Discordant Future

Year 101, Day 37 Discord’s Reign

It’s been over one hundred years since the Fall. That’s what we call that day—the day Sun and Moon were defeated. We rarely talk about it anymore. We’ve said all there is to say about it.

A hundred years we’ve been under Discord’s rule.

Our world has turned into a horrible place. You can never expect anything because nothing is what you’d expect. Everything is in…well, chaos. What else would you expect?

Nobody’s happy. That puppet master Discord has ruined our beautiful land. Nights can last anywhere between a few seconds and a few months. The only way to tell time is the giant clock that floats in the sky, gloating over how long chaos has been our master. While I’m not inclined to believe it’s truthful, I have no choice but to use it. And after the six of us got the news about the Elements, well…

First there was a time of grief and disbelief. Time lost all meaning. Come to think of it, we never regained that—our sense of time. I was shocked when I looked at the clock in the sky. Eventually, we accepted what had happened and resolved to do something about it. Obviously, we couldn’t bring our parents back, but I know something that we could revive.

The Elements of Harmony. They belonged to our parents. Or maybe our parents belonged to them. It doesn’t matter, the point is that we’re planning to claim the Elements.

And it takes a lot of planning. We have to be very secretive about it, too. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if Discord found out. We have to gather supplies—food, first aid, anything we might need—as well as research the Elements of Harmony.

The latter is harder than I thought it would be. There weren’t many books on the subject to begin with; take into account that most of the books in the world were destroyed or damaged beyond repair in or after the Fall…well, let’s just say we have our work cut out for us.

Nyx, Blossom, and I were tasked with the research while the others worry about the supplies. Our base is Magic’s old house—the public library. It’s the perfect place, after all. I mean, sure, it’s damaged beyond repair and most of the books are illegible, but…

It’s better than nothing, right?

Anyway, we’re still sorting through the books, deciding what’s helpful. Most of it isn’t. The books have been chocolate rained-on, ripped apart by random winds and cotton candy tornadoes, and eaten by what appears to be a large primate with snake fangs in addition to its normal teeth.

I’m still a bit scared I’ll run into whatever it is that’s been eating these old tomes. Even so, this is a task that needs to be done. So far the only useful information we’ve found is a couple of badly damaged, but legible spell books and a book on surviving in the forest.

Why do we need to know how to survive in a forest, you ask? Well, stop asking stuff because I can’t hear you, you’re reading this. Anyway, going off my best guess, which is all we really have, we’re going to have to claim the Elements in the same place our parents did—in a ruined castle in the middle of the Everfree Forest. And even if the Elements themselves don’t require it, the spell I need to cast to summon them needs a lot of magic. I happen to know that those particular ruins are full of ancient, powerful magic I can tap into. So into the forest we go.

I’ve decided to keep this journal, so we have an accurate account of what happens. I’m not entirely sure why we need one, but I’ve been trying to convince myself that we do. I think the real reason is so that I have an excuse to put my thoughts down on paper. If I really need a reason so badly, I could just say it helps me sort out my thoughts and accept hard truths, which it does.

But I digress. Back to the matter at hand, we’ve done well so far, concerning sorting through the books. Both Nyx and I use our magic to skim through the books for anything useful, and Blossom is an exceptionally fast reader. Spectrum likes to affectionately refer to us as “the Eggheads”. We’ve worked through about a quarter of the library in the past two years. What? It was quite a large collection! Magic would bring new books back from wherever she went. I’d even go so far as to call her a bibliophile. Not that it’s a bad thing; I’m a bit of one myself. I’ve always been impressed with the sheer number of books she managed to fit in the small-town library.

Wow, I get distracted easily. It may take us several more years to find what we need, but I couldn’t care less. Time hardly matters anymore. After all, it’s not like we’re getting any older.

Ah…perhaps I should explain that. No one has aged a day since Discord took over. We can’t really be sure why, but I theorize that the planet has stopped turning, removing gravity’s affect on our bodies and greatly slowing the aging process. I’m sure we’ll die eventually, if that’s the case. Discord probably has everything, including gravity, under his control. The other possibility is that Discord removed aging completely, just because he felt like it. In such a situation, no one would die unless Discord so chose, which is quite a scary thought.

Regardless of which theory is the truth, all of us are still the same physical age we were before all this happened.

Which leads me to believe we have plenty of time to complete our plans and execute them. Assuming Discord doesn’t…interrupt us. If everything goes as planned, we can finish the library within the next six years. Since we know for a fact that Magic kept several books describing the Elements (one written by herself), we just have to find them and hope they’re not all totally destroyed.

Anyway, I suppose I should get some sleep now. I’ve got a long day of book sorting ahead of me.

Year 101, Day 43 Discord’s Reign

Still no sign of the books about the Elements of Harmony. We’ve reduced our scavenging team—Sapphire is now helping us in the library. The way I see it, the sooner we find information about the Elements, the sooner we can go after them.

The process is significantly faster with Sapph on our team. She has a keen eye for detail and can easily decide if a book is useful. She can distinguish between words and smudges at a glance—something unique to her. We’ve examined more books today than on our most productive day before Sapph came. In fact, I believe we’ve nearly doubled what we were doing before. It helps that Sapph, Nyx, and I have a little friendly competition going. We invited Blossom, but she rolled her eyes and declined.

So all of us are working even harder than before, and it’s really paying off. If we can keep this up, we’ll be done with the library in three to four years.

Anyways, I should be off to bed soon. We’re all getting together tomorrow to count up our supplies. Scoota, Spectrum, and Sapphire (before she was helping us in the library) have all been working hard.

Er…by Scoota, I mean Mint. A few years after Discord took over, Scootaloo disappeared. Mint was devastated, but soldiered through with a brave smile. Ever since, Mint asked us to call her Scoota, in memory of Scootaloo.

Well, we’ve been working for 18 hours straight and I’m beat. I’ll write again tomorrow, detailing the results of our inventory count.

Year 101, Day 44 Discord’s Reign

It took us hours to count everything Scoota, Spectrum, and Sapphire had collected. I have to say, I’m very impressed at the sheer amount of supplies they’ve gathered. We’re set for a good five years here, probably more. It’s great because it means we can all focus on sorting through the books.

It’s nice to finally have things going our way. After a hundred years of bad luck and chaos, I think we deserve it. Now if we could only find those books…

You know, I can’t help but wonder if maybe…maybe we’ve been searching in the wrong place all this time. It’s probably nothing, but I just feel like we won’t find what we’re looking for this way. I have a hunch that this isn’t where the books are.

It’s okay, though. I’m not one to be swayed by a mere hunch. After all, there’s no evidence to show that the books we want aren’t here, and it’s the most logical choice.

But still…that little voice is bothering me. Maybe if only one person searches Magic’s bedroom, it shouldn’t take too much away from the work on the library. And besides, it makes sense that Magic might want to keep the books close to her. And just to make sure nothing is passed over, I’ll do it myself. Just to be sure we’re being thorough.

That’s settled, then. Tomorrow I’ll search the living space above the library for anything useful.

‘Tomorrow’…it barely means anything now. It’s a word that used to have significant meaning, that brought hope because tomorrow was always another day, and you always knew when tomorrow would come. Now it’s just whenever you happen to wake up. Days mean nothing.

Well, enough of that random philosophical tangent. Blossom went out for a flight today. She came back looking none too happy, which is saying something. She’s always so calm and collected. All she would say was, “He’s such a bully.” I can only assume she means Discord, and Blossom hates bullies more than anything. She sulked in a corner for the rest of the day.

I can’t say I blame her for being upset. Discord has destroyed our world. For all we know, it’s beyond repair.

We can only hope it isn’t.

And anyway, the Elements were able to repair everything before. But that was when Chaos had ruled for a few days at most…it’s been a hundred years.

I guess I should probably explain the Elements of Harmony. The Elements are a set of six ancient magical artifacts. Five of them represent personality traits—honesty, loyalty, generosity, kindness, and laughter—and the sixth is created in the presence of the others, magic. They are said to be the most powerful form of magic, fueled by love and harmony between people. Nyx’s mother, the Bearer of Magic, used to say that as long as there were at least two people who loved and tolerated each other, the Elements would be alive and strong.

Here’s hoping she’s right.

The Elements of Harmony are our last hope. Our last chance to beat Discord. We have to claim them and use them against that tyrant. I know we can.

Nyx will be the Element of Honesty. Like I said before, I’ve never seen her tell a lie. Apple Blossom will be the Element of Loyalty. She’d never leave her friends hanging; never let anyone down. Sapphire, my sister, will be Generosity, just like Mom. She’s always giving her stuff away. Apple Spectrum represents Kindness. She always wants to take care of sick people and animals. She was apprenticed at the local hospital before all this happened. I’ve never seen her really mad at anyone except Discord and maybe Sapphire, although that’s not really anger. Scoota, who always knows how to make us happy, is the Element of Laughter. And me, the future Element of Magic. Not to brag, but I was a student to both Magic herself and Sun, our previous ruler.

And in case you’re wondering, our parents did have real names. We realized a long time ago that bad things happen when you say them. That, and it’s less painful this way. The same goes for Sun and Moon. I’m scared to even write their names here, for the terrible things it might cause. As such, we just call our parents by their Elements, and Sun and Moon by the celestial bodies they controlled. I know I talk about Dad sometimes, but I don’t know…it’s different somehow. Maybe because he didn’t die in the war.

Of course, it still hurts to think of any of them. I think we all would have gotten over them years ago, if they hadn’t died the way they did—fighting Discord. We’re all proud of them for fighting so hard, but it just wasn’t enough. Not that it was their fault—it wasn’t. They tried their best. It’s Discord’s fault. Everything is. His fault we’re alone. His fault our world is destroyed. His fault everything’s miserable.

All his fault.

I don’t understand why he has so much fun with this. He takes so much pleasure in the misery and despair of others. He’s sick. The things he does to people…it’s horrible.

You’re probably wondering why he hasn’t come after us in all these 100 years. Well, he has, once or twice, but his chaos keeps him busy most of the time. He does keep his throne here inour town, though. Occasionally he’ll come back and sit on it for days (weeks, years?) at a time, just enjoying the pain and suffering he’s caused. Mostly, though, he travels across the world, making sure nothing goes right or makes sense.

Which is good for us, because it gives us time.

Anyway, I should be getting some sleep if I’ll be searching Magic’s room tomorrow. None of us have been in there since it happened. Hopefully, I’ll find something useful.

Year 101, Day 45 DR

It was painful, going through the (most-ruined) belongings of my deceased mentor. She taught me everything and loved me just as much as Nyx. She loved all of us equally.

I might need to spend more than just one day on her room. Every few minutes, the pain hits me all over again and I have to stop. It’s a very slow process and I’ve barely made any progress.

I keep telling myself that I need to do this, that I should just get it over with. It’s just that…she used to live here. She used to sleep here and work here and stay up all night reading here. She used to tell me myths and legends when I spent the night here. She used to teach me spells here, and I practiced them here. She used to live here…and now she doesn’t.

Tomorrow I’ll try to get more done, but for now, I need some sleep.

Year 101, Day 49 DR

I’ve spent the past few days working in Magic’s room on and off. It gets a little easier each day, but the pain is still there. Sometimes the grief gets to be too much and I need to take a break and join the others.

Nyx works with me sometimes. Normally I don’t like anyone else messing with my work, but it was her mother, so I won’t say anything. Plus, she takes after her mother in a lot of ways, including her need to be organized.

Together, we’ve made it through about half of the living space. There hasn’t been any sign of the books we’re looking for, but we have found some useful things. So far we have a nearly-undamaged spell book, a magic compass, and two of Nyx’s old practice dummies. The spell book has mostly non-violent spells, although there’s one that immobilizes the target. The compass will point to…something. Right now the needle is pointing Northeast. It was custom-made by Magic herself. I’m sure it’ll be useful, as soon as we figure out what it’s for.  And why would we need practice dummies? Well, Nyx and I both used to practice spells on them, so they’ve retained quite a bit of our magic, which we can drawn on later.

Maybe I should explain how magic works, since it seems like only Magi really know. Magic is basically a type of energy your body produces, just like regular energy. It’s a lot like the energy you use to move, except you can channel it and it affects the world around you. Fliers produce it too, but in smaller amounts, and they can’t control it. Instead, it goes straight to their wings, allowing them to fly when physics says they can’t. A small amount in the rest of their bodies also allow them to touch clouds, unlike any Mage or Earth.

Magic energy also leaves a residue. On everything. How long it lasts depends on the power of the spell and the material of the object it’s being cast on. Things like plastic and metal might hold the energy for a few days or a week, while things like cotton, leather, and wood will hold it for hundreds of years. There are even trees in the Everfree Forest with the magical energy of a young Starswirl the Bearded, and he lived over a millennium ago.

That being said, the energy to cast a spell can come from one of two places: The user himself, or an object with magical energy in it. Different people produce different amounts of magical energy. Nyx and I both have a little above average, but it’s nice to have a backup if we need it.

Besides magical energy, each spell also uses a bit of physical energy, so using a really powerful spell, like a Greater Arcane Spell (mostly Seeing and altering reality or time) can feel like running a marathon or two. Or ten. In a row. That’s what casting the Summoning for the Elements is going to feel like.

Well, tomorrow is another long day of grief and pain. I should get some sleep.

Year 101, Day 55 DR

We’re done. We finished sorting through Magic’s room today. Not a single trace of the books on the Elements. In the end both Nyx and I broke down and couldn’t go any further, so the rest of our friends finished it for us.

I think I just need to…go to bed. It’s been a long day.