Father of Chaos

Starswirl sighed as he awoke.  His vision was blurry, and every old bone in his body ached.  His  very blood tingled in protest to his spell, and he knew it would be some time before he could safely use magic again.

He let himself lay on his side, focusing on clearing his vision.  As his eyes regained their strength, he saw that it was raining outside, and that his telescope and deck were drenched.  Starswirl nickered and forced his hooves under him.  A chill swept across him, and he decided a warm bath would do him good.

Starswirl went to the manual levers and pressed them down by hoof, and the dome doors slid closed.  The crying sky pattered hard against the dome as he worked his way by feel to the study.

He managed a small spark of magic that lit one of the yellow-glow crystals and groaned.  Papers and books were everywhere, and some of his instruments had been shredded like confetti paper.  The table was cracked, and the Equestrian banner hung from one nail, itself almost completely torn in two between the alicorn sisters.  He walked by this with unease and made it to his desk.  Only his journal seemed to have survived the spell, still open to the last page.

“Perhaps the wording was wrong,” he murmured.  He recalled how the spell had somehow bounced into his telescope lens and projected his mistake all across Equestria, surely even beyond the valley.  He did not look forward to ponies from the tribes investigating the matter, especially those from Pudding's lot.

He chuckled to himself, knowing he should not be hard on anypony for wanting to investigate a disturbance.  These were delicate times, and every precaution should be taken.

Starswirl then realized that Clover had not returned.  Even if her errands took her late into the night, she always returned by morning, ever loyal to her mentor.  She had never failed him.

“Clover?” he called down the main hall.  His voice echoed through the adjoining halls where their bedrooms were.  He waited a moment, ears stiff as he listened for a response. “Apprentice, come!”

Shivering slightly, he made his way to her room and found it empty.  Starswirl checked his own room, with the same result.  Fear cut through his chills, and he ripped his hat and robe from the rubble of the study, packed a saddlebag with his journal, and galloped to the exit.

…...........

It was still a torrent as Starswirl made his way down the mountain.  He had only seen such a ferocious storm in the northlands, when the pegasi had sent a hurricane at the unicorn kingdom.  He watched the skies for any sign of a pegasus, wondering if such was the case now, but he was even more disturbed when he saw and heard none in the sky.

It took him a good hour to navigate the paths to Equestria valley.  The farm fields were nearest to the trailhead, and to Starswirl' great astonishment, he saw two unicorns working the fields.  They sloshed through mud, dug with horns, ripped up both weeds and good plants.  Some simply lay in the mud singing.  Others lay doing nothing at all.

He shook his head with a snort and galloped towards Ponytown, passing many such strange sights.  So many of these ponies he was at least acquainted with, but all of them did that contrary to what seemed proper for them.  He saw many earth ponies lighting fires and running amok with torches, some turning to the Everfree and lighting trees on fire.  One pegasus he passed claimed it knew magic, but no matter how hard it tried to focus on its non-existent horn, nothing happened.

Starswirl made it to town, where hundreds of ponies wandered about aimlessly.  Odd how they didn't stay out of the rain.  He halted, his bells jangling.  He smelled fear and confusion.  Some ponies glanced at him, one offered a wave, but none smiled.  Every time he looked at them, something was off.

He spotted the brown cloak and purple fur of a certain pony he loved, and he trotted to her.

“Clover!” he whinnied.  She stopped her slow shuffle and looked at him, her mouth full of braided reed-straps used for harnesses.  He hugged her with one leg and then backed away. “Is everything alright?”

“I...I think so,” she mumbled over the straps.  She spat them out and flicked her ears free of water. “I'm sorry, Starswirl.  I really need to get back to work.  The farm warehouse needs these braids.”

“Work?” he demanded.  She picked up the braids with her mouth rather than with her magic and tried to move around him, but he stomped in front of her, neck arched in authority. “Clover, if it had been an emergency that held you back, I would understand, but you left me with undue concern when you never––”

She danced around him and galloped away, cloak fluttering.  He growled and sprinted after her, his hooves tearing up clods of dirt and grass.  Ponies stared as they blurred past.  Starswirl panted and gulped, knowing his reserve of adrenaline wouldn't last him forever.

Starswirl glanced to the side and saw a scaffold against a partially built tower ahead of them both.  Nopony was on it.  Mustering up his aura, he created an explosion at the base, and it toppled over like a tree.  Clover skidded to a stop as it crashed before her.  Starswirl crashed into her, using his head and horn to flip her onto her side, and he stood over her with legs on either side of her body.

“What did I do?!” she shrieked, the straps flying from her mouth.  Tears grew in the corners of her eyes, almost camouflaged in the rain. “I'm a worker, a messenger!  I work the reeds, create straps and ropes!”

Starswirl gazed at her and found no lie in her voice.

“Th-they're not the best,” she rasped, eyes darting back and forth as if she confessed a great crime. “It took me three hours just to get these ones right!  Everypony at the warehouse is having a hard time.”

“Clover, your work is with me,” he said, trying to sound more patient than he felt. “You study magic, advise Princess Platinum.  Those are your duties.”

“Study....under Starswirl?” she gasped, eyes narrowing. “And the Princess?  What are you talking about?”

By now a sizable crowd of ponies had gathered around them.  Some glared with their ears lain back, and so Starswirl finally stepped from Clover.  She rose, keeping an eye on him should he toss her down again.  Starswirl looked her over as she tried to pull her cloak over her scuffed-up coat, and his eyes landed on her mark of adulthood.

Three braided ropes twisted around each other, plain and brown.  They had completely replaced two four-leaf clovers with three stars around them.  Starswirl shrieked shortly and backed away.

“Your mark...” he gulped. “Clover, your mark!”

She glowered at him and yanked her cloak securely over her body, shadowing the mark.

“They say you are a great and wise unicorn,” she grumbled, “but you're just a freak that likes to make trouble.”

She lifted her braids in her red-sore mouth and plodded away.  Starswirl's jaw hung, his heart shattering, and he swung his head around to take in the dispersing ponies.  Some of them he knew by name, and he found their haunch marks had changed as well.  Everyone's mark of adulthood had changed.  None of them attempted to approach him, and he suddenly felt quite alone.

Starswirl made a mad dash throughout Ponytown, inquiring after ponies he knew.  All of their talents and destinies had changed.  They claimed they had always done what they were doing, ever since their marks first manifest.  Even as he spoke with ponies, he saw the Equestria founded three years ago falling into ruin.  No one was tending the fields properly, nopony was controlling the weather properly, not one pony interacted naturally with their friends or family as it should have been.  Ponies were starving and fighting with one another.  Others tried to band together, and many of those left Ponytown and the valley.  The three leaders that had founded Equestria had vanished completely, said to have left Ponytown to follow their destinies.

Near the end of the day, Starswirl left Ponytown and sat next to a poorly worked field, where a single pegasus was pulling up weeds from one section and planting them in another.

“What have I done?” he said.  He bowed his head, and the tears began to flow. “Celestia, Luna, what have I done?”

Nothing was as it should have been.  Nopony was as they should be.  They had changed completely.  They knew of him, but didn't know him.  He knew them, but knew that his spell, the final great act of his long life, had brought this ruin upon them.

“I just wanted to help,” he choked.  He watched the pegasus, one of his countless victims, sit in the mud to catch her breath; she sobbed over the mud and weeds in her mouth.  Only moments later, that sorrow rang from the town, and a chorus of howls and yelling and crying sounded.  It was the song of utter misery.

Starswirl forced himself to be still, to listen to the consequence of his good intentions and his ill actions.  He had not matched the two as it should have been.  He lifted his journal from his bag with a hoof, using the lip of his hat to protect it from the rain, and opened it to the last page.

His eyes darted over that last line.  Part of his soul screamed at him to fix it, to fix everything.  But he had no clue how.  Everypony he had ever known was gone; they may as well been dead that day.  All his friends were gone, and he meant nothing to them.

Starswirl tried to ponder a solution as he tucked the journal away into his satchel, safe from the weather.  However, his thoughts drowned in despair.  His heart lay in pieces in his chest, and his mind was weary with age and emotion.

The old unicorn stood and cast the saddlebag from his body, along with his hat and cloak.  They splashed on the side of the road, the jangling bells choking against the rain.  Starswirl bowed his head against the storm and headed west.

…...........

Starswirl considered himself the father of many spells and philosophies that had helped ponykind.  He never knew he would become a father of chaos as well.

He let his hooves carry him towards oblivion.  He passed towns and cities and kingdoms.  Everywhere everypony had changed.  Wars and divisions were rampant.  Confusion was emperor of all Equestria.

Starswirl ate a little grass now and then, and drank some water at passing streams.  He didn't know why he kept himself alive; he would have much preferred the peaceful bliss of death.  However, he clung to one hope: the alicorns.  The alicorns could fix this, even if they punished him with death.  He searched everyday for signs of them, but being so old, he could not travel as fast and light as he would have liked, and his search was slow.

One day he came upon a chasm in the land, and he stepped to its lip with a distant curiosity.  Since leaving the valley, he had seen many strange and awful things, but nothing like the chasm.

The rift seemed to open to its own narrow night sky, and random blocks of color floated through it, some as large as houses, some as small as he.  Starswirl stared and wondered if he was hallucinating.  He spotted several cottages and ponies twirling helplessly through the space.  One caught sight of him and opened his mouth, but no sound came.

One of the blocks turned, and he spotted a hideous creature spread languidly across its surface.  It had a long, serpentine body with a horse's head.  Each of its six limbs belonged to a different creature, including the wings.  Two different horns swept back from its crown, and a single long fang stuck out like a barb from its grin.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” sounded a voice next to his ear.

Starswirl sidled to the side and suddenly found the chimera at his side, leering down at him with its uneven, bloodshot eyes.  On all fours it stood a pony above him, but it reared up and spread its wings, one feathered and one leathery.

“The smell of chaos woke me and I couldn't help but have a little fun while at it,” it laughed.  It snapped its clawed fingers, and Starswirl felt a sudden absence on his chin.  He gasped and backed away, trying to look at his beard, but there was nothing there.  His beard appeared next to the chimera, and it gently attached the beard to its own chin.

“Oh I love the style,” it hummed. “Very soft.”

“Give it back!” Starswirl barked, stomping a hoof.

“Why?  You don't have to shave anymore; I'm doing you a favor.”  It jumped into the sky, its wings thrumming, and it circled around once. “A world fresh and weak.  Thanks to you––Starswirl, is it?––I can enjoy the coming years playing with the ponies.”

Starswirl watched the beast, lips twitching.  How dare it treat him with such ill-manner; Celestia herself had marked him with that beard, a sign of her divine favor.

“But you didn't need to bother coming here to tell me all that,” it went on, arrowing down towards him and grabbing his ears.  He wheeled as the beast shrunk and straddled his back, and he bucked weakly.

“Get off!”

Starswirl stopped soon, breath lost.  The beast leaned on its elbows between his ears.

“No, another pony came and told me all that as I broke from the void,” it said, lost in its own thoughts. “Funny thing was that it was an alicorn.  Those things don't like a good conversation...except the black one.”

The creature vanished with a flash and reappeared at its full size over the chasm.  A thrum started in its chest, and then exploded into a wicked laugh.

“I am Discord, spirit of chaos, and soon, ruler of Equestria!” he boomed.  Pink clouds swirled into the sky, and white rain poured from them.  Milk.  Starswirl shivered at such an abomination and summoned his aura.  Perhaps he could get a good blast at Discord, enough to fatally injure it.

Before he could focus any further, the land beneath him jumped up, making his knees buckle.  Other chunks of land floated around him, carrying trees and houses and ponies, and he felt his island tilt suddenly.  He fell through the air and towards the chasm, watching the other islands tip upside down, become enveloped with bubbles, and sport psychedelic checkered patterns.

Starswirl focused once more and transported himself back to whatever normal land remained, and then turned towards Discord, who still hovered in the sky laughing.  Starswirl's horn lit, and a bolt of white magic sluiced through the air and across Discord's throat.  Discord grunted and wheezed, his wound quickly healing from whatever dark, unnatural power he possessed.  He turned to Starswirl, all amusement gone.

“You want to play unfair, unicorn?” he growled.  His mouth split open, pointed teeth glistening. “I'll show you unfair!  I will show all of Equestria unfair!”

Discord teleported himself and reappeared, throwing himself against Starswirl.  They thrashed and kicked as they rolled into one of the holes left from a floating island.  Starswirl screamed as a talon seized his horn and snapped it in half.

He went into a freezing pain, his muscles clenching and his eyes watering.  Discord jumped up, holding the old spiraling horn like a trophy.

“I have more important business to attend to than a crippled unicorn,” Discord announced.  The end of its tail snapped its fingers, and the earth under Starswirl began rippling in square blocks.  He grimaced at the movement, trying to stand.  He quickly cast his eyes about before closing them.  Discord had gone.  He reached for his magic, the most natural thing for a unicorn to do, but it only caused his stump of a horn to burn so much he crumpled to his front knees.

He finally made it to stable land, although the land was a dizzying mixture of bright red and blue, and the sky was pink with an endless matting of the milk clouds.

Starswirl's body and mind could no longer take it.  He let himself collapse for the last time amid a landscape of chaos, and nothing around him took note of the passing.  His eyes closed, and he saw the stars across the night sky singing to him.  But amid their singing, they wept, and that first star sobbed a phrase to him.

Beware of chaos!