Eris's Riddle

by hahatimeforponies

Odyssey

"I don't think I like the Hearth's Warming story anymore..." Pinkie Pie frowned, pouting. Her tone was almost like a balloon slowly deflating. Rainbow Dash suppressed a chuckle, and rolled a little in her perch atop the bookcase.

"What's wrong, Pinkie? Afraid of a little action in your festive cheer?"

"Ah think," Applejack cut in. "She means that this ain't the version you'd wanna tell to Scoots at night."

"Are you kidding? She'd find this awesome!" Dash grinned. The earth pony exchanged a worried look with Rarity.

"A responsible parent might wait until she's just a tad older," she quipped, and returned her attention to Twilight. The other unicorn fumbled the book, and hurriedly resumed the story.

---

Bang.

A signalling spell, weakened with the cold, echoed out across the fields of Ilium. It was virtually the only light for miles; the blizzard had extinguished the torches on Troy's walls, and the clouds above were so thick that the sun might as well have not risen. The flare's burst of sound was barely heard over the roar of the wind, but it still caught the attention of its intended recipient. A serpentine form snaked from the cloud layer and impacted the snow, spraying it in all directions. But for a well timed shield, Clover would have been buried. It was getting harder to cast as she felt frostbite set in, but she could still manage for now. Inside the crater, the snow had been cleared in a perfect circle, revealing the ground below - flattened, yellow grass, and a familiar monstrosity sprawled across a checquered tablecloth, swinging a picnic basket on his finger. Almost as surprising was the depth of the snow - she guessed the crater was about three feet deep.

"Given up yet, Clover?" he jeered, setting the basket afloat. A pie drifted gently from the under the covers. The unicorn's sombre expression gave way to a knowing smirk, and her horn lit up.

"Never." At that word, two nearby piles of snow burst open. The outlines of Brandywine and Viola glowed a soft lilac - a magical layer keeping their bodies above freezing. Three other figures, not so conveniently insulated and highlighted, burst free with them, not so much actively jumping from hiding as being tossed haphazardly into the clearing. Not wasting a breath, Clover scooped up the bodies of Commander Hurricane, Princess Platinum and Chancellor Tiramisu in her arcane hold, and navigated them over Discord. It was happening so fast that the beast had barely registered any of this, but she wasn't going to risk any hesitation.

Kshing.

A steaming hot sword shot from the snow, and pierced the three bodies in a single motion. With a sickening wet crunch, she twisted the blade, and dark crimson began to flow liberally down the handle. All it took to form the sigil was a few deft flicks of her magic, spraying the pattern on the ground around the crater. As soon as the flow ceased, she tossed the bodies away, their final function exhausted. Now for a simple igni-

"What? No!" the beast cried in terror. Clover broke her concentration to see the pattern already glowing bright white. The gore had frozen almost on contact with the ground.

"Blood rituals work with ice?" she queried to herself, before shaking it off and watching the fireworks. Brandywine and Viola were already putting some distance between themselves and the terrible display. Discord threw everything he could at the ritual - in the space of seconds, he conjured molten lava from the ground, detonated the air around him, threw impact after impact at the hard walls of light rising from the trails on the ground, but nothing penetrated the cosmic barriers erected by the frozen symbol.

"I swear to you, Clover the Clever..." Discord spat, giving up on escaping his fate. His words dripped with acidic contempt. "As long as your miserable kind lives, they will never find rest in Hippaea! Never!" In response, Clover just snorted and watched. Wordlessly, the beast accepted his fate, and light overcame him.

The brightness of the ritual made it difficult to see anything at all when it was over; but she knew that at least it was. As soon as the light faded, the chill wind of the blizzard faded to a whisper, and then stillness. The calm was almost a warmth in itself, and the tranquility, consolation to the weary mage. At last; peace.

"Yeehaw! We did it!" Brandywine shocked her out of her melancholy with a firm thump on the back, almost knocking her face-first into the snow. She stumbled, and Viola rushed over to catch her.

"It's not over yet..." Clover grimaced, and stepped down into the clearing in the snow. Discord's escape attempts had incinerated the grass, leaving just bare, charred earth. Sat in the middle of the crater, emitting little throbs of soft orange light, was a gemstone, chaotically faceted, with no apparent pattern to its cut. It was about the size of a large apple, and roughly shaped like one too. Cautiously, Clover levitated it into the air to examine it. It emanated an aberrant energy, and felt cool in her arcane grasp, like a block of ice. However, she dared not touch it with her hands.

"Y'want me to smash it?" Brandywine offered, sliding down the wall of the crater to join her. Viola sailed overhead, nervously hovering over the crater.

"... No." The unicorn lowered the crystal, and turned to her companion. "There's no telling what might happen if this is damaged, but it can't be good. From what I can tell, this stone is the beast's prison..."

"So we just have to keep it safe and make sure nopony breaks it?" Viola blurted, still visibly shivering. Clover sighed, and looked the gem over again.

"Hmm... I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust anypony in Hippaea to keep this safe..." She grimaced, turning the stone in the air in front of her. A brief flash on one facet caught her eye - the reflection of a single point of light. Looking up, she found a small clearing in the clouds, just enough to see a single star, and the first traces of dawn. Without giving it another thought, she took a step back, reared up an arcane charge, and fired the crystal into the sky, its soft light quickly disappearing from view.

"Well what'ja do that for?"

"If we lock it away, sooner or later, something is going to try and use it for some ill purpose. This way, nothing can reach it." Clover watched it carefully, tracking the last vestiges of the apple's light as it careered away into sky. Viola and Brandywine nodded and shrugged, exchanging some murmurs of agreement.

"So... can we go home now?"

"Actually..." Clover's heart sank, Discord's last words replaying in her mind. "... there's a problem with that. A couple of problems." She turned back to her worried companions. "Even though the blizzard is over, Hippaea is still buried in ice, and who knows how long it'll take to recover... and then the beast..." She took another deep breath, and sighed before continuing. "With his last words he cursed us. Ponykind. He cursed us never to find rest in Hippaea again."

"So that's it then? Just like that? We just up sticks an' giddout just 'cos some furry snake said so?"

"We won't know for sure until somepony tries to sleep, but with the power he had, I wouldn't doubt it. Blood rituals draw on the very forces that bind the planes together, and it took one of those to subdue him!"

---

"'I hope upon hope that to the end of days, that that infernal stone never returns this way,' star-blessed Clover warned her friends, as the three little ponies gazed into the end. Alas, Discord's prophecy came true, and Hippaea was lost for pastures new; a trail for many a year they blazed, and over countless hills they grazed, 'til over the mountains beyond the sea, they found an ideal land for pony; Equestria was its given name, and to this day, there they remain." Flipping idly over the blank pages at the end of the codex, Twilight swallowed and closed it over, silently announcing the end of the story.

"So they don't turn out to be us all along? I was kinda hoping for that ending..." Rainbow Dash pouted, laying on her stomach on the end of the shelf. Twilight's straight face failed utterly.

"I should hope not, those tribe leaders were simply horrid!" Rarity chimed in.

"Now that you mention it, recursive hypercompetency would be kinda cool..." Twilight chuckled, stuffing the books back in her bag. The others exchanged a couple of quizzical looks, but knew better than to start her on a chain of arcanobabble. "But no, not everyone was as careless in their curses as Celestia's impostor."

"I miss Chancellor Puddinghead..." Pinkie frowned, hugging her tail for comfort. Dash sighed, and decided not to press it. She turned to lie on her back and changed the topic.

"Say, how long until Zecora's bailing us outta here again?"

"I-" Twilight was interrupted by a couple of clicks and some slow, mechanical whirring, muffled, like it was coming from the walls. The whole group perked up and looked around. Only Dash was high enough up to see the door rattle and slide into the floor, and as the ancient mechanical clanks subsided, a familiar black and white form stepped through. She was carrying an urgent look and a bone fragment with some vines wrapped around it.

"Ponies, ponies! Come this way, the door will not be open all day!"

"Speak of the- Zecora?" Twilight craned her neck to get a look, and idly started stuffing books back into her bag.

"And Derpy!" The mailmare herself popped her head in the door, wearing her usual goofy grin. Spike sauntered in behind her, looking less than impressed. Rainbow Dash immediately stood up high on her shelf and started marshalling the others to the exit.

"Alright, you heard the mare, let's move! Nopony wants to be locked in here!" She stumbled when Applejack playfully knocked her shelf. Twilight rolled her eyes, and jogged ahead to speak with Zecora.

"How did you know we were stuck? We weren't expecting you for another two hours, at least!"

"The forest is an enchanted place, but not everything wants to eat your face. A little bird told me you were in trouble, and as soon as we heard, we came on the double." The explanation did little to sate Twilight's curiosity, but she figured straight answers might be hard to come by, at least for the time being. As they hurried out the door, she scooped up Stable and Cooper's Guide to Tax Law and pressed a different subject.

"More to the point, how did you open the door? I was half-expecting you to need help, or... something..."

"Ah, a unicorn's horn is not the only means by which to perform magical routines!" The zebra held up the strange assemblage she was carrying. Twilight recognised it as the horn from the skull left outside, to which a number of vines, flowers and gemstones had been attached in confusing, haphazard manner. "Many things that one finds outside, are to magical functions tied. Moonshine quartz and Starswirl's pea, with the right anchor form a skeleton key." Zecora waved the horn a little, before retiring it underarm. Twilight muttered a few fascinated observations under her breath while they waited for the rest of their group to emerge. "So has your literary pursuit delivered any worthwhile fruit?"

"We've found a few things... not much, but... something at least. We learned that about two thousand years ago, Clover the Clever imprisoned Discord in an artifact called the Apple of Discord, before hurling it into space. It makes sense with the 'two thousand years' part of the riddle, but it still doesn't say much about where he came from..."

"Hmm... with exile to space there is a concern, that gravity's ballet will cause his return. Do you remember, fourteen months ago, when meteors set the sky aglow?"

"I..." Twilight's heart nearly stopped. "Yes, I was watching that meteor shower, we all were, that was the night I first met Owloysius..."

"Given the second clause of his terms, the shower's fatefulness it confirms." The unicorn's alarmed stare said all she needed to. "I guessed the comets fell in northern extremes, but your notes likely outstrip mine on this theme."

"Right. I think I know what to do."

Comments

[hahatimeforponies]

Well, this chapter took entirely too long and was entirely too frustrating to write. Dialogue for Zecora is hard. This probably has a ton of mistakes, but I'll just proof-read it tomorrow. Re-reading the already posted chapters is making a ton of errors rather apparent, so I think before starting on the next chapter I'll do some serious editing. Maybe then I'll remember where I was going with this story - all but abandoning it for six weeks has given me a severe case of "what were these characters doing again?".

[DreadedCandiru2]

Well, now that the Ace and Comedy Relief have returned, we can get things going again.

[The Grey Pegasus]

I might need to reread the last chapter to remember where stuff left off, but still-new chapter!

I actually did not see any errors.

[Nightmare]

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