For All That Must Be

Chapters

Prologue: In Which the Sun Laments
Chapter One: In Which Twilight Worries
Chapter Two: In Which Memories and Dreams Pester
Chapter Three: In Which Magic and Chaos Chat
Chapter Four: In Which Twilight Makes Her Decision
Chapter Five: In Which an Old Story Begins
Chapter Six: In Which Deception Continues

Prologue: In Which the Sun Laments

The festivities began the moment his petrified form hit the ground. First, Ponyville erupted into celebration, courtesy of a triumphant Pinkie Pie. Cloudsdale followed, and Fillydelphia's parties soon added their energy to the spirit of victorious good will spreading across Equestria. Trottingham, Manehattan, and even frontier town Appleloosa threw all their energy into a festival of merriment that finally culminated in a grand affair in Canterlot itself. The capitol celebrated for almost a week, ponies from all corners of Equestria congregating to dance, sing, and revel in the continued safety of their country.

She did, too, of course. The moment she felt the fiery energy of the sun shift away from him and settle back into its normal patterns a profound, almost numbing relief flooded her. Jubilation swiftly followed, and she participated in the festivities as much as her royal status would allow. For days she surrendered to this joy, and for days, nothing struck her as amiss. It was not until the final ceremony that she felt that first uncomfortable twinge.

She faltered when giving the six saviors their accolades, her voice catching on her congratulations. It was slight, almost unnoticeable, and indeed it seemed that no one caught it. Even when she misspoke a second time, only one filly, her ever-observant faithful student, looked up with mild puzzlement marring the humble triumph on her face. A bright smile reassured both teacher and student, and the rest of the ceremony passed without incident. Only later, when her subjects were totally occupied by a city-wide party, did the twinge return as a pang.

For the better part of an hour Celestia stood on her private balcony, gazing out at her perfect city gleaming under her perfect sun. All that time, the pang would not cease. It grew ever stronger in some deep part of her that she could barely remember, until she had to turn her gaze away from all that had been restored. She could still feel it when she decided to finally return the Elements of Harmony to their vault. Climbing Canterlot Tower's staircase, she tried to ignore it. A part of her was desperate to ignore it, and so it was that only when she reached the top of the stairs, when it became too much to ignore, did she truly pause to examine it.

What was it? What was this twisting, coiling near-pain deep within, settled in a part of her that she'd kept resolutely quiet for so long? Why was it waking? Why was it prickling and pulling at her being with a fervor that only rose each time she tried to quell it? Why?

Celestia frowned, a rare expression on a normally serene face. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the train of thought that was steadily forming there and made her way to the vault. Everything in the hall was as it had always been: stained glass windows depicting a good portion of Equestrian history as she passed them. Why then was a cold nausea steadily rising within her as she carried the Elements towards their resting place? Why could she only barely glance at the colorful windows surrounding her before feeling light-headed? Why?

Her breathing quickened; her heartbeat followed suit. Widening eyes glanced furtively at the stained glass images around her. She knew why. Celestia could not yet say how, but she knew. Even as she puzzled over her discomfort, her ambiguous pain, Celestia knew precisely what she was feeling. She knew it in a part of her that she'd staunchly ignored for eons, in a part that went back to before. She knew it well, but only when she reached out to lock the Elements back in again, feeling for the magical residues from her old spell, could she no longer keep her walls up. The story told by the old energies would not let her, and she gasped with what was almost physical pain as realization that had truly always been hers finally revealed itself. Tears, unbidden and unwanted, clouded her vision as she fought to forget again, to reassert the control she'd held over those old memories, but in the end, she could not. In the end, Celestia succumbed to what had always been, what always would be, and as her gaze fell upon the final window, the newest, the pang blossomed into a fierce hurt.

High up in Canterlot tower, unheard by her merry subjects in the city below, Celestia began to weep.

Chapter One: In Which Twilight Worries

A/N: And so truly begins our narrative.

Disclaimer: I own nothing pony.

Chapter One: In Which Twilight Worries

Her problems did not begin with the dreams. It might have been simpler if they had, but that was frankly just not the case. The dreams would come after the first real signs of impending conflict, arriving without any sort of warning or fanfare. The first hints, conversely, came loudly announced by dragon's breath and belch. Indeed, Twilight Sparkle's problems began with letters.

She frowned as she scanned the latest arrival from Princess Celestia. The note was in response to her latest friendship lesson, one she felt had been quite insightful: a musing on white lies and guarding feelings courtesy of yet another resolved spat between Rarity and Applejack. She'd pondered over said lesson for hours before finally having Spike put quill to parchment and dictating a good scroll's worth of learned points and principles. Certainly her work deserved more than... this? Twilight read over the abysmally short, generic response her teacher had sent. She levitated the parchment to look at the back, hoping that she might have missed some hidden scribblings, only to be disappointed. Again. Again, because to her left, piled neatly on her writing desk, lay at least ten similarly short, uninspired responses from her mentor.

"Am I doing something wrong, Spike?" she finally sighed, startling said dragon from dusting the shelves.

"Huh? Wrong what?" He glanced back at her before resuming his work. "Oh... is the letter short again?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, shoving the parchment into his face and earning an indignant squawk from the little dragon, "it's short. Look at it!"

"All right, all right... jeez. Let's see." Spike abandoned the feather duster for the moment, snatching the note from midair and squinting at Celestia's neat penmanship. "Hmm... 'faithful student... good progress... pleased with your continued efforts...'" He gave a snort and rolled his eyes.

"It looks pretty normal to me. I think you're-"

"I am NOT overreacting!" The force of her response knocked her assistant back onto his rump, but Twilight was too wrapped up in her distress to notice. "Princess Celestia has always written long responses to my letters. Always! Why would she stop now?"

"Oh, I don't know," Spike grumbled while dusting himself off, "maybe she's just bu-"

"What if my friendship reports aren't good enough? What if she thinks I'm not putting enough effort in? What if-"

"Twilight!"

Spike's voice interrupted her growing hysteria, and Twilight swallowed down her remaining anxiety as the dragon patted her on the shoulder.

"Twi, have you changed your reports at all?"

She had to think for a moment, only to shake her head. "No. No, they're the same as ever. Same class of topics, same length, same analytic depth..."

"Then why would the princess suddenly think they're not good enough? That makes no sense!"

Twilight blinked. Her mental gears turned for a few more seconds before logic won out over growing panic, and she let out a breath.

"You're... you're right, Spike. That doesn't make any sense."

Spike puffed up importantly. "Of course I'm right. I'm always right when you start going off the deep end! You know, you should really..." Twilight fixed him with a reproachful glare, and he swiftly deflated, expression switching to submissive humility. "...ah... you know, I think I'm going to get back to my chores." With that, he scurried off. She waited until he was out of sight before allowing her stern expression to melt into a small smile. Spike may have been prone to occasional moments of ego, but he was indispensable when it came to saving her from her forays into academic panic. Twilight made a mental note to surprise him with a choice gem at dinner later that evening.

Presently, however, she had to reach some sort of conclusion regarding the princess' uncharacteristically brief replies. She turned her full attention back to the latest response and read it a third time.

Dearest Twilight Sparkle,

As always, my faithful student, you are making very good progress in your advanced friendship studies. This last report showcased excellent personal growth and understanding of the principles of honesty and integrity. I am highly pleased with your continued efforts in expanding your knowledge of the various aspects of friendship and look forward to your next report.

Yours,

Princess Celestia

She pouted. Just a few weeks ago, her mentor's responses were a few pages long at least. Some, likely those involving lessons that affected the princess in some personal way, elicited pages of anecdotes and wisdom that Twilight would read late into the night. These recent replies were very obviously uncharacteristic of Celestia, that Twilight was sure of. Spike was quite wrong in dismissing their length, but Twilight was able to see his point in rejecting her previous paranoid reasoning. Her letters had not changed at all; if anything, she was more familiar with the sort of analysis and insight Celestia liked to see, resulting in letters improving with time. Looking over copies of her last few assignments, she nodded to herself: definitely no loss in quality or anything of that sort. Her organization and grammar were impeccable, her discussion properly insightful and pleasantly lengthy. Nothing had changed on her end, so what was going on?

Logic dictated that the problem had to do with the princess. Twilight bit her lip nervously: the idea that something could be wrong with Celestia, even regarding matters as seemingly small as friendship reports, was not a comforting one. She reexamined her thought process again, looking over all of the parchment spread over her desk, before granting attention to such an unsavory possibility. In the end, however, she had to consider it, so she pulled out her daily planner and studied all of her records from the past weeks.

Twilight knew that her planner would not include events and tasks that Celestia would need to perform on a daily or weekly basis, but that issue seemed unimportant: she doubted that anything ordinary would cause such a shift in the princess' manner. It would have to be something big, something important, to affect someone as old and powerful as she. Twilight's planner did include mention of various political events of some significance; it was a habit left over from living in Canterlot, reinforced by her desire to stay familiar with current events. These were the events she studied, looking over the past weeks and trying to find some sort of catalyst for Celestia's sudden aloofness.

There had been a meeting with a delegate from the Griffon kingdom a week and a half ago, but that had resulted in favorable changes to a recent treaty: not negative. Twilight crossed it off of her mental list of possibilities. Two formal parties... a public appearance at the Great Canterlot Library...a couple of concerts... multiple open court sessions... nothing unusual. The royal itinerary was fairly busy, but this was nothing special. Twilight had seen much worse during her time at the castle as Celestia's apprentice: some weeks had been almost cruelly hectic, but the princess was very accustomed to such activity. She'd get tired, sure, but none of her duties had ever suffered, particularly those that had some significant emotional value. Twilight was not an egotistical pony in any sense, but she would have to have been quite foolish to not identify her relationship with Celestia as emotionally significant to both of them. She loved her mentor, and it was more than plain that Celestia cared deeply for her. There was no way such a comparatively light schedule would affect her report responses so strongly.

"Hmm... let's see..." she muttered to herself, bringing a hoof to her chin, "when was the last normal letter? Maybe something happened right after... ah ha!" She levitated a few pieces of parchment up out of her pile and brought them up to her face. This was the last normal response, and up in the right corner of the first sheet was the date. Twilight quickly turned to that page in her planner and studied what she had written. It only took her a few seconds to read the brief notes, and those notes only contained one thing of any importance. The effect on her was immediate: she dropped the parchment and took a step back from her desk, as if putting distance between herself and the pages would lessen the sudden thudding of her heart.

The last proper letter had been sent a mere three days before they'd faced Discord. Twilight shuddered at the thought of all that had happened when the chaotic spirit had broken free: Ponyville engulfed in chaos, her friends bickering like cranky foals, Equestria on the brink of destruction. The memories were anything but pleasant, and Twilight had to pause a moment before allowing her thoughts to reach their obvious conclusion.

Whatever was wrong with the princess had to involve the recent crisis. It was the only thing Twilight could think of that made any sort of sense, for what else had been dramatic and unsettling enough to have the power to shake someone as stable as Princess Celestia? Confident in this line of reasoning, she immediately began to wrack her brain for supporting evidence. It didn't take long for one particular memory to surface, and Twilight gasped.

"The ceremony! I wasn't imagining things when I thought the princess stuttered! She really did... wait! Twice! She did it twice! How could I have missed that? How could I have forgotten?"

Truth be told, it wasn't particularly surprising that she'd missed it. She'd only just noticed it when it had happened, it had been so subtle. Her friends hadn't noticed at all; when she'd mentioned it after the ceremony, they'd responded with looks of utter bafflement. Twilight had dropped the idea almost as quickly as she'd formed it, preferring instead to partake in the wonderful spirit of victory with everyone else. Indeed, she'd had no reason to pursue it: without anything to give her further suspicion, she'd chalked her uncertainty up to leftover stress from the Discord ordeal. No more, and no less.

Now, however, she had plenty to make her suspicious: numerous letters that bore Celestia's signature but lacked her true voice. The problem now was figuring out what to do about it, and quickly. If she was right about this mess, then something had been wrong for... over a month. A month! Twilight squirmed.

"Oh... how could I have let this sit for a whole month? I should have noticed it sooner... I should have been more proactive! I shouldn't have ignored my intuition at the ceremony! Now who knows what's happened! I've been a terrible student, and now-"

"Twilight!" Spike's voice floated in from the other room, "deep end!"

"...ah. Right. Thanks, Spike!"

"No problem!"

She didn't have time to lose it: Celestia needed her! She needed to... to... to what, exactly? Now that Twilight saw where the problem could be, what could she do? Perhaps... could she write to Celestia? Offer her comfort, advice, counsel?

For a moment, she considered it, only to reject the idea with a vehement shake of her head. "If I write to her about this, she'll know that I've been disappointed with her letters. She'll know I know something's wrong, and if she knew that..." Twilight shifted uncomfortably. Letting the princess know might put the monarch in an awkward position. After all, who liked to have a rare moment of shortcoming focused upon, particularly when still suffering? No, that would not do, not at all. Twilight didn't even truly know what was wrong, only that it seemed to stem from the events surrounding Discord. How could she possibly bring up something that unsettled the princess so much without really even knowing anything about it? How could she-

"Oh! Yes, of course! It's obvious!" She visibly brightened, clapping her front hooves together in sudden excitement. "In order to solve a problem, one must first know how to approach it, and that means knowing all there is to know about said problem! So all I've got to do now is-"

"Research?" Spike sauntered back in, eying her warily.

"Exactly!"

Spike gave a long-suffering sigh. "I'll start getting the books."

"No, no, no, no! This is the same; it's all the same! Ugh!" Twilight tossed yet another book aside, earning an indignant yelp from her scaled assistant as he rushed to catch it.

"Will you relax? And stop throwing things? It's bad enough that you had me get every book on Equestrian history ever," Spike grumbled, taking her latest projectile and returning it to its place on the shelf.

Twilight sighed in a mixture of frustration and genuine apology. "I'm sorry, Spike. It's just that none of these books have what I'm looking for! None! How is that even possible?"

"...what are you looking for?"

"Discordian history." She opened up another massive tome and began flipping through its pages.

"Disco-what now?" Spike paused in his clean up to fix Twilight with a look of utter confusion. She sighed again.

"Discordian. You know, pertaining to Discord? I'm looking for information about the time Discord ruled Equestria."

"Discord... you mean that weird goat-looking guy? The one who turned everyone gray? Who made Fluttershy..." Spike shuddered suddenly, remembering the state his friends had been in just a few weeks ago.

"Yes, him. I'm trying to find out more about him, and these books are way too general! They're telling me things I already know. Look," she pointed out a passage, "see? Right here."

Spike climbed up onto the desk to get a better look, reading aloud as was his habit.

"'Discord: Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. A draconequus, he is best known for the use of very advanced chaotic magic. His rule over Equestria preceded that of the princesses Celestia and Luna, who ended his reign of disharmony by using the Elements of Harmony against him. The result was-'"

Twilight cut him off abruptly with a frustrated huff. "See? It's all stuff I already know. No details about his rule. No details about his origins. Nothing about how the princesses fought him, other than the use of the Elements. Nothing that I don't already know!"

Spike winced as Twilight's voice rose in her agitation. "Well... maybe there isn't anything else to know."

"There has to be more! The princess has not been herself, and I know it started when we defeated Discord again! There has to be more to all of this, a reason she's acting this way. And I'm going to find it!"

"But Twi," he tried again, "why don't you just ask the princess? Write her a letter? You know: communicate? Didn't you learn that in one of your friendship lessons?" He reached out, intending to shuffle through her notes for some advice on openness, only to stop when she gave him an almost pained look.

"That's just it, Spike. The princess is the one who's changed and hasn't said anything. I'm afraid that whatever is bothering her might be too difficult for her to talk about, and if I were to bring it up..." she shuddered as various consequences came to mind. "No, I refuse to do anything before I have more information! I just don't understand why I can't find any details about such a huge part of Equestrian history. It's ridiculous!"

She left her desk to browse the library shelves for the umpteenth time, hoping to find some encyclopedia or royal biography that they had missed. Her search was unsuccessful, and she hung her head in defeat.

"Oh, nevermind. It's just not in any of these books." Twilight gave one last glance around the room before growling. "Ugh! I cannot believe this. We defeated that jerk weeks ago and he's still making my life miserable! I bet he'd be thrilled!" She sat down heavily, pouting down at the texts spread out across her desk.

She was completely and utterly out of ideas. Every book in the library with even a slight reference to Discord and his time as ruler was either on her desk or stacked next to it. She'd gone through each one at least twice, some of the wordier ones three times in case she'd missed something, and she was no closer to understanding the situation than when she'd started. Heck, she wasn't even sure she was working in the right direction! How could she be sure that the princess' distance had to do with Discord? Twilight bit her lip as she reexamined her logic. Was it possible that she had erred, that this was all a waste of time and pointless frustration?

No... no, she knew she hadn't. The more she thought about it, the more obvious it became that Celestia had not been right even before the letters. She'd been very brief about Discord. She'd never discussed their final confrontation with him. She'd barely spoken of the whole ordeal beyond the formal congratulations. Heck, she'd never even explained how the Elements had been stolen, or why she'd allowed them to flounder about in a maze designed only to cripple them. All of these things, and so many more, made less and less sense as Twilight tried to understand them. The only conclusion she could reach was that something about the whole Discord situation was affecting the princess in an abnormally strong way. Something... but what? What? She couldn't come up with anything, and her books had failed her. What did she have besides her books?

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm done researching for the day." Ignoring Spike's shocked gasp, she made her way around piles of books to the door. "I'm going for a walk, try to clear my head. I'll be back before dinner."

She did not wait for his response and stepped out into the sunshine for the first time in days, shutting the door behind her.

Twilight managed to walk through most of Ponyville in something of a half-conscious daze. Her mind, try as she might, would not leave the current predicament alone. She had intended to calm herself and perhaps grant a new perspective on the situation, but all she managed to accomplish was... well, a whole lot of nothing. Celestia's short letters, her distance, the strange lack of information about Discord... all these things would not leave her be. She was so distracted that she didn't acknowledge anyone on her walk, even failing to wave back at the local mailmare when she called out in greeting. In fact, by the time she actually shook herself out of her thoughts, she realized that she'd left Ponyville altogether.

Withers-high grass rustled softly as a light breeze blew across the meadow she'd come to. At the other edge, the sun was already dipping behind the trees of the Everfree forest. The sky overhead was a dusky blue bleeding into mauve and magenta, the faintest hints of stars beginning to stand out amongst the clouds. The lovely sunset, utterly picturesque above the expanse of the meadow, went entirely unnoticed when Twilight realized precisely which meadow her hooves had brought her to. In the very center, stony surface painted a myriad of colors in sunset's light, stood the great frozen form of Discord.

There had been more than a little controversy regarding his placement just outside of Ponyville: no inhabitant of the small village wanted the petrified form of a dangerous enemy permanently stationed right near home. Indeed, Twilight and her friends were among the most confused and unnerved when Celestia announced the statue's new resting place. Her reasons, however, did make some sense once they'd had a chance to mull them over. Celestia had explained, in the same gentle tone she used whenever trying to convey unpleasant realities, that the fields outside Ponyville would be a safer area for the statue. They saw far fewer visitors than the Canterlot Gardens, so chances of another escape aided by arguing fillies were much lower. More importantly, however, was the fact that placing the statue near the current bearers of the Elements would keep the seal stronger. Before, Celestia and Luna had been the ones to work the spell, so the statue stood in the gardens, its seal kept strong by the nearby presence of the princesses. Now with a new seal in place, established by new bearers, it was only logical to give the statue a new place of residence to ensure the seal's permanence. Thus, Discord's petrified form found its new home in a particularly large meadow right outside of Ponyville's borders.

Twilight walked up to the statue now, lip curling in a look of disgust as she glared up at the twisted stone face, forever frozen in wide-eyed shock. It was no real surprise that her unconscious mind had led her here; she'd read about that sort of thing in enough psychology books to expect it. That didn't make the sight any more welcome, and she sat down with an angry snort.

"Of course I'd end up here. Stupid statue. Stupid Discord. Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused, you dumb draconequus! First you plunge Equestria into chaos, then you nearly destroy our friendship, and now, even when you're rock, you manage to hurt the princess! You stupid... ow!" A well-aimed kick at the statue's reptilian leg had only resulted in a throbbing hoof, while her anger remained fresh and fiery as ever. Oh, why did her inner turmoil have to lead her here, of all places? The last thing she wanted to see was the ugly brute's face.

Twilight sighed, the pain in her hoof finally subsiding enough to allow her to seek something useful in her current position. Maybe... maybe she'd led herself here because something about the statue would inspire her. She studied it with a critical eye, trying to find some sort of meaning in the mishmash of parts making up the imprisoned creature. Pony, eagle, lion, goat, lizard, snake, deer... all unfortunately familiar and still eerily creepy, but nothing jogging any sort of useful memories or new insight. Twilight looked up into his face again. Nothing. Still the same expression: the same wide eyes and open muzzle, the same naked surprise and...

A sudden chill danced down her spine, and Twilight shuddered before finally looking away.

"Oh, forget it. Whatever you did to the princess, you're just a hunk of rock now, and staring at you isn't going to help me." She sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day. "I guess I should head back."

"Head back where?"

"Ah!" Twilight yelped, whirling around in surprise only to find herself nose to nose with Pinkie Pie. She let out a relieved breath.

"Pinkie Pie, you startled me! Don't you know not to sneak up on ponies?"

Pinkie Pie blinked.

Twilight gave her deadpan look. "Of course you don't." She made to scold her more, but Pinkie Pie interrupted in her trademark overly energetic fashion.

"I haven't seen you in ages! None of us have! We've all been all 'where's Twilight, have you seen her? I haven't, have you?' But here you are, right in the meadow! Have you..." she brought her face uncomfortably close to Twilight's, "have you been hiding?"

"Um... no? I've been in the library. Resea- ah... studying. I've been studying. You know, books and stuff? And I decided to take a break and go for a walk."

A part of her cringed the moment the lie, however small, passed her lips, but she couldn't bring herself to tell Pinkie Pie the truth. She didn't know precisely why: was it because she was embarrassed over a possible overreaction? Maybe. Or perhaps she did not want to worry her friends with her concerns about the princess. Was it a mixture of the two? Twilight wasn't sure; all she knew was that she suddenly felt very peculiar, almost twitchy, and the idea of explaining her recent activities to her friends made it worse. She was not normally one to follow blind intuition, but something deep within nudged her away from exposition, and so she stood by her story. Pinkie, being Pinkie, did not notice.

"Well, how about you come over to Sugarcube Corner for a while and hang out? Everyone's coming; Mr. And Mrs. Cake let us hold a tea party, and they just got in all these new kinds of tea to try! We can... um... Twilight? Twi? Hellooooo?" Twilight shook herself out of what had apparently become a private revery to see Pinkie's wide eyes boring hopefully into her own.

A part of her definitely wanted nothing more than to take a break from her disconcerting thoughts and join her friends for an afternoon of pleasant company, but... it was no use. She was too... too bothered to properly socialize. After all, with her all broody, they might notice something amiss, and that could prove disastrous. No... no, she wouldn't go. She was tired anyway, drained from her attempted research and the unsettling feelings milling about her mind. With a sigh, she pushed past Pinkie.

"Sorry, Pinkie Pie," she gave an apologetic smile, "I'm really, really tired from all that studying. I think I'm just going to go home and...uh, hit the hay."

"Oh." Pinkie frowned for a moment, but it was short-lived. A second later she beamed back at Twilight with another genuine grin. "That's okay! Your studies come first, after all. We understand! Just don't overdo it!"

She felt guilty now, faced with such earnest goodwill, but her resolve did not falter. "Thanks Pinkie. I'll see you later; say hi to the others for me. And tell them I'm sorry I couldn't see them."

"Okie dokie loki!"

Twilight reached the library just as the last rays of sunlight left to darkened sky. She had dinner with her assistant, Spike too engrossed in enjoying his gem treats to notice her subdued air, and washed up before finally retiring to bed. Curled up between the plush sheets, Twilight closed her eyes, hoping that a long, restful sleep would rejuvenate her. Surely she would be in better spirits tomorrow, ready to find the elusive solution to the princess' strangeness. A good night's rest would put her in top form, and everything would look better in the morning.

What she did not know was that the moment she thought these comforting thoughts, allowing herself a reassuring smile as she drifted off to sleep, was quite a rare moment indeed: it was a moment in which she was completely and utterly wrong. Her sleep would not be peaceful. Her sleep would be anything but, and as she fully succumbed to slumber, her real problems began.

A/N: Thanks for reading.

Chapter Two: In Which Memories and Dreams Pester

A/N: The plot thickens.

Disclaimer: I own nothing pony.

Chapter Two: In Which Memories and Dreams Pester

The sun was at its zenith, golden rays filtering through the clouds to warm the bustling city of Canterlot as its inhabitants went about their daily lives. The ponies below paid little notice to it, so accustomed were they to its presence, but Celestia's attention had been fixed on it for over an hour. She stood unmoving on her balcony, elegant head upturned towards the great orb in the sky. Its energy radiated down to her, warming not only her fur and skin but reaching down deeper, touching her very core. It was this contact she focused on, focused as completely as she could. She had to. It was one of the few things that helped now, this strict focus. Otherwise, the pain would resurface with such intensity that her breath would cease.

It had gotten worse over the past week, though... had it been a week? Had it been a week, or just a few days? Perhaps... perhaps it had been months, and she had been so entrenched in keeping it all buried that she had neglected to notice the passage of time? Or maybe it had only been a few hours since the memories clawed their way up out of her mind's depths, and her despair had lengthened her suffering. Celestia did not know. All she knew was that underneath the veneer of her tenuous attention waited something akin to agony, and she could not bear to face it.

The sun moved as it always did, keeping to the perfect order of the path she dictated. Her mind followed it, tracing the precise track from which it never strayed, ensuring that its rays fell equally upon all they touched. The sameness of it soothed her. She recognized the total predictability that she'd instilled in the system long ago, and watching its workings laid a thicker veil over the unspeakable thoughts threatening her was all she needed to do now: ensure its sameness, revel in its order. That had helped before. Yes, this time was worse, worse than any time she could remember, but she could not let that matter. Celestia had to trust that her old methods would work, and so she reached out to the sun again. She straightened its rays, refined its impeccable path. The pain receded slightly, its raw voice fading. Yes, it would be just like before. She could fix this, she knew she could. She just had to keep trying, keep consistent. It had worked before; it would work again.

Celestia reached out and straightened the rays again. Every photon of light, straight. So beautifully, wonderfully, peacefully straight. Now, again. Straight again. And again. Again, until her breathing slowed and her heart ceased thudding. Again, until the pain quieted down to a whisper. Yes, she could do this. Just like before, she could control it all and banish it to where she could not see it. She just had to-

"...sister? Celestia!"

The pain flared, burning tendrils reaching out to bestow agony upon every corner of her mind. For a moment, Celestia could not find the sun, and for that moment, she floundered in an endless ocean of twisted emotion. She turned away from the balcony.

"I'm sorry, Luna." A smile. A gentle expression in her eyes. Beneath them, Celestia grasped blindly. "The city is so vibrant today, I could not help watching. Did you need something?"

"Yes. We... ah, that is, I wish to remind thee that thy presence is expected in court in a few minutes."

Where was the sun? Where was it? If only she could find it again, then this would all stop. She could focus on its perfection and all of the power that radiated from it, and the world would settle again, and this would stop just like before.

"Is it now? Goodness, where has the time gone!" She vaguely wondered what her expression was now; it must have been something appropriate, for Luna simply smiled back at her. "I will be right down." Back to the sky. She needed to reach back out to the sky and find what could save her. Was Luna still there? Yes... yes, she was. Why was she not leaving? Celestia needed the sun... the sun, the sun, the-

"Actually... if it would not be too much trouble, we... I... would like to attempt court myself today. I believe I have prepared myself adequately, and taking this step could serve to further build on a positive public image. If, of course, you agree..."

"Luna... if you feel ready, then of course you can; I think it's a wonderful idea! You go down and begin. If you should need me..."

She was smiling again, wasn't she? Yes... yes, she thought she was. Good. She was smiling, and Luna was smiling, and that was fine and great and now Luna would go away and then it would be just her and her blessed sun and everything would crawl back to the blackness from whence it came and it would be fine, fine, perfectly fine...

"I will call you. I... Celly..."

There was something she was supposed to say to that... what was it, what was it, what...ah!

"Yes, little Lulu?" There. Perfect. Now leave. Leave.

"I... thank you."

"Of course, little sister." There was a nuzzle, and an embrace, and a look that spoke of gentle pride, and then her sister was gone. Immediately, Celestia reached for the sun, and oh glorious, wondrous day, there it was as it had always been.

She straightened its rays again, and the pain dulled. She nudged it along its track, and the agonizing memories receded. Again. And again. Soon she forgot Luna had been there at all. Certainly, she did not watch her younger sister walk past an utterly vacant court and turn down a little-used hallway that led to the Equestrian archives. No, Celestia remained in her room, rigidly still on her balcony, pleading with the sun to make the pain stop.

As the memories churned and roiled in their fragile prison, she straightened those golden rays again.

Laughter... the laughter of young fillies prancing in the sunshine... a flash of pink and white... another of deepest blue... a feeling of the purest, most innocent joy as they turned around, eyes wide with happy recognition...

Bored... so bored... bored bored bored bored... how could anyone be this bored? How could this boredom even exist? How was such intense, boredom even possi-

More pink, more blue... a checkerboard? What was a checkerboard- ah, to play on, of course! Leaping, bounding... somehow it was so much more fun because the ground was pretty colors. Bizarre, strange, but oh, how they laughed.. How wonderful it all was...

She was wrong somehow, shaking and sick in her head for days on end. There was a fix, though, and oh, what an incredibly easy fix it was! It only took a few seconds to soften her thoughts, and then she was the giggling, playful child of their first meeting...

Screaming... screaming, and crying, and yelling while the frigid numbness climbed. The last was a shriek, a piercing wail of the wildest laughter, crazed and desperate and only falling silent when-

Twilight awoke tangled tightly in sweat-soaked bed sheets. For a few minutes she lay still, not really because she wanted to, but because the residual emotions left from her troubled sleep were paralyzing in their intensity. Only when her mind relaxed, all of those feelings fading into the vaguest memory, did Twilight let out a shuddering breath. Without a doubt, this had been the worst night yet.

She rolled over, landing shakily on weak hooves and making her way to her dresser. The face that met her eyes in the mirror was a shock: pale, drawn and exhausted. She looked as if she hadn't slept in weeks, but it had only been a few days since the disturbances had started. Twilight wrinkled her muzzle at her reflection as she began to brush out her mane.

"Disturbances" was really the best word, she'd decided. Some might have called them dreams, but the episodes weren't really like any sort of dreams she'd ever had. They'd come as mere emotions at first... no, not even that. They'd come as shadows of emotions, just barely hinting at some sort of feeling. The first morning, Twilight had awoken strangely drained, still tired despite a full night's sleep. She'd blamed it on the stress of the day before; after all, worrying about the princess and performing fruitless research were both undeniably taxing. She hadn't even remembered anything concrete: no images, no sounds, just the faintest traces of unnamed feelings that dissipated the moment the sun's rays touched her eyelids. No, Twilight had been drained, but she hadn't been worried. The worry set in the next night, when she'd awoken panting and terrified for no reason she could name. It had taken her an hour to fall asleep again, only to greet the morning in complete exhaustion once more. The next few nights saw the initial wisps of swiftly forgotten emotion slowly evolve into flashes of vision and sound that, while incomprehensible upon waking, made her sleep that much more restless. Each morning, she would rise as tired as if she had never slept, and each morning she would tell herself the same thing: it was stress. It must have been stress. What else could it have possibly been?

Twilight gave her reflection a stern look; it was stress, absolutely no more. She nodded resolutely... and dropped the brush. It landed with a soft clatter, but the noise might have been a harsh clang for how it startled Twilight. She stared at the brush as if she had never seen it before. How was that possible? She... she hadn't meant to drop it. She hadn't. Half of her mane was still unbrushed; she hadn't even thought of putting the brush down, yet there it was, laying innocently on the dresser. Trembling, she focused on levitating it... and succeeded. Weakly. Though the brush floated in the air before her, she could feel how weak her hold on it was, how frail, and knew that if she let her concentration wander the slightest bit... Swallowing mutely, she put the brush down and looked back into the mirror.

It wasn't just stress. It couldn't have been. The pony looking back at her didn't just look tired; she looked legitimately ill, a wan version of Twilight Sparkle that barely had the strength to levitate a mane brush. Twilight watched her reflection's bloodshot eyes fill with tears. For a moment, it seemed that she really would cry, so deep was this sudden fear, but she ended up shaking her head and blinking the tears away. No. No, no, no! She could not allow some stupid dreams to ruin her attempts to help the princess! The last few days had seen absolutely zero improvement on Celestia's behavior, another letter coming as short as the others just yesterday afternoon. She could not give up now, no matter how awful she felt. Twilight looked herself over again, stamping a hoof in renewed determination. Really, she did not feel that poorly. So her magic was a little weak; stress could certainly do that. Yes, it definitely could. Who could say, really and truly, that this was not just an overblown stress reaction? It was not as if she had never had some form of breakdown before; Spike could attest to that.

Re-energized by sheer force of will, Twilight drew herself up, puffed out her chest, took a step towards the door... and stumbled badly enough to fall against the wall. She shook herself and sighed. All right, perhaps rushing was a bad idea at this point. Perhaps a rest, but just a little one, would be the intelligent, logical thing to do. Twilight nodded to herself. She was, after all, no use to the princess if she could barely function. This called for a break, just for the day. As she steadied herself, Twilight resolved to take the day off from her admittedly fruitless research. She'd resume later that night, once she'd had some time to focus on other things. The plan pleased her, and she managed a small smile just as Spike knocked on her door, declaring breakfast ready.

It seemed like years since she'd seen the sun. Twilight closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sky, basking in the warm glow that kissed her skin. It really had been a fantastic idea, leaving the library for a nice, long stroll. The moment she'd closed the door on the piles of historical texts littering the floor, it felt as if a weight had lifted from her. Even her lingering exhaustion did not dampen her enjoyment of another beautiful early spring day. Winter Wrap Up had happened, on time, just last week, and all around her the ponies of Ponyville were making the most of one of their favorite seasons. So far, the walk had been just what she needed. She'd only met one slight snag: there had been a moment when she'd found herself heading, as had become something of an odd habit, towards the meadow housing Discord's statue. Once she'd made a conscious effort to pass on examining his stone form, however, she managed some real enjoyment. Twilight turned a corner, intending to make her way up the street to one of her favorite restaurants, only to stop at the sound of her name.

"Twilight! Is that you, dear?" The voice was elegant and refined, unmistakably Rarity's. Rarity's voice, the east side of town... what was today? Tuesday? Yes, it was. That meant... Twilight searched the crowd for her fellow unicorn, sighted her, and smiled at the sight of their pegasus friend following close behind. Every Tuesday was, without fail, the day Rarity and Fluttershy took their trip to the spa together. Had Twilight been in a healthier mindset the last few days she might have remembered, but her preoccupation with princess Celestia had resulted in a happily coincidental meeting.

"Twilight! Oh, darling, we haven't seen you in ages. Where have you- oh my!" Instead of meeting Twilight's greeting smile with one of her own, Rarity stared at her with a look of utter horror. Fluttershy, once she'd caught up, echoed Rarity's exclamation with a gasp. Both ponies stared incredulously at Twilight, who knew precisely what the problem was and shifted uncomfortably because of it.

"Um... hi, girls. How have you been?" she ventured tentatively, a hoof scuffing the ground in her discomfort. She hadn't been planning on any socialization because of just this reaction: of course they would be shocked at her appearance.

"How have we been? Twilight, never mind us! What's happened to you?" Rarity leaned close to peer at her pale friend.

Fluttershy, shyness forgotten in her concern, actually reached out and touched a hoof to Twilight's forehead. "Are you sick? Is that why you've been staying home? Oh, you poor thing!"

Twilight, by now thoroughly embarrassed by their well-intentioned fussing, took a large step back. "Girls, please! I'm fine! I just... I've been studying a lot recently, and it's been cutting into my sleep schedule. That's all!' She smiled reassuringly, only to be met with looks of suspicion. "Really, I swear! I'm studying a very difficult topic right now, and I guess the stress has gotten to me a little. It's really not as bad as it looks, I promise." Again, a placating smile brightened her face as she tried to sell this idea to them, just as she had sold it to herself a few hours ago. Rarity and Fluttershy looked back skeptically.

Twilight began to sweat. What if they didn't believe her? What if they demanded more answers? What if they asked what she was studying, and she ended up blurting out the whole fiasco? Luckily, she was still too exhausted to fall into another one of her downward spirals. All she could do was keep smiling at their disapproving expressions, hoping they would believe her. Or at least pretend to.

Eventually, Rarity broke the tension with a heavy sigh. "I cannot say that I believe studying can do that to your lovely complexion, my dear, but if you insist upon it, then I suppose I shall have to relent. However," a nearly mad look entered her lovely blue eyes, "you will be coming to the spa with Fluttershy and myself. On us. Right now. And I will not take no for an answer!"

Twilight's ears fell. She had not been planning on any real socialization on her excursion; she simply did not trust herself in her current tired condition. A protest immediately came to her mouth, but a surprisingly stern look from Fluttershy shut it up quick.

"I'm sorry, but I must agree with Rarity. You really should come with us, Twilight, even if only for a little while." Twilight tried to counter with a look of protest, but Fluttershy, shy as she was, seemed to gain a veritable mountain of assertiveness when an animal, or one of her friends, was not well. "I really must insist, Twilight. For your own good." Now Twilight finally had a moment to regret suggesting Fluttershy be more forceful with her patients during that whole phoenix ordeal. Clearly, the pegasus had taken her words to heart. Faced with two very unyielding ponies, Twilight hung her head in defeat.

"All right. I'll come along."

Immediately, Fluttershy relaxed into a gentle smile, and Rarity's demeanor changed altogether. She wrapped a hoof around Twilight with almost frightening enthusiasm.

"Wonderful! Come along then! You'll be feeling, and looking, scores better in no time at all!"

With that, Twilight found herself bodily dragged to the spa. By the time they'd made it into the foyer, she'd gone from merely bone-tired to disoriented and hopelessly dizzy. Perhaps, she reflected with the sliver of her mind not occupied with trying maintain some balance, this had not been the best idea after all. Getting out of it now, however, was out of the question. Resigned to her fate, Twilight prepared herself for the discomfort of unwanted, heavy pampering.

She ended up pleasantly surprised. The spa ponies saw her need for true relaxation and hurried to her side. Extricating her from the well-meaning Rarity, they hustled her off to the steam room first, followed by a well-deserved pony pedi. By the time she realized exactly how much her feet had been aching, she found herself having her mane professionally combed out. Twilight, after days of little sleep and strange exhaustion, finally began to truly unwind. When the spa ponies saw their work taking its effect, they led her back to one of the main rooms where, alongside a chatting Fluttershy and Rarity, Twilight stretched out on a massage table. The hooves pressing gently, then firmly, into her back, magically found all of the stress knots and aches she'd developed without even knowing. She let out a blissful sigh. Next to her, her friends exchanged knowing looks and settled down to enjoy their own expert massages.

Twilight would never remember falling asleep, though she'd later berate herself for not recognizing the possibility the moment she'd settled on the table. Her friends had secretly hoped it would happen, and Fluttershy tapped Rarity with a hoof to point out their friend contentedly snoozing beside them. Both mares softly congratulated one another for a job well done; they truly had been blindsided by how bad Twilight looked, and relaxing her to sleep was precisely what they'd hoped the spa ponies could do.

For some time after that, all was well. Fluttershy and Rarity enjoyed their massages secure in the knowledge that they had helped out a friend, and Twilight slumbered peacefully under the skilled ministrations of a spa pony. Said pony, satisfied with her work, gave her charge's shoulders one last knead before leaving Twilight to her rest. Of course, it could not last, not with the circumstances Twilight had unknowingly thrown herself into being as they were. Thus, while Rarity and Fluttershy chatted amicably about nothing in particular, and Twilight's masseuse took her break, the energies in Twilight's mind began to coalesce, to shift once more, and...

Rain beating the ground... gloriously strong, vicious, violent... the lightning tearing across the sky... rip it asunder... rip it rip it rip it oh how fantastic, how magnificent, how inspired...

"Discord!" What was this? Brilliant! A lovely snow-white guest to share the beauty... now to show her, just to show her...

"What have you done? What have you done, you monster?" Monster? Monster? Oh, how quaint, how utterly precious. She thought... oh, how unenlightened! No no no, it would never do. He'd have to show her, show her everything, show her the wonder of it...

Energies clashed... pain... so much pain... it all ripped asunder again, but this time the screams...

"Twilight! Twilight Sparkle!"

It took Twilight longer than it should have to realize that the screams she was hearing came not from the vision but from her own muzzle. When she finally understood this, she shut her mouth with an audible snap, trying to calm herself enough to take stock of the situation.

She was on the polished floor of the spa, legs haphazardly waving in the air and framing the faces of two very concerned, almost frightened mares. Her friends looked at her expectantly, waiting for some sort of resolution to the disturbing sight they'd just witnessed. All Twilight could do, being still confused, was lower her ears sheepishly and squeak out the only question that really fit the situation.

"What am I doing on the ground?"

The sound of her voice seemed to reassure her friends, at least enough for Fluttershy to sit down with a shaky sigh while Rarity worked her nervous energy into an overly boisterous retelling.

"What are you doing on the ground? Twilight, you don't remember?" Twilight made to answer, but Rarity shook her head with almost theatrical exasperation and bowled right over any attempt. "You were sleeping so soundly, just as Fluttershy and I hoped you would. Then you... you..." she trailed off, too overcome to properly continue. Luckily, Fluttershy had composed herself well enough to chime in.

"You started twitching, and then... then you started giggling, and crying, and... and..."

"Twilight," Rarity offered, "you screamed. Like a... a banshee, or somesuch. We thought you were hurt! Then you started... flailing, and you rolled off of the table. Is that why you haven't been sleeping? Twilight, darling, that is not stress, that is..."

"Some sort of terrible nightmare!" Fluttershy finished, body trembling in a sudden shudder. Both of them ended with very expectant, if sympathetic, looks down at the still-prone Twilight.

They clearly wanted some sort of answers from her, likely some admission of greater issues than mere academic stress. Twilight, however, was not delivering, for in truth, she'd only half listened to their explanation. The moment she'd asked her question some sort of mental floodgate had opened, and Twilight actually remembered real details of what had woken her. She remembered a storm more violent, more destructive than anything she had ever seen. She remembered a terrifying, otherworldly vividness to her dreamsight that she'd only vaguely been aware of before. She remembered the sight of a beautiful, gleaming white creature that she could easily, even in her shocked state, identify as Celestia. Most importantly, though, she remembered the exact words she'd heard her beloved mentor speak. Two of them were of particular importance and made the shorter hairs of her mane bristle: "monster"...and "Discord."

Discord. Suddenly it was all too clear, all too painfully clear that her nightly disturbances were somehow tied to that chaotic monstrosity, and the enormity of the realization made her all but deaf to her friends' words. Twilight simply lay there, mind frantically going over all she could remember from the past few terrible nights. There wasn't much, honestly: white and blue that she could now identify as the princesses, feelings of bizarre, chaotic euphoria that could only be the workings of his twisted mind... She stiffened. His mind. His mind? By Celestia's mane... she had to get to her books! There was no way these were normal nightmares, not with that bizarre content, not considering what she'd been doing recently. It was too coincidental, far too coincidental, and there were other things about what she'd seen: the random events, the admittedly wonderful joy during some images, the utter strangeness of how things looked when she... was she looking through his eyes? Was that it? Was that why everything was so completely disjointed? But then why Celestia? Why Luna? Why, why, why?

No, this settled it. This was not stress. It was not some sort of emotional reaction to her concern over the princess. This was... oh hayseeds, of course she'd been drained! This was magic, somehow, some sort of magic while she slept, and so she'd been drained because... Twilight leaped to her hooves. She needed her books, and she needed them now! This sudden epiphany could give her the inspiration needed to finally figure out what was wrong with the princess. She had no time to waste; she needed to-

Taking a quick glance around her, Twilight felt her sudden burst of determination fizzle out like a wet match. Rarity and Fluttershy were staring at her not only with concern, but with complete bemusement. Now, at least, her mind was rejuvenated by the possibility of solving the whole mess and nimbly offered an excuse.

"Oh, that always happens when I study too much! You must've had that dream: you're taking the most important exam of your life, and suddenly your quill breaks! And no one has a... a spare... ha ha! You know how I overreact sometimes!" Ponyfeathers, they weren't buying it. She withered slightly under her friends' incredulous looks. Both unicorn and pegasus looked ready to grill her with more probing questions, but she'd made up her mind. With an apologetic smile, she trotted towards the door. "Anyway, I must be off!"

"You can't be serious!" Rarity cried out after her. "At least stay for some more-"

"No, no. I really have to get back to studying. Best thing for academic stress is being adequately prepared, as I'm sure you know! Thank you for the break, though. I'll see you girls later!"

With that, she was gone, leaving a confused Rarity, Fluttershy, and pair of spa ponies staring at a swinging door.

"I... I guess she's okay?" Fluttershy ventured, rustling her wings with uncertainty.

Rarity sighed. "I supposed there is not much more we can do. Well, we'll just have to watch her. For now... back to work!"

The two of them spent the rest of their afternoon dozing in a luxuriant mudbath.

"More tea, Spike! I have a lot more books to go through!"

Twilight peered closely at the text of Mental Magic and You, ignoring the worried look her dragon threw in her direction.

"Are you sure, Twi? You know you haven't been sleeping well, and I'm not sure that walk you took had the right effect." Nevertheless, he set a new mug of tea on her desk. "Maybe you should take the night off, too."

"Nonsense, Spike. I think I'm getting close to a breakthrough; I can't stop now!" She looked up from the tome to see her assistant still looking unsure... and tired. She sighed.

"You, on the other hoof, should go to bed. I'll come up once I've figured some more of this out." She turned back to the passage she'd been reading, hoping he'd heed her advice. For a moment, it looked as if he was preparing to be stubborn, but he only yawned and nodded.

"Yeah... I guess you're right. I'll see you tomorrow." Spike began to trudge tiredly up the loft stairs. Before he reached the upper floor, he spoke one last time.

"Please don't stay up too late, Twi? I... I really am worried about you. The others are, too. Applejack was here for a book on tree grafting, and she said-"

"I know, Spike. I know, and I appreciate your concern. But I'm fine, really. I promise." She beamed at him with the most reassuring smile she could make. "I'll come up soon. Really."

"...okay," he sighed, seemingly placated. "Good night, then."

"Good night!"

The moment he was out of sight, she returned to her book, and the second she heard his quiet snoring she walked over to the shelves and picked out a few more. Twilight did not have the same problem she'd had before; there were plenty of books with great details on mental manipulation spells. Each went into numerous aspects of the controversial craft: method, intent, proper energy balance, how to get the exact visions installed in a host mind. It was all there, but it wasn't quite what she was looking for. What she needed was a good description of a victim's experience, not instructions and theory... ah! Here!

"'A First-Hand Account of Energy Receiving During Sleep,' by Sibyl Crystal-Gazer. Hmm... this is it!"

It was exact, a veritable text-book example. It was all there. The ruined sleep, the strange images from a strange point of view, the residual emotion upon waking, all tied in with the most important symptom: a feeling of magical drainage that could not be otherwise explained. All of the other things could be written off as especially bad dreams brought on by stress, but that unique feeling, as if she'd been casting spells all night instead of slumbering in bed, had no other possible origin that she could figure out.

Someone had been sending her magical energy while she slept; it was the only explanation. The nature of what she'd seen, what she'd felt and heard suggested... but how was that possible? How could Discord, rightly locked away in his stony prison, do such a thing? How... wait. Wait! By the sun and moon, what if he was doing the same thing to the princess? The princess could have been suffering the same strange visions, doggedly keeping her misery a secret to keep her subjects from worrying. Twilight bit her lip; it was precisely the selfless sort of thing Celestia would do for them. She had to help, had to! But... what could she do?

All right. Options. What were her options? She could write to the princess... no, she'd crossed that off her list a long time ago. She could... go to her friends? Now? Oh, but it was so late... and besides, something about telling her friends that Discord might have still been active did not sit right with her. She did not want to panic anybody, not when they were all just recovering from their ordeal. Besides, this was a magical problem, not something most of them had any experience with. That left the final option, one not particularly savory but oddly more acceptable than the others: deal with it herself.

She thought about it, trying to weigh the pros and cons and coming up with no conclusive answer. It was a downright dangerous idea, but at the same time it was becoming more and more appealing. There was something about it that just seemed right, like everything would be solved right when she... if she... the statue. She had to get to the statue. Somehow, somehow, everything would be clear as long as she made it to the statue. Now. She had to go now. Right now, at one in the morning. Definitely.

It was utterly bizarre, and she might have labeled it as some form of mind control, but Twilight felt absolutely no magic activity in the vicinity. All she felt was the greatest conviction that the next step she had to take was going to that large meadow and examining the statue. She had to do it immediately, before she lost the senseless sort of courage that this sort of sureness tended to grant. Filled with resolve, Twilight grabbed the book she'd been reading, glanced upstairs to make sure Spike was still asleep, and hurried out the door.

Outside, the night was mild, common for a young spring in Ponyville. The streets were empty as she trotted along the familiar path, the air silent except for the click of hooves on cobblestone and the tentative chirps of insects freshly awoken from their winter sleep. Twilight ignored the gentle sounds; she even ignored the beautiful silver moon and stars that Luna had likely worked quite hard on. She was set, determined, and thus focused on little else but getting to the edge of town. Once there, she finally allowed herself to pause at the meadow's edge. The tall grass gleamed with a silvery sheen, perfectly uniform and almost ethereal in Luna's moonlight. The only thing out of place was a defined path through the wildflowers that cut straight from where Twilight stood to the foot of the statue in the meadow's center. Swallowing nervously, she took a deep breath to draw strength from whatever inner bravery had brought her this far. Her fur ruffled gently in a sudden breeze as she took a step forward, then another, and another, until she found herself once again looking up into the frozen face of her great enemy.

He was somehow more intimidating at night, despite the fact that this night was not at all dark. The moonlight, while illuminating everything else in an almost ponytale splendor, only served to lend a creepy sort of effect to the rock. It almost seemed to glow from within, as if it had some sort of inner energy... well, of course it had: a particularly obnoxious draconequus was trapped inside, after all. Still... creepy. Definitely creepy. Twilight shuddered a little before focusing back on the task at hoof. The task... at... she blinked.

That encouraging conviction was... gone. Just gone. Just like that, she found herself standing in the middle of the meadow with Discord's creepy statue, with absolutely no clue as to what to do next. She took her book out of her saddlebags and perused the relevant passages again, hoping to regain whatever inspirational spark had sent her here in the first place. Nothing. She had... nothing. Well, not entirely nothing. No, now Twilight had frustrated anger, a feeling that burned with ever-increasing fervor as she glared at the stone before her. Her eyes gleamed with this fury, this complete indignation at her situation. They'd beaten this monster already; how dare he cause her to suffer again? How dare he cause the princess, the kindest, most wonderful creature Twilight knew, to suffer? How was any of this fair? In her state she never even questioned how she knew that all of these hardships were coming from Discord; the same source of bravery that had led her here was giving her complete and utter confidence that it was all his fault. She knew, knew this in a way that was only comparable to how Pinkie sometimes just knew things, and in her turmoil she did not even think to question it. Instead, she began to fume, and as she fumed, she began to speak.

"I know this is all your fault, Discord. All of it. You've done something to the princess, and now you're doing something to me! There is no one else out there who would want to hurt either of us, so don't think that I'm not on to you! Don't think that I won't stop you!" She glared up at his frozen face, as if expecting some response. When none came she let out a frustrated snarl, beginning to circle around his base as if seeing him from a different angle would give her some enlightenment.

"You think that you can play with the rest of us like this? I won't let you! You hear me? I. Will. Not. Let. You!" She could have melted glass with her expression, but the statue before her remained impassive.

At this point, Twilight Sparkle did something that she had been taught, very strictly, not to do all the way back in Magic Kindergarten. It was the first, most important lesson taught to any young unicorn, repeated over and over again throughout their magical training. She had never broken this all-important rule, not even when Discord had threatened her world before. Now, however, with fear for herself and her mentor, with sleep deprivation, with chilling doubt all churning furiously in her thoughts, she broke that rule. For the first time, Twilight Sparkle allowed her anger to govern her magic.

The energy curled up the lines of her horn with frightening speed; all around her, the wind picked up, whipping the grass and clawing at the ground. With a savage yell, Twilight released all of that magic in a focused beam, aiming at the cause of all her pent up emotion: the statue right in front of her. The resulting flash of light and color, an impressive release of energy, actually managed to knock her back, and the next thing she knew, she was staring up at a blurry night sky. If the nightly visions had not fully drained her of her magic, that had, and she had to lay still for a moment, groaning softly, as all of the blurred points of light resharpened into the stars and moon.

That had not gone well. Oh, she was momentarily glad Celestia seemed so preoccupied lately; that had been downright embarrassing, losing control of herself like that. What would her mentor think, if she'd seen, if she'd felt it? Twilight weakly shook her head, wincing at the quickly-growing headache as she fought to stand up. What in the world had she been thinking, firing off a blast like that? A novice mistake, entirely unforgivable... she sighed. Oh, but at least no one had been awake to see it. She glanced back towards the town. No; no candles being lit, no noise indicating any disturbed sleepers. At least she hadn't ruined that. Her shame began to fade, helped along by exhaustion. There was no sense in blaming herself for something born of the emotional mess she'd been the past few days; she'd learned that lesson multiple times during her stay in Ponyville. Best to just thank the powers that be that nothing was seriously damaged, vow to never let herself get so stressed again, and go home. Well, if she could go home, which she still could not bring herself to do. She'd come here to deal with her problems at the source. Twilight frowned. Was he really the source? She'd been so sure just a moment ago, before her little meltdown, but now...

Had it all just been anger? Desperation for an answer? Twilight approached the statue, completely unharmed by the blast, and studied it again. No... no, there was something to this. Untainted by fury, she could still feel that little kernel of truth deep within, a strange pulse insisting that she was right where she should be. Insistent, but incomprehensible. Outstanding. She breathed out in a frustrated huff.

"What else can I do? I can't write to the princess, I can't tell my friends... and all that magic was useless. Maybe..." Maybe going home was the right decision tonight. If she got lucky, she'd finally have a restful sleep and awaken with the energy to really make some headway with this mental magic angle. Yes... that was probably for the best. All she had to do was... hold on.

Twilight's ears pricked up, the very tips quivering at the sudden presence of something in the air. The familiar tingle of magic, not residual blast magic but a different sort, laced the air around her. She looked around in confusion. Was there another unicorn about, casting some spell? No; she was still alone in the meadow save for the crickets, mice, and owls. Then what was that trace feeling?

Now, now, my dear, I do believe you are being much too hard on yourself. I would hardly call that fantastic bit of magic useless.

That voice. That voice. Outwardly, she'd heard nothing, but that unmistakable voice rang in her head clear as a school's bell. No. No! It couldn't be! She could not have... it had been a powerful blast, but... no. No, the statue was definitely intact. Perfectly unharmed.

But by Celestia's mane, she could feel the magic clinging to it, emanating from it, a magic whose feel she now recognized all too easily. Twilight gaped at it in horror, taking a step back, then another, her entire body ready to heed her instinct's order to run. She couldn't do it, though. No matter how badly she wanted to flee, all she could truly do was stand, as frozen as the statue, while Discord's voice spoke soundlessly in her mind.

Come now, Twilight Sparkle. Is that how you greet an old friend? Don't I even get a 'hello?'

A/N: Thank you for reading.

Chapter Three: In Which Magic and Chaos Chat

A/N: Onwards.
A/N the second: All grammatical errors seen in the Lord of Chaos' sections are intentional.

Disclaimer: I own nothing pony.

Chapter 3: In Which Magic and Chaos Chat

When it came right down to it, the whole thing had been incredibly difficult. Now, Discord certainly did not plan on telling anyone that. Oh, no, no, no; definitely not. One day, when one of his future adoring subjects asked him to recount the harrowing tale of what was about to unfold, he'd launch into an inspired telling that would omit that little detail. Oh, of course he'd make it all seem properly daring; there was no question about that. How could he not? All those dreadfully dull little ponies would surely appreciate a suspenseful story, and he'd make sure the tale of his second escape did not disappoint. The truth, though? The real, honest truth?

The truth was that whatever awful throe he'd been in at the time... what had it been... anger? Despair? That nauseating confusion? Perhaps even a rare tryst with joy? A sick mix? No, no... oh, but who wanted to remember those awful throes now... had barely released him in time to notice that faintest wisp of otherness just stealing through his prison. Even then the effort he'd had to exert to bring his trembling focus to the edge of his cell was astronomical; if breathing was still an option, he'd have been completely winded. As it was, the only reason he'd managed it had very little to do with his own power;it had much more to do with dear Twilight Sparkle. Not that the energy was strong, or even particularly focused, oh no. It was only a breath of anger, really, just a little burst of petty indignation, admittedly weak and quickly forgotten. If it had been anyone else... well, he doubted anyone else could manage to project any amount of energy into his prison, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Twilight's particular brand of magic had somehow grabbed what little attention he still possessed almost immediately, and he had pounced. Ah, but perhaps "pounced" was not the best word. "Pounced," he had to admit, suggested some sort of coordinated grace, and by the time he'd wrested himself from... oh, it had been despair! Yes, yes, that had been it! Or... or maybe... maybe not. Maybe... ah, what was it? Go back, go look, try to remember. Yes! Yes, yes, yes, go back to look! Except... no, too much of a pull, too much, too much, and he had to focus... whatever, he'd only been composed enough to clumsily fumble at that barest whisper of her annoyance. Still, he'd fought. He'd fought absurdly hard, and he likely would have been fairly embarrassed by how difficult it all was if he hadn't been so mesmerized by the result.

Twilight Sparkle's little burst of fury had been brief, sure, but oh, oh, it had been something different! Something different, something other than the sick twisting of his own fragmented thoughts, something other than the self that he'd been stuck with since... when? How long had it been since he'd been imprisoned in that forsaken hunk of rock? How long since he'd had the relief of something to look at, something to examine, something other to touch and test and caress? Eons, it must have been. It felt like eons. It would always feel like... eons? Oh, perish the thought, must have been only a few seconds! Or days? Maybe a couple of hours? No, certainly decades, yes, yes, definitely a fortnight... forever, but...

Well, no matter. Best not to dwell on that now, not after he'd worked so damnably hard. Pulling oneself out of a throe, see, was no simple task. Not for him, at least. Not when all of that energy, all of that fantastic chaotic energy turned around and... oh, but when he'd finally managed to grasp it, wrap his consciousness around that little sliver, what a miracle! That was all that mattered, in the end: that he'd done it! He'd giggled and chortled over it, pulling and pushing and twisting and caressing until familiarity with every nuance was his. Then, oh then, he'd listened to it, that cheeky little smidgen of indignation, listened to the ghost of Twilight's voice in its echoes. He'd listened, and he'd sighed and he'd... relaxed. Only for a moment, of course. All of that energy would only let him relax for the tiniest moment, but he'd been here before, and he'd known how to make that moment count. Thus, in those precious seconds of relief, Discord had plotted.

He was proud of what he'd managed in such a short amount of time, and with such dismal limits imposed upon his abilities. Granted, his mind was almost ridiculously quick, but he'd had, and still had, precious little to work with, not to mention the... obstacles. The gap in his prison was small. Infinitesimal. Minute. Microscopic. Nano-sized, mini, itsy-bitsy... small. Small, small, small, focus, it was small. Yes. Let's just say it was a small opening, and as far as he'd been able to tell, it went to Twilight. Just Twilight. That was limiting enough, needing to fit energy through such a tiny hole that only Twilight's consciousness seemed able to reach through, but that was not the half of it. Probably not even a fourth or... oh, maybe an eighth? A sixteenth? Let's see... how to measure this little... ooh... maybe one six hundred and eighty-third! Or maybe... no no no no focus focus focus!

Ah, yes. The greatest issue was and always would be the lack of that nifty little thing that he liked to think of as his ability to focus on one thing for more than a millisecond. That commodity was in drastically short supply here in the insipid land of Granite Statue...topia? -tan? -ville? -stan, -ton, -burg.. focus! Focus, he had to focus. That was the most pressing issue, to put it mildly, and after trying in vain to calm the chaos... ha, calming chaos? What an utter joke, and not even a properly hilarious one! As if that was even... after struggling with all of those built up energies, he'd realized that that limit was not negotiable. Pity, really, but it was what it was, and Discord could not afford to mope over such matters. He had no time for melancholy, no time and no chances to take ...don't fall in again, don't fall in, focus, think now, focus, focus... so he'd done all that he could do: he'd focused what energy he could at the break and... well, thrown it. That was the best term, he supposed. At that point, whatever concentration he'd managed to glean from the brief moment of respite her "gift" had given him was swiftly swallowed up by sweet chaos, and so grabbing and throwing energy at that hole and through that connection was all he could do. He'd had absolutely no idea what he was sending her, but he hadn't cared. Energy was energy, and all he'd needed it to accomplish were three things: first: widen the hole. Second: reach the unicorn. Third: focus. Blindly pelting the gap with whatever energy he been able to gather was probably not something he would detail in his future autobiography, but it had served its purpose. The more energy he'd used, the wider the gap had grown, and using that energy to widen said gap kept it from tearing at his tenuous hold on sanity: a clear win-win. As he'd came back to himself more and more often, he'd chuckled in satisfaction at what was clearly a growing success.

The more he'd worked, the easier it had become. A tedious process, to be sure, and not one he'd ever willingly admit to using, but now he possessed the faculties to detail his sparse machinations further. The gap was a much more respectable hole, and while he still couldn't properly examine the energy he was sending through, he could recognize the next step to freedom... at least generally. He had to use Twilight Sparkle somehow. Oh, how he wished he could come up with something more interesting than "use Twilight, duh," but even now, with some of the energy nibbling away at his prison instead of at him, he couldn't be too careful. Too much effort, too much complexity, and everything would turn on him at once, and then... well, then the unpleasantness would prevent progress for who knew how long. Not affordable; definitely not affordable. Simple was how it had to be, and while that was not his preferred modus operandi, he wanted out... out out out must get out get out get out... and simple led to out faster than complex did. That, and loathe though he was to admit it, it really was all he could manage in this dismal state. Simple it was.

Thus he pondered, schemed, planned. Twilight Sparkle: the leader of the Elements of Harmony. Twilight Sparkle: the only one he could reach, probably because she was that lead Element. Twilight Sparkle... Twilight Sparkle was... Twilight was... was yelling at him? He found his gingerly-arranged thoughts suddenly interrupted by the burning ire of a consciousness other than his own. For a moment, he came dangerously close to falling back in again, letting the chaos latch onto his shock and morph it into another throe that would tear at him for who knew how long. He paused; he floundered; he gasped for a mental breath. She couldn't be... was it a memory playing back again? Had his precious chaos gone and... no. No, it really was her, standing before his statue again, glaring with undisguised viciousness at his stone form. At least, that was the image his mind conjured up for him. In reality, he couldn't see her at all; he could only feel a seething rage seeping in through the now plenty-large gap in the barrier surrounding him.

Here was another pivotal moment he'd have to "improve" upon for history's books. One day, everyone would read about how he had cleverly anticipated the moment of Twilight's arrival, meeting her ire with honeyed words and effortless guile, skillfully manipulating every action to his advantage. The reality? Again, the reality was a far cry from such fanciful imaginings.

That he was not ready was an understatement vulgar in its magnitude. The moment her magic burst through the newly widened space, it... he... He'd pounced the last time. This time... this time his mind fell limp with a relief made greater only because he'd forgotten he could feel anything like it. The exquisite uniqueness of it, the myriad shifts and edges of thought noticeable now only because it was so powerful... they were like a balm soothing the invisible wound created by all that abysmal effort to keep everything together. For a few seconds he forgot that effort, forgot everything but the beautifully stark contrast of her unbridled fury against the dead black of his lifeless world. He bathed in it, basked in it, reveled in it; what divinity it was, this fury with all of its subtle flows and facets! All there was left to do now was watch it, caress it, curl up in its heat and just forever and ever and ever so pretty so nice Twilight did I ever tell you your anger is like pop rocks and moonfire and chocolate velvet all at once and oh what a calamitous rectification what a delicious morsel of compound anxiety no stop stop no no NO get up get up GET UP GET UP!

He awoke again, and if there was some way for a mind to tremble, his did. Too close, that had been, far too close. Even now, he could feel how near the edge he was, how easily he could just reach out and touch her flame and fall... no! No, no, this was what he'd been waiting for; another chance like this might not come again. Not if he ruined this first all important contact. No, he had to pull together. He had to do this, because this meant out, out, out out out...

All right. All right, this was simple. Easy. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy. Haha! Exactly. Exactly exactly. He could do this. This was fine. Nice and easy. There we go... reach out, do not frighten too much, do not. No... just reach out nice and friendly; be nice, be nice or she'd leave and then and then and then...

Discord spoke. He spoke in a mind-voice so calm, so collected, so normal that it almost sent him into cracked peals of laughter, but he kept it together. He pacified the boiling energies by latching onto her next delectable emotion, onto her creamy fear, and that kept him steady enough to realize a very, very important thing: he had absolutely no idea what to do next.

If Discord had not planned his next move, Twilight hadn't even considered the possibility of needing one. The idea that giving his statue a furious blast of magic would somehow grant him freedom had never occurred to her, not even in the most fanciful of nightmares.

The result was a very stunned, very scared mare whose thoughts struggled to come up with something other than ohmygoshohmygoshDiscord'sbackhe'sbackhe'sbackomygoshohmygosh. She stood there, quivering and panting and wanting to run but unable to, stood there waiting for something... his claw on her face, his voice uttering some sort of awful riddle, the feel of his breath heating the nape of her neck... Frozen, she waited and... waited?

Twilight hadn't realized she'd squeezed her eyes tightly shut until she finally forced them open, driven by a pang of confusion when her anticipation was met with... well, with nothing. She looked around, searching the waving grasses of the meadow for her enemy. Nothing. She turned her face to the sky, but no slithering draconequine form blocked out the twinkling stars.

Fear slowly relinquished its hold, and frustrated confusion swiftly filled its place. She knew she'd heard Discord; that voice was utterly unforgettable. She could not have been mistaken. Impossible. Stiffening her legs in preparation, she called out the moment her voice was working again.

"Discord! I know you're here; show yourself!"

Nothing.

Twilight snorted, anxious and angry. "Discord! You jerk, you- wait. That voice... that voice was in... in my mind." She abandoned her rigid stance, moving forward to examine the statue again. Just as she'd seen before: unharmed. So that meant...

It was just a hunch, one that she feared she'd regret in a few seconds, but she followed it anyway. The soft glow of her horn signaled the beginning of a simple communication spell, and with that magic she wove a delicate strand of consciousness that reached out, probing, prodding, feeling... there! And with that, she was through. With that, she spoke again, but this time her voice was outwardly silent.

D-Discord?

A flash of amusement; she could almost hear a throaty chuckle lurking about behind her thoughts.

The one and only. I see you've finally found your tongue; civil, to boot. A welcome change, I assu-

Twilight withdrew contact, sitting down heavily in the tall grass. Her breath came in harsh pants, and for a moment, she felt she might actually pass out, so great was the shock of what had just happened.

For the love of all things Equestrian, she'd just spoken to Discord. Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. Monstrosity who had nearly destroyed her friendship. No, no, scratch that. He had destroyed her friendship, and she'd had to fight hoof and horn to get her friends back. This couldn't be happening, not like this, not... hold on, hold on... something was off. As she sat in night's quiet, fear nudging her closer to accepting the idea of running back to town, she realized that she was sitting in essential silence. No creepy voice. No Discord. A second epiphany made her gasp, and curiosity won out against fear as she reached out once more.

-must stop doing that, Twilight Sparkle. Incredibly rude, if you ask me, to constantly fall silent when I am trying to have a conversation with you! Honestly, do they teach nothing in those unicorn schools nowadays?

She was breathing fast again, but this time fear's influence had little to do with it. Her little hypothesis had been proven true, and the little burst of satisfaction at a question answered dulled her terror significantly. So, for that matter, did the answer to said question: Discord could only hear her, and she him, when she established a magical connection through... through...

Through this beautifully crafted statue, dear, yes. I thought it was rather obvious myself; took you quite some time to figure it out, didn't it? And here I thought you were supposed to be something of a prodigy...

Well, if his thinly-veiled sarcasm was good for anything, it was good for loosening the final grip fear had on her mental voice.

I didn't figure it out because it's not supposed to happen! You are supposed to be a rock!

Even while snapping back at him, she swiftly constructed a mental wall and, with some difficulty that she'd later eliminate with practice, partitioned off much of her mind for safe-keeping. His last remark made it rather obvious that, while contact existed, he had access to any thoughts lurking near the surface of her psyche. The fact that she'd felt his amusement a few minutes ago suggested she had the same access.

I do believe I am still a rock, Twilight. In fact, I believe you've checked that a few times already, yes? Ah... yes. Haha; rest assured, I can't actually see you, but that little thrill of... what was that? Shock? Fear? Befuddled terror? Ooh, yes, let's go with that last one. Anyway, that told me that I was right on the bit with-

If you're stone, how can I talk to you? How are you talking to me? What did you do?

A mental sigh. Honestly, Twilight. First you just randomly stop listening to me, and now you interrupt. Why in the world should I tell such an ill-mannered unicorn anything, hmm?

If you don't tell me, I'll... I'll...

You'll what? Go tell your precious Celestia on me? Oh, I'm sure that'll go just swimmingly. Why, I bet-

What did you do to her?!

He paused. He paused, and if she had been less consumed by her growing fury, she might have actually realized it. Instead, she gave in to the ire that she'd pushed back behind those mental walls, letting it finally rush free and take control. How could she not? The moment Discord mentioned the princess, Twilight remembered why she'd come, why she'd hit that wretched statue in the first place. The memories shook themselves free of the cloak of fear that had hidden them, rising to the surface and fueling her indignation to the point of blindness. So it went that Twilight did not notice Discord pause, and that was just as well for him, for if she had, it may all have ended right then and there. Instead, she pushed headlong into a rant.

This is all your fault! First you nearly destroy Ponyville, now you're messing with the princess, and with me! You think you can get away with this? You think I don't realize what's happening? You think you were just going to sneak those horrible things into my dreams? Those horrible... horrible... memories? Thoughts? Ugh, whatever they were, you think you could just use them to hurt us?

Silence, but she kept going.

Well, it didn't work on me, Discord! And I don't care what horrible things you've shown the princess; once I've spoken with her about this, we'll defeat you once and for all! We'll gather the Elements again, and we'll-

Laughter now, laughter that didn't lurk about under the surface but bubbled shamelessly over it. Twilight nearly broke the connection again, emotions turning almost violent at the sound of his merriment. The only thing that kept it intact was a sudden flame of defiance, a need to prove her will against what she understood as the most evil thing she had ever faced. Trembling but resolute, Twilight waited for his mental guffaws to cease, eyes unconsciously narrowing when he spoke again.

Oh, Twilight, Twilight, Twilight. You really do think you have everything figured out, don't you? Honestly, I could just go on and on about that healthy sense of arrogance dear Celestia has cultivated in you, but since I'm such a wonderfully charming fellow, I think I'll answer your questions instead.

She automatically scoffed at the statement. Undaunted, he continued.

To answer your first question, I have done nothing with your princess. As we have already established, I am currently residing in this charming hunk of rock. Rather cramped, actually, and I have the most awful crick in my neck, but that's neither here nor there, I suppose. As for what I've shown you...

Another pause, one that Twilight actually noticed. She also noticed, to her chagrin, that he'd put up the same mental walls she had; additional probing yielded no clues regarding his words. Whether he could feel her investigation was a mystery Perhaps he couldn't, for he continued without comment.

Seeing how incredibly boring it is in here, why don't you humor me, my little pony? What do you think I've shown you?

Twilight felt the shortest hairs of her mane bristle at his question, and her mind immediately scrambled for an answer. Was this some sort of trick, another crafty riddle designed to make her stumble, fail, and throw her world into terrible danger all over again? She remembered the last one well, that was certain. She remembered how she'd fallen prey to his silver tongue, how he hadn't even lied, just talked circles and postured until he'd had her precisely where he wanted her. Then... oh, by Celestia's mane, then everything had fallen completely to pieces, and their lives had nearly been shattered forever. No, she could not let it happen. She would not allow him to exploit her a second time; never again.

Twilight struggled for her next words. Her anger bled out from behind her mental wall; she knew he could sense it, but she did not care. Rather than blinding her, anger gave her strength, and she finally answered with a ferocity that Rainbow Dash would have been proud of.

It doesn't matter what I think you've shown me. It's a trick, all of it! And I'm not saying anything to you. I'm going straight to the princess, and that's that. Good bye!

Now, wait a minute! Wait!

By all rights, she should have kept her word. She should have turned her back on his voice and his petrified form. She should have followed the moonlight back across the meadow to her home and worked up a sensible plan from there. Instead, she found her anger waning again. His voice, rather than being laced with its trademark amusement, carried a current of desperation that reached past her ire and tickled at curiosity once more.

Certainly her entire being remained focused on the idea of an impending trap, but oh, it was difficult. At her core lay that insatiable curiosity, and it vied with her caution and anger for control of her actions. Really though, how could she not be curious? She had heard Discord speak in a good number of tones, but this was something new, something she'd never even conceived of. So different, though... it had to be a trap! A trap staring her right in the face, and here she was reaching back out in response. Foolish. Idiotic. Shameful.

She did it anyway.

What can you possibly have to say that I would want to hear, Discord?

It took a couple of seconds for an answer. When his voice came, the tone was normal, if a little whining.

Come now; I'm only asking for a little fun; is that so wrong?

Wrong? Anger won out for a moment, and her mind's voice came shrill and vicious. Wrong? You think that giving me such horrible nightmares about the princesses isn't wrong? You think hurting Princess Celestia isn't wrong? If that's what you call "fun," then you're more of a monster than I thought.

Twilight Sparkle, I'm shocked! A monster? Really? Is that any way to treat someone who wants to help you? Here I was, all ready to assist you with your little princess problem, and you're saying such nasty things! Why, I don't think any amount of entertainment is worth this much rudeness. I think this conversation is over.

Wait!

Now it was her turn to sound frantic, and behind her walls she cringed in shame. Here was the trap; it didn't take a genius to recognize it. It was so obvious, it was almost laughable. In fact, it was laughable, and she had the absurd urge to giggle as she mulled over his words. Help her with the princess? Did he honestly think her so foolish as to fall for something so obvious? Insulting! And yet...

And yet she couldn't leave it be. She couldn't break away from him and run. The sudden possibility of finally gaining information about the princess was too tempting to ignore. The danger inherent in dealing with Discord seemed so much less, so insignificant, when compared to the knowledge she might gain to help her beloved mentor. Thus Twilight wavered, and thus she called out to the chaos spirit she knew sought to harm her. The effect was immediate.

Ah... a change of heart, then?

Twilight swallowed nervously; how she handled this now was crucial. Maybe... maybe if she was careful, really careful, she could gain something without losing too much.

I... what do you mean, help with the princess?

The laugh that answered her was dark enough to nearly make her regret her words. Nearly. Once he had his fill of mental cackles, he continued with words that only increased her indecision.

I mean exactly what I say, my dear Twilight. I have some incredibly interesting information about sweet Celestia that I'm sure you'd find useful considering the current... situation. Why in the world do you think I sent those little samples, worked so hard to call you here, hmm? You think it's easy getting through solid rock, even for me?

Calling her? He'd been calling? That would explain the dreams, wouldn't it? That would explain... but no! There was no way he would have called her here out of any sort of concern or kindness. Definitely not; there was no way altruism could come from such a creature. There was something here, some sort of catch. She reanalyzed his words, his tone, even tried to feel through his own mental walls for some sort of clue, but there was nothing. All she felt was a sense of expectancy, clearly him waiting for her answer. Twilight had no time to come up with a clever retort, so she did all she could: she got right down to the point.

What do you know about the princess, and what's the price?

The price? My dear, dear Twilight, what makes you think I would want something in return?

No amount of curiosity could override the utter disbelief that inspired, and she made it quite clear. There was no reason to block her skepticism from breaching her mental wall.

Oh ho, learned a few things from our last meeting, did you? Well, you always were the smart one, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Fine, fine; let's get down to business.

He paused again, and she took the moment to ready her defenses. Outwardly, it felt as if every hair stood on end in anticipation. Her ears flicked forward, unnecessary but quite unconscious, and Twilight took a deep breath when Discord... began to laugh again. As quickly as she'd tensed, she relaxed. Anticipation became annoyance. Stupid jerk of a spirit; couldn't he take anything seriously?

Hey! If you don't tell me what you want in the next three seconds, I'm leaving! One... tw-

Juvenile, yes. Effective? Also yes.

My apologies, dear. Goodness, keep your horseshoes on! You're just so adorable, all ready to take on the big bad spirit of chaos! Why, it must be one of the cu-

ONE. TWO. THR-

All right, all right. To business. Ahem.

His tonal shift was odd, disturbing, and whether he knew it disturbed she did not know, but it wouldn't have surprised her if he did. It would be just like him to use every possible method to confuse her. Twilight snorted, a sound heard only by herself and the crickets whose chirps answered her. It didn't matter what he tried; she'd be ready.

I propose the following deal, Twilight Sparkle: I will tell you what I know of Celestia and her... issues. In return, I ask only this: you shall speak with me for a minimum of two hours every day.

Twilight thought she'd horribly misheard, or that she'd hallucinated his words, or perhaps that he'd shifted reality in some way. It was only when his silence stretched on into the seconds that she even toyed with the idea that she had heard correctly.

You... you want me to talk to you?

Would you like me to repeat it? You shall speak with me fo-

Are you kidding?

She fully expected him to laugh again, announcing some ridiculous punchline to follow what clearly had to be a joke. So deep was her bafflement that she sat down, muscles going slack as she stared up at the motionless statue. A joke. It had to be a joke.

Do I sound as if I am kidding, Twilight Sparkle?.

When incredulity kept her voice hostage, he sighed.

I may be the spirit of chaos, disharmony, rugged good looks, and fantastic jokes, but that does not mean I am incapable of being serious from time to time. That is my offer. Take it or leave it. And do hurry with your decision, my dear. While I possess many wonderful virtues, patience did seem to pass me up.

Sure enough, with those words came trickles of fidgeting impatience that tickled her psyche. Her mind threatened to come to a panicked halt, a fact that she fervently hoped he could not recognize as she scrambled to come up with some sort of answer. In the end she could only utter one mental word:

Why?

Still he did not laugh, something both oddly encouraging and chillingly ominous.

I'll put it simply: being encased in stone is boring. Being the embodiment of chaos and being encased is stone is excruciatingly boring. Nothing to hear, nothing to see. Absolutely nothing to do, and while my voice does sound quite lovely, even it gets tiresome after a while. So-

So you want me to... to just talk to you? That's it?

She was so surprised, she didn't even notice him chortle at how breathless she sounded.

That's it. You entertain me, I tell you what you need to know. Wonderfully easy, and both of us get what we want. How about it, my dear? Shall we seal the deal?

Her world shuddered to a halt. She was suddenly deaf to everything: his voice, the night sounds around her, the wind rustling the grass, everything but the deep thudding of her racing heart. Here it was at last: the moment of truth, the instance when she committed to fully matching her wits against those of this ageless demon. The question rose up before her, an ominous and daunting monolith that she could not see past.

"Shall we seal the deal?"

By all that was Equestrian, what now? Fighting to keep her anxiety hidden, Twilight took a deep breath and struggled to call up that which had always helped her: logic. Sweet, straightforward, glorious logic. She could do this with logic, order it and dismantle it and pick it apart the same way she had every difficult decision in her life. Identify the pros. Name the cons. Lay every little detail and aspect bare to consider and catalog. Make an organized list. Number them. Add up the values. Rinse. Repeat. Reach a balanced conclusion. Rejoice. Relax with a cup of tea and a good book.

It was a tried and true formula that had helped her innumerable times before, but as she tried to use it now, all she felt was chilling nausea. There were too many unknowns, too many unseen dangers lurking in Discord's seemingly innocent offer.

There should not have been an advantage big enough to even consider making a deal with him. Rejection should have been easy; it should have been her choice the moment she'd heard his voice. She squirmed at these thoughts, for the fact remained that she could not bring herself to outright dismiss the offer.

Information about the princess. A chance to help her mentor. A resolution to all of the uncertainty and worry of the past few weeks. All of these things, these greatest desires, erased any notion of danger from her mind. They begged her to say yes, pleaded with her, and the more she tried to ignore them, the weaker she felt against their might. Logic said no. Logic said run. Love, however, love joined with compassion and caring and need to scream at her in a soundless voice that drowned everything else out. That voice screamed "yes."

Twilight shivered from horn tip to hooves as she felt for Discord's presence once again, calling out with hesitant mind-voice to...

She balked. There it was, just as she'd expected, just as instinct had warned. Apparently even he could not hide it, so true it was to his nature, so strong: a pure, unabashed smugness that made her gag when it touched her mind. No amount of concern for the princess could mask the feeling of slimy satisfaction slithering about in the shadows of their combined unconscious, and the sudden shock of the evil she might have just agreed to made her cry out, mentally and physically.

No!

If her rejection had any negative effect, it didn't show. The emotion he radiated did not change, except perhaps to grow stronger, more vile. He was probably entertained by it, really. She grit her teeth at the thought.

Never. I'll never make a deal with you.

So sure, Twilight Sparkle?

Oh, yes. Definitely entertained. The monster. To think she had even considered...

I can assure you, you will not find a better deal in aaaaaaall of Equestria! In fact, I bet you've already tried, haven't you? Turned your little library topsy turvy looking for a cure for Celestia's crazies, no? Well, Twilight, there is no-

Be quiet! Fury gave her voice a confidence she did not feel. I don't need your help to help the princess, and there is nothing in Equestria that can change that. I will never, ever, EVER make a deal with a... a... a creature that amuses himself by breaking up friendships and destroying the fabric of reality! I am leaving, and-

She had to stop; his laughter, once a soft giggle accompanying her biting words, had climbed into raucous howls of mirth. He was so loud it hurt, and Twilight winced in pain even as she mustered a good deal of magic to yell above him.

Expect a visit from Celestia tomorrow! Unsurprisingly, her threat had little effect.

Oh, Twilight, he managed between guffaws, I'll see you later, my pet. Have a lovely evening! Or morning, or afternoon, or whatever it is out there! That was all he could say before he dissolved into more laughter that was almost hyena-like.

Twilight did not bother with mustering more than a mental snarl in response before breaking the magical bond. The moment his laughter vanished from her mind she was off, galloping with rage-borne speed through the tall grasses towards home. Her decision had been made, and there was only one thing to do when she made it to her tree home: rouse Spike from his sleep and send a letter to Celestia.

When she left, connection severed and silence returned, he did not stop laughing. Oh no, how could he? It was too much, too hilarious, too unbelievably perfect! Why, there he'd been, serpentine tongue tied in anxious knots when she'd wormed her precious little mind through that hole he'd worked so desperately to make, realizing all at once that beyond widening that gap, he'd had no plot worked out! None! Now, could anyone imagine that? Discord, Prince of Pandemonium, King of Chaos, Master of Mayhem, was at a loss for ideas! That in and of itself was the funniest thing ever, but wait! Wait wait wait! There he'd been, frozen in crippling indecision, when Twilight fixed it all! The best punchline ever, and he hadn't even written it: dear little Twilight Sparkle, prized pupil of stuffy old Celestia, had given him everything he'd needed to know.

She hadn't even known she'd done it! In fact, she could have undone it all, so uncontrolled he'd been, noticed his indecision and doomed him while saving herself in the process. It would have all been ruined but for her! Priceless, that was, utterly priceless, how she'd blindly slipped him every little morsel of information that gave him what he needed to form his plan. Oh, it hadn't been easy, just like making that nifty little hole hadn't been easy, but in the end he'd managed! Yes, he'd managed well. He'd baited her a little bit at first, just given her something to talk at. That had helped immensely, helped to ground him and hold him until she spilled the beans like the little foal she was. And oh, by all that was chaotic, what she'd let spill: those few words, that throw-away accusation! What had he done with Celestia, indeed.

Nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing! Ha, if she only knew how completely incapable he was at the moment, that would just make it funnier, but still! She'd been so completely convinced that he'd wrought some villainy, and he'd jumped at that faster than... oh, one of those long-legged rabbits he'd graced Equestria with. Celestia. Something was wrong with Celestia. Celly-nelly-welly Celestia, and as she'd ranted, his mind had whittled away at her words in search of some little kernel of and there it was! He understood so suddenly he felt light-headed. He understood, he knew, and that knowledge immediately reached down with its needling little claws to titillate and tease and torment the memories that supported it. Now that part hadn't been so fun, and he'd put a stop to that as quickly as his limited faculties allowed, but it only lasted a second because she kept yelling and squawking and oh how droll how precious. He'd let her, and when he finally chose to speak he made sure to goad her, for her anger meant fodder for that twisting in the back and that meant he was clear free and clear clear and focused and plotting so nicely. And he'd plotted. Twilight ranted, Discord plotted. Fantastic. Fantastic, but not quite flawless.

It had been touch and go for a moment when she'd tried to leave, and for that moment he had panicked, that frigid blade of emotion cutting him in the way he hated most. That was the worst instant, but he'd saved it in the end, yes he had. Heck, he'd even gone further and had her hint at what he'd sent before, giving him that last little bit he needed to formulate his plan. Brilliant, it had been, in its supreme successful lack of coordination!

Again, even handicapped, his mind was quick, and so his plan came together in what little time it took for Twilight to reaffirm her status as wronged heroine. Yes, nice and easy it had come, growing from poor little Celestia's malady wasn't that sad so sad so unfortunate little Celly oh but don't look at it not yet no no no and feeding upon Twilight's needs. He'd use them both, use them to keep that little unicorn tied to him so that he could watch and rest turn her. Use it to turn her away from Celestia and... oh, heck, she didn't even really have to like him. No, no, no. He just needed to sow the ever-useful seeds of doubt in her nerdy little mind, and that would be it! Voila; poof; shazam: disagreement, confusion, wondrous discord between the dear little Elements of Harmony, just as ordered! And what would that do? What would that accomplish, fillies and gentlecolts?

Why, only freedom! Sweet, blessed freedom! It was simple, dare he say logical ha ha logic oh who'd have ever thought ha ha! The seal only held when those who held the Elements agreed with the spell being wrought, and Elements meant all of the Elements! All of those annoying, order-loving little fillies had to want him sealed. If one of them, just one, strayed from that commitment, particularly if that one happened to be the most powerful, the central Element of Magic... well, he'd be lounging about in cotton candy clouds in no time at all! He could practically taste the chocolate milk as he thought about it, and that had sent him into another paroxysm of giggles.

He'd only quieted when Twilight launched into another tiresome tirade. Honestly, that got so boring after a while and... focus. Oh, he'd used that little offer to worm his way into her doubts and curiosity until, try as she might to hide it behind that admittedly well-crafted wall, he was sure he'd had her. It had all been formalities after that, silly banter back and forth that, while nourishing for him, had only meant that yes, oh yes, he had her. Perhaps he hadn't handled her so well in the last minute, but who could blame him, with that elation marring all else? And besides, what did it matter? He could feel the certainty of it, and even though she'd drawn away and put up the shield of all-powerful heroism, he hadn't been worried. He knew her too well, knew her kind, and he knew that no matter her resolution at that second, there was no solution to what he knew was gnawing away at her beloved mentor. No: she'd be back. She'd be back to sniff and paw at the clever bait he'd set, and so he'd laughed and laughed as she screamed virtue at him, happily dissolved into hysterics when she'd pulled her consciousness away from his. Fine. Perfectly fine. Run, little Twilight. Run, run, run, run run to your heart's content my dear and come back when Her Majesty goes nuts come back I know you will and then...

Then he'd have to bear down. Then... then it would be... well, it would be fun, sure, but because of the angle, because of his approach... it might hurt. Even now, he could sense his weapons, those bothersome little realities, drawing their claws down his psyche, poking their nasty truths and memories where he didn't want them. Discord pushed them away, locked them up as best he could without taxing himself too much, but it was only temporary. Ah, that was the price, of course. The weapons he had in this state were not particularly easy to use. That was the price that, ironically enough, was not Twilight's but his to pay. Unfortunate, yes. Regrettable, yes. Necessary? If this was to be his method, then yes: those were the memories he had to call up, had to use as tools to sculpt her mind into the form he needed for his escape. The real question was not "did he have to?" but "could he?" Could he manage it, wield those finicky, volatile weapons without feeling their bite himself? Hmm... he fought urge to rub at his beard.

Yes, no, maybe so. Ha! Wasn't that just the quaintest, yet truest, answer?

The truth, much as he hated to acknowledge it, was that this could hurt. This could hurt hurt hurt, and there was little to do about it other than take it as it came. After all, what choice did he have, frozen in this rock? Deaf and blind and dumb and whoa there stay back stay back not yet chained as he unfortunately was? This the price he'd be sure to make them all pay back once all was said and done, but for now, he was the payer, and fate was the payee. Ha! He, the embodiment of chaos, forced to endure such potentially dire straits. Oh, that was funny, hilarious even, and despite its darker meaning, Discord began to laugh at the tangled predicament he'd found himself in.

He laughed and laughed, and when that laughter began to slide down into the gaping maw of a throe, why, he didn't bother to stop it. He let that throe rise up, and he let himself laugh until exhaustion rendered his mind still, for in the end, he'd done what he'd set out to do: he'd positioned what few pieces he possessed on his fractured chess board. The game was set; all he had to do was wait.

Twilight was crying by the time she reached the library, tears streaming freely down her face as she quietly opened and shut the door, mindful of the sleeping Spike. Inside, she leaned against the nearest wall, silently sliding down to crouch as the tears continued to drip from her muzzle.

It was the shock, really, and who could blame her for that? It was not every evening that one conversed with the spirit of chaos all by oneself, and it was certainly not something she'd prepared for in any way. The moment she'd left the field, all of her empowering anger had vanished, leaving only a chilled sense of shock that beckoned halted sobs from between her lips. Shock was all it was, and as it worked its way through her system, as she finally came to terms with what she had just done for the past half hour or so, the tears slowed their trickle. When they stopped, she took a shaking breath and rose. Crossing the room to her desk, she automatically called the tools of letter-writing to its surface.

She'd allowed herself that little breakdown, but now it was time to get to work. All said and done, she had to inform the princess of what had just happened. Residual shame, born of her near-acceptance of whatever sordid plan Discord had thought up, compelled her to do it now, and so she quickly scribbled out a header and began the first paragraph. Twilight wrote and wrote, detailing her visions, recounting her first encounter with the statue, explaining the current night's events... only to crumple up the parchment in a burst of magic a few minutes later. Shaking her head, she blamed the faulty letter on remaining unease and started again. Ten minutes later, the result was the same, and twenty minutes later, she had a third ball of parchment to add to her collection.

Tears pricked at her eyes again, and she bit her lip to keep them at bay. No, she had to do this. She'd given herself time to recover, and now she had to pull together and call for reinforcements before... before what? Before he escaped? Before he contacted her again? Before he continued to wreak his evil upon the princess? She didn't know, and perhaps that was what made writing the letter so difficult. She didn't truly know what to tell the princess, particularly considering the condition the latter was currently in. Should she even mention that? Should she own to her doubts, misgivings, and concerns? Or should she brush those aside, focusing instead purely on Discord's apparent reawakening? For all her intelligence, Twilight simply could not decide how to proceed, and so she sat down again, laying her head on her trembling hooves as she tried to sort her thoughts out. Again, she called upon her logic for guidance.

She listed what she knew, what she'd experienced, but that still didn't tell her what to tell the princess. The obvious answer to that question was "everything," but... oh, but there was still something wrong! Worse, talking to Discord only reaffirmed that idea, and that... wait. Did it really? Did it confirm her fears, or was that a trick, too? Was he just... or was it... or... Twilight groaned and buried her face in her hooves. This was the problem! She had no idea what was true, what was a trick, what was a cleverly-disguised lie. How was she to write the princess a letter about such grave matters when she had no clear idea of what the danger was? Discord was awake, yes, but nothing had ever said that he had to be asleep, either. After all, he was still safely locked away in that statue, that she was certain of. Her probing of the magical fields in that meadow confirmed it, so what was the real issue, then? Was there truly danger here, or... or was the real danger in whatever was wrong with Princess Celestia? Could she risk the princess' feelings and opinion of her by pointing out those concerns? Before, she'd decided she could not. Now... oh, now she didn't know what to do! She sighed, a tiny spark of her previous anger returning. Trust that brute to complicate matters further. Why, he'd probably leap for joy if he knew the miserable position he'd put her in now.

Well, grousing about it wouldn't help matters. She needed a plan of her own. She needed action. She needed- Her encouraging thoughts were interrupted by a loud draconic snore from the loft. Twilight found herself giggling despite her dilemma, only to fall silent when the significance of that snore finally occurred to her. What was the point in writing out a letter whose content she couldn't properly decide upon when her assistant was asleep? Why bother waking Spike up now? Twilight sighed, finally deciding on one thing, at least: there was no sense in ruining her friend's sleep like that, not when she was so unsure. Perhaps... perhaps her own sleep would be best? She cocked her head to the side, trying to reason out her next course of action. Sleep would rejuvenate her admittedly tired mind. Sleep would refresh, maybe give her a new perspective in the morning. Sleep... she shivered. Sleep might bring another disturbing vision with it. Well, that could have its use, too, she supposed, in swaying her one way or the other.

Yes, sleep seemed to be the safest option at this point. No sense in approaching this huge undertaking in such an exhausted state, and tomorrow... her eyes widened. Why, tomorrow, everyone would be up! Everyone, meaning her friends, meaning the Elements, meaning ponies whose advice she could get. Yes, that was even better! Sleep now, confer with friends tomorrow. That was better than going to the princess right away. It would give her an even fresher perspective, maybe even reveal a solution all on its own. Perhaps the six of them could figure out a way to deal with Discord without having to pester Celestia at all.

These new ideas crowding out her more dismal thoughts, Twilight felt immensely calmer, even smiling as she climbed up the stairs to bed. Everything felt better taken slowly, felt more right, and she briefly considered the idea that Discord's last needling comments had actually been designed to spur her to reckless action. She hadn't even thought of that possibility before, but now she giggled softly at the notion. Well, if that had been part of his plan, it had failed. She would wait, would take a second look at everything in the morning. She'd call her friends. She'd put it right.

Getting into bed, Twilight felt the last traces of fear slip away as she closed her eyes. A feeling of almost intense well-being assured her that this was the right choice, and she sighed as she fell into a dreamless, restful sleep.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Comment if it please you.

Chapter Four: In Which Twilight Makes Her Decision

A/N: No, I have no idea how it got this long. Apologies all around.

Disclaimer: I own nothing pony.

Chapter Four: In Which Twilight Makes Her Decision

The moment the sun ceased to be enough was the nearest to real panic she'd ever come. For what felt like eternity she reached out, pleaded, begged for even the faintest breath of relief, but it was to no avail. The great burning orb whose light had anchored her for so long had only so much to give, and her agony had grown beyond the reach of its golden rays. Their perfect order had little effect now; it was as if her mind had developed an insidious resistance to that particular balm, and for a horrific moment, the memories swelled beyond the fragile borders she'd established.

Still, Celestia persevered. If there was anything she'd gained during her long life, it was an amazing reservoir of endurance. Patience, stamina, and discipline had formed a dam that she'd relied on countless times before, and as sunlight failed to hold back the growing tumult, she relied on it again. She pushed back at the hurt with that dam, reinforcing it with willpower and pure desperation. It held, too, held well enough that, for a few days, she dared to allow hope to grow anew. There seemed another chance that all would stay together until the pain descended back from whence it came.

She spent those days in a trance only she recognized, relying on an impeccably trained mind to handle the outer world while she nurtured the protective shield within. The daily rituals of palace life furthered the illusion of tranquility, and she drew what strength she could from what most would have considered dreary monotony. For a foolish moment she'd actually believed that her last meager efforts would succeed, daring to allow just a shade of relief into her thoughts.

It was not to be. A deeper part of her knew it, but her conscious mind finally admitted defeat only when the pain suddenly soared, nearly pulling a moan from her tense throat. She managed, though. Inner strength grappled with pain as she finished watching Luna raise her namesake, and only when she'd exchanged evening pleasantries with her younger sister did Celestia retire to her room. Once there, the façade crumbled. She sank to her knees, unable to keep upright as she gathered all of her strength to push back against the veritable wave of unwanted knowledge bearing down on her.

She trembled with that immense effort, her breath coming in the short pants of a suffering animal. It felt like hours before she could rise again, but the moon's position revealed it to have been only a few minutes. When she finally stood, legs still quivering minutely, all prior hope was gone, replaced with a chill resolve. Celestia closed her eyes as she stepped out onto the balcony; she did not open them for a long time. When she did, the look in them was blurred by a sheen of tears, but flint-hard all the same.

The way forward was clear now. She'd had to reach down, past the crowd of memories and pain, deep down into the abyss of her mind to call upon the only power she knew of that could make this stop. It had hurt; not physically, but it had hurt all the same, for as she reconnected with notions and ideals long-buried, she recognized a danger inseparable from what she was going to do. It was not a danger to herself; rather, the danger was towards her precious little ponies, and it was for that reason that Celestia had to survey her sleeping kingdom through a veil of tears.

She'd done it before. Once. Only once, eons back when all of this had first started. Eons ago, she'd looked out over her kingdom just like this, felt the same nauseating agony, battled the same wrenching memories, and in the end, in order to save herself and, by extension, her kind, she'd made her decision. That decision had extended her power across her entire world, caging all within its place in her divine order, locking it, ensuring that when she looked upon it, it would quench the ever-burning fire deep within. Even now, thinking about what she had done so long ago, she felt her pangs lessen just a touch. With that relief, however, came its permanent partner: withering regret.

What had been done... what was still being done... for a moment, she let the consequences wash over her. The resulting guilt was the most personal punishment she knew, and she immersed herself in it as tears dripped soundlessly from her muzzle. That was only right, after all. She'd sought punishment for the last offense, and now she welcomed it for this one. The consequences for her people would be dire enough, after all.

Dire, yes... but necessary. The tears stopped as she acknowledged this reality. Yes, they would be necessary; Celestia would hardly even consider her current plan if urgent necessity was not a factor. The harsh reality of the situation made it so. Her tears quickly dried as she accepted this, and before long her posture abandoned its depressed droopiness.

Of course it was necessary. What other options did she have, with that tempest brewing deep within? She only had so much strength, after all, and if she did not mollify what she could no longer hold back... No, there was nothing to gain from thinking about such a terrible possibility. She could not allow that to happen; never, never, never-

But wouldn't it be wonderful? Wonderful, to simply let go, to allow that ever-present urge to swallow everything, to give in, to embrace the core of-

No! Celestia shook her head, banishing those dangerous temptations. They would be the true undoing of everything she'd worked so hard to preserve, and for the sake of her people, she could not allow that. She could never give in to that persuasion, not even as a last resort. The way forward had to be more subtle, more gentle. Yes, it would still... still result in unsavory limitations, but it was preferable to the alternative. Anything was preferable to that horrible, terrifying, wondrous alternative... She shook herself again, crossing to her desk in a final act of resolve. Action was the answer now; Celestia knew what had to be done, and all that was left was to do it quickly, before temptation and pain drove her to those darker means. It would save her, in the end. It would save her from this mounting pain, and in saving her, it would save her ponies.

With that goal firmly guiding her, she levitated a quill and a length of scroll and began her work. She wrote and wrote, pausing now and again to look at a large map of Equestria for confirmation in her decrees. She wrote to Appleloosa, to Manehatten, to Cloudsdale. She wrote to Fillydelphia and Trottingham. She wrote to so many others, and finally, she wrote to Ponyville.

When she'd finished, she gathered up the parchment and began the journey to one of the castle's many offices, each of which housed a magic fire specifically made to send mail all across Equestria. Any other time, she would have done the task herself, but there were so many rolls, and between the late night and the ever-present turmoil, Celestia was nearly exhausted. Thus she carried the scrolls down the hallway, hooves clicking gently against the pristine marble floor. It was the only sound to grace the halls, for she was quite alone in the flickering light of the torches. The castle staff were still asleep, a couple of hours away from waking up to start on their daily chores.

Her solitude comforted her. Company was the last thing she needed now. The effort to keep walking forward in her exhaustion was tremendous enough; adding to that the effort of maintaining her front would have been too much. As it was, she walked slowly, head drooping and eyes sliding half shut. That was fine. Perfectly fine. In a few minutes, she would send her new instructions, and then she would raise her beautiful sun. Then... then some excuse would allow her sleep, and when she woke up, everything would be perfect again. More perfect, even. When she woke up, her ponies would have enforced all that she'd written, and everything would be better than perfect. She'd go to her balcony and gaze upon such splendid new order that the pain, the memories, the evil temptations would all fall back to nothing where they belonged, and all would be well.

She would be saved. They would be saved. The world, her beloved Equestria, would be saved.

Celestia smiled at the faint warmth her thoughts provided. Yes, all would be fine. All she had to do was open this door, throw these scrolls into the emerald fire dancing in the hearth, and-

"Sister!"

No. No, no, Luna, not now. Please, by the sun and the moon, not now. Leave. Please, please leave. Please, dearest heart, leave now before...

Luna did not leave. Her hoofsteps grew louder and louder until she was beside her sister. Celestia could feel her gaze, knew precisely what she was thinking, for though she'd straightened up the moment she'd heard Luna, there was no way the latter could have missed the sight of her weakened state. It was only a matter of time before...

"Celestia! Thou hast risen already? There are two hours yet until the sun must rise, and tho- you look terrible! Did you sleep at all?"

Her sister's exclamations should have been funny. Her speech corrections should have brought a smile to Celestia's face. Her concern should have been touching. Instead, all she could hear were the minute imperfections in each syllable, the changes in tone, the natural variations in volume and lilt. All she could hear were the inconsistencies, the vile inconsistencies that demanded repair, fixing, erasing. They had to be destroyed. Ugly, disgusting, abhorrent things, they had to be destroyed, and then everything would be all right. Then she could fix the coat, make sure that shifting shimmer was dealt with. She could ensure that each hoof was exactly trimmed. She could make it all one color, one single color, and then-

Sun and moon above, no.

She wanted to whimper, so monumental was the effort to pull away, but Luna was watching closely, worry obvious in her eyes. Celestia did the one thing she could do.

Celestia smiled. Powerful, enduring, desperate mare that she was, she smiled gently at her sister and shook her head with a grace miraculous in how it cloaked what trembled within.

"I'm afraid I did not have the chance. All of the recent councils and meetings have put me terribly behind schedule, and I simply had to write up these new laws. The Summer Sun Celebration is only a few months away, and it would be unfair to expect ponies to adjust to legal changes while also preparing for the festival. It was best that I finished as soon as possible, to give everypony enough time."

The pair reached the office just as she finished her false explanation, and she slipped into the room without waiting for a dissenting opinion. She was almost there; if she could just reach the fire...

"I... I suppose that does make sense. I will admit that I am not yet accustomed to current governmental proceedings. And I do wish thou wouldst not task thyself... ahem... yourself so heavily."

She laughed, and while it sounded strained and faltering to her own ears, it seemed to satisfy Luna, for her sister returned her smile. The fragile seedling that was hope dared peek out amongst her stony thoughts of despair. She was almost at the hearth; just a few more steps, and she could rest. Just a few more steps, and she could reap the rewards of relief and peace tomorrow. Just a few more...

"Would it be possible for me to read them, Celly? Before you send them? I have been studying modern regulations quite extensively, and I should like to put it to use. If time permits, of course. I understand if you are fatigued."

"Of course, Luna. I should send them within the hour, but-"

"Ah, then I will read them with haste!"

She did; it only took her ten minutes or so to read through the pile of parchment. Celestia spent those ten minutes discreetly training her eyes onto the blank white wall beyond the desk. The clean, uniform, comforting wall. It was all she could think of to save herself at that point, and her concentration was such that she barely heard her sister speak again. She started slightly at her voice, covering it with a shuffle of her hooves.

"I... I am afraid I have yet to fully comprehend these modern policies." Luna's regal face took on a grimace of confusion as she turned away from the scrolls. "They seem..."

"Restrictive, yes?"

"I did not-"

Her throat felt raw and hot, but the laugh that came from it was as sweet as ever.

"I assure you, Luna, they will make sense once they have been properly enforced. Though, if you like, I'll explain their mechanics once..." she yawned softly, "...once I've slept. You were right; I am quite tired. Would you terribly mind presiding over Court for me today?"

Luna shook her head, and Celestia nodded her thanks. She began to move the scrolls into the fire; after watching for a moment, Luna joined her. Together, they levitated the scrolls into the emerald flames; Celestia's heart pounded as they licked at the parchment, incinerating it into transit.

Done. It was done, and no one would be the wiser. Oh, she'd have to concoct some logic for Luna later, but that would be a monumental simplicity once she'd slept. By the time she'd have to do that, it would all be fixed, and a few minutes of serene observation would silence the din in her head. It would all be gloriously easy after that.

Perfect. Magnificent. By the grace of the sun, she was saved. They were all saved. They had to be saved. By all the love in her heart, please let it be so...

"Goodness; it nears dawn already. I am sorry to have kept you. Please; I can raise the sun today, if you wish..."

"Oh, that's quite all right. I can still manage that." Another smile, pulled from oblivion. "If you'll excuse me, I do believe I shall go manage it now, if you would please lower your lovely moon."

"Ah, yes, yes. I shall. Good... ah... morning, sister."

"I will see you later, Luna."

With those serene words, the sisters parted to do their sacred work, and a few minutes later, the day began.

Dawn's first light came at exactly seven in the morning, the sun's golden rays reaching over the Equestrian horizon to coax ponies from their beds. Twilight Sparkle fought that natural alarm, turning away from the light shining through her window and unconsciously pulling her blanket over her head. Spike watched this with his claws on his mouth, suppressing a giggle at seeing his "older sister" do such a childishly cute thing. It was rather unlike her; normally, she was awake before the first rays of light touched her eyelids, not hiding from them after the fact.

He indulged in a few more stifled giggles before composing himself and reaching out to wake her. His claw was nearly at her shoulder when he stopped, suddenly struck by recent memories of her difficult nights and stressful days. It had been some time since he'd seen Twilight sleep so soundly, and as he watched her, his intent to wake her faded. She needed the sleep, after all, and what benefit was there to waking her from the first good slumber she'd had in days? He made up his mind with a contented sigh, finally deciding to let her lie. With a fond glance at her curled up form, he tiptoed to the staircase and made his way down from the loft to start on breakfast.

The sun had climbed high above the horizon when Twilight finally awoke. It took her a few moments to realize the fact, so deep was the sleep she had to pull herself from, but the realization came with a customary yelp.

"Oh my gosh, I overslept! Princess Celestia; Discord; my letter! Oh, no, no, no... Spike! Spike, where are you!"

The panic set in with alarming speed, and she nearly fell out of her bed as she yelled for her dragon, righting herself haphazardly and racing down the loft ladder. A thousand reprimands flitted amongst her frazzled thoughts as she reached the library's main room. How could she oversleep when she had such important matters to attend to? How could she, when she'd already delayed by not acting last night? And where...

"Spike?"

In her distress, the bizarre notion that Discord, somehow freed by her inaction, had kidnapped her little assistant flared with terrifying brilliance in her mind, and she let out a whimper as she... slipped on a stray sheet of paper.

"Agh!"

The fall was enough to break her disastrous train of thought, and she moaned from her position on the floor as the paper settled innocently down right in front of her muzzle. She immediately noticed the familiar penmanship on it, and her automatic reaction was to read it.

Dear Twilight,

I know you haven't been getting much sleep lately, so I decided to let you sleep in. Please don't be mad! It's just that I've been a little worried... okay, a lot worried about how stressed you've been, what with the whole princess thing, so I thought you could use a few more hours.

Breakfast is on the table. I've gone out to do some shopping. I should be back around lunchtime.

Love,

Spike

PS: Please please please don't be mad! I promise to work extra hard to make up for any lost study time!

By the time she reached the end of the letter, just about all of her anxiety had dissipated. She read through it again, a gentle smile softening her face as she allowed the affection she felt to settle warmly within.

"Oh, Spike..." she sighed, folding up the parchment and placing it on the table, right next to the prettily arranged hay and eggs she'd missed in her mid-morning flailings. The sight of the perfectly prepared breakfast was the final nail in the coffin of her little panic attack, and she sat down at the table with a heavy breath of relief. Melodious bird song floated in through an open window, another herald of spring, and Twilight allowed herself to spend a few minutes listening to what her studious mind identified as the territorial call of the meadowlark. It helped ground her even more, for it was just another sign that Discord was indeed still imprisoned; normal bird song would hardly be the audio of choice if the draconequus was gallivanting across Ponyville again.

Slowly, the eggs and hay disappeared from the plate, washed down with a cool glass of milk. A part of her kept trying to break the new calm, insisting that she was being foalish by taking her day so slowly, but Twilight quelled it swiftly. The lovely day outside her window lay testament to Discord's continued imprisonment, and she had had her fill of rushing into things. What had happened the last time she hadn't thought matters through? Well... the Smartypants incident, actually, and she still flinched at that memory, but before that? She'd led her friends into that treacherous labyrinth for no good reason! A travesty, it had been, all because Discord had counted on her failing to work things out slowly, instead allowing future peril to prod her to reckless action that ultimately made the situation worse.

Not this time. This time, she would think things through. There would be no mistakes, not regarding Discord, and especially not regarding the princess. These matters were far too important to complicate with her own emotional turmoil. Logic had to prevail, and she, Twilight Sparkle, would ensure that it did so. Rationality would rule her mind, and she would gather her fellow Elements of Harmony, properly explain recent happenings, and together, they would form an unstoppable force that would defeat Discord once and for all.

These affirmations ignited a spark of righteous confidence in Twilight's heart, and, breakfast finished, she approached the door with head held high and chest impressively puffed out: the picture of a mare ready to take on the world.

"That's right! No more indecision. No more confusion! I am going to find the girls, tell them Discord's back, and we are going to-"

She was cut off by what could only be adequately described as a surprise door to the face. Suddenly crushed between her front door and the wall, she could barely hear voices calling her name.

"Twilight! Twilight, you in here?" Rapid wing beats quickly identified one of the invaders as Rainbow Dash.

"Twi! Consarn it, where is that girl? Twilight!" The southern drawl meant Applejack.

The sound of hoofsteps told her that Rainbow Dash and Applejack had left the doorway to mill about the library's foyer. She tried to answer their calls, only to find that talking with one's muzzle crushed between a wall and a door was not particularly effective. With a moan, she pulled herself free, spinning around dizzily as the door swung shut behind her. In the few seconds it took for her vision to show more than a messy blue-orange blur, her two friends were upon her.

"Twilight, there you are! We've been lookin' everywhere for you!"

"What are you still doing here? The meeting's about to start!"

With both Applejack and Rainbow Dash leaning in, she barely had any room to breathe. With a strangled yelp, Twilight tried to back away from her agitated friends, only to end up on her rump as grace failed her. She looked up at the two mares with undisguised confusion.

"What in the world are you two talking about? I just got up a little while ago," she managed as the room finally stopped spinning. "Spike let me sleep in, and I've just finished breakfast. I was about to go find you, actually. There's something I have to tell all of-"

"Never mind that now, sugarcube!" Applejack interrupted. "There's a huge meeting being held in the town square. We've gotta go, pronto!"

"Yeah! Come on; the whole town's already gathered, and everypony's gonna start without us." Rainbow Dash fluttered around to her backside, grabbing her tail between her teeth and hauling the bemused Twilight Sparkle to her hooves. Both mares wasted no time in shoving her out the door, ignoring Twilight's stammered protests as she tried to get some shred of information out of them.

"There ain't no time to explain, Twi. We have to get to the town square now; Mayor Mare seemed really worked up about whatever she had to tell us. Come on now!"

Applejack broke into a hasty trot, and Twilight, still reeling from her run-in with wood and stone, admitted temporary defeat as she struggled to keep up. Rainbow Dash, after throwing the two grounded ponies a backwards glance, had already flown ahead. Twilight could just make out her raspy voice encouraging them to "move those hooves." Applejack swiftly obliged, breaking into an easy canter.

With a final effort, Twilight matched her pace to Applejack's, and the two mares cantered side by side down Ponyville's cobbled streets. With her legs obeying her at last, Twilight was able to glance around. The sight of deserted streets and abandoned shops was a stark contrast to the promise of a lovely spring day the morning's meadowlark had given, and she felt a queasy unease settle in her gut. Gone was the confidence of just a few minutes ago, and Twilight's hope for her plan quickly followed when she spied the huge crowd of ponies coming into view ahead of them. She swallowed nervously.

It really was the whole town. Between the empty streets they'd passed and the deafening chatter of over a hundred ponies milling anxiously about, there was no doubt in her mind that everypony who could be there was there. The realization did far more to deepen Twilight's anxiety than her friends' breakneck pace had, for when were Applejack and Rainbow Dash not rushing off to some job or event? Clearly this was not some silly overreaction on their part; there was something very much amiss, and as Twilight followed Applejack through the crowd, her mind sank back into the turbid black waters of doubt and worry.

She'd made a terrible mistake, and here was the proof. Like a stupid, naïve filly, she'd underestimated the enemy again, and now some awful emergency had befallen her home. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Her legs began to tremble with the weight of growing guilt, and for a moment she lost sight of Applejack as her steps faltered. Her fault. Her fault again, because it had been her fault last time, too. Oh, yes: Twilight Sparkle, the brilliant protégé whose inability to separate logic and blind desperation had nearly doomed Equestria to checkered grass and dancing buffalo. Brilliant, and now it was happening again. Any second now, Discord was going to swoop down on all of her friends and neighbors, all because she'd been unable to make a decision that should have been simple. What did it matter that every little detail hadn't been in place? She should have seen the big picture, the important picture, instead of needing every worthless bit of information at her hooves. One would think that a mare who prided herself on being a good student would have actually learned that lesson! Foalish again, and now...

Twilight was swiftly nearing the threshold of another spectacular breakdown when Pinkie Pie's voice pierced her self-blame. Ears pricking up instinctively, she glanced around for the source and found her entire group of friends standing near the front of the crowd. All five faces were trained on her as Pinkie called again, adding an energetic bounce-and-wave for good measure.

"Twilight! Hellooo! Over here! We're over here!"

While there were multiple things Pinkie's bubbly voice was good for, today's example happened to be knocking some much-needed sense into Twilight's head. The sound of it pulled her back into the present, and when she'd shaken off much of her negativity, she looked around again.

Fact: there was a large crowd of ponies waiting for a very important announcement. Fact: this announcement was likely not very positive, considering the nervous energy permeating the air. Fact: there was probably adequate cause to be fairly concerned. Twilight acknowledged all of these things, but as she took in the scene, she could not acknowledge the dread idea that Discord was the cause. The sky was still blue, the clouds still a submissive cotton-white. Birds flit about right side up, and all buildings remained firmly anchored to their foundations. The eyesore of checkered grass was nowhere to offend. Twilight chewed her lip as she reconfirmed all of these observations, breathing a cautious sigh of relief when none came up disputed. No, everything was still in its proper place.

Unless Discord had suddenly grown a whole new brain dedicated exclusively to moderation and subtlety, whatever the source of this commotion, it was not his doing. Her second sigh of relief came much more freely.

"Twilight! Come on; Mayor Mare's about to start!"

A few more steps closed the distance. Twilight stopped amidst her five closest friends, looking from one drawn face to the next. All looked apprehensive, though perhaps Pinkie categorized as more curious than anything else. Fluttershy was easily the most distressed, evidence of the fact plain in the weak quiver in her flanks, and she spoke in a voice even softer than usual.

"We're so glad you're here, Twilight. We were hoping that maybe... well, that maybe you'd know more about what was going on."

What in Equestria could that mean? Twilight ignored a much more uncomfortable brand of confusion that statement brought and shook her head.

"I'm afraid not, Fluttershy. Rainbow and Applejack caught me right at the end of breakfast. I slept late, so I didn't even know there was a meeting until they came and got me. What is all of this about?"

"You mean you really don't know?" Rarity's faint accent made her words sound more incredulous than she likely meant them to be. "Why, everyone's been in an absolute uproar since the bugle sounded at sunrise! I don't think anyone but Mayor Mare truly knows what this meeting is about, but the rumors..." Her voice trailed off, and Twilight's ears swiveled forward earnestly. They caught nothing; whatever the last bit of information was, Rarity found it too disturbing to voice. Twilight found it increasingly difficult to hide her unease at the sight of her fellow unicorn's fidgeting.

Applejack, ever the indomitable pony, spoke up quickly. "The rumors," she continued, "are why we were so set on findin' you in the first place, sugarcube. There's talk that... that this here meeting's got something to do with Princess Celestia herself."

"I... w-with the princess?"

The princess... her princess, her mentor... the one who'd already been acting so strangely... Twilight Sparkle struggled to maintain some semblance of calm, but as Applejack's words settled, it became increasingly difficult. The steady confidence she'd felt this morning had been slowly chipping away the moment her friends had come banging on her door, and this new information took off a sizable chunk of what remained. Too many uncomfortable thoughts began to gather like so many ominous storm clouds: thoughts of blame, guilt, and frigid dread. She tried to push them aside, tried to keep her breath and pulse from quickening. Objectivity and intelligence were needed for such an emergency as this, not mounting panic; she knew this inherently. For the most part, she succeeded, but she could feel the blood drain from her face all the same.

Her friends immediately noticed her sudden pallor, and while Pinkie appointed herself to the task of nuzzling, Rarity quickly tried to undo the damage a now-sheepish Applejack had unwittingly wrought.

"Darling, please! It is just a rumor. A rumor! Here, sit down; you look like you're going to faint. Give her some room, girls, come now. I'm sure the princess is perfectly fine, and this is just a... a..."

"Maybe they're going to announce a party! Maybe it's the princess' birthday, and everyone's invited to a big surprise party, and every city and teeny little town is being told separately so that we don't all ruin the surprise!" Pinkie had switched from nuzzling to bouncing, and it was the impact of her hoof against Twilight's rump that brought her out of her increasingly dark reverie. She looked back at her friends with the despondent air of a lost foal, ready and desperate to cling to any hint of rescue.

"You... you think it's just a party?"

"Sure! I bet-"

"Pinkie Pie, there's no way the mayor called an emergency meeting for a party."

"She could have!"

"Uh... no."

"Could so!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah-hu-"

"A-hem!" A stern look from Applejack quickly ended the budding argument. Pinkie settled on her haunches with a pout, and Rainbow looked properly, if reluctantly, chagrined. Situation diffused, she turned back to Twilight with the same reassuring smile she'd offered Fluttershy at the dragon's lair. "Whatever it is, I doubt it's worth gettin' your mane in a tangle over. I'm sure if there was anything wrong with the princess, you'd know about it. So quit your frettin', and let's all wait 'n hear what the mayor has to say. All right?"

Ever honest, Applejack did nothing to hide the concern that fueled her reassurances, and her earnest smile inspired a stab of guilt; Twilight was suddenly aware of how negatively her behavior was affecting her friends, all of whom already had their own trepidations about the meeting. The wave of new guilt overtook the old, and Twilight willed herself to smile back.

"You... you're right, Applejack." A lie, blatant in its smoothness. She knew, knew, that there was something the princess was keeping from her, and it gnawed at her resolve with unrelenting ferocity. Still, she shared her smile with the rest of the circle, and they visibly relaxed. "You're all right. There's no sense in panicking when we don't know anything yet."

"Precisely," Rarity emphasized the word with a delicate stomp of a hoof, "so let's all accept whatever news is to be had with calm dignity."

"No problem there!"

"I... I guess that does sound better than panicking."

The faint tremor still marring Fluttershy's voice was the final push Twilight needed, and she mustered up a brave grin for her sake.

"That's right. I'm sure I was overreacting. I'm sure everyone," she indicated the surrounding crowd with the sweep of a hoof, "is overreacting, and everything will be perfectly clear in a few minutes!"

She wished she had the peace of mind to be impressed with her own performance, for the juxtaposition of her true feelings and the charade she'd just created was something of a marvel. Inside, guilt, fear, and a myriad nameless emotions twisted and churned to the point of nausea. Outside, she stood calm and ready, mask firmly in place to placate the fears of those around her. Both sides, however, stood at complete attention, for while she could not say she felt any sort of confidence regarding what was in store, she certainly wanted to hear it. From the growing noise of shuffling and mumbling, it was clear the rest of the town held the same sentiment.

Their wait came to an abrupt end when Mayor Mare, looking like she was attempting to accomplish Twilight's illusion but managing it rather poorly, stepped up to the podium. Immediately, the buzz of the crowd rose to a din that she struggled to speak over.

"Good morning, every- Everypony, please! Calm down. I cannot... fillies and gentlecolts, if you would-"

"Quiet!" The shrill command brought instant obedience, and even the mayor joined the stunned silence for a few seconds before shakily thanking a beaming Pinkie Pie. "No problemo!" Pinkie replied with a happy salute and settled back down between a speechless Rainbow Dash and Twilight.

Composing herself, Mayor Mare cleared her throat and began again.

"Good morning everypony. Before we begin, I'd like to allay any fears that some of you may have regarding the sudden calling of this town meeting. I understand that hearing the bugle this morning was worrisome for many of you, and while we do sometimes use the bugle in times of emergency, rest assured that today is not such a time."

A new chorus drowned out her voice, one was of sighs and nervous titters of relief instead of anxious chatter. She allowed it to continue, waiting until everypony had settled into a much more comfortable silence before pressing on.

"I'd like to dispel all rumors of invading timberwolves, ursas, manticores, and dragons-"

"Hey!" Though Twilight could not see him, she heard Spike's indignant voice somewhere behind her.

"Ahem... adult dragons. All rumors regarding droughts, famines, plagues, and devastating meteor strikes are likewise untrue."

More relieved whispers from the crowd. All around her, ponies dropped tense expressions for open curiosity as the promised lack of danger eased their fears. Her friends all looked keenly interested now, even Fluttershy relaxing next to her. Twilight strained to match their newly eager expressions, fervently trying to ignore the fact that the one rumor she was actually concerned about had not been revealed false.

"Finally, rumors involving Princess Celestia are..."

Twilight angled her ears as far forward as she could, willing the mayor's words to come faster.

"...somewhat true."

Gasps of renewed shock sounded all around her, but Twilight kept her lips pressed tightly shut. She could not trust herself to join in her fellow ponies' show of surprise, for she feared that she'd blaze right past "normal confusion" and land in the vicinity of "wild hysteria." Again that chasm of dark despair yawned beneath her thudding heart, and it took renewed will to keep from revealing as much to her friends.

Somewhat true. What in all of Equestria did that mean? Did that mean that she was ill, but only a little ill? Did it mean that she'd been hurt, but only slightly? Did it mean that somepony had kidnapped her, but promised a safe return for a king's ransom in bits? A swarm of possibilities, each more terrible than the last, buzzed in her mind as Twilight struggled to control breaths wheezing from a tightening chest.

Thankfully, Mayor Mare continued before she could lose the battle with her fear.

"Very early this morning, an urgent correspondence arrived from Canterlot, directly from the princess herself. The correspondence consisted of a number of scrolls, each of which detailed new laws that the princess requested be immediately enforced in Ponyville."

Fear gave way to honest confusion, and the loss of its driving energy left Twilight drained. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself before indulging in the rush of curiosity the mayor's announcement brought.

There was no doubt that, while apparently not the great catastrophe everypony had been dreading, the news was high irregular. Most laws governing daily life in Equestria were not normally handed down directly from the princess. They came, rather, from the hoof-ful of council-ponies elected by the various towns and cities to serve in Canterlot. Those ponies, while certainly enjoying the gentle influence of Princess Celestia in their decision-making, were nevertheless wholly responsible for the laws that bound Equestria's citizens. The only time the government strayed from this more representative process was... Twilight felt the fur running along her spine bristle faintly. It only strayed when the laws were important enough, needed enough, for Princess Celestia to supersede the elected council and pass them herself. It rarely happened nowadays, for there were hardly dangers and emergencies in Equestria so great that they demanded such heavy action... so why did the mayor have so many scrolls spread out over the podium?

Twilight watched as Mayor Mare unrolled even more scrolls, stacking them in a pile that kept growing until she had to peek out from behind it to address her audience. Focusing on her words had become difficult again; the more Twilight considered this unexpected development, the more disturbed she became, even as her friends and neighbors seemed to remain merely bemused.

"I shall now read out the new laws." She cleared her throat, picked up the first scroll, and announced Princess Celestia's first new edict in an appropriately commanding voice.

"It is hereby established by Princess Celestia that all pegasi will strive to maintain cloud cover at an altitude no greater than fifteen hundred feet and no less than fourteen hundred feet."

Next to Twilight, Rainbow Dash stiffened.

"What? That's ridiculous! You can't keep all clouds at that altitude, that's-"

The mayor spared her only a withering side glance, opting to drown out her indignant voice with a louder reading of a second law.

"As other varieties have been deemed unfit, all apples grown in Ponyville must be of the Red Delicious variety."

This time the protest came from Applejack. As the next law was read, another pony called out his dissent, then another, and another. The more laws she read, the louder Mayor Mare had to speak in order to be heard over the complaints of her townsponies, until she finally knocked a hoof against the podium for quiet. The crowd reduced their din to unhappy mumblings, and the list continued.

Twilight stopped registering the new laws after the fifth or sixth. Instead, her mind returned inwards, straining and struggling to make some sort of sense of what she was hearing. The problem was that she could not find any. Each law, even after examination by her logic and reasoning, remained inscrutable, its purpose eluding her. She focused on the mayor's words again, identifying the next law with hope for something more understandable.

"Recent river erosion must be repaired as quickly as possible."

Why? It made no sense: that river was not near any croplands. What erosion had occurred was far upstream, not even particularly near the town. It would do no harm; Twilight was sure of that. She'd written a detailed report on the river's status just a month ago. What was the purpose of ordering a large number of earth ponies to ensure that that flow went unaltered? Why prevent such a harmless, natural process? Why, why, why?

Twilight groaned as the beginnings of a headache further muddied her thoughts. Around her, everypony's voices rose up again, no longer heeding any command for quiet once the mayor's announcements had petered out. Questions rang out among the crowd, questions echoing Twilight's own skepticism and confusion. She heard Roseluck challenge a new law governing flower shape. Another voice questioned the logic behind new building regulations. Another, and another, and another sounded in protest born only of a complete lack of reason for what they'd all just heard. Mayor Mare, for her part, was doing her best to come up with answers for the ponies, but in the end, she had to concede to the fact that she, too, had little to no idea as to what the princess meant by all these new regulations. Her parting words were almost an apology.

"Please, everypony. I realize that this is a great deal to handle all at once, but Princess Celestia has elevated these new laws to the highest level of importance. I ask that everpony please put forth their best effort for the next few days. I'm certain that we will receive more information soon." With that, she returned to the Town Hall, and who could blame her? What else could she have possibly said in such a situation, as ignorant of the cause as her town's citizens? Twilight frowned at the knowledge that they really were being asked to work blindly. Emergency regulations, too. Why emergency? Why would such trivial matters justify blowing the bugle so early in the morning and driving everyone into a panic?

She grit her teeth in frustration, nearly ready to vent via angry snarl when Applejack beat her to it. With a loud snort, the cowpony kicked a pebble in the direction of the podium..

"Well, shoot! That didn't answer nothin', now did it? What in the name of Equestria does the princess mean by sending us all those nitpicky little rules?"

"Beats me!" Rainbow joined in, "But can you believe it? She wants us to keep the clouds at the same level. The same level. Do you have any idea how much work that's gonna be? Do you know how boring it's gonna be? Gah!" She sat down in a huff, angry pout firmly in place.

"Yeah! And with all this extra work, we're never going to have any time left to party!" Pinkie Pie shared her friends' unhappiness, if not quite their unease.

"How could she send such things?"

"Bah, this is ridiculous!"

Twilight watched as her friends, similar to most of the ponies remaining in the square, proceeded to rant amongst themselves. A part of her wanted to join them, instinctive rebelling against these strange restrictions, but a greater part was too busy trying to integrate new information with the old. Suddenly, Princess Celestia's odd behavior was no longer something that affected only their relationship. This new development, these draconian new rules and their unorthodox method of delivery, could not have been a coincidence; the whole situation was just too bizarre. It had to somehow connect to the princess' recent aloofness. Twilight just had to figure out how, and the desire to do so overruled her anger for the moment. Thus, while her friends argued, and discussed, and commiserated, Twilight desperately tried to connect the few dots she could see.

What could today's meeting have to do with the princess' recent preoccupation? Did it have anything to do with it? The princess had been "off" ever since the Discord incident, and these laws were being sent out quite some time after it. Was there a connection at all? No, but there had to be! It was irregular enough for the princess to act strangely in even just one way, let alone two at once. It could not be a coincidence. Or could it? And then... then there was Discord. Was he somehow connected to today's events? To Twilight's prior troubles? She'd been so certain he'd been behind the princess' aberrant behavior, but he'd said otherwise. What did that matter, though? He was a liar, wasn't he?

Regarding today, at least... these laws did not seem like something he'd think up. They seemed quite the opposite, and that realization threw what little confidence Twilight had in her reasoning right out the proverbial window. If Discord had interfered with the princess, altered her somehow, then wouldn't she be acting more... well, chaotic? If today and the past weeks were related, and some deep intuition told Twilight that they were, then Discord being the cause was looking less and less likely.

Twilight growled, aggravated; instead of giving her a clearer picture, the meeting and its conclusion had dragged her back to square one. What a load of-

"You're right! Of course, that must be it."

"Eh?" Twilight looked up, pulled from her reverie by an exclamation so bright and cheerful, it felt out of place in the troubled atmosphere, or... it would have, if the atmosphere had still been troubled.

Twilight stood frozen in bafflement, eyes wide and mouth comically slack at the sight of what had occurred in the time she'd devoted to failed reasoning. All around her, ponies that had, just minutes before, been beside themselves with distress, ire, and worry were smiling and laughing. She watched as groups and singles trotted away from the square, chatting amiably and behaving as if they'd somehow forgotten about the incomprehensible events that had just happened. Her eyes darted to this pony, then to that one, then to another, frantic to find some trace of what had just been, but there simply was none. Instead, an air of contentment reigned supreme. Above her, a pair of pegasi were even beginning their new work, bucking some clouds suddenly deemed "low-flying" out of the sky.

The compounded shock and stress were almost too much for the poor filly, and she was quite tempted to perform a Rarity-esque swoon; really, her head was spinning and heart pounding so badly, it hardly would have been much of a performance at all.

Once again, her friends' chatter pulled her back to reality.

"I'll see you girls later; I have to go tell all of the animals about this."

Twilight looked up to see Fluttershy taking off, and the total serenity embodied in her stance, a complete shift from the trembling creature present only moments before, finally broke her self-control. The result was a very shrill, very loud, very un-Twilight-like screech.

"What is wrong with all of you?"

Silence, save for the thud of a startled Fluttershy landing in a heap on the cobblestones. Everyone, even some ponies a good ways off from their little gathering, was gaping at her as her sides heaved with the effort of staving off another outburst. Rarity glanced at Pinkie; Applejack did little more than blink. Rainbow Dash busied herself with helping Fluttershy to her hooves.

"I... you..." she ventured, but words failed her as her mind struggled to come up with some rationale for what she was seeing. The fact that they were all staring at her as if she had just lost her mind made it that much more difficult.

"What do you mean, what's wrong with us? What's wrong with you?" was Rainbow Dash's angry response. Having helped Fluttershy up, she flared her wings out at Twilight in growing anger. "What's the big idea, yelling like that?"

Confusion may have dulled Twilight's sensibilities, but not to the point that she could not recognize Rainbow preparing for a verbal showdown. She wisely reigned herself in, once again willing calm.

"I didn't... I mean, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell, it's just that..."

"Just what, sugarcube?" Applejack kept her voice carefully even, soothing both pegasus and unicorn as she stepped up to them.

"Just... aren't you mad anymore?" She tried and failed to keep incredulity out of her voice, and it made her sound petulant. Fortunately, Applejack had the infinite pony sense to remain gentle, steering clear of provocation. Rarity and Fluttershy joined in.

"Twilight, dear, why don't you tell us what's wrong? Quietly, if you please."

"Um... yes, that would be nice. Quietly." Fluttershy gave a self-conscious shake of her wings as she joined the circle of fillies surrounding an increasingly put-out Twilight Sparkle.

"The... the new laws. Weren't you... weren't... wasn't everypony just upset about them? Why..." The words came in halting bursts as she tried to fight confusion and frustration in order to get some sort of point across.

Their reaction only made it worse. She could have taken some giggling at another one of her breakdowns. She could have understood that, welcomed it, even, as a hallmark of some sort of normalcy. Instead, all she received were looks of bemusement that matched her own.

"Well... well shoot, Twi," Applejack finally broke the silence, "I guess we were, but you can't stay upset about things like that forever, you know?"

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie added with a little hop that turned into a steady bounce as she worked off the nervous energy she wasn't quite used to experiencing. "You can't stay mad forever; that's waaaaay too long."

Disbelief kept Twilight dumb as she merely stared at her bouncing friend.

"Exactly! Besides, whatever the princess wants us to do has to be for the best."

"Precisely. Twilight, you know better than all of us that Princess Celestia only wishes us the most infinite of happiness. She must have very good reasons for all of those new laws."

"She's always been so kind to us."

"And you gotta admit, bucking all those clouds around is pretty fun!"

Twilight looked from face to face, but each one was the same: a filly totally convinced that, whatever strangeness surrounded this morning's events, there could be nothing but a positive outcome if Princess Celestia's new edicts were followed. All doubt, all curiosity, all discerning skepticism had simply dissolved, leaving behind complete complacency. She could not believe it. She would not believe it.

There was something wrong here! These laws, their passing... there was no way any sensible pony would just shrug that off, not in a thousand years, yet here they were: five perfectly rational, intelligent, normal fillies throwing any sort of logical thought to the wind and blindly accepting new rules that essentially amounted to madness. It was... it was too much.

"But... but these laws. They're... they're crazy. Can't you all see that? They're completely nuts!." An attempt at calm speech failed when the sight of their worried, yet still perfectly accepting faces became too much to bear. Twilight, the stress of too many unexplained events weighing heavily on an already anxiety-prone pony, felt tears begin to pool in her eyes.

Their smiles faded, but instead of expressions of epiphany, sorrow and sympathy invaded their faces.

"Aw, shoot. This is another one of those times, isn't it?" Applejack reached out and put a gentle hoof on her shoulder. Twilight wanted to shrug it off, wanted to yell at her friend for treating her like she was the one acting strangely, but strength simply failed her. She remained mute. Applejack seemed to falter, glancing back at the other ponies for some support.

"You're gonna crack up on us again, ar-... uh..." Rainbow Dash loudly offered her brand of "sympathy" before a glare from Rarity reduced her to an awkward mumble. Pegasus curbed, said unicorn gave Twilight a warm smile.

"It's stress, dear, isn't it? Oh, you don't have to deny it; I know all about such things, and it's nothing to be ashamed of! Why, it's quite unhealthy to keep it all bottled up, as you well... ahem... well know."

"We know you haven't been sleeping well lately. That... must have something to do with it, right?" Fluttershy paired her words with a shy nuzzle, moving to stand close beside the trembling Twilight.

"That's right! And that cannot be a good combination. Why, I'm sure after a few days rest, you'll be good as new!"

"Rarity's right, sugarcube. I'm sure that when you've had a few days to yourself, everything'll make perfect sense. And if it doesn't, why, you can always write the princess! I bet she'd be happy to help you out."

"Yeah! Or, you know, come and yell at you again, like-"

"Pinkie!"

"I mean... yeah, she can definitely help you out. And we can, too! Right?"

"That's right.

"Exactly."

"You know you can always count on us. No matter what, we'll try to help you with whatever's bothering you, even if we don't completely understand it."

All around her, her friends' affirmations of loyalty, compassion, and loving willingness rang bright and true. As Twilight looked from one face to the next, all she could see was an honest desire to right whatever had gone wrong. Still, try as she might, she could not shake the notion of inherent wrongness, and so, giving a heavy, shuddering sigh, she did the only thing she could think to do.

Twilight smiled.

Lifting her head, she fixed the warmest smile she could muster on her pale face and granted it to each and every one of them.

"You girls are right. I... I have been studying a lot lately, and I guess I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should." Another sigh. A deep breath. "And of course the princess wouldn't do anything without our best interests in mind. I think... I'm sure all of this will make more sense in a few days."

Her friends' expressions relaxed into relief.

"There you go! Why don't you go home now, maybe take a nap or two? Can't hurt!"

"I can bring some tea over later, if you like." Twilight felt the warmth of Fluttershy's wing draping over her back in a pegasus-brand hug. "Or some soup, or-"

"It's fine, Fluttershy. Really. I'll be fine. A nap sounds like a good idea and then..."

"If you wake up and still don't feel well, you come right on over to my boutique. You promise me now!" Rarity nudged her other side.

"Okay, okay. I promise."

"Pinkie promise!"

"Yes, okay. Pinkie promise. Really, I'll be okay. Thank you all, girls. I... I don't know what came over me, and... well, I'm just glad you're all my friends."

So ended their conversation, and with it, the last discussion about that morning's meeting. After a few more hugs, well wishes, and promises of visits in the very near future, Twilight left her friends to begin the duties Princess Celestia had outlined for them. Without a single further glance at the Ponyville citizens busily going about their new tasks, Twilight turned towards the library and trotted home.

The ponies of Ponyville were crazy. It was the only explanation.

Arriving at the library, Twilight Sparkle shut the door behind her. Immediately, a very confused Spike ran up to her, bursting with questions about everything from her whereabouts to her still-disheveled state.

"Never mind that, Spike," she barked in her authoritarian tone, calling the little dragon to attention, "just put on a pot of our strongest tea."

"Yes ma'am!"

Spike ran off to do as told, and Twilight immediately busied herself with pulling every book on mental magic from the shelves. Soon, she was surrounded by piles and stacks of thick tomes. She looked at the mess she was about to dive into, and for a moment, just the slightest moment, an inner voice asked her if maybe it was all for naught. Perhaps, just perhaps, she really was too stressed, and whatever strangeness she saw in the new laws was just a figment crafted by overwork and worry. For that moment, Twilight felt the pull of acceptance, something so enticing with its whispered promise of contentment that she felt herself reach towards it, ready to-

No. That moment vanished at the beckoning of another feeling, a violent twist of notion that told her that she was right, they were wrong, and that something was deeply, darkly wrong in her world. She latched onto that notion as if it were a lifeline, and the sense of finally finding the right path enveloped her. With a determined nod, she set to work.

By the time Spike returned with a mug of honeyed tea, Twilight had curled up on the library rug, feverishly delving deeper into subjects whose surface she had only skimmed the day before. Mental bonds; mind tricks; shielding; calling; dreamwork. She memorized everything she could find about both theory and practice, never wavering in focus even when Spike wished her hesitant goodnight. Hours passed, and her candles burned lower and lower, but Twilight persevered until she'd read the final passage in the final book. Finally, long after the sun had relinquished the sky to the moon and her myriad stars, she was ready.

There was an old woman, who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth, without any bread, then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

There was an old woman, who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she-

Wait, now. What in Equestria was a shoe? Certainly it couldn't have been a horseshoe; those were decidedly solid. No hollow living space to be seen at all, sad to say. And what, for that matter, were chil-

No, no, no! Focus.

He'd been good, hoping to give her greater reason to return. He'd held off on any more visions sent her way, aiming for a guided boost in her confidence, a lure back, and it had cost him. It had cost him dearly. Still, he'd only need hold out a little longer. Just a little bit more. It would only have to be a little bit more, because any second now, she'd be back. Any second, her voice would break through the stifling silence, and he'd have to be at his very best, for at that moment, the show would begin. The show. He had to be focused for the show. Had to, had to, had to. Maybe he could try counting again. Backwards. Forwards. Sideways, in base five. Maybe...

There was an old woman, who lived in a was it a pretty shoe what did it look like what was a shoe hey maybe maybe he could make something awesome and call it a shoe that would be great wouldn't it just great ever great yes maybe now now now-

Discord!

Bah, not now; too many things to frolic with too many paths to trot too many wells to fall into and drown in too many too many too-

Hey, I'm talking to you! I know you're there. Answer me!

Answer... answer what? What wanted a... where wanted what... who... now... oh...

Twilight Sparkle!

It was no greeting. His first mental words carried none of Twilight's defiant spirit; instead, they were more like the breathless gasp of a drowning thing. Probably because... well, they were, unfortunately enough. Immediately, he could feel a peering curiosity reach out and grabbed it like the life preserver it was. The energies latched onto it; they quailed just a touch. Just enough. The next words came in the smooth, wily voice of the manipulator. The proper voice. His voice.

Twilight Sparkle. I see you've returned, and so soon, too.

Hardly soon, hardly; nearly too late, but focus now...

Now was the moment that counted. Now was the time to gather up the last of his energy reserves, for though Twilight had not yet truly spoken, he already knew what she had returned for. There was only one thing to return for, and he was more than ready to give it to her. Already, he'd planned out how to start. He knew precisely what to do.

All that was left now was to endure this last moment of crumbling weakness. Once the deal was made, once the proverbial ball got rolling, it would all be fine. His trains of thought would stick to their own twisted rails, and everything would be fine. Just fine and dandy. All that was left was-

I know you know why I'm here, Discord, so let's skip the games. I'll make this clear right now: any wrong moves from you, and any and all deals are off. I'm here only on the condition that... will you stop laughing?

He couldn't. Between nerves, relief, and the utter hilarity inherent in a pony being so adorably pompous, he completely failed in containing howls of mental mirth. Not even a threat of abandonment stifled his guffaws, and why should it have? She was back, and they both knew she was back with a mission she'd already promised to complete.

Confirmation of that notion came through a few moments of impatient waiting until, finally, Discord could speak again.

Ah, my apologies, my dear. You are simply just the cutest little pony I have ever met. Do you have any idea what kind of compliment that is? I have met so many little ponies...

Annoyance. Impatience. Embarrassment. Seething fury.

He snatched them all to appease the swarming chaos threatening coherency. It ebbed, and he celebrated private victory as he continued.

But yes; you've returned. And I agree: it is rather past the time for games. As I understand it, you and your princess are not faring particularly well, hmm?

A pause. Silence. Once again, his cunning had earned him a confirmation of knowledge he could use to further entice her. Excellent. With another point added to his mental scoreboard, he continued.

I thought not. Impossible to hide the sneer, but what did it matter? He knew he had her. So are you ready, my dear? Shall we seal the-

No! I'm not sealing any deals on your terms. I may need your... information, but I'm not about to let you get away with any more than absolutely necessary. Now, if you're serious about this, then here are my rules: first, we both have our rights to a barrier, and we don't break or pass those barriers. Ever. Second: no lies. You lie, and the deal is off. Third...

My my; such authority. And what if I refuse your rules, Twilight Sparkle?

The answer came with no hesitation, and even through his amusement, he felt almost impressed by her resolve. Almost. Not quite, but almost.

If you refuse the rules, then I know that you don't really want what you say you want. And that means that you won't be bound by this deal at all, will you?

He chuckled. How wonderfully astute of you, Twilight Sparkle. Of course, I'd expect no less from Celestia's prize pupil. Now, please don't worry your little head over a bunch of silly rules. I am a draconequus of my word, after all.

Twilight's mental snort went ignored.

It doesn't matter what rules you wish to establish as long as I receive at least two hours of normal conversation time with you per day.

She did well to hide her disbelief, but he knew she must be feeling it. The sheer simplicity of his request was ridiculous even to him, and he suppressed mental laughter with a fair amount of difficulty.

That's... that's it?

Acceptance. Agreement. He could almost taste them, and close behind them, just over the horizon, he could see freedom...

That's it.

And you'll... you'll give me information about the princess?

Precisely.

Anything I ask?

Yes, as long as I know the answer.

...anything?

Twilight Sparkle, you can continue to quiz me on my willingness, or you can allow me to prove it to you. The deal stands thus: you may ask me whatever you wish about Princess Celestia, and I will answer you truthfully, to the best of my ability. In return, I request the pleasure of your conversational company for at least two hours a day. No less, though if you wish to bask in my charm for longer, that is, of course, perfectly all right.

I just... have to talk to you? That's really all you want?

Yes indeedy. Here now, let me put it in the proper terms.

He cleared a nonexistent throat.

In exchange for two hours of your day

Whatever you ask, I shall say

The princess' life you wish to see

Spend time here, and you shall know it through me

There we are; pretty as can be, no?

I...

He could see her, in his unfocused mind's eye, see her pawing at the ground in her indecision. He could see the ambiguous tilt of her ears, the nervous twitch of her tail as she strained to examine every possible intricacy of what he'd offered. He could see her biting her lip as she came to her final decision.

The faintest breath of resignation came from behind her mental barrier.

All right. I accept your deal.

And so he had her. Discord, bound in his torturous cell of a statue, so limited in ability, had succeeded in gaining the pawn he needed for his plan. Elation came immediately, a cascading wave of bubbling joy the likes of which he hadn't felt since... well, for a long time. Laughter came with it, laughter so raucous and wild that he could feel her recoil behind her barrier. What did it matter, though? Laughter, she expected. Laughter, crazy, insane, moronic laughter, was probably the one thing she'd always expect of him. She'd never suspect anything because of it.

Twilight Sparkle would never suspect that his frenetic mirth came from the knowledge that he finally had the precious metal needed to fashion his key to freedom. Now all that was left was to mold it, to mold her, and oh, how easy that would be! How magnificently easy, for the tools he had at his disposal, the memories, the knowledge... oh, it would be simple. A snap!

He'd be free in no time at all, and so Discord let himself laugh until he grew bored of it. That was... not very long at all, really, considering that boredom seemed to be something like an over-attached sibling to him. Anyway, with the initial step complete, he had to begin the real work. The sooner, the better. The sooner, the closer he was to reigning over Equestria again.

So... what now?

Twilight's voice, cautious after his display of almost vicious joy, interrupted his private gloating. He turned his attention back to her with an air of mischievous glee. What now, she asked. What now, indeed. Ha!

Now, Twilight Sparkle, we begin our little exchange. Ready? No? Excellent!

She felt his energy overwhelm her senses, and as Discord's cackles echoed in her mind, Twilight's Sparkle's world, both physical and mental, went black.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Any and all comments are greatly appreciated.

Chapter Five: In Which an Old Story Begins

A/N: Ah, a long time in coming, this. I'm a student first, fanfiction author second, so sometimes this is the best I can do. I'll keep trying to minimize the time between updates. Thank you for waiting so patiently. Also, kindly disregard some wayward indentations in the text. I cannot for the life of me figure out why they are being formatted like that. They should not be there, and are not during editing. Thank you.

Chapter 5: In Which an Old Story Begins

All around her, darkness pressed in. Gone were the waving grasses of the meadow and the silver beams of moonlight that had lit her path. No matter where her eyes darted, they met only the deepest black, and Twilight Sparkle's breath quickened as she tried to make sense of how this could be. A mere moment ago, she'd been glaring warily at Discord's stone face, oblivious to the serene night around her as every shred of attention worked towards anticipating his next move. Now... now all that had been was gone, swallowed up in some sort of shadowed void. Despite her best efforts, Twilight's breath came in the frenzied snorts of a terrified equine.

What had he done? What in Celestia's name had she agreed to? What nefarious spell had she allowed Discord to cast, stealing away all sight and silencing even the barest whisper of--

A snicker to her right, concealed in the dark. Her ears swiveled towards it instantly, head following as Twilight bared her teeth in its direction.

“Discord! You jerk, what did you do?”

More snickering. Giggling. Familiar cackles seemed to come from everywhere at once, and though Twilight tried to keep her courage in their face, her fortitude was rapidly failing. Her ears quivered where they lay against her skull, hidden amongst a bristling mane. When she called out again, her voice carried a weak waver she could not conceal.

“I know you're here, Discord. Whatever you've done, you don't scare me! Come out where I can--”

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle.”

Soft and eerily sibilant, his voice silenced her with no effort at all; speech died in her rapidly constricting throat.

Every muscle quivered in anticipation as Twilight strained to see something, anything, that would tell her what her opponent was planning, but it was to no avail. No matter how she tried, she could not discern Discord's form from the surrounding void, and so she was left waiting for his next move. Fortunately, or perhaps not, he rose to expectation.

A feather-light caress trailed down one side of her neck, companion to warm breath tickling the inside of her ear. Both sensations were punctuated by a chortle who's source was far too close to her face.

Twilight could withstand no more; with a piercing shriek and a fear-fueled thrust, she leaped what she hoped was away from her tormentor. Her hooves flailed aimlessly, striking without sight to guide them. She hoped to at least hit him if not find solid ground again, only to... land very loudly and gracelessly on her back. Kinesthetics painted a very humiliating picture of her hooves waving haphazardly in the air, and she growled as she rolled over in hopes of regaining lost dignity. Already, she could hear the unseen Discord's snickers grow into helpless guffaws.

Embarrassment toppled fear for a moment, and she snarled in what she hoped was his vague direction.

“Don't you dare touch me you... you...” She grit her teeth when a suitably vile word failed to come. “Undo whatever you've done! This wasn't part of our deal!”

“Oh, it wasn't? Are you sure about that, Ms. Sparkle?” His oily tone made her shudder, but she kept turning to face it nonetheless.

“Yes, I'm sure! Take us back, now. Or... or bring everything else back. Or... you... gah!” Aggravation escaped in a frustrated snarl, only to provoke another bout of taunting laughter.

“Come now, Twilight Sparkle! I thought you wanted me to answer your questions. You certainly aren't--”

“Exactly! I wanted you to answer my questions, not... not take us to some... I... you... will you stop laughing?!”

She may as well have been yelling at a very obnoxious wall. Discord's cheerful laughter continued to echo in the blackness, unbridled and unhampered by even the angriest of her growls. Twilight could only stand snorting and fuming, anxious in the knowledge that while she could not see him, he seemed to have no trouble finding her. She could pinpoint his presence by sound of voice alone, and it circled her again and again, clearly able to navigate with ease while she was forced to blind stillness.

The situation should have terrified her far more, but anger fostered a defiance that kept her mind startlingly clear as Twilight did the only thing she could in her wretched situation: waited for Discord to, once again, tire of laughing like a mad thing. It took him a woefully long time to oblige her, and by the time he quieted she could only express her disdain with what she hoped was a very dramatic sigh.

“Are you done? Great. Now, could you please just...” she trailed off, suddenly uncertain. Silence had fallen too abruptly, too completely. Without Discord's laughter to give her something to focus on, disorientation returned, and she swallowed against the fresh pang of fear accompanying it. Her ears began to swivel this way and that, searching for a new sound to act as an anchor for her attention. They found only utter quiet, and the sudden change was enough to... what was that?

Her entire body tensed with the instinctive awareness of a prey animal, disturbed by a sudden disquiet that tainted the air. A sense of danger flared in her mind, a feeling that existed in disturbing contrast to what had been, a moment ago, mere annoyance. His continued muteness only served to feed it.

“D-discord?” The tremor crept back into her voice. Her ears strained. “Discord, I'm serious! If you... if you want me to keep my end of the deal, you have to keep yours. And... and you... where are you?”

More silence, somehow unbearably thicker now than it had been when she'd first woken up to the darkness. As easily as anger and annoyance had grown before, fear did now, finally taking its rightful hold of her as no answer came.

“Discord, please!”

“You wish for me to honor our deal?”

A tremor raced through her.

Gone was the nasty teasing, the amused tone that had served to inspire only frustrated indignation. In its place was a voice so deadpan and cold, so starkly serious that it threw a chill down her spine. It remained his voice, yes, but it was so unlike its usual nature that it inspired nothing but the deepest, ugliest fear within her thudding heart. This was the voice of the creature she'd expected when Celestia had detailed his crimes, and his sudden, unexplained appearance filled her with acute dread. Her whole body tensed with new terror, and she could hardly force words through her constricted throat.

“Y-yes. Yes, I...”

“You are absolutely certain?”

She trembled all over now, horrified by the snakelike hiss carrying his words. Each syllable came in another warm puff of air against her muzzle, once more revealing his position as being right before her. This time, however, frantic terror rose in place of the righteous indignation of before, and the urge to scream came not due to being suddenly startled, but because Twilight was legitimately afraid of the unseen monster before her. Fear had never been something she'd truly associated with Discord, relegating him instead to the realm of severe anger and annoyance. Now, fear paralyzed her. She could not even gather herself enough to analyze the change, all effort dedicating to simply facing him in the total darkness. The strain left her lightheaded, but duty and determination endured. Thus, so did she. Adamant was the need for success; clearly, she'd already sacrificed something for her chance.

“Yes,” she continued breathlessly, willing herself to ignore the rasping breaths warming her muzzle, “I want you to honor our deal. Reverse... whatever you've done here, so we can get started. Bring us back to Equestria.”

The moment she said the words, her mind pounced upon how little sense they made. There was no way he could have taken them somewhere, no way he could have exerted that sort of magical force while trapped in his prison. The deal could not have freed him... right? Sweet Celestia, what had she done? What had she done, and was it worth the price of the answers she needed?

Doubt formed a nauseating partnership with her fear as the breaths tickling her muzzle came in the halting puffs of a sinister chuckle.

“Well, my little pony.” His voice was deeper now, and the blackness around her seemed so much darker, so much more threatening, with the sound of it filling the silence. Dimly, for too much of her mind was devoted to maintaining control rather than sensing, she felt his claw trailing down her cheek.

“You truly wish for me to break the spell I have wrought here? You wish to continue with our bargain?”

His claw stopped, and she felt the palm of his feline paw caress her instead. On the other side, the rough scales of his talons cupped her other cheek.

Terror wrestled with need. Guilt fought resolve. Doubt matched against firm determination. In the end, though, it was Twilight's one constant, her love for her princess, that coaxed words from her once more.

“I do.” Her words still trembled, but the voice behind them grew stronger with every syllable. “I want you to answer my questions about the princess.”

Mentioning the reason for the whole mess granted a new level of empowerment, and she puffed her chest out as confidence granted her a fierce warmth.

“Now, Discord! Honor your bargain now!”

A stomp of her hoof punctuated the bold statement, helping her summon reserves of defiant courage as Discord, very obviously only a few inches away from her face, began to chuckle, an evil sound guttural in its quality. Despite her renewed bravery, Twilight began to tremble again as he stroked the sides of her face.

“Very well, Twilight Sparkle. I shall keep my word. Dear Twilight Sparkle...”

She struggled desperately to hold an image of Celestia in her mind, hold it steady and strong, as his claws ran very gently through her fur. The sick sensation of those claws against her skin warred fiercely with that image, each vying for control of her nerve. The effort to remain still was monumental, but so was Twilight's will. She steeled herself against the revolting touch, though she did not dare to answer; will was will, not invincibility.

His fingers stopped at her temples and traced lazy circles there. Round and round they went, stroking, rubbing, caressing, and the bizarre regularity of it added enough fear to birth vertigo. Still she persevered, focus on Celestia never wavering. Duty kept her. Duty saved her. Duty... love...

“Dear Twilight... we shall begin as soon as you perform one task for me. A simple task. Can you do that?”

Warmth in front of her, not only that of his breath, but that of his body. Warmth mere centimeters away as she spoke with a voice barely holding tone.

“Do... do what?”

He chuckled again, fingers sliding to rest around her eyes.

Every last muscle fiber begged her to flee, but fear had grown to the point of joining courage in a form of bizarre hypnosis, and she took his actions in quivering stillness.

“I want you...”

He leaned in even closer. She could smell him, musky and strange. For a faint moment, she thought she could feel his fur just barely brushing her muzzle.

“...to open...”

What were his claws doing? Drawing together as they were, applying pressure right over... but wait, how could they, right there? They should have... wait...

“...your...”

What--

“...eyes!”

The body before her lay totally still but for the rhythmic rise and fall of its chest. Her blue eyes remained fixed on it, never straying even as the moon continued on its steady path across the midnight sky. The sounds of the night went utterly ignored in her intense concentration.

Finally, after countless minutes, she made her move. With agonizing slowness, she inched a pearly pink hoof forward, tongue peeking out from between pursed lips. Closer and closer she dared, until at last it hovered mere millimeters above the furry chest. She kept that position for a few more seconds before, exhaling sharply with effort, she thrust her hoof out with lightning speed.

Pinkie Pie jabbed Twilight's prone body and jumped aside, waiting. When nothing happened, she pouted and jabbed again, a little harder. The purple form twitched a bit, but beyond that, remained quietly unconscious at the foot of Discord's statue. With no response forthcoming, Pinkie was left to frown accusingly at the motionless unicorn.

“Really, Twilight! Falling asleep in the middle of the meadow... hmph!”

She gave Twilight another experimental shake, and when a response still failed to manifest, she gave an exasperated sigh.

“Well, if that's what you want. Just don't blame me when you're all stiff in the morning. Silly! Though...” Her expression relaxed into a gentle smile. “I guess you have been awfully busy lately. Sleep tight, then!”

With a final pat on Twilight's head, Pinkie Pie left, continuing on her late night stroll with customary bouncing enthusiasm.

Twilight Sparkle remained where she lay at the foot of the great statue, for all appearances slumbering peacefully in the light of Luna's moon.

“I... I can't... You... you thought... oh my sides!”

Twilight watched as Discord proceeded to, for the fifth time in so many minutes, collapse onto his back, rolling about wildly as his short legs flailed about in the air. Gales of raucous laughter made it impossible for him to string more than a few words together, and in the end he gave up, resigning himself to wild mirth. Twilight, needless to say, was far less amused.

Sitting stiffly on her haunches, she granted him another unimpressed look. When that failed to urge him into some semblance of calm, she indulged herself with a roll of her conspicuously open eyes. At the sight of that, Discord finally managed to roll over onto his side, fixing her with an impish grin as his laughter reduced to hiccuping giggles.

It was too much. She snorted angrily, hoof stomping against marble tile in a fit of temper.

“Will you stop? How was I supposed to know you'd do that? It's not like I've ever seen--”

“Your subconscious?” he offered, bravely attempting to put on a straight face. Her answering scowl ruined that; with a very shameless giggle-snort, he returned to rolling around like an overly exuberant foal.

“Ugh...” Recognizing futility when she saw it, Twilight grudgingly accepted failure. There was no stopping him in this state, she understood, and so she gave her attention to their surroundings.

A hot blush blossomed across her cheeks as she gazed about the great room. What had manifested as a confusion of color and light when Discord had wrenched her eyes open was now a very clear view of an enormous room, walls lined with golden bookcases that rose from the marble floors to the vaulted ceilings. All manner of books lined the shelves: ancient tomes, thin paperbacks, hardbacks with multicolored spines. On and on they stretched, so numerous that her mind spun just gazing upon them. Now that the shock of the previous moment had worn off, she understood that they were a physical manifestation of her own thoughts and memories. Indeed, the entire place was an embodiment of her mind, a fact that she had studied carefully during her bout of research earlier that evening.

It was a fact that she'd completely forgotten when panic gripped her, so deep had been her fear when she'd awoken to total darkness.

How was she to know that mental eyes had to be almost forced open the first time around? How was she to know that she wouldn't be able to feel them, or to tell the difference between mental and physical reality?

Discord's bizarre behavior hadn't helped either, of course, and so she'd remained clueless until he'd completed his infuriating joke by forcing her eyelids open. Then... well, then all of the information she'd studied had returned in a flood, and she'd laid there in furious shame while Discord had succumbed to his paroxysms of laughter.

Now secure in understanding of what had happened, she was quite tired of indulging his humor.

“Okay, okay,” she sighed, “are you done? I get it: really funny. Can we move on now? Please?”

“Oh, but you should have seen yourself!” He proceeded to float circles around her, settled comfortably on his back and gesturing animatedly with both paw and claw. “Your face! Oh, absolutely priceless; I'll never forget it. As if you'd never seen your own--”

When her expression indicated that no, she hadn't ever seen her own subconscious, and would he please cease ridiculing her for it, he threw a paw over his muzzle to smother the guffaws threatening to burst forth.

“Discord! I'd really, really like to get on with this, if it's all the same to you.”

He seemed to have finally tired of laughing, for he wiped his eyes and obliged her with an ingratiating smile.

“Yes, I suppose you have filled my quota of fantastically humiliating entertainment for the day. Very well.” He lowered himself to her level, again too close for comfort. She held her ground, utterly fed up with his antics, and he grinned at her tenacity.

“Well, shall we begin then, my little pony? I'm certain you are just bursting with questions for little old me, aren't you?” His eyes glinted in a way she disliked, and she scowled in admittedly pointless warning that he totally ignored.

“Go ahead, my dear; ask away. I am,” he paused, pulled a pair of bright red sunglasses from nowhere and settled them on his bony face, “quite at my leisure.”

This was it: the moment she'd been waiting for. This was the chance she'd taken so many risks for, worried away so much sleep for. Finally, after doubt and shock and fear, she would get the answers she so desperately needed to understand recent happenings. Salvation for the princess was just a few bargained conversations away.

With a steadying breath, she looked Discord straight in his mismatched ruby eyes.

“Okay then.”

Another breath. He was still rather intimidating, after all, amused mood or no.

“What I want to know is...”

His grin widened, exuding a game readiness. She took another breath, trying to ignore how close he'd gotten again.

“...what is wrong with Princess Celestia?”

There; it was out. The question that had been plaguing her for over a week had finally been spoken aloud, and with it, a peculiar weight left Twilight's shoulders. Apprehension immediately replaced it as she leaned back, waiting for an answer.

The smirk vanished from his face, countenance turning unnaturally serious as he pursed his lips in thought.

“You wish to know what is wrong with your princess?”

Twilight nodded. “You said you'd answer anything. That's what I want to know.”

“Well now...”

He turned over in midair, laying first on his stomach, then on his back. His sunglasses fell when he flipped over, only to float back up to their perch as he righted himself. Over and over again he did this, appearing quite deep in thought as he went, while Twilight shifted weight from one hoof to the other in an attempt to quell her nerves. Deep thought was hardly something she was used to when it came to Discord, and the sight of it suggested that whatever answer she'd be granted was a grand one indeed.

He eventually settled on his stomach again, looking quite grave as he twisted his beard around one eagle talon. With a final sigh, he waved the glasses away and turned back to Twilight.

“Very well, Twilight Sparkle. An appropriately profound question, and I do believe I know the answer you seek. Ahem...”

He drew himself up to quite an impressive height, taking advantage of every inch of spine to tower over Twilight as she waited, now quite convinced that what she was about to hear would result in some sort of life-shattering revelation. Her ears tilted as far forward as they could, eyes fixed on Discord's pensive face.

“What is wrong with Princess Celestia is...”

Her eyes widened; her muscles tensed.

“...one slightly weak tendon in her back left hock. She does cover it quite well; one can only tell if she's trots just so for about half an hour.”

Twilight was certain she could hear a cricket chirp from back on the physical plane.

For a moment she was sure that, in her stressed eagerness, she'd hallucinated that response, but as he floated there with a look of total satisfaction on his twisted face she realized that that was not the case. He really had just given her a useless, pointless, senseless answer to her all-important query, and when she gathered the wits to speak, she let him privy to the fact. Articulately, of course.

“She... you... the... the hock... what?!”

He merely gazed down at her, unconcerned, and the sight of his face remaining completely impassive only fueled her ire. Her next words came through grit teeth as she strove to keep control on her fraying temper.

“You said you'd answer my questions about the princess, Discord. You're not--”

“Playing fair?” He turned over again, craning his neck to regard her upside down. “Now how would that be? I answered your question, did I not?”

When no answer came, Twilight left with mouth comically agape, his lips twisted into the smallest smile.

“Didn't I, Twilight Sparkle?”

“But--”

“You asked me what was wrong with Celestia, and I told you.”

“But--”

“If you don't believe me-- and I assure you, I'm quite above lying; abhorrent practice, that-- then you can go ask your princess yourself. Left hock, as I said. I suppose it is a little embarrassing, so perhaps she won't own up to it right away, but--” He shrugged, utterly nonplussed by her spluttering.

“No! That's not what I meant!”

“Wasn't it, now?”

She glared up at him, patience just about spent, as he flippantly ignored her mounting anger in favor of floating over to a bookshelf. With a flick of his wrist, several books flew off the shelves into his paws. Humming to himself, he began to juggle them.

All of her nervous energy had to go somewhere, and as Discord tossed about books that contained her very essence, it went into fury. If she'd been angry before, she was livid now.

“You... you... dumb draconequus!”

The books clattered to the floor. Discord ignored them, instead turning around to stare at her, wide-eyed and silent. She lifted her chin in triumph, gleaning what satisfaction she could from the clear verbal wounding she'd just managed to--

“'Dumb draconequus?' That is the best you can come up with? I... really? Celestia's little prodigy, and you...”

His words were lost in a snort that signaled yet another dissolution into a giggle fit. This time, however, Twilight would not stand for it. Furious and crushingly disappointed as she was, she could not.

“Now you listen here!” she yelled up at him, “I made a deal with you, and your end of that deal was to answer my questions. You and I both know that that was not what I meant. If you won't hold up your end, then I am leaving!”

With that, she turned her back on the snickering creature and, eyes hard with resolve, began to walk. The soft click of hooves on marble slowly rose above the sound of Discord's laughter as she left him behind. She refused to give him the satisfaction of a parting glare, instead focusing her eyes on the polished wooden shelves passing her by, each lined with as many books as it could hold. Only when his voice faded into the distance did she slow her pace to a dejected trudge. Her eyes left the myriad books and focused instead on her dragging hooves as she let out a tired sigh.

There was no denying it: she should have known better. Without Discord's infuriating voice and her own panic to distract her, she could see that quite clearly. The idea of actually trusting the draconequus to deliver useful information was a ridiculous mistake from the start.

The only reason she did not actively berate herself was because the answer to that question was quite obvious, even if she would not voice it. Love and concern for her mentor were not feelings to be scorned; after all, Twilight had learned far too much about love and friendship to attack a heart put in the right place.

That knowledge left her rather at a loss, for how could she truly solve her current predicament when the root cause was not something she wanted abolished? Furthermore, she still could not see a solution to her worries that she could be comfortable with. This foray into a dubious agreement hadn't been made flippantly, after all, and all outside factors remained as frustratingly discouraging as they had been at the outset. Indeed, even the slightest thought of speaking directly to the princess about all of it made Twilight as nauseous as Discord's chilling voice had.

It all left her hopelessly confused, and when she finally tired of walking and sat down, it was with a very dejected, frustrated huff. Her tail twitched in agitated spasms as the furious jumble of her thoughts descended upon her, and she began what was quite literally a mental rant.

The great library's books played audience to her frustrated tirade, standing silent as she paced back and forth, furious gestures punctuating a very loud rant that touched upon every last thing that had been bothering her as of late: Celestia's aloofness, Discord's antics, the situation currently brewing in Ponyville, her friends' disturbing lack of concern. Gaining anxious momentum, she vented every last shred of insecurity she held towards all of these things until her throat felt dry and her tongue twisted. The entire debacle ended with Twilight sprawled out on her back, hooves reaching beseechingly to ceiling as she yelled one final question to the many books bearing witness:

“And how am I supposed to get out of here, anyway?!”

“Why, don't you know?”

Books were silent; Discord was anything but. His voice startled a squeak out of Twilight, but she quickly recovered her composure, scrambling to her hooves and searching her surroundings for his serpentine body.

She finally craned her neck and found him floating overhead, clearly quite amused as he wiggled his talons in a cheeky greeting. Her neck fur bristled in renewed anger, but she kept it in check. Despite her fraying temper, she'd understood his words, and the possibility of escape demanded she control herself.

Thus, she grit her teeth and forced something resembling civility.

“What do you mean, 'don't I know?'” When he failed to respond, instead taking a keen interest in his lion claws, she pushed further.

“How could I know? I thought,” she failed to keep a faint snarl out of her tone, “that we'd already established that I've never done this before. How could I know how to get out?”

The allusion to her previous flailings seemed almost too much for Discord, and Twilight momentarily feared that she'd have to wait out another laughing fit before getting anything substantial out of him. Oddly enough, he decided to mimic her attempts at control instead, and though he chortled while he spoke, he answered immediately.

“Why, Twilight Sparkle, I'm surprised at you! I'd have thought that you, such a well-read young unicorn, would surely have done some research on leaving your own subconscious. You did read up on the subject before paying me this lovely visit, didn't you?”

“Of course I did!” she retorted with a sharp hoof stomp, “I read all about mental magic, but that didn't help me before because you nearly scared me to death. And it's not helping now!”

He tapped his chin with one long talon, gazing at the ceiling with an air of intense contemplation.

“Hmm... yes, you are quite right. Well my dear, seeing as we are in your subconscious, that knowledge should be right here for the taking, no?”

She faltered; his words were not the further ridicule she'd been expecting. They seemed almost... helpful, and though her eyes narrowed in instinctive suspicion, her mind quickly latched onto them and searched for some deeper meaning.

Despite his reputation for nonsense, what he'd said seemed anything but. From what her advanced studies had taught her, anything she knew should have been readily accessible from where she was. It was just a matter of... asking for it? Wishing for it? Demanding it? She bit her tongue as her brain scrambled for the right answer, ignoring Discord's ever-present smirk.

Her eyes began to roam as she concentrated, drawn to the many books stretching as far as she could--

The books.

“Ah ha!” she rounded on Discord, pure triumph lighting up her face, “It's in the books, isn't it? These books,” she waved a hoof at a nearby shelf, “are a manifestation of different pieces of information I know. Like this one, here.”

She focused on one book out of the thousands, a bright red hardcover, and knew instantly what it contained. Levitating it off the bookshelf, she rotated it until the title stared up at them in bright gold lettering.

“The Life History of the Black-Billed Capercaillie. Ha! See? I can call up whatever information I want here; all of it's in these books, because all of it's in my head. And this is my head. So--”

“What, by the curl of Celestia's beard, is a black-billed capercaillie?”

Twilight was too focused on her triumph to pay any attention to the frowning draconequus. She began to scan the shelves further, but her eyes instantly fixed on a leather-bound tome about halfway up to the ceiling. Instantly, because this was, after all, her mind, and so she knew where everything was the moment she wanted to know it. The thought made her smile wider, and she brought the book down with the comfortable certainty that her problems were a few page turns away.

Sure enough, as she flipped through the text, familiar information came back to her: initiation of mental contact, barriers, illusions. It all came back to her with the air of a recalled memory, which, she supposed, was precisely what the book before her was: memory made tangible.

She neared the end of the volume.

“Ha; you thought you'd won, but here it is! Right here: how to leave the... manifested... sub... conscious?”

The pages were blank.

Twilight stared at them, uncomprehending, and when words still failed to appear, she turned a few more pages. Nothing. She backtracked through the book. The most recent text plainly described advanced memory recall procedures, its last few paragraphs making a clear segue into the principles surrounding exiting. Once that section ended, however, only blank parchment followed.

Confusing. Perplexing. Infuriating.

When continued glaring at the book failed to bring up what she wanted, Twilight turned accusing eyes on a smiling Discord.

“What did you do?”

“Moi?” He rested a leonine paw on his chest, face the picture of innocence. “How could you even consider such a thing, Twilight Sparkle? Why, what possible motive could I have to keep you here? Furthermore,” he cut off her very affronted attempt at a reply, “how could I do so? I am, after all, still quite incapacitated. Why, the only reason we're here is because of our little deal. Without that, I'm still--”

“'Powerless.' So you say, but why should I trust you? If you're not doing anything, then why can't I figure out how to get out of here? Why is my own mind not giving me the information I want?”

He sighed, easing himself onto his back and floating a wide arc around her, half-lidded eyes fixed on her suspicious face.

“Ah, Twilight, Twilight, Twilight. Where's the fun in my just telling you? You're a bright student; why don't you tell me?”

“Why don't I... why... I... you... gah! You are so annoying.”

“Annoying? Why, you wound me! I would go with 'rigorously challenging.'”

Twilight nearly gave in to the renewed urge to turn tail and leave the infuriating creature behind. She abstained, though, logic winning out as she correctly identified such action as cathartic yet pointless. Instead, she contented herself with a scowl in his general direction, something that he, again, pointedly ignored.

Besides... he had something there. She was loathe to admit it, but there was an annoying touch of logic to his taunt. If she could just understand it...

“I know I studied that information,” she muttered under her breath, “so why can't I access it? I should just be able to read it right here, but...”

Slowly, her eyes began to widen.

“...but I can't, because if this is my subconscious, and it responds to my wants...”

Discord watched with an expectant grin.

“...then it would only show me that information if I truly wanted it!”

Her face lit up with a victorious smile.

“That's it, isn't it? I don't want to know how to get out, so the books won't show me!”

The joy of discovery was almost enough to make her forget whom she was speaking to, but when she glimpsed his leer, the joy bled out of her, and she met his beaming face with a renewed scowl. Discord ignored the shift and latched onto her prior energy, clapping his hands with cheerful enthusiasm.

“Wonderful! See what you can do when you put your mind to it, dear? And you wanted me to tell you. Why, it would have ruined this spectacular feeling of accomplishment you're experiencing, now wouldn't it have? I do believe you owe me some gratitude, hmm?”

A glare.

“No?”

A growl.

“Oh, fine. Be that way.”

He looked as if he wanted to say more, but Twilight suddenly gasped. Epiphany flit across her face once more, and she rounded on him as the final piece of the puzzle settled neatly into place.

“The reason,” she continued her explanation from between bared teeth, “I can't leave is because I don't want to. And I don't want to leave because I still want what you promised me. I want you to hold up your end of the deal, Discord, and I'm not going to let myself, or you, leave until you do.”

The rather pleasant smile on his face twisted into a gleeful sneer, and he alighted in front of her, leering down with more malice than he'd shown since his little game in the shadows.

“Oh, will you now? And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that?”

She cringed a little, and one could hardly blame her, for the truly did look the picture of cruel intent, face twisted into a snarl to mirror her own, snaggletooth gleaming between wrinkled lips as his unnatural eyes bore down on her in a gaze that could only be described as predatory. This was the creature that matched that voice he'd used in jest, and faced with it now, Twilight felt equine instincts urging her to flee.

Drawing on stubborn courage, she ignored them, squaring her hooves and meeting his unspoken challenge with a very plain one of her own.

“I... I have no idea. But hear me, Discord, I'll think of something. And,” she drew herself up, privately envisioning herself as a confident Rainbow Dash, “if it comes to it, I'll fight you for it. I helped defeat you before; I can do it again!”

There was no doubt she meant it, too, for all around them the endless library began to shift, hues becoming darker, shapes warped, air thickening with a violent tension that mirrored the aggression on her face. Discord watched, eyebrows raised nearly to his horns, as their surroundings twisted and smoldered with the intensity of her emotion. He watched as Twilight lowered her horn, aiming it right at him, concentrating until its tip glowed fiercely, watched... and began to laugh.

Again.

Twilight's subconscious snapped back to normal as she raised her head, incredulity replacing fury on her face only to dull into deadpan annoyance as Discord reached out and patted her head.

“Oh, Twilight, you're so cute! That's the third time. The third! Oh... and you were really going to do it! I take it you're an accomplished little warrior, aren't you? You darling little...”

“Okay.”

He quieted just enough to speak. “Okay what?”

“Okay, what do you want? What is the point of all of this? What was the point in making this bogus deal, dragging me into my subconscious, and scaring the hooves off of me for the last... what, hour? What. Is. The. Point?”

Her voice came in a tired monotone, and when Discord finally focused on her expression longer than to just laugh at it, he realized that it was one of melancholy defeat. He sighed.

Fun time was over; time to get down to business.

“Well, Twilight Sparkle, the main point was personal entertainment, as I'm sure you would have guessed if you had just the slightest iota of a sense of humor.”

She narrowed her eyes, ignoring his silly display and trying to control annoyance that even exhaustion could not quite keep at bay.

“You already had your fun before. When you refused to answer my question. After making me think I was blind. Remember?”

Smiling with comfortable satisfaction, Discord leaned back to sit in midair, crossing his legs with an air of fond reminiscing.

“Oh, I do. I do indeed. But really, one cannot have too much fun, can one? At least, I can't. Again, I feel you'd know this if you'd just--”

“So is this what you're going to do? Trap me here using my own desire to help the princess? Play with me for eternity? Is that it?”

He blinked, mild surprise invading his equine face.

“My goodness, whatever gave you that idea? Not that it is without merit, of course, but who ever said I would go back on my word? I certainly did not. Quite the contrary. I do believe I mentioned that I was a draconequus of my word, and I am.”

They were going in circles: uneven, wobbling, sloppy circles, and Twilight's exhaustion was swiftly mixing with outrage, and frustration, and the paranoid sort of panic that came when a particular academic problem failed to unveil its solution. She took a deep breath, then a second, as Discord watched with ears impishly tilted forward.

“Then why aren't you keeping it?”

He chortled deep in his throat and leaned back further, resting his head in his folded arms: the picture of relaxation juxtaposed against her stressed state.

“Ah, but I am. Did we not agree on two hours of your day in exchange for my priceless information?”

That did it.

With a long-suffering moan, Twilight Sparkle slowly leaned sideways until, with a thud that actually managed to sound depressed, she fell to the floor. She did not even bother gracing him with another glare as she answered in a tired mumble.

“You are impossible.”

“Ha!” He craned his neck, and it elongated enough so that he could look her in the face. “How kind of you to notice. I am, after all, the spirit of chaos and disharmony. Surely you did not think that this charming bargain of ours was going to be easy, hmm?”

“Ugh.” Twilight covered her face with her hooves, partly in exasperation, partly to escape the nearness of his smirking face. “So, if you're telling the truth, then I have another hour of your antics to put up with before I get anything useful out of this?

“Well.” He pulled away, neck shortening back to what passed as normal as he settled on the ground again. “I suppose I could take my other hour now, but I can see that your poor little pony mind simply cannot take the undiluted splendor that is me. So, in order to preserve your delicate constitution, I shall indulge a question the moment you are ready.”

Silence. With the air of a wary rabbit, Twilight lifted her head to peer suspiciously at him. With a noncommittal huff, she dismissed what she could only see as another invitation to humiliating disaster. Her head fell back down with another dull thud.

“Liar.”

“You're never going to get anywhere with that attitude.” The sunglasses reappeared in a flash, and he settled them on his face. “What happened to all of that princess-saving spunk you were so confidently exuding a few minutes ago?” He grinned, and that grin showed far too many teeth. “Did your oh-so-precious love for Celestia decide to take a vacation?”

Oh, now she'd had it. She could take ridicule of her intelligence, of her ignorance, of her fear; such low blows could be expected from a creature as vile as Discord. It was the insult to her devotion that truly cut deep enough to tap dormant fury, and Twilight shot to her hooves with a strangled shout, teeth bared anew.

“How dare you?! I will never, ever stop loving the princess, you hear me?”

The dignified response she received was, of course, more laughter, laughter that seemed particularly patronizing when laughed by a draconequus in snazzy sunglasses. The burning feeling in her chest devoured all remnants of hopelessness and fear. Revived, she marched right up to him and ended his guffaws with a powerful stomp.

“You... you... fine! You want my question? It's the same one!”

Around them, the air sharpened again. Both could feel the energy of it raising the shortest strands of their manes. Twilight ignored the sensation; Discord gleaned from it a shiver of satisfaction, and his grin twisted into a ready smirk.

“Tell me what's wrong with Princess Celestia!”

His answer came in two parts.

The first was words, broken up by a dark chuckle that reached through her ire to throw a chill down her spine.

“As you wish, Twilight Sparkle.”

The second was the sharp snap of his eagle talons.

For the second time that day, Twilight Sparkle's world faded to black.

Rays of sunlight filtered through the thick canopy, borrowing the hues of its leaves to paint the forest floor in dapples of yellow-green. The interplay of light and shadow danced across soft moss beds and curled ferns, fallen branches and rough grey stones, as tree boughs rustled and sighed in the summer breeze. Sparrows and finches, jays and robins, flitted amongst the foliage, their brilliant feathers gleaming in the light as they filled the air with their songs. An unseen woodpecker added its percussion to the avian chorus.

Below, a dormouse scuttled through the leaf litter on its daily forage for food. A rusty red squirrel watched from a tree hollow, eventually scampering down the trunk to begin its own search for a meal. Beyond the thick underbrush, in one of the many clearings dotting the vast woodland, a family of deer browsed, delicately nibbling at shoots and twigs. The youngest, a fawn barely out of its spots, dipped its head to sip from a clear coldwater brook.

It was a forest at the height of diversity, a habitat absolutely teeming with every sort of woodland life imaginable. The pair of wide orange eyes regarding its splendor could have belonged to one of its many great owl denizens, but the glint of amusement dancing in their depths hinted at a creature of greater intelligence than a simple beast.

“Hmm...”

She clicked her falcon's beak in concentration as she peered through the thicket concealing her form, eyes roaming the clearing before her. Unseen ears screened out the chatters of rodents and chirps of birds, straining to catch any noise that might reveal a threat. A few moments of listening found none.

“All clear, Maggy!”

At the sound of her voice, a curious thing that was part squawk and part hissing growl, every visible animal froze, ears swiveling forward to fix on the offender. Once their eyes caught up with their ears, swift pandemonium broke loose. Every single one picked whatever direction would lead furthest from the newcomer and fled. Within moments, what was once a vibrant forest environment was silent and still, save for the lonely buzz of a few insects.

Ruffling her great multi-hued wings in faint annoyance, the bizarre creature stepped out into the clearing with a haughty sniff.

“Hmph. You'd think they'd seen some sort of demon, the way they act. No manners at all. Why, how could they not appreciate this glorious sight?” She gave a little swing of her leonine hips, ensuring that the sun caught their striped rosette pattern just right as she pouted back at her companion.

He stepped up beside her, pure black coat a fine contrast to the myriad colors covering her form. Swinging his massive head back and forth, he surveyed the empty scene and gave comment with an equine snort.

“I cannot imagine why they should run, Harpy,” he rumbled in a deep baritone, and while the sound of it remained humorlessly even, a faint light in his eyes indulged his companion's jest.

“They should have remained to pay homage to your exquisite beauty. Surely, you are the loveliest creature one could ever hope to lay one's eyes on.”

Harpy giggled, flapping her massive wings and landing on a nearby tree branch... upside down. She batted her eyes at him over her shoulder.

“And don't you forget it, lovey!” With another laugh, she began to trot along the branch, and though she remained decidedly flipped, her mismatched front feet, one the clawed foot of an eagle, the other the webbed foot of a duck, made no effort to grip the bark.

Magnus shook his head at his mate's antics. He ignored her haughty prancing, turning back instead to call through the thicket. The leaves trembled as his voice echoed through the forest.

“Celestia! Luna! You may come; it is safe.”

With that, he turned away, crossing the clearing to join the still-flipped Harpy. He had to lower his great head to prevent his horn from catching the branches above, stepping carefully to avoid tripping on the great black curls of mane that dragged along the ground. Harpy waited up ahead, snickering to herself at the sight of such a massive equine picking his way daintily through the underbrush.

As he made his way across, two little fillies poked their heads out of the thicket, glancing about nervously before stepping out into the patchy sunlight.

One was as dark of coat as Magnus, but where his fur was truly the blackest black, never shifting even when the light touched it, hers held subtle tinges of dusky purple and midnight blue. Her mane possessed the same glimmering sheen, but grew lavender instead of black. Like the stallion who now stood watching her, she possessed both feathered wings and a horn, though hers was short and still-growing. As it became clearer that her surroundings were safe, a playful spark entered her bright blue eyes, and she trotted forward with a smile on her face.

The other filly remained at the edge.

Though white instead of black, she held far more similarities to Magnus than Luna did. The color of her coat was absolute: not a strand of fur even a shade darker could be found on her entire body. Her wings and horn were likewise, perfectly colorless and immaculately groomed. Only her mane and eyes, both a deep magenta, had any color at all, but even they lacked the natural variation in pigment another equine's would possess.

Though she remained at the edge of the glade, her features showed no fear that might keep her there. Rather than wary, her face was quite serene, almost pensive, as she allowed herself plenty of time to observe her surroundings. Only when Magnus cleared his throat did she break free of what seemed almost a trance, finally looking up at her two guardians with a cheerful smile.

“Oh, thank you, sir. And Harpy, too, of course!” She giggled, for Harpy had suddenly teleported from her perch to her side and plucked her from the ground.

“Ah, don't mention it, kitten. Why, it's about time you two were allowed to frolic about like the proper little imps you are.” She gave Celestia a tickle, grinning when it earned her a happy shriek.

“Now, off with the both of you! Off, off, off, to play. Go on!”

She gently tossed Celestia into the air, watching as she fluttered to her waiting sister. Both fillies glanced at Magnus, whose slight nod granted the final permission they needed to run shrieking off into the surrounding woodland. Once they were out of sight, Harpy's pleasant grin turned into a satisfied smirk.

“There now. As planned.”

“You are certain it is today?”

“Ha! Of course not. When am I ever certain of anything?”

"Harpy..."

"Oh, shush. Just wait. Wait and see..."

“I'm beating you! Ha, I'm beating you!”

Luna streaked through the forest, weaving between bushes and leaping over fallen branches as she maintained an appreciable lead on her older sister.

“Not fair!” Celestia called after her, struggling to keep up despite her longer legs, “Celine always takes you out to run. Between Magnus and Lumina, I never have a chance to practice!”

Luna giggled as she glanced back over her shoulder, giving her tail a sassy flick as she merely increased her speed.

By the time she skidded to a halt in the next clearing, both were out of breath, sides heaving with exertion as they sat down and took a moment to recover from their mad dash through the forest. Above them, a family of squirrels played in the branches. Birds twittered in the treetops, singing half-verses of their territorial songs. Not yet cleared by Harpy's raucous voice, this clearing was as lively as the last had been, and both fillies took a moment to revel in the natural splendor around them as they cooled down. Luna broke this comfortable silence with a teasing snort.

“If Magnus would let you out more often, maybe you'd run faster,” she finally managed, prodding Celestia with a hoof in playful jest. “If he weren't so--”

“I'll have you remember,” Celestia retorted, muzzle daintily turned skyward in haughty disapproval, “that coming here today was his idea.”

Luna rose to her hooves with a cheeky flutter of her wings.

“Nuh-uh. It was Harpy's! Only reason he can have any fun is because Harpy's around. I bet if she wasn't... if... if she...” Luna trailed off, suddenly nervous, suddenly wide-eyed as an unfortunate realization dawned on her. Ears flat, lips trembling, she tried to appeal to her sister, but already she saw that it was too late.

Celestia was glaring at her, but not with the fleeting annoyance of a young filly. Her eyes had turned steely, her body rigidly still as she stared down her younger sister with such a cold disapproval that Luna shuddered.

“There is nothing wrong with the desire to educate one's charge in the proper manner.”

Even her voice was steel; its unnatural monotony made Luna's scalp prickle, and she lowered her wings in anxious submission.

“I... I know. Sister, don't... I didn't mean... please, Celly don't--”

A rustle of leaves broke the strange spell, and as quickly as Celestia had adopted her blank facade, she dropped it, adopting an expression of strangely intense curiosity. Luna had only a second to breathe a sigh of relief before she, too, was acutely aware of a very loud trembling of branches somewhere to their left.

By the time Luna had truly registered the sound, Celestia was already approaching the thicket it emanated from, ears tilted as far forward as possible, eyes narrowed in intense concentration. One hoof in front of the other, she crept forward, dismissing Luna's frantic whispers of caution with a flap of one wing. The same bizarre energy that had clung to her trance a moment ago tainted the air now, and Luna found herself backing away even as she whispered, a part of her already considering running off to call Magnus and Harpy.

Something about this was terrifyingly wrong to her.

Conversely, Celestia seemed invigorated.

Her sister's obvious fright had no effect; she seemed to have fallen into a second trance, one certainly less chilling, but equally as bizarre, for it kept all of her focus firmly on whatever was disturbing the thicket.

“Hush, Luna,” she hissed, never taking her eyes off the quivering leaves that lay only a few steps away. Two steps. One.

“There's something in there!”

As Luna swallowed against her incomprehensible fear, Celestia's eyes widened in an equally nameless anticipation, and without even the slightest hesitation, she reached a hoof between the branches and into the darkness beyond.

“Celly... Celly, I'm not sure...” Luna's voice trembled, yet she could not understand why; there was, after all, no reason that a quaking bush should frighten her. The forest was full of small animals, and the inhabitant of said bush was likely to be a squirrel, or a possum, or perhaps just a lowly dormouse. She tried to reason with herself, but no matter what scenario she envisioned, she could not assuage the terror tying knots in her throat.

No matter what Luna whispered, however, Celestia was undeterred. She reached in further, further, only to halt when the leaves gave a mighty shake, then suddenly stopped. Curiosity turned to confusion when her hoof reached wood without resistance. She peered in and found nothing.

Luna watched all of this with wide eyes and trembling lips, even when Celestia turned back empty-hooved and frowning in perplexed dismay. Instinct was this fear's creator, and while she did not know that, she felt its effects all the same.

“Celly, we should go. Please?”

“No,” her sister shook her head, but her reply was only half-focused as her eyes searched the quiet thicket. All of the animals had disappeared, something else that made Luna's flanks quiver with the need to run. Celestia was oblivious. “No, there's something... something...”

Another rustle, to the right. Another, above. Both fillies tried to find the source, but it kept shifting, shifting with impossible speed and direction as they whipped their heads back and forth in an effort to keep up. They stopped only when the rustling came from behind them.

Very close behind them.

Only a couple of feet away.

Both froze, Luna's face drawn in her mask of fear, Celestia's alight with a breathless excitement. They both took a deep breath and, in one fluid motion, turned around.

Luna gasped.

A creature neither had ever seen stood before them. It had the head of a pony, and the reptilian tail and foot of a dragon, but beyond that, it seemed an exercise in confusion. Instead of a proper twin, its dragon leg was paired with the hind limb of a goat, while its front limbs had no reptilian resemblance at all: an eagle claw and a lion cub's paw. Its body, while snakelike as it should have been, was covered in coarse brown fur, not a scale in sight. The oddness of it extended to its wings, for while one was the correct reptilian shape, the other carried the colorful plumage of a bluebird. Two horn nubs crowned a face decorated in white eyebrows and wide, yellow-red eyes that stared at the two fillies in tense silence.

Luna took a trembling step back. Celestia, transfixed, took one forward.

The creature took one forward, too.

As Luna watched, immobile with fear and a growing wonder, her sister and the creature slowly closed the distance between one another, inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, until their twitching muzzles nearly touched. It was the most peculiar sight: the pristine white filly mesmerized by that unknown creature, the creature likewise bound by the sight of the filly.

Even though the need to run filled her, Luna could not look away. What caught her, however, was neither the sight of her sister nor that of the newcomer, but the strange image they made together. Strange, yes, but somehow... right. That was what a distant part of her whispered: that there was something here that belonged here, and so she stayed.

The two stared at one another for what seemed like a lifetime to the paralyzed Luna, until Celestia's voice finally broke what had become an almost ethereal silence.

“What are you?”

It was a mere whisper, filled with the naked wonder that illuminated her face, but it might have been a shout for how it made the creature's goat-like ears spasm. For a moment, it simply continued to stare, but then it finally parted its lips in a warbling purr.

That was when Luna saw the fangs, and upon glimpsing those gleaming needles in its twisted muzzle, her equine instincts threw their panicked focus onto the talons and claws that the small creature possessed, finally defeating captive wonder with an intense shock of renewed terror.

With a shrill scream that pierced the woodland calm, Luna reared back and shot out of the clearing, already calling for their guardians.

Alarm broke Celestia's trance, and she turned to call after her sister only to find that it was too late. Behind her, the creature gave a strangled yelp as the great black form of Magnus leaped into the clearing, a flurry of furious snorts and thundering hooves. He crashed through the underbrush, leaves flying up from beneath his kicking hooves as he swung his massive head to and fro, searching for the source of danger. When his mad eyes fell on the trembling creature, he immediately put himself between it and Celestia, pushing her away with horn-borne magical force.

With a stallion's roar, he aimed that horn at his adversary.

“Go to Luna and Harpy, Celestia. Now!”

He reared up on his hind legs, wings magnificently flared, horn brilliant with crackling, raw energy that twisted and tore at anything it managed to touch.

Electric fear filled Celestia, and she cried out against this sudden madness.

“No! No, Magnus, wait! He wasn't doing anything! Please! Stop!”

“Yes, stop, Maggy, for goodness' sake!”

Harpy had appeared with her customary pop, and her laughter joined the din, bubbling forth as she landed heavily on Magnus' back and began to force him back onto all fours. This, as might have been expected, did not go over well with the second party.

“Harpy! What are you-- Stop! Take the fillies; get them to... what are you doing?!”

He tried desperately to keep his guardian's stance, but the weight of a snickering gryphon was too much. With an undignified thud, he found himself quadruped again, pawing at the ground with residual agitation as Harpy continued to chirp and squawk her merriment.

“What... Harpy. Harpy!” He began to turn 'round and 'round, trying to face the giggling fool on his back. When that didn't work, he gave a frustrated snarl and, in one furious motion, bucked her off.

She, of course, remained floating in midair, holding her sides as her laughter only intensified.

Luna watched the spectacle from a hiding place under a fallen log. Celestia and the newcomer, having come together again upon Harpy's appearance, watched from the middle of the clearing. All three children stared in amazement as the gryphon cheekily subdued her towering mate.

“Harpy!” Magnus finally choked out, “what is the meaning of this? Do you have any idea what that thing is?” He stabbed at the air with a trembling hoof, pointing off to the side. Beside Celestia, the creature cringed, and the little filly automatically leaned down to nuzzle it.

“A draconequus, yes?”

“That thing is a draconequus. A draconian horse, whose chief diet is... is... you know?” He snorted in blatant disbelief. “Harpy, you--”

“Odd-looking draconequus, though, isn't it? I've never seen one with feathers. Or with a lion's paw. And that other foot looks an awful lot like mine.” A grin was spreading across her avian features as she spoke. “Now, I wonder where we've seen this sort of oddity before...” With a cheeky giggle, she wiggled both fingers and toes in Magnus' face.

Realization slowly infiltrated his shocked expression, and he looked back down at the little draconequus curled up beside his charge.

“Blasphemy, Harpy. It cannot be. This creature... it cannot be the next--”

“Oh, what did you think? That it would be another gryphon? You know it doesn't work that way! Look at them, Magnus. Just look at it! Look at Cel--”

“He is not an 'it'!”

Both adults fell silent, turning surprised gazes onto the little filly. She faced them with spirited defiance, standing protectively in front of her apparent new companion. He, too, had risen to his mismatched feet. Though behind Celestia, he glared at the two guardians with a brave glare accentuated with the curl of his lip, tiny fangs gleaming in the afternoon light.

Harpy broke the tension with another squawking laugh. She landed in front of the children and, with absolutely no hesitation, began to ruffle the draconequus' black mane with a webbed hand. At first, he reacted with a startled yip, but strangely enough, quickly accepted the action. He looked up at her with a cautious trust that blossomed into genuine like when his eyes met hers for the first time.

“Of course he's not,” she reassured Celestia, who by now was also smiling at her antics. “So, what's your name, little kit?”

The smile faded from his pony face, replaced with a frown and a quirked eyebrow.

“Your name,” Celestia prodded gently. “You know: what your mother calls you.”

“He does not speak the common tongue. None of them do.”

They all turned at Magnus' voice, and he stepped up to join the little circle that they'd formed.

He remained the only unsmiling one of the group. Even Luna had emerged from her hiding spot, emboldened by Harpy's cavalier attitude and offering a tentative smile of apology to the little draconequus. He'd accepted with a toothy grin of his own, and though she'd winced, a pat from the gryphon had reinforced her confidence enough to ignore the new wisp of fear. Only Magnus stayed aloof.

Still, while he remained stern, all violence had left him, and he was calm enough as he circled the children, studying Celestia's new partner.

“We shall have to teach him to speak our tongue, if he is to stay.”

Celestia brightened at the statement, and Harpy snorted.

“Of course he's to stay! Plain as the hoof on his foot.” She stuck her tongue out at Magnus, who contented himself with just the slightest roll of the eyes.

“Well,” she turned back to the draconequus, “I think we'll just have to give you a name for now. Can't just call you 'draconequus' until you learn our language. Hmm... since you're to be mine, I think I'll take the honor.” She tapped her chin with an eagle talon, gazing skyward in thought. After a few moments, she clicked her talons together in excitement.

“I know! In honor of all the pandemonium you've caused today, a wonderful start, I must say, I'll call you Discord! How's that?”

Though the draconequus clearly could not understand a word being said, he grasped the tone, and a wide grin spread across his features at Harpy's enthusiasm and Celestia's answering giggle.

“Discord,” Celestia repeated, poking him in the chest with a pearly hoof. “You're Discord. Understand?”

To everyone's amazement, he furrowed his white eyebrows and slowly, carefully, moved his lips in mime. Voice eventually backed the movements, and he managed to get out a growled approximation of his new name.

“D-discord.”

Now he grinned hugely, chest jauntily puffing out first at their shocked expressions, then at the delighted laughter that followed. Celestia embraced him, and their mirth echoed through the forest. Luna soon joined in.

Beside them, even Magnus allowed a small smile, and Harpy resumed her floating position beside him with a satisfied nod.

“There now,” she purred, rubbing up against his thick neck as they watched the children begin to play, “just as planned.”

“You... you were...”

Marble floor and endless bookshelves faded back into blurry view.

Twilight did not wait for her vision to sharpen. She struggled to her hooves the moment she could, ignoring the vertigo that threatened to pull her back to the floor.

“You...” she tried again, tongue still heavy with semi-consciousness even while she searched about for Discord.

Images came and went, images she knew she had just seen. Images that were already fading but for one, the one that Twilight knew was utterly central to what she had just seen. Two young fillies. A young draconequus. Impossible. Impossible, but there it was.

She finally found Discord lounging directly above her, sunglasses in place, head resting causally in his folded arms.

“You were there,” she finally managed, pointing a trembling hoof at him, every muscle quivering with combined shock and disbelief. “You were there, when she was young. When... when you were young. You...”

She could go on no longer, too dizzy to continue. With a sick groan, she sat back down.

Luckily, she did not need to continue, for her little outburst was enough to provoke him into speech. With a short chortle, he took off his sunglasses, tossing them away into oblivion before rolling over onto his belly. Twilight grimaced as he reached down and, satisfied smirk firmly in place, tapped her lightly on the nose.

“Why, yes, my dear Twilight Sparkle. Yes, I was.”

A/N: Thanks for reading. Any and all comments will be showered with gratitude and appropriate amounts of internet affection.

Chapter Six: In Which Deception Continues

A/N: Deepest apologies for the wait. We shall try something different from now on: chapters half as long, twice as often.

Not much action here; mostly explanation and further foreshadowing.

Chapter 6: In Which Deception Continues

There was an exquisite beauty in the frantic darting of her eyes, a most sublime madness in how desperately her gaze begged clarity from whatever might grant it. So many shifting emotions lay behind those eyes, and Discord basked in their poignancy. Chilled fear; blind confusion; trembling disbelief; the only conceivable way it could have been any better was if he had the power to snap his talons and turn all of those raw feelings into so much smooth glass. And drink himself sick.

Yes. All of those delectable nuances running smooth and cracking down his throat, settling like sweet swirling vapors in his stomach...

Ah, but no matter about that; he'd done what he'd set out to do, and again it had worked well. So well, thanks to the ever-desperate, ever-neurotic mind of Twilight Sparkle. He allowed himself a celebratory chuckle, for his little pony was hardly in any shape to notice it, now, was she? No, no; she was still mid-shock, babbling to herself as she tried to make sense of what snippets of memory she'd managed to save from the fine show he'd just given her. The chuckle turned into shameless giggling; how terribly precious she was. And how satisfying.

He pulled a thick licorice stick from the ether of Twilight's mind and began to chew.

Satisfying was not the half of it. Necessary was closer.

Essential.

Absolutely crucial.

There was no other way he could have gotten through what he'd just shared. Heck, he couldn't have even mustered up the stability to handle simple recollection without those quaint little games. Every doubt, every stab of panic, every fresh attempt at bravery was a drop of soothing balm, returning and reinforcing threads of control as he'd watched, silently snickering, while Twilight had stumbled about in artificial blindness. Add to that little game the slights of tongue, the dubious promises, the cherished goal held so carefully out of reach, and oh, the reactions he'd been able to provoke! The anger, the despair, the kindling hope: constant shifts, constant leaps from one state to the next, and he'd given the writhing energies enough to brave his first memory.

That... well, if he called it an easy thing, he'd have been lying, plain and simple.

There had been a sort of vile pleasure in feeling those energies test what he'd brought up, sensing them sniff eagerly at the edges of the old forest, hungrily watch griffon and stallion, fillies and draconequus as he struggled to quell them with the last morsels of Twilight's little dramas. A twisted part of him welcomed their investigations, begged permission to let them prowl about each vivid scene and tear into the fractures of his own psyche that lay beneath. That was the part that was hardest to mollify: the part that shunned logic; the part where he and the eternal chaos blended and mixed at their tenuous boundaries. The part that erased those boundaries.

He'd done it, though! Oh, yes, yes, he'd done it. Hush, hush. You'll have your chance. When you're free, when we're free, when this dull rock is broken and turned to filthy dust, we'll all have our chance, and then Equestria will twist and turn and melt and shear but first just look at that little unicorn! Isn't she just darling? Lookit, lookit, see how she yells at books like they're going to answer? See how her sides heave? Feel that panic, that iced edge of helplessness that quickens her breath? How about the way she grasps, desperate and failing, at even the slightest shred of understanding?

His eyes devoured every second of Twilight's mounting confusion.

He chewed at his licorice.

The energies accepted his offerings and returned to prowling the recesses of his mind.

Good. Splendid.

Leave it all alone. Leave good 'ol Harps and Maggie alone. Leave the woods alone. Leave widdle baby Woona and Celly-welly alone. Leave that darling little draconequus oh wasn't I just the most precious thing alone. Leave them alone, leave them alone. Heck, you can have them later, but for now, leave them alone. Let me have them. Let me have them so that dear Twilight Sparkle doesn't.

For if Twilight Sparkle had them, if she could peer at each and every crucial detail all at once, it would be over. Hard enough now, with those memories needling away at his resolve with their truths. Hard enough to keep them away from his precious chaos. Hard enough with no grass to checker or chocolate to rain. With only Twilight's theatrics to keep him grounded.

If Twilight could question them, bring them up clear to the surface, throw them at him at will?

If he was forced to actively see at what he was looking at? See, instead of just vaguely acknowledge the events flowing on by?

Impossible, then.

Then memories would turn to raging and stabbing and snapping, and all chance of escaping this eternal numbness would vanish like so much wispy candy fog. And that couldn't happen. It couldn't. Never, never, never.

The notion was ice to his blood and inspired an inner shudder.

So there was only one thing to do, and oh, he'd managed it spectacularly! He was not really one for plans if he could help it, but this one had been worth it, so worth it. Every moment had been necessary: tricks to quell the chaos and learn her mind, careful manipulations to sever each bond as it strove to be, constant feeding on every new emotion to maintain stability.

But it worked! The moment she'd seen what must not be seen, he'd reached in, ever so delicate, and plucked the connection to oblivion. Severed it, like the thread of a pesky spider web. No other way but that, after all. Not here. Not when he was forced to use her mind as workspace. No lies, no true alterations, not in Twilight's little noggin. So he had to sever before the connections were permanent. Sever before his memory truly became hers. And so he did. So he had.

All of it nearly impossible in his precarious state, yet he had done it! Every step flawless, perfect, magnificent, and now he drank in her helpless confusion as delectable reward for the labor.

Mags and Harps would stay hidden beneath the surface he crafted. Hidden. Mismatched gryphon and ebony stallion. Mentor and guardian. When she laughed, it was like the cracking of a champagne glass made by hummingbirds, and when he spoke, his voice was the roots of mountains never-moving, and when they when she he wait wait stop go back don't look see but don't look--

Something shifted, and he pounced upon it.

A sigh flowed past his lips, easy and content as a tiny flame of anger flickered amongst the bewildered shadows of Twilight's thoughts. She was changing again, inviting ire as a possible savior, and he snagged the timely rescue with the relief of a victim and the glee of foal.

Ah, another close one. How wonderfully entertaining!

Even as part of him trembled relief, he indulged a giggle. Only a moment, though. Then rare practicality took hold, and he turned to meet Twilight's accusing glare with sly eyes.

“This doesn't make any sense, Discord! You're not being--”

Now, fillies and gentlecolts, wasn't she just the most darling little pony to ever live? Sense! The living end, if he did say so himself.

“Fair? Now, now, Twilight Sparkle,” he chided, “what did we say about sense and fairness?”

Clicking his tongue in mock disapproval, he reached down and grabbed her face with both paw and talon. With a gleeful grin, he forced her to mouth his words.

“'Why, Discord, you are the ever-magnificent spirit of chaos and disharmony, so sense and fa--'”

“Enough!” She wrenched herself free of his grip and, after taking a moment to rub at her reddened cheeks, glowered up at him anew. “You said you'd answer my question, but you've just given me more!”

Oh, glorious chaos, just feel that righteous indignation! That glowing ember of self-satisfied disgust, of furious repulsion, of... of... and... now it was boring. Ah, but that was hardly a problem. Hardly a problem at all. After all, he still had his hour, didn't he? Of course he did. His grin stretched wider.

“I do remember telling you, my dear, that I was not about to hand you your answers on a silver platter. No, no.” He twisted his face into a mockery of lofty dignity, paw and claw folded behind his back as he walked a circle around her.

“I believe the price was two hours of your conversation, no? And I've already taken one...”

She gave a weary sigh.

“I have to take another hour of you being a jerk before you tell me how... how...” The concept seemed too inconceivable for words, but she finally got it out through clenched teeth: “How you and the princesses knew each other?”

“Mm, yes. Precisely.”

“Fine. Fine, Discord. Let's get it over with, then.” Twilight visibly drooped as she sat down, mane hanging limp about her shoulders, ears angled low: the very picture of dejected acceptance. Exhausted. Long-suffering. A resigned little martyr.

He had her just where he wanted her. Perfection.

Now to take the maximum advantage of this ultimate low. He settled himself down in front of her, stretched out languidly on his belly with head propped up in paw. His tail, stretched out to double its usual length, dangled teasingly above them.

Anticipation danced in his glimmering eyes.

“I want you to tell me, Twilight Sparkle...”

He waited, took a breath, focused on her growing apprehension. In the back of his mind, something stirred. Stalked. Readied.

“...about...”

Despite her weariness, her ears perked up, leaning towards his words. He watched curiosity sprout, directed the prowler towards it. His grin stretched wider as anticipation became ready giddiness.

Another breath to draw out the tension. Any moment now, right when her attention hovered around feverish, and... now!

“...today's weather.”

The shift was instantaneous, and Discord lapped up her naked bewilderment as Twilight sat frozen in an open-mouthed gape. He did nothing to stop the giggles tickling his throat.

Delicious, as always. Oh, this was going to be fun.

The sun's rays crept over the horizon to herald the new day, and though Twilight Sparkle tried to turn away from their golden light, the grassy field yielded neither blanket nor pillow to serve as a shield. She was forced to accept the dawn alarm with a weary groan, pushing herself to her hooves with all the grace and energy of a crotchety old mare and shaking herself into some semblance of wakefulness.

It took her a few bleary moments to realize she was not in her own bed, a few more to realize she wasn't even in her own room, and a final instant of grouchy exasperation to remember exactly what had taken place the night before. Memories resurfaced rapidly as she performed an experimental stretch, gasping at the sudden discovery of a crick in her neck.

The most recent came first: the last bits of inane conversation Discord had subjected her to. Silly questions about the weather, about what she'd done yesterday, about how she styled her mane in the morning. She'd answered them with nothing but confusion coloring her words, but answer them she had, for that had been the deal, no?

Twilight began to stagger to the edge of the field, making her way back to town as the buzzing of diurnal insects replaced cricket song. She focused on the tired motion of her hooves to offset her bewilderment as she tried to make sense of what she'd seen.

Snippets trickled back, slower and patchier than images of the bizarrely normal conversations between herself and the draconequus. Impressions of a pristine forest; notions of two charming little fillies playing in the afternoon sunshine; the shaded glimpse of what she still struggled to accept as a very young Discord. This was the image that proved the most viscerally shocking, and she barely noticed that she was walking on town cobblestones until she had nearly reached the town square. Even then, she almost bumped into a mailbox as her mind refused to leave that unbelievable thought.

Discord, as a child.

Discord, meeting a young Celestia and an even younger Luna.

Discord, without the menacing trickery that so defined him in ponydom.

How... could that have been? Ever? Even in the vaguest, most unsubstantial beginnings of theory it didn't seem remotely possible, yet... yet that was what she had seen.

A gawky young draconequus meeting a lovely little white filly in a forest clearing, the two of them staring at one another with all the cautious curiosity of new discovery. Each carefully approaching the other, holding gaze, gradually replacing curiosity with wonder...

Wonder? Wonder?! How...

Yes, it had been wonder. That was one of the details that stood out best: the utter wonder in both their eyes as they'd approached with nary a touch of fear in their steps. It had remained even as the young Luna had shrieked her panic, returned even after the trauma of...

The trauma of...

Twilight stopped mid-step.

Trauma. Something traumatic had happened. Something after Luna had screamed, something that involved kicked-up leaf litter and panicked mewling. Something... something that she couldn't remember.

At all.

Twilight put a hoof to her forehead, as if gently rubbing the spot would bring up some useful information. That, of course, was fruitless. No matter how hard she tried, wading through both bits of pointless small talk and important sylvan scenes, she could not expand upon that notion of sudden catastrophe.

Nothing came forth.

Nothing came forth, and yet the more she thought about it, the less odd it seemed. The more she thought about it, the more the other, sharper memories stood out, and the idea of some awful middle scene began to fade unnoticed into the background.

She began to walk again.

In fact, after a few moments, it barely seemed to matter, what with the incredulity still inspired by the sight of young Discord and Celestia together, and another few moments took her mind off it completely. Even the more recent conversations with Discord, all involving some oddly pointless bit of small talk, overshadowed it. By the time Twilight Sparkle reached the town square and turned towards home, any and all notions of trauma had passed entirely from her mind.

That did not mean that confusion had left her; far from it. Between the impossible meeting and trying to figure out why Discord had expressed such interest in the daisy sandwich she'd had two days ago, Twilight was so entrenched in thought she only realized Applejack had been calling out to her when the farm pony clapped a friendly hoof on her shoulder.

“Howdy there, Twilight! How're you doin' this mornin'?”

It took a concerted effort for Twilight to keep from yelping in shock, and she gave her friend a shaky smile when she'd recovered from the suddenness of her greeting. She quickly opened her mouth, automatically grateful to have someone to vent her frustrations to, only to quickly snap it shut.

Despite falling asleep in the field, she really was exhausted if she'd nearly done that. It would have been a fatal mistake.

She quickly covered up her error with what she hoped was a chipper smile.

“Good morning, Applejack! Oh, I'm doing fine. Just fine! Just taking a morning stroll to stretch my legs.”

She kept her smile firmly in place, only to have it met by a quirked eyebrow and narrowed eyes.

Perhaps she had laid it on too thick?

When she watched her friend glance down at what she suddenly realized were her trembling knees, she decided that “too thick” was an appropriate description. Too appropriate.

Applejack cleared her throat.

“Ah... Twi, you all right there, sugarcube? You seem a bit... uh... um...”

“Tired!” Twilight offered, struggling to control pep she finally identified as a barely-contained nervous breakdown. With monumental effort, she softened her smile.

Applejack, personal honesty granting her an uncanny ability to detect falsehoods, peered closely at Twilight's careful expression.

“Tired? Why in the name of crimped oats are you out for a walk if you're tired? No shame in taking a couple more hours shuteye. 'Specially if you don't have to be up bright and early for farm chores.”

Inwardly, she scrambled for an answer, nearly breathing a very obvious sigh of relief when it came to her.

“Ah, well, you know: really shouldn't skip out on exercise! You're always telling me how I should be more active, seeing as I'm stuck inside with books all day. Anyway,” she straightened a bit, feeling a shred of confidence as Applejack stepped back, “I'm just tired because I was working on some new regulations the Princess had sent me. You know: book organization, cataloguing references, reading group timeslots. I was just taking my daily stroll before heading in to take a nap.”

An outright lie, and Twilight was amazed, even a little disturbed, at how easily it spilled from her dry lips. Still, it was better than admitting the truth, especially to someone like Applejack, and she felt palpable relief as the suspicion faded from her friend's face, replaced with a touch of bashfulness as Applejack rubbed the back of her head with a hoof.

“Aw, shucks, Twilight, I guess you're right; just don' like seeing ya looking so poorly.”

At Twilight's forgiving smile, she brightened.

“I guess you've got your work cut out for you, though, dontcha? Shoot, you and the Princess being so close and all, I bet she's got you doing all sorts of important things at the library. Silly of me to forget, really.”

“Oh, that's perfectly fine, Applejack. I'm sure everyone's been working very hard since the announcements yesterday.”

Applejack laughed.

“Darn right they've been! Why, Big Macintosh and I must've chopped down at least twenty trees yesterday. Shame to see them drop, but feels mighty good knowin' the Princess is lookin' out for us. Orchard looks mighty fine with all those Red Delicious apples standing out like they are. It's gonna be quite a sight once we're done.”

A shiver crawled down Twilight's spine, but she kept her expression and nodded.

“I'm sure it will.”

Applejack, clearly taken by thoughts of her altered orchard, seemed to have totally forgotten her previous suspicions. She fairly beamed at Twilight as the two mares began to part ways.

“Yup. Well, I'll let you go take your nap, Twi. I'm sure you want to get back to work anyway, and I've got to go buy some new ax heads at the market. Why don't you come over in the afternoon, stop by for some apple juice? I'm sure we'll both be hankerin' for a break by then!”

“Sure! Sure, I'll stop by after I've got a few more books settled. See you later, Applejack!”

“So long!”

And with that, Applejack resumed her trot to the market stalls.

Twilight was left with a chilled nausea making her stomach clench. Beads of sweat glistened on her brow, and she grimaced as soon as she was sure Applejack was out of sight.

All of the sick disbelief of yesterday came flooding back as, distracted from thoughts of Discord, Twilight took the time to actually notice her surroundings. It took her only a moment to see that Applejack and Big Macintosh were not the only ones that had been working hard.

The sky caught her attention first, for its state was something she had never even conceived of, let alone seen. Every cloud, every single cumulus, stratus, and cirrus, floated serenely in a very obvious, very narrow belt mid-sky. Above and below that belt was empty blue; not even a lone straggler had been allowed out of the new zone Princess Celestia had designated. It was as if every visible puff of cloud vapor had been herded into some bizarre river that cut the Equestrian sky in two.

The sight of it brought bile to her throat, not because of any traditional sense of violence or horror, but because of an unsettling wrongness she could not even put into words. Everything about the celestial view was unnatural, nearly as bizarre as Discord's green sky had been. Worse, even, for during their conversation, Applejack hadn't mentioned it at all. She hadn't even looked at the abomination, and that was the most disturbing thing of all.

Here Twilight stood, knees shaking out of instinctive fear, and Applejack hadn't even commented on their freakish new sky.

Freakish? Abomination?

Were those words too strong?

Twilight glanced up again, only to shudder.

No; definitely not too strong.

For something that involved nothing obviously terrifying to elicit such an awful gut reaction, 'abomination' possibly was not strong enough.

She began to walk again, struggling to bring some stability to her thoughts. She could barely manage, for the further she went, the more distressing Ponyville seemed. All around her, standing innocently under the cloud belt, were buildings whose fronts had all been repainted the same shade of mauve. Flowerbeds had been replanted with a strange new rose variety whose petals were all of equal diameter. Cobblestones had been meticulously chiseled to feature perfect ninety degree angles.

Ears pinned back, lips trembling, sweat running down her neck, Twilight walked on through this sideshow of disturbing sameness. At this point, other ponies began to fill the streets, beginning to go about their daily lives. The sight of them, all calm, all happy, all normal except for the occasional concerned glance at her condition, made the situation even more eerie.

Like the chilling buildup to an awful horror film.

The more she saw, the more light-headed she felt, and by the time she had reached the library she was breathing deep, slow breaths in an attempt to keep on her hooves. With one last shuddering glance at the surreal scape behind her, she pushed the door open and disappeared inside.

Once her eyes had adjusted to the indoor light, her heart sank even further, for there, in the center of the main room sat Spike. Surrounding him were piles of books, some still normal, but most stripped of their old covers and dressed instead in brand new, dusky red backing.

All the same color. All the same texture.

All the same.

Twilight swallowed back a gasp when Spike turned to her with a perfectly bright, perfectly normal smile.

“Hey, Twilight. You weren't around when I got up, so I started on the Princess' orders myself. Don't the books look great? I thought it'd be harder to tell them apart with all the spines being the same color, but I think it gives 'em a sort of... Twilight?”

She'd been staring, she realized, staring at the sight of her dragon assistant methodically switching out book covers for no discernible reason. It took monumental effort to tear herself away from the piles of identical books and throw Spike a quick, utterly fake, smile.

“They look great, Spike; just great! I... I'm sure the Princess will be very pleased.”

“Hmph, she'd better be. This is awful for my claws.”

He cracked his knuckles for emphasis, leaning back with a sigh.

“You think you could help me after you write your letter to the Princess? It'd probably go faster with your magic.”

“My letter?”

“Jeez, Twi, don't tell me you forgot! Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

Immediately, she realized her mistake, and added a fake laugh to her fake smile.

“Oh, I did, Spike, don't worry! I remember: my letter. Of course. It's just been a busy day already, seeing all the work everyone's been doing.”

She crossed the room under his suspicious gaze, making her way to her makeshift office.

“I'll help you out as soon as I'm done.”

“Well...” his eyes narrowed, but Spike had never been one to disbelieve her, and he acquiesced quickly, “okay. I'll see you later. You wanna go out for lunch today? I'm not sure I'll have time to make anything good with all these books I have to go through.”

“Sure! Right after I'm done with my letter.”

“Make it a quick one; I'm starving!”

He turned back to his strange work, and the sound of dragon claws cutting through thick bindings followed her into the other room.

The moment she closed the door behind her, the fake happiness all but slid off her face, leaving her expression the picture of anxious dread.

Spike. Her darling Spike.

Her assistant.

Her little brother.

She'd been stunned, disturbed, by Applejack's nonchalance regarding the whole ordeal. When she'd seen other ponies acting likewise, those feelings had intensified.

Now, however, the sight of her beloved Spike acting so unnaturally brought not only shock and anxiety, but a distilled fear that nearly crossed over into panic. Her breaths came in quick pants as she leaned up against her desk, mind frantically running through ideas, plans, solutions. She came up with very little, but one notion kept returning to her, and it quickly cemented itself as the only rule in this unwelcome game:

She'd been right; there was no help for her to be found amongst Pony-folk.

None.

Oh, she'd already told herself that, multiple times, but what she'd seen today in town and at home simply proved her completely right. There was no help to be had when Ponyville had gone entirely mad on the order of the Princess. The Princess!

She whimpered.

A part of her had still held on to the secret hope that she would eventually break down and confess everything to her mentor, that Celestia would come to her rescue. That she would silence Discord once and for all, putting an end to all of the uncomfortable thoughts he'd manged to foster. That hope was gone, now. It had breathed its last when she'd laid eyes on the horrible sky, a sky that Princess Celestia had requested the pegasi craft.

Twilight really had no choice but to look to Discord now. No choice but to entertain a new hope that whatever he told her would unravel this awful mystery.

The realization was both crippling and strangely liberating, a conflict so bizarre that Twilight Sparkle began to giggle as her nerves frayed a little further. She only stopped when she spotted the waiting quill and parchment on her desk. Giggles turned to trembling sobs, and she only barely retained enough control to keep them quiet, so that Spike would not hear them.

Having already made her decision to go forward with what she'd started, she now had the unhappy realization that she would have to commit what she understood as a grievous crime. Right now. Immediately.

She would have to write a letter to Celestia. A letter that, normally, would have involved a simple check-in with her mentor.

This time, that letter would involve an outright lie. Multiple outright lies.

The first she had ever told to the one whom she loved above all else.

Nausea returned, and Twilight lay her head down on the desk, breathing deeply to stifle both ill feeling and soft sobs. A few moments later, she rose, eyes devoid of any uncertainty. Her magic reached out and grasped the quill, raising it above the parchment as Twilight took a final, steadying breath.

Terrible though it was, it had to be done.

Some fresh madness had grasped the Princess; one only had to look outside, to the town and the sky to see that.

That nameless, unknown madness was something that only she, Twilight Sparkle, could see, and so, by her love for Celestia, it was something that only she would have to combat. For that, she would use any weapon necessary.

Even Discord.

She would lie. She would risk. She would do anything to reverse the sickness that had gripped her princess.

With those final thoughts allowing courage to replace despair, Twilight Sparkle began to write.

Dear Princess Celestia...

...Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle

Despair coursed through her as she finished perusing the letter her sister had read, smiling, earlier that day. Her magic faded away, dropping the parchment back to the ivory table as she stepped away, dipping her face to the moonlight and drawing strength from it as she tried to accept what she had just read.

Acceptance, acquiescence, obedience. All of these qualities shined through the written words, words praising the insidious changes taking place in Ponyville and its surrounding countryside. She closed her eyes against the ramifications of those words, ears pinning as anger sparked up in the face of sudden hopelessness.

The one chance she'd conceived of, her one means of working through this eternal disaster, seemed lost to her, and with a strangled cry, she whipped back around. Her magic flared, tendrils of shadow grasping at the letter with the intent of hurling it across the room in her desperate frustration.

The moon stopped her.

Its silver whispers soothed her rage and, more importantly, directed her attention to the delicate aura of emotion clinging to the scroll. It was not surprising, really, for it to do this, for it was common knowledge amongst most magic-users that the moon dealt with emotion and feeling the way the sun dealt with boisterous activity and growth. What was surprising was what she found when she allowed her attention to touch that aura.

It did not match the letter's words. On the contrary, where the words gave praise and agreement, despair and fear clouded her mental vision. As she delved deeper, they gave way to a stark confidence and a determination that was almost akin to anger in its ferocity.

For a few moments, she prodded at these sensations, examining them with the greatest care, ensuring that she was not misreading the unseen miasma of feeling. When she was certain that what she sensed was the truth, she lay the parchment back down with the utmost care.

The moonlight painted dazzling streaks in her nebulous mane as she turned her muzzle up to her namesake in thanks.

Then, with a satisfied smile dominating her features, she left the room, turning for the library to continue her work.

As it turned out, all was not lost.

Far from it.

A/N: All comments will be treated with the deepest internet affection. Til next time, compadres.