1 - The Pain of Existence
In the usually quiet town of Ponyville, one could not help but enjoy the calm afternoon. The markets were packing up for the day, the afternoon too nice to work too hard, everypony seemed to agree.
Even the library, a nice cozy thing carved into a tree, seemed to bask in the calm. Of course, a certain purple pony princess found such a calm day, that everypony decided should be a lazy one, would be the perfect day to do some hobby work in her lab.
Today was the day. Everything has been accounted for, double checked, triple checked even.
“Spike, I’m going to need you to go outside the room while the experiment is ongoing” Twilight said to her Assistant. While she reviewed the last few runes of the circle.
“But Twilight,” Spike said, in a worried tone. “What if something happens!”.
Finally satisfied with her inspection, she looked up at spike. Her eyes softened “I know you’re worried, but this spell is very sensitive,” she says as she walked up and patted her little dragon on the head “your natural dragon magic could throw the spell off, and cause what your worried about to actually happen”.
Spike accepted the answer, and responded dejectedly “Well alright Twilight, but I’m going to be keeping a letter on hoof to send, just in case”.
Twilight could not help herself, and giggled at her assistants antics. Leaning down she gave him a hug, as if to squeeze the worry out of him. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” she released the hug, then ousted the dragon from her lab.
Finished with that, she turned back to the circle, a little smile of pride on her face. In reality this spell already existed, Star Swirl’s extradimensional sample collection spell, she just gave it a slight modification.
She ruffled her wings, still unused to how it felt to have them, while she remembered what set her on this foray into science.
A while back the Everfree forest had started an invasion of Equestria. The issue was solved with the return on the Elements of Harmony to the tree that made them. The important takeaway was that the whole issue was created by Discord, before he was locked in stone.
Discord surprised everypony afterword though. He had the town back the way it was within the hour, and to make up for the trouble he gave everypony, a gift to show how sorry he was. For the foals it mostly consisted of candy. The adults would get either something they needed, but could not get, or some item with random properties. Like how Roseluck got a rock that would sweat water, she really liked it, she kept in her garden.
Twilight was certain that Discord would just let her keep the staff, she had to admit it had the novelty value, but Discord one-upped her expectations and gave her a six sided die.
That had twenty-four sides.
At first she did not understand. When viewed it clearly looked like, and had all the qualities of, a cube. But when rolled would give a equal chance to produce a number of one to twenty-four. The mystery deepened when she scanned it, and found it was not enchanted in any way.
For all intents and purposes it was just a non-magical piece of plastic. That just so happened to ignore the rules of eucoltean geometry.
She had to admit Discord’s gift was actually pretty fun to study and she made sure he knew that next time she saw him. Discord, while he teased her, subtly hinted that she might find a lead if she studied math instead of magic for a change.
So she did just that. As she refreshed her studies on the finer workings of the foundation of the sciences, and found what she was looking for.
Honestly she almost wanted to facehoof because of how dumb she felt. The novelty of what she had studied blinded her from a topic her math professors were obsessed with. A fourth dimensional hypercube, or as it’s known, a tesseract. Honestly, knowing what it was just raised more questions, and it fried her brain a little to consider that Discord could create things that physically should not exist.
Of course she moved forward in her experiments. Only to quickly find that she had dried that well up. She asked Discord if he could make another, but was turned down. Something about rules, but she is certain that he was just messing with her again.
Which brought her back to the present, and Star Swirl’s spell. The spell is meant to summon non-living samples from other universes. No one really knows why he was so interested in the subject.
All Twilight did was modify the spell to aim at universes with a higher level of dimensionality. She confirmed it worked by having aimed at her own universe and successfully summoned the die Discord gave her.
In Star Swirl’s notes every time he cast it he would end up with rocks. Sometimes the rocks would be made of never before seen compounds. The gem on Celestia’s torque is actually an extremely magically reactive gem acquired from this very spell. It gave her an idea of what she would get from the spell, and made her more comfortable using it.
Finally it was time, Twilight walked up and put her hooves on the appropriate spots on the edge of the circle. She took some calming breaths, and closed her eyes, as she was taught, and began to channel her magic.
Unlike mental spell formations, commonly known as spells to the everyday pony, runic spell formations don‘t require input from the caster. Simply channel a steady flow of magic, it’s important that the magic stays steady to keep the runes powered evenly, and the runes will do the rest. That is not to say it did not require concentration as the more uneven the flow of magic, the more magic the array demands from the user. So concentration on your magical flow ends up being your role in a runic spellcast.
Really for all the calculations and checks, she could not help but feel underwhelmed by the small flash outside her eyelids, and the pull on her magical core having disappeared. Without hesitation she opened her eyes, and looked at what she summoned. Only to immediately close her eyes, and look away as she recoiled in pain at what she saw.
No words could describe it beyond that it was about a hoof in size, at least it looked to be a hoof in size. Even as something deep down told her it was infinite in size. It was an impossible object folded upon itself seemingly infinite and impossible ways. Just the afterimage of it in her eyes seemed to burn at the corners of her mind.
Then the screaming started.
It did not originate from her but from everywhere, no from the object. Twilight did not know how she knew to define the sound as screaming. It, like the object creating it was warped and seemed to make the area around fold.
Twilight had the sense to teleport to the far side of the room. Just as everything around the object including where she just was, turned to dust as the bonds of matter was shaken apart, having rendered the compounds down to their base elements.
It did not protect her from the sound though, even if she was spared the physical effects. It tore at her mind and soul. A cry of pain and anguish so intense it seemed to reach out, to bring its message of agony to anypony that was unlucky enough to hear.
Had she remembered this event she would’ve almost laughed at how the thought of “this is not a rock” went through her head. Not that she was capable of much higher level thought at the moment. Instead she slumped to the floor, the pain becoming too much for anypony, much less a pampered city filly like herself, to withstand.
As her vision darkened, and her eyes closed, there was a sound akin to a balloon popping, and a small flash of light.
As the light faded in its place floated a strange chimera. The first thing Discord did as he entered the lab was snap his fingers as he locked the building in time, and to his relief paused the being in the middle of the room. Which confirmed to him that the being at least followed a similar law of time, and after taking on a hard visage began to investigate the being.
After having taken a look at the strange impossible creature his eyes softened. His fear that Twilight had summoned an outsider assuaged. Replaced with concern for the being.
“Your quite a few levels of concretization away from home aren’t ya” Discord said to himself. Honestly he was surprised a 20th dimensional being was not immediately crushed under the weight of reality, but it did explain the wail of agony he heard. “Well let’s get you home shall we” Discord stated to no one, as he went through the the beings magical signature to find.
Nothing.
No links leading to the being’s home could be seen. So he sniffed the air to try to identify the spell used. Star Swirl’s extradimensional sample collection, a mouthful of a name, but a spell he was familiar with. It was the spell he followed to find Equestria after all.
When he was younger and more adventurous, a crystal he kept on him for good luck disappeared into another universe, and after tracking it, found himself in a universe with physical life in it, instead to the incorporeal thought form life he, and most life from higher levels of abstraction, tend to be made of.
Discord shook his head from his reminiscing, all that mattered was that he knew that the spell in question did not use a link. The user was never expected to cast a dismiss spell on the summoned object so why have one.
This left one choice, and he could not help but feel bad. He had to change the being into something that could survive this universe, as he was never going to find the beings home. After removing the random base elements that were scattered around the room. Leaving a hole in the center of the room. Discord started to do something he was not known for. He started to slowly channel his magic.
Normally Discord would just snap his fingers and be done with it, but that method lacks the permanence that he needed to make his spell work. Even if it was basically the same as far as construction of the spell was concerned.
So he placed his request to chaos, and he cast the spell, Only for him to find resistance. He hated when chaos had its own ideas on what to do. So he let go of the part the chaos did not like “Welp no princehood for you” Discord grumbled, the chaos clearly did not agree with his choice of red and black alicorn, and had its own species in mind for the being. He recast the spell, chaos not resisting him this time.
The spell had to act twofold. First it had to unfold the being, to bring the being to a much more stable three dimensions, to this universe’s perspective anyway. Secondly it shifted the being to give it a biology that could survive on this planet.
Things like communication could be handled by the ponies. That thought made him remember to put a filter on the beings memories so that he can stop being a memetic weapon to everypony around, including itself.
Or himself he thought now that the being had shifted enough for Discord to distinguish. This was quickly followed by the species. “A minotaur? Interesting choice” Discord mumbled, now knowing what chaos wanted, he could speed up the process, as he put some personal touches as a way of making the new minotaur feel better. Setting broken bones and stopped some hemorrhaging. One does not get crushed under reality and get away undamaged after all.
Finally after a ten seconds had passed, crushing in Discords opinion, since he began casting the spell, he was done. He checked to make sure the mind filter was applied, and decided he might as well check Twilight while he was here.
Needless to say, despite what she went through, she was not in that bad of a condition. She had some damage to her psyche but only to her recent memories. As he removed the damaged memories, he concluded she would remember up to the point of opening her eyes, and some light memories of pain, nothing extreme. He, or Celestia, could fill her in when she woke up.
Sensing Spike, he went to check on him and pursed his lips. The little dragon was in the midst of sending a letter. Looks like he would have to deal with an upset sunbutt today, Just great. A quick once over and he found no damage, the walls and distance kept him from the brunt to it.
Finally done he went back in the lab, and had a look at his handy work in the form of a minotaur. His fur was light grey and had a mane of darker grey hair on his head and lower body. His legs were longer, better proportioned and noticeably thicker, than most Equestrian minotaurs. A plainstrider then, Discord concluded. Of course his appearance was marred by the bruising of his injuries but while numerous, and several were alarming, were not life threatening
Checking once more that he had everything, he unlocked time for the library. Upon which several things happened at once.
Spike finished burning his letter, sending it to the princess.
The front door suddenly smashed in at the hooves of a orange Earth pony.
A window was smashed in by a blue pegasus with a rainbow main.
And followed a few seconds by a flash to reveal Princess Celestia.
Discord of course was in the room to meet them, causing no end of consternation, as all five of Twilight's friends entered the building.
“A’ight” said Applejack “ya’ll have some ‘splainin’ to do Discord” she finished, with a unhappy look to her face
Before Twilight’s friends could get worked up, they were interrupted by Spike running up to the princess, hugging her leg “Celestia! Thank goodness. I think Twilight is in-”.
Before he could finish Discord cut in “is in no danger whatsoever. I already made sure of that” as he disappeared quickly, then reappeared. Carrying a sleeping Twilight, and placed her on the couch.
The princess looked around, confused by the presence of the other elements. Then glanced at her asleep student, she walked over and gave her a quick inspection. Happy that Twilight was not hurt she addressed the room “I think it would be best if we sat down and talked. Clearly there are at least three perspectives on what is going on”.
And so they sat. Apparently, Discord lost track of how long the building was time locked. As ponies outside noticed some birds that were too close and got locked mid-flight. Prompting Twilight's friends to investigate. Only to be met with unbreakable entrances, it’s hard to break a door that is not moving forward in time.
All Celestia knew was that something had happened, as the letter was written before hand. That Prompted Spike to explain that he could hear indescribable scream and started to send the letter.
Discord of course was the most informed on what happened, and tried his best to explain in a way a physical being could understand.
“Can we see him” Celestia asked.
“By all means! I would rather not have to take care of a half-alive minotaur” Discord snarked. As he led them to the lab to reveal the new minotaur.
“Oh the poor dear” Fluttershy said before anyone else, quickly going into the hole to check on the injured minotaur.
Celestia, after having watched Fluttershy, turned to Discord “Are you sure he is safe to be around?”
Discord made a show of thinking really hard, before responding “Really there's no way to tell” Discord said with a shrug, “despite my best efforts, his mind might be too alien. The mix up in his head may affect his behavior” Discord finished.
Honestly the ponies and dragon were almost put off more by how serious Discord was treating the situation.
He settled them with his next statement, “of course how you handle the situation is up to you! My work here is done” and promptly vanished, before anypony could stop him.
Celestia could feel her frustration with the aloof being known as Discord, but decided to let it go. “Will you girls keep an eye on Twilight,” she said while enveloping the minotaur in her magic. “I am taking this minotaur to Canterlot. I want to keep a closer eye on him to make sure he is safe.”
After Celestia got an affirmative from the girls, Applejack, and a white unicorn named Rarity, went back to Twilight. She fired her teleport, and found herself in the royal infirmary.
“Princess!” A voice called.
Celestia looked to the side and smiled at the stallion “ah, Steady Beat, i have someone for you to take care of.” she said
The white furred doctor looked towards the beat up minotaur, his eyes widening at the extent of his injuries. He called down a hall, “Nurse, get the minotaur kit, we have a patient”. He looked back to his Princess, “Is there anything we need to know about him Princess?” he asked.
Celestia nodded “Yes, due to the circumstances around this minotaur, which i feel is better off being kept private, until the current issue is sorted, he may act irrationally, and cannot speak Equestrian. Please take necessary precautions”.
Dr. Steady Beat nodded in return, magic flairing to grab the minotaur, “I’ll be sure everyone is safe. Now,” the doctor stated, making to take the patient down the hall. “I have sometaur to look at, I’ll inform you of any changes”.
The Princess, knowing the conversation was over, went down the hall, knew where she had to go next. She made sure to stop a guard to send message to court, they must be worried sick, she thought.
The Princess finally got to her destination, her sisters room. Hopefully she can help mitigate this mess.
2 - I Think Therefore I Am
Bustling and full of life. The city of Canterlot, capital of Equestria was business as usual. Though such a thing could not be said about the castle infirmary.
“Are you sure about this?” Princess Celestia asked her sister, her face a mask of concern as she looked at the sleeping minotaur.
His condition had been stabilized, but due to what Discord had to do, it had been decided that he should be kept asleep until a solution to his mental state could be found.
Her sister Princess Luna, on the other hoof, held a face of determination. She looked at her sister, “Discord warned that his alien mind my cause trouble, on top of that, this filter Discord placed on his mind might be a mind lock by a different name. Either way it needs to be checked, and while he sleeps would be the best time”.
Celestia held her look, then sighed, “your right, and this is more your expertise, I will leave you to it” Celestia backed up, and watched on.
After explaining the situation to her sister she almost immediately made her way to the infirmary. The next logical step clear to the Princess of the Night.
Princess Luna looked at her sister, trying to reassuring “don’t worry i will only be in for a moment to get a read of our friends mindset” Luna’s face took a joking tone “there is no reason for you to go all big sister, I’ll be safe”.
Celestia relaxed at the jab, then took a mock offended tone “I said alright already no reason to tease, you know how I worry”.
Luna giggled “I know, I know. Now I will spare you, and get this over with” she said, her horn beginning to light.
Luna cast her signature dream walking spell, entering the mind of the sleeping minotaur.
Confusion.
That was all that existed. Luna almost found herself washed away in it.
Grounding herself she attempted to flow deeper into the beings mind. Quickly finding resistance in the form of Discord’s filter.
If she had a face in this state she would have frowned. This was way too shallow for proper recollection. With a mask this enveloping this being at most will only have emotional memories.
With a thought a false copy of her sprang up, and after a pause drifted through the filter.
Only to be torn to shreds.
To say she was surprised would be to say she was blue.
Deciding she was done here she projected a sense of calm to the being, almost feeling sad at how desperately the sense was taken. As if taking anything to escape the confusion. Satisfied, she returned to the waking world.
“Are you okay?” came the worried tone of Luna’s sister.
Luna looked at her sister “ I am alright, but what I learned is troubling” she proceeded to explain what she found.
“So his mind is almost completely sealed” Celestia respond after the explanation.
Luna nodded “that is correct, he will essentially be a child. He might regain some aspect of himself as he learns concepts that can translate”.
Celestia looked thoughtful “we might need Discord for this. He has a better understanding of this being than we do”
“Oh ho-ho, I didn’t know you held my expertise in such high regard” came a voice from nowhere. Discord appeared before the princesses.
Celestia held a face, like she just ate something sour, but quickly schooled her expression. “More that you could help this being better than us. I highly doubt you could effectively leave someone in such a state. Especially somebeing that most certainly has such different perspectives on the world”
Discord looked like he had a quip for that, then stopped. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then broke into a grin.
The sisters did not like that grin.
He confirmed this with his next words. “I would be glad to help him” his grin grew “if you agree to not keep him a secret from the other lands”.
The sisters almost felt it coming, but still had to fight the wince. Luna spoke up, “We had no intention of keeping him a secret forever, but he is in a hospital the last thing we, or he, needs is diplomats fighting over him before he even knows what numbers are”.
Discord responded by making a salespony outfit appear on him, and began “well princess, with my patented extradimensional education package i can guarantee an appropriate level of understanding of the world by the end of the month or your money back. Order now and get this free novelty mug” Discord punctuated his statement by pulling a mug that says Best Princess, on the side.
Celestia really did not want this situation, but knew denying this being the chance to recover any amount of what he was would be unfair. Reluctantly she took the mug giving it to her sister, and told Discord as much. She finished by saying “could you at least start now. Hopefully we can learn something before we start getting swamped by dignitaries looking for answers”.
Discord saluted “sure thing princess” and vanished now that the situation was out of things to amuse him.
The sisters looked at each other and went their own ways the Princess of the Night going back to bed. The Princess of the Day going to write a press release, as well as send an update to her protege.
The entity found itself in a strange predicament, not that it understood it as such, or anything else for that matter.
Unbeknownst to him, all attempts at thought were being blocked, else his mind would shatter itself.
He did finally have a grapse on concepts relating to time, after a calming shift in his mind gave him a reference to look to.
Suddenly something was before him, his mind reeling as new connections were made. Some new, but a few providing vital links in is blocked mind.
Discord smiled,sensing the connections and glad a recovery was possible. He may be seen as mean to many, but hurting others was never a thing he liked. Hurting their potential most of all.
He my mess with ponies’ heads, but it’s usually temporary.
Seeing the being finally settle, Discord decided to move his education forward.
With a snap of his fingers, and a world came to be. The being taking his now real world form.
If Luna were to see this she would pester the life out of him. Considering the imagery of her dream magic is limited by the mind she is working in, it’s not surprising.
Seeing his charge begin to explore his expanded world he could not help but feel giddy.
The opportunity to teach a mind the world from his perspective was a rare one indeed.
There was work to do.
The next morning a certain purple princess finally awoke.
Shifting, she opened her eyes. Finding herself in her room. Squinting, she tried to remember something she felt was important.
It did not take her long.
Her eyes opened wide “The spell” she cried “Spike, Spike where are you!”.
Spike, who had been awake for a while, came into the room. His friend’s calls filling him with concern.
“Twilight!” spike cried in kind, “ what’s wrong?”
Twilight, hearing spike, quieted, but continued with worry in her voice “My spell, what happened?”
Hearing this Spike calmed “don’t worry Twilight. I know what happened, come down”.
Twilight complied, entering the main room, and listening to Spike’s explanation.
“The princess also sent this letter this morning” Spike wrapped up his explanation. Handing over the noted item.
Twilight took the letter and began reading, the weight of the situation finally settling.
Twilight had made a huge mistake, and if Discord had not stepped in it would of been much worse. Even then the true scope of what happened escaped her.
She shook her head redirecting her thoughts “how are the girls” she asked “they must be worried sick!”
“They were at first” Spike answered, “but Celestia, and Discord, calmed them down”
Twilight gave a sigh of relief over that, but could not get over a certain minotaur in Canterlot.
She wanted to go, but deep down knew that, until he woke up, nothing would be accomplished.
She just had to hope that the future turns out for the best.
