Chapter 16: New Event Horizons
"Is this a joke?" Moondancer grumbles, staring impassively at the crudely painted 'Out of Order' sign hanging in front of the elaborate baroque mirror. That single piece of unfinished, uneven wood was something more at home on an outhouse at a wilderness summer camp than stretched across a platinum mirror in the basement of Canterlot castle. Twilight's uncomprehending blink gives just enough time for Moondancer's question to drift awkwardly through the air. Starlight and Trixie's shared wordless glance only adds to the stewing apprehension. "Because this feels like that trick Twinkleshine played at my ninth birthday party all over again." Moondancer mutters.
"Yes," Trixie sighs and stiffly trots up to the mirror, "And Trixie is certain that you still have the night light on because of mean mean Twinklewhoever."
'Pony pies, was that out loud?' Moondancer's mouth moves even as her mind told her to just shut up and be quiet. "That's... Unrelated."
"Mmm-hmm." The pale blue mare reaches the mirror, and before Twilight's babbled 'wait' could stop her, she reaches up to sharply tap a hoof on the opalite frame. "Discord!" she calls and raps her hoof against the frame far more insistently.
'What are you doing, filly?' Moondancer sucks in a wheezing breath of surprise. But despite her deadpan blink, everypony else seemed glued to the spot.
And that pale nag just calls out in her obnoxious falsetto. "Get your skinny rump out here and stop trying to pull your pathetic pranks!" Trixie scrunches up her muzzle and stares just above her own reflection in the mirror. As her chin tilts up, searching the frame, her reflection merely sighs, slumping its shoulders and rolling her eyes independently of the mare herself.
'What... Was... That?'
Something that Trixie said was trying to worm into Moondancer's mind, something important, but she'd already come to the conclusion that listening to the mare was a tremendous waste of brain power. The Unicorn catches the discrepancy for just a second before sliding a little behind Twilight, using the taller Alicorn's frame as a very convenient shield between herself and the Bloody Merry-esque thing in the mirror. Oh sure, that mirror didn't move, but Trixie still just kept her stare directed above her reflection that, in turn, stuck its tongue out at her.
But the mare's head jerks back as a male's ephemeral voice whispers from the corners of the room in a mocking lilt. "Don't come in, I'm not quite decent." Moondancer's hooves simply freeze in place with one stuck up in mid air and wobbling. Tines of electricity and a certain 'wrongness' washes from the mirror in an airy winter blast.
"Discord." Starlight trots up to her friends side. "We were trying to get a hold of somepony through this. Is there any reason you're... Doing whatever it is that you're doing?"
'Discord? No. Nononono-impossible.'
The serpentine voice scoffs, almost in time with Trixie's reflection shooting an unimpressed glance to Starlight. "Well of course." Then nothing.
"Care to elaborate?" Starlight's deadpan meets with a slight swirl of her hoof to coax the voice further.
"My show's on, and I don't feel like getting all primped and prettied up to greet company. How about you come back later? And maybe bring some of those little fruit chocolate things, hmm?" The discordant chime of his magic lets a low immaterial groan drift through the supposedly protected room.
Moondancer's ears twist as she looks around, trying to sense where the voice was echoing from. It was useless, only serving to elevate her heart rate into an unhealthy staccato and her breath to hitch.
'Not normal, filly. This is something you do not want to be around. Turn your flank, go upstairs, find a bar, drink and drink and just bucking drink. This isn't happening, none of this is happening.'
"Fluttershy brought yaklava." Starlight quickly interjects.
A serpentine head pops through the mirror, little liquid metal ripples flowing across its surface. The head twists around unnaturally, amber sclera and ruby red pupils shining like a torch in the darkness. "Hmm, no Fluttershy and no yaklava. Starlight, I thought you were reformed. That's just cruel."
'HOLY SUN, WHAT IS THAT?!'
Moondancer's mouth opens, chest heaving in an asthmatic rasp as the Prince of Chaos half-emerges from the mirror. Oh sure, she'd seen illustrations, and Draconequus had come up in her O&O monster manuals since second edition at least, but every story had always felt like just that: a story. Now the feather-flicking spawn of Disharmony was only a few hooflengths away from her. The tendrils of fear trace up and down her spine, raising her hackles and sending spasms across her entire body. That sharply sour taste of bile creeps up her throat as a keening wheeze forces its way from her muzzle.
The vaguely equine face of the lord of chaos looks back and forth before he settles his gaze on a slightly chagrined Starlight Glimmer. "Sorry, but it's important."
Starlight smiles and glances back over her withers at Twilight. Discord's gaze follows, an ear-flick and low harumph breaking a slightly awkward pause. "My my, if it isn't the public's purple pony princess. Twilight, while I'd say it's absolutely lovely to see you again... Even without yaklava, or any other host treats, I'm sure you of all ponies can appreciate my busy schedule." an arm slips through the rippling silver surface clutching a scroll. It unrolls, spilling across the floor and unfolding before her hooves. "So if you'll just excuse-"
Twilight cuts him off sharply. "Discord, Princess Luna is in trouble. She's asleep, or unconscious, or in a coma and it looks like she's under some magical attack that we can't detect. We think it might be the Nightmare again, so we have to get to the other side of that portal and get Sunset Shimmer. And you're in the way."
Discord's fanged smirk lights up, the pale light casting his face in stark malicious relief. "Oh Princess Purple, you have no idea how right you are. Why, I'm just so tremendously inconsiderate. But, should I just hold the door open to everyone that wants to come in here? What am I, one of Celestia's little golden goons?" He smirks, the reflection of a portcullis and unfurling banners snapping shut behind the party getting Moondancer to whirl around, tail tucked and body still shaking like a newborn foal.
Discord, ignoring her, continues after reaching forward with a sharp blackened talon, "As for our favourite nightly neighsayer, I wouldn't worry about her. Luna just needs her beauty sleep and she'll be back in no time whatsoever... Although," the spirit of chaos smiles. A toothsome fanged grin traverses his lips as his eyes flicker with an inner flame, "it'll feel like an eternity."
Twilight's gaze focuses squarely on the chimeric prince. So caught up in studying his features and watching Starlight trying to hold her forced scowl, she doesn't really register Moondancer. The mare turns again and presses her flank up against Twilight with her chest mostly hidden behind the folded wing. If she was any closer she'd be welded to the Alicorn princess, at least, until Twilight took a step forward and off-set Moondancer's balance.
The sweater clad mare whinnies as she pitches awkwardly to her side. Stumbling legs akimbo and shaking as every other pony turns back to look at her. That was awkward, but the enormous head that swung fluidly on its scaled and furred neck pivot fixed her its infernal glare. She was suddenly quitehappy she'd used the fillies room before they left her home.
'They're staring, they're staring, oh buck it's eyes are the size of my head!'
Moondancer's raspy spittle chocked voice bubbles out her own greeting, "H-hido?"
'Hi-WHAT?! Hi, hello, or how do you do, PICK ONE, FILLY!'
Mouth hanging open, Moondancer wasn't sure whether or not she could make a run for the door or not. The portcullis wasn't there, after all. Or it hadn't been. But once the Draconequus set his piercing gaze on her, she knew she might be able to babble out an apology and that was about it. The golden sclera whirls in a metallic dance so distinctly unequine that the studious mare's mouth dried up like a desert. The vague sound of chattering teeth came from somewhere else that she couldn't...
Nope, that was her too.
"Ooooh, so it looks like the Princess of Friendship found a real challenge this time. So, Twilight, who's this little ray ban of sunshine?" Discord leans from the mirror, elbow settled on the lower portion of the frame, resting his chin on a paw as the talon reaches out as it to tap Moondancer's nose. It was longer than a short sword, gnarled black and, perhaps it was just her imagination, glittering as it came to a razor tip.
'Words, Moondancer! You've stood at lecterns in front of a dozen senior professors and defended yourself, and you've addressed lecture halls with scores of ponies. You can do-'
Teeth, the teeth were throwing her. Flesh-tearing, pony-eating predator teeth! Were they getting closer, or wider? Discord cranes his neck in her direction, all but overhanging the poor mare who remains frozen.
"Oh, her?" Trixie sighs, "The book louse is... Unimportant."
"Trixie." Starlight seethes, getting the magician mare to flash a glance at the still paralyzed pony, then waggling her eyebrows with a little head-tilt.
"Apologies," Trixie smiles, "The book louse is Moonprancer."
"Dancer!"
"It's practically the same, Starlight! And she didn't correct Trixie, so why are you?" Trixie waggles a hoof back and forth between Starlight on her one side, and Moondancer a short distance now on the other side of Twilight thanks to the awkward tumble.
Twilight shakes her head and lets out a long-suffering sigh as she wearily rubs her eyes. While Moondancer couldn't see it from that angle, the soft clop of hooves and warmth of another body against her heralded the princess's returning support. The nervous mare takes her first regulated breath and licks her parched lips, but a jittery nod at least was a reply of sorts. Of course, her slicked back ears and cowed hunch was still something else despite her friend's reassuring presence.
"Hmm..." Discord lofts a brow, a clawed hand twisting his goatee absent mindedly as he looks this way and that, inspecting her. "She does look like the 'midnight oil' type of mare."
"She's very studious." Twilight swiftly interjects, "But that's not why we're here."
"Are you saying we're not here to make new friends?" Discord's predatory smirk turns more mocking. A paw flicks to his narrow chest, "I, frankly, am shocked and appalled. Why, I have half a mind to just take that delicious yaklava you promised, and go home." With a swipe of his talons, he splits his own head down to his neck, neatly bisecting the amorphous flesh until it forms two identical heads. Moondancer's wide eyes and nasally whine fights with a certain reeking stink of sweat as she shivers uncontrollably.
Seeing Twilight's displeased glower, and finding himself evidently not the topic of Starlight and Trixie's hushed discussion, the Draconequus sighs and resumes his previous shape. As he starts to duck back in, Twilight throws up a hoof. "Wait! I'll owe you one if you help us!"
And with that, the Lord of Disharmony slowly pans his his gaze back to the Alicorn. The smug grin and glittering eyes that very literally sparkle with delight were all the answer Twilight needed . "'Owe me one' hmmmm? Well, we aaaaare friends, aren't we?"
A roiling, howling screech of brushed steel bristles on a chalkboard echoes from the mirror. The horrific undulating cry kills the conversation in the room as Discord looks back over his shoulder. He twists so while his head pokes back through the mirror, his chest and upper body remain jutting out on their side. They could all hear the resultant snort.
His face swiftly re-emerges from the rippling silver pool again for a moment. "Oh the neighbor's dog is always asking for trouble. I wish Fluttershy was here, maybe she could talk some sense into it. But," the Draconequus's mouth seems to migrate and meld across his muzzle, all sliding to the left hand side. "At the risk of talking out the other side of my face, C'mon in and hurry up. But next time, get a better host present."
The Draconequus stretches up, removing the crudely painted sign and tosses it in the mirror before slipping back in. Trixie and Starlight don't even hesitate as they trot right up and in-through the mirror, leaving the pair alone.
With a hasty gasp, Moondancer swishes her tail and gulps down several sharp breaths. Twilight merely slips fully next to her, unfurling her wing and draping it like a warm downy blanket over the Unicorn's back. An over the neck hug and the slow steady pulse of the Alicorn's heart started to regulate her own.
Moondancer glances warily at the mirror, then around the darkened room they were now left alone in, "S-shouldn't we-"
Twilight interrupts her with a nuzzle that quiets the quivering mare. "Only when you're ready, Moony. It'll be okay. I promise. Discord is a little odd, and he can look a little frightening, but he's reformed. He won't hurt you. I won't let anypony or anything hurt you. It's going to be fine."
There's a few long moments as the Unicorn's heart matches the rhythm next to her own. Finally, Moondancer takes in a few breaths and, despite her trembling limbs, asks, "Twilight, please don't tell me he's THAT Discord. The one the Royal sisters had to fight to keep us free from the powers of chaos more than a thousand years ago?"
The Alicorn's pause and awkward lip nibble forms a wane grin. "Well, um, if it helps then lets put it this way: you know a Draconequus's O&O stats and ecology, right?"
It gets a snort, "What do you think?
Twilight's grin doesn't quite disappear, "Lets just say it's not quite right. They're more amiable to friendship and some tea cakes than O&O ever mentioned, and they're definitely not challenge rating twenty-one. Now come on, you'll be just fine Moony. Just think of this as a social sciences experiment." She gives her friend a little pat and reassuring nuzzle before gesturing towards the mirror.
Moondancer's attention snaps to Twilight's hoof, then the mirror, and back as wide as saucers. "The social sciences aren't real sciences... Twilight. My experiments are ideally done from behind arcane-resistant glass. Twilight... Twilight IDON'TWANNAGOINTHEMIRROR!"
With a little push, the still stumbling mare is gently nudged into the mirror, an Alicorn wing draped around her as the world swirls into an incomprehensible metallic torrent.
Moondancer's keening screech may have ended at the portal, but through the tumultuous whirlpool of eldritch colours, they disintegrated in a discordant fractal blurt of sound.
Shot through to the other side, Twilight had already prepared herself to step through as some animate biped. But with a sickening lurch and bend, the teleportation magic veered wildly off course and vomited them somewhere else. Tossed through the silver amalgam into something unfamiliar, she flails and tries to remain standing with Moondancer's shivering form under-wing. But everything's just 'off' enough to send her tumbling to the cold hardpan, the Unicorn flopping down next to her with a breathless whoosh of air.
"... E find that stallion and wring his neck!"
Something crackles overhead, overwhelming the sudden echoing voice. It pricklesthe Alicorn's back with electric motes that drift through darkened air. The blinding shine of a rippling lightning bolt snapping at about head-height made Twilight keep Moondancer pressed to the rocky ground. Her friend came first.
"Moondancer, are you alright?" She asks, gently rippling her wing as if she were patting the mare on the back. It gets a groan as the mare wearily nod and adjusts the glasses perched askew on her muzzle. Muzzle. Hooves, they both still had them.
Shakily rising, Twilight's ears flick with the scintillating static crack of magical discharge. For an instant, all her senses scream 'failed experiment'. A suspicion not helped by the stink of ozone and burnt copper. But even the ground was wrong; a cold blue surface stretched beneath her, awash in bands of winding aquamarine copuscant rippling like sand in the desert. It felt frozen and entirely dustless. Sure, the ground had grit, but only as wind abrasion rasped stone moulded into shape. It was just another thing to add to a long list of discrepancies.
"Mmmph, Starlight... Trixie dosn't feel well." the stage mare's warble listlessly trails off from only a few paces away to her left. As Twilight looks towards the mare's muted groan by instinct, she catches a glimpse of the lightning that constantly crackles overhead, whipping the wandering bands of copuscant up and whisking them along in an eldretch breeze. It billows towards a tall grey rise.
"Trixie, Trixie stay down!" Twilight calls and scotches out from beneath the crackling beam. She chances a single glance back to confirm that, yes, the beam emerged from the centre of the mirror. The Alicorn turns, seizing Moondancer's scruff in her teeth. The mare freezes, eyes widening before the tug pulls her into an awkward roll to get out of the way.
Sidling up closer to Trixie, Twilight blinks away the solid black after-image burned into her eyes. "Everypony alright? Moony?"
"I n-nev. Never... Mmph, want to do that a-again." a series of hiccups racks her form. Her shivering doesn't stop, but at least she seems to have found her hooves as she raises herself back to standing.
"Starlight?" Trixie's call rises. There's no reply, though Twilight was still trying to rid herself of the black blot in her vision, though her ears flipped this way and that. Trixie's voice next to her was strange, not just worried, there was an edge to it. "Star?! Starlight, this isn't funny!"
That worried edge slips further from the Showmare's voice to her erratic breaths. And for the first time in quite a while, a pang of sympathy spikes into Twilight's chest. Trixie scuffs her hooves on the stony ground, scraping against the grin as she turns, taking a shuddering breath. They were in some sort of depression, a sharp narrow valley running parallel to the mirror. But up at the lip of the wadi, a few dozen hoofsteps ahead of them, she caught an outline mostly blotted out by the blinding blue light.
Trixie's voice shatters Twilight's concentration, "Starliiiiiiight, can you hear m-"
"We're up here!" Starlight answers. Sure enough, as Twilight squints, she can just barely make out the silhouette turn and carefully make its way down the steep slope with the sound of scraping hooves on solid stone.
Until that moment, Twilight hadn't noticed that the winding bands of corpuscent had been the only sound aside from the arcane crackle. For a moment, a shape flits by in the scorching blue ray, a blue aurora like a tail or mane, a flicker of an equine body.
That same ephemeral voice rasps in her right ear. "Take Ceifador and shove it down her throat. Just don't be upset that-"
Twilight's attention swiftly refocuses on the scraping sound as Starlight skids to a stop with a little hop-step. Almost immediately, she's bowled over by a flying blue missile. Trixie all but tackles her, hat flopping off and completely forgotten while wrapping Starlight in a hug, "When I call you in a creepy new place, you had better answer. You scared me half to death!"
Starlight stiffens awkwardly, looking around to the other two and hesitantly lifting a hoof to pat her friend on the withers. Though the lingering muzzle scrunch and questing eyes said she didn't understand. "Umm... Trixie, I've been like sixty feet away and gone for maybe a minute."
"Too long, Starlight. You shall stand by Trixie's side and don't you even think about leaving! Or else... Or else... There will be consequences, that the merciful but firm Trixie shall inflict!"
"O...kay? I'm sorry?" the rhythmic pat-pat tap on Trixie's back continues for a few seconds more before Starlight turns her attention to Twilight. "C'mon, you have to see this. Something's... Well, something weird is going on." She nods back up the escarpment's steep slope. "Discords just over there and so is a big spiraling... Thing."
Twilight licks her lips, turning back to press her side to Moondancer for a moment. "Just follow me." Then gives Starlight and her Unicorn limpet a bright smile. "Lead the way. I'm sure we can figure out what's going on. Starlight, you're okay, right?"
After another pat and no sign of Trixie releasing her, the Unicorn mare has to squirm and wriggle free of the embrace. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I'm just not exactly sure what to make of this."
And after a moment and a thought to pop Trixie's all-but discarded hat back on her head, the pink Unicorn mare leads them up the slope. It only takes about a minute, but as they crest the top of the horizon, the 'this' became apparent. The arcane beam didn't follow the rise, it bored straight through the escarpment leaving a single groove where the stone had either melted or been completely obliterated.
Twilight couldn't even call that 'strange' by the time she got to the top of the rise just a tail length behind Starlight. The sky was a single swirling vortex, spiraling around a single pinprick of blue light. That point streams from nearly under her hooves from the blue beam that lanced from the portal. It streaks out into the boiling, swirling maelstrom, forming massive corona of utter blackness.
The world seemed to tilt, spinning too drunkenly fast and shifting the very horizon around that one central point. The sky darkens with no sign of stars, just a perpetual twilight dominated by a dark and swirling black corona crowned by an eclipse's anteumbral ring. The roiling vortex swirls blots of blue, purple, and green that transitions to a sickly mass of oranges, reds, and yellows around that singular blue focal point. The more Twilight stares, the more apparent it becomes.
"It's a vortex." Twilight breathlessly gasps, realizing just the enormity of it. The entire sky was moving to the sound of distant discordant harmonics.
"I know... Twilight?" Starlight looks back, her aqua eyes sparkling, reflecting the electric tines of the arcane beam, "I saw this. I was asleep and saw this, or something like this on the train." Wordlessly, Trixie clings tighter again, nearly tripping up her friend who wobbles precariously at the summit.
Moondancer twitches and turns at every errant crackle and pop, but the low yowling howl of wild chaos magic's makes her tense again. A little nuzzle gets her to finally meet Twilight's gaze, letting the Alicorn stare into the wide and uncomprehending purple pools. "It'll be okay, Moony, we just need to go over there and figure out where 'here' is."
They descend the far more gradual slope of the escarpment just as Twilight fully crests the top of the ridge. And from the corner of her eye, again, she spots the shape in the blue beam. It layers itself in the core of the constant bolt of blue lightning, a curling mane and shifting pony shape of impressive frame with massive wings. And for an instant, Twilight caught the pinprick eyes of pure white light. It was wild, primal, imposing, with a voice hard and feminine. But it was definitely the same as before, "Always. I'll make you a promise, if that helps."
"Princess Celestia?" Twilight hesitantly asks, though the image was gone in a blink.
"Celestia?" Moondancer softly asks, Twilight having missed where she'd once again slipped under her wing as an aegis against the world around them.
Even Starlight looks back, but Trixie just mutters something and points to a far more certain figure just a short distance away at the base of the depression where hill met wide open plain. The lithe form of the Draconequus rests a dozen meters in front of them, lazily lounging on a fold up lawn chair with a cooler to his near side. An angled patio umbrella stuck into the rock at a jaunty angle to block out some of the glare from the too-close beam of energy.
"Well, about time you showed up. We've been waiting." Discord lazily waves a paw, summoning them over with a simple gesture as he decidedly remains staring out across the blasted abyssal plane.
"We?" Twilight blurts out, redoubling her pace leaving Moondancer to awkwardly try to match the Alicorn's longer strides.
And as Twilight approaches, Discord's errant finger-snap materializes another purple and crimson lawnchair on his right, even closer to the beam. "Well of course. I said I didn't have company but that may have been a teeny tiny little white lie. Come on, take a seat, kick your hooves up. I've got cold cider." He fishes a claw into the ice box and pulls out a long necked bottle.
But as she warily approaches, a buzz of energy reaches her ears akin to a swarm of angry hornets. Moondancer may have balked for a second, but with another gentle brush, the nearly mute pony continues under her guidance.
A shrill metallic howl freezes her to the spot, hackles prickling and eyes dilating. The sound was mournful, loud, and piercing with the edge of some unequine scream. The horizon squirmed with motion, causing just a momentary blip of the eclipse's luminescent ring. It was a massive loping shape on all fours, lupine, or vaguely so. It was big, easily the size of a Timberwolf Alpha if her mind calculated the distance to the horizon properly. It was a huge gap, but the creature was still easily seen.
Discord sighs unhappily and leans back further into his chair. "There's one of the neighbors dogs again." With an indignant snort, Discord slips a pair of over-sized sunglasses from his brow and perches them on his muzzle. The 'relaxed' atmosphere didn't translate whatsoever, even when a snap of his fingers blasts the approaching shape into incandescent dust.
"What... Was that..." Twilight's voice crept up her vocal register, turning shrill and tense even in her ears.
The Draconequus smiles weakly, "A hound. Forget about it, you can play fetch later if you really want, but right now the commercials are almost done. Sit, sit!" he pats the lawnchair
"What did you do to it?" Twilight asks sharply.
"Why, I sent him home, of course. Seriously, I thought worrying about pets was a Fluttershy thing, not a Twilight Sparkle thing." Again, he pats the seat.
Twilight carefully crosses closer to him and the indicated seat, but more shapes seem to flicker in the arcane beam. And while Twilight hears her name being calls by both Starlight and Moondancer, the shape in the centre of the haze starts to gain some definition.
"Truly, I don't mind." The voice says, "Though can you please deal with the slimy toad-things from now on?"
The ephemeral figure is a pony, there's no doubt, complete with a horn, wings, and impressive features. But it's not Celestia. Neither is it Luna. But a mark on its flank starts to emerge, and Twilight's eyes widen as she spots the crescent moon. She notices the thick armoured plates, the lambent aurora, it was the outline of Nightmare Moon. Or, at least, somepony unerringly close. In her emerging recollection, Twilight didn't notice that her slow gait had become a swift trot, nearly breaking into a full gallop that left her friends needing to canter to keep up.
"P-princess Luna!?"
Twilight's agile mind finds the missing pieces. An astral projection, not flesh and bone but spirit and raw arcane might. Nightmare Moon's lips peel back, fangs showing, eyes still blazing white. For a moment, Twilight heard another voice mingled in the cacophony of buzzing and arcane snaps.
Luna's voice was growing more consistent. But the other voice was a stallion's, no question, "You're going to keep asking me until I say yes, won't you? Well, too bad. You may be a princess, but I am the Warmaster. That, little horse, outranks princess."
The closer she drew to the insubstantial outline of the Luna, the louder a buzzing grew in Twilight's ears. Her stomach began to churn as she drew a half dozen steps from the princess. And finally she stops when the throbbing pulse of pure arcane energy overwhelms her senses. "Help her!"
"Help her do what? She's already got a big help, literally. And besides, I am helping her: I'm making sure her little long-distance call isn't interrupted. There's nothing worse than getting a busy signal." Discord grins, "Besides, I had to reorganize my whole schedule for this. And honestly-" he pulls up the cider bottle from the ice box, now sporting a picture of Applejack. The little image says in her own friend's voice, "This dun candies mah apples."
'He's a spirit of chaos, he knew. He knew all along and didn't offer to help at all!' After a few breaths from flared nostrils, the Alicorn closes her eyes and counts, letting her breath out. 'Complacency isn't complicity.'
Slowly, cautiously, she shuffles towards the Draconequus who spares her a glance back over his shoulders. His attention quickly refocuses on the darkness, and it's only as she draws closer that she can see a peculiar boxy contraption seated on his lap. "There we go. Now, while you may be a poor house guest, I'm committed to being a wonderful host. Can I get you a drink? A bite to eat? Perhaps I should close the blinds a little more."
The smirk that forms doesn't wear off even as silence seems to be his only answer. "What are you doing here, and where is here?" Twilight quietly probes, voice soft and weak as her mind races.
It was hard to take in the utterly alien world and the realization that Luna was somehow, at least in part, here. "Why Twilight, what if I told you that ponies are a lot closer to seaponies than they'd want to believe? We're swimming around here in the deep end and avoiding that stormy surface part. But what am I doing? Well, I'll have you know, I was waiting for a call just like Luna got last night." He smiles and holds up the device. "Aaaaaany second now."
Both Pony and Draconequus stare at the ancient looking rotary phone, complete with a little novelty Discord shaped receiver that lies sprawled across a couch with another tiny phone in its hand. With a sharp sigh, Discord mumbles glumly, "Fine, I guess I'll have to call collect. How very rude."
With a few flicks of his eagle talons, he dials some eleven-part number as the rotary makes a little click-whine sound each time. The whirling maelstrom crackles and the undulating ribbons of cold fire flicker across the landscape in a lambent torrent.
"Discord, what are-" Starlight's voice this time pipes up as the trio converge around the two lawnchairs, but a padded finger reaches out blindly to press on the Unicorn's lips.
That Draconequus smirks. "It's ringing." With a burst of sound and shriek of monstrous voices, a crackle of arcane discharge. The tinny babble of chaos roils from the receiver and despite its piercing notes, Discord doesn't flinch. "Hello? Is Kairos there?"
Twilight furrows her brow at the introduction of some other party she didn't know. "Who's Kai-"
Discord shushes her. "Hes an intern of a former colleague." There was no voice on the other side, just a melodic hum interspersed with blurts of violent noise. "No? Hmmm, how about Luna?"
More reflexively than anything else, Twilight leans towards the phone. The sound of hoofsteps behind her barely register as she strains to hear something on the other side. Something was babbling in a tongue that she was just at the edge of hearing. It was some form of chanting deep speak, an elemental language though not one the Alicorn actually understood.
"Here, just a second, I'll put us on video-chat." Discord hovers a talon over the rotary phone, then flips it upside down and presses a big red button on the underside. With a crackle, a rift opens in the centre of the bleak eclipse from the point where the energy stream pierces the event horizon.
"Twilight, are you okay?" Starlight asks softly in her ear, but by now the unfolding geometries of an unfathomable arcane construct were unfolding before her. Nine layers of intricately built latticework, leagues of space held together by precision bands of magic, and the arcing ribbon of power sundered through it all. But there was movement in the layered and latticed structure hovering in the swirling blackness. Twilight lets her eyes wander, then focus. And like binoculars, she sees every minute detail.
Blank hallways of shining black obsidian empty into callous vistas of nothingness. Shimmering waterways spew toxic mires that lay waste to stone and form tangled masses of slopping fungi growths. Hundreds of year old structures crumble while alien buildings of pure gleaming white metal, present thoroughfares at every turn. New items, old worlds, all caught up in their own cycles of disaster and ruin. And through the halls, flowing as blood through veins, were creatures.
Twilight recognizes precious few: bestial and constantly changing, vultures, drakes, and skinless savage monsters dart run to and fro in immense anarchistic bands. More of those enormous dogs loom up, and she recoils at the sight. They were skinless, lipless, with immense quills and bone growths jutting from through dense muscle fibres. The predatory sparks in their eyes were unnatural, definitely non-pony, but all she could see was limitless hunger. But something else moves along the animalistic beings stalking the halls.
Red wolves, sleek and lean, eyes brimming with pale blue balefire. They were nothing like the muscle bound flesh-hounds. Each of their strides appear planned as they speed through corridors with unnatural grace. She watches two small packs split up, flowing around a frothing group of horned monsters wielding jagged blades, and reform like mountain streams. The constant relentless pace unbroken and undeterred. Something about them, while far from civil, lacked the raw savagery around them. They didn't belong.
"What is this?" Starlight's voice breaks the silence that had formed with the light buzzing in Twilight's skull.
"I don't know. Discord?" Twilight looks to the only authority on the subject.
"Hmm?" The Draconequus merely hums, "This? It's someone's attempt at a good idea. And no, I had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. But, it was too good of a show to miss, so this counts as my vacation."
The Alicorn continues undeterred, "But why is it here? This mirror goes to-"
The cheshire smirk crossing the Draconequus's asymmetrical face slowly halts the Alicorn. She swiftly rethinks what she knows. 'It does just go to that other Equestria, right?' Her experiments had copied the magical flux, stabilized the arcane cyclical periods, but she hadn't been inventive when it came to creating her own gateway. It was merely copying from what worked.
Lapsing into silence, her mind rewound everything she knew about point-to-point teleportation, permanency, and arcane cycles. So focused on threading through the notion that it could be something more than a simple artifact, she partially misses a weary and slightly shaking voice.
"-demands to know why you brought us here!" Trixie huffs, trotting in place by Starlight's side. Her friend was staring into the labyrinth like Twilight herself had. But the pale blue magician-mare focuses on the grinning Draconequus, though she holds a fraction of his attention.
"What would make you think I did anything?" he lofts a brow, "Honestly, I think you're just projecting." He reaches out to tap her shoulder, making her eyes flicker with a click of a film reel, throwing images of several little transparent mares across the blue-tinged hardpan.
"Quit it!" Trixie pulls away, circling over to Starlight's other side to use her as a shield before poking out her tongue and blowing a petulant raspberry.
"Discord's right, Trixie." Starlight shifts just enough, weight evenly balanced between them as they stood behind a still silent Twilight. "He wouldn't hurt us, so that means whatever he did, if he did anything at all, was to keep us safe. Or, safe enough."
A hopeful grin fills the mauve mare's face, blue eyes glittering in hope. It seemed even brighter than normal, and the Draconequus lets out a laborious sigh. "Yes yes, for you all are my very best friends, blah-blah-blah."
Starlight's hopeful smile shifts to a knowing one. "So you did it to keep us safe, and you know from what."
Discord tenses for a second before craning his neck towards an unwavering Starlight. A claw picks at a stray strand of her mane and flicks her ear. "Well look at little miss know-it-all here. Taking up Twilight's old mantle. Oh, your dam must be so proud. I can just see the big feathery wings poofing up now. All hail the princess of Interior Ministries and Investigations." popping a finger on her nose, the pony's ears wiggle and her eyes cross before a violent sneeze racks her body.
"If we're here, then this is a stop gap. The book didn't send the message through, it got stuck in that maze, didn't it?" Twilight's somber tone pulls Discord's attention back to the energy stream. She doesn't even fidget, instead, she casts a wary glance back at the ephemeral transparent figure of the corrupted Moon Princess. "Just like she is."
With a resounding golf-clap that sounds like it's from dozens of ponies, Discord stands. "Oh bravo, but only half marks, Twilight. Little Lulu isn't in the maze. But that doesn't mean others aren't. You know what they say: your princess is in another castle. Don't worry, she'll be fiiiiiine. Just keep her nice and cozy and warm in her royal bed, and in a few days time, give her a kiss to wake the sleeping princess. Symbolism is very important, I'm sure somepony like her would appreciate it. And because I already know that you're going to go charging valiantly off to save her: make sure she hears that too. Say it after me, Twilight-" a very literal sock-puppet version of Twilight is held up in his hand, "Symbolism is very important." sock-puppet Twilight bobs her head and looks at Discord who nods his own approval.
The suggestion's mock-humour washes off Twilight almost visibly. The Alicorn's steely gaze hardens as she focuses on the chaos spirit. "So, she'll be fine?"
"Yeeeeeess Twilight. She'll be fine. Probably." Discord gestures airily, rolling his eyes. "Do you question every professional you know? I'll have you know I'm the foremost authority in my field, I have a diploma and everything."
The corona of darkness seems to pulse again, more forms shimmering into existence, torn from the blasted landscape on the horizon. Fat towering monstrosities festooned with tubular growths and lashing tentacles parody some deep sea creature.
"Ooops, they're back again. Well, princess, it's been a lovely chat, but it's probably time for you to go trot off now. It's teatime somewhere in the kingdom, right? And you have to take your mute little friend-ling home." Discord gestures to the glassy-eyed Moondancer looking around, her shaking fits coming less often now.
"No." Twilight rears up out of her seat. She leans on the armrest, putting her nearly muzzle to muzzle with the Draconequus, taking in the scent of copper that trembles down her spine like a spell gone wrong.
"We came here to make sure, and while I trust you not to lie about something like this, we're going to get Sunset Shimmer. We need someone who can look into her mind. And you said there's ponies trapped in that maze with those... Things." She gestures wildly to the horizon.
"Did I say ponies?" Discord taps his chest and reaches up to rest his sunglasses on his brow. "I don't remember saying anything like that. But if you need an empath, try Fluttershy... Actually, don't try Fluttershy. The Flesh Hounds wouldn't respond well, and I don't want to be the one to listen to her blame herself for not being able to settle them down."
"Discord." the Alicorn's warning growl says it all.
This time, the Draconequus just smiles, not moving any closer but relishing it by the glint in his eyes. "Princess, are you making a royal demand?"
Twilight hesitates, then looks back at her friends. Moondancer's dumb gaze stares into her, Starlight flashes a smile, roguish and fearless. Trixie... Well, the scowl was still directed at Discord, but despite her panicky and unreliable ways, she and Starlight had accomplished amazing things. "Yes. We'll get to Princess Luna, make sure she's okay, and help anypony stuck in that maze. Luna has always had to deal with these things alone, but if we can help, we should. So let us through, we need to talk to Sunset Shimmer."
The Draconequus's smile grows to a grotesque degree. "Oooooh, oh I guess it is time. Little Twiggly-wiggly Sparkles is growing up to be the big scary princess she always could be. Trust me... You'll need that confidence. After all, decisions made here may be more important than you could realize. After all, you little ponies aren't just adorable-" Discord reaches for her cheek, pinching it like an old dam would her grandfoals, "You're positively unique in a way you could never know. And They hate that."
Discord seizes her in a one armed hug and gestures to the horizon, past the shambling beasts and towards the maze. "But, oh, lookie here, now I get to be your personal purveyor of dreams and portents. Why, I should just slap a moon on my rump and grow my bangs out." He mimes doing just that, a shaggy patently false Luna coloured mop head lumped over his horns. But he grins in a far more predatory manner while leaning in, serpentine tongue all but tickling the Alicorn's ear-fluff, "Just let me give you a little bit of advice: not everything is as it seems. Follow your heart... But don't expect to be able to click your heels three times and say 'there's no place like home'."
"Heels?"
The Draconequus shrugs before picking her up by the shoulders. "Off you go, o' valiant princess. Second door to the right, straight on till morning." With a snap, a freestanding door appears and opens into a more familiar swirling miasma of riotous colours, "Come back when you're sure your party wants to venture forth, oh high and mighty wizard."
"This isn't O&Ooooooooh!" With a wink, the Alicorn is tossed through the doorway into the swirling miasma and disappears. The door slams shut, and the Draconequus dusts his mismatched hands before glancing back. Three other ponies stare straight at him as he turns.
"Oh... Almost forgot you were there." He shrugs and hops back onto his lawn chair, "Twilight will be a few minutes. So, can I get you a drink? Cider, juice, anything?"
"Well, I mean, if you're offering I'd love some pineapple or grape." Starlight smiles, and with a little nudge on the rump, pushes a shaking Moondancer forward towards the now abandoned second lawn chair.
With a weary sigh, the stagemare grumbles, "Trixie will have orange." then hops up on the chair while Starlight stares on in disapproval. The latter Unicorn unceremoniously tips it sideways, sending Trixie tumbling before smiling encouragingly at Moondancer before giving the seat a little pat. All eyes settle on the near-silent mare who hesitantly takes the seat as Starlight settles in next to an indignant Trixie.
After a gentle pat on her withers, Starlight asks her softly, "How about you, Moondancer?"
"...P-peach?"
