Chapter 1: A Form With Which They Are Comfortable
Chapter 1: A Form With Which They Are Comfortable
The place was noplace and everyplace, but it was a very particular place. The time was notime and everytime, but it was also a very particular time, to the Being who occupied this place at this time.
These facts, stated together, might make little sense in terms of our own mortal understanding, limited as we are to the direct perception of four dimensions, and in such a manner that we incorrectly imagine that space and time are different things. To the Being who sat on her Seat in her Palace -- these being only very rough analogues of the incomprehensible thing she really did in the indescribable structure she occupied -- the Universe occupied some fifty-two dimensions, more or less (depending on the definition she was using of a "dimension"), some of which were "space," some "time," and others things far less meaningful in mortal terms; she was aware of her coordinates in all these dimensions to a fullness and precision which not even the finest mortal mind might grasp.
That Being, who was in a sense the essence of the strong nuclear force, but which we might choose to call "Fusion," after the manifestation of that Force most obvious and spectacular to beings which evolve on worlds circling stars, or in environments where they may directly view the Universe in the optical spectrum, did a thing which we may take as the equivalent of inviting over two of her friends for a conversation and small celebration. It was a good thing that these two other beings shared her awareness of multi-dimensional coordinates, as the chance of them arriving at the same ones by pure accident would have been truly infinitesmal.
So it was, at the appropriate "time," her friends manifested in a "space" adjacent to her own. Which is to say, they were there for the party.
Now, to describe what happened next, I am forced to adopt certain conventions of appearance and action which I must confess are not strictly accurate, but without which any description would be logically-impossible. We are not immortal coalescences of Cosmic forces and tendencies, we are not able to directly perceive at least fifty-two dimensions of existence, and we do not have minds equipped to understand beings of such nature and magnitude, any more than the chemical signals which work the cellular machinery of a bacterium can grasp the nature and magnitude of a being such as ourselves.
For instance, I might describe Fusion as a vast sphere, shimmering with all the colors of the electromagnetic spectrum and all the vibrations of the strong force, surrounded by an aura which was thus something like a rainbow, and which was attuned to the rest of the Universe in such a fashion that one might see within it twinkle all the stars of Creation; that within that shimmer blinked an infinite number of extremely beautiful violet eyes, surrounded by an infinite number of shapely horns, and lazily-fanned an infinite number of white fleecy wings. And from her eyes and horns and wings there radiated an ancient subtle wisdom.
And that description would be almost as accurate, or inaccurate, as imagining her to be simply a tall winged white woman of great majesty, upon whose brow was fixed a brilliant star whose radiance projected outward like a horn, and whose long multi-hued hair billowed about her like a rainbow. For the truth of the Cosmic Concept of Fusion is far less comprehensible, and if we grasped it we might go mad from its wonder and glory, for all that She is fundamentally-friendly to our kind of life.
However one chose to see her, Fusion was supernally beautiful, and creative and good. For it was Fusion who worked her nuclear alchemy upon matter, and gave to the Universe a complex chemistry, forging the very elements upon whose existence we mortals depend. And she loved the Universe and the Life within it, and was in turn well-beloved by it.
As to her friends ...
One was more compact, and dark where Fusion was light, and her halo or hair was the subtly shaded dark blue of the night sky by moonlight, and in it also shone the stars, the brighter by contrast with her darkness. Her eyes were blue and seemed almost innnocent, but in them was great depth and intelligence. She was Gravity, and she called herself a simple Concept, for all she did was to hold things together. And yet, to hold things together is not something to be scorned, when the fire of Paradox spreads and the fabric of all things is threatened, and at such moments Gravity was ever by her friends, never fearing the hottest part of the fight, and for this reason all who knew her well did greatly love her.
Gravity was the Sister of Fusion, and they loved one another eternally and inseperably, save when they fought. And when they loved, Gravity would draw together the starstuff, and Fusion ignite it, and the heavens blaze with brilliant glory. And when they fought, the heavens would blaze in quite another manner, and galactic superclusters form in ways that would quite puzzle the astrophysicsts of later ages and orders. But no matter over what they fought, they would always in due time mend their quarrels, for when all was said and done, they were Sisters, and best friends.
Gravity came on time. She had always been quite punctual.
The third came a little late, for he was whimsical, and scorned the very concept of punctuality as beneath his nature. He was different from the Sisters, for while they were Forces, which was to say Concepts of Law; he was a Tendency, which was to say a Concept of Chaos. While we may imagine the Sisters as spherical or at least symmetrical entities, he was ...
How shall I describe Dissonance?
Imagine an animate mass of muti-colored lightning bolts or strings, flashing and vibrating between nodes in a network whose apparent patternlessness was dizzying to behold. Even his fellow Concepts found him rather disconcerting, and for that reason few of them got on well with him at all. His eyes were red and yellow, and shifted and whirled madly about his nodes.
Or if you prefer, imagine a tall, thin, winged and bicornate man, clad in motley and capering like a fool. None of his parts, neither arms nor legs nor wings nor horns nor even eyes, is truly symmetrical. Many would find this ugly and annoying -- but a certain very devious and mischevious sort of mind might find him bearable. Or even beautiful. And certainly hilarious.
One might not imagine the Sisters had minds like that.
One would be quite wrong.
Especially about Fusion.
Their manner of communication was as beyond us as were their minds in general. They did not so much 'speak' in our linear sense of the term, as project complex scenarios, ones almost tiny worlds in and of themselves, to each other. But, since an even remotely adequate display of such messages would require that I write a novel out of each phrase they spoke, I will instead greatly simplify their communications, reducing them to the level of mortal speech -- as if I reduced Hamlet's famous speculation about whether it was better to resist or perish to the level of bacterial chemical signals about their numbers and the likely availability of food.
"I'm sure you both missed me," said Dissonance, as he manifested in the Palace. "No doubt, I am the chief topic of your conversation!"
"You're late," commented Gravity, with deliberate rudeness.
"Oh, being on time is so boring," Dissonance replied. "That's just the easy and unimagninative way to keep everything from happening at once."
Gravity snorted. She felt the need to register her disapproval of Dissonance, the more so because of a thing which had happened to all three of them over twelve and a half billion years ago, which still sometimes bothered her -- and which she still sometimes saw in her dreams. Some of those dreams were anything but disapproving of Dissonance, a fact which bothered her all the more.
"I'm happy to see you," said Fusion, smiling warmly at her old friend. "I know you'll love my new idea."
She showed them all a model of a terrestrial planet -- of an Earth, to be plain, which while not precisely our Earth, was very similar. At least the outlines of the continents were close to identical, and the dominant sapient species was a eutherial mammal.
"That world?" Dissonance scoffed. "Fusion, you've been obsessed with that planet for the last quarter-billion years now, ever since that little accident that wiped out the trilobites. And it's not really all that interesting. Rather simple life forms, really. Not much imagination. Would anycept -- aside from you, of course -- really care if all life on its surface perished?"
"Yes, for once I must agree with Dissonance ..." began Gravity.
Dissonance turned and grinned at Gravity, "Oh, you fan the romantic fires of my soul with such flirtatious flattery ..."
"... much as it annoys me to have to do so," said Gravity, doing something which amounted to flushing angrily, and which if she had done in what we would call normal spacetime would have minutely but detectably altered several cosmic constants for dozens of light-years around herself. "That planet is unimportant -- it bears sapient life, yes, but so do trillions upon trillions in the Universe. I don't see what's so special about it."
"These are what is so special about it," explained Fusion, unperturbed by the skepticism of her two best friends. And she projected some other images.
We might call them pictures of animals, and we would be correct in doing so. To discuss their numbers and types, we would have to explain that what she was really showing were occupied and hypothetical genetic and memetic possibility spaces for five morphs of one species, making up a mass of information by comparison of which all that in today's Earthly libraries would constitute a rather short pamphlet. It might help if we thought of her as showing just ten pictures, one male and one female of each morph.
The species was equinoid, rather resembling our Earthly ponies, but with some differences. The most obvious difference was that they were gorgeously and wildly colored, includiing many hues not part of any normal mammalian color palette. They were large-brained, big-eyed and clearly neotenous. Subtler skeletal features included ball and socket shoulder joints and a high amount of general bodily flexibility. There were complex structures on the frogs of their hooves, ones which allowed almost the degree of fine manipulation as might primate hands.
The morphs were like nothing seen in normal mammalian evolution.
To begin with, all of them had a sector of the brain which to the senses of the observing Concepts was plainly designed to allow the conversion of chemical into psychokinetic energy. In mortal terms, all of this species were inherently and powerfully magical.
The most basic morph was entirely equinoid in its exterior, but with powerful muscles, highly-efficient organs and massively reinforced bones, enabling it to perform feats of strength and endurance and survive injuries beyond those any normal equinoid could endure. In them, conduits conveyed psychokinetic power to hooves and mane and tail, allowing highly-dextrous contact telekinesis, and a complex filamentary network telekinetically reinforced their already formidable physical structure. These beings would be hardy and difficult to destroy, whether by disease or violence.
The second morph lacked these extensive reinforcements, but instead fed its psychokinetic power directly into a stubby horn that protruded from their foreheads. The horn acted as an antenna, allowing ranged projection and reception of psychokenetic energies. The detection and simple manipulation of such energies, and the performance of basic tasks such as illumination or telekinesis, would be but the easiest use of this horn: the observers could plainly simulate how a sufficiently powerful and skilled mortal with such an appendage might duplicate even some of the minor powers of the Concepts themselves, on a very limited scale.
The third morph was a departure from the standard tetrapod plan. The creature had six rather than the normal four limbs, the two extras being added on just behind the forelegs by means of a doubled shoulder joint and reinforced spine. The additional limbs were not mammalian limbs, but avian wings, albeit short and stubby ones given that their possessor was a large animal. The morph could never have flown or even effectively glided on such short wings, were they not effector membranes for the psychokinetic organ, with thick conduits running from the organ to the wings. The psychokinetic energy was projected as a telekinetic shield and thruster, a flight field that levitated, propelled and protected the creature when it was airborne.
The fourth morph had less extreme but still extensive anatomical modifications. The hind legs had vanished, but the tail grown long and muscular. In place of hides and manes they had scales, and large rayed dorsal fins. Breathing was by means of both lungs and gills, and both ears and voice boxes much improved to allow the projection and reception of sound both above and under water. Psychokinetic conduits ran to the gills to increase oxygen uptake, the tail for improved swimming performance, and most especially the voice-box, enabling them to do magic with their voices.
The fifth morph was also winged, like the third, but its wings were insectoid rather than avian, large four-lobed structures like the wings of a butterfly. These structures not only projected a flightfield like that of the third morph, but also -- in conjunction with minor organs in the forehead, mouth and stomach -- enabled the creature to empathically sense and affect all other life around it. The simulation showed how these creatures operating in eusocial swarms, would be able to control and manage the surrounding ecosystem, for the benefit of themselves and the species as a whole. Their own ecological impact would be slight, since they needed food only for the physical matter of their bodies: they drew most of their energy from their empathic link, sipping only a little from each of many other life forms, so they might be sustained without harming their hosts. They were, thus, the ultimate symbionts.
"Behold," said Fusion, beaming with pride, and saying for the first but far from the last time in Her existence: "My Little Ponies."
"They seem a little -- girly," said Gravity, frowning. "Though the Pegasi are rather impressive, what with flight and cloud-walking. How's their night vision?"
"Nothing exceptional," admitted Fusion, "though their vision as a whole is acute. They are essentially diurnal creatures."
Gravity sniffed. "Most of yours tend to be," she complained. "You want them to bask in the light of their Sun, but neglect their appreciation of the glories of the other planets in their system, and the massed stars beyond, all of which is drowned out by your daylight."
"These are but the basic morphs," Fusion pointed out, rather annoyed. "Natural evolution, or other influences, may further modify them."
"Oh, lighten up," said Dissonance, looking at the images from several angles at once, which required contortions unusual even to the Concepts. "They're all unimaginatively Lawful, of course, but they have the potential to be interesting." He peered closely at the second morph. "Now these Unicorns, they can manipulate magic in some very flexible ways. I can see all sorts of delightful trouble they could cause ... and you've got a species here with five very different shapes. They could make alliances against each other and fight wars and run advertising campaigns ... delicious! ..." He pursed his lips. "Of course, they'd be even more interesting if I made some changes to them ..."
"I quite like the first morph too," said Gravity. "Those Earth Ponies are sturdy little things. They would bear up well under any hardship!"
"Yes," agreed Dissonance. "Tougher toys are much more fun to play with!"
"They're not for torturing," said Fusion. "I think they could be a really great race someday. That's why I studied them so much."
"Studied them," said Dissonance, smirking at Fusion. "Don't you mean ... made them?"
"I don't know what you're ..." Fusion began.
"That is right, Sister," said Gravity. "You have spent lot of time incarnate on that world, haven't you? And some of it was during the heights of the Great G'marr and High Eldren ..."
"Oh, yes," said Dissonance, chuckling. "And both of them were skilled biomancers. You probably gave them a little helping hand on their work ... didn't you?"
"I suppose I might have done so," Fusion admitted, smiling archly. "I am, after all, a very helpful Concept."
"When you want to be," groused Gravity. "I do not see why you should favor those -- 'Little Ponies,' as you termed them -- with so much of your personal attention."
"They are honest," answered Fusion, "and loyal. And funny. All virtues I know you to admire, dear Sister."
"Hmmph," said Gravity, mulling it over. "I suppose I do find the Pegasi dashing. And those Earth Ponies are tough little creatures."
"I'm neither all that honest, nor loyal," boasted Dissonance. "Proof of which is that I'm hanging around here with you two Forces, instead of with my fellow Tendencies."
"That's because you've gone all soppy on my Sister," said Gravity, yawning. "And, for some reason I can't fathom, she doesn't just tell you to go plow through a really dense nebula."
"Now, that's just nasty, Baby GooGoo," said Dissonance, using a pet name for Gravity that he knew she hated.
Gravity glared at him a moment. Then, she once again examined the world.
"Too bad so many of the other races the Eldren made died out," commented Gravity. "I watched their final war. They had several lineages of their fellow primates who might have been promising, had not they perished to tailored viruses in the fighting."
Fusion nodded. "There are worldbundles in which the equinids died, and the hominids lived," she said. "But on the main one I examine here, it was the equinids who survived."
"There are still many races surviving on our worldbundle," Dissonance said, peering at the planet in fascination. "Lots of possibilities for all sorts of fun random interactions. I'm sure I could make them even more interesting ..."
"Dissy, you are not to meddle!" Fusion scolded him.
"Oh?" asked Dissonance, recoiling and then coiling round the representation of the planet, like some impossibly-vast ophidian creature. "And what if I want to? It's not as if this is somehow your special planet ..."
"I've put a lot of work into it," said Fusion.
"Perhaps I want to put a lot of my own sort of work into it too," pointed out Dissonance.
"I'm afraid that you're just going to wreck it all," said Fusion, crossing numerous complex and indescribable appendages.
"Why would you say that?" asked Dissonance, looking genuinely hurt. "I'm very creative -- you can hardly deny it, it's one of the big reasons you enjoy my company!"
"Very creative of really big messes," observed Gravity, hmmphing a distortion of spacetime at him.
"That supercluster only broke up when you and Fusion started fighting," pointed out Dissonance. "I had nothing to do with those hypernovae."
"Yes," replied Gravity, "but Sister and I only started fighting because you egged us on against each other."
"Well, a Concept has to do something to keep things fun when conversations get boring."
"I think," said Fusion, "that it has always bothered me more than a little bit that you consider ripping apart a galactic supercluster to be 'keeping things fun.'"
"It's not as if any of us got really hurt by that," muttered Dissonance.
"And the billions of civilizations ...?" asked Fusion.
"Just groups of mortals," said Dissonance. "No great loss."
"That is the attitude that bothers me," Fusion emphasized.
"Actually, Dissy has a point," Gravity said. "That was about a twenty-fifth of the Universe ago; all those civilizations would be gone by now in any case. Mortals are so short-lived; even the cultures they build don't last all that long. We can't take them too seriously."
"They take themselves seriously," said Fusion, looking aside. "We take them seriously, when we take their forms."
"Yes," said Dissonance, "and that's one of the really fun ideas you came up with. But, my dear Fusion, half the fun is when the forms we take die, and we wake up later, and realize all the silly things we thought when we were in the mortal dream. It provides a necessary counterpoint of absurdity to the more serious things we do up here on the real level."
"Is that all we can learn from mortality?" asked Fusion, looking back up at Dissonance. "I had hoped, when I first thought of the idea, that we might learn more. Perhaps, a deeper appreciation of this Universe we defend?"
"I do not see how we can possibly appreciate the Universe any better from the limited perspective of an Avatar than we can from our own superior senses, Sister," commented Gravity. "Though I will admit that I have at times found our excursions into mortality interesting."
"Yes, it's a lark," said Dissonance. "I wonder what it would be like to adventure among your Little Ponies?"
"It might affect you more deeply than you expect," said Fusion. She gazed at the morphs again. "I think that my Little Pones are something special."
"Meh," said Dissonance. "Seen one sapient species, seen 'em all. Oh, I mean I'm sure there will be all sorts of entertaining oddities about these creatures. There is something interesting about almost any sapient species. But, when all is said and done, they are nothing compared to us."
"You're just going to wind up destroying them anyway," said Gravity accusingly. "That's what you do, in the end. Cause a lot of clumsy destruction ..."
"That's not me!" protested Dissonance angrily. "That's my brother --"
"You certainly don't mean to destroy," said Fusion, making placating alterations of reality at him. "But sometimes you play too rough -- you're a bit careless --"
"I can be subtlety incarnate ..." boasted Dissonance.
"Hah!" laughed Gravty. "I'd like to see that!"
"In any case, Dissy," said Fusion, "I think you'll find them interesting because they're funny, and magical, and ... and kind."
"I'm not kind," stated Dissonance. His Family counted kindness a weakness.
"Yet you are often drawn to kindness," Fusion observed.
"Bah," said Dissonance. "I am but a predator, drawn to his natural prey." He essayed a predatory snarl at Fusion. "You are helpless in my coils."
"I do not," said Fusion, briefly pressing her exterior event membrane against his outer node, "feel threatened."
Dissonance could make no coherent reply during this physical contact.
"Well," said Fusion, smiling at both of the others. "I have brought you here to let you know of my plan to experiment upon my Little Ponies; to make Avatars with which to influence them -- very gently and subtly -- to see what we can make of them. They may one day be a very great race -- my crowning achievement and great glory! And as you are the two I value most in all Creation, I want to let you know my plans!"
"This seems unwise," commented Gravity.
"In what way?" asked Fusion.
"They seem rather silly little things to support such greatness as you hope for," Gravity pointed out. "They are not very warlike; they are very sentimental. They will have many merry parties, but can they survive long in a Universe mostly uncaring?"
"I care about them," objected Fusion.
"Yes," said Dissonance, "but lovely as you may be, dear Fusion, you are but one Concept among many, and there are very many dangers in the Universe." He grinned wickedly. "So many things that might spoil their jolly little parties." He licked his lips. "That would find them -- tasty." He coiled round the displayed globe, once more like an impossibly great serpent.
"Dissonance!" cried Fusion. "They are my special project. I absolutely forbid you from interfering in their destiny!"
"Forbid me?" asked Dissonance, half-snarling. "Lady, you forget to whom you do speak. I am no Helper to be commanded by a Power. I am a Power myself in my own right!"
"Hah!" laughed Gravity. "My Sister commands you all the time. it's just that she usually does it by flashing a glimpse of her past-worldlines as she goes by, instead of telling you outright."
"Since when?" asked Dissonance angrily.
"Since half an aeon after the Beginning," replied Gravity, her laughter a mocking giggle. "Thirteen aeons, more or less. When she's here you can think of nothing but her." A brief cloud seemed to pass before her many eyes. "I'm glad I don't waste my time on this mushy stuff!"
Quantum foam seemed to boil from Dissonance's sensor-nodes. "I'll do what I want to do!" he vowed. "I am completely free."
"Keep telling yourself that," retorted Gravity.
"Well," said Fusion. "I am quite bored with this bickering. I'm going to make some preparations, and generate an Avatar among my Little Ponies. And I have a template already designed."
A projection sprang forth.
"Behold!" said Fusion. "My Avatar. The sixth morph!" She projected the image of a Pony mare.
It was white as sunlight, its hair the pink radiance of the dawn, and within that mane glimmered the firmament. Its psychic energy generation organ was immense, and other structures allowed the generation of energy by nuclear fusion and a direct energy tap from a Cosmic Concept. Though the morph normally breathed ordinary air and ate ordinary food, it did not really need to do either in order to survive.
It had the secondary psychic energy structures of all five of the other morphs: the physical reinforcements and mane and hoof filaments of the first morph; the horn of the second morph; the wings of the third morph; and the ability to shift its structure into the voicebox, gills and tail of the fourth morph or the sensitive but psychically-powerful wings of the fifth. It had all the powers of all five morphs of Ponies.
"The Alicorn," said Fusion proudly. "My Alicorn, to be precise; but any other Concept who wishes may assume their own Alicorn form -- it will be easy, by morphic resonance projecting both forward and backward in time. Any Concept who wishes, or will wish, or has wished to incarnate an immortal Avatar among the Ponies will become Alicorn, unless they choose to become something else.
"This particular Alicorn I shall call Epona Amaterasu, though other Alicorns may go by different names, and will certainly have different appearances in fine detail."
"Very nice," commented Gravity, examining Epona Amaterasu. "It is definitely you, Sister, and it does wonderfully combine the merits of all five mortal morphs."
"Bor-ing," objected Dissonance. "Good enough for you Concepts of Law, with your rigid adherence to the principles of order, but entirely lacking in any surprises. Why, she's almost completely symmetrical!"
"You are welcome to make your own Avatar," pointed out Fusion, "at roughly the same power level."
"Oh, I shall," promised Dissonance, smiling a bit wickedly.
"I hope you do," said Fusion. "I would not at all mind if you joined me." She looked at Gravity. "Indeed, you are both welcome to join me, provided that you follow my rules."
"Alas, I have more important things to do right now," said Gravity. "Matter to herd, Paradox to fight."
Fusion looked disappointed.
"Maybe I'll stop by a few times to see how you're doing," Gravity added placatingly. She had never had much resistance to her Sister's sadness; it was only Fusion's vanity that sometimes made her want to quarrel with her.
Fusion smiled warmly. "I'll look forward to it, Sister,' she said. "It is always your company I love the best."
They briefly entangled worldlines and exchanged probabilities -- their equivalent of a quick but warmly-affectionate hug and kiss -- and then Gravity was gone, relocated elsewhere.
"What am I, hashed ylem?" asked Dissonance sourly.
"Oh, Dissy," said Fusion, "you know you're my best friend, after my Sister." She smiled gently at him. "You're welcome to come and play too, as long as you don't destroy the Ponies, and play by my rules."
"Oh, I'll come and play, all right," said Dissonance.
"And no destroying the Ponies?" added Fusion.
"I shall not annihilate their species," Dissonance promised.
"Very well," said Fusion. She was fully aware of what he had and had not promised, but she preferred to let him think that it was all his idea. "Then let us make ourselves ready."
They performed the necessary tasks of character conception within themselves.
"Behold," said Dissonance. "The Draconequus, Discord."
The creature seemed a chimeric assemblage of features from numerous other forms of Earth life. His gray head was vaguely equine, but with a caprid beard. It was surmounted by two horns -- one caprid and one cervid. The eyes were yellow, with red pupils, of mismatched sizes. The long brown body was that of a snake or Celestial Dragon, with both hair and dragon-scales; the powerful red tail was distinctly draconian. He had the right arm of a lion, while his left arm ended in an eagle's claw; his right leg was archosaurian and his left leg caprid. He had two wings -- one like a bird and the other like a bat.
The effect was bizarre and whimsical. But Fusion could see the raw power, both psychic and physical. The Draconequus had a thaumic organ even bigger than that of her Alicorn, and the archosaurian body was both protected by dragonscale and rippling with muscles. He would be a potent mage; even without magic, physically more than a match for most Earth predators.
"Well?" asked Dissonance.
"Very well suited to you," said Fusion in an appreciative tone. She was entirely honest: something about the creature seemed to express her friend's inner nature, in a manner she had rarely seen in his Avatars. "I think he will serve you well."
"Then let's get started!" cried Dissonance. He grinned evilly. "Wait till they get a load of me."
Fusion was amused by his implicit threat, but she was also saddened, because she knew that Dissy actually believed this about himself. It was, though she never told him, the main reason she would not really take him as her mate, though she had long loved him. She knew that if she ever let herself trust him wholly, he would betray her; he would have to, in order to prove himself to the models of his Parents that lived in his own mind.
I can't tell him the truth, she thought, that he's not really cruel -- or, rather, that he's never really happy when he makes himself be cruel, which he sometimes does on a horribly vast scale. He's mischievous, but that's not the same thing. What really makes him happy is to play, rather than to destroy -- but if I insist this to him, he will destroy just to be contrary.
And I cannot let my Little Ponies be destroyed. While, at the same time, I need Dissonance to stir and oppose them, to quicken their potential for greatness, even as he disrupts the matter waves coming off my supernovae and curdles them into the nebulae from which new stars spring. That is his role in the Cosmos, but he prefers to pretend that he is entirely free to do as he wills. He resists any command; even those from his own Family. He surely will not accept mine.
Thus, I must be devious.
Fusion smiled at his impatience. "Very well," she said.
She breathed Life into Epona Ameterasu, and sent her flitting off to be born upon the Earth.
Dissonance did the same with Discord, sending him following after her.
So it began.
Author's Note
This story is very much an attempt to describe in human terms something far beyond humanity, and as such it represnts certain compromises. I am "stepping down" into human conceptual terms the thoughts and speech and other actions of beings far more intelligent and complex than we.
These are not Celestia and Luna and Discord, but rather the parent entities of whom Celestia and Luna and Discord are Avatars. They do on a grander scale have obvious similarities to their Avatars, but no carnal Avatar limited to the size of a Human or Pony or Draconequus can contain but a fraction of the mind of a Cosmic Concept.
Their conversation is beyond our comprehension. The lure with which Fusion tricks Dissonance into doing exactly what she wanted is not really as simple as it seems here. What I show here is more how Celestia might trick Discord; in Human or Pony form.
Humans and Ponies, while alien to one another, are far more similar to one another than either is to a Concept; and Angels and Alicorns also far more similar to Humans and Ponies than either is to a Concept. While the Concepts are capable of Love and Hatred, Good and Evil, their emotions and actions are beyond our grasp, and they have some specific emotions unattainble to us.
Perhaps more than anything I have ever written, this is about the Cosmic Concepts, which is an idea orginally created by Alex Warlorn in his PonyPOV series. While I have modified his original versions of them, the PonyPOV series deserves love. Check it out.
