Chapter 6,
For Want of a War
Epsilon
She climbed the last rung, pausing to maintain her balance, more difficult without - 'don't think about it, think about the problem and the solution.' Both forehooves on the top, she moved her right hind leg onto the top of the ladder, experiencing a moment of vertigo. ' Right, maze. Some ponies use that old 'stick to the left-hoof side' method. Doesn't work in a maze where the walls aren't all contiguous.' Now she raised her left hind leg into the air, bending deeply at the knee, and brought it down on top of the shelf. 'I say why accept the rules presented to you?' Rainbow Dash allowed herself a smirk of satisfaction as she surveyed the library from on top of her bookshelf perch.
A moment later she caught a glimpse of orange and yellow as her earth pony friend climbed another stack some distance away. 'That's funny, why do I feel jealous all of a sudden? Not important, the two of us should have an easier time getting everypony back together.' Dash waved as vigorously as she could without threatening her balance. A moment later she was rewarded with an answering wave from Jackie - who pointed at a row of bookshelves halfway between the two. The blue mare nodded and began negotiating her way along the top of their bookbound maze.
Half a dozen hoofsteps later the inventor felt she had regained her sense of balance and was moving at a quicker pace when a flash of pink caught her eye, off to the side. "Di? Is that you... " she was not prepared for the scene of farcical combat she beheld as she moved closer. "Hang on, I'm coming!", the former pegasi knew that with Discord's 'No Loud Voices' rule Dianne likely hadn't heard her, but she felt she had to say it anyhoof.
The conflict was taking a turn for the worse... she thought. 'It's like they're reaching through non-euclidean four dimensional space! I could see the spirit of Chaos doing that, but Dianne? No time to worry about it - I'm not losing anypony today or any other day.' By the time she had made it to the two combatants - in the 'Self Help' section - Dash knew it was already over. Watching her quiet friend shrink and inflate, folding in on herself and warping in ways matter clearly never could, she felt sick to her stomach. It was a relief to see her finally return to her original form... even if she looked as though she were being drained of color and tone.
The final straw was the look of disappointment and outright boredom on Discord's face. Without thinking she leapt from the shelftop at the draconequus's head, her shriek of rage sounding like an angry balloon with a pinprick.
For his part, the spirit of disharmony never saw it coming. One moment he was trying to figure out how to salvage anything from his waste of an encounter with not-Pinkie and then - WHAM! Pony-to-the-head. His instinct was to curl up and try to lessen the impact, but he hadn't counted on full-contact full-spectrum pony grabbing onto his neck and refusing to let go - so the two of them ended up rolling like a wheel - only coming to rest when they finally crashed into a stack of 'Daring Do' novels set up to commemorate the upcoming release of the thirteenth novel of the series.
**** *** ****
"Ohff. For the record, Miz Dash, that is not the right kind of rainbow to hit me with."
"You son of a timberwolf, I saw what you did to Dianne I'm gonna-"
"Who?"
"Dianne: twentysomething mare, about yea tall, pink coat and pink hair, kinda mellow, medical cutie mark-"
"Oh, so that's what she calls herself. So, what, should I call you 'Danger' then? I think Rainbow Crash is a better-"
The advantage to performing martial arts, even in a relaxed form like Tail-Chi, is that when you really need a move your body knows what to do with barely a thought. Dash found herself standing on her hind legs, forehooves extended, left under right, in the final stance of 'Pony tosses beachball' by the time she had decided she was going to hit the trash talking amalgamation. The aforementioned was busy picking himself out of a pile of young adult novels.
"Ouch. I really mean that - oww. We haven't even gotten to the serious discussion yet."
"Stop acting like you know us. Do you know, when Rare first told me about what happened to you, I actually felt bad for you? But you're a jerk. Doesn't make any of this ok, but I can see how you're making this all so much worse - and I bet you don't even see it-"
"Aht, ah ah... " Discord wagged a claw in admonition, "one accusation of how horrible a monster I truly am at a time. I'm assuming you came to that last show a little late, but let me make this clear to you: your friend did that to herself - she directly rejected help from a source I never expected, and instead chose to... take on a different perspective."
"That can't be the whole story."
"It never is, but in this case nothing I have said is a lie, or even much of a twisting of events."
"What about the crazy bent space stuff?"
"I couldn't do that to her if I wanted to."
"Really?"
"Well, let me put it this way: if I were to bend and twist a pony like that, what you'd be left with a would not look like a pony."
"I still don't like you."
"None of us ever appreciate our creditors, 'Danger' "
"Pffft! That was funny, I'll give you that - but you've never- … ergh, stupid language rules."
Discord frowned, "this is at least the second time I've seen one of you ponies stumble over your choice of words - what are you doing?"
Rainbow Dash eyed the creature of chaos and shrugged, "I can't see how telling you can make anything worse: One of the things we went over about dealing with you 'deific' types is to avoid using absolute terms, stuff like 'Never', 'Always', and 'Anything'. Specifically we're not supposed to give you anything that sounds like a challenge or the sort of thing a hero says in story and then comes to regret when 'somehow' her words end up being ironically twisted into some horseapple of a situation."
The draconequus stared at her for so long that the pony didn't expect a reply of any kind. "If you ponies are doing this on purpose, I am not amused." He paced, paws behind his back. "It was Celestia, wasn't it? I knew she'd never keep her end."
"What are you saying about the Princess?" Rainbow bridled, ready to get back to kicking some 'quus.
"This whole... you know what, it would be easier to show you than tell you."
"Hold on a second, I think I hear the others-"
Discord snapped his fingers together, he and the spectrum over blue mare disappearing in a flash of light.
*** * ***
They stood on ground that didn't exist, in a place that wasn't there anymore, watching fillies and colts who had long since grown into adults. Everything had a faded hue, and Rainbow Dash could see through herself. 'This is so far beyond weird that I can't even freak out.'
"Cloudsdale's Young Fliers Summer Camp, circa 988 CE. Due to renovations of the main training grounds the camp was moved to a temporary site near Canterlot and Ponyville. While there are a multitude of students this season, we're only concerned with three of them: Bar Bell, Fluttershy Poesy, and Rainbow Danger Dash."
It was like an out of pony experience, watching the three idiots pick on Fluttershy, 'how long has it been since anypony thought they could get away with doing that? Oh, right, a decade.' "How are you doing this?"
"It's magic, I don't have to explain it. Shh... the best part is coming up." Discord hunched over, crunching loudly from the bucket of popcorn he was holding.
The race, the worst mistake of her entire life. The pale pegasus signaled the start, Dash's new perspective allowing her to see that she and 'Dumbell' had indeed managed to whirl 'Shy around and cause her to fall. She wanted to throw up, she wanted to scream, she wanted to dive after the filly right now. She continued to watch.
The two racers curved around the first turn, the colt seeing that he was going to lose distance knocked her younger self off-course. 'This is when I pause, and the nail... ' Something was wrong, all of Rainbow's shoes remained firmly on her hooves. The filly gathered her strength and continued the race, a grin of focused competition plastered on her muzzle. Faster and faster she dived after the colt, reaching speeds that made her contrail visible as pegasus magic and aerodynamics fought for supremacy. The mare's eyes reduced to pinpricks, months of research, calculations, and experiments telling her what would happen next: something that was impossible.
"No way, there is NO WAY that a filly can generate the wingpower to... " Thoom. A disc of rainbow hued light exploded outward, washing over everything and leaving a trail of wonder behind it. "That never... I don't even... "
The victorious pegasus filly landed, proudly accepting the accolades of the other campers and taking the chance to show off her newly earned cutie mark, a white cloud emitting a tri-color lightning bolt - it looked fast even sitting still.
Discord leaned over the mare, who had collapsed, snaking his head down level with hers. "One thing. She let me change one thing, said it wouldn't make any difference. Can you guess what I picked?"
"How could you... do, do you mean Fluttershy was supposed to DIE!?"
"Oh, your fine feathered friend is completely unharmed. Better than unharmed, in fact. For the first time in a very long time she isn't afraid. Want a peek?" Discord reached a paw out an impossibly long distance to the ground and caused their viewpoint to warp to the middle of a forest clearing far below. The young yellow pegasus was ushering animals from hiding, smiling with a serenity Rainbow had rarely seen on her.
"How..."
"I think this calls for a little rewind, don't you?" the serpentine figure fiddled with knobs on a small black box. Everything became a blurred whirlwind in reverse, and when it stopped you Fluttershy hung frozen in the air, plunging earthward. When the pony didn't respond to his nonverbal cues, Discord picked Rainbow Dash up and carried her over to the point directly below the tragic trajectory of the plummeting pegasus. "Knowing you, I think you'll want a detailed view of this next part - you'd certainly never believe me if I simply described it."
Thoughts raced through her mind like a typhoon. She simultaneously felt like she was no longer in her body and that she was trapped in her own skull, unable to control her body. 'Time' started again, and she watched the younger incarnation of her friend fall... and be caught by a swarm of butterflies. There was nothing to snap, she was so far beyond anything she could understand that it really didn't make a difference anymore. Somehow this physical impossibility seemed 'right', seemed like what should have happened - 'but that would mean.'
"That's right. Your sacrifice, the injuries you suffered, the guilt and agony you felt, the mortifying embarrassment of flight training for 'special' ponies you guilted her into, and the storm incident that again nearly cost her her life. None of it was necessary, it had no meaning." Discord placed a conciliatory paw on her shoulder, which she didn't try to shrug away. "Heavy stuff, I know - but hey, it means that none of the sacrifices you've made since then to try and 'atone' were necessary either. Hay, you're so far ahead of the game you could stop expressing any altruistic behavior at all and still be karmically set for the rest of your life."
"What about the others? What happens to them, without the cloudboom?"
"Oh? Are you sure you want to know?"
"Please... I can't stand not knowing."
"Let me see here... the rainbow led a confused Applejack back to her family farm where she accepted a position of responsibility, becoming the cornerstone of the farm and a shining beacon of honesty and hard work. 'Dianne' was shocked out of her childhood depression by that same rainbow, can you believe it, and became a champion of laughter and joy, quite literally able to bring a smile to the face of every pony, donkey, and zebra she meets. Rarity discovered a huge cache of gemstones and realized her childhood dream of becoming a famous designer of clothing, her belief in dreams and beauty driving her to be as generous with her sister pony as she could, oh there was something about the rainbow in her story, too. Twilight Sparkle was distracted in the middle of an important examination and discovered the immense reservoir of magical potential she had, becoming Princess Celestia's special student and studying further and broader into the field of magic than any pony since Starswirl the Bearded. Your counterpart -"
"That's enough. Too much. I... is, is this real?"
"Are you going to trust me if I say it is?"
"There have to be some things, something that not even you would... " she swallowed. "Yes, whatever you say now, I'll believe - just tell me, is this really what would have happened if I hadn't known about Fluttershy's fall?"
"Yes." Victory wasn't as sweet as he'd expected. It tasted a whole lot like ash. In his plan she was supposed to decide that if her actions had no consequences then she could do anything she wanted - and become the ultimate Egotist. It would have been hilarious. This wasn't funny, it wasn't even mildly amusing.
* *** *
"C'mon, it was this way, Ah'm sure of it!" Jackie spurred her friends as they raced to reach where she'd seen Rainbow Dash leap into confrontation with the spirit of disharmony by herself. The fact that the fastest they could run was a swift walk was tearing at her last nerves. It was like running through molasses, it was like a bad dream.
Four ponies piled into the cleared area in time to see Discord reappear holding a slate gray pony. Ignoring the advancing mares, he whispered something to the pony before setting her down.
"Rainbow...?" Rarity choked out. The pony looked up at her, not out of curiosity or in recognition, but with a weary sense of obligation she expressed with her entire being. She didn't say anything.
Twilight glanced at Dash and away again. "C... clinical depression will affect one in six ponies at some point in their lives. Hhhh... hug therapy has only proven to be approximately 30% effective."
"Stupid Discord - how's she supposed to learn from this if she's comatose?" Dianne gestured at herself in a grandiose manner, " 'I don't turn ponies to stone', what the buck ever. What you've left of her doesn't look much more useful than a paperweight."
'I can fix this. Once I'm the undisputed power of this world I can fix all of this - it's the victors who write history. Discord pulled the library rules sign from thin air running a claw through the 'No Running' rule and producing an ear-splitting claw-on-metal screech. Any pony who hadn't been looking at him certainly was now. "Hey, fruit pony, wanna race?"
Be careful what you wish for, Discord! Looks like even the spirit of Chaos can't predict what'll happen when he starts playing around with the Butterfly Effect.
That shouldn't be a comma, and "this" should be capitalized
I think you mean "him"
Whew... what a !! One minute I think I'm looking at Variant World's version of Satan incarnate, the next he actually shows regret or panic over the way he's caused things to turn out?? You, notMurphy, verge on the kaleidoscopically manic with Discord here...
...which I would guess means you're doing an excellent job of writing him accurately. Nicely done, and it makes me eager to see how this version of The Return of Harmony is going to play out!
1878964 not to be confused with The Fluttershy Effect, which is a good read.
Poor Dash. Not the best way to find out the truth. How will this change things?
1878966 Gratze, fixing now...
Ah ha! I suspected Discord might be responsible for the altered timeline. No wonder he's having trouble following the script.
1878969
What? Maybe "panic," but what "regret"? He's clearly planning on doing even more mind-raping in order to get the ponies to think exactly the way he wants them to! Discord is still definitely very much capital-"E" EEEE-Evil here.
Oh... OH! They are! They are making him change his rules as they go along! In fact, HE'S changing them! *cackles* Oh my, this is good.. this is GOOD!
1879473
Why would he be wanting to "fix" any of this if he didn't regret at least some of it at least a little bit? Seems to me that by turning Variant RD into an emotionless spouter-of-psychological-encyclopedia-entries through condemnation, he's more than accomplished his goal of spreading chaos...
I forgot to mention this in my last post, but...
notMurphy, why use "Δ" in "Delta", but not "Γ" for "Gamma"? Alpha, beta, and epsilon are... kind'a too similar to notice much of a difference, but gamma?
1879503
I'm pretty sure he means "fix" as in "fix it how he wants it be," not "fix it back the way it was." As for accomplishing goals, I'm also pretty sure there's no such thing as "enough chaos" for Discord.
1879550 You're right,pure laziness on my part - lemme' go fix that... and done.
May I just mention, Zephyr and Music, what a maniacal smile your debate brings to my face?
1879568
Ugh... -and what's worse is I, too, know that feeling. I suppose we're both wrong, even though it looks like there's only those two answers ("regretful" and "not regretful")? Not that I expect you to answer beyond your smile growing wider.
1878972
MRrrrrrg...I keep trying to want to update but I get distracted by everything I am terrible at writing
Uh...I'll try and get a new chapter out in January, maybe?
1879665 I don't want to pressure you into doing something you don't want to - but at the same time I'd love to read a new chapter
Also, any artist worth paying attention to feels that their work is terrible - because they can see how much room for improvement they still have
1879678
It's not that I really don't want to, it's that my brain is easily distracted by shiny objects, like Guild Wars 2 or the 105 story updates in my e-mail inbox.
1879644
The spectrum of emotions felt by sentient beings is far too broad for there to ever be only two answers to a sophont's motivations. In addition, the world of the story is a consensual reality - it's not 'real' until someone reads it and their imagination constructs the images in their mind. Steven King puts it best in his book 'On Writing Fiction', where he describes the minimal scene to imply a murder has happened - and then explains to the reader that they just participated in the scene by drawing that conclusion.
1879682 Well then allow me to cheer on your sense of focus
1879641
Keep up the good work! You're doing pretty well thus far, just don't forget that you can go back and fix things if need be.
(But seriously, those names REALLY sent me for a spin. They just don't make sense for a pony. Keep 'em if you want, but I still think they're rather odd names for ponies to have. Not that ponies don't already have weird names.)
1879748 If it makes you feel any better, you won't be seeing that name again in the story Also, rock farmers are kind of weird to begin with.
1879706
Well, neither of us said it's the full spectrum, only one binary (of a vast array). Now that I think of it, Music (and therefore I) was not particularly specific on what Discord was supposedly regretful about, so at the moment its "range" in its ability to define Discord is rather broad. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Twilight_Sparkle.png ((I really hope this image-hiding thing is "fixed" at least for these addon emoticons...))
1879803 True enough
((yeah, it is kind of a drag. I understand Knightly's reasons - and I'm not about to protest a free service - but it is inconvenient))
To tell you the truth, I just wish the story would stop going 'off script' on me
Hah! I laughed out loud. Loved that line.
And the rest of it? ... How sad. Knowing someone played around with your destiny is terrible.
1879858 what makes 'what ifs' bearable is that we can't know what would have happened instead.
1879877
Exactly! It's mostly why I don't deal in 'what ifs' as far as my life is concerned.
1880624 Agreed.
I tried reading out the fourth sentence but it just didn't make sense. You know the old saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, though in this sense would be past tense. Hope that makes things clearer.
1880632 Then let it be that I will now be lurking and reading all the chapters listed here... given time to catch up that is Expect more similar comments in the future!
1880971 4. Technically it can go both ways since it's kinda like an open ended sentence
More intriguing developments! But why would Celestia let Discord change anything!? (Don't answer that, as I assume it will be revealed later.)
I like how the books have a sense of irony.
I have a suspicion that this ("this" here meaning the obvious issues Discord is having with his work[is this actually his own feelings, or a result of Dianne's Stare?]) is meant to set up this world's version of the upcoming episode in which Discord is meant to supposed to be 'reformed'.
Perhaps it's happening a bit early hereabouts?
So...wait a tic.
Discord is trying to...make this universe into the MLP-canon? The way how it is originally?
Huh...and to think he's not even being a jackass about is even more surprising. You'd think he'd be more menacing, but to me he's coming off as a confused bystander trying to fix things (and not doing very well, mind you).
1881868 I swear with all the honesty I can muster that I didn't even glance at the synopsis for the next episode until Sunday night. If anything influenced me it was The Keepers of Discord by HoopyMcGee (if you haven't read it yet, I strongly recommend it) cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye
On the other hoof, the third season has been doing strange things to fanfics from the start (anypony here read Faith and Doubt? Dark magic huh, now canon), hay in my head, the rock that Spike threw in the last episode was the Wild Moon Pebble from Moonstuck.
...
That said, there is absolutely nothing stopping me from taking full advantage of the convergence of Variant and Canon (and honestly, what a waste to leave John De Lancie as a garden ornament).
1882643 How fitting that a chapter about Discord provides the author an opportunity to be pragmatic.
1882708 Pragmatism is the next thing to my special talent. Also I have strong personal opinions about the nature of chaos.
So Discord was the reason the timeline changed... but it looks like it's not turning out the way he wanted it to.
Okay, Mind Raping Twilight was pretty creepy, in it's own way, and done pretty well. Dianne never really stood a chance, in hindsight(and now I'm pretty sure I have down what the Pink actually is), but Dashie.... Wow. You are a horrible who deserves all the cookies in the world. Making her fall so deep into Discordance that Discord is creeped out.
Well done, sir. Well done.
1884751 Thank you.
I'm not going to whine about writing these chapters any more - all that does is make me a hypocrite - I started this and I will end it... next year
(your results may vary by timezone, please rest assured I mean 2013)
1879503
I actually don't think Dash said a thing at all. I think that was Twilight spouting off yet another fact semi-related to the situation. That stutter wasn't induced by any weakness caused by motivational blackout, it was just sheer shock strong enough to slightly slip through the compulsion to distract from the truth with facts.
1879803
FiMFiction Image Fixer script for Greasemonkey. (Conveniently by the same person who created the Greasemonky script adding the extra emoticons...)
1889055 Sounded like nM was referring to Dash... Maybe I'm mistaken; I'll go back and read that section again. ...
Nope, it was Dashie, not Twilight. I'm sure of it now.
1889179 Those are certainly impressive (and even intimidating) stats.
Frankly, any story over 50 chapters or 160k words impresses me. What I am more concerned with is whether I want to invest the time to read such a long story.
Thank you for the recommendations (I do know and enjoy SS&E's work, there's just SO MUCH of it). I try to read three chapters a day to keep my reading pile from burying me, but I can't help adding interesting looking stories to my list - if I didn't, why would I even be here?
Rask and I were discussing PonyPOV because we both enjoy reading it - in my case it was the story that pulled me into pony fiction in the first place.
1889055>>1890068
That line? That is Twilight speaking.
Dash has yet to speak since her discording.
I like to cut references when a lot of ponies are talking in rapid succession, but I can make it more specific if this is misleading.
1882643
Boy, they sure have...!! The Powers of Harmony by CyborgSamurai (Twilight's Absorption power from there is now also canonical), Faith and Doubt, (read it, loved it, favorited it...), now your touches of an ep nocritter has ever seen yet... it's almost like Jason Thiessen and co. are reading these forums to get ideas for this season's scripts!
1890099 Oh. If that was Twilight, then yes, you might want to edit to make that fact a little clearer. As it's written, I could have sworn that was RD responding to Rarity's hesitant greeting/question. Whoops.
1890194 First thing I want to say is that if they are: I'm completely fine with that
I don't think that's actually happening, thought (ok, ok, some part of me hopes they do because that would be).
I think all of us are from generations that grew up with Saturday Morning Cartoons, and we share a large pool of ideas about what makes a good story. That's just my theory though, I won't know unless Mr. Thiessen directly answers a question about it.
1890231 Fixed, now it is obvious who is speaking. Sorry for the vagueness
So which timeline did Discord create? the Rainboom, or the Cloudboom?
1890727 Discord set in motion the events that led to the cloudboom.
Causing a nail to fall out of a shoe is more chaotic than causing it to stay in place, don't you think?
So, discord is responsible for Dash throwing a shoe?
And Celestia allowed him to change one thing.
Why and when? I mean, how does that work? Was this always the plan? And if so, where are you going with that?
Ah well. We'll see eventually, right?
walls aren't all contiguous
Aht, ah ah
when it stopped you Fluttershy hung frozen
1. Continuous.
2. Ah.
3. Young.