After engaging in unspeakable acts, Celestia and Luna lied back in a field.
It was a massive field, spreading out for hundreds of miles, and then dipping down into a thick forest that seemed to encompass the entire world. The world was empty, almost completely empty, save for the very strongest elements of nature.
"It's so beautiful," Luna said.
Celestia let out a short, cynical chuckle. It was always a bit disquieting when Celestia laughed. When she laughed, she almost completely lost control of herself, and it always came out like a shrill wheeze. "How unusually rational for you, Luna," she said, lazily turning her head. "Usually, knowing what gave us this view would be more than enough to make you disgusted by it."
Luna winced. "Maybe… this time can be different."
Celestia chuckled again. "It's already different! But not in the way you like," Celestia said. "I can't believe two people have already tried the immortality process. It's been entertaining, at least."
"How can you say that?" Luna said. "Sombra very nearly threatened our world order!"
"Yes, but it was easy enough to seal his kingdom away," Celestia said. "He never stood a chance, even while he had a physical body." Celestia smiled. "He should've never tried the immortality process. He'll fall apart if a breeze hits him wrong."
"How does something like that happen?" Luna said.
"He probably didn't eat enough blood," Celestia said. "It's incredible. Even someone as ruthless as him balks at the amounts you need." She stroked Luna's flank. With her tongue. "Mortals can draw the strangest boundaries, don't you think?"
Luna squirmed. "And Cadance?"
"Oh, who knows what happened with her," Celestia said. "I swear, she just appeared out of nowhere. I've never seen an otherwise perfect alicorn with two hearts before."
"That worries me. How could we not have noticed that?"
Celestia gave up on the flank, and laid her head on Luna's back. "I don't know. She must've been collecting bodies very slowly, so we wouldn't notice. It doesn't really matter."
"It doesn't?" Luna said, a bit testy.
"Of course not," Celestia said, burying her face in Luna's fur. "We can't die, so what could possibly threaten us?"
The sun lowered a bit, and another breeze made everything sway.
"I think I'm going to put a castle there," Celestia said, pointing to a mountainside. "Right there, where it will block the sunset."
Luna looked over, a bit hurt. "What on earth for?"
"I don't want anyone else to see this view. I want it to be ours."
Luna was silent.
"Well, I do have a more practical reason," Celestia said, standing up. "Look over there. There's a slight seam in the dome. If I put a castle there, no one will notice. You wouldn't want someone seeing that and finding out what this country really is, would you? It would break their little mind."
Luna looked at the spot in question. She twitched slightly. "I still can't believe it. The whole planet…"
Celestia looked a bit disgusted. "Oh, don't get cold feet now," she said. "Think of it like this. We're doing ponykind a service, providing this… protection."
Luna still looked somber.
Celestia leaned down. "Stop thinking about it. There's nothing you can do. I won, so I'm in charge now. I'll run this country how I see fit. You can watch to your heart's content."
Celestia spread her wings, sending out a powerful gust of wind that would have likely knocked a mortal pony to the ground. "Now then," she said, "I'm off to see our favorite wizard."
Luna raised an eyebrow. "'Our?' Celestia, you know I dislike him."
Celestia looked back, a bit confused. "What? Really? Why?"
"His experiments could be the undoing of us all."
Celestia smiled. "Why do you think I like him?"
She flew off.
– – – –
The laboratory was messy. Actually, it was a little past messy. It was downright dangerous. Most of the equipment was jerryrigged viciously. Deadly chemicals were left unmarked. The floor was covered in used, broken flasks. There was one specific path you could take without cutting your feet, and the only person that knew how to find it was the lab's owner.
Starswirl sat at one of the tables, carefully mixing a couple vials, when Celestia quietly walked in from the balcony outside.
"Hello, Starswirl," she said, slowly stepping through the vast quantities of broken glass, just because she could. "What are you doing?"
"You really shouldn't bother me during an experiment," Starswirl said, still concentrated on his vials. "Something could go wrong."
"I like it when things go wrong."
Starswirl sighed. "Not everyone is immortal, Celestia."
Celestia nuzzled up to Starswirl. "Not everyone is a genius, Starswirl."
"I'm not a genius," Starswirl said. "I'm really a terrible wizard."
"Nonsense. Your failures are ten times more interesting than most wizards' greatest successes. That makes you a genius to me."
Starswirl put down his equipment. He wasn't going to get any work done with this going on. "Celestia, I've done nothing but try to solve world hunger," he said. "And look at me. I've done nothing but make weapons. What does that say about me?"
It was actually Celestia's favorite thing about Starswirl, but she wasn't about to say that to his face. "Nothing," she said, "except that you're one in a million. You make weapons, but you do it for good. I mean, look at the Elements of Harmony! Enough power to level a city, but only if six different gems are held by six different ponies that embody six different virtues. That's fascinating!" She was already thinking of ways to circumvent that system. If she could get one sap and five friends to trust her…
Starswirl wasn't comforted. "I suppose so."
"Regardless," Celestia said, standing up, "you'll have plenty of time to think it over after I'm done with you. Follow me."
She walked over to a wall, and her horn lit up. A shape roughly the size of a door appeared, outlined in bright magic energy. She pushed it open, revealing a small stone room.
Starswirl looked surprised. "That wasn't—"
"Space bending magic," Celestia said. "I'm thinking of using it as an anti-intruder mechanism for my next castle. We're in a wing of it now, by the way." They stepped in, and the door closed behind them, bathing the room in darkness.
Celestia stepped forward and lit some candles on a table. Dimly, Starswirl saw a dish with what appeared to be some kind of meat on it. It was red, blood red, almost as if it were still alive.
"What's this?" he said.
"The eternal dream," Celestia said, hardly able to contain her excitement. "Eat it."
Starswirl walked over and tentatively took a bite.
– – – –
Celestia screamed.
Luna's eyes snapped open. She knew, from experience, that Celestia had two screams—a pleasure scream, and a panic scream.
That was her panic scream.
And if Celestia was panicked, things were very, very bad.
She sprinted out of her room.
– – – –
"I believe I made some slight miscalculations," Celestia said as Starswirl's neck grew another foot.
Luna gaped. "You… you didn't…"
"Yes, I used the immortality process on him," Celestia said, a bit irritated. "I've had a spare amalgamation lying around for a while, in case someone caught my eye. He caught my eye."
Luna could only blink. "Didn't you learn anything from what happened with my—?"
"Yes. I spent more than a week mulling over this decision, for one. It's not my fault the process went a bit screwy."
"Yes, it is," Luna said. "You made the process."
"Only technically speaking," Celestia said. "Besides, it's been a while."
Starswirl let out an unearthly scream, and one of his hooves turned into a claw.
Luna sighed. "So what do you want to do with him? Kill him?"
"Tried that. He's already immortal. This is just extra."
"Extra?"
"You know. Side effects. Like the hunger. But worse, obviously."
Luna paused. "What exactly happened, anyway?"
Celestia shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure myself. I'll be looking into it later, you can be assured of that. I might have taken some… shortcuts when I made this amalgamation that could have affected the process."
"Shortcuts!? Why on earth would you—"
"Intellectual curiosity," Celestia snapped. "I'm not planning on making an immortal army or anything. Trust me, I don't want to be overrun with our kind any more than you do."
Luna flinched.
Celestia looked off to the side. "More likely, though, is his gender. We never have tried to make a man immortal…"
Luna blinked. "That's it? His gender? You think his gender is responsible for all of this?"
Starswirl's body was currently doing things that violated the natural order, and would have surely driven any mortal pony insane at the sight.
"Hormones can do a lot. Male and female brains work very differently," Celestia said. "For example, you must know that stallions suffer from deranged perversions much more than mares."
"Deranged perversions?" Luna said, raising an eyebrow. "Like yours?"
"Yes, like those."
Starswirl's squirming and screaming finally became impossible to ignore, and his body exploded into a million shades of light, some visible, some not, some just outside what constituted a normal color. It was not unlike the abomination that was Celestia's hair, which worried Luna.
The light dispersed, and standing before them was the creature that used to be Starswirl. His fur was basically the same color, and he had a slight beard, but that was where the similarity ended. His body had been stretched out grotesquely. He was extremely long and lanky now, at least eight feet tall. His limbs had been replaced with random limbs from other creatures. One arm was a paw, the other a claw, the other a talon. His face was no longer that of a pony's. It was difficult to say what it was supposed to be, but it looked vaguely goatlike.
He looked around a bit, taking in his surroundings. The worst of the transformation seemed to be over. A slight smile spread across his lips.
"Sorry about that," Celestia said, once again her unnervingly calm self. "I fear that was slightly more uncomfortable than it needed to be."
Luna scoffed at "slightly," but what used to be Starswirl laughed.
"Uncomfortable?" he said. "Quite the opposite, my dear Celestia! I feel better than I have been my entire life! You know what I saw during that? Do you?"
Celestia smiled. "Oh, I know. The universe."
What used to be Starswirl snapped a talon. "That's right! I saw everything! All at once! And you know what I realized?"
"What?"
"There is no order. Even order is chaos. Because what do you get when everything is perfectly in order? Madness. Insanity. Now I see! That's what I was after this whole time. I was trying to create world peace. But, what is world peace but world chaos? If it actually happened, people would never accept it. They would doubt and doubt, and get into wars about it, and bring the world right back where it used to be. It's hopeless. So why not embrace chaos?"
"That depends," Celestia said. "How much chaos are you talking?"
"For now? I'm thinking about 20% more."
"Sounds reasonable enough."
Luna leaned over to Celestia. "You're not thinking of letting Starswirl…"
What used to be Starswirl immediately materialized in Luna's hair, causing her to scream. "Starswirl? Don't call me that any more," he said. "I'm immortal now! I need a new name. Something stylish. Something catchy. Something marketable."
"Discord," Celestia said, almost automatically.
"That's perfect!" Discord said, wrapping himself around her. "How did you think of that?"
"She's insane," Luna said.
Celestia punched through Luna's stomach and ripped out an entrail, eliciting a guttural, bloody, slightly irritated grunt.
"Yes, that," Celestia said.
Discord whistled. "Oh my," he said slowly. "Celestia? Are you always like this?"
"Yes," Celestia said. "Just not around mortals." She thought. "Not all the time, at least," she added.
Discord got up close. "I love you," he said.
"So do I."
"I love your strength."
"Thank you."
"So, do this for me: never become weak. Never beg for your life," he said. "I'll only let it slide once. Then I'll leave you, and this world."
Celestia scoffed. "What? Where did that come from? Who do you think I am?"
"Someone who's a little more sane then she pretends to be."
Celestia froze.
"Oh, get a room, you two," Luna said, fully expecting another internal organ to be ripped out. Nothing happened.
Discord uncoiled from Celestia and stood tall. "Well! As you can expect, I want to take over the world now. You call it the Game, don't you? Well, I want to play too."
Luna's eyes widened. "No, you can't—!"
Celestia smiled, regaining her composure. "Fine with me. I think I need a break from the millennial grind. How about this? You have two years. Do whatever you want, and we won't interfere. After that time, everything's free game. Sound good?"
Discord smiled. "Excellent."
"Remember to play by the rules, though," Celestia said. "No unnecessary deaths."
Discord was taken a bit off guard. "Awfully sentimental."
Celestia laughed. "Hardly. It's for both of our own goods. Mortals are no fun dead, and I don't want you ruining my fun as well."
Discord thought about it. "You make a good point," he said. "Well then, ta-ta! I have a world to run!"
He disappeared.
Luna finally managed to stuff her organs back into her stomach. "How could you?" she said. "How could you sell out the country like that?"
"We couldn't stop him. Not now, at least," Celestia said, casually walking towards her. "I have some ideas on how to defeat him. He'll appreciate the irony, at any rate."
Luna stood up. "So what will we do in the meantime?"
Celestia slowly ran her hoof down Luna's back, pausing at the base of her wings. Luna shivered. "Relax," Celestia purred.
Luna looked up at her, blushing. "Fine," she replied, and walked out.
After she was gone, Discord slinked out from under the table.
"Clever," Celestia said, looking over. "I'm not regretting this."
Discord looked out, towards Luna. "You do realize what she thinks of you, right?"
"Of course I do," Celestia said, smiling. She licked her lips. "I'm counting on it."
