Old Family and Older Wars

by Hope

Chapter 2

"Did this... Khorne person agree to stop encroaching on our system?" Twilight asked hesitantly, still adapting to the new terminology as she walked side by side with Celestia along the Canterlot Castle walls, the space elevator from the top of Canterlot Mountain dominating the sky above them, a black arc that ascended to orbital shipyards.

"No, not yet," Celestia said, chuckling softly. "This first meeting was simply to reestablish communication, and to convince him that I am who I say I am."

Twilight nodded, and frowned. "A... goddess of Chaos," Twilight finally said.

"God. Gender did not exist back then," Celestia said, finding a spot to sit, looking down on the gardens. "I was a chaos god, one of five, well before I was an alicorn, or even a pony."

Twilight seemed distinctly uncomfortable, glancing between her once-tutor, and the gardens.

"You can ask me all of those questions buzzing through your mind, Twilight," Celestia said with a soft smile.

"You've never seemed... chaotic," Twilight admitted. "I just don't see it."

"Well that would be because of me," Discord said casually, leaning on a nearby pillar, cleaning his claws with a cocky grin.

Celestia rolled her eyes, but was still smiling a bit as she pointed at Discord with a hoof.

"By far my least favorite creation."

"Oh, wounded I am!" Discord said dramatically, a sword appearing, impaled through his chest. "Slain by thy cruel disregard! Who is your favorite?"

"Luna," Celestia said, huffing a little. "I actually meant to create her, and out of ninety two thousand years, she's only tried to kill me twice. Compared to..."

"Fifty three.... dozen," Discord said, fingers multiplying to count up the total before he shook his arm and the plethora of fingers fell to the ground like leaves.

Twilight looked between them, ever more bewildered, before pulling out a notepad. "I'm sorry, a bit of clarification, you... created Luna and Discord?"

"I tried two other times to make siblings, those didn't work, and I accidentally created all ponies," Celestia added.

"Acc... We were an accident?!" Twilight screeched.

"Well of course," Discord cackled. "Do you think that the saddest former chaos god with the least followers and the most angst would have the creativity to make a whole new race? Celly here just killed all the ones that she didn't like!"

Celestia glared as Twilight whimpered.

"Now that certainly is a dramatic way to phrase what happened. There are over a dozen sentient races on this planet, clearly I did not go out bent on killing. I simply had to intervene when two races were overly violent. They were wasting what little energy I had on large scale conflict," Celestia said grimly, meeting Discord's gaze evenly. "Don't try to paint me as a monster in this, Discord."

---

The first tree to reach up, above Malal's head, to strive for the star, was broken in half and laying on the dirt.

"This isn't chaos, this is petulance," Malal said, grimacing behind it's mask, looking at the fallen life form and wondering if it would recover on its own.

"If you make it, I'll break it. Keep a bit of our chaos around," Discord said casually from his powered massage chair floating on the water.

"Oh, I see, how brilliantly chaotic you are, seed of Malice," Malal said sarcastically. "You establish rules to oppose my actions, to discourage action of any kind. Truly, the most unpredictable of Anarchies."

"Geez, what a buzzkill you are, hard to believe that I'm part of you," Discord said miserably. "Is our joint response to any challenge to simply philosophize it out of existence?"

"Oh, is that a thing I can do?" Malal growled, carefully splicing the little fern back together. "If I convince you how petty and pathetic your half-assed version of chaos is, will you just cease to be? Perish such a perfect dream."

A rock hit Malal on the back of the head, and it lashed out with a blast of magic that sent discord tumbling across the waves, but ultimately unharmed.

They faced off in silence for a time, occasionally attacking each other but finding themselves utterly incapable of doing any true harm to the other beyond scrapes and bruises.

Years passed, and eventually found them staying away from each other. Discord roamed the planet and found all the dead places to enjoy, as Malal observed the natural chaotic order that came to fruition from nothing.

But eventually Discord did return.

"What is chaos then? If you, if we spent all of our existence fighting order down to the most minute detail, and that came about to confronting imperfect chaos, what were we fighting for all that time?!"

Malal sat among a Grove of trees, and observed the frustrated spark of chaos that had once been one with it.

"True chaos would be all of energy in a perfect suspension without any pattern or use being put to it. A greying and stasis of the entire universe."

"So our goal all along has been an impossible task," Discord growled.

Malal just shrugged, any emotion hidden behind it's mask. "If that is your conclusion, then yes. But the utter waste of our former siblings, trying to implement a slightly less ordered form of order upon the universe is just as futile and in direct opposition of our goal. The expenditure of energy at an exponential rate makes the perfect chaotic state less possible, not more."

Discord stared, and finally sat.

"Then why haven't you made this realm we've been banished to into a miniature version of our perfect existance?"

Malal thought for a moment, looking up into the sky at all of the stars out there beyond it's reach, all the emptiness begging to be equalized.

"Nature itself would intervene," it finally concluded. "Pulling matter away, leaving us with less perfect space, eventually destroying it. The most chaotic existence we can have is this one. Allowing the path of least resistance, least energy expenditure, to continue. Life came to be on its own, and so we will let it be, as it uses only existant energies. If something comes to be in this domain which attempts to impose a wasteful order upon reality, we will intervene."

Discord woke with a start, slurping up drool that had been running down his chin.

"Sorry, uh… what was my line?" Discord mumbled, paging through an e-book. "Right, that just sounds like order with extra steps."

"In that case, all chaos has an end goal of order with extra steps!" Malal raged, finally standing.

"Ah," Discord said, smiling just a little. "That's how I'll torture you then. For thinking that chaos was attainable in the first place."

Then Discord vanished, leaving Malal alone to fume over it's former chaotic core, and how annoying it had become.

Comments

[Xanderfox]

I think the absolute irony that the Chaos gods with out meaning to create Order is just too delecious. That creating anything at all, is in fact imposition of order and that left alone the universe that cycle of chaos making order and order making chaos happens if the Gods are there or not fits pretty well. Warhammer shows us a universe where it's and endless struggle against the very nature of existence and the idea even God's are in the end powerless fits in and is hopeful In a twisted way. Neither of or Chaos can ever succeed in destroying the other, so they never have to worry about what thier purpose is after achieving the goal, you can't reach the goal so you always have your purpose.

[Hope]

10123984
You get it! We've boiled chaos down to it's essentials!
Now Discord is in our heads! Lol

[treegrowth]

Interesting.

[Blackwatch9]

Uh! My head hurts!

[Hope]

10141629
Awwww, don't try to understand the contradictions of self-consuming chaos! That's the worst thing to do!