Narrative Cage

by gloamish

Rating: everyone
Tags: Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 1011

The Reformed Villain takes the Hero on a brief tour of the narrative's bounds.

Discord approaches Twilight Sparkle for a conversation about heroism.

silver medal in thousand words iii (experimental)

Published 2024-07-14 15:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-07-14 15:00:01 UTC

The Hero

Twilight's in the library when her conversation with Discord starts.

"I wanted to have a chat with you, Twilight, if you have a moment." Twilight's ears twitch at the unusually polite tone coming from Discord, embodiment of annoyance.

"Oh. Discord," she says, failing to fully communicate her displeasure with the idea. "I... guess I do. What is it?"

But Discord is gone. She casts about her room, then various other rooms in the castle, but doesn't see him for the rest of the night.

It continues when they're floating downriver on a summer's day.

Discord hangs off the bow, chatting to Fluttershy about the noble qualities of eels. Twilight leaves Applejack rummaging through the cooler and wanders up to them, hoping his usual wit will be curbed by Fluttershy's presence. She's half-right.

"So, Twilight," he begins without preamble or pleasantry, "why did your dear Elements of Harmony free Luna from her Nightmare, when in Celestia's mouth they damned her to the moon?"

"What?"

"You said you had a moment to chat," Discord says with a pout.

"That was... a week ago!" She shakes her head. "I mean, I can't say I haven't thought about it. Maybe they're more effective when wielded by multiple ponies, or less effective when the Bearer lacks certain qualities."

"She certainly lacked a knack for laughter!" Discord laughs, as if to demonstrate, then goes back to watching the water flow by below with Fluttershy, apparently done.

"What? What was the point of?.." Twilight sighs and shakes her head. If she keeps on trying to make sense of Discord, she'll end up like him.

"Found it!" Applejack calls out aftward, proudly holding up a bottle opener.

"Harmony. What does it mean?"

"Agreement, accord, the power of the Elements," Twilight recites easily. "... Wait, isn't blue geography?"

Discord turns the card over in his talons thoughtfully. "Who decides that?"

"This book," says Applejack, tossing the rulebook at the draconequus.

With a snap of his fingers, it turns into an autumn breeze, leaves and all. "Harmony, Twilight. Which notes are pretty, and which discordant?"

"... Wait, you're still going on about this?!" Twilight groans.

"Ponies. So, if you had a lost sister, a thousand years, and the force of culture itself to reckon with... What would you do?"

"If you're bored with Trivial Pursuit you can just say so," Pinkie says, looking like she shares the sentiment.

Even her wings clenched at her sides can't shield Twilight from the chill atop Canterlot's peak. "... I'd heard about the gaols. I always assumed they were artifacts of more barbaric times, but... Where?.."

"Oh, goodie! You tagged along this time. We're just following an errant thread. You'll be home in no time," Discord says, coiling lazily in the snowy winds.

"I... I remember—"

"Don't," Discord said with rare steel. "Gaols, Twilight."

"... Yes. You're saying... You've been saying that Harmony is defined by ponies, and Celestia moved us away from incarceration."

"Nothing's ever so conveniently simple, but yes. Especially for ponies who've been found to have been manipulated by circumstances beyond their control, poor things. Justice in Equestria has certainly shifted in the last millennium — it is, after all, a story ponies tell each other."

"Of course you would belittle it," she bristled.

"Au contraire, Princess. Stories are all we have. You and I especially. But who tells this particular story?"

"A court?"

"Wrong!" Discord sings. "A story has to be interesting, Twilight, and its teller equally so. Justice is a story told by the hero."

Twilight Sparkle, a filly of twelve, sat in the statue garden and read a book about a gallant hero. Though Twilight never admitted it, the snaggletoothed visage of the statue peering through the hedges scared her. Of course, the statue was a statue, and the filly a filly who'd never heard of the wicked spirit Discord. So they can't be talking like this.

Not unless one slips to a higher level of abstraction, that is. When did Twilight Sparkle's story start?

When she was born?

Boring!

Twilight looks into the unseeing eyes of the statue, and her little heart beats faster with fear and wonder of something beyond her. It beats the same rhythm it did when she saw Princess Celestia raise the sun.

The hero slays the wicked centaur, saves the kingdom, and— there are no pages left to turn.

The filly looks up at the statue. She wonders what it must feel like, to have no pages left to turn.

The statue garden is uncomfortable in the summer heat, but she's safe in the long shadow cast by the statue before her, even with a Princess's height. Two of the faces are familiar, and a third...

"... A filly?" Twilight wonders. "... She couldn't possibly have deserved..."

But she's alone in the garden.

Their conversation draws to a close in the dark. The world is gone, and Harmony is adrift in the fathomless deep, surrounded by the stars which are falling like autumn leaves. Discord coils loosely around a body she can't recognize the shape of.

This must be the end, then. Past where stories can be told.

Here, she can understand that none of them deserve it. They're only lost foals. Discord's voice wards the memories stirring under the darkness.

"You know the grandest irony of all? Once the hero's work is done, she's sealed away too. Happily ever after."

"... Can I escape it? Why even take me here if I'll just forget it all?"

"Our world's a tapestry of narrative thread. Each story influences every other, so... Maybe this is the one that will pull things into a new shape."

Harmony kisses him then, though she doesn't know why. Just as soon as the impulse grips her, horror takes its place, and she jerks back.

"Don't get lost, Twilight. We're nearly home."

The Element of Magic weighed heavily on Twilight's head. She was still ready to use it if she had to, but... Somehow, she hoped Fluttershy could reform Discord.