Celestia sipped her wine and watched the world burn.
From where she sat on her balcony, the streets of Canterlot looked akin to a burning spider web; each strand slowly burnt away until it snapped and the houses collapsed in on it.
She watched a squadron of guards run, terrified out of their minds, away from an enemy war machine. With the foul fog of war festering in the air, the machine looked disturbingly similar to a dragon; roaring, tearing, burning her ponies to death.
Celestia drank another mouthful of wine, straight from the bottle, barely tasting the vintage as it tumbled down her throat. She was dimly aware that it was the most expensive bottle in what remained of Equestria. She was also aware that she didn’t care in the slightest.
She hadn’t meant it to end like this. She’d tried so very, very hard to stand by the principles of friendship. She’d hoped that, once again, the teachings that gave her life so much meaning would bring about prosperity. Even when faced with beings beyond what even her incredible mind could have imagined.
Even when those same beings brought war to her fair kingdom, she had believed in Harmony above all else.
How stupidly naive of me, Celestia thought, bitterly. Even with all of her faith – even with all of her power – she was powerless. She'd stood steadfast against the indomitable will of an entire nation, armed with all of the wisdom and power that friendship had to offer her – and now, here she was: drunk, dying, and more alone than ever before.
There was a distant boom, and her horn flickered slightly in response. A heartbeat later, a howitzer shell screeched through the air and crashed against a golden forcefield, before tumbling down into the streets below. The smoke dissipated, and left a cracked energy shield in its place.
Celestia remained motionless for half a minute before she broke down into hacking coughs. Droplets of blood spattered on the floor of the tower’s balcony, mixing with the shards of the shattered wine bottle.
The broken alicorn pulled herself back to her hooves, swaying slightly as the combination of alcohol and blood loss washed over her. There wasn't much left in her now, she realised. A few more strikes like that would mean the end of her.
A voice drifted out from behind her. “Giving up so soon, Celestia?” Celestia stiffened reflexively, and pain lanced through her side as one of her many, many scars twisted. She couldn’t help it; she cried out, and her legs gave out again.
A lion paw jutted from the ether, and caught her before she hit the ground again. “Woops! Silly filly, watch your step, you might just do yourself a disservice!” An eagle claw joined the lion paw in pulling her back to her hooves. The two disembodied limbs then pulled the rest of the mismatched body out of nowhere in particular. “Surprise!” it said.
He hadn't changed at all since they'd last met. The same ridiculous posture; the same arrogant smirk; and he still wore that look in his eye, the one that made her skin crawl unpleasantly. He seemed to notice her discomfort, as his smirk only got more irritatingly huge the longer he stared at her. His claws twitched with nervous energy as he stared her down.
Celestia looked at the gangly, misshapen figure with vague disinterest, turning back to watch the spiralling skyscrapers of smoke and ash. An upside down pair of asymmetrical eyes appeared from above.
“What? Not even a thank you?” There was a moment or two of silence before she heard a haughty *hmmph*. “Why, I never. I honestly expected more from you, Celestia.” The head disappeared, and his steps clack-clopped behind her.
“Discord.” The steps paused. “Why?”
Those twisted yellow eyes slithered back into view. “Hmmmmm?” He purred, with a smirk.
“Why did you come back?” The whisper was barely audible over the cannonfire and clashing of swords, but he heard her nonetheless.
“Pfft. Well I’ll be damned… It speaks!”
Cracking wise at the end of the world? Celestia thought. As always, he knows exactly what not to say. He hasn’t changed one bit.
And as always, a smaller, wiser part of her echoed, you don’t know whether to kiss him or kill him for it.
“To answer your pointless question,” Discord watched a howitzer shell collide with a squadron of airborne pegasi, “I truly cannot say why. There is never a why with me, Celestia, just as there is never a how, a what, or even a when.” He grinned. “There is only ever chaos.”
“Then it’s a shame that this chaos,” Celestia rebutted, gesturing to the army rampaging through the burning city, “was not caused by you at all.” She smirked. “Rather ironic, isn’t it, that a race so focused on order could be so… chaotic.”
Discord’s face fell at that. “No. Don’t you even joke about that.” He threw up his mismatched arms. “Do you even know what this means for my reputation? I’ll have almost no street cred left after this ordeal! I’m supposed to be the King of Chaos, not some ‘mischievous’ peasant!”
Celestia looked at Discord, and discovered a smile on her face. Maybe it was the way he crossed his arms and pouted like a bratty teenage filly. Maybe it was the sheer preposterousness of his complaint. Hell, maybe she was just mad, more so than the world they lived in, the world that burned before their very eyes.
Either way, she laughed. She laughed so hard that even Discord was caught by surprise and gawked at her. Eventually, he joined her, and they laughed until they forgot what they were even laughing about, and their breath wheezed from their lungs.
The laughter stopped just as a nearby tower shuddered, and eventually collapsed, crushing a horde of friend and foe alike.
Celestia slumped into a vague sitting position, while Discord hovered languidly in the air. He was motionless, save for his tail, which coiled and uncoiled as he watched buildings crumble in the streets far below them. Celestia was sure that if she looked into his eyes, she would see the flames of destruction dancing in them.
So she didn’t. Instead, she watched the leftover wine pool on the floor of the balcony. There was a loud snap, and the shards of glass merged together and filled with the discarded wine, before gliding up into Discord’s awaiting talons.
“So…” He swirled the wine glass around, watching the colours refract the orange light of the fire. “The Elements?” He took a small, almost reverent sip of the golden liquid.
“Gone.” Celestia said simply. “Most of them were still in Ponyville when it was destroyed. Twilight–” Celestia choked as she mentioned the name. “...Twilight was still here. In Canterlot.” She let out a trembling sigh. “But she was just like Luna. Brash. Always ‘doing the right thing’.”
Celestia straightened and looked up at the horizon, at the silhouettes of towering chimneys, belching out smoke. They hadn’t been there before the End. Nor was the permanently darkened sky, for that matter. The Everfree forest stretched across the valley, a mere shadow of what it was. And on the outskirts of that, there was only an enormous crater.
Celestia looked away, as if doing so would free of her of those haunting memories.
“I would have agreed with her, normally—I was the one who taught her that, after all. But there are some situations that are just… beyond us. Sometimes, ‘doing the right thing’ isn’t the right thing to do at all.”
Discord raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh? And you've tested this new philosophy yourself, have you?"
Celestia didn't say anything at first; instead, her horn flickered once. Immediately, her white fur became soiled and patchy as the glamour concealing it evaporated. Her floating multicoloured mane slowly bleached into a ragged mundane light pink. Discord's eyes roamed over her body and widened slightly when they locked onto the network of scars and burns that webbed along her flank.
"I tried standing up before them," Celestia said, licking her parched lips. "I tried to stop them. Suffice to say, I was unsuccessful. When I fell, Harmony wasn't there by my side."
"Perhaps it misses their bearers?" Discord shrugged. "Harmony works in mysterious ways. I mean, I'm supposed to be the unpredictable one, yet most of the time my opposite manages to be the one acting on a whim. I honestly have no idea how it works."
Celestia laughed emptily. "And you know the most depressing thing? Neither do I, in all honesty."
Discord took this in with a ponderous hum. Then he muttered, “I’ll miss the yellow one. Fluttershy? Yes, that’s it.” Celestia looked at him with mute surprise. Discord just smirked. “Don’t look at me like that. Is it so alien to think that I could care about someone other than myself? And yes, it’s as embarrassing as it sounds.” He lazily scratched at his goatee. “But it was good to have someone like her. A friend, for lack of a better term.”
Discord heaved a sigh, and Celestia looked up at him. For a second, she swore that she saw genuine regret in those red eyes of his.
But in the next moment, it was gone, and he looked at her with the same jovial madness that he always wore. “So, how did little Sparklebutt handle the whole transdimensional invasion thing, then?”
Celestia frowned for a little bit, then let it slide as she recalled the distant past that was… a year ago? A decade? It felt like an eternity.
Then she remembered, and she chuckled, leaning back into a more comfortable position. “She was actually excited, you know. That was her: always looking for new friends. And what greater test of her capacity for friendship than befriending an alien?”
It felt good to reminisce. But even that memory needled her conscience with barbs of regret; Twilight didn’t deserve the punishment she was dealt. The sharpest mind on the planet, yet so unbearably, heart-breakingly naive.
“She came to me with plans, lots of them, all about negotiations and treaties and trade networks and whatnot. It was commendable, to be sure, yet ultimately pointless. My sister begged me not to go through with her plans, and my paranoia agreed with her. But… I suppose…”
Her eyes drifted across to stare out over the balcony at the burning capital. So many regrets. All of them empty. There was a soft *plink* from down near her hooves, and she wiped at her eyes.
Celestia looked up at Discord. At some point during her confession, his wine had transformed into a glass of chocolate milk, complete with crazy straw. As ever, she decided to ignore it. “Maybe I just wanted to believe in her conviction that friendship is what mattered. More than even her beloved logic.”
Discord’s eye cracked open and studied the look of uncertainty on his nemesis’ face. After a second, he snorted balefully. “Do you remember what I last said to you, Celestia? Before I went on my little break?”
Celestia blinked. Then she thought. Discord just smiled. “No need to exert yourself. I’ll tell you.”
A claw snapped out, grabbing her by the mane and shoving her head out over the balcony. Celestia watched the destruction unfold before her eyes.
“I told you,” Discord whispered into her ear, manically, even feverishly, “that there are beings just as violent, mad, cunning, even chaotic as I. I warned you that blind trust and friendship would not solve all your problems.” He released her. “Some creatures cannot be negotiated with, Celestia. You would have done well to heed that.”
Resentment boiled in Celestia’s heart. She glared at Discord, and spat out, “Then where were you in all this? Why weren’t you here when they came?” Right then, her ensuing laughter sounded almost hysterical.
“Just look at me! Your greatest enemy, broken and dying! Equestria, burning in the flames of destruction! The Elements of Harmony—the only weapon that could possibly hinder you—are removed from the picture entirely!” The well of anger burned out, leaving behind a trembling husk. Two dead magenta eyes stared into those dancing mismatched orbs of fire, pleading for them to make everything just make sense again.
And then it did.
“But you were never going to help us, were you?” It was not a question.
Discord was silent for a long, long moment. That was all Celestia needed; she let out a long heavy sigh, and asked him again.
“Then why?”
He looked at her, and he shrugged. “What could I have done if I stayed?” He asked. “It wouldn’t have benefitted anyone, especially not me. Make no mistake; we may no longer be enemies, Celestia, but I exist only for me, myself, and I.”
Celestia knew what he wanted. She knew that he had steadily been pushing them towards this point, to this conversation, to this very moment the whole time. And even though that should have angered her and filled her with the need for revenge, Celestia found that she simply did not care. Why should she? It’s not like anything mattered anymore.
After all, she knew that only a god would be able to see what happened next, and she also knew that there was only one of those in this conversation.
Discord looked down at her, pityingly. “I have no more tricks for you, Celestia. This truly is your decision, and your decision alone. Either way, you will not live to see the consequences. I can do many, many things, but restoring the soul is not one of them.”
“I’m okay with that,” she whispered breathlessly, as if she couldn’t believe her own words, “I’m not afraid of dying.”
Discord didn’t say anything, just raised a skeptical brow.
“What I am afraid of,” Celestia continued, “is all our efforts being for naught. That all the sacrifices we made to get this far will be wiped away by a race with eyes too big for their stomach.” She turned her lifeless gaze to meet his.
"I watched my entire race fall apart before my eyes. The only power I truly believed in has deserted me. Deserted all of us." Celestia sighed deeply. Tears leaked out from behind her closed eyelids. "But then I remember what I used to be. I wasn't just a leader – they were my little ponies. I was an example for them to follow. And even after all that's been said and done, I cannot simply forget that."
"Celestia, ask yourself this," Discord said. "Are you seriously just going to forgive and forget so that what little remains of your pitiful species will have a goody goody role model? You're just going to let humanity continue on this warpath of theirs?" Discord shook his head slowly, both pitying and impressed. "I mean, I know you're supposed to be perfect, but wow."
Celestia watched the army on the horizon steadily approach them. She could feel herself dividing into two halves: the part of her that was a princess, and the part of her that was a pony. The twin desires for forgiveness and revenge pulled at her from both sides, and she could feel herself breaking down under the stress.
So she asked herself one very simple question: what would Twilight Sparkle do?
It wasn't even difficult. Celestia knew the answer by heart.
...so unbearably, heart-breakingly naive...
“So here’s my choice, Discord: I’ll give you what you want. I won’t stop you. I just want one thing in return.”
Celestia broke out into another fit of hacking coughs, blood spattering across the tiles. Her breath wheezed in her lungs, her vision clouded, and her mane hung raggedly across her once-fair features.
“I want you… to destroy them. Wipe out every last one, and then you can have Equestria for yourself. My ponies are yours now. I know you won’t kill them; that would be boring, would it not? But they…”
Celestia dragged her head back up to stare at Discord. Her poisoned eyes danced with madness. “Humanity is an infection, and it must be cleansed from this world. I don’t care what else happens.”
Was it spiteful? Yes. Was she mad? Undoubtedly.
Did she care? Not in the slightest.
Twilight Sparkle is a good pony.
I am not.
Celestia gathered her wits, before whispering hurriedly under her breath. “I, Princess Celestia Concordia of Equestria, hereby release the Contract binding myself and Discord, the Chaos Serpent.” She didn’t hesitate. The choice was out of her hooves, now. “By the conditions of said Contract, I relinquish both my divinity and my crown."
Celestia felt oddly nostalgic at that moment. It had been a very, very long time indeed since she had said those words; not once since Discord's defeat, in fact. It had been a matter of necessity at the time – no being, no matter how powerful, could break the contract. It was, in a way, a fundamental truth to the universe, an iron-bound law. A law that even Discord couldn't bend to his will.
Immediately after she recited the last word, she felt the world shift, ever-so-slightly, as if something had jolted out of place in the cogs of the universe.
Slightly confused, she glanced up at Discord just in time to see another howitzer shell rapidly approaching their balcony, so quickly that it only appeared as a vague blur. Her horn lit up as she instinctively conjured a shield to protect herself…
...And screamed in pain as a lance of white-hot agony buried itself in her skull. Her horn spat sparks as her magic abandoned her dying body, leaving only a dirty, hollow husk of a princess behind. She looked up at the approaching missile through hot tears. She watched the blur of searing metal fly closer. Closer. Closer.
And gradually slowed, eventually coming to a complete standstill in midair. Celestia futilely blinked at the hot wet haze in her eyes. Her mind drifted, unable to form a coherent thought. She dragged her head over to Discord. She saw the smile on his face as the dancing inferno slowed to a standstill. She saw the power dancing across his fur, lightning flickering between his claws, and the eldritch light shining from his misshapen eyes.
“Oh, now this feels nice,” he said, licking his chops, “Very, very nice indeed.”
Celestia barely heard his words. In fact, she could barely hear anything. All sound devolved into mindless tones, ringing and crashing and blurring and slowing and quickening all at the same time, meaningless and horrible and yet beautiful in its chaotic harmony.
She blinked. And then she blinked again, trying to make sense of what was happening before her eyes. The tiles at her hooves shifted colours and hovered off the ground, and the cloudy sky blossomed from a dismal grey into a storm of saccharine pink. A disturbingly familiar sugary sweet smell mixed in with the cloying smoke assaulting her nostrils.
Discord’s smile was, perhaps, the most disturbing thing of all; it was at once both nostalgic and familiar, both twisted and content, and both cunning and horribly, terribly ancient.
“It seems your time is up,” Discord’s voice wavered and echoed in her ears, “and for what it is worth, I shall miss you.”
Celestia clung to his voice like a raft adrift in a storm, and tried desperately to ignore the primal fear that she had—quite possibly—made a very, very large error.
“Arrivederci, Princess Celestia.” Discord floated up off the balcony and performed a quirky midair bow. “Say hello to Mother for me.” And with that, time resumed once more.
She blinked once, then all was fire and black.
Humanity watched the palace tower teeter and crash into the mountainside from their position at the bottom of the mountain. With the enemy leader removed, the siege was essentially over; the Equestrian military was unprepared for the superior strength and technology they wielded, and Canterlot was woefully undefended, save for the magical shields they had at their disposal.
For them, victory was all but assured.
Which only made the sudden wave of power that cascaded from the balcony of the distant tower even more surprising. They had, at first, presumed that it was just the shockwave of an artillery shell meeting its target. But when they saw the creature appear in the air above the burning city, they realised that something was wrong.
“Greetings!” It said. “And welcome to the fair city of Discordia, formerly known as Canterlot. I am its ruler, King Discord the Infinite.” Discord chuckled. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, this is my kingdom, and you’re getting it all dirty. Would you kindly leave?”
The soldiers looked at each other. The city was silent save for the crackling of the inferno. Then the mighty boom of an artillery cannon shattered the lull of combat, and the round tore through the air towards the hovering draconequus.
Discord smiled, beckoning the shell closer with a claw. He opened his mouth wide, far wider than should be plausible, and swallowed the shell with a delighted smack of the lips. An instant later, his belly rumbled violently as the shell bounced around in his stomach. And with a devilish grin, Discord reeled his head back and sneezed.
The effect was instantaneous; an entire artillery placement evaporated in the blast of the deadliest booger ever blown. Immediately, an air of panic descended over the army, and several more cannons roared angrily. The hail of projectiles descended like swooping birds of prey, every last one hitting dead on target. Discord was quickly lost in the barrage of light, heat, and sound.
That same ominous silence settled over the battlefield once again, as the storm of dust kicked up in the blast settled. The army watched cautiously, unwilling to approach and capture the city until they were sure that the odd creature had disappeared.
“Are you finished? Good! Now it’s my turn.”
A colossal eagle’s claw materialised in mid-air—directly above the rows upon rows of artillery and war machines—and swung like an executioner’s blade. Carving through the earth like hot knives through butter, destroying the formation in barely an instant, the talons reached back up and tore through space itself, allowing an equally enormous serpentine body to pull itself through from its pocket universe.
The malformed, red-eyed head of the monster dribbled molten fire from between its jaws. The liquid death fell down and burned through the vast army that stood out on the doorstep of the mountain city. A mile-long scaled tail whipped out, ravaging the landscape and burying villages with the shockwave of its impact. The corpses of the deceased—pony and human alike—rose on the fields of battle, summoned by the snap of two claws. As one, they marched to oppose the remains of the invaders.
The beast grinned maliciously, revelling in the power that flowed in his veins. For so long, he had been weak. Oh, so very weak. Barely a god at all, in fact. Alas, he had no other choice, at the time. That blasted contract had made sure of that. But he had looked ahead, played the game, set the board, stacked the deck, and only now was it paying off.
Distant memories returned to him. Glimpses of a perfect paradise. Snapshots of a dying kingdom. And, above all, the sight of the Sun itself, turning its hateful light upon him and forcing him to submit.
A clawed hand reached out towards the stormy sky. He felt the slim connection flowing from his being to up past the clouds, to the heavens themselves.The Sun had been his captor for so very long, and Equestria his cage. He had been less than a ghost of his true self. Fortunately, he had just been handed the keys.
Heartbreakingly naive, indeed.
Tentatively, he tugged the connection. The Sun turned from a heavenly gold to a seething red and sickly yellow.
The monster smiled. Yes, all is as it should be now.
Now, if only I had a heart to break...
He laughed. He laughed and he laughed and he laughed. He laughed as the skeletons of the old world rose again to serve him. He laughed as the paranoid and ignorant species that was humanity was wiped out. And above all, he laughed as he remembered the look on her face as he rose to become a god once again.
And in the background of it all, the discordant music banged and clattered and whistled and roared, the sound of the universe from its prime, when all that existed was a sea of pure entropy in which the Serpent swam for all of eternity.
The God of Chaos looked down on his Equestria, and he smiled.
“Welcome to my Circus.”
Author's Note
Some epic Discord for you guys.
Also humans, because I can.
~PP
