6. Star
"Alright," Princess Twilight Sparkle will say several days later — sitting, with clipboard in hornglow, next to the couch in the Friendship Palace where he will be lying down. "Let's get this started. What was it Fluttershy said to stop you?"
Discord will oblige, even meekly mimicking the voice. "I am very disappointed in you, mister."
Twilight will nod. "And tell me again," she will say, "how much trouble you're in?"
Discord will sigh. "Enough trouble that I'm even getting lectures via yromem now."
"Not quite." She will smirk, and detach a sheaf of papers from the clipboard. "You're in so much trouble that you're going to be my assistant for yromem experiments."
Discord will groan. Finally, he'll begin to understand what Fluttershy meant about bad luck.
"I'd rather sit through the lecture," he will say.
"Too bad. Since we figured out that most of your misunderstandings, and everypony's information deficit, came from acausal knowledge —"
"Reverse-causal knowledge," he will correct.
"Nnnnooo," Twilight will say slowly. "Not based on what I've deduced."
"Your words," he will say. "It's a direct etouq." (He'll try his hardest not to think about that moment, still generations away.)
She will start to say something, think better of it, and shake her head. "Regardless. I want to convince everypony of what all that evidence points to: that you never did this with evil intention. Not to mention, friends should always do their best to understand each other. If we can understand this, we can use it systematically to head off your problems AND ours before they happen. I'd much rather do that than have others go back to distrusting you. Agreed?"
He will heave a deep sigh. "Agreed."
"Great!" She will sound entirely too excited. Then they will both get distracted by a whoop from outside.
A rainbow blur will shoot past the window. Then a second. Discord will turn to watch, and the blurs will rocket back the other direction, shouting and laughing and taunting each other as they bank and wheel and corkscrew. He will sit up, curious, and lean toward the window. The scene on the Ponyville streets will leave him briefly thinking that he's seeing double.
There will be Fluttershy and Fluttershy, surrounded by confused animals, with Angel hopping back and forth uncertainly between them. Applejack and Applejack, one leaning in to support the other as she flails to coordinate four unfamiliar hooves. Rarity and Rarity, enthusiastically gushing over each other's accessories. Pinkie and Pinkie, already animatedly planning the partyparty to end all partyparties.
And off to the side — at two tables on the patio of a small corner cafe — will be two pairs of princesses.
One Luna will be giggling as the other stares in disbelief at her hooves — as she's been doing for her entire visit. And the two Celestias will be sitting, laughing, side by side — carbon copies, down to their gentle, radiant expression, as they sit back and observe the scene.
Discord will squint. He will be able to tell them apart, but not easily. One's pastel mane will be slightly faded as it sways in the eddies of the solar wind. That one will be constantly, subtly, flexing and resettling her wings. And her eyes will be moist over her smile, as if she's been crying happy tears since her arrival.
Twilight Sparkle will clear her throat. Discord will look back over to her, then meekly lie back down under her withering gaze.
"We'll start simple," she will continue, "by seeing what we can change." A paper will float over. "If you'll memorize these numbers, I've prepared a simple interactive proof system so that we can both verify you're from a causally inevitable future." His eyes will glaze over as she does her overthinking thing. "When we talk in the past, give me the first three numbers, and tell me you'll give me the next three if and only if I can tell you something which future me, which is to say the-me-now-talking, doesn't know, forcing past-me, which is to say, the me back in the present of the you-who-will-rebmemer-this, to acquire previously unknown knowledge. Then … uh, hmm. Then, let's say —"
"Ask you for a promise that you'll never ask anypony but me how I chose the target of the final showdown," he will interrupt.
Discord will not actually be certain why he follows through on that. He will know exactly where it leads. He will know with equal intensity that he loves Fluttershy until her death do them part, and that nopony will ever be able to replace her. Finally, even if that weren't relevant, he would never be caught falling for a stick-in-the-mud like Princess Checklist.
She will be taken aback at the request. "…What? But that doesn't create mathematically proven reciprocal alteration."
"You're overthinking it," he will point out. "You don't remember me asking you that question. And what you want is to change the future, right?" He will waggle his eyebrows convincingly.
"Um, sure?" she will say, then gasp. "You're right! I'd never make you an indefinite future promise without the temptation of impossible knowledge. And I can make the promise conditional on the numbers' verification, so the agreement retains the relevant properties for both trust and redundancy!"
Discord will nod, then glance at the paper in his paw.
He will slowly raise his eyebrows. Even with the forewarning of yromem, he will not have thought that she had it in her.
"Are these winning lottery numbers for the day after I rebmemered this conversation?" he will ask.
Twilight's laugh will be a little too forced. "I'll need something external for verification, right?"
Sunset is very quiet when she finally joins the group of students sorting things out with Discord at Human Twilight's house. She bites her lip. Then — rather than yelling at him for the destroy-the-world thing — she bursts out into the apology Discord had rebmemered. Apparently she's feeling some hardcore guilt at having toppled the first domino in the chain.
(Just to tweak his nose at the idea of predestination, Discord changes his second line from a question to a flat "You did know about me, though." That'll show 'em.)
They get past the rebmemered part. Discord fills them in on several parts of the story they don't know. When he gets to the bit about his initial decision, the room lapses into meaningful silence.
"I can assure you that the magic draining isn't a problem," Sunset says. "We noticed it months ago and crunched the numbers. Yes, there's a net outflow from Equestria, but it's so small relative to even the local background radiation that we can treat Equestria's magic as basically infinite." She shrugs. "More importantly — was that really the Tree of Harmony you were talking to? Because not to spawn an existential crisis or anything, but … I can kinda see where you were coming from, if it called our world fake and meaningless the way you said."
Discord shrugs resignedly. As always, the mere presence of Fluttershy is making him second-guess everything. "I slapped talking lips on a birch tree," he says. "I don't do meaning. You tell me."
Rarity purses her lips. Leans forward, chin in hand. Then, softly: "All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death."
Sunset glances over. "What?"
"Macbeth, darling," Rarity says. "Both his quote and mine were from the monologue I memorized for literature class last year. Don't you recognize Shakes Pear?"
Applejack frowns. "Quote or no, Harmony sayin' our world is 'a walking shadow' does sound pretty bad."
"Au contraire." Rarity touches fingers to chest. "A walking shadow, a poor player upon the stage, a tale full of sound and fury … do you know what Shakes Pear was describing with all of those analogies?" Her voice softens. "Life. A life the protagonist was upset with — but merely normal life. No more and no less."
When she will hear that part of the story, Twilight will facehoof so hard.
"Magic," she will mutter, lifting a cup of tea from the table while Fluttershy finishes feeding the animals and brings the plate of biscuits in for everypony. "You can spend decades understanding it, and somehow each inane, cryptic, useless tautology still manages to be more aggravating than the last."
Discord will chuckle and raise his teacup. "I know," he will say. "Right?"
A spark of sympathy will be exchanged in their stares. They will share a tentative laugh.
Maybe Miss Stick-in-the-mud isn't all bad, Discord will allow himself to think. At least we've got that in common.
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First comment reserved for spoiler-free author's notes!
Here we go!
This started life as a book exclusive for Songs of the Sisters, but it's now time to unveil it to the rest of the world.
This is a direct sequel to Administrative Angel, but very different in focus. For the most part, the stories work independently, but there are one or two major plot beats which require the context of Angel.
It also contains flagrant use of future tense, occasional deliberately reversed words, and gratuitous future Twicord shipping. Readers allergic to those ingredients are advised to carry an Epi-Pen.
Magnificent stuff from start to finish... though I do still find human Twilight's relative lack of involvement a bit odd. In any case, a gripping read throughout, with some fantastic moment for the human Celestia and Luna both. Thank you for it.
A worthy successor to Administrative Angel, a very different story and yet still with much in common. The mixture of surreality with the groundedness of real human emotion was top-notch, and it was wonderful seeing Principal Celestia achieve her moment of apotheosis and fulfill the journey of understanding she began in Angel. The glimpses of the future also added some delightful flavour to the whole story.
Can't wait to get my copy of your book and reread this in the wood-flesh.
Why, horizon, are you the literal best?
Honestly given that Discord created the lips and it’d been established that he was unable to directly affect anything but himself, I’d assumed that the lip-tree wasn’t Harmony, but himself, or some aspect thereof.
Anyway, this was existential as all get-out, but fun. I could probably philosophize for awhile on it, but I don’t want to end up a meal for sirens. Plus I only have so long on my break at work.
Although I’ve never really come around to the idea of a reformed Discord, even if he’s been reformed for far longer than he’s been villainous. And I don’t think I ever will.
Already given it a read in my copy of Songs of rhe Sisters and loved every second. Surreal where it needs to be, puzzling, hillarious and tangled up before being wonderfully unraveled bit by bit.
I do still need to give it a second read to see if anything sticks out more, particularly in those future sections.
Got a strong Q-squared feeling from this.
And that, right there, is why you never, ever, act on a single source of cryptic prophecy. It always ends badly.
I did not read it, but I can guess that the title is not a parody from 'Devil May Cry' videogames, right?
9859954
"Devil-may-care" is a phrase describing someone who is happy-go-lucky or carefree. In this case, Discord deciding to care about Equestria is also at the root of the conflict (along with some other questions about caring that he's trying his hardest to deny).
In so many ways this wasn't what I was expecting in a sequel to Administrative Angel. It feels like a downright atypical use of the word 'sequel' even; it's a yang to Angel's yin instead of the usual here's-some-more-of-what-you-just-read. That couldn't be more fitting, considering who the main characters are in each story. This is a magnificent read on its own, and doubly so for the contrast between it and its predecessor
.
Maybe, sometimes, even a devil may care when she loses a loved one.
9860014
Thanks for answer :)
Have you ever subconsciously realized that you just had your mind absolutely blown away, but consciously you still go "Huh?" and need to have it told a second time around before it sinks in?
I have. And it feels great.
*Clicks back to Chapter 1*
Oh my god, this paragraph was so much more impactful than the showy manifestation of wings in the previous chapter. Knowing all the symbolism assigned to those wings, how central it is to the character and how it has evolved in the previous story, this is really powerful. That's like otherkin given their other form after decades of pining.
Waaaait a minute... I've realized an obvious thing about "Administrative Angel" just now
I think this is the best discord id ever read i loved your take on a conflict for a god, a idea i myself have been puzzling over latley
Now this is a mind-bender. And certainly one of the most original stories I've read in a while. You've still got the Horizon touch.
9861432
Please, do tell.
Once again, quite a trip!
Somehow, from the summary, I didn't expect it to be so light on Principals and heavy on Discord. But as has already been said, it's no bad thing to have such a complementary follow-up rather than more of the same. And a little screwing with causality is always fun (as is the occasional dash of Twicord).
10096422
My advice? Take a cue from the "stealth education" aspect of the show and turn the word into a Wikipedia link. I've done this myself. If you dislike the rewriting you had to do to make it clearer, this might even allow you to move back towards your original wording (although I recall no problems with how it reads to me now).
10096568
Great idea, thank you!
In general I'm not going to edit the text unless something crucial needs to be fixed, since the story is also in print as part of Songs of the Sisters, but for the web version of this story it makes all the sense to offer that.
10097824
You are welcome!
Not what I expected from a sequel to Angel, but I enjoyed it all the same. I liked the screwy chronology especially; it made the story feel just like its main character.
Woah, talk about sequel escalation, love it! A lot!
Reading about the calm human-mirror-world-is-destroyed future and the discord in the present filled me with dread!
Can't wait for the slice of life Darrell side story, the getting a new pc arc will be amazing! I'm sure of it.
no but seriously, side stories would be cool, the lore you got here is pretty gud
10118489
I was pretty chuffed that I managed to make future tense work in a story, and Discord was a fun vehicle to deliver that through.
10123326
Thank you for reading and enjoying!
I don’t know if it’s quite the side story you were hoping for — it doesn’t reuse any of these characters except for a brief Sunset cameo — but Fang and Flame is definitely another spiritual sequel in the same continuity, about a very different ruler meeting her other-world self. It kind of vanished into obscurity after winning a contest, so it’s probably worth mentioning!
10125263
You know, I never forgot about administrative angel but never was aware of the side story and sequel, you should put at the very top of administrative angel's fic description "has a sequel and side story"
Like, i re-read administrative angel and wasn't aware of these stories, when finishing a story my brain goes "Okey close tab and don't pay attention to anything else lmao"
10125263
I had that on my read later already, but I had no idea it was in continuity with these stories. That's neat.
Well, this has many things that I didn't expect. Sudden Sirens! Cool, having things be from mainly the antagonist's POV!
Twicord, after Fluttercord. I can see that. Interesting that there's no way to make Fluttershy immortal and stuff. Ah well.
reverse memory, or possibly acausal memory. Coool! And it's possibly acasual, so the future could be possibly very different! Oooh!
10682425
Thank you for reading, and glad you enjoyed!
A sequel worthy of the original. The premise and the way it was delivered is something that isn't seen often on other fanfictions.
You can has review!
11547400
Nah I totally get what you mean lol
I just can’t help myself when I get an opportunity for pedantry