Some Of This May Look Depressingly Familiar
There were still so many things he didn't understand, and boundaries was high on the list. The concept that there were times when she didn't want him watching her... completely foreign to his experience, and she was starting to feel it was a lesson he didn't want to learn. He had a connection now, of sorts, with a relationship that was... they were both still trying to work that out. But as far as he was concerned, it was friendship, and he had decided that meant he had the duty to explore the implications at any given hour under Sun and Moon, whenever he felt like it.
The concept that somepony might say "No" to him... that was something he was entirely familiar with, starting at some point during a distant era which he refused to discuss. The idea that he might want to listen was entirely new, and he was visibly having trouble holding onto it for more than a minute at a stretch. And so when he just -- appeared...
...she had tried talking to him, during those last three weeks. About giving her some notice, about not just popping in whenever his whims dictated. She had been told she could get through more than anypony ever, and so she continued her efforts, even despite how futile and pointless they usually were. And perhaps there had been an occasion or two when he did listen to her, or at least the sheer coincidence had lined up in such a way as to present that illusion. But for the majority of times... he just showed up. With no regards for her privacy, for whatever else might be happening at the time, for anypony who wasn't her, and she wasn't always sure he had even the faintest talon grip on her concerns either.
And in those times when he wasn't actively there, staring over her shoulder (or from within her mane, standing on her back, pacing across the ceiling and her clock while making deliberately unsubtle grumbling I Am Here And You Should Have Noticed This By Now sounds)... well, she had started to notice that when she was out and about, or on the grounds around the cottage, anywhere at all... there were frequently what seemed to be a few completely random elements present within the scenery, which would then coalesce into one very big random element.
"Why do you put up with that?" said a voice which, only moments before, would have been coming from a lost hoofball, half-finished flower sandwich, completely out-of-place hatrack, and three red-eyed flamingos who had been passing by the bowling alley for no apparent reason. "You are aware of what a lie is, I trust? That concept has managed to work its way in through the bale-weights of pink mane and reach twitching yellow ears?"
She looked around, checking every direction except the one which contained the voice (not that such would have always been a help). And sure enough, the majority of ponies who'd been on the street on that late spring day were now -- well, 'elsewhere' summed it up nicely, although it didn't quite give enough credit to those who'd sought refuge in shops, homes, air, and in one spectacularly ill-advised case, a public drinking trough.
"Not that I mind a well-turned lie, of course," the voice thoughtfully mused. "A perfectly-crafted falsehood can add just the right touch of disruption to the day. Truth is order, yes? I'm almost certain your trotting orange bundle of double standards would agree with that if she could pause long enough from kicking apples at me to get a word in. And so it should really be tested once in a while, just to keep it getting too full of itself. But there are lies which give that order a workout... and there are lies which pretend they are order. Have been all along. And I? Find that offensive, I really do. A lie should own itself. Not hope to become the truth."
She sighed. Softly, "...I know he was lying..."
"Oh, really," came the not-exactly-patient observation. (Patience was... something else he didn't seem to quite have a grasp on yet.) "And what do you plan on doing about it?"
"...wait for next moon, and he'll make his payment then."
The pause was exceptionally long. Two whole seconds. "Remind me... what was his name again?"
Every part of her coat wanted to shiver in spring warmth. "...don't do... don't do anything... please..."
"I can," he announced, "find out rather easily. I'm sure somepony would be willing to tell me, in exchange for... well, in exchange, let's leave it at that."
"...don't do anything to anypony at all..."
"I would not," he nobly declared, "be asking for information in exchange for doing things."
She turned her head, shook it a little to clear away manefall, stared (but not Stared) directly up into the red eyes. Waited.
"I would be making the request, and in return for my oh-so-very reasonable inquiry being answered in full, I would... stop doing things. Completely different --"
"-- please don't."
He rolled his eyes. The left one made it all the way to Davenport's door, then launched itself off the dangling sign, rebounded from a gutter, and landed precisely in the proper socket.
"Thistle Burr," he petulantly said. "The one who hates the Princesses and everything about them. Which would normally make him a pony of taste, except that he also despises everything associated with the thrones, including you and your... and them within that. Oh, and as the two of you were just discussing, he has the nastiest border collie in fifty settled zones, one whom he has trained to snap and bite anypony or anyone who isn't him -- no discrimination in his hate -- but only when he's sure no one will be able to sue him over the results. See? I knew it all along. But since it's so very clear that you don't want me knowing that, perhaps I'll just pretend I never knew at all. His name, I mean. And where he lives. And why he has so much hate --"
It was a little like talking to an explosive which was trying to decide exactly when and where to go off.
"...please?"
"It's the things he says about you," came the reply. "And to your face no less, or at least as much of it as anypony can make out. They are offensive. Not just because they are lies. But because they are lies which claim to be the truth. Lies he has told so often that he believes them himself, refuses to understand why anypony else would ever doubt them... and in his hate, he brings that stupid dog of his to you instead of Sweetbark. Not because he thinks you're any better. Not because he respects your skills in any way. No, he'd simply rather it bite you. And after you tend to it with your expert ministrations, incidentally irritating him to no end by never suffering a single nip... he lies about the reasons he can't pay you. And you wouldn't confront him on them. At all."
It was just the two of them on the street now, if she ignored the stream of hopeless bubbles coming up from the trough. She watched as two of the talons snapped against each other, and a hollow reed fell into the water, exactly the right length and width for a pony to breathe through -- if it hadn't been carefully aimed to poke the last holdout in the eye.
There was a yelp. Scrambling hooves made damp sounds against the street. And then it was just the two of them.
"...I'm getting better at that," she said, because she was. "...but with him, there's no point. The more I say... the more he throws back, or distorts, or... with him, it's better just to wait. He'll pay. He's... afraid to go to court, because he thinks the system is... biased against anypony who believes the same things he does. He used to swear he would personally change that, but... I don't even have to show up. One summons..."
"It's still putting up with him. And the things he says. About you." There so often seemed to be that anger under his words, even when he was approaching his -- kindest, as far as they both understood the term applying to his actions at all. That underlying grudge at suffering any degree of restraint or confinement, and those bonds included the social ones he didn't seem to know how to shake off. It was all the way to the surface now, threatening to erupt into air and ground and whatever ashes would somehow remain. "With lies that pretend to be truth. Chaos is fine and well and good and more necessary than your obsessive-compulsive librarian would ever allow herself to believe. But it should never pretend to be order."
"...it's okay," she said, and hoped it would be true. "...he'll pay in time. And the way he is... it's just something you have to... put up with."
"Put up with." Stark. Neutral. Unemotional. Sounds she was learning to associate with danger.
"...don't --"
He, so much taller than her when he wanted to be, leaned down. The antler ran through part of her mane, separated the fall into blocking her right eye again.
There were flashes all around them. Gasps, and those gasps came from ponies, residents of the settled zone who had just found themselves pulled away from work or play or school to be here, at least twenty ponies just in the area she could still see, one was in the middle of his post-shower shake...
"-- what did you --"
He leaned in closer, whispered into her right ear. "I just thought we needed an audience." Closer still...
"Two plus two," he regally told her, "equals five."
He straightened up, stared down at her.
She blinked.
"...what?"
"Just making a simple statement of truth," he shrugged to her, to the audience, all of whom seemed to have forgotten how to operate legs and/or wings. "It's basic math. Two. Plus two. Equals five. That is a fact. I thought I'd mention it. No real reason."
And she made her first mistake.
"...no, it doesn't."
There were things he was very good at. Looking offended generally topped the list. "No?"
"...no. It equals --"
"And the coverup begins," he hissed.
She blinked again.
"...what?"
"Oh, if I was wrong, then you simply would have ignored me," he declared. "Because isn't that what you do with a blatant lie? Allow the sheer idiocy of it out into the world on its own, where it dies from starvation? But will everypony just take a look at what happened here? This pony, a known agent of the throne, a Diarchist if ever there was one, took the trouble to contradict me. To try and make me look stupid. As her way of hiding the truth! Ponies only argue with what they fear, in the hopes that a sign of aggression will make it retreat! But I? Will not be silenced! I will not back down! I will stand for truth!"
The talon gestured to one of the pegasi. "You. Two plus two. What does that add up to?"
The terrified mare managed to free her jaw on the third attempt. "F-f-fou --"
"CONSPIRACY!"
It had been a scream.
"Listen to all of you!" he shouted. "Taught from birth to believe such things! Why, if I asked every pony here that question, I would get the same answer, wouldn't I? Because the conspiracy has indoctrinated you! Anypony who would say... victims, every last one of you." More calmly, which just might have been the newest of lies, "It's a tragedy, it truly is. Not knowing how trapped you are. Not understanding the way you've been lied to all your lives, fifty generations of ponies chafing under the same falsehood without ever knowing just what grinds the fur away from their coats. For a group of supposed individuals to all believe one thing... clearly the only possible way to obtain that result is from being subjected to brainwashing of truly monstrous proportions, spread across centuries. That is how that kind of lie spreads. I am simply trying to free you."
"...but..." she helplessly tried, "...it's a fact..."
"A fact," he calmly said, and all the fur on the nape of her neck stood up.
"...yes."
"Then prove it --"
She looked around. There were certainly enough things to add, some of which were still struggling against invisible bonds.
"-- tomorrow," he concluded.
Talons touched. Light bloomed. Several ponies dropped to the ground, then stared at the place where he had been. And then at her.
She tried to find words.
"...he..."
'Words', at least for what anypony was willing to hang around long enough to hear, turned out to be singular, and she watched them gallop away, fly for their lives, or in the case of that one rather unimaginative spectator, go directly for the trough again, forgetting to collect the reed --
-- and then they vanished.
Her first guess was that they'd been sent back to wherever he'd originally gotten most of them from, which seemed to be confirmed when one unicorn stallion rematerialized about twenty body lengths down the street.
...he means well.
He means something sort of like 'well'.
I think.
It was the next day. She hadn't seen much point to staying out of Ponyville, as he could have brought her there before anypony had time to protest, which was exactly what happened to the freshly re-recruited audience as they all appeared near the northern bridge.
He leaned down.
"Two plus two -- equals five," he casually noted, then straightened again, at least as straight as he ever stood at all. "Unless you can prove otherwise. Well?"
She nodded to the full saddlebags she'd been wearing since the Sun had been raised.
"And what are those supposed to be holding?"
"...proof."
He raised an eyebrow about a horn's length over his head. "Very well..." He gestured, and the saddlebags collapsed inwards as their contents materialized on his paw. "And here we appear to have books. Somepony's been to the tree lately, hasn't she? And the purple bundle of neuroses isn't in personal attendance because...?"
Because she still has a really hard time dealing with you and I thought getting her directly involved was the best way to make things worse. She'd had major concerns about news of the latest visit reaching Twilight's twitching ears, but...
...she'd run into several of the ponies who'd been selected during her dash to the library. A few had nodded to her. One had waved. Two had sniffed and turned away. All reactions which, for those ponies, was normal. As if they'd had no memory of the event at all.
And with that in mind, she'd simply gone into her destination, made sure to keep her checkout needs entirely with Spike, and gathered everything required.
He was flipping through them.
"Oh," he said. "Here we have a kindergartner's math primer. With illustrations, no less, which appear to mostly be of haystacks. Very bland haystacks. There are some who might find that slightly insulting if not for the presence of the first-year book directly beneath it. And continuing to work our way down, we have... algebra, trigonometry, and oh dear me, somepony is running this all the way out to calculus. I suppose I'm meant to be picking the time when I collapse under the weight of all these facts and admit defeat?"
Ten books hit the street and because it had been him dropping them, they did so at different rates and times, with the last sinking halfway through a paving stone.
"I reject all of this," he imperiously declared. "I will not put my faith in corrupted sources."
Which triggered her next mistake.
"...how can a book be corrupt?"
"Who wrote it?"
"...I'd have to check the page --"
"-- a pony wrote it!" he answered for her. "Ponies wrote all of this! Your supposed facts have an inherent pony bias, because every single one is being presented on an upturned hoof! Why should I have any trust at all in a system where ponies decide what to tell the world, write their lies down as part of their pony agenda, and let the virus corrupt the entire planet? Here is a fact for you: the fact that you are struggling so hard against me on what so many would consider the most basic of matters only proves there is something to hide! Two plus two equals five! Your own refusal to accept the truth proves it true!"
"...but," she tried, and knew it wouldn't be enough, "a fact is a fact... a fact can't have bias no matter who says it, it's just something that is..."
He ignored her. "I will only accept my facts from a reputable source."
Which cued the next mistake. "...what's reputable?"
Twenty books air-thudded into place around her, levitating at exactly the right height to be read. She blinked helplessly at the red one, and it obligingly opened for her.
"...two plus two," she read, "equals... five."
He sniffed. "Well. I'm glad you finally admitted it. Now... moving on to some other lies I've happened to notice..."
But she was nosing her way back to the copyright page.
"...written by Discord," she said. "Copyright to Discord Press. First printing in Don't Ask A Refined Draconequus His Age And Don't Ask Me Either. This is... reputable?"
"Well, of course," he magnanimously allowed. "It has the lone requirement for reputability sewn up in a way your fashionista could never manage to dream of without at least five faked swoons."
"...and... what's the requirement?"
"It agrees with me in every way," he stated, "and therefore, it is reputable."
The audience was staring at them. At her. Mostly at her, or at least that was how it felt, the weight of the eyes threatening to collapse knees, send tail and mane to drape fallen and supposedly-disproven texts...
"..but that's not how it works --"
"You have proven nothing," he declared. "And you never will, because you are a corrupted pony working from corrupted facts provided to you by a corrupt system. And if you're looking for proof of the conspiracy, you won't find any -- because the conspiracy made all that proof go away, thus proving its own existence. It's basic logic. You're just too corrupted to see it."
She was trying not to shudder.
"But..." he mused, "...at the same time, we are supposed to be friends, yes? And friends? Give each other extra chances. Or so I've heard. This seems like as good a time as any to try that out."
The red gaze lanced down. He seemed to be taller than usual.
"Until tomorrow," he said, and the dismissal of debating party and audience repeated itself, except with new touches of color in the light, various sound effects, and a few bowling balls passively floating to the ground, because repeating himself exactly was one of the few things he could do which would offend his own sensibilities.
"...tomorrow..." she said uncertainly to the air, and let the shiver come.
She had reviewed carefully, and in doing so, recognized both the nature and timing of her mistakes. She was sure that gave her the solution. And so she waited in the park, albeit in the usual amount of dread.
There was light. There was sound. There was a full stomp of applause, and it came from the smoke drifting out of a nearby restaurant chimney, vapor hooves pounding out solid noise. And there was an audience, waiting on him.
And her.
Her tail curled against her body.
He leaned in.
"Two plus two," he casually noted, "equals five. Your turn, correct?"
He straightened up.
Slowly, carefully, trying not to let her own tail bind her hind legs, she turned, one-half of a full rotation. Trotted away.
And she heard him smile.
"Well," he stage-whispered, "will everypony just look at that. I? Am being ignored."
She kept trotting. This had to be the answer --
"Now," he mused, "there are two ways to take this. The first, and more obvious, is that she is trying to dismiss my words. Say they are not even worth a simple moment of her time. Wouldn't you say that's so?" This to the audience. Some of them might have nodded. She couldn't see it, but it was easy to imagine, so very easy...
"And why would somepony so very visibly pay no attention to a statement," he went on, "unless they wanted others to dismiss it as well?"
Just keep trotting...
"Because she is trying to make all of you ignore the truth."
During that night's inevitable review, she concluded that turning her head to glance back had been the most recent mistake.
"Why would an agent of the Diarchy ignore me?" he ranted to the audience, pacing back and forth through the ground, with those parts of the mismatched legs which were below knee level phasing within the dirt. "They know my importance, must recognize the necessity of setting me free! They have to know how crucial I am to not only the past of this world, but its future --"
He stopped.
It was only for a moment. Just long enough for her to notice. But he stopped.
And then he started again.
"-- and so my every word must have weight." The sentence, solidified, left significant dents in three bordering buildings and cracked the summoned trough. "But I am being ignored. Because I am saying things she doesn't want you to hear. Because I am telling the truth, a truth which has been covered up for longer than all but two have been alive, and as a loyal Diarchist, she knows it is her assigned mission to dismiss me, belittle me, make me seem weak and stupid and unimportant at every turn. Ponies only ignore what they fear. Hoping it will go away. But I will not be ignored! I will not simply vanish because she pretends I'm not there! I will --"
"-- you said..." she tried, if only to redirect him, "there were... two ways to take it?"
He cut off the flow of words (and the last half-letter broke a paving stone), then nodded.
"...what's the other?"
"Oh," he shrugged, "that as a brainwashed Diarchist with no capacity to recognize what truth is due to her obvious intellectual inferiority, you simply didn't have the brains to recognize that I was speaking."
Two members of the audience seemed to snicker.
She stared at them. At him. At the entity who kept insisting that he was some level of friend...
"...why?"
"Why what?" There seemed to be no tease in it. No anger. No anything, really.
"...why are you doing this?"
"Because two plus two equals five," he said. "And will continue to do so. At least... until tomorrow. And possibly beyond..."
This time, she wished the light had taken her away with it.
They didn't remember. Nopony remembered except her. The weight was hers alone. The game, for that was what he almost surely saw it as, and thus the failure also belonged to her. But...
...how were you supposed to win a game where the other party made up all the starting rules, then changed them as play progressed?
She had tried taking part. She had tried not going along with it. And everything she did only brought her to what was surely another loss, each inflicted by...
...a friend? An entity who was... whatever they were to each other? Or just someone who was narrowing the number of ponies available to torment down to one?
She huddled alone under her blankets, for she was the only presence in her bedroom on that night. Normally, some of her animal friends took positions around the bed, guarding, and one rabbit insisted on a pillow. But... she had asked them to give her privacy. She needed solitude. A chance to think. And so she went over the memories again and again through the night, with only Moon for company.
Talking didn't work.
Not talking didn't work.
Nothing worked...
She was standing, somehow. All four knees were trembling. Ponies were looking at her as they passed the bowling alley, most with worry. Some asked if she was all right. She simply told them it was nothing, at least when she found the strength to speak at all. For the most part, she simply waited, and occasionally used a moment for living in fear of what would be coming.
This time, simply in the name of that variety, the audience arrived first. Memories flowed, and they stared at her from trees, from air, from doorways and still-cracked trough.
And then he was there.
He leaned towards her.
"Two plus two," came the falsely-polite words, "equals --"
But she was already moving.
The spin, a half-rotation again. Just enough of a wing flap to let it happen without ground slowing her down. Landing just as quickly, because she needed the brace point before she --
-- the sound echoed. It moved through Ponyville. It might have reached Canterlot, split in half without either portion losing volume, headed for the coasts. It traveled, and it moved in perfect concert with the body which fell backwards into the bowling alley's front door.
It was followed by a moment of perfect silence.
She waited.
"Ow," he said, and she could tell that part was insincere. But she turned to look anyway.
"...you're faking."
"Oh, very good," he sarcastically declared. "The team medic is now dismissing someone in such obvious physical, and might I add, now emotional, pain." He truly was very good at looking offended. "And your expert option stems from...?"
"...I wasn't wearing shoes when I kicked you."
His eyes crossed, stared at the imprints on his snout.
"Details," he sniffed, and made them vanish. "Always details. So what, if I may or even must ask, was that about?"
"...fact."
"Which one?"
"...the one which says I'm tired of playing."
He sat up a little. Small birds circled his head. She glared at him, and he freed them to the trees before replacing them with sparks.
"And you consider yourself to be a reputable source on that?"
"...the only source."
He flexed his talons, perhaps in preparation before doing something. Or, because he'd landed on them, to see if all the joints still worked. And either way, she didn't move.
"You're stronger than you look. You do know that, right?"
She didn't answer. The audience was staring at her again.
"I thought," he said, "you had a problem with aggression. That you were afraid of hurting anyone or anypony because you let it out."
"...and how," she calmly asked, "could I ever hurt you?"
He rested his head on his paw.
"So two plus two --"
She flew forward, twisted --
"-- you're learning." And she heard him grin.
She also heard him vanish.
But the audience...
...still there. For five crucial heartbeats, they stayed before smell and taste took them back. And somehow, she knew that this time, they would remember.
There was an abacus on her nightstand. It was made of rare woods and painted in Lunar colors, which meant she would have to visit the library in the morning and ask Spike to send a letter, because there was a chance it had been duplicated -- well, almost so, as exact replication was generally considered boring -- in order to present something appropriate, and a much better chance that it had been stolen.
She shooed the squirrel away from the front, then peered at the beads. A certain matching number on two separate cords had been shifted, with an expected quantity waiting on a third. And upon seeing that, she simply got into bed and settled under the covers. Cottage residents settled in turn around her, and she waited to fall asleep.
But it didn't happen immediately, and she found herself looking at the abacus again.
"...two plus two," she whispered to herself, "equals..."
One new bead was staring to slide itself along the third row.
"Stop," Fluttershy said.
And Discord slid the fifth bead back.