Epilogue: A Use for Chaos Magic
It was later in the evening. The Canterlot Archives was darkened and quiet, its many halls, reading rooms, and book stacks home to only shadows and stillness...
Except for the Restricted Section, in a secure vault at the rear of one of the sub-basements.
Celestia was there, staring intently at a tall, coal-gray crystal set under a dome of spotlessly clean glass.
Discord was standing beside her, peering at it as well.
"I did have a hunch, Celestia, that you didn't have me reformed merely out of the goodness of your heart. Though I admit that covers a lot of ground. Much as you do yourself..."
"Discord..." she warned.
He held up his claw placatingly. "Hey! Don't shoot the messenger, here. Though if you did manage to lay off the cake from time to time..."
"The crystal, Discord?" Celestia asked, patiently.
"Yes, yes! Let me see." He put on a pair of pince-nez glasses, and stared at it some more. "Hmm. And you're saying this is all that remained, after Sombra..."
"All of it," Celestia confirmed. "The entire Empire... and this crystal is clearly the key."
"Hmm. More like the lock, I'd say," Discord observed. "But yes, I believe I can at least unstick it for you a little..."
He gently snapped his claw. For a moment, dark magic bubbled and seethed around the crystal, then lifted like vapor and dissipated... leaving it apparently unchanged.
"It doesn't look any different," Celestia said doubtfully.
"Well, you know Sombra, my dear. Appearances can be deceiving. But the crystal is accessible, I assure you. It's simply up to you to figure out how..."
Celestia eyed him quietly for a moment. "And you're not even going to give me a hint? Just to watch me struggle with it? Because I will admit, I can't do this on my own. I do need your help."
It was Discord's turn to be quiet, out of surprise. "Even after everything?" Discord asked. "The Mage Wars, the Confused Era, being left alone and isolated, for a thousand years. I could hear you, you know, even frozen in the garden as I was. Crying yourself to sleep, on nights when you hadn't managed to overwork yourself to oblivion?"
Celestia nodded. "Like an old friend once said... if we're willing to put the past behind us, who am I to object?"
Discord looked touched. For all of two seconds. Then he did his best not to look smug. "Well, you know how I work, Celestia. I can't just give you the answer. But I can point you in the right direction. And what I would suggest is this: ask yourself how you feel about Sombra."
Celestia's cold, stern gaze was answer enough.
"Good, good! Now work with that! How do you feel about the Crystal Empire? And -- oh, who was it again? Ah, yes, dear little Princess Amore, your friend, ally, and mentor?"
Celestia's face fell, became sadly regretful.
Discord suddenly clapped his paw and claw, right under her snout. "No, no, no! I mean, when they were still here! Stop thinking like a mourning dove, Celestia. Because that's how the Umbrum work! That's how they want you to think."
The Princess glared at him hotly. And then, realizing, she nodded.
She concentrated, and on her face a smile grew: warm, happy, reminiscent. Her sword-like horn lit up. With a levitation spell she lifted the dome of glass, and then took up the crystal. Shutting her eyes, she projected the warm, happy feeling from her heart into the crystal, as a shimmering amber flood of magic.
And the crystal was instantly transformed. The coal-gray cast drained away, replaced by a warm, rich, roseate hue.
Opening her eyes, Celestia gasped, nearly dropping the crystal in shock. Gently, she prodded it with her magic...
... and on the floor before her, a holographic map appeared. A city of crystal dwellings, in a street configuration reminiscent of a snowflake. And at its heart, a tall, ice-white crystalline spire...
"The Crystal Empire..." Celestia breathed. "As it was before... before Sombra..."
Then she sighed.
"But it's still just an image, not the real thing. It's still trapped. Discord, are you certain..."
"Sorry, Celestia!" He shrugged. "There are some secrets Sombra chose not to divulge to anyone... not even me! Presumably there's a way to unlock whatever curse was put on the Empire. But maybe he was determined to take the secret with him."
"Maybe," Celestia agreed sadly.
"Of course..." Discord added with a mischievous look. "If you were really desperate, I could always give it a whirl..." He held up his claw, eyeing her speculatively.
Celestia sighed, and shook her head. Gently, she replaced the crystal under its glass dome. "No, Discord," she said, determinedly. "Every lock has its key. We'll just have to keep looking for this one..."
"Ah, well. Suit yourself. And now, if there's nothing else, Celestia? I'll just pop back to my own dimension for some long-overdue spring chaosing. Ta ta!"
In a flash of chaos magic, he disappeared. Leaving Celestia shaking her head, amused by the change in him. He seemed almost like his old self again. Almost.
Extinguishing the lights, she locked up the Restricted Section. Then she trotted back through the darkened palace corridors, returning to the Audience Hall to continue her re-education of Princess Luna in the peculiarly formal and overly dramatic intricacies of the Night Court. The irony being of course, that Luna herself was the architect of same...
And as she went, Celestia considered Discord. Lonely, solitary Discord, who unwound his life, his memories, his very self, just to be with a single pony who once offered to be his friend.
"Maybe..." she whispered softly, "maybe there is just a spark of decency in Discord after all..."
Then she heard the draconequus's voice. It boomed through the darkened corridors all around her, huge and ghostly, chuckling sinisterly:
Don't bet on it, Celestia...
The End
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, its characters and indicia are the property of Hasbro.
No infringement is intended. This story is a work of fan fiction, written by fans for fans of the series.
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Woot, part 2. Lets hope it's not a sad story like the last one (which imo needs sad tag).
10795347
Cliffhangers are allowed to be sad, but rest assured, as Princess Luna once said to Starlight, "Things do indeed get better..."
I saw that "Deja Q" reference, don't think I didn't.
Interesting take on an AU Discord, and wonderful characterization as usual. Though, it's strange to think that not even Discord knows everything about how time works.
10795604
Seriously, if Discord could actually travel in time, we'd all be toast. It would be Time War to the Infinite Degree.
My thinking here is that Discord, as a being of pure chaos, isn't natively chronological -- he "fakes" it by playing along with the time-stream, adapting himself as he goes. Which means he can't just travel in time because he doesn't really have a solid, present-time "self" to move back and forth, He'd have to somehow figure out who he would be in the time stream at the time he wants to arrive at. And he normally doesn't have nearly the patience for that... unless it means getting back to a certain butter-colored pegasus he really got to like being with over the eons...
Oi, lay off a bit, would you, Discord? Those jokes are only accepted in... Certain circles. And only in a positive light, thank you very much!
10795716
I am aware. I'm talking about the gathering storm clouds from the end of Tempest's part of Part I. I said Storm King, and sure enough, Storm King. Not much of a factor in the end, but even so... I was still right.
10795754
...That bird is one BAMF of a bird...
i am...
dissatisfied with this story
for a start, you missed some real potential with having both the Elements and the Harmony Field in play
not to mention that it kinda feels like you're spitting on canon with this
dunno how to word it, exactly
10795869
Definitely, there are some good possibilities ahead for bringing the Mane 6 and the AP gang together, but doing that in this story would have made it really overlong. And one of the purposes for this story (aside from adding Discord to the mix, because well, Discord) was settling the ghost of the "other" timeline by having the AP group discover how their friendship is more than just happenstance, that they really do belong together. It's not a repudiation of canon, more an affirmation of this group of friends as the legitimate narrative center of their own timeline.
10795922
i believe you missed my point
my point is that you should have both groups in your next story in this series
y'know, try to build on their interactions
while i did enjoy it i felt a little disappointing, it was a little bit too convenient that they all ended up not being happy with the lives discord gave them, i preferred it if they actually been happy but chose to give that happiness up for their friendship with twilight, showing the bond of friendship was stronger then the offer of a perfect life.
i hope the original mane six will have a bigger part in any future stories it be nice to see twilight friendship not limited to her current friends, from normal little side stories to full on crises.
it was a fun ride and could have been a ep of the show
10797113
Thanks, and yeah, I hear you. There is a fine line to tread here, between relying too much on the original Mane 6, and striking out in completely new directions with the AP gang. I personally want to involve the Ponyville crew more, and I have some ideas about how to do that. But I also want to keep this timeline distinct enough from canon so that it doesn't end up just feeling like a retread with different ponies.
And the entire deal with Discord in this story was that he was focused on Fluttershy first and foremost, so he pretty much couldn't help handing each of the ponies an alternate life that would ultimately go sour. He's not a step-three kind of thinker. I decided that rather than having them give up a "perfect" life for friendship, it made more sense for them to realize that, even apart from their friendship with Twilight, they were each still missing something that they only really had as part of the group.
Mane6 are not the Elements Bearers... Does it mean that Fluttershy will be less self-assured, Rainbow will not be the Wonderbolt and Rarity will stay the country tailor?
10798098
Don't want to give away too much here, but consider that even in the canon timeline, the Elements didn't make the Mane 6 who they were, the Mane 6 simply were the right ponies to wield the original Elements, based on the kind of ponies they are.
10797221
To be fair, you did absolutely nail the "it's good, but it's not the same" angle with Cheese, and to a lesser degree with Sunset and Trixie, and maybe Moondancer. Starlight and Tempest honestly feel like the outliers in this regard, just in terms of how jarring the change is, but I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, to specifically change about them. You do make it work with Discord's explanation of the timeline "snapping back," so kudos for that, though I'm trying to remember if you explained how the timeline knew which other timeline to "snap back to."
This is false, Discord can travel through time, he did so in the IDW Comics via his sheer speed.
Hell, he also did in the show. When he took Twilight back in time for not figuring out his riddle in part 2 of his debut.
10800673
In general, I don't count the comics as canon, in part because that would add in far too many narrative curve-balls to keep track of, and also because I don't always agree with where they take the characters. (I'm surprised no one's mentioned Cosmos yet, since at first she seems like a second Chaos entity, though later it's revealed she's the personification of malice.)
And the scene in Return of Harmony I think you're referring to, where Discord "instant replays" his "Twists and turns..." riddle, that could more simply be explained as a present-time illusion, like rolling an instant-replay tape. Because if Discord could travel in time, then pretty much any story he appears in would be over instantly, since he could just go back in time and warn himself what to do or not to do. (Though as we saw with Twilight in It's About Time, that doesn't always work either...)
Is more coming after this one? As its a pretty good series
10809107
Thanks! And yes, there's a few more twists and turns ahead...
I haven't read this far yet just putting it in a shelf so I don't have to constantly hunt down the chapters; side note thank you for putting the chapter list on the first chapter. That being said Discord trying to rewrite the timeline to make it fit canon is such a Discord thing to do. Probably thought he was helping.