Twilight Sparkle returned to awareness, drifting through a luminous, aqua-colored void. For a moment, she couldn’t interpret a thing she saw. The long hours of grueling, sleepless study had left her drained, only raw determination and pure unicorn crankiness had kept her going, and now some sort of magical discharge had left her stunned and floating in space. She felt no pain, but perhaps that was what happened when you were killed. Twilight winced, rebelling at the thought.
“Hello?” she said. “Where am I? What is this place?”
The place echoed, but in a peculiar way that hardly seemed connected to anything as mundane as a pony voice. Strange glows wafted past her, and she craned her neck around, seeking some form of explanation. The air dripped with magic, if it was even air at all. It was mysterious, unreal, and it smelled like…
It smelled like forever.
Twilight just stared for a moment, forgetting everything, suspended in luminous nothingness. It wasn’t dreamlike, though it seemed like it would surely have to be. It was more insidious than that. Every second she spent watching the entrancing magical glows was another second drifting away from a previous existence that rapidly lost relevance. Her previous life seemed the dream, and this—this was more real than anything she’d known.
Twilight turned her head, and she saw Princess Luna—also there in this wondrous place, also looking around herself in confusion—and then, Twilight’s ears perked straight up as a crooning voice insinuated its way through the floating void.
“Congratulations, Twilight. I knew you could do it!”
Luna whinnied in alarm and galloped madly off, crying “Celestia! Sister!”
Twilight stood on emptiness, frozen with shock. That voice, that so-familiar voice, continued.
“Now, I doubt you expected to meet ME here…”
The figure became more clear, seen through the wavy distortion. Unfortunately, its body stubbornly persisted in being wavy—and distorted.
“Discord?” demanded Twilight. “What have you done, Discord? Let me go this instant, this isn’t funny!”
Discord approached, face wreathed in smiles. “Oh, but it is! It’s terribly funny. I’m sure Celly never imagined this!”
“Put me back!” squealed Twilight. She tried to stamp a hoof, and merely tumbled through space, turning a lavender-green as she lost track of what ‘down’ meant.
“But I didn’t bring you here,” said Discord pleasantly. “It’s hardly fair to demand I put you back, when I’m not the one that transported you, and I, and dear little Luna, to this place. Is it?”
“Well, if you didn’t bring me here, who did?”
“You did,” said Discord, and Twilight stared at him as if he’d gone mad.
The noise of approaching hooves was strangely altered in this place. The galloping was transformed to airy whuffing sounds, that seemed to echo and morph into colors somehow. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna appeared through the wavy distortions, looking panicked and out of sorts.
Twilight glared at them. “If somepony doesn’t start explaining things in about two seconds, I’m gonna get mad, and I’ll… I’ll… I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but it’ll be really bad! I’m warning you!”
“Celestia! Luna!” cried Discord happily, receiving glares in response. “I presume dear Cadance is freshening up a bit before making her illustrious appearance? That is courteous.”
“What is HAPPENING?” shrieked Twilight, stamping her hoof and tumbling through space again. “What are you doing? I’m in the middle of something that’s kind of important, okay? I’m sure it was important, and I almost remember what it was! I am occupied!”
“So is Cadance, if I’m any judge,” said Discord. He tut-tutted. “Ah! There she is! Not even flushed and sweaty—I say, well done!”
“Stop it!” hissed Celestia, looking stricken. Behind her, Princess Cadance trotted up, rather red in the face, and refusing to meet Twilight’s panicky gaze.
“I want to know what you’re doing to me!” wailed Twilight.
“WE are doing nothing to you,” snapped Discord with sudden curtness. “If you’d like my advice, I suggest you exhale, and go limp. If you struggle, it will hurt, and it won’t change the outcome one iota, trust me. Oh, look away, Celestia, if this upsets you so much! You should have seen this coming. I knew this would happen from the moment your dear little protege turned me to stone against my will…”
Princess Celestia gulped, her throat working with anxiety, her eyes wide and horrified and fixed with dreadful fascination on Twilight and Twilight alone.
“Not like this,” she whimpered. “Please, not like this.”
“What did you expect?” retorted Discord. “You and your rigid thinking, your supposed consistency that’s nothing more than a cloak for stultification and pretty lies…”
Twilight looked at Princess Celestia and began to really panic. Her mouth tasted of bile. Inside her, she felt her magic ramping up toward some end. Then, she glanced down and squeaked cutely, for she saw a tendril of her magic emerging painlessly from her chest. It began to form ribbons that swirled around her, and the swirling grew more intense.
“What do I do?” screamed Twilight.
Princess Celestia was shaking, biting her lip, but she answered all the same. “What Discord told you. Breathe out, try to relax.”
“What?!?”
“Oh, my little Twilight!” sobbed Princess Celestia, the tears beginning to flow. “Baby!”
Discord narrowed his eyes. “Thought so. Your precious Order breaks down once again, Celly, and this is no foal of yours.”
Twilight Sparkle didn’t follow the instructions.
She drew in a deep breath, and kicked out against the swirling magic, but it only drew closer. She heard Luna gasp, and thought she saw her hugging Celestia, but then the ribbons of magic redoubled and drew closer, binding her, whirling her within a cocoon that seemed to burn without pain. It was like her body didn’t exist to the tightening loops of magic, but they bound against her unicorn magic and she felt it fizzing, resisting.
Twilight screamed, as the cocoon drew tighter. It was seemingly made out of her own magic, true, but it was also crushing her magic inside her: a violation, a horrible perversion of what it felt like to take a horngasm. Those merged with her magic and brought it to its fullest, intoxicating, orgasmic peaks. This felt like it was compressing her magic, wresting it away from her extremities and into a tiny, shrieking core next to—no, into—her heart, and she could feel it wasn’t supposed to do that, felt like a shell around her essential self that was clamped within a horrible vise of imploding magic that suddenly accelerated to crush her very being as her vision was lost to the blinding swirls and
Princess Celestia, blinded by tears, looked away at last. Discord gazed in frank appreciation. Cadance and Luna trembled as they watched.
Twilight writhed savagely in the grip of the tightening magic and then, with a cry that was very difficult to interpret—that could have been ultimate pain or ultimate pleasure—she exploded in light, with a dull whump and scintillating shower of thaumic sparks. Gradually, teasingly, the swirls of sated magic ebbed away.
The only sound was Princess Celestia’s sobs. Then, Discord’s voice cut through, strangely gentle.
“Oh, go ahead and look, my sweet. It’s not so bad. I’d say she got off lightly. Hmph.”
Celestia’s eyes flew open, to rest upon a lavender form that stood in floating unspace before her. It was undeniably Twilight Sparkle: perhaps a little slimmer and more sculpted, elongated, possessing a fetching set of purple wings that she hadn’t noticed yet, but it was still Twilight Sparkle. Celestia couldn’t even blink, much less look away.
“I can see how your nature made this difficult for you, Celly,” said Discord with a curious tenderness. “Anything could have happened, as we know. Perhaps it was her nature, in turn, that kept her so recognizable.” He winced, grimacing as if in pain. “Curse her, the lucky beast. Still, I suppose she was already a mare, wasn’t she?”
“Damn you!” choked Princess Celestia, and Discord’s face hardened in anger.
“Well, she was,” he snapped. “So are you going to shun her, too, or is she just that terribly special to you? She, too, is transformed and changed. Surely it is time to turn from her in disgust, rejecting her despicable new form. As you always do. Don’t you? Hmm?”
“It’s different,” managed Celestia.
Discord’s expression mingled fury and betrayal. “You… you faithless…” He turned away, grimacing again.
Twilight looked back and forth between them in shock. She’d never seen Discord so angry—she’d never seen him angry at all, and it was terrifying. She flapped her wings in alarm, and then gave a shriek and craned her neck around, staring wide-eyed at the new limbs that now were part of her. She could feel her magic field extending into them, and she folded her trembling coverts, reeling at all the new sensations.
Discord, seeing this, gave a rich but somehow bitter chuckle. “Oh yes, Twilight Sparkle. Wings. Your dear friend Princess Cadance can tell you many things about the uses,” and he licked his lips, “of those new toys. Can’t you, Alicorn of…”
“Stop it!” blurted Cadance, and hid her scarlet face behind one of her own wings.
“Well, it’s time,” retorted Discord. “If you don’t tell her, I will. If that troubles you, I am oh so terribly sorry.” The bitterness was no longer subtle. He continued, “And then perhaps we can leave here and go about our charming, twisted, magic-infested lives, hmmm?”
Twilight quit staring at her wings. She marched up to Discord, and demanded, “What just happened? You’re talking about it like you know what this is.”
“Quite,” sneered Discord.
“You’re a Princess, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia, her voice quavering with emotion.
Discord snorted. “Cover story! Spare her. You’re an Alicorn, Twilight. The magic has you.”
Twilight blinked, glancing back at Celestia. “You mean… like how you’re the Princess of the Sun? And Luna, of the Moon? Like that? So, what am I Princess of?”
Discord folded his mismatched arms and fixed Twilight with an unflinching gaze. “Let’s not mince words. Screw Princesses. This is Alicorn Space. You’ve joined us here through the exercise of a particularly resonant spell, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. That means we’ve got the Alicorns of Order, Service, Sex, Chaos, and I’m guessing from what you were doing and how you are acting that you’re our new Alicorn of Leadership. Charmed, I’m sure. You can make up your own tasteful euphemism on your own time.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? I can see the Princesses are here, but why are you including yourself when you’re not even an alicorn, and what are these new names? They have nothing to do with the original ones! Order? Service? It’s Sun, Moon, um… Love…” She trailed off. The only alicorn who’d meet her eyes was Luna, who looked sad but determined as she hugged Celestia.
Twilight turned back to Discord, glaring into his wry little smile. “Keep talking. I mean it. I want an explanation, and I want it right now. First of all, who the fuck are you, that you’re here? It looks like it’s all Princesses except you. Explain!”
Discord’s smile grew. “Hah! Called it. You’re Leadership or I’m a mule. And you couldn’t be more wrong, dear Twilight. Do you know who I am? Who I was?”
Twilight snarled, her horn glowing. The glow surrounded Discord. He giggled.
“Oh, that’s good! I feel the conviction, how delicious! Don’t even waste the effort of compelling me, Alicorn of Leadership, I’ll tell you willingly. I… am Starswirl the Bearded…”
The glow flicked off, and Twilight could only stare in dumbfounded shock as Discord continued.
“And the Alicorn of Chaos… and, I might add, the pretty pony Princess of Unintended Consequences… who did not ask for any of this.”
Twilight blinked, and then blinked again. “But… excuse me, but you don’t look like a pony.”
“You’ve not seen my dreadful true form, Twilight my dear,” purred Discord in his rich baritone.
“And there! Listen to you! You don’t sound like a Princess to me. And hah! I’ve got you! Starswirl the Bearded was a stallion, not a Princess!”
That got a wince out of Discord—and, oddly, a sob from Princess Celestia. Discord muttered, “I believe the operative word in your statement would be ‘was’. And I’ve been able to get the voice back, thank you for noticing: it is a point of some pride with me, Miss Sparkle.”
“Alicorns are female,” said Princess Luna gently. “We think it is because the magic is a creative force and seeks forms that could in turn create life out of themselves. If a male unicorn achieves alicornhood, the magic renders him female, as if he had never been a colt at all.”
Twilight whirled to stare at Luna. “Oh, you know about this? What do you know about it? I’d rather get it from you than Discord.”
Discord snorted. “Regrettably, you shan’t be ‘getting it’ from either of us now that the magic has had its delightful way.”
Luna met Twilight’s eyes, and said gravely, “When Celestia and I were unicorns, I was her little brother. It was a very, very long time ago.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped again. Discord snorted. “Cadance joined them some time after. I won’t bother to speculate how SHE achieved the transformation—we can guess. And thousands of years later, I was born and lived as Starswirl the Bearded, a truly fine specimen of stallionhood indeed, and I was Princess Celestia’s…”
“No, please!” sobbed Celestia.
“Lover,” concluded Discord.
Twilight’s neck might as well have snapped off, from the way she was whipping it back and forth. She took in Celestia’s misery, Luna’s staunch protectiveness, the overwhelming embarrassment of Cadance, Discord’s haughty and judgemental stare.
Discord’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes, Miss Sparkle. I fucked your Princess gloriously, before the terrible events that reduced me to this mockery of a state. In fact, such was my demise, something I can simultaneously boast of and bitterly regret. In a sense, dear Twilight, it is indeed all her fault.” Celestia sobbed, again.
Twilight addressed Discord. “This is ridiculous. I don’t know whether to believe any of this. What do you mean, your dreadful true form? A draconequus isn’t dreadful enough for you? You’re here, anyway, whatever this place is. Also, you’re making Princess Celestia cry, which is starting to make me really angry. If you want me to believe this stuff, show yourself! The draconequus thing, it’s a big fake?”
Discord winced. “It’s the best I can do. It reflects how I feel about my fate. My true form is appalling. I’m a brilliant unicorn scholar, not to mention I’m supposed to have a member that can reduce a Princess to a quivering puddle, damn it, and to be transformed for eternity into a thing like that…”
“Show her,” came a miserable voice. Twilight glanced over. Princess Celestia had lifted her head. Tears filled her eyes, but her jaw was firm. “Show her, Starswirl.”
“Oh! Oh, really? NOW you’ll give me the courtesy of using my real n…”
“Show her!”
Discord sagged. He lifted his leonine arm, and he snapped his pawpads, and there was a flash.
Before Twilight stood an exquisitely beautiful female alicorn, as slender and elegant as Cadance, but smaller. Every contour of her luminous ice-blue body cried femininity. Her luscious jade eyes glared murderously, full of bitterness and resentment. Her mane bore strange patterns, like ferns or seahorses.
She opened her mouth, and nopony interrupted as she spoke in an intoxicating, breathy alto, directly to Twilight.
“I was like you,” she said. “A prodigy. It seemed only fitting that I become Celestia’s lover, a fine masculine fellow like me, and we knew of the dangers should she arc with me. I may say it made things exciting, to make love to a creature gushing magic that could turn one to ash. If I slipped up, I would surely die from Celestia’s torrents of horncome. I was so good at making her squirt until she passed out, never once opening my own horn to her. I was always about self-control, self-mastery. Ironic. It was a glorious life, spurting a unicorn stallion’s seed into the womb of such an incomparably magical creature…”
Celestia whimpered. Twilight saw that the Princess’s ears were back in shame and alarm, that she was trying to look at the exquisite little creature but something in the patterns of that mane and tail seemed to frighten her. She couldn’t even look at them. Discord—or Starswirl—continued, in that so-feminine voice.
“Perhaps too glorious. Then that one terrible, fateful day came. She was so beautiful, clenching feverishly around my maleness, her little cries ringing so sweetly on my ears…”
Celestia shook her head, helplessly, as the lovely little alicorn girl pressed on, her magenta-and-lilac mane wafting around her, those jade eyes burning a hole in Celestia’s turned-away face.
“I was losing control. I knew it,” said Discord. “If I did not suppress my horn’s release, I was going to die, and all at once I was filled with a sense of how utterly worth it such a death would be. To devote oneself to one’s mare, to drive her to the peaks of ecstacy, to be consumed by magical fire even as one throbbed and gushed a stallion’s gift to her depths…” The lovely creature licked her lips, trembling. “My come would fill her womb, hers would incinerate me, and there would be no stallion in all of history who ever died a more glorious death. She was beginning to squirt magic, and she writhed and went mad, gripping me with that amazing Princess-pussy, its glorious slickened pinks seizing my massive cock in transports of ecstacy, and I knew I could not resist flinging myself into the fires of her passion. I do not know if she would have held back, or could have. I do know that my powerful stallion’s body gave her no choice, for as I came, I rammed myself to her depths with a shout. Do you remember what I shouted, dear Celestia?”
Celestia was dripping tears, shaking, red-faced. Twilight had her face screwed up in annoyance. Discord continued.
“I cried, from one to another, another to one. A mark of one’s destiny singled out alone, fulfilled! And with that, I allowed my magic to burst forth from my horn. I was so pent up it felt like I’d exploded. It was the most amazing sensation I had ever felt in my life… at least, it was the most amazing until my Princess’s arc found it, and slammed into my brain with a force that blew my mind apart, fulfilled me utterly, and tore my body to shreds in a flood of delicious, overwhelming, unbearable alicorn horngasm… vaporizing me in a surge of irresistible, incandescent magic, doubtless lighting her from within through the luminance of my deeply buried, massive cock…”
“Not really a powerful stallion body,” said Luna unexpectedly.
The petite alicorn Princess drew herself up to her full diminutive height in offense. “I beg your pardon?”
Cadance nodded, looking annoyed. “She’s right, it wasn’t. You were no athlete.”
Luna snorted. “Be honest, Starswirl. You were a fat wizard pony. I mean, yes, we know you were fat locally like nopony ever was, but you made it sound like you were some Royal Guard or something, and that’s not…”
“Shut up,” said little Princess Discord. “I was powerful, damn you!” She trembled, squeezing her eyes shut, gritting her teeth. “I died, Twilight Sparkle. I died a STALLION like no stallion has ever been. And then, I discover that Equestrian magic has somehow seized upon my sacrifice, perhaps in amusement at the enormous joke that would be played on me. I thought I had everything worked out. My Princess was the Princess of Order, I was her virile and hugely powerful stallion and the greatest wizard history has ever known, and I died the greatest stallion to ever live, and I was well satisfied…”
She choked up, and the others watched as Starswirl, once a stallion to end all stallions and now a lovely delicate alicorn mare, got control of her voice again. When it returned, it was a bitter hiss of self-loathing.
“Can you blame me for settling upon a new form that communicated how I felt about my fate… when I woke up in THIS place and discovered I would spend all Eternity as the spirit of Chaos in the body of a delicate filly with feathery fluffy wings and winking horse-vagina?”
“We tried to help you,” stammered Celestia, scarlet with shame.
Alicorn Discord whirled on her, raging. “You abandoned me! You couldn’t bear the sight of me any more than I could stand the sight of myself!” She stamped a delicate little hoof, and tumbled like Twilight had, except that Discord’s lithe and sensuous form made Twilight look crude and blocky by comparison. She righted herself with a few flaps of her exquisite wings, blinked her heavily lashed eyelids, glared at Celestia while flaring her delicate little nostrils. She was about as manly as a raging kitten, and just as adorable.
Celestia began to lift her head and glare back. “I had just lost the stallion I loved more than life itself! The stallion of my dreams, jewel of countless pony lifetimes! My dream unicorn, damn it!”
“Lost, hell!” squealed Discord. “I was still there, and you wouldn’t help at all! No wonder your little brother ended up turning on you, I know Luna was watching how you treated me! Even the wonderful Alicorn of Second Banana couldn’t stomach that! You lost that wonderful horsecock and that’s all you loved me for, wasn’t it? That’s what you lost!”
Cadance piped up. “It wasn’t that good of a penis, Discord, get over it!”
The lovely little pale-blue alicorn whirled on Cadance. “Oh, really? How would you know? How often did you try to get a taste of it, Alicorn of Sex, she whose advances were always rejected? I was faithful! Unto death! All the orgies you wallow in, and you still can’t reach the peaks to which I brought Celestia. What’s your record by now? Three pegasi chewing each wing, was it, and another pegasus thrust up your pussy ‘til he’s coming out your neck, and Shining Armor fucking you up the ass?”
Twilight Sparkle had heard enough. She screamed, stamped the air and consequently tumbled in the floating void. With a supple flap of her powerful new wings, she righted herself, and flew over to where Discord and Cadance were facing off.
“Stop it!” she demanded. “I can’t believe this! You’re acting like a bunch of… of bitchy fillies! What’s wrong with you?”
At that, all the alicorns fell silent, shame-faced. Finally, Luna spoke.
“Twilight… we are. Indeed, we are that bunch of immortal, bitchy fillies. Even those of us who started as unicorn colts…”
“Stallions,” corrected Discord, tossing a curl of her mane out of her ravishing green eyes with a flounce.
“Whatever,” sighed Luna. She gazed imploringly at Twilight. “Please, please try to understand. Maybe I accept it more easily because I’m the Alicorn of Service? I would always do anything for my beloved sister. Now I will do anything for my beloved sister, but I in turn am her beloved sister. Not counting the things the Lulamoons invented for me, of course…”
Discord’s lovely alicorn head whipped around. That sensuous feminine voice said, “What are you talking about, Luna? What do you mean, things?”
“The point is,” said Luna hastily, “we are still ponies, Twilight. We have far more power, but all we are is ponies. With our great powers, the mortal ponies treat us as gods. We outlive countless pony lifetimes, we acquire wisdom, yet for all that our origins are those of simple unicorns…”
“Speak for yourself,” snapped Discord in her silky voice. “I was the mightiest unicorn stallion of my age, thank you. What things are these you speak of? Tell me about these things.”
Luna pressed on. “The point is, Twilight, we aren’t gods! Prithee, try to accept it: we remain ponies with pony hearts and pony drives, the same longings and fears and desires that reside within thy heart, but magic has made us its own, and we are helpless to resist it. And that same magic has chosen you, and brought you here to become one of us. Indeed, all we can do is try to comfort you through this change. We cannot turn you back, any more than Starswirl here can become a true stallion again and resume his mortal life as Celestia’s consort.”
Twilight was silent. Luna went on, gently. “Magic does such powerful things with us, Twilight. We can but accept its inexorable tides. Mayhap there is even beauty in it, if you are wise enough to seek beauty.”
“Can I turn back to a draconequus now?” asked Discord, a tremor of emotion in her cute little voice. “I think she gets the idea, and I can’t stand being in this horrible body.”
Twilight looked over Discord’s true alicorn-mare form, and she bridled at the attention, shying away and lifting a forehoof with a flutter of her neat, shapely wings. “Don’t look at me!” she protested. “I swear I’ll do something very chaotic at you, I don’t care what I promised Fluttershy. This is simply awful and are you quite finished humiliating me?”
Twilight snorted. “Go ahead. You’re adorable, though. If you hate being adorable, fine.”
“Fine!” squealed Discord, and tried to snap her hoof. Nothing happened, and she pouted, shook the hoof (even that action being oddly graceful), and finally clapped both forehooves together. There was a flash of magic and the familiar draconequus form appeared, looking extremely cranky.
Twilight blinked, thinking of something. She glanced at Cadance, eyes narrowed. “Clap your hooves… and do a little shake?”
Cadance reddened. “You were adorable, too.”
“I was a filly!” squealed Twilight, her ears back. “I trusted you! Now I find out you’re the Alicorn of Sex, teaching me to wiggle my bum?”
“I would never have let anypony touch you!” protested Cadance.
“Not when she can do a little shake for them herself,” smirked Discord, his rich baritone back in place. “Privately.”
Cadance laid her ears back. “Lay off! Dickless!” she hissed.
Twilight was still thinking. “Did he say three pegasi for each wing? And another one… and my big brother, up her… Cadance!”
Cadance was scarlet with embarrassment again, but she held her head high. “Shining is very happy. Very very happy. Leave us alone!”
Twilight flapped her new wings again. They’d been showing an unsettling tendency to stand up stiff as she pictured, with horror, the logistics of Cadance’s debauchery. “Hmph! Brothers! Please don’t ever tell me any more. But… well, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably right.”
Discord sighed. “As much as I hate to agree about that… yes, I’m sure she is. It was not distaste for Cadance’s charms that drove my faithfulness during life. It was love for my Princess. I chose the one most glorious mare in the universe and would have no lesser.” He sulked, glowering at silent Celestia.
“Technically, you’re still alive,” said Twilight. “Wait, did she call you dickless? The way you talk, I always thought you were a male draconequus.”
Discord looked even more unhappy. “The magic is formidable. No matter how I transformed, nothing I did would restore my masculinity. Luna may be happy with that: I am not, Twilight Sparkle. At least my voice can reflect the truth of me.”
“So, you desperately want a penis again, but you still have, what did you say, a winking horsevagina between your legs?”
“Technically,” corrected Discord, “it is tucked under my left wing where nopony would think to look, and reduced in size to that of a squirrel or similarly-sized rodent. I cannot remove it from my person, so I choose to exile it, and I would ask you not to speak of it to anypony, and to permit me the dignity of the pronoun, ‘he’, I was born with.” He twitched. “Particularly not to Fluttershy. As chaotic as it would be to have a chipmunk fucking my wing-vagina, some things confound even me.”
Luna opened her mouth, uncertainly. She didn’t even get a word out. Celestia was in her face, trembling, hissing “Don’t you dare!”
Discord lifted an eyebrow. Luna cringed, and squeaked, “But…”
“Just don’t, Luna!”
Discord stared at her, angrily. “Oh, how very authoritative, Miss Alicorn of Order, oh Miss Sun Princess! Go right ahead and steamroller your faithful second fiddle as usual, we’ll all w…” He froze. “Oh, wait a minute. Wait just a minute.”
Celestia squeezed her eyes shut, grimacing.
“You don’t want me to hear what Princess Luna has to say,” said Discord thoughtfully, “and she spoke of the Lulamoons making something for her… and she specified I could not become a true stallion again, emphasis on the true… Twilight Sparkle!”
Twilight jumped. “What?”
“What are they talking about? I more than suspect you know. Be so good as to confirm my suspicions?”
“Don’t…” began Celestia, but Twilight’s glance stopped her, and Twilight spoke directly to her, ignoring Discord.
“Alicorn of Order, huh?” she said. “I can see that now. I’m very sorry, Princess Celestia, but I’ve seen some wonderful things come into my life that weren’t about order at all. I think maybe you’re being hard on Discord for kinda creepy personal reasons, and order isn’t the same thing as fair. Besides, it always seemed like you two had some kind of history, and now I know more about that! How bad did you ditch him, Princess? I mean, when he became a cute mare alicorn?”
Celestia wilted, looking away from Twilight. Luna spoke up, protectively. “Celestia has always been straight, as they say, even when we were unicorns. What happened was not her fault, and it hurt her as badly as it hurt him! Prithee, have mercy for the troubling of her feelings…”
Twilight frowned. “Me finding the love of my life troubled her feelings. The ponies of Ponyville having magic bits seems to trouble her feelings a whole lot, she’s forbidden us to have them. I’ve been up for two days trying to track down the provenance of their thaumic source to satisfy her. Now I find out Princess Celestia is just a sort of super-unicorn? And I’m one too? And she runs around making things orderly, that’s her real cutie mark?”
Celestia sagged, until she was lying on the lack of ground, legs outstretched forlornly, head drooping in obvious despair.
Luna gulped. “You can write your own cutie mark now, Twilight. Alicorns can do that, it’s your nature you cannot resist. Er… Please understand that our beloved sister has maintained her order for thousands of years, Twilight, mostly with our devoted help. It is not ours to defy her. We regret our one-time rebellion bitterly, and the most painful consequence it bore was the abandoning of our sister to fate, dooming her to watch over Equestria alone.”
“Oh, I could tell you about abandoning,” said Discord bitterly. “I could tell you about alone. Try being abandoned by your love and locked up with your thoughts as a stone statue for a thousand years or so, then talk to me about being alone. I’m not sorry for her at all.”
“Cease!” commanded Luna imperiously. “You fought her in your rage and frustration, remember? We did not wish to imprison you! And we are all locked up with our thoughts for thousands upon thousands of years! Sister did not willingly create your current form, it were naught but sad accident!”
“She didn’t love me enough to stay with me after that sad accident!”
“You didn’t love her either,” said Cadance unexpectedly. They all turned to look at her, and she continued. “You were in love with your own power and importance. You played her like a musical instrument, you loved nothing more than having her fawn over you, but you didn’t love her as a person, Starswirl. That’s why she couldn’t handle you changing so much. You weren’t friends.”
Silence fell.
Discord gulped. “S… strong words from the Alicorn of Fuck,” he stammered.
“I know lust,” said Cadance simply. “You still lust over Celestia, to this day, and lust without friendship would frighten anypony. You needle and taunt her, you long to perform acts of lust and conquer her body again, you crave the feeling of power you used to have for the asking… but when have you simply wished to make Celestia happy?”
That stopped Discord completely. “I… what has that got to do with… er,” he said. “But I’m sure she enjoyed, positively basked in my great powers. Why, I could get her squirting from both ends in forty-five seconds if I’d started with some tongue work first, if she wasn’t such a baby about it I could have showed you…”
“Look at her,” interrupted Cadance.
They did. Princess Celestia was red with shame, staring at nothing, and as they watched, a tear trickled down her cheek.
“Even when you were a living stallion,” said Cadance, “Celestia didn’t enjoy you boasting like that, and now you’re doing it in front of Twilight. I remember when you joined us as an alicorn, and I remember you carried on acting just the same way, and Celestia doesn’t go for mares, and still you pressed her!”
Luna nodded. “Dark times. In truth, we’d expected trouble even before you transformed yourself into a draconequus and began to boast about the pleasure curves of your left horn. Starswirl, were you mad? Celestia does not seek perverse toys!”
Discord sulked. “Cadance does!”
“That has nothing to do with it!” retorted Cadance, her ears back. “Listen, I’m sorry I was after you so much when you were alive. I know that made everything worse, I just… it’s my nature, okay? You made it sound so epic. But that was just desperation, with the goofy horn! And those two base bulges are too large, you’re overcompensating. And the pointy end is just scary!”
Discord sulked worse. “With the power of Chaos, I can guide it safely between your cervical folds and penetrate literally into your womb. Isn’t that the hottest thing ever?”
Every single natural female alicorn present squealed in dismay, from Cadance to Twilight to Celestia. Discord stared blankly at them.
Luna gave him a sour look. “You’ve been so busy trying to reject your female parts, you have no idea what they’re like. Forsooth, if you’d bothered to use them you’d have figured some of these things out. We spent our mortal days as a male entertaining just such dimwitted fantasies, we remain familiar with that point of view even now, and still we felt our mare-parts cringe within us, sirrah.”
“I don’t understand vaginas?” said Discord plainitively. “Even though I’m cursed with one of the stupid, lube-oozing things myself?”
“Neigh,” said Luna gravely, “thou dost not understand mareparts. Thy loss, truly.”
“Well, then,” said Discord brightly. “I can fix that. Twilight!”
Twilight jumped. “What? Oh sweet Celestia, don’t tell me you want to practice on me! No way!”
“Oh, no, no,” said Discord. “Instead, tell me something, if you would be so kind.”
“What?”
A little halfsmile twisted Discord’s lip as he sprang his trap.
“Tell me about these magic bits you admitted Ponyville has, which Luna earlier suggested that the Lulamoon clan invented. The ones that will not make you a TRUE stallion, but which apparently make you a non-true stallion from the emphasis Luna placed on the word, and from the suggestion that she is Celestia’s sister except under the influence of what, I now conclude, are these same magic bits you speak of.”
Twilight Sparkle stared at Discord, stunned. None of the other alicorns so much as shifted a wing. Twilight licked her lips, trapped, not daring to speak, until an unexpected voice heavy with resignation broke in.
“Tell him, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia, without lifting her head.
“What?” squeaked Twilight.
“You aren’t used to us,” said Celestia. “We have crossed conversational swords for thousands of years. From the moment you said the word ‘bits’, it was a foregone conclusion. You tell him.” She glanced bitterly over at Discord, who looked nonplussed, and added, “It changes nothing. Nothing!”
Twilight backed away, ruffling her wings nervously. “And what if I don’t want to?”
“I am happy to wait until you change your mind,” offered Discord, with a quirk of his ear and a flick of his draconic tail. “I’m just as immortal as you are, and you’re in a bigger hurry. The sooner we are all prepared to dismiss Alicorn Space with our magemeld, the sooner you can get back to your business in Ponyville.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, and she gasped, remembering. “Trixie! The villagers… oh my gosh! I’ve got to get back there right away, how do I leave here?”
Discord crossed his arms. “Tell me about the bits. I can guess a lot, so it won’t take long. I won’t join the dismissal meld until you do, so we could wait here an eternity instead.”
“And how am I supposed to go back like this?” squealed Twilight frantically. “I’m what, an Alicorn of Leadership?”
“From watching how you’ve been with Celly, and the way Ponyville treats you,” said Discord, “I would think that was obvious.”
“But I don’t want to be the Alicorn of Leadership!”
“Oh, I’ll just tell the magic, then,” said Discord bitterly, “I’m sure it’ll understand. You think I wanted to become Chaos?”
“Tell him!” pleaded Luna. “He wanted you to tell him, and Applejack is badly hurt, and she hit the ground pretty hard…”
Celestia’s eyes flew wide. “Faithful Applejack! But surely we had her convalescing in bed after I healed everything I could?”
Luna’s face was dark with embarrassment. “When she awoke, she heard about Gilda Griffin and demanded I take her to Ponyville without delay. And the village is in an uproar…”
Celestia rose, ruffling her wings. “No!”
Discord’s arms were still folded. “You and your mortal ponies. I’m still not going to let us return until you tell me what these bits are.”
“Can he do that?” squeaked Twilight.
“Your transformation called us all here,” said Celestia, “and the final stage is a little mage-meld with all of us. Then the magic is satisfied and we can go. Stop us? Yes, I’m afraid he can.” She glowered at Discord.
“Fine!” said Twilight. She turned to Discord. “The magic bits came from Trixie, she made the first one. Except that apparently they were invented for Luna lots and lots of years ago. I totally wouldn’t have guessed she was Celestia’s little brother once, though! The first one blew up, and then we made some more. Celestia doesn’t like them, but she’s not the boss of me, and Ponyville really has to stand on its own hooves. Anyway, the magic bits: you bite them, and then a penis grows out of you. You can feel it and everything, and it even comes, though the stuff goes away again when you let the bit go.”
“Grows out of you,” questioned Discord intensely. “How? Where?”
“We think it extends off your clitoris,” said Twilight. “It doesn’t use your own mass, it draws it from somewhere. We’re tracking down the thaumic provenance, is that enough, can we GO?”
Discord blinked, unhurried. “Really!” He made a face. “I’ll have to relocate my vagina to the normal place. And make it full size. Otherwise, I’ll sprout a tiny penis under my wing.” A goofy smile gradually broke across his face, as he contemplated this prospect.
“Discord!” begged Twilight.
Discord began giggling, then gave way to uproarious laughter, rolling around on the no-ground and thwapping the floating orbs of light with his tail. “Oh, now that’s Chaos! Oh, think of the possibilities!”
“Discord!” yelled Princess Luna. “Thou demented wretch!”
“And since I can transform into any form with my chaos magic…”
“SWIRLIE!” squealed Princess Celestia, staring right at him. At that, both she and Discord froze, looking absolutely shocked, and there was silence as they gazed into each other’s eyes.
He shook himself. “Right. Far be it from me, etcetera. Forming up?”
“What do I do?” wailed Twilight. “How am I supposed to be an Alicorn of Leadership? They’ll kill me! Ponyville has a Mayor already!”
“Why don’t you call it Community?” said Princess Celestia, resignedly. “You can be the Princess of Community, and rule Ponyville, perhaps more than just Ponyville. We’ve never had a leadership alicorn, I’ve been the closest thing to it. You’ve been pulling that direction since you started the thing with the bits and I tried to stop you. I can no longer stand in your way.” Celestia sighed. “I’m just the Alicorn of Order, Twilight. Keeping the Sun orderly is a lot easier than managing ponies, which I suppose I had better let you do. I don’t envy you.”
Twilight gulped. “You’re sorry for me? I’m in that much trouble now, huh?”
“I suppose you are,” said Celestia. “I’ll help. I’m sorry this has come upon you, Twilight. But… I’m just a bit relieved.” She hung her head sadly. “You’ll lead them wonderfully, I’m sure. Forgive my emotion, it’s hard to watch your child leave the nest. But how wonderful it is that you won’t have to leave me in the larger sense!”
Cadance seized Twilight in a hug, then shook her. “Picture Ponyville! We’re all forming images of the places we left, creating a matrix of destination. Go home and fix whatever’s wrong. Do you need me there? Do you need Princess Celestia?”
Twilight looked at Celestia, startled. Celestia looked back, and then dropped her gaze, saying, “Perhaps you ponies can indeed, as you say, stand on your own hooves, even in your own disorderly way. Truly, I never have been the boss of you, not since you were very small. Oh, Twilight!” Her voice throbbed with earnestness and love. “I never wanted to rule you! I only wanted order and serenity. It is my nature and my joy.”
Discord was watching her thoughtfully, but didn’t speak.
“We shall announce thy new Princesshood to awaiting ears!” proclaimed Princess Luna.
Twilight’s ear twitched, and she made a face. “How about no? In fact, you be quiet, you’re going to return to Ponyville with me, right? Well, stay back, let me handle this.”
“Will you not require assistance?” said Luna. “Have you such resolute support at home that my aid is unwarranted?”
Twilight thought of Trixie.
“Yes. I have. Come on, Alicorns!” she said. “That means you, too, Discord! Focus, and let’s blow this joint!”
There was a crackle, and a fivefold foop.
The glowing orbs floated on, timeless and alone once more.