Reconstruction

“Well, I suppose I’d better put it back,” Discord spat. “May Celestia never say I never did anything good for those ponies.”

Discord reached out with his extradimensional senses and funneled the ancient magic of harmony into his fingers. With a snap, a flash of blinding white light appeared. Before Discord’s eyes, an entire universe of splendor and prosperity appeared. Interminable stretches of nebulae and galaxies and solar systems harmoniously orbited one another, filled to the brim with planets, moons, and asteroids of unimaginable beauty. In each solar system laid planets of luxurious green grass and crystal blue waters. Across the newly-constructed universe, trillions of planets housed trillions and trillions of ponies, all meshed together in harmony the likes of which had never been known. In that instant, the universe was as close to objectively perfect as it could be. Strife was but a nightmare in the minds of young foals; pain, a simple fairy tale to be told alongside the story of the Boogiemare and the massacre of the chainsaw-wielding madpony. Discord had brought into existence absolute perfection, and had blessed innumerable new souls with a life sure to be filled with beauty, contentment, and plenty. Had the ponies understood their origin and the work of their creator, every society in the universe would surely have worshipped him as their god, showering him with unceasing gratitude and praise for having allowed their souls not a respite from suffering, but an existence utterly devoid of such a notion.

Discord snapped again, and it all disappeared.

“Now wait a second,” he said to himself, once again utterly alone. “What was it that that obnoxious pegasus said?” His head morphed into the likeness of Rainbow Dash. “Wide wike to see woo wun a better socie-blah!” he sputtered, punctuating each syllable with a raspberry. He returned his head to normal and folded his arms. “A better society, Rainbow Dash? I can run a better world than Celestia with one claw behind my back.” He diffused the magic of harmony from his fingers. “And I don’t need any help.

“Why should I take such an easy way out? I don’t need harmony to create a universe.” He gagged. “It’s bad enough that I had to deal with it before. I simply refuse to fraternize with such a disgusting force, and that is that.” He straightened his back and shook his fist. “You hear that?” he called out. “This universe is going to be harmony-free!”

Of course, there was nothing there to hear his declaration, much less respond to it. Had he not inadvertently caused the destruction of one universe and intentionally caused the destruction of another, reaping the souls of incalculable lives with almost no effort, he would, perhaps, have garnered a reply.

But he had, and so he did not.

“First things first,” he said, stroking his beard. “Ponies.” He snapped, and in front of him appeared an Earth pony stallion. Before he had time to think of what to do next, however, the stallion vanished.

“That didn’t take long,” he said with a sigh. “I’m certain I’m using the right magic…” He glanced all around him again, taking in the infinite void. “This reminds me of how Rainbow Dash used to race me through the skies back in Canterlot,” he mused. “I could have always won, of course, given my dominion over space itself, but I used to let her win because…” He scratched his head. “Why did I let that blue featherball win?” The confusion promptly left his mind, however, as he had ascertained the nature of his dilemma.

In Discord’s claw appeared a small cube, colored a brighter white than any mortal could have comprehended. With a thwip of his finger, the cube collapsed, its six faces falling back, and the universe contained space. The stallion appeared, right where Discord had left it.

It did nothing. Discord narrowed his eyes and leaned closer, giving it a poke. The pony’s flesh caved slightly inward at the outside pressure, but did not return to its original shape. Discord bent the stallion’s leg, and it did not bend back.

Discord stroked his beard again.

“That’s odd. Reminds me of that time Fluttershy encountered a dead mouse on the road.” He chuckled at the memory. “I wanted to bring it back and let it regale us with the tale of its demise, but of course she simply said ‘Um, there isn’t any time!’ and ran away in tears.” He wiped away a mirthful tear of his own. “I never understood why that mare was so sensitive to death.”

He turned back to the stallion, which remained still as a statue. He stared at it for a long while. Not that the period of time he stared at it could be measured, of course. There was, after all, no time.

After a pause of undefinable length, Discord snapped in realization. “There isn’t any time!” In his paw appeared an ornate, golden hourglass, its bottom half filled with sand as dark as the incomprehensible void. He flipped the hourglass upside down, and time returned to the universe.

As if on cue, the stallion looked around frantically, his mouth wide and quivering as if he were attempting to scream. There were, however, no molecules outside of his own body to be vibrated. Even more problematic was the lack of pressure. In short order, the stallion was dead.

Discord saw all that he had done, and it was very bad. “That didn’t go quite as expected,” he muttered. “I had forgotten that ponies require all of that…” His forked tongue found its way out of his mouth as he searched for words. “...stuff. How bothersome it must be to not be able to sustain one’s own existence.”

He floated up to the stallion and gave it a firm push. The corpse sped away, meeting no resistance in its flight. Its form receded, and soon Discord could not differentiate it from the blackness.

“So, what is it that ponies need, exactly?” He wracked his brain. “When you’re an eternal spirit of chaos, studying biology is like studying dust! What am I supposed to know about dust?” He sighed. Though he actually inhaled nothing, the action gave him an idea. With a snap, a single particle of oxygen appeared. “I believe this is what they need.”

He cupped the particle in his palm and brought it to his chest. “Be fruitful and multiply,” he said as his hands began to glow. Letting the particle go, he could sense that it was multiplying at an astounding rate. While it could never come close to filling the universe, as it was infinite, the oxygen particles soon existed in numbers an entire planet of ponies could never hope to consume.

Discord summoned another stallion. This one died as quickly as the first had, the only difference being that his screams could be heard loud and clear.

It was after shoving away the second corpse that Discord understood where he had gone wrong. With a slap on the forehead and a snap of the fingers, Discord created heat.

And so he continued, creating ponies and observing their fate in order to determine where he had made a mistake. Some of the incidents he found quite amusing, such as when, after creating gravity, the universe collapsed into a massive black hole, or when, after constructing light and accidentally setting all the photons in motion in the same direction, he inadvertently created a destructive universe-sized laser. He had also had a grand time experimenting with the forces. Fine-tuning the strong force resulted in every single particle erupting into a nuclear explosion all at once; carefully adjusting the electromagnetic force had allowed Discord to create an enormous clock out of pony corpses being electrified in sequence.

Sorting out the fundamental forces of nature as he had known them (for he had grown used to his powers in such a universe) took him an extremely long time. Creating and adjusting the behavior and interaction of elements and chemicals took him longer still. To be alive equally as long would surely have driven any mortal pony insane. Discord, in spite of much of his behavior in Equestria, remained patient. He experimented over and over and over, revising the laws of the universe exactly as he had known them. Occasionally, he even had to wipe his slate completely clean and start from the beginning when things became particularly chaotic. (“Well, isn’t this sickeningly ironic,” he had groaned after three billion years of experimentation. “Chaos is as simple as a snap; order is something of a challenge.”) Nevertheless, Discord persevered, and eventually his universe mirrored those which had come before, with one minor difference.

He rubbed his palms together eagerly. “Now we get to the fun part: objects!”

He snapped, and a star appeared. It was, by the old universes’ standards, a medium-sized star, but it utterly dwarfed Discord himself in size. “Something’s wrong with this picture…” His body grew, and soon the star appeared no bigger than a marble. “That’s better.”

With a flash, a planet appeared a good distance from the sun. Discord held it between his fingers. “I don’t want you flying into the sun and burning up,” he cooed to the miniscule sphere. “Not until I have a planet of sinful ponies to discipline.” He closed one eye, stuck out his thin tongue, extended an arm and raised his thumb. “How about… this?”

He flicked the planet, which immediately spiraled into the star.

“Must not have hit that sucker hard enough,” he said, chuckling. He summoned another planet and flicked it. This one escaped the star’s gravity and rocketed at millions of miles per hour to the other side of the universe. Leaning slightly to his left, Discord picked it up and set it back.

“Perhaps too hard, that time.” He flicked it more softly. The planet fell into a shaky orbit before its wobbling topspin sent it to the star’s surface.

Roughly ten thousand attempts later, Discord’s planet achieved a stable orbit. This was better than having to have a pony move the sun itself, after all; he didn't want his planet to deify any other creature, but he certainly couldn't be bothered to move the sun manually each and every day. He shrunk himself down and set himself on the surface of his planet, admiring his work. “Not bad, Discord,” he praised. “Not bad at all.”

He laughed. “Let’s not make the same mistake twice, hm?” He formed his thumb and index finger into a circle, brought his hand to his lips, and blew. From his lungs drifted an atmosphere, which rose to the outskirts of the planet’s gravitational pull and formed a  thin covering.

“Going to need some mountains if I want my ponies to create any breathtaking temples for me,” Discord said with a toothy grin. He hopped backward, growing in size before once again dwarfing the planet. He took the rocky sphere in his palm and squeezed. The planet now possessed rolling valleys, towering mountains, and rigid canyons.

He shrunk himself again and split into two. “Hey, good-lookin’,” Discord said to Discord.

“Back at ya,” Discord replied. Discord and Discord split themselves into two.

Discord, Discord, Discord, and Discord split themselves into two.

Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, and Discord split themselves into two.

“Is it hot in here,” said Discord with a smirk, “or is it just you guys?”

“I’ve heard of beautiful,” responded Discord, “but this is ridiculous!”

Discord chuckled. “I wonder which of us is the most stunning…”

The draconequi all brought inquisitive paws to their chins. They sauntered about, observing and scrutinizing each other before nodding in approval at what they found. After several minutes, they found that they had formed a circle.

Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, and Discord pointed to the draconequus to their left. “He is!”

The sixteen creatures simultaneously collapsed to the ground in uproarious laughter.

“Alright, alright,” said Discord as he wiped his eyes. “Everyone split.”

And they did.

“Again.”

And they did.

“Now.” Discord took to the air. “Discords over here, you take the mountains. Discords over there, the plains. Those Discords, fill the oceans. And the rest of you, take the deserts.”

“Sir, yes sir!” the draconequi replied.

And Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, Discord, and Discord took to their assorted tasks. Some of them flew to the deserts and piled the ground high with sand, planting sparse groves of cacti and the occasional oasis. Others traveled to the prairies and decorated the ground with grass, trees, and flowers, deciding amongst themselves where to insert a forest. Others still went to the lowest divots on the planet and, twisting each other’s arms like knobs and gaping their mouths impossibly wide, poured forth water.

It was careful, concerted work, and the company of spirits took great pride in a job well done. They rejoined and swelled again to cosmic size. Admiring the meticulously crafted vegetation and landscapes of his world, he noticed that his planet had just completed its first orbit around the star. He celebrated by adorning it with an enormous, conic party hat.

He stepped back onto the planet’s surface once more. “But what’s an inviting house without guests?” He snapped, and before him appeared a male and female eagle. Their eyes met, and they flew off.

And Discord created the lesser animals as they were in Equestria. He populated the planet with two of every animal he had known, only barely stopping himself from populating it with animals of his own design. When it came time to create rabbits, he considered skipping the rodents entirely.

“Well,” he said finally, “I suppose Flutterbobble would have preferred it this way.” He created a male and female rabbit, and, as an afterthought, teleported himself to the nearest mountain. He walked up to its base and delivered a swift kick. Rock and vegetation crumbled away from the face of the mountain until it resembled a familiar face that Discord considered more pleasing to the eye.

He found, when he had teleported back, that the rabbits were now eight in number. “...Impressive.”

After his work was done, Discord grew to his enormous size and looked down at the planet with a similarly large microscope. He saw the creatures populating his planet, ecosystems already forming and animals already filling the distinct niches that they had filled back on his home planet, two universes and an undefinable amount of time away. More locally, Discord found that his planet had completed another revolution around its star.

Many animals perished, crushed by an enormous party hat with the digit ‘2’ written on it.

Discord lifted his planet-sized foot and touched a toe to the surface of his planet. He shrunk as he stepped onto its surface, placing himself beside the mountain he had altered. He looked up at it and smirked.

“Now we come to the really fun part.”

The demure, rocky face of Fluttershy offered him a sweet smile in return.