The fate of an entire race, a personal crisis, and grass growing beneath Luna’s feet. How are these things connected? Simple, they all revolve around me. My name is Discord and I’m here to tell you of my great adventure in the land of san
It really hasn’t been a great day for Discord: First his appendages mutiny, then he discovers that he’s got a conscience, and if to add insult to injury, Celestia suddenly wants him to babysit her little sister on her adventure to rescue the changeling race. As if he didn’t have anything better to do! Can you imagine it, the spirit of chaos trapped in a land which is full of nothing but sand, stone, and historical ruins? To immortals, however, history is but another word for their own past.
Join us as Discord reports this high strutting tale, full of excitement, forgotten treasures, exotic cultures, romance, and not to forget a sizeable deal of chaos.
--- Sequel to White on Black, but if you're ready to accept some weirdniss in the beginning readable on it's own.
Hastily my feet danced across the hot desert sand. Each step reminded me painfully of the searing heat, that turned the flowing plains into the geological equivalent of a frying pan. Had I not already been running as fast as my legs could carry me, the pain in my feet would have cause me to break into a sprint.
As it was however, the arrows that impaled the ground behind me were the only motivation I needed.
My breath became ragged, a rather unfamiliar experience for me I must admit, and I could hear the war cries behind me. Judging from their inarticulate screams, they were gaining on me. When the arrows eased up for a moment I dared to look behind me.
On the crest of a dune stood the enraged goddess of the moon, clad in white flowing robes that were wrapped in the ways of the desert dwellers. To each side of her stood a few dozen saddle arabians, in the same garb, brandishing scimitars and crossbows. Most noticeable however was the rather obvious patch of green grass that sprouted wherever Luna set her hoof.
“DISCORD, COME BACK HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!” Luna hollered.
“Ehr, no thanks. I’ve grown to rather enjoy living.” I replied snidely. Or at least I would have, had there been any breath been left in my lungs. Have I mentioned that I detest not being all powerful?
Luna charged straight at me!
… What?
You don’t understand what’s going on? The story doesn’t make any sense?
What fun is there in making sense?
…
Oh come on, come back here, I’m only joking...
…
Okay then let’s be boring and start at the beginning... okay maybe not the beginning, that would cover rather a lot more than you need to know, and I think Tia would be angry if I revealed what she did during those wild prehistorical years....
Erm... anyway, my story starts on a sunny summer day in Canterlot....
Watch out for the title...
The Moon, the Draconequus, and the sands of Saddle Arabia
The birds were singing, the earthponies were working, the pegasi cleared the skies, and the unicorns did whatever unicorns do. All in all, it was an awfully harmonic day in the city of Canterlot. Of course it wouldn’t be much longer if I had any say about it.
I had taken position in the rafters of the corridor connecting the royal kitchen with the royal dinning room. It was lined with royal portraits of her royal royalness Celestia herself. You would have had a hard time finding a more regal place than this, which is to say, it was utterly, utterly boring.
But on that day I kept my urges to redecorate the hallway in check, in favor of a much more satisfying prey. Oh anticipation, it was such a new sensation to me who had always held the world at his fingertip. Begrudgingly I had to admit that it was one of the gifts that “the power of friendship” had brought to me.
But enough of that, you’re not here to hear me ramble about philosophy.
With eagle eyes I watched the royal chef approach my hiding spot, pushing a small tray with a selection of covered silver plates that contained the meals of the princess’ of Equestria. After giving the eyes back to the confused bird in question, I snapped my claws. A single plush ape, wearing a marching band uniform and a timbal appeared down the hallway and distracted the cook just long enough for me to swing down from the rafters, lift the covers, and replace the meals with a few treats of my very own design.
The tip of my tail disappeared back into the shadows at exactly the moment the cook turned back towards the tray.
Yet another snap of my talon and I joined the two princesses at the dinner table.
“Good morning Discord.” Celestia greeted me with the same condescending smile that she reserved for anybody save her sister. “I’m glad that you could make it.”
“Grmfl...” the younger of the two alicorn sisters mumbled. In the early morning hours Luna always looked as if she had been trampled by a furious ursa major (as I can say from experience).
“I hope you have adjusted to your new lodgings.” With anybody else this would have been a question, or at least an incentive, but Celestia made it sound more like a fact, much like one would say, “The sky is blue.” So much certainty was like dangling a bait in front of my head, but still I endured in hopes of dealing the ultimate coup de grace.
“Oh, yes, it was very generous of you to arrange something,” I replied. It had been Celestia’s idea that I should stay at Canterlot Castle, where I would have more company than just my own creations. At first I had insisted that I could just summon a place to stay for myself, but then Fluttershy had agreed with her.
She had looked at me with those brilliant blue orbs of her’s, not “staring” just pleading. Her eyes had been so full of care, and the sun had reflected in them as if they were deep viridian seas. Her yellow coat glowed in an almost unearthly manner, as if her natural kindness was radiating outwards, her wings looked soft like blankets of the finest silk...
Err...excuse me, what were we talking about again?
Ahh yes, right.
As I distracted both princess’ with my razor sharp wit, dashing good looks, and expert skills as a conversationalist, the cook finally arrived. The plates were still in the position I had left them.
I only had to keep them distracted for yet a moment longer. Thankfully I had just the perfect conversation topic prepared.
“Sooo, nice weather we’re having.” Okay maybe it wasn’t that great, I have to admit that a thousand year as a stone statue mostly polished ones ability to monologue, and not dialogue.
Celestia looked at me suspiciously.
“Did you do anything to the weather again? It took the Pegasi days to clean up all that chocolate milk the last time,” she said, her voice betraying just the slightest sliver of annoyance.
I struck a ‘woe is me’ pose, letting my feet hang over the edge of the seat and arching my back, before I replied, “Oh Celestia! You wound me with your unfounded accusations. I have turned over a new leaf, and never would you see me doing something like that again.*”
I tried to shush the asterisk away, but that’s the pesky thing about chaos magic; it sometimes has a mind of it’s own. Celestia’s eyes ventured downwards.
“* Unless I have very good reason to.** ** e.g. Canterlot is on fire, there is a drought, party related emergencies, I’m bored”
Finally I managed to squash the little traitorous piece of magic, and returned my gaze to the current ruler of Equestria. Celestia shook her head and made no more attempts to hide her annoyance.
With some anticipation I watched as the cook sat down the plates before the alicorn sisters. The usual omelette for Luna, and a Salad for Celestia.
I watched as Luna and Celestia grabbed their forks, Celestia with her magic, and the still drowsy Luna with her hoof. Both picked up some food and slowly raised it towards their mouths.
It was then that Celestia caught me staring. Her eyes shot back and forth between me and the fork full of salad greens for a few seconds before it dawned on her what was going. She dropped her fork, jumped out of the chair and screamed,
“It’s a trap, Luna!”
She jumped across the table and both she and I watched as the world seemed to slow down, the sleepy goddess of the night’s fork still moving towards her mouth.
“NooooooOOOOOOooooO!!” Celestia shouted as she soared through the air.
*chomp*
Luna took her first bite, and Celestia crashed onto the dinner table.
Celestia and I stared at her.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Luna’s eyes shot wide open, her nostrils flared, and her chin dropped. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth and she screamed, “Buh!”
“Luna what’s wrong?” The solar diarch, that was still splayed out on the table, asked.
“WATER!” Luna managed to shriek as she rolled on the floor holding her quickly swelling snout.
I was rolling on the floor as well, but while Luna was screaming in agony I was laughing my nonexistent socks of. Mentally making a note, to get a new pair, I finally peeled myself off the floor, wiping a tear from my eye.
While Luna was busy trying to drown herself in a flower vase, Celestia faced me.
“What did you do?” she asked, glaring at me.
“Oh just a little gardening project I kept myself busy with,” I replied, while summoning up another of the hot peppers that I had cultivated in the last few days. A single bite was deliciously hot, the essence of a few dozen... not so much.
While Celestia was still busy coming up with a reply, witty banter never was her strong point, Luna had managed to sooth the fires in her mouth somewhat and turned towards me.
“Run.” Was the only thing she said trying to look and sound threatening. That her snout was still flushed red, and that her tongue was swollen only hampered the effect ever so slightly. I chuckled but I indulged her anyway.
Oh what a glorious chase it was, the royal breakfast was flying left and right as we chased through the confines of the dining hall, jumping over upturned benches, and sliding under tables. Celestia had meanwhile sat back down again and tried to enjoy her salad. She can be such a spoilsport sometimes...
Alas every chase has to end someday (except that one which I arranged back during my first reign, the poor schmuck is probably still running after his underwear) and I found myself cornered, my back against the wall, while an angry Luna approached me, her horn glowing with what I could only assume to be some horrible battle magic.
Luna smirked triumphantly and gloated, “Oh you’re going to regret this.”
Okay this was just too much. I gave up my fearful-and-defeated act and instead burst into laughter again.
“Dearest Luna, if you want to make me regret anything, you’ll have to catch me first,” I replied casually. I raised my lions paw, the power of chaos flowing from every edge of the universe into me, and snapped.
Nothing happened.
I snapped again. And again for good measure. With slight disbelief I looked at my paw.
Meanwhile Luna’s grin had grown even broader. I looked at her. She looked at me.
While I was in an enormous amount of pain lying in the newly formed crater that adorned the royal gardens, my mind was occupied otherwise. As I lay there on the freshly burned ground, sulphurous vapor rising around me, I couldn’t help but stare at my, now slightly singed, lions paw that had so treacherously refused service just a few minutes ago. Against the outline of the clear blue sky it didn’t show any sign of mutinous behaviour.
To put things into perspective here, this wasn’t like a young colt botching his first spell, or like the inevitable disaster that followed whenever Twilight Sparkle tried out a new spell, no this was far more severe. Chaos is as much a part of me as say, breathing is to you, but yet not even a few minutes ago the powers that have been my birthright, constant companion, and all around tool in my quest to make the world a more interesting place, had forsaken me.
I was not amused.
I looked at the offending appendage sternly. As soon as I had sufficiently subdued the mutinous manipulator, I once again joined two fingers to form a circle, applied some pressure and...
*snap*
Much to my relief I found myself standing besides the crater, an unburned silhouette betraying where I had been lying. Soot and burnmarks had vanished, and just for good measure I summoned myself a top hat, emphasizing my returned good looks and the willingness to completely ignore what just happened.
Quickly my thoughts turned to ways I would get my revenge on the mare of the moon, only to be cut short by the arrival of a stoic looking royal guard. Which is to say, he looked exactly like any other guard in the palace. One day I will find out how they can tell each other apart; Can you imagine the chaos it would cause to have more than a thousand completely identical stallions run around the castle ground, not able to tell their commanding officers from the normal ponies?
This particular guard however had one glaring difference from all the others, he actively sought me out.
“I have a message from her royal highness Celestia,” he announced. This shocked me even more than the grievous bodily damage Luna had afflicted me with. It would have taken the guard a good fifteen minutes to reach the garden, and even if Celestia had sent him after me the moment Luna forcefully evacuated me through the dining halls new blast hole shaped opening, he shouldn’t have caught up to me for yet another few minutes. Had Celestia known where to send the guard? Had I become this predictable?
The royal guard, seemingly unimpressed by my existential crisis, unfolded a scroll and read out loud, “Dear Discord, should you, for some reason, have left the dining hall prematurely, I would ask you to meet me at the entrance to the Crystal mines at sundown. -Princess Celestia of Equestria”
With that he rolled up his message, turned around, and walked away. I only had half my mind on it, as I turned his rear armor into a nice flowery apron, since this new message had only added to the mysteries of this day. Now don’t get me wrong, being the current incarnation of chaos and all that, I very much savor a good surprise, but I loathe it when it isn’t me doing the surprising.
Ever since I started living in the castle, Celestia had done her uttermost to act.... polite towards me, but that had been it. She took care that I got a room to myself, and saw to it that I got whatever I needed, but little more than that. Aside from the occasional shared breakfast I had hardly even seen her. And now she was suddenly asking me to meet her? Not only that, but she asked me in her official position as princess of Equestria?
Something was going on, and I was determined to find out what.
---
Whenever I tell people that I’m an master of acting covert, I at best get disbelieving looks and raised eyebrows, but one thing people tend to forget, is the simple fact that sneaking around is something for mortals. I never much bothered to make my mismatched body fit into any sort of practical scheme, way too much of a bother, after all my position in the world of Equestria is just as much a subject to my whim as are most other things. Just appearing out of thin air, does have the disadvantage of ruining most attempts at eavesdropping though, thus I deflated my third dimension and crept along the walls and floors of Canterlot, keeping to the shadows where I became little more than just another spot of darkness.
Another thing which people often get wrong, is that they think I hate ponies; nothing could be farther from the truth. From all the races that I could have harassed: gryphons, diamond dogs, dragons, I choose ponykind to share my magic with. Why is that, I hear you asking; well, whatever they might think of themselves, ponies are wonderfully chaotic.
As I made my way through the alleys of Canterlot, I watched the three tribes intermingle with each other. There were two earthponies arguing over a cart crash, too busy going at each other’s throats to stop the fruits they had transported from rolling into the street, where they created even more chaos. Just down the street a unicorn was having a quarrel with his wife, him shouting from the street level, her screaming at him from a window. The only time their quarreling was interrupted was when she ran inside to find yet another thing she could throw at the “no good cheating bastard”.
And don’t get me started on what the nobles were doing to each other.
A small snap of my finger, a small shift in the laws of probability, and one of the fruits, a melon if I remember correctly, jumped a few feet to the right, right in the path of an earthpony who was carrying several stacked crates. Normally such subtle manipulations aren’t really my style, but with the oh-so-almighty Celestia breathing down my neck, I thought it a good idea to hold myself back a bit. Not that one could tell from the domino reaction that unfolded.
Proudly I added a few dozen broken windows, several flying suppers, an expensive vase, a painting, and two pony sized tubs of jelly to the destruction- tally.
Of course it was then that the stupid duck had to interfere. What duck you are asking? The stupid one, that decided that the best possible resting spot would be right in the path of the now out of control carts. It was just sitting there staring into space as if it had not a worry in the world while several kilos barreled towards it.
For a moment I felt the urge to simply ignore the bird. After all, it was just that, a stupid bird; but somewhere deep inside me rumbled that newfound part of me, that inconveniently (for me) felt like the gaze of two baby blue eyes resting on me. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at myself, for getting suckered into this, by my own subconscious nonetheless, but at the same time I raised my arms and snapped.
The carts continued on their way, and the duck still sat still as if someone had glued it to the pavement.
I snapped my fingers a few more times, all with the same result.
Then I started sprinting towards the foul poultry.
---
Celestia looked at me as if I had just come back from the dead, but to be fair, that’s probably what I looked like.
“Discord? What happened? What’s that you’re carrying?” she asked, still struggling to regain her composure.
“A duck,” was all that I bothered to reply, unceremoniously dropping the bird on her back. “What did you call me here for?”
“Quack!” the duck helpfully offered it’s advice.
Celestia, still looking slightly confused, nonetheless caught up on the barely hidden anger and annoyance in my voice, opting for short and juicy instead of her usual long winded speeches.
“As soon as Luna arrives I will lead you into the caverns to meet a... prisoner, who is currently waiting for his parole. I wish you to be present for it,” was everything she said, before falling silent again.
We just stood there, staring into space, none of us willing to talk with the other, the city of Canterlot barely visible behind us, and before us the surprisingly inconspicuous entry to the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot.
Before any of us had to resort to dreadfull questions the likes of “Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?” the shadows around us coalesced into the form of a pony, and from a shower of bats emerged the alicorn of the moon.
“Bats, Luna? Really?” I groaned at this display of amateur showmanship.
“What’s wrong with bats? I like bats?” the slightly disgruntled mare replied, while freeing one disoriented bat from her mane.
“You and every depressed teenager this side of Manehatten,” I mumbled while rolling my eyes.
A dainty cough reminded us both of Celestia’s presence.
“If you are finished, would you follow me?” she commanded. Don’t be fooled by the question mark, Celestia was entirely capable of turning an innocent little question into a full blown command. Normally that would have tempted me to find some creative way to spite her, but I have to admit that my interest was more than piqued. What kind of prisoner demanded the presence of not only two alicorns, but of the spirit of chaos as well?
But for now I still had to engage in this new found virtue which was patience. Sunbutt lead us past crystal filled caves which would have lesser beings staring in awe, but Luna apparently was already familiar with the sights, and I summoned more exciting things on any given sunday.
What did elicit an impressed whistle from me however was the city that apparently had been hidden under Canterlot all this time, without me knowing about it. As we turned arround yet another indistinguishable corner, the tunnel suddenly opened up into a cave. The word didn’t really do the humongous cavity justice. When hearing the word cave one thinks of enclosed rooms and maybe some stalagmites, but not of a lacuna which is large enough that you can see clouds forming at it’s apex.
What impressed me wasn’t the cave itself though, but the large black dodecahedron which hung in it’s midst suspended by chains, which links were nearly twice my height in diameter. It was hard to tell from this distance, but several small figures seemed to hurry alongs it’s surface.
“Needs a bit of colour,” I stated, preemptively shooting down Luna’s inflated ego. The looks she was giving the suspended building made it clear that she was somehow involved in it’s creation.
However the two alicorns didn’t pay any attention to me. Raising her wing Celestia pointed towards a balcony that jutted out of the lower half of the structure, saying, “We’ll need to fly the rest of the way.”
As Luna and Celestia stretched their wings in a display of elegance, which would have earned them the envy of any pegasus, the first tacts of Ritt der Walküren started to play courtesy of moi.
Let me tell you, giant underground caves make for awesome acoustics.
I slithered after the two, the physical laws screaming in outrage as my mismatched body plowed through the air music in my ears.
Apparently our little airshow hadn’t gone unnoticed and soon we found ourselves flanked on both sides by a platoon of Night Guards. A commander, easily recognizable by the helmet plume the size of which was probably only dwarfed by his ego, glided closer to Luna and after a few barked orders were given by the ruler of the night our escorts scattered.
As we got closer to the basalt coloured fortress, I had to reassess how big it was. Had I thought it was the size of a small castle before, I now had to admit that it was closer to being a whole city. The only thing that somewhat diminished it’s presence were the Batponies that hustled all over it’s surface trying to repair the dozens of holes that covered its surface.
Luna who had noticed my gaze explained, “I built it shortly before my banishment to the moon, it had been abandoned until recently.”
I was only dimly aware of what happened during Luna’s time as Nightmare Moon, since Celestia had neglected to send news cryers into her own gardens, but I had overheard the occasional rumor between bored guards. Not to mention that the erratic behaviour of the sun and the moon had been hard to miss.
We touched down on the black basalt of the balcony before us a corridor, which only couldn’t be called tunnel, because it had been crafted. Torches were few and far between, and the dark material of the fortress swallowed what little light they provided, nonetheless Luna strode forward unrelenting. Celestia, who didn’t share her sisters nocturnal vision, lit up her horn and followed after the other alicorn and I followed after them.
The trek through the guts of the fortress was boring and monotonous, corridor following corridor, every one of them looking exactly the same, only broken up by the occasional security check. But before I could decide to do some drastic redecorating, the path suddenly stopped in front of a massive iron door.
Luna shouted an order into a hole in the ceiling, and as if moved by unseen forces, the door started to lift. My eyes hurt from the sudden bright light that greeted us on the other side, but when they finally adjusted I could make out a round room, in it’s mid a glass cage. And there sitting in the midst of the black fortress stood one being.
A silence fell over the assembled ponies, errh, people. Luna and Celestia stared at me mouths agape, while the queen of the changelings was only rolling her eyes at my pun.
It was Celestia who regained her bearings first.
“You two know each other?” she stammered. Did I ever mention how much I enjoy it whenever somebody wipes that unbearable grin of her face?
“Not exactly,” I replied, waving my hand in a gesture which all races universally understood as ‘It’s complicated’. Apparently this doesn’t apply to creatures who sport a remarkable lack of hands, since Celestia asked me, “How can you ‘not exactly’ know somebody?”
“Ahh well you see, Celi,” I said, while I jovially laid an arm around her barrel. “Back in the days, while you were off to who knows where, plotting one of your silly little rebellions, I had to find some other way to entertain myself in the meanwhile. And what do you know, there in the badlands was a race which I hadn’t even noticed before. And you know how I am, always the pinnacle of generosity, I decided to share my wonderful chaos with them.”
“By which he means that he nearly flooded our hive with pudding, and endangered an entire hatchery,” Chrysalis interrupted me. I’d say anger poured from her voice, but too be honest, every time I have talked to her ever since, she sounded exactly the same. “I wasn’t around yet, but my mother was.”
“Ah yes good old Allopatra,” I reminisced for a moment.
“If I remember correctly she used to call you ‘that sociopathic son of a...’” whatever she was going to say was lost as Celestia brought us back to order.
“Erhem... if you remember I have called you here for a reason,” she exclaimed. “One: Chrysalis, as of today your release is official. You’re a free changeling.”
“Two,” she said, still not looking at me and Luna, “I think those two would be perfect for the mission.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” The changeling queen replied, rather rudely as I must say. “You want me to trust the g... Discord?”
“Sister, I must agree. I don’t know what task thou has in mind but I’m sure that I’m more than capable of fulfilling it myself,” Luna chimed in. Such a blatant insult I couldn’t let go unpunished of course.
“Says the princess that set the cinema on fire last week, screaming something about witchcraft...” I teased her. Yes, I know that she’s a unicorn, don’t ask me...
“Tis a terrible lie,” she shouted, making my point for me.
“If you’d all calm down,” Celestia ordered, her voice backed up by a magical field separating me from Luna, after we had gone nearly snout to snout in our little battle of wits. “I know that Discord wasn’t the most trustworthy in the past, but I think he will behave himself now that he has something he cares about.”
Yes, sadly it was true: The occasional prank aside I had been a model citizen, going even as far as using my powers for good. Of course there had been some rough patches (as it turns out Canterlot had no particular need for a vigilante hero, and being the only of your kind makes for a crappy secret identity), but last I heard, the children of the Canterlot Orphanage enjoyed the toys, that just suddenly appeared out of thin air, very much...
Wait a minute, had that just been a threat?
My mind reeled as I scanned Celestia’s features, looking for any sign of malice, but of course there was only that blasted motherly smile of hers. Was I just imagining things?
By the time I was able to focus back on the conversation, Luna and Chrysalis had apparently yielded.
“Okay, maybe he deserves a chance, but what errand could possibly be so dangerous that you would need both of us?” Luna inquired from her sister.
Celestia and Chrysalis exchanged a glance, some unspoken words between them, and something else which I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There eyes lingered just a while too long, their expressions changed just a tad, and for some reason I suddenly had to think of a certain yellow pegasus.
Then Chrysalis turned towards us, and in her raspy echoing voice she spoke up, her tone somber, “My people are dying.”
I swallowed. Dying... is not my favourite subject. Down here in the tomb like confines of the black fortress, the words of the changeling queen reminded me all too much of the tons of stone above us. Being turned to stone is a horrible experience, and I don’t know any words to describe the horror of watching the seasons pass without being able to move... for centuries... for millennia... yet not even those memories felt as oppressive as the prospect of dying. At that moment I knew that no matter what, I couldn’t leave anybody to that... finality. Also the dead make for crappy playthings.
“We live off love, but we are parasites. When we feed our host grows weaker and weaker. There is no way for us to coexist with the races of Equestria. Even now it’s only Celestia’s... pity, that keeps us alive,” she elaborated.
“Yeah, you look like you could use a little more on your ribs, you’re basically see through,” I kidded while gazing through on of her leg holes. I may have been a bit shaken, but there are some opportunities one simply can’t pass up. Chrysalis groaned, Luna rolled her eyes, but I swear that I could see the hint of a smirk as Celestia shook her head.
“As I was saying,” Chrysi continued, “the way things are now we can’t coexist with ponies, but I’m hoping that there might be a … solution to our problems.”
“How awfully convenient. Why didn’t you get it yourself?” I commented. I had summoned myself a hammock, since Chrysalis seemed intent to go into a monologue.
“Because we have been banned from ever reaching it.”
Wherever there actually was fur on my body, it stood on end, as something akin to static electricity passed through the room. It wasn’t fear, or nervousness that made my body react, you lose most of that after the first thousand years, but the primal knowledge that I was in the presence of somebody equal to me, or you know as close as anybody can come to it.
Chrysalis eyes gleamed in an eerie green light that seemed to leak out like wisps of smoke. Her body, while physically unchanged, suddenly became the center of the room, everything around it twisting to orbit it.
“Cute little trick,” I said, slowly clapping my hands, “so what is that little light show supposed to tell us?”
“It’s the way to tell our tales, and especially the old ones from the dawn of time, cannot be told with just a single voice,” the thing that wasn’t Chrysalis replied. It made a sound, and at first I thought that it had just cleared its throat, but slowly more voices escaped from the maw of the changeling queen, creating a wall of sound. The shadows seemed to converge and space twisted as Chrysalis and her swarm shared their ancient tale with us. I was munching on a bag of popcorn.
---
“In the beginning there was the Woman, she was infinite in her wisdom and in her strength as well. But as time grew longer she grew lonely, for because she was infinite, there was nothing but her. So she took her hands and carved from her belly the earth and the sky, and because the wound hurt her so, she cried and made the waters as well. Then she took her eyes and set them into the sky to watch over her children, and so she created sun and moon.
And she made from her thighs the animals, and she gave them names. And as she watched the animals intermingle she was overjoyed. The Women had become The Mother.
But when she had given a part of herself, a part of her wisdom escaped as well, and so she didn’t notice that her wound was still bleeding. And from her blood four beings rose. The first drop fell into the skies and from it came a being free and unkept, the second drop fell into the sunlight and the third into the moonlight and they became the walkers, black and white. The fourth one however fell into a deep cave and there it grew far away from the Mothers gaze.
Surprised the mother watched her new children, but as she watched them she felt joy fill her heart once again, and she made the children into her watchers. The white walker watched the day, the black walker watched the night, and the child of wind watched everything in between.
But the white Walker was her mothers child, and before long she asked her, “Mother, I’m all alone, the dark walker is always far from me, the windchild never stays, and the animals refuse to talk with me. Won’t you allow me some companions?”
The Mother lover her child, so she once again carved from her flesh and made the three races of ponykind, and she gave them word from her lips so they would know wisdom, and she gave them blood from her heart so that they would know love. Leopard saw this and so he too asked Mother, “I’m all alone, there’s nobody that can keep up with me, won’t you allow me some companions.”
And once again Mother carved from her flesh all the cats and tigers and lions and leopards.
But now it was Bird who pleaded, “I’m all alone, nobody flies in the skies with me. Won’t you allow me some companions.”
And Mother carved all the birds from her flesh.
Again and again her children came to her and asked her for companions, and every time, because she loved them so, Mother carved new beings from her flesh and gave them the gift of wisdom and the gift of love.
Finally Ananse the Spider stepped before Mother and he asked, “Won’t you allow me companions?”
But Mothers face grew sad and she replied, “There is no more flesh left to carve, and no more words left to give, and my heart will soon run dry, I can give you no companions.”
Ananse was enraged by this, was he the only one to be left alone forever? In his anger he fled from his mother gaze, but the watchers were everywhere, in the daylight, in the moonlight, and on the winds. He crept deeper and deeper into the earth, until finally he felt the eyes of Mother no more.
And there in the dark he heard a voice, “Oh you poor child, I can see the anger in you, and the sadness, won’t you tell me your story?”
And Ananse asked, “Who are you, what are my troubles to you?”
The voice replied, “I’m too one who was shunned by Mother. What injustice did she do onto you?”
Ananse said, “It is true. Mother is a tyrant, who refuses to give me a companion when everyone else has one.”
“I can teach you how to make your own companions, you just need to bring me three things: Flesh from Mother’s belly, Words from her mouth, and Blood from her Heart.”
And so Ananse set out to find those ingredients.
At first he set out to find flesh. He scrambled here and there, but nowhere he could find any flesh, for all the creatures were bigger and stronger than him. But then Ananse remembered that the world was made from Mother, so he took some dirt and put it in a bag.
Then he searched for words from mothers lips. But he found none, for the words belonged to the animals and they guarded them fiercely. So he took the whispers of the wind and kept them in a hollow gourd.
Finally he searched for blood from mothers heart. But there was none to be found, for all the creatures only shared it between themselves. No matter how hard he thought he couldn’t find a way to take some for himself. So he went to the shares and dunked a piece of cloth in the water, hoping that nobody would notice his trick.
When he returned the voice asked, “Did you bring the things?”
And Ananse replied, “I brought you flesh, and words, and blood.”
The shadows took the things in Ananse’s grip and formed beings from it. But their flesh was hard as the stone, and their thoughts were free as the wind, and their hearts were empty filled with nothing but sadness. And Ananse saw what he had created and he wept and fled into the sunlight.
When Mother saw the weeping Ananse she asked him, “What is wrong my child.”
And the guilt stricken Ananse answered, “Mother, I’ve done you wrong. I’ve stolen flesh from the earth, and words from the wind, and blood from the seas, and I’ve created beings that are cold as stone, whose thoughts flee their heads, and whose hearts are empty.”
Mother grew angry as she heard of Ananse’s deeds, but she still loved him, for he was her child, “Ananse, I shall punish you for your deeds, you and your children shall never be complete. Your skins shall be cold, your thoughts shall be free, and your hearts shall be empty. But I grant you this, shall one find it in him to love you, your hearts shall fill again.”
And again Ananse grew angry. Should his children be hurt for his misgivings? He fled deep into the cave, where his child was still waiting.
“Voice?” he screamed, “Voice are you still here, Mother has once again shown her true face.”
And the voice replied, “Poor child, you must suffer under your mothers tyranny. I shall give you a gift to free your children. Take this needle and pierce Mother’s heart, and you shall gain warmth, and words, and love.”
And Ananse took the needle and returned to the surface. When he returned to Mother he said, “Mother, I see now that your words are just, will you grant me a last embrace before my punishment begins?”
And Mother, compelled by the love for her child, embraced him.
It was then that Ananse pierced her heart with the needle, and blood burst forth from Mothers heart. But when the blood touched him, it burned and he could feel his children, for their thoughts had now words but were still free as the wind between them. And he knew love, and the knowledge hurt him, for only now he recognized what he had done to mother.
As she lay dying, Mother caught the rest of her blood, and filled it into a chalice. And she spoke those words, “Forever shall you and your kind be banned from Love, no race shall ever love you, and you shall dwell deep in the shadows hidden away from my children. Ananse you are no more a child of mine!”
And with that she threw the chalice onto the world, and where it landed it destroyed the land, until only a desert remained, and the sun burned down on that land mercilessly. And she shaped from the rest of her flesh, a guardian who should protect the chalice forever and gave them her dying breath.
Ananse fled from the suns vengeful gaze, and he said, “Voice, it is your fault that mothers dead, and that the sun shuns me.”
But the voice replied, “I have brought you great grief, let me apologize. I shall give your people the gift of shapes, so that you may hide from the sun and the moon and the wind, and you shall take from all the races what has been denied to you.”
And he gave them green fire to change their bodies, and he gave them the hunger, which can only be stilled by drops of Mothers blood. And he gave Ananse a word, so that he may name his children, and Ananse called them Changelings.”
A heavy silence hung above the chamber. Every word seemed to be stifled by the last echoes of the changeling queen’s tale. Every gesture or sound seemed insignificant compared to the age old story. In this quiet, the only sound which could be heard seemed all the more jarring.
“ZzzzZzzz,” echoed the snore.
“DISCORD!” the annoyed voice of Celestia rang in my ears. I had to admit that it had been quite some time since I heard her use the Royal Canterlot Voice. Almost made one feel nostalgic.
I stretched and yawned demonstratively, taking my time to pop ever joint along my spine.
“So, you want us chasing after myths?” I asked raising an eyebrow.
“NOT MYths.” Chrysalis replied, the last presence of the swarm vanishing from her eyes and mind, her voice slowly fading from a thousandfold echo, back to the normal doppler effect. “Changelings don’t forget, at least not in the way other races do. Some facts may be lost, some truths may change, but the essence stays the same. Somewhere in a desert there’s a powerful artifact.”
“Many a desert spot the surface of Equus,” Luna interjected.
“But only one which is big enough to be created by the wrath of a goddess, the Saddle Arabian Desert.” Chrysalis explained, or guessed. To be honest I thought she was grasping at straws and my face seemed to show it.
“Please Discord. I know that it isn’t much, but at the moment it’s the only thing we got.” The tone of Celestia’s voice caught me off guard. Here she stood before me, the great eternal empress of the sun, one of a few who had ever stood up to me, kneeling at my feet and begging for my help; Oh boy was I going to abuse that.
“Sooo,” I asked coyly,” what’s in it for me?”
“Whatever you want.” The answer came quick and without hesitation, and once again caught me entirely off guard.
“No, no, no. Celestia dear you can’t simply give in like that,” I explained patiently, donning a schoolmasters uniform which I pulled from nowhere. Pacing up and down in front of my audience, I continued to elaborate the finer points of a good dramatic dialogue,”You have to start out defiantly. Something along the lines of ‘You insufferable cur, you won’t get anything from me!’ always makes a good impression. Then we exchange a small series of insults until I finally reveal that you are at my mercy, when you reluctantly give in to my demands...”
I took a short glance at Celestia. She wasn’t staring at my angrily or defiantly, instead her eyes were just filled with a tired sadness, her shoulders were drooped, and she looked like she would break down any minute from exhaustion. It was enough to sap a spirit of chaos of all of his motivation.
“Urgh fine!” I relented. “But you better live up to that promise.”
I grabbed a protesting Luna around her barrel and pulled her close.
“I’ll be back in a minute or so,” I promised, before concentrating on the far away desert nation and snapping my talon.
Nothing happened.
---
“I... I …. that has never happened to me before.” I stuttered.
Luna was lying on the floor laughing. While Celestia was looking at me with a pitiful expression.
“Don’t worry Discord. Things like that are entirely natural and happen to the best of us,” she said while patting my paw.
“No seriously, I usually have no problems!” I insisted.
“Have you tried seeing a magician about it?” Chrysalis interjected unhelpfully.
“I’m Discord the Spirit of Chaos! I don’t need no lousy magician to tell me how to use my magic!” I shouted the wrath of aeons echoing in my voice, but apparently the wrath of aeons only served to further Luna’s amusement.
“Now calm down Discord, just because you have a slight problem right now, it doesn’t make you any less powerful,” Celestia tried to sooth my rage, while she more or less inconspicuously tried to stifle Luna’s laughter with a silence spell.
“I told you, I don’t have a problem! I just don’t feel like doing any magic right now,” I replied, nose in the air. I have to admit that I very well deserved the sceptical look that this lie earned me.
“It doesn’t matter either way,” Celly continued, seemingly willing to ignore what had just happened, even if her sister’s giggling was only held back by a field of silence. “Without using magic, the quickest way to Saddle Arabia is by boat.”
“Ooh, I heard that one of those new magic powered boats is going to leave the Manehattan harbor soon. I always wanted to ride one of those.” Luna interjected, finally getting over her, I must say, pretty undignified fit of laughter.
“Yes, I thought I would reserve places for you two on the ‘Spirit of Enterprise’,” Celestia elaborated.
If the Universe had any sense for dramatics, thunderclouds would have formed around Cellie’s head at the exact moment she spoke those words to supply some appropriate atmosphere, but as it was, I and Luna were completely unprepared as we embarked the ferry at the base of the Canterlot Falls. Luna had hidden her wings and cutie mark between a simple longcoat, and whenever she remembered to not channel the night sky through her hair, she looked almost like an normal unicorn, albeit a tall one. I in turn used an age old tactic which is called ‘hiding in plain sight’. You don’t believe me? Then let me tell you about when we entered the ferry.
As we approached the ferryman, he was absorbed in a magazine, and only noticed us when we I spoke up.
“Two, up to Manehattan.” I requested.
“That makes ten bits,” the ferryman replied still not looking up from his magazine. Only when I opened my bag of bits he bothered to look at us. What followed was a scream, that would have done most Girl Scouts proud.
“OH CELESTIA, IT’S DISCORD!”
“No it isn’t.” I replied matter of factly.
This seemed to shut him up for a moment, while his brain tried to comprehend the lack of evil laughter and horrible maimings.
“And frankly, I find it very insulting that you’d assume as much just because of my race!” I started to rant. I turned to Luna and in the most undignified voice I could muster I whispered (just loud enough for everybody on board to hear), “Can you believe the nerve of this guy!”
“But... but... you look just like him,” the pony managed to stutter.
“ARE YOU SAYING THAT ALL DRACONEQUII LOOK THE SAME?! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? I mean the people over there don’t have any problems telling my kind apart, do they?” I yelled, while turning to a small crowd of onlooker which had gathered on deck. A chorus of murmured ‘no’s, and just a tad too quick shaking heads followed, by the gathered ponies which wanted to avoid becoming the next target of my rant.
Before we knew it, Luna and I had been offered a very generous discount, and one of the nicer seats, in return for promising not to sue the ferryman.
Of course Luna wasn’t impressed with my little trick, and wouldn’t shut up about it, until I mentioned that she could leave money to compensate him for his troubles. Then again, once she actually did stop talking she made no effort to start again, and for the biggest part of our journey to Manehattan she seemed content with glaring at me silently.
Once I grew tired of answering her vengeful gaze with grimaces, I used the time to inspect the lands which I had once ruled over. Much to my dismay, pretty much all of my work had been undone. Gone were the flowing fields of conveyor belts, gone the candy cane clouds, gone the walking mountains, in it’s place just plain old boring nature. It was enough to make a draconequus shed a tear. But there would be time enough to spice up the environment later (and after making sure that nobody would get hurt, I assured my conscience, which once again had reared it’s ugly head).
After my observations proved fruitless, and because Luna was still playing the stoic, I found myself with a lack of entertainment, and since I can take boredom about as well as Celly criticism, I decided to test out my powers.
As I’ve already mentioned, the recent failures were more than just a little bit shocking, which is to say they were utterly terrifying. Imagine that! Me, the Spirit of discord and strife, terrified. I, that had faced down things which were past the petty imagination of most mortals; I, who had single handedly stood toe to toe with the alicorn sisters; I, who had once held all of this world in his palm; was terrified.
But panic was also something for other people, and so instead running around headlessly I sat down and searched for a solution. Finding a small niche where the rest of the passengers couldn’t watch me, I sat down to inspect what so far had been an integral part of my life, my powers. At first I was somewhat reluctant, not sure whether my ego would withstand another blow, but then I reprimanded myself, and snapped my fingers.
The effect was immediate if small; a glass of chocolate milk materialized out of thin air. Once again I snapped my fingers letting a bit more the chaotic energies flow out into the world. A pink cloud that reeked of sugar and cacao formed over the palm of my paw. Yet another snap and a spool of rope that lay on deck turned into a creature which looked like a mix between a parasprite and a centipede, each segment colorful and ball like.
So far so good. All of my minor cantrips seemed to work. But of course I had avoided the more sophisticated tricks as of yet.
*Snap*
I watched carefully as water began to flow up the prow of the ship, akin to a reverse waterfall. Before I could draw any attention I stopped the spell. Now this was more like it, making the laws of the world bend in such a way was by no stretch childsplay.
Only one last test, to make sure that I was back to the heights of my powers. I snapped my claws once again, and watched as the world around me began to bend. The air glimmered like on a hot summers day, and slowly space began to curve in on itself, changing its form to suit my will. The checkerboard pattern which by now was almost something like a callsign, began to manifest itself in my little bubble of space time, and I nodded as I found myself in a pocket dimension of my own making.
“Hah. Now who needs to go see a magician!” I announced proudly. You would think that being encased in stone twice would have taught me something about tempting fate.
A weird tingle shot through my body, sort of like an electric charge but backwards, and with a wet popping noise my dimension burst apart. I could only sigh as I found myself several feet in the air, and of course a few feet sideways of the ferry.
---
After being pulled out of the water, and drying in the sun for a bit, my motivation to experiment had dropped significantly and at the moment I had been all too happy to just let powers be powers. After all I was Discord, the lord of all things chaotic, I didn’t need those stupid powers to overcome anything in my way!
Whatever else I had been thinking at the moment however got lost, because it was then that the city of Manehattan appeared on the horizon.
Have I said that I love Canterlot? I might have spoken too soon, because Manehattan was seriously threatening to take it’s place in my heart.
Hundreds of ponies crammed into so very little space, each bustling from a to b not caring on whose hooves they step on. Where Canterlot was an elitist community of intellectual inbreeding and age old feuds; in Manehattan everybody from the lowest work pony, covered in grease and dirt, to the newly rich who tried to hide the grease and dirt underneath layers of jewelry and silk, and even the occasional noble who was rich enough to make grease and dirt vogue, mingled and quarrelled with each other. On occasion I found myself scanning the sky for windigos, but for all the bickering there was no sign of the ice spirits to be found.
Our boat trip took us past the villas of the upper echelon quickly, barely giving us time to look at the marble and basalt buildings. One thing I did notice however, was the lack of wide sprawling gardens. Practically no estate in Canterlot is complete without at least a hedgemaze or two, but the Manehattanites seemed to prefer being crammed together as closely as possible. Something that didn’t change as we entered the poorer parts of town.
Red brick buildings dominated the cityscape in mind numbing monotony, and weren’t it for the current unreliability of my powers I would have shown those city dwellers what proper design looked like! Factories and housings, barely distinguishable from each other, stood side by side, filling every available nook and crany. Even from the river it was hard to keep track of all the sideways and alleys we passed by, and I was willing to bet that many a tourist had vanished somewhere deep in the corridors of this metropolitan labyrinth.
The harbor however stood in stark contrast to the rest of the city. There was no needless pomp, nor sprawling cityscape, no luxury; at least not the kind of luxury you find where a surplus of money meets a lack of common sense. Every building had it’s purpose and it’s place in the greater scheme. The drydocks took in the ships which were weary from the long journey, the storehouses stored goods from all around the world, and the harbormasters office welcomed a steady stream of secretaries and captains and surely would have burst had there not been an equal stream exiting the building. Only a small tavern, that attracted the weary sailors like flies, disturbed the otherwise pristine scenery of the harbour.
All in all, I must have looked like a child which had stumbled into a toy store, staring wide eyed at the scenery around me; though most children probably wouldn’t be able to still walk in a straight line, while turning their body every which where. It has it’s advantages to be serpentine in stature.
Now you may ask, “But Discord! Why is a god of chaos impressed by a display of efficiency and order?” To which I would reply, “Imagine walking through a door into a hall full of domino stones perfectly lined up, and the start of the chain sits at your feet.”
Luna however seemed to have eyes for one thing, and one thing only; at the far end of the harbour standing decisively smaller than the two- and three-masters all around it, lay a vessel which proudly wore it’s name in white letters on it’s side.
The Spirit of Enterprise was a ship unlike anything I had seen before. Unsurprisingly so, since even if I had a little better vantage point than Lulu from her exile on the moon, the royal gardens weren’t really the best place to learn about nautical knowledge (Sadly it was a good place to learn about Anatomy. Celly should really teach her guards more discipline).
Luna went straight for the ship, like a starving man for a cupcake. The way she dove through the masses would have made a hoofballplayer stare in awe, and it created enough chaos that even I would have had trouble to add anything to it.
When I finally caught up with her, she was prancing up and and down in front of the ship releasing a torrent of question which might have been directed at me, weren’t it for the fact that she gave me precious little time to answer.
“Thismustbeitdoyouthinkitrunsentirelyonmagic?Whatarethosepaddlesfor?Doesithavenosails? Howfastdoesitgo?DoyouthinkitwilltakeustoSaddleArabiafastenough?” she prattled on while I tried to get in a word edgewise, but before she could completely drown me in her incessant babbling a stallions voice came to my aid.
“Oh I can assure you, that she will get you wherever you want to go!” The voice was every bit as loud as it was flamboyant, with a certain underlying harmony which made you suspect that the talker was about to break into song any minute.
We were approached by unicorn stallion who stood nearly as tall as Luna, although he was lacking the natural grace of the alicorn. His yellow coat was accentuated by a white shirt and a tricorn, but it was the shining medals on his breast that demanded the most attention. Everything about him seemed to scream ‘nautical’ which made his apple cutie mark all the more surprising.
“In fact I bet there is no faster ship in all of Manehattan. The ‘Spirit of Enterprise’ is the single most advanced piece of technomancy that you will find, and if you don’t believe me, my bro... er first mate will surely tell you the same!” he exclaimed while waving at another pony which had just left the tavern and was now coming towards our little group.
Had it not been for his moustache the second stallion could have come straight from a mirror pool. Even the cutie marks of the two stallions complimented each other, forming one whole apple when combined.
“Indeed bro... Captain! I even dare say there is no faster ship in all of Equestria!” he affirmed every bit as loud as his most definitely not related captain.
“Nay, there’s no faster ship in the whole world!” the captain claimed, working himself into an ecstasy. The two of them seemed ready to break into a song about the greatness of their ship any second, but before I could be subjected to this Luna burst into action.
“You must be the captain! Is this your ship? How fast does it go?” she rapid fired her questions. At least she had slowed down to a comprehensible speed.
“Oh my, bro… first mate Flam, it seems we have finally found someone who appreciates the possibilities of the future,” the flamboyant pony continued to prattle while I was quickly losing interest.
“That’s very nice bro… Captain, but I really think we should be leaving the harbor soon,” the first mate suggested, and if I had paid more attention at the moment I probably would have noticed the restless tone in his voice, but alas I was busy dreaming about turning the water in the bay into pudding.
“What my first mate is trying to say that we would be glad to give you a tour of the ship,” the captain segued nonchalantly, gesturing for us to follow him while he walked towards the ship. Somewhere on the far side of the harbor there seemed to be some kind of commotion, but through the gathered crowd it was hard to see anything.
“Here we have the ‘Spirit of Enterprise’”, the captain started his sales pitch while he guided us up the runway. “It’s one of very few magical powered ships in all of Equestria and, as I have already mentioned, it’s the fastest.”
He lead us over the comparably small deck; the boat was made from sturdy wood planks, much like it’s non magical brethren, but instead of a sail it sported two large waterwheels on both sides of the hulk. But that wasn’t the only difference, it’s hulk lay low, barely three meters above the water surface, but on top of it’s deck stood what could practically be considered a house, complete with a porch.
More and more noise carried over from the harbor, but before I had a chance to see what was going on, Luna dragged me down a set of stairs.
“Quick, he’s going to show us the engine room!” she shouted with childlike glee and before I could even contemplate the pain that suddenly shot through my prolonged back, I found myself in a pretty dingy lower deck. The air was filled by a humming noise that sat just at the edge of the audible range, yet still made me grit my teeth.
“And this is the heart of the ship!” Captain Flim explained only barely less enthusiastic than my royal compatriot.
The “heart” of the Spirit of Enterprise was mad science at it’s best: A large sphere of cast iron was held in the air by a dazzling array of pipes and coils, the former locking massive, the later as if they had escaped from a glassblowers nightmare. An array of lights lay dormant at the moment, but already promised a dazzling show.
The ring of a bell interrupted my inspection of the machine. The captain had reached for a large brass pipe that extended from the ceiling to head height, and ended in a cone. From the pipe the faint mumble of a voice could be heard, and just for a moment the captains face clouded over, but as soon as he turned towards us again he was smiling as broadly as always.
“You are in luck! You will get a first hand demonstration of how the Thaumaturgical Spinaround 6000 works!” he announced, and before Luna or I could protest his horn lit up and he discharged a steady stream of green gleaming magic at one of the protrusions that covered the iron sphere.
Sparks shot out from the coils, and the air filled with a smell of ozone. All the gauges spinned wildly, while the unicorn pushed more and more energy into the apparatus, and the copper pipes moaned under the pressure. With a metallic screech, two axis’ began to turn and from afar we could hear the sound of water splashing. The captains efforts were rewarded by the appropriate “oohs” and “aaahs” from the princess of the night, while I was looking around for cover in case the straining machine would explode.
It wasn’t the machine that I should have worried about. The next thing I remember is, that suddenly I and Luna found ourselves tumbling towards the ceiling, while boat all around us rocked as if it had been picked up by the hand of giant. I should know, I did it myself often enough. Before we could get our bearings, the ground rushed towards us again. Luckily, Luna landed on something soft. Unluckily I was the “something soft”.
While I groaned in pain Luna was back on her hooves and screamed, “WHAT WAS THAT?!?”
The captain, who was holding onto the machine, gave us his best salespony grin. “Don’t worry we’re just experiencing some minor turbulences.”
“Turbulences in a harbor?” I managed to deadpan, even in my slightly dented condition.
Luna bolted for the stairs while another tremor, this one weaker than the one before, shook the ship. With some difficulty I ran after her, grabbing for hold wherever I could find it. What greeted me as I finally left the last steps behind me, was a wonderfully chaotic display. Debris cluttered the deck left and right, and it wasn’t hard to find out from where it came. There was a nearly pony sized hole in one of the walls.
The wheels of our ship were spinning wildly carrying us over the ocean at an astounding speed, but apparently not fast enough to escape the ship that was following shortly behind us. On the deck of the impressive three master stood several Unicorns, their horns glowing brightly as they prepared to fire another salvo at us.
“DUCK!” I managed to scream, before tackling Luna to the ground. Where her head had been just moments prior, magical bolts zipped through the air, leaving burn marks in the walls behind us.
“WE ARE BEING SHOT AT!” Luna shouted unhelpfully.
“APPARENTLY!” I replied, too busy keeping my head low for any snide remarks.
“WHY?!” Luna continued with her pointless questions while another salvo hit the walls above us.
“HOW SHOULD I KNOW?!” I snubbed her.
Before our witty conversation could continue another big spell hit the side of our ship and Luna and we had to hold onto the deck for our dear lives. Apparently the captain had less luck, crashing into the railing right next to us.
Like a harpy Luna was on the poor guy, shaking him while she screamed, “WHAT DID YOU DO?”
Being screamed at with the Royal Canterlot Voice at close range is a dubious pleasure, and very well could lead to a loss of hearing, but lucky for us the captain seemed to be used to getting yelled at.
“Errr, there might have been some slight miscommunication about the abilities of some of our products,” the googly eyes stallion finally managed to press out, when Luna stopped strangling him for a moment.
“Products? I thought you were a captain?” I shared Luna’s confusion on that one but before we could get an answer, Luna had to dive out of the way of another salvo of spells. The captain used that opportunity to crawl towards the bridge.
“I’M PRINCESS LUNA, YOU FOOLS!!! STOP SHOOTING!” Luna roared as she lifted herself up onto the railing, only to duck back down again as another volley hit the ship.
“Did you seriously expect that to work?” I snarked.
“I don’t see you having any better ideas…” the goddess of the night replied, nursing her singed ego and buttocks.
“Nothing easier than that!” I vented, before I jumped to my feet glared at the unicorns menacingly and snapped my claws. As the alert reader might already suspect, nothing happened.
The unicorns stared at me. I stared at the unicorns. I smiled in a way that I hoped seemed disarming. The Unicorns’ horns started to glow.
Back on the deck Luna was laughing at me, while I tended to my now equally burned posterior.
“So what do we do now,” I interrupted her royal highness’ fit of amusement.
“I see to it that they don’t sink us, and you see if you can get the good captain to go any faster,” Luna suggested, promptly followed by her stopping a large blast with a magical shield. Our meeting with the seaponies thus postponed for now, I beelined for the stairway which the red haired colt had taken before me.
The bridge was easy to find, sitting at the highest part of the ship, I just had to follow the stairs. Sadly the same couldn’t be said about both the captain and the first mate. The only thing which even hinted at their current location was a book and a post-it note which read, “Good luck.”
Of all the different things I felt for the brothers, annoyance, aggravation, and begrudging respect; hate was strangely enough not among them. Maybe it was just a matter of perspective; sure, maybe I would soon find myself passenger of a sinking ship, but at least I wouldn’t have to spend another thousand years in stone.
Not that that stopped me from muttering a curse, “When I get my claws on you, your entire bloodline’s horns will be replaced with rubber…”
“ACT WITH HASTE! THIS BEETH HARDER THAN IT APPEARS!” Luna’s strained voice interrupted any attempts at formulating revenge, and if on cue a single shot slipped past Luna’s defenses and put a neat little hole into the wall, sending splinters and sawdust flying everywhere..
I dusted myself off and threw the manual aside. This was no time for reading!
...and I highly doubted that even my own sizeable intellect would have grasped the intrinsics of advanced magitech fast enough to prevent us from meeting the seaponies. The ship’s controls were vast and complicated, an enormous array of buttons and dials. I tapped on one of the dials, a sign above it read “Alpha-Pressurization” while it’s neighbour apparently displayed “Wavelength Coherence”. Not that I knew what any of that meant.
Luckily enough in the deeps of my mind lay the secret to an age old technique which had never disappointed me in the long years of my life. I raised my claw… reached out… and pressed a random button.
Then I pushed a few more, pulled a few levers, and turned some thingamajigs for good measure.
My chest swelled with pride as I looked at my work. Flashing lights, screeching pipes, and wildly spinning dials, combined with the moaning sound of metal on metal, to form a truly glorious cacophony; It was befitting the lord of chaos.
With anticipation I watched pressure gauges rising, and return valves bursting. I gripped the wheel with both hands, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
Then the noise died down.
“AH, COME ON!” I voiced my frustration. What is the world coming to, when playing around with unstable magical machines doesn’t even cause something to blow up?!
With renewed vigor I assaulted the controls, playing the buttons and levers, like a virtuoso would his instrument, my paw and claw literally tap dancing over the controls. But the machines remained dormant, and judging from Luna’s groans and curses, the moment where she would be overwhelmed by the combined power of a battleship worth of mages drew closer.
I reattached my hands and stormed down the stairs. By now Luna had changed her tactics, splitting her shield into several smaller discs which moved in to intercept the projectiles that were thrown at us. While this may have conserved some of her energy, her frantic eyes and stone faced expression gave away the amount of concentration that was needed to guide all those shields. As I skidded past Luna I blurted something along the lines of, “Engine, kaputt” and without giving her the time for a reply I jumped down the stairs into the belly of the Spirit of Enterprise. While I sailed through the air I desperately tried to remember the exact motions that were needed to break my fall, which proved futile anyway since another salvo shook the ship and robbed me of any semblance of control over my trajectory.
With an audible thud I crashed into the wooden planks, but jumped to my feet right away… Okay maybe I spend a few seconds just groaning while silently begrudging my fate, but after that I jumped back to my feet right away. By now the ship was shaking violently, partly because of the impacts, partly because all that magic in the air was sure to create some turbulences. Unsteadily I made my way to the engine room, my eagle claw digging into the walls.
The engine room was in the exact same state as we left it, barebone, except for the iron sphere in it’s middle. But just as I had suspected, the machine lay lifeless, it’s black form showing no sign of magic, not to speak of movement.
This was bad...
Not to speak of the problems that currently prevented me from manifesting any meaningful magical effect, there was still the issue that I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if I poured my own chaotic brand of thaumaturgical power into a machine which was created for unicorns.
…
On second thought, I really DID want to find out.
Absentminded I snapped my claws, only getting the rather disappointing lack of anything which previous attempts had provided. I groaned, as I was once again reminded of my current lack of omnipotence. Rolling my eyes, I concentrated on the core of my being, like some lowly alicorn, and drew out the anarchic powers, guiding it all the way from my heart to the tip of my paws.
My reward was a small orb, it’s surface shining with a wild mix of colours, which usually had such flattering names as ‘toxic green’, ‘slime’, or my personal favourite, ‘oily black’.
“Ehehehe…” a small cackle escaped my lips as I pushed the sphere closer to the machines inlet. Sparks zapped between the surface of the metal fixture that sat on the equator of the metal sphere, ready to take in magical energy, and the orb on the tip of my finger. Then, with a sound like a breaking violin string, the magic was completely absorbed by the machine.
I waited…
Slowly the machine came to life, the gauges, scales, and valves performing the same hectic dance, as when the unicorn had animated it before.
My shoulders dropped. Here I was doing my best to cause some chaos, and yet the most disorder me and Luna had to face during our journey, hadn’t even been caused by me. Was I losing my touch?
Then my brain got sucked out through a straw…
---
“Discord,” Luna addressed me.
“Yes?” I replied.
“Stop doing that,” the princess of the night reprimanded me.
“Doing what?” it was now my turn to ask.
“Melting,” she stated matter of factly.
“Only if you stop turning into a platypus,” I shot back.
“Excuse me?” a ape in a cashmere suit interrupted our conversation.
“Yes?” I answered, when I realized that Luna couldn’t reply, her snout having been turned into a beak and all that.
“Mind telling me the time, good chap?” the ape asked in a polite hoofington accent.
“Luna, do you have a clock?”
“Quack!” Luna replied, apparently having left the waters of mammallism, and opting for a form more suited for flying, swimming, and eating bread crumbs…
“Sorry, we don’t know either,” I finally answered the dapper primate.
“Nevermind then,” he replied, threw his feces at me and absconded into deep space.
“Discord, what’s going on?” Luna shouted, her voice filled with panic. I have to admit that being stretched into infinity on my x-axis, might have cause me some distress as well.
“Probably just a bit of chaos,” I replied nonchalantly, while my eyes turned into pudding.
“Then make it stop!” Luna screamed. Undoubtedly something unpleasant was happening to her, which made me glad that desserts aren’t very good visual organs.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Luna, I expected better of you. You should know that chaos by definition, cannot be controlled,” I schooled her. I shuffled around trying to find a comfortable position for the new appendages I had sprouted.
“Aren’t you the master of chaos?!” she continued her verbal barrage, as she struggled with losing the up and down dimension and having it replaced with peppermint.
“I’m the spirit of chaos,” I corrected her. “The effects should subside soon anyway. I didn’t put enough energy into it, to last longer.”
As if on cue, a discorporate voice announced, “Approaching T-e^1546% uncertainty, falling.”
“What was that?” Luna asked finally having figured out how to look left and peppermint.
“The penguin, or the voice?” Luna’s constant trail of question was tiring to say the least, especially in this place where reason and syntax had such variable meanings.
“The voice.”
“Probably nothing important. Most likely just a coincidence, those happen alot around me,” I answered sweetly.
If Luna asked any further questions, I didn’t pay any attention to them. All around us was glorious, wild, free, unpredictable, chaos. No bounds, no rules, and what little form there was, served only as a reminder of the natureless state of the all-nothing around us. And some part of me resonated with this place. I could feel my body change shape and turn every which way, sometimes passing through itself, or traveling in two different directions in time at once. And not only my body, but my thoughts, my soul, everything about me was in constant flux. None of it scared me; it was like… like home.
Then it all fell apart, the universe stretched towards a single pinpoint before slingshotting back into place.
The surreal chaos all around us was replaced by the all too real chaos of the normal world, as I and Luna found ourselves clinging to the fur of a giant platypus, that was hanging several feet above the water surface.
Okay, maybe normal wasn’t exactly the right term.
---
Over time a lot of people have attributed the creation of Platypi to me, which of course is completely and utterly wrong. Indeed Platypi were already around when I came into existence. And really, they aren’t my style.
Not that I never created animals, far from it. If rumors are to be believed the gryphons still haven’t gotten rid of all of my dropbears, and I’m pretty sure that even today dragons still stay away from all dandelions out of fear that they are going to uproot themselves and attack.
“But Discord,” I hear you asking, “don’t they have mismatched bodies just like yourself?”
And that’s where you are sorely mistaken; Platypi might seem mismatched but as it often is the case, one should never judge a book by it’s cover. Those little buggers are fairly normal as far as animals go, and I would never accept such a mundane creature as part of my glorious chaos…
… and should anybody tell you that this is because one of them scratched me with it’s poisoned talons, he’s a dirty liar.
Old grudges aside, I was far too busy holding onto it’s fur for dear life, to bother with any other thoughts. Let me tell you, a oily coat that’s made for swimming isn’t a particular good handhold.
“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh….” Luna screamed as our mammalian life raft plummeted towards the sea below us.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh….” I replied as I felt my hands slowly slipping.
“Gruuuuuuh…” the Platypus chimed in unhelpfully.
“Splash!” the ocean had the final word when our fall ended as abruptly as it had started.
A torrent of water arose all around us, and for the shortest of moment the salty sea water formed a dark blue canopy of light and motion, before crushing down on us like a ton of bricks, as we performed what probably was the world’s largest belly-flop. Sputtering and coughing the trio of us emerged from the water, like a cork shooting out of a champagne bottle, and once again our combined screams echoed over the rocking planes of the sea, before the breath was pressed from our lungs by the second impact.
Luckily, our new ride seemed just as dazed as we were, which bought us a few precious minutes to catch our breaths, and expel whatever salt-water we had swallowed. While Luna was busy cursing my name, I took the chance to survey our surroundings: The good news was, that there was no sign of the city-guards ships. The Bad news was, that there was no sign of anything else either, just the gentle rocking of waves as far as the eye could see…
Sadly I’m not in a position to disclose what has happened during those days that we spent rafting the ocean on our trusty monotremic steed. But I think I can tell you this much, without Luna making good on her death threats: We discovered the lost continent of Ma, where we prevented a war by inventing Ska.
But this is neither here, nor there, and our story continues as we finally reached the harbor of Celestantinopel, or Istallionbul as I would come to know it in the days to follow.
Repulsion and joy battled inside me as the silhouette of the sandstone city came into view. On the one hand Celestanstinopel was a reminder of Celestia’s and Luna’s unending Crusade against me, and the stench of stagnation, which permeates anything Celestia touches, was particularly strong here; on the other hand it was just this stagnation which made Istalionbul into a rare familiar sight for the likes of me, who had seen the world around them turn to dust more than once.
In the end I delayed sorting out my feelings for later, and settled for taking in the view. The city’s beige sandstone buildings dominated the landscape all around the seven hills on which the city was founded, their simple cubic forms making it seem like that one time I dropped giant building blocks onto a plane. Where in Canterlot spindling minarets dominated the cityscape, Celestanstinopel had opted for simple geometric forms and cupolas which decorated the largest structures. Most notable of course, was the bifurcated nature of the city. A river was now flowing through the breach, that my attempt at taking back the city had left, dividing the bigger eastwards city from the higher lying but smaller westwards city.
All on it’s own Enti, as I had dubbed the Platypus, took course for the newly created river, long before we could make out the harbor which lay nestled in a small bay on the east side of the city.
One would expect that our giant duck billed companion would have created quite a stir as he came to a rest near the pier, but much to my own and Luna’s surprise nobody seemed so much as give us a second glance… or to be more precise, there was nobody there to give us a second glance, except for a cat who had fled from the midday heat to the harbor, which at least got a nice stiff breeze from the sea every now and again.
“What are you complaining about? We don’t want to attract too much attention anyway,” my selenic companion tried to argue, but one such as me, who has caused all sorts of chaos throughout the ages, does recognize the proverbial “calm before the storm”, and I told Luna as much.
“It’s quiet… too quiet. I don’t know how much this place has changed, but back in the days this place used to be full of people, all trying to shout louder than their neighbours. Can you hear anything?” I asked her warily watching my surroundings.
Luna raised her ears alertly. Apparently me staying serious for once was enough to get her attention.
“Can you hear that?” I heard my own rhetorical, echoed back at me.
“That’s just what I mean, it’s too quiet,” I repeated annoyedly.
“No, I think I can hear music.”
Now it was me who held his ears into the wind, and indeed, faintly I could make out the sound of fanfares being blown in the distance.
“Hmmm, what do you think this is all about?” I asked as I turned to Luna, only to find that the place she had occupied moments before was now conspicuously empty. Hastily I ran after the last blur of dark blue tail and the clip clop of hoof that reverberated from one of the empty alleyways.
Not for the last time I cursed my current choice of avatar which, while exceptionally stylish, isn’t really suited for running, especially if you are chasing a four legged creature whichs entire body has been pretty much optimized for gallops over long distances. Only out of the corner of my eyes I could make out the facades of the houses along the way, which ponies and other creatures had tried to decorate in a desperate attempt to grant the dull sandstone buildings some individuality. A carpet here, some flowers there, a woven mat to cover a particular drafty door. As my feet ran across the cobblestone street, which had been worn down by centuries of use, I picked up all those little things which talked of the ponies living here, which were usually drowned out by the roar of the cities bustle.
Before I could process any of these new informations I was halted in my way very abruptly by the royal derriere.
Luna was staring straight ahead where we could see the backside of a large crowd, clogging up the streets, and now that my own wheezing wasn’t blocking my ears anymore I could make out the sound of music and the cheers of ponies. Luna shot me a questioning look, but all I could do was shrug my shoulders.
Carefully we approached the back ranks of the masses trying to get a look at what was worth all this attention (and it had better be good, after all people were ignoring ME for it), but even from my higher vantage point I could only make out an empty street and the backs of heads. Not that these didn’t already prove interesting enough.
Whereas in Equestria ponies were the dominant species by a wide margin, here we could see all kinds of creatures: The bulk of the crowd was made up from the long legged ponies of the saddle arabian city folks, who while taller than Equestrians still were slightly shorter than Celestia and even Luna. But there were also gryphons, dominantly coloured black or grey, but also a few of the long beaked mer-gryphons with their pristine white feathers. The broad backed and flat footed camels were easy to spot, since their reputation for being bad tempered left them with plenty of room to breathe. Only Minotaurs were missing; apparently even in the thousand years of my absence those two nations hadn’t manage to look past their differences (which had absolutely nothing to do with me, I dare you to prove otherwise). And of course the tall standing nomads of the desert, with their long billowing mantels and concealing headgear weren’t missing either. Though it should be noted that the clothes they wore were less white, as so many half witted authors will try to assure you, but more a dusty albeit bright grey or a stained sandy tone; cloth doesn’t stay white for too long when exposed to the rigors of a nomadic lifestyle.
Yet another fanfare ripped me out of my observations and directed my gaze down the street where we now could make out a few figures marching along the road. I could have smacked myself; of course, whatever could make the races of Equus flog together like sheep? A Parade! We had entered the city right as some sort of festivity started.
Luna had come to the same conclusion as I and turned to a saddle arabian pony, who had shielded himself against the sunlight with a colorful robe.
“Excuse me, could you tell me what the commotion is about?” she asked in a somewhat stuttering saddle arabic.
The ponies furrowed brows and questioning eyes made it all too clear that Luna’s saddle Arabian was probably as outdated as her Equestrian, but nonetheless he answered, “The son of Sultan Samum has returned, and his eminence is holding a parade in his honour.”
Which was apparently all he was willing to tell us, since he barely took the time to answer before turning back towards the street, where now the first few extensions of the parade could be made out.
A short whistle escaped my lips as I watched the banner bearers walking by. The sultan had really spared no costs for his son: First came an entourage of sixteen banner bearers walking in ranks of two, carrying flagpoles which easily reached past the buildings around us; I could only imagine how much the gold brimmed flags, showing an ornamental pattern, weighted.
Quickly followed spectacle on spectacle, dancing bears, armoured elephant mercenaries, juggling goats, and even a fire swallowing dragon (admittedly the dragon himself was more impressive than the fact that he was gorging himself during the parade). Of course I only had a tired yawn left for this pompous display of bad taste, after all I had summoned more impressive things even during my laziest times, but Luna seemed to be entirely taken in.
Shaking my head and rolling my eyes, I turned back to see what came next, only to notice that like a wave, the crowd to our left bowed it’s front legs, and grudgingly I followed their example, after all I didn’t want to draw any attention to us.
A enormous palanquin, carried by 20 gold armored stallions, came into view, sitting atop of it the prince of Celestanstinopel. He was an impressive little bugger, somewhere in his early twenties, athletically built, and barbers would have killed to get their hands on his waving black hair and his shining auburn coat. I had once thought about using a illusion of somebody similar to fool the element bearer of generosity, with her head full of stupid romance novels.
“Come on Luna, I think it’s time we split,” I said as I turned to the princess of the night.
A small swarm of hearts was hovering around her head, and a rose coloured aura tinted everything around her. Her eyes (which were twinkling like stars…) were fixed on the figure of the prince.
A loud smack echoed over the crowd as my paw smacked against my face...
Oh few are the things which are more foolish than what ponies do for appearance. Even before my imprisonment it always baffled me how much effort nobles and common folk alike put into appearing so ridiculous that even I would have to think for a few moments to come up with something more bizarre. A thousand years of having to watch garden parties only served to reinforce that impression. Hats, Scarves, shawls, boots, vests, togas, flower wreaths, socks, and all of them as utterly and completely dull as the next. Each generation more ready to ridicule the habits of the last, only to then reinvent the ideas of two generations before.
One of the more original ideas however, was ‘ambience magic’, or as it more commonly referred to vibe-voodoo. Early during my imprisonment some unicorn came up with an idea of how to prime a simple spell to react to certain outside conditions, like say a voice or a gesture. And did he use them to create wonderful pranks, and traps for the unsuspecting? NO! He turned it into a fashion accessory. For the next few years there was no romantic gesture which wasn’t supported by a magical bird choir, no sob-story which didn’t cause haunting violin notes to sound, and no ghost story which wasn’t backed by ominous thunder and the howling of wolves in the distance.
Luckily this cavalcade of trite cliches disappeared a few years later, as fashion trends tend to do. Not so luckily this had apparently been after dear Lunas banishment, and so people were starting to turn towards us as Luna tinted the world around her in rose colours.
I was just about to wave toward the young princeling which seemed to finally have noticed the commotion, only to feel several pounds of cerulean princess ram into me. While I was once again coming to terms with the fact that air was now a required part of my biology, Luna dragged my gasping body away from the parade.
An unceremonious “oomph” marked my arrival in one of the backyards, that were so typical for the Celestanstinopolian building style. Had moments before the heat beat down on us, like Celestia was holding a grudge, in here the air was soft and cool. A roofed walkway provided shade, and a network of canals fed the plethora of flowers that prevented the yard from turning into yet another searing furnace. The gentle whispering of water would have made for a serene atmosphere, weren’t it for the fact that I was currently towered by the heavily breathing body of the princess of the night.
“Oh my, Luna! How straightforward of you,” I mouthed coyly, doing my best impression of the Royal Canterlot Bedroom Eyes (you’ll have to ask Celestia how I know what those look like). Much to my annoyance however, Luna ignored my genius attempt at humor, in favor of staring off into the distance wistfully.
Before I could even think of another joke, a longing sigh escaped her lips, and when I saw that twinkle in her eye it became utterly clear to me: Luna was an big old drama queen!
And if this theory needed any proof I could see her steadying her breath. With snakelike agility my paw shot forwards, firmly lodging itself in the mouth of the surprised diarch. “No!Singing!”
“Pleargh! How dare thee? I only wanted to point out that it would be prudent that we talk to the prince,” she said, finally giving me enough room to stand up and dust myself of.
To say that I looked at her dubiously, would be the understatement of the millenia.
“Oh dear Luna, I’d LOVE to see you trying to burst into the palace to meet your newest colttoy, and just imagine the looks on their faces, when they find out that two of Equestria’s most powerful casters have entered the country without telling anybody,” I replied. As much as the ensuing chaos would have been wonderful, I didn’t think, that my pride could take it, if once again it was Luna who caused more chaos than me. Seeing Luna turn a deep tomato red, made this interim compromise all the sweeter.
“No you insufferable fiend! We only wanted to suggest that …” she began, before trailing off.
“Yes Luna?” I have to admit that I enjoyed teasing her like this immensely.
“.... that we look for the artifact amongst the treasures the sultan is sure to have amassed,” she finally finished, the look of extreme self confidence only betrayed by the fact that her ears were still twitching back and forth.
“And you allready got a plan how to do so without causing an international incident, I’m sure…”
And that’s how I found myself crouched behind a bush in the gardens of the sultanate palace.
I may have mentioned once or twice that I wasn’t used to controlling my body without magic to aid me, well, as it turns out, sneaking isn’t any easier than running or jumping. It can only be attributed to sheer luck that we had made it past the castle walls at all, though most of the guards being drunk from the festivities did help a lot. However it had taken barely five minutes of stumbling across the vast wildlife sanctuary that passed for a garden in the sultan's eyes, before I was attacked by a foe that brought my progress to an halt.
“Let go you stupid bush.”
Of course it would be then during my struggle, that a cloud of dark mist coalesced besides me, until the princess of the night looked across the gardens. “Be still, guards are approaching.”
I fell silent, and pressed myself as close to the ground as possible, while Luna turned into her mistform again. I could only barely make out the form of the two guards, even with their large build that put them above most equestrians. Their armor was gleaming golden in the moonlight, but where Celestia’s guards probably had to train for years to keep that half bored look on their faces, in saddle arabia they had opted for the easy route; both of them wore golden masks, that showed a face of anger… or possibly constipation.
I held my breath. Watching as the guards walked their routes, seemingly none the wiser of my presence. Before long the two passed out of view, disappearing into a hedge maze, and I returned to freeing my foot from the thrice cursed greenery.
“Incidentally,” Luna said, once again appearing besides me, “where did you get these outfits?”
She of course was referring to the tightly wound cloth garb we both were wearing. In cut it was similar to the robes of the desert dwellers, but coloured in a deep night blue, such that the wearer appeared to be little more than a shadow.
“I stole them from a clothesline,” I replied absentmindedly, still tugging on the thorns that were unwilling to let go of my leg.
“You did what!?” Luna whispered, or at least her tone insisted that it was supposed to be a whisper, albeit a rather loud one. At least she helped me freeing my leg, her magic incasing the plant, and part of my leg.
“Oh, don’t worry. I left behind two of your nightgowns instead. By the way, I didn’t pick you for one to wear pink silk.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!” This most definitely wasn’t a whisper.
“Hush. We’re trying to be stealthy, remember?” And with that I turned towards the palace, leaving behind a seething princess.
When she finally caught up with me, her wrath had at least calmed down to boiling anger.
“This isn’t over yet,” she snarled, and then disappeared into a cloud of smoke. I thought I could smell a hint of sulfur.
Content with my attempt at angering the princess, I concentrated on the building in front of me. Celestia’s touch was unmistakably present in this building as well, the white marble and golden roofs, which looked like a bulb with a point towards the sky betraying her like a call sign. But when compared to Canterlots ever new, ever pristine buildings, you could feel the age emanate from the palace. It was a witness of an older, more savage time. And a witness of an older, more savage Celestia. All the gold, and all the marble couldn’t hide the nature of this building; it was a fortress, the home of a warrior princess.
I pushed aside the thoughts of the past, and instead looked for a way to enter the Palace.
“Luna?” I asked the night around me, feeling slightly foolish.
“Yes?” Came the answer from direct behind my head. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of turning around.
“Could you take a rope up to that window?” I pointed towards one of the lower loop-holes, that would certainly have been too narrow for a pony, but was just about big enough for my serpentine body. An assumption that proved right a few moments later, when I snaked my way into the castle.
Luna looked around the corridor, her ears perked up, listening for the sound of approaching guards. Personally I was more interested in our surroundings, than the chance of guards coming upon us. The inside of the palace only reinforced my impression from the outside; rich tapestries, carpets, and all sort of riches, that still only barely managed to hide the militaristic look of the place.
Every few feet archaic knight armor decorated the hallway, that seemed to go all around the building. I looked for a way deeper into the building, since, as Luna and I had surmised, the treasury would most certainly be in the deepest parts of the palace.
“Over there.” I pointed towards a door, that lead to a staircase.
Carefully Luna took the lead, edging towards the staircase with grace that betrayed her connection to the night and the darkness. After peering around the edge of the doorframe, she waved for me to follow her.
They palace was quiet, except for the sound of the festivities that were still going on in the distance. As I had skulked around the place looking for the cloths, I overheard several ponies talking about the banquet that the sultan was holding to honour the prince. As it would appear, the sultan to be had spent quite some time abroad, learning the ways of the warrior, and now it was time to celebrate his passage into the realm of adults.
For us that mostly meant, that the outwards areas of the palace were mostly empty. A sign that fate was in our favour, if I’d believe in something like this. From my experience, most of life is controlled by a guy called Murphy.
Quite a cranky fellow.
As we crept down the stairs I once again turned my attention to Luna.
“So, are you finally going to tell me how you expect to find the treasury, or are we just going to traipse around the cellars all night long?” I asked, waddling after the scouting princess of the night.
“Nothing easier than that, we just have to follow the prince when he goes to sleep, and I’ll look into his dreams.” There it was again, that smug grin, accompanied by the nervous twitching of her ears. Somebody would have to tell dear Luna that she was a terrible liar.
“Ah, the old ‘mare of my dreams’ trick. I thought you were banned from using that ever since the tiger ambassador nearly divorced his wife…” Did I already mention that it is extremely fun to annoy Luna?
That she tried to glare at me, while embarrassment still turned her face beet red, made it all the funnier.
“Shut up and follow me! I think I see a balcony from which we can see the festivities…”
