PROLOGUE
Praedicta saw All.
Her bright, silver eyes saw across the cosmos. Every star, every rock, every planet.
Every evil. Every dot in the pattern.
She saw the world. Both worlds, yet the same. Mirrors of each other. One she viewed with pride and fulfillment. The other with shame and indignity. The former, a world populated by creatures of her own image, that walked upon the ground with four legs, or flew with wings, and existed in harmony with each other. The latter, a world home to beings that strode upright on two legs, or in machines of their own make; a world rife with evil and chaos. But yet, even on this world she caught glimpses of harmony, and it gave her hope for the humans of the world. Small acts of love and compassion.
“Aren’t these humans marvelous?” A... rather different voice answered. A voice made of chocolate and sand paper, of broken glass and smoothest honey. Here was something different, thought he. A land ruled by creativity, and cruelty, forged together like a metal, alloyed to build the land itself up. Through chaos, they lived, building order and promoting more chaos, more entropy. More everything he ever cared for. A world rife with purity and chaos. Good and Chaotic, these humans were...
That was to say nothing of what he thought about the world that the ponies ruled.
This, of course, was a matter of conflict. “Aren’t these humans so... purely marvelous? So much better than those ponies... Though I must say, my chosen people, the griffons, are doing quite well.”
The alicorn sighed softly as the harsh voice reached her ears. Griffons were a race not of her own make. A chaotic and animalistic culture, the feline avians had plunged their whole race into the depths of war, though only a border away lie the ponies, with their order and peace. Praedicta thought even less of the griffons than she did of the humans.
Tumult let out a low laugh. Here, among the stars, he would have his proof. “Chaos... is so delightful. It’s so... forgiving. It’s unrestrained, unrefined. It’s freedom, my dear alicorn, and I see that you have forgotten exactly what freedom means.”
“Freedom is a catalyst for destruction,” she argued to the draconequus beside her. “Too much freedom in choice leads to too many wrong choices. Too many mistakes. Order prevents those choices from being made. From ever being possible. Begone with you, grotesque demon.”
“We’ve argued this many a time.” The draconequus sighed. “Now, let’s have a game. I let you clear up a bit of this so called ‘wretched’ chaos you so hate, and all you have to do is let me do the same. Clearing chaos.” He had a lazy smirk to his face.
Praedicta pondered the suggestion put down by Tumult. Perhaps he was correct. A game of chaos and order would best determine the better. “I accept your challenge, chaotic one,” she voiced. “However, I wish not for the world of ponies and griffons to be our playing field. I propose this instead: Equestria is the goal, not the field. Let us use the humans as pieces. Earth as our chessboard. Victorious humans shall be granted a new life on another world. A just reward for their service, wouldn’t you say?”
He didn’t really think that was a justified reward, but regardless, he would accept.
“Alright.” He began, the stars shimmering around her as he laid out his plan.
Pony
My eyes opened.
I looked around the room. Warm sunlight filtered through the window. A bedroom, simple queen-sized bed, a few colorful posters of pastel ponies, a vanity, and a desk, at which I was sitting. On the desk was my laptop, with an internet page open. A SoundCloud page for a song that was blaring through my HD headset. Smile Smile Smile - Alex S Remix was the title. One of my favorite My Little Pony fan songs.
But the sound playing through the headphone speakers was definitely not the original song. I had listened to it enough time where I had memorized the tune and every layer in it. This was... changed, somehow, but I couldn’t tell what. It sounded like the same song, with all the correct layers, but there was something different about it, like another layer had been added beneath it. But as hard as I listened, I couldn’t make it out. It felt as if my mind didn’t comprehend, or didn’t allow me to distinguish it. I strain harder, trying to concentrate solely on the
alien sound...
“Aah!” I cried out suddenly as my wrist began to burn. It was more in surprise than in pain; an intense yet numb prickling sensation, not unlike the feeling I get in my legs when I sit the wrong way too long. I grasped at the site, the music still playing into my ears.
Then I heard it. The difference in the song. It was a crisp, soothing bell melody, or a harp. My heartbeat slowed as it’s calming tune dulled my thoughts. The feeling on my wrist was forgotten, the song blotted out by the ensnaring sound. It was beautiful, like nothing I’ve ever heard; nothing I’ve ever experienced. I heard it whispering to me, in the language of melodious chimes, but I cared not for what it said. All I needed was that sweet, fulfilling sound. No amount of telling or describing could recreate it. No amount of words could possibly define it.
No, wait... there was one word. One very beautiful word. One perfect, entrancing, beautiful word...
I muttered it. As softly,as I could, so I did not disrupt the sound. ”...HARMONY...”
Reality hit. My trance snapped.
I could tell something was wrong from the moment I came to. Or rather, not wrong, but different. Not the way it was before. All around me, I felt an... energy. It was a flowing, radiant, invisible force, omnipresent and almost tangible. I looked around, feeling it ebb through and around everything, leaving it pure and locatable in space. It ran through my veins, through my heart and mind, giving me a heightened feeling of spirit and clarity of thought.
It was thrilling. Mindblowing. Intoxicating. Like a second nature to me; as if it had always been there, and only now was my being truly open and aware of its majesty. So wonderful was this energy, it couldn’t possibly be anything except magic. I wanted to reach out and stroke the river of nonexistence, use it to bend and control the world around me to my will. In wishful thought, I reached out my arms.
I had completely forgotten the spot on my arm that had burned with the harmony-sound. Blinking my eyes, I stared at the spot, a point on the inside of my wrist, just below my hand.
On that exact spot was the image of a blue spiral galaxy, with a violet heart at its core, branded to my skin like a tattoo that was too real to be one.
Somehow, in my mind, I knew what it was, without thought nor ponder.
It was my cutie mark.
Griffon
My eyes shut.
I took a long breath, holding back the frustration that just seemed to beg for me to release. Practiced self restraint tickled like a school of fish trying to swarm through.
My eyes opened and they nervously flicked through my room. There were a few posters of bands I had never listened to, a few indents in the wall from past experiences with punching... On my desk was a laptop with a pair of battered and probably beaten speakers that just barely hummed with a bit of Beethoven.
Therein lay my frustration. The speakers, no matter what I did, weren’t sounding right. They were wrong, muffled, distorted. They were just... there was something wrong with them, and I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me. “Grrrr...” I growled under my breath. Yeah, I growled under my breath, you got something against that? Better not.
I let it rumble in the back of my throat and shut my eyes again to try and pretend that it was all working and that I didn’t have better things to do besides just messing around with a sound system that was more than five years old and had more shorts in the cable than I had shorts in my clothes drawers.
The worse thing, besides the fact I still had to do my homework that was due the next day and I hadn’t paid attention to the instructions in class, was that the sound was off just enough that it set my teeth on edge and I had to make a clear forced effort to not grind it to the beat.
“Grah...” Eh... Despite the... offness of the music... I could do homework to it well enough.
So that’s how I found myself doing calculus homework to the sound of classical music while my head exploded out with the pain of a full blown migraine.
It was... the music was distorted, dang it. It was... like there was a layer beneath a layer, like the song was just a medium for a message... Like a message within a message... Like there was something more to the song than normally and it was driving me near mad.
“Grrr...” I growled again. My eyes were watering. Tears trickled down my face. Gah! What was it now? I was three bloody problems into the homework.
“Stupid computer. Stupid speakers. Stupid homework.” Then I stopped for a long second. The music... It had an under tone... Like a violin. Like a violin hitting an eerie melody that I didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, what was IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND... just yet. I had... things to do if I wanted to understand.... I had...
No.. Shut up! “SHUT UP!”
My headache cleared up, evaporating away instantly. Instead, it was replaced with a sudden, blinding pain coming from my eyes, like light was pouring forth from it in it’s purest form. I lashed out, trying to stop the noise that just had to be linked to it. My fist met my right speaker with a resounding thwack and I smelled a bit of blood in the air while the speaker his the wall with a loud thud. I went still, the room dark. I panicked for a few moments, unable to see a damn thing before I started to blink frantically. Everything smelled like blood, and my heart felt like it was trying to break free from its restraints...
My eyes opened.
The world changed.
A single word described it for a brief moment that just flicked through the air like the sun dappling a tree leaf.
Like a dying breath, I managed to whisper it. “...chaos...”
“CHAOS!”
Reality struck.
I could feel that something was right... Horribly, perfectly, DREADFULLY right.
Oh... It felt great...
I knocked my glasses that I had left on my face off and let them hit the ground with a soft, carpeted thud.
I could see without my glasses.
The world was clear, crisp. It was not the same as it was. And I loved it.
I could hear my heart beating. It was a good noise. It was clear, crisp.
My footing was unsteady. It was hard to walk for a long time, but I managed it. I lumbered over to the mirror that was hung on the back of my bedroom door and stared at my tear stained face.
My eyes were yellow. Alien. Foreign. They were... not the chocolate brown I remembered them as. They were slitted, they were...
They were better.
Pony
“Marcy?”
I startled at the sound of my mom’s voice, distracted by the energy flowing around me. Oh no... no no no no... I looked down at the heart-emblazoned galaxy on my wrist. If she sees me with this, she’ll think I got a tattoo! She’ll flip for sure! Of course, I knew it wasn’t inked, but part of my skin. But she didn’t know that.
My family was extremely strict about a lot of things. Curfew, boyfriends, piercings... Because I lived under their roof, I had to follow their rules, and conform to their standards. I couldn’t even wear a skirt that came above my knees. If they discovered something that even remotely resembles a tattoo, they would have my head.
“Marcella Jenny Knight, you’d better be dressed when I get up there!”
I looked around, trying to find something I could use to conceal my cutie mark. Gloves? no, that was way too obvious. Maybe something with long sleeves. Running over to my dresser, I rummaged through the drawer for something with long enough sleeves.
My mom walked into the room just as I pulled a teal jacket over my shoulders. The sleeves extended past my wrist, perfectly concealing the cutie mark. “Oh, good. You’re up,” Mom smiled at me. I smiled back. “Breakfast is ready. Hurry up before it gets cold.”
“I’ll be right down.”
She gave a nod and left. As soon as the door closed, I rolled up my sleeves to look at the mark again. Its meaning was entirely lost on me. I knew, somehow, that this cutie mark was mine and mine alone. But what did it represent? What special talent could I possibly have?
A low growl rumbled from my stomach. Breakfast first, soul-searching later, I decided. Hiding the cutie mark from sight again, I made my way downstairs toward the smell of pancakes.
“Do you always have to wear tee-shirts with ponies on them?” Rebecca asked incredulously, staring at my butter-yellow Fluttershy tee beneath my teal jacket. “Aren’t you, like, six years too old for that stuff?”
I sighed. Rebecca may have been one of my best friends, but she was also one of the ‘in crowd.’ Typical, gossiping, conforming Rebecca. “As soon as MLP stops being the greatest show ever, I’ll stop obsessing over it,” I replied snidely. “Besides, who are you to tell me what to like and what not to like? It’s my life.”
“I’m not telling you what to like, Marcy,” she laughed. “I’m just telling you that what you like is weird.”
With a frown, I bit my lip. Becca wasn’t usually this irritating about my pony obsession, and I, for some odd reason, was more put-off by it than usual. Instead of starting an argument with her, I turned my focus on the ever-present energy. I felt it flow around myself and Rebecca, stirring with every movement. It had a sort of calming effect, like thinking about it took the edge off my anger.
With my mind more pensive, I began to think more about that harmonious sound I heard, and the strange changes that came with it; my cutie mark and the ability to sense the invisible energy flow. It was odd, and I probably should have been more worried about it, but my mind didn’t really accept any danger behind these events. Like it refused to see any severe downside to it. The more I tried to ponder it, the more my mind blocked me from doing so.
Suddenly, I didn’t care. I stopped thinking about it on a whim, and didn’t question it. I didn’t even question why I stopped. So I shrugged at myself and continued alongside Rebecca to the school.
Gryphon
“Seth?” Yeah. That’s my name. And you BETTER not have a problem with it.
I didn’t startle at the sound so much so that I felt a little shiver of trepidation slither down my spine. Keenly, and realizing that whatever had happened to me would not be taken as easily by my father as it did by me, I slid over to my bed and slid my now almost completely useless glasses right back where they were before. I could just look over the frames. I had experience from years of not cleaning them when I should’ve.
My mother was out of town for the time being... another business meeting over in California. My mom worked in a neurotoxin factory. That is, she worked in a pesticide plant, and she was taking part in a series of suggestion boards on how to improve safety for the workers who seemed to delight in being the exact opposite of safe as they worked around vats full of liquid death.
Now... If I was lucky, my father wouldn’t come into my room and I wouldn’t have to explain the whole... eye issue.
I heard him shuffle up the stairs- I lived on the second floor practically- and I managed to muffle a sigh of relief when he didn’t decide to launch on a tirade about how I needed to have the house cleaned by the time my mother returned in a week or a tirade on how I needed to mow the lawn or how “Dammit Seth. You still haven’t done the dish washer.”
Frick. I always forget something with him. “Yeah, dad. I’ll get on it shortly.”
“You always say that.”
“And I always get it done eventually.”
He let out an aggravated noise and stomped down the stairs. I let out a sigh of relief following that and... didn’t do much more for a long time.
Well, I finished up the most of my calculus and stared at my eyes, my new beautiful, perfect eyes...
Well. Needed to hide this. Others wouldn’t understand the pure perfection.
Grudgingly, I found a pair of sunglasses and put them on.
And then the smell of sausage filled the air. Whaddya know? My dad was actually making breakfast for once.
My dad was a rather young looking man. At the ripe age of 48, he looked like he was 28, if he shaved off the pepper salt beard and stashe combo that he was growing as of late. It was the only thing that betrayed his advanced age...
Maybe I was being a little harsh. He was trying his best, and he was trying to make up for mom never being around, and it wasn’t his fault I was less than sociable as of late.
I was less than sociable during the school. I spent the most of it not talking to many people, or not even paying attention to most people. I guess... I guess you can call me a loner by nature. I just never really connected with most people, never saw the point to it.
Which made it all the easier, apparently, for nobody to ever look me in the eyes. I mean, wow. I managed to get through essentially half my classes before I really realized that nobody was noticing my eyes being ever so slightly (Or not so ever so slightly) different. Classes went smoothly, that is, until Lunch. The most of class, I sat listlessly in my corner, doing my own work and keeping my head down.
Wasn’t that hard... I only had a few friends and I didn’t have a period with them until Lunch.
Pony || Griffon
“Hey, Seth. Nice shades,” Marcella commented to her friend, sitting next to him at the lunch table. She felt surprisingly chipper, a result of having a smooth ride through her morning classes and the feeling of the energy around her. She felt uncharacteristically alive and grateful for it.
“Yeah yeah. Eyes are a little sensitive today. Nice long sleeves before winter. You planning on going to a mountain anytime soon?” If anything, he seemed angrier than usual. His arms were itching and it was all he could to not make too much of a scene by scratching them.
Marcella picked up on his particularly sour tone. “Jeeze, what is it with people and my fashion choices today?” she asked hypothetically, continuing the ruse around the mark on her arm.
“Meh. People haven’t said a thing about my glasses before you.” He pointed out. He looked directly at her for a long moment. “Anything cool happen last night?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, grumpy-face,” she joked childishly.
He shrugged. “All that happened was I got a little hairspray in my eyes. So. Anything that makes you so vibrant and cheery today? Normally you’re... well. Normally you would never EVER call me grumpy face.”
Marcy giggled, pushing a lock of auburn hair out of her eyes. “This is a weird... sorta question, but have you ever been exposed to something new and wondered how you lived without ever noticing it? Like a new kind of... feeling... I don’t know how to describe it.”
He closed his eyes. Not that it was obvious, considering his glasses and all, but he did close them. “Hm... This have to do with your sleeves?”
“Huh?” she startled a little. She instinctively grasped the site of her cutie mark. “N-no, of course not! I just felt like wearing sleeves today!”
“Eh. At any rate. You still a fan of those... pony things?” Seth wasn’t so much a brony so much as he knew what it was through her..
“As if the tee wasn’t hint enough?” she giggled.
“Yeah, well. I’ve worn things when I don’t have anything else to wear.” He flicked at his sun glasses a little nervously.
Marcella nodded at him with understanding, and started on her lunch of grilled cheese and salad, staying relatively quiet throughout the rest of lunch hour. Seth, on other hand, was looking down at his food with evident distaste. When he did try to eat some of the food before him, he found it even more tasting like nuclear waste than normal.
“...Do you want my food?”
“Not that hungry, sorry,” Marcella honestly replied.