For the 10,478th time (Wind Whistler had kept a count), Dr. Schwartzwald Fuchs asked Wind Whistler to have sex with him. And, for the 10,478th time, she had refused.
This sounded as Dr. Fuchs were a lot more annoying than he was in truth. Wind Whistler had known Fuchs for twenty-five hundred years now, so he’d only asked her an average of 4.1572 times per year. That wasn’t really all that often: she’d known persistent Big Brothers who’d been at least as annoying. Though not many: stupidity so extreme tended to be quite counter-survival during the Times of Extermination and Reclamation, some six thousand years ago.
She meant, of course, ones she’d rejected. Wind Whistler was logical but far from passionless, and there’d been stallions to whom her answer to that question had been an exultant and enthusiastic yes, often accompanied by sultry gazes and meaningful flicks of her long, lovely tail, its cute white bow enticingly half-concealing, half-revealing those parts of her to which only a lover might enjoy admittance.
The stallions she accepted were anything but stupid – in fact, intelligence had always been one of the most important criteria governing the dispensation of her favors. Others included courage, kindness, a good sense of humor, and a certain fundamental moral decency. Though she had known the sexual love of 57 stallions during her life incarnate, Wind Whistler had never been promiscuous: it would be more accurate to describe her as very choosy. She had, after all, lived 3517 years first in mortal, and then emmortal flesh, before Discord had removed her from the control of that body. This meant that she had only taken one lover every 61-62 years on average: behavior which she considered fairly chaste.
Wind Whistler was well aware that most Ponies, in any historical age, would have considered her cold-blooded for thinking about love in such mathematical terms, even had they not known of the actual charts she had made on which to graph her own trend-lines regarding her romantic actions. She wasn’t sure why this was; in her over six thousand years of existence, she had never really grasped why so few Ponies realized the glorious beauties of formal logic and mathematics. She had simply learned that it was unwise to bring up the topic in connection with certain emotional states. Even Megan had thought her rather odd in this respect.
For a short while, not too long ago, there had been a Pony who might have understood her. A blond-maned, white Earth Pony mare, who aside from the difference in Kind had been the spitting image of her old (and long-dead) friend Surprise, had sometimes sat by her location in the Royal Gardens of Canterlot. The mare had been a mathematician, and sometimes brought papers with her and worked upon them, under the gaze of what she assumed was a stone statue of Discord.
The blond mare had drawn Discord’s attention, and for once in a friendly fashion, for Surprise had always been one of his favorites; even though it was ultimately his fault that she was no longer incarnate. She hadn’t been Surprise reborn – the lifescent was all wrong – but she was the next best thing: Surprise the Nth Pie, a distant descendant of the mare who had annoyed and entertained Wind Whistler for over three and a half millennia. Wind Whistler had been glad to see her alive.
She saw that this Surprise had at least one lover whose behavior the mathematician could chart; a big handsome grayish-brown, black-maned stallion named Reliable Oaktree. He was slow but spoke sense, a mathematician like Surprise herself, and they were obviously both partners in love and in mathematics. Wind Whistler approved; he was the very sort of stallion to whom she herself might have said “yes” in her breathing days.
They were eventually wed, in the fashion which Megan had introduced and Heart Throb had spread round the world during The Reclamation. Wind Whistler knew little of their lives together. They must have left Canterlot, for they rarely returned to the statue after a while, and eventually she heard that they were dead. This had been the fate of most of her friendships from beyond the Estate during her long life, and it was the fate of almost all she knew now that she was dwelling within the statue of Discord.
All, really, save for Celestia, who came by now and then – quite frequently compared to most, since these were after all the gardens of her house, even though the house in question was a grand palace – and almost always visited on the occasion of Discord’s birthday. She almost never said anything to the statue – Celly had long since accepted that this was no longer all that much of her friend Dissy in there – but she’d bring some cake and wine and sit by the statue a while, symbolically sharing the day.
Discord’s emotions were even more confused than usual at such times, running the gamut from hate to love, malice to longing, predation to protectiveness. By now, Wind Whistler had long since realized that both his Cosmic Self and the part which they’d called Dissy loved Celestia, after their rather-different fashions, though she found both their ways of expressing it rather illogical. Dissy, however, had at least been a nice colt; she missed him sometimes too, though not as sharply as did Celestia.
Wind Whistler had of course not seen much of Luna in the personal sense since the disastrous spat with her sister that had resulted in the destruction of the old Castle, the statue’s removal to the new Royal Palace, and Luna’s removal to the Moon. She had however smelt the taint of Shadow on Luna as Nightmare Moon, and hoped that Celestia was sufficiently ready for her Sister’s inevitable return. Luna would be coming back soon; the thousand years were almost up now.
That should be interesting to watch. Things were about to happen; Wind Whistler knew that What was behind Nightmare Moon would not ignore the opportunity her advent would cause to wreak havoc. She wouldn’t be surprised if It wouldn’t weaken the spell on Discord as well, and on many worse evils. Discord wanted to play with Ponies; his play was frequently cruel and destructive, but there were things in the world which wanted to destroy Ponykind.
Wind Whistler should know – she’d personally participated in defeating many of them, and Discord had fought several of them himself in the course of his millennial tyranny. Sadistic lunatic or no, Discord was fundamentally on the same side as Celestia when it came to serious threats to the Ponies, and Wind Whistler was actually proud of some of the things he’d done in their defense – she herself had been the one who’d taught him how to fight. Despite her own fate, and those of her old friends, Wind Whistler was on those occasions quite glad that he’d paid attention to those lessons.
Unfortunately, it was looking as if Discord would wind up being the pawn of the Night Shadows, at least at first. Wind Whistler had of course warned him about this, more than once, but Discord had a way of ignoring warnings he didn’t want to believe – which was one of the personality traits that had been entirely consistent between himself and his older self as Dissy. This might have infuriated her, if she hadn’t been so long accustomed to his stubbornness.
She had observed his slow change during the millennium and a half they had spent as stone together; it had been a long time even by Wind Whistler’s standards, almost a quarter of her whole existence on Earth; and three-fifths of the time Discord had spent in this incarnation. He had become more the Pony than he realized; another five hundred years, and he'd be able to get along with Ponies without much trouble. And then Ponykind would have another powerful protector.
They didn't have five hundred years, though. They didn't even have half a year, any more. Wind Whistler had seen the spell Celestia had cast to banish Luna, and she knew its duration. It would expire in but a couple of months -- probably during the coming summer solstice, the toy cosmology that Sundreamer and Moondreamer had made was symbolic that way. And then Celestia would once again face her erring Sister, and hopefully they wouldn't break the world in their struggle.
Ah, well. Celestia had probably prepared for this. She was nothing if not conscientious and systematic. And Luna was, when all was said and done, her Sister -- not only in this incarnation, but in a sense that had come to be in the earliest ages of the Universe. And there wasn't much Wind Whistler could do about it when Discord was still a statue; and little she could do even when he broke free. Discord only listened to her occasionally, and only took her advice when he sensed that he'd already made a mess of things.
Until then she would continue to watch the world from within his shell of stone, and live her shadow life with her friends within his mind. Lazy, crazy Destruction, sweet Green-Glint, and shy little Rose Petal. Good beings, one and all, and she was quite glad of their company.
Rose Petal, Wind Whistler thought. Fuchs is probably bothering her, now. To no purpose -- she'll just hide from him, as she always does, but he'll still annoy her.
Should she intervene? She was fond of the little Changeling Princess, but she couldn't be always protecting her, and Fuchs' threat was fairly trivial since Wind Whistler had shown her how to use the magics of Discord's mental realm to fend him off. Besides, Fuchs knew better than to attack Rose -- Wind had repeatedly made it clear to him what she would do to him if he ever hurt her. The one emotional constant about Fuchs beyond his lechery was his cowardice, and Wind Whistler could be terrifying, especially to one who knew her reputation.
Wind Whistler sighed. The last thing she wanted right now was more time spent with Fuchs, and she could predict the encounter -- at some point, he'd accuse her of "cock-blocking" (what an ugly and stupid turn of phrase), and start whining about his sexual frustration. There was no sexual frustration beyond that which he chose to feel -- that was one of the advantages of their insubstantial state as memory-patterns -- as Wind Whistler knew well because she'd been completely celibate for millennia, just like himself. It was all in his mind, which meant that Fuchs had a rather dirty mind, something which even the asexual Green-Glint had long since realized but which Fuchs himself refused to admit.
And the whining, of course, was an appeal to her for pity sex, which was something that Wind Whistler absolutely refused to do. She'd never had much pity for stupidity, especially when accompanied by an unpleasant disposition -- one of the reasons, of course, that so many other Ponies imagined her cold.
It was even more irritating than were his periodic attempts to convert her to his idiotic ideology, the "Scientific Socialism" for which he'd been betraying Amareica when Discord had taken him in the first place. Those, at least, could be amusing -- when in the right sort of mood Wind Whistler delighted in taking his long circular arguments to pieces. She supposed she took too sadistic a joy in watching him slink away afterward -- she hoped Discord wasn't rubbing off on her. But then Discord would have just warped his personality and laughed at him; logical rebuttal had never been his style. Not even Dissy's -- Dissy would have pranked Fuchs and run off laughing.
She sighed. Dissy had sometimes been an annoying student. Even before he'd Awoken and destroyed them all. And both Celly and Lulu had been so in love with him. She'd been more serious as a filly herself, but then that went almost without saying. She'd grown up in a much harsher world -- one far worse than Paradise Estate, and even worse in many ways than the Age of Discord. She hadn't expected to see sixty, let along sixty centuries. Whether one counted her as alive or dead now (Wind Whistler inclined toward "alive," since she was still able to ponder the issue), she could not deny that she was far ahead of the game.
Time to stop worrying about this. There was nothing she could do about it unless she tried to contact Celestia, and she had avoided doing this for fifteen hundred years because she was afraid that if she did, Celestia would consider releasing Discord too soon. She could try to warn Discord, but he wouldn't heed her; he wouldn't heed anypony until he'd had at least one good pointless rampage. Until Luna actually returned, she couldn't be sure how events would develop. Wind Whistler suspected Celestia would win the inevitable encounter, Celly usually did win these things (smart girl!), but she couldn't be sure, and past a certain point considering the outcome tree even in a pure-logic game like chess was counter-productive. And life, sadly, was not purely logical -- too much was random from even Wind Whistler's point of view.
Leaving Discord's sensoria, Wind Whistler went down to the Game Club. Maybe Green-Glint would be up for some chess ...
Author's Note
On the characters ...
Discord is, well Discord. Sui generis, even among Draconequi. His early friendship with Celestia and Luna is explained in Pony POV Series Season Four: Generation Transitions and Origins by Alex Warlorn, as is how he wound up absorbing Wind Whistler (though Alex leaves Wind Whistler's fate uncertain).
Wind Whistler is of course one of the most prominent G1 Ponies. She was born some 6017 years before Luna's Return and preserved emmortal by the magic of the Rainbow of Harmony. before being possessed and absorbed by Discord 2500 years before Luna's return. A slightly different version of this is explained in Pony POV Series Season Four: Generation Transitions and Origins.
Schwarzenwald Fuchs was a nuclear physicist and spy who was possessed and absorbed by Discord 4086 years before Luna's Return, as described in my (very) incomplete story Trinity. He is a ponification of Klaus Fuchs, who was one of the key contacts of the Rosenberg spy ring.
Destruction is Discord's brother, whom he absorbed when they were both in Cosmic Form. Destruction is much less powerful as a ghost inside Discord than he would be either Cosmic or Incarnate. Destruction is introduced in Alex Warlorn's story, and his odd friendship with Wind Whistler is described in my (incomplete but long) Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason.
Green-Glint (full name Green-Glint-Of-Copper-Shade, was an Elder Thing security guard whose bad luck it was to be detailed to help protect the Proto-Smooze the day Cosmic Discord decided to take it. Hee's a really nice asexual (or hermaphroditic, depending on how you look at it) alien being, and Wind Whistler has close to a crush on herm. He's also described in Divine Jealousy.
Rose Petal is a not-very-bright, rather shy second-generation Changeling Princess (she was born to the first generation of Flutter Ponies that became Changelings). Discord would have killed her, but she was too damned adorable, so he consumed her instead. Wind Whistler feels rather protective toward her.
