By many standards, I do not have a name. Some call me the Consuming Darkness. Some call me That Which Lurks In Shadows. Some call me nothing at all.
I call myself a God.
“Are you alright?”
Words, spoken aloud. A curious thing. None had spoken in my presence for eons. For most of my existence, speaking was not simply something that was not done, it was something that could not be done. The dimensions I exist in did not allow for such things, being beyond sound and inside thought. But now, there were words, and I could hear them. What had happened?
“I think he’s hurt.”
I stood, as soon as I could comprehend the idea of having a body with which to stand. I opened my eyes. There did not seem to be enough of them, or perhaps too many. I spoke, inefficient as it was. “BOW BEFORE MY PRESENCE. I AM—”
“Oh dear, it’s another eldritch horror. How many of you are there?”
This was not correct. The pure white creature before me regarded me with no fear, no revulsion. It seemed perfectly sane, when looking upon me should cast its mind asunder. “HOW DARE—”
“Yes, yes, you’re very impressive,” the creature interrupted, stepping forward on dainty hooves and reaching up to brush the fur I should not have. “You’re the third one this week. Twilight is working on sealing whatever hole you’re coming through, but for now you should probably come with me and meet the others.”
“THIS IS ABSURD.” I reached out with my very presence, intending to snuff out this foolish mortal like they had never existed. Instead, they simply stared at me, expectantly. “HOW DO YOU RESIST?”
“Oh, yes, that. You’re in Equestria now, darling, and you don’t have any powers here. Terribly sorry about that, it was quite a shock for the others too. We’re working very hard on getting you all back to your dimension beyond dimensions or wherever it was. Could you please follow me, now? Ponies are starting to stare.”
For the first time, I took in my surroundings. Soft earth, quaint houses, and pastel creatures of all colors moving around me. I looked down at my own form, and found that I, too, looked like them, save for my pure black fur, a coloring none of them seemed to share. Several of them were looking at me with a mix of surprise and curiosity. None of them showed fear, which irked me. The emotion surprised me. I was too vast for such petty things. Slowly, I returned my gaze—what nonsense, being able to only look in one direction at a time—to the creature in front of me. “VERY WELL. SHOW ME THIS… TWILIGHT.”
The creature smiled. “Oh, wonderful. This way.” After a moment she added, “Oh, by the by, my name is Rarity.”
By the time we reached the crystalline structure that housed ‘Twilight’, the pony calling itself ‘Rarity’ had explained much more of the world to me. I tried several more times to erase it from existence, but had only confirmed what it had told me—my strength had left me.
“Twilight, darling, I found another one,” Rarity announced as she stepped through the doors of the structure. She looked around the hall, and her gaze settled on a small purple creature. “Spike, can you fetch Twilight for me? We have another new arrival.” She gestured to me with one hoof.
The creature looked me up and down. It was structured quite differently from the rest, and I found I did not like the way it looked at me. “Is this one going to be as rude as the last one?” it asked, its voice almost… disdainful.
“Oh, I hope not, darling. He’s been quite polite thus far, all things considered.”
“Hmph.” The other creature—Spike—did not seem impressed. Instead, he turned and walked through another door.
“Don’t mind him. He’s just been dealing with your friends the last few days, and they can be quite rude.”
“I DO NOT HAVE FRIENDS. IF I HAD MY WAY, YOU WOULD ALL BE RENDERED INTO OBLIVION FOR YOUR ARROGANCE.”
“Don’t be that way,” Rarity said with a smile. “You just don’t know what it’s like yet. Give it a chance.” She extended her hoof to me. “I can be your first. What’s your name?”
“I DO NOT HAVE ONE.”
“What do creatures call you, then?”
“...MOST COMMONLY, THE CONSUMING DARKNESS.”
Rarity smiled. “That’s a bit of a mouthful. How about Condi?”
“WHAT.”
“Condi it is.”
Ponies are infuriating creatures. Their magic operates on friendship, and kindness, and other such things that do not exist in my realm. They insist that I should be able to use this magic as well—all alicorns have this ability, and that is apparently what I am, now. But I can feel no power within me. All that I once had is gone.
Twilight has been asking me many questions over the past few days. She wants to know where I came from, and how I got here, so she may send me back. I do not know what motivates her to do this, but I find myself missing my realm. Such emotions are commonplace, now. They come with this strange new body and strange new world. I do not believe I like them.
There are others like me, but I quickly grew tired of them. They are rage and pestilence and rot, and they give me even less of the respect I deserve than the ponies do. The ponies do not seem to like the others either, so they speak mostly to me. I spend much of my time with Rarity and Twilight, as well as others they have introduced me to. Their efforts seem fruitless. They do not understand the rules of my world, and it is those rules which brought me here. And I do not understand them.
“Condi! There you are!”
I turn, and Rarity is approaching me, all smiles. I have come to know this expression, and what it means on her. She has an Idea, and she cannot hold it in. It threatens to spill out of her even before she has reached me. Such ideas should carry great power and great danger, but that is apparently not how it works here.
“Rarity,” I greet her, and wait.
“I was thinking,” she began, her Idea bubbling forth from her without any way to be stopped. “You’ve been cooped up in this castle for a week, and we still have no way to get you home. Twilight is a dear, she is, but I know how she can get when she’s researching. You should come out and have some fun. Celestia knows you deserve it, after what you’ve been through.”
I sigh. “I have told you before, Rarity. I do not have ‘fun’. I am a being of dimension and shadow—”
“Yes, yes,” Rarity cut in. She’d heard it before. “But you also said you were experiencing all sorts of things you’d never felt before, didn’t you? How can you know that you can’t have fun?”
I gritted my teeth. “I just do,” I insisted stubbornly. Rarity raised a brow, and I stamped one hoof. “Fine! I do not. But I do not have time to fritter away on such things. Now that everything is so… linear, I find myself impatient to return to what I once was. Your Twilight is the only one capable of this, by your own admission.”
Rarity shook her head. “Darling, nopony knows the value of dedication more than I do. But everycreature needs time to relax if they are to do their best work. Come with me, and I assure you that it will be worth it in the end.”
I glared at her. She glared back. Finally, I relented. “Very well.” Privately, I harbored the thought that Rarity would do well in my realm, despite being a pony. If nothing else, her Ideas were a force of great power. Better to let them sweep me along, than stand firm and break upon them.
The building she led me to was full of ponies, much more than were present in Twilight’s castle. It was a place of white walls, hard lines and rushing water.
Rarity called it a “spa.”
“So, how do you like our world?” Rarity said after a while, once we had been settled in a pool of warm, bubbling water. She was laid out practically on her back, eyes closed. “You’ve been here long enough to get a good sense of it, haven’t you?”
I took a look at her. “It is nonsensical to me. Nothing works as it should, least of all ponies. I would much prefer to be back in my own realm.”
Rarity shook her head. “Surely it’s not all bad, is it?”
“Why does this matter? I will return as soon as Twilight understands the portal, and I should hope to never come back here.”
Rarity opened her eyes and looked at me, her expression piercing. “Because you are an enigma, Condi. There are few like you, and none except you that I can talk to without wishing to throw something. Surely you can see how that might be someone worth investigating?”
“Perhaps. But you have asked me only about your world, not mine.”
“Well, I want your impressions. And honestly, dear, whenever you start talking about your realm you stop making any sense at all.”
I paused again, considering. Finally I ventured, “I suppose… the interactions I have had with yourself and Twilight have not been ‘so bad’, as you put it. Your minds are something I would have simply devoured had you approached me in my own realm, but… examining them in this strange, inefficient manner is not unpleasant.”
Rarity giggled. “My dear, I do believe that in your own, strange way, that was a compliment.”
“Hmph. If you say so.”
Rarity smiled again, and shifted closer to me in the water. “You think we are worth talking to, even though that’s not something you’ve ever done before. That novelty has to be worth something, doesn’t it?”
“I do not seek out novelty.”
“Don’t you? Why talk to us at all, then?”
“You are helping me get home. Strange as that is. I must talk to you to encourage this, as you have no other method of communication.”
Rarity chuckled, touching my shoulder with one hoof, for no reason I could discern. “I think it’s more than that. I think you might be making friends. Certainly I consider you a friend, abhorrent as that may be to your sensibilities.” Her expression was amused, now, but I found I did not mind.
“I do not—” I began, but paused.
“Don’t what?”
“Nevermind.” I turned away, digesting her words. Something did seem different and strange about this, but surely a being such as me could not be friends with a mortal. I was a cosmic entity! A being that stalked the space between stars! She was merely a mortal, who could be snuffed out without a thought.
My horn flickered. From behind me, I heard a gasp.
“I knew it! You are!” Rarity pointed a hoof. “Your magic! Or, our magic!” She was grinning from ear to ear, now. “That’s how we’re going to get you home!”
I blinked, and my horn flickered again. Slowly, I looked at Rarity, and felt something growing within me. Power, once more. Not like before. Not like I was used to.
But it would do.
Hello Darkness My Old Friend
Author's Note
Hello there! This is your friendly neighborhood Hat Man, acting as guest writer for this new addition to the original story. I got Zontan's original story as a prompt for a challenge to write a continuation. It came in second among some very fierce competitors. I was lucky to get assigned Zon's hilarious original and tried my best to continue with his characters and themes with a bit of my own writing style thrown in. Thanks to Zon for the great source material!
Zon here. This story was written as part of a Quills and Sofas event. If you like it (and you will), go check out Hat Man's page, and especially his story Reaping Rainbow, which shares a lot of the same style. Enjoy. =)
Hello Darkness My Old Friend
Once more I felt myself glide through the black cosmos. The voices of the fearful fell silent as I came to their world and the light faded from their puny lives, their world crumbling to dust as yet another offering to my endless hunger.
Once more I was myself, the stars yielding themselves to the inexorable pull of eternity and dimming in the face of my glory.
I am the Consuming Darkness, the Nameless God of all that exists but knows of its own inevitable—
“Oh, Condiiiii!”
My eyes popped open. In the dim light streaming through the window of my bedroom, I could see that infernal white unicorn standing over me, her horribly cheerful grin glinting in the darkness.
“What sort of fool are you that you think you can disturb my slumber?” I growled.
“Now now, Condi,” Rarity said, going to the curtains. “It is true that you are my guest, but this is still my house, and I won’t have you cooped up so late in the morning like a layabout!”
She pulled back the curtains, letting in the horrible, stabbing white glow of the sun. I howled as it scorched my eyes, and I flung the blankets from my body and leapt to my hooves.
“You insolent mortal!” I shouted. “I am a god and will be treated as one, even if I must be confined to this pathetic equine body!”
“Condi,” Rarity said, raising an eyebrow, “I will thank you to lower your voice. Besides, I have been perfectly accommodating! For one thing, I let you stay here in my home while Twilight continues to research a way to return you home! I even did my very best to make it more comfortable for you and put up those black curtains just like you asked, even if they are quite tacky and clash horribly with the decor.”
“Bah! You think these are suitable?! I asked for pure black curtains!”
Rarity nodded. “Yes. And they are!”
I pointed to the sparkly sequined stars and moons pattern she’d left on the fringe of the curtains.
“Well, you can’t expect me to leave them totally unadorned,” Rarity said, rolling her eyes. “The fabric is still pure black, after all.”
“Enough!” I bellowed. “I will return to my slumber now, and you will speak to me only when I summon you, or else I shall—”
“So you’re saying you don’t want the pancakes I’m making for breakfast?” she asked with a smirk.
I blinked. My traitorous equine stomach let out a whine.
Rarity’s smirk broadened.
“...Make mine with blueberries or die one thousand deaths,” I grumbled, walking past her.
Despite the alicorn’s attempts and my own contribution of magic, a way back to my true form still had not presented itself. Ten days had gone by, a measure of time so minuscule to one such as I, who saw millennia swallowed up in the wink of a single infernal eye… and yet even this paltry wisp of time seemed to stretch into eons.
These ponies were nigh intolerable, but, limited as I was in this disgusting vessel of flesh, I had no choice but to rely on them.
That said, it was plain that my time at Twilight’s castle was doing good for neither her puny psyche nor my own. I who have watched on as black holes drank down whole star systems once thought my patience as cold and infinite as the void of space itself.
But after a week of listening to Twilight’s inane prattle about her favorite authors or other such nonsense, I was just done with that shit.
Seriously, why in the name of oblivion would I care about some pony horror writer named Crafty Love? I care nothing for whatever equines think about cosmic horrors; I am the ultimate cosmic horror!
In any case, since Rarity seemed to have taken an inexplicable liking to me despite my promises to destroy her and sup on her sweet essence - I am starting to think she may even like it when I say it - it was arranged for me to stay with her rather than Twilight.
It was intolerable, yes, but I found that, somehow, there were degrees of intolerability, and this was an acceptable amount of intolerable for the time being.
After a short visit to the washroom, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen. Rarity’s suggestions were frivolous and a waste, but my new body didn’t seem to care, so I acquiesced to her trips to the spa and allowed myself the small comfort of her cooking, which I found palatable.
Despite ponies’ recommendations, I found that the foolish pink one made everything so sweet that I was beginning to think she was the embodiment of some cosmic horror herself… like some formless, non-Euclidian cloud of cotton candy or something.
On that note, I was also glad to be rid of the other cosmic manifestations Twilight had somehow managed to summon. Twilight seemed to think we would all be friends and bond over our mutual situation, but it turned out that they were even less interested in the nonsense existence of mortals than I, and their blind egos made them unable to recognize how truly in awe of me they should be.
“Oh, good morning, Condi!” exclaimed Rarity’s younger sister as I neared the bottom of the steps.
I grumbled in reply.
“I’m glad you’re up! And look, your other friends came by to visit!”
“Other friends?” I grunted, raising an eyebrow. “I have no friends, nor do I need them, you insect! Whom could you possibly… oh no…”
I turned and saw the others at the breakfast table. There was Time Implacable, her mane tied into a tight bun as usual; He Who Hungers, who was getting fatter by the day; and The Watcher of All Things, who shifted his gaze to stare at me for a moment before returning to try to somehow watch everything in the entire room with increasingly bloodshot eyes.
“I thought Twilight could use a break, so I invited them over,” Rarity said jovially as she set the table. “Now, I know you don’t - Hangry, put that syrup down, that’s for the pancakes! - now, I know you don’t get along too well, but let us try to be civil, at least during mealtime.”
“Very well,” I said with a sigh. “But if ‘Hangry’ there attempts to eat my stack of pancakes, he’ll have plenty of time to contemplate his mistake as he chokes on them.”
“ALL MUST BE SACRIFICED TO FILL MY BELLY!” He Who Hungers bellowed.
“Hangry, shush!” Rarity hissed. “I assure you that he will exercise table manners if he ever wishes to join us for breakfast again,” she told me, giving him a sideways glance.
“...was only gonna eat a few extra,” he mumbled sulkily.
Meanwhile, Time Implacable was slowly counting down.
“Five… four… three… two… oneWHY HAVE YOU NOT FLIPPED THE PANCAKES THEY ARE GOING TO BURN, YOU FOOL!!”
“All right, all right!” Rarity cried, going to flip the pancakes. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind you acting as an egg timer if you weren’t so rude about it, TicToc!”
I raised my eyebrow. “TicToc?”
“Another of these meaningless nicknames,” Time Implacable said, rolling her eyes.
“Is it true that Twilight almost kicked you out of the castle for breaking all of her clocks?” Sweetie Belle asked.
Time Implacable grit her teeth. “They. Were. Wrong!”
“Uhhh…”
“Stupid mortals with their stupid clocks think they can truly measure the flow of time…”
Rarity began piling pancakes onto the plates. “Oh, but I heard that nice Doctor Whooves is creating some sort of, er… I think he called it an ‘atomic clock’ that—”
“He would trust the matter to atoms? Those layabouts?!”
I decided this wasn’t going to get any less obnoxious and so I pulled up a seat and waited for my pancakes. Upon sitting down, Sweetie Belle tapped me on the shoulder.
“What?” I asked, turning to face her.
“So, Rarity said you eat planets, right?” she asked.
“I am the eventual doom which consumes all of existence itself,” I replied before turning back to my breakfast.
“But, I mean, that includes planets, right?”
“Yes, obviously,” I said, glad to see that my stack of pancakes had arrived. I picked up the bottle of syrup.
“Well, how do planets taste?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“I think you may be taking this too literally—”
“Like, are rocky planets crunchy or gas planets soft or—”
I slammed my hoof on the table and whirled around to press my muzzle into hers.
“CEASE YOUR INCESSANT PRATTLE, YOU IGNORANT CHILD OR I WILL SCATTER YOUR PATHETIC SOUL TO THE WINDS OF OBLIVION!!”
The girl screamed and ran from the kitchen.
“Condi!” Rarity yelled. “That was horrible! She’s just a young filly! You go and apologize to her this instant!”
“I will not be ordered around by the likes of you!”
“Is that so? Well, then…”
Suddenly my pancakes were lifted off my plate and onto the already ample stack in front of He Who Hungers.
“Thank you, Miss Rarity!” he said gleefully before shoving his face into the stack and loudly devouring them.
“Well, at least he knows a bit of gratitude, even if his table manners are atrocious,” Rarity said, giving me a sideways glance. “Now, I’m going to comfort my sister. As for you, Condi, I suggest you make your own breakfast from now on until you learn to be decent!”
I sat there, stomach rumbling, as Time Implacable and ‘Hangry’ snickered. I turned to see The Watcher of All Things’s bulging eyes fixated on me.
“And just what are you staring at?!” I snapped, pushing myself back from the table. “Bah! Oblivion take you all! I’m going for a walk to see which parts of the neighborhood I’d most like to see annihilated!”
I stormed out the back door, leaving Carousel Boutique behind.
I sat on the park bench overlooking a still pond. All around me, insects hummed and chirped, birds sang their songs, and the breeze rustled the leaves of a nearby tree and caused the long reeds and plants in the pond to rhythmically bow.
“Sweet Oblivion, I hate this place,” I muttered. I’d considered going to the spa again, but then I realized that without Rarity, I’d have to talk to the workers there myself. Not only that, I realized I had no money. These foolish mortals should be making offerings to me in a futile effort to stave off their own inevitable destruction, but instead it was expected that I would pay them!
This park bench, at least, was free. And, for the moment, there were no other beings to plague me.
“This way, little ducks, this way!”
I shut my eyes and buried my face in my hooves. I knew it was too good to last.
When I raised my eyes again, I saw a yellow pegasus a short distance away leading a line of ducklings over to the water. The fuzzy little creatures peeped almost incessantly as she led them up to the water’s edge and encouraged them to jump in.
“There you are, Drake! Don’t be scared, Donald! No no, Daisy, stay where I can see you. When you get a little older, it’ll be safe to go over there…”
I recognized the pony. She was one of Twilight’s friends, though her name escaped me, not that it mattered. I simply stared, pondering why she was tending to these ducklings rather than their parents. For that matter, why bother at all? They weren’t her offspring, after all.
Then, suddenly, another being appeared in a flash. It was a being of discombobulated parts in one slender, serpentine body.
I froze. Though I had never seen this form before, my very being knew in an instant what this creature was, but I could not fathom what he was doing here.
“Oh, goodness!” the yellow pony exclaimed. “Discord, am I late for our tea party today?”
Discord? I wondered. No… that’s not right...
“No, but I thought I’d drop by early!” he said jovially. “Let’s just say that I—” There was a flash and he was suddenly wearing overalls. He reached in and pulled out a large, green ant farm. “—had a case of ants in my pants!”
The yellow pony giggled. “Well, let me finish this swimming trip with my little duck friends here, and I’ll be more than happy to have that tea with you as soon as we’re done!”
“Wonderful!” the creature calling itself Discord said. “In the meantime…”
He turned his head slowly, a smirk appearing on his twisted features as his yellow eyes centered on me.
“...I think I’ve spotted an old acquaintance of mine.”
“Oh, another friend?” the yellow pony asked, looking my way. “Would you like to introduce me to him?”
“Perhaps another time, Fluttershy,” he said, still watching me with an infuriating smirk. “For now, I’ll let you give these lifelike bathtub toys your full attention! See you back at the cottage!”
With another flash, he appeared on the bench next to me and put one of his mismatched arms around my shoulders, pulling me in close as he waved to his pony friend.
“Consuming Darkness, the Lurkster, anti-life of the party!” he exclaimed, squishing my cheeks together. “You should have told me that you were paying Ponyville a visit! If I’d known you were coming, I’d have made you a cake!”
He snapped his fingers and I suddenly found myself transformed into a black forest chocolate cake with strawberries and whipped cream.
“Transform me back you insolent fool!” I bellowed (despite having no mouth or respiratory system).
“As you wish,” he said, snapping again and returning me to my “normal” form (at least in terms of being a pony in this infernal dimension). “Personally, though, I think being a cake suits you! It adds so many layers to your personality!”
I grit my teeth. “Entropy,” I snarled. “What are you doing here?”
“The name’s Discord, Darkness,” he replied, leaning back on the bench nonchalantly. “Though I’m flattered you recognize that little part of me.”
“Explain, Entropy!” I demanded.
He sighed. “Very well. To put it simply, no, I am not, strictly speaking, the Ancient God Entropy, He Who Gnaws at the Edge of Reality, The Swirling Chaos, or any of those other grandiose names. But I was born from some small part of that dark divinity and gifted this form. And while I am not the looming threat of returning the universe to a pre-Big Bang-style bowl of primordial soup, I have made it a point to inject my own brand of chaos into this world.”
I glanced back at the yellow pony. “And… her?”
“Hm? Oh, Fluttershy?” he asked.
The yellow pony glanced up from the ducklings and waved at us. Discord waved back.
“She’s a friend,” he said simply.
I gave him a long, cold stare. “No, really. What is your association with her?”
“It’s the truth, I swear!” he said solemnly while raising his lion’s paw and placing his birdlike claw on a small book titled Principia Discordia that materialized out of nowhere. “Though I admit that they can be troublesome, boring, and really should recognize my greatness… I must admit, ponies have their charm. Not that I’d tell them this, but I’m a far better Creature of Chaos because of them!”
I sniffed. “Ridiculous,” I grumbled. “We are gods. We are beings who can grasp the very nature of eternity in a way their feeble brains cannot. We are beyond their conception and they are but putrid bugs that only exist in this universe because beings like us allow it!”
Discord shrugged, still wearing that smug smirk. “Well, maybe.”
“They are feeble and petty and nothing they do matters!” I spat. “In but the blink of an eye, a cosmic microsecond, the most minute grain of sand in an hourglass that would span galaxies, their whole existence as species and worlds will be over, dead and forgotten to the oncoming annihilation that swallows all! To give them care or concern is a pointless exercise, devoid of meaning in a meaningless universe! They. Do. Not. MATTER!”
Discord grew quiet. His smirk faded. He had a sad, faraway look in his eyes even as he gazed on at the yellow pony.
“Well… that may be so,” he remarked.
I heaved a sigh, finally feeling some relief, though I wasn’t certain if it was because I felt validated to hear someone else admit the truth, or simply because I was glad to finally say it out loud. It mattered little; were I still myself, I wouldn’t have cared about any of this in the first place.
“This form is so limiting,” I grumbled. “Disgusting. Weak. It has feelings and urges and needs that I cannot simply ignore. I only take comfort in knowing that it is but a minor blip in the greatness of my existence. I will return to my true form, and all of this will be rightly forgotten.”
Discord was silent. Knowing him for even this short time, I could tell this was strange, so I coughed into my hoof. When this garnered no response, I said “Why does she tend to those creatures?”
“Hm? Oh, those ducklings lost their parents,” he said. “She’s raising them instead. Eventually, once they’re old enough and strong enough, she’ll send them back out into the wild.”
I chuckled. “Ridiculous,” I said.
Discord raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Those creatures are not her offspring. Their lives matter nothing in the grand scheme of things, and her work to preserve them will gain her nothing. She invests her care into their lives even when they will one day leave her, never to pay her back. It is pointless.”
Then to my surprise and irritation, Discord started to laugh. “Oh, Darkness, you really are just the edgiest of cosmic horrors!”
After a flash, I suddenly found myself wearing a ripped black t-shirt with spiked bracelets around my forelegs and a matching collar around my neck.
“Listen, you buffoon—”
“Actually, that’s my line,” he said, suddenly zipping my mouth shut with a zipper that came from nowhere. “Now, you’ve had your chance to ramble, so allow me to do the same!
“I used to think that friendship was pointless. That putting myself on the same level as ponies was a degradation of my own true greatness. That wasting my time on petty matters of concern for other ponies was an even bigger joke than my own cosmic toying with the laws of physics.
“But then I discovered something, Darkness. Beings such as us tend to think that the only things that matter are the immutable cosmic forces we embody because they will last forever. But who said that something has to last forever to be important? I, for one, find joy in the ephemeral. Chaos and Darkness and Time and Annihilation are all fine and good, I suppose, but they will always be around. Fluttershy’s smile will not, and that makes it a thing to be treasured.
“Perhaps you should start learning to value the gifts you’ve been given as well.”
I stared back, saying nothing. Even if my mouth hadn’t been zipped shut, I doubt I’d have had the words then.
“Oh, it seems that Fluttershy’s finishing up her business with the ducks,” Discord said, levitating off the bench. He snapped his fingers and the zipper and ridiculous garb disappeared. “I’ve got some cucumber sandwiches to prepare. Since I hear you’re not going anywhere for a while, perhaps you should make some preparations of your own!”
He raised his fingers.
“Wait!” I shouted. “Entropy- er, Discord… I don’t know if I can truly live like this. This world seems as immaterial as the ether. I have only ever believed in my own greatness… my own power. What is it that serves you, now that Chaos is no longer your sole reason to be? What do you believe in?”
Discord grinned. “Oh, Darkness,” he chuckled. “I believe in a thing called love.”
He snapped his fingers and vanished in a final flash of light. “Ta-ta!” his disembodied voice called.
I knocked on the door. Paper music notes covered in sparkly glitter adorned it.
“Who is it?” Sweetie Belle called.
“It’s the Consuming… it’s Condi,” I said, rolling my eyes. I was met with silence, so I added, “I have come to talk to you. I will not yell at you or insult you.”
Another pause, but then she asked “Do you promise?”
“I swear by Oblivion,” I replied.
“I… guess that works?” she said uncertainly. A moment later, the door opened.
I stared down at the filly. Her pale green eyes were narrowed as she looked back up at me.
I let out a long exhale through my nostrils.
“They are crunchy,” I said.
Sweetie Belle tilted her head to the side. “Huh?” she asked, her voice squeaking slightly.
“Rocky planets are indeed, for lack of a better word, crunchy,” I said. “Some are cold and solid, but others have a spicy molten core. I actually prefer the taste of stars, however. The void I leave behind serves as a reminder to distant civilizations that I am eternal and mighty. Also, they are… faintly sweet and creamy.”
Sweetie Belle cracked a smile. She even managed a chuckle. “Neat,” she said. “That’s really interesting, Condi. Thanks for telling me.”
I nodded. “I will not debase myself with an apology,” I added. “But I will amend my behavior and attempt to treat you and your sister with more… deference. Is that acceptable?”
She smiled and nodded. “Sure,” she replied. “I’m glad to hear it, Condi. Apology accepted.”
“That is not—”
She shut the door before I could finish. I heard her giggling behind her door.
I groaned and turned to make my way back to my room only to see Rarity standing nearby.
“Hmph,” I sniffed. “I take it you saw that humiliating display?”
“I did,” Rarity said. She came over and put her hoof on my shoulder. “And Condi, darling, I know it wasn’t easy for you. In fact, I think perhaps I’ve been too impatient with you as well. If you do not wish to participate in everyday life with other ponies, I suppose I will simply have to respect that.”
With a heavy sigh, I realized that this was perhaps my best chance of getting these mortals to leave me be, but I still said “No, I suppose I can deign to spend some time with your kind on occasion. It does no harm and it is better than sitting idly by while I wait to ascend back to divinity. Since I literally have all of eternity, I can spend some time with you.”
Rarity’s eyes widened and were practically sparkling. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that!” she exclaimed. “Because tomorrow I was thinking you could help me design some new stallion’s clothes! It’s so rare that I get to work with a pony with your, ah, unique complexion…”
As she rambled, I rolled my eyes and trotted past her to my room. It was dark and the curtains, though still sparkly, were drawn. I shut the door behind me and went to bed. For the first time in weeks, I went to sleep not to escape this hellish mortal coil, but in a strange sense of contentment.
In my dreams, I was back in my true form, only now I was scooping worlds on top of each other in a cosmic waffle cone weaved from star stuff.
It was almost as good as pancakes.
