It had been many years since any incidences in Equestria caused a panic; Nightmare moon, the Ursa Major, and Discord were all fairly distant memories to the citizens on the equine community. The elements of harmony and its bearers were keeping the less significant threats in check, along with Princess Celestia’s overview of everything else that the six individuals couldn’t see.
In the garden of Canterlot Castle, three you mare’s walked along the outside of the infamous hedge maze. The three girls had grown up together in ponyville, becoming friends in search of their cutie marks. After many failed attempts, their cutie marks were now proudly showing on their flanks, showcasing their own special talents. They had grown older and more mature since their younger days of bickering, but they still remained the best of friends…
“I’m telling you Sweetie Belle, I looked it up! It doesn’t have an EXACT meaning! It’s just a generic insult!”
“You’re just trying to say that because you don’t know what it means! After all these years you’ve never taken the time to look it up.”
“It doesn’t MEAN anything! Dodo just means DODO!”
“You’re a dodo!”
“YOU’RE BOTH DODO’S!”
Proud… Mature… Best friends…
“Come on girls, this is a silly argument…” Applebloom snorted out, annoyed by the two yelling from either side of her, “We came here because we agreed to have a good time… Now quit acting like we’re still fillies…”
The other grumbled, still annoyed by each other’s side of the argument. Applebloom sighed softly, shaking her head before looking up, “Hey! Remember this, girls?” the three found themselves looking up at a marvelous statue of a pony holding up a flag. She seemed so determined, so triumphant in whatever efforts had transpired before this very moment in time. The girls wondered quietly where the inspiration for such a statue could have come from. There weren’t any wars in a long time, although the country was fairly old. The statue seemed to be preserved by magic over so many years. It was quite a sight to behold.
“Yeah.” Scootaloo mused as she stared up at the statue, both admiring it and envying it, “It’s suppose to stand for ‘victory’, right?” she looked at the others, neither of which objected, so she assumed she was correct, “It’s really cool… you think I’ll ever get a statue of my own?”
Sweetie belle snorted, holding in a much longer laugh, “Hardly… Although if you work hard I suppose you could end up getting one.”
Applebloom found herself grinning as a thought came to mind, “Cutie mark crusader statue posers?”
The other’s faces grew bright with their huge smile, both cheering at the slogan, as it was custom to do so now whenever the phrase ‘cutie mark crusaders’ was brought up. “Oh yeah! I bet if we worked together we could end up getting out own statue!” Scootaloo found herself bouncing with anticipation, her messy purple mane flaying everywhere. “And of course, I would be the leader, holding the Equestrian flag high in the air as I lead our team to victory!”
Applebloom giggled; shaking her head at her friend’s eagerness, “We’ll just hafta see…” she reached back and adjusted her bow. After all these year she kept the accessory. Even as her hair grew longer, she kept it pinned up with the large red bow. After the brief adjustment, she found herself looking around once more, spotting something else familiar, “Hey, Girls… I bet you remember this one…” she walked over with a little grin on her face. The other quickly recognized the figure and slowly approached it, holding a slight tinge of fear in their hearts.
Atop the pedestal that laid before them; stood a misshapen form of a mismatched creature. The horrible creature of disharmony locked away in stone twice for his crimes against Equestria; with the head of a horse, one arm of a lion and another of an eagle, and a mismatched assortment of other animals’ pieces. The familiar draconequis known as Discord was placed in the garden once more to fulfill his sentence for causing chaos in the world by being a decorative ornament for passerby’s to mock.
“Oh yeah… Discord… I remember him…” Sweetie belle shivered at the thought, “Rarity told me all about him…” her eyes examined the horrid creature, identifying all the pieces that made up his body.
“Yeah, Applejack told me about him too… I wish I could’ve seen it…” Applebloom stared at the creature, mesmerized by his form. She hadn’t taken much notice to him as a child, but now, knowing what this TRULY was, it was intriguing to see it.
“Yeah… too bad Miss Cheerilee locked us all in the castle when he got out…” Scootaloo took a brief glance upwards, seeing a few stray cloud overhead, “Cotton candy cloud and chocolate rain… THAT would have been fun to see…”
Applebloom’s face twisted, uncertain of her own interest, “Well, yeah… it would’ve been interesting t’see I s’pose… but remember what they told us? Apples the size uh ponies, giant animals running rampant! Plants and trees the size of castles! That’s dangerous stuff, it’s too chaotic. It’s not some fun little game.” Her ear twitched as a small crackle caught her attention. She looked around to try and find the source, but her friends interrupted her search.
“Oh come on, you can’t deny how awesome that would’ve been to see!” Scootaloo continued to push her opinion on the others, trying to convince them of the wonder and amazement that would have awaited them if they could have gotten out to see it. “Think of how big of an apple pie you could make with one of those giant apples!” Another snap was heard, but ignored to further the conversation.
“Well, yeah… I always DID dream about makin’ the worlds biggest apple pie… But again, it’s chaotic, it’s not natural…” she mused briefly, too lost in thought to notice the sound of stone chunks raining onto a stone floor, “Although a giant caramel apple would be kinda neat too…”
“Don’t you have a cousin Caramel Apple?” Sweetie Belle asked, wanting to get in on the conversation.
“No, but I do know a colt in town named Caramel… heh, a giant Caramel Pony! That would be kinda silly to see!”
“Oh a giant pony…” An unfamiliar but menacing voice caught their ears, making them all turn toward the statue “That sounds like FUN.” The floor was covered in bits of stone from the statue as it continued to break apart. Its outer coating of bleach white stone continued to tear off, revealing the brighter colored fur beneath. The girls stared at the statue as it began to come to life. They had no idea what to do other than watch as he freed himself. With one final jerk, the rest of the stone shattered and flaked off. He brushed his arms and sifting his claws through his mane, removing the last of the bits from his hair, “Fun… But unnatural, don’t you think?” he turned toward the girls, giving them a smug, toothy grin.
The girls continued to stare, their first time seeing the creature in his normal form. An idea quickly popped into her head, “Quick! We freed him from bickering so much! We gotta be friendly!” the two turned to her, unsure of how that would work, but with no other ideas, they didn’t object, “Hearts warming carol! Go!”
The three suddenly began to sing, “The fire of friendship lives in our hearts!... Something.. something, cannot drift apart!” The girls hadn’t taken much time to learn the lyrics as children, they just hummed the tune with everyone else at the time…
Discord burst out into laughter, “now THAT was chaotic! I love it! Hehehe.”
Their feeble plan had no effect on the creature, and now they began to panic, “Quick! We gotta warn the princess!” the three turned all at once, only to be greeted by the chaos bringer, whom willed himself to be behind them before they could turn.
“Ah my little ponies… I just want to talk… I couldn’t help overhearing your little conversation about me and I just HAD to come out and say Hello… You seem to admire my work,” he glanced at Scootaloo with a smile… but it faded quickly, “Although the rumors you’ve heard are mere fantasies brought on by a delusional populous…”
“Hey! My sister was one of the ponies that beat you!” Applebloom took a stand, bravely speaking to the creature, “She told me all the stuff you did! All the things you messed up! And the things you did to her friends!”
“Oh? Did she now?” he took a seat on a stone slab, resting his elbow on his knee while his chin sat snuggly in his palm, “Do tell, what EXACTLY did I do?”
It took Applebloom a moment to respond, she wanted to make sure that she was recalling exactly what he sister had told them, “Well, she said you made the apples in our farm grow to the size of ponies! The trees were bending over they were so huge!”
“Oh? Is that so?” Discord grinned, something was brewing in his head and the girls weren’t certain as to what it was… “Well let take a look at this apple tree over here, shall we?” He took a stand and approached a nearby tree full of apples. The girls quietly followed, curious by his actions… the feared creature of Equestria wasn’t flipping houses of turning the grass into a plaid fabric… he just stood in front of the tree, looking around for something, “Aha, here we go…” he pulled something out of the tree, showing the girls a fairly large apple, almost twice the size of an average apple… but nothing to go crazy about. “What do you think?”
“That’s a pretty big apple!” Sweetie belle mused, “Applebloom, what do you think?” The apple expert of the group must have known more about what they were looking at than they did.
“Uh… well, it’s a really big apple…” she examined the apple closely, or at least as closely as she wanted to get to the hand holding said apple. It was certainly large, and a slightly darker hue than normal. “We get those sometimes on trees closer to the forest… We usually throw them away though… Applejack says if they grow to be that big, somethin’s wrong with em…”
“Hm, yes, I’m not surprised…” Discord pulled the apple away and took a bite out of it, making a fairly audible crunch as he bit into it, “Tastes fine to me… Tell me, what would you call this apple?”
The Pegasus and unicorn looked at the earth pony, hoping once again the apple expert would once again provide an answer, “Unnatural?” was her first response, and boy did it get a reaction out of Discord. With her words he nearly choked, spitting out the chunks of apple bits to the floor before letting out a hearty laugh. Apparently something about what she said was hilarious. She furrowed her brow, glaring at the bringer of chaos. “Well what would YOU call it?”
He let out a few more laughs, wiping a tear from his eyes, “Oh silly little filly… THIS is what I would call ‘natural’…” he explained, holding out the apple once again to push his statement. “Not to mention tasty…”
Scootaloo looked up at the draconequis, “Well of course YOU would! You’re the master of chaos and disharmony! You’re DISCORD! It’s in your name right there!”
He let out another low laugh, taking in a deep breath before speaking, “My dear child… This right here… this is merely the product of a natural process… Inside this little apple are seeds… meant to create more trees… if nopony were to pick the apples, they’d eventually fall from the tree and roll away…” his hand drew circles in the air, as if motioning an apple rolling down a hill, “The seeds would use the energy within the fruit of the apple to grow and create more trees. A bigger apple only means more energy for the seeds to use to grow… So it’s only natural for the tree to want to have bigger apples so its seeds have more food… understand?”
The two non earth ponies glanced at each other… from his explanation; it seemed to make sense. … nothing out of the ordinary really, although they would be the first to admit they weren’t experts on Apples, or plant life in general… But Applebloom wasn’t convinced, “We handle the seeds just fine! We hold onto the seeds and plant new trees all the time! There’s no need for the apples to grow that big if someone else handles its seeds.” She smiled proudly, as if she had just struck the fatal blow to Discord’s argument… but he just smiled.
“Oh yes, the manual removal of seeds and planting them in neat little rows, just like you’ve always done, right? The ‘natural’ way?” he took another bite of the apple, a smaller one so he could continue his speech, “Gotta make sure everything complies with your guidelines or else they aren’t perfect… Can’t have a sagging tree out of line or an apple too big or else the world around you might collapse.” Applebloom stared in confusion… although; his words seemed to be digging deep. She recalled many times when Applejack got upset over a tree beginning to grow out of the rows they had planned out. “Have you ever been inside the Evertree forest, girls?”
His sudden change of subject caught them off guard. Applebloom was still a bit lost in her own thoughts, and couldn’t find the answer, so Scootaloo took the opportunity, “Our clubhouse isn’t far from the forest… and we went in there looking for some chickens as fillies…”
“Tell me about it… What did you think?” Discord leaned against the tree, nibbling at the ‘unnatural’ apple.
“Well… The tree and the plants were all growing wildy…”
“Chaotically?” he interrupted quickly, his mouth still full of apple chunks.
“Yeah… growing by themselves, and then the clouds moving on their own, it’s unnatural… strange animals living by themselves…”
“No pony around to keep them in line?” Discord continued to pry into her words, trying to find their true meaning.
“W-well… yeah… I mean, we can take care of animals, so why don’t they let us? And the trees, it’s so chaotic that they grow by themselves with no pony to shape them.”
Discord finished the apple, spitting out the seeds and stem to toss away, “Girls, I have a new word you might not be familiar with that I think you should consider…” The girls stared curious at him, now wondering what he could possibly teach them. “Natural…” the girls waited for more… but he just stood there silently…
“Natural? That’s it?” Sweetie Belle seemed confused, “We know what that means…”
“Really? Than do tell little miss dictionary…” Scootaloo and Applejack couldn’t help but snicker at the obvious inside joke… Discord was out of the loop but didn’t question it.
“It means… well… You know… It just HAPPENS, it doesn’t really have anypony guiding it… something like that…” Sweetie Belle felt a bit self-conscious about her meager definition… but it’s how she viewed the word.
“So then you would say that the Everfree Forest is natural?” The girls looked at one another again, still uncertain of his meaning, “The trees merely grow as they wish to grow, with no pony guiding them or cutting down the ones that may sag or bend. The fruit grow as big or as small as they see fit, with nopony around to judge their size or color… The animals fend for themselves because they naturally want to live, so they eat what the want to live…” there was a noticeable lack of flare in his words, or rather, the actions accompanying his words. There were plenty of times when he could have pulled out a prop to help emphasize his statement, which on their own were strong enough. However it seemed like he was holding back on his magical abilities, “THAT my little fillies, is what natural is…” a wide grin spread across his face, “In fact… I’d say your little farm is the most UNnatural thing you could do to a tree.”
Applebloom tried to process the information she was being fed… the conditioned portion of her brain was fighting the facts with how she was raised to think… but she was a smart girl, and the facts that were presented were making sense…
“You see? What you have been conditioned to think is ‘natural’ is actually your kind keeping things under control… Keep the trees in line, keep the clouds under control, force it to rain whenever you so desire… And if something gets even the tiniest bit out of hand, it’s suddenly CHAOS!” NOW he began to use his magic for emphasis, causing the earth to rumble beneath their feet, and thunder roar from far away, “ERRADIC! UNPREDICTABLE DISASTER!” He made sure to put on a dramatic performance for the ponies, and it seemed to be working. The fear in their eyes from what he was saying was apparent, “Don’t you see girls? I’m not the master of chaos… disharmony… Heh, heck, my real name isn’t even Discord… I’m merely an admirer of nature… I love it when I see a wildflower blooming in a field.” He hand went downward, as if to scoop up something. A flower sprouted instantaneously from the ground, and was picked up in his large lion paw, “Isn’t it lovely? Sure, a perfectly preened bush of roses looks nice…” he passively waved his hand in a dismissive manner toward a nearby rosebush, “but it doesn’t have the same charm as a flower growing on it own… nopony to tell it how to grow or where… nopony to say that it has no right to grow how it wants to grow… it’s so… lovely” there was a hint of passion and tenderness in his voice; one that even calmed the frightened girls before him.
They seemed confused by his words… sure the flower looked nice, but they didn’t seem to understand the beauty of something natural… “Let’s try a different example… You,” he pointed the flower at the orange Pegasus, “What’s your name again?”
Scootaloo was still unnerved by the creature, but answered his question nonetheless, “Scootaloo…”
“Scootaloo, eh? What would you think if I were to comb that frizzy mane of yours and tie it into neat little pigtails?” he asked, tilting his head a bit.
“Ugh! No way! I like my hair like this!”
“Why?” he inquired, wanting to no her reasoning…
“I just… do… I don’t like my hair being held together by anything…” she didn’t see anything by it, it’s how she always was.
“You like the freedom… you want it to allow itself to grow however it pleases. It’s a sense of freedom to you, isn’t it?”
Scootaloo pondered the idea, “Yeah… I guess that’s kinda true… I do like my hair flowing in the breeze… even if it gets tangled and messy, it’s just nice to have it… well.. ‘out’…”
Applebloom felt their defenses weakening, “Well some ponies PREFER it like that, but I like my hair in a nice little bow, like this…” she reached up and bumped the bow, letting it bounce playfully.
“Oh yes, I suppose your hair looks… nice…” Discord said with little enthusiasm, “But have you ever just let you hair down… Let it flow down your neck and down your back…” with a flash of light he was gone, and behind her something tugged at her bow, stealing it from her hair.
She quickly turned he head, prepared to yell at the draconequis for assaulting her bow. However a sudden sensation overwhelmed her for a brief moment in time. The tips of her long hair brushing across her back as they were flung around, whipping around her neck, tickling her skin. She was frozen for a minute, analyzing the new sensation. A slight breeze caught her mane, blowing it back, tickling her neck as it passed by.
“mm, You have such lovely hair when it’s not constrained by this bow…” she was too distracted by the new feelings to notice Discord’s claw approaching. It gently sifted through her hair, pulling it gently and letting it fall back into place. It surprised the young mare, but somehow it felt comforting, causing mixed signals in her head. The creature once feared by all, and locked away in stone was touching her mane… and she had no intention of stopping him.
Discord smiled, feeling like he was getting along with the girls now. He turned his attention to the Pegasus next, “I bet yours would look nice as well…”
Sweetie Belle was still uncertain about him, and slowly stepped back, “I’ve seen my hair without any spray or treatment or anything… It looks nice I guess… I never really took the time to look…”
“I think you should next time you get a chance…” with his lion’s paw, he took the wildflower and plucked it into Sweetie Belle’s hair. It complemented her natural colors and gave her a very sweet look. His eagle claw was still playing with Appleblooms mane, but he took a step back to allow himself to use both hand for his next bullet point, “Letting the natural happen is truly wondrous… Like this grass…” he looked down around the stone pathways, eying the well trimmed lawn.
“Yeah, the grass looks really nice and neat!” Sweetie belle replied, feeling relieved that she wasn’t going to have her mane messed up.
“It’s too perfect…” discord replied with a frown, “Let’s let a little nature take it’s course…” he waved his hand toward the ground, a rainbow of colors exploding from the earth as hundreds of flowers began to surround them. The girls tried to step away but the flowers enveloped their hooves before any escape could be made. Of course they were scared at first, seeing the power of Discord for their very own… but… somehow the flowers beneath their hooves were… lovely… strange and alien to them, but they had a mysterious beauty of uncertainty to them. Few of them were the same size, shape or color, and it was hard to find even a single pair that matched.
“It’s… beautiful…” Sweetie Belle spoke softly, running her hooves through the flowery arrangement.
Discord smiled at the unicorn’s reaction, “Isn’t it though? So unpredictable nature can be… you never know what you’ll see when nature takes the reigns…” he laid himself into the bed of flowers, waving his hand at the sky. The perfectly shaped clouds began to spread, taking on odd shapes in the sky.
“Hey, what are you doing now?” Scootaloo was curious, having taken weather patrol classes, the clouds seemed to be losing their shape, which was, to her, unnatural.
“Clouds don’t normally stay in those perfect little lumps you pegasi make… the have a tendency to take on all sorts of shapes… OH! Looks at that, it looks like a bunny doesn’t it?” he pointed up at one particular cloud, to which the girls looked up…
it looked funny… but they couldn’t see what he meant… Scootaloo tilted her head a bit before it finally clicked, “OH! I see it! It does look like a bunny!”
The other’s tilted their heads as well but remained quiet. Applebloom finally spoke up, “Hm… it… looks more like a TV to me… like with those big antenna…”
“Looks like clouds to m-…” sweetie belle couldn’t conjure up the imagination for that particular cloud, but another soon caught her eye, “Wait! Doesn’t that one look like a cupcake to you two?”
“YEAH!” the other grew excited, now seeing all sorts of shapes in the clouds. As the moved and changed, more shapes could be spotted. They called out various items that they could see in the clouds, excited by the idea that there were pictures in the skies…
However soon Applebloom caught herself enjoying the acts of the enemy, and put her serious face back on as she looked at Discord, “Okay, So nature is nice… but that still doesn’t explain all the other stuff you did! Cotton candy clouds, chocolate rain, soapy roads field of popcorn… not to mention what you did to my sister ad her friends…”
Discord chuckled, not bothering to sit up for this explanation, “It’s simple my little ponies… you have a pony who’s so use to the order and control she has over everything, and then you take away said order and control, and suddenly her mind goes astray…” he waved his hand, not to perform his magic, but to accentuate his words, “You take every apple in her farm and make them a bit bigger, take the trees and have them bend and lean like the would in nature… and suddenly she sees giant apples that cause a tree to bend 90 degrees from the MASSIVE weight…” he plucked a nearby flower and placed it to his nose, taking in a deep breath, “You make the rain taste a little funny because of the water it naturally soaked up, rather than the purified water in a factory, and suddenly ‘Oh my! It must be made of chocolate!’.” He let out another laugh, imagining the panicked faces of the pony folk, “As for the cotton candy, I can only imagine the odd shapes reminded them of the treat… As for the popcorn incident, well… That confuses me as well… but again, a mind will go astray when you take the control from it”
“Well what about the soapy roads? And the sun?” Scootaloo’s pushy nature demanded answers for these occurrences, “What about Ponyville floating on chunks of land! And buffalo dancing in the street?”
“PFFFTTT AHAHA!” he erupted in another fit of laughter, finally sitting up, “Really? Dancing buffalo? Chunks of land FLOATING IN THE SKY? HA! Oh my, what imaginative ponies this land has…” he wiped another tear from his face before speaking once more, “Again my dears… you have ponies who controls EVERYTHING in their world: the plants beneath their feet, the trees in their yard, the weather above their heads, and you suddenly take that control away… That probably doesn’t bode well with their minds… makes them see things that aren’t really there…”
“Well what about you changing how our friends acted! You took away my sisters honesty!” Applebloom felt herself taking an offensive position, gearing up for another battle of words.
Sweetie Belle took her side, “And MY sister’s generosity!”
Discord just smiled, “I merely did what I’m doing now… talking…” The girls didn’t seem satisfied by his answer, so he continued, “It was a bit deceitful, but I did nothing but speak the truth to them… I had to break them from their cherished beliefs… I had to break their hold on the control they felt they had. I told your sister that sometimes the truth hurts… and sometimes a lie is easier to take… and that IS true… I think she took it a bit hard though… As well as Fluttershy… She seemed to be putting up a good defense but then suddenly she snapped. I think she had the fears building up inside her, and I accidentally popped the cork on them. I’ll be honest, it worried me.” He seemed to have a deep concern in his eyes, not something one could fake, “Rarity is generous when things bode well for her, but the idea of having a giant diamond was just too much for her to bare, and she wanted it all to herself. It’s a natural thing for ponies to do when they’ve been given something so big that it’s hard to imagine…”
“I bet you have some nice excuse for why Rainbow Dash betrayed her friends?” Scootaloo glared, recalling the story of Rainbow flying away and leaving her friends.
“She was still loyal to her friends, but she’s also loyal to her hometown of Cloudsdale… Sometimes you can’t be loyal to two people at the same time, and you have to make tough decisions in order to save something that’s important to you… and the idea of Cloudsdale collapsing was enough of an excuse to try and save it instead of her friends… Think of it this way, Scootaloo… If I told you that right now Rainbow Dash was in someone’s basement about to be chopped up… would you stay here and stand up to me with your friends? Or would you go and help her instead?”
Scootaloo froze, unable to respond to his hypothetical situation. She turned to her friends, hoping for some help.
Applebloom knew how Scootaloo felt about Rainbow Dash, and decided to speak for her, “I understand if you would have gone to rescue her Scootaloo… She’s your idol, I know you would do anything to protect her…”
Scoots smiled, happy for her friends understanding, “Thanks…”
Discord smiled at the girls, “I just wanted them to see that the perfect world they had created was just a fabrication… and I want YOU to see it too! a world attached to strings, being controlled by a tyrant…”
Suddenly the flowers beneath them began to recede into the ground row by row, and the clouds above shrank back into their normal shape. Discord let out a sigh, turning his head around, “And there she is now…”
The sound of footsteps approached the group, the light ‘clink’ of her golden shoes as they tapped the stone path of the garden echoed in the silence. The eyes of Equestria’s ruler glared down at the mismatched creature, unamused by his presence, “Discord… I’m surprised you haven’t run off by now.”
“Celestia.” He replied with a dull expression, resting his chin on the back of his hand, “I’m surprised you took so long… If I didn’t know any better I’d say you LET me stay free this long…” a small grin tugged at his lip…
Celestia’s expression of distaste didn’t change, “How did you escape this time?” She looked over and saw the three young mares, standing still as statues. The person that was just talking to them about the beauty of nature now was accompanied by the one who sought to destroy that. Their once pure princess was now seen as someone to be feared. “Hm, I believe you are the three who mistakenly released him last time…” Their hearts stopped briefly, now she was associating her enemy with them, “after I’m finished here I’m going to have to ask you to stay away from the garden... you understand, don’t you?”
The girls remained silent and still, but Discord spoke up for them, “Oh come now, you’re taking away my guests… Although if you were TRULY concerned about my escape, you would’ve come down sooner…” Another mischievious grin tugged at his lips, a twisted idea coming to mind, “if I had to take a guess… I would say you LET me speak with them… you wanted me to plant my little seed of doubt into their minds about you and your ‘order’… Maybe to kill your boredom a few years from now when they decide to rebel against you?”
“Silence Discord, you tongue will betray you again.”
“Or rather, will cause others to betray YOU… I almost got your six little underlings to realize what was truly going on in their world… but that one purple pony’s loyalty to you and your own silver tongue pushed her and the rest of the gang back to your side…” Discord had a look of disgust for the regal pony, “They almost saw past the veil you put over their eyes to see what nature truly it…” He let his attack go, letting out a sigh, “Oh well… maybe next time I escape I’ll have more luck.” Another grin crossed his face, “That is, unless you plan on letting me go… I know how much you love these cat and mouse games…”
Celestia’s expression never seemed to change… a blank stare with a hint of relentless power in her eyes, “You’re going back into your imprisonment… right now…”
“Oh? Still not going to KILL me? Not going to allow me to DIE? No, that would be the natural way to go, heh… No no, instead you want to put me in stone and keep control over me… keep me in check with you precious ‘order’…” He sighed, stretching out his back briefly, “Oh well, I don’t have the strength to put up much of a fight this time…. at least let me get in a more dignified position than last time though.” he walked back to the pedestal that he was presented on earlier, returning to his position; standing tall with his hands behind his back, “I’ll see you again soon Princess… don’t go ruining the Everfree forest before I get back… oh and give Princess Luna my regards… She IS back isn’t she? You didn’t EXTEND her sentence for her little outburst… I hope not, she’s a sweet girl…”
Celestia didn’t respond. Instead her eyes began to glow with a blinding white light, and slowly his feet began to turn to stone, slowly working it’s way up. He looked over at the girls, who could only watch in horror as he was incarcerated before their eyes. He simply smiled, “Just remember girls… There’s a difference between chaos and nature… don’t allow yourselves to be confused by what someone claims to be order…” he continued to smiled as he pulled his gaze back, staring ahead as his head was finally enveloped in the stone.
The garden was silent, with Celestia finishing the spell she turned to the girls, putting on a comforting smile, “I hope you girls are okay… He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
The girls still seemed uneasy, but they all shook their heads in response, “No princess… In fact… he didn’t seem all that bad…”
Her smile faded, and now the princess was giving them a blank look, “he was much weaker when he escaped… He probably just didn’t have enough power to do anything as drastic as he normally would…”
“Well, he DID teleport…” Scootaloo pointed out, “and he made all those flowers appear, I’m sure he had enough power to at least run away if he wanted to… Are you sure he’s really that bad?”
Her face didn’t change, but it seemed like her presence was becoming more intimidating, “He’s the master of deception and a bringer of chaos… He’s set out to turn the world upside down and ruin our world…”
The girls seemed hesitant to respond, but something inside Applebloom encouraged her to speak up against the princess, “Well, he made a lot of sense… I mean… It’s not like an overgrown apple is a terrible thing… or letting plants grow where they want… It doesn’t seem so bad…”
“It’s starts with flowers growing where they want, and plants growing freely… then ponies start feeling like they don’t want to be told what to do, they demand to follow their own path… towns rising up against one another, fighting over nonsense. Constant uprisings against one government only to set up a new one to be taken down by another uprising! It’s starts with one flower growing out of place and then the entire world boils into a chaotic bloodbath. Without order there is only death and destruction…” she never raised her voice, but her words carried weight than hit the girls hearts hard…
Something about her statement nagged at Scootaloo’s mind, “You’re not worried about the plants or the clouds or anything… You’re worried about ponies rebelling against you and taking away your power and your order!”
Celestia was quiet for a moment, he silence suddenly digging at their hearts. Scootaloo began to worry about her own outburst before she finally spoke up, “You two… you’re sisters with Appljack and Rarity… and you are good friends with Rainbow Dash…” The girls nodded slowly, wondering where she was going with this, “You may be close connections with my star pupil and her closest friends… but don’t think that you won’t be punished if you decide to bring chaos into my world… discord wasn’t the first nor the last rebellious soul I’ve had to contend with.” Her eyes shifted to something behind the girls, they were nervous about what they’d see, but they decided to look anyway… and the familiar view they had come to enjoy suddenly stopped their hearts.
Behind them was the Victory statue. The pony holding the flag standing tall in the face of her enemies… and behind her were more statues…. Hundreds of ponies standing tall and proud, but locked away in stone. As the girls looked, the faces seemed to carry a new weight to them, telling a completely different story. To a passing onlooker the faces would have brought a smile to their face, but now the three girls could see the true expression on her face. The slightly parted lips and widened eyes of the victorious pony told them of the sudden doom that was brought upon her in her moment of glory, watching as the spell of sealing was put upon her. She hardly had time to scream before being stopped in time.
“You… You did this to all of them, didn’t you?” Sweetie belle mumbled, feeling her eyes welling up with tears.
“They threatened the peace and order of my kingdom… and I had to deal with them accordingly.” Celestia replied in a flat tone, “Now then… I recommend you head on home and forget all about this mess… unless… You would prefer that I erect a memorial statue for the three young mares that went missing in the forest…” the three spun around, fearing the sight of a glowing unicorn horn pointed in their direction. But instead they just watched the tail of the princess slowly walk away, as if nothing happened.
The three girls were silent, uncertain of how to go about the rest of their day. Their hearts were beating quickly and erratically, and their legs were locked up in fear even as the danger left them.
Finally Applebloom swallowed hard, “Girls… let’s head back home…” she said softly, trying to move her legs. The other two nodded, still uncertain about the events that had taken place.
“Applebloom… where’s your bow?” Sweetie Belle pondered, noticing the red fabric had gone missing.
She reached up, trying to feel where it went, only feeling her hair dangling down her neck, “Discord took it.” She recalled, looking towards him. She examined the area around his feet before spotting it in his hands. He intertwined the bow in his fingers, although it too was set in stone now.
She stared at the bow for a long time, to the point where her friends were growing concerned, “Applebloom, it’s okay… we can get another bow…”
“No, it’s not that…” she mumbled, still staring for another moment, “Tell me if this sounds crazy or not…” she asked, finally looking back at the mares, “Do you think he KNEW he would be captured again?... and do you think maybe… he kept my bow because… he was expecting us to come back again?”
The girls exchanged glances, pondering the idea in their own heads… finally Scootaloo smiled, “It sounds like a natural thing to assume to me…” the others smiled as well, exchanging the grins to one another.
“Cutie Mark Crusader Rebel Alliance, yay?”
“Cutie Mark Crusader Rebel Alliance, yay!” the others seemed agreed on the subject, but more information and time would be needed before actions could be taken. The ‘order’ of this ruler was meant to end…
Things in the world needed to progress… It’s only natural.