Yet another day in Tartarus. Actually, Tirek wasn’t quite able to know if it was day or night. Everything was the same in that humid cave, that forgotten hell that the ponies threw him to rot. Why can’t I just die already…? Tirek mumbled as his weak thin arms couldn’t even properly move to clear his tired sight. He was awake. Or maybe wasn’t. It was hard on that prison to know if he was delusioning or not, everything was just sameness. Caged to a cell and chained to that hideous state of being, Tirek have passed the last millennia since he, alongside his brother Scorpan, visited Equestria’s dimension for the first time.
Both strangers were in search for Equestria magic, they were going to steal it from the mere ponies. Scorpan, however, betrayed Tirek and denounced him and his plan to Star Swirl, the Bearded, and the two regal alicorn sisters, Celestia and Luna. It was like that until Tirek finally made it out of Tartarus a few years ago. He took some time to get his plan going yet again. From the wreckage, he managed to steal some magic for himself, draining it from innocent and distracted ponies on the silence of the night.
His progress was slow. But then, a major element to his return came short not too late. The Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, Discord, went there to stop him at first. Realising that the alicorn princesses have successfully weaponized Discord to their own will, Tirek fiendly suggested Discord to join forces with him and correspond to the nature of the spirit. Accepting the offer, Discord leveraged Tirek’s process dramatically. Only after some time, Discord wasn’t any longer needed, so Tirek betrayed him and stole his magic. He almost conquered Equestria and its magic. He would have won...if it wasn’t for one crucial factor though.
Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends used the ancient magic of the Tree of Harmony to defeat Tirek and return the stolen magic to Equestria’s domain, imprisoning the red centaur yet again on Tartarus so he could drown in loneliness and insanity for what he has done. Tirek was already freaking out for being so impotent, so weak, so humiliated for so long.
However, it was a sublte echoing on the rocks that made the centaur raise his head up. And what a hearing that millennia of imprisonment gifted Tirek with. Any strange sound around that cave, no matter how low, would instantly startle the centaur. He found strength to get up and look around his cage. Tirek only saw the rock platform that his restrains kept him upon. It could maybe be Cerberus, the three headed guard dog, walking around the perimeter. But that didn’t sound like his paws hitting the floor at each step, nor his barking and growling. In fact, I don’t see Cerberus in days, maybe weeks Tirek remembered himself.
The noise converted itself into a phantom whisper. Tirek felt threatened. Bravely, already knowing someone or something was there, he shouted with the little strength from his lungs:
“I know you’re there, show yourself!”
“Oh, now, Tirek, don’t be like that” a devious voice said to him from behind his ear.
Tirek turned around to see who said that. He saw nothing. His heart was at frenetic rhythm, so strong that he even felt the pulsation in the tip of his ears. He looked around extremely frightened. What maybe even frightened him the most was the fact that the voice he heard wasn’t an unknown one. It was a masculine voice with a rather treacherous tone to it.
“Over here, old friend” the voice came again from his back.
Tirek turned around to finally see who was he talking to. He knew the creature. It was a unique being, belonged to no species nor communities. His furred head looked like the one of a goat yet it also resembled a dragon’s one, his eyes were wide and yellow, he had a deer and an antelope horn, his body was slender like a snake, he had a lion and an eagle paw, a bat and a pegasi wing, a dragon and a bull leg and his tail was red and flaky like a dragon’s. Nothing in that being made sense. It was a total affront to nature. A total mess. A total chaos.
“Discord…” Tirek said when he saw the Draconequus before him, lightly greeting the visitor.
“Well, hello, Tirek” Discord smiled at the centaur.
“Why are you here?” the centaur immediately backed off. “Came to mock me?”
“Not at all” Discord was suddenly floating into the air while he was seeing himself in a hand mirror.
Tirek remembered that Discord’s magic was random and tried to tread the situation lightly.
“Then why are you here?”.
Discord suddenly got sad and the mirror in his hand broke. He threw it away only to get a monocle on his left eye and approach the cage.
“I wish to take something off my chest” Discord said and the monocle broke just like the mirror.
Tirek was confused, finding all of that stupid for a moment. Discord abruptly carved his hand inside his chest. Tirek frowned at the sight What is going on? he asked himself. Discord took his hand off him, there was no whole in his chest nor blood coming out of him. The hand that was inside him held a clenched fist. With that same hand then, he snapped his fingers.
Tirek was out of his cage and chains. Alongside Discord, he sat on a fancy table served with tea and sweets. Discord drank the entire cup of tea in one quick sip. What…? Tirek’s mind was getting very confused.
"I wish I could only make tea parties like Fluttershy did..."
Tirek ignored the creatures coment, wanting an answer.
Leaving the tea, Discord decided to start.
“I’m here because I have to confess…”
“And why me out of everyone to hear you out?” asked a curious centaur after some time.
“You’re the only one I have…” Discord surprisingly said.
Tirek was impressed, but was still unconfident of the draconequus treacherous methods. But then, he decided to continue asking.
“What about your pony friends back in Equestria? This so you called, Fluttershy...”
Discord remained silent for a moment, visibly tormented with all of that. Tirek noticed that little detail.
“I chose you because this whole situation involves you”.
Those sublte words were enough to grab Tirek’s attention. The centaur then, remained silent so the story could begin.
“It all began when Princess Twilight and her friends got me out of my second stone banishment. I was ready for my friendship journey with those little ponies. I had time for that, yes. But at the same time, I discovered the reason why I was brought back.”
Tirek supported himself on the table.
“You see, Celestia was the one who told them to free me. She did it because she saw it her visions” Discord carried on.
“Visions?” Tirek asked confused.
“Yes, Luna entered people's dreams and Celestia foresaw the future” Discord explained.
Tirek, nonetheless, noticed that he said that like the Princesses used to do so, but don’t do it anymore.
“Celestia has manipulated us from the start” Discord called up. “She knew what was going to happen from the beginning! She wanted it...” he suddenly got caught up by his resentment on the matter.
Yet confused, Tirek wanted to know what he was talking about. Realizing he wasn’t being that much comprehensible, Discord tried to take it from another point.
“Celestia let you escape all those years ago”.
Tirek felt his heart painfully pulse at the revelation.
“Since I came back and began experimenting friendship, Celestia had anticipated that moment. Instead of sending Twilight and the others to defeat you, Celestia sent me with the orders of joining you and supposedly betraying everyone” Discord frowned, closing his eyes for a moment.
“That’s...that’s not possible” Tirek said perplexed.
“We already knew you were going to betray me, so when the time came, I let you steal my magic so you could fight Twilight Sparkle. Like it or not, Scorpan’s medallion was the defining factor of Celestia’s plan. You gave it to me, I gave it to Twilight and she used it to open the box which revealed the seed for a new Tree of Harmony, Twilight’s castle” Discord had such pain in his voice.
“And for what would she do such a thing?!” Tirek was outraged with Celestia’s schemes.
“For Harmony’s sake” Discord’s voice was dry like he was about to cry. “Twilight’s path was a fraud, from her admission on Star Swirl’s Gifted Unicorn Academy to her ascension as the Princess of Friendship, Celestia had manipulated her all along.”
“Is this...is this the same reason that she lived for more than a millennia as well?” Tirek smartly amended that information to the fold.
“Her visions led her to drink the nectar of the flower of eternity” Discord said.
“And what is happening now on the surface?” Tirek asked. “Is there a war going on?”.
Discord smiled.
“No, now people from Equestria and beyond know true harmony. They don’t panic, they don’t yell at each other, they don’t kill each other, they don’t...betray each other...not anymore” Discord heavily said.
“Then...that’s supposedly good, isn’t it?” the centaur for the first time seemed to demonstrate kindness, or he was just too thirsty to know such conspiracies regarding Equestria.
“Supposedly wrong, my friend” Discord snapped his fingers.
The tea table and the chairs were gone. Tirek saw himself free from his restrains, the chains and the cage were gone as well. The centaur found that strange at the same time that he was glad by it. Discord took some steps away from him.
“Cerberus won’t be a problem to you” Discord kept walking. “You are free to go”.
Yet again the draconequus snapped his fingers and disappeared. Tirek walked carefully through the descending rock stairs, seeing if there was no threat to him. Cerberus and the other howling creatures were really gone. What is going on? Tirek asked himself. If Harmony has been established on the land, why would he want me to go up there? Perhaps to cause despair, after all he is the Spirit of Chaos. Would he be betraying the Princesses’ trust? No, it wouldn’t make sense. His voice...he is sad, melancholic, there’s just a big picture in all of this that I can’t yet see.
Without a problem, Tirek reached Tartarus doors. When he approached it, both opened by themselves. A cruel light entered the caves. Tirek closed his eyes for a moment only so he could get used to the surface once again. When he finally was able to see something, it was a shock to behold the devastating sight.
Discord, from above the Tartarus gateway, saw the centaur walking into the deserted wasteland. He always was courageous Discord thought. When Tirek had distanced himself enough, Discord flapped his wings down and sat on a rock next to Tartarus’ entrance. The landscape was a devastated desert. There were badly any tree logs standing on its roots. A strong wind howled from the east, raising a dust screen not too far from them. While looking at the centaur moving on with his life, he started to mumble.
“That’s the Harmony you so fought for, right? Too bad I couldn’t be a part of it. Too bad you couldn’t kill me like the rest of you killed each other…”
Discord legitimately cried for a couple of minutes. He remembered how the war destroyed everything in that kingdom. When the truth came out a few years ago, Princesses Luna, Twilight and Cadence were wrathful with Celestia’s manipulation. The Princess of the sun has been manipulating all of Equestria for more then a millennia. It took some time before the conflict between the four would become into an attempted second kingdom emancipation on the continent. Celestia wouldn’t allow that, the rage inside her made her transform into Daybreaker just like once Luna became Nightmare Moon.
Cadence in the Crystal Empire resisted strongly, but was defeated nonetheless. Luna and Twilight then lead a campaign alongside Yake Prince Rutherford, Dragon Queen Ember and Changeling King Thorax while Daybreaker joined forces with the Saddle Arabians and the Griffonstone Council to maintain the present order at the time. Their actions culminated into a devastating war that consumed the entire world. The inside conflict on Twilight and Luna’s side was big since their supporters and friends slowly fell apart from the illusion of justice that Twilight and Luna were so eager to conquer. They weren’t willing to risk everything for the truth.
“Oh, my Fluttershy…” Discord remembered his dearest friend, the one who genuinely saw a friend in the Draconequus and were against all of that.
The war followed and so it ended in Canterlot’s last stand. Daybreaker and Twilight were the remaining ones. Both died trying to stop one another.
“Just where was I when it all happened?” Discord felt remorse. “Just where was I to prevent such horrors by adding some chaos into things? Just where was I?!”.
His sudden wrath caught Tirek’s attention. The Centaur turned his back and saw the Spirit sitting on a rock. They were apart and far off from each other. Both stood a soon moment looking at one another. By that point, Tirek had a slight idea of what have happened to Equestria. And so, the centaur carried on his new path on that hatred land. Discord was again by himself.
He snapped his fingers and teleported himself. He now was next to the Tree of Harmony. Inside that cave, the tree was shining like no other time it was ever seen. Those crystal logs and those fructiferous relics stood grandiose there. Once more Discord snapped his fingers and an axe appeared on his hand.
“If this is true Harmony, if your intent was to kill an entire world so they can have peace in their graves, then I suppose Harmony is no longer a thing” he approached the tree.
It seemed to stare at Discord, not wanting the fate that was going to be given to it.
“I will cure this infected land, you’ll see” Discord said while holding the axe with a stronger grip. “Time to introduce a little anarchy to this world”.
He started chopping the tree’s body. It started to bleed a white liquid, almost like it was crying with pain. Discord kept cutting it with determination regardless. It took a considerable time and, in the meanwhile, Discord remembered that cute smile of Fluttershy’s between her long pink hair. She used to fly below the Everfree trees only to sing for the creatures of the wood I wish I could hear you sing to those lovely animals once more,my dear...I surely didn't see it coming.
The Tree of Harmony fell to the ground at last. Its shininess faded off. He had failed that world once, but he wouldn’t fail it again. Discord dropped the axe and walked away. However, before leaving, he said:
“I hope you return some day”.
Author's Note
Thanks a lot for reading! Feel free to rate and comment or even give a suggestion if you'd like.
