The Tyranny of Discord

Prologue

There was one star still alight in the morning sky when the pegasus came to find him.

Her body was damp and slick with the moisture from the cloud through whose nebula she had just ascended, beige turned a woolen-brown from the wet. The tiny droplets hung nascent and numerous, glossing her coat and mane and shimmering in her wings as the rising sun's first rays stretched into the empyreal blue. She touched down gracefully upon a swirling wisp, and the vapor curled and formed beneath her hooves, acquiescing to her touch. She ruffled her wings quietly, and came to stand next to him as he gazed out over the waking land.

“Sir, it's time.” The wind was curiously calm as they stood bestride the sky; it pulled gently at her sandy mane and the long, billowing satin cloak she wore, sable as night. She watched him closely with pale, placid eyes. At last he nodded, the great ebony helm atop his head glinting fiercely, and she waited, hesitating. When it seemed that no other acknowledgment was forthcoming, she turned to go. He stopped her with an outstretched wing, long and white and radiant, and motioned for her to look down at the earth far below. She did as she was bid.

“I have always preferred to watch the sunrise from up here,” he said after a moments silence. “Up here, where everything is... peaceful. Simpler. There is something about a sunrise viewed through the veil of a cloud that makes it seem less... insincere.” He looked to her as he spoke, his blue eyes glowing. She thought they seemed sad and tired. “This is not a perfect world. Far from it. But it is worth protecting. When weighed against it, there is nothing more precious. Do you understand?”

She did. All too well. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“I just want you, and the rest, to know that. That whatever happens, whatever we must do, we must hold to our task. There is no cost too great to ensure that there will always be an Equestria for the sun to rise upon each day.” He turned away from the edge and donned a hooded cloak similar to hers, dark as the day was bright.

“This will mean war, won't it,” she said quietly.

He shook his head, sighing. “There is no stopping it. Discord will not suffer disobedience, and High Command, well... their reputation precedes them. But it has been inevitable for years now.” He touched her shoulder reassuringly with an elegant wing, gazing into her calm eyes so that his words might find her heart. “Ponies will live, and ponies will die, as is the way of the world. It is not for us to contend. We must not lose focus, and we must succeed, else their deaths be in vain. The fate of many and more rests in our hooves.”

The young pegasus looked up at him proudly as they prepared to take wing. “I'm at your side, Commander. I will not fail you.”

“I know you won't.” He smiled sadly, and his icy eyes shone with the color of the dawn.

They departed, and the star was lost to the blue.