New Endings, Old Starts

by David Silver

66 - We Meet, Again

Comforting clenched her fingers. It was a thing she couldn't stop doing. After so long not having them... she finally had fingers again, and ignoring them felt impossible.

"Ya alright?" Apple Bloom was right in front of her, sniffing gently. "That musta been somethin' else. Ya sure yer okay?"

Comforting reached for Apple Bloom with her new dragon fingers, rubbing Apple Bloom's ear gently. It was as soft as she had had hoped for. "Confused, which is going around... a lot, but I'm alright." A glow manifested around her other arm, tugging gently. Comforting looked to Sweetie, the source of it. "Something wrong?"

Sweetie gave another little pull. "No offense... but you're a bit of a mess."

"Hey." Discord leaned in from over Sweetie. "She is no more 'messed' than anycreature else here."

Fluttershy turned instead for her cottage in the distance. "We should... go home. A good night's rest will help."

Comforting followed after her, new long tail twitching. "I'm not that tired." She felt... energized, really. Despite that, she followed her mom.

"You'll get used to that." Discord floated along with them, leaving the crusaders behind. "Sleep is now an optional thing. Do it because you want to do it. Or don't, because you don't want to do it. Simple, hm?"

"But..." Comforting scratched at a tufted ear with a dragon's set of claws. "What about when everypony else is asleep?"

"Then you either find something else to do, you bother them anyway, or you take a nap because you're bored." He shrugged, floating with her. "I've done any of the three before."

Fluttershy giggled softly. "Is that why you stopped by that one time?"

Discord looked away. "I admit nothing."

Fluttershy inched a little closer to Comforting. "I... want to be honest with you. You're... still my child. If I can't be honest with you, um, well that's no good... This... This is new, and strange." She took a slow breath. "It's going to take some getting used to."

Comforting directed a thumb at herself. Oh, she had a thumb. Two in fact. She was distracted a moment hiking them at things in a returned ability to do so. "That goes for me too... But I'm still your daughter and love you. And I still want to go to school and learn things. I'm still me."

Discord grabbed both of them, one arm around either. "You're, sorta, mine too!"

Both recoiled, eyeing him with surprise and doubt. "What?" He waved over Comforting's form. "There are exactly two of this in all of Equestria. I'm the other one. I helped make you, as daddy's tend to do. How do I not fit the bill?" He presented Comforting with a receipt.

Comforting peered at the receipt, eyes flashing in a wave of colors. "Hm."

Immortality
Cosmic Powers (in progress)
Friendship!
Not being dead
-----
Daddy Discord

Fluttershy suddenly darkened. "Wait. Discord! Was this a way to get closer to me?"

"Whatever do you mean?" he asked with an arched brow.

"If you're her father, and I'm her mother, then we are connected in a new way." She waved a hoof between Comforting and Discord.

Discord coiled around Comforting, squeezing her. "Really?! I would never had guessed," he assured with a surprised gasp. "What a lucky coincidence. I already like the two of you, and now we're even closer."

Comforting gave her father(?) a light patting. "I almost hate to ask... cosmic powers?"

"About that!" Discord unwound from her and sprang in front of her, though floating backwards along with their motion. "I didn't write 'in progress' for nothing. Right now, you have no magic. Not even a drop. I mean, technically, you have plenty of magic, but you have no idea how to use it. Go on, try."

Comforting willed her horn, which she still had one of, to glow, but she saw two lights out of the corner of her vision. "Huh?" She reached up to inspect herself and discovered that she had been wrong. She had one horn in her field of view, right where she expected it. But there was another horn coming out to the side, thicker and smoother. A yak horn. She had a yak horn and a changeling horn. "Huh..."

Discord tapped the discovered yak horn. "They say that your friends are a part of you. You just went and made that literal. I wonder what they'll think of it."

Comforting's glow stopped as she thought of the reaction of the other students to her sudden taking the shape of their various parts. "I hope... they're alright with this... Oh, magic." She waved talons at a rock, willing it to be shrouded in flowers, but nothing happened... "Hey."

"Told you. You're not a unicorn anymore. Now, a changeling horn is like a unicorn horn. So, if you want, you could just get a feel for it and go right back to unicorn magic." Discord clapped his hands, watching Comforting with a smirk. "Or you can move right on past it. We're not limited to unicorn magic. Consider this an upgrade."

Fluttershy frowned with that. "She worked hard to learn her magic. Taking that away isn't very nice at all."

"But I didn't!" He threw his arms aside, either landing a few feet away from the rest of himself. "What she learned is still helpful, even if she never goes back to doing it the unicorn way. How things work is good to know. You can just do it a new way." His arms casually returned to their original places. "Now, if we're done complaining, I can show you how to do things the Discord way!"

"The Discord way? So..." She raised her dragon arm and put her fingers close together, preparing. "Snap." And she snapped.

The entire world was frozen, completely solid.

Well, except Discord. He crossed his arms with a sigh. "That was silly of you. I hadn't even finished explaining it. Still, points for that 'go get 'em' attitude." He zipped in close to his daughter with a grin. "When you snap, you draw the attention of the universe. And now it's watching, and waiting. You didn't give it instructions, so we're stuck here in the paused moment. Now, eventually, the universe will get tired of waiting and things will continue. Now, there are two ways to do this. One, you do it yourself while the universe is distracted. Or two, you get the universe in on it. Two is trickier, you have to ask for something the universe wants to do, and it's picky. Think your friend Harmony, but even bigger, more powerful, and even less personable."

He drifted away with a laugh. "On the other hand, if you get the universe in on it, well, that's pretty powerful. But it's rarely worth all the bother. If the universe wanted it, it'd already be happening, so I don't suggest that."

"Harmony!" squeaked out Comforting.

"Like her, yes." Discord nodded lightly.

"No, there." Comforting pointed past Discord to where Harmony was seated calmly, watching them. "Harmony! Hello!"

Harmony inclined her head. "You are now a breaker. The plan is ruined. The plan is broken..." She sighed gently, drooping. "We are now in a new place... Are you the same? You can't be. You have changed..."

Discord whirled to face his orderly rival. "Don't be all melodramatic about it. Plans are made to be broken. Just means we make up a new one!" He set a hand down on Comforting's head. "And here she is. Of course she changed. Don't we all? Even you've changed."

Harmony inclined an ear. "That... is not incorrect. You have no need of me. Chaos and change are what you have. You have shed my mark. You are entirely free of my influence."

Comforting hurried towards Harmony, but the distance between them never seemed to shrink. "What do you mean, mark?"

Harmony lifted a hoof at Comforting's hips. "Even the parts of you that remain a pony do not have their mark. They entirely separated you from me."

Comforting looked herself over. There was no cutie mark. "Oh... But I was helping before I got one. Why would this make a difference?"

Harmony inclined her head at that. "Is it that simple? You are free."

"That just means you have to keep your promise, which you were doing before... even when it hurt. I appreciate that, a lot." She took a more calm step forward and reached Harmony's side where all the running had failed. "That had to be hard."

"It was," agreed Harmony with a slow breath. "And now, here you are... I do not have a 'boss', but if I did, this is as close as we could get, and you have drawn their attention to yourself, to me, to us... Now they are aware of how badly I failed, allowing the plan to be shattered..."

Discord put an arm around either of them. "Sure, but will do they anything about it? I doubt it. They're not really the 'get up and do things' kind of being. That's half of why we're around, isn't it, Harmony girl?"

Harmony suddenly pricked up. "Have you..." She poked at Comforting. "Did he?"

"Did he what?" Harmony's eyes swirled with fresh colors with her confusion, settling on an off-violet in her left, though her right returned to their amberish hue. "What's wrong?"

Harmony clopped a hoof down in a rare showing of a flared emotion. "You did that on purpose. You made her one of us. Not a princess, but a watcher. You made her a peer."

Discord held up two fingers close together. "That's being a bit overly dramatic about it. She's not as everything as we are. How could she be? She doesn't even know how to do anything yet. She's our junior!" He adjusted the tie he hadn't been wearing before, dudded up in professional attire. "And we expect great things from you."

Comforting squeaked, realizing she was also wearing business formal. "You have to finish showing me how to even think about that before I can. Speaking of that, wh--" Time resumed. She was standing in front of Discord.

Fluttershy blinked softly. "Did it not work? I didn't see anything happen." She looked around for the result of Comforting's snap, but nothing was there to see. "I guess you have to practice."

Discord elbowed Comforting lightly. "You've already learned that lesson. All good things take practice to get right and all that. Did you think being one of me would skip that? Well, actually... it can, but you haven't learned that trick just yet." He opened a door that hadn't been there. "I'll let you two get comfortable." He left them, the door popping out of existing when it was closed.

Fluttershy made it to her cottage, opening the door and turning back to Comforting. "A... lot has happened today."

"Y-yes... Mom, this was... this was my fault." Comforting sagged with the admission. "I was helping Scootaloo and didn't think it all the way through and she was going to get hurt, so..."

"So you did your best to protect her." Fluttershy smiled gently. "I imagine she deserves some of the blame, and I imagine she's already punished herself quite a bit. I'm... Comforting, this... This has gotten even more important." She ran a hoof through the air from the bottom up. "You are not a pony... You're still Comforting, but you're not a pony. You are something that can cause even more trouble with your magic, as you learn it... I'm not saying this to make you upset, but if you don't want to cause a lot of trouble, you have to consider what you do long before you actually do it."

Something seemed to click for Fluttershy. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"Oh," repeated Fluttershy. "This is why Discord doesn't just make our problems go away when he could, in theory, do that." She smiled gently. "Thank you, for helping me understand him a little better."

Author's Note:

Comforting has a new lease on life (again), but seems mostly alright with it, so long as those around her are. But will they be?

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Comments

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

Comforting may have incredible Cosmic Powers (in progress), but at least she isn't confined to an itty-bitty living space. 😉

I wonder how fast a study she will be with her new powers?

Comforting is new spirit of chaos that wants to help Harmony. This is going to be very interesting.

Are Discord, Fluttershy, and Comforting going to be a happy family?

[Codiert]

The freakout of Twilight will be glorious. Her first real magic student become a draconequus.
@Amethyst Dragonfly
I think Comforting will get her own realm. Like every alicorn have her own. Draconequus of change, of metamorphose or of cheesecake.
Don't think Discord like to share his realm. Even to his new daughter.

[Moonlight_Mist]

11371399
So is Discord the Draconequus of chaos, cotton candy clouds, chocolate milk, and plaid streets?

[David Silver]

11371439
No no, sad streets. He mostly ignores them. Makes them sadder.

[PhycoKrusk]

11371512
The cur.

[Numinos]

Huh, so now we're waiting for alicorn 'Shy to get a full house? : )

This was a twist indeed.

[Munro]

once twilight finds out she will be twilighting hard

[Prettypony]

I'm excited to see her friends' reactions to her new form, I imagine it'd go something like this:

Silverstream: "Oh my gosh! You have two horns!"

Yona: "Yak horn best horn!"

Sandbar: "Kinda weird that you have my leg instead of your old one."

Yona: "Yak leg best leg!"

Gallus: "Is that all you're gonna say?"

Ocellus: "You're just grumpy because she only has your tail."

Gallus: "I am not!"

Smolder: "Heh, you totally are dude."

Gallus: "Well, I thought she'd at least get my arm or something."

Silverstream: "Awww, you don't need to be sad! I bet she could turn into you now that she's got a changeling horn, right Ocellus?!"

Ocellus: shrugs

Gallus: "I'm not s-"

Comforting: "Uh, could you all stop pulling and poking me now?"

[Eris Dis Harmonia]

Change, growth, evolution. All are a form of chaos.

[Prettypony]

11371762
imagine bon bon's reaction, she was the butterfly that set up this chain of events

[Munro]

11371832
now that was fun to read

BonBon: "oops?". il imagine Lyra joining the fun and discord snapping some "baby"pictures XD

[DarkPhoenixx]

Don't get me wrong, I like Comforting's new look and all... But this just seems more broken then it would've been if she was given her wings. Which is saying something. I mean Alicorn-itis doesn't kill 5 G4 ponies every day!

[DarkPhoenixx]

11371854
If you think about it, Order would be the prime example of Chaos. I mean Chaos loves to go against the norm and what's more normal then change?

[Jayrus]

11371376
Aww, you beat me to the joke. That Aladdin reference hit me hard the moment I saw “Cosmic Powers”.

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

11372173
That means that we think alike in some ways. You should be worried ...

[Twinkie Sprinkle]

I hadn't been keeping up for a while due to multiple complications over the past couple months, unfortunately.

But they mostly cleared up recently, so Monday I binged through the chapters I hadn't read and got through them in about an hour and a half. It was an emotional rollercoaster given Comforting's relationships with so much of the cast, and I especially felt a lot for Gallus and Harmony in particular as things progressed.

It was a big, big, wonderful surprise to finally see the final art of Comforting's new look, and reading this aftermath chapter a few days later gave me both a lot of warm familial feelings and intrigue for the future.

This is both the most unexpected, and yet the most emotionally satisfying direction for the story to take. Very much looking forward to where it goes.

[David Silver]

11372941
Welcome back! I missed your analysis of the chapters. Welcome back, wait, I just said that. Running out of ways to say things, good thing I'm not a writer.

[Twinkie Sprinkle]

11372995
Ha!

But thank you. I missed your responses to my analysis, as well, so hopefully I will be appearing frequently, once again.

[howard035]

There's going to be some very confused betting pools about the fact that Fluttershy has become the mother of a draconequis, but not in the way everyone expected.

[chibilink]

"Sure, but will do they anything about it? I doubt it.

Hmm Discord would be the type to mix two words up while speaking, wouldn't he?