It was a fine day in the kingdom, the sun was shining, animals were grazing and her ponies where happy. Even so Celestia felt tense that something was going to change, better or for worse she didn’t know, only that something would happen that would shake up the peaceful routine that had settled over her kingdom after Twilights battle with Tirek. Hearing hooves strike the marble floor behind her, did Celestia turn around and see her beloved sister Luna, princess of the moon.
“Do you also sense it sister, there seems to be a new presence in our kingdom?” the blue alicorn asked, her blue eyes alight with a hint of fear and Celestia couldn’t fault her for it. Flaring a little of her power did she also get a return pulse. The new presence that she felt showed no hostile intent towards them and it was powerful, but most worrying was its tinge of darkness. Most things or beings that she and her sister had encountered in their long life had used darkness for evil.
Celestia knew that darkness didn’t mean evil or that light meant good, but most things that meant harm used some form of darkness to do its bidding, either through dark magic or twisted feelings. Before Celestia could answer her sister question, did the presence sharply spike in the corner of her lounge room. Both sisters sharply turned to the corner only to see a portal of some kind, it was black with hints of deep purple swirling within itself.
With no warning, what-so-ever did the portal collapse within itself to reveal a scary creature, it stood at eye level to Celestia and wore a coat of the darkest black, a colour that seemed to absorb all the light within its vicinity, a hood that completely hid the face along with a chain connected to what the sisters could only guess was their guests neck and to finish its outfit was the black gloves and boots the creature wore. Before the sister could attack, did the intruder speak.
“Do not be alarmed, I’m not here to cause harm but to give you a gift.” It said. Not convinced, Luna asked the creature a question.
“What gift could an unknown and untrusted stranger give to us?”
“Why the gift of knowledge of course.” It said, while gesturing towards a marble that it had created from darkness. It then went on to explain that its species was humanity, he was a male and how the marble works.
“You see, since this marble was crafted from darkness, wherein darkness was the beginning of all things, it can show you recordings of whenever and wherever you want and all you have to do to make it work is to imagine a scene you want when you crush it and a movie of the subject will appear on the projection. After the movie vanishes the marble will repair itself for the next viewing.”
It was Celestia’s turn to ask a question.
“While it’s good to know that you’re not an enemy, there must be a downside to using the marble, magic is all about give and take, to peer into the fabric of the universe requires strong divination magic so what is the downside to using its power?” As she finished her question did the man answer her.
“You don’t have to worry about the cost, because I’ve already paid much of it in its creation. The main worry you guys will have is what knowledge you would like answered, for if you don’t ask the right question it could give you an entire different answer than the one you want. For example, if you asked for how the hero of a story defeats the villain, you might get a video of the hero dying with the villain still alive except defeated in some way.” The man then continued to explain how the marble was constructed and some warnings in its use. Especially about researching the future and trying to change it.
“That has assured me in some of my concerns, but can you show me an example of its use?” asked Celestia.
“Do you have a specific question that you would like to ask?” the man questioned.
“Yes, show me how Twilight sparkle hatched Spike the dragon.” She exclaimed. Nodding his head, the man tightened his grip on the marble in his hand, thought hard about the question and shattered the marble. As soon as the marble had shattered, the pieces had turned into wisps of dark energy and had formed a flat square projection, which than lit up into a multitude of colours that slowly fused into a shape that Celestia recognized, that of a filly Twilight.
The room that appeared in the vision was a classroom coloured in blues, greens and purples. It showed a young Twilight sparkle with her mother and father, with four examiners sitting in the chairs meant for students. Twilight quickly looked to her parents for help, only to get nervous smiles in return did she turn back to the examiners. A sound to the left of her caught her attention, which caused her to look towards it to see a brown earth pony pushing a cart, with an egg on it, into the room. Turning back to the examiners did the yellow pony speak.
“Well miss sparkle?”
Laughing nervously, Twilight made her way to cart, soft sounds of the examiners magic activating and lifting their clip boards behind her. Twilight started to grunt and groan in trying to force her magic to activate, the grey examiner in the chair coughed, the blue one yawned and the yellow one spoke once again.
“we don’t have all day.”
But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get one ounce of magic to form. Giving up she said.
“I’m sorry that I wasted your time.” And just as she was about to cry did an explosion happen outside, an explosion with all the colours of the rainbow. Jumping in shock did Twilight's magic activate and send a beam that hit the egg which hatched into a purple and green baby dragon. Another stream hit the examiners which caused them to float, another her parents which turned them into potted plants and her last one which forcibly grew the baby dragon into a towering dragon of muscle and scales.
After that last image did the video disappear and turn back into smoke, which than rabidly reformed into a black marble that lay on the ground.
“It seems I need to speak to the examiners in how to treat a foal in exams.” Celestia grumbled to herself.
“So, was that how Spike was hatched sister?” questioned Luna.
“Indeed, it was Luna, it seems our new friend was telling the truth about his gift, I didn’t sense anything off with the magic scans I was running. Now friend, is there anything you want us to do with this gift and do you have a name that we can call you while you stay with us?” asked Celestia
“I only ask that you bring the element bearers, crystal rulers and discord to learn with you two about the differing realities, ones that will bring happiness, sadness, joy and all the emotions that you can think of. As for a name, you can call me…
The new-found friend to the celestial sisters paused and thought about giving his real name to them but decided not to, not while he still didn’t fully trust them, because true names give a degree of control over the named things, especially when dealing with magic. He finally decided to give them the backwards spelled name of his old master in magic, wouldn’t that get his beard in a twist. Quietly laughing at his inside joke, he finally turned to Celestia and Luna and said.
“You can call me Disney.”
Author's Note
hello = video
hello = normal speech
please rate it fairly and give me tips to improve, thank you.
2. All Roads Lead to Home
After their new friend, Disney, had left, the twin sisters had sent out letters to both Ponyville and the Crystal Empire to fetch the beings requested by the dark user. Even though they would soon use the new gift from Disney, Celestia was still tempted to use the orb to see how her kingdom was doing, luckily, she had her sister to stop her from becoming to enthralled with peering into the future. Before she could continue in her thoughts an annoyance had announced itself. A puff of pink clouds and that grating voice sounded.
“Sunshine, I’m home!” the annoying tick known as Discord had appeared, with all the ponies requested as well.
“Hello to you to Discord.” Even though he was reformed, he still annoyed the shit out of her.
“Oh, don’t be such a grumpy pants Tia, especially not in front of the kids.” Discord knew he was pissing off Celestia and was loving every minute of it.
“If you don’t have anything else to do then annoy me Discord, go and get Luna from her room so that I we can start the viewing.” Hopefully he will annoy Luna instead of me, Celestia thought. The only response from Discord was to raise one elegant eyebrow and click his claws to teleport away. Turning back to Twilight and the others, did Celestia finally greet them.
“Hello every-pony, I apologise for my outburst, but it’s been a very trying week for my sister and I, so please forgive me.” Celestia wasn’t lying about it being a trying week, after Disney had left, her magic researchers had felt the dark aura that had appeared when he arrived and had activated the magic defence systems that locked Canterlot down. It had been hell to reset everything back to normal and it had been hell on both Luna’s and her nerves.
“Don’t worry Celestia, we understand, don’t we girls?” Twilight got various responses, but they all confirmed her question.
“But why are we here Princess, your letter only said that we were to arrive with all haste, but there wasn’t any danger.” Twilight asked, looking for an explanation.
“Yes, I would like to know as well aunty?” Cadance had spoken for the first time since both her and her husband’s arrival.
“The reason that I called for all of you begins with a meeting with a figure known as Disney…” Halfway into her explanation of meeting her new friend and the gift he had given, both her sister and Discord had arrived by walking into the large lounge room that they had chosen for the viewings. After quickly skimming over the missed bits for Discord, she had tailed off with an explanation on how the orb worked.
“So, we just crush the orb while thinking about a subject to get a projection about it, oh I’m so excited!” Twilight squealed in delight at this new device, just the thought of all the new things to learn and study had gotten her into a spastic wiggle.
“Is it really safe?” Whispered Fluttershy. “So, these things we see won’t hurt us?”
“Of course not young Fluttershy and even if they could they would have to get through my sister and I to even attempt to hurt any of our little ponies.” Answered Luna.
“I can’t wait to see what kind of monsters and hero’s they have, what are you girls looking forward to most?” Rainbow dash was the one to talk now. All the ponies answered the question in different ways. Twilight wants to see the beginning of a new race of beings, Applejack wanted to see a feat of great heroism, Pinkie wanted to see a party of such likes that she had never seen, Rarity of course wanted to see a new kind of fashion to inspire herself with.
Cadance wants a story of great love, Shining, a show of martial power to see if he could replicate them in any way and the princesses themselves had a secret yearning to see both the power to truly forgive another for a great trespass and to truly forgive oneself for stooping to a lower level. Discord just wanted to watch something entertaining.
“Before we begin Celestia, what was the name of your new friend again?” Discord asked, surprisingly serious for once.
“Disney, why ask twice, you surely heard what I said the first time.” Celestia answered.
“Oh nothing, I just wanted to make sure I heard right, you see I my thoughts were on that lovely cake I was bak…ing…. Oh gosh, I left the oven on, don’t mind me, start the first viewing without me while I stop my cake from burning.” And with a click of his talons he was gone.
“Well that was weird, but that discord for you. So, who wants to go first?” question Celestia.
“Can I princess, please, if we start with mine we can learn the beginnings of a new race.” Twilight practically begged to be the first to use the orb.
“Is every-pony fine with allowing Twilight to go first?” Celestia asked, receiving positives from all the others assembled in front of her the princess gave her permission to use the orb. Every-pony was excited, because they were about to see something never seen before. But unknown to them was the horrors they were about to witness.
Twilight thought that touching the orb of darkness with her magic would unsettle her, thanks to her encounters with both dark energy and magic, she was surprised by how pleasant it was to feel, it didn’t feel icky, slimy or sickly like the usual breed of darkness. It was like feeling water, as if she had put her hoof in a cool lake, something completely in tune with nature, she had never felt like this before. She didn’t know how long she sat there, holding the relaxing orb of darkness before she remembered what she was there for.
Gathering her thoughts specifically the beginning of a new race of beings, she crushed the orb. Immediately the orb broke and turned into wisps of darkness that formed a large screen of fog-like substance, colours coming into play and fusing to form a grey wasteland with gigantic grey trees. Suddenly a voice sounded from the dark screen, it was the voice of an old crone, wise beyond her years.
“In the age of ancients, the world was unformed, shrouded with fog…”
With Discord
Popping into existence was not a new thing for discord, in fact it was getting quite old, maybe he should change it up a little. Bah, no matter, let’s just get this over with. Looking up, discords eyes landed on something that brought a true genuine smile to his face.
In front of him stood a crooked tower, coloured yellows, blues and greens sprinkled with stars and a crescent moon. Just seeing the tower that was is home in his younger years brought those happy memories to the fore, a time were everything was easier. Before he could move further towards the tower, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Discord didn’t need to look at the figure to know who had grabbed him.
“You always were the grabby type, weren’t you.” He received a chuckle in return.
“I couldn’t help it, you were just so cute as toddler you know, like a little plush doll. I remember you use to come to my room when Master Yen-Sid would scold you for your pranks. You’d jump in my bed and hide under the blankets while saying the ‘bad wizard’ was coming for you.” The figure teased back. Blushing a little, Discord decided to get serious.
“So, Disney is your new name I take it, why did you decide to interfere with my realm, we had a deal.” He gravely asked.
“Truthfully, two reason: A) the veil to your realm is breaking down. Your one thousand year being stoned weakened the chaotic magic that was tethering our protections to your realm, your little ponies need some way to get knowledge of the outside to at least have a chance and B) you haven’t come home in over a thousand years, I was angry at you for missing our monthly dinners you know.” Disney said, before laughing at his little joke.
“You do know that I’m sorry for not seeing you for a thousand years, right?” surprisingly Discord was a little shamed at that question.
“Don’t worry, I understand. Now come on, old Gramps hasn’t seen you even longer then I have.” And together both Discord and Disney walked towards the Mysterious Tower.
Author's Note
Reactions next chapter, promise. If anyone reads this, could I get some critics in here, I want to get better.
