The first thing to enter existence was a being of feminine form. She was of dark brown skin with eyes red as wine. Her hair was endless, it seemed, encompassing all the little area that reality contained. She wore a gown of Grecian fashion, delicate and of fabric mocking linen. It was trimmed in gold that flexed and gleamed. Everything about her was either dairy or cocoa colored, save her river of hair. It looked like the art work of Millie Brown, if Millie ever decided to work strictly in pastels.
The red eyes looming on the edge of existence—since he was reality’s sculptor and the only true being of reality—twinkled in light that radiated from her very form. The glazy orbs of red were uneven for statement.
Seeing these eyes, the newborn frowned. She flexed her calves and found herself no longer floating. A ground plane, not any differently colored than the white-black of reality’s edge, greeted her feet. Her hair stopped floating and fell gracefully to her ankles. The closer the eyes came, the more she leaned back. “You didn’t even have the decency to erase my memory,” she almost sang. Her voice was always lovely, but it was not accustom to English. While she remembered English, she always instinctively spoke the beginning language starting anew.
The creator slid from the apparent walls of this bubble of reality. His form was giant and serpentine. It was a mishmash of all creatures and the newborn found it as hideous as she always did. His inability to decide upon one thing was evidence of his arrogance. He was the only god to ever really exist and he knew it. He was the big bang and the heat death. He was the expansion and the collapse. He was the sudden force and its change due to inability to remain.
Discord’s too-wide mouth slid into a red smile that seemed to expand into oblivion. “My dearest, sweet Celestia… by now, you should know exactly how this is done.”
She threw herself onto the bottom plane, curling around herself. What was the point? “What does now mean?” Her eyes betrayed more misery than anger. She was just so sick and tired of all of this. The endless games, the tickling in the back of her head that told her this was all for his sick amusement even when he set the world adrift without him. She felt that she was trying to count from negative infinity to positive infinity. Zero hadn’t even blipped past her radar yet. She was counting decimals down to a ten after the whole and she felt weary from all of it. “What is this?”
There was no answer. He only nodded patronizingly as he always did, running a clawed hand over his beard. “In this form, you’ll do nicely for the mother of a new race.”
He never did beat around the bush until he grew bored.
The first born shied back, chocolate skin prickling into chill bumps as his golden paw landed roughly on her arm. The calluses were meaningless. There was no work he did except that of a devil.
Pity the devil and god were one and the same.
Celestia tried to run away to her happy place, a world she could dream up without Discord. However, no such world existed. There was only this world and in this world, Discord would afford her no comfort except the mild warmth of his empty chest.
It was pleasant enough. The new planet was this time lush and green everywhere except the four deserts. There were two suns and four oceans. Unfortunately, Luna, Celestia realized miserably, was not to be a part of this world. She was almost always there, whether as a meek bookish girl, or a mighty war-partner. When there were millennia to trudge through without her, Celestia felt as if the father-being was being especially cruel.
He was doubly cruel this time.
“Mother!” cried one happy voice. It was a girl with the most lovely pink hair and dark violet eyes on the planet. Celestia had struggled to know for sure, but had named her Cadance all the same after watching the child coax two of their little jade foxes into a marriage of sorts. Being a human always made it more difficult to tell who was who. The earliest memory of existence that Celestia currently had was of them all being ponies.
“Yes?” Celestia asked, opening one strong arm to her daughter. Her other children played in the valley before her. The river was shallow and clear, though a few small fish just right for eating did swim by on occasion.
“Father is coming.” Cadance smiled.
Celestia forced herself to. None of them had been granted memory of the past worlds. The monster reused souls and personalities and designs, but he saved memories for those he took to especially well.
Looking over to the grave of one sparkling child, she miserably knew that for some, the memory made their existence a bit of a twilight—spectacular, but fleeting. Yes, the creator had grown angry when the second born of this new reality had refused to play the game knowing it was a game and had killed herself out of spite. No one else knew the truth save Celestia and the original one himself.
“We had better go greet him, hadn’t we?”
Celestia saw the young children gathering around his legs. They cuddled and cooed to him, calling him variants of the paternal titles. At least they were speaking Navajo. It was such a soft, beautiful language. She much preferred it to the harsh, quick sounding Ainu that he for some reason loved to have the populous learn sometimes.
“Darling,” he called out, cooing to her. He looked so human that it made her sick. To have him show anything other than his true form was to have him act as if this was not all his cruel game.
The spectrum mother walked toward her faux-paramour, acting as if nothing was wrong. She embraced him, children amassing around her thighs. They grinned as their parents exchanged a kiss that tasted like bitter death to Celestia. “Discord,” she said so sweetly that it fermented in her throat.
He kissed her collar bone and distantly she knew there would be no escaping again.
She sat among willow trees with the newborn in her arms. She was almost entirely certain that it was Rainbow Dash. That meant there would be no others waiting beyond this life, avoiding being born. She was always only born if she knew the others needed her here in this life. Celestia tilted her head back, soaking up her formerly bonded planets. She had no control over them this time; apparently Discord knew not to let her handle them after last time she knew the truth and had dominion over the planets. She had been so close to killing him. Sure, it was omnicidal because they all had the possibility to die if he died, truly died, but she didn’t care. If she could just get sweet, sweet release then she would do anything she had to do.
Besides, they had lived enough to finally rest once and for all.
“Mother,” softly said Octavia as she approached. Her thick charcoal hair was done up nicely. Lotus must be training Aloe again. It was weird whenever the twins were not born as twins. It was their original design, after all—or, so Celestia thought so.
Celestia shushed the crying rainbow haired child, then looked to her almost too aware daughter. “Yes, Octavia?”
“Why is father never here?”
Celestia frowned. Because he would stay away long enough that some of the children did not know who he was and then he would approach them as a stranger and then there would be more children and Celestia would weep when she saw her grandchildren because there were only so many sources for them to come fr—
“He’s exploring, sweetie.”
“But, just the other day, Daring Doo said she mapped the whole world.” Octavia stared into Celestia’s eyes, unaware of the horrible truth she was slamming into Celestia’s face. It was only a matter of time until guess work would become truth, but the favored creation tried not to think about it. “There’s no where left to explore.”
“But there are people to meet.” Celestia neglected to say there were beings to corrupt, people to abuse, children to hate, lives to ruin.
Octavia was satisfied by this answer.
Reality faded into black-white just as it had sprung. Screams and silence surrounded Celestia as she watched super-saturated, dark, watery blood flood from Discord’s side. He thrashed blindly because he was blinded by his raging white angel. Her many children and grandchildren crowded closer to her, trying to escape the end of all that had ever been. A few who knew better stood still on the nothingness and let the darkness envelope them as it traveled leisurely on the ‘ground’ plane.
Celestia dropped the white dagger she had crafted. It had taken screams from her end—removing a collar bone was horribly painful—but it had done the trick. Never before had she attacked him with her own body, but it worked.
Existence was fleeting.
Octavia looked to Celestia. “Is it over?”
“I hope.”
Octavia carefully took Celestia’s trembling hand in her own and looked to the fading life in Discord’s eyes. Octavia was not sure what to say, do, or expect. All she knew was that she was okay with what had happened in the end. “I love you,” she gingerly told Celestia.
Overhead, Rainbow Dash stood nearby with a screaming infant. It was a child of Cheerilee. The most loyal of them all would allow none to vanish alone if they did not wish it.
“I love you, too,” Celestia said. She was certain she loved them. She knew there were a million lifetimes she adored them, a thousand in which she was cruel, a hundred where she missed them, but only this one would she be able to prove her affections.
As Discord stopped moving, the little reality closed in on itself and all faded.
Then there was no more.
