Of Statues and Puppets
No matter how long he moved about, he still felt the aching pains in his joints. There was always that nagging feeling in each of his arms and legs, even in the little bones that composed his tail. Nothing could quell his pains, even if he took to the air and stretched his body to its fullest extent; she, of course, was the only one who saw it in him. She, the unswayable one, saw the only lost fragment of harmony in his chaotic body, and how much pain he was really in after it all. Lost in whirlpools of disorder and social misunderstanding, she was always there to tell him that he wasn’t a lost cause. Unlike those others. How he hated then so; their constant myopic slander towards his noble efforts. They’ll never understand, no matter how much that royal hypnotist wants to keep recycling excuses.
Yes, he was terrible in the past, and he can see that now. But they sure can’t! They’re too busy being stuck in the past, worrying about a relapse. After everything he did for them, he still couldn’t help but find it a little sad…
Harmony isn’t an eternal plight; it’s just like the Sun and Moon. One must set, while another begins. Eras work as days, and now he fears that the world may be without a frightening, confused, and yet beautiful, night. The eve of prosperity harkens my coming, but it’s almost like She wanted to remain as the ruler over the Moon. The Sun controlling the Moon? What idiocy!
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It was as normal a day as he could call it; the sun was out, a few clouds littered the expansive blue sky, and his joints still hurt to no end. The mismatched wings behind his long body flexed in painful disuse, almost trying to remain in the one spot they’d always been in. He hated that about himself; there was nothing he could do to stop it. Time was cruel like that; he was old now. Old and a bit nutty. And yet nopony wanted to take that into account. Not even his blatant misunderstanding of “normal” conversation gave away what the real problem was in his life.
He was lonely. Friendless.
His only friend for the longest time was his magic; every snap of his fingers created a new wonder for him to laugh at. It certainly helped him get on his feet and pursue the goodness that he was forced to abide by. But even then, it couldn’t keep his laughter going forever, even if he had all the time he needed to return to his original state. But, he disregarded that idea; he knew that that would only guarantee him more time in his stony prison.
He leapt into the air, flying upon his mismatched wings, and he looked down at the world underneath him. Ponyville. “Ah, what memories…” he muttered. Fleeting images of his past visit shot through his mind at a rapid pace; the chocolate milk, the comfy throne, the checkerboard patterns that littered his surprisingly untapped psyche. It was a world built on the foundation of nothing sturdy. Then she came. She and the rest of her overconfident friends.
The mere thought disgusted him, and flying over the Ponyville Library didn’t help him at all. There was something about the mare that lived inside those hallowed walls that made him angry; he could only remember that smug look on Celestia’s face when She handed him the rest of his life. She delivered his entire world from then on, to the end of time, in a single sentence:
“You will use your magic for good, or you will be frozen in stone forever.”
Looking down at that purple mare’s home made him want to burn it to the ground. She was nothing more than a puppet controlled by Celestia’s strings. The Sun’s advocate. If he swooped down and did away with her now, there would be no more Elements of Harmony; their conductor would be gone! And yet…
There was no sport in it. In his mind, cold-blooded murder was nothing more than a coward’s solution. He was defeated by her fair and square, and shouldn’t stoop so low. Reputation stays forever, and he would need all that time to make up for what he did. He flapped harder, and his snakelike body slowly flew past the Ponyville Library.
He sighed, his gaze searching the cyan sky until it rested on the purple mountain miles from Ponyville. Upon its side sat a white metropolis, radiating with raw power and sophistication. Canterlot. What a lovely city, it was; sparkling with gold and gems, emanating the ultimate power in the lands. She sat upon Her throne in the highest pinnacle of that glorious city, and gazed down upon Her subjects like the omnipresent ball of fire She stood for. His gaze became slightly angered; She had no business in dictating his life. Her only threat was turning him to stone, and then slandering his name behind his back, unable to stand up for himself. She was cowardly. She and Her sister.
“What a couple of bores.” A couple of bores was all he could really call them. He wasn’t a fan of living by their oppressive, harmonious ways. What fun was there in doing the same thing day in and day out? With each cycle of the Sun and Moon, it was as if everypony were puppets being controlled by those alicorn puppeteers. But not him. He wanted to live life as a carefree spirit, having fun and not caring for what he had done. But why? For the same reason he had for everything else.
He was immortal.
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It was a few hours’ worth of flying, only continuously adding to his wings’ soreness, before he finally arrived in that lovely white metropolis he hated. The ponies on the ground were terrified, running into their homes as the anomalous being that was his body cast its elongated shadow over the streets. He uttered a chuckle of pathetic sympathy. “She must have forgotten to tell them the news.” Omission wasn’t going to help his acceptance to everypony, and that feeling would certainly be mutual. It’s sad, really; what would a Princess do if she surrendered Her war against the thing She most contradicted? She would lose followers, obviously. And She would care; she’d care way too much! She really was the teacher of that purple dictator She called Her student.
Down below the his long draconequus body laid a bushy series of hedges, arranged in a twisting maze. His old hunting grounds. The Canterlot Sculpture Garden.
As he looked over the expansive hedge maze that occupied the majority of the Garden, he couldn’t help but feel the slightest pang of nostalgia. He remembered throwing those six ponies into the maze and locking the exits. He remembered slowly draining their hopes of a harmonious future, and following his idea of instantaneous anarchy. He remembered her. The yellow one. She was the only one who resisted his mind games, and for the first time, he stepped out of line. He diverted from his fun and had to bend to this mare’s psychosis. She was so…accepting of everything. She had no voice against him; she had no controlling voice to defy his twisting logic. It annoyed him to no end at first, but that was before all of this. Before he’d seen the submission from Her. And before he learned friendship from her.
Touching down softly on his two uneven legs, one scaly and one equine, his yellow eyes drifted to each statue in the garden. The three foals in foolhardy balance, the warriors that emanated valor, and the worst of them all; his pedestal. A stone cube imprinted with a small caption for everypony to read.
“Discord. Species: Draconequus. Primordial ruler of the Chaotic/Pre-Celestial Era.”
Primordial, it read. He leaned back to laugh and wipe a tear from his eyes. Those Princesses had the nerve to inscribe something so false. It really made him angry deep down, but it was drowned by the ocean of disbelief he felt. Something inside him only made him want to laugh, and laugh he did.
“What kind of filth are those two teaching these ponies?” He muttered, looking around at the Sculpture Garden with interested eyes. He’d never seen the Garden at this angle; that is, at a humble viewer’s angle. He took a moment to rest, strolling about in the Statue Garden and admiring the artists’ works at their finest. “It takes a lot to get art in this garden…” He muttered, staring intently at the trio of foals, eternally stuck with their smiling faces and skillful balance. Just the sight of these statues disgusted him; what if there were foals trapped beneath the surface of this stone? He pondered that, sending a slight chill down his long spine.
What if those three foals were really crying beneath the surface? Had they ever fought in their eternal prison? Maybe they were still the best of friends, or quite possibly the worst of enemies. For some reason, he agreed with the second idea; being stuck with somepony for too long would certainly drive them all crazy, and their claustrophobic environment wouldn’t help. What if the one on the bottom hated her two friends that weighed her down, pushing her frail body into the pedestal? And to make it worse, she stood on her hands to support herself; she appeared to be in a very uncomfortable position altogether. He scoffed; THIS statue symbolized friendship?
“You may know the story of the statue, but you’ll never know the statue’s story.” He muttered to himself. And how could that not be true? He was seen as chaotic and dangerous, the evil king that sent Equestria into near-eternal chaos! And yet…here he was now, changing his ways for the better. History had become hypocritical to him, and he felt for that foal on the bottom of the statue. She smiled, but only did because she was told to. She was crafted this way. Those blank white eyes staring out into space, her mouth curled into a toothless smile…but for what? Friendship, or the sight of her once-stony savior?
For reasons untold, this seemed to bother him. Not that he wished to become one of them again, but…he felt sympathetic for these statues, maybe even a little spoiled. Why would the Princess keep these terrible statues in her garden, even if he was the only one to see their dark side? Anypony else would be able to see it if they understood what he saw. Understood his viewpoint, at the very least.
But nopony would ever understand, and he knew it better than anypony else. The pains in his joints began to act up again, and he felt his chest start to contract a bit. He was feeling some cramps all over his body; it seemed like the second escape from his stone imprisonment was not kind to his body. He found himself just sitting on the ground, looking around at the statues around him, but keeping the statue of the three foals in the corner of his vision. As he sat there, his surrender to Her popped up in his mind, punctuating the hypocrisy that had tainted his mind. The yellow one; she did this to him. She destroyed his carefree life, and in the process, enlightened him to the world. She had torn down the walls of his inner hatred and confusion to reveal the sunlight of harmony. And yet…why? To give him another chance? To benefit the rest of her kind? He didn’t know!
But, he turned back to the three-foal statue, and he smiled. He remembered back to the yellow one and his time in her home. “What a mess I made there…” She was so considerate, almost never raising her voice to his blatant ignorance. She knew that he was different, and didn’t stop to try and reform him. With every new way his random magic pestered her, she had more of a reason to help me. There was bottomless hope in her eyes, and bottomless optimism in his eyes; the only thing in the way was his deranged personality.
Even after almost destroying her friend’s home, she never turned her back on me; she even turned away from her five friends. Just the idea; an Element abandoning the rest to support him! Some call it treason; he knew that her friends thought that at first. But he knew exactly what she was thinking, and knew that she gave him everything he needed to surrender.
She gave him support. Hope.
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For the longest time, he sat there, under the starry skies, just staring at the three-foal statue, and realizing his place in this wide, crazy, harmonious society. That bottom foal, the one with the indecisive grin, was Her. The Princess, giving her support to the yellow one, who stood in the middle. And on top was him. He was above all others, finally understanding the feeling of acceptance. Those lifeless eyes, carved into each of the three foals, stared out into the moonlit sky, watching every day pass before them. And no matter what, those grins of theirs never faded. With every new cycle of Sun and Moon, watching years upon years, eras upon eras, fly by their stony bodies. He just sat there, substituting the three foals’ bodies with the three he envisioned. He could see Celestia supporting her on her back, and finally showing him up top, smiling with joy. A few tears formed in his eyes. Everything that She did built to this moment, the moment when he would finally become complete and fit into society. It was her plan all along…
Suddenly, he growled. It was her plan all along; using her and destroying the identity that he once held dear. All those times he was happy with his magic, and they were all for nothing! Angered, he wheeled around and snapped his fingers, targeting the three-foal statue. In a flash of light, the statue just exploded; there was no creative flare or comedic payoff; just pure destruction. Shards of stone flew across his field of vision, some of them colliding with other statues. His expression didn’t shift in the slightest; he only kept his angered expression. He wanted to destroy more; he wanted to tear everything and everypony down!
“No! This isn’t me. Not anymore…” He started talking to himself. “You’re not evil anymore…Yes you are! Nothing’s changed!” He battled with himself; nopony was around to listen to his crazy ramblings. “You’re still the same draconequus!...But you’ve been changed by her…She’s a scared little nopony!” He growled, and snapped his fingers again. In a flash, he was above the Sculpture Garden, silhouetted by the moon’s glow. His joints were aching to no end, and his confusion wrapped around his mind, winding like the hedge maze that he once abused.
“Look at all these statues! Did they ask for this?...Of course not, but…Exactly! You are the lucky one; the one the Princess wanted to exploit!...She saw hope in me!...She saw only power in you, and sought to use your immortality!”
His legs and tail tensed up, starting to burn his sides and travel up his body…
“Do you honestly think you have friends? A friend, for that matter? That sniveling yellow pegasus was nothing more than a puppet! And if she opposed her master, then she would end up here! She’d be a statue, a pinnacle of treason!”
His arms tensed up in pain…
“Do you know the difference between a puppet and a statue? The strings; anypony can make a statue, but a puppet is harder. A pony that can take full control of you, take you under their influence, drill deep into their psyches and tell them that everything they knew was false; that’s what separates ponies like you and everypony else!”
A headache developed, and his eyes started to droop, as well as his wings…
“You’ve lost your touch, you old failure! You were once the master puppeteer, and just look at yourself now; your strings are pulled by a lowly commoner!”
His wings snapped shut, and his body fell. He screamed in absolute pain, falling to the ground and landing with a dull thud upon the soft grass. As he lay there, he felt the support that he once felt topple, and fall to the earth. And with it, his own strings were snipped apart…
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He awoke several hours later, his aches gone, save for a pounding headache. He sat up, rubbing his forehead. The Sculpture Garden looked the same; the three-foal statue was still in rubble, spread about the anarchic garden. His anger had dissipated as he raised his head, looking out from the destruction and seeing a most beautiful sight.
Sunrise had begun over Canterlot. It was as slow as ever, and yet, it felt so cleansing. He felt the shadowy demons of his past self burn in the inviting warmth of the impending day. He sighed. “Perhaps I can be happy with my new life. I’m not just some mindless puppet anymore, and I’m not a useless statue either.” And he was right; as the sun rose, and Her magic radiated around the massive sphere of her absolute dominance, he could start to feel the real warmth it let out. It was a comfortable feeling of…what was he feeling? Something cozy, something that healed his wounds as he slept after his brief outburst. He turned his head and snapped his fingers. In the duration of his finger’s snap, the pieces of the broken statue reassembled, and those three foals stood together once again. However, there were differences in them. They were no longer a trio of Earth ponies; the bottom foal was an alicorn, the middle foal was a pegasus, and finally, the top pony was no longer a pony. It was a draconequus. He smiled.
“They stood firm for me, and they aided me; they didn’t force me. I’m not a puppet, and their not puppeteers…” He turned to face his finished work, tears in his eyes.
“They’re my friends.”