Mind of a Madmanby Botched LobotomyChaptersMysteryComedyBildungsromanHigh FantasyRomanceMysteryWhat— Where— Why— Water gasped and fizzed around her head, sucking, swallowing, until—air!—she was pulled under again, paddling wildly, legs and wings thrashing beneath the waves, lungs burning beneath the cold—air, she needed air—something caught against her hoof, and she almost swallowed another mouthful of the freezing ocean; she thrashed forward, her hooves connecting again, and suddenly she was above the swirling, drowning waves, and she could see the sky, the sand, the sea—a few moments longer, and she was safe on shore. The sand was warm, wet, and deliciously firm—it was ground, it was not the sea, and that was what mattered. She lay there, the beach harsh against her cheek, and tried to breathe through her choking, through the water that bubbled from her mouth with every rasping cough. Foaming waves lapped gently around her, ebbing beneath her dripping feathers and fur. It took her an alarming amount of time, about the same length as her lungs took to even, to realise somepony was watching her. “You made it.” Luna scrambled to her hooves, jumping back from the pony. It took her a moment to recognise the mare. “...Pinkie Pie?” The mare nodded, turning away. She too was damp, her mane hanging wetly in a tangled rag over her shoulder. A trail of hoofprints tailed away behind her from a half-washed scuffle at the sea. Further along the shore, another pony was clawing herself free of the waves, eyes wide and fearful. A third, who somehow seemed much drier than the others, was already standing, waiting, on the sand. All three of them, it was impossible not to notice, had the same pink mane and fur. “Wh-what’s going on?” Luna asked, scrambling to catch up to Pinkie Pie—the first one, anyway. “How...how did we get here?” As she spoke, she realised that she had no idea where, exactly, here was. A sandy coast. Frost-tipped blue waves lapping upon the sands. Dry grass sprouting here and there and tufting into great white dunes behind them. She tilted her head, squinting up into the bright blue sky. The sun winked down beneath a perfect chequerboard of clouds, layered in their rows upon rows like a great chessboard plastered across the heavens. Suddenly, somehow, she felt even less sure of their whereabouts. “Everypony alright?” called the first Pinkie Pie, as they all gathered about her. Luna stared desperately around herself for something that made sense. Where had she been? What was the last thing she remembered? Her place in Silver Shoals, staring up at the ceiling...a ceiling warm and hoofmade, far from this remote precision. She had been thinking about...something. She couldn’t remember what. Tracing the wavering painted lines of the ceiling, thoughts following their ripples and turns, wandering...and then darkness, blankness. Like someone had taken a great scoop out of her memories and left nothing behind but void. “Just— just about,” said the second, vigorously shaking herself dry. The third, whose mane and tail were free enough of water to puff up with most of their usual bounce, gave a smile. “Sure am!” All three of them were undeniably Pinkie. They had her fur, her eyes, her spark. It was as unmistakable as it was unlikely. One of the Pies, apparently the most intelligent of the lot, looked around, frowning. “I don’t suppose anyone knows where we are, by chance?” Luna shook her head. “I’ve never seen this place before.” The dry Pinkie shrugged dramatically. “Nope! Don’t even know how we got here.” “My initial thought would be a ship,” said the first one wryly, “but I hardly see any evidence of one.” Luna got the distinct impression that an old gentlepony’s suit and tie would not go amiss on the mare. Indeed, as she shaded her eyes with a hoof to gaze out to sea, she saw Pinkie Pie was right: not so much as a plank bobbed along the waves. “The real question, though,” the dry Pinkie said, her voice slow, suspicious, as she levelled her gaze at Luna, “is why on Equestria we’re here!” Luna stepped back, opening her mouth to defend herself, but the first Pinkie Pie cut in. “She hired us.” “Huh?” “She did?” “I did?” “You did.” Pinkie Pie scowled. “You sought us out—or me, at least—you needed a Pinkie, for some reason, and said you had a job for me.” She looked round at the other two with wide eyes. “I— I thought I was the only one, though.” Luna frowned, the white space where her memories should be ringing empty as she tried to place it. “I...don’t remember.” “Of course you wouldn’t.” “Huh? Why wouldn’t she?” Why wouldn’t I? Luna frowned, wracking her memories, but the emptiness gave up nothing. Luna knew the difference between remembrances which were merely hidden, and those that had been erased entirely, snipped neatly from her mind and destroyed. This void, she feared—she knew—was very much the latter. She caught the smart Pinkie staring at her, and cleared her throat. “Mind magic.” “Mind Magic?” The dry Pinkie tilted her head, as if a different angle would help the problem. “That’s right.” “You wiped our memories,” agreed Pinkie Pie. “Your memory, my memory—their memories too, it seems. The question is why.” “Yes...” smart Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “Why would you do that?” Luna swallowed. “You don’t know? Surely I would leave somepony...” “The last thing I remember is you saying that if I accepted, I’d need to have my mind wiped.” Pinkie Pie kicked at the sand in disgust. “Apparently, I said yes.” “So that’s it?” asked the dry Pinkie, “That’s really all we have?” “Yup.” Pinkie Pie’s voice was grim. “We don’t know where we are, we don’t know what we’re supposed to do, and we don’t know how long we’ve got to do it.” She cast Luna a frown. “Whatever this is, it had better be worth it.” “Oooooh,” dry Pinkie’s eyes widened in delight. “I like mysteries!” “Well,” mused Luna, gazing back out across the sparkling sea, “until we solve this one, I’m not sure it matters how long we have. I’m not seeing a way off this place, so it looks like we’ve got as much time as we need.” “Unless we don’t,” said smart Pinkie, with a worried smile. “Indeed,” agreed her fellow Pinkie Pie, with even less cheer. “Unless we don’t.” None of them knew how long they’d been walking. The beach was far behind them, at least, and growing farther with every step. The dunes had soon given way to grassy brushland, which had just as quickly grown into a forest, which had sunk into a swap. Through the scattered canopy above, the chequered ceiling was just about visible, the sky behind those cut-square clouds purplish and shining. As they picked their way over the stinking logs, the path beneath their hooves squishy and unsteady, Luna’s heart seemed to sink with her steps. A creeping suspicion, growing stronger by the minute, had taken residence inside her head, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t quite shake it out. She was beginning to think she knew exactly where they were. The detail was good, she had to admit. The shrubbery was wet, the undergrowth lively, and the bulbous, orange eyes which followed them along the path shy enough to be not a little creepy. But it wasn’t perfect. The sky, for one, was an obvious instance. The air in this place was too cold. Luna knew what swamp air smelt like, what it tasted like, the way it stuck in your throat and clogged your lungs—Celestia had dragged her on enough excitement for the feeling to be so deeply ingrained the mere memory could make her shiver—and the air here simply wasn’t quite right. It didn’t have the right temperature, the right stickiness, the right viscosity. The forest, further, had given way too quickly. Barely ten trees had gone by before the murk had taken over, and each had seemed a rather half-hearted affair, tall and straight and without a hint of personality about them. High enough and wide enough to be ten years old; and not a flaw for any one of those years. She half-wondered what would happen if she cut one open. And then, of course, there was the mountain. They had seen it in the distance from the dunes, and, without another goal to reach, had set out determinedly towards it. In all that time, it had grown not an inch. In fact—she’d measured it, holding a hoof against her eye for scale—she was pretty sure it was getting further away. Luna had walked enough minds to know the signs—and every one of them was just slightly off. They were in a dream, that much was certain. The only question, really, was whose. To create a space at this detail, in this resolution... The chill that passed along her spine had nothing to do with the temperature. “Um, Princess, are you okay?” Pinkie’s voice echoed strangely off the marsh, soggy almost, like the damp had infiltrated her very being. “I’m alright, Pinkie, thank you,” she said, turning her head to give the mare a reassuring smile. “It’s just...” “What?” asked the smart Pinkie, from behind. Luna sighed. “I...” she paused, considering how to put it. “Do you remember the night, many moons ago, when you came to my aid against the Tantabus?” “Pardon?” asked the first Pinkie Pie, from up ahead. “The what?” “The...Tantabus?” Luna repeated, with less certainty. “The creature of my nightmares that escaped into your own? Almost escaped into the real world?” She stopped, staring in disbelief at the three blank expressions. “We only barely stopped it from destroying Equestria?” How could they not remember? “I’m afraid it doesn’t ring a bell,” smart Pinkie said. Did it truly mean so little? Luna had a memory an aeon old—give or take a few vacant spots—and she could recall most everything about that night, when they had helped her see, for the first time, how much she had really changed—had shown her that Nightmare Moon was gone, vanquished, never to well up again. The night when that boiling, oozing sore deep inside had started to heal... “None of you remember?” “Princess,” said Pinkie, with a vague roll of her hoof, “we do a lot of world-saving.” “I wouldn’t remember anyway,” the first Pinkie Pie said quietly. Smart Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?” “Forget it.” Luna started off again, pushing through the muck. “Perhaps the memory was removed, as as mine have been, or perhaps you simply don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.” The salt, drying in the cool air, crusting her fur, stung a little. “We shared a dream, that night, and I fear...I’m almost certain...something similar is happening just now.” Behind her, two sets of hooves drew to a stop. The air seemed to slow, the wind change, colder and harsher against her fur as she turned to face them. “You mean...we’re in a dream?” Pinkie’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Who dreams about a swamp?” “Do you know?” asked smart Pinkie, “Whose dream this is, I mean.” “Can we talk about this on the move?” Pinkie Pie stomped her hoof in irritation. “I’m not sure it makes any difference,” said Luna, bluntly. “I don’t think that mountain’s getting closer either way.” Smart Pinkie smiled. “So you did notice.” “You knew?” Luna’s frown deepened. “ Then why—” “Maybe it’s just reeeally far away,” suggested Pinkie cheerfully. “If we just keep going—” “That’s not how dreams—” “How do dreams work, then?” Pinkie Pie moved closer. “Can’t we just—” “Whose dream are we in, Princess?” smart Pinkie’s voice cut through the noise as she watched Luna, staring deep into her eyes. For a moment, the silence was complete, broken not by the wind, or the water, or the ferns, or the ponies. An awful, alien quiet, distant and absolute, impossibly still. “...I know of only a few minds capable of a world this particular.” Sound flooded back as Luna’s words broke the calm. Nopony else yet dared breathe. “And I dread to think why we’d visit any of them.” Pinkie Pie swallowed nervously. “Who is it, then?” “I hope I’m wrong. I really, sincerely hope I’m wrong.” Luna looked up again at the chequerboard clouds, and levelled her gaze again at the smart Pinkie. There was something in those eyes, she thought, something strange, other, not entirely pony. The mare smiled, and as she watched that smile stretched too wide, even for Pinkie, her mouth too sharp to be real. “Bingo!” Smart Pinkie’s voice was hoarse, gleeful, as it deepened. Her mane was all of a sudden too thin, her coat all of a sudden too pale, her neck all of a sudden too long. As they watched, she seemed to lengthen, warp, distort, mutate, somehow all without changing even slightly. Nubs of bone split the fur on her head, claws forced themselves through her hooves, and in an instant, she was standing before them different, twisted—and yet precisely the same. “Discord,” Luna breathed, setting herself firmly against the ground. “In the flesh!” he said brightly, stroking his beard with a grin. “I wondered how long it would take you.” “Of course it’s you.” Luna grit her teeth, waving for the remaining Pinkies to stand back. “Well who else did you expect? Oh, I’m curious—who were the other people who could do all this?” he waved a lazy paw at the surrounding marsh, which bloomed with sudden life at his gesture. “What are you up to now, Discord? What have you done that made me come in here?” “Beats me,” he shrugged. Plucking a mutant flower from the path, he tossed it from one claw to the other. “I honestly assumed you’d know—clever trick, that, by the way. Very devious. But I’m afraid whatever it is, I really can’t have you wandering about in here all by yourselves.” Behind her, Pinkie waved a hoof enthusiastically. “I’m sure we have good reasons!” “Well, maybe,” Discord conceded. “It’s really more the idea of thing thing, though, isn’t it?” “We can’t leave until we know why we’re here.” Luna lowered her head, training her horn directly on him. Discord’s snaggle tooth gleamed in the sunlight as be bared his fang in a smile. “You know, I was kind of hoping you would say that.” “I believe it. You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” “Oh, now Princess,” he said with a pout, “that’s not quite fair.” His grin widened as he pointed the flower straight back at her. “I’ve changed just as much as you have.” Discord’s eyes sparked, the flower glowed, and a beam of light cut the air as Luna ducked out the way. Her horn flashed, and a shimmering blue shield fizzled up around her. Discord laughed. “Get out of my head!” Another beam ripped the ground as it bounced off her shield, and Luna felt her magic flicker for a second at the force of it. She couldn’t keep this up. With a gasp, she turned, lifting Pinkie Pie out the way of another bolt, feeling the heat of it sear the ground behind her. Her lungs burned as she burst into action, instinct taking over, flooding her system, as she yelled the only option they had left. “Run!” As they took off, she tried desperately to think. She had come in here with a plan, surely. She wasn’t such a fool as to venture into Discord’s mind without one—unless of course that was the plan, to have no plan; but no, that was silly, no plan didn’t count as a plan—he was too dangerous for that—she ducked another bolt, the ground beside her exploding in a cheerful, fiery powder—and besides, she’d clearly had something, because there was the space left where it had been. She cursed her younger self for all this nonsense. What had she been thinking? What—she darted to avoid a beam—had—rolling, another skipped by her, missing her head by inches—she—tree, tree!—been—she screeched to a halt as one flew just ahead, hammering into the ground just where she would have been—thinking? “Luna!” She looked over, barely dodging a line that singed her mane. “What?” “Luna!”—suddenly Pinkie Pie was galloping next to her, her fur bloodied and streaked with dirt—“Why did you bring us? Why did you need us in a dream?” A dream! Yes, of course, this was a dream! Why was she running, this was a dream, she was the mistress of dreams, it was in her title! This was the most detailed dream she’d yet seen, but it was a dream nonetheless. Her horn glowed, light spilling out, brighter and brighter as she concentrated, her whole vision turning a sickly washed-out blue, visualising the world around her as just some thing, some construct, created and imagined by some being, and changeable and malleable as such, and with a quick prayer to whatever gods or powers may have been watching, grabbed the world by its concept—and yanked. Nothing happened. Luna was so shocked she almost hit a tree, narrowly veering out of the way as it whisked past at alarming speed. “What happened?” cried Pinkie Pie. “I...I don’t know.” Luna slowed as she reached the edge of the foliage, and realised they were back upon those same sand dunes they’d started out from. This is Discord’s dream. The laws of nature were more like guidelines to him at the best of times. Her eyes widened. “Pinkie Pie! Try to focus!” “Wh—” She was cut off by a bolt vaporising the ground by her hooves. “What?” “Imagine the world as a concept! It’s a dream. Grab hold of that dream. Like it’s a book!” “Alright?” “Pick up a different book!” Comedy“Like...this?” Luna cracked open an eye. Nothing had changed. And yet, somehow... “Where...where did he go?” asked Pinkie, wheezing to a stop beside them. “What happened?” Luna grinned. Her face felt fit to burst. “You did it!” “I...did?” Pinkie Pie looked just as shocked as she had. “Yay!” Pinkie rushed up and squeezed her twin in a full-body hug. “You did it! Or...I guess we did it? How does that work?” Pinkie Pie smiled, relief showing plain on her face as she sagged. “Does it matter? It was done.” “Yeah!” Pinkie punched the air triumphantly. “It was done! Take that, Discord!” She paused. “Um, what exactly was it that we done?” Pinkie Pie looked over at Luna, who only nodded. “We...” she turned back to Pinkie. “I picked a different book.” “Right...?” “It’s like...” she shot a helpless look at Luna, who sighed. “It’s like a story. That’s all a dream is. Pinkie Pie just put down the book we were reading and swapped it for another one. She changed the type of story we were living—she changed the genre.” Pinkie frowned. “So what genre are we in now?” Luna looked in askance at Pinkie Pie, who only shrugged. “Haven’t the foggiest.” “That’s an issue.” “What is?” asked Pinkie. “Normally, when I do it, I have some control. I can choose a genre to switch into. Mystery into comedy, for example.” Luna sighed. “Discord’s magic is so chaotic, though...we could be in anything. I’m not sure it would even be possible to control it. I’m amazed you can control his magic at all.” Pinkie Pie chewed her lip. “I suppose that’s why you needed Pinkies.” “That will be it.” “So...what happens if one of us—ahem—kicks the bucket in here?” she asked. Pinkie gasped. “Some of those beams came pretty close, after all.” Luna shrugged. “You’ll wake up.” “So you’re telling me we should have let him kill us?” “Look,” Luna stood, bringing her hoof down upon the sand. It failed to have the desired impact. She tried again. “We came here for a reason. Clearly all of us thought that whatever it was, it was worth risking ourselves for. We need to follow through.” “What if Discord kills us?” countered Pinkie Pie. “Not in here, I mean, out there. The fellow didn’t exactly seem overjoyed we were poking around in his head.” “Discord wouldn’t do that!” Pinkie said, jumping to her hooves. “I know he can be a bit mean sometimes, but he’s not a monster!” “He is evidently a monster,” Pinkie Pie disagreed. “That is quite literally what he is. Species: Monster.” “Species: Draconequus!” “Have you ever seen any other Draconequus...es? He made them up. He’s a charlatan, a fluke.” “Maybe he’s just really old! Maybe all the other Draconequui died a long time ago!” “Pinkie!” bellowed Luna. “Yes? “Y-yeah?” “I agree...” she paused, breathing in, “I agree with Pinkie. You. That one.” She pointed at the Pinkie with the buoyant hair. “Not I?” Pinkie Pie looked mildly offended. “I just saved us all, one would think I’m owed a little loyalty.” “Do you see Rainbow Dash around here anywhere? No, you don’t.” Pinkie stuck her tongue out at her sibling. “It’s nothing but laughter and moon...spirit around these parts.” Luna held her head in her hooves. “Discord take me now.” “Is that the sort of thing you should be saying in Discord’s dream?” wondered Pinkie. “One never knows,” Pinkie Pie waggled her eyebrows conspiratorially, “maybe that’s the kind of genre I switched us into.” Luna sighed. This was going to be a long, long walk. “Are we there yet?” She couldn’t help but wonder what would be more painful—this, or Discord’s laser. At the moment, this was winning. “Nope. Are we there yet?” It had quickly become extremely, horribly clear just what sort of genre Pinkie Pie had switched them into. The first rake Luna had stepped on had been strong clue, but it was the fourth that had really sealed the deal. “Doesn’t seem so. Are we there yet?” She was somewhat impressed she hadn’t snapped and killed one of them yet. As far as she knew, they only needed one Pie alive to reach the mountain. “Why are we even going to this mountain in the first place?” Pinkie asked, scuffing her hooves along the path and neatly avoiding yet another rake. “What’s even in there?” “It could be a dragon!” suggested Pinkie Pie, who had not nearly the skill as her fellow in the departments of rake detection and avoidance. “With a hoard of gold.” “Could be a dragon!” suggested Pinkie, skipping merrily over another badly disguised gardening implement. “With some gems!” “That makes more sense, actually, yes. Still! Gems are valuable.” She pursed her lips. “Mostly to dragons. And fashion designers!” “If you found some dragon fashion designers, you’d really hit the jackpot. Maybe that’s what’s in the cave!” “There’s a cave? Can you see it?” “More of an alcove, really. And I’m just thinking out loud.” That much was painfully, achingly obvious. “Mountains do usually have caves,” said Pinkie Pie with a nod. “Hardly a mountain at all if it doesn’t at least have an alcove.” “The only question is what’s in it.” Pinkie considered this, walking backwards as she turned to face Luna. “What do you think, Princess? What’s in the cave?” Luna scowled. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably some great secret of Discord’s he wants desperately to keep hidden, but hovers, blistering, at the edge of his consciousness, bubbling through to his dream-world as a vast, nigh-impenetrable fortress he can’t hide even from himself—so his mind surrounds it in layers of rock, layers of psyche, until he’s convinced it’s hidden from almost anyone, except for the fact by this point he’s concentrated so distinctly on not thinking about it at all that it looms miles above everything else. An enormous, glittering vault containing something he really doesn’t want anypony to find.” Pinkie stared, mouth hanging open, stopped in her tracks. “Yes,” said Pinkie Pie, hurrying to keep up, “probably more something like that, now that I think about it.” They trotted in silence for a few moments longer, until finally Pinkie recovered her voice. “Are we there yet?” Luna snapped to a halt. Please, merciful universe. “No! We’re not there yet. But you just keep on saying that, and maybe we will be!” “Actually,” said Pinkie Pie, “I think we are.” Frowning, Luna looked up, to see that mound of repressed revelation gazing back down at her like the sharpened tooth of some enormous beast. Actually, if she squinted, it bore more than a little resemblance to Discord’s tooth. Finally. With a grin, she stepped forward again, and the rake snapped up to smack her in the face. “Pinkie!” she yelled. “Change this genre now.” BildungsromanSome genres, it must be remarked, expressed themselves in subtler ways. Others did not. “I don’t remember being born,” began Pinkie Pie, “I suspect this is true of most ponies—but for myself most especially, the circumstances of my coming into being may, I hope, forgive this lapse in memory.” Pinkie, as it came to pass, had, for some reason been unable to flip genres. Pinkie Pie had again been called to action, and Luna was starting to wonder if the mare’s luck at the trick was actually the result of some masochistic, torturous urge. Or perhaps she simply had terrible taste. “You see, I, like many of my sisters, who sadly now all lie drowned, am the progeny of just one mare. A very special mare, it must be agreed, but a single mare nonetheless. I am a clone.” Of course, Luna had known about the remaining Pinkie clone wandering the world. There had been reports—disturbing reports—about the pink mare being sighted in two cities at once—and, on one particularly memorable occasion, the same diner at once—which Celestia, given the mare’s history with the ancient Mirror Pool of Ponyvillian legend, had seen fit to investigate—Luna had walked the mare’s dreams, and seen her obvious intelligence, seen her quickly forming personality—and had deemed her to be indeed a different pony from her originator, and as such a being with a moral worth all her own. “I wandered this word destitute and alone, robbed even of my friends, whom I had just barely begun to know, by the fact of my horrid nature. For many years I walked Equestria, seeking those that would have me. I found few willing to accept my help. I stayed a time at an old Canterlot boarding house for orphans. I did my hours at the docks, working with the fisherponies to bring bread to the table. I stayed a while at the country house of an elderly donkey named Miranda, whose daughter Matilda had vanished to some backwater, leaving her as friendless and abandoned as I. We parted ways on good terms, and for personal reasons, and if I should run into her again tomorrow I should greet her with a friendly smile. “The body of my self-discovery, though, I tell you, if it can be said to have happened at all, happened in the town of my most recent stay, and unless my memories have been tampered with beyond repair—a condition which would leave me as unsurprised as it would uninspired—the town in which I still make residence: namely, the small town at Equestria’s border known to one and all as Klugetown.” Luna, as the hillocks rose steeper, and the incline of the ground rose larger, wondered if she hadn’t rather have stayed in the comedy. “I arrived there on the second moon of last spring, when the ice was still melting on the rooftops. It seemed to me at the time a most lonely and miserable affair, and I didn’t anticipate my staying long at all. All this was interrupted however, and my life forever altered, by the arrival in town of a Miss Lady Tempest Shadow—whose real name, when I reveal it later, will be sure to amuse you—who was travelling the land on most intriguing business. We shall, however, get to that later. I met her first on the eve of the Spring Ball...” This was all Pinkie’s fault. It had all started when the mare had, seemingly out of nowhere, asked, “What did you mean, when you said to me earlier that you didn’t wouldn’t remember the Tantabus anyway?” At which point, needing no further prompting, her clone had started off on her account. “A most delightful dinner. Afterwards, when all were so full and stuffed with fish—despite the sealife-adjacent nature of most of our companions, the humble ocean-dweller is by far the most eaten meal about town—we retired to Capper’s drawing room, and there Ms. Tempest, after much excited interest on the part of myself and my allies, was persuaded to entreat us to a piano tune she had composed herself. It was during this song, dear companions, that I found myself trembling upon the edge of realisation: and when she finished the song, and her voice and playing trailed off into the silence in which the only other feeling in the room was basic, rudimentary awe, I tumbled over the brink of that awful canyon—you see, I had found myself quite in love. “Yet who was I to love such a creature? A penniless wretch, with no being nor fortune, who could give the dear Lady none of that she was sure to want. I confess I most embarrassed myself that night, fleeing from the scene as I did, so suddenly.” The foothills soon expanded, growing into larger and larger rises, melding together as the mountain proper began to assert itself over the surrounding landscape. The first order of business, as they approached this colossal shape, had to be a path. Climbing this monolith without one would be next to impossible, and Luna didn’t fancy her chances clinging to the sheer side of a mountain slope. Discord didn’t want them to climb it, so naturally there would be a path. All they had to do was stumble upon it. “I spent that next week in the blackest of moods, railing and thundering and taking no calls. She sent me three letters in that week; in my stupor, I burned them all. It was only when, at last, I found myself at risk of driving away every friend I had—every creature gained among my travels—that I found myself at last able to grasp the last of my sanity, and with it, pull myself through. That indeed was three weeks before the very events, and the meeting of a genuine Princess—or Princess now-resigned—which started off this sorry adventure. First, however, there is a final part to my sorry tale that must be told, for fear of being accused a devil or a liar. “In the dark of a storm one night, as I gazed, entirely morose, at the raindrops pattering against the fog of my window, there came a knocking—a knocking at my chamber door. I opened it to discover my father, long thought non-existent, had arrived to pay me a visit—” “Oh, look!” said Luna brightly, as Pinkie Pie, engrossed as she was in her sorrowful tale, tripped on a rock, nearly turning her ankle. “I fear we’ll need your full concentration for this endeavour, Miss Pie. Pinkie Pie nodded, following her duty with dueful solemnity, and with a thought, and a grasp, and a yank, reality changed. High Fantasy PROLOGUE: SNAKE IN THE GRASS The black cell echoed with memories past. In the dim half-light that pervaded this place, they swirled and moved about him, a prison as effective as the great bars that surrounded him. He’d lost count long ago of the years they’d kept him here, locked away inside this cage, chained and tied with spells and antimagic runes more ancient even that he. Whoever had built this place had created a hell unparalleled, standing alone among the Artifacts as untainted, untouchable, unbreakable. A place constructed to serve one very specific purpose. He shivered to imagine what beast it had been built to contain. Of course, now it contained him. And for what crime? For what tresspass had he been sentenced to an eternity behind these unyielding bars? The memories slipped by, one by one, along the walls. He turned away. Lying down upon the floor, he gazed up at the ceiling—that colourless, dispassionate metal, so close to the night sky, and yet so far—and wished, for the latest in a series of countless times, to see the stars. One glimmer of light in the cold, impassive darkness. One speck against the void. He would take that, only that, and it would fuel him for the next hundred, the next thousand, the next million years. Just one. Click! He sat up. Ears perked, straining to catch another hint of noise. Moments passed. He didn’t move, staying, eyes closed, listening—for what else had he to do?—for whatever the noise had been. Perhaps he was going mad. Perhaps, after all this time, it was finally happening. He smiled. At the very least, it would be entertaining. Click! Again. There it was. he moved forward, grabbing the bars in his paw, his claw, pressing his face as close against them as he could as he listened. Click! If he was imagining it, he was impressed with himself. They seemed to come just when they shouldn’t, on the cusp of being too late, just after being too early, it was— Click! The end of the hall lit up, a thin, wavering crack of light spilling across the floor. The groaning of the great door was unbelievably loud, the light incomprehensibly bright, and he realised, then, that it was true. He was, at last, at long, long last, finally losing himself. Ah well, he thought, best just to roll with it, eh? The shadow of a pony emerged from the light. Dark blue. Short, for an alicorn. Big, blue eyes—or were they green? It was hard to tell. He found himself grinning. “Hello there,” he said, breathing in the air of a new age, “can I help you with something?” LUNA There was something familiar about the mountain. Her hooves ached as she ploughed on through the snow, frozen stiff and brittle against the ground. The icy flakes spiralled down in a fell wind, laying with exquisite gentleness upon each and every thing in sight. They lay down gracefully, easily, upon the frosted banks of their brethren, upon the shining exposed rock, upon her fur, and she wished—hardly for the first time—that Discord wasn’t so cursedly imaginative as to have made the snow so very cold. Her breath came out in puffs in the chill air, clouding up around her face and the faces of her companions as they fought on through the blizzard. It was too detailed, that was it. Imagination could take you a long way, an incredibly long way, really, but it could never quite match reality. Reality was harsh, and unforgiving, and full of bizarre little details nopony—and nocreature—could ever think up themselves. Not even Discord. If she didn’t know better, she wouldn’t have known she was even in a dream. Holding out a foreleg, she caught one flake upon her hoof, and brought it up to her face to examine it. Imperfect, incomplete, half-formed—not the eerily precise texture of the rest of Discord’s dream, but an actual, veritable snowflake. She caught herself half-wondering if maybe their latest escape hadn’t pulled them back to Equestria—but no. This was simply an area of unbelievable detail. Not an invention, then, but a memory. A memory of such quality, such clarity, it wavered on reality. Why then, she wondered, was this mountain so familiar? She must have visited it at some point, must have come here at some time, far away, half-forgotten in the depths of her mind. “C-can we p-please just switch genres again?” quavered the voice of Pinkie Pie, from the back. Luna grit her teeth against the chill, clamping them together to stop the chattering. “We can’t risk it,” she managed to get out. “That way lies certain terrors.” She gasped, sucking in a gulp of air, feeling her lungs tighten at the feeling. “This one seems benign so far.” “D-define ben-nign,” said Pinkie, at her rear. “I promise you, this is better than s-some others.” “N-no,” Pinkie got out a laugh through the frozen air, “I’m s-serious, I r-really don’t know wh-what it-t means.” Despite the cold, Luna managed a smile. The path underhoof thinned, and then thinned further, until they were walking on what amounted to little more than an icy ledge, clinging to the side of the rock. Inches to her left, snow plunged down, down, several hundred hooves, until it settled on a stubbly, uneven surface that Luna had been on enough adventures to know covered a rather jagged landing. She regretted not having any rope to string them together with on this path. But this was Discord’s dream, and even if she could conjure some, it would only draw his attention. She hoped his eye would stay elsewhere for the moment. Where have I seen this before? The answer was important: in all his thousand thousand years, Discord remembered this mountain in perfect clarity. She knew it too, she knew she did—but sift her memory as she might, it eluded her. That was the trouble with being so very old. By the time you found just what it was you were looking for, the reason for remembrance had often passed. There came a sudden yelp from behind, and Luna spun to see a look of horror on Pinkie Pie’s face as her hoof slipped. The mare stepped forward to correct herself, and for a moment—a precious moment—it looked as if she would make it. She even had time to let out a little sigh of relief, to start to shrug apologetically to her companions, before, with a strangled cry, her hindhoof gave way, and she dropped off the side of the cliff. “No!—” Luna’s horn ignited, ready to catch her in a telekinetic field, but she was too late—there was nothing to grab—and she felt herself deflate. She stared at the ledge where Pinkie Pie had been in shock. The mare wasn’t dead, but for a moment it felt as though she was, and Luna certainly didn’t want to look over the edge to see her remains. “Help...” The voice was tense, strained, and Luna realised with a start it was coming from Pinkie, who, unlike her, was not simply staring at the ground. Luna dropped to all fours, crawling forward, and peered off the edge of the face. There Pinkie Pie hung, dangling from her fellow Pinkie’s hoof, a look of strange elation on her muzzle. “...Please...” “Ah!” Luna focused, taking the mare in a levitation field, and floated her carefully back up to the ledge. “Sorry!” “I’m— I’m ok-kay.” Pinkie Pie lay there, shivering, clinging to the ledge like it was life itself. Her hoof—where Pinkie had caught her—was red and raw. “I’m f-fine,” she said, after a second, then, as if to reassure herself of the truth of it, repeated, “I’m fine.” Pinkie, for her part, was staring at her hoof like it had just bitten her. “Come on,” Luna said, “we’re almost there.” Ah. The path had, happily, widened out again, and then turned inward, sloping down just as it reached the peak to meet a shallow, thinly covered alcove, protected from the worst of the snow by a convenient rocky shelf. “What exactly,” asked Pinkie Pie, limping carefully over to stand beside her, “is that?” Luna said nothing, stepping forward to lay a hoof on the smooth, black stone. She gently traced the ancient lines cut into its surface, the circles and corners and sharp lines, the remnants of a culture, a species, a being—who knew?—long gone. One of the few traces of their ever existing at all. She remembered the pattern on the parchment, found in the remnants of a dead king’s palace. She remembered the stone, so smooth, so cold to the touch. And at last, finally, she remembered the mountain. “Tartarus,” she breathed. PINKIE PIE Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but stare. “Tartarus?” she asked, disbelievingly. “You’re not telling me that’s real?” “Of course not, silly!” Pinkie said, behind her. Pinkie, when they’d rounded the corner on this place, had stopped almost as suddenly as Luna, watching with wide eyes her reaction to the place. “We’re in a dream. It’s just a legend!” “No,” Luna shook her head, eyes still locked on the great ebony slab, “it’s real, all right. This is a memory. This is where...” she trailed off. “Where what?” Pinkie prompted. “Where he was...where I...” she turned, looking Pinkie Pie directly in the eye. “We need to get inside.” Pinkie Pie nodded. “Alright. How?” Frowning, Luna turned back to the door. “I don’t know. I’ve only been here twice...and only once opened it. Last time I used magic, but I have my doubts about its usefulness here.” “Why don’t you try it anyway?” Pinkie offered. “It’s worth a shot,” agreed Pinkie Pie. Luna bit her lip, the spire of her horn lighting up, and sent a pulsing line of magic to the door. The lines lit up, the grooves cut deep into the stone slowly filling up with a bright blue glow, until the entire symbol was shining. For a moment, nothing happened, until the blue glow vanished. Words, cut as deep into the rock as the seal, but somehow, Pinkie Pie could tell, less ancient than it, appeared in a wash above the symbol: Ongeanwirdness brêost nm tyhten, thither andgitfullic hit hê êow must. Secgan ðætte êow willaninfindan infindan, swâðêah ârêdian sê georne, yfel ontrêowan. ;P “What is it?” She found herself speaking quietly, almost reverently. Luna was less impressed. “It’s Old Ponyish. Discord’s little riddle for me. One last barrier.” “What does it say?” asked Pinkie, evidently unable to keep her curiosity down. “Roughly translated?” Luna raised an eyebrow, “What lies inside is inside, if open it you must. Speak only that you wish to find, and find it well, I trust.” She paused. “And there’s a winking face at the end.” “Any idea what it means?” Pinkie moved closer, looking between the door and Luna, then back to the door. Luna shrugged. “It’s a riddle. I don’t expect to solve it right away.” Pinkie Pie stared, rolling the words over in her mind. She was pretty sure there was something they were missing, something obvious... She willed herself to work it out, to think... Oh. So, that was it. She blinked. “It means he knows exactly where we are.” The gears spun, shifting and clicking in her head as she worked it out. “It means he always knew where we’d end up...it means he wanted us to reach here!” Pinkie Pie imagined it was difficult for a dark blue mare to go pale, but manage it Luna did. “Oh.” In a flash of sudden realisation, Pinkie Pie dashed over to the path, rounding the corner from where they’d come...and the sky rumbled. Clouds, black and portentous, were gathering above them, the great squares distorting and twisting, pulling together into a bulk that looked far too dark and solid to stay up there for long. The snow, as it had been falling, drifting serenely down to paint the mountain, stopped. In an instant, the weather changed, and with a breath of inspiration, she closed her eyes. The whole world flashed red behind her eyelids. When she opened them, the ground before her, on the path, was a blackened scar, the efforts of a particularly hardy shrub at the side of the trail flickering away. She stepped back, and with a crash that shook the mountain, the whole path crumbled down the rock. She watched with a sense of vague horror as their only exit tumbled down the cliffside, cracking and splitting apart as it rained along the slope. Below, far below, a crawling black mass seethed across the foothills. Even at this distance, she could hear the war chants. She thought she could spot a catapult or two. Lightning flashed above them. With a shout, she fled back into the alcove. “Luna,” she panted, staring at the mare by the door with eyes huge and bloodshot. “We really need to hurry.” Luna jumped, startled, but gave a terse nod. “Watch my back.” With a kind of forced calm, she stood, and levelled her gaze at the door. “Truth,” she began. “Inside. Destiny. Trust. Answers.” She turned back to them for an instant. “Go!” Pinkie Pie left here there, reciting words into the door with a quiet intensity, and grabbed the other Pinkie by the hoof. “Come on.” The armies had reached the foot of the mountains. Tattered banners flapped noiselessly in the thunder, and Pinkie Pie watched with a nervous eye as they began to load the weapons. “What do you think he’s doing?” she asked Pinkie. “Why is he devising armies and soldiers and catapults if this is his dream? Why not just come up here and finish us off? Or, for that matter, why leave a riddle instead of a trap?” Pinkie didn’t respond. Pinkie Pie looked over to see the mare turned away, craning her neck to stare back at Luna, in the alcove, trying to crack the puzzle. “Hey! We’re meant to be keeping watch, here.” “I am.” “On the mountain! On the ponies attacking, and everything else. Not on her.” Pinkie looked round with a scowl. “They’re trebuchets.” “What?” “They’re trebuchets, not catapults!” Pinkie Pie frowned. “Oh. Right.” “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be the better version of me, you sure aren’t that cheerful.” She started. “Sorry?” “You’re pretty different, actually.” Pinkie Pie opened her mouth, not quite sure if she should be offended or not. “But I’m not the better version of you.” “Really?” Pinkie looked surprised. “I thought you were. I mean, you’re far more Pinkie than I am.” “I...am?” She felt a soft flush suffuse her cheeks, and looked away. “But you’re, like, actually her, aren’t you?” She heard Pinkie sigh. “I don’t think so, really.” “Sure you are!” Pinkie Pie sat forward, taking Pinkie’s hoof in her own. “You’re fun, and energetic, and thoughtful—you saved me from that fall.” She rubbed the mark on Pinkie’s hoof where she’d held her. “You’re the real deal.” Pinkie lowered her eyes, chewing her lip, and her voice, when she spoke, sounded oddly guilty. “I’m not. That’s you. You’re good, and real, and...yourself. You’re far more true than I’ll ever be. You’re your own pony. Go to her.” Pinkie Pie swallowed, feeling something stick in her throat as she stared at her double. At her original. The pony she was based off...but not the pony she had to be. “I...thank you.” Maybe it would be alright, after all. Maybe she could return to Klugetown and really, fully, this time, have her own life. Be herself. “Thank you,” she whispered again. The other mare nodded, patting her on the back. “Sorry, by the way,” she said. “I promise this won’t hurt.” And she shoved. Hard. Pinkie Pie let out a scream—“Luna!” she tried to say, or “Pinkie!”, or even just “Help!”—but the wind whipped the air from her lungs. Pinkie Pie tilted over, and fell down the side of the cliff. PINKIE Discord sighed. That had really been much harder than it needed to be. No matter, it was done now. He stood from the cliffside where they had been watching, and headed back inside the alcove. It hadn’t been easy, keeping this act up for so long. Well, in objective terms, it had been less than nothing, but it had still felt like a while to keep the charade going, and that was what mattered, in the end. An eternity of endless solitude could, in purely percentile measures, take up most of one’s life, but as long as it didn’t feel that way, he’d be fine. He didn’t dream this deep, usually. This was far too near to his core for his liking, and really, who wanted their dreams to cut too close? No one, that’s who. But they’d driven him here—although he supposed he’d really always been down here; everything in here was him—and, if he was honest, he was impressed. Not that he’d expected anything less from Luna, of course, but still. It was nice to be right, for once. The beach, the swamp, he’d set up millennia ago. A first line of defence, really, that was all it was, built in haste to keep casual observers out. Could never be too careful. He’d had long to think, in his life, and while he was certainly no master strategist, his plans had been, at the very least, thorough. Any intruder would wake up in the sea. If they made it to the shore, he’d greet them, talk to them, ingratiate himself into their number. The possibility of a multi-person attack had always existed, so he’d created a backup. If one disguise was found out, they’d never suspect a second. And indeed, he’d been proven right. Another point to House Discord. Then, it had only been a matter of choosing when to reveal himself. In hindsight, perhaps he should have done that sooner. There wasn’t, after all, much point in waiting to the very end to stop them, but hey, who could blame him? It was fun. It was the sort of fun he never really got to have, outside his mind. facing overwhelming odds as a trusted team member...well, he supposed Ogres & Oubliettes had that, too. But this was real, kind of. Not roleplay, at least. Sort of. Well, Fluttershy was the only one who really trusted him, anyway, so he didn’t have much choice in the matter. In any case, it had worked. It had all worked perfectly, and been tremendous fun, and really, he hoped Luna tried again. Round 2! Oh, he’d have to come up with new tricks for that. Except it hadn’t gone perfectly, had it? He’d waited too long, that had been one thing, but there had been others, too. Saving Pinkie Pie, for example, what had that been about? Well, he’d thrown her off the cliff later anyway, but why hadn’t he just let her fall in the first place? If he hadn’t even done anything, she’d have fallen by herself. It would have been far less suspicious for drop there. Not that it mattered. Really, the only true issue had been the door. He looked over at it, at Luna standing before it, speaking words increasingly nonsensical into the seal. All right, sure, it was funny, but he hadn’t actually meant that. He hadn’t put it there. And that worried him. Because he had a sneaking suspicion he knew what the answer to the riddle was—it was hardly his best—and if he was right, if he was on the money about that, the he really didn’t want her accidentally saying the right password. Well, it was time to put an end to this. It had been fun, but that was all, folks, and it was time to cut to credits. Raising a paw in a friendly wave, he stepped back towards Luna, and— The world changed. Shifted. Altered. It felt like a shiver running across his spine, a ripple through his soul, a change of gear within his mind. Not invasive, just uncomfortable. He cursed himself for not letting that damnable Pinkie Pie fall earlier. Now, for all he knew, this had just become a lot more difficult. Or, hey, maybe it had become easier. Who could tell? With a grin, he cleared his throat. It was time to end this. EPILOGUE: A FINAL THOUGHT The ground approached at alarming speed. Pinkie had been true to her word; it looked for all the world like somepony had set up a feather mattress at the foot of the mountain. She’d still die, of course—she prayed to Celestia that Luna was right about waking up (heh, that was odd, praying to Celestia about her sister—or was it praying to Twilight, now?—she couldn’t help but wonder what Luna would think of that)—but at least it wouldn’t hurt. Probably. She concentrated, trying to think through the roar of the wind in her ears. Whatever genre had resulted in this betrayal couldn’t be good. In fact, it had to be the worst one yet. As the mattress flew towards her at breakneck speed, she squeezed her eyes shut, and concentrated for one last time. Good luck, Luna! Pinkie Pie hit the bed with a— RomanceShe felt the shift, and spun to look for Pinkie Pie. Why had she...? Oh. She felt a sudden chill as she saw Discord standing there, lion’s paw raised as he smiled innocently. “Hello, Princess.” She bit back her surprise. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Where’s Pinkie Pie? Where’s Pinkie?” Discord raised an eyebrow in mock-astonishment. “My, my, Princess, awfully quick to the draw. Why, aren’t you glad to see me?” He took a step forward. Luna swallowed, glancing back at the door as her mind raced. He took her silence as an answer, and sighed sadly. “Alas! Woe is me. Forever despised!” He cracked open an eye to see if she was watching. She looked away. “Ah! Poor Pinkie Pie! Betrayed in the last act by the pony closest to her—herself.” He gave a little giggle at some joke she didn’t get. “Needless to say, your friends are no longer with us. Sad, sad day.” “Oh, stop hanging your head,” she snapped. “You know well they yet live, so spare me your fool’s sorrow. You were always a poor player.” “Ack!” An arrow sprouted from Discord’s breast, followed by another, and another. He stumbled back until he lay on the ground, his breathing loud and rasping. “You wound me, Princess! In any case...” he stood, brushing the arrows off his chest as if wiping a snowflake from his coat, “I am sorry about it. Genuinely. Pinkie Pie was quite distraught. I have a heart, you know.” He blinked, like he hadn’t meant to say that. Luna frowned. “What’s the expression they use in Saddle Arabia? I don’t want your crocodile’s tears.” “How cruel.” “Eat me.” Discord laughed. “You are well-travelled. You know, I always considered you the rather shyer, bookish sort. I assumed that’s why Celestia chose Twilight as her pupil while you were away.” Rolling her eyes, Luna stepped forward. “That’s not going to work, Discord.” “Ah, but it might! That’s the thing with you ponies, one never knows.” There’s something more going on here. Luna couldn’t put her hoof on it, she couldn’t even really say why she felt it, but it was there nevertheless. An undercurrent. Almost subconscious. She blinked, suddenly wondering just how far down they were inside Discord’s mind at this point, at any rate. “What’s behind this door, by the way?” she tried, casually. “Anything important?” He shrugged. “You tell me. You must have thought there was something in there worth all this. You brought it up, with all your mind-trickery. There was nothing specific in your head for me to hide from you, so whatever’s in here, some part of me sure thinks it’s important.” Taking a risk, she turned to face the door, to examine it once more. Come on, she willed him, don’t let it end here. After a moment, he stepped up beside her. “I’d forgotten, you know,” she said quietly. She hoped it wasn’t the wrong thing to say. Discord was silent for a moment, until simply, “I never did.” For some time they just stood there, these two immortals, within a dream, staring down an imaginary door. Her time was running out, she knew. Discord’s patience was far from infinite, and he didn’t actually want her to break the seal. Not consciously, anyway. “And what’s the deal with this riddle?” Discord scratched his beard, as if in thought, then pulled out a flea. “That one’s on you again,” he said. “Some mutation of your games, as far as I can tell.” That...wasn’t how that was supposed to work. Why was she in here? What had her past self wanted to know so badly she’d wipe her own mind to find it out? What was she missing? “Well!” Discord clapped his paws, breaking her trail of thought. “I’ve enjoyed this, I must admit. But all good things must come to an end, and sadly...” He looked over at her in feigned anguish. “Your number’s up.” He raised his paw to snap his claws. “Wait!” She held out a hoof, desperately rereading the riddle. Find it well, I trust. Find what well? A well of feeling? Sadness? Happiness? If open it you must. Why must she? What did she need to know—why did she still need to know? Speak only that you wish to find. It would only open if she knew what she was looking for from the start. She stared at Discord in dawning realisation. What lies inside is inside. I have a heart, you know. “What?” Discord asked, paw still raised. “What is it? Why are you smiling?” Luna found herself unable to stop, the grin spreading as far across her face as any of Pinkie’s best. For that instant, she knew, with absolute certainty, with an undeniable passion, the answer to the riddle. Or, at least, she hoped she knew it, because it would be really embarrassing if she were wrong. She turned from Discord to the door, staring at that ancient symbol, scanning over the newer inscription. She wondered just how long it had been there, anyway. Had it just appeared today? Or had it been there from that day? She decided, like her own, that it had formed somewhere in between. Yes, she liked that answer. And, as she stepped forward to voice her solution, a final thought occurred to her. Oh. That’s why it’s written in Old Ponyish. Her voice was loud and clear as she spoke. “Love.” There was a sharp intake of breath as Discord gasped. For a moment, nothing happened. He let out a relieved laugh, and Luna felt her certainty waver. It only lasted a moment, however, until, with a creak, the great stone doors swung open. The shadow of a pony emerged from the light. Dark blue. Short, for an alicorn. Big, blue eyes—or were they green? It was hard to tell. Discord trailed behind, the vast murky space of his old prison shimmering down at him. There were cages, along the walls. Luna recognised them from her most recent visit to the place—when Tirek had thrown her through, and Discord had come to rescue them. Because he knew what it was like it here. She wondered why his greatest secret was kept in his old prison, of all places, but deep down she understood. You couldn’t get out of this place on your own. Somebody had to let you out. The cages echoed with memories. In one, a sliver of light, with a dark blue alicorn at the end. In another, the days after, when she’d nursed him back to health. She remembered, of course, but...she had forgotten. A thousand years on the moon, and not a one of them spent on him. There had been so much after that. In another, larger, there was her and her sister, looking up at him, perched on his throne, and she saw their young, defiant faces scrunched in concentrated defiance. More and more she passed, and on and on she went, through their whole history, until she reached the cages at the end. Here lay things she didn’t remember, which hadn’t happened. Secret dreams, desires. She should look away—these felt somehow more private, more bare—but she found she couldn’t. What was there left to hide, in any case? The brush of hoof against claw here, the glimpse of a kiss there, a movement between the sheets—raw, naked, genuine hope. She was used to seeing ponies’ desire—it was hard not to, walking dreams every night—but this was somehow more personal, more intimate. There was no veil of decency or pretence. It was simply...Discord. The final cage was glowing. Set in its platform across the chasm, where he had once lived his years, it was far larger, and far brighter than the rest. Discord hung back as she trotted across the jagged path, and simply waited as she approached the bars. Inside, surrounded in so much white, so much hope, she almost couldn’t see it, was the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal. She was looking at the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal. She was looking at the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal... She turned to look, across the chasm, at Discord. “Is this...” she struggled for words, fumbling at what she wanted to say. “Is this is how you really feel?” Discord, across the bridge, only nodded. She turned back to the cage, and the pony in the image did the same. And the pony in that image, and that pony in that. A smile touched the edge of her mouth. “You know,” she said, spinning to cross back over the path, “I think I know why I needed to come here so badly.” “Indeed?” he raised an eyebrow at her smile. “I’m all ears.” She could see him physically resisting the urge to sprout more. She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “Yes,” she said, as she drew closer. “I do.” He swallowed, and she was close enough to see his throat move. “And for what, pray tell, was that, Princess?” She smiled, stepping closer. He had to bend down to look her in the eye, until their muzzles were almost touching. “I think I wanted to see if a certain draconequus...felt the same way I do.” She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. “And does he?” “Does he what?” She smiled, looking into his eyes, the strangeness, the familiarity of them. “Feel the same way she does?” “Well,” she said, moving closer still, “I suppose we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” Her eyes closed as she felt the softness of his lips against her own, and a moment later she felt his arms close around her, pulling her in. It lasted only a moment, but it felt so much longer, and that was what really mattered. It felt, for a breath, for the instant, like time had stopped, and there was only one other person in the world—and, in a sense, she supposed that that was true. They pulled apart, and Discord’s eyes were wide and soft and beautifully warm. “You know, Princess,” he said, his smile matching her own, “this may in fact be one of the better dreams I’ve had.” She chuckled at that, nuzzling up against his neck. “The good thing about this one, you see, is that it doesn’t have to end when you wake up.” “No,” he said, and she could feel the vibration of his words rumble through her body. “The good thing about this one is that it’s got you in it.” “Ah, well, that too, of course.” “Of course.” She rested there, feeling delightfully calm, wonderfully mellow, as she just let herself sink into him. Soon, they would have to wake up, and explain what had happened, and why—which always seemed to be the question, really, yet at least now she had found the answer—but for the moment, for a while, they simply stood, and basked in the glow of each other’s presence, and left those worries for another time. For those such as them, there was always time, and now they had a use to put it all to. The glow of the memory grew brighter and brighter, blindingly bright, until perhaps there was no memory left, and all there was was hope, as they stood, and loved, and dreamed awhile longer.
MysteryWhat— Where— Why— Water gasped and fizzed around her head, sucking, swallowing, until—air!—she was pulled under again, paddling wildly, legs and wings thrashing beneath the waves, lungs burning beneath the cold—air, she needed air—something caught against her hoof, and she almost swallowed another mouthful of the freezing ocean; she thrashed forward, her hooves connecting again, and suddenly she was above the swirling, drowning waves, and she could see the sky, the sand, the sea—a few moments longer, and she was safe on shore. The sand was warm, wet, and deliciously firm—it was ground, it was not the sea, and that was what mattered. She lay there, the beach harsh against her cheek, and tried to breathe through her choking, through the water that bubbled from her mouth with every rasping cough. Foaming waves lapped gently around her, ebbing beneath her dripping feathers and fur. It took her an alarming amount of time, about the same length as her lungs took to even, to realise somepony was watching her. “You made it.” Luna scrambled to her hooves, jumping back from the pony. It took her a moment to recognise the mare. “...Pinkie Pie?” The mare nodded, turning away. She too was damp, her mane hanging wetly in a tangled rag over her shoulder. A trail of hoofprints tailed away behind her from a half-washed scuffle at the sea. Further along the shore, another pony was clawing herself free of the waves, eyes wide and fearful. A third, who somehow seemed much drier than the others, was already standing, waiting, on the sand. All three of them, it was impossible not to notice, had the same pink mane and fur. “Wh-what’s going on?” Luna asked, scrambling to catch up to Pinkie Pie—the first one, anyway. “How...how did we get here?” As she spoke, she realised that she had no idea where, exactly, here was. A sandy coast. Frost-tipped blue waves lapping upon the sands. Dry grass sprouting here and there and tufting into great white dunes behind them. She tilted her head, squinting up into the bright blue sky. The sun winked down beneath a perfect chequerboard of clouds, layered in their rows upon rows like a great chessboard plastered across the heavens. Suddenly, somehow, she felt even less sure of their whereabouts. “Everypony alright?” called the first Pinkie Pie, as they all gathered about her. Luna stared desperately around herself for something that made sense. Where had she been? What was the last thing she remembered? Her place in Silver Shoals, staring up at the ceiling...a ceiling warm and hoofmade, far from this remote precision. She had been thinking about...something. She couldn’t remember what. Tracing the wavering painted lines of the ceiling, thoughts following their ripples and turns, wandering...and then darkness, blankness. Like someone had taken a great scoop out of her memories and left nothing behind but void. “Just— just about,” said the second, vigorously shaking herself dry. The third, whose mane and tail were free enough of water to puff up with most of their usual bounce, gave a smile. “Sure am!” All three of them were undeniably Pinkie. They had her fur, her eyes, her spark. It was as unmistakable as it was unlikely. One of the Pies, apparently the most intelligent of the lot, looked around, frowning. “I don’t suppose anyone knows where we are, by chance?” Luna shook her head. “I’ve never seen this place before.” The dry Pinkie shrugged dramatically. “Nope! Don’t even know how we got here.” “My initial thought would be a ship,” said the first one wryly, “but I hardly see any evidence of one.” Luna got the distinct impression that an old gentlepony’s suit and tie would not go amiss on the mare. Indeed, as she shaded her eyes with a hoof to gaze out to sea, she saw Pinkie Pie was right: not so much as a plank bobbed along the waves. “The real question, though,” the dry Pinkie said, her voice slow, suspicious, as she levelled her gaze at Luna, “is why on Equestria we’re here!” Luna stepped back, opening her mouth to defend herself, but the first Pinkie Pie cut in. “She hired us.” “Huh?” “She did?” “I did?” “You did.” Pinkie Pie scowled. “You sought us out—or me, at least—you needed a Pinkie, for some reason, and said you had a job for me.” She looked round at the other two with wide eyes. “I— I thought I was the only one, though.” Luna frowned, the white space where her memories should be ringing empty as she tried to place it. “I...don’t remember.” “Of course you wouldn’t.” “Huh? Why wouldn’t she?” Why wouldn’t I? Luna frowned, wracking her memories, but the emptiness gave up nothing. Luna knew the difference between remembrances which were merely hidden, and those that had been erased entirely, snipped neatly from her mind and destroyed. This void, she feared—she knew—was very much the latter. She caught the smart Pinkie staring at her, and cleared her throat. “Mind magic.” “Mind Magic?” The dry Pinkie tilted her head, as if a different angle would help the problem. “That’s right.” “You wiped our memories,” agreed Pinkie Pie. “Your memory, my memory—their memories too, it seems. The question is why.” “Yes...” smart Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “Why would you do that?” Luna swallowed. “You don’t know? Surely I would leave somepony...” “The last thing I remember is you saying that if I accepted, I’d need to have my mind wiped.” Pinkie Pie kicked at the sand in disgust. “Apparently, I said yes.” “So that’s it?” asked the dry Pinkie, “That’s really all we have?” “Yup.” Pinkie Pie’s voice was grim. “We don’t know where we are, we don’t know what we’re supposed to do, and we don’t know how long we’ve got to do it.” She cast Luna a frown. “Whatever this is, it had better be worth it.” “Oooooh,” dry Pinkie’s eyes widened in delight. “I like mysteries!” “Well,” mused Luna, gazing back out across the sparkling sea, “until we solve this one, I’m not sure it matters how long we have. I’m not seeing a way off this place, so it looks like we’ve got as much time as we need.” “Unless we don’t,” said smart Pinkie, with a worried smile. “Indeed,” agreed her fellow Pinkie Pie, with even less cheer. “Unless we don’t.” None of them knew how long they’d been walking. The beach was far behind them, at least, and growing farther with every step. The dunes had soon given way to grassy brushland, which had just as quickly grown into a forest, which had sunk into a swap. Through the scattered canopy above, the chequered ceiling was just about visible, the sky behind those cut-square clouds purplish and shining. As they picked their way over the stinking logs, the path beneath their hooves squishy and unsteady, Luna’s heart seemed to sink with her steps. A creeping suspicion, growing stronger by the minute, had taken residence inside her head, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t quite shake it out. She was beginning to think she knew exactly where they were. The detail was good, she had to admit. The shrubbery was wet, the undergrowth lively, and the bulbous, orange eyes which followed them along the path shy enough to be not a little creepy. But it wasn’t perfect. The sky, for one, was an obvious instance. The air in this place was too cold. Luna knew what swamp air smelt like, what it tasted like, the way it stuck in your throat and clogged your lungs—Celestia had dragged her on enough excitement for the feeling to be so deeply ingrained the mere memory could make her shiver—and the air here simply wasn’t quite right. It didn’t have the right temperature, the right stickiness, the right viscosity. The forest, further, had given way too quickly. Barely ten trees had gone by before the murk had taken over, and each had seemed a rather half-hearted affair, tall and straight and without a hint of personality about them. High enough and wide enough to be ten years old; and not a flaw for any one of those years. She half-wondered what would happen if she cut one open. And then, of course, there was the mountain. They had seen it in the distance from the dunes, and, without another goal to reach, had set out determinedly towards it. In all that time, it had grown not an inch. In fact—she’d measured it, holding a hoof against her eye for scale—she was pretty sure it was getting further away. Luna had walked enough minds to know the signs—and every one of them was just slightly off. They were in a dream, that much was certain. The only question, really, was whose. To create a space at this detail, in this resolution... The chill that passed along her spine had nothing to do with the temperature. “Um, Princess, are you okay?” Pinkie’s voice echoed strangely off the marsh, soggy almost, like the damp had infiltrated her very being. “I’m alright, Pinkie, thank you,” she said, turning her head to give the mare a reassuring smile. “It’s just...” “What?” asked the smart Pinkie, from behind. Luna sighed. “I...” she paused, considering how to put it. “Do you remember the night, many moons ago, when you came to my aid against the Tantabus?” “Pardon?” asked the first Pinkie Pie, from up ahead. “The what?” “The...Tantabus?” Luna repeated, with less certainty. “The creature of my nightmares that escaped into your own? Almost escaped into the real world?” She stopped, staring in disbelief at the three blank expressions. “We only barely stopped it from destroying Equestria?” How could they not remember? “I’m afraid it doesn’t ring a bell,” smart Pinkie said. Did it truly mean so little? Luna had a memory an aeon old—give or take a few vacant spots—and she could recall most everything about that night, when they had helped her see, for the first time, how much she had really changed—had shown her that Nightmare Moon was gone, vanquished, never to well up again. The night when that boiling, oozing sore deep inside had started to heal... “None of you remember?” “Princess,” said Pinkie, with a vague roll of her hoof, “we do a lot of world-saving.” “I wouldn’t remember anyway,” the first Pinkie Pie said quietly. Smart Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?” “Forget it.” Luna started off again, pushing through the muck. “Perhaps the memory was removed, as as mine have been, or perhaps you simply don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.” The salt, drying in the cool air, crusting her fur, stung a little. “We shared a dream, that night, and I fear...I’m almost certain...something similar is happening just now.” Behind her, two sets of hooves drew to a stop. The air seemed to slow, the wind change, colder and harsher against her fur as she turned to face them. “You mean...we’re in a dream?” Pinkie’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Who dreams about a swamp?” “Do you know?” asked smart Pinkie, “Whose dream this is, I mean.” “Can we talk about this on the move?” Pinkie Pie stomped her hoof in irritation. “I’m not sure it makes any difference,” said Luna, bluntly. “I don’t think that mountain’s getting closer either way.” Smart Pinkie smiled. “So you did notice.” “You knew?” Luna’s frown deepened. “ Then why—” “Maybe it’s just reeeally far away,” suggested Pinkie cheerfully. “If we just keep going—” “That’s not how dreams—” “How do dreams work, then?” Pinkie Pie moved closer. “Can’t we just—” “Whose dream are we in, Princess?” smart Pinkie’s voice cut through the noise as she watched Luna, staring deep into her eyes. For a moment, the silence was complete, broken not by the wind, or the water, or the ferns, or the ponies. An awful, alien quiet, distant and absolute, impossibly still. “...I know of only a few minds capable of a world this particular.” Sound flooded back as Luna’s words broke the calm. Nopony else yet dared breathe. “And I dread to think why we’d visit any of them.” Pinkie Pie swallowed nervously. “Who is it, then?” “I hope I’m wrong. I really, sincerely hope I’m wrong.” Luna looked up again at the chequerboard clouds, and levelled her gaze again at the smart Pinkie. There was something in those eyes, she thought, something strange, other, not entirely pony. The mare smiled, and as she watched that smile stretched too wide, even for Pinkie, her mouth too sharp to be real. “Bingo!” Smart Pinkie’s voice was hoarse, gleeful, as it deepened. Her mane was all of a sudden too thin, her coat all of a sudden too pale, her neck all of a sudden too long. As they watched, she seemed to lengthen, warp, distort, mutate, somehow all without changing even slightly. Nubs of bone split the fur on her head, claws forced themselves through her hooves, and in an instant, she was standing before them different, twisted—and yet precisely the same. “Discord,” Luna breathed, setting herself firmly against the ground. “In the flesh!” he said brightly, stroking his beard with a grin. “I wondered how long it would take you.” “Of course it’s you.” Luna grit her teeth, waving for the remaining Pinkies to stand back. “Well who else did you expect? Oh, I’m curious—who were the other people who could do all this?” he waved a lazy paw at the surrounding marsh, which bloomed with sudden life at his gesture. “What are you up to now, Discord? What have you done that made me come in here?” “Beats me,” he shrugged. Plucking a mutant flower from the path, he tossed it from one claw to the other. “I honestly assumed you’d know—clever trick, that, by the way. Very devious. But I’m afraid whatever it is, I really can’t have you wandering about in here all by yourselves.” Behind her, Pinkie waved a hoof enthusiastically. “I’m sure we have good reasons!” “Well, maybe,” Discord conceded. “It’s really more the idea of thing thing, though, isn’t it?” “We can’t leave until we know why we’re here.” Luna lowered her head, training her horn directly on him. Discord’s snaggle tooth gleamed in the sunlight as be bared his fang in a smile. “You know, I was kind of hoping you would say that.” “I believe it. You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” “Oh, now Princess,” he said with a pout, “that’s not quite fair.” His grin widened as he pointed the flower straight back at her. “I’ve changed just as much as you have.” Discord’s eyes sparked, the flower glowed, and a beam of light cut the air as Luna ducked out the way. Her horn flashed, and a shimmering blue shield fizzled up around her. Discord laughed. “Get out of my head!” Another beam ripped the ground as it bounced off her shield, and Luna felt her magic flicker for a second at the force of it. She couldn’t keep this up. With a gasp, she turned, lifting Pinkie Pie out the way of another bolt, feeling the heat of it sear the ground behind her. Her lungs burned as she burst into action, instinct taking over, flooding her system, as she yelled the only option they had left. “Run!” As they took off, she tried desperately to think. She had come in here with a plan, surely. She wasn’t such a fool as to venture into Discord’s mind without one—unless of course that was the plan, to have no plan; but no, that was silly, no plan didn’t count as a plan—he was too dangerous for that—she ducked another bolt, the ground beside her exploding in a cheerful, fiery powder—and besides, she’d clearly had something, because there was the space left where it had been. She cursed her younger self for all this nonsense. What had she been thinking? What—she darted to avoid a beam—had—rolling, another skipped by her, missing her head by inches—she—tree, tree!—been—she screeched to a halt as one flew just ahead, hammering into the ground just where she would have been—thinking? “Luna!” She looked over, barely dodging a line that singed her mane. “What?” “Luna!”—suddenly Pinkie Pie was galloping next to her, her fur bloodied and streaked with dirt—“Why did you bring us? Why did you need us in a dream?” A dream! Yes, of course, this was a dream! Why was she running, this was a dream, she was the mistress of dreams, it was in her title! This was the most detailed dream she’d yet seen, but it was a dream nonetheless. Her horn glowed, light spilling out, brighter and brighter as she concentrated, her whole vision turning a sickly washed-out blue, visualising the world around her as just some thing, some construct, created and imagined by some being, and changeable and malleable as such, and with a quick prayer to whatever gods or powers may have been watching, grabbed the world by its concept—and yanked. Nothing happened. Luna was so shocked she almost hit a tree, narrowly veering out of the way as it whisked past at alarming speed. “What happened?” cried Pinkie Pie. “I...I don’t know.” Luna slowed as she reached the edge of the foliage, and realised they were back upon those same sand dunes they’d started out from. This is Discord’s dream. The laws of nature were more like guidelines to him at the best of times. Her eyes widened. “Pinkie Pie! Try to focus!” “Wh—” She was cut off by a bolt vaporising the ground by her hooves. “What?” “Imagine the world as a concept! It’s a dream. Grab hold of that dream. Like it’s a book!” “Alright?” “Pick up a different book!”
Comedy“Like...this?” Luna cracked open an eye. Nothing had changed. And yet, somehow... “Where...where did he go?” asked Pinkie, wheezing to a stop beside them. “What happened?” Luna grinned. Her face felt fit to burst. “You did it!” “I...did?” Pinkie Pie looked just as shocked as she had. “Yay!” Pinkie rushed up and squeezed her twin in a full-body hug. “You did it! Or...I guess we did it? How does that work?” Pinkie Pie smiled, relief showing plain on her face as she sagged. “Does it matter? It was done.” “Yeah!” Pinkie punched the air triumphantly. “It was done! Take that, Discord!” She paused. “Um, what exactly was it that we done?” Pinkie Pie looked over at Luna, who only nodded. “We...” she turned back to Pinkie. “I picked a different book.” “Right...?” “It’s like...” she shot a helpless look at Luna, who sighed. “It’s like a story. That’s all a dream is. Pinkie Pie just put down the book we were reading and swapped it for another one. She changed the type of story we were living—she changed the genre.” Pinkie frowned. “So what genre are we in now?” Luna looked in askance at Pinkie Pie, who only shrugged. “Haven’t the foggiest.” “That’s an issue.” “What is?” asked Pinkie. “Normally, when I do it, I have some control. I can choose a genre to switch into. Mystery into comedy, for example.” Luna sighed. “Discord’s magic is so chaotic, though...we could be in anything. I’m not sure it would even be possible to control it. I’m amazed you can control his magic at all.” Pinkie Pie chewed her lip. “I suppose that’s why you needed Pinkies.” “That will be it.” “So...what happens if one of us—ahem—kicks the bucket in here?” she asked. Pinkie gasped. “Some of those beams came pretty close, after all.” Luna shrugged. “You’ll wake up.” “So you’re telling me we should have let him kill us?” “Look,” Luna stood, bringing her hoof down upon the sand. It failed to have the desired impact. She tried again. “We came here for a reason. Clearly all of us thought that whatever it was, it was worth risking ourselves for. We need to follow through.” “What if Discord kills us?” countered Pinkie Pie. “Not in here, I mean, out there. The fellow didn’t exactly seem overjoyed we were poking around in his head.” “Discord wouldn’t do that!” Pinkie said, jumping to her hooves. “I know he can be a bit mean sometimes, but he’s not a monster!” “He is evidently a monster,” Pinkie Pie disagreed. “That is quite literally what he is. Species: Monster.” “Species: Draconequus!” “Have you ever seen any other Draconequus...es? He made them up. He’s a charlatan, a fluke.” “Maybe he’s just really old! Maybe all the other Draconequui died a long time ago!” “Pinkie!” bellowed Luna. “Yes? “Y-yeah?” “I agree...” she paused, breathing in, “I agree with Pinkie. You. That one.” She pointed at the Pinkie with the buoyant hair. “Not I?” Pinkie Pie looked mildly offended. “I just saved us all, one would think I’m owed a little loyalty.” “Do you see Rainbow Dash around here anywhere? No, you don’t.” Pinkie stuck her tongue out at her sibling. “It’s nothing but laughter and moon...spirit around these parts.” Luna held her head in her hooves. “Discord take me now.” “Is that the sort of thing you should be saying in Discord’s dream?” wondered Pinkie. “One never knows,” Pinkie Pie waggled her eyebrows conspiratorially, “maybe that’s the kind of genre I switched us into.” Luna sighed. This was going to be a long, long walk. “Are we there yet?” She couldn’t help but wonder what would be more painful—this, or Discord’s laser. At the moment, this was winning. “Nope. Are we there yet?” It had quickly become extremely, horribly clear just what sort of genre Pinkie Pie had switched them into. The first rake Luna had stepped on had been strong clue, but it was the fourth that had really sealed the deal. “Doesn’t seem so. Are we there yet?” She was somewhat impressed she hadn’t snapped and killed one of them yet. As far as she knew, they only needed one Pie alive to reach the mountain. “Why are we even going to this mountain in the first place?” Pinkie asked, scuffing her hooves along the path and neatly avoiding yet another rake. “What’s even in there?” “It could be a dragon!” suggested Pinkie Pie, who had not nearly the skill as her fellow in the departments of rake detection and avoidance. “With a hoard of gold.” “Could be a dragon!” suggested Pinkie, skipping merrily over another badly disguised gardening implement. “With some gems!” “That makes more sense, actually, yes. Still! Gems are valuable.” She pursed her lips. “Mostly to dragons. And fashion designers!” “If you found some dragon fashion designers, you’d really hit the jackpot. Maybe that’s what’s in the cave!” “There’s a cave? Can you see it?” “More of an alcove, really. And I’m just thinking out loud.” That much was painfully, achingly obvious. “Mountains do usually have caves,” said Pinkie Pie with a nod. “Hardly a mountain at all if it doesn’t at least have an alcove.” “The only question is what’s in it.” Pinkie considered this, walking backwards as she turned to face Luna. “What do you think, Princess? What’s in the cave?” Luna scowled. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably some great secret of Discord’s he wants desperately to keep hidden, but hovers, blistering, at the edge of his consciousness, bubbling through to his dream-world as a vast, nigh-impenetrable fortress he can’t hide even from himself—so his mind surrounds it in layers of rock, layers of psyche, until he’s convinced it’s hidden from almost anyone, except for the fact by this point he’s concentrated so distinctly on not thinking about it at all that it looms miles above everything else. An enormous, glittering vault containing something he really doesn’t want anypony to find.” Pinkie stared, mouth hanging open, stopped in her tracks. “Yes,” said Pinkie Pie, hurrying to keep up, “probably more something like that, now that I think about it.” They trotted in silence for a few moments longer, until finally Pinkie recovered her voice. “Are we there yet?” Luna snapped to a halt. Please, merciful universe. “No! We’re not there yet. But you just keep on saying that, and maybe we will be!” “Actually,” said Pinkie Pie, “I think we are.” Frowning, Luna looked up, to see that mound of repressed revelation gazing back down at her like the sharpened tooth of some enormous beast. Actually, if she squinted, it bore more than a little resemblance to Discord’s tooth. Finally. With a grin, she stepped forward again, and the rake snapped up to smack her in the face. “Pinkie!” she yelled. “Change this genre now.”
BildungsromanSome genres, it must be remarked, expressed themselves in subtler ways. Others did not. “I don’t remember being born,” began Pinkie Pie, “I suspect this is true of most ponies—but for myself most especially, the circumstances of my coming into being may, I hope, forgive this lapse in memory.” Pinkie, as it came to pass, had, for some reason been unable to flip genres. Pinkie Pie had again been called to action, and Luna was starting to wonder if the mare’s luck at the trick was actually the result of some masochistic, torturous urge. Or perhaps she simply had terrible taste. “You see, I, like many of my sisters, who sadly now all lie drowned, am the progeny of just one mare. A very special mare, it must be agreed, but a single mare nonetheless. I am a clone.” Of course, Luna had known about the remaining Pinkie clone wandering the world. There had been reports—disturbing reports—about the pink mare being sighted in two cities at once—and, on one particularly memorable occasion, the same diner at once—which Celestia, given the mare’s history with the ancient Mirror Pool of Ponyvillian legend, had seen fit to investigate—Luna had walked the mare’s dreams, and seen her obvious intelligence, seen her quickly forming personality—and had deemed her to be indeed a different pony from her originator, and as such a being with a moral worth all her own. “I wandered this word destitute and alone, robbed even of my friends, whom I had just barely begun to know, by the fact of my horrid nature. For many years I walked Equestria, seeking those that would have me. I found few willing to accept my help. I stayed a time at an old Canterlot boarding house for orphans. I did my hours at the docks, working with the fisherponies to bring bread to the table. I stayed a while at the country house of an elderly donkey named Miranda, whose daughter Matilda had vanished to some backwater, leaving her as friendless and abandoned as I. We parted ways on good terms, and for personal reasons, and if I should run into her again tomorrow I should greet her with a friendly smile. “The body of my self-discovery, though, I tell you, if it can be said to have happened at all, happened in the town of my most recent stay, and unless my memories have been tampered with beyond repair—a condition which would leave me as unsurprised as it would uninspired—the town in which I still make residence: namely, the small town at Equestria’s border known to one and all as Klugetown.” Luna, as the hillocks rose steeper, and the incline of the ground rose larger, wondered if she hadn’t rather have stayed in the comedy. “I arrived there on the second moon of last spring, when the ice was still melting on the rooftops. It seemed to me at the time a most lonely and miserable affair, and I didn’t anticipate my staying long at all. All this was interrupted however, and my life forever altered, by the arrival in town of a Miss Lady Tempest Shadow—whose real name, when I reveal it later, will be sure to amuse you—who was travelling the land on most intriguing business. We shall, however, get to that later. I met her first on the eve of the Spring Ball...” This was all Pinkie’s fault. It had all started when the mare had, seemingly out of nowhere, asked, “What did you mean, when you said to me earlier that you didn’t wouldn’t remember the Tantabus anyway?” At which point, needing no further prompting, her clone had started off on her account. “A most delightful dinner. Afterwards, when all were so full and stuffed with fish—despite the sealife-adjacent nature of most of our companions, the humble ocean-dweller is by far the most eaten meal about town—we retired to Capper’s drawing room, and there Ms. Tempest, after much excited interest on the part of myself and my allies, was persuaded to entreat us to a piano tune she had composed herself. It was during this song, dear companions, that I found myself trembling upon the edge of realisation: and when she finished the song, and her voice and playing trailed off into the silence in which the only other feeling in the room was basic, rudimentary awe, I tumbled over the brink of that awful canyon—you see, I had found myself quite in love. “Yet who was I to love such a creature? A penniless wretch, with no being nor fortune, who could give the dear Lady none of that she was sure to want. I confess I most embarrassed myself that night, fleeing from the scene as I did, so suddenly.” The foothills soon expanded, growing into larger and larger rises, melding together as the mountain proper began to assert itself over the surrounding landscape. The first order of business, as they approached this colossal shape, had to be a path. Climbing this monolith without one would be next to impossible, and Luna didn’t fancy her chances clinging to the sheer side of a mountain slope. Discord didn’t want them to climb it, so naturally there would be a path. All they had to do was stumble upon it. “I spent that next week in the blackest of moods, railing and thundering and taking no calls. She sent me three letters in that week; in my stupor, I burned them all. It was only when, at last, I found myself at risk of driving away every friend I had—every creature gained among my travels—that I found myself at last able to grasp the last of my sanity, and with it, pull myself through. That indeed was three weeks before the very events, and the meeting of a genuine Princess—or Princess now-resigned—which started off this sorry adventure. First, however, there is a final part to my sorry tale that must be told, for fear of being accused a devil or a liar. “In the dark of a storm one night, as I gazed, entirely morose, at the raindrops pattering against the fog of my window, there came a knocking—a knocking at my chamber door. I opened it to discover my father, long thought non-existent, had arrived to pay me a visit—” “Oh, look!” said Luna brightly, as Pinkie Pie, engrossed as she was in her sorrowful tale, tripped on a rock, nearly turning her ankle. “I fear we’ll need your full concentration for this endeavour, Miss Pie. Pinkie Pie nodded, following her duty with dueful solemnity, and with a thought, and a grasp, and a yank, reality changed.
High Fantasy PROLOGUE: SNAKE IN THE GRASS The black cell echoed with memories past. In the dim half-light that pervaded this place, they swirled and moved about him, a prison as effective as the great bars that surrounded him. He’d lost count long ago of the years they’d kept him here, locked away inside this cage, chained and tied with spells and antimagic runes more ancient even that he. Whoever had built this place had created a hell unparalleled, standing alone among the Artifacts as untainted, untouchable, unbreakable. A place constructed to serve one very specific purpose. He shivered to imagine what beast it had been built to contain. Of course, now it contained him. And for what crime? For what tresspass had he been sentenced to an eternity behind these unyielding bars? The memories slipped by, one by one, along the walls. He turned away. Lying down upon the floor, he gazed up at the ceiling—that colourless, dispassionate metal, so close to the night sky, and yet so far—and wished, for the latest in a series of countless times, to see the stars. One glimmer of light in the cold, impassive darkness. One speck against the void. He would take that, only that, and it would fuel him for the next hundred, the next thousand, the next million years. Just one. Click! He sat up. Ears perked, straining to catch another hint of noise. Moments passed. He didn’t move, staying, eyes closed, listening—for what else had he to do?—for whatever the noise had been. Perhaps he was going mad. Perhaps, after all this time, it was finally happening. He smiled. At the very least, it would be entertaining. Click! Again. There it was. he moved forward, grabbing the bars in his paw, his claw, pressing his face as close against them as he could as he listened. Click! If he was imagining it, he was impressed with himself. They seemed to come just when they shouldn’t, on the cusp of being too late, just after being too early, it was— Click! The end of the hall lit up, a thin, wavering crack of light spilling across the floor. The groaning of the great door was unbelievably loud, the light incomprehensibly bright, and he realised, then, that it was true. He was, at last, at long, long last, finally losing himself. Ah well, he thought, best just to roll with it, eh? The shadow of a pony emerged from the light. Dark blue. Short, for an alicorn. Big, blue eyes—or were they green? It was hard to tell. He found himself grinning. “Hello there,” he said, breathing in the air of a new age, “can I help you with something?” LUNA There was something familiar about the mountain. Her hooves ached as she ploughed on through the snow, frozen stiff and brittle against the ground. The icy flakes spiralled down in a fell wind, laying with exquisite gentleness upon each and every thing in sight. They lay down gracefully, easily, upon the frosted banks of their brethren, upon the shining exposed rock, upon her fur, and she wished—hardly for the first time—that Discord wasn’t so cursedly imaginative as to have made the snow so very cold. Her breath came out in puffs in the chill air, clouding up around her face and the faces of her companions as they fought on through the blizzard. It was too detailed, that was it. Imagination could take you a long way, an incredibly long way, really, but it could never quite match reality. Reality was harsh, and unforgiving, and full of bizarre little details nopony—and nocreature—could ever think up themselves. Not even Discord. If she didn’t know better, she wouldn’t have known she was even in a dream. Holding out a foreleg, she caught one flake upon her hoof, and brought it up to her face to examine it. Imperfect, incomplete, half-formed—not the eerily precise texture of the rest of Discord’s dream, but an actual, veritable snowflake. She caught herself half-wondering if maybe their latest escape hadn’t pulled them back to Equestria—but no. This was simply an area of unbelievable detail. Not an invention, then, but a memory. A memory of such quality, such clarity, it wavered on reality. Why then, she wondered, was this mountain so familiar? She must have visited it at some point, must have come here at some time, far away, half-forgotten in the depths of her mind. “C-can we p-please just switch genres again?” quavered the voice of Pinkie Pie, from the back. Luna grit her teeth against the chill, clamping them together to stop the chattering. “We can’t risk it,” she managed to get out. “That way lies certain terrors.” She gasped, sucking in a gulp of air, feeling her lungs tighten at the feeling. “This one seems benign so far.” “D-define ben-nign,” said Pinkie, at her rear. “I promise you, this is better than s-some others.” “N-no,” Pinkie got out a laugh through the frozen air, “I’m s-serious, I r-really don’t know wh-what it-t means.” Despite the cold, Luna managed a smile. The path underhoof thinned, and then thinned further, until they were walking on what amounted to little more than an icy ledge, clinging to the side of the rock. Inches to her left, snow plunged down, down, several hundred hooves, until it settled on a stubbly, uneven surface that Luna had been on enough adventures to know covered a rather jagged landing. She regretted not having any rope to string them together with on this path. But this was Discord’s dream, and even if she could conjure some, it would only draw his attention. She hoped his eye would stay elsewhere for the moment. Where have I seen this before? The answer was important: in all his thousand thousand years, Discord remembered this mountain in perfect clarity. She knew it too, she knew she did—but sift her memory as she might, it eluded her. That was the trouble with being so very old. By the time you found just what it was you were looking for, the reason for remembrance had often passed. There came a sudden yelp from behind, and Luna spun to see a look of horror on Pinkie Pie’s face as her hoof slipped. The mare stepped forward to correct herself, and for a moment—a precious moment—it looked as if she would make it. She even had time to let out a little sigh of relief, to start to shrug apologetically to her companions, before, with a strangled cry, her hindhoof gave way, and she dropped off the side of the cliff. “No!—” Luna’s horn ignited, ready to catch her in a telekinetic field, but she was too late—there was nothing to grab—and she felt herself deflate. She stared at the ledge where Pinkie Pie had been in shock. The mare wasn’t dead, but for a moment it felt as though she was, and Luna certainly didn’t want to look over the edge to see her remains. “Help...” The voice was tense, strained, and Luna realised with a start it was coming from Pinkie, who, unlike her, was not simply staring at the ground. Luna dropped to all fours, crawling forward, and peered off the edge of the face. There Pinkie Pie hung, dangling from her fellow Pinkie’s hoof, a look of strange elation on her muzzle. “...Please...” “Ah!” Luna focused, taking the mare in a levitation field, and floated her carefully back up to the ledge. “Sorry!” “I’m— I’m ok-kay.” Pinkie Pie lay there, shivering, clinging to the ledge like it was life itself. Her hoof—where Pinkie had caught her—was red and raw. “I’m f-fine,” she said, after a second, then, as if to reassure herself of the truth of it, repeated, “I’m fine.” Pinkie, for her part, was staring at her hoof like it had just bitten her. “Come on,” Luna said, “we’re almost there.” Ah. The path had, happily, widened out again, and then turned inward, sloping down just as it reached the peak to meet a shallow, thinly covered alcove, protected from the worst of the snow by a convenient rocky shelf. “What exactly,” asked Pinkie Pie, limping carefully over to stand beside her, “is that?” Luna said nothing, stepping forward to lay a hoof on the smooth, black stone. She gently traced the ancient lines cut into its surface, the circles and corners and sharp lines, the remnants of a culture, a species, a being—who knew?—long gone. One of the few traces of their ever existing at all. She remembered the pattern on the parchment, found in the remnants of a dead king’s palace. She remembered the stone, so smooth, so cold to the touch. And at last, finally, she remembered the mountain. “Tartarus,” she breathed. PINKIE PIE Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but stare. “Tartarus?” she asked, disbelievingly. “You’re not telling me that’s real?” “Of course not, silly!” Pinkie said, behind her. Pinkie, when they’d rounded the corner on this place, had stopped almost as suddenly as Luna, watching with wide eyes her reaction to the place. “We’re in a dream. It’s just a legend!” “No,” Luna shook her head, eyes still locked on the great ebony slab, “it’s real, all right. This is a memory. This is where...” she trailed off. “Where what?” Pinkie prompted. “Where he was...where I...” she turned, looking Pinkie Pie directly in the eye. “We need to get inside.” Pinkie Pie nodded. “Alright. How?” Frowning, Luna turned back to the door. “I don’t know. I’ve only been here twice...and only once opened it. Last time I used magic, but I have my doubts about its usefulness here.” “Why don’t you try it anyway?” Pinkie offered. “It’s worth a shot,” agreed Pinkie Pie. Luna bit her lip, the spire of her horn lighting up, and sent a pulsing line of magic to the door. The lines lit up, the grooves cut deep into the stone slowly filling up with a bright blue glow, until the entire symbol was shining. For a moment, nothing happened, until the blue glow vanished. Words, cut as deep into the rock as the seal, but somehow, Pinkie Pie could tell, less ancient than it, appeared in a wash above the symbol: Ongeanwirdness brêost nm tyhten, thither andgitfullic hit hê êow must. Secgan ðætte êow willaninfindan infindan, swâðêah ârêdian sê georne, yfel ontrêowan. ;P “What is it?” She found herself speaking quietly, almost reverently. Luna was less impressed. “It’s Old Ponyish. Discord’s little riddle for me. One last barrier.” “What does it say?” asked Pinkie, evidently unable to keep her curiosity down. “Roughly translated?” Luna raised an eyebrow, “What lies inside is inside, if open it you must. Speak only that you wish to find, and find it well, I trust.” She paused. “And there’s a winking face at the end.” “Any idea what it means?” Pinkie moved closer, looking between the door and Luna, then back to the door. Luna shrugged. “It’s a riddle. I don’t expect to solve it right away.” Pinkie Pie stared, rolling the words over in her mind. She was pretty sure there was something they were missing, something obvious... She willed herself to work it out, to think... Oh. So, that was it. She blinked. “It means he knows exactly where we are.” The gears spun, shifting and clicking in her head as she worked it out. “It means he always knew where we’d end up...it means he wanted us to reach here!” Pinkie Pie imagined it was difficult for a dark blue mare to go pale, but manage it Luna did. “Oh.” In a flash of sudden realisation, Pinkie Pie dashed over to the path, rounding the corner from where they’d come...and the sky rumbled. Clouds, black and portentous, were gathering above them, the great squares distorting and twisting, pulling together into a bulk that looked far too dark and solid to stay up there for long. The snow, as it had been falling, drifting serenely down to paint the mountain, stopped. In an instant, the weather changed, and with a breath of inspiration, she closed her eyes. The whole world flashed red behind her eyelids. When she opened them, the ground before her, on the path, was a blackened scar, the efforts of a particularly hardy shrub at the side of the trail flickering away. She stepped back, and with a crash that shook the mountain, the whole path crumbled down the rock. She watched with a sense of vague horror as their only exit tumbled down the cliffside, cracking and splitting apart as it rained along the slope. Below, far below, a crawling black mass seethed across the foothills. Even at this distance, she could hear the war chants. She thought she could spot a catapult or two. Lightning flashed above them. With a shout, she fled back into the alcove. “Luna,” she panted, staring at the mare by the door with eyes huge and bloodshot. “We really need to hurry.” Luna jumped, startled, but gave a terse nod. “Watch my back.” With a kind of forced calm, she stood, and levelled her gaze at the door. “Truth,” she began. “Inside. Destiny. Trust. Answers.” She turned back to them for an instant. “Go!” Pinkie Pie left here there, reciting words into the door with a quiet intensity, and grabbed the other Pinkie by the hoof. “Come on.” The armies had reached the foot of the mountains. Tattered banners flapped noiselessly in the thunder, and Pinkie Pie watched with a nervous eye as they began to load the weapons. “What do you think he’s doing?” she asked Pinkie. “Why is he devising armies and soldiers and catapults if this is his dream? Why not just come up here and finish us off? Or, for that matter, why leave a riddle instead of a trap?” Pinkie didn’t respond. Pinkie Pie looked over to see the mare turned away, craning her neck to stare back at Luna, in the alcove, trying to crack the puzzle. “Hey! We’re meant to be keeping watch, here.” “I am.” “On the mountain! On the ponies attacking, and everything else. Not on her.” Pinkie looked round with a scowl. “They’re trebuchets.” “What?” “They’re trebuchets, not catapults!” Pinkie Pie frowned. “Oh. Right.” “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be the better version of me, you sure aren’t that cheerful.” She started. “Sorry?” “You’re pretty different, actually.” Pinkie Pie opened her mouth, not quite sure if she should be offended or not. “But I’m not the better version of you.” “Really?” Pinkie looked surprised. “I thought you were. I mean, you’re far more Pinkie than I am.” “I...am?” She felt a soft flush suffuse her cheeks, and looked away. “But you’re, like, actually her, aren’t you?” She heard Pinkie sigh. “I don’t think so, really.” “Sure you are!” Pinkie Pie sat forward, taking Pinkie’s hoof in her own. “You’re fun, and energetic, and thoughtful—you saved me from that fall.” She rubbed the mark on Pinkie’s hoof where she’d held her. “You’re the real deal.” Pinkie lowered her eyes, chewing her lip, and her voice, when she spoke, sounded oddly guilty. “I’m not. That’s you. You’re good, and real, and...yourself. You’re far more true than I’ll ever be. You’re your own pony. Go to her.” Pinkie Pie swallowed, feeling something stick in her throat as she stared at her double. At her original. The pony she was based off...but not the pony she had to be. “I...thank you.” Maybe it would be alright, after all. Maybe she could return to Klugetown and really, fully, this time, have her own life. Be herself. “Thank you,” she whispered again. The other mare nodded, patting her on the back. “Sorry, by the way,” she said. “I promise this won’t hurt.” And she shoved. Hard. Pinkie Pie let out a scream—“Luna!” she tried to say, or “Pinkie!”, or even just “Help!”—but the wind whipped the air from her lungs. Pinkie Pie tilted over, and fell down the side of the cliff. PINKIE Discord sighed. That had really been much harder than it needed to be. No matter, it was done now. He stood from the cliffside where they had been watching, and headed back inside the alcove. It hadn’t been easy, keeping this act up for so long. Well, in objective terms, it had been less than nothing, but it had still felt like a while to keep the charade going, and that was what mattered, in the end. An eternity of endless solitude could, in purely percentile measures, take up most of one’s life, but as long as it didn’t feel that way, he’d be fine. He didn’t dream this deep, usually. This was far too near to his core for his liking, and really, who wanted their dreams to cut too close? No one, that’s who. But they’d driven him here—although he supposed he’d really always been down here; everything in here was him—and, if he was honest, he was impressed. Not that he’d expected anything less from Luna, of course, but still. It was nice to be right, for once. The beach, the swamp, he’d set up millennia ago. A first line of defence, really, that was all it was, built in haste to keep casual observers out. Could never be too careful. He’d had long to think, in his life, and while he was certainly no master strategist, his plans had been, at the very least, thorough. Any intruder would wake up in the sea. If they made it to the shore, he’d greet them, talk to them, ingratiate himself into their number. The possibility of a multi-person attack had always existed, so he’d created a backup. If one disguise was found out, they’d never suspect a second. And indeed, he’d been proven right. Another point to House Discord. Then, it had only been a matter of choosing when to reveal himself. In hindsight, perhaps he should have done that sooner. There wasn’t, after all, much point in waiting to the very end to stop them, but hey, who could blame him? It was fun. It was the sort of fun he never really got to have, outside his mind. facing overwhelming odds as a trusted team member...well, he supposed Ogres & Oubliettes had that, too. But this was real, kind of. Not roleplay, at least. Sort of. Well, Fluttershy was the only one who really trusted him, anyway, so he didn’t have much choice in the matter. In any case, it had worked. It had all worked perfectly, and been tremendous fun, and really, he hoped Luna tried again. Round 2! Oh, he’d have to come up with new tricks for that. Except it hadn’t gone perfectly, had it? He’d waited too long, that had been one thing, but there had been others, too. Saving Pinkie Pie, for example, what had that been about? Well, he’d thrown her off the cliff later anyway, but why hadn’t he just let her fall in the first place? If he hadn’t even done anything, she’d have fallen by herself. It would have been far less suspicious for drop there. Not that it mattered. Really, the only true issue had been the door. He looked over at it, at Luna standing before it, speaking words increasingly nonsensical into the seal. All right, sure, it was funny, but he hadn’t actually meant that. He hadn’t put it there. And that worried him. Because he had a sneaking suspicion he knew what the answer to the riddle was—it was hardly his best—and if he was right, if he was on the money about that, the he really didn’t want her accidentally saying the right password. Well, it was time to put an end to this. It had been fun, but that was all, folks, and it was time to cut to credits. Raising a paw in a friendly wave, he stepped back towards Luna, and— The world changed. Shifted. Altered. It felt like a shiver running across his spine, a ripple through his soul, a change of gear within his mind. Not invasive, just uncomfortable. He cursed himself for not letting that damnable Pinkie Pie fall earlier. Now, for all he knew, this had just become a lot more difficult. Or, hey, maybe it had become easier. Who could tell? With a grin, he cleared his throat. It was time to end this. EPILOGUE: A FINAL THOUGHT The ground approached at alarming speed. Pinkie had been true to her word; it looked for all the world like somepony had set up a feather mattress at the foot of the mountain. She’d still die, of course—she prayed to Celestia that Luna was right about waking up (heh, that was odd, praying to Celestia about her sister—or was it praying to Twilight, now?—she couldn’t help but wonder what Luna would think of that)—but at least it wouldn’t hurt. Probably. She concentrated, trying to think through the roar of the wind in her ears. Whatever genre had resulted in this betrayal couldn’t be good. In fact, it had to be the worst one yet. As the mattress flew towards her at breakneck speed, she squeezed her eyes shut, and concentrated for one last time. Good luck, Luna! Pinkie Pie hit the bed with a—
RomanceShe felt the shift, and spun to look for Pinkie Pie. Why had she...? Oh. She felt a sudden chill as she saw Discord standing there, lion’s paw raised as he smiled innocently. “Hello, Princess.” She bit back her surprise. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Where’s Pinkie Pie? Where’s Pinkie?” Discord raised an eyebrow in mock-astonishment. “My, my, Princess, awfully quick to the draw. Why, aren’t you glad to see me?” He took a step forward. Luna swallowed, glancing back at the door as her mind raced. He took her silence as an answer, and sighed sadly. “Alas! Woe is me. Forever despised!” He cracked open an eye to see if she was watching. She looked away. “Ah! Poor Pinkie Pie! Betrayed in the last act by the pony closest to her—herself.” He gave a little giggle at some joke she didn’t get. “Needless to say, your friends are no longer with us. Sad, sad day.” “Oh, stop hanging your head,” she snapped. “You know well they yet live, so spare me your fool’s sorrow. You were always a poor player.” “Ack!” An arrow sprouted from Discord’s breast, followed by another, and another. He stumbled back until he lay on the ground, his breathing loud and rasping. “You wound me, Princess! In any case...” he stood, brushing the arrows off his chest as if wiping a snowflake from his coat, “I am sorry about it. Genuinely. Pinkie Pie was quite distraught. I have a heart, you know.” He blinked, like he hadn’t meant to say that. Luna frowned. “What’s the expression they use in Saddle Arabia? I don’t want your crocodile’s tears.” “How cruel.” “Eat me.” Discord laughed. “You are well-travelled. You know, I always considered you the rather shyer, bookish sort. I assumed that’s why Celestia chose Twilight as her pupil while you were away.” Rolling her eyes, Luna stepped forward. “That’s not going to work, Discord.” “Ah, but it might! That’s the thing with you ponies, one never knows.” There’s something more going on here. Luna couldn’t put her hoof on it, she couldn’t even really say why she felt it, but it was there nevertheless. An undercurrent. Almost subconscious. She blinked, suddenly wondering just how far down they were inside Discord’s mind at this point, at any rate. “What’s behind this door, by the way?” she tried, casually. “Anything important?” He shrugged. “You tell me. You must have thought there was something in there worth all this. You brought it up, with all your mind-trickery. There was nothing specific in your head for me to hide from you, so whatever’s in here, some part of me sure thinks it’s important.” Taking a risk, she turned to face the door, to examine it once more. Come on, she willed him, don’t let it end here. After a moment, he stepped up beside her. “I’d forgotten, you know,” she said quietly. She hoped it wasn’t the wrong thing to say. Discord was silent for a moment, until simply, “I never did.” For some time they just stood there, these two immortals, within a dream, staring down an imaginary door. Her time was running out, she knew. Discord’s patience was far from infinite, and he didn’t actually want her to break the seal. Not consciously, anyway. “And what’s the deal with this riddle?” Discord scratched his beard, as if in thought, then pulled out a flea. “That one’s on you again,” he said. “Some mutation of your games, as far as I can tell.” That...wasn’t how that was supposed to work. Why was she in here? What had her past self wanted to know so badly she’d wipe her own mind to find it out? What was she missing? “Well!” Discord clapped his paws, breaking her trail of thought. “I’ve enjoyed this, I must admit. But all good things must come to an end, and sadly...” He looked over at her in feigned anguish. “Your number’s up.” He raised his paw to snap his claws. “Wait!” She held out a hoof, desperately rereading the riddle. Find it well, I trust. Find what well? A well of feeling? Sadness? Happiness? If open it you must. Why must she? What did she need to know—why did she still need to know? Speak only that you wish to find. It would only open if she knew what she was looking for from the start. She stared at Discord in dawning realisation. What lies inside is inside. I have a heart, you know. “What?” Discord asked, paw still raised. “What is it? Why are you smiling?” Luna found herself unable to stop, the grin spreading as far across her face as any of Pinkie’s best. For that instant, she knew, with absolute certainty, with an undeniable passion, the answer to the riddle. Or, at least, she hoped she knew it, because it would be really embarrassing if she were wrong. She turned from Discord to the door, staring at that ancient symbol, scanning over the newer inscription. She wondered just how long it had been there, anyway. Had it just appeared today? Or had it been there from that day? She decided, like her own, that it had formed somewhere in between. Yes, she liked that answer. And, as she stepped forward to voice her solution, a final thought occurred to her. Oh. That’s why it’s written in Old Ponyish. Her voice was loud and clear as she spoke. “Love.” There was a sharp intake of breath as Discord gasped. For a moment, nothing happened. He let out a relieved laugh, and Luna felt her certainty waver. It only lasted a moment, however, until, with a creak, the great stone doors swung open. The shadow of a pony emerged from the light. Dark blue. Short, for an alicorn. Big, blue eyes—or were they green? It was hard to tell. Discord trailed behind, the vast murky space of his old prison shimmering down at him. There were cages, along the walls. Luna recognised them from her most recent visit to the place—when Tirek had thrown her through, and Discord had come to rescue them. Because he knew what it was like it here. She wondered why his greatest secret was kept in his old prison, of all places, but deep down she understood. You couldn’t get out of this place on your own. Somebody had to let you out. The cages echoed with memories. In one, a sliver of light, with a dark blue alicorn at the end. In another, the days after, when she’d nursed him back to health. She remembered, of course, but...she had forgotten. A thousand years on the moon, and not a one of them spent on him. There had been so much after that. In another, larger, there was her and her sister, looking up at him, perched on his throne, and she saw their young, defiant faces scrunched in concentrated defiance. More and more she passed, and on and on she went, through their whole history, until she reached the cages at the end. Here lay things she didn’t remember, which hadn’t happened. Secret dreams, desires. She should look away—these felt somehow more private, more bare—but she found she couldn’t. What was there left to hide, in any case? The brush of hoof against claw here, the glimpse of a kiss there, a movement between the sheets—raw, naked, genuine hope. She was used to seeing ponies’ desire—it was hard not to, walking dreams every night—but this was somehow more personal, more intimate. There was no veil of decency or pretence. It was simply...Discord. The final cage was glowing. Set in its platform across the chasm, where he had once lived his years, it was far larger, and far brighter than the rest. Discord hung back as she trotted across the jagged path, and simply waited as she approached the bars. Inside, surrounded in so much white, so much hope, she almost couldn’t see it, was the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal. She was looking at the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal. She was looking at the image of a pony, standing in front of a glowing cage set on an ancient pedestal... She turned to look, across the chasm, at Discord. “Is this...” she struggled for words, fumbling at what she wanted to say. “Is this is how you really feel?” Discord, across the bridge, only nodded. She turned back to the cage, and the pony in the image did the same. And the pony in that image, and that pony in that. A smile touched the edge of her mouth. “You know,” she said, spinning to cross back over the path, “I think I know why I needed to come here so badly.” “Indeed?” he raised an eyebrow at her smile. “I’m all ears.” She could see him physically resisting the urge to sprout more. She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “Yes,” she said, as she drew closer. “I do.” He swallowed, and she was close enough to see his throat move. “And for what, pray tell, was that, Princess?” She smiled, stepping closer. He had to bend down to look her in the eye, until their muzzles were almost touching. “I think I wanted to see if a certain draconequus...felt the same way I do.” She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. “And does he?” “Does he what?” She smiled, looking into his eyes, the strangeness, the familiarity of them. “Feel the same way she does?” “Well,” she said, moving closer still, “I suppose we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” Her eyes closed as she felt the softness of his lips against her own, and a moment later she felt his arms close around her, pulling her in. It lasted only a moment, but it felt so much longer, and that was what really mattered. It felt, for a breath, for the instant, like time had stopped, and there was only one other person in the world—and, in a sense, she supposed that that was true. They pulled apart, and Discord’s eyes were wide and soft and beautifully warm. “You know, Princess,” he said, his smile matching her own, “this may in fact be one of the better dreams I’ve had.” She chuckled at that, nuzzling up against his neck. “The good thing about this one, you see, is that it doesn’t have to end when you wake up.” “No,” he said, and she could feel the vibration of his words rumble through her body. “The good thing about this one is that it’s got you in it.” “Ah, well, that too, of course.” “Of course.” She rested there, feeling delightfully calm, wonderfully mellow, as she just let herself sink into him. Soon, they would have to wake up, and explain what had happened, and why—which always seemed to be the question, really, yet at least now she had found the answer—but for the moment, for a while, they simply stood, and basked in the glow of each other’s presence, and left those worries for another time. For those such as them, there was always time, and now they had a use to put it all to. The glow of the memory grew brighter and brighter, blindingly bright, until perhaps there was no memory left, and all there was was hope, as they stood, and loved, and dreamed awhile longer.
