Three Sides of a Coin

by TheGunslinger

Rating: everyone
Tags: Dark, Tragedy
Length: 2110

Once upon a time, more than a thousand years ago, Discord ruled Equestria, in a time of suffering and chaos. That is, until two sisters rose up against him, and used the Elements of Harmony to turn him to stone, and end his reign. But where did Discord come from? How did the Elements of Harmony come to be? How did the two sisters come into possession of them? And what happened afterwards? This is the story of the three sides of the same coin, a spirit of chaos, a princess of the sun, and a princess of the moon.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-03-22 20:47:25 UTC

The Dawn of Chaos

It has been a long time...

The world is harmonious once again

And it has been harmonious for too long now…

It seems that my time has come, once again…

Oh, how much fun will I have this time around!

The walls of the royal chamber of Canterlot castle started to melt, dripping down to the floor which now moved like the waves.

A creature…no pony could say what it actually was, sat on the now vacant throne of Equestria. The queen was now lying by its feet, barking like a dog. When the guards turned to face the creature sitting on the throne, the queen growled at them.

“AlLoW mE To inTtroDuCe mYsElf.” the creature spoke, in a smooth voice “I Am DISCORD, sPirit oF cHaos aNd dishaRMonY, pleAsEd to mAke yoUr acQuainTanCe. I wiLL be yOur rulEr fRom noW on.”

The pegasus guards tried to attack him, but with a flicker of his finger and a flash of white light, their wings grew to a ridiculous size, and they fell down, into the floor. They struggled to stay on the surface. Discord

“Is tHat thE way to gReEt yOUr nEw ruLer? wEll, if sO, does anyOne elSe wIsh tO tRy?” all other ponies present moved a step backwards. Discord laughed “Oh, yoU pOnies…so pRediCtaBle.” He said as he petted the queen’s mane, and she purred silently “TheRe Is no nEed to Be so sCarEd of Me! I’m nOt goiNg to HUrt yoU….aT leAst, noT peRmaNently.” He smirked at the ponies as they ran out of the hall as quickly as they could "YoU Can rUn all yoU wAnT, if tHat makEs  yoU haPPy." he said as he snapped his fingers and the screems of ponies could be heard from echoing through the hallways.

“Keep this warm from me, will you dear?” he said to the queen as he lifted off the throne. She jumped on the throne, barked once, and remained sitting there “Good girl.” He snapped his fingers and vanished in a flash of white light.

Five unicorns, dressed in wizard garbs were fiercely arguing in the royal library. Outside, the rain was falling, straight from the ground and into the clouds above, while lightning jumped between the burning trees.

“I am telling you – Starswirl hath predicted this! All of this! We should follow his instructions!” one of them, a young mare of a dark blue coat and purple mane shouted, but nopony took her seriously.

“Oh please, everyone knows Starswirl was not right in the head!” another, older colt, of a gray coat and white mane, brushed her off “That madpony predicted a lot of silly things! No wonder some of them turned out to be right. He even predicted cotton candy clouds raining chocolate milk! And where do you see that?” he snorted “We should focus on finding something that would be of actual use to us! We don’t even know how much time we have to stop this madness! We cannot be wasting it on pointless pursuits!”

“CotTon cAnDy ClOuds raiNing cHoColate mILk? ThAt soUnds inTerEstinG.” A deep, suave voice spoke “MaYbe I’Ll tRy thAt sOMetIme...”

Everypony in the library froze when they realized it wasn’t the voice of any of them.

The gray unicorn mustered up his courage and shouted “Show yourself, Discord!”

The carpet blow him suddenly rose, in the shape of a goat head with two different horns, which said “boO.” The unicorn jumped up, and fell over on his head, his butt sticking up in the air. Discord slowly rose from the carpet laughing as he did.

The gray unicorn quickly recovered “Formation!”he shouted, and the four other unicorns got behind him, making a cone shape with him at the front. Discord stopped laughing and just looked at them, blinking a few times while idly floating.

Their horns shone brightly, as they channeled power to the gray unicorn, helping him cast a powerful spell he could not possibly cast by himself. His horn became a beacon of blinding light, as the immensely powerful sealing spell formed.

Discord created a tall, lavish chair and sat in it, his head leaned on his right hand, as if he was bored. These were five of the most powerful unicorn wizards in all of Equestria facing him down, but it did not seem to faze him in the least.

Finally, the spell charged up fully and rays of bright white light flowed from the gray unicorn-s horn, and around Discord. They danced around him, closing in, until they covered him completely and he could not be seen anymore. The rays of light formed a ball that exploded with a blinding flash.

“Ha-ha! We did it!”one of the other unicorns cheered, even before the smoke cleared. Two of the others were quick to join him, but the old gray colt and the young dark blue mare were not so eager to celebrate. They knew.

The smoke and light cleared, and they were able to see the aftermath of their spell – Discord was sitting in his chair, same as before, except that the fingers of his left hand were now impatiently tapping the armrest. He stopped and put the hand over his mouth as he yawned “ThAt’s whAt yoU cAll magIc thEse daYs?” he smirked “LeT me sHow you soMe rEal maGic.”

He lifted his hands and white light flashed, as the floor swirled, and the room moved, turned and twisted, bookshelves elongated, separated and melded into one another. The room had no more corners and the walls melted into one with the floor and the ceiling. Discords laugh echoed through the library he now bent to his will, as the ponies struggled to adapt to the changing scenery, to the floor wiggling under their hooves, like it was a living being. And maybe it was.

The bookshelves positioned themselves in weird, almost impossible angles, all around the five ponies and Discord, forming a freakish three-dimensional maze. The room finally settled down somewhat, even though the floor was still moving.

“MuCh beTtEr!” Discord said gleefully, while looking around and admiring his creation.

“This is not over Discord!” the gray unicorn pony shouted. “I will find a way to defeat you!”

“Oh, BuT of cOurse tHis isn’T oVer, I woUldN’t wAnt it any OthEr Way.” Discord replied calmly “THe fUn is jUst sTartinG.” He looked at the determined pony with a smug grin on his face as he snapped his fingers and left in a flash of light.

“It’s sO fUn to wAtch tHem sQuIrm aNd try to dEfeat me, oVer And oVer aGain. So fUn to waTch tHeir fuTile efForts, And To sEe all tHat detErmInAtion anD hoPe sloWly dyInG iN their eYes…oh, I almOst foRGot How fUn thiS WoRld is!”

“Master Graymane…” the dark blue Mare said, as she slowly approached the elderly gray unicorn. He cut her off before she could finish

“No Nightsky Sparkle.” he brushed her off “I am fine. We can defeat him, I know we can. There has to be a spell in here somewhere that can defeat him…we just didn’t look hard enough.” Nightsky opened her mouth to say something, but Graymane cut her off before she could even start “And no, do not even try to mention Starswirl again. I refuse to believe the prophecies of a madman. I am ashamed that my best student got caught up in such foolishness.” He paused, and then spoke to the rest of his students “We need to make sense of this mess, and find the most important books first. Find me the Grimoire of Seals for starters.”

Nightsky just hanged her head, so that her flowing purple mane covered her face completely. She went off to help the others, seemingly, but she didn’t search for the book her master instructed her to. They already tried the most powerful sealing spell from that book and it didn’t work at all. There was nothing more that the book could offer to them.

Instead, she searched for any book or scroll she could find that was authored by Starswirl the Bearded. She had found most of them, but not all, and there was bound to be more information in one of them.

She never believed the prophecies of Starswirl, who, apparently, went mad near the end of his life, before he mysteriously disappeared. But, when all this started happening, she knew that the stunning similarities just couldn’t be a coincidence.

In one text only, he mentioned a way of defeating this “draconequus” being, that apparently called himself Discord. Since then, she searched all over for any other text referring to the mysterious artifacts he mentioned, called the “Elements of Harmony” but she found none. She still was not completely sure if they were only fabrications of a madpony, or the real deal, but the way it looked now, it was their best shot. Now, when she finally saw the creature in person, and what it can do, she was more sure than ever – he looked exactly as Starswirl described him.

Still, she was puzzled – why didn’t he just kill them? They were, quite possibly, the only ones with a shot of defeating him, so wouldn’t it make sense to eliminate them, just in case? Or is he so arrogant as to not consider them a threat, no matter what? Or was it all just meaningless to him?

“It’S MeaNinglEss.” The voice whispered directly into her ear, ad she jumped up “oH, did I sCare YOu? I’m soRry. DoN’t woRry, I Won’t do You No haRm…wEll, at lEast I dOn’t thInk I will.” Discord was standing directly behind her, but he was not the huge thing he was before. Nor was he a draconequus. He was a vase.

“Wha-what do you w-want from me?” she tried to sound courageous, but her voice faltered.

“Oh, noThIng. I jUst fiNd it inteRestiNg that, wHile eVerypOny is beinG all boRing, aNd trYing to find a raTional sOlution To evEryThing, tO maKe senSe of tHis, you aRe baCk here, tryiNg to finD an irRatioNal onE. It amUses Me.”

His face was on the vase that stood on a twisted platform that was once a cupboard. There were some flowers in the vase, but they were not like any flowers she knew of. First off, they were made out of playing cards. “YOu liKe mY neW hAir?” the Discord-vase said.

“What do you want from me?” she repeated, this time more confidently.

“I jUst wanT to bE yOur friend.” He said seriously, almost pleadingly. Only a moment later, he burst into laughter “Oh, I juSt cAn’t keEP a stRaiGht face wHile saYing tHat...” the Discord-vase continued laughing.

Nightsky was not so scared of him anymore. She was more annoyed by him than anything. A being with such power, and yet so…unfitting for it. But still, what he does is inexcusable – he must be stopped, one way or another. And she will find a way.

“Go away. And stop staring at me.” She brushed him off. “No one would ever want to be your friend anyway.” She turned around and continued searching through the books.

Discord just smiled a little, closed his eyes, and the next moment, the vase was just a normal vase again.

She was interesting. Very much so. She was not like the others, that’s for sure. They were all boring and, oh so dreadfully normal. That’s why she never got along with all of them, who always did everything by the book. They were all foals.

Someone else would be worried about five of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria tried to defeat him, but not Discord. He knew that the logical ones were easy to handle. They will try to make sense of this, try to defeat him, over and over again, until they finally realize they can’t, lose all hope and give in to despair. He didn’t even have to lift a claw.

But the irrational ones however…they were much more dangerous. They won’t give up so easily, because no matter how silly things get, they will not give up. They will not do the reasonable thing, even when they see no way to accomplish what they want. They will try to find a way, no matter how stupid it may look. And, with time and luck, they might stumble upon what they were searching for.

Rightfully, he should have gotten rid of her right then and there, but he just couldn’t bring himself to it. After all, how could he pass up on all the lovely chaos this little pony is sure to make?