If I Did It
by Present Perfect
Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, could not enjoy the coolness of autumn sinking into the air around her. She was too busy studying the declination of the sun -- her sun -- and pondering whether she would need to adjust the perigee equations for tomorrow's sunrise.
That she was doing this in the gardens and not in the palace tower filled with all her notes, charts and instruments was, to hear the opinion of her advisors and friends, a major positive sign that she had adjusted to her new reign. Getting out into the fresh air was, as she had heard time and again, very important for one's health. She just couldn't enjoy it. There were too many variables left to compute to their final decimal places.
Which wasn't to say she was unaware of her surroundings. The whole reason she had come out to the gardens in the first place was so she could look at the new 'statue' that had been installed there shortly before she had taken the throne. Though she was not currently looking at it.
She couldn't look at it.
The anger in the changeling queen's eyes was still too fresh in her memory. Those eyes had been alive such a short while ago, she had a hard time believing they wouldn't blink again. That was to say nothing of the pain on the centaur's face, or the fear in the eyes of the pony. The...
Twilight had been practicing self-control recently. Now that she was the princess -- The Princess -- she couldn't let small things get to her the way they used to. Not needling from her friends, not rumors and speculation, not problems that were only as far from becoming disaster as the sun was from casting Equestria back into summer. She had to focus on the big picture, the world before her, the future and not the past, and she had to do so without panicking, catastrophizing, or letting her princessly demeanor slip.
But if there was one part of that statue she really couldn't look at, it was the pony. The little filly. The reminder that there was one person in this whole wide world, whom she had failed in the worst way possible.
Sure, it was likely that Cozy Glow had been incorrigible prior to attending the School of Friendship, that she had attended not out of a wish to learn but a desire to turn knowledge into power. It was possible that she had always been rotten to the core, irredeemable despite the best efforts of all those around her. None of it changed the fact that Twilight had never felt anything like she did now while viewing Discord's statue.
But then, Discord had never been in her care before his second defeat. The thought returned: maybe, just maybe, there had been some tiny detail, some minor sign of a pony reaching out despite herself, that Twilight could have seen but missed. And then they wouldn't be here.
"Speak of Hades, and he shall arrive!"
Once upon a time, a sudden visit from the Lord of Chaos would have startled Twilight out of her thoughts, made her yelp and leap into the air. That was the kind of reaction he enjoyed getting out of ponies, after all. But those times had passed. She had been practicing self-control, after all, and these were the moments when that practice came in most handy.
"I didn't say anything, Discord." She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon, her demeanor princessly and smooth as polished stone. He came up beside her, displacing the air with his serpentine movements.
"Well, if the adage fits," he huffed. "Let's say you were... exuding. It still counts."
"Hm."
His upper body, shrunk to the size of a ferret, entered her field of vision. "Enjoying the weather, are we?"
"Not as such." She paused, making him wait for her attention. The trick to dealing with Discord, whether or not you considered him a friend, was to not rise to any of his bait. "How about you?"
"Oh, you know, just visiting my old standing grounds." He moved alongside the Muse of Victory, mimicking the statue's outstretched hooves. "Making sure my good friend, the Princess of Equestria, is getting her monthly airing out. Standard Lord of Chaos things."
She allowed herself a small smile. He of course was not the sort of person to admit openly to caring about anypony, but he did it now and then, just the same.
A yellow paper crown settled around her horn, atop her real crown, and a brown arm ending in a large paw snaked around her shoulders.
"So, Princess," he said, heedless of her stoicism, "might there be any quandaries, qualms or questions floating about in your royal headness that I, as a good compadre, chum and bosomest of buddies, could assist you in unraveling?"
He conjured an ugly Hearth's Warming sweater, which quickly turned itself into a single length of extremely unsightly yarn. Rarity would have been appalled. Twilight merely raised an eyebrow and gave him a sidelong glance.
"I could ask you the same thing. You rarely pop up unannounced just to check in on friends. Not when there's something burning in your mind that you're wishing somepony would ask you about."
Discord snorted. "Oh, you're no fun anymore, you know that?"
He snapped his talon, and a series of loud neon arrow-shaped signs appeared around the statue of the three villains. Twilight cast him a sardonic look.
"All right, Discord, I'll bite. What's bothering you about the statue? Wasn't their punishment your idea?"
"I will admit to putting the bug into Celestia and Luna's ears." He snapped again and all the signs vanished save the one pointed at Cozy Glow. "But the fact is, I've been waiting months for somepony to ask about the contradiction. Just waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and nothing! It's like nopony's even noticed!"
His voice and mannerisms grew more animated as he spoke, until he grabbed both his ears and pulled. His upper body unzipped into a swarm of bats, which flew a spiral around Twilight and reformed into him on the other side of her.
"It's been driving me positively batty!"
There it was. Discord at last had her at a disadvantage. Not that she was going to let it show. That was old Princess Twilight's wheelhouse.
"What contradiction might that be?"
"Oh, for goodness--!" He drew a hand down his face, then snapped his fingers.
The garden was suddenly replaced by a heavenly realm filled with puffy clouds. Little cherubic Discords with harps and halos floated past, showering them with flower petals. A kazoo band off to their left played an ear-splitting rendition of a song Twilight had last heard sung by Celestia. Before them hung a large black rectangle, like a doorway into a realm of void.
After a moment, an image appeared on it. It was of Twilight and her friends, years ago, standing in Canterlot Castle while the image of Discord crossed through the stained glass surrounding them. The real Discord tapped his foot and motioned impatiently from Twilight to the image of himself, which let out a low, sinister chuckle.
"Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you. It's quite lonely being encased in stone. But you wouldn't know that, would you? Because I don't turn ponies into stone."
The image of Princess Celestia made an angry retort, but the words were masked by the sound of a flock of geese honking.
"Did you get all that?" asked Discord, rolling the image up like a window shade. The clouds and cherubs dissipated, leaving them once again in the palace garden.
"I will admit," Twilight said slowly, "that memory hadn't occurred to me before now. But it does demand the question..."
Discord grinned, tapping his fingertips together excitedly.
"Given said pronouncement, why would you advocate turning a pony to stone?"
The garden went completely still.
The sky darkened, and it dawned slowly on Twilight that Discord was growing in size. Their surroundings faded to blackness, all except the statue, while his face twisted and contorted until it was filled with a rage she had only ever seen in him when Fluttershy was being threatened. A bolt of lightning struck nearby, loosing a peal of thunder as he pointed to the terrified, petrified visage of Cozy Glow.
"THAT," he boomed.
"IS NOT.
"A PONY!"
All at once, the illusions vanished, and Discord dematerialized with a rush of decompressing air. Twilight gasped, taking a step back. She brushed her hoof across her cheek, surprised first to think that there might be tears there, and once more when she found there were none. It was just the cool autumn breeze, caressing her coat as she looked to the unmoving stone statue.
Author's Note
Thanks to VariableRadius, kits, Petrichord, R5h and Hap for feedback!
