Piece of Parchment

by Metemponychosis

Machine Hearts

It was getting late, but Twilight had relaxed a bit after Discord had said he would stay with them, since whatever she wanted to talk about was so important. She only hoped things didn’t go wrong for Cadance in the Crystal Empire. She hadn’t, after all, returned the letter Twilight had sent her a few hours ago. Though that could be because if she did it might draw attention and she might be trying to sneak around the Crystal Empire. Twilight figured she would simply have to swallow her anxiety and be patient.

Fortunately, Discord was entertained talking with Fluttershy and playing games with Shining Armor and Spike. He should remain with them until next morning, and while they waited for Cadance, Twilight, Rarity and Starlight Glimmer made sure they had more non-lethal ammunition for their firearms. She wouldn’t have anypony in her group shooting real bullets anywhere, as long as she could afford it, and her ship’s armory had plenty of the pre-requisite crystal balls and the supplies needed for reloading the firearms in their armory and their own many times over. Next to them, Twilight’s royal guards prepared the small paper cartridges with the measured powder and the magical bullets when they were ready.

She even had the luxury of sparing Shining Armor to be with Discord and Spike, the three mares and their pegasus helpers ought to do the job enchanting all the ball bullets they’d need.

They sat by a large and heavy wooden table fitted with a rustic black metal structure and that had two jars filled with the crystal balls, one with the clear ones and the other with the shinning pink ones, with the active enchantment. On the other side of the armory, Applejack was busy with the repetitive process of reloading her caplock revolver and still had Fluttershy's soothing ointment on her bruises. Nothing too worrying fortunately, just a couple of bruises that got under her barding in the fight with Ponyville’s town militia.

For some ponies that lacked proper training and equipment, they sure hit hard. Regardless, Twilight knew her friend and knew that she could endure much, much more. Earth pony stamina was already recognized, but Applejack’s was legendary. Which only made her even more stuborn.

“Somepony really needs to make this thing more practical.” The earth pony complained absentmindedly while pushing the bullet on one of the chambers, and then sealing it.

“Do you need any help, Applejack?” Starlight looked up from the crystal ball she focused her magic on.

“Nah. I rather do this my own.” She carefully placed the percussion cap for one of the weapon’s chambers and the unicorn wondered, one more time out of several, just how could the earth ponies do that sort of thing with their hooves. “I’m almost done anyway.”

Twilight focused on her own thoughts and the repetitive nature of the simple spell she cast on the ammunition helped her. Memories of their conversation with Queen Chrysalis reminded her of just how careful she’d have to be with Discord and she tried to mentally organize what questions to ask. She also entertained the notion that he might not want to answer, and in that case, what would she say to dissuade him. She found some solace in the idea that, this time, at least she’d have the advantage of actually preparing for the conversation.

Maybe a good idea would be to condense their findings on a few notes and avoid too much detail. Let him provide de details for them.

And, in the worst-case scenario, what would she do if he decided to stop them or something of the sort.

Suddenly Cadance’s familiar magic pinged her senses and woke her out of her thoughts. The other unicorns looked at her and soon followed her outside and up the stairs to the deck, where they were soon joined by the others, except for Spike and Discord, but also the crystal pony maid, who watched over the sleeping baby.

The day had turned to night and Twilight hadn`t even noticed it, but that wasn`t important and she saw Rainbow Dash flying back towards the ship, signaling to the captain to slow her down. Only then did she see her sister-in-law flying towards them, carrying a pair of large black suitcases, flying awkwardly with the two unwieldy things in tow.

Oddly enough she wore a beautiful white and gold dress, which made her flying even worse, along with the Crystal Empire`s traditional mane-do, but it was a mess. When she landed, Shining Armor hurried towards her, in front of the others and helped her with those big cumbersome things.

“Cadie! What happened to you?!” He left them on the floor and touched her mane softly.

“Oh, it’s awful, Shinny!” Her ears fell and she looked dejected.

“Tell us what happened!” Twilight urged her, drawing closer in distress. “Are you hurt?”

“No! But…” She hesitated for a second while her eyes shone with tears forming in them. “I’m afraid Princess Celestia may…”

She hesitated again, more and more agitated, with her wings flared and stepping nervously on the floor. “By what Luna’s told me, she may be becoming insane!”

“What?!” Both alicorns wished they could find the collective gasp humorous, but Cadance seemed very serious and scared.

“What do you mean ‘insane’?” Applejack blurted out.

Rarity hummed nervously. “Well, Princess Celestia has always been a bit on the eccentric side. I am sure this is simply a misunderstanding!”

“I knew it!” Pinkie’s ears pulled back. “It all makes sense now!”

“For the love of Equestria, Cadie! What are you saying?!” Her unicorn husband held her in his hooves and shook her slightly.

“Oh my gosh!” Twilight found her breath way too short and her head flooded, in a mere second, with all sorts of anecdotal evidence of what Cadance had just said, why that was bad and, also, additional reasons to panic, such as the paralyzing chaos that was sure to explode in the entire world as soon as that reached the news and how much that would help The Lion’s cause. How that would cause even more chaos and how the entire world would END!

“For crying out loud!” Applejack yelled in the middle of half-panicking ponies. “Spit it out already!”

“Alright!” Cadance caught her breath and inhaled deeply, next to Twilight who did the same. Applejack had to admit it looked rather cute… For an instant she wondered if she could get some sort of photography award if she caught all three of them, Celestia, Cadance and Twilight doing that in a single shot. That notwithstanding, Cadance managed to speak clearly again. “When I arrived in the Crystal Empire, I figured Luna and Chrysalis were there too! So, I decided to sneak to our palace, but along the way, I came along my personal guard capturing a group of Luna’s Royal Guards and Chrysalis’ creepy big changeling soldiers!”

Ponies paid attention, particularly Twilight. “So, I figured I’d hide with them in the Bordello and interrogate the changelings and thestrals, but before we got much information out of them, Luna and Chrysalis arrived. I tried talking to them, but Princess Luna wouldn’t say anything, and Chrysalis didn’t care about the events we are trying to research, and then she got Luna to talk about Chocolate Velvet and Princess Celestia, instead!”

“I’m sure Princess Luna hid something from Chrysalis since she insisted, and pressed Luna because she was sure Auntie Celestia had some ulterior motive behind… Creating him!”

While ponies wondered what exactly Cadance meant with that specific word and she explained to them in the most near-panic way possible, Twilight figured she already suspected something like that. It really didn’t take a genius to figure that out. What is more, Twilight didn’t understand why that freaked Cadance out that much… Especially considering she was a pony whose special talent was making others fall in love with one another… Maybe she felt cheated or something, since she liked pairing ponies in pairs that ‘worked’ inside that head of hers. Regardless, Chocolate Velvet was a nice pony that loved the Princesses and had that romantic streak that some ponies of her time could afford to have more of: he was insecure, but he also was brave, persistent and chivalrous. In fact, he reminded her of her brother’s best qualities. He was fine in Twilight’s book, whatever his origin.

With those thoughts, Twilight turned her attention to her sister-in-law and her distressed voice getting higher pitched and faster with every word when she seemed to be reaching the important part. “And then she said Equestria is almost broke because all of the things she gives him! Enchanted armor! Enchanted weapons! And how he caters to her knight fetish and-”

“I’m shocked Queen Chrysalis believed any of that!” Twilight interrupted her, more interested in the relevant stuff, and that caused ponies to look at her, particularly Cadance and her frazzled mane. “Wait, you believed that?”

“Princess Luna had a magical inhibitor ring on her horn, and Chrysalis didn’t hurt her or anything, but she was very… Intimidating.” Cadance defended herself despite the slight sting of insecurity, starting to feel a bit like a fool. “You know... In that way Chrysalis knows how to be intimidating.”

Twilight grunted. “Cadance, we just fought him, and he did have some fancy armor, but nowhere near that sort of thing. It wasn’t even magical because he doesn’t have enough rank in the chivalric society. He’s climbing their ranks like anypony else... Certainly didn’t look like Princess Celestia was favoring him. And there is no inhibitor hornring in existence that can contain Princess Luna's magic! You both let her distract you from what we really needed to figure out with something that is inconsequential! And also, plain wrong!”

“Where is she now?” Twilight asked a little too loudly and Cadance’s ears fell as did her gaze.

“Chrysalis’ taken her prisoner.” Cadance rubbed her legs together. “She helped me avoid Luna’s guards and she is now taking care of Luna in the Bordello.”

That could be a problem… Twilight didn’t trust Chrysalis to be nice… Or even civil to Luna if she believed that The Sisters tried to cross her. But Twilight couldn’t afford to deal with that now and Princess Luna could certainly take care of herself. She also relented, when remembering what a blunder she would have made of their conversation with Chrysalis if it wasn’t for Cadance. She simply sighed, a little worried she might’ve been too hard on Cadance, in her state.

“But…” Cadance did feel like a fool after Twilight’s answer to her worries. “There is more… Chrysalis figured out something. Auntie Celestia gave her some ‘samples’ of herself... Whatever those were... And Chrysalis experimented with those. She figured out there is something wrong with Princess Celestia's soul.”

That got Twilight’s attention and Cadance felt a little better, knowing she hadn’t completely blundered her interaction with Luna and Chrysalis, and then she concluded. “There seems to be a part of her soul that is missing.”

“How does that happen?” Rainbow blurted out in the middle of the shocked ponies, before Twilight could formulate a proper question.

“You can damage one's soul through necromancy, or some powerful enough magic…” Twilight muttered looking down and thoughtfully. “We don’t really understand a lot about souls other than they are the magical component of our bodies. It’s a sort of duality: we have bodies with physiological functions and a soul that animates that body with magical functions… Hence, the changelings and their situation.”

There was a bit of silence, as ponies let Twilight think with a hoof on her chin and looking down with a frown. Maybe it related to Celestia's connection to the sun? Maybe it related to how she can live for so long without losing her magical potency. Maybe it was something completely unrelated. What about Luna? It frustrated Twilight that Chrysalis hadn’t thought of figuring that out by checking on Luna’s soul or something! Chrysalis was no science-mare or scholar… She was a moron! Ugh!

She looked up. “Did she say anything else?”

“It’s the part that would let her go to wherever souls are supposed to go when she died.” The pink alicorn said staring at Twilight, as if she expected her to immediately figure out what that meant.

Twilight only hummed to herself and thought some more before speaking. “Well, I don’t have a clue how can Chrysalis claim that, but she’s probably been studying souls a lot longer than I, and if I ever got to study one, I’d probably not even know that it had parts to it, but if our bodies have different organs, I suppose it makes sense. So, what does that mean? I don’t really know”

“That Princess Celestia is immortal?” Fluttershy offered.

Twilight shook her head. “That is not how I’d design an immortal soul in how we know magic flows in Equestria. If her body died, she’d just be left wandering, and the reason one is supposed to expire is that their soul needs to rest. Or something like that.”

Was that actual scientific knowledge on the subject or was Twilight operating on anecdotal information from ponies that didn’t really know what they were talking about? She wasn’t sure where that information had come from, now that she thought of it. She hated that.

“But if her soul was damaged, that would make sense.” Cadance replied uncertainly. “Wouldn’t it?”

“No. Yes? I’m not sure. That sounds very specific and capricious. Not to mention that if her soul was tired because it’s been alive for too long and couldn’t leave to rest, she would never be able to cast such powerful spells as she can.” Twilight kind of agreed, but not entirely, and then disagreed. “It could be that because her soul was damaged, a part of it that took the damage stopped working, or Chrysalis doesn’t fully understand what she saw. Which is more likely.”

“Or maybe you high falutin ‘smart ponies’ are trying to talk about things you don’t know apples from oranges about.” Applejack grinned like she’d caught them stealing the cookies before dinner, and the two princesses smiled sheepishly. “I reckon we gotta talk to Discord.”

“Yes...” Cadance grunted quietly. “I suppose that of all of us, he is the one most likely to know about that.”

“In the morning.” Twilight cleared her throat and smiled some more. “It’s going to be a dense conversation and we'll need clear heads. Not to mention that Cadance clearly needs some rest. We all do, after the whole affair in Ponyville.”

“I am simply relieved we did not stumble upon on Princess Celestia.” Rarity sighed. “I am positive she would have ruined our escape.”

“She avoided us, Rarity.” Twilight said. “She certainly noticed something was up on Ponyville and decided to distance herself. You can be sure she would’ve been with Chocolate Velvet if that wasn’t the case. Or that she would, at least would’ve showed up at the end.”

Which made Twilight think... Celestia certainly intended on acting against them again. She needed to figure out when and how, try to anticipate it because fighting the Princess head on simply wasn’t an alternative.

But it was too late, she was tired, and they needed to rest right then. They retired for the night. Including Discord, nestled like a big cat with Fluttershy. Cadance slept with Shining Armor and her baby, respectfully close to Miss Calcite. Or at least as much as the small quarters would allow. Ponies found places to spread a blanket and pillow and sleep. It was a cozy place filled with friends, more than a crowded bedroom.

Twilight found her own place in a corner, but she didn’t sleep. The small light from her horn let her review her and Cadance’s notes, her notes from the conversation with Chrysalis and their general thoughts on the whole thing, as much as a list of things she meant to ask Discord and a condensed version of their findings, organized in bullet points and in chronological order. It was going to be a long night.

***

Coming out the door, Twilight stretched for a while and wandered the deck of her ship. Her friends still slept, and her crew was nowhere to be seem. Under the starry sky, under Luna’s moonlight, the airship sailed fast, creating a chilling wind, but she resisted it. It bothered her that the Magic of Friendship’s crew was nowhere to be seen, though… She was pretty sure that the airship needed tending during night hours.

She didn’t let that keep her from pacing around though, actually enjoying the fast wind caused by her vessel’s flight, while the actual wind flapped her sails and made her magical engines hum ever slightly mightier, as though they appreciated the wind too. She knew well that the sails didn’t simply catch the wind, but they fed the mana batteries with the magic they captured from it. Something didn’t seem right, though: the ship was supposed to have her sails furled when at full cruise speed.

Whatever it was, it didn’t bother her for long, and for an instant, it filled her with a sense of wonder that her world was brimming with magic. From the magic that formed matter itself to the magic that allowed unicorns to bend reality, pegasi to control the weather and earth ponies to coax juicy fruit and life from the land. It was ratter beautiful. In a very intimate level, she wasn’t quite fully aware off, it made sense that it was like that.

She thought of the magic of Harmony, which lent ponies their destinies and their talents, as though some invisible hoof put little magical cogs to work where they were needed; from the humblest of ponies keeping their small subsistence farm to the mighty magic that moved the heavens.

The magic that moved the heavens…

It seemed almost mundane when she thought that the unicorns used to do it and almost made Princesses Celestia and Luna not really needed, until one remembered that doing so drained the unicorns’ magic. Why did that happen? Wasn’t it their job to do it? Was Harmony so cruel that they would be undoing their gift by performing their job? Or was it all a lie Twilight had been told to hide an even worse truth?

What about changelings? Was there really a curse? Or did Harmony put them to perform some unknown duty Twilight couldn’t understand? Did Star Swirl understand it? Did he see the princesses as something special when he saw that they could do effortlessly what he couldn’t?

Did he try to do it? Was it what caused the problems that Emperor Grigor mentioned in his letter? The raging sun and the dark night? The black sun Chrysalis had mentioned? Something important was just beyond her reach, but she couldn’t see what it was. She couldn’t grasp it. She felt like when she was staring at the magical screens, outside Chrysalis Spawning Pool… Trying to read meaning in a language she didn’t fully understand.

She stared at the stars and they looked different. They were… Alien. Their soft twinkling turned to angry flashes and they began to fade away.

Was this the sky that Sombra and Grigor saw? One by one, they blinked out of existence leaving only the moon which evanesced slowly, leaving Twilight alone on the deck of her ship, staring at the black void.

Nothingness.

A strange sense of dread crept into her consciousness like an insect crawling up her leg out of some dark hole she didn’t even see was there. The sky seemed scary. There wasn’t a point to fixate her gaze and she felt like an impossibly dense field of nothing threatened to swallow her. She looked at the horizon and the sea was a lightless, fading indistinguishable mass. There was no light to see anything past the airship’s railing.

She took a few steps back. “Girls? Shinny?”

She called, but no one answered. She was alone, cornered at the back of her mind, a little pony under the gaping void. Her legs were weak and her breath quickened. Her heart beat too fast in her chest and her ears. Her lungs burned and her mind slipped into panic when she realized the wind had stopped. The ship’s magical engines ceased their low hum. Magic itself was gone, like a warm feeling, so familiar she had never paid much attention, that had suddenly vanished, and left her abandoned in a world that looked and felt broken. Irreparably defective. A corrupted existence. Something her mind simply wasn’t made to understand.

She closed her eyes, but the darkness didn’t relent. She knew. It was still out there: she could feel the lack of everything; she could hear the nothingness, like a static given off by a defective phonograph. It was the sound of a dead world. There was nothing she could do and all she tried was fight back the sobs in her throat and curl into a ball in the cold floor. It was something at least, but soon, it was just a place from where she couldn’t run from to escape the void that closed in on her. Like a predator closing in on its prey.

Suddenly a voice. It felt like an anchor to stay her sanity from losing itself in the starless void, and it was a voice that gave back her hope that things would be fine again.

“This is what the sky looked like then, Twilight.” Luna’s voice reached her and the small alicorn felt her wing over her back, giving her it’s warmth of reality, pulling her mind back from the void. “It is mine now, and it will never look like that ever again.”

Almost too afraid Twilight opened her eyes and they were greeted by the most wondrous of night skies, where the moon shone proudly, and the stars could almost be heard in a twinkling melody.

Slowly she rose and looked at Luna, who stared down at her, smiling softly at her friend. “Princess Luna… I’m dreaming. I… Thank You…”

“You shouldn’t keep to certain thoughts before sleep.” Luna admonished her like a mother telling an unruly child to behave. “The mind wanders and rarely finds its way back without its rational part. You become an easy prey for the Nightmares.”

Was that how her magic worked? Luna could somehow grab the mind of ponies lost in a storm of mad thoughts and feelings and bring them back to rationality? Or was it the simple realization that they were in a nightmare that brought relief? The sight of the friendly and helpful princess amid the confusion and fear? Twilight then caught herself wondering how she had never thought of that before… Luna simply watched for ponies and their dreams. Period. Now, with her recent thoughts, she seemed to reach deeper into what seemed like an unreachable backstage of her world.

“Let us go to Ponyville and eat some of those hayburgers and soda you new ponies like so much? Maybe we can convince Celestia to disclose something to sate your curiosity?” Luna gave her best friendly smile.

Twilight shook her head. “It’s not about my curiosity, Luna…”

“Well, it was worth a try…” Her ears fell.

“You said…” Twilight spoke softly, back to Luna.

“Yes.” Luna acquiesced. “Ponies learned to live with it. But they feared it. They stayed inside or got lost in their travels. Animals lost their way. Many lost their sanity. It haunted their sleep, and, without me, they trembled with the residual dread of nightmares, only to be greeted by a sun that ravaged their very world. It slowly sapped their sanity.”

“How did ponies deal with nightmares before you arrived, Luna?” Twilight wondered.

“Nightmares are dangerous monsters, Twilight. They feed on the fear and if they take root, they can cause all sorts of damage to a pony’s mind.” She shrugged. “Must have been a fruitful time for them.”

That was another thing that didn’t add up. Luna took a great importance in her job of protecting ponies and their dreams, yet before she had arrived, they stood generations vulnerable to the nightmares. But Twilight opted to not disclose those thoughts just yet.

“Why did it happen?” Twilight asked then. “The missing stars and the weird sun?”

“Because the unicorns lost their magic and couldn’t keep up with the magical requirements of bringing the night, nor with the increasing complexity of the spell required by a damaged reality, one cycle after another. The sun became a monster that threated to burn everything, like a furnace out of control.”

The same lie just better suited to what she knew Twilight knew. It saddened her, in a first reaction, but she understood… She had been convinced that whatever the reason, The Sisters lied because they thought it better. It didn’t irritate her less, though. “But…”

“There are no ‘buts’ Twilight Sparkle. It sufficed until it could no more, and when it became broken, we came and took our responsibilities to keep it.” Luna said plainly. “We repaired it and we sustain it and are sustained by it.”

The younger alicorn shook her head lightly, feeling overwhelmed. Whatever the truth was both Luna and Celestia were still impressive. She felt like she stared at a force of nature, out of their control, given flesh. “What are you?”

“We are ponies. We are creatures of Equestria, given the destiny to keep the day and the night.” Luna said, again, plainly. “There are no gods. No demiurges. No creators, deities, or idols. Nothing more than talents and ponies to use them. Cogs in a machine… The most wondrous of machines, but still cogs in a machine. We happened to be given those which required we live longer, be stronger, and look different. And there may come a day when our magic isn’t sufficient anymore, and then others will take the mantle from us. And we will rest, as all life eventually does.”

“It doesn’t look like a natural system…” Twilight spoke sadly with a lowered gaze.

“What do you mean?” She drew Luna’s curiosity, and she shifted from the ‘larger than life speech’ to a stare of curiosity. It seemed curious to Twilight that Luna seemed to be caught off guard by that question.

“Never in our history we cared for the animals, and then lost our ability to do it, needing somepony with special powers to do it. It was always natural for us to care for them.” She explained, despite that curious hiccup. “The same goes for the weather. We didn’t lose our ability to control clouds or seasons, and then needed somepony with special powers to do it for us… What about nightmares? Ponies stood generations without you protecting them, but I know that you take great pride at the importance of your job as guardian of our sleep. You’re lying, Luna.”

Luna stared at Twilight for a few seconds before speaking, as though she, herself, had a little trouble processing Twilight’s words. “You can’t know that, Twilight Sparkle. You don’t know that it won’t come to happen… You can’t know the future.”

She didn’t say anything about the nightmares, though, and Twilight raised her voice, letting her anger at being treated like a filly get the best of her. “There is also this Emperor Grigor! And the discrepancy with our historical records! And this weird nonsense that ponies would simply let you two come and take the crowns simply because you have the characteristics of the Three Tribes! Were there no other ponies in positions of power that felt threatened? We have very old and powerful families in Equestria that certainly had stakes to the crown. Did they leave it all to you two? Don’t treat me like a foal, Luna!”

The younger princess took a second to catch her breath and reorganize her thoughts while Luna simply waited. “And there is this weird feeling that… That I keep staring at a picture you and Celestia put before my eyes, but every now and then, I can hear something clicking on the other side. Ever since I decided to poke at our past, I feel like I’m being lied to!”

She sighed, frustrated, and went on, pleadingly. “If there was a huge war and you two came up on top, why not tell that story? Did you do something so terrible that it would make everypony change from your side? Did you weaponize your powers? Is that why we have laws that forbid us from weaponizing our powers, like the Elements of Harmony and Cadance’s love magic? Laws that forbid you from engaging in psychological warfare within dreams? Was it genocide? Did you two steal Equestria from somepony? What was it? Did you steal the moon and the sun from the unicorns or something? What about all those things you told Cadance and Chrysalis about Chocolate Velvet? What the hay are you two doing?! What the hay have you two been doing for the last millennia?!”

“Twilight, calm yourself.” Luna asked softly.

The younger one waited, keeping her gaze over Luna, which looked to the side and not directly at her, then Twilight went on. “Maybe… You’re more than a simple pony… Are you… The goddess from the legend of how changelings came to be? Are you Night-Made-Flesh?”

The problem was that not even that explained how would ponies be protected from nightmares before her arrival. Unless Luna was the goddess, and took care of both the moon and dreams, but something happened and she lost her ability, but then became the Luna she knew and then took care of the moon again. Nothing made sense! Still, Luna shook her head softly and Twilight waited for a few seconds before yelling angrily at her again. “Talk to me Luna! I deserve it!”

“My original name was Moonlit Nights. They named me Lucenotturna, after the goddess’ actual name.” She smiled softly. “But simpler ponies, the common folk, and myself, couldn’t pronounce it correctly, so, instead of correcting them, I took to calling myself Luna. To my naïve, little filly mind, it made sense, since I was tasked with the moon and the stars. Not to mention that I was so full of myself at the time that I considered it the most reasonable thing in existence that if I wanted another name, I should have it. It was amusing to see ponies like Star Swirl afraid of correcting a six years old filly. Well, not Star Swirl… But he thought it was cute.”

Just the mental image of a group of well-dressed adults and educated ponies towering next to a foal pronouncing a word incorrectly and then smiling awkwardly instead of correcting her made Twilight giggle.

Luna smiled some more. “Celestia was Sunny Days. Did Chrysalis tell you about the Children of the Sun? They acted from the shadows and figured out we were ‘The Goddesses Reborn’ and they influenced Star Swirl. You have no idea how stupid he felt when he figured out we were the ones he was looking for. Turns out what happened is that they figured out our talents and started tipping him off. That they were convinced we were the goddesses was a weird coincidence.”

“Why isn’t that in our history books, Luna? Sounds like a cute and interesting story.” Twilight frowned. “They make it seem as though you two simply popped into existence and ponies decided you should be the princesses. At least with this story about the goddesses there is some context. And what goddesses are these? There isn’t any sort of records about ponies believing anything of the sort, short of legends, such as the one about Mother Farfalla.”

“Because none of it was a cute story, Twilight.” Luna’s ears folded down. “Little Luna sitting on her big throne is a small part of the story. The rest of it was ugly and nothing good really can come out of it. Celestia told me I was spared the worst of it because of my age, but even as one of The Sisters, it wasn’t as nice as you would think. This story developed in a time when ponies had forgotten civility and we didn't want to be the ‘Goddesses Reborn’, any more than we’d want it now! It doesn’t fit the modern times, and, in retrospect, it was more of a trouble back then and we never felt comfortable with ponies calling us that. We were the baker’s daughters. Celestia’s perspective in life was marrying some other poor nopony and having foals, not ruling an entire world. This whole thing was thrust on us and we barely had a choice.”

“Are you saying that you regret it?” Twilight asked shocked.

“No... Not really... We were given the tools for our jobs, and we do enjoy fulfilling our destinies.” Luna took a step back. “But... But it was complicated.”

“Is that what you’re trying to hide?” Twilight raised an eyebrow at her. “That ponies once thought of you in this way? No, there has to be more by what Chrysalis told us. Come on, Luna!”

“It is pointless to try and hide it from you. You are too clever for your own good!” Luna fumed. “You are stepping out of line, however, and you are going to cause problems you are not ready to be responsible for yet! We did lie to you; we did help the griffons cover a large portion of their history and we did benefit from it by doing the same to our own. And we do not regret it. It was for the better of Equestria as a whole.”

“Regardless, it is our history and we should be allowed access to it. I am a Princess too! I deserve to take part in such decisions!” Twilight spoke louder and hoofed at the floor in frustration.

Then the night princess frowned, and Twilight knew she, really had stepped out of line. “You deserve nothing, Twilight Sparkle. You ought to trust your elder princesses. It is true that there are mysteries and secrets we know of, but you are both not prepared to know of yet. As I have told Chrysalis she is not trusted enough with certain knowledge, so are you and Cadenza. There are things Celestia doesn’t trust me to know yet. Knowledge is dangerous in a world full of magic, and you ought to know that!”

Twilight sighed loudly in frustration, which Luna thought was somewhat amusing. She wasn’t used to having ponies behave like that near her. At least she believed the honesty in Twilight’s questioning. Most importantly, Twilight shook her head slightly and spoke again. “Fine. What about Discord? Chrysalis told us some crazy things. What was that all about?”

Luna stared down before staring back at Twilight. “I was too young. I didn’t understand. All I knew was that me and my sister were suddenly important, and we had to grab the Elements and do something with them. And rich ponies tried to murder us… Star Swirl helped us. Some important ponies helped us. And the sun was doing weird things. I don’t understand Discord’s motivations and I am not about to pester him about it. He has enough bad dreams about those times.”

Twilight grunted with a hoof on her forehead and then looked at the other princess again, she didn’t believe a word out of Luna’s mouth, but also felt it had come to a point when it would be pointless to insist. “Did you lie to Cadance about Equestria being broke?”

“Of course, I did!” Luna’s ears perked up and she almost jumped off the floor. “I was surprised that she believed it. I don’t think that Flurry Heart could make Equestria bankrupt if we gave her an unlimited credit line to buy toys! Do tell her that… I felt bad lying to her and expecting her to be wiser. She trusts Chrysalis far too much to see that I do not.”

“Alright. Can you tell me the truth about that?” Twilight asked with a hoof up, as if negotiating and Luna rolled her eyes.

“Chrysalis is going to open changeling medical sciences to the whole of Equestria, but it’s filled with technical and complicated things about our biology that we don’t fully understand, therefore, she thinks she could still control it for her own ends and shut us off from fully deploying it, since we’d be dependent on changeling doctors and then, she’d have something to bribe us with. But Chrysalis is not as smart as she likes to think, and Celestia anticipated that finding a medical professional from a world with much more advanced medical sciences than her own. We wager that after he’s learned the changeling language and our own magical sciences, he should be able to avoid any traps Chrysalis puts in our way, and help adapt them to our own doctors. Actually, Chocolate Velvet comes from a world with much more advanced science in every area, and he has vowed to help us in any circumstance it might be important.”

“Hah!” Twilight was suddenly very happy. “I knew Princess Celestia knew what she was doing with the Heartmend Treaty! Wait! What the hay is he doing running around trying to be a knight?”

“The knights you know today are very much mercenaries that hunt monsters and participate in fairs.” Her expression turned sour. “And eventually bother the princesses with marriage proposals... For some reason they never bother my sister, only me.”

Twilight giggled and Luna went on. “There was a time they were much more like scholars and… Well… Benefactors to society. Think of Star Swirl and of his friends. Think of the Pillars of Harmony. Many became rich and would invest their money in others and wished to make everypony’s life better. They upheld the Elements of Harmony, much like you and your friends, through the ages. Though, most ponies that could reach those ideals today are satisfied with monetary aid, Chocolate Velvet is fascinated with the magic in Equestria and with ponies in general. Maybe because of his own experience in his original world, he is very interested in the pursuit of philequipy, philosophy, of magic and all sorts knightly pursuits that make Celestia sigh like an enamored filly.”

Twilight couldn’t hold her giggling at that description, but Luna still went on. “That is not the only reason he is here, though. Celestia has had this project in her head for a while. Chrysalis being able to assist and the timing with our deal, our need for his technical knowledge and his availability were a coincidence. There is the additional benefit that since he is in love with us, we can trust him. We do appreciate his aspirations, too.”

“It is a bit weird that you two had a consort made for you, but I’m not judging at all.” Twilight mused. “I’m just curious, beyond the practical reasons with the treaty, that is. Beyond that, couldn’t you really find a nice ‘knightly’ pony?”

“Twilight, have you considered that we are immortal?” Luna asked her and the younger one nodded softly after an instant.

“No… Not really. Though it is one of those things we have a tendency of not thinking about, but I think I understand.” It made sense, when she put it like that, but Twilight looked at her. “Is that why Celestia is missing a piece of her soul, or something?”

“Chrysalis is fumbling in the dark, like an idiot trying to understand things she has no basis to understand.” Luna’s expression of slight disappointment made Twilight think that she might have disappointed her with her question, or maybe she didn’t make the right connections, still, the princess of the night grinned smugly at Twilight. “And you are in an even worse position to discuss this.”

“Ouch…” Twilight grunted angrily.

Luna giggled at Twilight’s reaction, then she smiled a little more softly. “Twilight, why don’t you trust us? You really don’t need to know about these things.”

“Because I am an adult, Luna. You both have elevated me and Cadance to share your titles and now you are trying to keep secrets from us.” Her eyes shifted to the side then back to Luna. “We are aware we may be hurting you both by not trusting you, but if we are right and you’ve done something wrong, that deserves correcting and we could not afford to stop. If we are wrong, we can always apologize. We… At least I trust you enough to believe that.”

“Also, I could ask you why is it that you don’t trust us!” The younger princess concluded with a nod of certainty.

“I warned Celestia against allowing you both becoming princesses. She told me it wasn’t her decision to make. I didn’t understand and she said that I didn’t need to know yet. It infuriated me until I realized that Celestia knew what she was doing. When I learned the truth, I was dejected at my notions of impeding you both. Maybe Celestia is suffering from the same fears I did… Maybe she really knows it is best not to allow you two to know certain things just yet.”

“At the same time, it is within your power to seek for these answers.” Luna nodded softly. “It is a fair position to take, Twilight, considering the possible implications of your suspicions. Was the situation different, I am sure Celestia would be very proud of you, as I am, and I salute your resolution.”

Twilight grinned happily. “Does that mean you’ll be straight with me?”

“No!” Luna grinned like she does when doing mischief in Nightmare Night. “It means I’ll tell Celestia she can hit you harder!”

Twilight wasn’t amused. “Where even are you right now? Shouldn’t Chrysalis have taken you prisoner or something?”

Luna shrugged. “I’m sleeping in a tower in the Bordello … Cadance’s hornring probably melted away by now.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Wait… They actually imprisoned you there? Can’t you leave?”

“Well, I could…” Luna pawed at the floor, a bit insecure. “But I really want Chocolate Velvet and Celestia to come save me. And Chrysalis is such a convincing evil queen… And there is this tower…”

“Oh…” Twilight grinned in understanding. “Oh! Alright.”

The two giggled together for a second and then turned to an awkward silence for a few seconds before Luna spoke again, softly. “Twilight… It is possible that your quest is fair and that all that you can find is something that the general populace should know… But I beg of you… Very few things in existence have as much power to hurt Celestia as you do.”

Twilight nodded softly. “I understand Luna…”

“She lives and breathes for Equestria first and then for herself. She worships the ground you and your friends walk on and I worry for what could happen if she found herself cornered against you. That is certainly why she hasn’t initially forced a confrontation on your territory yet, but as you draw closer to her secrets, she’ll be left without options. I’ve seen Celestia best kings, emperors, witches and necromancers; evil monsters, dragons and eldritch abominations from beyond the stars. But she loses to her feelings for her family every time.”

Twilight felt a warm feeling of pride swelling in her chest with Luna’s words, and watched as the Night Princess took flight. “Farewell, Twilight Sparkle. And know that next time we meet, I shall not be so kind. I stand with my sister.”

The dreamworld faded into nothing and Twilight knew she had crossed yet another hurdle in her mission. She allowed herself some pride for her victory, even if she barely learned anything from Luna. She had earned the feeling, just a little more, that her mission really was a right one. She only hoped that she and her friends could get Discord’s help next.

***

Morning came cold in the altitude the air ship sailed even under Celestia’s bright sun. The crew had furled all the Magic of Friendship’s sails and she traveled the air so fast that standing in the deck could be dangerous for non-winged ponies.

Twilight wondered if the pegasi didn’t feel the cold of the wind. They actually seemed to enjoy it, like Rainbow Dash in her morning exercise routine flying wide circles around the airship. She had left Cadance and Shining Armor caring for Flurry Heart, with Miss Calcite and Spike still slept. Discord was… Being discord, talking with Fluttershy about some weird happening in far equestrian lands.

It was only when breakfast came that all of them were together, and Twilight didn’t fully understand why was Cadance so delighted with the food Discord summoned with his magic, but if she was happy, Twilight was happy too. It was a lighthearted and quick affair because all of them knew that they needed to talk to Discord and the conversation itself could turn ugly if he didn’t like where it was going. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice their insecurities.

She didn’t fear Discord would harm them, not anymore, but he could close doors definitively for them, or worse, side with Celestia and Luna, and then their mission would be over. This time, Twilight would be careful to let her friends, especially Cadance, assume the lead in the conversation if they felt necessary.

With the end of their merry meal, Twilight asked the Captain to take the airship to a more comfortable altitude, where her flight wouldn’t be as efficient, but they could stand comfortably on the deck. She didn’t bother with the presence of her guards or the crewponies, though, as they seemed to have melt into the group as part of their mission.

“Very well…” Discord was curious, rubbing his hands together. “What is so important, Twilight?”

She simply gave him the letter and their notes. And her very organized and condensed summary of their findings.

“Oh…” He rubbed his beard. The things floated in front of him and they, literally, heard gears spinning in his head. “I thought you wanted to know about Star Swirl. Celestia isn’t going to be happy about this.”

“I’m sorry, Discord…” She said carefully. “But this is important.”

“Not really.” He said, and for a brief instant of panic, she feared he might make the letter disappear, or something, but he gave it back to her and he kept a serious expression. That was never a good sign. “You could go your entire life without ever touching this and it wouldn’t make a difference. In fact, I can guarantee you will all be happier if you forget this.”

He grinned pointing with a thumb over his shoulder. “Come on! Change course to Las Pegasus! They’re making a huge raspberry jam pool and we can get them to let us in early. With two princesses, we might even get a tour of the place!”

“This actually seems big, Discord.” Cadance argued to his other side. “It’s been thousands of years for this lie, that allowed Princess Celestia and Luna to stay in power uncontested.”

He frowned. He didn’t like what she had said, and it became clear in his voice. “You got it all wrong! And I am not telling you anything.”

“Why not?!” Cadance screamed angrily frustrated. “You and Auntie Celestia owe us explanations! Something happened that she hid! It’s obvious she did something wrong! That you both did something wrong!”

He laughed for a few seconds before controlling himself. “Oh, Cadance. We don’t owe you anything.”

“How can you say that?” Twilight’s temper quickly flared up too. “By the sounds of it, millions of creatures died and suffered because of what you did!”

He waved a hand at her, dismissing the idea with a derisive huff. “Ah, your species is always suffering and dying.”

“Discord!” Cadance yelled at him, flaring her wings. His dismissive attitude towards the subject infuriated her to the point Cadance seriously considered doing something she might regret later. Fortunately, she restrained herself, remembering it was Discord. He was now their friend and was simply trying to let go of the issue.

“Why don’t you want to tell us, Discord?” It was Fluttershy’s soft voice that broke through.

“Dear Fluttershy… It was a mess. It took sacrifices to fix and If I told you, then it would be undone. There are things that should be left in the past and have no place in today’s world. I understand what their royal highnesses here want, but if I put you on the right direction, at the end of the road, you would find only bitter resentment. Old wounds that never could really heal and it could end Equestria. Literally.”

Cadance frowned. “Luna said the same thing… But… Shouldn’t the truth make things better? It’s not just about some war, is it? About the princesses abusing their powers or something like that.”

“Oh! Is that what you think?” Discord laughed, and then laughed some more, pointing a griffon finger at them. “It was not something they did. They saved you from the mess that you created! You were the problem! Well… Me too… But mostly you!”

“I don’t know what happened… But it sounds like it was a long time ago.” Twilight said softly, staring him around his accusatory claw. “We’ve matured as a civilization. We used to steal and to kill. We made wars between ourselves and our leaders have lied, cheated, took by force what wasn’t theirs… We’ve taken lives for petty reasons. But we’ve changed! We uphold the Elements of Harmony… They are our morals now. Kindness, Laughter, Loyalty, Generosity, Honesty and the Magic of Friendship. They joined, not only our race, the ponies, but all races of our world… The griffons, the yaks… All of them, even the angry dragons. We join forces and we fight any evil that might threaten our world. Our home. We fought evil spirits and monsters. Homes were destroyed, but we rebuilt them. Friends were gone but we mourned and honored them. Hearts darkened, but we healed them.”

Ponies listened to Twilight, as did Discord. Pegasi stopped working around the deck and the princess let her ears fold down and she moved closer to her yellow pegasus friend, hugging her from the side with a wing. “Through Friendship, we even changed the heart of the Spirit of Chaos when he, himself, had given up on him.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Twilight…” He covered his face with his lion’s paw.

“Discord…” Pinkie grinned, and ponies giggled around him. “Are you crying?”

“I am not…” He passed a finger under his right eye. “It’s this stupid airship and it’s weird magic doing strange things to me.”

He sighed deeply. “Alright, fine! Chrysalis was right. It was the same thing that summoned the Windigos that drew me to the realm of the mortals.”

Twilight quickly grabbed her notepad. “Wait. What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure you are ready to learn these things, but if it hurts you, or something, I’m sure you can find psychologists with discounts for the saviors of Equestria… Anyway, it’s gonna be Celestia’s problem, not mine.” He made himself a comfortable chair and a comfortable checkered robe, sitting on the chair. “Pay attention. Magic exists as a fundamental property of our world, and one important thing is that Magic can’t move around on its own. Before you ponies, Life couldn’t grow anywhere outside the place it was created because it depended on magic, and then, when you migrated and took magic with you and made it flow through the whole world; Life flourished all over.”

“Whoa!” Twilight’s wings flared and she scrambled to keep notes. “That is a lot of information all of a sudden!”

“Keep up, Twilight.” He was slightly annoyed. “You’re not in magical kindergarten anymore.”

“Where was that place?” Cadance asked. Not that it mattered, but she asked out of curiosity. He simply shrugged, though, and went on.

“Your minds formed around a simple concept of one drive and a moral compass: you had a motivation and were supposed to spin it around in your heads through six virtues you were supposed to withhold. Six virtues that, supposedly, made Harmony stronger through the magic that you radiated to the world, after you were done using it for whatever you would.”

“Wait.” Twilight called again, while she took notes. “Six virtues? The Elements of Harmony?”

“Your six Elements of Harmony, yes. The jewels you wear are the physical representation of what Harmony was made of. I’m not entirely sure, something like that. The important thing is that it was important to keep Harmony existing that you upheld these things. And you also had your motivation... If you were supposed to be generous, kind, etc., you needed an action through which you would be generous, kind, and etc... The Animus Imperative. It is the cornerstone of your little minds.” He touched Twilight’s head with a claw. “It was cast into your brains even before the Elements, before you even understood that you were alive. It is so powerful it can overrule the Elements and crush them into neat little packages of self-justification.”

Ponies and dragon looked confused around him, so he blew at his bubbly smoking pipe before he went on. “Never wondered where you had come from, did you? Never wondered that someone might have put you together. Forged you minds, or better yet… Put together your world. This is not questioning your minds were made to wonder about.”

“Who did?” Applejack asked the obvious question.

“That, dear mudpony, is the right question.” She gave him the evil eye at being called mudpony, but he didn’t bother. “And the answer is… Nobody. Things started existing, and Harmony grew from Magic. It is not a sentient creature. It doesn’t exist anywhere. It simply is and it seeks balance, or harmony. It tells ponies what to do by giving you this directive and expecting you to run it through the Elements of Harmony. So, if a pony is born with the destiny to… I don’t know, make candy… They are supposed to make the best candy for their friends. So, they are compelled to fulfil their Animus Imperative and they have the six Elements to guide their actions.”

He put a hand on his chin. “The funny thing is… Not even your creation was direct. Even that is a reflex of Harmony, rather than a direct action.”

“A little clearer?” Twilight asked, confused.

“Harmony doesn’t ‘do' things. All of this is a reflex of it, but not through direct action. It doesn’t have agency like we do. It can only steer you in the direction it needs you to go.”

“So, the Elements of Harmony are a moral compass to help us fulfill our destinies, which are given to us with this Animus Imperative.” Twilight mused. “Okay. I’m following. But I never knew this term. Isn’t it the same as our ‘Destiny’? We're born with innate talents that help us with it and that steers us towards our destinies, right?”

“Right. But, ‘destiny’ is an easier way for you to understand. You didn’t need to concern yourselves with the inner workings of you headmeats. All that mattered was that you spread magic with you to all corners of the world and that you upheld the Elements of Harmony, and had the tools to be happy little ponies. The point of it was that ‘destiny’ is how you perceived the Animus Imperative.”

Twilight was starting to get worried. “Discord, this all sounds very… Intentional. Designed.”

“Because it was. Just not by an intelligent force, but a magical one, that caused events to follow in the right direction, deployed the right tools.”

“But why?!”

Discord shrugged. “Because it existed and ought to remain existing? Maybe it was because someone or something in another universe imagined this and magic made it a reality in our world? Maybe it was a reflex of something that happened in another universe? Maybe there is no reason at all, it just is… You will go nuts trying to figure this one out, Twilight.”

“How do you know of these things if you weren’t around?” Cadance stared at him suspiciously, as did all the others, suddenly aware that all he was saying could’ve been a lie.

“Well that is because Magic is my nature, Amore. Magic is Chaos and resists Order. Too much Order and nothing will happen. Too much Chaos, and causality is completely irrelevant, making existence impossible. Just enough Chaos and just enough Order, and not only a reality can exist, but it can dream through Magic and Harmony is created.”

“That is quite interesting, Discord.” Rarity told him with a pleasant smile. “But I’m not sure where you fit into that.”

“I didn’t exist as I do today. I was… A force of nature. I was… The Chaos in the equation of reality. I was only made as I am now when ponies summoned me into existence when they sought to control the most powerful and ancient forms of magic. But there is one catch: the Windigos were animal-like. I am intelligent, I understood what was going on. Sort of…”

“Who was the ‘Order’?” Twilight asked, again, staring up from her notes.

“Beats me…” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s something that was never summoned into the world. Maybe we lack the ability to summon it because we are quite literally made with magic. I dunno.”

Fluttershy put a hoof on Discord’s leg. “How does that end in you killing ponies?”

He hummed. “So, what would happen if some ponies decided not to care about the Elements? They would do things their way. Suppose they decided that Honesty was a waste of time and they could make it much easier if they lied.”

“I don’t understand.” Twilight shook her head. “How would that happen?”

“They could do that, and rather easily, because you’re supposed to struggle with the morality of the Elements. If you weren’t, you couldn’t corrupt the Elements inside your heads, right? Gotta have your free-will.”

“So, we are supposed to see our Animus Imperative through the lenses of the Elements of Harmony in us. But some ponies don’t. I’m not sure how, but what happens then, Discord?”

“The Elements become corrupted in them.” Discord made a serious expression, crossing his arms. “That is how you ‘discord’ a pony. Though the correct term would be ‘disharmonize’. They get worse and worse until their Animus Imperative is broken, and they… Let’s say… Divorce themselves from reality.”

“Because of the Elements, ponies are inherently good, but if things go wrong, through their warped logic and views, they see that things are ‘wrong’, and it hurts them, they want it to stop, but they don’t know how to fix it, because their compass is warped and nothing works. Many times, they’ll justify what they're doing as fair, just… Or that everyone else is wrong, and that their way is the only one. And think themselves the only sane ones. Or, they simply don’t care.”

“Instead of a fair ruler, you’d get King Sombra.” Twilight mused. “Instead of Princess Luna, you’d get Nightmare Moon.”

Rarity gasped and took a step back in shock. “Is that what happened to those ponies in the Ponyville Militia?”

“I think it’s what happened to me!” Starlight’s eyes almost bulged out of her head.

“Ponies fluctuate in between these extremes... No pony is ever perfect, and no pony is ever entirely gone.” Discord added. “At least not normally, and not even Sombra or Luna reached the deep end. They just couldn’t come back from that.”

Twilight nodded sternly. “When life doesn’t treat a pony well, they can lose sight of their Elements… They become sick. And then they get worse, because things start looking futile, pointless. Hopeless. And then… They break. They must seek their Animus Imperative at all costs… Even at the expense of the Elements of Harmony. But they don’t see it like that… They think that they are right, and everypony else wrong.”

“We just never understood it as something inherent to our souls, deeper from within our beings. To the ponies that study the mind, it was simply how our psyche worked and how it could go wrong.” Twilight frowned. “We are… Quite simple, on an intimate level…”

“Correct.” The draconequus nodded.

“This thing’s scary, guys! Why didn’t they make it so that ponies couldn’t become… Bad?” Rainbow was actually paying attention. That made Twilight proud!

“That would take our free-will away…” Cadance answered looking at her. “If you didn’t have the chance of being ‘disloyal’, you would never be ‘loyal’ because you couldn’t ever have done otherwise. I think harmony needs us to make ‘the right choice’.”

“Can somepony tell me why is it that we’re talking about this thing about how pony minds came to be?” Applejack asked, somewhat frustrated to Twilight’s eyes. “And not about the events we wanted to talk about?”

“Hold your horses, Applejack.” Discord gestured her to calm herself with some annoyance. “This is important if you want to understand the important things in this whole story.”

The pony grunted. “Fine!”

“How did that summon the Windigos?” Twilight went back to her notes. “And you?”

“The magic ponies spread became corrupted, and then it corrupted the very magic of the land. The Windigos were born out of the chilling winds of the North. Some detail of the situation maybe it’s the metaphorical distance from the Fire of Friendship. But when they summoned me, they wanted power. They wanted an advantage over the others and they knew where to look for it: they sought ancient magic, the sort that created this universe. They sought destruction in the power of creation. They knew what they are doing.”

He stopped for a second. “Looking back, they could’ve done much worse.”

“They tried to summon you? Intentionally?” Fluttershy asked.

“No. Not like that. But, with the Windigos, they might have seen their actions as the only way to survive. Then with me, they were fine, but became greedy, unrepentantly evil. That is probably why they managed to summon the Fire of Friendship and beat the Windigos… When ponies figured out that it was better to live in harmony with each other, the problem healed itself. But it happened again because they didn’t learn their lesson, even with all the wealth they had, in all areas of their existence…”

“The Republic Chrysalis told us about.” Cadance’s ears perked up.

“I don’t know about that; they simply called it ‘Equestria’. It was a big assortment of different kingdoms, not too different from today. I never bothered with pony politics, but I do know that they had an enormous… You know… Ponies that made the rules.”

“A legislative body.” Twilight offered. “A senate?”

“Yes, yes… I suppose. The ponies that make decisions. Instead of a princess, they had a council and a ‘senate’. I think the idea was that the peoples of Equestria would send a few of them to speak for them and the Councilors would listen to them and decide on things depending on what they talked about it. It was just boring.”

Discord kept quiet and thought for a while, finally lightening up. “Even though Star Swirl wasn’t a member of the Council, since he wasn’t one of Equestria’s founders, he told me he was always present. I know he had good intentions, but it was a bit on the tough side. Some ponies really didn’t play nice.”

“I guess it was their fault what happened?” Cadance asked. “You being summoned, I think.”

“I don’t know the details. But, like with the Windigos, it wasn’t something just a handful of ponies could’ve done. Even if they were really evil. It wasn’t a single pony, or a group of them. But enough of them were ‘damaging the system’. It’s like a dam that accumulated enough cracks, until it broke. They summoned me.” He put his griffon paw on his chest.

“Okay… That all seems reasonable enough.” Twilight admitted. “But why did you try to destroy the world?”

“Ah… It didn’t begin like that. You ponies are a lot of fun to be around… When I first arrived, we had lots of fun. We made mischief all over the world…” He seemed, to the ponies, to remember it fondly. “The griffons were too grim for my tastes, though. The yaks were stupid, and dragons were… Rawr… Gold! Gems! Rawr… It was boring and it felt like you ponies really were the reason the world existed. But there was something wrong.”

He made silence for a second and his audience waited. “Star Swirl was my friend, at least in the beginning, and the one that figured something was wrong. That I wasn’t supposed to be there. He wanted to study me and he saw there was something weird with the unicorns. They scared me too. The Elements of Magic and of Generosity are supposed to be the strongest in them, but they were different. Generosity was stained black with self-interest.”

“Yes…” Rarity grimaced. “That does sound bad.”

Ponies stared at each other and Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Can you see it?”

“Well, not ‘see’ it.” He raised his muzzle. “It’s more like… A feeling.”

Rarity shifted uncomfortably to one side and then the other. “Is it wrong… today? I mean… We’re not exactly perfect.”

He had mentioned that ponies weren’t supposed to be perfect, but she would feel better if he confirmed that things were under control in the present time. That whole affair with the Black Sun Chrysalis mentioned was scary.

Discord laughed. “Ah, Rarity. Even you, the purest, distilled examples of the Elements of Harmony are supposed to struggle with them. No. It was not like that. It was darker and deeply rooted. I never understood why it was like that, but I knew that something was wrong, and unicorns didn’t work as intended.”

“You keep talking about them like they’re a broken machine, Discord.” Twilight wondered if he noticed that and he nodded.

“I figured ‘Hey! These ponies are broken. Gotta fix them!’ Since it was Generosity that was warped in their heads, I tried to put them in a situation where their lack of it would cause them to wise up or leave.”

“Leave?” Pinkie asked. “As in… ‘die’?”

“I didn’t think of them as individuals. To my naïve self, they were like defective pieces of a machine. I didn’t see ‘dying’ as the end of a creature, but rather as a process through which the world functioned. They were like toys, and I figured that things would work themselves out. So, I took a few bad ponies and flicked a switch in their heads. Turned the Elements upside down and it worked like a charm. The normal ponies called them The Lost Herd and they created a lot of Chaos.”

“How in the hay was that supposed to fix the problem?” Twilight hit the floor with an angry hoof.

“I thought that the ‘broken ponies’ would be lost and isolated and that the good ones would figure out a solution to the whole mess. They had done it before, so… But what happened was that the bad ponies abused the good ones. You see, they were good, so they would help any who needed it, even the bad ones. Especially because evil isn’t always overt… They betrayed them and I never noticed… But turned out that I too had a mind that could be warped into something dark…”

Ponies stared at him with shocked, gaping mouths and he looked down. “I fell in my own trap and before I knew it, I rejoiced in seeing ‘justice’ being done. I thought that ponies were bad, and that was why they ‘broke’ and joined the Lost Herd. In the end, I thought that all ponies were bad and that the whole thing needed to be remade from scratch. So, I pushed further, and the world was about to end with a flood of mad ponies destroying everything. Actually, mad creatures in general, but ponies were the best: they really messed up the normal ones.”

Twilight wrote a few notes while Cadance looked at her, but then she looked back to Discord. “What do you mean with ‘remade’?”

He made a gesture with his lion hand. “You ponies came from somewhere. And when you died, your souls would go somewhere and then came back, in a new life. You weren’t the same ponies as before, but the magic you carried worked in the same way, so I figured that if I sent all of you to that place, you would come back ‘working right’ again. I never had the time to realize that you had become different individuals, that something was lost when you passed away.”

He lowered his eyes. “Now I know… It was horrible. It would have worked, but, turned out ponies have feelings. I saw a crying pony and thought that they had something wrong in their Element of Laugher… Similarly, I saw a greedy pony and thought that they had something wrong in their Element of Generosity. I never thought that maybe they were too greedy because they were scared, or because they thought that others were being unfair to them.”

He frowned and his eyes saddened. “I certainly didn’t understand that all the suffering I was causing them was what brought even more of what I was trying to fix. I have to say… It was good to talk about this. I feel awful now, for what I did. I had... shoved it aside.”

“It does make sense Discord…” Twilight mused. “From the looks of it, and from a certain perspective, if you didn’t understand that ponies experienced feelings.”

Cadance approached him. “You were not supposed to be there. Whatever created you didn’t give you the tools to understand empathy. Maybe not even your own feelings because you never grew up like we do… Learning to be with others. You understood everything through a distorted logic.”

“Some ponies fought so hard…” He looked away. “Everything lives today because of them… Star Swirl… There was his friend, Cinnamon… What a great pony she was. Celestia herself, too. She dragged you ponies back to Harmony, kicking and screaming… But everything that she and her friends did is gone from History and all you have is a fairy tale that is more… In line with your perfect little world. It seems unfair now. I wish you could know her then. She cracked me up trying to sell sweet bread to Star Swirl for five times the price.”

Cadance twisted her mouth and lowered her ears, thinking hard and Twilight nodded after a few seconds. “I want to know about Princess Celestia, but is there something that is fundamentally broken inside our heads? Like… If we reach it, it makes us go bad?”

“It seems so…” Cadance nodded. “But I think it was something simpler. Maybe something happened that we weren’t prepared to deal with… Older than what Discord did. Maybe as old as ourselves. But hiding it isn’t the solution! If we don’t know what it is, we can’t defend ourselves from it if it happens again!”

Twilight agreed. “Yes, I agree, but-”

“Not to mention that this doesn’t explain why is it that Celestia and Luna vanished with centuries of our history! We’re talking about something that is clearly older than Discord!” Cadance spoke over Twilight.

“But that doesn’t mean that it is unrelated, Cadance!” Twilight stared a bit angrily at her. “Stop trying to prove that they did something wrong all the time!

“They did! They are lying to us even now!”

Twilight and Cadance stared at each other, as did the other ponies, until Applejack spoke to Discord, tired of, and putting an end to all the guessing work and pointless accusations. “Is that why she did it? Is that why Celestia and Luna hid a piece of our history? They really mean to protect us?”

“They changed history to protect you. Maybe even themselves from whatever it was that made ponies go bad in the first place.” He nodded softly. “I don’t know why they hid this period, specifically, and I am sure you are right that whatever it was, it was older than all that, but I don’t know how it all fits together.”

Twilight said nothing, and while ponies argued, inside her head, she was sure it was something to do with that talk of Goddesses Reborn. Maybe the Children of the Sun did something that awoke something that was dormant and, maybe that was even what caused the problem with the unicorns and the heavens. Maybe, before, they didn’t lose their magic to it, but whatever happened damaged Equestria, the sky, the unicorns, or even magic itself, and ponies blamed it on Discord? Maybe not a good idea to ask him right then... He was talking about what they needed him to and he might not even know.

It kind of fit with Celestia’s and Luna’s half-truth, half-lie, and with the story they’ve been getting.

But Cadance stomped the floor with a hoof. “No! You don’t hide good things! If she fixed something that was wrong with the world, she wouldn’t need to hide it. She didn’t need to hide that to protect us from whatever it is this weird thing that makes ponies go evil! There is more to that, and maybe you don’t know it, but she does and isn’t telling us!”

“Cadance…” Twilight seemed to have lost part of the conversation but touched her leg softly. “Luna spoke to me in my dream… She said she lied to you about Chocolate Velvet and Celestia because there were things Chrysalis couldn’t be allowed to learn for now.”

She looked at Twilight and spoke softly. “She told you?”

“The secret deal they made with Chrysalis is meant to spread the changeling advanced medicine through all of Equestria, and that Chocolate Velvet has knowledge that will help them keep Chrysalis to her part of the deal.” Twilight then added with a relieved smile. “They know what they are doing, and they mean the best for us.”

But Cadance took a step back, “But… You just told me that. And everything will be fine!”

She stared frantically at Discord, tap-dancing nervously on the floor. “What about these ponies that Auntie Celestia erased from history? Don’t they deserve to be remembered? This Cinnamon you mentioned! She was important enough that you remembered her! You made it sound like Celestia herself has done great things, but those are gone! We know of the wars and such, but… She fixed a broken world! Didn’t Twilight convince you that we changed? Come on, Discord! Tell us more!”

Twilight nodded softly. She agreed… Despite their initial disagreement, Cadance was right. Kind of. She already thought that ponies needed to judge for themselves. Now, more than ever. And knowing whatever it is that is broken in them would be important.

Discord, though, sighed. “What would you two do if I helped you?”

They looked at one another, then at their friends, and back at Discord and Twilight spoke. “We’ll make sure that all creatures know the truth. Understand what happened so that they can judge for themselves and if that is the case, guard themselves against this… Broken thing in our heads. And then, when everything is said and done, we can remember those ponies we have forgotten and let their examples speak for themselves!”

“You thought of that beforehand, didn’t you?” He stared unamused at her.

“I did my homework. Forewarned is forearmed.” She stated categorically.

“Fine… Fine.” He said. “But let me warn you… You’ll be going down a rabbit hole I don’t think you can climb out of and be the same. And you’re dragging your friends with you.”

The two princesses looked back at the others.

Rarity giggled. “We’re already challenging the highest authority in Equestria… What is a little insanity between friends going to do to us that we haven’t already experienced?”

Rainbow laughed. “Sounds awesome! I wanna know about those ponies! And if something can make me go bad all of a sudden, I wanna know what it is.”

Pinkie shrugged. “Eh… Ponies already call me crazy anyways…”

Fluttershy didn’t say anything but didn’t complain and Applejack wasn’t amused. “I’m having déjà vu. We’re just gonna get ourselves into more trouble for things we really didn’t need messing with. Ah, what the tarnation…”

Spike and Shining Armor thought back to the club in the Changeling Rock… They could each spend some time there. They both, silently, agreed that this whole pursuit was a waste of time and needless exposure to danger. In fact, Shinning Armor would probably be calling an end to this whole affair if he didn’t think that his sister and wife can take care of themselves.

Flurry Heart wasn’t happy either. Why didn’t anypony ask her what she thought? She was going to get herself to live with Princess Celestia first chance she got! Seriously?! There must be a law, or something, that says baby ponies can’t be subjected to things such as these weird adult pony talks!

Poor Miss Calcite and the pegasus crewponies just got carried along anyway, as did Twilight’s guards. But loyalty was something they understood.

Twilight showed them a smile that told them that she was happy they were onboard, but on the back of her mind she wondered if the whole problem wasn’t something more complex and nuanced, something that couldn’t be explained as simply as a ‘lose wire’ in their heads. It was too simple. Yes, Discord explaining to them how their minds worked was fascinating and explained many things through a different lens. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still hidden away, tucked away in the secrets the Sisters had created and it would be dangerous if they were so intent on hiding it.

Anyways… Regardless of what the problem was, they would be better served by knowing what it was. She trusted modern ponies to be better than their ancestors.

Discord joined his hands. “So, what is your plan?”

“We’re going to Griffinsky.” Twilight smiled. “We’ll see if The Lion has somethings that could shed some light into what happened. Maybe then, force the Princesses to confess and make the Senate launch a full investigation.”

“Chrissy expects us to de-throne Luna and Celestia...” Cadance added, somewhat meekly.

“Oh, Chrysalis...” Discord laughed and shook his head. “Bad idea, though, going straight to the Lion. That kid is going to have all the evidence you’ll need to show that Celestia and Luna did hide something, however, without the right context, it’s not going to work, because you’ll still not know the answers you really need. You will need knowledge about ponies that is older than History itself or you, and the Senate, will not understand why those things happened… You need to go to Manehattan.”

Twilight nodded and took notes and Cadance agreed. “We’re going there already. We’ll need supplies. Why do we need to go there?”

“In Manehattan lives a prench pony. She is hiding there because if Celestia catches her, she’ll be done for.” He said, and it surprised the ponies. “She has a weird power of accessing pony ‘soul memories’ and, you are in for a ride when you find her. With her help, I am sure you will find a few answers that I can’t give you. Most important: she’ll give you… Feelings.”

“How do we find her?” Twilight asked curiously, but decided against pressing Discord for more.

“Her name is Naminé. I don’t know how she looks nowadays, but when it gets to the news that you two had a disagreement with Celestia... Ask around in the markets and places full of ponies. She’ll find you.”

“Naminé…” Twilight wrote it down. “Curious name for a prench pony that sees old memories, I suppose. Thanks, Discord.”

“Discord…” Cadance called him again. “Can you tell us what is wrong with Princess Celestia’s soul? Chrysalis said it is damaged, or something of the sort. Is it… Bad? Is she… Going to suffer because of it? Or something? I learned of it from Luna and Chrysalis and it got me a bit worried, because they didn’t really tell me any details.”

“Is it contagious?” Pinkie added and stared back when the others stared at her. “What? This is important!”

“It is something that has hurt both Celestia and Luna…. You’ll figure this out with Naminé.” He said with weird sad eyes, but they changed to mischievous with a mysterious glare. “And it’s going to be a doozy!”

Then he returned to a more serious stance. Almost… Saddened? The princess wondered. “Some things you can’t be told, Cadance… You have to see… Experience these things. So that you feel their weight.”

Cadance rolled her eyes. “Oh, fine then.”

Twilight was simply worried that Discord was being too serious again and she almost regretted this whole conversation. But they had come too far to go back now, and Discord turned to her. “I am going to do everything that I can to keep Celestia off your backs.”

“Thanks a lot, Discord.” Twilight smiled at him, despite her nervousness. “Thanks to you, I think we can actually make it.”

He remained silent for a second and slumped a little. “With some luck she’s going to remember that I’m important too and she won’t kill me or something…”

They expected him to teleport away after saying that, but he didn’t. He made the initial motions, such as raising his hand to snap his fingers, but never did. Instead he stared at the ponies. “Remember that your first impression of things will be one of preconceptions. You will see things that will need you to understand that everything has a meaning within its context.”

“That sounds awful weird coming from you, Discord.” Applejack raised an eyebrow.

“I simply want to make sure that you ponies don’t hurt yourselves along the way and that you don’t come out of it with the wrong ideas.” He stopped for a second. “What I mean is... Careful with Naminé. She is dangerous because she doesn’t understand the things that she knows, and knowledge without wisdom... Well... It defines me when I was created.”

“Discord…” Twilight took a step closer. Most of the present didn’t fully understand what is it that Discord meant, but a flash of memories brought her conversation with Luna back to her. “Did you know Night-Made-Flesh? What was she?”

“Careful, Twilight. This is exactly what I mean. Talk to Naminé and reflect on what you will learn.” Then, he did teleport away, leaving Twilight with a bitter aftertaste of her nightmare, wondering if a monster made of the void lurked around, somewhere in pony dreams. It seemed like researching ways to ward off Luna’s magic was in order, if that was even possible. That and hoping that Discord could keep Celestia busy enough that she’d have to worry less about her and more about their adventure.

Author's Note:

- Fixed al the mentions of 'wendigos' to 'Windigos'. Stupid autocorrect

Comments

[Silentwoodfire]

I get the feeling there was a mistake when it comes to Chocolate. It's been pointed out that his soul is from another world. That means his soul works a little different than pony souls. Hope that doesn't come back to bite the princesses flanks.

[Metemponychosis]

10765367
Secrets and mysteries abound.

[Kevin Lee]

“Well that is because Magic is my nature, Amore. Magic is Chaos and resists Order. Too much Order and nothing will happen. Too much Chaos, and causality is completely irrelevant, making existence impossible. Just enough Chaos and just enough Order, and not only a reality can exist, but it can dream through Magic and Harmony is created.”
“That is quite interesting, Discord.” Rarity told him with a pleasant smile. “But I’m not sure where you fit into that.”
“I didn’t exist as I do today. I was… A force of nature. I was… The Chaos in the equation of reality. I was only made as I am now when ponies summoned me into existence when they sought to control the most powerful and ancient forms of magic. But there is one catch: the wendigos were animal-like. I am intelligent, I understood what was going on. Sort of…”
“Who was the ‘Order’?” Twilight asked, again, staring up from her notes.
“Beats me…” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s something that was never summoned into the world. Maybe we lack the ability to summon it because we are quite literally made with magic. I dunno.”

THANK YOU!!!
You can't know just how much it pleases me to see someone else who understands that Harmony ≠ Order; that Harmony is the BALANCE BETWEEN Order & Chaos! It makes me really wonder what the hell is being taught in schools these days....
This was a great chapter with a LOT of great info. So, Twilight just learned that her entire effort really doesn't have a valid point of going forward--but what the hell is somepony supposed to do when you own the Australian Continent Group and have a mob of a 1000 troops sitting on Siam, while the rest of the world only has one army in each territory? Answer, of course, is: Fuck it! Conquer the World!

BTW, I do have a question regarding Chocolate Velvet that comes from the news reports of the battle in Ponyville--but I'll hold off until I read a few more chapters. Just letting you know I haven't forgotten that little detail.

[Metemponychosis]

10869974
If you want to, ask away. I'll tell you if it is mentioned further. If not I may add it to a future chapter or just say it outright.

[Jinnchin]

Wow this chapter provided a literal ton of exposition to chew on!

So currently have a number of theories kicking around after all that. As per usual I am not asking for spoilers, just stating what I think might be given the evidence that has been provided so far. So with that in mind SPOILERS for PoP and Fólkvangr ahead!

For starters, by the sound of it Discord was brought into the world by those seeking power, but the motivation for bringing about the Wendigos was something altogether different. Going to take a stab and say they were summoned as a last ditch act of desperation by the non-griffons caught up by The Harpy's empire to act as their weapon. From what little we've seen few species suffered more from the Wendigo's influence than the griffons, given that their ancestral homes were overrun by them. Griffons are constantly at risk of being snared by the Wendigos, and trapped in a hideous form of limbo/undeath, thus preventing their reincarnation. Assuming there are only a finite number of griffon souls... well, its easy to see how this would lead to the inevitable downfall of their species! Of course the Windigos clearly aren't shy about going after other species, but that could be chalked that up to them being a corrupted, uncontrollable form of wild magic.

Besides that, my knee jerk reaction is to say that this "thing" Celestia is keeping hidden is none other than the Allmother herself. Wouldn't be much of a stretch considering they are both relatively comparable beings who are both empowered by faith, have similar goals of uniting the world, but utilize diametrically opposed methods to achieve said goals. (Side note, I'm not sure how many people will get this reference, but I can't help but compare the clashing philosophies of Celestia and the Allmother with The United Federation of Planets and the Dominion. This is a reference to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in case anyone is wondering!) For all her brilliance, the Harpy really doesn't seem to understand Harmony as a force, and the role it plays in this setting. Which arguably makes her schemes of ruling the world much more dangerous!

At the same time I can't help but feel as though there is something even deeper going on here, beyond just the Harpy and her designs. Genuinely unsure what this could be, but I'll bet it's big part of why the Harpy is the way she is, and why Celestia has an "incomplete" soul. Another side note, I haven't forgotten the little tidbit from Fólkvangr that the Harpy also cannot produce children. I'm left wondering if the Harpy has an "incomplete" soul as well. Guess only time will tell!

[Metemponychosis]

11826264
I'm sure you'll connect the dots in the following chapters.

Especially in regards to what caused the damage to Celestia's soul and the connection to her incapacity to generate children.
About the Windigos, after I'm done with Collateral Damage, which is almost ready to publish the first chapters, I'll be working on another story called Fjallvegr, and this one will be about griffon souls.

Faith is what defines a god in the AU. It is what differentiates, for example Chrysalis from Celestia, Luna and the Harpy. The thing is that each one of them has a different definition of what it means to be a god, and I think that is where this gets interesting. You should read Gray Dames once you're done with the published chapters of PoP (or even after the Red Dawn arc).

About what Celestia meant to hide, yes. But not only that, and this chapter is particularly important to see what else. Which is the important part as far as PoP is concerned.