Luna.
I give you my full support and wish you could upload this chapters a little faster, That is... umm if you want to.
yay progress on...progress! ........
Luna is best alicorn!
i think i found this on another site, but it was a bit further along i think...
Huh. I already read this ages ago. Oh well.
Hmmmm... Not much Comedy in this...
Not to mention that Discord is Chaos, not evil... not a monster...
I thought you posted this one months ago? I'm pretty sure I read it in fanfiction.net.
Im waiting for "Luna vs The first date"
This series is wonderfully fun! Luna is - dare I say it - even more adorkable than Twilight! I happen to be, in secret, a lover of laughter, and this series is a top-notch testament to side-splitting hilarity!
Jiffy Pop popcorn to you, Talon! The highest of awards I bestow!
- Yay popcorn! WOO!
That does seem a mite bit harsh. I mean, yes, Discord needs to be contained, but as she said, he is somewhere chaos could reign. Likely with no real ramifications, either. So was it really necessary for him to be trapped in his own personal hell for what is effectively going to be millions of years?
That said, thank you for providing me with the perfect quote to use when trying to argue my view on the situation with Discord -
“It wasn’t personal! It was just my nature! You can’t punish a storm cloud for being a storm cloud!” Discord cried, as everything below his chest transmuted into rock.
“And when a storm cloud approaches, it is contained. This is no different.”
Obviously, I disagree with the idea that this scenario is no different, as it does appear to be transcending necessity to inflict superfluous suffering, but other than that, I can't really find anything to complain about. I also liked the Inception-style dream layers (and before anyone comments, yes, I am aware that Inception was not the first thing to introduce recursive dreaming. However, it was the first thing I encountered which explained the mechanics of dreaming, rather than leaving them implied).
Why do I... remember reading this somewhere else? Fanfiction.net? Ah, well. Still great. Creepy as all out, and great too. :D
Going on the assumption that they where in the 10:th dreamlevel and that every thing goes 10 times faster for every level then that means that every minute in the real world is 4,1 days in the dreamworld.
Enjoy eternity...
Yes...Yes...YES!
Don't you have a ton more chapters on Fanfiction.net? Your story on there. About eight or more chapters there. You holding out on us here? Don't be keeping the rest of the internet in suspense!
He is lock in a box of perfect order for all time. If he wasn't already crazy, he will soon be.
niklassmith.com/torch%20mob.jpg
loved it
I didn't like this chapter when it first debuted, and I don't like it any more now.
It is a massive break from both the story's and canon's mood, as well as a vast departure from character, but more than that, it's utterly pointless.
Discord was already trapped in dreams. Trapped in dreams is trapped in dreams. Making it literal is superfluous. Really, what can Luna do that the Elements of Harmony cannot? Hm?
Is Luna vs the Threesome Non-Canon?
Glad to see the story continue... but it seems a little out of place, and a little out of character for Luna. Probably would've fit better if you'd had something about Sundance and Hoyden being worried about Discord before hand. *Shrugs.* But that's just my opinion.
And I'm also slightly annoyed. I had a similar idea for Discord, but it'll be quite some time before my story makes it that far and now it'll look like a copied idea. And so I pout.
611842
Discord is a total cock, no matter how you slice it. Let's face it, he deserves it either way.
613973
Depends on how you look at it.
614632
Lets face it. It is perfectly okay and reasonable to interpret characters in different way.
I for example do not think that Discord deserved this fate.
614923
Do enlighten me on how Discord isn't a total cock. Even if he's programmed to want chaos, it doesn't change that he's objectively a danger to the society of characters in the story.
614935
Chaos itself isn't bad. Its excess chaos that is bad. Because he's been imprisoned for so long and before hand, didn't have anybody to keep him under control... well he doesn't know how to the stop.
Look a Pinkie Pie for example. She is pretty much as chaotic as Discord is! Just in a different way and with less power. Does that make her a danger to the Equestrian society? No.
The problem with Discord is that people simply got rid of him or surrendered to him as far as I can tell. No one has treated him as an equal. No one strove to make a balance with him.
614941
And? I admit that people are influenced slightly by how others treat them, but Discord still chose to be a dick by attempting to drive people insane. Nobody will dispute that fact.
614948
Only because HE DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO STOP.
Does ignorance make someone a monster?
614961
No, but using that interpretation, he's like a rabid dog: no matter how good or bad he is, he still has to be put down.
614964
Nuh uh. He isn't like a rabid dog, for he can be taught how to stop.
615014
There is no evidence in canon for that. He is the avatar of the negative aspects of chaos. As far as we're concerned, he can't be changed.
615028
There is no evidence that he cannot be changed either.
Plus there is no evidence that he is the avatar of the negative aspects of chaos then simply the avatar of chaos.
As far as we're concerned, he can be changed and if you look around enough in stories, you'll find that he has been changed already.
615036
Listen, there's a huge difference between fanfics and canon. Despite its position as a good show, MLP: FiM isn't deep enough to have huge moral questions in regards to whether or not the wicked can be changed.
615053
Oh? Are you sure about that?
After all, was not the Nightmare Moon wicked, yet was she not changed?
615059
Nightmare Moon as an entity was destroyed; Luna was saved from her influence.
615062
Perhaps, perhaps not.
But for there to be influence in the first place, the feelings must of been there originally.
615077
Yes, but Luna wasn't inherently a monomaniacal cunt; she was corrupted.
615084
She still had that resentment however. That anger... yes it was most likely amplified by outside powers, but it was still there.
Plus, there is nothing to say that Discord isn't similar affected... or is similar affected.
Really, the characters in the world of MLP: FiM are real open to interpretation.
615090
Yes, but it's a fool's errand to over-analyze a children's TV show, no matter how good it might be.
Okay, stop it you two, arguments over. You want to continue it, take it to Private Messages, none of us want to read it.
Andrew, thanks for updating, could we have some kind of statement regarding the discrepancies between the number of chapters here and on fanfiction.net? Thanks
615101
Then I am a fool and proud of it!
Not to mention it takes one to know one. Which means your a fool as well.
I loved this when I first read it, but I notice the Luna vs Space Travel chapters aren't there, I really wanted to know what happened with the Mecha Alicorn and Twilight :P
(buys a pitch fork and torch then makes luna a bone fire and gets food) PARTY!
I know the Luna vs Space chapters are still up at fanfiction.net, and that you consider them to be non canon to your story at this point, but I just wanted to let you know that I LOVED those chapters, and was really disappointed that you felt they were going nowhere. If you need to take a break to brainstorm, that's totally cool... but consider that I loved those chapters, and really felt they were good too!
Don't let yourself think those chapters were bad. They were just as much genius as the other chapters of Progress.
I swear... Artists and authors... You can be your own biggest critics sometimes!
As for this chapter... I kinda feed bad for Discord. In a sense, I think the current Element Bearers may have subconsciously given him a chaotic dreamscape as his prison to placate the beast, so to speak. Discord stewed in his prior imprisonment, but in the chaos of dreams, he would be free to live out all the chaos he desires, and harm nopony in the process... Why break out of that in the first place. The drive is gone at that point. He may at times not even realize he is imprisoned, should the dream go deep enough. I get the strong impression that this is bold and commanding Luna taking control, and doling out some punishment as she feels he deserves, but in the process, making his time to stew in the bile of vengeance that much more harsh and slow cooked to an evil perfection. The Element Bearers, as they are, will not be around forever. They are mortal. When they pass... Well, Luna may very well be putting Equestria at risk with her little bit of vengeance. Discord played with the ponies around him. A bitter Discord might outright kill if given the chance again if allowed to stew like this for too long. How many times could Discord have taken out the Element Bearers outright... Had he actually been driven truly by evil or vengeance, and not just simply the quest for teh lulz? Luna is toying with the solution the Elements of Harmony found for maintaining Discord in containment for the longest possible time, for a cosmic hell tier vengeance play.
I wonder what Sundance would think of Luna's actions in the Dreamlands. I wonder what Twilight, or Celestia would think???
I have to admit... There is great potential for driving the story further (deeper)...
How much deeper down this rabbit hole can you go?
Just don't forget Luna vs Space either. That stuff was HILARIOUS!!! Striking it from canon is The. Worst. Possible. Thing!!!
===
PS: If you want a good serious take on ponies in space, read "Our First Steps" by Mrakoplaz. Oh my Luna... Watching Luna play with a computer for the first time was so adorkable! 5 WHOLE operations per SECOND! Such glorious speed and accuracy! Why, poor Abby might have some competition! It was totally love at first sight!
a.deviantart.net/avatars/l/o/lovestrucklunaplz.png?1
INCEPTION!!!!!
I liked progress very much keep up the good work!
611658 Eh, perhaps, but doing a mind-rape (implied) on your best friend who is pregnant? My vengeance would be legendary too.