The Philosophical Substitute: Discord

Chapters

Lesson 3: A Matter of Perspective
(Trial in the Headmare’s Office)
Lesson 4: Into the Cave
Lesson 5: The Art of Imperfection
Lesson 6: Advice from an Emperor
(Professor Forethought)
Lesson 7: The Mountain
Lesson 8: Guest Speaker
Lesson 9: From the Tribe to the City
Lesson 10 (Part 1): Civilization vs Machiavelli
Lesson 10 (Part 2): Civilization vs Machiavelli
Lesson 1: Welcome to the Symposium
Lesson 2: The Glory of Limitations

Lesson 3: A Matter of Perspective

Author's Note

I don't know if I was able to do Kierkegaard justice on Subjectivity but... here you go.

Lesson 3: A Matter of Perspective

By the time Discord was able to conclude the last class of the day, he was once again in deep thought about what lesson he should teach tomorrow. He knew that if he had any hope of making the most of out his time of his class work, he had to figure out what sort of lessons that his students would be interested in.

“But how exactly would I do that?” he muttered while floating on his back in loops in and through the halls of the school. “What sort of things would kids these days want other than questionable music and fads that would become quickly dated?” As he pondered over this, letting his mind (as well as his body) twist around in the air, without getting any luck. That was until he heard a familiar voice.

“Are the students treating you well, Discord?”

“Fluttershy!” his mood suddenly changed that into a happy one as he flipped over to hug his friend. “I didn’t see you there. How are you?”

“I had a good day so far.” She replied. “And what about you? Are you doing well with your students?”

“Oh fantastic so far! I can tell that my students like me because I’m not their average Philosophy teacher.”

“Speak of which, any word from Professor Forethought?”

Discord shrugged. “I can’t exactly say. All I know is that he's been sick for about a week or so.”

“Oh dear. I should make a note to get a fruit basket for him.”

“And none for me?” the Spirit of Random’s eyes grew wide as puppies.

She giggled. “I’m sure to get you one too when we have our tea party. Still, I should make him one for him too if he’s going to be missing out teaching for so long. Although I want to check up on you to see how you’re doing. This isn’t too much, isn’t it?”

“To be perfectly honest with you,” he said as he landed next to her. “The teaching I don’t mind, especially when I can make it both fun and interesting for those that want to hear it. However, I am facing a little problem.” Fluttershy asked what it was. “You see, in order for my lessons to work, I have to know what exactly in philosophy would want my students to be interested in to begin with. I mean, I got lucky yesterday when I overheard one of my students expressing a problem and was able to tailor a lesson around that. But what about the rest of them? What exactly would they want or need to learn about?”

“I’m afraid that I wouldn’t exactly know about that.” His friend confessed. “But, if I were you, I guess the best way to know is to simply ask them. School has just got out, so I think there should be a few of your students around.”

Discord face palmed. “I am such an idiot sometimes. Thank you Fluttershy,” he said as he began to float away, but paused as he craned his head back to her. “We’re still set for Thursday, right?” With a nod from her, he began his search.

Taking a periscope from hyperspace, he scanned through the school to see if he could find any familiar student of his. Looking this way and that, he studied the faces of creatures in hopes to find a face that he’d recognize. “You’d expect there’d be buffalo and Zebras in this school by now.” He muttered to himself before he found a target. Pushing the periscope upwards into nothing, he talked into his paw. “Beam me up, Scotty.”

In a blue light, he took himself before the door of the School Counselor's office just in time as a blue Changeling stepped out. Ocellus jumped when she spotted her teacher. “Mr. Discord!”

“Just the lady I’m looking for.” He said crouching down. “Could I talk to you for just a moment?”

She paled, “I’m not falling behind, am I?”

“Oh, I never said that. Trust me, if you were, I would have sent something over to you by now. If anything, I’m here to ask you a question and I’ll leave you alone until class tomorrow.”

“Uh… okay? What do you want to ask me about, Mr. Discord?”

“Is there any sort of… question about life in general that you’ve always wanted to know about but never have gotten a straight answer? Or maybe something useful that you wanted to know but the other teachers never could teach you about? Get what I’m saying?”

“Like what exactly?”

Discord shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, really. It could be anything from ‘What’s the point of life?’ or ‘Why do our leaders do what they do?’ or maybe, ‘What’s the best way to be happy?’ Things like that.”

“Well…” Ocellus began but trailed off as she looked between her and the councilor’s door. “Now that you’ve mentioned it, there is something that I have always been curious about.”

“That being?”

She looked up at him, right in the eyes and asked, “Why is there evil in the world?”

“Ooh!” Her teacher exclaimed. “That’s actually a good one!”

“Mr. Discord, why do you ask?”

“Well, let’s just say that I was struggling to come up with a topic for discussion tomorrow. And you,” he patted her head, “have just provided the talking point.”

“I did?” She cocked an eyebrow. “But you’re the teacher, I thought you have a plan?”

“Oh I do, but it’s all Swiss cheese. Now then,” Discord then tore open a portal in time. “If you excuse me, I have some research to do. I’ll be expecting you in class tomorrow.” With that, the Spirit of ex-Chaos, stepped into the past, leaving a confused Changeling in the present.

“So have you heard that Discord is going to be our teacher all week and probably the next?” Sandbar asked his fellow students.

“No, but I’m actually really excited to go to Philosophy for once!” Silverstream exclaimed. “What do you think we’re in for today?”

“I think I already know.” Ocellus said, thus getting the attention of her friends.

“How Ocellus know?” Yona inquired.

“He came up to me the other day and basically asked me to choose a topic for him. Then he opened a portal and… I don’t know what he’s been doing since.” Smolder asked her what the topic was. “I asked him why there is evil in the world.”

Gallus hummed as he put a claw to his beak. “Okay, now that would be interesting to know. Especially from his perspective as the guy was once a villain himself. Even if he’s nuttier than a fruitcake.”

The others agreed, and before they knew it, they'd reached the door of their classroom. Once it was opened, they walked out in what looked like a theater box that looked down at a stage and a packed audience full of Discords in various costumes. As soon as they opened the door, in fact, they heard their teacher’s voice announcing over the speakers of the theater.

“And now fellow me’s, for our last act at the Bedlam Theater, we proudly present the one and only: The Swinging White Noise!”

As the six students stepped further into the box, the saw in time the curtain opening to show a group of musicians that they too, look exactly like their teacher. One held a violin that was cut in half. Another at a double bass that had its neck cut in half and was using his hair for the strings. The third was at the drum set that was made up of nothing but plates. And the fourth held on the neck of a guitar… and nothing else.

When they began, at first it looked like they were playing a piece of soothing music that, despite the appearances of the instruments, was able to give out a relaxed, laid back sound. At first, the students were rather confused at such a puzzling set up. Smolder questioned Ocellus if she was sure what the lesson was today.

“I was sure of it.” She replied. “It seemed to me that that was the direction that he was going for.”

“Maybe it’s a matter of perspective.” All six jumped when they heard their teacher appear suddenly behind them, followed by a theater full of Discords shushing them.

“Mr. Discord,” Sandbar began, “what’s going on?”

“Well, it’s all part of today’s lesson. As some of you probably know, Ocellus has asked a rather fascinating question. One that has concerned philosophers for centuries: Why is there evil in the world? Of course, there are plenty of options for me to turn to, myself included. So, after some careful searching and asking a few questions, I think I found something promising.

“I’m going to be teaching you a guy that was a living contradiction as both one of the funniest and most depressing of thinkers. We are learning a few things from a pony that’s from the land of sweet-ish beet balls, ‘simple’ put together furniture and our guy from the New Helm, Soorin Carrotketgaard. While his name sounds like a weird type of carrot cake, he was a sickly little workaholic that probably produced one of the more reasonable ideas of why evil exists ever.”

When his students asked how he was able to do that. Discord gestured over to the stage. “Tell me, what music do you think they’re playing?”

The students took a moment to listen as at this point, the violinist was now sawing his instrument as his bow went across up and down all four strings, as if he lost his place and instead taking up a brand new, upbeat tune altogether. The other musicians took up this change in welcoming arms as they pass the melody around to play with.

“It’s folk song,” Yona said with confidence.

“I’d say it’s dancing music,” Silverstream commented as she found herself sawing. “It’s got a good beat too.”

“No, that can’t be right.” Sandbar looked over with skepticism. “I’m sure I’ve heard this before… Is this classical?”

Gallus rolled his eyes. “Oh c’mon guys, this is clearly gypsy. I recognize that rhythm and sound anywhere.”

“How would you know?” Smolder questioned with a raised eyebrow. “It just sounds like jumbled up noise to me.”

“I live in Griffonstone, some of us tend to go outside of it to become gypsies. Trust me, I know.”

Their teacher slithered between the Dragoness and the Changeling. “So what say you two, any idea what this is?”

They shrugged. “I don’t know.” Ocellus admitted, “I guess this is swing… maybe?”

“Don’t look at me, we don’t have music in the Dragon Lands.”

Discord stroked his goatee. “Now that’s interesting. Because while you all have different answers, none of you were wrong.”

“Huh?” the students collectively exclaimed as the theater shushed them again.

“I’ll explain it in good time. But for now, let me get to the very core of Carrotketgaard’s philosophy. While he talked on many subjects during his lifetime about two hundred years ago, and he wrote dozens upon dozens of books, sometimes three or four at once, every single one has an underlying theme. That being that in life, there are two kinds of truth that we encounter: the outward truth, and the inner truth.”

Smolder raised a claw at this point. “Why two? Doesn’t it make more sense to have one, all-encompassing truth and then call it a day?”

“You could if you wanted to go by the lazy route. But for our guy, it didn’t seem realistic. To him, they're really two kinds of truth, not one. In plain Equestrian, the outward truth in which is the stuff that anyone could prove by doing math, observation, and testing by consensus. For example, we commonly regard in saying that two plus two is four as being true first because a bunch of mathematicians said so. Then it goes around and through the public until there’s a majority that says that two and two is four to the point it becomes a part of the culture. Much like how all of you instantly walked in and noticed that they’re playing music as a consensus of what you’re hearing just now.

“However, the inner truth doesn’t work like that as it is much more personal. This truth is tested and tried by experience that each and every one of you is witnessing. Take for instance when I asked you all what kind of music they’re playing, all of you had a different answer. Here’s a question: how come that happened?”

Each of them pondered for a moment before Sandbar said. “Because… we judged it from what we’ve experienced?”

“Nail, meet hammer.”

“Huh?”

“Short for hitting the nail over the head, that’s exactly why. The inner truth is interpreted by each and every one of your experiences, knowledge, and memories. If anything, the stallion who invented this music, Blue Note, said it best when someone asked him what this music was about, he replied. ‘If ya have ta ask what jazz is, you’ll never understand the answer.’ Or in plain Equestrian, in order for any of you to understand what this music is, then you’d have to have some experience with it to get it. Without it, then this music would be just noise. For our guy, most truths are Inner as that’s how we get to know what is true. Perhaps another demonstration will further illustrate this.”

In a blink of an eye and a flash of light, his students now found themselves teleported into an Istallion restaurant as they were all crammed in a booth. “Look over at that table over there.” He told them as he pointed to a table that a couple sat, happily chatting away. “Take this moment to study what is about to happen and then all of you tell me what’s going on.”

The six of them did. A waiter came by with a tray and a silver dome in his aura. After placing it on the table, he uncovered a dish of a high piled spaghetti in red sauce. Suddenly, much to the student’s bewilderment, the stallion sitting at the table busted out crying and rushed out. Leaving behind an equally confused mare and waiter behind.

“What the hay?” Gallus spoke what was on their minds. “Did I miss something?”

“Is that guy going to be okay?” Ocellus asked concerned.

“Question,” Discord turned to them. “Based on what you’ve just seen, what is the truth of what had happened?”

“Stallion sad. No idea why.” Youna shrugged.

“That guy brought some noodles.” Silverstream then got an idea and waved at the waiter. “Excuse me, are noodles offensive? Are you being mean?”

“Noodles aren’t offensive in the slightest.” Sandbar pointed out. “The guy just burst out crying for no apparent reason.”

“Yeah… I’m stumped too.” Smolder scratched her head. “There was no build up at all. It just came out of nowhere.”

“But there has to be a reason.” Ocellus commented. “I don’t know about you, but no one cries like that without a reason to do so.”

“Like what? A plate of noodles murdered his family?” Gallus joked.

“So based on what you just saw.” Discorded interjected, “What can you conclude from what you’ve just witnessed?”

“I say the guy must be cracked.” Smolder leaned back in the booth. “That’s gotta be it, right? He’s clearly crazy.” The other students agreed.

“From an Outward Truth, yes. But notice that you came to that answer based on nothing more than observation and logic. However, the Inner Truth works completely different. Here, let me show you what I mean.” With a snap of his talons, the booth was picked up and the scene rewinds very quickly. While everything moved at great speed around them, the only thing that was constant as they traveled backward in time, was the stallion that left out crying.

Their teacher stopped as they’ve reached a certain point in that stallion’s life when he was as a colt. They were in the same restaurant, in the same place and their teacher pointed over to the same table that the same stallion sat there before. This time, he was next to what looked like his parents.

“Watch and learn.” He said as he glanced over to that table. The students watched as a different waiter placed a plate of spaghetti down and returned to the kitchen. While the parents started to take the first few bites and the mother proceeds to cut some of the noodles into smaller bite-size for the colt. The waiter comes rushing back out in a panic. “Don’t take another bite!” He cried, but it was too late as the parents turned into tomatoes.

Besides the crying from the colt, Discord turned to the shocked students and asked. “So, now that you’ve experienced what the guy went through, what is the truth in this case and the one you saw previously?”

“Me and my big fat beak.” Gallus moaned as he covered his face in shame.

“That’s awful,” Silverstream said. “I mean, considering what he went through…”

“So that's why pony cried when saw noodles?” Yona asked, her face too was sympathetic.

“Okay, I take what I said back.” Smolder added, “I didn’t know that… wow…”

Discord waved his lion’s paw, in which the scene changed that to a dimmed art gallery. After getting up and his students doing the same, he leads them into the darkness.

“That is the thing about Inner Truth, the only way for anyone to fully comprehend it is to experience it on a personal level as well. However, there is a problem with this, as that the only way to get to know that said truth, is to undergo and witness exactly the same actions that someone has. Notice how quickly that you’ve changed your consensus once you experienced that stallion’s misfortune with noodles.

“With Carrotketgaard, that’s how we all experience life is through interpreting truth by our individual experiences. To understand it by our Inner Truths means to expand our boundaries of what anything means for us personally. However, since every one of our experiences with how, where, with who we grow up, no two lives cannot be exactly alike. You can say that we can’t examine something like… morality outwardly. It has to be an Inward thing as how we interpret it that is the closest thing the truth we could ever get.”

Discord encouraged his students to look around at this gallery to see what they all have in common. The six of them dispersed as they took a closer look at the artwork that was hanging on the walls. All of them showed all the world’s greatest heroes and villains. All of which were portraits that highlighted their noblest, or contrariwise, their worst of deeds. From Queen Novo leading her kingdom to safety under the sea, to King Sombra enslaving a whole empire in chains. From the thievery of Arimaspi of stealing the Idol of Boreas, to Dragon Lord Ember bringing order to her kind. Each picture showed a hero and villain that all the students both knew, and many were surprised as at the back, there was a pair of double self-portraits of their teacher. One showed him as the Lord of Chaos, while the other accepted Professor Fluttershy’s friendship.

“So,” their teacher asked the question again, “What do all of these heroes and villains have in common?”

Ocellus hummed in thought. “Well… At first glance, absolutely nothing. Some of them like Queen Chrysalis don’t have a single thing in common with those that defeated her.”

“You’re looking from an Outward perspective. What about Inwardly, what do all of these rainbows of characters have in common?”

It took a good solid minute for the six of them to ponder over until Yona came up with something. “They have their own view of truth?”

Their teacher clapped. “I think we have a winner! Have a snow cone.” He presented her prize of a cherry red snow cone that was on fire.

“Uh…” Yona stared at the flammable treat. “Yona not hungry.”

“Suite yourself.” Their teacher shrugged as he tossed it over his shoulder, in which it hit the portrait of the Storm King. “But yes, it is because that everyone sees what is true differently. For the first time, Carrotketgaard has illustrated exactly why we have arguments over what’s right or wrong. It explains why it’s really, really hard to change someone else’s mind is that for the most part, we either try to resolve their issues by either debating or fighting, issues that are really rooted in each other’s experience. In a way, in his view, one of the reasons why there’s so much intentional evil in the world, is because those that we deemed to be ‘the bad guys’ actually have a different experience and interpretation of life than anyone else does. But, (and this is a pretty big but here) he’s not at all saying that their interpretation of what is true, isn’t wrong. If anything, both good and bad guys, when it comes to what they think is true, are all correct from their individual perspectives.”

Gallus raised a claw to make an objection. “That can’t be right, that’s crazy!”

“Oh?” He slithered until he was in his student’s face. “Care to share your answer why with the class?”

“Are you honestly saying that it’s alright for me to just do any of these diabolical things and say that I’m doing it because I think it’s the right thing to do?”

“Yes.” Discord said, stunning his students. “Think how each and every one you see in this gallery justifies everything they’ve done. That to them, they think they’re doing it because it was the right thing to do. However, from their perspective that if they looked at the other things that anyone besides them have done, some of them would see it as either ineffective or wrong. I mean, look at me. If any of you came to me some years ago and told me that my mixing up reality for fun was wrong, I would have laughed. Hard. But that was because I didn’t know what things like friendship, kindness, temperance, and (to a degree) being restrained really meant because up until I met Fluttershy, I never had experience with these, nor care for it. After that, even I learned an important lesson.”

“What was that?” Silverstream asked.

“One can see clearly, only with the heart. Anything essential, is invisible to the eyes. Because Inner truth is always invisible and is only known to those that experienced this firsthand. Anyone could look, sound and behave exactly like a goodie-two-shoes – yet can miss the entire core experience of what it means to be good. For it’s not about how you grew up, or that society expects it of me, or even out of habit and never considered any alternative. You could go through all the motions, and never be good as you’re just following the sheep to somewhere. It is only if you’d experience these things for yourself, could you really understand.”

With a wave of his tail, they returned to the same theater box, with the same performance going on. “Likewise, it was the same with all of you in how you interpreted this music. However, Smolder was the most interesting as she said that it sounded like jumbled up noise to her. Since she hasn’t had experience with music in general, she is correct with her truth. But likewise, so are the rest of you. In reality, this is Jazz, Classical, Folk, Gypsy and Dancing all rolled into one, if not perhaps, even more. For yes, what you all think it was based on what you know about music is all indeed true. But it’s not the only truth, as it is much wider than that.”

“So what you’re saying,” Sandbar mused, “Is that the reason why there’s evil is because of misunderstandings?”

Discord shrugged. “That, and boredom. Carrotketgaard thought that out of the two, he considers boredom to be the root of all evil. But hey, I guess that’s only his perspective.”

“But that alone raises a question.” Ocellus said, “If most evil that isn’t natural is caused by how creatures see what is true, how then can we change their minds to prevent hurting anyone?”

Their teacher hummed in thought. He was thankful that the school bell rang in which he told the young Changeling that he’ll come up with an answer tomorrow. After they exited through the door and returned to the school, Discord dissolved the theater to restore it back to its original classroom.

“She does have a point.” He said to himself. “How exactly does anyone change their mind? How did I change my mind for that matter?” After pacing around a little, he struck upon an idea. With a snap of his talons, time froze, and he conjured up a time portal to a specific place in history. He smiled at who he saw on the other side, “Plato, my wisecracking stallion!” He greeted as he stepped through, “Mind if I ask you something?”

(Trial in the Headmare’s Office)

“So where do you want this stuff?” a copy of Discord asked the original as he held in his arms a number of items. From tennis rackets to stuff bunnies, radios and cursed items to name a few. The original Discord directed him to drop them off to an opening of the cave while his other copies were attaching the wet stone to the walls and placing the fire pit in a certain spot.

As his sense of gratification grew at the construction of the famous allegory, he along with his copies looked up when they heard the voice of their boss being heard over the intercom. The voice of the Headmare in seer annoyance that was disguised over with a half-singing voice.

“Oh Mr. Discord. Please report to the Headmare’s office at once. Mr. Discord, to the Headmare’s office.”

Discord (along with his copies) looked confused at one another. ‘What could she possibly want?’ he wondered. ‘Oh, don’t tell me that she’s figured out that I made Forethought sick on purpose.’ Taking in a deep breath, he teleported himself directly into the center of the Headmare’s/Princess Twilight’s office. He found that also in the room was one of the school counselor, Starlight Glimmer that was behind the large wooden desk as Twilight. And before the desk was a lone chair.

“I take I’m either in trouble or you want to congratulate me.”

“What?” Starlight cocked her head to the side.

“Well that’s normally the rule, you know. When you get called by royalty that wants to be in your presence, it usually means that they want to give you a metal or send you straight to the guillotine.”

“Discord,” Twilight waved a hoof to the empty chair. “Take a seat. We need to talk.”

The spirit of random took her word and picked up the chair in his arms. Thereby his boss glared at him. “Okay fine,” he grumbled as he instantly sat in the chair, only it was several feet in the air.

“Before I say anything,” Twilight began, “I just want you to know that I do appreciate how you’re getting your students into Philosophy. That from what feedback I’ve heard, your teachings seem to click with whoever steps into your classroom, even if you do teach it out of what the syllabus says. They even say that you might quickly be making out to be their favorite teacher.”

“I sense a very big but in that statement.” Discord pointed out.

With a calming breath, Twilight continued. “But, with that being said, your last two lessons, from what your students are saying, have given rise to some concerns.”

“Over what?”

“To start,” Starlight began. “We’re a little worried if you might be sending your students the wrong message. For example, when Silverstream came to me not too long ago, she had said that she used to have anxiety about passing her classes. Now she’s telling me that she’s not all that worried about getting good grades as you taught that learning from other teachers won’t make her wise.”

“And just today,” Twilight added, “We hear from Ocellus that you’re justifying the actions of evil ponies and that it’s apparently okay to be horrible if they felt like it.”

“Objection.” Discord stood up, now in a white suit. “If this is meant to be a kangaroo court, then I the defendant wished to have actual kangaroos and a lawyer to say something upon my behalf.”

Suddenly the office was transformed into a courtroom in which Twilight sat on a high bench, Starlight by a typewriter, a jury of kangaroos in their respective jury box, and two Discords where one sat by a desk and the other walked up to them.

“My client, Mr. Handsome Discord, wasn’t by any means suggesting that doing those things that he’s been accused with to be the correct path in wisdom. If Justice Twilight would be so kind and not decide to hang or fire my client on the spot, I’d like to give my argument on the contrary.”

Twilight groaned. “Fine. We’ll hear you out.”

“If you can turn your attention towards the screen,” Discord’s lawyer copy pointed towards a screen that popped from the floor, “you shall clearly see that he makes his point very clear regarding useful education. Here, he speaks of Sharp Spirit’s philosophy.”

The screen flicked to life in which showed Discord and six of his students on the campus of what Twilight identified as the campus of Canterlot University with its students gathering around him.

“Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t mean that getting a degree is useless or not worth the effort to get one. He was simply saying that what we see outwardly as intelligence in a setting like this is often different from the real wisdom and intelligence in reality. He even said, ‘In practice, thousands of little mares in their villages have lived more gentle, calmer and more constant lives than the professors at a university.’ If anything, all Sharp was seeking was students who had wisdom. What does he mean by that? Just someone who has humility, modesty, and accepts the limits of their own knowledge.”

“Question,” Twilight asked, “If that were true, then why did Silverstream interpreted your lesson as that studying isn’t all that important?”

“Your Honor, my client simply presents his students with the ideas the philosopher that he is talking about. He can’t be held entirely accountable in how his students interpreted what he’s saying.”

“Like how you taught them that it’s okay to be horrible towards others if they felt like it?”

“My client said nothing of the sort, Your Honor. Regarding Carrotketgard, he was illustrating how, in his philosophy of Inner and Outer truths, that because each of us sees said truth through experience, that we can’t help but interpret the value of morality differently. That is it, he concludes that since we all interpreted truth individually, that the reasons why both atrocities and heroism were, from any given individual’s point of view, correct. Regardless who they were. Note this scene here when my client gives the idea to them and Gallus makes the following objection.”

The screen now flickers to that of an art gallery with a skeptical Gryphon looking up at his teacher.

“Are you honestly saying that it’s alright for me to just do any of these diabolical things and say that I’m doing it because I think it’s the right thing to do?”

“Yes.” Discord said, stunning his students. “Think how each and everyone you see in this gallery justifies everything they’ve done. That to them, they think they’re doing it because it was the right thing to do. However, from their perspective that if they looked at the other things that anyone besides them have done, some of them would see it as either ineffective or wrong.

“But what does that prove?” Starlight questioned. “If anything, that clearly gives justification that all morality is pointless.”

Discord’s copy raised an eyebrow as he conjured up a folder with her name on it. “Is that so? Justice Twilight, permission to cross-examine Starlight?” The Headmare gave the permission. “So, Ms. Glimmar, do you have a sense of right and wrong?”

“Yeah?” she raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

“Have you always have this sense of morality?”

“Yes?”

“Ever since you were young?”

“Mr. Discord, what has this got to do with anything?”

“I’m making a point. Just answer the question.”

She sighed. “Well yeah. I’ve always had.”

Discord’s copy hummed thoughtfully. “Very interesting. Do you always have done things, not all the time of course, but always tried to do the right thing?”

“I can tell you’re trying to lead me. Why?”

“Okay, let me rephrase it then. Why do you do this? Counseling I mean.”

“Well because I figured that it would be the most helpful for students that would come to the school.”

“Helpful huh?” Now it was Discord’s copy to raise an eyebrow. “Have you always been helpful?”

“Yes.”

“Now this is interesting indeed.” He flips open the folder in his lion’s paw. “As it clearly says here, that you were once the head of a cult that preached Equality by having members shun the very idea of having individual cutie marks.”

Starlight’s expression dropped.

“Furthermore,” he adds, “it also says here that the main reason why you did it at all was that you honestly thought it was the right thing to do. Even when you plotted revenge on Twilight Sparkle, you carried out your blind anger and hatred because you thought it was the right thing to do. Tell me, during those years, have you ever questioned if you were in the wrong?”

“Stop it.” She looked at him, anger and sadness building up in her eyes. “Stop it right now.”

“Why? For telling you a truth that you don’t want to hear? A truth that only you, yourself saw was the greatest good. A truth that no matter who got in the way, you would rather tear up all of the time just to get back at Twilight. Was that true, Ms. Starlight Glimmer?”

“Discord!” Twilight snapped at him, banging a sharp crack from her gavel. “That’s enough!”

His copy, however, smirked. “But neither of you can’t tell me that I’m wrong. Can you?” The Headmare didn’t reply. “To be clear, Your Honor, my client was planning on furthering the discussion about where evil comes from by how that, even those we call evil could change their minds. The three of us know better than anyone that such redemption can be difficult, but not impossible. All I ask is to give him time to further the discussion with his students to show some unpleasant but necessary truths that will help them see how things really are. He is not teaching them how to be ignorant and evil, but to know the value of wisdom and for them to think for themselves. If anything, just getting this complaint from at least one of his students indicates that they’re not blindly following him. Don’t you think that maybe it would be disappointing to a philosophy teacher if all his students agree with everything he says?”

After giving some thought, Twilight declared. “As long as you make it clear that doing anything evil has consequences and stress the importance of education, you’re free to continue. However, I’ll let you go with a warning to be careful in how you teach.”

With that, Discord dissolved the courtroom. “If that’s all, I have to prepare for tomorrow.”

“Out of curiosity,” Starlight asked, “what are you planning on teaching?”

He smiled, “The Allegory of the Cave.”

Lesson 4: Into the Cave

Discord was feeling impatient. He couldn’t wait to start teaching first hour at nine that he paced around the door of his classroom for five minutes that felt like days-

“Really?” the ex-Chaos spirit looked up at the ceiling. “Of course it has been days! Your readers have been waiting for well past a week or so for something to come out and you’re not gonna-”

(Oi! Don’t start breaking the fourth wall on me this early in the chapter! I’ve already gotten a complaint that I apparently abused it.)

“Don’t give me that! I have been itching to get to this lesson but what kept you putting it off? I thought you were known to put out this sort of material every couple of days or so.”

(Hey, I do have a life outside of this ya know. I’m in college and had to write up a paper in Mythology. It’s not exactly my fault that I have priorities. But can we cut this already? I’m gonna try to focus on finishing this short story while I can.)

Discord smirked. “Oh yeah, sort.” He sarcastically rolled his eyes. “Says the guy that decided to write nearly a dozen lessons, probably more thanks to the readers that suggest doing-”

“Uh, who are you talking to?” A new but familiar voice cut him off. He turned to look downward to find the students who were giving him weird looks. The one who spoke he quickly identified as Sandbar.

“It’s complicated.” Their teacher waved a paw. “Anyway, before we start this, Ocellus, step forward.” The blue Changeling gulped as she obeyed. Discord knelt down to where he was at eye level with her. “Considering what happened the other day and what you’ve done, I just wanted to say,” he put a claw on her shoulder, “I’m so proud of you!”

She blinked. “What?”

“You know, I’m actually relieved that you decided to tattle on me.”

This took all six of his students off guard, “Teacher glad?” Yona asked in disbelief.

“I am.” He nodded enthusiastically, “If anything, the very act of telling Twilight and Starlight shows that there are some of you that don’t blindly agree with everything that I say. Which on the one tentacle is actually a really good thing as the point of philosophy is to get you to think things for yourself, and the first step to do so is to have doubt. On the other, I would much prefer it to have you directly tell it to me. If there are disagreements with what I teach, please, by all means, speak up why you doubt it and try to convince me.

“In fact,” he turned his attention toward Ocellus, “since you ratted out on me yesterday, I’m going to have you take part in a very special role that is essential for today’s lesson.”

Although the young Changeling wasn’t sure if she should be honored or extremely worried that her teacher has something… sinister in mind, she responded: “And uh… what exactly would that be? M-Mr. Discord?”

Stretching a rubber paw at the door handle, he replied. “Today class, I’m going to tell you all a story.” With a turn, the classroom door opened to show walls of stone that lead downwards into an abyss.

All six of his students peeked their heads in. “Okay,” Gallus began, “who wants to go inside the creepy tunnel inside our tomb first?”

“I’ll take the lead.” Their teacher said, as he suddenly had on clothing that made him look like something out of a Daring Do novel, complete with a brown fedora, an open brown leather jacket with a sandy button-up shirt, a pouch, sandy pants with a whip at his side. And in his claw was a lit torch. “You all better stay close, the path to enlightenment tends to start at the darkest and most confusing places. This is no different.”

After the group looked at one another with hesitation, they caught up with their teacher as he already started the journey downward. “So, Mr. Discord,” Silverstream asked, “what is this story about?”

“Well,” after brushing a cobweb, their teacher began, “Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a prison that lay underground. What exactly the prisoners for said prison has done is not important, for they and their children have grown up inside the darkness of a cave for all of their lives. The prison, or rather, this secret cave, goes down so deep into the earth that not even sunlight could reach past the entrance. But in this cave, with these prisoners, they have been subjected to a rather interesting punishment, if you could call it that.”

Now with the light behind them has dimmed out completely, their teacher paused as they all saw a light up ahead. So Discord put out the flames of his torch but insisted that his students followed him in darkness.

“I’m afraid that I have to take back something – ‘darkness’ isn’t the correct word for this place. If anything, these prisoners weren’t kept in the dark as there at the bottom of the cave was a bonfire that was ordered to be lit at all times. The guardians of this prison carry objects back and forth from the light of the flames to cast shadows onto a wall, which is the only thing that their prisoners could see.”

“Why is that?” Smolder inquired. “Couldn’t they just turn their heads to look behind them?”

“How about you take a look at the reason yourself?” Before the Dragoness could ask what he meant by that, Discord leads them to the bottom of the stairs and into a vast room. The students stood on what looks like a platform that was above the lowest level of the cave. In front of them was a blazing fire pit that crackled and burn brightly. However, what interested the students were the copies of their teacher that walked back and forth near the edge of the platform. Some of them held random objects from accordions to a kitchen sink. At times it was just themselves that chatted, or even random animals that dart about.

Yona looked up at her teacher. “This cave?” He nodded. “Where prisoners?”

He gestured them to follow him to the edge of the platform in which they not only saw the shadows being projected onto a dark gray, stone wall but below them was a row of the prisoners in shadow. They were chained to be sat down, and each had a brace that forced each one to look at the wall. Not one of them could move. However, as the students quickly noticed, these prisoners weren’t gaged.

“Dreamcatcher!” One said as Discord’s copy carried a candlestick.

“Starbucks!” Another cried as a copy played the tuba.

“Pudding!” As a copy walked across the platform with a copy of Play Shy Magazine.

“Are they playing a guessing game?” Silverstream the Hippogryph asked.

Their teacher hummed in thought. “Kinda. As these prisoners have never seen anything other than the shadows on the wall, they all give names to them. If anything, in this cave, the one who could correctly name all these shadows is considered wise in this think tank.”

“Don’t they ever get bored?” Smolder raised a claw. “I mean, is there anything else for them to do in this place?”

“What is there to do?” Discord pointed out. “When they’re never allowed to move from their space nor look where the shadows are coming from, they can’t exactly play Mareopoly.”

Ocellus, with a sympathetic look, cranes her neck over. “But this isn’t fair. If they were born into the cave, they’ve done nothing wrong to deserve such a punishment.”

“Since you're so inclined.” Her teacher reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a key. “I need for you to do one important thing. Take this key and choose only one to free.”

“One!” the Changeling exclaimed. “B-But what about all of them?”

“I know this is a hard choice, but this is essential for today’s lesson. So, go ahead. Pick one.” He handed the key over to her.

After taking it into her hooves, she looked about at the row of stiff prisoners before she flew down to the lowest level of the cave. In the darkness, she couldn’t make out who exactly they were. So she picked one at random.

“Excuse me.” She said quietly as she approached one of the prisoners.

“W-Who’s there?” a female voice asked.

“It’s okay.” She cooed as she stuck the key in the lock of the brace “I’m here to free you.”

“Why? I’m not dead.”

“Who are you talking to?” A prisoner next to them asked as there was a click from the lock. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Ocellus went around to undo all the chains. “But something is happening to me.”

“You’re free now.” The young Changeling said. “Come on, get up.”

There was a hesitant pause. “Get… up?”

“Stand up, you’re free to move now.”

“Strange goddess, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Here, I’ll help you.” With a flash of green fire, she transformed herself into a gryphon in which she picked up someone that, to her talons, was very frail. However, as she picked this mysterious filly and set her on the lit ledge, she was stunned to find… herself. But much weaker as she used her forehooves to cover her eyes.

“Ow! My eyes!” she cried out as Ocellus dropped her disguise, much to her and the other student’s astonishment. “What is that?!”

They looked at the source of her affliction. “You mean the fire?” Sandbar asked.

“It hurts my eyes.” The Ocellus clone whined as she turned her head away from the flames and to the wall, in which she found it easier to see.

Yona walked up to her, “Can Changeling stand?”

When she didn’t respond, the Yak used her horns to carefully lift the weak copy of her friend on her hooves. At first, the clone collapsed, but when she was able to stand, she couldn’t walk. So to speed things up, Discord had to make her swallow a pill of “Instant-learn-to-walk,” in order for things to pick up the pace.

“Do you have a name?” Gallus asked, but her face was still towards the wall. Ocellus’s clone confessed that she didn’t know. “Since you look like our friend over here,” he said in thought, “how about we call you… OC?” His teacher snickered. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” He said, “I’m sorry to shatter your reality little one. But those shadows over there, aren’t what you think they are.”

She looked up at him. “W-What do you mean?”

“I’ll let you get used to the light for a moment.” It did take a while for Ocellus’s copy to be able to let her eyes adjust to the bonfire, and Discord’s copies as they carried random items back and forth. “So, can you name me a few of the things they’re carrying?”

The students watched how puzzled she was as she looked between the random stuff being carried, and the shadows that the light was casting. “Why are they like that?”

“Like what?” Smolder inquired.

“Like that, they’re not… flat. Or dark. They can’t be real but…” She glanced between them and the shadows. “How are they more… real?”

“I think it’s best if we get her out of this cave.”

His students agreed. The six of them took OC up the dark tunnel and into the light of the hallway of the school. However, as soon as Ocellus’s copy saw the light of the sun, she collapsed to the ground and covered her eyes.

“I can’t see!” she exclaimed. “It’s too… too…”

“Shiny?” Silverstream asked.

“Yeah, that. It’s too shiny. I can’t see anything out here.”

Ocellus laid on her belly as she reached out to her clone. “Maybe you’re not used to the light yet. Here,” she gently pushed her other self out of the sunlight and into the shady parts of the hall. “OC, if this is going to work, I need for you to open your eyes slowly.”

“What good would that do?”

“I think it would help you get adjusted to being out here. Just slowly open your eyes a little.”

She obeyed. Wincing at first, she gently cracked open an eye as she began to see this new world. Then with another eye, she looked around like a newborn foal. Not only looking but touching too as she spied her hooves and felt her face for the very first time. Getting up, she saw the objects in the hallway, but at the students, she studied the most. Taking notice of their physical appearances and comparing them to her own. Eventually, OC asked if she was in the realm of the gods.

“Not really,” Discord answered casually, “this is a place of learning boring things. Still, why all the surprise and curiosity? Aren’t you glad you’re out of the cave?”

“It’s… It’s hard to put into words.” She admitted as she looked out of the window but trying to avoid the sunlight. “Everything around me is more… well…”

“Solid?” Gallus asked.

OC shook her head. “More than that. I can see shadows but, it all looks so… clear. So much more real (if that’s a word) then the shadows from the cave. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Discord suggested of going outside for a little bit. The students took OC with them out of the grounds of the school. At first, Ocellus’s copy still wouldn’t look up, but as the students saw, she was fascinated by the shadows and the objects and ponies that made those shadows. The students didn’t go too far as they reached a nearby pond. At this point, OC’s eyes were adjusted enough to look into pools of water to see her reflection.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Ocellus went up next to her. “This is water.” She said as she dipped her hoof and drew it out again, letting droplets fall back into the pond. “But the image being reflected back is called a reflection. See. This is you and this is me.”

“We look so much alike.” Her clone said. “This to me is more real than anything I ever knew. There’s so much more now than in the cave.”

“Yona has question.” She asked, “Why OC’s kind shot words at wall?”

It took her a moment to process what was being asked but she responded. “We were having a contest. That we would place honor on whoever could name the things that were being presented in the right pattern. But up here, I don’t care for any of that now. Being outside is more beautiful and full than life could ever be within the cave. Only…” She turned to Ocellus, “Why was only I released? What about all of those still in the cave? Maybe they should be able to see this too.”

OC went over to a bush of flowers in which she plucked one of them, admiring its color and its smell. “After all, there is a life beyond being honored for what shadow comes next. I must go back!” Unexpectedly, before any one of the students could do anything about it, she suddenly darted back to the school.

“Hey! Wait!” Sandbar called out as he and his friends gave chase as they followed her back through the hallways, through Discord’s classroom door, and down the dark descent. As they entered into the abyss quickly, none of them had the chance to adjust their eyes and as a result, Yona, the last student behind them, tripped and tumbled down the steps, taking her friends with her.

Fortunately, their teacher, thinking quickly, let the stone stairs give way to a mattress slide with a pile of Fluttershy plushies to aid their fall. While none of them were hurt, Silverstream picked up one of the soft dolls in her claws.

“Is this Professor Fluttershy?” she asked before it and the pile of plushies went away. Their teacher had an embarrassment painted on his face.

“Just forget about that.” He quickly said as he pointed to the edge of the platform. “Go and see what OC is doing, and then I’ll give you all the point of my lecture.”

The six students got back up and looked over the edge in which they heard laughter coming from the lowest point of the cave. There they saw OC trying to tell them about the outside world but is noticeably blind as she kept bumping into the braces or tripping over the chains.

“For a filly that seen a whole new world,” one mocked, “she really can’t see very much in this one!”

“Her eyes must have been spoiled.” Another said.

“And crazy too!” Added another, “How can she sincerely say that this is an illusion? We can see them clearly, so how can anyone take what she says seriously? She’s practically blind!”

“Yes! How dare she question the gods?” Agreed the prisoner next to them. “Perhaps we should put her to death.”

A sharp snap from Discord’s talons was heard, and the cave was frozen in time. Even the students, who looked this way and that saw that even the fire held still.

“What you’ve just witnessed,” their teacher began, “is my version of the same parable that Plato had described in his book, ‘The Republic.’ This here is his most well-known as it has become to be known as ‘The Allegory of the Cave.’ Before I could explain any further, a little background of the author of this tale.

“You see, Plato was once a student of our buddy Socrates that, unlike his teacher, bothered to write his and his teacher’s ideas down in a series of self-inserted fanfictions in which he and his friends party, get drunk and talk about philosophical ideas.”

“Wait… really?” Gallus asked in disbelief. “Just hold on a sec… Are you telling me that what just happened is basically part of some old guy’s fanfictions?”

His teacher nodded. “Uh-huh. And while he admittingly had mastered the art of putting words in other ponies’ mouths, it is said that all of Philosophy from Freud’s theory of the mind to how government works is merely a hoofnote on Plato’s work. But unlike those that came after him that put their ideas down that would put you to sleep, Plato wrote it like a story. Well… more like a sort of drama that has a lot of dialogue.

“In fact, he wrote about this parable as a way to illustrate what it is like to be a philosopher that has been enlightened. Take our OC down here. She had spent her life in this cave, in the dark no less, so she had to be taken out from her familiar spot to get her to see things from a different point of view.”

“But it wasn’t pleasant for her.” Ocellus pointed out. “Since her eyes were hurting when we got her out into the open.”

“Now that’s true. But neither is enlightenment. Yet, when she returned to the cave, notice how none of her fellow prisoners reacted. They called her a fool. That the experience didn’t do any good for her but make her stumble. Regardless of her goody-goody intentions. If anything, it ties in perfectly with the discussion of evil we had yesterday.”

“Really?” Yona questioned. “How?”

“Remember when I said that, according to Carrotketgaard that, from an individual’s perspective, their version of what is true, right and noble is correct from their past experience. Why take these prisoners here. Of course, they wouldn’t understand what OC is talking about. They’ve never seen the sun or saw their reflections in a pond, for all they know are the shadows on the wall. So what she says to them at first is a little hard to swallow in one go without something to wash it down. After all, even OC, while free, is not free from the one thing that all of us have.”

“What’s that?” all six voices asked at once.

“Freedom from consequence.” He replied. “No one, not mortal or god is free from the consequence in what they say and do. Cause and effect are inescapable regardless what anyone does or doesn’t do. OC tried to tell them of the outside world and what is the result? They laugh at her, brush her off and even claim her blasphemy as evil.”

Smolder looked down at the prisoners who have been frozen in that second. “So… is there really nothing that anyone could do about changing their minds? I mean, if what you said about yesterday is true, then doing that is impossible.”

Discord smirked. “Not quite. Yes, it is very hard to change someone’s viewpoint on life. But from personal experience, it’s difficult, but far from impossible.”

“But how?” Sandbar asked.

“Remember the first two lessons I had with all of you? Of Haycartes and Socrates, what did those two have in common?”

For a moment, six students didn’t know the answer until a Hippogryph claw was raised. “Was it on doubt?”

Confetti and flags that said “Smartest Student of the Day” popped out from the floor on both sides of her. “And give the lady a giant cookie!” Her teacher declared before conjuring up a cookie that was twice the size of her. “Yes! Doubt is the key! Haycartes had set up the idea that doubting was the best way to find the truth. But it is Socrates that set up a way of how to do it! Remember his method? The best way to make your audience see what you are talking about is to point out flaws and exceptions in everyday misconceptions. And if you think about it, this is why Plato is considered a great teacher as this was his way too of educating others.

“It even spawns another student of his, Air Saddle to not only doubt his teacher’s teachings about the world but allowed him to become, what we may call, the worlds earliest scientist. Yet, he still learned from his teacher that the best way to educate and teach what is important in the world is to teach others to doubt.”

Ocellus looked over to where her copy was. “So… for OC, what happens to her now?”

Humming in thought, her teacher replied. “Admittingly, the original story ended right here. But with what I’ve already said, I suppose that this time I’d like to give this parable an ending.”

Another snap and time had resumed. OC was struggling with what to do next until she remembered the flower that she had carried with her. Then towards the wall of the cave where shadows moved about, she got an idea. Flying back to the platform, she went over to the bonfire and took from it a branch that was still lit as she carried the flame back to the lowest part of the cave. Now the students saw that she stood between them and the wall, a bright light that illuminated the space and the prisoners groaned as they tried to shut their eyes.

“If what I had said isn’t true, then explain how all of you can see me now?” She then used her flower as she went to them, one by one to see the petals in her hoof. “Or if I never went into the realm of the gods, then tell me what is this that I am holding in your faces?”

“In my ending,” Discord explained. “OC here has given the prisoners the greatest gift of all: doubt itself.” As he turned to head back up towards the entrance, he twisted his head around to ask them if they had any questions.

“I have one.” Smolder raised her claw as she, and her friends followed. “What did you mean back there when you said at one point that you were talking from personal experience?”

Discord paused. “Well, for those of you who don’t know it yet, like Starlight Glimmer, I too was a villain and done some… regrettable things. Before the whole reformation thing, I did what I did, not because it was the right thing to do or I was just evil for the sake of it. Rather, I did it because, even now, I am chaos itself. Something that all of you should remember, chaos is not the same as being evil. Just the opposite of order. It’s only when I was presented with a doubt that it might be possible to be happier with friends that I saw a new point of view that, admittingly, I’m still learning about. Any other questions?”

“Why can’t you teach full time?” Sandbar inquired. “After all, you’re really good at this teaching thing.”

He shrugged, “I’m a spirit of random, not of education. I believe that’s Twilight’s position.” His students giggled as they neared the door. With no other questions for them to ask, he decides to let them go early. “Except for you Sandbar, I want to ask you something.”

After telling his friends that he’ll be with them, the Earth Pony remains behind with his teacher in the hallway. “What do you want to ask me, Mr. Discord?”

“If it’s not too much to ask, do you have anything that you always wanted to know something that might… oh, I don’t know… help you in some way?”

He blinked. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. Like is there some question you have about life that no one has an answer for. Or have some personal issues that you want to know how to solve. Something like that.”

“Mr. Discord, why are you asking me this?”

Within a flash, his teacher had tape measures that hang from his arms, a pin cushion with plenty of pens floating by his side and tacky glasses over his eyes. “Simply because I figured that the best way to teach philosophy is to have my lessons be tailored to my student’s concerns about what they really want to learn about.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.” After thinking for a moment, Sandbar said, “Now that you’ve mentioned it, there is one thing that I do want to know.”

“And that being?”

“What’s the point of being perfect when so much goes wrong?” Discord asked him to expand on what he meant. “Like, you know how with us students that we’re expected to get good grades and do well with school?”

“I never been a student, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Or maybe just have ponies just want you to do well in life. But even I know that something is bound to go wrong sooner or later. To have all your dreams come crashing down into a million pieces. So… I guess the real question for you is after something like that happens, what now?”

“Hold still.” Discord let one of the measuring tapes dropped from Sandbar’s hoof to his head. With intense scrutiny, the teacher found a word upon that strip. 金継ぎ. “Well,” he smiled with a toothy grin, “it looks like I know what I’m going to teach tomorrow.”

“You mean on Monday?”

“Huh?”

“It’s Friday. We don’t have classes until Monday since we’re given Saturday and Sundays off.”

“Oh… Well no matter,” his teacher gathered up the measuring tape. “That only means that I have time to prepare. And don’t worry, I think I know a good custom fit for you.”

With the bell ringing, Discord dismissed him as he waits for the next batch of students.

Lesson 5: The Art of Imperfection

That Monday morning it was pouring with rain. Discord ate his doughnut lasagna as he waited in the hallway for his students to show up. Of course, students that pass by him couldn’t help but notice the Draconequus eating breakfast sideways on a wall as he tapped his talons, staring at the windows right across from him. Not only that, but those said students that went to and from couldn’t help but notice what Discord was wearing. A black robe in the Neighponiese style, complete with a part of his Mohawk being tied back into a bun.

“Why are you in a Kimoto?” Discord’s attention was turned to the ground as he found Professor Fluttershy looking up at him.

“Ah! Good morning my dear!” her friend slithered down to give her a hug. “I just found this old thing in my closet, so I thought it would be perfect for the lesson I’m teaching today.”

“Really? I didn’t know you had a Kimono.”

“Neither did I until the author decided to give me one.”

“What?”

“Point being, I have this on for the occasion of today’s lesson I have that requires the right atmosphere to get it across.”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “So… I take it that you’re teaching something from Neighpon?” He nodded. “I thought you were only doing Western Equestria philosophy?”

“Says who? An idea never obeys borders. That’s why they’re ideas. If anything, I’m not paying attention to the fixed as a board syllabus and go for what these kids wanted and, more importantly, needed to learn. After all, it’s not my fault of where these lessons come from as long as they’re helpful.”

“What exactly are you going to teach then?”

Her friend gave a toothy grin. “Pottery.”

Fluttershy blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“Remind me of telling you about it tomorrow when we have our tea.” With the morning bell echoing throughout the school, the two teachers bid one another farewell as Fluttershy rushed to get to her class.

Minutes later, his morning students arrived with Yona asking: “Did someone die?”

“Pardon?” Discord asked.

“Teacher has black funerary robes. Like Yak mourning robes.”

“Oh no.” Their teacher chuckled, “Nobody has died yet. Trust me if that were the case, I’d be hunting death down until he gives my friends souls back. No, what I have on is the traditional dress in Neighpon in a time period that today’s lesson is from.”

“Neighponiese?” Ocellus looked through her copy of the syllabus. “But I don’t see any-” Before she could finish her sentence, she watched as her copy had folded itself into a paper swan in which it flew away.

“You don’t have to worry about that thing.” Discord told her. “What I have is something that is much more useful, if not fascinating as those in the East have a different approach to philosophy then this part of the world does. So come inside, I have an activity for all of you to do.”

Their teacher opened the door to his classroom. This time as they walked through, it was converted into a garden of bamboo, ponds with large orange and white fish, cherry trees, evenly raked sand, smooth rocks, nearby trees, and grass. They walked along a wooden platform that suspends them above the flora and fauna that winds and coils into the garden.

“Compared to the West such as Equestria,” Discord said, “we tend to expect to learn things from books. In the East like Neighpon, they tend to find wisdom in the most simple and unexpected sources. Take for example the philosophy that its origin came about by accident. Before I go into detail, today you all will be doing a little art assignment for this to work.”

“Really?” Smolder deadpanned. “We’re gonna be doing arts and crafts? I thought that was Professor Rarity’s job.”

“Nothing like this.” Their teacher wagged a claw. Within moments, the students found themselves at the end of the wooden trail was a round platform with simple podiums. On each of these six podiums were porcelain vases as white as clouds. Discord could tell just by the looks on their faces that they had no idea what they were for nor knew what to do with them. “For this activity, all you have to do is simply touch one of these and get a clear picture in your head of the perfect, ideal life you’ve always wanted. Such as having the perfect home, being famous, rich, in love, anything you want within reason, really. Let your imaginations paint the life you’ve always wanted.”

Silverstream the Hippogryph stared at her teacher. “Is that it?”

“That’s it. Well, for now. But go on, pick one.”

Six students looked at one another until Sandbar stepped up to one of the podiums in which he reached out a hoof to touch the cool, smooth surface. And no sooner had he touched it had the vase sprouted blue lines of patterns and shapes all along the porcelain. Before their eyes, waves twisted and crashed, a tiny portrait of Sandbar with two adult ponies plus Gallus roasted marshmallows in its flames as the sun sets. As the students got closer, they couldn’t help but notice that all four faces painted instantly were happy by the time the earth pony withdrew his hoof, thereby freezing the blue lines in place.

“Oh, I’ve got to try this!” Silverstream went to a nearby vase in which she touched it and blue lines swirled about before it settled on an image. It showed a stage in which she was in a graduation gown and Princess Twilight gave her diploma while onlookers of her friends and family were cheering her on.

Immediately after, the four other students went to their porcelain vases to which they painted with their minds. Smolder holding up the scepter of the Dragon Lord. Ocellus with her family on Hearth's Warming morning. Yona sliding down the side of a snowy mountain with her friends. And Gallus being surrounded by riches and his arm wrapped around Sandbar as they celebrated.

“Gotta admit,” the gryphon said, “this is actually really cool.”

“I can see all of you like your pots.” Discord commented as, with a snap of his paw, his students held a bowl with a golden liquid and a brush. “Now for the next part.”

“Uh, Mr. Discord?” Ocellus asked as she looked at these new materials in her hooves. “What are these for?”

“For this,” and before any of them could say or do anything without warning, Discord took away the podiums. In their shock, the students couldn’t react fast enough as they helplessly watched their vases come crashing on the wooden floor. A tremendous bang as the images of their ideal life was literally shattered into pieces.

“HEY!” Smolder yelled. “What did you do that for!?”

“This is our lesson today.” Their teacher explained. “Today we are to learn from the art of Kintsugi. Loosely translates as: ‘To mend with gold.’ Yes, what I did was a bit cruel, but there is a legitimate philosophical lesson to be learned. For this, I’m giving you an assignment of using that bowl to glue back all those broken pieces together. However, and this is important, that you should have no attempt to hide the damage. All the fault lines should be visible.”

As the students gathered up the remains of the porcelain vases, Yona asks: “What learn from fixing broken pot?”

“While you all are gathering the pieces, I should explain where the idea came from. While Equestria’s renaissance was dawning, in Neighpon, the Shogun Watashi Wa Umadesu, accidentally broke his favorite tea bowl. Not wanting to have it replaced, he sends it to Equestria to have it fixed. When he finally got it back, he was horrified that it was stapled together. So, he turned to his craftponies to come up with a more elegant solution. The result did not only do they mended it but did so without trying to hide the damage and made it artistic too.”

“Uh… Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Silverstream asked as she picked up one of the broken pieces. “I don’t think many of us had fixed stuff like this before.”

“As long as you be careful and thoughtful of how you put all of these together, this will still work.”

Before long, the students began to place the bottom pieces together and glue it with the sparkling lacquer. “So why make a philosophy from broken pottery?” Sandbar inquired as he held two pieces in place.

“I’m glad you asked.” Discord replied as he slithered over and around his student. “Neighpon at this point in time already had a philosophy that was becoming popular. Compared to this side of the world where folks like yourselves value perfection, youth, and happiness that would make Starlight’s old village look like heaven, the other side sees it differently. If anything, they have a different view on what is considered beautiful. In Neighpon, the most stunning things of all are the things that are imperfect, old and melancholy. They have a phrase for this called ‘Wabi-sabi.’ In plain Equestrian, the closest (roughest) translation might be ‘Mature Melancholy.’ Mind you, it has nothing to do with being sad all the time. Rather, think of it as a grown-up way of how to behave when facing imperfection, rugged and depressing situations with grace.”

“Like what?” Yona asks.

Discord glided over to the Yak’s vase in which on the ground she had organized the original image. “Take for example what you have here. A fun day sledding down the mountain with your friends. What you have here can not only be your expectation of what it’s going to be like, but also what might happen in reality. However, life tends to throw a monkey wrench into your plans as something could be bound to go wrong. Like what if someone gets hurt? Or none of your friends could come? Or maybe an avalanche comes down to encase you in ice for future archaeologists? With such a blow, it leaves nothing of your dream except some shattered and seemingly worthless fragments.”

Smolder smirked as she prepared another piece of porcelain. “Kinda reminds me the first week at the school.”

“Tell me about it.” Gallus agreed, “We thought that we were going to a place that might be worth going to, instead we got trapped in a boring school with bad teachers, mountains of books and a bigot to lock us out.”

“C’mon, it’s not so bad.” Sandbar pointed out. “I mean, we all became friends despite what happened. And the school has gotten better too. Sure, I admit that not all the teachers are perfect, but at least it was better than what it was.” The other students agreed.

Piece by piece, each student put on a layer of the gold lacquer and carefully letting it set between the other fragments as the shape of their vases took hold. Discord couldn’t help but notice that every so often, his students would pause as they would look at the joined pieces, especially when it had the faces of friends or family that were reunited with a vein of gold. While the shape wasn’t perfect, and some had too much or too little lacquer to reconnect, or even if they had to rethink where a piece goes, much care was going into these repairs.

“Since you’re almost done, I have one last story that would tie this lesson in a nice bow. That about a hundred years after this discovery to repair pottery, a philosopher that was an advocate for wabi-sabi called Sen No Rikyu when he was traveling through southern Neighpon. He was invited to dinner where his host hoped that he would impress him with a perfectly made and expensive antique tea jar that he bought. However, Rikyu wasn’t interested in it was he was with a branch that was swaying in the breeze, that he had spent hours talking and admiring it. By the end of the meal, his host got so upset over this that he smashed the jar before going to bed. His guests, however, decided to gather up the pieces and glue them back together through Kintsugi. By the time it was fixed and seeing all the golden veins that showed, Rikyu smiled and said, ‘Now, it is magnificent.’”

“Because it was broken?” Sandbar asked, and his teacher smiled.

“Yes. Because when that jar was perfect, it was boring as there was no way to connect with it. However, once it was shattered and repaired, it was even more beautiful because of the imperfection of being broken. They never saw damaged things as something to be shunned or be set in the very back where the sun doesn’t shine, but to be put out into the open and embraced. After all, if there’s anything to be taken from this lesson, it is this: Imperfection is perfection. If you were perfect, you would have stopped. But for the simple fact that you have flaws, that you’re not that smart or physically fit, creative or could spell ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ in one go, doesn’t mean that you’re worthless. It is because you are imperfect, there’s nothing to stop to you from becoming anything you wanted to be.”

From the stunned silence, he looked around to see a dozen eyes looking at him. “Woah,” Gallus said what was on their minds, “that’s… that’s actually beautiful.”

Discord shrugged. “After all, if you guys have this much care and love for these shattered pieces, this should encourage you to respect what is damaged, scared, imperfect and vulnerable that starts with yourselves and those around you. Now, how close are you all to finishing?”

Yona was the first to put the last piece of her puzzle together. “Yak pottery is better… but this pot is best pot.” There was a sniff that was heard, and the students turned to the source, being Sandbar drying his eyes. “Pony okay?”

“Y-Yeah.” He said as he wiped the tears away. “I just… need this.”

“Why?” Gallus got up before he could put the final pieces together as he went over to him. “Was there something… oh…” the young gryphon got a look at the repaired pot, particularly at the image of the two adult ponies that were glued together. He put a comforting claw on Sandbar’s shoulder. “I get it now.”

Discord didn’t. He allowed his students to put the final pieces in place of their vases before telling them that they can keep them as a reminder of that day’s lesson. He even has them teleported to their dorm rooms.

After dismissing his class, he allowed them all to go except for Gallus that he asked to stay behind. Once the students left, it was only him and the teacher.

“Before you ask, the answer is no, you’re not in trouble.” Discord clarified. “I just wanted to ask you two questions. First being, why was Sandbar crying?”

“Oh uh…” the young gryphon rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I should tell ya.”

“Over what?”

“Look, as his friend, I can’t say very much. Let’s just say that Sandbar has some… family issues. Kinda like mine in a way. And before you say anything, I’m fine. If anything, I’m actually impressed that you’re going out of your way to help him in something that I couldn’t.”

“I did say that I wanted to tailor my lessons to the needs and concerns of my students. This brings to my question: Is there something you want me to teach that you’ve always wanted to know but nobody has a clear answer?”

Holding his beak in his claw, Gallus hummed in thought. “Nothing that I could think of… except…”

“Yes?” Discord leaned in closer.

“Something that has been bugging me about today’s lesson actually. While fixing these pots should teach us that we should embrace imperfection when hardship comes along. But I think you’ve forgotten to show us how. I mean, it’s one thing to expect that everything is gonna be crappy, but how do you deal with stuff that isn’t that easy to fix?”

His teacher too pondered over this. “While there are a few ways I could tackle it, I think there is someone that I can answer your question.”

“Like, you know them personally or…?”

“Yep. There is somepony that I have in mind that had to deal with hardship through all his life and wrote a great book about it. He’s actually a rather fun guy too once you get to know him.”

“That’s great.” Gallus asked, “Where is he?”

“He’s dead.”

His student frowned. “I should have seen myself walking into that one. I’m guessing is a really old guy?”

“About a couple thousand years, give or take. But what he has to say is still useful, to someone like you, for instance, he has written some advice that even you can relate.”

“That’s great but, I think I need to head to my next class.”

“Oh very well.” Discord leads his student out the door in which he tells him, “When you get to Fluttershy, tell her I said hi.”

Once his student was gone, he drew out a sword in which he cut a time portal through the floor. From the other side, there was a shout as spears were instantly pointed out.

“Prohibere! Et veniet in pace. (Stop! I come in peace.)” Discord quickly said to the ponies through the portal. “Mihi opus est ad aliquid mutuari- (I need to borrow some-)”

“O es? (Oh, are you?)” A voice questioned him from the portal. “Si rite audita recordor, vos got mihi paene interfectus est. Praeter enim dolorem esse fecistis Imperii. (If I recall, you almost got me killed. Apart from the pain that you did for the Empire.)

“Quia in una hora, commodare mihi Libellus. (Lend me your little book for one hour.)” He replied as he cautiously stretched his claw through the portal. “Pectus mihi confer mundum legere librum scriptum est in mundo quod sapientia sit, et non videtis me inspirati iterum. (Allow me to read a book is written, the wisdom that the world is inspired by and you do not see me again.)”

There was a pause. “Numquam adhuc? (Never again?)” Discord promised that would be so. To which he pulled out his claw a scroll.

“Gratias tibi. (Thank you.)” He told the ponies through the portal as he closed it.

After freezing time and plopping down into a bamboo beanbag, he kicked back as he opened the scroll past its title that had a single word: Aurelius.

Lesson 6: Advice from an Emperor

The next morning, the Spirit of Random crashed landed a gyroplane in front of Sugar Cube Corner. While it didn’t explode into a fiery ball of death as he expected it to, it instead dissembled itself as soon as the contraption touched the ground. Blots popped off, the paperer flew straight up into space, and even the wheels rolled away, leaving nothing but a pile of parts and a rather annoyed Draconequus crawling out.

“That’s the last time I buy anything mechanical from smooth-talking twins.” He grumbled as he got up and went through the wall of the bakery.

“Hey Discord!” Pinkie said from the other side of the counter. “Here for breakfast?”

“Well I didn’t feel like eating in my dimension today, so I thought I pick up a few things before teaching today.”

“I never thought you’d come this early to eat breakfast.”

“Well I didn’t sleep last night but that’s not what I’m here for.”

“What can I get for you anyway?”

After glancing at the menu and what was behind the glass counter, Discord asked: “I need everything that has sprinkles.”

“Like droughts with sprinkles, cakes, milkshakes, cupcakes, upside-down cakes, sideways cakes, Dashie’s protein shake, gingerbread houses, mashed potatoes-”

“Yes. Everything that has sprinkles on them.” He looked at his watch that was a couple centuries slow. “And I need it by-”

“Here you go!” Before Discord could finish his sentence, a mountain of food that had something to do with sprinkles stood on the groaning counter. “That’ll be a mint please.”

“Right ahead of you.” He conjured a safe that, when opened, blew an artic chill into the room. “Half-a-million mint bars, extra chilly.”

After Pinkie accepts the payment, the Draconequus proceeded to hoover up his breakfast. Without so much as chewing any of it, the pies, drinks and plastic rapping were sucked into Discord’s mouth in such a way that his breakfast was caught within a vortex. Even Pinkie had to hold on to something solid as her customer acted like a demonic garbage disposal.

“Is this how you usually eat?” Discord turned his head after he had vacuumed everything he bought. There in the doorway was Gallus with a surprised look on his face.

“Only on Tuesdays every other week.” He explained with the aftertaste of sugar on his tongue. “It just so happens that I had a sprinkle craving. So what are you doing here?”

“Here to get breakfast.” His student deadpanned as he walked around him towards the counter. “Hey Professor Pink, I’m here for the usual.”

After dishing out a dozen chocolate chip muffins into a paper bag, Discord followed Gallus out the door and asked him, “Why so many?”

“There for the guys.” He replied. “We figured that for breakfast that we should take turns in either getting or cooking something. I figured that since I have a few bits, and I’m a bit lazy to cook anything decent, I figured that I might as well get something. I just didn’t expect to see you trying to eat the whole shop.”

This made his teacher laugh. “I get it. I tend to have a titanic stomach, like the time that I ate a mountain once.”

Gallus’s eyes went wide. “You ate a mountain! Like… a legitimate rock-solid mountain?”

“Technically it was a volcano, but that’s because I was in the mood for something spicy.”

“Oh… well, what volcano was it?”

Discord shrugged. “Don’t know. It’s not there anymore.” For a moment, there was a hesitant, awkward silence before he asked. “So… about today’s lesson. Is there anything in particular that you wanted to learn?”

The young gryphon looked up at him in confusion. “I thought you already asked me that yesterday?”

“I did. But looking back at what you asked for, you said about what to do about certain things that aren’t that easy to fix. Although I read up on the guy that I said I would look into, I realized that I’m not exactly sure in what areas to cover over. So let me ask you, what sort of problems do you have that aren’t that easy to fix?”

For a few minutes, Gallus didn’t respond right away. But after some thought, he said. “Well… I guess there are a few things like how to deal with jerks, change, how to be happy, how to really live, and how to be motivated with life in general when there’s nothing to be motivated.” He paused as he heard a scratching sound and turned to see his teacher was jotting down on a pad. “Are you writing all of this down?”

“Making a few notes to myself,” he said as he finished writing and stuffed the notepad into his ear. “At least I have an idea what to talk about today.” At this point, the two of them were walking past the stream in which, Discord gets an idea. “How about I give you and your friends a ride?”

“Like to the school?”

“That, and maybe give out the lesson while you guys eat your breakfast. I figured that by the time I’m done, I should be able to let you all go early.” His student told him that he was listening. “In fact, I now know exactly how to do it.” After whistling a car horn later, down the stream came a boat that somehow was bigger than the stream but was able to fit. Gallus wasn’t quite sure what exactly he was seeing as it was like an ancient warship with its towering mast and the hundreds of oars that only touched the ground, yet this wooden ship was flexible enough to turn even at the tightest corners of the stream.

“Mr. Discord,” Gallus asked, “what is that?”

“The Row Ship Discord.” His teacher said matter-of-factly. “Do you live in a cave? But no matter, climb aboard or I’ll have to Shanghai you.”

His student sighed defeatedly. “You know what, I’m not gonna ask. Otherwise, I’ll be here all day.”

“And a good couple of decades too. But come on, up you go!”

After flying up on board, the young gryphon noticed that the entire crew was made up of Discords in rows upon rows holding oars while at one end was a drummer with dozens of drums and a gong. After the teacher instructed his copies to row to the school, the drummer on the other end was beating out a complex rhythm in which the rowers move their oars. Within minutes, the ship rammed into the dorm rooms, breaking a hole in the wall.

A cry of “What they hay!” was heard before Smolder stuck her head out of the hole before Yona, Ocellus and Silverstream did the same. “Mr. Discord? What do you think you’re doing?”

“We’ve brought breakfast.” He called out, “And I was thinking of getting our lesson out of the way, so I can let you go early.”

“Right now?” Ocellus asked as she glanced at a broken clock that was knocked over. “It’s not even nine yet.”

After telling her that was the main idea, Discord told them to bring out Sandbar so they could begin his lesson while they ate. Minutes later, his class was assembled just in time for Starlight bursting through the girls’ dorm room shouting: “DISCORD! WHAT THE LIVING TARTARUS DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!”

“Sorry about the hole, Comrade!” the Draconequus waved. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it so you can yell at me later.” Just the he commanded the boat to go in reverse by yelling “FLOOR IT!” the brinks, plaster and the shattered clock jumping up and repaired the wall.

Back on the stream, Gallus passed out the muffins while Sandbar asked, “So Mr. Discord, what were we going to be learning about today?”

Stomping on one of the planks, a stone bust popped up from the floor. “I’m glad you asked. Today I’ll be blabbering on the diary of this guy. Emperor Marcus Aurelius, last of the five good emperors of the Pegasi Empire, commander in chief and part-time philosopher. He has earned a place in Philosophy as being one of the most influential Stoics of all time. And no sooner have I said that sentence you’re probably thinking of someone like say… Maud Pie. Someone who is emotionless, always calm and has the personality of concrete. However, back in the times of the Pegasi Empire, there was more to this sort of lifestyle.”

“Like what?” Silverstream asked before munching on her muffin.

“Being a Stoic was seen as a way of how to approach to life by how we behave towards it, even if we have no control. They do so not by looking what the ideal life would be, but by looking of how things really are. At the same time, they believe in self-improvement through practical wisdom, self-moderation, fairness and courage by honor. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a self-centered nor a passive philosophy, rather the idea is that through self-control that we can see positive things to come about from everyone else.

“Our guy Marcus had become a master of this. As you would if you’ve spent most of your life either fighting blood-drenched wars or losing your children left and right. While this was going on, he wrote a book as a way to remind him of his own lessons that later became known as ‘The Meditations.’ (Eh, no relation to Haycartes.) In it, between all the battles and travel, he would write out his thoughts on how to deal with hardship realistically. It could be argued that our guy learned from Epictetus, another Stoic philosopher, that said that ‘We suffer not from the events in our lives, but our judgement about them.’ That is exactly what he does with his book, and in the end gives himself and others some very reasonable advice.”

“Like what?” Yona asked after she swallowed her muffin.

With a wave of his bird-like claw, he materialized a crystal ball in which he peered through, magnifying one of his eyes. The eye scanned each and every student as if it were peering through their very souls for something. It only made all six of them unnerved when he smiled.

“As it turns out, all of you can actually relate to today’s lesson. Gallus, Smolder, I’ll start with you two because you both have one thing in common.” Quickly turned around, he called out to his copy by the drums, “Starboard to bow! Allegrissimo alla affannato, dolore, irato ma melancolico! Five years ago, now!”

Before any of the students realize what was happening, a sudden jerk from the ship send them backward and sliding towards the very back of the ship. And just as quickly, a sudden jerk forward back to their original seats. Yona immediately asked what had happened.

“We’re at our first stop.” Their teacher explained. “Take a look where you are.”

A dozen eyes circled around at what they saw. On the right, black rocks and fire with dragons blowing fire and tossing rocks. On the left, towering mountains of ice and ruins with gryphons going by, neither side noticing the enormous ship.

“Are we…?” Smolder began.

“Home?” Gallus finished.

“These are the shadows of things that have been, but that’s not important.” Discord replied, “In both of these places in time, the first lesson from Emperor Marcus resides. If anything, Gallus and Smolder both have one thing in common.” He gestured over to Griffonstone side and told his students to take a look.

The six students peaked over the side of the ship at the delipidated town. At first, none of them knew what exactly they should be looking for. However, Yona said as she pointed. “Is that Gallus?”

Within a moment, they looked and there pulling on the rope at a well was a younger version of their friend. This Gallus was smaller, but it was undeniably him from his colors of his feathers to the very shape of his beak. In fact, the students compared their friend on the boat to the one by the well.

“I never knew that you were adorable as a kid.” Silverstream cooed.

“And I never knew that you lived in this dump,” Smolder added but Gallus frowned.

After looking behind, him towards the Dragon Lands, he retorted, “Says the Dragoness who lives in a place that’s mostly rocks and volcanoes.” Returning his gaze to Griffonstone, he hummed in thought. “Something about this is familiar.”

“It’s your home, isn’t it?” Ocellus asked.

Gallus shook his head. “Not that, there’s something… oh no.”

Before his friends could ask him, two larger gryphons came up to his younger self. They were twice the size of the younger Gallus as their bodies had twice the muscles than him. Even though the students have never seen these two before, the way their present friend reacted, told them that they’re about to witness something nasty.

“You know the rule, wimpy.” One of them said. “Fifty bits a bucket.”

“What!” the younger Gallus objected. “Yesterday it was ten.”

“Yeah, was.” The other replied. “But then the rent went up, now pay up.”

“I don’t have that money on me!” He said as he quickly tried to pull up the bucket. “We need this water, so if you could give me about a week, I should pay you-” He was cut off when one of the stronger gryphons snatched the rope.

“We want that money now. Or no water.”

“Honest, I don’t have that money right now.”

The one holding the bucket pulled out a sharp claw. “Too bad,” and with one go, he cut the rope, sending the bucked tumbling down the well. The young Gallus could do nothing but look down into the hole, devastated.

“We needed that water you jerks!”

The other gryphons swiftly took the young Gallus’s hind legs and held him upside-down. “Well if you’re so thirsty, why not you go get it.” While the young gryphon flapped his wings frantically, the bully thrust him screaming down the well.

Of course, the students were shocked as they turned to their friend that looked on with bitterness.

“Gallus,” Sandbar said, “I had no idea.”

His gryphon friend only huffed. “So what? Gryphons have always been jerks. From the next-door neighbor to Grampa Gruff. That’s the way things work on my side of the world.”

“Ah!” Discord smirked. “Why?”

“Why?” His student looked up at him as if he asked a question that an infant could answer. “Because life sucks! That’s why. What’s the good of being good when it’s worthless here?”

“That’s where our buddy would disagree.” He replied. “If anything, he as advice that’s practically tailored fit for you.”

Gallus raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“‘When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself this truth: The folks I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and irritable.’”

His student nodded. “Sounds pretty accurate so far.”

“‘They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But,’ our friend here says, ‘I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can involve me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like hooves, legs, and eyes, like two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.’”

Ocellus raised a hoof. “Translation?”

“Simply put, yes, there are plenty of jerks that will be awful and there’s no avoiding it. Yet, at the same time, it is foolish to dismiss all the good of others as well. He gives a reminder that because you share the same vices and virtues of those that we don’t like, that to get angry at them is pointless as to them, you’re just as big of a jerk. Anger gets in the way from the fact that, like it or not, you’re in this together.”

Gallus folded his arms. “Still doesn’t excuse them what they did to me.”

“Our Emperor Marcus has something for that too. Reserved for how to get the best form of revenge.” His student told him that he was listening. “‘The best revenge is to be unlike those that performed the injury.’”

“I don’t follow.”

“If you give back at those bullies’ tit for tat, an eye for an eye and a beak for a beak, then that wouldn’t do much other than making the whole world blind and beakless. His best form of revenge is to be the complete opposite of those that harmed you. It would show them that you haven’t given into their cycle of abuse by being the one to break it. Not because you are weak not to do the same back, but strong enough not to become the bully as well.”

This silenced Gallus. While caught in reflection, Discord gestured over to the other side of the ship. “Within the same area of how to deal with others,” he continues, “he also gives himself advice for how to face those that see you as nothing more than a trouble maker. Regardless if you deserve it, or not.”

“Smolder!” an angry voice rang out. The students quickly gathered to the other side of the ship to see who was the one that was shouting. From the ship, they saw Ember walking out with the rage of Tartarus in her eyes. “Where are you, you little cockroach!”

Immediately, the students turned to Smolder. “What the hay did you do?” Gallus instantly asked.

“I remember this,” was all the dragoness said, “this was before she became Dragon Lord.”

“Smolder!” Ember barked once more before a younger version her flew down.

“Jeez, I’ve heard you the first time.” She said as she flapped down beside her.

The older dragoness grabbed hold at the base of her wings and held her up to Ember’s burning eyes. “Where is it?” she questioned through her teeth.

“What are you talking about?”

“Where’s the rest of my hoard? There’s a good chunk of my gems gone. Did you eat them all?” The younger Smolder asked what made her think it was her. “Most of them were diamonds and emeralds. Aren’t those your favorite gem combo?”

As much as the younger dragoness tried to defend herself that she wasn’t the one that stole them, Ember didn’t believe her. So after a few minutes of arguing, the older dragoness snatched her arm, dragging her away.

“Huh.” Ocellus said as she turned to Smolder on the ship. “I knew you were a bit of a troublemaker but I-”

“I didn’t do it!” her friend objected. “For the billionth time, I didn’t steal anything that day! But why should I bother? It’s not like any of you would believe me.”

After folder her arms in a huff, Discord floated overhead. “I take it that this is merely just one example of you getting blamed for everything?” He asked.

“Why do you think I was sent to Equestria in the first place? I’m practically banished – even though I know that other dragons have done much worst.”

“True. But even here, our Emperor guy does have advice for you too.”

She snorted, “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“‘When another blames you or hates you, or others voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of folks they really are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.’”

“And why shouldn’t they?”

“He’s saying that if you behind the curtain from Lady Ember to pretty much everyone else, there is no need to take it too personally as, chances are, they too aren’t any better or worse than you. At the end of the day, you shouldn’t worry about others opinions about you as they are just as flawed as you are.”

“Doesn’t exactly help when Dragons, in general, are big jerks.”

Her teacher rolled his eyes. “‘Waste no more time arguing about what a good creature should be. Be one.’ Just because all of the dragons you’ve ran into are short-tempered, irrational and fight at a drop of a sandwich, doesn’t mean that you should be as well. The best way to show that you are better than them – be the kind of dragon that you wanted to be. Now, let’s move on.”

After looking at the boat and muttering that it seems a little too Ben Hur, he changed the mode of transport with a snap. Before anyone knew it, the students found themselves on a train along with the other copies of their teacher seated about. Discord himself now had on a blue uniform and a hole puncher in his paw.

“Next stop on Emperor Mark’s philosophy also has to deal with another thing that is enviable. And for Ocellus especially, has to deal with change. Our next flash black will be from about a year ago, right after Thorax took the throne and you Changelings instantly turned into something that even Pony Generator would call too tacky.”

“Hey!”

“Ah, we’re here.”

The students took notice how the train is slowing down as the blur from the windows became focused. All around, they saw walls of black stone filled with holes. It became clear of where they were as they zipped by colorful Changelings that didn’t notice the mile-long train that was going through their hive. Eventually, the train slowed to a halt as the students saw through the entrance of a cave was Ocellus sitting on the edge of a stone bed, looking at her hooves.

Their teacher walked over to the window to open it, just in time when King Thorax to walk by them, knocking on the side of the entrance.

“Hey Ocellus.” He said as she got up with a squeak to bow. “No, you don’t have to do that anymore. I’m not Chrysalis, and I don’t really demand everyone to bow whenever you guys see me.”

“Sorry.” The past Ocellus responded, “Force of habit.”

“I wanted to see how everything is doing. So, how are you?”

She looked down at her hooves. “I… I don’t know how to feel. This is such a big change that I’m still trying to take all of this in.”

“Fair point. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to turn into… this either.” He waved to himself. “As much as a shock as this is, I think that for once, we Changelings might be on the right path.”

“Are we?” She questioned. “I mean sure, the Queen is gone, and we’ve evolved into… whatever we are now. But at the same time, I don’t know right now if this is a good thing, Your Majesty.” Thorax asked her what she meant. “I mean… Sure we look different, but I’m still me and you’re still you. All I’ve known before all this is how to shape-shift, how to gather love… things like that. Now… I don’t really know where to go from here. We don’t have to steal love anymore, I know that now. But that’s all we’ve been doing for all our lives and you’re asking us to change that?”

“It’s not that I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thorax said as he put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “I get it, change is hard, but sometimes it can be good too. Maybe things won’t be like they were, but that doesn’t mean that’s how we should live.”

She sighed, “I just… I want to be alone for a while, Your Majesty.”

Thorax respected the request and walked out, leaving a depressed Ocellus behind.

“He’s not entirely wrong.” Discord commented as his students turned to look at him. “Emperor Marcus also regarded change as not only enviable but even natural as well. If anything, change is nature itself, be it natural or situations that turn on us for better or for worse.”

“Yes, but isn’t it off-putting?” Ocellus questioned. “At the time, it was really confusing that not only mine but all the Changelings transformed. We had to turn what we thought we were overnight and many of us felt lost.”

“‘Nothing happens to anyone that they are not formed by nature to bear.’ In that instance, Thorax was right on one thing. Change for anyone that’s this dramatic, even for me, is difficult to accept. For some, they refuse to accept what has occurred and preferred to stay in the past for all eternity. And sure, if the past was good, we may mourn over it, but become too obsessed to preserve the way things were, then you will be putting yourself into denial of what change has occurred.

“That being said, he also advised that since change will happen, that also includes death of family and friends that care for. To this, while he advises to treat every moment you’ve spent with them as if it’ll be their last, he also gives this warning: ‘Beware in delighting in them which leads you to cherish them so dearly, that their loss would destroy your peace of mind.’ In other words, always keep your friends and family close, but also accept the fact that you must learn to let go of them one day. After all, what is loss? ‘Loss,’ as our Emperor had written, ‘is nothing else but change, and change is nature’s delight.’ Make sense?”

“That rather grim.” Yona commented.

“Grim, but important. Yes, you guys are friends now and probably for life. But that right there is the key word, ‘Life.’ So like I said, do every act of your life as if it were your last, but always be prepared when you’ll have to let go. After all, time is short, and suddenly, you’re there anymore.” Their teacher grinned as he asked a chip, “Any questions? No? Well, next stop, Yakyakistan, two years ago.”

With the blow of a whistle, the train thrust to the side at an impossible speed. The students were smashed up against the window as they peaked of everything going at the speed of thought before the train suddenly stopped and were whiplashed to the other side of the train car.

One groan and rubbing sore spots later, Yona crawled up to the window to which her eyes widened. “This home! Look, this Yona’s home!”

Silverstream was the first of her friends to peak through the window with her. “This is amazing! What’s all this white stuff?”

“Yak snow.” She replied with pride. “Yak snow is best snow.”

“Don’t get a too distracted class.” Their teacher warned, “We have our next idea that our Emperor Self-Help has for Yona here.”

She looked up with a raised eyebrow. “What teacher mean? Yona needs no help.”

“Are you sure?” He asked as he scanned over the huts and Yaks that, again, took no notice of the train. “So where were you two years ago? I don’t see you anywhere.”

“Two years?” The young Yak thought over for a moment before she realized something. “Uh-oh.”

“Yona!” a voice that none of the students recognize called out from the other side of the window. After looking around for a moment, they quickly located one of the Yaks that was calling out her name before one of the huts. “Yona, it is noon now. Cannot sulk in sulking hut forever.”

Gallus turned to his friend. “That exists?” However, Discord shushed him.

“Yona not coming out ever again!” their friend’s past self-snapped at the one talking to her. “Yona laughingstock. Yona doesn’t want to do anything anymore.”

“Who laughing at Yona?” the Yak, whom the students quickly guess might be her father who was doing all the reassuring. “Dad never laughed at Yona. Dad misses daughter’s face.”

“What good of showing face if Yona like avalanche? Makes mess everywhere Yona goes. Not worth it.”

“But there’s still firewood needed to be chopped. And hair to be braid-” He was quickly interrupted by his daughter’s screaming in anger.

“Yona no good at anything!” Their friend’s past self-exclaimed as they heard her crying before turning towards their current (albeit embarrassed) friend.

“Oh, Yona.” Ocellus hugged her, “We had no idea.”

“That in past.” She quickly said. “Was feeling down then.”

“I have a question for you.” Discord asked, “From what I heard about you, this seems rather out of character from the excitable, lovable if not clumsy Yak we’re come to know and love. So what happened here?”

She told him that she did something embarrassing because of an accident. While he (and her friends) noticed that she was rather vague on what exactly that was, Discord decided not to push the issue further.

“Point being, at the time you had a rather low view of yourself.” She nodded. “You know, even the Emperor had asked this once: ‘I wonder how is it that everyone loves themselves more than all the rest of their fellows, yet places less value on their own opinion of themselves than on the opinion of other?’ Marcus had developed the theory that it must be because most creatures are really bad at living in the present. For they either get stuck in the past or dread of what will happen in the future. On this particular bad day, you were embarrassed about what happened in the past. So much so, that it paralyzed you from doing anything, didn’t it?”

“Well… Yona didn’t leave sulking hut for days…”

“There is some useful advice for you as well. ‘You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.’ While you cannot control what has happened or is going to happen, you do have control over how you confront it. Your attitude towards even the worst of situations can only be achieved through only you alone.”

After humming in thought, his student replied. “All good. But what if teacher doesn’t feel like going outside because teacher feels bad?”

He smirked. “To that, Marcus gives the best advice for motivation I’ve ever read. That when you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, tell yourself this: I have to go to work – as a living being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

“But it’s nicer here…” A puppet of himself replied from his tail that showed him in his pajamas. “And it so warm too.”

Discord raised an eyebrow at his own puppet. “So you were born to feel ‘nice’? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants, spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in a certain order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a living creature? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands like turning Celestia’s mane into toothpaste?”

His puppet yawned. “But we have to sleep sometime…”

“Agreed. But nature set a limit on that, as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit lil mister! You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your limit. You don’t love yourself enough! Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. Those who love what they do tend to wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat! Do you have less respect for yourself than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for dancing, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.”

The puppet huffed. “Smart aleck.”

“Can we get a move on?” Silverstream raised her claw. “This is getting a little too weird for me.”

Discord spat a pocket watch. “Oh look of the time! Gotta cram in the next two points before I let you all go.” After swallowing the watch, he pulled a lever from hyperspace to make the train façade fall over, to that of a tightly spaced submarine. At the same time, he ditched the train conductor costume for a naval captain. “Our next stop in our tour is on something that you wouldn’t think that a stoic like Marcus would bother writing about. Happiness.”

“Really?” Ocellus asked surprised.

“Aye. Not only does he bother to talk about it, but he finds it that it’s essential too. ‘To live happily is an inward power of the soul,’ he says. In fact, Silverstream, while you might not have realized it, you’ve already mastered happiness.”

Several pairs of eyes turned to their Hippogriff friend, to where even she was confused. “Wait… really? How?”

“To someone like Marcus, while most of us have little influence of what goes on, we can control on what our attitude towards anything has on our mood. He even said it best that, ‘The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.’ It may sound simple, but then again,” he gestured over to a porthole, “who could argue with the results?”

The students peered through the tinny window that separates them from the underwater sea around them. Not only were they amazed by the fish that went by but marveled at the structures and the wide range of colors of the sea ponies.

“The Tartarus are we now?” Gallus voiced what was on his friend’s mind.

“It’s Seaquestria!” Silverstream grinned. “Oh, I’ve missed this place so much!”

“Okay, that answers the where.” Sandbar pointed out, “But not exactly the when.”

Discord pulled a speaking tube from the walls of the submarine. “Captain to bridge: set a course for Silverstream’s home, on the double as I want to wrap up this lesson quickly.”

The students watched as the enormous submarine maneuvered through tight corners and thin walls, all without getting attention from the Seaponies that swam about them. Through the porthole, they came into a dark cavern that was light up with illuminating fish, stones, coral and lanterns that hang from the ceiling.

It wasn’t until Discord ordered for the submarine to stop that the students (except for Silverstream) realized that these lanterns were homes. The one they stopped at was open where not only did it showed their friend as a Seapony, but two others that were helping her packing.

“Was this before Silverstream came to school?” Yona asked.

“I remember this!” their friend explained. “This was the night before I left Seaquestria and became a student.”

“Mind telling us what’s going on?” Gallus asked, “I don’t think anybody here can speak bubbles.”

“Oh! Right. Well, if I remember right, Mom and my little brother were helping me pack the night before I had to go. And look at me of how excited I am to be lucky enough to actually go.”

Ocellus peered through critically. “You certainly were, but I can’t exactly say about your Mom though.” She was right, while the family packed up, there was a look on the mother’s face that hesitated. While the siblings talked and looked excited about going to someplace far away, the mother folded and set her daughter’s personal items into the bag with worry.

“I take it that your mom didn’t want you to go?” Smolder inquired.

“Don’t get me wrong, we were all happy that I was chosen to go to Princess Twilight’s school. My parents even bragged of how smart I am. But on that night, she was worried about my safety and getting homesick… things like that.” She pointed at the window as her past self talked to her mother, even getting her to laugh. “But I had to tell her that I’m grown up now, that I can take care of things by myself. Besides, I was going to a friendship school where I have friends like you to keep me from being homesick. I mean, how can I be sad when I have you guys around?”

“Yet, just by looking into your past…” their teacher said as he craned his neck down. “You have just as big of a heart as you are optimistic. Even going far enough to banish your mother’s worries and fears. Especially making the effort to do so.”

“Yeah, exactly!” His student agreed. “Sure, it can get tough to look on the bright side, but at least I’m trying.”

“If the Emperor were here, he’d probably tell you to hang on to that quality as you look within to find happiness. ‘Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up if you will ever dig for it.’”

Pulling on a lever, he and the students were lifted up on a platform that rises up until it was in an elevator. Even Discord took on the uniform of a bellhop as the sudden elevator rose above sea level. “Our last subject for this philosophical tour brings to a question on not exactly what is life, but more practically, what’s the best way to live. Now you may think it’s a little redundant for me to talk about how Emperor Marcus taught how to live in a time period of gladiatorial games, conquest, and having your enemies getting stabbed on weekends. Surprisingly, however, the advice he gives is just as relevant as the day he penned it down.”

With a “ding!” the elevator doors opened up onto a dorm room. In particular, the room shared by Gallus and Sandbar. The past gryphon flopped onto the bed, letting his homework and books fall off.

“What are we doing here?” He asked towards Sandbar across the room, sitting by a desk and reading a book. “I mean really, what are we doing here?”

The Earth pony turned around to face him. “What do you mean? We’re at school, aren’t we?”

“No, that’s not it.” He rolled over until he was able to face him. “What I mean is why are we here for? I get that the girls are here to be representatives or whatever, but ever since we got here, we’re not exactly learning anything useful.”

“C’mon, sure we are.”

The past Gallus raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Name one thing that you’ve learned this week.”

“Easy, we’ve uh…” past Sandbar drew at a blank.

While he thought this over, the students within the elevator asked the current Sandbar and Gallus if this was before the school was closed. And they said that it was before their teacher shushed them.

“I rest my case.” Past Gallus waved a claw. “You know, I’m beginning to think that Yona was right. This school is a waste of time. They say that we’re supposed to learn friendship, yet the teachers are really lame. I won’t be surprised if they don’t know what friendship is if it bangs them over their heads.”

Closing his book, his friend replied. “Yeah… As much as I hate to admit it, but you’re right. I thought our teachers, national heroes, would be… cool or something. I mean, are we expected to be bored all the time, read unreadable books, and attend classes that’ll probably rot our brains out? What kind of life is that?”

“I know! This isn’t any way to live. Back home if we wanted to do or learn something, we go out and do it! You didn’t have to spend weeks or months doing this. I’m half tempted of flying back home if this keeps up.” Flopping his head onto a pillow, he then asks his friend what would he be rather be doing.

“I’d take a day at the beach any day.” He said, “I mean, I’ve pretty much was taught on the shoreline. Back when my parents taught me how to read, write, arithmetic and all that while swimming around. I guess I’ve always loved the sea, and I would rather be there in a heartbeat.”

Past Gallus nodded, “Yeah, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to the beach myself.”

“Really? Never?”

“Flew over, don’t get me wrong. But never stopped to see what’s actually there.”

“Oh Celestia, remind me to take you to the beach one of these days. That right there is life. The fresh salty air, the waves, and the creatures that swim beneath it.”

“If it sounds that good, why are you here?”

There was an uncomfortable pause. “Let’s say… a-at the same time, I’m trying to get away because they’re there.”

“Oh…” He scratched the back of his neck. “That sucks dude.”

“Yeah… I wish I could live how I want without them telling me how to live.

“Just be assertive. Let them know that whatever you want to do that you’ve committed to it, and the decision is final.”

“Marcus would have agreed with you, Gallus.” Discord said as he pressed a button and the doors shut. “‘The art of true living in this world is more like a wrestler’s than a dancer’s practice. For in this they both agree, to teach a stallion whatsoever falls upon him, that he may be ready for it, and that nothing may cast him down.’ To really live, one must be prepared to fight for it. For there will be times that life can be brutal, unfair, and cruel. But remember one thing about today’s lesson: even at your weakest point, you are still stronger than you’ve given yourself credit for. If no one believes it, prove it to them. When the bigots, the bullies and the abusive come to pound you to the ground, remember – once you embraced how only you can smile in the face of oppression, you will become your own heroes. For it’s not death that anyone should fear, but never, ever be afraid to live.”

Another ding was heard, and the door opened up to the hallway where Discord’s classroom was supposed to be, along with a rather crossed Starlight Glimmer.

The Draconequus raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m not late, am I?” He looked at his watch to see that he was actually twenty minutes ahead.

“Mr. Discord, a word in Twilight’s office.” Starlight growled. “Now.”

“He’s not in trouble again is he?” Ocellus asked.

After taking a deep breath, she replied. “No no, we just need to have a little chat. And since you apparently are done with your class early, I hope we can get a word in for a couple of minutes.”

“It’s okay.” Discord said as he dropped the bellhop costume. “Class, you’re all free to go. Smolder, come by my class during lunch, I want to talk to you too.”

With Starlight urging the ex-spirit to follow her, Discord only smiled at his students as they walked away. But not without his six students following behind, to see what was about to happen.

(Professor Forethought)

Author's Note

I don't know how good this chapter is but... here you go.

(Professor Forethought)

The one thing about the double doors to Twilight’s office is that the upper half of which was made out of glass. Not only could the six students peer into what was going on, but it made it all the easier to hear what was happening as well. In that office had not only their substitute teacher and Starlight with Headmare Twilight but their teacher as well, Professor Forethought. Their original philosophy teacher, while restored to his full health, wearing a rather crossed look that was firmly on his face.

“Where do I begin? Hm?” Twilight questioned as she stared directly at Discord.

“Simple.” Their substitute replied. “Begin at the beginning, go on until you get to the end, then stop.”

“That was a rhetorical question.” She deadpanned. “I mean, based off of what I’ve heard this morning, it has given me plenty of concern to call you here… again. For starters, you do know that it’s against the rules to teach a class outside of school hours, right?”

“My students agreed to take it early so that they can get out early.”

“That you’ve damaged the wall from the west side of the girls’ dormitory by creating a large hole in it.”

“I put it back together again, didn’t I?”

“While jumbling up the mural that was painted on the back while setting the clock practically on the floor.”

Discord paused. “Well, I was in a hurry. You can’t blame me for not getting it right when you’re in a rush.”

“And the biggest, if not most serious offense,” she pointed at the teacher, “finding out that you’re the one responsible for getting Professor Forethought sick in the first place.”

While the students couldn’t see it, Discord seemed surprised by this. “What! How did you know?”

“You left me the receipt.” Professor Forethought said as he held up a strip of paper.

The Draconequus facepalmed. “I knew I was forgetting the renewal something.”

“Frankly Discord,” Twilight continued, “I for one am shocked. Shocked! That you would do something like this. I mean, I guess it would have fitted when you were terrorizing Equestria. But you’re reformed now! I wouldn’t ever expect you to do something so… underhoofed.”

“She’s going to fire him.” Ocellus said before the students had to duck before Starlight could spot them.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Twilight questioned.

“Now that you’ve mentioned it. Yes, there is a thing or two I’d like to say on my part.” Discord said. “Firstly, I didn’t do this out of spite or for a paycheck if that’s what you’re thinking. I know my reason to make him sick might come as a shock, but I didn’t do it for me.”

“You didn’t?” Starlight asked.

“I did it for the students to salvage what interest in philosophy they had.”

The students at this point peaked their heads up to see the original philosophy teacher having a look of disgust on his face. “Excuse me!” He adjected. “Are you saying that I’m not a good teacher? I’ll have you know that I earned my master’s degree through Canterlot University, taught my students for forty years with a very good passing rate with my classes.”

Discord slithered his neck down to his eye level. “That might be true all those years ago, but what’s the rate now for students falling asleep in your classes now? Besides that, I do have a major personal problem with the way you teach it.” Taking a white chef’s coat out of hyperspace, he quickly puts it on while turning his black Mohawk a messy blond. “In fact,” he said, “I have proof to back up what I’m going to say. Class, I know you’re there. Come in, I’ll need all of you for this part.”

Now caught, the six students raised their heads and pushed past the door. They walked in together and stood before the Headmare’s desk. Their substitute asked which one of them is the smartest and Ocellus stepped forward.

“You consider yourself as a good teacher.” Discord said, “But if you really think so, then you might want to listen to what this school’s genius has to say. Go ahead Ocellus, in your own words, what were his classes like?”

All eyes now turned to the Changeling as she said meekly. “Well… To be honest… I preferred if Mr. Discord taught it.” Starlight asked her why. “I mean, don’t get me wrong Professor Forethought, you seem to know quite a lot about philosophy, but when I look back on the things you did teach… I don’t think I can remember anything you did.”

Now it was Forethought’s turn to be surprised. “Nothing? What about the Pre-Socratic? The explanation of ontology or epistemology? My introduction to metaphysics? Or… Or what about Thales? Anaximenes? Heraclitus?” But Ocellus only gave a blank stare.

“Yeah… No offense Professor.” Sandbar said. “But personally, I was struggling to stay awake in your class.”

“Not to mention that I had no idea why any of the stuff you taught is important,” Smolder added.

“Discord best teacher.” Yona bluntly said. “He skips complicated words and talks directly to us.”

“At least he asks us directly what we needed.” Gallus folded his arms. “And gave us lessons that we could actually use in our lives. I don’t recall you ever doing that.”

Now it was Discord’s turn as he turned on Forethought. “Bland, no passion, nothing memorable, talked down at the students instead of talking with. Now, before I had to make you sick, I had taken a look at what was cooking up in your class, and frankly, I’m appalled. It was so uninspired, so flavorless, so unseasoned that even I wouldn’t give it away as lunch to a retirement home. It was so dull that you were able to put me to sleep, and I don’t sleep that often! But do you want to know my biggest problem with you is? You made it too complicated.”

Professor Forethought couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Excuse me? Too complicated? This is philosophy we’re talking about. A field of study that has been developing for thousands of years, across cultures and past politics. Do you honestly think that it’s easy to simplify a complex field of study?”

After he conjured up a large, broken clay pot, Discord reclined in it. “Not only that it’s possible, but you seemed to be conveniently forgetting a lesson from a philosopher that has indeed proved that wisdom doesn’t have to be complicated. Have you ever heard of Diogenes?”

“What does he have anything to do with this?” Twilight questioned.

“I’m about to make a point Princess Bookworm.” He turned to the Professor. “Well?”

“Well… Diogenes had subsisted at the time of Plato, who, while he didn’t initiate cynicism, had perfected the art of it by living it through example. He was homeless, lived modestly with very few material goods, and influenced centuries of nasalism, cynicism and–”

“I only asked if you heard of the guy, not for his biography.” Discord pointed out. “It’s only a simple yes or no question.” There was a pause before Discord in a jar said, “Just so you know, I for one agree with Diogenes with the fact that you ponies tend to make life so complicated, just like how you did with philosophy for these kids.”

“I do not!”

With a knowing smirk, he said, “If you care to dare, I’d like to make a bet with you. In that, if you win, I’ll willingly quit teaching altogether.”

He raised an eyebrow, “And if you win?”

Looking over to his students, many were in shock of hearing him possibly quitting, he said, “Then… if I win, I’ll take up teaching philosophy in your place. Full time.”

“Wait! Really!” Gallus said as a bunch of his friends started talking at once, but the Headmare shushed them.

As this was happening, Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Discord, what are you up to?”

“Oh relax, Comrade. As far as you and Twilight are concerned, it’s a win-win. If I lose, then you wouldn’t have to worry about my teaching anymore. But if I win, not only will these students get the teacher they deserve, but I’ll fix that wall properly too.” Starlight asks what exactly he is planning on doing. “Oh, it’s very simple. All we have to do is to that each of us will have about… at least a few minutes to present a philosophical argument. In the simplest of terms possible. Whoever can make their argument the most convincing to these students, wins. And to be fair, I’ll let you choose the topic.”

Agreeing to this, Forethought smirked. “Very well. At least I’ll prove I’m the more qualified teacher by discussing the idea of movement. That I would argue that all movement is impossible.”

“That stupid.” Yona immediately said. “How can things not move when Yona sees things move?”

“Well, I would argue from the point of view of the Pre-Socratics philosophers Parmenides and Zeno in which they argue that everything, including time and space, is all made up of a solid substance that, as a result, change itself is impossible. In which for the former, introduced the concept of the block universe known as Eternalism.” Forethought was briefly interrupted by Discord trying to suppress a guffaw before moving on. “In layman’s terms, he thought that everything we know as stuff is all made out of one solid thing, that transformation is nothing more than an illusion. That the universe as we know it is nothing more than a series of blocks that set both the past and future that if anyone were to step outside of it, then it would seem to him that nothing changed at all.

“In fact, his student Zeno had put forth an argument to defend his teacher’s position. Thus creating a series of paradoxes. Take for example: That if somepony were to walk to a garden that says is a mile away, then he’ll need to walk or fly halfway there. But to get to it, then he needs to get another halfway there. And another half way. And another and another, then so on and so forth. That no matter how much you divide it, then it would seem as if that pony would never be able to reach it as the distance keeps dividing into an infinite amount of distance. Thus, proving that movement is not only ridiculous but impossible. Now you might say that is absurd, but it’s very hard to argue that either of them is entirely wrong.” Turning to Discord, still in the pot, said to him with a confident smirk, “Let’s see if you could do any better.”

Discord shrugged. “Very well. Not only will I make a counter-argument, but I’m going to use the exact same one that Diogenes used.”

The professor raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what is that?”

“This.” With a snap of his fingers, the clay pot sprouted wings and began to be flown out of the room, taking the Draconequus with it.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Forethought demanded.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Discord called out sarcastically. “I’m not moving at all. Mine leaving this room is an illusion.” He said as the doors flung open before he left the room.

Starlight galloped after him, calling out. “Discord! You come back here!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He called from the hallway.

Igniting her horn, she catches the large clay pot to be dragged back into Twilight’s office. But even when Discord was pulled in, he had a smirk on his face. “Your honors,” he said to his students, “I rest my case.”

The six students looked at one another. “Well…” Silverstream admitted. “You’ve gotta admit, Mr. Discord has a point.”

“What!” Professor Forethought spoke in stunned surprise. “What point is there to be made? He hasn’t done anything except leaving the room.”

Smolder folded her arms, “Exactly. Unlike you, he proved it to us to show us why what you’ve just said was ridiculous. In fact, you just proved that you’re all talk but no show. I mean, while you were talking to us, did you ever stop to ask us anything. Like, at all?”

“I have to agree with Smolder here.” Ocellus said, “Yes, Mr. Discord is crazy, but at least he does ask us questions, he does talk to us. And during the time he was here, at the end of class, he would ask us what we wanted to learn. Why, just today, he gave us a lesson on Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations that gave us the advice that we needed to hear. Things that we’re concerned about in our lives.”

Yona agreed. “Yeah! How does proving that nothing moves have anything to do with us? Even if nothing moves, how it useful to Yona and friends?”

“Besides,” Silverstream added, “Mr. Discord makes Philosophy fun and in a way that isn’t super hard to understand. So much so, we don’t need books or assignments all that much to know how to be wise.”

“What they said,” Sandbar and Gallus said unanimously.

Forethought was completely shocked. “I don’t believe this.” He turned to Twilight. “You can’t fire me! I’ve earned my degrees-”

“Oh, can it!” Discord said as he stepped out of the pot. “If really were anywhere near as good of a teacher as you are, then you don’t need to flatter yourself with your degrees in college, would you? That little argument you gave, while interesting, had almost nothing to do with real life. Your words were unseasoned, you didn’t ask for feedback or if they got what you were saying, and that example you gave with your paradox has a serious flaw: that yes, all those infinite divisions can be made, but in reality, eventually that pony would still be able to make it regardless of how many times you try to divide the distance.

“But even if you had made that argument flawless, how does that help with what these students are going through? Like doubting if they’ll pass this school? Or wondering why evil ponies exist? Or how to deal with hardships? And do you know how I know to tailor my lessons? I asked them. If you’ve done just that, I wouldn’t have a problem with you. But as it stands, I would stand on the side of Diogenes, and give them wisdom through my words and actions. That I teach them that life will be cruel, but I’m providing them with the tools of how to deal with it. How to confront the absurd, the tragic, and the chaotic by practical means. This is because you sir, have become so prideful with your teaching degrees, that you’ve forgotten what the purpose of philosophy is.”

“I have not!” Forethought objected. “It’s about thinking about things that are bigger than ourselves. Of how to use reason by learning the guidelines of the past. And to help others ascend to a higher realm of wisdom.”

If there was ever a time that either student (or Twilight) have ever seen Discord truly angry, it was from that moment right there. “No.” He said sternly. “Everything you’ve said, you’ve got it backward! By thinking things that are ‘bigger than ourselves,’ you’ve overlooked the smaller but important things in life. By using reason by ‘learning the guidelines of the past’ you not only blind yourself from the present but skim over why those ideas were thought up, to begin with. And by helping ‘others ascend to a higher realm of wisdom’ you forget to teach them how to deal with things down to earth. You, sir, have spent so much time in the clouds that you’ve disconnected with those that are living down here with the harshness of life.”

“But… But that’s madness!”

“I am not mad; it is only that my head is different from yours. Yes, I admit that my methods of teaching aren’t the norm, but they shouldn’t be the standard for educating students like these.” He said as he pointed at the six students. “I speak in simple terms, because by the simplicity that my students can learn without misunderstanding! Without boredom or falling asleep! If you won’t do your job as a teacher to teach your students directly, then I will!”

The office went quiet for a full minute after Discord’s rant. After taking off the blond wig and tossing the chef’s coat aside, he walked out of the room saying. “Now if you all don’t mind, I have a class to teach.”

Hours later, when the school called for a lunch break, Twilight knocked on the door that Discord was teaching. She wasn’t alone as Smolder stood next to her. The door opened in which Discord bid them enter.

“Before I say anything,” Twilight began, “I want you to know that Professor Forethought has officially quit his job here, so that pretty much makes you the official Philosophy teacher.”

The Ex-Spirit of Chaos leaned up against the chalkboard. “I can sense that you didn’t come here just to say that.”

She shook her head. “I have thought over what you’ve and our students have said. Between the two, you do in fact make the better teacher as you can masterfully relate to them easily what Forethought couldn’t. Grant it, I don’t exactly approve of everything you’ve done, but from what your students have told me, you’ve made an extra effort to help them out through your subject of study. For that, I came here to officially welcome you to our teaching staff. Although, I do have to ask why now that you’ve decided to teach full time.”

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s because of them,” he waved over to Smolder, “of my students. I agree that if someone told me a week ago that I would commit myself to teach full time, I would have thrown a shaving cream pie in your face. But now…? What can I say? These kids are growing on me. But at the same time, I hope that I still get to do what I love too.”

“We can talk about scheduling after school. But for now, I just came by to say welcome to the School of Friendship, as an official teacher on campus.”

After thanking her, Discord said that he’d like to have a quick word with the Dragoness. Once she was out of the classroom, he said. “Thank you for standing up for me back there.”

“Hey, none of us don’t want to see you go already. But now, we’re just really glad that you’re staying. We like you and you’ve helped us out.”

“I do what I can.” Her teacher shrugged. “So, I’m going to keep this short, is there anything from me that you’ve wanted to learn about for tomorrow?”

“Oh, my turn huh?” She said as she put a claw to her chin in thought. “Now that I think of it, there is. Can you expand on how to be happy? I noticed that you’ve kinda rushed through it this morning. While I get how to deal with hardship, but can you explain a little more of how to be happy even when you’re going through the worst time in your life?”

Discord went through the index in his brain to see if there was any other philosopher who tackled on such a subject realistically. “There is one that comes to my mind. Only I’m gonna have to be extra careful.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because the one I have in mind is the most misunderstood philosopher of all time. So much so, that if I get this wrong, Twilight and the readers would have me crucified if I get a sentence of it wrong.”

“The who?”

Her teacher waved. “Never mind, it means that I have some homework to do tonight. In the meantime, go back to your friends, that’s all I need from you for now.”

After dismissing his dragon student, Discord turned his attention towards the ceiling in which he levitated up there, punch a hole in time to yell, “PEEK-A-BOO!”

“Ah great, my hallucinations are starting up again!” said the voice from the ceiling.

“First of all,” Discord continued, “nice mustache. And secondly, mind if I ask you something?”

Lesson 7: The Mountain

The next day, Discord sat in front of his classroom door in a rocking chair. This time he was wearing in a dinner jacket and blowing bubbles from a pipe. He rocked sideways left and right as he waited for the first-hour students to come to him.

‘I wonder if I’m about to go too far on this one.’ He pondered as a giraffe bubble crawled out from his pipe. ‘After all, regardless the universe, this guy’s name is up over its head in controversy. I’m willing to bet that the moment my students hear his name that they might think I’ve gone too far without saying a word. Faust, I hope that I could pull this lesson off without the comment section demanding to serve my head on a silver platter, with a buttery garnish of the author’s brains. Then again, it’s not just about who I’m teaching that’s got me worried.’

The Draconequus craned his neck over to the classroom door. ‘Oh come on Discord! Of course, this is going to work. Your students are smarter than fifth graders and the entire Royal Guard combined. If they can survive a day with Applejack and Rainbow being disorganized, head-butting teachers trying to get the best teacher of the millennium award, I’m sure they can make it through today’s lesson.’

Returning his gaze to the hallway, he stopped rocking when he found Twilight there. “Good morning Discord.” She said as the Draconequus noticed the clipboard in her aura.

“Mornin’.” He replied with a blow from his pipe. “So what brings you around these parts?”

“Well since I’m ahead of paperwork, and that you’re the newest official teacher here at the school, I figured that would finally come around to do a bit of an inspection.”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “Inspection? I thought I already went through one of those when I did Haycartes that one time.”

“That was your try-out, remember? I’m here to see for myself how you teach your class. Since I finally got through the mounds of paperwork, I figured that I should take the opportunity to do so.”

After a hesitant pause, the new official Philosophy teacher signed out, “Oh crap.”

“What?”

“Are you really doing this now? As in today?”

The Headmare raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”

“Well… let’s say that today’s lesson isn’t exactly the usual way that I would teach other lessons.” She asked how come. “Well, it’s not exactly a lesson that I could talk and show about, it’s one of those that the students have to experience for themselves in order to understand. My usual method of just showing the lesson to them and having me, along with my students, to comment on what’s going on, I’m afraid that doing so won’t be enough.”

“Okay… What lesson are you doing?”

“…. Happiness.”

“Oh,” Twilight commented as she scribbled down something on her clipboard. “That doesn’t sound so bad. I want to see how you teach it in action.”

Discord only stared at her. “Uh… I know the author decided to hit you and Starlight over the heads with the idiot stick concerning yesterday, but… are you absolutely sure?”

The Headmare looked up, “Who getting hit by what now?”

“Hey, Mr. Discord!” The two of them turned their attention down the hallway as six of the morning students walked towards them. Smolder, the one who called out asked, “So what are we doing today?”

“And why is Headmare Twilight here?” Ocellus asked.

“Oh never mind me.” She replied, “I’m only here to observe how your newly hired teacher does his classes up close. Just try to ignore me while I take down some notes.”

With a sigh, Discord got up from his seat to open the door that leads to a snow-covered mountain and a projector with a wiping red flag. The freezing wind blew in their faces, but the teacher waved them to enter. As they did so, all, including Twilight, couldn’t help but notice that Discord was looking uncharacteristically somber as they walked through the door.

“Wait, is this Mt. Everhoof?” Twilight asked as she looked around. But when her eyes were on the Draconequus, he looked at her with a sorry look.

“I’m so sorry for this.” He said before closing the door.

“Mr. Discord!” Gallus was the first to rush to the door to open it, only to find nothing except for the clouds and the steep side of the mountain below. The young Gryphon, in horror like his friends and Headmare, tried to open and close the door, only to get the same result. “Nononono! Mr. Discord! You can’t leave us here!” But while his cry echoed, their teacher didn’t come for them.

“What they hay Discord!” Twilight exclaimed as she too examined the door. With a frustrated “Ugh!” she adds, “I can’t believe I trusted him, and he leaves us on the side of a mountain!”

“Hey, guys.” Sandbar called out. “There’s a note on the projector that says, ‘Play Me.’”

Now all eyes were turned to the iced projector as a crossed Twilight marched over to examine it. Beside the popsicle of a sticky note that gives such instructions, there were two buttons beside it, a green and a red. Touching the green button, Twilight set the machine into motion as the projector lit up to show a blue hologram of Discord.

“I-Is thing on?” Their holographic teacher asked. “I see the red light so are we recording? We are? Are you sure it’s finally working now? Okay, good. So if this is working I guess I can get started.” After clearing his throat, Discord began. “Hello students. First of all, I must apologize for leaving you all to fend for yourselves on the side of the tallest mountain in the world. Grant it, this is rather cruel. No doubt about it. However, for today’s lesson, this is the only way that for something like this to work. This is because the philosopher I’m going to talk about today is nowadays considered controversial – Nietzsche.” The hologram waved a claw over to a materialized bust of a miserable looking stallion with a large mustache.

“What!” Twilight shouted.

“By now you’re probably wondering why I’ve chosen someone who is the most misunderstood, misquoted, and has the most manipulated work outside of his control of all time. For those of you who don’t know, Nietzsche here is known for phrases like ‘What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger,’ or ‘Time is a flat circle,’ or ‘That’s not what I mean by Superpony!’ Today’s lesson, however, is mainly focused on suffering and happiness. This means that in order to illustrate, I have to be cruel for today’s lesson. However, if you only see the suffering and not what it teaches, you’ve missed the message.

“So in order for you students to understand what he’s really talking about, I have a simple task for all of you: That in order to get off the mountain and back to school, you’ll have to climb up to the top where the exit is. This won’t be easy as you’ll have to overcome some obstacles along the way. With that being said, just follow these red flags like the one by the projector, they will lead to the next one until eventually, you’ll reach the top.”

“I don’t see why we can’t just fly up there.” Gallus spread his wings and jumps in the air. However, instead of flying, he found himself face planting into the snow.

“Oh, one more thing.” The hologram continued. “I enchanted this side of the mountain to where you’ll won’t be able to fly. That would be cheating and would miss the point entirely. From here on out, you all will have to walk up. And for the same reason, teleportation is forbidden too. If you are a Changeling, transformation is also against the rules as well. If you have to use magic, it can only be used for yourself. And yes, I know it will take a while, but as Nietzsche said: ‘Philosophy is a voluntary living in ice and high mountains.’ So, I suggest all start heading off that way before you freeze. Good luck everyone.”

After the recording went out, Twilight proceeds to smash the projector. “He’s fired!” she vented. “Worse then fired! When I get back I’m going to have him turn into stone!”

“H-Headmare.” Sandbar shivered in the cold. “W-W-What do we d-do now?”

“It obvious?” Yona questioned. “No way down mountain. Only way to go – is up.”

Taking a deep breath, Twilight turned upwards towards the mountain to notice a little snow-covered trail, and even further towards the top where a door stood with neon lights that say “Exit.” She called the students to gather around her.

“Everycreature, I need all of you to follow me. Stick close together and be sure to share your body heat. I’ll lead the way… and then proceed to fire Discord as soon as we get back.”

Ten minutes of walking unprepared in the snow with its murderous winds blowing against their faces and things had already started to look grim for Twilight. The combination of wet snow, below zero temperatures and the wind, were more than enough to make all of them miserable. If anything, they, including Twilight with her wings spread to all of them, were huddled around Smolder as she tried to continually breathe a fireball. Only to weary her out rather quickly.

At one point, after a coughing fit, Smolder said. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“H-How much l-longer,” Silverstream shivered, “u-u-until we g-get out of h-here?”

Twilight wished she had an answer. As much as she wanted to take the shortcut to yell at Discord (she already tried to teleport), she had to follow the rules in getting up the mountain. However, since she has never been to Mt. Everhoof, she didn’t have a clue as to how close they were to the top.

“I-Is t-that a c-c-cave?” Gallus pointed up ahead. There in the vale of snow in the side of the mountain was a hole that went into the rock. Immediately, they went into the shallow cave that mercifully got them out of the wind. They were taken aback to find a large steamer trunk covered in frost, and a projector next to it. Yona was the first to open the truck to pull out not just thick winter coats in various sizes, but ropes, ice picks, and half a box of matches.

Right away, those who didn’t have a thick coat set to work to see what fitted them.

“At least Mr. Discord isn’t entirely careless.” Sandbar commented.

“And yet he abandoned his students near the top of the largest mountain in the world.” Twilight pointed out.

“I don’t think Mr. Discord would have done this without a good reason.” Ocellus said as she put on a coat. “And while I can sense that you disagree, I don’t think this is out of character for him.”

“But do you know how dangerous it is?”

“We do.” Yona told her Headmare. “Draconequus isn’t thoughtless. Discord smarter then he seems. Does Headmare think that Discord wouldn’t do this unless knows what he doing?”

“Besides,” Smolder walked up to the projector, “if he wanted us to die, he wouldn’t leave us this stuff or this projector thing.” After pushing a button, a hologram of their teacher appeared.

“It’s good to see you, students. Everything that follows, is the result of what you see here.”

Twilight was the first to march forward towards the illuminated copy. “Discord, is there a reason why you’ve left us on Mt. Everhoof?”

There was a flicker in the hologram before it responded. “I’m sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”

“How long is it until we get to the top from here?”

Another flicker. “I’m sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”

“Hold on.” Gallus raised a claw. “This is a lesson on that… uh, what’s his name?”

“Nietzsche.” Ocellus reminded him, and he snapped his claw.

“Right. What if the questions we’re supposed to ask is about him? Maybe it could give us a clue as to what we need to do.”

“That would make sense.” Silverstream nodded. She turned to the hologram of her teacher. “Okay so uh… What does suffering have to do with happiness, I thought they were opposites?”

“Throughout history, philosophers have thought that suffering and happiness were two different things like understanding and quantum physics. That over the centuries, they’ve come up with comforting words to dull out the pain, that everything is going to be okay or justice will be served. Nietzsche, however, not only thought that this was absurd but more harmful than we think.”

Smolder raised an eyebrow. “Why would it be harmful?”

“Because, in Nietzsche’s eyes, he thought that anything that took us away from the painful reality of how things really aren’t good for anyone. Simply put, if you don’t ever deal with the problem, how’d you expect it to go away if you don’t do something about it? If you seek comfort for the sake of dulling the pain, then it won’t do anything helpful. Such as drinking barrels of alcohol or stuffing your face with factories worth of ice cream. As far as he’s concerned, to find happiness, it doesn’t mean to try to escape our troubles, but learning how to confront it head-on. But normally, this isn’t always the case.”

“What do you mean?” Ocellus asked.

“Normally, every creature on the planet tend to react by either taking something to dull the pain away. Or by trying to take up revenge to escape suffering or by blaming someone else because they feel continually dejected or angry. Yet, no amount of revenge could change the fact that they could escape suffering or death. This is because since the universe has its own rules in chaos, it is indifferent to living things, because of this, this is where suffering comes from. To Nietzsche, both of these kinds of folks fall into the foolish category as they have no idea how to deal with it constructively.”

“Huh,” Twilight mused, “I guess that makes sense. Only, there is a question of how anyone can learn to deal with suffering, but constructively. How does one do that?”

The hologram of Discord smiled. “That is the correct question. Program terminated.” Just like that, the projector shut off by itself. Students and Headmare stood in awkward silence, looking at one another.

“Okay…?” Twilight turned to the students. “Going by the rope and ice picks, I think that we’re expected to do a vertical climb upward. So who else here is good at tying knots?” They told her that they didn’t exactly know how. “Well, it’s a good thing I’ve learned a few things from ‘Voyager’s Ultimate Survival Guide.’ Especially about the chapter about knot tying.”

So using her horn, she coiled the rope around each student according to strength and weight before giving them a pick. After giving them a condensed lecture on safety precautions on mountain climbing, Twilight lead the way out of the cave and back into the fringed, unforgiving air.

They followed the red flags until it leads them to a frozen waterfall in which, on the top fluttering in the wind was a lone marker. The students were hesitant as not only was their path was made entirely out of ice, but it was a straight drop into the gray abyss below if they should fall. While they pondered over this predicament, Yona went over to the stone of the mountain in which she started to pound against it.

“Uh… what are you doing?” Smolder asked.

“Yaks have trick,” she replied as pieces of the wall began to break “for getting up ice like this.”

Gallus raised an eyebrow. “By beating up stone?”

“No. Sandstone,” she replied as a small section broke off and she proceeded to pound it into a powder. “Climbing up ice without grip not safe. Yaks know to put sand from sandstone to prevent from slipping.”

“That’s… that’s actually really clever.” Twilight commented. “So I take it that you did something like this before?”

“Ice climbing not favorite of Yona’s, but important skill to know.”

“So you have a plan?” Ocellus asked and her friend told her that she indeed has. The idea she presented was to use the ice picks to carve out niches in the ice at an angle before tossing the pulverized sandstone so that they would have something to grip onto for the climb up. After she was through, Yona scooped up the sand into the box of matches.

It was then decided that Smolder should carry out this task, to put her in the lead as they make their ascent. This was because out of all of them, she was the strongest and has claws to easily sprinkle the sand into the niches. After Twilight gives a last-minute safety tip of making sure they all should not only move together, but to hold onto their ice picks to prevent from falling as well, they began the climb. Smolder not only used the ice pick, but her claws as well to make the climb. Slowly but surely, she carved out of the ice the cracks in the ice before sprinkling the sand in. While she found that the ice was much softer than stone to break, it was a very slick climb to the top. Below her, the Headmare and her fellow students held on for dear life while Twilight reminded everyone there to not look down.

What the dragoness found surprising, was how strenuous it was for such a simple task. Several times the group had to stop to take a break to breathe as it was easily exhaustible. There were even a few times where someone lost their gripping and slip, that only the rope was able to prevent them from falling to their deaths. Even Smolder wasn’t certain if she could endure doing all the work and not being able to slip up herself. Even before she could reach the top, she was frightened of if she failed her task. As that the mountain has enchanted them from flying, she was worried of what would happen if she fell and couldn’t open her own wings.

“Guys,” she called out at one point, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. My arms are really tired.” Gallus, who was right underneath Smolder asked her how much longer until they get to the top. “I don’t know… But I think we’re really close.”

The young gryphon looked down at his fellow students and Headmare before saying to the dragoness. “Smolder, give me the sand, I’ll try to take over.”

“But I’m right above you.”

“I know. I’m going to try to carry you and finish the job.” He reached out for the box and told her to let it go. Once he was able to catch the box of matches, Gallus told her that he was ready to let go. So she climbed down a little and let herself dangle over the gryphon. Now taking the lead and now having the weight of his friend, he climbed up and immediately started to carve into the ice and sprinkling the sand into it. While the rope around his waist and chest was significantly tighter, making things hard to breathe, Gallus worked quickly to getting over to the top.

Once he was up and over, he used the ice pick to get a footing on the ice while he pulled the exhausted dragoness up before their friends climbed over. Once everyone, including Yona was over the edge, they all noticed that the ice lead off towards a cave in which, a small red flag pointed the way in. They went inside to get out of the wind, and the found that there in the middle of this cavernous, frozen river was a projector.

After Twilight had turned the machine on, the hologram of Discord appeared. “It’s good to see you, students. Everything that follows, is the result of what you see here.”

“Discord,” the Headmare asked, “How much longer is it until we get to the top of the mountain?”

“I’m sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”

She facehoofed, “Okay… So what did climbing up that frozen waterfall suppose to teach?”

There was a flicker before the holographic copy replied: “It is a key lesson that Nietzsche had learned in his life of hardship, is that anything that’s worthwhile is born out of constant struggle and hard work. Sometimes to get anywhere in life, we have to dedicate ourselves to it, regardless of the difficulty. If anything, you climb up that frozen waterfall is a perfect example of that. It was difficult, yet you all have made it here. Why?”

The students looked at one another. “Because there was no other way to get up here?” Silverstream asked and the hologram nodded.

“Just like with life as our guy has noticed, that while we think success comes naturally and easy, in reality, some of us have no straight path to the top. Nietzsche had advised, ‘Don’t talk about giftedness or inborn talents. One can name all kinds of very great ponies who are not very gifted. They acquired greatness. They became geniuses. And they did so by overcoming difficulties.’ It’s just like how all of you got up here. The climb was no doubt difficult and took very hard work, but you pressed forward nonetheless.”

“Why not just tell us that instead of climbing waterfall?” Yona questioned.

A flicker later, and the hologram of Discord smiled. “Because it is one thing to talk about doing difficult things to learn about it and having to do it. Yet, one thing to keep in mind in the beating heart of Nietzsche’s philosophy is this one idea: that difficulty is normal. The trick here is that you shouldn’t panic nor give up when you experience it. However, even he noted that working hard isn’t enough to know what happiness is.”

Smolder tilted her head to the side as she thought of something. “But what about that stuff you said earlier about suffering? I mean, that climb sure sucked, but it wasn’t exactly bad… Or… is there more bad stuff to come?”

Discord’s hologram smiled. “That is the correct question. Program terminated.” With that, the projector was shut off.

“So…” Gallus looked around. “Where do we go from here?”

Twilight lit her horn brightly and noticed another red flag deeper within the cave. “I think we’re supposed to go into the mountain.” She said, but as she stepped past the projector, there was a quiet, but very noticeable cracking sound beneath her hoof. “Thin ice… Students, walk by the walls of the cave. And don’t walk too closely to one another. We’d need to distribute the weight between all of us.”

With utter caution with Twilight leading the way, the students followed her into the dark cave. Each one took a cautious step and froze whenever they heard a crack from underneath.

“Yona does not like this.” She said as she gingerly walked along the side of the cave.

“There’s a reason why we’re walking along the side,” Twilight informed, “is that this is where the ice is at its thickest. It’s only at the very center where the ice sheet is at its thinnest. Just as long as we stay where the walls are, it should be able to support us.”

There was a sudden hush when there was a rather sharp cracking sound. All of them quickly located that it was coming from Yona who stood there petrified. A tense silence held all of them in place to see what was about to happen as the cracking and popping continued.

Twilight brightened her horn as to illuminate the ice to see the web of fracturing that was forming underneath the Yak. “Yona…” Twilight began, but before she could get another word out, the ice broke underneath her. The student screamed as soon as her hooves touched the hypothermic water and she tried to grab at the shattering ice.

“HELP!” she cried as she scrambled. “YAK NOT SWIM!”

Thinking quickly, Smolder took out the rope and tossed one end of the line over to her, yelling at her to grab on. Her friends disregarded caution to help the Yak to pull her out of the frosty water. Yona, although thrashing about, was able to grab hold of the rope with her teeth as she tried to feel for a thicker sheet of ice to get on.

Twilight too disregarded safety to grab onto the rope. She even tried to flare her horn to conjure something – anything – to bring her out of the water. Yet, no matter what spell she tried to cast, nothing was working.

However, even without magic, they did manage to pull her out. Yona was dripping wet and shivering, even her shaking off the water didn’t help her from the griping cold. Smolder was about to use her fire breath, however, Twilight reminded her that they were still on thin ice and should help their Yak friend get warm on solid ground.

Fortunately, they didn’t have far to go as at the other end of the cave was another trunk and a projector that were on above the river of ice. The students opened the trunk to find towels and blankets that they immediately used to dry off Yona. Smolder got an idea that since the steamer trunk was made out of wood, she used her breath to set fire to it so that they, and more importantly the Yak, could get warm.

Ocellus turned the projector on as Discord’s hologram repeated the same greeting.

“It’s good to see you, students. Everything that follows, is the result of what you see here.”

“What is wrong with you!” Smolder said accusingly. “Was trying to give Yona frostbite part of your plan?”

“As cruel as that was, yes it was.”

Yona looked up at her teacher’s copy. “W-Why? Th-that wa-as bad. Al-lmost k-killed Yona.”

“And I sincerely do apologize for that. But it is to teach you a lesson on suffering.”

Now Twilight had enough. “What does having her suffer have anything to do with anything? She could have died, Discord!”

“Because this is essential, especially to illustrate what Nietzsche taught. He said that the reason why we suffer the way we do is that of the gap between who we want to be, and who we are now. Since that happens, feeling pain comes as much of a shock as falling into a freezing cold river. The key, however, is not to shun away from the pain.”

“W-What does p-pony phil-phil-t-thinker kn-now about p-pain?” Yona bitterly questioned.

A flicker later and the hologram responded. “Quite a lot. He was pretty much disowned by his own family, was sick most of the time, tortured by migraines, his books hardly sell, none of the mares wanted to marry him or even date him, nopony took his teachings seriously, his mind turned into an onion in his last years where his sister twisted his own brother's works to flatter a group which shall not be named. I think he probably knew a thing or two about pain. So, this isn’t a guy that’s all talk, but had practiced what he preached.”

Sandbar, who was rubbing Yona with a towel commented. “I don’t know about you but doing hard work or having one of our friends suffer isn’t our idea of happiness.”

“And you’d be right.” The hologram agreed. “Even Nietzsche recognized that it wasn’t enough to just suffer. If hardship and hard work were all it took to be fulfilled, then every single creature would be happy. The trick, he said, is to learn how to respond to suffering well. Perhaps, use it to learn how to overcome it. So do not be discouraged that none of you could master it right away, as it is a lifetime skill that even I am still trying to learn about.”

“You’re making it sound like suffering and happiness were the same things.” Ocellus commented.

“That’s exactly what Nietzsche is saying. This is why I chose to teach him as he’s one of the very few philosophers to suggest that we shouldn’t try to avoid the pitfalls of life, but to embrace them as a challenge to overcome. In this sense, this is exactly what he means by, ‘That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.’ While suffering isn’t pleasurable, it is the key to happiness itself. Not everything that makes you destress isn’t always bad for you, and neither everything that’s good is always good for you. The real trick, is to be driven to use what happened to you in a constructive way. After all, if you all flew up to the top of the mountain, what will you learn? But if you took the difficult, even risky route where there’s a chance that you may get hurt, yet still keep moving forward – then you’ll gain insight of what satisfactory happiness really is.

“If you embraced both the bad with the good, you’ll then become what Nietzsche called the Superpony. He’s not talking about the one in comic books and movies, nor is he talking about a race of Equines. Rather, he’s imagining what ponykind would one day evolve into in the future by looking at them psychologically – just think of it what someone being an advanced pony would be like. And he’s not talking about someone who would make Twilight look like an infant either.”

“Hey!” Twilight objected but the hologram played on.

“Rather, he’s asking what those who are better psychologically be like as a thought experiment. Just to see what the potential can be. While he talked of the kind of qualities this superpony might have such as being strong-minded, independent to follow their own values, hurt others when necessary, be selfish in the name of strategy, won’t be resentful of others successes, and accept that they will be misunderstood among other things. Yet, for today’s lesson, I’ve decided to focus on that quality of suffering and happiness. But to see if any of you have learned it, I have a test waiting for you on top of the mountain. I hope to see you there.” After waving at them, he told the projector to terminate the program, and the machine shut off.

Even after the fire went out, Yona was dry enough but had to wrap herself in blankets as she couldn’t stop shivering. Yet, despite feeling cold, she and her friends still pressed on out of the cave and continued towards the top. Eventually, they walked up so high with their legs buried underneath the snow, that they broke through the cloud line to which they could see icy blue sky and a projector at the very top. While the walk up was exhausting, and the air seemed to get thinner the further they went up, their hope of getting off the mountain was growing.

By the time they finally reached the very peak, the clouds below them broke in which they could see not only landmarks such as the Crystal Empire and even Equestria, but Yakyakistan, the seas, the faint outline of Griffonstone, the valley of Starlight’s old village, the Dragon lands, and even the deserts of Southern Equestria. Indeed, it was as if they could see the whole world from the top of that mountain.

“I can’t believe we climbed to the top of Mt. Everhoof.” Sandbar said.

“Neither can I,” Gallus agreed but after looking around he added, “but where’s the exit?”

Smolder went over to the projector. “Mr. Discord did say that he has a test for us at the very top. So maybe if we do it, we could go back home. I guess there’s one way to find out.”

After she pressed the button, the hologram was projected once more.

“Congratulations students,” the copy said, “You’ve successfully climbed up to the top of Mt. Everhoof. A feat in which a very select few have ever accomplished. But even with this, I do have one last test for all of you. A thought experiment to see if any of you have absorbed Nietzsche’s message.” He flickered before continuing. “And since this is first hour, I’m going to ask this question to Smolder.”

The students, including Twilight, turned to her. After taking a very deep breath of the thin mountain air, she approached the hologram. “I’m here Mr. Discord. What is it that you want to ask me?”

Another flicker later, and the projected version of her teacher knelt down, seemingly as if to look directly into her eyes. “Now, let’s pretend for just a moment that after all you and your students had gone through today, that I was to come to you with a deal. Suppose I was able to give you a gift in which that you will go through this life you are living in once again, but forever in a loop. That every decision that you’ve made, every decision that you are making, and every decision that you will ever make, you will through all of it again, and again, and again. Every moment of joy, of misery, of loneliness, friendships, pains, pleasure, embarrassments, achievements, that you have chosen or ever will chose, you’ll come right back to them for all eternity. That you will never be able to change these decisions that you make, nor life through the ones that you wanted to do, so you’ll have to live with the choices of an unfulfilled life, forever. Now here’s my question: do you want this gift of mine?”

Smolder’s jaw dropped. “Wait, let me get my head wrapped around this… You’re asking me to maybe relive my life again in a continuous loop in which I have no control over?”

“Except for the one that you are living right now, for this is the only time you’ll get to choose.”

As much as she wanted to object to this idea, she glanced over to her friends that she had made, and the times they all gone through. “So I would relive all the good stuff, right?”

“And the bad.” The hologram nodded.

Within that moment of silence, and within earshot of the Headmare, she replied: “You know what? Life is miserable, but it’s better to have friends to be miserable with. As long as I have them, as long as you guys remain my friends regardless of what will happen, I’d rather be miserable with all you by me than to face it alone. And if that means to go through all the bad stuff just to get where we are,” she turned to the hologram and held out a claw. “I accept it.”

Discord’s copy grinned. “Everyone, this right here is a Superdragon! You have indeed learned this lesson. But before I can let you all go, this is a warning that even Nietzsche pleads for someone like you Smolder, to take to heart.”

“And that being?”

“If you really are the next step in the evolution of your species, then beware of the pursuit of becoming Superdragon: for it leads to blinding scorn for your fellow dragons. For you may think of yourself better than any other because of what you learned and experience to the point where you’ll develop values of your own but remember this: ‘Those who fights with monsters might take care, least they thereby become monsters themselves.’” The hologram walked forward towards the dragoness as she stepped backward. “‘And if you stare into the abyss long enough,’” he said as he transformed into a clone of Smolder, only that the eyes were nothing but black holes, “‘the abyss will stare right back at you.’”

As horrified as she was, she suddenly felt that she bumped into something. Quickly turning her head around, she realized that it was the door of their classroom. Not wanting to stay any longer, she flung herself around to open it as she flopped onto the floor of the school’s hallway.

“Ah, you’ve all made it.” Their teacher said as he welcomed all of them back. No sooner had he said it did all the students and Headmare stumbled through the doorway. As they did so, the cold, the winter clothing and even Yona’s chills had left them all as they returned to the warmth of the school. Yet, the result of this was a creature pile on the floor.

“DISCORD!” Twilight shouted as she got up. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just-”

“Headmare, wait!” Ocellus spoke up as she got in between her and the teacher. “Before you fire him, I think you should at least hear us out first.”

“Yeah,” Silverstream nodded. “What he did was crazy, but we’ve learned a lot from it.”

“Not to mention dangerous,” Twilight pointed out. “I mean, to toss us up on Mt. Everhoof without the proper gear or water, having us to climb up a dangerous waterfall, walk on thin ice in which Yona was close to catching hypothermia and making us spend hours climbing up a mountain without signing any field trip forms.”

“And yet,” Smolder folded her arms, “We’ve learned that difficulty is normal, that suffering isn’t something to shy away from, but to be learned, and he has given my miserable life meaning now. Yes, what he did was dangerous and broken a lot of rules, but it did get the message across. And frankly Headmare, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Neither would I.” Gallus agreed.

“Or Yona.”

“Or any of us for that matter.” Ocellus said in solidarity. “We like our Philosophy teacher, not because he does things differently compared with the other teachers here but doing what he has to in order to get the point across. His methods are unorthodox, but there’s a reason why we come to his defense because he took us as seriously as you do with this school.”

Twilight breathed through her nostrils. “Even so, he has kept away from your classes as it is…” she trailed off as she saw the clock in the hallway. “Almost ten? How can that be, we’ve spent hours at least climbing up there?”

“What can I say?” Discord replied. “Time flies when you’re learning something worthwhile. Unless you guys have any questions, you’re all dismissed.”

Before Twilight could summon him to her office, Smolder stood between her and Discord. “Before you fire him,” the Dragoness said to her, “just remember that it was your choice to hire him in the first place. That it was your call to keep him on. Mr. Discord has helped us with life with a new perspective, even at his wackiest of lessons. He’s helped Silverstream, Ocellus, Sandbar, Gallus and me with things that none of the teachers or Starlight could. We, including you, owe him that.”

The jaw of the Headmare dropped from what she heard before her student went away with her friends.

“So…” Discord craned his neck over to her. “Am I still fired or…?”

With a huff, Twilight too walked away saying, “You got lucky.”

Lesson 8: Guest Speaker

Within the cafeteria, Yona couldn’t help but look at the lunch of the day with dissatisfaction. As much as she grew a taste for Pony food, especially for freshly made cupcakes, her craving was calling out for familiar comfort foods that she had been missing. The food of her home country. Yet, it was free food after all, and at least they were offering a choice between corn fritters or haybergers that were decent to her tastes as she waited in line.

“You know I never get the idea of a cafeteria.” While the Yak tried to hold back her startled surprise, she quickly located the voice of Mr. Discord as he was standing upside down from her. “If you’re going to have a variety of foods to choose from, why not make it so and go big? Giving these folks a choice between Maggot Curry or Poison Joke Burritos would go a long way if you ask me.”

“What teacher doing here?” Yona asked. “Yak never saw other teachers in cafeteria.”

“Partly to steer clear from Twilight for the next twenty-four hours to let her cool off and partly because I didn’t feel like eating in the teacher’s lounge.” He spins his head around in a full circle. “Where’s the rest of your friends?”

“Yona gets in line first.” She replies. “Friends might be in very back of line.”

After humming in thought, Discord let himself fall to the ground like a slinky before asking her, “Tell me, do you really want to eat this stuff ahead or are you craving for something else?”

She huffed. “What Yona give for real Yak food.”

“Say no more, let’s go find your friends and give you my thanks for helping me keep my new job.”

A few minutes later of finding the rest of his first-period class and gathered around at their usual table, Discord insisted that day’s lunch will be on him. After a quick change in wardrobe to that of a weightier on roller-skates, he passed around silver dome trays to each of his students.

“For you Ms. Yona,” Discord said as he placed his paw on the handle of the dome. “A particular brand of Yak noodle soup in traditionally prepared Yak broth, with a side of vanilla cake from Yak vanilla.” Lifting it the dome, was the dish that he had described, much to Yona’s delight.

“Can it be?” She took up the bowl to let it touch her lips as she sipped the warm broth. “It is! Real Yak broth!”

“For you,” Discord moved over to Smolder. “A gem salad of diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, topaz, gold leafed rubies, and a dressing of molten copper.” Sure enough, there underneath it was the hard and hot salad that sat in a basalt bowl.

“No way!” She exclaimed as she used her claws to pick out the gems from it.

Next, he went over to Silverstream. “For you, Madame, a classic of Seaquestria delicacy of tuna in squid ink pasta and the thyme and lavender infused Salmon juice.”

The Hippogriff responded with an excited screech. “My favorite!” she cried before diving in.

Discord moved on to the next student. “For Ocellus, the single rarest ice cream in the world for its unique flavor.” Underneath the shiny dome was a crystal goblet with scoops of a very green sort of ice cream with a silver spoon sticking out.

Curious, the Changeling dug in a little sample of the mystery ice cream. When she stuck out her tongue to give it a few licks, she gasped in delight. “You made Love Flavor ice cream!” Discord nodded before she proceeded to give herself an ice cream headache.

“As for you boys,” Discord roll over to them to uncover their silver domes, “a culinary contradiction of a Beef Bourguignon burger with hay fries for Gallus and a General Sichuan Carrots with sesame seeds and a fortune cookie for Sandbar.”

After lifting those lids, he then skated around to himself sitting down between Sandbar and Yona. This surprised everyone at the table as they didn’t notice their teacher was there. “As for you, Mr. Discord, your lunch is a Bleep be Bleep be, be, Bleep be, be be be, Bleep Bleep Bleep, be Bleep be, be, with a side of Bleep be be. Enjoy.”

“Ooh! My favorite!” Their teacher grinned as his copy lifted the silver dome to a pixelated mess. He looked up to his students horrified. “What? You have your favorite foods and I have mine.”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking at,” Gallus commented. “And frankly, I’m not sure if I want to know.”

“At least the food is really good,” Silverstream said as she tries to focus on her lunch. “So Mr. Discord, what brings you here again?”

“Hm? Oh right! Well, all of this is my way of saying thanks for helping me keep my new job. I’m still very impressed that you stood up for me that I thought it was best to give something back.”

“You know you didn’t have to.” Ocellus pointed out between bites. “We like you enough for just teaching us alone.”

“Which brings to the most important reason why I’m here. Simply put, I realized that I haven’t asked Yona here about what she wants to learn. So far, I’ve asked all of you except for her. And frankly, I’m already out of ideas myself.”

A dozen eyes turned to the Yak as she pondered this. “Yona not sure.” She replied. “Teacher had taught many useful things. Helped friends and gave powerful lessons. But if Discord has to ask Yona what Yona wants to learn… is different from other lessons.”

“Well, I’m a sucker for different.” Her teacher said. “So please, I’m all ears, nose and eyes.”

“Hmm… How Yona put this…?” She hummed in thought, taking a moment to get a few more spoonfuls of soup. “There is something that Yona has been curious about. Nothing to do with life lessons or things like that. Rather, Yak wants to know why rulers do the way they do. Like does leader have all power over others? Or is it better to have ruler at all? Things like that.”

“Interesting…” Discord mused over while taking up a fork full of the censored food into his mouth. “So your interests are more political.”

Yona shook her head. “More like wanting to know why it works the way it does. Yona finds actions of rules confusing.”

“Actually… yeah, I would like to know that too.” Gallus put a claw to his beak. “Like why leaders go back against what they promised?”

“Or how to improve it if you are in power?” Ocellus pointed out. “Sure, not all of us are connected to royalty, but who knows…? We might be someday.”

As his students spoke, Discord went through the index in his head to pick out what sort of lessons he could teach. While he thought this over, his eyes laid on Sandbar’s fortune cookie in which, an idea began to develop. Not because of the cookie itself, but the source of the usual sayings that were printed on the slips of paper inside.

“I think I already got an idea what to do tomorrow…” Discord said to himself but catching the attention of his students.

“You do?” Sandbar asked.

“Maybe, but I’m going to need to run an errand to find a guest speaker.”

This caught his student’s surprise. “Guess speaker?” Ocellus asked, “Like who?”

“No idea, I haven’t decided yet. So, if you don’t mind me,” he dumped the rest of the unspeakable material down his throat, “I have a philosopher to study up from.” Standing up, he opened up a time portal and told his students that he’ll see them tomorrow before stepping through, having it close behind him.

The six students sat there dumbfounded. “Uh… What just happened?” Smolder questioned, but none of her friends could answer it.

Thursday morning came and after breakfast, the students were making their way towards first hour with Discord. “What do you think we’re going to be doing today?” Silverstream asked.

“This is Mr. Discord we’re talking about,” Gallus answered, “as far as we know, it’s pretty much anyone’s guess.”

“But it has something to do with politics.” Ocellus pointed out. “Then again, that doesn’t really help much as I know there’s been plenty of philosophers out there that have talked on this subject even once.”

“Yak hopes we don’t have to go near mountain climbing… or water…” Yona shivered at the thought.

“Whatever it is,” Smolder said, “I’m sure it’ll be fine. This is Discord, after all, whatever he does is bound to be interesting.”

They arrived at the classroom door, only to find that their teacher wasn’t there waiting for them. Silverstream opened the door that leads out to a foggy trail. At first, the six students were confused as they stepped through. Below them was a dirt path, to the left were wild grass and rocks while the other a steep cliff. Yet, within this thick fog, hits of the landscape were seen as they saw peaks of mountains that stood there like islands in a cloudy sea.

But before long, they noticed that in the fog, a familiar shape was twisting its way towards the students.

“Mr. Discord?” Yona called out, and just like that, their teacher appeared as he flew over to them.

“Good morning class.” He said as he landed on his tail. “Today I’ve decided to focus a little bit on Eastern philosophy as a starting point for Yona’s question on power. This time I’ve decided to shake things up a bit and have all of you come with me to the very source of our first discussion.”

“Uh, Mr. Discord.” Sandbar raised a hoof. “Where exactly are we?”

The Draconequus smirked. “I think you’re asking yourself partly the wrong question.”

“Huh?” Ocellus questioned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not exactly where that you should be asking. Rather, ask yourselves… when?”

At this revelation, the students looked around.

“Is this past?” Yona inquired, “Or future?”

With his arms behind his back, Discord circled his students. “The place: Far East Equestria. The time: about five hundred years before Equestria’s founding. Twilight would probably lecture your ears off about how this was known as the ‘Warring States Period’ in this part of the world. Where clans fought against clans. Families against families. This place has been racked and wrecked by generations of civil war and blood thirsty chaos. Here, society has collapsed and were in the fallout of a political apocalypse. Long before the first Emperor had united these patches of land, there was a figure whose words and actions would echo long before his death. With a few simple, but effective ideas that did more conquering then Pinkie Pie at a pie eating contest.”

Smolder raised an eyebrow. “Okay… who’s the guy?”

Ears perked up as Discord turned his head down the dirt road. “Why not ask him yourself? He’s our unofficial guest speaker after all.”

The students turned their attention towards down the path as they too heard hoofsteps coming towards them. Within a minute, a silhouette of a robed figure slowly walked forward. As he got closer, more details about this pony became clear. Apart from his simple robe, they saw an old unicorn stallion of a cloudy white beard and a dark blue coat. When they were both able to see one another, the robed unicorn paused for a moment, blinking.

“Now there is something you don’t see every day .” He muttered before he approached them. “Hello,” the old unicorn bowed to them, “are you all friend or foe?”

After exchanging some confused looks, Ocellus replied. “Uh… friend I hope. What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask the same for all of you. Creatures that I have never seen before and yet, a few that I have heard through myth. Like you, sacred Dragon,” he bowed to Smolder and Discord.

“Well I’m more of a Draconequus,” Discord shrugged, “but tell us, who would you be?”

The old stallion’s muzzle dropped melancholically. “I go by the name of Master Kong.”

“What?” Yona asked surprised. “You! Real Master Kong?”

“Last time I checked, I seem to be real when I woke up this morning.” He chuckled. “I take it that you’ve heard of me?”

“Yaks heard of Master Kong from Yakyakistan. Never thought that Yak would meet Kong in flesh.”

Kong tilted his head. “Yakyakistan? Forgive me, but I do not know where it is. Although I can assume that it is far away.”

“You have no idea…” Sandbar commented.

“Are you travelers coming or going?” Master Kong asks, “I am making my way towards Xiao Ma that is over these mountains.”

Discord, with a thoughtful look on his face said, “Xiao Ma you say? Would it be too much if I were to give you a lift over.” The old master asked what he meant by that. “Simply put, what if I could offer you a shortcut towards the town? I can have all of us fly over these mountains and save you the trip. The only cost of admission, is a few wise words.”

After giving some thought, Kong replies: “If it means to give me rest from walking all the way up here, who am I to refuse such an offer? Besides, it’s better to have the company to talk to.”

“Great, give a sec…” Discord went over to the edge of the cliff and putting two talons in his mouth, blew a high pitch whistle. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen until out from the rolling clouds, a single yellow cloud that was carrying something came towards them. At first, neither student nor master could make out what it was, but was it got closer, they heard shouts of complaining orders before they could see that this was coming from a furious monkey in armor, waving a staff in anger.

“Are you listening to me!” the monkey shouted. “We need to go that way! Why are you…” he looked up as the flying cloud slowed down before the Draconequus. “Oh… It’s you.”

“Is that-” Master Kong was about to ask but Discord interrupted.

“Hey Sun Wukong,” Discord waved, “I know this is last minute here, but I need to borrow your cloud for a bit.”

“What for? I’m currently in the middle of something here!”

“Just to borrow it to get my students and this guy over here,” he pointed at Master Kong, “over to Xiao Ma to drop him off. After that, I’ll give it back to you.”

The monkey in armor looked at him in annoyance. “Really? Did you pull me away from a battle just to give an old fart and these kids a ride? Did Kuan-Yin set you up to this?”

“No,” Discord reached his lion’s paw over to his face, “and I’m not asking, by-the-way.”

“Oh no you don’t you son of a–” With a single flick, it sends Sun Wukong flying backward into the clouds below, screaming curses on the way down.

Master Kong blinked, “Was that the Monkey King?”

“Don’t mind the cry baby,” Discord waved a paw, “he practically owes me. Now then…” After using his magic to expand the single yellow cloud into a bus, he hops at the front. “Next stop, the town of Xiao Ma.”

The students and the old master (who got on with caution,) had climbed aboard the cloud, Discord drove it through the air.

“This goes without saying,” Kong commented to the students, “this has to be the strangest morning of my life.”

“That’s Mr. Discord for you.” Gallus replied, “He’s an oddball, but he’s a pretty good teacher overall.”

“What does he teach?”

“Philosophy.” All of Discord’s students said unanimously, much to their teacher’s amusement.

The old unicorn raised an eyebrow. “Is he qualified to teach wisdom?”

This got Discord’s attention. “Hey, what are you talking about? Of course, I’m qualified.”

“And yet, you stole this from Sun Wukong, the Monkey King?”

“This isn’t stealing. I did say I was borrowing it for a little while.”

“But you didn’t ask.”

“Borrowing, stealing, same thing.” Discord waved a dismissive claw.

A harrumph later, Master Kong replied. “This type of arrogance is sure to be expected, from a creature who speaks of wisdom with no clue of what respect is.”

The Draconequus gave him a death glare. “Did you just quote a lyric from an epic rap battle?”

“How can I quote something if I just made it up just now?”

“Okay, changing the subject,” Ocellus spoke up as she turned to Yona, “question for you: how you know who this guy is?”

The Yak raised an eyebrow before realizing something. “Oh! Yona remembered. This side of the world, he was known as K’ung Fu-Tse, or Master Kong. Everywhere else, he’s known as Confucius.”

Now it was the rest of the students to be surprised as they all turned towards the old unicorn.

“You… Y-You’re really him?” Sandbar asked. “You’re Confucius?”

“I prefer Master Kong,” he shrugged. “Nevertheless, despite the means for transport, I am grateful for the help on my travels. Although, was there something you wanted to ask of me? Your teacher said it’s my payment.”

“There is,” Silverstream said. “Well, actually it’s Yona here that has a question here for you.” She waved over to the Yak.

Kong inquired of her what the question was. “Well… Yak wants to know how power works. Since Yona may one day play a role in Yakyakistan court, Yona wants to know what makes good leaders, when being one is hard? But asking Master Kong must be stupid question.”

“Oh, not at all young lady. The one who asks a question is a fool for only a minute, but the one who does not ask is a fool for life. Tell me, what role do you expect to fill in one day?”

“It is unclear for now, but Yona sent to pony school so that Yona might be better Yak that becomes adviser in future.”

“Ah, I see.” He nodded. “I’ll have you know, that I was once an adviser and a minister of justice at one point. In all those years, I have learned a few things from my duties from both that I had wished I knew beforehoof.”

“Such as?”

“Well, stress the importance of ritual more.”

Smolder tilted her head. “Ritual? What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to clarify on that mister wise guy,” Discord called out, “just remember that most of my students aren’t from this country.”

“Oh…” Master Kong nodded as he understood. “Where I come from, we honor our ancestors that came before us. We give respect to the generations of spirits from our families through ritual. To show them the utmost reverence from the quality of our offerings to the sincerity of our own mood when doing such rituals. Now-a-days, ponies don’t see much respect for such sacred rituals as the world down there is constantly at war with one another. They think that there are too many rules, to the point where it becomes a chore.

“But I have seen the good that such rituals do. In what they should teach us. Such ceremonies give lessons on how to behave with one another. Giving acknowledgments to certain occasions like visiting your parents on a specific day. And yet, I can’t help but notice that it is they, the dead, that are treated with more reverence than those around them. This I never understood, if you can’t take the time to respect the living, how does one do the same for the dead?”

“What does ritual have to do with being a good ruler?” Smolder questioned. “I mean, sure they can bring you up on how to behave, but the world is much more complicated than knowing when to light some candles.”

Master Kong laughed, “Oh young Dragoness, life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

“Look, buddy, where I come from, there’s practically no such thing as order. Our part of the world, we dragons fight all the time.”

“And so does mine. But is that really true that all dragons fight? Was there ever a time in your history in which that wasn’t so?”

Smolder was about to abject but froze as a thought came to her. “Well… not exactly… There was a time some centuries ago that a Dragon Lord had made everyone happy for a while.”

The old master smiled. “And so is my country also. We had a golden age once before. When rulers did their duty with honor and there was a harmony among the subjects. Social stability is possible, for it happened once, who is to say that it won’t happen again? I often believed that the past may have answers for our problems to the present. Hence, what I should have placed more insistent on ritual because they showed us a high standard that can be reached. If you do learn what these rituals are key to shaping and cultivate your own values. By figuring out what makes a good Yak, or a good pony, a good dragon and so on, you may know what makes a good society that leaders should strive for.”

“Yeah I don’t know if I buy it.” Gallus said as he laid back in his seat. Kong asked him why. “Where I come from, Gryphons aren’t interested in that sort of thing. My homeland is broken. Shattered beyond repair. The folks I deal with are jerks and I doubt that even you could do anything to fix it, even if you tried.”

“On that account, you’d be right. If a gryphon were wise, he would attack the evil that is within, rather than attacking the evil that is in others. And the way to confront such a mountain of disorder is to gain inspiration from something that has endured.”

“And what’s that?” Gallus raised an eyebrow.

“DISCORD!” before the old master could reply, they turned to the source of the shouting in which was coming up ahead of them. Their teacher had to put the brakes on the cloud bus before it could collide with an angry looking Monkey King and a flying pig with a rake. Sun Wukong, who was doing the shouting, stood on top of his elongated staff. “Give my cloud back right now!”

“Gents,” their teacher said, “I did say that I need to borrow this for a while. You’ll have this back once I get them across these mountains and then you can go back to… whatever it was you were doing.”

“Our master is in trouble you demon!” the pig hissed, pointing his rake at him. “Give it back, or we’re going to make you.”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “As much as I enjoy an action scene as much as the next guy, right now I’m carrying my students and a wise sage that’s in the middle of teaching something that preferably doesn’t need to have another close encounter with death then they’ve already had. So, I’m going to make this short.”

With a snap of his talons, the staff in which the monkey was standing on turned into a tower of noodles that instantly fell right beneath him. “This isn’t over!” Sun Wukong shouted as he fell through the clouds once more.

“Oh piggy…” Discord said half singing. The pig with the rake looked up at Discord in which he held a bowl with something fried and covered with a pink sauce. “What’s your opinion adding bacon to sweet and sour pork?”

With a horrified squeal, the flying pig with a rake flew away in the opposite direction.

Discord looked over his shoulder to see his stunned students and a disapproving Master Kong. “What?”

“Was scurrying off that pig demon like that really necessary?” the old unicorn questioned.

“Hey, I bought all of you some time, now get to your next point about the family before they show up again.” He said before getting the cloud bus to move once more.

“What was that about family?” Ocellus asked.

“Well, as I was going to say before that happened,” Master Kong muttered, “one of the things that have endured despite all of this chaos are families. That being no matter where or the hardship, I noticed that the more stable parts of society, even when all else is falling apart, is the family. Out of curiosity, how many of you belong to a family?” All except for Discord And Gallus raised their hoofs or claws. “Have any of you noticed that all families have a hierarchy in which that you fit somewhere in it?”

“You mean like how Mom and Dad tend to call all the shots?” Sandbar asked.

The master nodded. “Yes, but there’s more to that. In my years, I have observed the relationships between husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, or one sibling to another work, and what sort of fixed responsibilities each relationship has to the others. You find out where you fit in this as soon as you are born. And I also noticed that once you recognize your place within this family hierarchy, it teaches morals that are essential. Developing a sense of loyalty, honesty, duty, respect, and responsibility to your family. Or in other words, to love those around us.”

“Now that you’ve mentioned it…” Silverstream started, putting a claw to her beak in thought. “It’s not too far from how my family works.”

“Or mine.” Ocellus agreed.

“Or even mine,” Sandbar said thoughtfully before adding, “regardless how it ended up.”

“The way I see it,” Master Kong continued, “this idea of the family is a strong model, if not the cure to my country’s ills. Family, especially the most functional and good ones show how authority could be both exercised yet submitted to that is fairly and productively. For the best ones are not done through intimidation or threats, but by mutual consent. The morals that are learned within the family, that shows affection and care from the parents and the loyalty and obedience from the children. This, I believe, has the potential to transform anyone. But I see the family’s greatest value is to solve the greatest problem in society: the irresponsible ways of rulers.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Smolder objected as she raised her claw. “Let me try to get my head wrapped around this… So you’re basically saying that a way to turn a crappy country around is to look at how the best family operates?”

“Yes.” The old unicorn nodded. “Have you ever known any good families?”

“Well…” she folded her arms, “not exactly. Heck, as far as I know, neither does Gallus or Sandbar have it good with their families either.”

“In that case, let me ask you this: a good father could bring up a good son, do you grant that?”

She shrugged. “I guess so?”

“And a good son could then respect the father too if he was brought up just so. Is this also true?”

“I… I suppose it could be possible…”

“So, if it works on such a level between father and son, why not the same with a ruler and his subjects? Have the ruler look at his duties and his subjects just like how a father would towards his children. With love but with firmness. To have compassion, but with integrity. With uncompromising justice with benevolence. If such a ruler exists, doing these things as I have mentioned, could it be possible that it would roll down to those that serve beneath him?”

“But…” Sandbar began, “That can’t be true all the time. I mean, wouldn’t that depend on who’s in charge?”

“Indeed,” Master Kong agreed, “the ideal ruler, has not only a dutiful responsibility to whom he serves but a philosophical one as well. In my view, I am in favor of the traditions that the princes or emperors who lead are given a mandate, a divine right from heaven to rule. Thus, in this country, is why they are called the Sons of Heaven.”

Gallus raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but suppose that the ruler wasn’t a good one? Like something wasn’t right in his mind or that he’s an overall jerk that doesn’t care what anyone says and does whatever they want – what then? Should we just bow to someone like that if the very heavens decide to make him a ruler anyway?”

Master Kong hummed in thought. “In my experience, ruling means correcting oneself. If a ruler does not act well, his decrees will be useless, because nopony will listen to them. Likewise, I have noticed that just as heaven can bless a ruler, so too can it take that divine right away. This manifests itself through disasters carried out by nature such as earthquakes, floods, famine and so on. But also, through the subjects too. Like how a bad father could raise a bad son in which he does not respect for the one that raised him, so too are the subjects that do not respect a bad ruler.”

“Master Kong makes it like power goes two ways,” Yona pointed out, “between ruler and subject.”

“Yes, exactly! While the ruler, like a father, may have the authority and power, he cannot be too cruel to his subjects, who are like his children. Because the more he tries to unjustly control them, the more they are willing to disconnect their trust. After all, an Emperor, prince or magistrate is nothing without his subjects. And a father is nothing without his sons. In either case when authority becomes too corrupt, and they who live under either suffer, do they have the heavenly right to rebel.”

“Huh…” Smolder rubbed her chin. “I never thought it like that.”

Yona at this point raised a hoof. “Should there be anything else that Yona should know to give Yak rulers for advice?”

“Yes. Always warn about becoming spending too much time to devote ones’ energy upon personal gain. In fact, it is the reason why I resigned from my last job as adviser.”

Ocellus tilted her head. “Why? What happened?”

The old master sighed. “Some years ago, the prince I served, to try to give good advice to was presented gifts of mares and expensive weapons in which he indulged in. So much so, that he became neglectful of his own duties. Do not misunderstand me, I for one understand the need of such earthly goods and pleasures myself such as swimming in a stream or singing with friends. Yet, to become so entwined with luxuries to the point of blinding from the position and responsibility you were meant to do – such a leader is doomed to fail. Which is why I resigned. I do not justify arrogant actions, anywhere, anytime, from anyone. Even from your teacher over here.”

Discord craned his neck over. “You know, I’m beginning to regret of choosing you as a guest speaker.”

“Yet your actions to steal this cloud, even for good intentions, may send the wrong message to your own students. For a superior teacher is not only modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.”

Discord grumbled, “We’re here.” As the cloud bus lowers itself down, they could see a modest size town below by a river with rich green trees that dotted about the valley. The students were in awe of the tiled roofs, its market place and the crowds of this ancient place that was no doubt in its heyday. After driving the cloud about a mile away from the town, Discord let his students and Master Kong off before crumpling the fluffy bus back into its original form before tossing it away.

“While I don’t approve of your teacher’s methods,” the old master said as he turned to the students, “I do, however, approve of all of you. I hope I was helpful in any way.”

Yona smiled. “Master Kong helpful. Given Yak direction about future.”

He smiled. “In that regard, I should be thanking all of you too.”

The students, including their teacher, blinked. “Really?” Silverstream asked what was on her friend’s mind. “How so?”

“For a long time, I have often wondered what to do since my last job as an adviser. From that experience, it brought forth no fruit. Perhaps I have been looking at this the wrong way. That maybe, to change things for the better, to bring peace, is to teach young ones like yourselves. To teach them virtue and wisdom so that they may bring hope. Perhaps, this is my calling. And for that,” he bowed low to them, “I graciously thank you, all.”

Yona helped him up. “One last thing Master Kong. Is there best virtue to live by?”

After giving some thought, he replied: “That would be empathy, perhaps. What you do not wish for yourself, don’t do to others. Now then, I thank you for the ride and the discussion. It was quite enlightening.” After bowing to them once more, he bid them goodbye before walking down the dirt road towards the town.

“Well, he was nice,” Silverstream commented.

Discord folded his arms and harrumphed. “That’s probably the last time I decided to do a guest speaker.” He muttered.

“Hey! There he is!” With alarm, they looked over to the other side of the road to find not only the Monkey King and the pig with a rake but also a very tall fish-like creature with a pronged staff and a dragon with an elongated body with eyes that were piercing at Discord’s very soul. “That’s the demon that stolen my cloud!”

“Well look at the time,” Discord quickly said as he conjured up the classroom door, “class dismissed!” With a confusing rush, he and the students flung open the door and rushed out into the hallway. Just in time to slam, it shut before a staff, the teeth of the rake, prongs, and teeth pierced through the door.

His students looked up at their teacher, “You know,” Sandbar said, “About a few weeks ago, this all would seem really strange to me.”

“What seems strange?” the students jumped when the unexpected voice of Starlight Glimmer spoke up. “Oh, sorry about that. I just wanted to come by to see if I can talk with your teacher for a minute.” She turned to Discord, “That is if you’re not too busy.”

The Draconequus frowned. “Why? Am I in trouble again?”

“Oh no. You’re not at all. I just want to speak with you about a few things if that’s alright with you.”

After dismissing his class (and changing out the door to make sure that it would enter into the actual classroom itself), Discord let Starlight in so that it would give them a little privacy.

“So how was first hour?” She asked as she entered.

“I had a more or less easy day as I had a guest speaker over.”

“Oh? And who’s that?”

The ex-chaos spirit waved as a paw. “Oh you know, just an expert on Confucius’s ideas.”

“Ah, got ya.” She nodded as she sat down on her haunches. “I’ll just get straight to the point so I can get out of your mane. I’m here for two reasons: first is to tell you that I’ve been assigned by Twilight to observe how you do your usual classes. Since she told me that at the time, she walked in when you were doing it differently than you usually do it. So I was hoping that maybe tomorrow I could come and see how you really do things.”

“Oh yes! And that reminds me,” Discord mused, “I forgot to ask my students about what they want to hear next. Yona has gotten me thinking about how politics work and I’m not exactly sure where to take the discussion from here.” He looked down at the school counselor with a thoughtful look. “Unless of course, you have a suggestion? A fun one I hope.”

Starlight thought about this for a moment. “Have you guys got anywhere near the Enlightenment period yet?”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “Why? What’s there?”

“Well, there are a few ponies that you could easily do, especially when it comes to something like politics. Like, say giving a lesson on Voltaire or Rousseau-”

“Ooh! I haven’t thought of that!” He grinned. “I can’t believe I’ve overlooked that guy. Of course, I would have to run an errand to check up a few things, but I can work with that.”

“Okay, good.” Starlight nodded. “Which leads to my next thing that I think you should know. And for this, I think you should probably sit down for this.”

While his curiosity was peaked, Discord whistled a lounge chair into existence. “Is this the bad news?”

Her face scrounges up. “That depends on how you take it. You see, since you started teaching last week, we let the parents of your students, in particular, those from first hour know that it’s you that’s doing it. And well… we just not some letters this morning saying that they’re concerned. So much so that they’re coming over to the school to basically cross-examine you.”

The legs in which Discord’s chair held suddenly collapsed underneath him. “Are you kidding me? How many times do I have to prove myself that I’m the better teacher?”

“I think I have an idea actually.” Starlight raised a hoof. “Perhaps you could also show them how you teach so that it would give them some peace of mind. Maybe to have them with your students as you teach to observe?”

“And when will they be here?”

“There letters said they’ll be here on Saturday.”

Discord covered his head with both his paw and claw, trying to think of something. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for an idea to come to him. “Well then, if that’s what they want to observe my class. I’ll let them. Although… I need to ask a favor from higher up, especially from Twilight.”

“What’s that?” Starlight raised an eyebrow.

“On Saturday morning, I need to borrow Spike. He and my students are going to play a very critical role in my special session in philosophy.”

“Why’s that?

Discord grinned, “Because, my dear, we’re going to have a trial.”

Lesson 9: From the Tribe to the City

On that Friday morning, Discord leaned up against the limousine taxi that stood in waiting in the hallway. This was the first thing that other students noticed as they happened to walk by the long, yellow carriage that has the word “Taxi” written on its side. The second thing that students notice is how the Draconequus was dressed in a uniform that had the same motif as the carriage from the bright yellow vest to the hat that has a checkered strip wrapped around it. And the third thing the student's notice was the cardboard neon sign that he held that read: “1st Period + Starlight.”

“I thought vehicles weren’t allowed in the halls.” Discord looked over to see Starlight with a clipboard.

“Well good morning to you too.” He tipped his hat. “I hope you’re ready for today’s lesson on Monsieur Rousseau.”

“So what’s the taxi for?”

“To get everyone where they need to be. Obviously. I’m going to take you and the class out on a field trip to illustrate today’s lesson.”

“Do you always take your students out on field trips?”

“If you mean within Equestria, then… sometimes. Other times I bring them to other universes if I deemed it necessary. It really depends on the lesson.” As Discord was talking, he rounded over to one the back of the taxi doors in which, like a chauffeur, he opened it for her. “If you’re going to inspect me, would you like to see how I’m going to drive my students?”

Starlight craned her head in, there she found the taxi was glorified by comfortable seating, a mini fridge in which was full of water and snacks, a couch, a painting of Discord, swinging chandeliers, a Hearth's Warming tree, a baby grand piano, a shrubbery, a fireplace, a bobblehead of Twilight that reads: “I’m the smartest except when I’m not,” and speakers that hung overhead of each seat.

“What’s all this stuff for?” She asked.

“All the distracting comforts of civilization, of course.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Being cryptic today, aren’t we?”

“Morning Mr. Discord,” the two of them turned to find Gallus, who along with the rest of his classmates too were examining the taxi. “Is this your ride or…?”

“Since all of you are here, I figured we can just go right ahead and jump into today’s lesson. When the thing starts moving, keep your hooves, claws, tentacles, tails, muzzles, manes, pointy ears or any other appendages inside the vehicle at all times. Otherwise, something will eventually come off.”

After the students, including their councilor, climbed into the taxi, Discord hooked himself onto the front of the carriage in which he began to pull through the hallways and out of the school. Once they were out and after tapping on his hat a few times to make sure the speakers were working, he began.

“Good morning class and extra guess who I hope to impress enough not to fire me again. Today’s discussion is going to take on an interesting detour on a guy that at one point called for the end of civilization itself. Only, he’s not considered a villain surprisingly enough. For today’s lesson, we’re diving into the guy that preferred to have feelings above rational reason that may or may not have invented the Romantic Movement, Monsieur Rousseau.”

Inside the luxurious taxi, a portrait replaced that of their teacher’s. It was a sketch drawing of an earth pony with the clothing of three hundred years ago of a curly, powdered wig, an overcoat with hundreds of buttons while reclining on a rock while holding a plant in his hoof.

Ocellus raised a hoof. “Uh, Mr. Discord, what was that part about him wanting to end Civilization?”

“Ah, right, some background.” Their teacher replied as he continued to carry them through the town, a little more faster every second. “No doubt that a good chunk of your societies worships the idea of progress. That life gets a little bit better, technology gets more advanced, movies up the annite, that you’d be making a little more money and you’ll be getting more luxury goods then you could afford but at the same time you know that you’ll eventually go into debt in which your grandchildren’s grandchildren will be able to pay it off because life is so good. For those of you who lived is such a society that rolls out the red carpet when it comes to progress, it seems like civilization is going towards a positive direction from our old savage and ignorant ways towards prosperity for all.

“And yet, there was one philosopher from the eighth century, during the Age of Reason that violently disagreed with the idea. In fact, while in Prance, our guy, Monsieur Rousseau read a copy from his usual subscribed newspaper that had an advert for someone to write an essay on the subject if the world is getting better through the advances in art, science, and technology. So one epiphany later, it came to him that civilization, with all its progress, had not improved anyone. If anything, he argued that it made the quality of life worse.”

“Uh, Discord.” Starlight said with increasing alarm as the taxi zoomed out of town and were whizzing past forest and deserts. “Where are you taking us?”

“We will arrive at our destination soon enough. Now, where was I?”

“Something about an essay?” Silverstream asked as she too could only look out the windows to see the world becoming a blur.

“Ah yes!” After thanking Silverstream, Discord continued. “If anything, one thing you must keep in mind that he isn’t suggesting that everyone that happens to be in a civilized place are all bad. Far from it. Monsieur Rousseau firmly believes that everyone, all ponies to gryphon, Yak to Dragon and everything in between were naturally born good. Just remember that from what I say from here: he’s not attacking those that run civilization, but the system that they follow by that does all the corruption. Which I think, is what he meant by, ‘All creatures are born free, and everywhere they are in chains.’ To illustrate his point, we have to make our first stop someplace far, far, very far, and further still, away.”

All around them, the rushing flashes of color and shapes slowed down until the blur gave way to a foreign landscape. One of tall, dry grass and the occasional tree that dotted about here and there. A landscape where mountains dotted the horizon, but hills were rare. The taxi slowed down enough until it came to a complete stop near the top of a hill, in which Discord instructed for them to step out as he has something to show them.

As the students climbed out and into the intense sunlight, Starlight asked while shielding her eyes, “Where the hay are we?”

“This is the grasslands of Zebraca.” Discord answered. “We are nearly in the center of the content in which I’m about to show you merely one of the thousands of tribes within this corner of the world. Come with me to the top and I’ll show you.”

Curious, the students and Starlight walked up the hill in which they found a telescope that pointed out towards a village in the distance.

“As to what his essay said,” Discord continued his lecture, “is that he offered up a simple argument: that individuals had once been both good and happy, but once the idea of society rolled in did they become plagued by wickedness. He lays the cornerstones of his argument on what he called ‘The State of Nature,’ in which he imagined what life at the beginning of history might have been like. And one of the sources he used to illustrate this golden past was from reports of tribes throughout the world during his time, such as this one for example.

“For this, I simply want all of you to look through the spyglass and tell us what you see.”

Yona was the first to trot up to the telescope that rested on a tripod. Standing up on her two hind hooves, she peered through the glass. “Look like village.” She began to describe, “One of Zebras, though not big. Yak sees mares fixing roof while foals play game by tree over there.”

“Let me see that.” Smolder got her friend out of the way to peer through. “Well, there are some huts in a variety of sizes and shapes. Look simply but they’re decorated with paint of some kind. And I see there’s a small group of stallions at the edge of the village that they’re gambling on something. Can’t blame them really, since there doesn’t seem that much to do.”

“Can I see?” Sandbar asked as he tapped the dragoness on the shoulder. She moved aside so that he too can see through it. “I can’t tell much, but they do look happy from where I can see. But Smolder is right on this, I don’t see how they’re able to occupy themselves.”

Next, Ocellus asked if she could have a look too. “For a small place,” she commented as she looked into the telescope, “at least they seem to be a lively bunch.”

Silverstream took her turn. “I wish I can go up to meet them, they look friendly enough. And look! Someone has a garden there with plants that I never have seen before.”

“Hey, let me take a look,” Gallus said as he took the telescope into his claw, “they don’t look that rich if I have to be honest. I don’t see a scrap of metal anywhere. It’s like they’re stuck in the stone age.”

Now it was Starlight’s turn to look through. “You know, I have visited Zecora a few times in the past, but these guys don’t seem to have the same sort of style as hers’.” Backing away from the telescope, she put her hoof to her chin in thought. “I wonder if this is some other tribe?”

“Like I said,” Discord reminded, “this is merely one of the thousands in this land. So, it’s unlikely that this was her tribe. But anyway, since all of you have gotten your first glance at this tribe, I want to ask a simple question: do you think those in that village down there, who rarely encounter those outside from civilization, live a better life?”

The young gryphon folded his arms. “If I have to be honest Mr. Discord,” he said, “I don’t really think so.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“I mean… don’t get me wrong. I guess they’re happy doing that they’ve always have done. But do they have things that we have like… oh I don’t know… medicine that works? Trade? Food that isn’t spoiled? Or knowledge of how to do things better?”

Before Discord could question his argument, Starlight beat him to it. “Are you saying that those who have those things are better off?”

“All I’m saying is that at least places like Equestria has things that make life comfortable and has certain things to make sure we don’t die by the age of thirty.”

Discord shrugged. “Now that that’s a legitimate argument.” He said as he made his way towards the taxi. “However, let’s all get a closer look at this tribe. Everyone, hop back in, our next stop is that village down there.”

So after getting back into the elongated taxi, Discord quickly took them toward the very edge of the village, in which locals took notice of them. After their teacher quickly opened the door to let his students and Starlight out, three male Zebras approached them. Each holding a spear.

The one in the middle walked up towards them. “Ngubani oza edolobheni lethu?” (Who comes to our city?)

Discord stepped forward, placing both his paw and claw together and nodded to him. “Sawubona. Ngingumfundisi, ngubani nabantu bami abafisa ukukukhombisa le ndawo. Ngibafundise ngezindlela zalaba bantu ukubasiza ukuba baqonde iqiniso elihle. Manje, ngikhuluma nobani?” (Hi. I am a teacher, who and my students wish to show them this place. I came to teach them about the ways of this tribe to help them understand the great truth. Now, whom am I talking to?)

As the two of them talked back and forth, Starlight glanced over at the students, who were just as confused as she was. Discord and the Zebra spoke in a language that flew over their heads and relied on their expressions to grasp what was being said. After a minute of talking and a smile from the head Zebra, they tapped their spears twice before returning towards the village.

“Mind filling us in what that was about?” Smolder said, speaking for all of them.

“I was explaining to the… well, this tribe’s equivalent of the Captain of the Guard who we are, why we’re here, and that we wouldn’t be here for long as I told him that I’m going to allow all of you to observe their culture up close.”

As they too start to walk towards the village, Starlight went up towards Discord’s side. “I didn’t know you can speak their native language, Discord.”

The Draconequus shrugged. “You didn’t ask. Being as old as I am, I’ve been able to pick up the local lingo. Such as dead ones, living ones, cryptic ones, ancient, new, haven’t been invented, undecipherable, baby, musical, mathematical, censored, uncensored, made up, unmade-up, alien and Equestrian. Come to think of it, I guess it would be faster to name off the languages that I don’t know.”

“Such as?” Gallus raised an eyebrow.

“The languages of order, rules and consistency.”

Starlight deadpanned. “I should have seen that coming.”

The class walked into the village in which the Zebras became curious about them. Many of them reached out to touch the fur, feathers, scales and hide of these strangers. While those like Sandbar, Gallus, and Smolder were uncomfortable of them reaching into their personal spaces. Silverstream giggled as a few of them found her ticklish spots, Starlight courteously reached out to shake hooves with them, while Yona interpreted this to pick them up one by one to bearhug them.

For the next several minutes, although none except for Discord could understand what they were saying, the students were able to learn about the tribe. Although the village was very small, they could tell that this was a close community that resembled that of a large family with foals playing about while the older ponies keep an eye on them. Here, a pair of brothers chop firewood; there, sisters learned carefully as an elderly mare combined herbs into a paste; above the mares weave to repair the roofs from a strong wind; below stallions cultivate gardens of food and herbs that they till up the soil. By a tree, a teenager practices (and fails) at the flute while inside a hut a shamare reads the dropped seeds upon the ground. By the edge of the town, stallions with spears chit-chatted away telling jokes while the youngest foals play games using stones and marked certain spots in the dust.

The students noticed how much and how often the tribe smiling as they showed and introduced to their ways of life. As curious as they were, the students saw how genuine this tribe was to show kindness, love of their families, their humble respect for the natural and mystical, and the mutual respect they have for one another as they seemed to offer it up to them too.

Once they’ve been showed everything, Starlight asked, “Okay, as much as I’ll give you points for showing your students a new culture, what does this have anything to do with Rousseau?”

After calling his students to gather around him, he explained. “Class, what are your impressions of this village?”

“This place is super friendly!” Silverstream said with glee. “Even though I have no idea what they’re talking about, they’re really interesting with how they live and how they get along.”

“I’ll give them this,” Smolder commented, “it maybe primitive, but something tells me that these guys got it figured out, ya know?”

Discord grinned. “Monsieur Rousseau would have agreed with you. In his mind, this very village here was what he thought early life for your ancestors might have been like. That before the shop was invented to swindle all of your money or read newspapers to get depressed over, early creatures from all over had a simple life to which they had a better understanding of their own minds. As you can see, this is because there were less distractions that didn’t get in the way of their basic of needs. This village, if not this tribe perfectly illustrates what he envisioned your ancestors were like before civilization. To someone like Rousseau, this was the state of nature as it was intended to be.”

Ocellus raised a hoof. “Mr. Discord, why exactly did Rousseau not like Civilization?”

Their teacher told them that in order to understand, they have to take the taxi once more. So after bidding the village farewell, they climbed aboard to which Discord took the vehicle into hyper speed. Colors and lights once again zoom past and around them for a minute until the taxi slowed down, showing the students and Starlight that the landscape had changed dramatically.

In place of the tall grassy valley, hills, trees, and mountains in the distant, now they look out the windows to a crowded place of skyscrapers made out of steel and glass, bright lights, blurring sounds, and a sea of ponies that crisscross every which way in a confusion of flow.

Starlight pressed against the glass as she looked around. “Are we in Manehattan?”

No sooner had she said that did colorful lights flashed and trumpets blurred in the taxi, in which Discord announced. “Congratulations Starlight! You have won our unofficial guessing game! For this, you win bragging rights for knowing Elementary Geography. Sunburst must be so proud.”

A groan later, Starlight inquired. “Okay, ha-ha, very funny. So why are we in Manehattan? In Times Square no less?”

“Class,” their teacher on the intercom said, “so just by looking around while we’re going to be stuck in traffic for a bit, what is your first impression of this gem of civilization?”

“This place huge!” Yona observed.

“I’ve heard the city can get crowded, but I didn’t think it was like this.” Ocellus commented as she and her friends looked around. “They’re so many.”

“Well I’ll give Manehattan this,” Gallus said, “in a place like this, you won’t get bored quickly.”

Silverstream opened a window in which she stuck her head out. “How is anyone able to find their way ar- Ohh! Shiny thing.”

Smolder rolled her eyes at first, but she took a moment to look all around her. “Is it me, or do these ponies seem as if they’re… you know… not all there? If that makes any sense.”

“You mean like they’re not paying attention to everyone around them?” Sandbar asked, and his friend nodded.

“Sandy is onto something here.” The students looked up to find their teacher poking his head through an escape hatch that no one had noticed before. “Looks like we’re stuck in gridlock so climb up to the roof, I have something to show you.” Adding the feature of a spiral staircase with a snap, the students and Starlight followed the Draconequus to the roof of the taxi in which they gaze out to the seemingly never-ending lines of carriages and ponies complaining.

“In Monsieur Rousseau’s eyes,” Discord said as he casually floated around his students, “things really gone downhill once your ancestors moved from the village to the city. Ever since the first of many civilizations popped up, some noticed that the more places like this try to simplify their lives, the more complicated it got. Over the centuries where food became more abundant, where luxury goods became affordable, the earliest of royalty, priests, and warlords quickly entered into a popularity contest to do all they can to stay at the top in which, they get more stuff. For Rousseau, this march towards progress had sparked within many a narcissistic self-love that worshiped an artificial life of pride, jealousy, and vanity.”

It was at this very point did Smolder raise a claw. “Excuse me but… artificial? I don’t know about you, but pride, jealousy, and vanity come naturally to everyone, not just dragons.”

“Is that so?” Discord musingly asked as he slithers over to her. “Tell me, when we were at that village, did you see any signs of pride, jealousy or vanity from the tribe we just saw?”

“Well…” The dragoness opened her mouth to argue… only the more she thought back to a few minutes ago, the more she realized that the Zebras didn’t show any of that. She didn’t recall one that acted boastful, or envious of them, or even arrogant. “Not really.”

“But for a moment there, you almost said otherwise.” Discord pointed out. “And I think I might know why. While you dragons have a different idea what being civilized is, you do have a structure that is no more different than those of your friends.”

The Draconequus pointed out the bright lights of Times Square, of the advertisements and celebrities that looked down, of the shops and theaters that were around them. “Let’s face it,” their teacher said, “These sorts of vices seem to come to you naturally because you live in a setting that makes you think that it’s normal. And this, for Monsieur Rousseau, is the underlining part of the problem with civilization. That once you encounter places like Manehattan, the very first thing you do is to compare yourself to those around to make sure that you look just like, if not better than your neighbors. And after centuries of doing just that, the state of nature becomes nothing but background noise.”

“But what exactly have we lost?” Gallus questioned. “I mean sure, the village life may have been peaceful, but are you saying that it’s better to live in a cave than taking advantage of the progress that we enjoy now?”

With a thoughtful look on his face, Discord said, “Gallus, look at these pedestrians, and I do mean, really look at them, and tell me what you see.”

The young gryphon (along with his class) now turned towards the sidewalks in which the ponies hardly paid any attention to them as they trotted along. “Okay uh… For one, I see a lot of them are wearing suits. Kinda look alike in a way. Some of them have briefcases or carrying bags around. The mares… well… there’s a lot of jewelry, and maybe the occasional hat. And a lot of those hats look the same to me too…” After looking up and down the sidewalk, he added, “Do I find it weird that these ponies are all dressed up but no one is really noticing them either? It’s like they’re all a rush to get somewhere as they’re just, I don’t know, minding their own business.”

Discord nodded. “Good, good. Now compare this crowd to the tribe, what’s different here?”

Before Starlight could give an answer, Discord put a claw to her lips, giving her a look to allow his students to answer.

Silverstream was the one that spoke up. “Maybe it’s me,” she began, “but these ponies seem busy, like they don’t have time for meeting anyone new. Or… anything else for that matter. Just care about themselves.”

“Yeah,” Ocellus nodded, “even with these advertisements, they seem to serve either getting money or highlighting someone. Plus, it’s a really distracting environment.”

Discord smiled as he embraced them both. “There are my geniuses! You two get a cookie bird.” With a snap of his tail, two chocolate chip birds perched on Silverstream and Ocellus’s heads.

Their teacher continued, “What Rousseau’s point here, is that civilized folks have forgotten to think about what they wanted and felt, so they spend their time to imitate those around them. Where they enter into dead-end jobs to bore themselves to death or become ruthless in a competition for money and status. All the while, losing sight of their own sensations among the white noise of the city.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “You know, when you put it like that, you’re making Rousseau sound like a hippie that would rather live in the woods then go near a town.”

“And it’s very easy to think that way too.” Discord nodded. “But to that, I must point out two things. The first being that the heart of Rousseau’s philosophy is his emphasis on virtue. He was simply pointing out that while civilized folks can claim that life is getting better because of all the fancy gadgets and new knowledge that help you get older, less sick and able to connect with the whole world, all that progress will mean zilch if you don’t have the virtue to improve yourself by.

“If anything, there’s a reason why he coined the term ‘noble savage’ is to best describe the innocence and integrity of your ancestors. Which is ironic if you think about it. That those in Equestria would call the tribe we’ve met savages because they don’t have a toilet, or newspapers, or have built palaces for an alicorn that demands the sacrifice of cake. Yet, if you asked Monsieur Rousseau, he would say that it is the tribe that is nobler then the entirety of Manehattan put together as they have a higher standing on virtue.”

Starlight then asked, “And the other thing?”

“He said what he said as a sort of chastisement for places like Equestria, or (in his time) pre-revolutionary Prance. Back at a time when the Age of Reason was on the rise and countries were ruled by royalty that had a much bigger say than everyone else. All this critique about thinking that we are better than the so-called ‘savages’ when our own society makes much less sense than does the tribes of Zebrica, or the Islands of the South Luna Seas, or even the fringed North Pole.

“However, Rousseau wasn’t attacking the people who run such societies but rather the structure of society itself. So is it any wonder that he became a muse to the Prench Revolution when they overthrew their incompetent king and restructured society from scratch? There was a reason why during a time when they were chopping heads left and right that they placed huge importance on virtue. That they were trying to give civilization new priorities by going back to the values of the village: by looking at what they think and felt as nature demands it. “Nature never deceives us,’ he says, ‘it is we who deceive ourselves.’”

Smolder raised a claw, “There’s something I think that Rousseau overlooked.”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And that being?”

“I may be young, but if there’s anything I’ve learned about progress, is that we can’t go back. Even I noticed this with us Dragons that once the change happens, it’s really hard to go back even if we try, especially if most are comfortable with the change. Sure, the guy you’re teaching may have some good points here and there, but we can’t just go back to the tribe.”

“Maybe not,” Discord said, “but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from the past either. Sure, the thing about progress is that it keeps moving forward, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do so by staying true to who you are authentically, even if doing so is hard. ‘To live in virtue, we always have to fight with ourselves.’ What Monsieur Rousseau is trying to say in a nutshell, is that regardless of how civilized you may think you are, the old tribe may have a few things to teach.”

Noticing the time, the teacher, students and Starlight got back in the taxi. Soon they were moving again at an impossible speed. Before they reached the hallways of the school, Discord’s voice on the intercom came through saying: “Attention students, before we make our return to the school, I have an announcement to make and a favor to ask. Due to your concerned parents/guardians who just now found out that I’m teaching all of you, I’m about to be put under scrutiny again to see if I’m qualified to be your teacher.”

A collective groan from the students was heard.

“And I know that this is a little frustrating for all of you.” Discord continued. “But for this, I have a feeling that I will need your help one last time.”

“To do what exactly?” Ocellus inquired.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to have a special class in which all of your attendance is mandatory. But don’t worry, what I have in mind for all of you to do shouldn’t be hard, as tomorrow, I will be inviting Spike to join you.”

“Why Spike?” Sandbar asked. “And what do you want us to do?”

“Not to give too much away,” their teacher replied, “but tomorrow morning, we’re going to have ourselves a trial that will show your parents how they shouldn’t worry about me being your teacher. I will be teaching, of course, but it is very important that you all come, at the same time in my classroom. So, any questions?”

“Mr. Discord,” Silverstream raised her claw, “what are we going to learn about tomorrow?”’

For a moment, Discord didn’t respond over the intercom as the blur from the windows slowed down to bring their school’s hallway into focus. “That I’m keeping as a surprise. As soon at the taxi stops, class is dismissed.”

Soon the taxi did come to a stop, right in front of Discord’s classroom door in which he let them and Starlight out. After his students said that they will see him tomorrow, Starlight came up to Discord as he put away the uniform. The Draconequus asked how well he did.

Starlight looked over her notes as she flipped through the clipboard. “Well, apart of the long-distance field trip, you were able to stay on topic while having your students interact with you through answering questions and demonstrating examples. You were clear, knowledgeable about the topic, and overall, did a good job at teaching them your lesson. It seems to me, in my opinion, that you qualify of being a teacher.”

The mare jumped as fireworks exploded as Discord jumped up with a “WOOHOO!” before having to quickly put out the potential fire hazard.

“Mind warning somepony before you do that?” Starlight scolded. “Anyway, while you have certainly convinced me that you’re worthy to teach. All that’s left now is convincing the parents.”

“Oh don’t worry about that. I’m prepared to do so.” He then leaned forward. “However, I think I would need you and Twilight though.”

“Why? I already said that you're qualified-”

“No, I wasn’t talking about that. Rather, considering what I have in mind tomorrow, I need the both of you to be there.”

“Like support?”

Discord mused, “Something like that.”

“Okay, tell you what,” she said as she put the clipboard away, “I’ll be here to support you, but you have to do all the talking when the parents come. Understand.”

“Oh I understand perfectly,” he said with a sly grin, “if anything, I’m planning to use it to my advantage.”

Lesson 10 (Part 1): Civilization vs Machiavelli

The school was silent that morning as Discord made his way towards the Headmare’s office. Although he knew that he was probably taking the biggest risk in his very short teaching career, he felt confident that he was going to succeed. At the same time, this enormous gamble will rely on the decision of his students.

Before he could pass through the double doors, he paused for a moment to flip a coin. After making note of the result, he drifted through to which not only Twilight, Starlight and Spike were there, but so were the representatives of his students. There by the wooden desk was Lady Ember, King Thorax, Grampa Gruff, Prince Rutherford, and even General Seaspray. Discord also noticed that there was also a mare who he never seen before: sea blue that had a familiar mane color scheme as Sandbar. (It didn’t take long for him to figure out that this might be his mother.) As soon as he entered, they all looked over to him.

“I hope I’m not late for my kangaroo court.” Discord said.

“You’re actually on time,” Twilight informed, looking at a clock. “I trust that you haven’t the representatives of your students yet.”

The Draconequus raised an eyebrow. “Representatives? I thought the parents were coming to interrogate me?”

“Hey, some of us are here.” Old Grampa Gruff said, pointing a claw. “And it’s not just the parents that are worried about you teaching these kids.”

“Even those like our Queen Novo to King Thorax are concerned.” The Hippogriff general added.

Discord contorted his face in confusion. “Over what exactly? I thought that Princess Bookworm has already told you a lot about what I’ve been doing.”

“She has,” Ember spoke up, folding her arms, “but with all we’ve read, and considering your past, some of us are a little bit skeptical. Like, say… Leaving them on the side of a mountain to teach them that happiness is suffering?”

“Or having a lesson that if something is already beautiful and great,” the mare whom Discord suspects to be Sandbar’s mom questioned, “just ruthlessly break it so it can be put back together looking flawed but still somehow better?”

“Or that you convinced Princess Twilight to kick out the previous Philosophy teacher for your own gain.” Seaspray pointed out.

“Teacher traumatized Yona when Yona couldn’t swim,” Rutherford growled.

“Not to mention that you taught that getting an education isn’t all that important in the long run.” Thorax voiced his opinion.

“Everybody! Please!” Spike interrupted. “Let’s not turn this into a shouting match.”

“He’s right,” Starlight nodded, “let’s not turn this into a kangaroo court. Just remember what you all came in here for.”

“Of course, we know why we’re all here.” The blue mare said, and Discord raised a paw.

“Question, who are you exactly? I could guess that you might be related to Sandbar.”

“I’m his mother, Spring Tide. And I for one am not convinced if you should be teaching since all of Equestria knows about your chaotic past.”

Discord frowned, “Wow, so much for innocent until proven guilty.”

“All we want to know,” General Seaspray said, “is if we can trust you on teaching these students with lessons that won’t disturb what fragile peace we have.”

“Oh,” the Draconiquus grinned, “why didn’t you all say so? It’s a good thing then I knew you were all coming, otherwise asking my students to come to take a special class would have been pointless.”

All of them blinked. “Special class?” Twilight questioned, “Discord, what are you talking about?”

“I figured that the best way to show that I’m qualified, again, is to simply show these representatives what I do. To show them of the many ways that I teach philosophy to my students. So if I’m going to do just that, why not have mix things up a bit?”

The parents, guardians, and rulers looked at one another.

“Well… that would make sense.” Thorax mused. “Just to see what he’s been doing up close.”

As they discussed this, Discord waved over to Spike in which he came up to him. “Spike, I need you to do me this important favor for me.” The young dragon asked what he needed. “Go to my classroom, my students are probably over there by now. If you do see them, just let them in and I’ll tell you what to do from there.”

After Spike left, Discord returned his attention to the representatives just in time as Ember said, “Okay, we’ll do it. We want to see for ourselves how you’ve been teaching up close.”

With a grin from Discord, he raised his claw to the air. “Your wish is my command.” With a snap, they along with Twilight and Starlight were enveloped in a flash of light before they all found themselves sitting in a long wooden box in a darkened room where a light shone down on them and Discord, who had on a police uniform and a holding a large stick.

“Discord,” Starlight exclaimed as she looked around the dark space around them. “Where are we?”

Before he could answer, there was the sound of a door being opened as he tapped the stick on the floor. “All rise.” Although confused, all the adults did so as lights came on to illuminate the room. Between them and Discord were two tables in which two other Discords stood beside them. One had on a white suite with a straw hat while the other had on a black robe with a powdered wig. Behind Discord in the police uniform were seven, high wooden pulpits with tall dark chairs behind them. And behind those tall chairs was the door of the classroom in which Spike unlocked, letting the other students in. As they entered, black robes materialized on them, much to their confusion.

Spike was the first to lean over the edge of one of the pulpits. “Discord? What’s going on?”

Discord in the police uniform announced. “The judges may now take their seats at the high bar, so that we may proceed.”

Although still puzzled, the students did as they were told.

Discord in the uniform, who by now the adults realized that one was playing the role of bailiff, turned back around to face them. “The Philosophical Supreme Court is now in session! Presiding for this case are the honorable Judges Spike, Judge Sandbar, Judge Gallus, with Justice Smolder, Justice Silverstream, Justice Yona and Justice Ocellus. Today’s lesson shall be presented by the Defense and Prosecution.”

“Uh, Discord?” Spike waved for attention from his chair. “So… If we’re doing a court case thing, what’s it about?”

“I’m glad you brought it up, Your Honor.” Discord the bailiff replied. “Today’s case: Civilization (being represented by the Prosecution),” to this, his copy in the white suit tipped his hat, “versus Machiavelli (being represented by the Defense).”

As Discord in the powdered wig bowed respectively. A pony appeared in a chair right next to him. He wore a red robe and had a short mane that frantically looked around.

“Ah! Che diavolo!?” The pony that appeared shouted, “Cosa sta succedendo! Dove sono?”

Discord the bailiff tapped his stick twice. “Defense, we need to have your client to speak Equestrian if we are to proceed.”

“Ah, yes of course.” Discord in a wig replied in a Trottingham ascent as tapped his tail against the panicking pony’s back. “That ought to do it. Sir, can you understand me?”

“What are you!” the pony demanded, “What is this place!”

Discord the bailiff tapped his stick a thunderous three times, getting the Earth pony stallion’s attention. “Are you Niccolo Machiavelli?” He asked, and the frightened pony nodded. “Niccolo Machiavelli, you stand here accused of writing a book in which gave advice for brutal tyrants, sly business ponies, and dishonest politicians, because your book, ‘The Prince’ encouraged others to be evil while justifying their actions. How do you plead?”

“What in Celestia’s tail are you talking about!” Machiavelli exclaimed, “I didn’t do anything!”

“He pleads not guilty, so on with the trial.” Discord the bailiff continued, “Signor since you’ve given the plea of innocence, we will immediately proceed with the trial. That if you are indeed found not guilty by a majority of these seven judges, you shall be returned to your time and place, in which you’ll pretend that all of this is just a dream.”

The stallion looked up at the high podiums. “I’m being judged by children?”

“They are much wiser than you give them credit for. And you have him to be your defendant for no charge.”

After looking at Discord’s copy that was going to defend him, he further asked, “And if I’m found guilty?”

“Then you and your book ‘The Prince’ shall be erased from history.”

“What!” both Twilight and Starlight shouted. But the thunderous bangs from the sticks silenced them. Twilight further yelled, “Discord! You can’t-”

“Those in the witness gallery must remain silent throughout the proceeding,” the bailiff warned, “for if they do not, they shall be held in contempt. Do I make myself clear? Good, now since the Prosecution has won the-”

“Objection,” Discord the Prosecutor stood up as he spoke in a country draw. “Before we could start this here trial, Ah do declare that it should be best if our new Judges and Justices should be informed with some basic rules before proceedin’. Just ta fair and all.”

“Oh, very well.” The teacher turned to his students. “I’ll try to keep the rules for all of you short. Your guy’s job is simple: to listen to all the facts and evidence given to determine of our defendant,” he pointed over to Machiavelli, “is innocent or not. During the proceedings, all of you can ask a question at any time. While also playing the role of referee between the Prosecutor and Defendant. While they cross-examine, be sure if they’re staying on topic. And to make sure that they don’t argue, ask the same question twice (or loaded questions for that matter), assume, bully, speculate, use hearsay, and don’t let the witness tell a story, only facts. In this trial, you need all the facts of the case and nothing more. So Judges, are you ready?”

After glancing at one another, all six students and one dragon nodded.

The bailiff asked if both Prosecutor and Defense were ready, in which they said they were. “Since the Prosecution has won the coin toss,” he adds, “you may present to these students your opening argument.”

“Thank ya kindly, sir,” Discord in the white coat stood up, and after setting the straw hat down on the desk, he strutted towards the judges. “Your esteem Honors, today’s case is one that’s been long overdue. For centuries, the pony that you see here, Niccolo Machiavelli, has written a book called ‘The Prince,’ that has changed the course of history fer the worst. His little book has been used as an instruction manual for some of the most ruthless, manipulative, cunnin’, backstabbin’, cruel, and power-hungry ponies that history has ever seen. Used by tyrants, dishonest politicians, heartless business ponies; this author here has preached the unthinkable. That it is better for leaders to learn how to be able not to be good! Your Honors, Ah ask of Y'all, with a philosophy like that, can such a pony expect good ta come out of it? That to be successful, ya must go back against your word? Or to fill the offices of power with awful folks? But the most unspeakable of all, is that he had laid the very groundwork for some of the evilest tyrants ta exist! While this court will bring up all of mah points, and many more ta light, perhaps this court may finally bring right to the one point of history that went wrong.” As he walked back to his desk, he looked over at his copy. “Go ahead, son,” he was heard muttering, “defend ‘em if ya can.”

Discord the Defendant brushed his robe and adjusted his wig before he too got up and went to his students. “Milords and Ladies of the court. The truth of the matter is that my client should not be here. Yes, Machiavelli did write an extremely controversial book, but we should not dismiss the reasons why he wrote what he did. My client wrote of things that are of the real world, and how to play the game of power well. While I do not deny that history’s monsters have taken notes from his words, we shouldn’t outright dismiss those that we consider good that too took such words to heart. ‘The Prince’ is a guide, yes, but one for those good leaders that want to know how to effectively change the world. Besides, my client had written the book from historical facts that predated him. From those, that while their actions were questionable, they did bring about results that were needed. I do hope, Milords, and Ladies, that you would be able to understand not only the good he influenced civilization but to know that what he wrote is an important book to ought to be preserved. Thank you.” After a bow, he returned to his desk.

Meanwhile in the witness gallery, Twilight tried to get out of the box, but curiously everything she did from simply getting up to teleportation only ended up being forced her flank right back down. “This is insane!” she whispered harshly. “Does he have any idea what kind of potential damage he might inflict?”

“As horrified as I am at the spectacle, Princess Twilight,” General Seaspray whispered as he too tired to get out, “I can’t tell which is worst, that the fact that he’s seriously doing this, or it’s the students that are putting history on the line.”

“Draconequus gone too far,” Rutherford agreed.

“Before we start, Your Honors,” Discord the Prosecutor said, “Ah would prefer that whisperin’ should be forbidden from the witness gallery.”

Spike frowned as he looked over to Twilight. “As long as they don’t completely distract anyone, I think that they have the right to discuss their own opinions among themselves. So, I’m overruling it.” The other students agreed. “So, what do we do now?”

“Since Ah won the coin toss,” the Prosecutor suggested, “Ah should go first ta summon some witnesses ta bring a few examples but should be able to convince the court.”

“Who teacher summon?” Yona questioned.

With a smirk, the Prosecutor turned towards the witness gallery. “Ah call up ta the stand: Starlight Glimmer.”

In a puff of smoke, the unicorn councilor disappeared from the box and reappeared in the center of the dark courtroom in a ring of light. Starlight circled around, and even tried to reach a hoof out of the ring but found that a force field was keeping her trapped. Discord the bailiff brought over the school’s thick rule book.

“Place a hoof on the Da Rules,” she did so and he repeated the oath, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing except the truth or else you will get another friendship lecture from Twilight Sparkle?”

Shivering, she agreed to do so.

Now under oath, the Prosecutor made her state her name and occupation. “Starlight Glimmer. School Guidance Counselor for Twilight’s School of Friendship.”

“Ms. Glimmer,” he began, “Were ya always a school counselor?”

“No.”

“Did ya had other jobs in the past?”

“Yes.”

“And what were they?”

“Well,” she glanced over to the witness gallery, “I was once Twilight’s student where I learned about friendship.”

The Prosecutor raised an eyebrow. “Were there any other jobs you had?”

“…. Well, yes. I was… well… once a dictator over a village.”

“Objection!” Discord the Defendant called out. “He’s been asking loaded questions.”

The students looked at one another. “What’s so loaded about him asking what jobs she had?” Smolder asked. “Besides, I want to see where this is going.”

“So we can overrule that?” Spike asked, and they nodded, allowing the Prosecutor to continue.

From the witness gallery, the adults turned to Twilight. “What?” She asked.

General Seaspray glared at Twilight. “The school counselor was a dictator?” She in turn only laughed nervously.

With a snap of his talons, the Prosecutor melted the dark courtroom to that of a village where the desks and tall podiums disappeared. However, the adults were still trapped in a levitating wooden box. They found themselves between two rows of houses in a desert where ponies with similar mane cuts and cutie marks walked about, creepily smiling as they pass right through them like ghosts.

“Uh… Is this allowed?” Sandbar asked as one of the unnerving ponies walked through him.

“Allow me ta present mah first piece of evidence,” the Prosecutor said, “Ms. Glimmer, do you recognize this place?”

She did. “This… This was my village.”

“The same one that you once dictated these very ponies?” She nodded. “Interesting… This place seems quite well ordered. Tell us, Ms. Glimmer, did you hold any public office before this village?”

“No.”

Raising an eyebrow, Discord the Prosecutor inquired, “Then how did ya managed to get all of these here ponies to follow ya?”

She hesitated as she glanced over at Machiavelli. “I uh… I read a book.”

“What book exactly?”

“…. I-It was The Prince.”

The Prosecutor then took out a worn out, paperback book from his suit pocket. “Would you identify for the court what this is?”

After handing the book to her in which she held it in her aura, she flipped open to the first page. “This is my copy.”

“I take it that you had that book fer a long time?”

“Since I was a filly.”

Turning to the student judges, Discord the Prosecutor held up the book to them. “If it pleases the court,” he said, “I’d like for yer honors to look through this copy.”

Smolder walked up to take the book into her own claws as her fellow students gathered around her as she opened it up. “It looks really worn out,” she commented, “and… this thing has hoofwritten notes and some parts are highlighted.”

“Especially here,” Ocellus pointed out as she took the book into her hooves to a particular part of the tome. “This part is heavily highlighted.”

“Would yer honor care to share what is highlighted?” The Prosecutor asked.

Clearing her throat, the young Changeling read aloud, “‘Chapter 18: Of the Need for Princes to Keep their Word. Everypony knows how commendable it is for a ruler to keep his word and live by integrity rather than by cunning. And yet, experiences show us that rulers with little regard for their word have achieved great things, being experts at beguiling the minds of their subjects...

“A prince must be a fox to spot the snares and a lion to overwhelm the wolves. Those who rely merely upon the lion’s strength do not understand this. Therefore, a prudent ruler cannot keep his word, nor should he when it would be to his disadvantage to do so. If all creatures were good this rule would not stand. But as ponykind are wicked and not prepared to keep their word to you, you have no need to keep your word to them…

“Those who imitate the fox have succeeded best. But foxiness should be well concealed or must be a great diluter and dissembler. A deceiver will always find someone willing to be deceived.”

The Prosecutor turned towards Starlight, who looked more pale than usual. “Isn’t it curious? Isn’t it interestin’ how she found these passages important? Ms. Glimmer, for what reason did you highlight these particular paragraphs for?”

With an embarrassed look, she closed her eyes and sighed. “Because… Because when I was once dictator of this town, those words as a sort of cult leader were important as it taught me that deception was the key. Back then, I was the only one that had a cutie mark while taking there’s away, so to maintain peace, through the inspiration of this, I covered my own cutie mark to make it look like I was practicing what I was preaching.”

“So it is from that very book,” he pointed at the paperback that Ocellus was holding, “was the very thing that taught ya that?” Starlight nodded.

“No further questions.” The Prosecutor said as he walked away, giving the Defendant to have a go.

In the witness gallery, Grampa Gruff folded his arms and whispered to Twilight. “And you consider her as your friend… how?”

“It’s a long story.” Twilight answered back. “But I swear that she’s changed since then.”

For a moment, Discord the Defendant thought as he twirled a claw in the curls of the wig. Finally, he spoke. “Ms. Glimmer, was there ever an incident in which you or someone you know had to lie for a good cause?”

“Well…” she put a hoof to her chin. “Not from me per-se… Although, now that I think of it, I have seen Princess Twilight do this very thing up close once.”

“For what reason did Twilight have to deceive?”

“Not too long ago, Twilight insisted that Princess Celestia herself should start as the star of her play. However, despite how painfully obvious of how bad of an actress Celestia was, Twilight wasn’t exactly keen on telling her the truth. She outright avoided doing so until she eventually found out.”

“Objection.” the Prosecutor said. “What does this have to do with Starlight’s past?”

“That if what you’re trying to say is true,” the Defendant replied. “You’re saying that it’s completely wrong for a leader to deceive anyone. However, what Starlight has pointed out, that it isn’t just her as an ex-dictator that has done this. Why she established that even the well-respected Princess Twilight herself has done the exact same thing.”

In the witness gallery, now it was the Headmare’s turn to look disgruntled.

“Gotta give him this,” Ember commented, “He’s not in the wrong.”

“Shut up,” Twilight grumbled.

“There is something we have in common in that regard,” Starlight stated, “is that we did those things with good intentions. Sure, mine is more severe, but back then, I honestly thought I was doing the right thing. I studied that book to death because it was the most effective guide as a leader I could find. Even after I became reformed, that same advice given played a role of saving Equestria from Queen Chrysalis.”

“Oh?” The Defendant raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“When it was just Thorax and I, we were low on numbers and resources that we had to get clever to outsmart Chrysalis. That we had to invent a deceptive lie to distract her long enough to figure out how to break her anti-magic throne.”

With a smile, Discord the Defendant returned to Machiavelli’s side. “No further questions, Milords. Unless the Prosecutor has anything further to ask.”

Folding his arms, he shook his head as he snapped his paw, transporting Starlight back to the witness gallery. Sitting awkwardly among the adults. “If Y'all don’t mind, Ah’d like ta move on ta our next witness,” Spike told him to go ahead. “Ah call ta the stand: Filthy Rich.”

Without any warning, Discord the bailiff thumped the stick on the ground in which it jump-cut to an office. In which they found the business pony behind a desk and in the middle of making out with a young mare. Clearing his throat and tapping the stick on the ground, Filthy and the mare was startled.

“I thought I locked the door!” the stallion cried out.

The bailiff looked behind him. “You did,” he returned his glances at Filthy, “we need to have a few words with you.”

After telling the mare to just go ahead and leave, she did so awkwardly as she exited the office.

Filthy Rich straightened his tie, chuckling nervously. “So sorry, I didn’t hear anyone come in. So what can I do you all fo-” the enormous rule book was placed in front of him.

“Place your hoof on the book,” Discord the bailiff instructed, “do you promise to the tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing except the truth or else we’ll let your wife know that you’re having an affair?”

He gulped, “If this is about the whole faulty tool debacle I’m not talking without my lawyer.”

“This is something else, do you swear to promise or not?”

“I-I do.” Filthy stuttered. “And what are all of you doing here?”

“Apparently you’re the next witness,” Gallus answered. “Yeah, I don’t get why we’re here either.”

“Y’all will in a moment,” the Prosecutor walked up to the business pony. After he got him to state his name and occupation he asks, “How long have ya been workin’ at this here business?”

“Oh, I would say about… twenty, thirty years, give-or-take.”

“And how long were ya the president of yer company?”

“Twenty… four years, I think. Yes! That sounds about right.”

The Prosecutor nodded as he looked around his office. “So is being president for twenty-four years of this business been easy for you?”

“Well of course not. I mean, Barnyard Bargains did have its ups and downs.”

“Have there been any competitors, in or out of the business that you had to deal with during those twenty-four years?”

“Oh, there were a few here and there. But I have years of experience and resources to compete in Equestria’s growing economy.”

“Ah see…” the Prosecutor mused over to the bookshelf. “Did you ever get some sort of guidance in how to navigate this business?”

“Well apart from my Pappy, that while he was still alive and hoofed the reins over to me, he gave me some words of advice and a book.”

“What book was it?”

“The Prince,” he answered, “most useful little thing I’ve ever read.”

Machiavelli moaned as he buried his face in his hooves.

The Prosecutor eventually found the hard-bound copy as he plucked it from the bookshelf. “Is this the book that yer talkin’ about?” Rich confirmed that it was. “So what major lesson did ya learn from this?”

Filthy Rich hesitated at first as he glanced at everyone who was there. “Oh, come now, it’s a trade secret.”

“May Ah remind ya that you’ve given yer word to uphold the truth.” Discord the Prosecutor then held up a candlestick phone. “Or are ya ready fer yer wife ta let her know what’s goin’ down?”

“O-Okay,” Rich held his hooves up. “If there’s anything that I’ve learned from that book, is that I can’t be good all the time.”

“Care to expand on that?”

Rich asked to see his copy in which as soon as it was in his hooves, flipped it towards a particular section. “Here, this sums it up. ‘When one sees him, a ruler must be a paragon of mercy, loyalty, humility, integrity, and scrupulousness. Indeed, there is nothing more important than appearing to have this last quality. For the common ponies are impressed by appearances and results. For the vulgar crowd is always taken by appearances, and the world consists solely of the vulgar.’

“And uh… here too. ‘Anyone who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.’”

Silverstream raised an eyebrow. “Translation?”

“Well-” Rich interrupted himself with a cough. “It just says that to get anywhere in life, or especially in business, ya can’t always be the good guy all the time. Sometimes there will be incidences where you have to do difficult, if not cruel things from time to time. All the while, you have to give the public a good face, and try to make it appear that you’re this great guy when in reality, you have to do some questionable things, even if it means to get ahead.”

“Even if it means to do those ‘questionable’ things within yer own company? Towards say… your own employees, if necessary?”

Another look around in an office filled with judgmental eyes, Rich gulped. “Y-Yes. If I really had to.”

The Prosecutor rested against the bookshelf with a smug grin on his face as he turned to his copy. “No further questions. Yer turn.”

In the floating witness gallery, Spring Tide was disgusted. “Oh that’s the last time I’m buying anything from his stores.” To which, Filthy winced.

“Alright,” Discord the Defendant walked up to Filthy Rich’s desk. “Mr. Rich, I could not help but notice that you don’t come off as the kind of pony that would enjoy doing these ‘difficult and cruel things.’ Are you implying that you don’t get a… how you say… a kick out of, for instance, firing a good chunk of employees?”

Rich looked disgusted. “Do you honestly think I do? Look mister, I’m not a monster. Really, I’m not. I’m a business pony. When there are times when things are tough, then you gotta consider making decisions that best benefit the company. Like if we’re in a depression, let’s say, and our finances show that in order to keep afloat that I must let a good portion of my employees go, then I have to. Now I personally don’t like doing something like that. I know that the folks that work for me have lives of their own, families and even just scraping what they can to get by. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to fire a single one of them unless they truly deserved it. But here in the real world that if I don’t, the company will sink. So, by the end of the day, you just gotta do what you gotta do.”

“I see.” The Defendant began to pace about in a tight circle. “Mr. Rich, I don’t want to assume that you are a good boss or not, but correct me if I’m wrong, you’re trying to say that you are neither one of those things at the same time?”

“Look, fella,” Filthy leaned forward in his seat, “the business world is a dog eat dog world. If you’re naïve in thinking that you can be good in both word and deed, then your business is easily going to go under in two weeks. Or less even. But at the same time, if you act like… well… like Tirek, then your own employees aren’t going to stick around you for long either. The other thing I learned from that book, is to learn to strike a balance in which you have to adapt to being both a good and a bad boss. Where you have to be firm enough to command respect but with enough fairness to gain respectability.”

“And do you think that this served you well?”

“Well not to brag, but there’s a reason why I’m the richest pony in this town.”

“No further questioning.” Discord the Defendant said as he walked over to his client.

“Pony not wrong.” Prince Rutherford whispered. “Even Yaks must find balance too.”

There was a tap from the bailiff. “You may call up the next witness.”

“Uh yes,” Filthy Rich said as he adjusted his tie, “if none of you mind I have some business to take care of.”

“Oh, very well,” the Prosecutor rolled his eyes, “if it means spendin’ more quality time with whats-her-name, then fine. Now then, Ah call to the stand: Prince Blueblood.”

A whirlwind of color and shapes later, they found themselves in a luxurious (if admittingly gaudy) bedroom of gold and silk. Space was big enough for a house to fit in and tall enough to fit two floors too. The towering curtains were drawn and there, snoring away on a bed with a canopy overhead was the unicorn prince that only had his head poking out from the tangle of a snow-white comforter.

Discord the bailiff rolled his eyes as he tapped on the marble ground with his stick, sending out one thunderclap after another, sending the blond unicorn shrieking and flaying his legs about.

“AH! What!” Blueblood screamed as he used the blanket to cover himself with. When he looked to see who was there, he blinked. “Princess Twilight? Thorax? Ember? Uh… What’s going on? And who let you all in at this hour?”

Twilight, from the witness gallery, raised an eyebrow. “It’s almost nine-thirty in the morning.”

“Well so? I tend to sleep in,” he yawned, “my apologies to all of you, I’m not even decent.” He rolled over and his hoof was extending towards a cord that hung from the ceiling. “I should ring up the- what the?” The blond prince quickly discovered his hoof touched something solid. Looking over, he found that his hoof could not get past a sort of force field as he frantically felt around it. “Wh-what’s going on!? Release me at once!”

“Okay, here’s the deal buddy,” Discord the bailiff approached him, “you’re being called to be the next witness for the trial we’re having. All you have to do is to answer a few questions and then we’ll pretty much leave you alone.”

“Witness?” Blueblood questioned, but he was then presented with the thick volume of Twilight’s rule book.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing except the truth or we’ll let your aunties know what you usually do on Saturday nights?”

His eyes shrink as he placed one hoof on the book, raised the other to solemnly swear to do so.

Now it was Discord the Prosecutor’s turn as he stepped up to the bed. “What is yer name and occupation?”

“If you must know, I am Prince Blueblood Everfree. Lord of the Moneigh Islands, and Royal Ambassador on behalf of Equestria.”

“How long have you been a prince officially?”

“Eleven years, four months and twelve days, so far.”

The Prosecutor nodded. “Ah see. Were ya given any trainin’ ta become a prince?”

“Well, of course. I have been groomed all my life for the post after all. And I’ll have you know that learning the art of being an ambassador has helped me tremendously.”

“Prince Blueblood, did you, durin’ yer education years, ever came across a book called The Prince?”

“Yes. It was an essential part of learning politics some years back. I had to learn it by heart.”

This got the Prosecutor humming, “Is that so? By heart? So, was it ever useful to you, Prince Blueblood?”

“Admittingly, there were a few things that were critical for me as a good breed politician.”

“Would you mind sharing with the court an example or two what you’ve learned?”

Blueblood thought for a moment before quoting: “‘The choice of advisers is very important for a prince. What can judge their prince’s intelligence by looking at the ponies with whom he surrounds himself?’ One of the ways he does so is to, as Machiavelli puts it, ‘Princes must delegate difficult tasks to others and keep popular ones for themselves.’”

“So in other words,” Discord the Prosecutor said, “the best way to rule is to hire on a staff in which they’re willin’ ta do some of the dirty work for ya?”

“That’s one way of putting it bluntly, but yes.”

“Did ya take up this piece of advice?”

Blueblood nodded. “I have. Apart from my personal staff of servants, I have advisers and… assistants too to assist me with day to day tasks of politics. However, as I have learned, it is very important to learn how to distance yourself from any one of them if the public doesn’t approve of what they do.”

The Prosecutor folded his arms behind his back. “And how, pray tell, do ya do that?”

“I guess that’s another lesson I absorbed from Machiavelli. In his chapter of how to avoid hate and contempt, he tells the story of another prince in Istally… uh, one of the Borgias, I think. He was aware that after he conquered a city, that one of his minions carried out cruelties among the city’s inhabitants. So, to win them over to make it clear that he wants to distance himself from him, he cut his minion in two in the town square with the blood-stained knife in his hoof for all to see. Leaving the population both satisfied and bewildered. But what he does after, however, was clever. Was that he knew that was enough cruelty and won popularity by reducing taxes and setting up festivals.”

“Doesn’t that seem rather underhoofed?”

Blueblood shook his head. “Machiavelli spoke the truth about how things in the political realm really work. Anyone who is has played a part in politics knows this, including Princess Twilight here. That the common ponies are easily satisfied by results and appearances. In the old days, the way to do that was to execute those that caused so much dissatisfaction. Nowadays, we fire them to be replaced by someone who is equally as sly but appear twice as pure from the previous one that was in that same position.”

“Ya mean ta say that there’s no place fer any good stateponies within politics?”

To this, the prince quotes: “‘If a ruler who wants to always act honorably while being surrounded by corrupt ponies, his downfall is inevitable. Therefor it is necessary for a ruler who wishes to maintain his position to learn how to be able not to be good.’ You may not like that, but that is the truth. And the truth never cared for how anyone felt about it.”

The Prosecutor smiled as he turned around. “No further questions.”

From the witness gallery, Spring Tide shook her head in disgust. “There’s no way any of that can be true…” She turned to the other rulers that were sitting by her. “Is it?”

None of them answered. Instead, their attention was towards Discord the Defendant, who shook his head, telling the judges that he has no questions for Blueblood.

Discord the bailiff asked if there were any more witnesses that he’d like to interrogate, but said that was enough, thus sending them back into that dark courtroom. “Would there be anything else the Prosecution would like to say before we let the Deface calls up the next witnesses?”

“Oh no, Ah wanna save it for when we make our closin’ arguments. As of now, Ah think the mere handful of witnesses should be sufficient ta help our judges of why Machiavelli is put before the bar.”

The bailiff now called up for the Defendant to present his case.

Lesson 10 (Part 2): Civilization vs Machiavelli

Discord the Defendant adjusted his powdered wig before walking up to the towering podiums in which his students looked down from.

“Milords and Ladies, with your permission, I’d like to present some witnesses for the Defendant.”

Ocellus raised a hoof. “Are you going to be transporting us like your other self-did?”

“Indeed Justice,” he nodded, “it wouldn’t be fun if we all stayed in the same location.”

“Go ahead,” Spike said, “let’s hear what you have to say.”

With a bow, he turned around. “Since I can’t help but notice the Prosecution has made the argument that those in power read my client’s book have been shown how to rule ruthlessly or aren’t that good to begin with, I shall provide for the court my counter-argument. Therefore, I call to the stand: Pharynx of the Changeling Kingdom.”

The courtroom rumbled before the floor and walls burst into green flames. This emerald fire quickly spread as it ate away the wood until the room itself was completely consumed until it revealed a new space. Back into the sunlight, they looked around the landscape of an overgrown ruin with a wooden throne. All around, Changelings from a variety of strange color combinations turned towards them.

Among them was the tallest of the group. Similar to Thorax’s form in purple, forest green and dark red antlers, approached them. “Hey! What gi... Thorax? Ocellus? What are you guys doing back here?”

Discord the bailiff walked up to him, stick in claw. “Are you Pharynx?”

“Yeah,” he raised an eyebrow, “You’re Discord, right?” He craned his head over, “And why are there three of you?”

The bailiff didn’t answer as he tapped his stick on the ground, illuminating a ring around him. To this, the violet changeling unfolded his wings in surprise.

“What are you doing?” He demanded before a rulebook was presented to him.

“Put your hoof on the book.”

Pharynx cocked his head to the side. “Why?”

“We’re having a court case, and we’re swearing you in to be our witness.” Confused, he did so. “Right, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing except the truth or endure reading slash fiction about you and your brother?”

He blinked. “That exists?”

Discord the bailiff shrugged. “Apparently. So aren’t you going to tell the truth?”

“I… guess so?”

With a nod, the bailiff walked away as the Defendant approached him. After getting him to state his name and occupation, he began asking. “Mr. Pharynx, have you ever heard of Machiavelli?”

“Uh… not really? Is it some type of pasta?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ Have you heard of a book called ‘The Prince?’”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Ah object ta this witness,” Discord the Prosecutor said, “he doesn’t know anythin’ about Machiavelli nor his book.”

“There’s a point to be made, Milords,” the Defendant replied, “and I wouldn’t have called him to the stand if I didn’t have a good reason to do so.”

Spike hummed in thought. “Then make your point. If he doesn’t bring up something that relates to anything, then we’ll have to dismiss him. So objection overruled… for now.”

The powdered wig chaotic attorney returned his attention to Pharynx. “Since you are the Captain of the Guard for King Thorax, who is supposed to be in charge if Thorax were to leave the hive?”

“That would be me. It’s something my brother agreed on a while ago as there has to be someling to watch over the hive at all times.”

“Your brother you say? Wouldn’t that make you a Prince as he is King?”

He shrugged. “Technically yes… But I only take over as a… what do you call them? A regent if he’s not around.”

“So, you have some experiences in leadership?”

“Well yeah, even during Chrysalis’s reign I was an officer in the hive’s military. Now with my brother, I’m more like his second in command whenever he isn’t around to protect and maintain the hive.”

“I see…” the Defendant hummed in thought. “How would you describe your leadership skills whenever Thorax is away?”

“Not to brag,” he lifted his forehoof to his withers. “I’m effective in getting our Changelings to shape. Keeping them on the tips of their hooves when necessary to make sure they don’t get out of line. You know?

“You mean trying to scare them?”

“I didn’t say that. More like letting them know who’s boss around here.”

“I see…” Discord the defendant mused as he conjured up a book in his paw. “Now then, I’m going to read you a short passage from this, ‘The Prince’ while changing the language just a little and I want to hear your thoughts on what it says.”

“Uh… okay?”

After clearing his throat, the Defendant read: “‘This raises the question of whether it is better to be loved than feared. My reply: is that one would like to be both, but as it is difficult to combine love and fear, it is far safer to be feared. Because it can be said of Changelings, that they’re ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers. They shun danger and are greedy for profit. Therefor it is necessary for a ruler who wishes to maintain his position to learn how to be able not to be good…’” He turns a page and continues. “‘The bond of love is one that Changelings break when it is to their advantage to do so. But fear is strengthened by the dread of punishment, which is always effective.’ Now Mr. Pharynx, what is your thoughts on that?”

He shrugged. “On the one hoof, it sounds something like what Chrysalis would say. But on the other… it’s pretty true.”

“How so?”

“I mean, I already came to that conclusion a long time ago. In fact, it’s something that I’ve been trying to tell my brother over here.” He pointed at Thorax. “That he’s got to let up being too sensitive as I know there will be Changelings that will take advantage of him. Grant it, him learning how to be assertive has helped, but I’m worried that he’s being too nice.”

“Excuse me?” Thorax interjected from the levitating witness box, “I’m too nice?”

“Bro, we’ve already talked about this.” Pharynx folded his forelegs. “You can’t always be this nice and loving, it’s just going to bite you on the flank. Sure, you’re beloved by the hive, but how do you know there’s no rebel renegade that is plotting to overthrow you because you’re a pushover? Do you know the reason why you’ve managed to stay on the throne for so long? It’s because they know that I’m there to rip off their heads if they so much as get near you.”

“But it’s cruel!”

“It’s effective! Even if you weren’t my brother, you’re also the king. I cannot show them that you’d be easily be overthrown. Sure, I maybe a jerk, but at least I let the hive know that there are consequences for plotting against the throne!”

“Changeling knows how power works.” Prince Rutherford agreed. “Even Yaks don’t get too nice. Yaks smash whatever gets in Yaks way.”

“Well, of course, you would say something so barbaric.” Spring Tide harrumphed.

“Look here Miss,” General Seaspray pointed out, “that’s going too far out of left field.”

An argument sprang out of the witness box in a increasing shouting match.

Before Twilight or Starlight could do anything, Discord the bailiff pounded the ground with his stick, unleashing thunder with every strike. “ORDER! ORDER! ORDER! SHUT UP! PIPE DOWN! BE QUIET! This is a trial proceeding, not a Hearth’s Warming dinner! If any of you do one more outburst like that I will hold all of you in contempt! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!”

There was a solid minute of stunned silence from everyone. Eventually, Smolder raised a claw. “Mr. Discord, remind me to never make you angry. Ever.”

Sighing, the bailiff told the Defendant to continue.

“Anyway, Mr. Pharynx, are you suggesting that your brother, the King, is not a good leader?”

After a deep sigh, he replied. “Look, don’t get me wrong. I know he’s trying his best and, to be fair, he didn’t really ask for this. That, and I know that he has good intentions for us Changelings, admittingly, they’re far more productive than what Chrysalis had. However, I’m worried.”

“Over what?”

“That according to him, to be a good leader, one just simply acts well. Not just to have good ends, but to have good means too. To go from hunters to tree huggers overnight. Sure, it may sound splendid, but from my experience of power up-close, I can’t help but notice one little flaw that has gotten me so worried over my brother.”

The Defendant tilted his head. “And that being?”

“It doesn’t work. Within the hive, anyone that tries to be nice always come unstuck. My brother needs to know how not to finish last, especially when it comes to the Changeling Kingdom. Look, Thorax can be as nice as he wants, but he should never be overly devoted to just acting nicely all the time. He should learn how to be effective – not just good. These Changelings will judge him what he achieves, not what he intends.”

With a satisfied nod, the Defendant turned around. “No further questions.”

Discord the Prosecutor hummed in thought before snapping his talons as he got an idea. “Mr. Pharynx, do ya consider yerself as playin’ an important role within this here hive?”

“Well… yeah?”

“But ya consider yer brother a weak ruler?”

Pharynx narrowed his eyes. “What are you implying?”

“It’s just a simple question of opinion. Or how about I put it to ya like this: Do ya think that King Thorax is a good leader overall?”

“I guess he’s just okay. Could have been better.”

“What do ya mean by that? Are you sayin’ there are some faults with his-”

“Objection,” Discord the Defendant called out, “the Prosecution is trying to lead the witness.”

“Am not!”

Spike cleared his throat. “Actually, you kinda were. Those last few were more like set up questions. So I don’t know about you guys, but I say objection sustain.”

“Oh very well yer Honor,” Discord the Prosecutor sighed as he returned his attention towards Pharynx. “How about we change the subject, shall we? How long have ya been taken care of the Hive since yer brother went to Ponyville?”

“A few days? Why?”

“And how are things here?”

“Quiet as usual.”

The Prosecutor hummed. “Ah see… So Ah reckon you’ve done a good job in yer brother’s absence?”

“Well of course, like I said I’m in charge of taking care of the Hive when my brother’s away.”

“Has the Hive always been this peaceful?”

“Mmm… Sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… we have some Changelings renegades that were going rogue or there were some problems with maulwurfs. That, and there was something about we almost got involved with a war.”

The Prosecutor folded his arms behind his back. “So who was in charge when these things were goin’ down?”

“My… brother.”

“And were these sorts of problems ever occurred when you had to temporarily take over the Hive?”

“No.”

“Mr. Pharynx, could it be possible that the Changelings might consider you to be the better leader? After all, with all these things happening after Chrysalis, and you’ve said so yerself that yer brother is too soft.”

“Wait a minute,” Pharynx raised an accusing hoof at him, “I see what you’re trying to do.”

“Oh? Pray tell, what do ya think Ah’m tryin’ ta do?”

“You’re trying to make me say that I’d make a better King than Thorax. But look here buddy, that’s not gonna work. For one, I only run things for a few days at a time when nothing major really happens. Secondly, all those things I’ve mentioned are practically rare, so it has nothing to do with me being the better ruler. And third, I may be able to take care of a few things for a short amount of time, but even I know that I would make a terrible king! Thorax has one major advantage over me in that he’s at least well liked while I know the Changelings are more suspicious of me.”

“It doesn’t matter if yer liked or not. The real question here is do ya think ya can run a more efficient job. Well, do ya?”

With a deadpan stare, Pharynx only said one word: “No.”

A frustrated sigh later, Discord the Prosecutor said, “No further questions. Call up the next witness.”

“Certainly.” Discord the Defendant agreed. “I call to the stand: the Flim Flam Brothers.”

An unexpected strong wind blew through the Changeling Hive, and a storm of cards that came with it. Almost like a magic trick gone wrong, the flocks of blue back cards circled around them in a tight ring. Just as soon as they appeared did they collapse, in which they now found themselves in a rotunda of an office. Before them was a desk that shared two chairs of very surprised looking twins.

The unicorn stallions were nearly identical from their yellow coats to their red manes, and even wore the same blue and white striped shirts with straw hats. The only thing that set them apart was one of them has a handlebar mustache.

“Huh?” The clean-shaven unicorn lifted one of the clipboards on the desk. “We’re not expecting any magicians for another hour.”

“Are you Flim and Flam?” Discord the bailiff asked as he walked towards the desk.

They nodded. But the one with the mustache leaned over to the side of his swivel chair.

“Princess Twilight? Well, this is quite the surprise. I see you’ve brought some fine-looking friends with you.”

“Very rich looking friends indeed.” The other twin added. “Our apologies, we didn’t know that you were coming. Have you been hel-” He was cut off as Discord the bailiff trusted the rule book in front of them.

“Place your hoof on the book,” he instructed. Although clearly puzzled, they did so. “Now then, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing except the truth, otherwise your plans on monopolizing Las Pegasus will be exposed to the general public?”

Both twin brothers paled. “How did-” one was about to ask but was interrupted.

“Do you both promise, yes or no?”

They looked at one another before nodding.

Thus, Discord the Defendant stepped forward. “State your names and occupations.”

“I’m Flim.” The clean-shaven pony answered.

“And I’m Flam.” The mustache brother replied. “And we’re currently the proud owners of this here casino.”

“New and, if I may add, much better owners than the previous one.” Flim added.

“Now than…” the Defendant folded his arms behind his back as he began to pace back and forth from their desk. “If you would state for the court, have either of you ever heard of Machiavelli?”

Both brothers looked at one another. Flam stroked his facial hair in thought. “Machiavelli… Machiavelli… I’m afraid that doesn’t ring any bells for me. You Flim?”

“Not familiar with the name myself, Flam. Is it the name of an Istallion salad?”

“I will take that as a ‘no.’” The Defendant commented before asking. “And I take it that you probably never heard of a book called ‘The Prince,’ either, have you?”

“It’s not something that is in our little library.” Flam said.

After adjusting his powdery wig and dusting off the shoulders of his black robe, the Defendant than asked. “Mr. Flim and Flam, did either of you have any other work experience outside of this casino?”

“We were traveling salesponies,” Flim started, “going here and there around Equestria selling our products.”

Twilight huffed in her seat. But this got the attention from the students. “Headmare Twilight?” Sandbar asked, “Do you know them?”

“Know them? These two had conned Ponyville twice.”

The Defendant raised an eyebrow. “Is that true Mr. Flim and Flam?”

“Now hold on here,” Flam raised a hoof, “it was only one time.”

“But that is not the nature of what I’m asking. Were either of you ever conned anyone?”

This time, both twin brothers started to look nervous as they avoided all eye contact. “We can’t exactly confirm or deny that.” Flim answered, “For now, let’s just say that there were examples in the past in which we’d had to… exaggerate our products a little.”

“So you have misled your customers before?”

“Not as much as you think.” Flam pointed out. “I mean sure, sometimes we had to embellish what our fine merchandises can be capable of doing.”

Discord the Defendant hummed in thought. “Only telling these white lies when necessary?”

“Hey, if it sells,” Flim shrugged, “it sells.”

Taking a book out from his robe, the Defendant turned towards his students. “If it pleases you, Milords and Ladies, I’d like to borrow a sentence from a statement that was made from the Prosecutor.”

“Where from?” Silverstream inquired.

“From my client’s book.” When told to go ahead, he returned his attention towards the brothers. “I’m going to read this one sentence and I want to know your thoughts on this. ‘A deceiver will always find someone willing to be deceived.’ Gentlecolts, what do you think of that, honestly?”

Flam stroked his mustache. “That’s common sense. I mean, back when my brother and I were thrust out into the world, dropping out of high school, we entered into jobs in which we slowly learned the reality of how it works. That sometimes in order to sell, you’ve got to embellish the truth a little to keep things going.”

“And that’s before we became independent sellsponies,” Flim added with a nod. “For a while, until friends of Princess Twilight helped us, we had to do things by trial and error. And what we found that works may not be morally sounded, but it did help put food on the table.”

“He’s quite right.” Flam agreed. “Of course, we may have told little white lies here and there. But I dare say that our case isn’t an isolated one.”

“What do you mean?” Gallus asked.

“Well kid. The real truth is that behind every great, successful business, there’s a great scam. Why, take the previous owner of this casino for example, who was our previous boss. He’d built an empire in Las Pegasus by lying to his staff while cunningly pretended to be their best friend to keep the business going.”

“Nearly broken trust in my brother completely too.” Flim said. “However, as manipulative as it was, even we knew that he’s no more different than either of us. Because in order to stay at the top of the heap, you must be prepared to do whatever you can to keep afloat.”

“So you do agree with the statement?” the Defendant questioned.

“Only if absolutely necessary,” the twin brothers said in unison.

Closing the book and putting it back in his robe, Discord the Defendant said: “No further questions.”

Now it was the Prosecutor that went up to bat as he approached the brothers. “Mr. Flim and Flam, while y’all were talkin’, Ah was wonderin’ if ya can settle a little quarrel that’s goin’ on in mah head.”

“That being?” Flim questioned.

“You’d say that before ya became sellsponies, that you’d had different jobs, correct?” They told him that was true. “Mind tellin’ us what sort of jobs you’d had previous?”

Flam chuckled, “Boy, what job haven’t we done?”

“There were dishcolts at Hay Barrel’s.” His twin pointed out.

“Or that disaster with the candy shop.”

“Yes, brother of mine. But who could forget being cashiers at Barnyard Bargains?”

This got the Prosecutor’s attention. “What’s that now?”

“Barnyard Bargains?” Flim inquired.

“Yes. How long did ya fellas work there?”

Flam thought for a moment. “Must have been a month at most.”

“That sounds about right.” Flim agreed.

“Jus’ out of curiosity, do either of Y'all recall yer boss there at the time?”

“Wasn’t it Filthy Rich?” the clean-shaven unicorn asked his brother.

“I think it probably was.”

The Prosecutor grinned. “Do ya recall him bein’ a good boss?”

“Tartarus no.” The twin said in unison.

“The only good to come out of that job was learning a hard lesson,” Flim said.

Discord the Prosecutor asked what lesson that was.

“That you don’t have to be an honest pony to make an honest living,” Flam answered.

With a smug smile, he turned around from the brothers. He took a moment to admire his work as the students now look on with suspicion. “No further questions.” He said as he went up to his copy. “Call up yer next witness.”

“Indeed, I will.” Discord the Defendant adjusted his robe. “I will be needing my surprise witness for this one. I call to the stand: Princess Celestia.”

“What!” Before anything could be done, the bailiff had thumped his stick on the ground in which cracks spread on the floor, crawled up the walls and meeting on the ceiling. Then like a shattered mirror, the office shattered. Twilight, thinking quickly, shot a shielding spell over the court as shards stopped mere inches away from the said shield. The fragments of the office fell right through the floor as they noticed that they’ve changed location again.

This time, it was in the Canterlot Castle’s Throne Room, with its twin thrones and towering stain glass windows. Although they were surrounded by lines of aristocrats, advisers, secretaries, and guards, not one of them moved or twitched an eye. In fact, the only one that was indeed moving was the white alicorn on her respectable throne. Her wings were flared up as she looked in surprise at the frozen throne room.

“What? Why…” then she looked down at who had appeared. “Oh, hello Discord. What do you want this time?”

Discord the bailiff walked up towards her. “Hey Celie, we’re having a trial and one of my copies called you up to be the next witness.”

Celestia blinked. “Trial? What trial?” Her eye glanced down at the newly appeared crowded in which she spotted a pony that seemed out of place. “Is that Machiavelli?”

The bailiff produced Twilight’s rule book in front of her in which she tells her to place a hoof on it. She does so. “Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing except the truth or relive the whole cake scandal once more on an industrial scale?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”

“No. That would imply that it has something to do with the post office. This is a solid, real reassurance that you wouldn’t commit perjury. You’d be surprised how effective it is.”

She grunted. “If I say yes, would you let my court move again?”

“Only after we’re done.”

“Fine, I promise.”

After the bailiff stepped down from the throne, it was the Defendant’s turn as he asked her to state her name and occupation. After saying that she’s Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria, he asks, “I take it that you are familiar with Machiavelli?”

“Well, not during his lifetime. I haven’t heard of the name until ten or so years after he died that I was given a copy of ‘The Prince’ from an ambassador.”

“So, you have read the book?”

“Yes, but I found it a little too cynical for my tastes. Eh, sorry.” Her apology was towards Machiavelli.

“Are you also aware that in that same book, he had cited history to serve some examples in his book?”

Celestia nodded. “Yes, I remember that he used a few, both from ancient and his time too.”

“Ah.” the Defendant said as he took out his copy from his robes. “Then, I suppose, you must also be aware that among those examples he’s written, he also cited you too, correct?”

“What?” Twilight asked in a harsh whisper.

“If I may for the court,” he asked as he flipped towards the beginning of the book, “allow me to read said example from ‘The Prince’ to give some context.” He cleared his throat as he read aloud. “‘Chapter 3. It should be observed here that ponies should either be caressed or crushed. Because they can avenge slight injuries, but not those that are very severe. Nowhere has this rule been illustrated well, then that of Princess Celestia. During the time of her early reign in Equestria, her sister, Princess Luna had her heart become hardened to the point that she was willing to commit treason and overthrow her so that the world should be cast into eternal night. The prudent leader Celestia knew that in order to maintain peace and stability of the land that she must banish her immortal sister to the trapped on the moon. While some would see this is unnecessary, even cruel to leave her own sibling alone in the sky, it managed to bring centuries of peace and prosperity. Therefore, a prince must either cherish the ponies who are loyal to him, or cripple those who dare threaten.’” After closing the book, he asked, “Princess Celestia, is this example well-founded to the reality?”

Celestia inhaled sharply. “I understand where Machiavelli perceives that unfortunate event. One that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. However, when I first read that passage, I admit that for a while, I was upset what I read because… He told the truth.”

“How so?”

“Discord, do not misunderstand me when I say this. I do try to be a good Princess as much as I can. I have spent a thousand years without Luna’s help, and even though that Machiavelli was right that what I did was for the greater good of Equestria, that decision haunted me still. Yes, there might have been other ways, but at the time, I found that there was no other way to solve it than to strip her powers and put her away so that she could not hurt anyone.”

“Was this the only example that you had to crush someone for the sake of Equestria?” She tensed up as she glanced over at those that were in the witness box. Discord the Defendant caught onto what she was looking at. “Oh… Come to think of it, did the rule of ponies must either be caressed or crush also implied with the Changelings?”

“Objection!” the Prosecutor called out. “The Defense is tryin’ ta invent an argument away from the case at hoof.”

“Hold on,” Ocellus said as she raised a hoof. “I want to hear this too.”

Spike thought for a moment. “Overruled, but don’t turn it into an argument.”

Discord the Defendant nodded. “Of course, Milord.” He returned his attention to Celestia. “Allow me to rephrase my question. What was your involvement with the Changelings?”

“Okay, before I say anything,” Celestia said. “I want you to know first and foremost that I have learned quite a bit about Changelings from Thorax over here. I will give my credit to him of how much he has taught Equestria that they’re not all evil. To that, I thank him very much for giving us a new perspective.”

“But?”

She sighed, “But… Before him, and even before the invasion during my nieces wedding, hardly anypony had any idea that Changelings existed. Of course, thanks to Queen Chrysalis, we were given a bad first impression. I admit that there were a few witch hunts here and there because at the time, it was seen as an issue for national security. Even I did play a role in all of this in which I’m not proud of. Until Thorax came, I like many ponies had felt threatened and did what I could to keep my ponies safe.”

“By what cost?”

“Don’t play with me Discord.” Celestia said sternly. “I never once claimed I was an immaculate leader. Every decision I have made from day one when Luna and I were crowned, we make them for the benefit of the kingdom. Of course, even I haven’t always made the right decisions with the experience I have. I maybe a princess, but I’m also a servant to Equestria and I must do what is being asked of me for the creatures that live in its borders.”

The Defendant nodded. “No further questions.”

Discord the Prosecutor, surprisingly raised both his arms and said, “None from me either, yer honors. Ah couldn’t have her say it better mahself.”

“Does the Prosecutor have anyone else for say their testimonies?” the bailiff inquired.

“Indeed, I have saved my key witness for last.” The Defendant smiled as he says, “I call to the stand: Niccolo Machiavelli.”

The bailiff tapped his stick as the grand throne room dissolved into a small, but cozy library with very few books, a fireplace, and a desk with a pile of papers already written. Although cramped and only lit by candlelight, Machiavelli was plopped behind the desk of his study as Discord the bailiff placed Twilight’s rule book to swear him in. After doing so, the Defendant came up to him.

“Mr. Machiavelli, why did you decide to write the book?”

“I didn’t know I was writing one.”

“Would you clarify that?”

“I mean this,” he held up the scraps of paper, “was supposed to help me get back into politics. The new prince, one that I was writing this to, does not allow anyone in his court without some qualifications to do so.”

The Defendant raised a claw. “Are you telling me that this was a job application?”

“If you want to call it that. Truly, I had enough of my exile away from Florence and I want to send him something to prove that they need me still.”

“Is that the original manuscript?” Machiavelli nodded. “May I see that and show it to the judges and justices?” Discord the Defendant picked up the volume of pages and showed it to his students.

“Isn’t it a little thick to tell someone what experiences you had?” Silverstream asked. “I’ve heard of job applications and what they’re for, but I must say this seems like a lot.”

“I thought it was best to convince the prince of my usefulness by what I know would help.”

“Pony keep saying ‘new prince,’” Yona pointed out, “who is he?”

“Dov'è la Sella che Potrei Giurare di Aver Visto da Qualche Parte de Medici. Or Prince Sella de Medici for short.”

“Justice Silverstream does bring up a good point,” the Defendant continued, “why go through all this effort? Couldn’t you say what sort of work experiences you had?”

“In court, I often noticed that many come to appease royalty. When generally approaching princes with gifts that they believe will most delight him. Hence, we see them being offered arms, robes of gold and similar accessories. But I have found among my possessions, nothing I value higher than my knowledge of the deeds of great ponies gone by.”

“So in other words, you went through all this to really show this prince not only are you useful but have the wisdom to become an adviser, let say.”

“Yes, exactly. All of this was meant for his eyes, I didn’t account that somepony is going to publish it for the public to see. I did not write it for anyone but Prince Sella.”

“I see,” the Defendant nodded, “now why did you write such advice that says to do evil things when necessary? No doubt the Prosecution would like to know how come you didn’t write a book that had a moral base to rule from. Yet, what you wrote said only use morality as a sort of tool. Why is this?”

“It is something that I have noticed in politics in this region of the world.” Machiavelli answered. “I grew up in a world in which Istally is a divided land. Ruled by murderous families and city-states in which they could be enemies on Monday, friends on Tuesday and back to enemies on Wednesday. Equestria and the rest of the world may have civility, but here, whoever is in power are playing dangerous games. One has to know how to navigate these tides of shifting alliances in order to survive. Besides, I wrote what I did because I have studied history of Florence and other kingdoms of their leadership.”

“But how come you didn’t write a guide of how these princes should be acting?”

“Because I find it more fitting to seek the truth of the matter, rather than through imaginary concepts. Because how one lives, and how one ought to live are so far apart that any ruler who insists in doing what ought to be done will undermine his power. This is not a matter of opinion, for there have been genuinely good ponies that have tried to bring order. Who have practiced what they’ve preached that to be a good ruler, therefore you must have good morals to go with it. To be honest, just, even-tempered, tolerant, kind, charitable and full of mercy. I never denied that these are wonderful ideas, there is one little fact that I cannot overlook.”

“Such as?”

“It doesn’t work. No kingdom in the world has risen because out of selfless means, nor has it stayed uncorrupted by the reality of power. This manuscript is to tell the Prince that if he has any hope of being effective, then he must take up my advice by learning from his enemies because it is they that have much to teach. To do what must be done for the good of the state he serves.”

“One last question, Mr. Machiavelli, do you speak of experience when writing a book about power? After all, you said you wrote this because you were trying to get back into politics.”

Machiavelli laughed melancholily, “Oh yes, I have plenty of experiences. I was trained to be a lawyer but ended up as a state secretary for a few years. But after that, I was a decent general, an important diplomat to being imprisoned for wrongfully being charged for treason and tortured for it.”

“You were tortured?” Silverstream asked.

He nodded. “Yes. And the reason I’m still alive was through pure luck. A new power came and freed those who were imprisoned from the previous regime. Unfortunately, I was exiled from both politics and Florence to reside here in the countryside. But hopefully, this manuscript might change that.”

“No further questions.” The Defendant said as he walked away from Machiavelli. But the Prosecutor took his place with a thoughtful look in his eyes.

“So, Mr. Machiavelli,” Discord the Prosecutor began, “do ya still stand by that conclusion you’ve made in that job application of yours – that bein’ good ta be a ruler is optional?”

“I do.”

“By that logic, yer sayin’ that there’s no such thin’ as a good and an effective leader?”

“That’s right.”

“Well… Ah see. So in yer eyes, there was never was a leader that was both at the same time?”

Machiavelli nodded.

“But what about Celestia?” The Prosecutor questioned. “Sure, there was the hiccup with Princess Luna, but Ah know that durin’ the time yer livin’ in, she is considered both a good and a very effective leader. Is she not?”

He tilted his head. “How do you know?”

“Huh?”

“How do you know?” Machiavelli repeated. “From what I know of her, she maybe beloved by her citizens, but how do you know she is a good pony and not pretending to be one?”

“He’s got you there.” Gallus pointed out.

“Oh come now, yer honor!” The Prosecutor objected. “This is Princess Celestia Ah’m talkin’ about. The one who yer Headmare practically worships the ground she walks on because she just happened ta be her teacher. The motherly figure that would rather let herself get hurt than let Equestria suffer.”

“That’s not fully true.” Ocellus said as she folded her forelegs, narrowing her eyes. “And you of all creatures know that.”

“Besides,” Smolder waved a claw at Machiavelli, “this guy does have a good point. How do you really know she’s the perfect ruler and the perfect pony?”

“Unless you have some other question,” Spike added, “I suggest we move on.”

After Discord the Prosecutor took in a deep breath he said as he turned to Machiavelli. “Yes, just one question fer you: are ya sure that yer whole work isn’t bias?”

He blinked. “What?”

“All this cynical view of how power works by being cruel, did this conclusion come about from historical points of view or by the experience from the torture chamber?”

“I only write from what I-”

“That’s not what Ah meant. Did ya write this solely from yer own biases, whereby ya came about to yer conclusion?”

“And I’m trying to tell you, I write from what knowledge and experiences I had.”

“So ya admit that this job application is not the fact of power, but yer opinion on it?”

“It is to show what sort of advice I can offer.”

“But it is kinda biased, isn’t it? Ya just admitted, out loud, that this manuscript here is based on what you think of how power works and maybe not how it actually does. So, is it just possible, that because the work is biased, that it might be wrong?”

Machiavelli hesitated as he looked between his manuscript and those that have been with him in this surreal court case. “I don’t know.” He confessed. “I only write from what I know.”

“No further questions.” The Prosecutor said as he walked away from him.

Discord the bailiff then asked the Defendant if there were any more witnesses. When told that there weren’t, he tapped on his staff once more back into that darken courtroom. “The Prosecutor will now give his closing arguments.”

The Prosecutor strode up to the towering podiums and looked up at his students. “Now yer honors, Ah maybe pretendin’ ta be a small-town lawyer, but Ah know a few things. Ah know what this trial has revealed is that Machiavelli wrote ‘The Prince’ from his own bias point of view in which inspired some of history’s worst. Don’t forget or set aside the fact that his ideas have inspired the deception of Starlight’s village, the cut-throat practices of Filthy Rich’s business, or even the underhoof policy of Prince Blueblood. Not only that, but Ah should remind our court that Machiavelli’s teachings have indirectly influenced the Flim Flam Brothers as well.

“Now the Defendant over here might say that such lessons are important for any given leader, but shall we cast a blind eye at not only the dictators, the business ponies and politicians that put a black mark on history, but also for future villains too. Yer honors are indeed students of Twilight’s School of Friendship, with the goal of improving those that enter its doors. But what do ya think, generations from now that Y'all had a chance ta change history fer the better? Machiavelli’s book has been used by tyrants as a guide book, gettin’ inspiration fer commitin’ one atrocity after another and justifyin’ it. Here, this is different, if by votin’ guilty, Y'all have that rare power ta prevent that. Sure, it might not prevent evil ponies to rise up, but cut him and his book out of history, then those like Starlight, or Filthy Rich, or even Blueblood wouldn’t be actin’ like this if they didn’t get their inspiration from ‘The Prince.’ Now, Ah rest mah case.”

After the Prosecutor walked back to his desk, getting glares from Starlight and Twilight, Discord the Defendant calmly walked up to his students.

“Milords and Ladies of the Court, what if you all were given the chance to go back in time during the reign of King Sombra? If you knew all the atrocities that he did to those Crystal Ponies in slavery, what would any of you have done to prevent that? Would you kill? Would you lie? Would you have to betray your own morals to save millions? Before any of you pass judgment on my client, remember that Machiavelli was the one who was dealing with these difficult questions. He is probably one of the first philosophers in history to recognize that to be a good leader, one has to make a deal with themselves when it comes to making difficult decisions.

“To Machiavelli and his book, he paints a new portrait of what a leader should realistically be: that a prince must learn how to defend his kingdom from inside and outside threats; that he must learn how to fight while keeping his reputation; where he must strike a balance in which his subjects shouldn’t think he is too soft and easy to disobey, nor cruel enough that they are disgusted by him. Where he should be strict but reasonable.”

After taking a moment to adjust his powdered wig, he continued. “The Prosecutor may say that Machiavelli should be held responsible for teaching those like Starlight, or Rich or Blueblood. But the reason why my client should be voted as not guilty is that not only his book is important in how power is really run, but it gives the good guys the tools and means to change the world for the better. ‘The Prince’ doesn’t teach you how to be evil but gives you how to do things effectively so that you may use their same methods against them.

“One last point I’d like to make. I hope that you see from my evidences and witnesses that those like Pharynx, the Flim Flam Brothers and Princess Celestia have showed that these methods they used were something they came to their own conclusion and not from my client. Even if Machiavelli were erased, I would argue that history would still carry on the exact same way, with or without him. Of course, the schemes and campaigns might have been different, but if the witnesses prove anything, is that those same tyrants, business ponies and politicians would still carry out the same dishonesty and cruelty. For the truth is, Machiavelli didn’t create these baddies – those like Pharynx, the Flim Flam Brothers or Princess Celestia, created him. And all he did, was learn from them to teach the good, not how to be evil, but to bring real progress to those who wanted to change things for the better. Milords and Ladies of justice, I rest my case.”

After a bow and returned to his desk where his client was, Discord the bailiff went up to his students. “Class,” he said, “you have heard all the evidence. Now comes the most important part of all, deciding your verdict. As this is a Supreme Court, and in an odd number, whatever you decide must either be a majority vote, or unanimous. You will exit into the hallway to be given privacy to talk with one another. Take as long as you need to discuss this monumental decision. Remember, if found innocent, Machiavelli will return to his own time and history will continue like nothing happened. But if found guilty, he and his original manuscript shall be erased from existence. Now I give this time for all of you to choose. But remember: choose wisely.”

With a soft tap of his stick, the classroom door behind them swing open, and the six students plus Spike got up to walk out, closing the door behind them.

There was the unmistakable sound of someone clearing their throat, all three Discords turned around to the Witness Gallery. Every single adult sitting there were glaring at him. Discord the bailiff walked right up to them. “If there’s ever a chance to yell at me, now is your time.”

“Do you have any idea what you're risking here?” Headmare Twilight asked coldly. “Putting a historical figure on the chopping block?”

“Two things,” Discord held up a claw, “have faith in these students. They are more clever and wiser than any of you give them credit for. And second, did any of you learn anything about today’s lesson?”

“Yeah,” Spring Tide answered, “that nearly all royals, business ponies and politicians are bad.”

“Not without purpose.” Prince Rutherford pointed out. “Everything Draconequus said was truth. Good and bad, that is how power works in Yakyakistan too.”

“As much as I absolutely hate to admit this…” General Seaspray groaned. “He’s right. All of it. Even in the Queen’s Navy it’s brutal. And I know because I had to earn my way up to this point.”

“It’s all common sense to me.” Grampa Gruff finally spoke. “I mean, I never read Machiavelli’s book and he makes perfect sense to me.”

“As educational as that was,” Starlight pointed out, “you do realize Discord that you’re playing with fire here. Trust me, Twilight and I have experienced time travel and trying to change a single moment slightly where it has catastrophic apocalyptic consequences. Sure, ours was over Rainbow Dash making the first Sonic Rainboom, but to remove ‘The Prince’ from history? One of the most widely translated and influential books of all time – do you know what kind of damage that might cause?”

“I do.” Discord said. “And again, O ye of little faith, have some more for my students. If anything, they are some of the smartest, wisest and insightful kids I know. In fact, they are the ones that made me take the big leap to teaching full time is because of them. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t be bothering teaching them. Realize all of you, that I’m taking these risks, repeatedly putting my own neck on the butcher’s block because of them. They take the subject of philosophy seriously. They help me give the lessons, not of what they want, but what they needed. For the first time, I’m being taken seriously from strangers that don’t know me and they’re putting their trust in me of how to deal with their problems in life. Even now, I am risking myself to get fired again because I want to show you that I’m teaching them things they can understand and use. How many philosopher teachers could do that? I never believe for one second that these kids are stupid. If anything, I’d keep an eye on them because they will one day give the world something to talk about.”

For a long, solid minute, none of the adults responded. That was until Thorax nodded. “Discord, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

Now the entire Witness Gallery snapped their attention to the Changeling King. “Really?” Twilight asked.

He nodded. “All I wanted to know is if Ocellus was in good hooves. Yes, you could tone down with the danger that you put them through. But… I see why now. You believe in them that they can do more than succeed. Just from this alone, I can see that you’re teaching them valuable skills in critical thinking. I think,” he turned to the Headmare, “it was Twilight that said that a thought is more grand and monumental than any artifact or stone building, as it will never fade as long as there are those that are willing to think. While I personally don’t fully approve some of your methods, I do however, approve of what you’re trying to teach.”

Ember nodded. “Yeah… I think the world could always use more of that.”

Ten minutes later, and the classroom door finally opened. The students plus Spike returned to their high bench seats. As soon as they sat down, Spike said, “Machiavelli, would you come here?”

Although clearly terrified and on edge, with a little help from Discord the Defendant, he stood up and walked towards a spotlight that was placed right in front of their towering podiums. His legs shook and had a pitiful look as he glanced up at them. Even his eyes were pleading for mercy.

Spike leaned forward. “Machiavelli, we have thought this long and hard, and even debated over what we’ve heard about you and your book. While both sides did make some very good points, we have come to a decision. By a vote of seven to none, we have found you, Niccolo Machiavelli and your book, ‘The Prince’…” For a tense moment, those in the Witness Gallery leaned forward, as did both of the lawyers while the client held his breath. “Not guilty.”

It was as if the entire room unleashed a huge sigh of relief. Then, all three Discords, simultaneously applauded at the exact same time. Each one had a look of pride satisfaction, even each clap got faster as the darkness of the courtroom dissolved back to a normal looking classroom. Machiavelli faded away too as the light from the windows came in, as did the tall podiums and the black robes the students had on. Even Discord, as all three walked forward, came together. Even the witness box freed the adults as their hooves and claws touched the tiled floor.

Discord walked to all seven of them with a prideful smile on his face. “Students,” he said as he drew all of them into a hug, “I’m so proud of all of you. You all passed.”

“What!” the students cried at once.

“Discord,” he turned around as Twilight flew up to him, “where’s Machiavelli?”

“Since they found him innocent, he’s gone back to the same and time as he left it. Don’t worry, history is still the same but… Oh, I’m so happy!”

“Mr. Discord,” Smolder said as she got out of her teacher’s group hug, “what they hey did you mean by we passed? Passed what?”

“Students,” he announced, “you are the very first class to not only save my job once again, but you have graduated from it as well! I never thought you’d all get through it so quickly.”

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Ocellus said as she too got out from her teacher’s hug. “Graduated?! But… But you’ve been teaching us for about two weeks!”

“Yes. But I can see here that your kids have learned more in those two weeks than a college student would have had in years. I mean, tell me what I’ve taught you?”

They all looked at each other. “Well...” Ocellus began. “You did teach us the steps of how to critically think, and why there’s evil in the world because of perspective of it.”

Silverstream raised a claw. “You taught me that it’s not how much information I learn, but what to do with the knowledge I have.”

“You taught me that perfection doesn’t exist and that’s okay.” Sandbar said.

“You taught me how to find meaning when times get tough,” Gallus added.

“Don’t forget that even when things get miserable,” Smolder spoke “you should never be afraid to charge it head on. Because happiness must be earned.”

“Teacher taught Yona that big problem can be solved from simple things. Simple and small things are best teachers.”

“Even I learned something today,” Spike added, “that to be a leader, you sometimes have to be cruel to be kind if it means for the greater good of everyone.”

“Which is why,” Discord snapped his paw in which all of them, including Spike, had on a graduation hat, “that today is when all of you pass my class as graduates.”

“But they’ve been in your class for two weeks.” Twilight pointed out. “How exactly did they suddenly pass your class?”

“Oh ye of little mind,” Discord patted her head, “practical wisdom doesn’t require for every student to study a book for years, but to train one’s mind of how to use what they know and experience. That trial is their test, and I must say, they all pass with flying colors.”

“Um… Mr. Discord,” all of them turned to Sandbar, who took off his hat. “The thing is… I don’t think I’m ready.”

“Or any of us.” Ocellus said as she and her friends took off their hats. “You have still so much to teach us.”

“That’s the thing,” Discord folded his arms behind his back. “I don’t think I can teach you anymore beyond this point.”

“Why not?” Yona questioned.

“Because I don’t know if there’s any more to teach you. You’ve already learned more lessons than my other classes to last for a lifetime. All the useful knowledge that I have given you was what you needed. So, I’m afraid that I don’t have anything to teach you.” However, as he looked back at his students, he saw the devastation on their faces. “Now, with that being said,” he continued, “if there is some other problems that you just don’t know where to turn to for guidance, go to Starlight. If it’s wisdom that you seek, you are still welcome in my class.”

“So…” Gallus raised a claw. “Does this mean that we don’t have to go to your classes anymore or…?”

After thinking for a bit, Discord replied, “How about this: I will come to any of you only when you need my wisdom. Like when you are feeling lost or having a bad day that you just don’t know what to do, come knock on that door, and I’ll be willing to give another lesson.”
Starlight giggled. “I believe that’s my job.”

Discord smirked. “If students are in need of comfort, they’ll go to you. But if they need wisdom, they’ll know where to find me.” The Draconequus said as he glided over to one of the classroom’s windows. “Oh, Spike,” he said as he paused in mid-air. “Are we still up for Guy’s Night next week?”

Spike nodded. “Yeah of course. Where are you going?”

“If you don’t mind me.” He said as he floated past the glass of the window. “I’m going to visit a friend.”

“It’s good to hear that they’re still letting you teach,” Fluttershy commented.

Discord smiled after he put his tea cup down. “I’m still proud of my students. They have exceeded my expectations.”

“I know, Twilight told me how impressed she was when you showed the representatives how much they’ve learned from you.” She picked up a flying cucumber sandwich and took a bite. “Although, I do have to agree that you let them pass your class too soon.”

“That’s the funny thing I’ve noticed, being a teacher and all.” Discord replied. “Is that once you do start teaching, you’ll just know when your students have truly learned. After all, you taught me what it means to be friends in one day if I recall.”

“Well, you got me there. Still, I’m so proud of how much you’ve developed in these past few weeks. Who would have guessed you’d be teaching full time?”

“What can I say?” Discord let go of his tea cup as it drifted away. “Once I had an audience that was willing to listen, it became addictive.”

“I know certainly what you mean.” Fluttershy nodded. Before she could pick up her tea cup, Discord heard a knock. He knew instantly that it wasn’t coming from Fluttershy’s cottage door. Instantly, he snapped his talons in which time stopped. Getting out from the floating couch, he drifted to the front door in which he opened it. Behind it was the school’s hallway with Gallus standing there.

“Hey Mr. Discord,” the young gryphon waved, “how’ve you been?”

“It’s been a slow day. Do you need something?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I just need some guidance for a bit. I was hoping that maybe you could help me out a little.”

Discord stepped aside. “Come on in, what lesson are you in need of, my student?”

Some time later...

Author's Note

:rainbowderp: It's... It's done. It's finally done. Grant it, this took longer than I expected to but man was this a lot of fun! And I do feel so honored of not only how well the previous story did, but to have you all discuss philosophy in the comments. So in a way, hopefully, I have succeeded my goal of teaching philosophy in plain English.

So now that the story is over, what do you think?

P.S. If there is anyone who is willing to voulenteer to edit this story. Just PM me to discuss further details.

Lesson 1: Welcome to the Symposium

Author's Note

Final Warning: The following story you are about to read contains Philosophy in Plain English. If you do not like one or both of those things, you know where the exit button is.

Lesson 1: Welcome to the Symposium

The Headmare for the School of Friendship and Discord both came to a compromise. That Discord, while he refused the title of Professor, will stand in as the Substitute teacher over Philosophy. Another main teacher, Professor Forethought would take up a majority of classes while Discord would only step just in case something happened. It gave the ex-Lord of Chaos plenty of time to go about his life but when duty called, he’d spring into the classroom to teach the next day.

Forethought was accepted by Twilight based on his qualifications and degrees that he received from other schools. If anything, at least to Discord’s mind, he even looked the part too. Old, wrinkled, and had a white mane with glasses that spoke in a slow but eloquent Trottingham accent.

Normally, Discord wouldn’t mind the arrangement, even being outright comfortable to take this laid-back job. Normally, if it weren’t for the fact that Professor Forethought had the unfortunate tendency to send his students to La La Land. Discord knew this because he disguised himself as a bird once and observed how the other teacher taught his lessons. As it turned out, Discord found himself falling asleep in a matter of minutes. An impressive feat, he admitted to himself, but his students seemed to be dreading just walking in.

‘This is getting ridiculous, even by my standards.’ He thought to himself as he left his perch. ‘If this guy is able to put me to sleep, what chance do they have for learning anything interesting?’ Of course, he decided that he had to do something. A snap from his talons took care of that.

By the end of the day, Discord was summoned by Twilight due to the fact that Professor Forethought had come down with a cold. She detailed his lesson plans for the next few days, but luckily for him, he was already prepared for this.

“Is it too late to say that I preferred the other guy over Forethought?” Smolder asked her fellow classmates, who carried their books and binders on their backs.

“Yeah, whatever happened to him?” Gallus wondered aloud. “Professor Fluttershy said she would put in a good word for the nutcase.”

“Did Discord get job?” Yona inquired but the rest shrugged.

“I haven’t heard a word.” Sandbar confessed, “You know I’m shocked that we haven’t seen him around for the past week. He was really good at it too,” he sighed.

Before any of them knew it, they arrived at the door of Room 256. With a sigh, Ocellus took hold of the doorknob, “Let’s just get this over with.” After she opened it, she along with her friends were taken aback that the classroom that had been made up of desks, a chalkboard in desperate need of cleaning and a dusty, half asleep teacher was replaced by a banquet. The setting was very surreal in the notion that while space, where this was taking place, was in the clouds, as everything from the table to the columns was made out of the white, fluffy substance, it was also populated by classical Pegasi statues. Each one wearing a flowing toga, reclined black as they gobbled the food or gulped down cups of wine that was being passed around. In the center of this scene that sat next to a fire pit was a statue of a musician that plucked a lyre with the feathers of his wing.

The only exception to this curious party was one in the back, of whom all six instantly recognized. Discord too was wearing a white toga with one arm wrapped around a statue, laughing, while raising a cup in the other. He spotted the awe-struck students.

“Ah! You’re here!” he smiled. “You’re all just in time. Come in! Come in!”

“Mr. Discord?” Smolder asked as she flew over to him, as she did so, a toga suddenly materialized on her, but she didn’t notice this at first. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain, but all of you, come in!” He waved over to them. “There’s plenty to go around. Grab a reclining couch, have some food, there’s much to discuss.”

Sandbar and Yona both hesitated while their winged friends stepped through on the clouds. They saw that as soon as they stepped through, they too found themselves to be wearing the same flowing robes as everyone else there. “Uh… Mr. Discord,” Sandbar said. “We can’t walk on clouds.”

“You won’t fall, I promise you.” Their teacher told them. “After all, it’s bad policy to murder your students, for they won’t grow up to learn anything. Everyone knows that. But don’t worry you two, just come on in, we have much to talk about today.”

Yona was the first to carefully reach out to feel out the cloud floor. The Yak found that it was not only soft, but it was solid too, like touching a bed with fine sheets. As she stepped through she found that not only was she was able to stand without falling through the clouds, but a white toga also appeared on her.

After Sandbar followed her example, the students made their way over to Discord where they found there were a few couches that were waiting for them.

“So what’s with the party?” Silverstream asked as one of the statues offered her a tray of grapes.

“I’m glad you asked.” Discord smiled, “Because this here isn’t your typical college toga party that’s only used as an excuse to get wasted, but a symposium.”

Gallus tilted his head. “What are you supposing?”

This got a chuckle out of their teacher. “No, not that kind of supposing. A symposium is an ancient Pegasi tradition - it’s a banquet for celebration. It’s also to introduce young teens like yourselves into society or something along those lines. Think of it as a glorified dinner party that served as a forum for anything from drinking to entertainment. But it’s in this setting that today’s lesson is going to take place.”

With a snap of his lion paw, clay baked cups appeared in their student’s appendages. “Don’t worry,” he whispered to them. “It’s not really wine but grape juice. Due to all of you being underage for drinking. And also so Twilight won’t get into a hissy fit over it.”

A statue carrying a jug came up to the students in which he poured their glasses. “Mr. Discord,” Sandbar spoke up after his cup was filled. “Before you get to your lesson, how come we haven’t seen you up until now?”

“That’s because I’m your designated substitute teacher. Your Professor has caught a cold and I was asked to step in until he gets better. But anyway, I guess by now you’re all wondering what this is about, right?” They nodded. “So as your Sub, I will not only planning on teaching Philosophy in plain Equestrian, but whenever I do teach, you’ll never hear me say things like Stoicism, or Marxism, or Life’s-too-pointless-so-why-not-just-kill-yourself-ism. If anything, from here on out, all those complicated ‘Isms’ are best to be set aside.”

“Thank you!” his students chorused.

With a smile on his face, Discord began.

“For today’s lesson, I’m going to take up the role of the very father of philosophy, also known as the Pegasi Empire’s most annoying citizen who ever lived - Socrates. And you, my students, are going to be learning two lessons from him: how philosophical thoughts are constructed; and how we ought to live.”

“Annoying?” Ocellus raised her hoof. “What do you mean by that?”

“Have any of you ever met a child, a really young one at that, who comes up to you to ask a thousand questions like: ‘How come you can’t get electricity from wood?’ ‘Why can’t some animals talk?’ ‘How much does the moon weigh?’ ‘Why isn’t the sky poke-a-dot?’ ‘When is daddy going to wake up from his dirt nap?’ You know, the one that asks you all these questions and you don’t know how to answer them other than, ‘Because that’s how it is?’”

His students nodded. “Well, if you could also imagine that same child that had grown up into an old stallion, but still had those same annoying questions, that there was Socrates in a nutshell. Only, he’s not being Mr. Nitpick just because, rather he’s doing it to see if anyone knew what anything was and why.”

Yona raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t that get pony in trouble?”

“For Socrates? Oh yeah, at the time he was found guilty and condemned to death for blasphemy and ‘corrupting the youth with dangerous ideas.’” Their teacher snorted. “But regardless, he is considered as the father of Philosophy because he devised a method of thinking that is still in use today. In fact, the best way to learn it is to do it.”

“So how are you going to do that?” Sandbar asked.

After craning his neck over at the party, Discord told his students that a change in scenery would help them out. One sneeze later, they found themselves falling through the floor and into a potter’s workshop. Giving his students a moment to recover from their heart attacks, their teacher gestured over to the equally stunned potter.

“Oh don’t mind us,” he said. “We’re just dropping in for a minute. Go on, back to your work.” Hesitant at first, the pony, while keeping an eye on the strangers, took up a lump of clay to set it on a spinning table. “Let me ask you all this: have any of you came up with an idea that ends up being faulty?”

Silverstream raised a claw, “Ooh! Ooh! Like this one time that I had this idea of getting a shark for a pet, but my Auntie said no?”

Discord blinked, “Yes… But does anyone know why we have those ideas that don’t work?”

His students thought it over for a minute, “Because…we don’t think hard enough about them?” Sandbar asked uncertainly.

“And bingo was his name-o. And for that, you get this surfboard!” A flash of light later and the pony found that he was laying on a surfboard.

“Awesome! But we don’t live anywhere near the ocean.”

“Not yet anyway.”

“What?”

Discord waved a claw. “Anyway, you are right on that regard, it is because that we tend to think that you can come up with a good idea, or form an opinion on the spot without thinking too hard. If you ask Socrates, not only would he call it stupid, but insane too. When asked why, he used a metaphor of a potter in making clay, waterproof pots.”

Six pairs of eyes turned to the pony that was molding the lump until it was not only spherical but dead center of the table.

“If a potter hopes to make a high-quality pot that is good enough so that water can’t flow out from any cracks, he has to follow a series of steps from lumpy mass to masterpiece. This guy has to take some good quality clay, get it centered, spin it, rub his hooves over until it’s smooth before finally pushing in a hole to create not only the inside but the very shape of the rim. Our friend Socrates said that thoughts should work in the same way.

“It goes like this: First, look around for ideas that, on the outside seem like common sense. Like, say… ‘The best ice-cream flavor in the world is Snobberies.’ Or ‘Magic solves all the world’s problems.’ Next is to find if there are any exceptions to this way of thinking, such as ‘Could it be possible to find a better flavor of ice cream?’ or ‘Can problems be solved without the use of magic?’ If you do find exceptions then that means the statement is either false or imprecise, and as demonstrated with both examples, there are flaws. Then you retune the idea to accept the flaws, like ‘It is possible that some other flavors might be tastier.’ Or ‘Magic is useful but not always necessary.’ Finally, you repeat this, try to find other exceptions to these common-sense statements as long as you can until you iron out all the flaws, which is where you will find the truth.”

“That’s easy!” Yona nodded. “Even Yona gets this.”

“That’s the great secret of philosophy,” Discord said as his couch, along with his student’s, spread wings in which they flew away from the potter’s shop that still has a hole in its roof. “Everyone thinks that in order to be a Philosopher, you have to spend years of reading unreadable books, endure mind-numbing classes, get a degree from a stuffy university that you won’t be able to get until you’re in your seventies and then repeat the same process over to the next poor generation. In reality, however, that’s not really true. What Socrates said was that anypony can not only become a philosopher but has the responsibility to think for themselves.”

“Really?” Ocellus said in surprise, “Anypony? Even us?”

“If you can think critically, then yes. No reading or dusty lectures required. Although, taking Philosophy will help you understand where certain ideas and ways of thinking come from. So to test this out, I want to ask you six a simple question.” Discord said before tilting his head back and dumping a river’s worth of juice into his mouth. “If you had it your way, what is the way that we ought to live?”

Smolder, who up to this point had been quite now speaking. “Well, that’s easy. We ought to live to have fun, sleep, eat and have good friends around us.”

Discord raised an eyebrow, “So in other words, you think that to live, we ought to be happy by seeking pleasure?”

“Yeah! Exactly.”

Their teacher turned towards his students, “Well? Is she right?”

“Yeah… I’m not buying it.” Gallus said before taking a gulp from his cup.

Ocellus raised an eyebrow, “Why not? It sounds reasonable to me.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but from what I’ve experienced in life, it’s not always about having fun. Back in Griffonstone, there’s nothing to do there but work and be miserable. Because at least griffons know that even if you do get to have fun, it won’t last.”

At this point, their winged couches had returned to the clouds as they flew through ancient Cloudsdale. “Gallus has a point,” Discord said. “While having fun is enjoyable, it’s not exactly realistic. You could be a thrill seeker all you want, chasing after pleasure and adrenaline to your heart's content, but eventually, that’s going to end.”

“But that’s…” Sandbar was about to say but trailed off.

Gallus the Gryphon raised an eyebrow, “Yes?”

“Remember Sandy,” Discord reminded him. “This is a Symposium, a forum for ideas to flow as freely as our grape juice. So please, what were you about to say?”

With a sigh, Sandbar said, “I was just gonna say that’s not entirely true either. I mean, sure life can sometimes suck, but it’s not entirely bad either. It’s just as possible to be happy as it is to be miserable.”

“Maybe it’s place where creature from.” Yona wondered aloud. When asked why she responded. “For Dragon, life can be fun. For Gryphon, life waste of time. But for Pony, life is both.”

“Uh, does it matter where you’re from?” Ocellus questioned. “So what does it have to do with the question of how we ought to live? Mr. Discord wasn’t asking if where you live makes you happy, but how do we, as individuals should live. However, I guess the only way to know that is if you yourself know what that means.”

There was a loud fanfare of trumpets that poked out of the clouds. “And we have a winner!” Discord took hold of Ocellus’ hoof in triumph. “That is exactly what Socrates himself had advised. For that, here’s your reward!” With a snap of his paw, the students found themselves sitting down in a darkened theater with Ocellus at a podium on stage, while fireworks blazed behind her. To add to the scene, their teacher ditched the toga for a tacky suite. “For getting in touch with your inner Socrates, you’ve won! Hey me, tell her what she got.”

“Well,” a disembodied voice of Discord announced. “You’ve won a lifetime supply of wisdom and a fabulous vacation with your family through Ancient Cloudsdale. But that’s not all! As the new Socrates, you’ll be charged with blasphemy, as well as corrupting the youth meaning execution by poison.”

“Wait what!” Ocellus objected.

With another snap, Discord transported them back to the Symposium of Statues. “But in all seriousness, this lady here is right. Even Socrates said it himself; ‘…. Once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves, but otherwise, we never shall.’ It’s the very core of why he went around to confront everypony with what they thought so that he could serve as a mirror for his fellow ponies.” In a flash, Discord became a mirror. “By cross-examining what we think and believe, anypony can come closer to realizing what is indeed true. You have to challenge yourself in why you have this or that opinion because otherwise, you’d be nothing but sheep blindly following a shepherd.”

To illiterate his point, he changed his students’ reflections to make them look like sheep before returning back to his original form with a toga.

“Then this Socrates must have been a great teacher if all he taught was for others to think for themselves,” Gallus commented.

Discord shook his head. “Not really, I went back in time just to study for this. And when I said what you just said, he scoffed. ‘I cannot teach anypony anything, I can only make them think.’ So, if you only have one thing to take away from my ramblings, it would be this. I will set you all free with one quote from him. The same one he said during his trial that ended up condemning him. ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ For the definition of wisdom isn’t so much of studying the knowledge and experiences of others, as well as yourself. Rather, it is what you do with the knowledge and experience that you have that will determine wisdom. But the first step is examining yourself with what you already have, and you will learn the new lessons.”

“Finally!” Smolder exclaimed. “Something in this class that actually makes sense!”

Then the Symposium froze when they heard the school bell rang. With a sigh, Discord let the clouds, the banquet, and the togas melt until they restored the classroom.

Before they left, Silverstream went up to him, “Mr. Discord, how long are you going to be teaching?”

He shrugged. “I can’t say. Until your other Professor recovers from his cold, I’ll have to take over. Before then, however, I’ll continue to teach as I see fit. By the way, which class are you six heading off to?”

“Professor Fluttershy’s,” Sandbar informed him.

With a smile, Discord told them, “When you see her, tell her I said hello.”

Lesson 2: The Glory of Limitations

Discord was smiling. Not because school was finally last over and his students were impressed, but because he received the news from Twilight that Professor Forethought’s cold could put him out of commission for several days. His head swirled with ideas for tomorrow’s lesson.

Out in the hallways of the school, the ex-Chaos Lord floated on the backs of flies made from books. Students passing by looked up from below and saw the flapping pages that buzzed overhead while Discord looked at a scroll of his lesson plans.

“What to do next…?” He hummed and muttered in thought as he used his alter as a pen. “I’ve already made them question reality, how to critically think… Made my last lesson to top the best-rated charts. That was unexpected but nevertheless, a plus...” He crossed off a few lines from the scroll before asking himself. “But what do I tackle next? There’s plenty of things out there for sure, only… What would appeal to them? What kind of philosophy would they want?”

As he was pondering over this problem, his ears picked up a few familiar voices. Drawing closer, he recognized them as two of his students; Yona and Silverstream. He would have passed by if it weren’t for a hook that nabbed at his ear. “I wish I was smarter.” The young Hippogriff said to her.

“Don’t feel bad.” Yona collided her. “Hippogriff will pass test. Silverstream will pass pony school. Best not to put self down.”

“I’m not, it’s just I’m worried, that’s all. What if I’m not smart enough?”

This caught Discord’s interest. He stopped before the intersection where he plucked off his ear, let it grow legs, and watched it crawl over towards the source of his curiosity.

“So what?” Yona questioned. “Yona no speak like pony, yet Yona able to be good in class.”

“I know. But I’m not like you or the other students here. I’ll just have to make the most of it, even if everycreature else is smarter than me.”

“That not true. You do good in classes.”

“But don’t you think that the teachers might pity me? I’m being asked to remember all these things, but I’m going to forget something, even if I read the same book all night. I’m doing my best, but what if it’s not enough?”

“What has gotten Silverstream like this?”

A calming breath later, she answered. “Remember the quizzes we did in Twilight’s class? Well, I couldn’t help but look at the scores you guys got. I found out that I got the lowest score out of all of you.”

“Really? How much?”

“Out of a hundred… seventy-three.”

There was a hard silence.

“Here,” her friend patted her on the back. “Come study with Yona. Maybe Yona can help.”

“Okay.” Her friend replied, but her cheery tone seemed to be dampened.

When Discords ears returned to him, they informed him of the situation. Reattaching them, the draconequus’ mind had already sent gears spinning and sparks flying. A new lesson was forming from the muses he’d overheard.

The next day, Sandbar, Gallus, Yona, Silverstream, Ocellus and Smolder were making their way to Philosophy class. The only pony in the group asked if anyone knew what they’re going to be learning that day, to which, Ocellus took out her copy of the syllabus.

“Looks like we’re talking about somepony named Plato. But to be honest, I do hope that Mr. Discord is teaching today.”

The others agreed.

“I can’t see anyone else doing it better.” Smolder said, “After all, he’s the only guy out there who could explain to us why any of this matters. If the Looney Toon is here, then I’m willing to hear what he has to say about some dead guy.”

Before they could get near the door of their classroom, Discord walked right through the door while whistling Tchaicoltsky, and walked past them. He paused to realized they weren’t following him. “Aren’t any of you coming?” He asked before walking away again.

Although confused, his students did catch up to him. “So what are we doing today?” Silverstream asked. “Are we going on a field trip?”

“Nope.” Discord answered with a chirp. “I don’t feel like being in that room today. We’re going outside.”

“But where?” Sandbar inquired.

“Just into town, but don’t worry, this is part of today’s lesson... I know what I’m doing because I’m just making this up as I go.”

Smolder raised an eyebrow. “What does going outside have to do with Plato?”

“I’m not teaching Plato today.”

Twelve eyes blinked. “Say what?” Ocellus asked, knowing that was the question on everycreature’s minds.

“Hey, my hour to teach, my rules - or lack thereof. Now come on, keep moving, the front door is that way.”

Curious to see where this was going, they followed Discord out the front doors of the school, around Twilight’s castle and into Ponyville itself. “Today I’m going to hopscotch a couple centuries ahead to babble on about a Philosopher that was born a couple decades prior to Haycartes. A witty, Reneighsance Essayist known as Esprit de Pointu, Seigneur de Montaigne, or commonly known as Sharp Spirit, Lord of Montaigne.”

“Why are we learning about him?” Ocellus questioned as she looked through her syllabus. “There’s no one under that name in our-”

“I’m not that surprised, to be honest.” Discord interrupted. “After all, in the Philosophical world, philosophers don’t like Sharp Spirit all that much. Not because his essays were written poorly, but because what he taught made other philosophers feel like he was insulting their intelligence. In reality, he’s the only philosopher in history to give everyone a good slap across the face and teach us about humility. Not only for ourselves but towards those who are arrogant because they think their knowledge is unlimited.”

Smolder raised her claws. “So who is this guy anyway? His name sounds Prench to me.”

“You’re right. He was born and raised in Reneighsance Prance, was a mayor of a town twice over, a lawyer, a Lord and friend to the King at the time.” With a wave of his tail, an aged oil painting unraveled from thin air. The image was of a bald, white unicorn who had a dark mustache, a tall laced ruff that wrapped around his neck, and a silky overcoat of red and white.

“This is Sharp Spirit in his later years, as you can probably tell by his shiny head. At this point, you might think (and reasonably so) that there’s no point in me talking about him as none of you are royalty, lawyers or balding. Yet, what makes him stand out in Philosophy is that he is much more relatable than you think.”

Gallus raised an eyebrow, “How so?”

“In his collection of essays, he noticed in his time that philosophy books tend to leave behind an edited version of what experience is like, so he decided to bring those aspects in. Which brings to the three areas that he talked about: insecurity of one’s body, insecurity about being judged by others, and the insecurity of one’s own intelligence. Follow me, I’ll show you what he’s talking about.” To which, Discord’s toe carved out a black hole in the ground in which he jumped right through.

His student’s looked in to see the sky and their teacher bidding them follow. One by one they jumped in, only to fall on their faces on the other side. Getting back up, they found themselves at one end of Professor Applejack’s farm.

“I should probably have said dive in head first.” Discord said. “It helps when you land on your appendages.”

“You’re telling us that now?” Smolder deadpan.

With a shrug, Discord waved at them to follow. “Before I go any further, I want you all to think back to those times when you felt that, for whatever reason, that you missed the mark on something. Like when you feel bad so you compare yourself to others. My question for all of you is why do you feel that way?”

His students turned to one another. “Because… they’re better than us?” Smolder answered but there was uncertainty in her voice.

“Close enough.” Their teacher floated around them as they headed towards the farm. “Sharp said that it’s because we accept the wrong kind of role models; the ones that seem better than us in every regard - from how they look, to sounding smarter than us. They don’t give any hint as to what they’re really like which leads to self-hatred when we can’t reach their standards. This is why his essays are full of everyday things. It’s to show that he’s no more different than anyone else. He talks about his bowel movements or how he accidently bites the side of his cheek. It may sound like nothing, but he really shows that he too is ordinary.”

“Why talk about ordinary things?” Yona asked.

“It’s because up until Sharp Spirit came along, most Philosophers tended to think that having a mind alone would make us happy just because it gives us the ability to reason. This is all well and good, even helpful in an argument. Yet, Sharp pointed it out that we have problems because we have minds. And the first way that affects us, is with our bodies.”

Their teacher stopped when he reached a pig pen, and he lay on the white fencing. “Let’s face it, everyone here at one point in their lives had the thought of how nobody likes us because we are too short or too tall; too fat or skinny; that our breath stinks or that our plumbing is too small. Boys, I’m looking at you.”

Gallus and Sandbar looked away, their faces painted in embarrassment.

“Even Sharp, whenever he attended the royal court, he knew ponies that were outright ashamed of their own bodies. He once knew of a noble that committed suicide after releasing a series of loud farts, or a lady that was so embarrassed at chewing food that she insisted to eat behind a curtain. And this reason is obvious. It’s not just in philosophy but in normal life. Nobody mentions anything about our bodies because we think it’s taboo to do so. As a result, we feel ashamed for things as natural as urinating.”

“Mr. Discord!” Smolder objected both sharply and embarrassingly. “You shouldn’t say things like that!”

“But it’s true, and you’ve just proved my point. If anything, Sharp reminds us that all of us are partly animals, including myself. After all, as he puts it, (and this is a real quote): ‘Kings and Philosophers shit, and so do Ladies.’" This unexpected swearing got the entire class laughing, "To prove this, take a look at these pigs and see what they have in common with us.”

All six of his students approached the fencing to look at the pigs that either lay in the mud or salvaged any scraps of food.

“They’re kinda adorable,” Silverstream commented.

“Yeah, but smelly.” Sandbar pointed out as he plugged his nose.

“How are they comfortable lying in their own… filth?” Smolder wondered. “If anything, how come they’re not completely disgusted?”

“Why should they care?” Yona questioned. “Pigs not shy with anything. Pig can be big as hut and other pigs don’t care.”

“But they are kinda like us.” Ocellus pointed out. “They like to eat and sleep, not to mention be lazy when they want to. Yes, they’re dirty, but aren’t we all?”

“I’ll give them this.” Gallus said, “To be able to sit in the mud all day and not care about what anyone thinks is gotta be something worth admiring.”

“Sharp Spirit would have agreed with you there.” Their teacher nodded. “He often said that the farm animals tend to surpass us in wisdom because they are at home with their own bodies. For they don’t have any of the embarrassments or shyness or even the shames that we’re prone to.”

“That’s a little bit demeaning, don’t you think?” Gallus frowned. “To say that these animals are better than us.”

“Not really. More like a reminder to be more comfortable with the bodies we have. That like them, we should accept our bodies with grace and have a sense of humor. I mean, if animals were like us then these pigs won’t be in the mud, and they’d be behaving like this.”

A snap of his talons caused a commotion among the pigs. The swine stood up on their hind legs, screaming as they tried to brush the mud off. In front of the student’s, they showed shame by trying to cover themselves, hide and avoiding all eye contact. Another snap and the pigs looked at each other before they flopped into the mud once more.

“So what you’re saying,” Sandbar stated, “is that we shouldn’t be ashamed of our own bodies?”

“More like the best way around this is to redefine what we think is normal and accept the fact that we can’t be perfect in every way and that’s okay. Now let us move on.” To this, Discord dug his talons into the air and tore open a portal, once again, bidding his students to follow.

This time, all six gazed in wonderment for their new location. Not one of them had an idea where they’d stepped into for they were very certain that it wasn’t anywhere on Equus. Here trees coughed out purple clouds. Cats as big as castles moved about on fourteen legs while carrying multicolored cockroach passengers. The air smelled like bronze and tasted like Beethooven’s Fifth. In front of them, nothing. Behind them, everything. From shirts selling bananas to birds canoeing through the hairy grass.

At this point, Silverstream raised her claws. “Mr. Discord, are we dead?”

“This is not the afterlife, that’s two doors down on the left. No. This is where I’m from.”

Yona couldn’t believe it. “This teacher’s home?”

“No, of course not.” He said before a house drifted over their heads upside down. “That’s my home. Now if you’re done gawking, let’s get back to the lesson.” His students were still at awe at what they were seeing, so Discord snapped his lion’s paw to turn their heads in his direction. “As I was saying. Sharp also pointed out that having intelligence isn’t just a big problem in how we see ourselves, but it also makes us prone to arrogance. If you stay in one place long enough, you think you know what counts as normal. So when you do go outside of that norm, you impose the same ideals towards others. Granted, every society in history had its own idea what is considered normal, such as what to eat, say or wear. That if you stray from this in some way, then you’d be considered weird.”

“Like this place for instance?” Smolder deadpanned.

Discord smirked, “What’s the matter, feeling uncomfortable already?”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking at.” Ocellus stated.

Their teacher folded his arms. “Well I don’t know about you, but it seems like such a lovely day. I don’t know what you’re objecting to.”

“But this isn’t normal!” Sandbar exclaimed.

“Of course not. You lot tend to divide the world between what is normal and Abby-normal. It doesn’t matter much when it’s just a change in scenery that’s at stake. Why, in all of our species’ histories, we tended to behave horrifically to those who don’t share one’s customs. In which blood-soaked wars were fought over because we rationalized what is normal and what isn’t, persecuting those that didn’t fit. Believe me, I know this from personal experience, being the source of many abnormalities myself.”

Clearing his voice, he asked his students what they should do when encountering the prejudice of others.

“Well, what could anyone do?” Ocellus asked, “Take us Changelings for instance. Even though we’ve changed for the better, there’s still those out there that aren’t used to us.”

“It could be a personal thing.” Gallus suggested, “After all, how can anyone that’s prejudiced know any better if they weren’t…what do you ponies say? ‘Walking around in their horseshoes?’ I mean, I didn’t even know what Equestria was like until I got here. Made me realize how crappy Griffonstone really is.”

“That right there,” Discord waved, “is the very solution that Sharp Spirit prescribed: go traveling. Be it physically going over there or traveling by our minds, he said that we ought to explore the diversities of this wide world to see what is considered normal someplace else. Of course, you’ll always encounter prejudice no matter where you go, but just the act of traveling lessens the grip between any one prejudice.”

“Like traveling broadens the mind or something?” Smolder inquired.

“More than that. It would help you to see clearly how oppressive your mind really is. Don’t get me wrong, Sharp Spirit wasn’t by any means an early multiculturalist. He wasn’t suggesting that all cultures are as good as the next one, but rather he was criticizing how those in his time saw what was considered good or bad was based on habit rather than reason. Now, on to our final topic for discussion.”

Another portal opened, and this time the students found themselves in a much more normal setting. They walked into an open courtyard of what looked like a university where students much older then they were walked about the campus.

“This next bit is the main reason why our guy Sharp is so hated among universities like this, to the point of banishing his ideas altogether. But at the same time, all of you should be able to easily relate to him in regard to what he has to say about scholars in ‘well respected’ places like this university here. That, like his point on travel, the mind also tends to become arrogant despite the limits of our brains, because we study years taking tests and attending classes from schools very much like this one. Many would feel rather down in thinking that we’re not as clever as these ponies that you see here.”

“Where we go now?” Yona asked as she looked about her.

“This is Canterlot University. Home to supposedly the smartest ponies in Equestria.”

“Supposedly?” Sandbar questioned. “But this is the highest sought after college in the country! Even Princess Twilight went here.”

“True, but you must understand that from Sharp’s point of view, he sees it rather differently. Even now, society doesn’t consider you clever unless you get a college degree. While it could be helpful in getting a job, he doubts that going through all the trouble to make you arrogant would count as wise. If anything, he saved his most savage words on the matter. To him, most university graduates were, in his own words despite the gowns and certificates, ‘A bunch of blockheads.’”

This drove his students into shocked laughter. “Wait, really?” Silverstream asked, just as surprised as her friends.

“Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t mean that getting a degree is useless or not worth the effort to get one. He was simply saying that what we see outwardly as intelligence in a setting like this is often different from the real wisdom and intelligence. He even said, ‘In practice, thousands of little mares in their villages have lived more gentle, calmer and more constant lives than the professors at a university.’ If anything, all Sharp was seeking was students who had wisdom. What does he mean by that? Just someone who had humility, modesty, and accepted the limits of their own knowledge.”

“So it’s like you said about yesterday.” Ocellus pointed it out, “What you said about wisdom is really what you do with what you know and experience.”

“Exactly! The wise don’t need to know everything, for they accept that some things are out of control and that’s okay. While he didn’t suggest that all knowledge is useless, he just noticed that students who graduate from such schools are not any wiser or happier than those who didn’t. He put it best: ‘If a stallion were wise, he would measure the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life.’ Even now he’s right, whereas other philosopher professors would drivel on about other things that, while interesting, aren’t exactly helpful to anyone if they don’t know what to do with it.”

Gallus clapped his talons. “You’re preaching to the choir, brother!”

“In fact, since we are here, how about we put it to the test with these well-educated students about us?” Their teacher looked around at the clusters of groups that, by now had taken notice of them. “Let’s see… eenie, meenie, miney, you.” He pointed to a stallion with thick glasses on, in which he approached him. “Excuse us, how long have you been here?”

He looked around and asked. “Who me? Uh... Well, I'm in my final semester here."

"Do you consider yourself a well-educated pony?"

Nodding, he responds, "Oh yes, I have good grades so far.”

“Great! We were wondering if you could answer a few questions.”

"Sure, I got time. What kind of questions?"

"Oh, just some wisdom questions is all. Think you'd handle a few?" He nodded. “Right… What is justice?”

The college student blinked, taking a hesitant moment to process the question. “Uh…” They looked at one another perplexed. "Is this a trick question?"

"If it was, I would have said, 'Got ya!' This is a straightforward question. What is justice?"

"Uh..." he scratched his head. "I'm not a police officer."

"Okay, next question. How can you tell when someone is either infatuated or in love with you?"

He stared at him, "I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Like if they tell you up front or...?"

"Let's go with up front."

Again he paused. "I guess they would say something first."

"Okay, and one more question-"

"You know, I've got a class to go to and I don't see why you're asking these questions."

"But it's just one more."

"Then talk to someone else, I do have to go." Without saying goodbye, he trotted off.

Discord picked another student. "Hey there, mind answering some questions?"

"Go ask somepony else," was what he got before walking away from him.

He did so as he floated over to a couple of students by a tree. "Hi, can I ask for one of your opinions on something?"

They said that he could, "What do you think makes a good parent?"

“You know, it's funny you should mention it!” One of them said as he pulled out a small pie chart from his saddle bag. “I just finished making this chart in my social science class in which compares all sort of parents and what made them-”

“I didn’t ask for a chart.” Discord pointed out. “I’m asking you about it.”

“But the chart says-”

“It’s an easy question to answer. What is a good parent?”

He blinked. “But the chart says-”

“You don’t have an answer of your own, do you?”

“The chart says-"

Discord interrupted him by snapping his paw, thereby making the chart vanish, sending the stallion into a panic. He returned back to his students. “See what I mean?”

They nodded, and the ex-Chaotic Lord tore another portal open, this time back into the hallways of their school. “The idea that should be taken from Sharp Spirit is that academic qualifications, while helpful, are not the sole nor the chief sign of intelligence. There are in fact ways to be clever that schools don’t recognize, just as there are many ways of being stupid.”

Discord then turned his attention towards Silverstream and said. “If there is ever a time in which you feel that you can’t measure up, then try to imagine someone like say… Twilight on the toilet and remember this: ‘Even on the highest thrones, we are seated, still, upon our plots.’”

After his students laughed at this, Discord added with a smile on his face. “So never let a school intimidate you from studying your own mind before everyone else’s. Just remember, ‘We are richer than we think, each one of us.’”

Before he could ask if his students have any questions, the school bell rang. While he dismissed his students, all of them left him except for the hippogriff.

“Mr. Discord?”

“Hm?”

“I just wanna say, thank you.”

Although he knew why he put on the mask of confusion as he tilted his head. “For what?”

“For this lesson. I was having a bad day yesterday, all this pressure on passing and all. But now, I think it’s going to get better from here, knowing that reading all those books won’t make me smart.”

“You know, just for that, you deserve one last quote from Sharp. While he was a brilliant scholar, even he admits: ‘I’m not prepared to bash my brains out for anything, not even for learning’s sake, however precious it may be. From books, all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honorable pastime. If I come across some difficult passages in my reading, I don’t bite my hooves over them. After making a charge or two, I let them be. If one book tires me, I just take up another.’ In other words, if reading makes you want to put a power drill to your head, always take time to do read or do something fun to keep your sanity.”

“I will. Thank you so much, Mr. Discord.”

After Silverstream left, her teacher smiled as he prepared to repeat his lesson for the next class.