“Your majesty?” Raven asked, approaching the throne. “They are growing quite restless…are you certain you would like to still go through with this?”
“Yes,” Celestia sighed. “It is best they know that I am aware of their concerns and am willing to address them, no matter how hostile they may be.”
Slowly, Celestia cantered towards the balcony to address her subjects. This was not something had been looking forward to. All morning she had been preparing a speech to address the burning questions on the crowd’s mind, only to revise it time and again-twelve at last count, in fact.
This had been her most grievous error in one-thousand years-even the Changeling siege on Canterlot and the plan their Queen had paled in comparison to the damage Tirek had done and the unspeakable atrocities he would have committed had they not lucked out. It also seemed odd that Discord would fail to realize he was being manipulating after having been a master of deception for eons before he was first sealed within stone. Though, she had to admit that her original plan for reforming him was foolish and half-baked at best, neither Twilight or her friends (save for Fluttershy) sincerely believed that he would ever truly change and unfortunately, that seemed to be the main contributing factor in his betrayal.
She also realized that it was an unwise gambit to enact the plan that she didn’t have all of her faith in. The flowers Discord gave her were a surprising apology gift and each one in the bouquet being uniquely colored to match the coats of Twilight and her friends were a particularly nice touch. However, she couldn’t help but continue to feel uneasy around him and put the flowers down as quickly as possible in case they had been magically rigged with some sort of booby trap only Discord could manage if that utter contempt was still present somewhere within him.
When Tirek had sent her to Tartarus, she couldn’t help but note with despair Discord’s complete apathy for their well-being. If he showed anger and them or sadistic glee after feeling slighted, that would have been something. Instead, he seemed to be more preoccupied with whatever he had been doing with the window at the time. All she had to go off of was the testimony of Twilight and her friends, but what if his remorsefulness was simply for himself after he had been betrayed? What if he merely continued the charade to protect himself after seeing what happened to Tirek?
In all honesty, she couldn’t blame her subjects in the slightest for being angry, scared, and questioning her judgment. They had their magic and their destinies stolen from them from a complete monster with Discord's aid, who had laughed at them while doing it. There was also the fact that many couldn’t protect their loved ones and merely watch helplessly as they were drained. It also did not help matters that there had been the potential for the bodies of a few young and elderly whom Tirek had drained could not survive the strain his actions had put on them.
None were present to see what had transpired and in the final moments of the battle leading to much skepticism as to whether or not Discord was truly reformed after the first time when he was supposedly reformed by Fluttershy only for him to betray her as well and it sounded as if he took much glee in rubbing it in after hearing Applejack’s testimony.
“Surely, you saw this coming?”
Despite not hearing those words from Discord himself, it was all too easy to visualize. And sadly, she did see something like this inevitably occurring. Despite Luna or herself easily being able to overpower Tirek in his weakened state and send him back to Tartarus, she had hoped that giving Discord this chance would prove that he had truly reformed and would help the uneasy public begin to accept him. Instead, he now seemed to be hated more than ever thanks to his brief alliance with Tirek.
The feelings she had upon returning were complicated; she felt sorry for Discord after learning that he had not only become a pawn, but had lost the two things he actually did care about. But, at the same time; she was terrified of him-she had no idea how his mind worked and if he somehow came to the conclusion that she had set him up-the consequences could be catastrophic for Equestria. He had already proven that given the choice between friendship and returning to his old ways, friendship would fail-as Fluttershy originally thought it was something he didn’t want to lose, recent events had proven that friendship isn’t nearly powerful enough to protect the world from someone like Discord.
While it was true that the final key to the chest was provided by Discord, the fact remained that if he had completed his original task, such an action would not have even been necessary.
Celestia sighed, she had a pretty good idea of what most of these questions and accusations would be and had been internally debating them with herself as well. Recently, it seemed like her every decision was a horrible mistake; not listening to Twilight on Cadence’s wedding day, releasing Discord from stone and trying to reform him, foolishly attempting to stop the Everfree forest from invading only to fall into another one of Discord’s traps, forfeiting her magic to Twilight so it would all be in one place when Tirek found her. It was at times like this that she wondered if Equestria would be better off without her, Twilight seemed to be able to solve things so easily in comparison.
Even in Tartarus she kept these thoughts to herself, so as not to panic Cadence and Luna. With all of the bad decisions she’d made and given how much more frequent they were becoming-was she truly any less destructive than Tirek? Would Equestria be better off if Twilight replaced her?
The only hope she had was that Twilight’s influence had reformed Discord for good, this time. It felt like the only thing of value she had done in recent years was guide Twilight until she became a princess. And now it seemed as if her guidance was no longer required now that she had accomplished so much in such a short amount of time.
Unfortunately, she had now reached the balcony to address the waiting, vitriolic crowd below.
