> Earth > by alarajrogers > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Portal > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Don't you think you should wait for Starlight to come back from her trip?" Spike asked nervously. Twilight laughed. "Don't be silly, Spike. I've been doing magical research for years with just your help. I don't need another unicorn to spot me." "Yeah, but..." His eyes flickered over the stack of books, the materials, the preparations. "You yourself said this is a completely new spell. Nopony's ever done this before." "That might not be true. The whole reason I got the idea was those books from the Crystal Empire I've been reading." She lifted one in her magic, taking a few merrily prancing steps toward it to meet it halfway. "Look, here, this is the first hint I've found in any record as to where Starswirl went, and it strongly implies he opened a dimensional portal. 'Then to defeat the evil did Starswirl banish himself and the Pillars to a world of darkness.' How do you banish yourself to another world without opening a portal?" She put the book down. "Discord insists that he's the one who created the gateway to the world Sunset's in, and all Starswirl did was anchor it into the mirror and put in containment spells to keep it from opening up just any old time, and after I saw what Discord did at the Gala that one year, I believe him. But Starswirl himself must have figured out how to create portal spells himself, because Discord says he doesn't know anything about this banishment to darkness thing and he himself was in another dimension when it happened, so he couldn't have created the portal in this case." "But you haven't found any evidence of an incomplete spell in the Starswirl Wing or in the Crystal Empire." "Right, and that's why this is so exciting!" She reared back on her hind legs and kicked her forehooves a little, unable to contain herself. "This will be new magic! Completely new magic, not like fixing a spell somepony else started!" "And that's why I think you should wait for Starlight! She has experience creating completely new spells." Despite her best efforts, Twilight's mood soured slightly. "Yes, her cutie mark removal spell. That was groundbreaking. Plus, she fixed one of Starswirl's spells herself when she got the time spell working. Starlight's amazing. That's why I want to do this now." "You want to do this without her because she's amazing." "Yes!" Twilight paced. "Spike, I had all the advantages. I was Princess Celestia's student. I had the run of the library. My job was just to learn magic, for ten years. I was so good at magic I became an alicorn. And Starlight, who never went to Princess Celestia's school at all, who didn't have nearly the same access to books of spells and theory that I did, managed to both fix one of Starswirl's spells – which is the thing I did that made me an alicorn – and create completely new magic from scratch, which I've never done. Don't you see, Spike?" She stopped pacing and looked at him. "She's better than me! At the thing I'm supposed to be an expert on!" "I thought you were supposed to be an expert on friendship," Spike said. "And anyway, Starlight is ten years older than you. She just had a lot more time to learn magic and practice it." "Yes, I'm supposed to be the friendship expert, but who was it who reformed the entire Changeling race? Starlight!" "Actually I kinda think it was Thorax..." "Well, okay, but because of advice Starlight gave him!" Twilight sighed. "I'm not jealous of her, don't get me wrong. It's not good to be jealous of a friend." "That didn't stop you during the whole thing with Discord and our friends after the book sortation..." Twilight ignored that. "She solved a friendship problem between the Princesses. She's... maybe not perfect, but she's mastered this whole friendship thing and reforming ponies after just one year of me teaching her. It took me three years to get to the point of becoming the Princess of Friendship! Four, before I figured out that was what I was princess of!" "Starlight's still not a princess, and have you considered that maybe she learned faster because she had a teacher, and you had to do all the research on your own with your friends' help? I mean, why are you looking at this as 'Starlight learned about friendship faster than I did' when you could look at it as 'I taught Starlight about friendship so well she could reform the Changelings in only one year of study, when she started out as a supervillain?'" "I'm not sure Starlight ever qualified as a supervillain, that's kind of a comic book thing—" "She destroyed the world seven times, I think it counts." "Okay, okay, I know what you're trying to say and I understand. And I shouldn't be jealous of Starlight, and yes, she's older than me so she's had more time to learn magic, but..." Twilight sighed. "Magical research used to be what I was known for. It was what I wanted to do with my life. This whole princess thing? I never expected this. I wouldn't change it, but... I don't feel like I'm really me anymore. I never get to do what I love, the first thing I was good at." "I thought the first thing you were good at was reading." "You know what I mean." Twilight brightened up. "So that's why I'm going to open a portal to another dimension, without Starlight's help, and prove beyond a doubt that that's a thing harmonic magic can do!" "Okay, but if you won't get Starlight's help... don't you think at least some unicorn should be here to spot you in case something goes wrong?" "I don't think Rarity or Sweetie Belle would be much help. Or anypony else in Ponyville, really. And besides, I have a lot of experience with this!" She raised her forehoof and pawed at the air, making imaginary check marks on equally imaginary ticky boxes. "Firstly, I've opened dimensional portals before. I was in the Realm of Chaos at the time and it's a lot easier to do it there than it is to do it here, but I know how it feels. Secondly, I was right there at the Gala when I saw Discord open a portal, and... the thing about chaos magic is that it's raw magic. Discord's so much more powerful than any of us because he can just talk to magic and get it to do what he wants without using any of the energy in building a constraint structure. But once he gets it to do a thing for him, I can see how the thing is built and figure out the constraint structure that would be needed to make it happen. Plus, thirdly, my counterpart in Sunset's universe opened a lot of dimensional portals without any trouble when she'd absorbed all the magic from my friends over there... which means she was probably about alicorn level at the time." "I thought there was a lot less magic over there overall? Can anypony – sorry, anyone over there get to alicorn level?" "Well, if she wasn't alicorn level then it's even more obvious that I should have enough raw power to do this!" Twilight gestured at the place where she was going to bring a portal into existence. Spike sighed. "All right, fine..." Twilight took a deep breath. It had long been held by the greatest minds in Equestria that it wasn't possible for harmonic magic, the type that unicorns and alicorns cast, to open dimensional portals, and that Starswirl had taken advantage of naturally occurring ones. Except Discord had confirmed that that wasn't true. A naturally occurring portal would have still been around for Discord to find if Starswirl had used it to banish himself, or the evil, or whatever it was that that passage was actually claiming he did. In fact, it had turned out the main reason Princess Celestia had wanted Discord reformed was his power to find and close the portals. Starswirl's had to be closed or Discord would have found it by now, and if Starswirl could close a portal, odds were he had opened it in the first place. So Twilight's theory was that yes, harmonic magic could open portals, and that she could devise a spell that would do so. She was about to make history. Well, okay, she'd made history several times by now, but she was about to do it again. Twilight checked her saddlebags once again, making sure that everything she'd planned to pack was still in them. Once the portal was opened, after all, she definitely wanted to go through it and explore the world on the other side, as long as it was safe for equine life over there. She concentrated, shaped the spell in her mind, and fired it from her horn. A distortion wavered in the air in front of her. Success! It wasn't something she could clearly see through, like the portal Discord had opened at the Gala or the one bound in the mirror, but it was definitely there. "YES!" she shouted, excited. She started to trot over to the distortion to stick her head in and see what it looked like on the other side, but common sense prevailed – once the horn that created the portal went through it, it might just close and spit her entire body out on the other side. "Spike, can you stick your head through and see what it looks like on the other side?" "Sure." Spike walked toward the portal. "Uh, Twilight?" "Is something wrong?" "It feels like... something's pulling..." Spike tried to step back – and fell on his tail instead, whereupon he slid forward toward the portal. "It's pulling me in!" "No!" Twilight grabbed onto him with her magic. The portal was definitely yanking at him. And at her magic. Her grip on Spike was weakening. It felt as if her magic was draining away from where it contacted him, toward the portal. She charged forward and grabbed Spike's tail with her hooves, trying to use the earth pony strength of an alicorn to pull him back, but she had no traction – the crystal floor was smooth and polished, nothing to stop either of them from sliding forward. She tried using her wings, but it was too late. With a pair of screams, they both slid the last little bit across the floor and through the hole into another world. From his home in Chaosville, Discord couldn't necessarily detect all the ebbs and flows of magic in Equestria, but something as significant as a dimensional portal made him sit up and take notice. He'd been playing a card game with himself in which he changed the rules constantly. The other Discord adapted to the rule changes instantly, of course. It was a semi-detached alternate, like Specs but with less personality, so that he wouldn't immediately know its cards. But it wasn't very smart or good at this game, so it wasn't much of a challenge... or, honestly, much fun. This promised to be much more interesting. The other Discord and the cards popped out of existence, and Discord himself appeared... right outside Twilight's castle. Oh, now, he should have guessed. If a random dimensional portal opened in Equestria, it would probably be either Twilight Sparkle or Starlight Glimmer's fault, and they both lived here. He couldn't teleport into the castle because of the harmonics, but he could certainly locate the portal. Quickly he flew there, already thinking of the funny things he'd say to Twilight or Starlight, whichever one of them was muscling in on his territory. Except there was nopony there. Just an unstable portal, floating in midair. An unstable portal that was exerting enormous negative magical pressure on the room, attempting to suck in anything that contained enough magic to be pulled by the pressure. Discord was used to this kind of behavior, and had already magically anchored himself far enough away that the pull scarcely bothered him. He saw skid marks from hooves and dragon claws on the floor, but no magical pony and no Spike. A quick summoning brought him a scrying crystal that had been hardened against the harmonics. It found Starlight, in the Crystal Empire, spending quality time with her coltfriend. It did not find Twilight. It would have found her anywhere in the world, which meant she wasn't in the world. Several thoughts and emotions ran through Discord all at once. Fear for Twilight and Spike, who were his friends. Deep irritation, bordering on anger, that Twilight had been such an idiot as to try to use harmonic magic to create a portal – that wasn't what harmonic magic was good at! You wanted a portal, use chaos! Excitement at the thought of being able to rescue Twilight, rub her nose in the fact that he'd saved her, and get praise for being a hero. Unease at the fact that he could see the branes in the portal separating, growing further apart slowly. Already, the return portal would have separated from the entrance portal, so Twilight wouldn't be able to just turn around and come back. She'd have to be told to find the return portal, that it would be separated... but if he waited too long, it could splinter again, and then the closest exit portal wouldn't be a return portal anymore and Twilight and Spike could end up having to play scavenger hunt to find their way back to Equestria at all. He could tell from the characteristics of the portal that it opened to a place with gravity similar to Equestria's, with breathable air, where the laws of physics were roughly similar to Equestria's, but where there was very, very low magic. He could even tell that the world the portal opened onto was one he'd either been to before, or its close cognate – one of the myriad worlds of humans that populated the multiverse, not the pony-like humans from the world Twilight had visited but real, fully alien humans. There was no translation matrix, so they'd be over there as a pony and a dragon... in a world where there was one dominant tool-using sapient species, and they thought of all the other species as non-sapients. Having been mistaken for a non-sapient being in his lifetime and having suffered greatly as a result, Discord didn't handle that thought well. A low-magic world would drain him badly and he might not have the strength to get them back directly, without using Twilight's broken portal, but he should be able to replenish quickly enough from the ambient chaos in the environment that he'd at least be able to teleport to the exit portal. He'd have to end up in a place where there was no chaos he could reach at all – deep inside a cave system or in a frozen polar wasteland or something – for it to drain him so quickly that he wouldn't be able to help them. And the thought of leaving them there – of facing Fluttershy and telling her that Twilight was gone, that all they could do was wait for her to find her way back, of leaving brilliant Twilight and snarky little Spike in a world where the denizens would think they were animals, and where animals were routinely hunted for food... no. All of this passed through his mind in a second. Without hesitating any further, he threw himself at the portal, planning to retrieve Twilight and Spike and bring them back home. > Ice - 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It could be worse, Twilight reflected. They could have ended up in space, or an active volcano, or in the middle of the ocean. “This is really cold,” Spike said, his teeth chattering. “Where are we?” “I… don’t really know.” They were standing on an ice plain, in darkness. The sky was full of stars and a moon with very different markings than the one at home had ever had. She wondered who might be trapped in that moon. The moonlight glittered on the ice. There were mountains in the distance, none as tall as the Canterhorn. Nothing living was visible. When Twilight had packed her saddlebags, she’d used magic to hyper-compact a blanket large enough to cover herself and Spike. She’d thought they might end up camping on this side of the portal. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. The cold was bitter, and she knew it would affect Spike more than her – pony fur and alicorn feathers would do a better job of holding the heat in than his scales. He was hotter than her to begin with, but he also needed to be hot. She tried to pull the blanket out of her saddlebag with her magic… and got it, eventually, after a full minute of struggling with it, a task that should have taken seconds. Her magic was sluggish and barely responsive. “There’s no magic here. That’s a serious problem. Let’s go back and recalibrate.” She put the blanket around Spike, since she had it out anyway, and turned back to the portal. Its magic felt wrong. “Come on, you go first.” She didn’t want to risk the portal closing as she went through it and stranding Spike. But right after Spike stepped through the shimmering anomaly, she heard his voice. “That didn’t do anything.” “That – what?” He came back. This time he was visibly not coming through the portal so much as stepping through the space it occupied. “When I went through, the portal wasn’t even visible. I could see you just fine, but you weren’t looking at me, so I thought maybe the portal was still visible on this side and you couldn’t see me through it.” “That’s… really strange. Get on my back, I’m going to try it. Since I created it, it might behave differently for me.” She tried to use magic to levitate him onto her back, but the lack of easily accessible magic had already weakened her to the point where she couldn’t lift him. Sighing, she crouched down. “Gotta do this the hard way. My magic isn’t working right.” “Right.” Spike climbed on her back. “Do you really think it’ll work differently for you than me?” “It’s possible.” She trotted through the portal – and came out on a dark ice plain, with the exact same moon and the exact same mountains visible. And when she turned around, she couldn’t even see the portal. It looked as if she’d just trotted through open air. “Uh. Oh, I wish I had my books! I know I read about something like this happening – something about portals breaking in two? So there’s an entry point and an exit point and they’re not physically congruent anymore? But I don’t know how I’d go about finding the other half…” At this point, Discord came flying out of the portal and landed hard on the icy ground, face first. Twilight had been too startled by his sudden appearance to be sure, but it looked like he had… fallen. “Oh, for – ice? Really? Really?” He got to his feet, unsteadily. “Discord? What are you doing here?” “There’s no time! You need to go through the portal and go home right now, before it separates even further!” “I… think it already did that,” Twilight said. “When you say ‘separate’, do you mean that the entrance and the exit separate so you can’t get back through the portal you just came out of?” “Oh, no,” Discord said. He facepalmed. “Do you know where the other side of it is?” “Uh… no. We just figured out now that it’s separated. What are you doing here?” “Really, Twilight. You tear a hole in reality and you think that’s not going to attract my attention?” He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. “Ice. Why did it have to be ice?” “Can you snap us out of here?” Spike asked. Discord shook his head. “I would have been able to, easily enough, except that you somehow managed to end up in a frozen place on a low-magic world. There’s no chaos here for me to draw power from, and I’ve already lost so much power I can’t safely teleport.” He glared at Twilight. “This is all your fault, you know. Why did you think it was a good idea to try to create a portal without notifying anyone who knows what they’re doing, who could help you or at least make sure you didn’t create a broken one and then get sucked into it?” “Uh… because I don’t know anyone who knows what they’re doing.” A large red, blinking arrow appeared over Discord, pointing at him. “I know you can do it, but I was trying to do it with harmonic magic, and anyway, if you’re low on magic shouldn’t you be holding off on using it for jokes?” “Oh, I suppose,” Discord said grumpily. “And just because you were trying to do it with harmonic magic doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have told me! Didn’t you think I’d want to see it? Harmonic magic being used to create something as disharmonic as an interdimensional portal?” “Well, I’d have shown it off to you and the rest of our friends once I had it working, and I still might, if I can get it working correctly, but I sort of need to get home first.” “I told you you should have waited for Starlight,” Spike groused. “Never mind that now. Discord, you can detect magic, right? Can you tell where the other end of our portal went?” Discord closed his eyes, and shuddered. Twilight said, excitedly, “You found it?” “No, I’m simply freezing to death. Brr.” He tried sitting on the ice, apparently found that intolerably cold, and stood up again, looking miserable. “Discord, you ought to stay on all fours if you can.” He opened his eyes and glared at Twilight. “Do these paws look like they’re rated for winter sports?” he asked, shaking his lion paw and eagle talon at her. “No, but even with all that fur on your chest, exposing that much of your body to the wind here is probably a bad idea.” “There’s wind?” Discord’s eyes went comically huge. “Hey.” Spike nudged him. “Ixnay with the agicmay, ok?” “What?” Twilight stared at Spike. “It’s Pig Latin. It’s a code, but a really dumb one. We use it to talk about Ogres and Oubliettes in front of ponies like Rarity or Applejack who don’t play it, because otherwise Big Mac gets embarrassed.” “Oh, okay.” She turned to Discord. “And there might be wind. We don’t know where we are. Just because the wind’s not blowing right now, doesn’t mean it can’t.” Discord looked up at the moon. “Oh. Actually, I do know where we are.” “Really? Where?” He sighed. “The name won’t help you. They call it Earth.” “Like… land? They named their planet Land?” Twilight asked, disbelievingly. “What’s our planet’s name?” “Terra… oh. Oh, yeah, I see what you mean.” “If I was pretending to be you, I would point out, pedantically, that Terra is actually Romish for Earth, and that those of us who travel dimensions know our world as Terra Fabula… Magical Earth, basically. This world is more precisely known as Terra Mundi, which literally means ‘earth world’, but in this context, it means it doesn’t have magic.” Spike said, “That’s a pretty good job of pretending to be Twilight.” “It’s a terrible job, I should at least have turned myself purple.” “It’s so dark, Twilight looks gray, and anyway, you have to save your magic. You got the tone right, though.” “Discord, can you find the other half of the portal or not?” Discord closed his eyes again, still shivering. He made a coil of his tail and sat on it. After a moment, he pointed. “Thataway.” “Okay! That’s great, we’re getting somewhere! Let’s go!” The three of them set off across the ice. It was not even thirty seconds later when Spike fell noticeably behind, because Twilight and Discord could both go to four legs and move faster that way, but Spike still had the bipedal build of a baby dragon and couldn’t do that. Twilight stopped to let him catch up. He was out of breath. “It’s so cold,” he said. “Even with this blanket.” “How about you ride on me? I don’t like your paws being in contact with the ice, anyway.” “Oh, but you were fine with my paws being in contact with the ice,” Discord said. “Yes, because you are not a dragon and your life doesn’t depend on an internal magical fire, also because one of them is a talon so that’s very little ground contact there, one of them is furred, and one of them is a hoof. Only one of your paws is a dragon paw.” She sighed as Spike climbed onto her back. “Not that I’m not grateful for the help, but why did you come after us?” “Well, to begin with, if you’d gone anywhere else at all — an ice plain on a magical world, or a not ice plain on a non-magical world — I’d have had the magic to snap you home immediately. But mostly, I was intensely curious. I’ve never seen harmonic magic open a portal without a framework.” “A framework?” “Starswirl eventually figured out how to enchant mirrors into portals in general, after he took my portal to a linked dimension and embedded it in a mirror.” “Well, that’s more than I knew before, but I know the alternate me from the mirror dimension — the one you say you created — opened a lot of portals once she was brimming with magic, and since she’s an alternate me, she must have been using harmonic magic!” Discord started laughing. “Harmonic?” He fell over on to the ice, which stopped his laughter immediately. “Ow. Brr, that’s cold.” “What’s funny about her using harmonic magic? They have harmonic magic in that dimension, that’s how they take on pony traits and use magic.” By now Discord was back on four legs. “Stop stopping, Twilight, we’ve got to get to that exit portal. We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. Most of this was called behind him as he trotted forward rapidly, his neck craned backwards. “I was stopping for you!” Twilight said indignantly, and tried to trot fast to catch up, but as soon as she came close to a canter, her legs went out from under her and she skidded. Discord caught her and Spike before she could pitch over onto the ice or Spike could fall off. “Also, hooves aren’t ideal for this environment,” Discord said, setting Twilight back on four hooves and then Spike onto her back. “No kidding,” Spike said. “Wish we had ice skates!” Discord lifted a paw, started to snap… and stopped, and sighed. “No. Not even going to try. I know it’s not there, and if I did it and then they popped like soap bubbles, that would do us no good at all.” “Why are you losing your magic so quickly?” Twilight asked, trotting forward, painfully aware now that she couldn’t move faster than a trot without losing her footing. “I’m the Spirit of Chaos,” Discord said, pacing her. “I know, but what does that have to do with—“ “Did you ever wonder why Equestria needs a Spirit of Chaos?” “I didn’t actually know Equestria needed you,” Twilight said, and then at the expression on Discord’s face, hastily added, “I mean, any more than Equestria needs me.” “Didn’t Starlight Glimmer destroy the world seven times to prove how much Equestria needs you?” “You know what I mean.” “I really don’t.” “I think she destroyed the world seven times because she was trying to prove the opposite of that,” Spike said. “Yes, and she failed, because the world needs Twilight. Well, the world needs me too, because chaos creates magic.” Twilight blinked. “Really? I thought magic just welled up from underground!” “Did you think it was a perpetual motion machine? That magic was uniquely not subject to entropy, of all forces? That magic just appears?” “I can’t say I’ve ever really studied where exactly magic comes from.” Twilight turned her head. “Spike, you have anything you can take notes with?” “Yes, but my hands are too cold to hold a quill.” He held them out from his body, under the blanket. Twilight could turn her head just enough to see them shivering violently. “Oh, for the love of everything, Twilight, I’ll tell you all this over again once we get home if you insist. You don’t have to take notes. There won’t be a quiz.” “Fine,” Twilight said. “I’ll hold you to that. It’s not like you go around telling me things about how magic works every day.” “Because it’s more fun to watch you figure it out.” “You were telling me about chaos and magic?” “More precisely, change creates magic. Constant change. The stronger the change, the better. Chaotic upheavals of everything create more magic than they consume.” “That sounds like a perpetual motion machine.” “It’s not, though. The magic I’d use to make the sky a skating rink is less than the amount of magic that doing something that ridiculous would generate… but most of that magic seeps away into the ground, traveling the ley lines to the poles, where it goes underneath the bedrock. The magma layer and the constant shift of tectonic plates keep the magic moving and keep adding to it, until it comes up out of the ground via geysers or volcanoes, enters the atmosphere, and is used by almost every living thing on Terra Fabula. And a significant amount of that magic flows through me. I keep magic from being used to ossify the world and make it perfectly orderly, because doing that would destroy magic. I keep the magic moving, because when it pools, it can take on… hmm… unpleasant characteristics. Like the Mirror Pool.” “I see. But then why didn’t magic disappear while you were in stone?” “Magic was still flowing through me, Twilight. Flowers and grass planted too close to my statue would mutate. Oh, that drove the groundskeepers absolutely batty. Birds that landed on me too often would transform, or their chicks would. I just didn’t have any control over it.” “Oh, wait.” Twilight stopped for a moment. “So… your magic isn’t yours? You just have all of the magic in Equestria flowing through you?” “Don’t be silly, of course my magic is mine, and stop stopping! We need to reach that other portal in time!” “In time for what?” Spike said. Did he sound sleepy? “Spike, are you falling asleep?” “It’s… kinda tiring me out, being so cold…” “Don’t go to sleep! Ponies who go to sleep in the snow never wake up!” “He’s riding on a mammal,” Discord snorted. “You are not snow, Twilight. He can fall asleep on you.” “Well, what if he falls off?” “I’ve slept on your back before,” Spike mumbled. “Yes, and you’ve fallen off! And I’ve caught you with my magic!” She turned her head toward Discord. “So if your magic is yours, why are you losing it so fast?” “Because I have a very, very large pool, but I’m designed for magical flow. Not conservation. I’m trying to dam the flow, but there’s so little magic on this world, and the Spirit of Chaos exists to keep magic moving. If it moves out of me, it dissipates completely and I can’t get any of it back, not on this ice plain where nothing ever changes. And I’m… having a great deal of difficulty keeping it inside me.” “That’s not good.” “A brilliant observation, Twilight, I can see why you were Celestia’s star student.” “Don’t be mean.” “I am the Spirit of Disharmony, after all.” “I’m still wondering—“ Spike yawned broadly —“why it’s so important to move fast. I mean… yeah, this cold is awful, I hate it, everybody hates it, but is there a reason besides ‘we want to get home as fast as we can’?” “Isn’t that enough?” Discord was sounding just a tiny bit breathless. “I guess so…” Spike yawned again. “How far ahead is this portal?” “Do I look like someone who knows numbers and distances?” Discord said irritably. “You’re an alicorn, Twilight. You’re not as attuned to magic as I am, but in this forsaken magicless place, even you should be able to feel the portal ahead.” “Oh. Really?” She reached out with her magical senses. “I don’t feel it.” “You might have to stop for a moment to fixate on it,” Discord suggested. “It took me a moment.” “All right.” Twilight stopped. Spike shifted on her back as if he hadn’t been paying attention, and slid a little from inertia. Focus. She knew what the portal felt like, she’d created it. She’d been sucked through it. She should be able to feel it. It was hard to stop when it was so cold, hard to open herself up to anything. She wanted to roll into a ball like a pillbug to keep the cold out. But she had to do this. Discord was right, he was terrible with numbers and distances. Someone with an analytical mind needed to know where the portal was as well. She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply — which made her cough, as the ice cold air hit her vulnerable lungs. Ok. Not doing that again. Shallow breaths, through her nostrils so the air would be warmed by the distance through her snout before it hit her lungs. Unfortunately her nose was already feeling frozen, and this didn’t help. So many distractions from the cold. How could she focus? Maybe she was looking at this wrong. Twilight let her mind drift. Let herself experience the cold, and the deep unpleasantness of it. Her cold body, the drip from her nose. The feel of Spike’s warm body on her back, the only source of warmth in the entire world. Another pinpoint of warmth, behind her. That had to be where the entrance from Equestria was. Where was there something like that, up ahead? There. There it was. Far ahead. She didn’t have any more idea than Discord how far away. “Spike,” she said, “can you open my saddlebag and hand me my compass?” Discord hadn’t actually stopped. He was up ahead. Twilight felt frustrated; why had he told her to stop and take a moment if he wasn’t going to wait for her? Spike was sluggish, but still faster than Twilight’s nearly numb hooves, as he pulled the compass loose and showed it to her. Twilight took a deep breath. “North,” she said. “We need to go north. That’s where the portal is.” “How much farther?” Spike asked sleepily. “Not too much,” Twilight lied. “Can you tie the compass around my right foreleg?” “Okay.” Spike did so, strapping it into place. Now she’d be able to check it just by lifting her foreleg and looking. He got back on her back, lying down and wrapping himself in the blanket, conserving both his warmth and hers. Twilight looked up. Discord was coming back, his thin body a shadow in the moonlight. “You realized you were leaving us behind?” she called to him, and coughed. Shouting in this cold was not a good idea. “Oh princess of little faith. I never intended to leave you behind,” he said, drawing even with her. “I just need to keep moving. It’s far too cold to stand still here.” “I managed it.” “You have fur all over your body.” Twilight poked his furry chest. “You seem pretty furry to me.” He poked her back with his scaled tail. “Only half of me.” And then started walking forward again. “Did you feel it?” “I did. We have to conserve as much magic as possible; I don’t know if the portal is just hanging open, or if we have to activate it, but if we have to activate it, we’re going to be in trouble if neither of us has magic.” “A fair point. How far ahead is it?” “Not too far,” she lied again. Keep up their spirits. Don’t let anyone give in to despair. It didn’t matter how far away it was, they had to get there, or… or they’d die here. It really sank in, then, for the first time, that this incident might kill them all. And she hadn’t left behind a note to explain where she’d gone, so unless Starlight could reconstruct her lab notes to re-open the portal, no one would know what had happened to them. They’d die over here, their bodies preserved forever on the ice, and no one from home would ever find them. No. She wouldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t. This was her mistake. She’d screwed up the spell somehow, so the portal had separated, and so that it sucked people in instead of letting them just choose to enter or not. She was not going to let Spike die here because she’d messed up. Or Discord. Or herself. Spike’s breathing changed. “Discord! Can you help me keep Spike awake?” “No,” Discord said. “But I can do this.” He closed his eyes, screwing them tightly shut as if in intense concentration, and produced a thin, strong rope. “I’m going to tie him to your back. He’s a dragon; he’s going into torpor. If you force him to stay awake, he’ll burn through his reserves and that will kill him. He’s falling asleep so he can conserve his inner flame and stay alive.” “Oh.” “Baby dragons are typically born here. Well, not here here, but back home, they’re usually hatched either in volcanoes or near the poles because of the intensity of magic needed to hatch a dragon egg. But baby dragons have a lot of fat reserves they can live off until they find their way to a source of food. A vein of gems, or things they can prey on. Because of magic, there’s abundant life all over Equestria.” “I didn’t know that.” “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Twilight.” “If baby dragons are born here, then why…” “Why is this happening to Spike?” Discord finished tying him onto her back. “Because he’s not a baby anymore. Most of his fat reserves are gone. He may still look babyish, but inside, he’s preparing to become a teenage dragon. A lot of what looks like fat is muscle. Teenage dragons do not do well in the cold, that’s part of the reason for the dragon migration.” “But he’ll be all right if he sleeps?” “He should be.” Discord looked at Twilight hard. “Assuming that you’re not lying about how far away the portal is, and actually, it’s so distant from here that we’ll never be able to make it on foot before we succumb to the cold.” Twilight laughed nervously. “Of course not! We’re going to make it. No question.” “Good, because my next Tuesday Tea with Fluttershy is in only three days, and she’ll be very disappointed if I don’t show up.” Discord started foward again, in the direction of the portal. “Onward march, I suppose.” “Onward,” Twilight agreed, and they continued. *** The moon set, but the sun did not rise. Twilight was exhausted and so, so cold, but she couldn’t sit down and rest. Every time she stopped, the cold started creeping into her very bones. She felt like they’d been walking forever. “Is this, like… some kind of alternate reality where Nightmare Moon won?” Discord lifted his head wearily and looked at her. “What?” “It feels like we’ve been walking forever, but the sun hasn’t risen. The moon set a while ago.” “You have no idea where we are, do you?” “Uh, yes, correct, that is exactly right. I have no idea where we are, but you said you did.” He sighed. “This is a polar continent. South pole, if I’m correct about the planet we’re on. During the winter, the sun never rises, and during the summer, it never sets.” “Oh.” That was surprising. “Is that magic?” “No. It has to do with the position of the planet versus the sun. The same thing happens back home, but there, it’s Celestia’s fault. Well, Celestia and the position of the sun vs. the planet.” He was definitely trudging slower than he had before. “It’s so cold. I feel like my tail is going to freeze solid and break off.” “It is cold,” Twilight agreed. “But we have to keep going. The portal can’t be too much further ahead.” She checked her compass. It was hard to read in the dark, but the lodestone had been magicked to glow in the dark slightly, so she could make out that they were still going north. “I certainly hope so, because I don’t know how much longer I can make it. My whole body is turning to ice.” “I know how you feel—“ “You have fur, so I doubt it.” Twilight ignored that. “My hooves feel like they’re going to fall off. We’ve been walking for so long, I’m exhausted. Look, over there. That’s a rock face that’s not covered in ice.” “I’m not sure what relevance that has.” “Let’s take a rest for a few minutes. Share body heat. I can sit down, you coil around me and Spike, and we all get a little warmer.” “Rock is not going to be significantly warmer than ice in this place.” “Not a lot warmer, but it’ll be a little bit warmer than ice. And there’s no risk of our body heat melting the ice and getting us wet.” “All right.” The two of them trudged over to the rocky outcropping. It was not even slightly comfortable; Twilight had a very hard time arranging herself on it in a way that didn’t leave rock digging into her legs or her belly. Eventually Discord sat on the rock in a way where the back of his abdomen, his hips, and the top of his tail were on the rock, most of which had protective fur, and all of which, according to him, had dragon scales, a lot of which had fur on top growing around the scales. The brown fur on his body was extremely thick, and significantly warmer than her own pony coat, and with the dragon scales apparently the rock didn’t hurt him as much as it had been hurting Twilight. She sat on him, lying on his fur, and he coiled his head around her and then his wings around them both and then his dragon tail on top of that, making himself into as much of a ball as he could without his magic. Spike’s still-fiery little body in the center made Twilight feel almost warm enough. Abruptly she woke, with a jerk of terror, and realized she’d dozed off. Ponies died in the cold if they fell asleep in the snow. “Discord!” “Hmm?” He didn’t sound startled. “Did you fall asleep?” “Me? No, not really. Drifting a bit. Resting my legs. I’m still so cold.” “We can’t fall asleep. We might never wake up!” “I wasn’t really worried about that,” Discord said. “As long as I’m awake, you were safe to sleep. But now that you’re awake, we should get moving again.” He yawned. “I’m worried about the other side of that portal.” “Worried?” Twilight extricated herself from him, carefully. “Why?” “Because if it split once, it might again.” He yawned again. “I wanted to try to make it there as fast as equinely possible before that happens, but I was too tired and plainly so were you. I hope it’s stayed in one piece.” “Me too.” She prodded him with her hoof. “Come on, get up. Let’s get moving.” Her stomach growled. “The sooner we get to that portal, the sooner we’ll be back home, in the warmth, and we can get something to eat.” “Yes, that sounds good.” He got to all fours, stretched, and then thought better of it and contracted again. “Oh dear. That’s very cold.” “Yeah, it didn’t get any warmer while we were napping.” Spike was still asleep. But still alive. She could feel him breathing, slow and deep. Feel his warmth on her back, all the warmth that was left in the universe. The portal was still up ahead of them. It still felt impossibly far away. “Come on. It can’t be too much further.” “I think we will find that it can,” Discord grumbled, but followed her as she trotted. > Ice - 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Discord had been growing steadily more certain that he would die in this icy wasteland. Maybe Twilight and Spike, too, but he would be first. They’d been walking so long, and the cold was slowly devouring him. First, it had been the profound discomfort of cold. Then it was agonizing aches as the cold started doing damage. Now he was going numb. Like turning to stone, he thought, except much slower. Also, he’d never been turned to stone in the winter, so the experience had never included cold in the start, though he had certainly been able to feel cold when the winters came, if it got bitter enough. He couldn’t stop whining about the pain. It was humiliating. Back home he was godlike, reality his plaything. Here, he was slowly dying, and crying about it like a foal. But when he whined, it made Twilight’s emotions spark with disharmony — guilt and fear and pity and deep irritation — and the disharmony was like tiny flashes of warmth, just for a moment. He knew it was wrong to crave his friend feeling bad, and he doubted it was significant enough to prolong his life, but it was the only thing that felt remotely close to good in a universe of ice and despair, and he couldn’t make himself stop. "Just to let you know, Twilight, I can't feel my tail anymore," he said. "Square cube ratio says that the areas with the least volume in comparison to the surface area will lose the most heat first. So that's probably why," she said hoarsely. "Must you describe our impending doom with mathematical equations? Ugh, my last few minutes of existence and I have to listen to logic. And math." His own voice was equally hoarse. It was an effort to talk, but not talking felt very lonely, and talking made Twilight feel disharmonious and gave him the tiny tiny boost from that, so he did it anyway. "We're not going to die. We're going to find the portal. It's got to be near here." By now he knew she was lying. He didn’t know whether she knew she was lying, or if in her efforts to keep her own spirits up she had convinced herself it was true, but he had sensed the portal some time ago, and he’d been able to tell then that it was still a long way off. Maybe a somewhat shorter way than it had been when they’d started, but by no means close by. They hadn’t made that much progress since. "We are in semi-total darkness and the temperature is so far below freezing I expect the oxygen to start crystallizing any moment now and I don't know about you but I don't think I have any magic left. Or body heat. So I can't help but think your optimism's misplaced." "But when we get close to it, we'll feel its magic,” she said. “We don't need to have our own to find it. And when we touch it, we should be able to activate it, and get home. Where it's warm." "My tail will still be frozen." "You can regenerate your tail. We can heal anything if we live through it. I'm more worried about Spike." He probably shouldn’t have told her that teenage dragons can’t handle the cold even though baby dragons were born in it. She was obsessing over Spike and honestly, he would probably live longer than either of them. Twilight was a mammal, but pony coats were designed more for quickly getting rid of heat than holding it in, and dragons had powerful inner fire. "He's a dragon. He'll just sleep and outlive both of us." "There's no magic in this dimension. He won't survive either. And he's a reptile. Without magic to generate his heat, he can't just make body heat like we can," Twilight said earnestly. "Speak for yourself. Or did you forget that the tail I can't feel anymore is also draconic?" "At least some parts of you can make body heat. You can survive losing your tail." Discord thought about that for a moment. "I might be better off if I did. You don't happen to have a knife or sword, would you?" "Why exactly would I have something like that?" "No reason. I forgot that you put all of your trust and faith in abstract concepts like Harmony and Friendship and it never occurs to you to bring weapons into a dangerous situation. How is that working out for you, by the way?" "I didn't see you bringing weapons, either," she snapped. "I have claws." And magic. That normally worked fantastically well. If only they hadn’t ended up on an ice plain. Almost anything would have been better. Outer space or an airless planetoid like the Moon would have been worse, and the middle of the ocean would have been very bad for Twilight and Spike — but not for him. He had gills, sea dragon heritage, and the ocean was pure chaos. He could have rescued Twilight and Spike if they’d fallen in the ocean. Even the desert would have been better, for him; he wouldn’t have lost his magic nearly as quickly in a place where wind shifted dunes of sand and some things were alive. The ice plain was the only terrestrial environment that could drain him this quickly. He cursed himself silently. He’d known he had no idea what he was getting into. He should have prepared. He could store magic better if he knew he was heading into a place that would drain it. "How are they working out for you?" Twilight asked sarcastically. "I can't feel the talon either. The paw is just in agony every time I step on it. I can't help but think I really shouldn't have taken your advice about going four-legged." Didactically, Twilight said, "If you think you're cold now, imagine exposing your entire torso to the wind here. I know your forelimbs aren't built for walking on ice without magic to keep you warm, but you could survive losing all four of them better than you could survive losing all the heat from your core body." "Except for the part where if I lost all four limbs I couldn't keep wandering through this Tartarus-damned ice plain looking for this mythical portal with you, and without your magic it's hardly as if you could carry me." He had stopped being able to sense it a while ago. In this place without magic, without chaos, any source of magic whatsoever should be lit up like a faraway lantern, but he was standing next to the bonfire of an alicorn and the campfire of a dragon, impairing his metaphorical sight. And he was in agony, worse pain than he’d suffered since he’d destroyed Matrisse and gotten lungs full of Order dust. His ability to concentrate was more or less gone. Twilight claimed she could still sense it. He hoped she was telling the truth, but he suspected she wasn’t. Except possibly she might have just admitted to him a minute ago that she couldn’t anymore either. "I don't know, maybe I could make a travois and drag you," Twilight said. He wanted to smile. It was too cold to smile. "With no magic. Or tools. Or anything to make a travois out of since there's nothing around here but ice." "At least you don't keep slipping on the ice." Several times, she’d tried to speed up, approaching a canter. Almost every time, she’d slipped on the ice before even fully shifting gaits. "Yes, do be careful and don't break your leg. They shoot ponies who break their legs here." "Who do?" "The sentient denizens of this world,” he said. “Who don't live anywhere near here because this region of their planet is far, far too cold for them. Or us. Whose brilliant idea was it to manufacture this portal again?" "Whose brilliant idea was it to go through it?" Twilight snapped. "I'm only a quasi-immortal ancient spirit of chaos. You're supposed to be a genius, genius. Nopony expects me not to do something stupid." Twilight sighed. "I'm sure Princess Celestia will be really mad at me and when we get home she's going to yell at me and send me back to magic kindergarten and right now I don't care. She could banish me to the moon. I bet it would be warmer." "She could turn you to stone," Discord said. "I think that would be warmer." "Yes, you'd be correct. When you stop feeling body parts because they're stone, they feel like stone, not ice. Right now I am turning to ice. I would honestly prefer stone." "I'm sorry." But he had never been this cold in stone. He had begged for death at times, but he’d never been so certain it was coming for him. He’d never had friends to disappoint with his disappearance, or his inability to rescue them. "Actually maybe not." Twilight stopped in her plodding for a moment to glare at him. "Maybe I'm not sorry? I am sorry!" Well, that was a nice burst of disharmony, but it made him feel bad. If he was going to wind Twilight up and get her upset, he wanted it to be intentional. "No. Maybe I like this better. Once I turn to ice I'm fairly sure I won't be conscious anymore. I'm a little surprised I'm still conscious now. And if I'm frozen and I'm not conscious, at least I won't be…" "Lonely?" Twilight said, when he trailed off without finishing the sentence. "I was going to say bored." "And lonely." "That would ruin my reputation,” Discord said. “If I were you, I wouldn't expect me to admit to something like loneliness unless I was fairly certain I was about to die." Because if he’d gone around admitting it, it would have given ponies a weapon over him. Because he’d never been able to convince himself that anypony but Fluttershy could be trusted with knowing his emotions like that. "Just keep moving. The portal can't be that far away." Oh yes it could, he thought. "Did I mention I can't feel my tail?" "Several times." "Oh. Well, I can't feel my dragon paw, either. Or my talon." He lifted his talon up and shook it. He wasn’t sure he even had enough sensation in the dragon paw to lift it that high. "You're still walking on them, so it can't be that bad." He couldn’t see Twilight’s face — the moon had set forever ago, and the sun wasn’t ever going to rise on this south polar continent until spring came. But she sounded skeptical. "Just warning you. If they suddenly buckle out from under me I won't be able to get up again." "You have to.” Now she was impassioned. “I can't lift you." "Of course not,” Discord grumbled. “If I can't go on you leave me here, idiot. What do they teach them in school these days?" "I'm not going to leave you," Twilight said. Her voice was hoarse, but loud, as if she could make it more real by shouting it into the icy emptiness. "That's touching, but stupid." He was so cold. Why didn’t she get it? Why didn’t Twilight understand that he was dying, right now? "I don't have enough power to activate the portal by myself,” Twilight said. She sounded exhausted. Of course she was exhausted. She wasn’t in much better shape than he was. “If I leave you behind I can't go home. And since I don't see any cottages around here with friendly aliens ready to invite me inside for a cup of tea…" "Hot cocoa." "What?" Discord looked over at her. Twilight was a shadowy blob in the starlight. "As long as we're imagining friendly aliens inviting us in and feeding us, let's imagine hot cocoa. Lakes of hot cocoa. Hot cocoa springs bubbling up from under the ice." Twilight laughed weakly. "I will never say this again for the rest of eternity, but right now, I like the way you think." "Swimming in hot cocoa." "You could do that,” she said wistfully. “When we get home." "Yes, after flying monkeys with glowing faces and big white pegasus wings descend from the heavens singing to us." "They could sing Winter Wrap Up. And make all the snow melt." Discord smiled weakly. "And then Celestia would come through the portal and fire rainbow sunbeams at us. Which don't turn us into stone." "No,” Twilight said dreamily. “They'd just be sunbeams. All nice and warm. And then she could come swimming with us in the hot cocoa." "Floating on an island of cake. Until she eats it all and sinks." He could hear the scowl in Twilight’s voice. "Even in your fantasies, you're mean." "Disharmonious to the end, dear Twilight. Promise me you'll have them put that on my tombstone." "Since I can't open the portal without you, what makes you think I can have anypony put anything on your tombstone?" she asked crankily. "Oh, I don't know.” Discord felt as if, the moment he stopped bantering with Twilight, he would probably drop dead. Part of him wanted to. If he was dead, the pain of the cold would stop. But he’d never see Fluttershy again. But, on the third paw, that was likely to happen anyway. “Once I collapse you could probably cut my body open and stick your little dragon inside me to keep him warm with what remains of my body heat, and then you'd be able to make better time and possibly find that portal." "A, that's disgusting and where do you even get these ideas, and B, did you forget the part where I don't have a knife?" "Just saw me open with your horn." "That's gross,” Twilight said. “Can we get back to the hot cocoa fantasies? I liked them better." He was so tired. "I'm serious, Twilight. I can't keep going much longer." "Neither can I." She sounded tired too… but not as tired as he was. Twilight’s optimism had saved Equestria so many times. Could it save her, and Spike, now? He hoped so… but he was fairly sure it wasn’t going to save him. "You're not carrying half your body mass as reptilian deadweight," he muttered. "I am carrying reptilian deadweight. He's just not half my body mass." Discord said archly, "You could leave him behind.” Twilight took a deep breath. "You just want me to scream at you and threaten to hit you, don't you?" "I admit it, the disharmonious energies of your rage might keep me going another thirty seconds or so." "One hoof in front of the other, Discord." She demonstrated this by ostentatiously raising and lowering her hooves as she walked forward. It had been a long time since either of them had had the strength to trot, but she was still faster than he thought he was capable of. "I only have one hoof. Ironically I think it's the only limb I have I can still feel." "The portal can't be much farther." He was beginning to think she was trying to perform some sort of word-based magic. That she thought, if she repeated it often enough, it would be true. "It could be, actually. It's dark, there are no landmarks, we have no magic to navigate with and this isn't our world. We could have passed the portal entirely." Twilight lifted her leg, and starlight gleamed off something with a very faint glow to it. "The compass says we're still going north." Discord stared at Twilight for several moments, and then started laughing. Weakly, hoarsely, and it hurt, but it was so hard to stop. "Why are you chuckling like that?" "This is a south polar continent, Twilight,” he said. “Every direction is north." She said, very quietly, “Oh.” "Still think we're going to get home?" She was silent for several seconds as they plodded forward across the ice. "…If I give up here, it's not just me. Spike will die. He's counting on me." "Ah, the magic of friendship,” Discord said, trying and failing to hide his bitterness. “When you absolutely, positively have to be wracked with agonies of guilt before you die because you know your death is a failure and dooms your friend to go down with you." "That's very cynical for a guy who gave up being evil because of friendship," Twilight said. "Why do you think I'm so glad it's you with me here and not Fluttershy?" he said. "You're sweet, Discord." "I do try." For several minutes they were both silent, their throats too hoarse to keep talking. Too much concentration needed to keep putting one foot in front of another, hoof hoof hoof hoof, hand foot hand foot, paw hoof claw paw. Finally Twilight said, “I think I can feel it up ahead. Can you feel it?" In a dull voice drained of all his normal vivacity, Discord muttered, "Can't feel anything." "Maybe if we get closer." "No. I mean I can't feel anything, Twilight.” He stopped. Twilight’s fantasies about the portal being close were hurting more than inspiring, because he knew he wasn’t going to make it. “I'm done. I can't keep going." "You have to!" "The fact that I have to doesn't change the fact that I can't. I'm so tired. I just want to lay down and sleep." He lay down, coiling himself to avoid the worst of the cold. His tail was already so numb it didn’t matter if it froze any more, so he could lay himself on it almost comfortably. "But you can't! You have to keep going!" Twilight was almost hysterical. "For the record… yes. Yes, it is very, very lonely being stone,” Discord said, sleepy enough that his voice was starting to slur. “I think being ice will be much better in the long run." "You can't give up now, Discord!” She pushed at him with her forehooves. “I can feel the magic up ahead! The portal is there! I know it!" It was not, and he knew it. If he couldn’t sense it anymore, neither could she. They would never find it. "You go on without me," he mumbled. "No!" And then Twilight did one of the dumbest things he’d ever seen her do. She knelt down, still with Spike on her back, and tried to use her forehooves to lever him up. He glared at her, and then remembered she probably couldn’t see that in the darkness. "Don't be an idiot! You can't carry me!" "You.. gave… up!” She panted, gasping. Her hooves probably barely worked anymore; ponies used tactile telekinesis through their hooves, and her magic was almost gone. “You don't… ugh… get to… tell me… what… I can't… do!" She was trying to shove her head under his body, like she was trying to put him around her neck. "It's objective fact! You already have a small dragon in a sling on your back… I'm three times your size, Twilight, you can't carry me!" "Discord… leave logic… to… professionals… okay? You shouldn't… be trying… to make sense." She staggered, falling on her face in the ice, and then went back to what she’d been doing, trying to get him onto her back. "Well, fine. Kill yourself and your baby dragon in a futile effort to save me. See if I care." "I'm… gonna.” Her horn poking into his ribs hurt, but only for a moment as she slid it down, inserting it under his body. “Gonna… get… both of us… killed… trying to… save you. Unless… you… keep moving." "Twilight. I. Can't. I'm so cold. Can't feel my tail or my wings or my legs. Just want to… sleep." And then she got to her feet, and she’d managed to actually get her head and withers under him, so the middle of his body was draped over the back of her neck, though his head and tail would drag on the ice if he didn’t lift them. "Square… cube… ratio,” she gasped. “Too… skinny and… long. Losing… your heat… too fast." "I know. Put me down." "Not… gonna." Now he was angry. Just because he was dying, what right did she have to risk herself and Spike to save him? "Put. Me. Down." "Make… me," she panted. Anger gave him strength from somewhere, and he lifted his head and tail off the ice, with great effort, and then rolled himself tailward, until he fell on the ice. "…there!" he said triumphantly, as Twilight shrieked; he’d sent her into a skid. "Twilight, skate!" He didn’t have the strength to catch her, like he had multiple times before. She continued to shriek, unable to pull herself out of the skid even if she was managing to stay on four feet, until she smacked into a rock outcropping, and Spike flew off her back and smacked into it too. "Ow!" Spike, now sitting on the ice, rubbed his head. "Spike! Spike, are you ok?" Twilight had hit the rock outcropping with her hooves first, and managed to twist her body so her withers and side had been shoved into it, not her head. In the dark Discord couldn’t see if she was scraped or bleeding, but he could see that she was bending over Spike. "Ow, I'm awake! What did we just hit?" "A big rock. Discord pushed me." "He pushed you?" Spike asked disbelievingly. "Because I was trying to carry him on my back. Spike, go back to sleep, it's really cold, you can't take this weather." "Did you break a leg yet, Twilight?" Discord called, and regretted it, his throat much too raw to make his voice carry like that for the sake of a joke. Twilight seemed to think he was serious. "No, but I woke Spike up!" "You did tell me to do that," he pointed out. Wearily Twilight and Spike came back over to him. "Discord?" Twilight said as they came close. "Hmm?" "If you could push yourself off me hard enough to send me flying across the ice like that… you're not as tired and frozen as you think you are. You can keep going a little while still." Discord rolled his eyes. "Oh, you're going to be that way, are you?" She turned to Spike, who was walking rather than riding her. "Spike, I want Discord to carry you." "Twi… no." "Yes. He's freezing. So are you. If you wrap yourself around his neck and I tie the blanket around you both, you can share the remains of your dragon heat with his body warmth and keep both of you going longer." "But what about you?" They were close enough to him that DIscord could see Spike’s wide eyes glitter in the starlight, looking up at Twilight. "She's going to nobly sacrifice herself for the reptiles in the party and ensure that we all go down together, despite the fact that she's entirely fur-covered and has a much better chance at survival if she abandons us both," he said irritably. Why did she keep trying to save him? He was done. He’d told her. He couldn’t keep going. Why did she keep tying her survival and Spike’s to his? If he died, Equestria would select a new chaos avatar, and Fluttershy would grieve, but get over it eventually, and no one else would really care. If she died, Equestria was doomed. He knew how important Twilight was even if she refused to believe it herself. "I'm not abandoning anypony!” Twilight shouted at him, which had to be ruining her throat. “Or any dragon! Or draconequus! Or whatever! All three of us make it to the portal or none of us do, because neither you nor I will be strong enough to activate it on our own! Not on this stupid planet with its stupid lack of magic and its stupid south polar continent where everything is north and the compass doesn't work and it's all covered with stupid ice!” She kicked the ice, for emphasis. “Either all three of us make it back to Equestria or none of us do!" "I think I'd have a tear in my eye if my eyeballs hadn’t frozen over," Discord said sardonically, but did nothing to stop Spike climbing onto him, or Twilight tying the blanket around them both. The rope he’d made hours ago had vanished. Occupational hazard of chaos mages. Things he made were rarely permanent. Let her figure out he wasn’t actually going to go anywhere. Then she’d move Spike back to her own back and come to her senses. She was much more important to Equestria than he was, and she plainly had enough energy that maybe she could survive and find the portal. He couldn’t. "Stop whining about how cold you are, Discord, and move!" Twilight shoved him with her forehooves again. "Yeah, what she said," Spike said, tiredly. "Be quiet, Spike, I have just enough strength to do a barrel roll," Discord muttered. "Uh huh. And I have just enough strength to do this." Sudden extreme pain shot through Discord’s back, directly above his wings. "YOW!" he screamed, and twisted his head to look… at Spike’s sharp dragon teeth digging into his flesh. "Spike! What did you—" Twilight started. Staring disbelievingly at the dragon on his back, Discord said, "You bit me! You actually bit me!" "Uh-huh,” Spike said. “And the next time you fall down on the ice and decide you're just gonna die now, I'm gonna do it again." "Barrel roll. I'm serious." "So am I. Twilight won't leave you and I'm not gonna let her freeze to death because you're a wimp." Discord snapped, "I am not a wimp, I am freezing. You'd be in worse shape than me if Twilight hadn't been carrying you in that blanket." "And now I'm in better shape than you,” Spike said. “So I'm gonna keep you alive and moving until you actually keel over dead. Because that's what friends are for." "Friends bite you?" Twilight said, "He's the perfect friend for you, Discord, don't tell me you wouldn't bite Fluttershy to keep her alive if you had to." "I'll bite you even if I don't have to," he growled at her. "You'd have to catch me first, draconequusicle." She started trotting away. "That could be arranged,” he said, getting up and following her. “I skate better than you." "So do it. Move. Keep moving." "How far away is the portal, Twi?" asked Spike. "A million miles away,” Discord said. “We'd need Celestia to banish us there." "Don't listen to him, Spike. It's just a little farther up." He wondered if that was actually true. He couldn’t sense it at all anymore. Could she? "You're simply not going to let me die in peace, are you?" Twilight said, "No." "Nope," Spike added. "Torturers. I can see why you aren't the Element of Kindness, Twilight." Spike said, "I'm a dragon. I'm supposed to be mean and cruel. Now keep moving or I'll bite you again." "I'm fairly sure the magic of friendship wasn't supposed to involve biting." "You'd be amazed at what the magic of friendship can involve,” Twilight said. “Now keep moving! One for all and all for one!" Her voice was hoarse and raw, but there was so much more energy in it than there had been before. Where had she gotten that energy? Maybe disharmonious emotions could charge up ponies, too, they’d just never been willing to admit that to him. "I'm turning you both into wombats when we get home,” he said. “Just so you know." "As long as we can be wombats swimming in a lake of hot cocoa." The dreamy note was back in Twilight’s voice. Spike leaned forward toward Twilight, from Discord’s back. "Twi, are you feeling well?" "No, Spike, I'm freezing to death and it's making me so delirious, Discord's fantasies about hot cocoa lakes are sounding logical and fun." "Uh, ok, count me in then. Hot cocoa lakes are sounding good to me too." Discord growled, "I won't make you one if you bite me again." "I won't bite you again if you don't give up and lay down on the ice and decide you're too tired to keep fighting and you're just gonna die." "I hate you both." Twilight said, "Good, didn't you say disharmony might keep you alive another thirty seconds?" "I did, yes." "Well, if needing to hate somepony will keep you alive longer, then Spike and I are perfectly happy to make you hate us." "Right. What are friends for?" Spike said, entirely too cheerfully given that they were all freezing to death. Discord sighed. "…Why did I think this friendship thing was a good idea?" "Because you thought Fluttershy was really cute?" "SPIKE!" Twilight sounded like she might die of embarrassment, not the cold. "What? If I can like Rarity maybe he can like Fluttershy?" Discord chuckled weakly. "I take it all back. This is much too entertaining for me to die now. Besides I'll never get my revenge on the two of you if I don't survive this." "Right!” Twilight said. “So let's find that portal!" She set off at a faster trot. Discord murmured to Spike, "…you do know she has no idea where it is and we're probably going around in circles and we're almost certainly going to die, right?" "Yeah. I know," Spike whispered back. "Well, if you know, what did you bite me for?" "Because if anyone's gonna beat the odds and save us all, it's gonna be Twilight, and she won't leave you behind. So I guess if we die we're all gonna die together." "Charming." "Have a little faith,” Spike said. “It doesn't make any sense that Twilight could find the portal in this mess when we've been looking for so long, right?" "Yes… that was my point…" "So, Discord, if it doesn't make any sense why are you arguing it can't happen?" He could not think of any salient comeback to that. "…I still hate you, dragon boy." "Still got teeth here." "Come on, you two!” Twilight called from up ahead. “Just a little farther! Let's go!" Discord knew it wasn’t going to be just a little farther. He knew they weren’t going to find it before he, at least, dropped dead. Probably all of them. But despite his better judgement, and with energy he had no idea where he was getting it from, he managed to increase speed to keep pace with her, the little dragon on his back and the blanket returning some of the warmth he was dying of the lack of. Twilight had saved the day so many times, many of them times he had personally been sure she couldn’t possibly. She had saved him. More than once. Maybe she could do it one more time. What was the worst that could happen? She’d fail and they’d all die, which would definitely happen if he gave up and she wouldn’t leave him behind. For the first time in hours of marching through this dark and icy nightmare, Discord felt a slight pinprick of hope.