The world has been divided as long as I have known. One side was craggy, with howling winds driving thick grit endlessly around as the sun beat back any form of life trying to settle down in this abyss of light. Opposing it, the Moon and its armada of stars stared blankly at the tundra beneath them, the ground concealed by uncountable sheets of ice and snow. The darkness spread its tendrils far into the sky, only to be beaten back by the broad rays of the sun.
This brief respite from the dueling sisters was the only safe haven for life, from the smallest insect to the great Dragons, who could only bear the great sun’s heat for so long. This mile wide strip of land was the only space for hundreds of species to roam; Arguments occurred often.
“That tree belongs to my family, we planted it years ago!”
“Well it’s on my side of the fence, so go find a new apple tree, why don’t ya?”
The brown pony glared at the gray unicorn, and started going on about how without his family dynasty no one would even be alive in this good for nothing strip of dirt, meanwhile I was busy playing with my best friend, who had suddenly stopped counting.
“Ready or not, here I come!” A gray blur rushed past me as my sister rushed to find me.
“She will never think to look on the roof!” I thought giddily. Turning away from the ground, I lay on my back, facing the great yellow light in the sky. That great ball had never moved since the day I was first allowed outside by Mom, and yet I could always find new details in its surface.
The orange spots that shifted with each passing hour, the fingers of light sweeping across its surface burning away the cool red into bright yellow, the subtle rotation it had formed thin swirls of ruby along its radius: a shining example of form over function.
As gorgeous as the Sun was, it had reached deep into the ground, and every sprig of life, every drop of hope, was pulled up and burnt to a crisp. Even with only half of its body showing, the presence it exuded could not be ignored.
Around this point my sister decided to speak up from behind me:
“You like staring at the Lights too?”
Turning with a start, I questioned “How long have you been looking at me?”
“About as long as you’ve been trying to burn your eyes out.”
Sighing, I said “Guess I’m it then.” The sounds of arguing increased, as the crunch of wood was heard. “How about we go to the Crystal Caverns for the next game; give mom and dad some privacy?”
A signpost flew by, and we laughed all the way there. The great lights watched in ever-present silence.
The cave entrance was bordering the lunar tundra, where a great berg had scraped the surface and left an open wound for all of ponydom to see. Being filled with rare gemstones, it was soon gutted, leaving only the invaluable stalactites and broken pieces of gems. Some of the pieces had started growing where they landed, creating intricate walls of interlocking blue stones.
A few even doubled as great hiding spots.
“Come on out, it’s been almost half an hour! I’m getting bored!” my sister Elly called out into the dimly cave. Without her magic, she would probably be stumbling over herself, but luckily she remembered the nightlight spell I taught her when she had had nightmares all those days ago. Light blue, her horn gave off a soothing light that refracted off the gemstone walls of the cavern.
“It isn’t funny anymore, Celli! You win, okay?” rang throughout the cavern, knocking some pebbles lose from the curved ceiling. Giggling at my unanimous victory, I trotted out from behind the crystal wall I was using for cover and saw Elly, quivering in a corner.
All my joy dropped from my demeanor as I ran for her. I grabbed her as tightly as I could, saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t think you would be this scared of being alone!” Her reply was sudden and biting, “I was alone in a cave covered in spikes, how could I not be scared?” Her dark blue eyes brimmed with tears. She sat down on her flank to rub at her face while I hugged her. “It’s ok, I’m here, you don’t need to cry anymore, ok?” My words must have rang true, as she stopped bawling and hugged me back. “Promise me you won’t ever leave me again!” Elly pleaded through pained gasps. Without delay I swore she would never be out of my sight again as long as I lived. Hugging me harder, she stood with a content smile. “Do you know any other games we could play? Together?”
“How about a game of eye-spy?” “Sure!”
Ten minutes later we had exhausted every variation of the color blue and the term gem. So, as the elder sister, I proposed we do something else.
“Like what? We can’t go home without getting our parents involving us with their ‘conversation’, Celli. What else can we do but sit in this freezing cave and stare at random spots on the wall?”
“Well, why don’t we go outside and sit in the sun for a few minutes? We can still play out there.”
Sighing, Elly retorted “You do have a point there. Fine, we’ll stare at rocks outside.”
We turned to leave the cyan coated cavern, and started to walk out. A sudden thought popped into my head, leaving before I could tell it to wait: “You said you stare at the Sun too?”
Confused, Elly said “What? Why would I stare at that giant ball of fire? No, I look at the Moon and all her children that sparkle when you say their names.”
Taken aback, I stop. “Why wouldn’t you look at the Sun? It’s beautiful!”
“In a ‘barren wasteland’ kind of way. The Moon is much better for your eye health, Celli. Its silver light graces every inch of the sky with an even tone, yet it lets all the stars shine through with their own light. It shares the sky, unlike the Sun, who is too big to even let the ground underneath it to grow!”
I laugh, “Yeah? What about the ice sheet we are standing under? Who can live in here, Sister?”
An unexpected voice answers in a solemn tone:
“I do. Now please get out of my home.”
We were frozen to the floor, neither of us turned to see what had made the statement. We didn’t have to. With a flash of light he appeared before us, a serpentine body with an assortment of parts from every sentient race on the planet. Left leg a donkeys hoof, right leg a dragons. Left hand a Griffons talon, right hand a manticores paw. His wings were from a bat and a pegasus, his horn was bent backwards and was paired with a single antler.
His face was tired.
“Can’t an immortal chaos spirit get some rest now and then?”
We remained frozen, more out of perplex ion than fear.
“What, don’t tell me you people have forgot what I look like? It’s only been…”
A device appears on his right arm, a circle with arcane symbols and his hands pointing in different directions. He looks sleepily at it, before a sudden realization hits him.
“I’ve over slept! This is terrible! Just think of all those ponies who had to have the same boring day their entire lives!” His device vanished and he suddenly grabbed his goatee with his talons. “That means I have a lot of catching up to do…hey kids, why do you both look the exact same?”
After a pause, Elly spoke up. “We are twins, Mister…?”
“Oh, how rude of me, I forgot to introduce myself!”
He snapped his fingers and the cave became a stage with spotlights shining toward him. He had somehow gained a red and white striped shirt with a matching hat.
“The name is Discord, Chaos Spirit, Lord of Disorder, King of Anarchy, Epitome of Mayhem, and Personification of imperfection! At your service!” He gave a slight bow, and poofed another hat and cane into existence to shake them vigorously from one knee.
He was met with a pair of blank stares.
“You haven’t heard of me?”
“Nope. Why do you look funny?” I turned in disgust, stating “Elly that’s rude!”
His face contorted into a grumpy frown. “You give meaning to an entire generation of ponies and what does it get you? Nothing! Not even becoming a boogie-man! Well,” He materialized a wooden throne with a silver inlay in the head rest. He sat, griping the armrests firmly. “Maybe I was too lenient, letting ponies do what they want when I came by to lighten up their lives. Fine….Fine. I will just have to turn up my shenanigans to new heights!”
He sprung from his chair with renewed energy, and jumped through the cave roof and thirty-seven layers of perma-frost iceberg. Chunks of blue ice fall from the hole, which lets the silvery moonlight through.We glance at each other, then run for home.
Trees had sprouted fire and crystal where leaves should be. The ground had become squared; squares of green and purple coated the ground like a massive checkerboard. Fish flew through the air and chirped like crickets. As we made our way down the dirt road, it became a rushing river of teapots, clinking constantly as we pushed through toward the road/riverside. Finally, we made it to our house, which at least seemed intact.
Our house had even remained the same, given that it was on a floating boulder. We had only just got to the base of where our front porch had once been when I saw Mom still arguing near the fence with Dad. They hadn’t noticed the tree had grown wings and started flying away.
“The way you treat me is disgusting! You loved me once, Tally! We cared about the future, you cared about our kids!”
“Don’t bring up the kids, Steward. You were always pushing for how important your ‘dynasty’ is! It’s always ‘family’ this and ‘family’ that, what happened to me? I fell for you, not your ‘family’. Why can’t you love me as much as you seem to love your country-bumkin Family!?!”
Stopping mid stride, I felt the anger radiating from our father, his stocky frame visibly shaking. A few minutes ticked by, as fish flew overhead chirping slowly. This was unlike Apple Steward, since he normally spoke quickly, being prone to use his emotions to guide him throughout arguments. Tally Board was silent, looking at Apple Steward vigilantly, awaiting a reply.
A sudden clap of thunder was heard, and clouds began to form.
His muscles relaxed, and he strained out: “So, you miss when I cared about you? You miss ‘us’?”
Tally brightened up, and replied swiftly, “Yes! You finally understand! All I want is you, Steward. Nothing, and nopony, else.” She walked up and tried to touch his shoulder, but he brushed her off.
Steward looked up, chagrin in his face. “You said it again. I. All you ever mention anymore is how you are wronged, how you should see me more often, why do you have to put up with my family!”
Ellie approached the pair; we had never seen either of them quite this livid before. I motioned her to stay back, but she pressed past me and broke into a run.
The clouds opened with a deafening thunderclap. Their fluffy doors swung downwards as melons rained down.
“Mom, Dad! It is raining melons, can you try to help us get inside our house?”
The outside voice shattered the argument, and reality swept in. A melon rind broke upon Steward's head. Unfazed, he commanded, “Fillies, go toward mom. Tally, quick, we have to get them inside.”
Tally Board glanced at Apple Steward for a moment longer, then began hoisting us up toward the floating cabin.
The slight drizzle of melons had become a downpour, and it had become difficult to see through the swirling vortex of green and pink.
Steward shouldered his way through the growing wall of vegetation, allowing Tally to follow with the children.
At the base of the house, Tally placed down the fillies and stated: “I can’t lift them that high, the house is four hundred meters above the ground!”
“Fine!” Steward stated, “Under the home then!” He pushed with renewed vigor, sending melons high into the air, inevitably colliding with other melons. After some pushing, Steward finally pushed his way into the shade of our house.
“Ok, we should be safe here. Tally, are Celli and Elli safe?”
“They are fine, but you are covered in juice and melon rinds! Are you ok?”
He looked at his coat, and wiped himself off as best he could. After a short pause, both of our parents sat facing the storm. Ellie and I tried to approach them, but Tally stated that the “Adults need a minute alone.”
“He’s back, Steward. We have to move.”
“And give up the orchard? All of our hard work, left for whomever wants to take it?”
“Well with the sea of fruit currently surrounding us, we don’t need the orchard.”
“Melons don’t last that long, Tally.
“Neither will we if we stay. It’s raining melons now, what about when he starts making it rain boulders or dragons or something?
What then Steward?”
“Where could we go; all the cities would be a mess even without his disruptions to reality. Have you even been to Baltimare during rush hour? Imagine when everyone is in a blind panic to leave!”
They went back and forth like this while the storm wound down, the clouds closing their massive fluffy doors before dissipating.
I eventually had the heart to stand. I asked something that had been burning in my mind since we had met him:
“Who is Discord?”
Both parents snapped back toward me, and met with a twin pair of stares, I stammered about how we met him in the caves.
I have never seen Mom and Dad silent for so long.
As I finished with us running home, Tally Board walked toward to me. She gazed deep into my eyes. I couldn’t look away from the probing gaze, filled with a fire I had rarely seen. Her eyes shifted from anger, to hope, then glazed over like a statue.
She broke the stare, and glanced at the juice covered ground.
“She is telling the truth Steward. Discord has finally been awakened by the ignorance of our children.”
“Our children are not ignorant! Of all the times to...” he dropped his defensive demeanor as Tally held up a hoof to his face.
“Their ignorance is our fault, Stewy. We should have told them.”
Steward froze at the name. He tried to retort, raising his left hoof to gesture, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. Awkward silence filled the shade, till Ellie stated:
“Did mom just call dad….Stewy?”
Relieving the tension filling the fruity scented crater, Tally Board responded with “Yes, yes I did. He used to be called that by your grandma when he was in trouble,” She shifted to face Apple Steward face to face, smiling, “and when we were dating.”
Still in shock, Steward stated “You haven’t called me that in… decades…”
“You haven’t earned it. Now,” she turned back to us, “A quick list of things you need to know, now:
-You are our beloved daughters, and no matter what happens or what you do, we will always love you.
-You have unleashed the oldest threat to all of ponydom, even if it was an accident
-Discord is older than the very ground you stand upon, and if he wanted could turn said ground into a banana peel for you to slip on.
-Your actions have endangered every mortal being on this planet.
-You two are not such beings.”
Confused, I ask “What do you mean? We are your fillies, how could we not be mortal?”
Steward stepped up, a full head shorter than Tally Board.
“You two, my beloved daughters, are the guardians of the celestial bodies: Sun and Moon. When Discord decided to take his nap all those years ago, he froze the two in place, so he ‘wouldn’t miss a day’ with his playthings.” He ended with a scowl, and Tally gripped him with one hoof, supporting him.
“All the greatest unicorns couldn’t budge the twin sisters, and soon great kingdoms froze over and vast oceans became desert. Without the rotation between warm and cold, the world became stagnant, and nearly bereft of life.”
Ellie stepped up, questioning “Where do Celli and I come in? Are we your daughters our not?”
Tally glanced at Steward, who was suddenly very interested in the ground two feet in front of him.
Tally Board had only the slightest quiver in her voice when she said “Not like you used to be.”
A steadfast response followed: “What did we ‘use to be’, mother?”
Tally Board had suddenly became silent, tears forming in her eyes. Despite the emotions on her face, the gray-skinned pony stood erect and with pride.
“You were both Alicorns.”
