The Only Chapter
Ripples in Time
A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfiction by Andrew Joshua Talon.
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan-based work of prose. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro and the creation of Lauren Faust. Please support the official release.
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Set after “The Cutie Remark”
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Twilight knew how to access Discord’s bizarre, reality defying home of course. Her studies of chaos magic had allowed her to pinpoint exactly where the sub-dimensional domain of the draconequus dwelled. Yet for all her talents and power as a recently ascended alicorn, she had never come for personal reasons.
Maybe that was why she was let into the mad trickster’s domain without comment from the Discord-shaped statues on either side. The sheer novelty must have intrigued him.
She trotted into the entry hall: A cacophony of mismatched patterns of wallpaper, a miniature volcano spewing red hot caramel in the corner, and a hatrack made of hats greeting her. She took a deep breath, and continued on into the living room.
There, Discord lounged on a cotton candy cloud, various pieces of furniture stuck to different walls and ceilings. A flight of tea cups with wings fluttered past, smelling of ginseng and honey. The draconequus perked up, beaming a smile not entirely sardonic.
“Why, Princess Twilight! To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” He asked. He snapped his fingers, and a pair of drinking glasses made out of mahogany appeared in front of her. They steamed with a scent like hot cocoa, but boiled away with all the colors of the rainbow. “Care for something to drink?”
“I… Yes, thank you,” Twilight said. She gave the drink an incredulous look, but lifted it with her magic and took a sip. Surprisingly, it wasn’t half bad, so she took another sip as it warmed her to her hooves. A chair popped up behind her, startling her. She looked back but it was only a fluffy cloud of cotton candy, much like Discord’s. The draconequus summoned cookies, white and black ones, which began to fight to the death on their serving plate. He shook his head.
“No no, that’s much too heavy for a friendly visit! Come now, tone it down!” Discord admonished the cookies. The living baked goods, after some grumbling, resorted to wrestling moves, and tickle fights: A sight the draconequus nodded in approval at. “That’s much better!”
Discord beamed at Twilight, who was taking this all in stride. “Sorry about that,” Discord admitted, “I’ve been learning how to throw tea parties from Fluttershy but I don’t think I’ve got it all down quite right.”
“Oh, no, that’s perfectly all right,” Twilight admitted, pressing her hooves together. Discord sipped his own rainbow cocoa brew, and Twilight watched the cookie battles with him in silence for a time. Discord opened his mouth, then closed it. He then opened it again, raised a finger… Stopped, and hummed as a miniature train chugged its way around his pupils.
The alicorn princess let out a sigh.
"Discord? I need your help."
Discord’s brows rose high. “Well that’s unexpected,” he admitted. He tilted his head as he studied Twilight more closely. Her frown deepened a bit, as she looked intently at him. “With what, exactly?”
“With… Everything that happened,” Twilight said. “Or… Or didn’t happen, or still happened or…” She huffed in frustration. The chaos lord chuckled, though not unkindly.
“You're looking unusually unhappy for somepony who saved all of existence from collapse, you know.”
Twilight nodded.
"Well... That's just it. Yes, I saved it. We saved it, but... But I'm still dealing with everything that happened. Or didn't happen... But still did,” she cut herself off with a huff, and glared down at her mug. Discord chuckled again, now with a bit of sympathy in his eyes.
"Heh. That's a line of magic even I don't mess with beyond the superficial,” he said. Twilight looked up from her mug, blinking rapidly.
"Really? You?" Twilight asked incredulously. Discord smirked. He held out his mug, which another Discord immediately refilled from a multicolored safe he squeezed like a wet rag. Twilight watched, baffled, as the draconequus explained.
"Well, of course! Despite my nature as an embodiment of chaos, there are certain lines I can't cross! Too many temporal paradoxes-Paradoxi?” He looked at Twilight in confusion. ”Was I right the first time?"
"Yes, you were,” Twilight responded automatically. Discord grinned, and slapped his mismatched hands together.
"Excellent!" He pulled his hands apart, bright glowing strings connecting his various claws and fingers in a web. He held his strings up to Twilight so she could get a better view, his voice taking on the tone of a lecturer.
"But you see, temporal chaos in theory sounds wonderful, but I'm able to see the threads of timelines themselves." The threads begin to tangle, quite independently of the motions of his digits.
"And too many paradoxes form knots between timelines, ultimately building upon one another. Over and over again, until finally..." The knots tightened into a horrific tangle, before breaking up into peppermint-striped confetti that rained down onto Twilight’s face. She winced instinctively, then reopened her eyes to see Discord waving his mismatched hands with an expert magician's flair.
"All of existence comes undone!"
Twilight’s frown became deep and thoughtful. She then nodded slowly.
"So you wouldn't be able to keep having fun. Is that it?" Twilight asked, fascinated but also annoyed. It was closer to her usual tone with him, which seemed to make Discord brighten.
"Exactly! If all of reality is reduced to nothing, I'm left with nothing! And that's boring! So no, your ‘new friend’ is not only more reckless and chaotic than me, she's far stupider." He nodded with a smile. Twilight raised a brow.
“‘Stupider’ isn't a word,” she corrected, almost by instinct. Discord chuckled.
"Not in this timeline, anyway!" He said with a grin. Twilight managed a small smile back, before her eyes lit up in terrible realization. She leaned forward.
“Wait, this timeline? Do you mean... Do you mean that those other universes-?"
Discord held up a stop sign, and she found her mouth stopping on its own. Yet there was no glee in the draconequus' eyes, just a grim certainty.
"Did happen? Or are happening?" He nodded. "Yes, they are. While you altered the damage to this timeline, those alterations still exist as their own, separate timelines. Or did exist already, given the infinite potential of the multiverse."
Twilight felt herself fall through the cotton candy cloud onto a new one. She yelped, looking about herself. She looked back at Discord, who shrugged. She took deep breaths, closed her eyes and focused on calming down.
"Oh... Wow… I... I didn't realize..."
The chaos lord nodded again, sipping his mug rather than the liquid inside.
"Yes. There are universes where, as you saw in your last jump, all of the evils of Equestria were far too much for ol' Cellie and she lost her mind. Destroyed everything and left the world a burnt out, lifeless husk. That's what happened in that last one, by the way. Every choice, every decision creates a new reality. Every flip of the coin, a new timeline.”
Twilight trembled. She stared at a spot away from Discord, her vision going well beyond the strange house. Well beyond her Ponyville, her Equestria. Countless worlds where everything had gone wrong, everything was ruined, everyone and everything she had ever loved was gone. Beyond that to the universes where everything turned out just the same, save for the most superficial changes… All acting things out, without any variation. Endless repetition, endless copies, all acting out the same steps, over, and over, and over-
“WOAH!” Discord snapped his fingers in front of her, before blowing a horn in her ear. She jumped and yelped, gravity shifting to ensure she landed on the ceiling. She shot a glare at Discord, who waved a finger in her nose.
“Tut tut… You have to be careful with transdimensional vision!” Discord admonished. “Too easy to get wrapped up in all the possibilities!” He held a glass of water in front of her. She took it between her hooves and gulped it down, huffing through her nose. “Definitely something you need to practice, not for amateurs.”
“I… I didn’t realize…” Twilight sucked in a deeper breath. Discord patted her on the head.
“It wouldn’t do for the Princess of Friendship to be found as a vegetable in my home! I don’t think the best attorney could get me off!” In a second, Twilight was in a hospital bed in a courtroom, dressed in a tomato costume. Discorded-versions of her friends and family were in the jury, with an afro-wearing Celestia presiding as judge. Discord was in an orange jumpsuit, with Pinkie Pie as his lawyer.
“GUILTY!” Celestia declared, slamming down a gavel. Pinkie Pie beamed.
“Yayyy-Oh wait,” the pink pony said, “that’s not good is it?”
“DISCORD!” Twilight shouted angrily. Discord sighed, and snapped his fingers, returning them to the relative normalcy of his sitting room. She glared at him, but the chaos demon accepted with a kind smile. This just annoyed her more.
“Discord, this is serious! I’m starting to wonder if…”
She trailed off, looking down at her hooves. Discord leaned in.
“Ifffff?” He asked, drawing out the sound. Twilight took a deep breath.
"Does anything I do... Does anything we do... Matter?"
Discord was silent. Twilight looked up at him. His expression was neutral, almost like a stone statue. She stared back, feeling like she might fly apart.
Then he smiled. A warm, genuine smile. The kind of smile that she’d only seen him give Fluttershy before.
"I think you know the answer to that, Twilight Sparkle."
With a snap of his fingers, they were on a wooden boulevard underneath a huge white pavilion. Red, white and blue banners hung everywhere, as a carnival went on around them. Twilight started, and looked down: She was wearing a blue dress with a white corset. She looked up at Discord, who was now twinned: One male, one female, both ginger and dressed in brown jackets, green ties, and green skirt and trousers. The male held a placard, tallying coin flips, while the female held a plate with a single bit coin on it.
“Give it a flip,” both Discords said. Twilight hesitated, but then used her magic. She grasped the coin in her magical grip, and sent it spinning into the air. It flashed in the warm sunlight, before landing on the plate: Discord’s head emblazoned across it.
“If you see all of reality as coin flips, you will only see numbers and facts,” the female Discord said.
The male Discord marked a line on the board under heads, and smiled at her. “Try again!”
Twilight flipped it again… And it landed as tails: Discord waving his tail at her from the surface of the coin.
"In all of the infinity of the multiverse, every Twilight Sparkle makes a decision,” the coin Discord spoke. The carnival vanished around them, a white void stretching to infinity all around them. Boxes appeared, showing scenes from her life, and endless other lives she might have lived. She looked around in amazement, as Discord continued.
“Every single one is making decisions. And it matters to that Twilight Sparkle and that Twilight Sparkle's life, friends, and loved ones." He leaned in with a little grin, and a wink. "It does matter to you. Take it from me."
In an instant, they were back in Discord’s living room. Twilight had closed her eyes, her head bowed. Discord frowned, and he reached out to tap her shoulder.
“Er… Twilight? Hello? Your Highness?”
Twilight looked back up, tears in her eyes. She smiled broadly.
“Thank you Discord,” she said, her voice filled with emotion. “I… I think I have a letter to write.”
“Ah! Well! Don’t let me keep you,” Discord said with a smile. “Off with you!” He pushed her out a door he conjured, and she fell out into Ponyville square. She landed on her head… In a fountain. She surfaced, spitting water out. She glared up at Discord, who was staring down from the portal.
“DISCORD!” She bellowed.
The chaos demon grinned nervously, rubbing the back of his head.
“Um… Does it help that in another universe I managed to land you in your library?”
“NO! NO IT DOESN’T!” Twilight shouted angrily.
“See? All better now!”
“DISCORD!”
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