And Did Those Feet, in Ancient Time

“Humans!” the creature yelled joyously, clapping together a paw and a talon, “Oh, what a delight this is, an absolute delight. It’s been so long since one of you lot have visited! How’s Equestria?”

“It’s strange,” Graham answered stolidly, looking the creature right in the red pupils of his discoloured, yellow eyes.

“Well of course you’d find it strange, this is a far cry from good ol’ planet Earth, that’s for sure,” the creature continued, “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit excited right now, it’s just been so long since I’ve seen a human. I was convinced you people had finally wiped yourselves out. But, you’ve come a long a way, and this visit is such a surprise. Reminds me of that song, If I knew that you were comin, I'd've baked a cake. Ooh, there’s an idea!”

He snapped his fingers, and a flash of white light materialised in Graham’s hands, and Charlie’s also. The light died down, to reveal the two were now holding slices of a quite delicious looking black forest cake. Graham picked off a bit with the spoon he now had, and tested to see if it tasted as delectable as it appeared. He tried a piece, and then spat out a spray of light orange liquid and odd coloured chunks of food.

“Oops,” the creature said, in a way that implied it was no accident at all, “I almost forgot to say, that stuff looks like cake, but it’s actually gazpacho soup.”

“On with it,” Celestia said curtly, the closest Graham had seen so far to her getting angry.

“Alright, alright,” Discord said with a mischievous smile, “They haven’t let me have any fun since I came to this city, you see? C’est tragique!” he declared dramatically, miming as if to faint.

“Look here,” Graham said, rather ticked off, “It’s not fun being stuck here with a bellend like you, so quit faffing about and tell how you know about humans.”

“Let me just clean up first,” he said, snapping his fingers once more, this time dispelling the soup that was disguised as cake.

“Story time,” Discord then announced, reaching his arm out to the right, returning it to view holding a red velvet arm chair he seemed to have pulled from the aether. He sat in the chair, clicked his fingers, and opened the pages of the hardbound book he now possessed.

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“Once upon a time, boys and girls, I used to control Equestria.”

“You did?” Charlie asked with shock.

“Erm, yes,” Discord answered, this time much more muted than before.

“It was the worst chapter in our history,” Luna said sternly, “He held back ponykind an entire millennium.”

“That I did,” Discord said, for once sombrely, “I wanted chaos, I ruined lives as a result, and I paid my price when the Princesses defeated me.”

He stopped and breathed a heavy sigh, leaving the room silent enough to hear the faint ticking of a clock mounted near the door.

“Right then,” Discord said suddenly, returning to his normal tone and ending his brief moment of sobriety, “So there I was, in control, this vast land laid out before me, all mine. Of course, it was different from what it is now. It was an absolute mess, utterly insane. I loved it.”

“We didn’t,” Luna bitterly countered.

“I lived above all the chaos,” Discord continued, as if uninterrupted, “Of course; I went down at every opportunity. Until one day, I tried something different. A new magic, a mix of my magic, spells of my indentured Unicorn friends, and even the incantation of the masters of the Zebra arts.”

He paused, as if reflecting upon the acts he had committed. He once again seemed on the verge of sinking back into regret, but then sprang back into his speech.

“And you know what I found?” he began, directing the question towards Charlie.

“Well. . .” Charlie began.

“Of course you do!” Discord answered for him, “I found Earth! I could never actually go there, mind, but if I focused all my power, with some extra assistance, I could pull a little something, a little someone up to me.”

“How many people did you take?” Graham asked, cutting into his story.

“Only three,” he replied nonchalantly, gesturing with the three fingers on his paw, “First was Amelia, lovely woman she was. A pilot, if I remember correctly.”

“Second,” he said, pointing to his second finger and putting it down, “Was Harold. I didn’t like him nearly as much. He was a very impatient, serious man. Insisted I call him Mister Prime Minister, of all things. I don’t know what made him so self important, he was half naked when I brought him over, and Amelia told me clothes made the man."

“Shit,” Charlie said quietly, the first swear Graham had heard him utter since their arrival.

“Last fellow was a bit odd, but I quite liked him. D.B. Cooper, even the name was odd.”

He paused again, seemingly to remember the three people he had acquainted himself with.

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“They were good people. I didn’t realise it then, but Amelia might have been the first friend I ever had. She was always interested in exploring, and to her, Equestria was just a strange new land she could chart. When Amelia finally passed, I got Harold over, Mr. Prime Minister Holt, then D.B. Cooper after him. They told me all they could about Earth, all your fantastic things: Aeroplanes, Radio, Television, The Beatles--”

“I guess it’s true what they say about Beatle mania being universal,” Graham said, nudging Charlie.

Charlie just stood there, mouth agape at the information the formerly ruling trickster imparted.

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Graham said angrily, “Isn’t this the second time you’ve been too bloody shocked to speak? You seemed so calm when we first arrived here.”

“If we could get back to me for a bit,” Discord said, “I--oh! I’ve an idea!”

He snapped, yet again, this time the flash of white was in the dead centre of the room, and considerably larger. The light faded to reveal Twilight Sparkle, who continued talking with her eyes closed.

“--and that, Pinkie Pie, is how you calculate the size of the hole inside a doughnut. Starswirl the Bearded himself once wrote of the doughnut, saying--wait, what’s happening? Princess?”

“Quickly Twilight,” Discord said before Celestia could answer, “You’re on The Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question,” he paused to wink at Graham and Charlie, who responded with blank looks, “The category is Equestrian History. Explain to these two how I stopped ruling.”

Twilight sighed, annoyed that she had been upheaved from the conversation with her friends, but answered,

“Celestia and Luna used the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord, encasing him in a statue. The two then worked to restore civilisation to the Ponies who had lived in the anarchy and chaos of his rule, by founding the first city, Canterlot.”

“Oh that is an excellent answer, my dear Twilight Sparkle,” Discord said, “Almost exactly what any good history book would say. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely correct. Close, but no cigar,” he said, clicking a cigar into Twilight Sparkle’s mouth, who spat it out near instantaneously.

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“Have yourselves a look at this,” he announced, bringing up what seemed to be a floating video, depicting a group of extremely downtrodden ponies, walking through a patchwork of odd, unreal, downright impossible scenery.

“When I ruled,” Discord narrated, “A small band of ponies tried to escape, to live on the fringe of Equestria, where they would go unnoticed, and unmolested by me.”

The video now showed the group, in a normal patch of undeveloped grass. There were no signs of life anywhere, save for the plants. The video changed again, and the ponies were much thinner than before, and many seemed on the verge of collapsing.

“They did manage to slip my grasp, even my notice, for a while. But they had never lived off the land before. They didn’t know how, and were near death. Then, something changed.”

A massive burst of energy appeared in front of the ponies, as bright as the sun, before subsiding, to reveal a massive grey structure, the size of an entire village. It was wedged into the ground, the bottom of it monolithic and impenetrable, but had a flat top, upon which there were many metal structure. The object was a United States Navy Destroyer.

“That’s what it was,” Discord answered when Graham said just that, “The USS Eldridge, to be precise.”

“The Philadelphia Experiment,” Charlie said, awestruck.

“Correct again,” Discord answered, “You’re quite smart fellows, I must admit.”

“Hold on a moment,” Twilight said, interrupting Discord and surprising him enough for the video to disappear, “You wanted everyone to be under your chaos, why would you allow them to do this?”

Celestia smiled proudly at her student, but Discord instantly came back with an answer.

“I didn’t want my chaos!” he said emphatically, “I wanted chaos! Everything was mine, except for that!” he rose out of his chair, and continued to explain fervently, “That they weren’t under my rule was chaos in of itself, don’t you see?”

Neither Graham, nor Charlie, nor Luna, Celestia or Twilight knew how to respond, and so once again silence gripped the room.

Discord sat back down in his chair, visibly mellower, and continued to impart his knowledge of the ship’s crew and the settler ponies.

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“The crew on the Eldridge made contact with the ponies, and taught them how to live. Eventually, a town blossomed, named in honour of the ship’s home; Philadelphia. The name was later bastardised, just like every other old city in Equestria, save Canterlot.”

“So,” Twilight asked, “The legend of Fillydelphia’s founding is true? Every scholar in history dismissed it as a metaphor for the wealth that seafaring trade brings the city.”

“Oh no,” Discord said, “It’s all true, the only difference is in the myth, the ship is manned by friendly Manticores. Don’t ask me why, I haven’t any idea.”

Graham thought back to his time in Equestria. The food, the use of American English and idioms, the tradition of knives and forks, it all made a certain amount of ridiculously bonkers sense.

“Well,” Charlie said, “That explains Fillydelphia, but what about the other cities that are named by humans?”

“A wonderful follow-up question,” Discord replied, beaming, “You see, not long before Celestia and Luna founded Canterlot, the ship disappeared, I imagine it returned to Earth somehow. But, the Ponies wanted to immortalise the humans for their help. The ten most senior officers made a list of their home cities, and gave it to the Ponies, who were about to send their first expedition into unknown land. They asked the cities be named after theirs.”

Now Twilight interrupted again, but directed her line of question this time to Celestia.

“Did you know that Fillydelphia predates Canterlot?” she asked.

“I had suspicions,” Celestia admitted, “But they were unconfirmed. We sent scouts as soon as Canterlot had been built, and they found Fillydelphia already founded, but we had no way of knowing who was first. We never believed their story about the ship, and the strange creatures who nurtured them. The scholars never wrote the legend in full, and eventually, the humans were forgotten. What a fool I was,” she said glumly, shaking her head.

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Another snap and Charlie was now holding a faded piece of paper, which had on it the names of ten cities, each written with different handwriting.

“Read them out,” Discord instructed, “Twilight here can guess what they’re called now.”

He read the names, Twilight answering each time, more and more amazed at how widely the humans, or at least the memory of the humans, had left their mark on modern Equestria.

Manhattan, Manehattan; Baltimore, Baltimare; San Francisco, San Franciscolt; Seattle, Seaddle; Minneapolis, Whinnyapolis.

“Detroit,” Charlie said, naming the seventh city on the list.

“Detrot,” Twilight answered almost subconsciously, as she was thinking about how all of Equestria’s oldest and greatest cities were all of a human legacy.

“Filthy places, Detroit and Detrot,” Discord said after Twilight named the location.

“What do you mean?” she asked, now snapped back into reality, “Detrot is a hub of Pony industry!”

“Have you been there?”

Once Twilight answered that she hadn’t, Discord requested the Humans and Princesses to “hold on a moment”, then snapped his fingers, ejecting himself and Twilight from the mostly vacant banquet hall, before appearing again a minute later, exactly where they stood before.

“That was. . .atrocious,” Twilight said numbly.

“Told you,” Discord replied, unaffected and smug.

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According to Discord, the final three cities, Liverfoal, Manechester, and Trottingham were the result of three British officers sent to also observe the project.”

The two Princesses were noticeably shaken by the scope of the revelation Discord had brought before them.

“Why were we not informed sooner?!” Luna had demanded, using the Royal Canterlot Voice in the hopes of intimidation.

“Slipped my mind,” Discord had dismissively replied, seemingly more interested in his nails than the physical Gods and their questions.

Celestia had thanked Graham and Charlie for being there, and said her and Luna had much to talk with Discord about, so asked that they wait outside the room with Twilight Sparkle.

“A lot to take in, isn’t it?” Charlie asked as they sat around a small table usually for Palace staff when the banquet hall was not in use.

“In honesty,” Graham replied, “I’m pretty shocked; especially to think we’re not the first humans to be here. One thing that really stuck with me though. . .”

“Yes?” Charlie politely said, hoping he’d continue.

“When I first heard it was ruled by a Princess, supreme ruler for life and all, I was expecting a Margaret Thatcher sort of thing going on. I’m pretty surprised she’s ruled so well for so long. More so when I compare it to that Discord and his reign,” he stopped and shuddered ever so slightly at that point.

“I know what you mean about Discord,” Twilight said from across the table.

To pass the time outside the hall, Twilight told the two her stories, from Nightmare Moon, to Discord, to the Changelings, and finally King Sombra. She had just finished her tale from the Crystal Empire when Celestia emerged from the hall.

“I’m not guaranteeing anything,” she said crisply, “But it’s quite possible you two will be able to go home, soon.”