The beginning is the end is the beginning
Author's Note
THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. DARK MEANS DARK. NO HAPPY ENDINGS HERE. DO NOT READ ON UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED FOR BAD THINGS TO HAPPEN TO PASTEL PONIES.
The beginning is the end is the beginning
There was night.
Night without stars. Dark sky above, dark waters below. Nothing else. So it was. So it had always been. Eternities passed in perfect darkness.
After an immeasurable infinity that was an also an unchanging instant, the night sky split asunder. From the split emerged a monster, born of the night itself. It stood in the sea, the water lapping about its knees.
It lifted its misshapen head, spread its vast, uneven wings, and roared to the empty sky. Sparks scattered from its breath, strewn across the night. They stayed, twinkling above.
It stomped one great foot, sending a tidal wave racing through the waters. The foundation of the world quaked beneath the waves. Land began to slowly rise beneath the monster's mismatched feet. The creature saw it, and began to laugh.
From Night came Chaos. From Chaos came creation.
I am lying on my side. I see nothing, for my eyes are closed. I wish I could also hear nothing, feel nothing. Pain wracks my body. The worst of it is the pure agony of my shattered horn, almost overriding my other wounds. I suspect I may be dying. I am not ready to die. What pony is? But there is something I must do before I die.
Somewhere, not far distant, I can hear the sounds of battle. Raw magic crackles in the air. Fire snarls. Stones crack. A sudden booming roar heralds the fall of another tower. I wonder how long they can keep fighting. I know that the battle only rages on now because I weakened her a little before I fell. And perhaps because of the way my sister's rage at my fall fuels her magic.
Here at the end I can no longer doubt that she loves me.
Another sound, a pony's scream, rings through the air. Not Celestia's. Not hers either. Some other pony. A guard, perhaps. Celestia has given them all strict orders to evacuate the palace, but some brave soul might have come back.
Then I hear another sound. A voice, speaking right in my ear. Talking, not screaming. It's cheerful, even.
“You ponies have taught me so much about friendship! Now I can learn a new lesson. What do you do when one of your friends starts torturing and killing the others, Princess? If I figure it out, should I write your sister a letter? I don't think Twilight's going to, this time.”
There was a world, where before there was only darkness.
Day and Night proceeded across the heavens. Life grew on the earth and swam in the waters. Life too walked upon the earth, in winged and furred and scaled variety, an infinity of varied forms. Chaos had created well, and the Harmony that grew up between Day and Night shaped what Chaos wrought into a world fit for the beings who had only just set tentative hoof upon it.
But first one more task remained. Chaos could create, but Chaos could also destroy. He could not be allowed free reign while ponies walked the earth.
Out of the swirling stars of the Night came a midnight black alicorn mare. From horn to hoof she was perfect, gleaming ebony and the stars were strewn in her black mane.
From the bright Day came an alicorn stallion. He was as pure white as she was black, and his mane glowed golden with light.
Their horns touched, day and night meeting for the first time. From that touch came a spark. White-and-rainbow shimmering, the spark fell to the waiting ground, and grew to become a third alicorn, a white filly with shimmering pink hair that held all the light of day.
They touched again, and a second spark, this one cold-silver sparkling, fell, and grew to another filly. She was midnight blue with pale blue hair that sparkled like the night.
“Sun, Moon. We give the night and day into your care. Grow well. Learn wisdom. Care for our ponies,” said Day.
“Know that we love you,” said Night. Then she bent and whispered in the ear of the Moon, but nopony knows what secret she shared.
Then, spreading their wings, they flew out over the distant ocean, where the vast form of Chaos yet strode, making and un-making at his whim. The battle between Night, Day, and Chaos raged long, but in the end Chaos fell, and was bound to the ocean floor, beneath the waves, with chains of harmony.
Yet Day and Night never set foot upon the earth again.
“Discord,” I manage to rasp. I can taste blood in my mouth. My own, of course.
“Why so it is!” says his impossibly cheerful voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I almost want to laugh. I cannot laugh, nor can I cry. I do slowly raise my eyelids. Each one is a weight. He hovers above me where I lie on my back. I will not look down at what has been done to me. His mismatched eyes look into mine and he grins. Another crash comes from the nearby battle. How can it still be raging?
“My, my, my, Celestia is certainly putting up quite the fight!” Discord pulls a tub of popcorn out of thin air and lounges back, munching. “Here princess, have a look.”
Suddenly I am held upright. It should hurt more than it does. It should probably kill me, in fact. I suspect I know why it does not. He will not let me die. Not yet. Not until I have done what I never wanted to do. What I must do. What I will hate myself for whatever seconds remain to me for doing.
My eyes go to the two glowing forms, locked together. Their glow is the only light, the sky above is dark but for the stars. One of the struggling alicorns is white. Her mane and tail now form a glowing corona of sunlight almost too bright to look at. The other's color is hard to tell, for her whole body shimmers with a rainbow light that is almost as bright as her foe's sunglow. But if I squint I can just make out that she is a light purple.
“It's quite impressive, don't you think? I've spent thousands of years trying to find a way to corrupt Harmony and I never managed it. Then she sets her mind to it and finds a way within less than a single year. Such talent! I wonder if Celestia regrets teaching dear little Twilight Sparkle now?” He grins his uneven grin at me.
I say nothing. I am sure Celestia has many regrets. I have many too. Twilight is first among them. We should have known. We should have seen how unstable she was. How prone to fits of mania, obsession, and insanity. We should have known what that would mean in a goddess.
“Popcorn?” offers Discord.
Still I say nothing. I have nothing to say. I can feel the blood running slowly down my body. It drips off of my hooves which hang limply in the air as Discord's magic supports me. I wish he would let me die. But if he does I cannot do what I know I must do.
Out there among the ruins the two forms struggle. Suddenly Celestia falls backwards and her light goes out. My heart is in my throat. Has she been so utterly beaten? But no. I hear her begin to speak and realize that she is merely trying a different tactic.
“Twilight. My faithful student. Please, don't let this continue. You can stop this, even now.”
“No!” Twilight screams, the twisted rainbow shimmer coiling around her. “Don't call me that!” Twilight's voice is ragged, harsh, and broken. A voice ruined by too much screaming.
“Twilight...” Celestia's voice is almost too soft for me to hear. It is also broken, in a very different way.
“No! No! No! That's not what I want from you! Don't call me your student! Don't!”
“I do love you Twilight. You know I love you.”
“Then why did you turn me down? Why did you turn me away? Why did you stop speaking to me, and stop writing to me? You don't love me. You never loved me!”
“I am sorry I rejected your proposal, Twilight. Just please, stop this. I'll do whatever you want.”
“You would just be lying, to save all your little ponies. You don't love me! You never loved me!”
Suddenly Celestia's corona blazes into life again. “I loved you more than I can ever tell,” she said, and her voice is cold and deadly now. “But you killed that love when you refused to accept my rejection. When you used your friends to break Harmony. When you killed Luna.” There are tears in her voice. I find, incredibly, that tears can yet gather in my own dying eyes. Her horn flashes with a light, brighter than the sun, as she rears and charges at Twilight again.
Twilight's broken rainbow flares in answer, and the two alicorns meet with a sizzle of raw magic.
A misshapen dragon floated between earth above and sky below, in a world twisted upside down by magic. He laughed at Moon and Sun who stood facing him. “I am the God of Chaos, little ponies. You cannot defeat me.”
They did not laugh in return.
“You are only Discord, the spirit of mischief,” said Sun.
“Chaos is bound beneath the sea,” said Moon.
“I am Chaos!” bellowed the dragon. “See all I have caused?” He gestured at the upside down world, at the strange creatures that floated in it, at the unnatural rocks and the even more unnatural plants. “I rule here!”
“You were Chaos,” replied Sun. “Harmony has bound you, you are Chaos no longer. Harmony can bind you further. Each time it is used against you you weaken, Discord.”
“I will find a way around harmony some day. Until then I suppose you will insist on constantly ruining my games.” He snarled at them petulantly.
“When you play your games with living, thinking beings, yes,” said Sun.
“What fun is there in playing games with rocks and trees and rivers? I created this world. Me! I! Do you forget that?”
“Perhaps it's time that you forgot, Discord.” Sun's horn began to glow.
Moon's horn lit as well. Around them a rainbow began to form, pure elemental harmony drawn from their bond, and from the world around them. The rainbow flew from them and struck the dragon, who shrank, diminishing to something hardly larger than a pony.
It lay, curled up, as the alicorns approached. Sun touched it with one hoof. “Wake.”
The dragon looked up, its uneven eyes confused, blank.
“You are Discord, the spirit of mischief.”
“I am Discord,” said the dragon. Then he laughed and pulled himself out of a hat. “What fun I shall have!”
The alicorns are still locked in battle. Twilight is slowly pushing Celestia backwards. Eventually they will run out of ruined palace, and Celestia will be backed up against the mountain itself. I don't know what will happen then.
Discord speaks again, still sounding mockingly amused. “You know, it's funny, what else Twilight Sparkle managed, that I never could. She got you to tell her absolutely everything, for example. Such a diligent student! You should be proud!”
I want to shake my head. I know it would hurt too much. And what good would denying it do. He is right. We did tell her everything, eventually. She was always so inquisitive. She wanted to know. We had raised her to godhood, so what harm was there in telling her our secrets?
“And friends can look through friends' notes, can't they?” His tone drips with amusement. “I'm very good at being a friend by now.”
Suddenly he is right there, coiled around me, whispering in my ear. “I know who I really am, Princess. And I know something else. I know that you know Night's secret.”
“I don't...” I begin to croak.
“Don't deny it. It's true. We both know it's true. Release Night's chains, Luna. Release me. Let Chaos reign.”
“My ponies...”
“You think she'll spare them? After what she's done?” Suddenly the whisper in my ear is pure hatred, a thing I didn't know he could truly feel. But it is genuine, I am sure of it. It makes my flesh crawl to hear it. “Do you know what she did to sweet little Fluttershy? To Rainbow Dash and Applejack and Rarity and even bouncy, happy Pinkie Pie? She's not so bouncy any more, princess. I've played games with ponies, but I've never broken them like that. Chaos would be far kinder than her madness. She won't stop until everything is broken.”
He is right. I know he is right. I know what I must do. Yet I will still hate myself for every second of life left to me if I do it.
He sets me down, gently, and though pain stabs through me it is immediately banished by a soothing numbness. He is not healing me, I know I am still dying, but at least I cannot feel it now.
“Release me, Moon, daughter of Night. You know the secret of my chains. Release me.” The joking trickster is gone. I can see flickers of the old god, looking out through his eyes.
I close my eyes.
I release him.
There is a roar that rocks the entire mountain beneath my hooves. Somehow I find the strength to look up and see him. Chaos. He is like Discord in some ways, but there is none of the silly prankster in him now. He looms above us, larger than the mountain itself, his claws wrapped around it like a lizard perching on a rock. His eyes burn with fire and he roars again, shaking the earth.
Twilight screams defiance at him, her rainbow swelling. It is harmony, and once it bound him. But that was harmony in its purest elemental form, as used by the first makers of harmony, Night and Day. This is a twisted thing, diluted through the years and then broken. It is still more powerful than a lone alicorn goddess, especially when paired with the element of magic herself. But it is not more powerful than he is now.
His head snaps down like a snake's, the strike shockingly quick for something so vast. His jaws close over her in an eyeblink. Slowly he lifts his head again. He tilts it back. He swallows. Then he throws his head back and laughs and laughs and laughs.
“Discord!” That is Celestia, still blazing. She does not charge him, but she will not back down either.
“Ah Sun. It has been a long time.” His voice booms out, an immense basso roar.
“You don't belong here.” Hers is so small, so thin compared to his.
“I made this world, little Princess. It is mine again now.”
“And what of my little ponies, then?”
“Their fate will be kinder than it would have been under your mad student. They will not suffer” His grin is still uneven, but his teeth are sharper now. “Nor will you.”
One vast paw comes down on Celestia's blazing light. When it lifts again the light is gone.
Now those burning eyes turn on me.
“Moon, daughter of Night. Sister.”
“Kill me and get it over with,” I say, barely able to whisper.
“As you wish,” he says, and a second vast paw comes down on me, blotting out the night sky above.
Chaos rose into the air. Below him the mountain reshaped itself into a vast throne. He settled on it. He frowned for a moment, then snapped his fingers and summoned a glass of chocolate milk. With a smile he drank the glass, leaving the milk behind.
“Ah, memories. This has been a good vintage, really. However...”
He lifted his head and inhaled. Above the twinkling stars rushed down into his maw, until the night sky was blank and empty. The moon was already gone, she was dead. The sun would never rise again either, nor would day once more appear.
He rose from his throne and stomped one foot. With a vast booming sound the earth sank and black water rushed over it, covering it. Only the mountain throne stood above it. He settled back down on the seat. Then he looked up at the empty night again.
“It's just you and me now, Mother. Shall we play another round?”
