I - Enjoy the silence

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All stories are a spark. Myths, legends and tales are the last legacy that someone may leave behind, before reaching the untimely demise. History in itself is just a big, bloody, messy account of everything. Since everything started with the smallest spark imaginable, the retellings of everything must originate from the same spark too, quod erat demonstrandum. It’s the small detail that changes every time it’s told and passed down: the changed inflection of the voice, the different context where you and others may or may not hear it. It’s important even if it’s not there for anyone to hear it, because lots of stories changed the history by not being present at all. Think about the nameless Juju god of trees of a far away African tribe. He’s now forgotten and lies dead in the dust; what would have happened to this world if his gospel, instead of the Christian one, got to be spread around the world? The element of change is what makes a story alive and well. It’s like being suspended in a state of quiet, controlled chaos. That’s why all the stories that have ever been told in Equestria are His, and originate in that strange form that now lies frozen in stone, in a lovely garden outside the castle. Harmony of parts and characters makes for a boring and predicting fabula, but when it’s all over the place, and you don’t get what is actually going on until it’s over, that’s a good story. You don’t know what will happen, why everything is happening, and what is your place in it.

That’s why everyone relates to good stories: they are very much like life.

EQUESTRIAN GODS

I said earlier that predictable stories are a bore. Yet, for the sake of simplicity (I am NOT doing ‘Memento’), I still have to adhere to one simple rule: every story has its protagonist. The hero, the good guy, the head honcho of the narrative context, whether he or she knows it, or not. I’ll try to abide to my self-imposed principle to make this story as interesting as possible as much as I possibly can, and I guess that Aristotle-themed ramblings about the unity of time, action and character won’t help.

Fly over the wind, over Dodge Junction, over the dusty deserts of Appleloosa and the majestic Everfree Forest, over the quaint Ponyville and Trottingham and Fillydelphia and Manehatten and Stalliongrad.

I present you Canterlot, the glamorous and chic capital of the Equestrian Kingdom: its majestic buildings, the sophisticated atmosphere, the immaculate streets, the fancy bars, expensive boutiques and restaurants, everything is designed to entice the senses and thrill the spirit. How could anyone not fall in love with such a sight? The radiant gem of ponykind is encrusted in a gigantic mountain: the Royal Castle, the towering monument of blinding white marble and bold travertine, in spite of all the laws of architecture, just dangles over a cliff, ridiculing boring concepts such as structural load and gravity. Held in place by untold magic and made shiny by the work of countless underpaid servants, this is truly a work that inspires wonder and awe. That’s what possesses Twilight Sparkle every single time she comes back to her home-city. It doesn’t really matters how many times she has strolled through the narrow, clean street of the historical centre, it’s always a sight to behold. That’s what the unicorn mare thought, as she made her way to the-

Wait, wait. Stop it.

I’m sorry, I can’t do it. It’s just… The Mane 6 won’t do for this one. Maybe you’ll find someone who can actually make Twilight Sparkle or Rainbow Dash or Rarity do something they would never actually do after countless chapters and rather captious insights about their inner dreams and feelings.

Me? I’m kind of in hurry. So you’ll just have to settle for something else. Zoom out. Still in Canterlot. Pan the camera a bit, one street further. Zoom back in.

See that filthy unicorn stallion rummaging in a bin? See how miserable he looks, with the drooping ears, the grey coat sticky and unkempt, the dirty blond mane that keeps sticking to his face because he can’t afford to wash it? See that peculiar cutie mark, a brain and a lightning? How he doesn’t even realize the disgusted look of the ponies that pass right in front of him, holding hooves under and wrinkling their noses for the strong… fragrance?

That’s OUR protagonist, Swift Thought. Since we all know that there is only one pony who actually has ‘being a hobo’ as his special talent in all of Equestria and he probably won’t be featured in this story, you might be wondering why the hell somepony who has a name and a cutie mark that just scream ‘smart cookie’ is currently eating the remains of a pizza with some overdue peach yogurt on it, especially in a place as meritocratic as Equestria.

Just wait and see. Actually, I think I’ll assume the role of a more traditional narrator from now on, since this meta stuff it’s starting to get boring. In three, two, one:

Pride is a strange thing. It’s always hidden in the most perplexing of ponies, the ones you would think wouldn’t actually care about what others think of them. I was always reminded when I saw those stars and famous ponies that perform on the stages, on the radio, on the TV. They were screaming for attention, and they didn’t mind humiliating themselves just to get a glimpse, a speck of care from anypony. Usually, the more famous you are, the less pride you have, and the more you whore yourself out for the bat of an eyelash. I could have probably made a chart or something, if I had the bits to buy a scroll and a quill. Anyway, I tried to keep my dignity, even when I was scooping in the dirt and the filth to find something edible. Hunger and bodily instincts were traitorous beings forcing to beg for some bits to spare, but I was adamant: if I had to stay just on the brink of survival, at least they had to let me do some civil disobedience. That’s why I kicked the bins before searching through the garbage to find something to eat; leaving them intact was a kindness this society didn’t deserve and, frankly, it was satisfying. As for the act itself, the sensation of your hooves connecting with the weak and bendable metal was amazing: it was just another spice added to the feeling of unruly rebellion. It was great, really. That’s when they always had to come in, to ruin the fun. I was busy looking through the dirt, and two Royal Guards sneaked up on me. I turned around when I heard that higher than thou tone I always hear from anyone addressing me:

“Look what we have here!”

“Ugh, he smells like an open grave!”
“You tell me? I had to actually drag him to the dungeons once. Couldn’t get the stench off after three days”

Ok, I knew that one. They talk like you’re not even there, and you’re supposed to feel bad about it, or be angry about it, stop whatever it is that you’re doing that is wrong, and ask the guards for explanations. But I was better than that. Ohhh, way better. I knew it everything! Back in my first bum days, I had a master that taught everything there is to know about officers and law enforcement. Cardboard, I believe that was his name. Glorious individual, always raging against the machine. That tactic was called “The Bait”. Well, frankly, I was kind of angry. They sent out two recruits, fresh out of the academy, to deal with a rowdy soul like me? With all the trouble I had managed to cause lately? The flower illegally watered? The newspapers turned the opposite side? Try not look at them, Swift. You’re going to play their game. I just kept looking through the garbage, hoping they would get bored. After a couple of watered insult even a foal would find weak, they left without a word. I was alone again.

It wasn’t always like this, you know. I didn’t choose any of this. Who in the right mind would choose to live as a bum, scoffed by everypony, condemned to live day by day, scraping pieces of gum and old pizza from the bins, sleeping under the damned stairs of a rundown building until some jerk thinks it would be funny to wake up the bun and zap him with a good ol’ dose of Itch spell? Swear I’m going to tear his-

Sorry. It’s just hard. Really hard. I used to be a scholar, could you believe that? A historian. Knew everything there was to know about mare-eval history. I could write a 300 pages long essay on every school of thought ever existed in ponykind, from Neighilism to Celestial Idealism. Now…

Three years of studies, theories, bar fights and a black eye! Finally I have devised the perfect sociological and political theory of a democratic Equestria! Once I write this down in a way that even the most idiotic peon can understand, first Canterlot, then all of Equestria shall demand the destitution of that accursed Celestia and we will create a democratic state, where everyone is equal and there’s no nobility, and I’ll be remembered as the one who ushered our great nation into its glorious days. Now, let me get the quill, and I’ll start right aw-
KNOCK KNOCK

I can’t restrain myself and groan in frustration. Not now! This better be important! I get up from my desk, and dodge all the mountains of books, the clothes, the leftovers I forgot to put into the fridge-

KNOCK KNOCK

“I’M COMING, GEEZ” I yell at the disturber. I finally manage to reach and open the door. In front of me stand a Twilight Sparkle with a smug look on her face.

“Hmph, Sparkle. What are you so happy about?” I ask, trying to convey how much annoyed I am at her interruption.

She just keeps that stupid grin on her face and slowly answers: “The professors’ board wants to see you, Swift.” I have to contain myself from leaping into the air screaming for the joy. Instead, I manage to suppress everything into a giddy giggle. The babble coming from the mare is muffled in my ears, as I run past her, into the halls, bumping into several professors and students alike. I finally reach the DOOR. It’s so beautiful, a work of mahogany and exquisite craft, even if it’s just a door. Why does it shine so? I open, and I get inside as calmly as possible, trying to maintain my aplomb. There’s this big circular desk with a dozen of professors just sitting behind it, and I’m in the middle. The winners always talk first, so:

“I knew you’d come around eventually. You all come at the right time, as I’ve just the finishing touch on my “Democratic and Ochlocratic Theory of an Equestrian Political System” It’s marvelous, and completely affordable!”

“Mister Thought…”

“I know, I know, the initial printings will be expensive, but as soon as the word will spread, ponies will rush to buy it! As for the title, maybe I’ll change it into something with a bit more pizzazz-“

“Mister Thought…”

“What about “Constitution of Equestrians?” Or “The Ursa Major”? Oh, I have it, “Critic of the Monarchic Reason”! It just fits so well-“

“MISTER THOUGHT”

“Yes professor Tome?”

“We are not here to discuss editorial matters, Mister Thought. We’re here to tell you to pack your things and get out of this University.”

“Get out…?”

“You heard it right the first time, Mister Thought. Pack your things and get out of our dormitory, or we’ll have to call the guards”

“Wh-what? But, I’ve just completed the work of my life, it’s in my room. I spent five years writing it, I’ve put everything I have into it! You can’t just throw me into the street!”

“We can and we will. This board thinks we’ve been overly patient with you, Mister Thought. Your persistent acknowledged disregard for this institution’s rules is not accepted. We will not stand by while you insult our Princesses and berate the Equestrian Monarchy! Your ideals are wrong, your conclusions mistaken and your theory is unacceptable and derogatory!”

“So you’re throwing me out because I don’t agree with you and THEM? What happened to free speech? You can’t just do it, I’ll appeal to-“

“To whom, Mister Thought? The Princesses? The Captain of the Guard, the brother of the brilliant student you constantly bug and bully?”

“I don’t bully Twilight Sparkle, we just have heated discussion on Political Class!”

“That’s not what she said, Mister Thought. And we are more inclined to believe the personal protégé of Princess Celestia than a notorious whitefly. We do not wish to endorse such… discordian research in this respected institution. You may be a fairly brilliant student, but you’re rowing against the current of harmony. This glorious nation has always been a monarchy, always has, always will be. Now, please, vacate your room by tonight.”

I utter: “This is not over” before leaving the room, without looking back. I don’t have to. I can feel her, behind me, just outside the door, with that satisfied grin on her face. To her, I’m just a subversive, unruly student who got what he deserved.

It’s not over.

A voice I did not remember reached out to me in the corridor:

“Sure it’s not. It’s only just the beginning, m’boy.”

I almost stumbled against the wall, but I managed to regain balance just before colliding my head against the hard bricks.

What was that? I had just remembered vividly the turning point of my life, but everything felt more like a moving picture rather an actual memory. After that day, it all went downhill. With my flank on the street and my dad lost Celestia knows where, I had no one. Tried a few odd jobs, but they wouldn’t keep me, I wasn’t just the type for manual labor. After a while, voice had spread, and no laborer, bricklayer and farm hoof wanted anything to do with me. And well, that was it. I couldn’t even pay the rent of the hole I managed to find in the suburbs.

But what had just happened? It was all a flash, a blur, and me talking and doing stuff, but it felt like I was watching, and not acting. And that voice… I had already heard that voice before, I was sure of it! I walked in circle, still a little confused, and my eyes fell on the entrance of the alley. Standing there, with a rather obvious expression of disgust, and patiently waiting for me to get out of the way, was the familiar and fine form of Twilight Sparkle. Twilight Sparkle… Before THAT, I kinda had the hots for her. She was smart, good looking, and represented everything I hated about the system. How could I have ignored her? Our heated discussions on Political Science (and in the mess halls, and in the classrooms, and in practically every single place we stumble on each other) were my rather cryptic way to get her attention. Alas, that failed admirably. Looking in retrospect, it’s not like I lost much: a brother maniac with mommy issues and a serious OCD. Oh, she saved Equestria. Twice. Yeah, you tell me if that seems fair to you. I stopped, and stepped sideways, gesturing here to pass. As soon as she neared me, I said with all the sarcasm I could muster:

“Guess I’m always in your way, uh Sparkle”

She just looked at me, asked with a hesitant voice “Do I know you?”And waited for answer. I stood there, still and silent. After a bunch of seconds she just turned forward and kept walking.

I just sat down on my haunches, thinking about it. She didn’t remember me. If there was one thing I always considered myself good at, was being annoyingly persistent. Every single day, we used to discuss rather animatedly about how Celestia was (for me) an illegitimate ruler that had to be put down from her nice throne or (for her) a wonderful and wise monarch that had all the reasons to stay on it, since she raised the sun anyway.

She ruined my life, and in four years, I was already something she had erased from her memory.

Insignificant. Unimportant. A nobody.

I felt a small drop on my forehead, and I looked up: looming over me were giant ominous looking clouds. The sunlight was already disappearing over the thick shroud of grey that was extending over my head. It started to rain soon after. At first small drops, then a full complement of downpour. I walked under a canopy that was further in the alley, laid down, closed my eyes and fell into a sleep that carried no unpleasant memories.

I woke up abruptly and hit my head against the stone stairs under which I slept. It hurt. A lot. I got up and looked around. It was already night, and from the look of it, it was really late too: it was possible to see the main street from the alley, and it was empty, even if the lamplights kept flooding it with a cheap, buzzing glow. The air was moist and fresh, and it soothed my sore, soaked fur. I didn’t really care if I could get sick from it, it was an amazing feeling .The cool wind whistling through my mane, the quietness of the night. I stretched my legs, because, well… It was night, I wanted to empty my head, and there was no pony around. It was time for a walk. I slowly reached the main street: empty, as I thought. I could see the clock of the city hall from there, and it struck three in the morning. It looked like I had woken up in the short space of time between patrols, so there weren’t any guards around. The perfect occasion, considering where I wanted to go.

Walking down the main street at night was a strange sensation. Everything was cold, dark and lifeless. Not that I disliked it, it’s just that everything was different. You could appreciate it more, probably. In the day, you were continuously distracted by the noise, the smells, the ponies. All just adds up, override your senses and forces you to put the autopilot: you don’t see, you don’t smell, you don’t hear anymore, you’re just too absorbed in yourself, your trivialities, incredibly frivolous problems to realize just how incredible it is. Just how many important ponies walked on these very stones? Dozens? Hundreds? Did I just step on the same stone that Starswirl The Bearded stepped on one thousand years before now? What about Haystotle? Ponydius? Neighspeare? Mante? Those great minds, those geniuses, all lived in Canterlot at some point in their lives. Did they breathed the same air I was breathing in that very moment? Walked on the same streets? Got soaked by the same rain?

How many things these streets have seen? Wars, battles, breakthroughs, discoveries, holidays and pivotal points in history? How can you go on your business and forget it? There was more history in this brick that what an entire town could accomplish in a lifetime, how could one just ignore it? The moon was not shining tonight, and the wind was light. The air was damp, and my nostrils picked up the familiar smell of stone soaked by clear rain: a peculiar, but not ugly fragrance

I twisted and turned, and reached the far end of the Royal Palace. Its pristine walls, I touched them with my hoof. They were kept together and standing by tyranny. It was a soft one, and that’s why no one would ever agree with me. How can anyone desire democracy, when all they have known was the security of a kingdom, ruled by two immortal goddesses? With such a system, you know where your loyalties lie, and what you can expect from your day every time you wake up: the sun is up in the sky, you have your special talent, your benevolent princesses willing to listen to your problems, if you are so inclined and wait long enough. You don’t have responsibilities, you don’t have to work for anything.

With democracy, who knows? Everything is suddenly your problem.

I strolled around the walls, looking for the part that connects with the Royal Gardens. I always liked them, even when I was small and they were still open to the public. My dad used to take me in the labyrinth, and we would spend afternoons looking for each-other, playing hide and seek. The grass was soft, and even in the grayest of days, the sun always seemed to shine on the park. I found a small, familiar bush that I loved when I was kid. Hidden in it, there was a small passage that led through the walls into the garden. I looked around for the last time, hoping there would be no guards around. Fortunately, that was the case, and I stood alone in the small alley, dimly lit by the lamplights of the main street. I snuggled through the bush and the wall, and reached the other side. In front of me a glazed expanse of grass, turned black from the darkness. The cold touch of the leaves on my hooves was a nice change compared to the hard stones I stepped on earlier. I contemplated the idea of just lay there until morning, get found by the guards and taken to a dungeon for a few days, with two free meals a day. Tempting, but I felt compelled to take a stroll. I slowly trotted on the open field with my eyes fixated to the sky, watching the stars shining on the dark vault of the sky. The show was magnificent and enthralling, all at once. Alas, if only Luna stayed true to what she was good at...

Nice evening, but I head butted a freaking statue. That day, I learned a precious lesson: daydreaming is best left at… day. I believe a nomen omen is in order. While I was busy drowning in my own pretentiousness, I didn’t notice that I was walking straight in front of a pedestal; I just realized it later, after the numbness from the impact faded and was subsided by pure, unadulterated pain. This just wasn’t my lucky day, I guess. I’ve always been one that exercised hindsight rather often.

“DAMN IT!” I said, bucking the statue with all my might. Let me tell you, stone is REALLY hard. I recoiled back, my hooves throbbed madly. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD!” And I started punching the pedestal furiously, ignoring the waves of hurt that washed through me like ripples in a water pond.

“WHAT” thump ”DID” thump ”I” thump ”TO” thump ”DESERVE” thump ”THIS?” I fell back, exhausted and with one my front hooves slightly cracked and one universally shared feeling of soreness in my body. I’m not proud of it, but I started crying. I damned Celestia and Luna, those stuck up professors that left with no job and no home, Twilight Sparkle and her insufferable brother, that annoying lizard she kept using as a slave, my damn work, my damn life, this farce I lived every day. I don’t really know how much I stood there, bawling my eyes out, but after a while, from nowhere, I suddenly heard a mocking voice ringing in my ears, the same voice I heard before in my strange and sudden reverie:

“Please, m’boy. You’re a grown up stallion, you shouldn’t just break out and cry. You’re supposed to keep it all bottled inside for decades and then let it all out and dish the pain on some unsuspecting innocent poor chap who’s just passing in front of the cardboard box you call home”

“What the…” I murmured, while looking around frenetically, trying to pinpoint the location of the unlucky bastard who was going to get a nasty punch to the face.

“Spare me the threats, m’boy. Actually, it would have been marvelous if I had managed to feel your punches, earlier. Alas…”

It was unbelievably strange: the voice was reverberating inside my head, like someone just fixed an amplifier directly to the wall of my cranium. Surely it was some fancy magic trick I didn’t know of.

“Game’s up, pal! Get out and stop playing around!” I yelled in the darkness in the garden, gazing at the bushes and the trees, trying to discern a familiar pony silhouette.

“The game’s not over yet. It never ends. It’s crooked, but it’s the only game in town. Stop screaming like an idiot and turn around, Swift Thought.”

I slowly turned my head, confused to why I was complying with this crazy telepathic bastard. In front of him, stood the pedestal I was punching thirty seconds ago. I looked up to see that it was the base for the frozen form of Discord, the god of Chaos.

“Nope. No, no, no. Can’t believe it” I whispered softly “Isn’t this just fine and dandy? Not only I’m a bum that no one cares about, BUT I’M ALSO COMPLETELY CRAZY!” I screamed in frustration.

“You most certainly are a bum that no one remembers, Swift Thought. But you are not crazy. At least, not THAT kind of crazy. You are speaking with Discord, and he’s happy to make your acquaintance.”

“Ohhh, I’m happy to meet you too, Discord!” I answered sarcastically “ Is this part where you tell me about ‘something only you were supposed to know’? It’s not surprising, since you’re just a sick fragment of my already deranged mind!”

“No, this is the part where I, Discord, your friendly God Of Entropy, tell you that you have thirty seconds to run into that bush, before a Royal Guard with a golden sword as a cutie mark come down here investigating those shouts you have been producing earlier”

Sure thing, I was going to listen to the voice in my head. I mean, it sounded like a nice voice, and it didn’t ask me to kill someone and make cupcakes out of it.

Yet.

So, yes, I ran into the nearest bush and waited for the guard to come. I had to humor my own insanity, just to see how batshit insane I was. I was proven wrong: after a bunch of seconds, I heard the familiar sound of clanking, armor-clad hoofsteps, followed by the also familiar figure of a Royal Guard, a pegasus stallion with… A golden sword cutie mark. This wasn’t possible. The guard stood there for a couple of minutes, trying to find the source of my screams. Years on the streets had taught me how to hide well, and without the moon’s light illuminating the night, it was easy. After a while, he just turned and went back the way he came. I waited for the his trotting to fade in the distance, then I slowly disentangled myself from the branches.

“Told you s-“

“Don’t you dare.”

“But-“

“Don’t.”

“Fine. You’re such a bore, really, lighten up a bit.”

I had to restrain myself from shouting again. I ran to the base of the statue and whispered angrily.

“Lighten up a bit? I don’t know what’s worse, if I’m actually hallucinating, or if the God of Chaos is doing chit chat with me!”

“Pfff… I know, ‘God of Chaos’ can be such a dreadful title. But I thought that you, of all ponies, would connect a bit with me and my fate.”

“How so?”

“I know your story, Swift Thought. A rebel oppressed by the system. You tried to ‘stick it to the stallion’, I believe that’s how it’s said today, and you failed before even starting…”

“You? A rebel? You were the king of Equestria before the Princesses, how are you even a rebel? You were just another tyrant.”

“What would you say if I told you that everything you’ve been told since your birth is a blatant and, frankly, boring lie?”

“I’d say you’re crazy”

“Ehehehe, and you would be right. I am crazy. Yet, I’m speaking the truth. I never lie. I don’t have to. No matter how you can try to deny it, there’s nothing more painful than truth. It hurts, and your mind rebels against it. ‘It can’t be right’, ‘He must be lying’. That’s what you’re thinking, I can tell. Yet, I didn’t even tell you the whole story. You claim to be a different soul from the other ponies. You claim that ponykind was poisoned and brainwashed by your princesses, yet you think I’m lying, because you were told since you can remember that Discord is the Prince of Deception and the King of Lies. But there’s nothing more unsettling and chaotic than the truth… Do you know who needs to lie? Those who need to keep things neat and orderly.”

He was right, and I knew it. I was already on the defensive, because I was talking with Discord, an extraordinary malevolent being. That was just what I was told, since birth. When he broke out, he just messed up some things, but never hurt anyone. And I had free food for almost a week, with all that cotton candy and chocolate I managed to stack.

“Yep, I take it as a personal pride: never turned anypony into stone. Will you listen to my story, on this moonless night, caressed by the stars?”

In front of me, there was a statue of a mischievous spirit talking directly into my brain. Behind me, the Garden. My usual ‘life’. What was I going to lose?

“To Tartarus with it… Why not? At least I’ll hear a good story. And save the sappy crap, you’re not good with it.”

“Fine, fine. As for the story, mine are always the best…”

The darkness around me started to get blacker, and blacker, until it was painful to look at it. It started to move and swirl around, like tendrils of a gigantic beast, waiting in the shade. I wanted to scream, but the voice died in my throat, and only a small rasp came out. My legs failed me, and I sprawled on the ground: the tendrils were creeping up the sky, obscuring the light of the stars, and soon, they were all around me. I tried to get up, but my limbs wailed wildly, not responding to my brain’s pleas of help. Soon, the darkness crept up on my legs, and it felt cold, too cold. It made its way to my body, my face, clinging to me like glue, and the last thing I remember was the sound of my own conscience screaming as the blackness covered me entirely and everything turned dark.

thump

I felt the gentle heat of the day on my coat, and a solid, warm ground against my back. I opened my eyes, and I was in a vast plain, covered with yellow grass. There was light, but when I looked up, to the sky, I only saw a blue expanse, and clouds drifting slowly, but no Sun to be seen. In front of me stood a big mountain that just sprung from the ground like the head of an arrow, and the walls of rock were punctured with various caves. Just when I thought about trying to shout for Discord, I saw animals familiar yet alien, coming out from the caves: a rhino, as big as an Ursa Minor: it walked slowly to the edge, and slumped down on the warm rock, and yawned with a roar that almost swept me off my hooves. A hyena, a crow, a leopard, a hippo, all gigantic, out of proportions, and freakishly scary. Just where in Tartarus was I?

“The end of the World, m’boy! Also, I wouldn’t shout, if I were you. You wouldn’t want to disturb them, trust me. Just THINK to answer me, and I’ll hear you”

I felt relieved: in my mind I could swear and yell as much as I wanted:

“THE END OF THE WORLD? WHAT IN TARTARUS IS WRONG WITH YOU? Oh, right, you’re the bucking God of Chaos, and I was so stupid to trust you AND your deranged psycho offer. Or maybe I AM completely crazy, and now I’m just hallucinating in some goddess-forgotten alley with froth coming out of my mouth and a freaking seizure!”

“This again? You are not crazy, all of this is real… Just a different kind of real. As long as you do what you’re told, you’re going to be fine. Probably. Maybe. Almost certainly! Now, do you see that small cave in front of you? It’s empty, go inside it”

There was a cave, right in front of me, and it did look empty. But how could I bring myself to trust him again?

“It’s not like you have much of a choice. You can trust me, or just wait until Leopard is hungry. Your call?”

Damn him and his stringent logic. It was true: I had no idea what to do, and it was either listen to him, or wait to see what those… things that looked like animals had in store for me if they discovered me. So I trotted, careful not to be too noisy, and ducked a bit to enter the cave: it was too small to stay upright, so I just laid on the ground. I expected it to be cold, but the temperature was pleasurable, and from the depths of the spelunk came a slight breeze.

“I’m here, now what?”

“Define Celestia and Luna, Swift Thought.”

I grimaced slightly, annoyed at the simple mention of them.

“Illegitimate rulers” I answered, trying to collect as much spite as I could and put into those two words.

“Go on.”

His tone had changed: it wasn’t playful anymore, but serious and maybe…angry?

“Tyrants… Uhm, brainwashers? I don’t know, goddesses?”

“Goddesses… Let me tell you the story, it’s edifying and guaranteed to teach you something. Back when the world was new, and the earth was still fresh and moist, the Hawk dragged the Sun across the skies during the day, and the Rabbit dragged the moon during the night. The Hawk was vain, and dragged the Sun just to feel the warm in its wings and bask himself in the light of the star. The Rabbit was always on the run from the Bear that stalked him through the stars and the firmament. They both didn’t care about the others living on the ground, and pulled them without care or worry. The day was invaded by a scorching heat, and the night by a freezing cold, and the very earth started to crack, and freeze, and fracture. Of all the creatures, the most worried was the Snake, since he couldn’t survive on the icy nights, and the ground was too fractured to allow him to sleep warm and in peace. But the Snake had cunning, and even if no one liked him, he decided to steal the Sun and the Moon from the Hawk and the Rabbit. The Rabbit despised the Snake, since he frequently tried to hunt him along the Bear during the night, and the Snake despised the Hawk, that always tried to snatch him from above when he saw him slithering on the ground. One day the Snake, hidden in the tall grass, crawled alongside the Lion, who couldn’t see him, the same time the Hawk was passing over him with the Sun. The Hawk had a sharp eye, and spotted the Snake even in the tall grass, so he scooted down, trying to catch him. But the Snake hid in a crevice, and as soon as the Hawk got near the ground, the Lion leapt up and ate him without even chewing. But the Hawk was a feisty one, and got stuck in the throat of the Lion. Trying to free himself, he decapitated the Lion from the inside, and tore his forelegs off. The Hawk tried to get away, but he managed to squeeze through only his head and his claws in place of those of the Lion, and remained stuck. The same night, the Snake reached the end of the earth, and jumped on the night sky. He waited until he could see the Rabbit, running from the Bear, and started crawling in front of him. The Rabbit dashed back as soon as he saw the Snake, but the Bear snatched him and gulped him down. The Snake took both the Sun and the Moon, and presented them to the two Mares as wonderful jewels that were meant for them, since they were beautiful. The Mares accepted them, realizing late they were deceived. Still, the Snake had chosen well, as the Mares were big and had powerful legs, and with the Lion dead, the Hawk stuck and the Bear satiated, no one was hunting them anymore. So they accepted their duty, and shepherded the Sun and the Moon with great care, allowing all the creatures on the ground to run in warm days and sleep in fresh nights. But they didn’t forgive the Snake, and cursed him for his deception: they gave him the Lion’s paw, the Hawk’s claw, the Rabbit’s legs, two flimsy wings, two big horns, so that he could always be spotted, even in the tallest grass, and covered his body with fur. The Snake, unrecognized by his people, ran to the end of the world, and swore to never lie again, for lies had been his bane.”

“Nice story. A little on the Zebrican side, but nice nonetheless. Now that we’re done with the storytelling, can you please take me back to Canterlot?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why?’ This is the freaking end of the world, you said it, I don’t belong here, I’m just a pony!”

“Do you belong in Canterlot?”

“Of course I… do…”

“I guess that being blunt is for the best. You are pathetic, m’boy. A brooding mass of self pity. A shame, really. A loser. The purple one, on the other hand. Head over hooves for Celestia, and look where she is now. Was she really that smart? Sure, she can dish out some spells, but you’ve read the ‘poetry’ she tried to write back in college. Yuck, was that bad.”

“Sure, Twilight Sparkle is a hooflicker that has some talent with spell, a serious need for a psychiatrist and an almost ridiculous amount of luck, so what? I hate her, but it’s not like everything that’s wrong with my life is her fault.”

“A long time ago, there was someone, a wise individual, that said something that rings true in every century, doesn’t matter how many eons have passed. ‘Know yourself’. Do you know yourself, Swift Thought? Do you remember your heart’s desire? Have you ignored, for the longest time, when your life really got off its tracks?”

What was he talking about? Probably the time I got expelled by the University...

“What is your point? Stop beating it around the bush, and tell me what is it that you want from me!”

“Fine. I’m a god, Swift Thought”

“You don’t say!”

“And I’m old.”

“Who would’ve guessed!”

“And I need your help.”

“My help? Me? A GOD like you needs the help of a simple pony? Actually, scratch that. You’re Discord! Why should I help YOU of all ponies?”

“Because I can give you your dream back. You may not like this, but Celestia and Luna, they are the same as me.”

“Annoying, obnoxious and molest? “

“Goddesses, Swift, they are goddesses.”

“Goddesses? Please. They may be powerful, and got invested by Harmony to rule over the Sun and the Moon, but goddesses? They are the last alicorns, not some tribal idol!”

“Ah, the irony, is so gigantic it’s almost painful. Truly something to gawk at. There have never been alicorns. It’s just a lie, made up by them to keep the secret.”

“Secret?”

“Gods are a fickle thing, Swift Thought. They are born, they live and they die, just like every being on the earth. We rise when misery touches the peak, and you have no one else to turn to. And we feed on faith, we live in function of it, for it and thanks to it because without faith, we are nothing. What’s a god, if no one believes in him?”

“Let me get this straight. You’re saying that gods are born when somepony makes them up, and they keep on living as long as somepony believes in them?” The notion was so ridiculous, It was actually kind of convincing.

“Admirable synoptic skills, m’boy. Yes, that’s how it works. Celestia and Luna, they were always the sharks in the pool. Long before now, we were all content to live each on his own, but they had to be the only ones! They took it to the extreme, and before you knew it, few of us remained. But the constant war they waged on everyone else took its toll. The ponies, even if they didn’t call themselves like that back in the days, started losing faith in them. Started to reject them. So, they changed the rules. They made it impossible for everyone else. A crooked game we were forced to sit through, while they kept raking up the chips. They made up a story about how they were the last alicorns, an ancient race of powerful equines, and they used their ability to control the Sun and the Moon to legitimate their claim to be the monarchs of Equestria. And, rather sadly, your kind fell for it completely. The worship was changed: they weren’t revered as goddesses anymore, but the respect and the adoration they received from their subjects was so overwhelming, that they didn’t need it anymore. It was over for the old gods. They didn’t need us anymore.”

“Why are you still here? You don’t have anypony worshiping you, for that matter.”

“Do you believe that I exist?”

“How could I not? I watched you as you turned Canterlot into a giant candy bar stuck in the mountain. Pretty funny if you ask me. But, uhm, don’t let it go over your head!”

“There you have your answers.”

“Then why keep you on display like a trophy, if you always try to defy them?” What was I doing? I was actually starting to believe him?

“Oh, I’m just a reminder. They may not think of it consciously, but every time a pony sees me, deep inside his mind a revelation sparks up. ‘If I don’t do what they tell me to, this is how I’m going to end up’. It’s high time this ends, Swift Thought. They have changed the natural order of things, and they have been at it for thousands of years: they suffocated progress, smothered even the smallest sense of individuality and responsibility out of every single pony under them. Except you. I don’t know why, but you are unique. You see what’s wrong with the current order of things.”

“Of course I do! It’s everypony else that’s so blind! I mean, sure they control the Sun and the Moon, so what? Does it mean they are authorized to rule us without any chance of self-government? Why can’t I, for once, get a chance to say what I think Equestria should do in relation to the Griffin Kingdom? Or the bystander, the common everypony? Why do the Princesses only get to call the shots, and why no one seems to care that they do? It’s been two years, two years of living like a bum, a day for a day, and I still can’t wrap my head around it! Why no one gives a hay?” Finally someone who gets it!

“Why should they? They live in a world where responsibility is lifted from their shoulders. They don’t have to worry about anything; your kind even gets told what they’re good at, thanks to that magic tattoo you get on your flank. Really classy. Ponykind is a stagnant race, and it needs a change. I know what you want.”

“Oh yeah? What do I want?”

“Democracy. I want them out of the picture, you want them out of the picture. The enemy’s enemy is my friend, right?”

“Sure, and as soon as Celestia and Luna disappear, you get to rule Equestria alone. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Nonsense. I never ruled anyone and I never will. That, ehm, outburst six months ago? It was me winding up. I never really obligated any pony to do anything. I knew that my days were numbered. The Elements of Harmony would get me in the end. They always do. So, I had fun. But democracy, is just what you and I need. Everyone is free, and everyone can feel about anything the way they feel fit. Is there anything more chaotic? I want everything to turn back the way it used to be: gods get worshipped and there is no one trying to eliminate the competition. Democracy does just that. A win-win situation. And of course, if you think I’m actually stepping out of line, you’ll still have the Elements to stop me. But that won’t be necessary.”

“That’s an incredible plan, Dissy! Can I call you Dissy, by the way? I’m just going to drag your tacky frozen form in front of the Princesses, and I’m sure they are going to surrender and free you right away!”

“Ah. Ah. Ah. That’s where you come in, m’boy. I can talk to you, and do some basic magic, but I can’t really leave the garden. Unless, you help me. Let me take a hitch on your body: we’ll be sharing it, but I’m just going to be a spectator, unable to do anything unless you consciously let me. We’ll be making a nice trip all over Equestria, to meet some old friends of mine. Then, we’ll expose Celestia and Luna for the frauds they really are. You get your democracy, I get to be free again, the world resumes its natural order. Everybody wins!”

“No way in Tartarus I’m letting you inside my body. How can I know you’re even telling the truth? And why should I help you? True, you may have the juice to change this country. But even if they are tyrants, ponies love the Princesses! They feel they could never be complete without them! I’m not forcing change on them. How could I? How could I think of myself as better than them?”

“Forcing? Forcing is a harsh word indeed. I like to believe that as soon as ponykind sees the truth, they will leave the old system for the new. If they don’t, then your kind truly doesn’t deserve salvation. And you will be probably frozen in stone, same as me. Let me tell you, it hurts. A whole lot. Also, even though all this charade was necessary to make you believe that I’m not just a voice whispering madness in your ears, I can’t hold on to this much longer. Actually, I think we’ll be back in Canterlot in three, two, one-“

The world screamed and wailed like the roaring sea as everything folded down in front of me: the cave disappeared under the ripples that unfurled in front of my eyes. My sight went completely blank, and my hearing was invaded by the most terrible sound I had ever heard, as my body compressed into a small point with no dimension and dived into the pitch black darkness.

And everything exploded back, right in the Royal Garden. Suddenly, I was back, in front of the statue, the same spot I was before I got teleported. However, the sky wasn’t dark anymore: a light pink hue was starting to creep on the horizon, and I could see the tip of the Sun peeking over it. The crack of dawn, and that, in the Royal Palace, meant only one thing.

“Patrols! That’s right! If I were you, I’d be choosing my side pretty quickly, cause a lovely mare guard by the name of Spear Point is coming through the Gardens to patrol the area! If you’re caught, you’ll be thrown in the dungeon, and after a few days, you’ll resume your sad, pathetic excuse of life. Or, you could accept my offer.”

He was right, he was completely right. I could even hear the clanking hoofsteps in the distance. I knew I couldn’t make it back in the bush, I was too far away to reach it in time. The dungeon… Not so bad. I mean, free food, warm, a roof over your head…
I turned around, and realized that even in the horror struck form Discord had assumed when he was frozen, a lion paw was sticking out in front of me.

“Listen to yourself. You’d like a stay in the dungeon for the free food? Where is your dignity? There was a time when you thought about changing Equestria forever, and now you’d gladly lie down in a musty old cell just to get your sad flank off the streets? I’m offering you a chance to redeem yourself, to gain back what they took from you! What this country owes you! You can change everything for the better, destroy this diarchic tyranny and be hailed as the real hero of ponykind! All you gotta do is shake my hand.”

How could I? What if I was going to betray my kind? What if he had been lying all along?

“You know I’m telling the truth”

The guard was just around the corner, and that paw, even if it defied logic, was coming towards me.

“Also, I’m going to help you give Twilight Sparkle what she deserves.”

Never done something you don’t immediately regret later, but actually feels like you’ve made the most appropriate choice in your entire life? I rammed my hoof against the scaly dragon claw, and I’m positive I saw his gaping mouth turn into the most frightening grin I had ever seen.

“It’s a deal”

A swirl of furious magic encased me and everything turned white. I felt my entire body invested with an astounding amount of energy, and a plethora of voices rushed to take place in my idea. In front of my mind were flashing many images, of strange places I had never seen and creatures even a madpony couldn’t imagine, and everything burned with a white hotness on my entire skin. The maelstrom of searing magical energy disappeared just in time, as the guard (indeed a mare, with a dashing cutie mark that looked like a spear) walked over the small bushes and in front of my kneeling figure. I was expecting a scream, or a shriek of disgust, or a harsh “Stop right there!”. Instead, I felt a cold, steeled hoof touching me gently on the shoulder, and a quiet voice asking me:

“Are you alright, sir?”

I got up, easily, even if my legs were feeling like jelly and just about to betray me. I looked her in the eyes, and answered with a voice that wasn’t my own:

“I’m fine, thanks. I came here for an early stroll, but I think I didn’t rest well enough. Please, proceed with your patrol.”

She looked at me in a peculiar way, her eyes completely emptied of substance, then answered plainly:

“Yes”

Turned around and went back the way she came, without saying another word.

“What did you do?” I asked, after I made sure she was gone.

“Nothing, I just used my charm.”

“You said you wouldn’t do anything unless I told you to!” Had I been wrong to trust the Spirit of Disharmony? What I consciously let inside my own mind?

“It was just for this once, won’t happen again. Do you like the make-over?”

“What are you-“

I stopped in mid sentence, as I took a quick, conscious glance at myself and I realized I wasn’t dirty anymore. My coat was almost gleaming, and it was a vibrant grey, not the sickly blackish it was before. My blonde mane was clean, straightened and styled back. The fur on my fetlocks was normal, not abnormally long, and the short spiky beard I had on the muzzle had disappeared. I looked-

“Positively dashing. You know, if you hadn’t spent all your life reading books, you might have found yourself into a sea of pus-“

“Enough, I get the idea. Why?” I asked, trying to mask my excitement. It was ages since I had felt so clean.

“Simple. I can’t afford to get stopped by some overzealous guard because you smell like a three year old sock. Also, with good looks you get everywhere, in this world.”

“So, what now?”

“Oh, hope you’re ready, cause we’re going to leave Canterlot for good.”

“Uh, you said I look good, but it’s not like I can just wink at the machinist and we can get a free lift!” I answered sarcastically

“Check behind your ears.”

I ran a hoof through my mane, and reached for my left ear. I felt a weight shift, and picked up a small leather bag. It sounded like it was full of bits. I opened, and I had never felt so satisfied to be right. It was bustling with golden, shining money.

“It’s a dimensional pocket. You’ll never run out of money.” He said that so calmly. I'm rich. I'm freaking RICH.

I looked over the labyrinth, over the garden, over the horizon. The Sun was already halfway over it, and the aurora turned the sky pink, like petals of a rose. The chilling breeze flowed through my mane. For the first time in a very long time, I had a meaningful reason to wake up every morning. I had to see if my decision was the right one.

“Enough with the lollygagging, we have much work to do! Prepare yourself, m’boy! You’ll have to leave your old self behind, and even I don’t know what’s waiting for us. But I guess we’ll have to find out as we go along, right? After all, such is the way of life, and that’s why it’s always so much fun.”

Author's notes: So there it is, hope you like it, yadda yadda, leave the comments in the section below, remember to say why you downvoted and all that fancy stuff.

Since I'm not an anglophone nor have any available native speaker right now, any editor who actually speak English as a first language will be accepted with open arms and possibly a cookie.

II - Vivid bit

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And that was two years ago. When you look back on your life, sometime you just have to realize that there are times when even the most rational individual takes the most irrational decisions. I guess that’s life for you.

Amazing what would you do for vengeance and recognition: I had allied with a mad god, the Mad God. For now, I was not regretting it. For the first time in my life, I was tasting a slightly tangy yet refreshing glass of Monteponyano, served in a crystal glass, with a lovely radish salad on the side. The countryside was rushing beyond the windows, and the thunderous roar of the engine and the wheels was muffled, like background chatter. There was a sharp contrast between the quaint and bucolic scenery outside and the opulent and luxurious inside of the first class wagon. I bought my ticket based on the premise that the more expensive it was, the better it was going to be. There was a small ensemble, playing some wonderful chamber music that spread through the ether. Pure bliss, lovely-

“Enjoying ourselves, aren’t we?” A familiar voice broke my ecstasy. But it wasn’t that annoying anymore. After all, it was the voice that gave me all of this.

“Sure am. I mean first class wagon, wine, and the music. I had never even been on a train before, too expensive. Dad couldn’t afford them” I chirped in my head in response

“Well, now you can, sunny boy! You can buy everything and everyone, without even a shred of common sense. That’s because you are rich! Rich ponies don’t need no stinkin’ common sense.”

He ended the sentence with a loud spit I hope was only an imitation. The sensation of having somepony… someone else in your head was unnerving, sometime. For starters, I knew he could read my mind, even if we had an agreement about personal mental space and privacy. Also, it felt wrong. Not all the time, but if you really concentrated on it, you could feel yourself bloated and full, unnaturally full. But I wasn’t complaining. Not yet, at least. Being tied up with a deity had its perks. As for the plan, he wouldn’t tell me. He was always talking about associates, businesses and shares, carefully avoiding saying more than he thought he needed, without mentioning names or locations, excluding Ponyville. I had never been there, but I knew it was an old earth pony settlement. Ponyville… There was someone there I could have known, a long time ago.

The quill tapped lightly against the parchment, rhythmically, regularly. After a while, sounds like that get into your head, you can’t concentrate, you can only-

“ARGHHH! Stop it Cher, for crying out loud!” I scooped the parchment from under her hooves, leaving her with a sarcastic pout and an adorable groan “And don’t try to use the puppy dog on me! It may have worked once but… actually twice, but that’s beside the point! I’m trying to study for-“

“For the betterment of all ponykind?” She interrupted me and chuckled slightly.

I pointed an angry hoof at her “Yeah, that! And your continuous interruptions-“

“Break up my concentration and stop my artistic and political genius from flowing on to the parchment?” She said, while looking at her hoof with a bored expression. She knew that drove me nuts.

“Nghhhhh!” I picked up the parchment and the quills with my magic and threw them in the air. Why they had to fall so slowly! FALL FASTER! CONFOUND PHYSICS!

“Lighten up, Swiftie” She kneeled over the table and prodded me jokingly. “You’re so tense, so caught up, you don’t see the small details!” She ended that sentence with a small giggle.

I sighed and leaned back on my pillow. Cheerilee was just like that… Cheerful. When I first entered this chaotic room and met my roommate, I thought she was just the most annoying mare in the whole wide universe. But I guess that opposites attracts. It was always kind of like a comedy act: the straight guy and the funny guy. Others may find it boring, or difficult to build a lasting relationship on a simple dialectic difference. But we had managed fairly well.

“Yeah? Like what, Cher?” I asked, the corners of my mouth tugging in a smirk that screamed “I double dare you”.

She smiled and said “Well… For example, you always go on about reforming Equestria, yet your writing starts with an invocation to the Neirania, the Mare of Poetry”

My smirk turned into a puzzled expression as I asked “So? I don’t follow you.”

She giggled again. I really liked that giddy laugh, that’s what I liked first about her. “Who was the first to establish the tradition of starting a philosophical book with an invocation?”

I laughed at the silly, obvious question: “Why, Ponietius, of course. His ‘Consolation of Philosophy’”

She got up, settled in front of me, grabbed my muzzle with her hooves and looked at me with a light smirk.

“And just who was Ponetius, Swiftie?” She asked.

“Why of course the most famous philosophers of the First Alunarian Period! A legend, an incredible mind, none less than the Prime Advisor….. of Celestia. Damn it Cher!” I rest my head against her, and she kiss my forehead lightly.

“Swiftie, what shall I do with you….Oh, I’m leaving tomorrow” My eyes dart up to hers. She still had that condescending smile. “Where to?” I asked, faking nonchalance.

“Ponyville. My sister asked me to help her out at her winery. I’ll be away for two months or so.” She got up and sat down beside me. I felt her coat brushing against mine. “Just try to stay alive without me around. Goddesses knows you are so dense sometimes.” I nuzzled her lightly and answered. “Don’t you worry! I’ve almost finished my work, and I’m going to show it to the board of professors!”

“Sure, hon. Just try not to get expelled.”

“Yeah sweetie, do try!”

“GAH!” I almost shouted in surprise, when the ugly (HEY) face of Discord showed up in my reverie. Privacy, where are you? “We had an agreement, no hallucinations and no interrupting my flashbacks! I love flashbacks! They add drama!” He just ignored my complaints, since he was almost suffocating with laughter.

“You should see the look on your face! Priceless!”

My annoyed groan couldn’t cover the small, angry voice filtering through the thick, wooden doors of the wagon. A female voice, hysteric and way too nervous. I recognized it as the voice of the waitress that served me the salad and the wine:

“I just don’t know Glade, they were right here, and then, poof, disappeared!”

Wait a second. Mad God. Unlimited money. Angry waitress. ‘Poof disappeared!’. No apparent catch. I facehoofed.

“Discord?”

“Yes, Swiftie old pal?” He chirped in response.

“I’m probably over thinking it. I am surely over thinking it. It’s just a coincidence. Rampaging paranoia. But… Does this money disappear after a while? Oh, what am I asking, you wouldn’t do something like that…”

“Uhm… I am the God of Chaos, after all” He answered with a whisper.

I bolted up and shouted with all my might: “I KNEW IT!”

Everypony stopped on their tracks, looked at me and just froze. I’m positive I saw poured water just stopping in its tracks. There was another waitress, levitating a plate full of glasses, that just gazed at my embarrassed form.

“Uhm, this radish is from Stalliongrad?” I said slowly with a sheepish smile, my eyes darting around, looking for a way to divert the looks and the attention from me. Silence is deafening.

And then everypony just turned back to what they were doing, and the wagon was full of the friendly and educate chatter of rich, rich, RICH ponies. I sipped a bit of wine, preparing the most horrifying mental image I could muster: it involved sweaty stallions returning from work, “Get your groove on Discord, these stallions work hard and they play harder”, whipped cream and a very unlucky statue. But before I could dish out the sexually abusive pain on the unfortunate deity, I noticed that the waitress was still watching me. She levitated her plate full of empty glasses onto an empty table, dashed and managed to sit down in front of me in less than one second. She had a long, smooth light pink mane, and a grey coat like mine. I couldn’t see her cutie mark, but her eyes were still fixated on me: big magenta eyes, eyes I was losing myself into. No! I had to stay focused, stay sharp, I don’t have any time for this and… boy she sure is cute up-close and personal! When she talked! Her voice, goddesses help me, the most jubilant and melodious I had ever heard:

“You recognized it!” Was she singing, or was her voice just that sweet?

“I-uh-ehm, I don’t- really uh-“

“The RADISH!” She smiled, from cheek to cheek. Oh sweet goddesses that smile! It was like the whole celestial chorus was showing me the heavens “No pony ever noticed the difference! I was always so sad, because it made all difference, but these grumpy nobles wouldn’t realize and then I started not caring anymore and then you shouted I KNEW IT and I KNEW IT you would say that, because that’s how I pictured it in my head, and my name is Inkette, but you can call me Inkie!” She extended a slender hoof and touched mine. Were hooves even supposed to be that soft? Were there bells in the background? My eyes were fixated on that single appendix. She was touching me. ME! Oh sweet merciful-

“Discord!”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love…” I answered, and my face melted into a stupid ecstatic smile.

“M’boy, you have a bigger crush than a bad apple in the day of harvest. Thanks for that, AJ. As much as I’d like to say that this is only a waste of time, I’m a loony, so instead of preventing you from wasting our time, I’ll just stop time” I heard the familiar sound of claws snapping, and everything in the wagon positively froze. For real, this time. Oh goddesses the puns, they hurt. “and give YOU, pardner, a few pointers, because I can already see you’re completely clueless with mares.”

I wasn’t even noticing the blatant insult, I scrambled for words desperately and pleaded rather pathetically to the Mad God:

“You would? Please teach me, oh Wisest One!” I joined my hooves in prayer, and I was answered! He laughed heartily, relishing in my humiliation, and answered, with a boastful voice full of pride:

“Boy, you’re hearing in your head the true god of LOVE. Not that phony sappy stuff that Cadenza spread around! True love is dark, passionate, cares nothing about you and will trample your pretty little soul down to a mush. Anyone driven by love is pushed to extremes, and awakens the darkest sides of their innermost desires. Anyway, there was this one time when me and Celestia; let me tell you, she’s a feisty one; so I was chilling in her bed and-“

“I don’t want to hear your prehistoric love stories with a thousand years old princess, just tell me what to do, you cretin!” I stomped my hooves on the table in rage.

“Fine, fine, just follow my lead and repeat what I say.” He snapped his fingers again and time went back on its tracks. Her hoof was still touching mine, and she was still showing me her adorable smile.

“First, remove that idiotic smile off your muzzle. Try to look more self reliant, more confident. Here, I’ll show you”. An image of myself, wearing a small and charming smirk invaded my mind. I tried to replicate it as fast as I possibly could.

“Fair enough, now just repeat what I say” Discord said, and finished the sentence with a weary sigh.

“So, you’re the brilliant mind who decided to put Stalliongrad radish instead of the boring Canterlot one? Sure, it might be more famous and prestigious, but the sweet aftertaste of fresh carrots of the former goes wonderfully with the wine.”

She clasped my hoof tighter ( I don’t even know) and squealed in delight. Never was a more lovely sound heard by mortal ears.

“Yes yes yes, finally somepony gets it!” Said while clapping her hooves together happily.

I gulped and went on, repeating the words Discord whispered in my brain:

“Yet, you were carrying glasses and serving as a waiter! How can be tolerated that such a brilliant and cute young mare is slaving away in the wagons instead of expressing her talent and insight about food in the kitchen or better, in a restaurant?”

She blushed profusely at the word “cute”, but after that, her ears drooped and her eyes closed.

“Thanks… I tried showing my cutie mark” and pointed at her flank, her nice, shapely flank, where a chef’s hat could be seen “to everyone in my home town and in Canterlot, but nopony wanted to hire me as anything more than a waitress. I was going to try to my sister’s place in Ponyville, but I don’t know how to get off this train! I don’t even have to money to rescind the contract!” She started to sob quietly. How could such a simple and loveable soul get crushed down by her own special talent! That’s what was wrong with this world! Yeah, it’s great when you have a talent for dressmaking, journalism or photography, field where there weren’t lots of ponies, so you could manage to squeeze into the establishment. But a cooking talent? A broad, common talent, that said nothing about your true ambitions and dreams. How many fops that just baked Corneighish pies had they hired instead of her? This just wasn’t fair. I had understood a long time before that what you do have consequences: I tried to change Equestria, without being smart about it. But this mare had done nothing wrong, and her only crime was to live in a world where you could do only the things you were programmed to. The things you were told you were good at.

“I’ll take it from here, Discord” I telepathically whispered.

“It’s your funeral” He answered with a sigh.

Tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes. I reached her muzzle with my left hoof and wiped them off, hoping she would calm down, and stop crying. It was a shame seeing such a cute and gentle mare cry for an injustice.

“Take me to your boss and we’ll settle this.” I said sternly, hoping to convey some of my determination to her. She opened her eyes again, and looked up, straight into mine. I saw a glimmer of hope shining in those beautiful magenta pools.

“But-“ she said hesitantly.

“Just trust me, ok? By the way, my name is Swift Thought”. I got up from my seat, walked to her right and offered a hoof. She grabbed it, lifted herself up and smiled weakly at me. Then, I followed her up through the wagons.

I noticed that with every step, she became more and more determined: she emanated an aura of confidence that just irradiated the surroundings. We got through one last door, and we were finally in the kitchen: there were two stallions frenetically running around and checking pans, and a big, vocal earth pony mare that kept shouting orders. Inkie touched me and pointed at her:

“Uhm, she’s my boss.” She said slowly. “Her name is Rampant…” I put on my best smile and walked to the mare, that in the meantime, had noticed me, apparently to her great annoyance.

“Miss Rampant, is it? I’ve talked with-“

“Who the hell are ya and watcha doin in mah kitchen? Why is Inks with ya?” She shouted, pointing an accusatory hoof at me.

“Well, I’ll cut the chase: I’m here to pay the fee to rescind Miss Inkette’s contract. How much is it?” I levitated my coin pouch in front of me and waited for her answer.

“Forget it fancypants, there’s no way Ah’m going to let go of Inks here! She’s the only unicorn we have on this damned train, and her fancy mojo jojo magickey stuff It’s pretty darn useful! Ah know what ya’ll gonna do to her! Just enslave her using the debt as an excuse! Well let me tell ya, mister, there’s no way Ah-“ She was muted when three thousand bits of pure gold were floating in front of her. “Well, ya sure look like the responsible type! Ya’ll free to go, ‘specially you, Inks. Now get the hell out of mah kitchen before Ah call security!” And she waved us away while she counted the money. We exited the wagon silently and returned to my seat without saying a word. We stood in front of it. I moved to sit, but I was engulfed in furry and soft blur that smelled softly of vanilla:

“THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!” I just stood still, enjoying the feeling of her soft coat against mine. I couldn’t even lift my hooves to respond to her hug. When I felt her nuzzling my neck, my legs started to tremble and give away, but fortunately (or unfortunately) she stopped, and sat down. I joined, in front of her. We gawked at each other for a while, and after a minute or so, I had found the resolve to say:

“It’s nothing.” Tried to sound indifferent, sounded like I was sucking on a frog. Yet, she didn’t point out. She didn’t make anything of my awkwardness.

“It wasn’t nothing, it was everything! I’m sorry for making you spend so much, though. The rescind cost was just of three hundred bits, yet you spent ten times that…” Her ears drooped and the smile lost a bit of its luster. Good job, Swift, you couldn’t even help without making her sad.

“Hey, it’s really nothing, really. I don’t mind spending, if it’s to save such a pretty and talented mare.” Whoa. Did that really came out your mouth? That sounded like an actual, effective flirt. And by the goddesses she blushed. “Also, I think ‘Rampant’ is kind of a clutz. She’ll probably lose the money before she knows it.”

How much, Discord?

“I’d say… one hour. Slick moves you got there, pal”

“So, how much until Ponyville?” You asked.

“Oh, just half an hour, probably!” She answered happily, still too embarrassed to look at you in the eyes.

“Then, why don’t you talk me about this sister of yours?”

After indeed half an hour, the train stopped with a loud screech at the Station of Ponyville. In the mean I had learnt everything there was to know about Inkette’s family. Her sister, Pinkie, seems like the kind of mare I would never, ever want to meet. There was only so much whimsy and happiness I could take in one sitting, and the portrait was one of a filly perennially on sugar rush and with a serious need for meds, even if I thought I had heard the name before. Inkie, on other hoof, seemed fairly normal, if a bit on the cheery side. That wasn’t bad, there’s no spice in everything without a little discord. We got out of the train chatting a bit, but after we reached the exit our paths had to part. I just wished her the best of luck and slumped my way to the nearest tavern; the sun was almost down, and crickets were starting to sing in the summer air. Discord was silent all the way. I asked the mare at the reception for a single room and two nights, got up and threw myself on the bed. A matter of seconds, and I was already sleeping.

I was smiling, a long time before. There was a garden, somewhere. And a stallion, looking at me, smiling. I was running, going after a bright red ball. I smacked my head against a funny statue. The stallion stopped smiling, just for a second. I saw him, and hugged him, to make him feel better. He nuzzled me, caringly and lovingly. Like a father would. There were other times, like that. Sometimes he had a different coat and a different mane, and he told me he liked to change style once in a while. Never even once there was a mare with him. He carried me around on his back, and we slept in different places a lot of times. He told me he liked to travel. He was always there, with that smile. One night, I went in his room. I had been having nightmares lately, and I asked him if I could stay in the bed with him. There was a window in his room. I almost closed my eyes, but a flash of light washed in front of me: it was beautiful, and it encompassed the night sky like a rainbow, and it had the same colors. Then, I heard a loud sound, like a roof breaking down, and some shrieks in the distance. Horrified, I snuggled against the stallion. He sighed and said that She had found them, and that the fun was over. He nuzzled me one last time, and I fell asleep. Once I woke up, he was gone and the bed was empty. There was a note on the table in the kitchen. “Go here”, with an address. I ran there, hoping to find the stallion. But he wasn’t there, and they took me, saying I was a stray foal. That’s the last time I saw or heard of him.

Know yourself.

When your life really got off tracks?

What’s your heart’s desire?

What you truly wish for yourself and all the others?

Who do you really loathe?

What do you really stand up against?

Where is your mother?

Where is your father?

What happened to those times?

Why you don’t want to remember?

What are you really afraid of?

The shadow, looming over. It was enormous, and it engulfed everything in darkness. I felt the floor tumbling under my hooves, and I fell.

I saw just dark, then a small light shimmering in it. I reached it, and touched it with my hoof. Now, I was in the kitchen, at the table. There was the stallion in front of me. He smiled at me, and asked:

“Just who are you?”

I woke up with a gasp, and drenched in sweat. It was a long time since I had dreamed of my father. I didn’t really like to remember him. It was dawn, and the sun was already peeking on the world. Discord was still unusually silent. Maybe being in the town that housed the Elements of Harmony got him in a pensive mood. It wasn’t my problem, at least until after breakfast. I went downstairs, and asked for breakfast: the tavern was completely empty. I ate a small loaf of bread with jam, gulped down a cup of coffee and reached for a newspaper pile near my table. The headlines were talking about strange resurgences of chaos magic in the Royal Gardens, with Celestia and Luna assuring everypony that Discord was still imprisoned.

“Yeah, right.” A familiar voice mumbled in my head.

“Ah, so you are awake. I was beginning to think you were actually-“

“Sleeping? I was. Every god of chaos needs his beauty sleep.” He yawned “Anyway, up and at them, we have many ponies to meet and much work to do!”

“So, where we go first?” I asked, curious.

“Ponyville Elementary. There are two ponies there, so unlikeable and annoying, you could say they’d send chills down your spine” He answered with his usual playful tone. “You know, I have good feeling about this. It’s a beautiful day. A magical play.”

III - Pacific state

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“The authorities and experts remain baffled to why there has been a surge of ‘abnormal chaotic magic” in the Canterlot Royal Gardens, where the statue of Discord is held. The spike was picked up by one of the routine mage engineer doing checkups on the castle, and it was described as ‘a burst, short but really powerful’. The Princesses were swift to reassure the populace, declaring, through the famous magic scholar and Element of Magic Twilight Sparkle that ‘Discord is still trapped inside the statue, and it’s going to stay that way. I’ve made personally sure just the day before this coincidental spike of energy that in the event of a weakening in the spell keeping him in a statue form, there will be a failsafe spell alerting both the Elements and the Princesses, for a swift containment-“ My reading was interrupted by a familiar, if not annoying, voice:

“Bah, can’t read all this boorish propaganda. You know what? Sparkle was always the least insufferable… The other ones were just cardboard cutouts, but she actually humored me. She was the hardest to convince, too. Oh, did you see that? Swift containment, that’s rich. I mean, the irony level is off the charts! Because you know, I’m inside your head… And your name is Swift Tho-“

“Yeah I get that, thank you very much! So, how much of this is actually true?” I asked, curious about the extent of veracity I could expect from the Princesses themselves. I didn’t have particularly high expectations, though. Being a historian, I had seen many incongruent tales and facts that couldn’t be explained, except if you thought about falsification or cover-ups of much kind. Don’t let me get started on the ‘three tribes’ thingamajig.

“The ‘burst’ part was pretty on spot, I guess. The rest of the tale, not so much. They know I’m not there anymore, at least in spirit.” He answered pretty nonchalantly, like it was just a minor detail. I imagined he was waving a claw at me dismissively.

“WHAT? When you were thinking of telling me? They could be onto us right now!” I almost stomped my hoof down on the table in rage, before realizing I wasn’t the only pony in the room. After Princess Discord (Ah, ah, ah.) decided to wake up, I informed him that I wasn’t going anywhere until I enjoyed a good breakfast (the first in years) and a newspaper read. Luckily, there was a fresh Equestria Daily lying on my seat. A bit on the right side for me, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, m’boy! Celestia and Luna may have fooled you to believe they’re the hotshots of magic, but back in the day, before they regimented it and entrapped it into a set of boring and predictable rules, I wasn’t only the Spirit of Chaos, Disharmony and Change, but also of Magic. My not so metaphorical bread and butter.”

He stopped talking for a bunch of seconds. I was going to ask him to continue, but he started again, on his own; only, his voice changed, and all the playfulness and the whimsy had disappeared. It became low, like a growl, the roar of a gigantic lion and amplified a thousand folds:

“Then, they had to come along. I was here far before those two! Far before them!”

It was so loud that my ears started to ring from the throbbing pain that coursed through my head. And it was, above everything, terrifying. I could feel inside a simple word all the anguish, the pain and the hatred he had kept bottled up for innumerable years. The peaceful interior of the tavern, that just a moment had been flooded by the warm sunlight of a spring morning started to get darker and darker, like the Sun suddenly had disappeared from the sky and made place to a moonless night, where freezing winds blew all around me. All the patrons beside me kept going on like nothing was happening even when they started to get paler from the glacial temperature, but I started feeling an incredible coldness. I breathed, and it came out as a white fume, much like in cold winters, as shivers started to spread all over my body

“What would they know about being gods? They sold the pride of being the utmost state of being, decided to cheat, to deceive their way to victory into a godless world! Worthless foals without pride!”

His booming voice and the lowering heat was making me dizzy. I got up from my table, and stumbled on it, turning it over and breaking a glass in the process.
Dark tendrils-like shadows started creeping up on everything, expanding like an octopus made out of freezing darkness. It was much like the time in the Royal Gardens, but this time, it felt different: they were trying to hurt me, as they slithered up my hind legs, making their way to the stomach.

“Discord, calm down!” I desperately yelled in my mind, hoping it would stop him.

“They made ponies forget about me! Just a legend, the ultimate loser of history! Did you know how they used those accursed Elements on me? They sneaked up on me! They couldn’t even muster the courage to face me head on! They want deception? I’ll give them deception alright! I’m going to erase them from the face of this planet before they can even realize it!”

“Discord, stop it! You’re going to kill us both!” I stumbled again, and fell into a puddle of darkness. It wasn’t just cold, it was dead. Inert. Touching it felt like touching the end of universe, the ultimate state where everything is at a standstill.

“I’m going to show the entire universe their falsity, before finally smiting them down in front of all their precious subjects! AND THEY WILL KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE-“

The tendrils were already at the level of my neck, and my body was completely numb. I tried to move, but it wouldn’t just respond. They had reached my lips, as I gasped desperately for air and mustered enough strength to shout in my mind:

“STOP IT!”

And everything came back to normal. The darkness and the coldness disappeared instantly, the morning sun was shining and I was in front of my table again, with my coffee still blazingly hot. I could feel the heat and my own limbs.

“-And then they kissed! Explosions! Isn’t it just great? Swiftie? Swiftie, are you okay?”

This couldn’t be. Was he trying to throw it on the humorous side? I would have none of it.

“What in Tartarus is WRONG WITH YOU! YOU ALMOST KILLED ME WITH THAT PSYCHO SHOW!” I shouted in my head, and I felt him flinch back somehow.

“Ok, maybe the story was a little Bay-ish, but ‘almost killed me’ bad? You’re being a little melodramatic, ya know.” He answered with a voice that presumed a pout.

“Story? STORY? YOU SUMMONED THE FREAKING UNDERWORLD SPIRITS WHILE RANTING ON THE PRINCESSES! I ALMOST DIED!” I yelled again, furious.

“Uhhh, what? I just told you a story, that’s it. I didn’t rant about the Princesses, and I didn’t certainly didn’t try to kill you! What are you talking about?” He asked, and I could feel somehow that he was sincere. It couldn’t be that I had imagined everything, right? It just couldn’t be possible.

“But the coldness, and all those tendrils, just like in the Gardens…”

I touched my muzzle, and felt my fur, heated by the gentle morning sun. Just seconds earlier, I was hyperventilating while tentacles of coldness climbed up my body. It felt so… real. It was like slowly being submerged into the Arctic Ocean, while being able to see its unfathomable and impenetrable depths, countless kilometers of darkness and cold that spanned beneath you and were ready to grab you and make you disappear in the black, while you flailed and wailed. Discord must have realized my discomfort, and, unbelievably, tried to reassure me:

“I don’t know what you just saw, but it wasn’t me, I can assure you. Maybe you were still woozy and daydreaming…” He said in a comforting voice. “Maybe some of my chaotic essence is seeping into you, and your mind is making adjustments. I mean, for all your life you’ve been told I’m the most evil being ever, the epitome of everything that’s not ponykind, and now I’m prancing in your head. Your subconscious is just trying to cope with the situation.”

“Are you saying I’m going mad?” I asked wearily, whilst rubbing my temples. It wasn’t something I hadn’t taken into account when I decided to help him help myself. I was prancing around with the God of Chaos making bad puns in my head, and I realized that was going to entail some consequences for my mental hygiene.

“Silly Swiftie, you already are! Like everyone here, you are completely insane!” He answered cheerfully.

“I… am? I was going to say I’m feeling pretty sane, but after this… I’m not so sure. But why the others?” I gestured slightly with my muzzle at the other patrons “They seem pretty normal to me.”

He laughed. A bountiful, merry laughter that spread in my brain like rippling waves. He sighed and continued:

“Oh, m’boy. That’s it, that’s the problem! They are normal! You see, you live your life dancing on a stage that is directed by a maniac, even if you don’t realize it. The thing is… This harmony, whatever you want to call it, is pure madness! Let me make you an example. Imagine, for one second, that you are like them, a normal pony that loves the Princesses. If I tell you that tomorrow a two-bit thug is going to be beaten senseless by a guard, or that a changeling is going to get squashed into a wall by those pesky shield spells, will you bat an eye? Will you panic?”

Honestly? “No, I wouldn’t. I mean, how am I supposed to feel sorry for a criminal or changeling? It’s their fault they decided not to integrate, not to be…” The word died on my lips as soon as I realized what I was going to say.

“Harmonious? But if I tell you that one little princess is going to get her horn turned to strawberry jelly…”

“I-I don’t know, they raise the sun and the moon and all…” I stammered hesitantly.

“See? Suddenly everyone freaks out! You know why? Because the changelings and thugs are not harmonious, are not part of the plan! I’ve noticed nopony ever loses their minds if things go according to the plans, even if the plans are monstrous. Look at me! Did I ever hurt anypony, during my free time? Did I ever hurt any of you? Sure, I messed up some laws of physics, but hey, I am the god of Chaos! What am I supposed to do? And yet, I get locked up in stone for countless millennia. Hardly fair. And hey, a sister throws a little tantrum, why don’t you banish her to the moon for a thousand years? Well, it’s cool, she went against the plan! You see, they’re all just opportunist, trying to control their little worlds. These ponies, these respectable gentlecolts and mares, when facing real hardships and strife, will show their true face: jackals, all of them. I just try to show them how pathetic their attempts to control reality and hide their true nature really are! So, when I got free, I did what I do best. I took their nice little orderly plan and turned it against them. Don’t let them fool you, m’boy. I don’t lie and I don’t deceive. And even the paragons of ponykind, the bearers, once faced with cold, hard truth, show their true ugly selves. Cruel, selfish, greedy, false, maniacal and lazy.”

“Then why you lost?” I teased him, even though I was fascinated to know a god’s perception on pony society. It felt so wrong, yet so… right. From every logical point of view, he was right. Criminals were ponies too, and changelings had to feed on emotions lest they starve. It wasn’t their fault. So why we didn’t care about them? Why we valued so little their life? Was it just because they weren’t mandatory in the grand scheme of things? Because they were unnecessary, or even pernicious to harmony? But again, why choose a way of living that purposefully lets other species out of the picture? Why we took over the sun and the moon and the weather and the soil and the animals? Because it would be more regulated, less wild, more harmonious.

Since when madness used logical, convincing arguments?

“I’ll admit it, I underestimated their bonds. I was too cocky. Trust me, it won’t happen again. Because this time, I’ll just organize the thingamabob. You’ll be the one that gets all the glory. Anyway, you’re done with that? We got a lot of things to do! Lots of associates to meet!” I noticed he avoided using the term ‘god’ when referring to our future allies and I didn’t really understand why. He told me I was going to get all the glory. But I wasn’t going to be a PR, the pawn that knew nothing about the inner workings of what got him into fame and success.

“I’m not going anywhere before you tell exactly who are we going to meet. And no riddles, cryptic songs or something like that! I want to know who they really are.” I said with determination.

He sighed and answered:

“Fine, fine. What do you know about Windigoes?”

The day before I had rushed my way through town. I was tired, strangely so, and felt like I needed a good night of rest. But now, after I was well rested and without any hurry, I could really appreciate how sickeningly rural this little backwater village truly was. Dirt roads, farms at every corner and the unmistakable smell of countryside was filling my nose. I had to admit: even if I wasn’t exactly keen on the bucolic side of life, there was something charming about this place and how it presented itself to visitors. A simple place of old ways, lost in time, in a country accelerating towards what seemed a future dominated by technology more than magic and old physical labor. I couldn’t help but sympathize with the idea of conserving some sort of connection with the past, since I was a historian. But I couldn’t shake off the feel that my appreciation was hypocritical too: after all, I wanted to dump in the bin the way Equestria was and had always been… No, I offered a choice, a real choice! It was up to ponykind to accept it or not.

“I thought you wanted to know about who we’re going to meet…” My train of thoughts was interrupted by Discord.

“Yeah, sure. Sorry, continue.” I said sheepishly.

“Good. As I was saying, for once legends got things right: Windigoes are the spirits of the winter, the calm and stillness that comes from hatred and spite. They are associated with coldness and snow and those are their weapons, as they make more powerful blizzards as the disharmony and the loathing increases in the air. Not a really happy bunch, trust me.”

A doubt bugged me greatly, and I voiced it to the Spirit of Chaos:

“Discord, if gods must be believed to rise and keep on existing, who in Tartarus thought it was a good idea to worship hatred and intolerance?” I asked, expecting to receive a long and complicated answer about how Windigoes were corrupted by Celestia and Luna into what they are now.

“Because ponies of the ancient ages were wiser than now.” He answered calmly.

“What? What does that mean?” I asked curiously.

“It’s simple, Swiftie. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Anyway, Windigoes strived before Celestia and Luna decided to take matters into their own hands- pardon, hooves. And so did I. After they reunited the three tribes, the three Windigoes, Fuath, Achrann and Eagla, started to decline in both power and vital strength. After Fuath was banished to Tartarus by Luna herself, the other two decided to go into hiding. And they still are to this day.”

“How do you know they are here? In Ponyville?” I asked, a bit cautious on Discord’s detective skills.

“Uhm… Let’s just say Eagla and I were… intimate, back in the day. She decided to tether my magic to hers, in case we should ever want to, uh... ‘talk’ again.” I have no idea how he did, but he actually air quoted in my mind. “Guess she was pretty smart, even if she didn’t see this coming.”

Satisfying enough explanation, but I still didn’t know what they looked like.

“So, you said Ponyville Elementary, right? Who are they, teachers, janitors?” I asked, urging him to answer.

“Actually, they are foals. I have no idea what they actually look like, but if they haven’t changed in these millennia, we only need to search for the most annoying, petty and venomous fillies in the school. Wait, stop a second. See that stall, over there, with all the apples? There’s an old acquaintance there, with somepony that might be able to help us.” I looked in front of me, and through the dozens of ponies making business in the marketplace, I did see a stall full of scrumptious apples, and a nice-looking mare serving customers: she had a long blond mane styled in a ponytail, a vibrant orange coat and a Stetson hat resting on her head. I humored Discord, and decided to go into the queue, and wait for my turn. I was pretty hungry and those apples did look pretty good, but I wasn’t sure how the mare could be of any help. After a couple of minutes it was my turn. I stepped to the counter and was greeted with the thickest, funniest accent I had ever heard in my life:

“Well hello there mister! What can Ah git fer ya?” The mare asked enthusiastically. I almost burst into laughter right there, but fortunately I managed to hold it in.

“I know, I know, it’s hard to take her seriously with that show of bland southern stereotypes, but be careful around Applejack, she can spot a liar a mile away” Discord whispered in my head. Applejack, I knew that name. Sure, the Element of Honesty! That’s why Discord said she was an old acquaintance. Yet, I still couldn’t see how she could be of any help.

“I’ll just take a couple of apples, miss…”

“Applejack, mister! May Ah ask what’s yer name? Never seen ya around here!” She eyed me, and I could see a glimmer of suspicion in her eyes.

“Swift Thought, Miss Applejack, name’s Swift Thought.” I quickly answered with a small smile

“Aw shucks, drop the miss. We ain’t in those fancy schmancy Canterlot restaurants! So, ya said ya wanted three apples? Coming right up, Ah’ll just git-“She stopped into mid-sentence, and looked over my shoulder. Her eyes were reduced to pinpricks, and she dashed out of her stall like lighting, almost tumbling over me in the process.

“Ah’m really sorry mister, there’s a pony Ah really have to talk to, Applebloom will serve ya!” She yelled at me, while dodging the other ponies at the market, before she finally stopped in front of another mare with an azure coat and an incredible rainbow colored mane and started shouting things I couldn’t quite point out, apart from few words like “party”, “Pinkie”, “barn destroyed” and “rainbow flavored frosting”. I turned around to see that three apples had already been put into a brown bag by an adorable filly with a pink bow.

“Here yer apples, mister!” She had the same accent as Applejack, but it was kind of cute to hear it from such a small filly.

“What’s your name, little one? Why you’re not at school?” I asked before I reached in my bag with my magic, grabbed five coins and dropped them on the table.

“Name’s Applebloom, mister! Applejack is my big sis, and she told me that today Ah was coming with her at the market to learn the family bawsin-businn-beysin…. What we do fer livin’!” She answered with a big smile on her face.

“So, you go to the Ponyville Elementary, right? I kinda have problem, Applebloom. Would you mind help me solve it?” I asked her.

“Sure thing mister!” She beamed at me.

“I’m from the Canterlot Royal Commission on Bullying and Prevarication. I’m here to assess the situation here in Ponyville, and to see if there’s anything that need to be addressed. Do you know fillies or foals at your school that are mean to the other students, bully or berate them?”

Her expression changed from a nice smile to an adorable mix between a pout and anger.
“Ah sure do mister! There are these two fillies at mah school, they always bully me and my friends cuz we don’t have any cutie marks! They’re called Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon! They’re always mean to everypony!” She answered.

“Why thank you, Applebloom. You’ve been a great help. I’ll be sure to see that those two get what they deserve. You can keep the change, and have a nice day, you and your sister both!” I said. I took the brown bag in my mouth and went off, careful to avoid Applejack on my way out of the market. I wouldn’t want any more time than the necessary one with a Bearer of the Elements, especially the one that represented Honesty. After I got out of the marketplace, I followed the signs for the school, but I stopped at park before, I sat on a bench and ate my apples quietly. Discord was quiet too; since I first spoke to Applejack he hadn’t said a word. Maybe seeing the one that had a hoof in his second imprisonment was getting to him. Was I actually sympathizing with him? The God of Chaos?

“Actually, I was looking at the format, and how it was a nice change of pace to have a page without all the bold and the italic for once.”

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing. I’m proud of you. You’ve become quite the manipulator in such a short notice.”

He was right. Before I wouldn’t be able to invent a lie on the spot, much less to a filly. It might have felt wrong before, but now…

“Necessity is the mother of inventions, Swift. The same goes for lies.”

Just that? Yes, it was just a necessity. Seriously, I was brooding over lying to a filly? Parents do that all the time. It’s not like I was going to deceive everypony and everything. Necessity, that. It was needed, and the end justify the means. I got up, made a ball out the brown bag and threw it into the bin.

“Let’s go. We have some naughty fillies to find.”

“Well, that came out wrong.”

“Shut up.”

PONYVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

The giggling and the laughter of fillies playing brought back warming memories. Unlike how they are usually pictured in fiction, the orphanage in which I had grown up as a foal was a wonderful place. They all cared about us, and even if we didn’t have any parents to speak of, we were happy nonetheless. The rare times somepony came to adopt, they wouldn’t let us see them or even tell us, to spare us the possible disappointment of not being chosen.

“How was it like?” Discord asked with a calm tone, a strange enough occurrence for him.

“What, the orphanage? It was a good place. We were loved, and cared for. There wasn’t a single moment where I was saddened by the fact that my father had left me. Why?” I answered.

“I was just curious.” He answered plainly.

“Couldn’t have you just peeked into my memories? You do it all the time!” I asked him. It was kind of strange for him just to ask, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. If you think about it, if he always had the same mischievous and bubbly attitude, it would get predictable and orderly.

Outside the building was fairly nice, and I could see some of the foals playing in the gardens behind them. I did have to come up with a reasonable excuse to see two fillies and speak to them, or it could get seen the wrong way. Fortunately, I wasn’t going against a lies detection machine like Applejack, so I could cut myself some slack. I entered, hoping to find a teacher, or someone who could point to these Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. It was a small school: there just this corridor almost completely covered with the drawings of the various kids who frequented the school, only one classroom, the bathrooms and a small office. I knocked on the door of the latter, waiting for an answer. I could see from the smoked glass that there were two ponies inside, one probably looking for something and the other was just patiently standing still at the side.

“Just one second! I’m sure they were here, really!” I heard a familiar mare voice from inside, and another, also familiar, soon followed:

“It’s okay, just remember the kids to return them in time!” Said the second voice.

“I’m really mortified, really!”

“Oh, shush,” the voice got nearer, and I saw a bubble of pink magic grabbing the handle and twisting it. The door opened, and I stepped out of the way. Just in time to see a purple coat and a purple mane striped evenly with pink and dark violet, and two big lavender eyes that were first still turned to face the room, then darted to see me.

“It’s not like they…. I’m sorry, have I seen you somewhere?” Again? AGAIN? I managed to maintain my composure, but at least this time Sparkle had the decency to almost remember me. Almost! I had to admit, I kind of looked differently from the past: my mane was less blonde and actually styled, and my coat somewhat darker.

“Great, we got the smart one!”

I tried to answer with a stammered and unconvincing “I b-b-elieve n-not-“but she interrupted me in the most strange I would have thought: she jumped at me and crushed me into a bear hug that almost made my eyeballs explode from their sockets.

“Swift Thought! From the College! I remember you! We were always bickering on Politics!” It looked like she suddenly remembered what happened to me and that she actively took part in ousting me from the University. Her ears drooped and her eyes dropped down, looking at the floor. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, Swift… I was a different mare, back then. Now I’m changed, thanks to-

“The magic of friendship!”

What was I going to say? Was I still angry with her? Well, maybe not like the days following my expulsion, but the hatred and the jealousy were still there, pumping and coursing through my veins as soon as I saw her again. The fact that she had changed was, strangely, even more insufferable: if she actually stayed her bitchy, higher than thou self, it would have been better, less hypocritical. From what I had gathered, the Bearers were all inseparable friends, something she didn’t have back in the days. So, not only she had fame, fortune, success, the love of two princesses and the sister in law of another, but she was also uncaring! At least before she didn’t even want to pretend she was interested in what other ponies thought of her, and yet now she’s telling me she’s sorry? After two years spent living on the streets like a bum, the only thing I get is a halfhearted ‘I’m sorry’ because now she actually cares what others may think of her? I was starting to think that maybe Discord wasn’t so off track: ‘sorry’ was a just a thing that was supposed to be said, not truly felt. She didn’t even remember what she had done until she met me again!

Still, I wasn’t going to tell her that. I wasn’t going to say that I didn’t care in the slightest about her forced excuses and penances. That would be stupid. I was going to let her think that it was all forgiven, no offense taken. It wouldn’t be bad to be on good terms with the protégé of the Regent of Sun. It makes you less suspicious.

But after the Princesses will be exposed for the frauds they really are, she will get a taste of what I had to endure for the past two years: no more royal protection and favors! Who would want to have anything to do with the student and friend of the tyrant? After she lies alone, scoffed by everyone and with no one to give her just the minimum speck of love, I will accept her excuses.

I smiled.

“It’s okay, Sparkle. It’s all… water under the bridge.”

“Oh please, just call me Twilight!” She waved a hoof dismissively at me. The other familiar voice (even though I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it), that had been silent for all this time, was heard again:

“Twilight, who’s the stallion you’re talking to? Is he the one who knocked at the door?” It asked.

The lavender mare just reared her head back through the door and said with a small smile:

“Oh, it’s just an old classmate of the College, Swift Thought!”

“WHAT?” Came the horrific answer.

Oh oh. Now I remembered. It wasn’t possible. It was just for a few months. Why she’s still here after two years? Oh goddesses I needed to get out of there.

“Nope nope nope nope nope nope“

I turned around and prepared to dash for the exit, but I was stopped before I could reach safety.
A pink blur came storming out of the door, grabbed me and shoved me on the ground, pushing me with enough force to take the air out of my lungs. She held me by my front legs, and kept me pinned to the cold tiled floor of the corridor. I could hear the ragged breath of the enraged beast tickling my neck.

This wasn’t good.

“YOU! TWO YEARS! AND NOT A CALL, NOT A LETTER, NOTHING! YOU JUST DISAPPEARED!”

“Hi Cher”

IV - Blue Monday

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My eyes were closed and my ears were perked up, waiting to hear a neverending barrage of rightful recriminations. But nothing came, and everything was silent. I forced my eyes open and saw that Cheerilee, Twilight Sparkle, everything was frozen. I got up slowly, with my legs still trembling from the shock. I looked at the furious earth pony mare that was now yelling at the floor: why was she still here? From the bits and pieces she got from the conversation he eavesdropped, she needed to give something back to Sparkle, probably a book, since he heard she was the town librarian. If Cheerilee was inside the school, in the teacher’s office, that meant that she was-

“The teacher. Took you long enough, m’boy.” Discord snickered a bit.

“Excuse me if I can’t read minds like you. Anyway, thanks for the help…” I answered with sheepish smile.

“No biggie. But we still have a problem. The thing is, she won’t let you see any of the children, since she’s so mad at you and probably will want to know where in Tartarus have you been for two years. But we have no time for that. You see, doing all this time stopping it’s not easy. Time is like a series of domino tiles. When you tip one, the others fall right after. To stop time I have removed several tiles from the future and put them here, to make the current chain longer, hence slowing everything down. But, the thing is, I can’t put them back, once you take a tile, it’s gone for good. So, when the falling chain reaction will reach the point from where I got the tiles, some won’t be there, and the sequence will skip and lag badly. It’s not something that you or ponies can realize, but beings with great magical powers that are attuned to natural constants, like me and the Princesses, will realize it. Also, it’s not something ponies can do. Usually, when I need to freeze time, I take tiles from a really distant point, like hundreds of thousands of years in the future. But I’m still frozen in stone and my powers are severely diminished, so I couldn’t go much further in the timeline…”

So, he was severely underpowered. It wasn’t something I hadn’t took into consideration for a long time, but it felt like his unbelievable powers, even weakened, would still be more than enough. But his tone wasn’t flamboyant and giddy, so I knew I wasn’t about to hear good news. I took a long breath and asked:

“How much?”

“I could only take tiles from twelve hours from now. If we aren’t out Ponyville by then, they will find us.” He answered plainly.

“Then why did you stop time in the first place? We wouldn’t be in this situation if you didn’t do it!” I said angrily, stomping my hoof down in rage.

“Ehi, ehi, I did it for the group ya know! I probed her mind while you were eavesdropping, and the fillies we’re looking for are already home! There’s no way she would have let you waltz in here after two years and then just gave you the addresses of two fillies she knows for sure don’t even know who you are!”

He was making sense. There’s no way she would have let me know addresses and names of two fillies she knew for sure they weren’t related to me (since I was an orphan), especially after everything. It would have slowed us down, and Cherilee would have probably reported me to the authorities, something I couldn’t afford to let happen. He was, on all accounts, perfectly right.

“Fine, I get it. So, what do we do now? Time’s frozen, but as soon as it starts to flow again, it’ll be over!” I said, pointing the screaming mare in front of me.

“It’s simple. We erase her memory, and Sparkle’s. It’s selective, it will be a doozy.” He answered, ending the sentence with a playful giggle.

“Erase her memory? But…”

“Look, it’s not like you actually love her anymore, right? Water under the bridge, right? It’s all in the past, now you live in the future, you live for the future of this nation! She didn’t tried to look for you, to find you! She didn’t care about you, nor did Sparkle when she made up lies about you to get you expelled, so why are you so hesitant?”

Why… She didn’t look for me, she didn’t even try. I knew I couldn’t relay on anybody, they were all poisoned by them. It was obvious that my only ally and friend was Discord. But it wasn’t about erasing her memory, it was about a fundamental concept.

I sighed and massaged my head, for it was throbbing madly.

“It’s… We’re not giving them a choice. I’m not like the Princesses, I don’t want anyone to be forced to anything, including selective amnesia.” I answered wearily.

He scoffed and laughed heartily, like everything I had just said was just a really funny joke.

“You really like this choice thingy, uh? I’m all for freedom, as it comes with chaos, but this isn’t the time for hypothesis and theory, it’s about action. We either erase her memory, or we give up on Windigoes. And we can’t win without them. We cannot push our weight without them, at least until I am out of the cage. And if they capture you, I don’t know what they’ll do to you. Usually Celestia and Luna are really creative with their punishments. I wouldn’t stick around to find out.”

What was it going to be? I didn’t have much time to decide, and Discord’s stringent answer only made things worse. I looked up to face Cherilee and Sparkle. A choice. I was going to give them a choice, just not right know. A necessary sacrifice. No, I shouldn’t even be thinking about this, it’s about something more important.

Something that can’t be stopped.

“Do it.”

A form slithered out from a shadow, right in front of me: a tall and thin trail of smoke that was randomly streaked with lightning. It curved and crept up like a black, gigantic worm. I recoiled, and shouted in surprise, but the scream died in my throat. I scuttled back to the wall in pure fear, and a voice hissed in my head. It was Discord’s, but it sounded hoarse and without the usual vibrant tone. Actually, it was like a snake talking through a windy tunnel:

“Stay calm. It’s me. I just need to materialize a bit to do this spell.” He assured me. I realized my flank was pressed tightly against the wall, and that I had stopped moving ever so lightly. I breathed and asked slowly, still surprised by the spectacle:

“That doesn’t look like you at all.” I pointed my hoof at the black smoke trail that danced in front of me.

“The form I have to use with ponies is their visual representation of chaos and disorder, a chimera, or a draconequus, as they call it now. Other species see me in a different way and in a different light. This form is simple and easier ”

“Exactly what species sees you as a coil of black smoke?” I asked, curious about what kind of culture would think of Discord in such a strikingly odd way.

“They aren’t around anymore. Now, I need you to be silent, this spell requires a lot of concentration.”

The smoke trail dashed forward and engulfed them both in a black cloud. I could hear strange, buzzing noises coming from inside, but I wasn’t going to find out what the causes for them were.

The brief exchanges I just had seemed oddly concise and serious. Discord always had the same bubbly and sardonic attitude toward everything, but his answers seemed different from usual. Like he was a different person entirely. Maybe-

[b]“It’s done”
His voice interrupted my train of thoughts, and I saw that he had disappeared, and the everything was slowly starting to move again, like a flame slowly but surely burning a match.

“Listen to me: I’ve removed all the memories about you that were in Cheerilee’s mind, plus her outburst and this first chit chat from Sparkle’s memory. Now, since I was there, I also implanted a small suggestion. This morning Twilight Sparkle remembered suddenly that she received a simple missive from Canterlot’s Board of Cultural Preservation: an inspector, namely you, is coming to check up on the Spring Bloom festivity that’s coming around right around tonight to see if it’s worth preserving in the Royal Archives. The entire town will be there, and there is a tournament for foals. If we are lucky, our two lucky guesses will be there and Sparkle will let us talk to them before the 7-legged race starts. Just stay cool and play your cards right and we’re going to get out of here before either Celestia or Luna can crack down on us. And SMILE! TA-TA!”

Everything just… I guess I can’t say it any other, hiccupped, and abruptly, I was in the same scared, supine position, and Cherilee was still yelling at me. Of course, she stopped mid-sentence.

“NOT EVEN A- Oh my, what happened?” She looked at me with a confused expression that swiftly turned into a crimson display of embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, but at risk of sounding rude, do I know you?” She asked, still flushed and embarrassed for the unusual display even she didn’t know the cause of.

Three years of relationship had just disappeared in a flash of black smoke. She didn’t remember about me, just like Discord said. Who I had now to look to? A deranged god that I couldn’t trust in the least? A mare I just met the two days before and just barely chit chatted with? I had no one in the world to share my doubts with, no one to come back to when and if all of this was going to end in our… my favor. I wanted to just touch her, tell her everything. Just two days and I was already cracking under the pressure. I knew Discord knew, and it didn’t help. The feeling that your thoughts weren’t just your own anymore was unnerving. Maybe, I thought, I could tell her everything. Maybe she’d help me…

Where were she when you needed her the most? When you were lying in the streets, famished and dirty and homeless? She was sleeping in a comfy bed, calmly, without even giving as much as a thought to you. Where were you? Why didn’t you call her? She didn’t care. The thing is, no one cares about you. But that’s okay, that’s okay! Because you don’t care about them either, do you? Was there ever someone for you when you needed?

No, there wasn’t.

Oh yeah? And how you faced every trouble and obstacle in your life until now?

Alone.

See? You don’t need any of them, you are self-sufficient. Weak and unreliable, prone to contradictions, that’s how ponies are. But you are better than them. You tasted bitterness, and despair, and poverty. In this utopia, the only one who had to suffer, just because he wanted freedom for his kind, was you. Now you tell me if that seems fair. The way I see this, it’s just that you’re needed, because they can’t take care of themselves. Just like a good parent, you show them the way to emotional autarchy, so that they don’t have to depend on two princesses bar goddesses anymore. They can be free. But sometimes, you have to lie to kids, you let them believe that Smart Cookie and Private Pansy are real for just a little longer.

I just want what is best for them! But it’s just so hard, and I have accomplished so little. How could I do this? How could I just go against everything I think is good and ethical? Lying, deceiving, manipulating memories, I couldn’t just flip a switch and turn into a deceptive scumbag!

Oh, please. Of course you can. You just need to look at them. Look at those innocent, carefree eyes. Can you see how much it hurts to see their ignorance and unawareness? It’s the bane of parents to see the purity, that nagging feeling that they don’t know anything, that they can enjoy freely their life while you have to worry, while you have to suffer for them.

Look at those eyes and tell me again you can’t lie straight to her face.

“Actually, I’m here to see Miss Sparkle, if she still remembers about me…”

“Of course, of course! Swift Thought, right? I knew a pony of your would find a job right away in a city like Canterlot! I take it you’re here to…”

“Assert the cultural relevance of the Spring Blossom Holiday, yes. I was redirected here by a kind earth pony down at the market. She told me to look for Miss Cheerilee’s school, and I suppose you are that fabled Miss?”

“Oh my, you flatter me. So you are here to “assert the cultural relevance” of our small holiday?”

“Yes, the Canterlot’s Board of Cultural Preservation has recently taken an interest in these rural festivities, and since I’m a historian, I’m here to check out on them. I know this is sudden, Miss Cheerilee, but reliable sources have told me that there is also the active presence of foals in this holiday. I would like very much if I could speak to the precious little things before the race, just to hear from them what they really think about all this quaint shindig.”

“Why, yes of course, it would be my pleasure and the kids’ to help an Inspector from Canterlot!”

“Then, I’m sorry, but I have to take my leave, I have pressing matters before I attend to this momentous occasion! Ladies, I bid you goodbye!”

“Swift Thought, don’t dress too fancy!”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m sure my friend Pinkie will catch word that there’s a new pony in town, and she’ll certainly want to throw you a party! And trust me when I say her parties are something to behold and not for the faint-hearted.”

“Well, in that case I’ll be sure to be ready to taste the Ponyville hospitality!”
I smiled on my way out, even when they thought I couldn’t hear them.

“Twilight, do you know that charming stallion?”

“We were just classmates at the Royal University, I remembered him much more abrasive though…”

“You mean you never gave a thought about him? He’s such a looker! I wish I had-”

See?

That wasn’t so hard, right?

“Ok, one to ten, turning a rock into a singing rooster!” I asked merrily, while slumping on a bench in some quaint little park near the town square.

“I’d say a seven, eight top for the creative effort” Discord answered like I could picture a smirk on his nonexistent mismatched face.

“What have you done that was so much more chaotic that turning a rock into a rooster?” I said with a twinge of challenge in my voice.

“Oh m’boy, you are in for a TREAT. You see, there was this one time when- Ehi, ehi, don’t you dare go into a reverie while I’m talking to yo-“

But it was too late, for my mind was already crossing the boundaries of Discord’s lame reminisced shenanigans and was fixated on a sight I had forgotten in just a day’s absence. Those beautiful magenta eyes that looked like endless purple seas, the tasteful gray coat and smooth and silky looking pink mane!

“Eww, you’re starting to sound like a creep!”
It was that wonderful waitress, Inkie Pie. I got up and rushed forward to greet her. She seems lost in some deep thoughts, but as soon as her ears perked and her eyes turned to face me, a wonderful smile graced her muzzle.

“You know, you’re still in time to dump her and listen to a tragic story of forbidden love between a glass with a hole in it and sentient talking water. Not even going to answer me, right? Yeah, don’t mind this old man trying to pass his wisdom onto the younger generations!”

She waved at me, and I did the same, before stopping my light trotting right in front of her to greet her.

“Inkie! Such a pleasure to see you again” I said, smiling like an idiot.

“Feeling the same, Mister Thought. I thought you said you were staying in Ponyville just for the night?” She asked, still blushing a bit like our last encounter and avoiding eye contact.

“Just call me Swift… I actually miscalculated my day of arrival. I’m here for something Spring Bloom related, and that’s not happening until tonight. How about you, have you been able to meet up with your sister?” I asked, genuinely curious about her happenings.

“Oh yes. Pinkie is living with a wonderful couple near the market, and she said they allowed me to stay as long as I need to find another job! But… I couldn’t have done it without your help. Thank you…. Swift”

Her magenta pools were finally locked mine as she smiled again, and it wasn’t purely for show, but a sincere show of gratitude. A mad, stupid idea appeared like a lightning through my brain, and it got the attention of Discord that up till that every moment had been silent.

“Don’t Swiftie, we don’t have the time!”

“Say, you have anything planned for tonight?” I asked coyly. Her graceful smile turned almost instantly in a confused expression. I feared for the worst.

“Tonight?” She asked slowly. “Uhm… Why not?” She said with a small smile.

It felt nice not being rejected, at least this one time. I managed not to just start crying right there and said in a slow, controlled manner.

“Fantastic. How about we meet around 9 PM, in front of the inn?” I said, trying to keep my suave self afloat. It was hard to do when she kept staring at me with those beautiful eyes. They felt like they bore a hole through my skull, with a candy-cane drill sprinkled with happiness. Her mouth started moving, and it felt like eons had passed, eroding the very sands of time, before she finally said “Yes, sure. I’ll see you there, bye!” waved at me and happily trotted away.

“Eroding the very sands of time? Just what in Tartarus is your problem, Swift? Did you leave your ‘love means never having to say you’re sorry’ at home? I think I’m going to gag. And after I said not once, twice, but three times that we’re short on time! How do you expect to go on a date with her when we have to the Windigoes? The Windigoes, Swiftie, THE WINDIGOES!”

Had he always been this annoying?

“Just relax, ok? I’m said 9 PM for a reason: I get to the festival at 8, find the two foals we’re looking for, you convince them to join our side for 8.45, I go back to the Inn to pick up my beautiful date, spend a wonderful evening talking and perhaps something more, then tomorrow we just roll out of town at daybreak. Simple, easy, perfect.”I said while nodding convincingly. The evening was already showing itself in my head, a torrent of tender, sweet moments with Inkie.

“You’re really confident in your negotiation skills, m’boy. Do you really think you’re going to convince Achrann and Eagla to join us in just 45 minutes?”

“What? You’re the god here, I’m just a lowly mortal! You even said that you and Eagle were an item eons ago!”

“Yeah… About that… In my defense, the Dragon Goddess of Fertility can be veeeeery enticing, and Eagla may or may have not found me with her doing… you know… on an altar. Her altar. In her sacred city. In her most hallowed day. I swear it wasn’t intentional!”

Deep breaths, I repeated to myself. Deep, long breaths. I had signed up for this. I knew the risks. I knew what I was getting in my head: a crazy chaos god who happens to be a compulsive liar. It was all part of the game, I said to myself. You’re going to be fine, I said. Just leave Discord out of the equation, mention him en passant and you’ll be fine. Someone noticed my distraught face and my poorly attempt at not hyperventilating, because I felt a gentle voice and a light touch pushing me towards a bench in the park.

“You all right? You look a little pale, mister. Stay here and I’ll call some help.”

Discord was still blabbering away, muffled chatter that couldn’t possibly assuage my fears. I was supposed to convince the most hateful and spiteful creatures in existence to work for me. And all in a couple of minutes. It took me a while to mentally process everything I was supposed to do, and how exactly could you use the task I was just given by the Chaos God as the new definition of ‘straight up impossible’, but after a couple of minutes I thought I had finally calmed down. That’s when a flyer smacked right on my muzzle. On it there a was stylized drawing of a blue alicorn, and it read:

GREETINGS DEAREST SUBJECTS

‘TIS WITH GREAT JOY THAT WE, PRINCESS LUNA
DECIDE TO OFFICIALLY ENDORSE THE SPRING BLOOM FESTIVITY OF THE QUAINT PONYVILLE
WE WILL BE MAKING AN APPEARANCE AS SOON AS THE CELEBRATIONS BEGIN AND WE’RE
SUR-

THOMF

“Swiftie? Swiftie? Oh dear, I think he just passed out.”

Duibhne was happy, she truly was. Chagan always said to never desire more than your lot in life, and she was perfectly happy with being a scavenger. The village loved their scavengers, they were the ones that brought back the relics of the Arkhé, and even if Chagan was the official shaman, without sacred materials he was as powerless as the next mundane pony when it came to the Arkhé. So, Duibhne was content with her fate, satisfied with the task that was weighing on her back, and relieved that she was capable of living up to the expectations of her tribe. As she trotted down the trodden mud path, passing by the crude huts that they managed to build with their mouths and hooves, and over to the beach, where the sand was caressing her hooves and the sun was setting, bathing in an incandescent red hue. She slowly walked up to the water, that kept going forward and backward, in a sweet motion that hypnotized and entranced her. That’s when she heard a familiar voice calling her:

“Duibhne! Duibhne!” The voice was getting nearer, and was carrying an impatient but eager feel.

“I’m here, Daron!” The mare turned around to wave at a slender stallion that was running towards her. She smiled at the sight of her companion huffing to reach her while his hooves were sinking in the silky white sand. He finally reached her, stopped, and tried to regain a composure, suppressing his own ragged breathing scheme.

“Chagan has begun the divination with the last relic you brought from the Sacred Grounds! You surely don’t want to miss it, right?” He asked her expectantly.

She got closer and nuzzled him sweetly on the cheek, then smiled with a radiance that rivaled that of the setting sun.

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world, my love. Let’s go!” And they started trotting towards the biggest and flashiest hut of the village: it was right at the center of the clearing, and it was draped with red and black patches of silk, as it was custom when the shaman was in deep divination, to speak with the Arkhé. A small crowd had already gathered outside, but they respectfully made way to the scavenger of the village and her companion when they saw them. They entered just to see an old unicorn stallion, with an incredibly long beard but eyes as lively and luminous as stars intently staring on a black piece of godly material, shaped at an angle. The same Duibhne remembered finding in the Sacred Grounds. He darted up when he heard the ponies inside making space for the couple, and his wrinkly muzzle was adorned with a warm smile.

“Duibhne, Daron! Such a pleasure to see you! Come, come, it’s your merit only if we have access to such holy artifacts! I was just beginning the divination, please, take a sit.” He gestured to two free cushions he probably placed for them in advance. The two sat down and waited for the magic to kick in.

Chagan picked up the relic with his telekinesis and inspected it thoroughly with his twinkling eyes, and prodded every surface with his magic grip-

A loud noise muted everything, and a flash blinded everyone. Chagan was on the ground and there was blood on the floor and flowing out of the wound that had just appeared on the left foreleg he was now desperately clutching. Silence fell into the room like a woolen cape, muffling everything.

Before Duibhne and Daron could get up to help him, he shot a look of hate and contempt to the mare, and yelled at the top of his lungs:

“YOU TRAITOR! You didn’t bring us a most sacred relic, but a tool of the Dark One! You struck a deal with him, to kill me and then take my place as the head shaman of this village!” He tried to stomp his hoof down in rage, only to feel a bolt of pain through his foreleg.

Duibhne bolted up and so did Daron, trying to defend her lover:

“Chagan, I would never! I-I d-don’t know how it happened, but it was in the Sacred Grounds! It is a relic!”. Could she really have picked up a Zaban, a demonic artifact? She didn’t remember anything that felt suspicious about those Sacred Grounds: they were the same she always went when looking for relics.

“Yeah Shaman, Duibhne would never do something so devious and evil! You’ve known her for so many years-“Daron tried to speak for the now stunned mare, but Chagan interrupted him.

“ENOUGH! She’s the Scavenger, she’s the next in line to be shaman, she just couldn’t wait! You all saw what happened! A relic from the Arkhé would never hurt a pony, much less a shaman! Guards, restrain her!” He yelled at the two hulking unicorn stallions beside him, who immediately incased Duibhne in a vice magical grip she couldn’t hope to break. Daron tried to stop them and lunged at the two unicorns, but was immediately tackled down by another earth pony that appeared from behind a curtain. He kept thrashing and screaming that she was innocent, that he wanted to take her place, that it was his fault, but Chagan eyes were fixated upon the calm-looking mare.

Duibhne knew what awaited her for bringing something that was made by the Dark one. The worst punishment imaginable. Yet, she was perfectly calm on the outside. A quiet chaos stirred inside her. The certainty of the punishment she was about to receive was strangely comforting, in some way. While she was dragged out by the magical grip, through a deafening silence, and storms of ponies she had known for all her life, ponies that wouldn’t even dare to raise a word in her defense, she turned her head to face her love one last time and heard him say: “STOP IT SHE’S PREGNA-“ before the thick, festive red cloth cut his voice off and hid his desperate face from her sight, a face she never saw again.

The boat is sinking, a whale of timber descending into the darkness of the ocean. There’s a hole in the hull, and it’s painful to see: it’s an open wound spewing forth torrents of black, cold, salty blood. She was sleeping in the only cabin when he heard a screech of wood against stone, and it shook everything. It wasn’t even a real boat, just a conical platform that caressed the sea and slowly drifted under the scorching sun and the uncaring moon for endless months. Those months piled up like rocks in an avalanche, and invested her slowly and painfully, crushing every limb in her body and her very soul. She didn’t even remember why she was here, going on about on the sea: there was a village, long ago, and huts. It was peaceful, and dull, and every day was the same as the one that came before. Then, something happened, and it was gone. There were screams, someone grabbed her and judged her, for crimes she didn’t remember, she was shoved, and pushed, and pointed at, and she was wished death, slow and painful, and now there was the boat. She felt like the only thing really important was the boat, now. Her crime, whatever it was, seemed something that happened in another century, to another mare, condemned too long ago. She remembered only bits and pieces, words that she couldn’t even understand, “everlasting”, “curse”, “life”. What it meant? Life was the boat, and the sun shining above, and the moon and the stars. She liked the sun the best, it was always warm for her, and she thanked it every day. There was water, plenty to drink, all around her. And she didn’t feel hungry, never. There was always something to do while on the boat: stare at the waves, splash her hooves, and look at the sun. It was always a pity when it dived under the horizon and disappeared under the everlasting sea, showering it with golden tints of orange and lily. The sun was truly the greatest, most outstanding work of the gods: it was always tepid, hugging her body in a sweet embrace of heat. A titanic friendly eye always overlooking her. She wanted it, all for herself. She wanted to ask the goddess of the sun to give it to her, but she was silent to her prayers.

Now the water is touching her hooves, and her belly. She hears a kick from her inflated abdomen; it’s awake. It’s kicking her from the inside. She wake up, and it’s night, and the cold blood of the sea is investing her, and making her dizzy. The water was rushing in, covering her drifting abode of wood in darkness and freeze. She scrambled about, panicked, trying to find a way to seal the hole, the open wound festering her moving life. The broken timber wouldn’t stop the water, it was too big. There was a piece of something, round and jagged at the side. It was sharp, and cold, and lifeless. It didn’t feel like wood, and was embedded in the hole, like a knife deep into open, bleeding flesh. She realized this piece of strange shiny coldness was what caused the hull to breach: without thinking straight, she hurled it out, and looked at it, while the boat slowly was slowly sinking in the ocean. There were strange marks, strange signs she remembered: the signs of the gods, apocripha. She forced herself to remember how to interpret them: there was someone in her memory telling her about how the gods spelled words with signs that meant sounds, and those sounds were organized and studied by the shaman. He knew how to talk to the gods, how to unlock the forgotten knowledge of the relics that were scattered around the village. On the piece of godly origin (evidently, it was a material so shiny and hard she couldn’t think any other apart from the gods could have made one) there was impressed something in ruined, scraped letters:

children and fools, they killed and feasted on
the cattle of Lord Hêlios, the Sun,
and he who moves all day through the celestial orb
took from their eyes the dawn of their return. . . .

Equestrian Gods

by Teh_Zodiac

I - Enjoy the silence

II - Vivid bit

III - Pacific state

IV - Blue Monday