When the world returned, Spike was still sitting on Discord's neck, but now they were in the heart of the Everfree Forest.
"Ohhh no," Spike said in almost a moan, looking around himself. "This isn't good."
"What's not good?" Discord asked, panting.� "Get off my neck, I can't breathe."
Spike rolled off Discord and got to his feet.� "We're in the Everfree! Do you have any idea what's happened to the Everfree?"
"Huh." Discord got to four feet, wobbling slightly, and craned his head around. "From the look of it, I'd say the plunder vines came up."� He licked one of the digits on his lion paw and stuck it in the air... then started to fall forward, unbalanced. Discord cursed.� "Can't believe... how weak I am. Give me a moment."� He pulled himself to two feet, using his claws in the bark of a tree as leverage, and then wrapped his tail around the tree and leaned back against it. "Didn't... really expect them to do this. I'm not thrilled by the new look, to be honest."
"You did the vine thing too?"
Discord looked down at Spike with an eyebrow raised. "You do know they were planted over a thousand years ago, right?"
"Uh... no, no, I didn't.� It's not like our Discord ever explained himself."
"It's not like you ever gave him a chance, Mr. Hammer Happy."
The words stung. They shouldn't have � Spike had spent so long facing his regret for what he'd done.� Discord's flippant comments were nothing next to the lectures he'd endured from Twilight about his actions.� But it still filled him with so much shame that he'd killed someone, even someone who'd deserved to die.� "It wasn't like I wanted to.� I just thought I had to.� Sooner or later he'd break out again, and then what?"� He scowled at Discord.� "We don't have a kind Fluttershy anymore who could have reformed him."
"He regretted everything, you know," Discord said. "Before you killed him. He ruined everything that made him happy. If you'd let him live and he'd broken out again, he wouldn't have been looking for revenge; he hated everything the world had become."
"Everything he turned the world into, you mean," Spike said sharply.� "And I thought you said you had nothing to do with him!"
"Still don't. But it turns out you can learn a lot about a guy from nibbling on his dead body."
"How was I supposed to know that?" Spike asked, taking refuge in anger so he wouldn't have to feel horror. If he really hadn't had to kill Discord... if the Discord he'd killed had regretted everything he'd done, and wouldn't have sought revenge... "And how do you even know this?� You said you didn't know anything about why our Discord did the stuff he did!"
"Did I say that?" Discord shrugged. "I suppose I probably did.� Things are different now, you know. I have a little bit of magic back." He pushed off from the tree with his tail, uncoiling it.� "We've got something to find, and then I'll use the rest of what I've got to find my friends and free them."
"Something to find?"
"Are you just going to question everything I say?"
Spike ground his teeth.� Discord was so irritating.� He didn't seem to have any humility or any further remorse for trying to destroy the world, and for a moment Spike regretted helping him... but only for a moment.� Being irritating didn't mean he'd deserved being tortured, or... that other thing he'd said about what Fluttershy was doing to him.� Also, if Spike had never helped him, he probably would still have ended up cracking and trying to destroy the world, but no one would have stopped him like the alternate Fluttershy did.� "I can't help look for it if I don't know what it is," Spike said.
"It looks like a tree branch."
Spike looked around.� "We're in a forest.� A tree branch isn't going to stand out much."
"This one will be rather distinctive, trust me."� On two legs, Discord half-walked, half-staggered forward, plainly having difficulty staying upright.� His body swayed in every direction.� "Pretty sure it's this way."
"I could help look if you could give me some more details..."
"I don't need you to look," Discord said.� "I can feel where it is.� What I need you for is to pick it up, since I'm not going to be able to touch it."
"Why not?"
Discord sighed.� "You ask a lot of questions. Doesn't that ever get tiring?"
Spike followed him in as close to a trot as a biped could manage.� "No, not really."
Discord almost fell over, catching himself against a tree. "Amazing... what months of being chained in quadrupedal position... will do to your balance. And your glutes. I've practically wasted away to nothing."
"Why don't you walk on all fours, then?" Spike asked.
"Would you, in my position?"
"Probably."
"I've never seen you walk on all fours."
"Dragons my size aren't designed to. I think. You can do both, though. That must be convenient."
Again Discord almost fell over. "Not right now it's not."
An animal called, somewhere in the distance. Spike shivered. "Let's try to get this done before nightfall."
"Your message to Celestia bounced. I'm not at all sure night is falling."
"Wait." Spike frowned. "Are you saying... are you saying those other Bearers, the ones from your world, they're strong enough to hurt Princess Celestia?"
"They defeated both me and Nightmare Moon, why not Celestia?"
"Uh, because they did those things with the elements of harmony?"
Discord smirked. "My Twilight isn't any stupider than yours just because she's an alicorn now."
"But... they wouldn't really hurt Celestia, would they?"
"The note she sent said she had a use for Twilight, and she'd let the others go. If that use for Twilight was, shall we say, less than healthy for Twilight, I would imagine her friends would have provoked a confrontation, if they could. And if Twilight was defending her friends from a maddened Celestia? I put nothing past her when it comes to defending her friends."
There was a time when Spike's Twilight had been that pony. He swallowed against a sudden tightening of his throat, a sudden burning in his eyes. "It does kind of look like it's still afternoon... maybe 4 o'clock or so..."
Discord shrugged. "Means nothing to me. I have no idea what time it's supposed to be."
"It's maybe around 6 pm?" It was summertime, so the sun stayed high in the sky for a good long time, but... it still looked wrong, even for summer. "So... if Princess Celestia is really distracted by a fight or something�"
"No. The sun automatically moves, all day long, as long as Celestia isn't incapacitated. It's an unconscious function of her magic. Her being distracted wouldn't stop the sun from moving. It would take her being unconscious, or not on Equestria anymore � say, for example, banished to the moon, or Tartarus � or dead. Now, I doubt very much Twilight and company would kill Celestia, or that they even could... but a nice spot of banishment might be just the thing for her."
"If they did that, then who would move the sun?" Spike asked, somewhat panicked at the thought. "If the sun doesn't move, we'll all burn!"
"Oh, you'd be fine. You're a dragon."
"I'm not okay with all the ponies dying!"
Discord tripped and hit his head on a tree branch, hard enough that he fell backward on his tail. "Ow! Why didn't you warn me about that tree branch?"
"Dude, you are ten times taller than me. I can barely even see the branches that might hit you." This was an exaggeration; Spike could see them just fine, if he craned his head up, which he didn't want to do.
"I suppose you're right," Discord sighed. He sat there for a minute or two, not moving.
"Don't you think we ought to get going?"
"Everything hurts," Discord whined. "I ache, all over. It's so hard to get up... it's so hard to keep walking..."
"But you have your magic back, don't you? Can't you heal yourself?"
He shook his head. "I don't have that much magic. Only what was in the piece of my statue you gave me, and teleportation took a lot of that. I have to save it. I might need it for something."
"Oh, yeah, you said you were going to use it to rescue your friends."
"Yes, or removing my own ears if Fluttercruel or your Twilight turn up, so I can't hear anything they order me to do."
"Huh. That's a good idea. But you still don't want them to show up here before we find the thing we're looking for, do you?"
Discord shuddered. "No." He got to his feet and staggered forward.
"Why don't you do all fours? You wouldn't hit your head so much, or trip."
"No," Discord said again, despite the fact that it still looked like he could barely keep himself upright.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, before Discord spoke again. "Do you know anything about what I am? About Chaos, or chaos magic, or the avatars? Anything at all? Did Twilight share anything with you?"
Spike's eyes narrowed. Why did Discord need to know that? "What're you asking for?"
"To know how much I need to tell you."
"About what?"
"Well, if I knew how much I need to tell you, then I could tell you, and you'd know what."
Spike rolled his eyes. "That's helpful."
"Isn't it? I thought it was very helpful."
"Maybe by your standards." But he had to admit he was curious. "What did you need to tell me?"
"So you don't know anything?"
"About Chaos? Not much. I know that Twilight found out in the research she did in the Crystal Empire that there was something called the Diadem of Order that supposedly has the power to beat you because it's imbued with the Spirit of Order the way you're the Spirit of Chaos and the Elements of Harmony form the Spirit of Harmony."
"Not exactly accurate, but go on."
"Well, it did enable her to beat you � other you � because of something about balancing out the harmony?"
"Each of them were fused with their opposite," Discord said. "For five, that's disharmony � Cruelty, Disloyalty, Greed, whatever you'd call the kind of manipulation Applejack does, and I have no idea what you'd call Pinkie. Corrupted Laughter? Psychotic Laughter? The Element of Evil Clowns?"
Spike shuddered slightly. "Let's not talk about Pinkie, okay?"
"Mm, yes, I agree, let's not." This time Discord managed to duck the tree branch that would have smacked him in the face. "But Magic isn't inherently harmony. Magic, at its base, is chaos. Chaos magic is raw magic, uncontrolled by the structures of Harmony. Reverse chaos, and what do you have? Order. Joining herself to a fragment of Matrisse must have made it possible for her to harmonize with the others, because then they'd all be bound to their opposites."
"What's Matrisse?"
"I'll get to that. No one likes an impatient dragon."
"We don't have all day, you know. Fluttershy said they can't track you in the Everfree, but the moment Twilight realizes she can't track you, she'll know that the Everfree is exactly where you are."
"It's a rather large place."
"Yeah, but even still. We're trying to save the world. If Twilight catches you�"
"Yes, yes."
"If you don't have all your magic you're no match for her even if you take your ears off."
"Yes, I know. Really. How can I tell you anything if you're chattering at me all the time?"
"So tell me something then. Something useful."
"What I'm going to tell you... is something I rather hope won't be useful."
Spike frowned. "Then why are you telling it to me?"
Discord stopped and looked down at Spike, something he hadn't done yet the whole time they were walking. "Because if you do need it I want you to have it. No one had it for me. The one who could have given me anything died when I was a small child and he wanted this for me, anyway. I... don't want it for you. You won't handle it well. No one does, but you'll be particularly bad."
"Handle what?"
"Chaos," Discord said.
"Why would I�"
"Shhh, there's a grownup talking. Listen. Chaos magic is raw magic. It's the hardest to use and the most powerful. Very, very few chaos mages are actually any good at doing anything other than blowing themselves and their friends up. It's almost impossible to master, but it was my special talent. Like ponies have their cutie marks. So I was a chaos mage, and I was good at it. I knew the Tree of Harmony existed�"
"Tree?"
"Yes. It's a tree. The Elements are just... mmm, seeds? Not exactly, they can't plant a new Tree, but the Bearers can manifest it when they use the Elements. So I knew the Tree of Harmony existed, but I didn't know about Matrisse and I didn't know about the chaos avatars. I was a mortal draconequus, a powerful chaos mage but nowhere near what I eventually became."
"I still don't know who Matrisse is."
"The Spirit of Order. It was a mountain. It went crazy more than a millennium and a half ago, and tried to remove magic from our world. Dragons wouldn't even have existed anymore, you need magic to live. Ponies would have existed but no more manipulating tools with their hooves, no more flight, no more magic in their horns � it would have destroyed them. So... I destroyed Matrisse. At great personal expense, I might add." He sniffed.
"Sure, I bet you deserved a medal," Spike said skeptically.
"I did! But that was after I became the chaos avatar. The Spirit of Chaos. You see, I � I died, to be honest. And they told me, when I was floating in that place between life and death, they said � you can rest. You can continue on down the river, you can go to the Shadowlands and pass on to the world beyond. Or you can take up the burden. You can be Chaos' avatar, Chaos' representative in the world. You can be the one who stokes the engines that keep magic moving. Because that's what I do, Spike. Magic needs there to be chaos. With magic, it's possible to make life more regimented and controlled than any non-magical society could dream of... but order makes magic fade. There has to be someone who keeps chaos going."
This sounded rather like self-serving horseapples to Spike. "So how did magic survive when you were trapped in stone?" he asked. "Or after I, uh... after you were..."
"After you killed me, you mean?" Discord grinned mirthlessly. "Oh, don't fret. My predecessor died when I was 2, or 4, or something like that... I'm not good at math. And I know I was at least in my 20s before I ascended. Maybe 30's. So there were decades without a chaos avatar. Magic fades slowly; there's a lot of it. And a thousand years in stone would have been a problem except that it was Harmony that did it, and Harmony needs chaos and order both; it let magic flow through me, like I was porous. I couldn't hold any of it or use it, but it could purify itself, turn back into raw uncontrolled magic by passing through me. Eventually it would have been a problem, though, and Harmony would have had to let me go... or Chaos would have picked another avatar. There's usually a backup plan. Or 27. Chaos likes to keep its options open." He was breathing hard, but Spike didn't know if that was exertion or emotion.
"Okay, so... why are you telling me this?"
"Chaos chooses randomly most of the time, but there are two exceptions. I was one of the types of exceptions. The child of the previous avatar gets first right of refusal. My predecessor... fathered me. Well, he wasn't any kind of a father to me, I only even met him once � twice if you count the time travel � and he was a completely awful draconequus and I hate him, but he was my biological father. And the other exception... is if someone kills a chaos avatar. If there's no descendent, no heir, then the choice comes to the one who killed the last one."
A chill went down Spike's spine. "You mean... chaos is going to make me into something like you?"
"Oh, don't sound so horrified. Godlike power is nothing to sneeze at. Of course, you have a much more orderly mind than I do, so it'll probably drive you insane, and that's before the loneliness, because it's almost impossible for chaos avatars to have friends, and... oh, yeah, your Twilight is practically an avatar of order now that she's taken up a piece of Matrisse and joined it to her soul, which would turn you into her eternal nemesis. So I guess there are downsides, for you."
Spike shook his head frantically. "No. No. I don't want that. I don't!"
"It's always a choice," Discord said. "But it's a rigged choice. I'd just been killed, in a war, and I had every reason to think that � that the others in my family, that the one I loved and her sister, had been killed as well, and I wanted to come back to protect the ones that my family had cared for. In their name. And, well, it didn't go according to plan because chaos never does." Discord took a deep breath. "It'll come to you when you're vulnerable. When it seems like everyone you love will die if you don't accept, or the world will end, or something, and you just. Need. Power. You're helpless and everything's on fire and you want the power to save the world, or your loved ones, or yourself, and that's when it will come and it'll say, �do you want this? Do you want to take up the burden, and carry the power?'"
He stopped again and leaned down, face close to Spike's. "Say no. You won't want to. You'll be terrified of what will happen if you don't. But find another way. Say no."
"I � I thought you loved chaos."
"I do. I love chaos. You don't. It'll tear you apart, because you'll try to use it to create order, and you can't use it like that. There was another dragon, she was the avatar once, many millennia ago. She wanted the power to save females of all species who were being oppressed by the males of their species. The overreaction to her attempts was so severe, there are now places in the world where they destroy their daughters' minds and make them into unquestioning slaves, because they followed a way of life that Ar brought into existence by trying to create the opposite. I don't want chaos misused that way, and I know it'll pick someone else." He sighed. "Not Brightest Star, though. I think she's dead, here. And I hope it doesn't go for Pinkie Pie... I think she's too damaged."
"I think I'd be a better choice than Pinkie Pie," Spike said, laughing nervously.
"That's because you have no idea what depths a lonely omnipotent dragon who craves order and friendship and now stands for the destruction of both could fall to." Discord snorted. "Pinkie Pie... well. I don't need to admit to you how much she, uh, bothers me."
"Yeah, you were crying just because she was in the room with you."
"I am not under any restriction not to hurt you. Don't make me kick you for being rude."
"But it's true, though. She's... she's really awful."
"Yes. But she'll get over that. She'll kill and eat a few hundred ponies and decide, naah, that's boring, let's find something else fun to do. Eventually she might even heal from the corruption. I'm not saying she'd be a good choice, and the fact that chaos avatars don't have friends, that would probably break her, but she's still more chaotic than you are. So say no. Don't get all noble and think you have to take it or it'll go to Pinkie, she's not the only chaotic being on this planet and it won't even go to a pony by preference unless it decides it would be funny, or something. Chaos... is rather impulsive."
"I've noticed," Spike said dryly.
Discord shook his head. "I don't even know why I'm bothering. The noble ones are awful. Chaos'll get you to say yes if it really wants to, because it'll ask you when you're at your weakest and you'll be too noble and self-sacrificing... and admittedly, too greedy for the glory of being able to save your friends yourself � to say no."
"Are you sure this world's Discord never had a kid?"
"Positive. I'm sure you know a few things about the birds and the bees."
"Uh, yeah, and I don't need to be talking about them with�"
"Dragons and draconequui are compatible, but dragons and ponies are not without magic � for reproducing, anyway � and draconequui aren't fertile with ponies without magic, and while I've been with a few lady dragons in my time, I..." He hesitated. "I didn't want a threat to my power. I didn't want the risk of creating an heir, so Chaos might possibly cast me aside for my own child. I was careful. And with ponies, there just wasn't a chance unless I wanted it, and I didn't."
"But he was different�"
"Not different enough," Discord said, looking away. "Not nearly different enough." He sounded upset about it.
"So... I'm going to be forced to become the chaos avatar someday if I'm not strong enough to say no when the chips are really down and things are really bad?"
"More or less. Yes."
"I'll just... say no. I'm pretty sure I can do that. I mean... I've had to have a lot of self-discipline lately."
"We can only hope," Discord said. "Let's go. Shards of Harmony trees don't find themselves."
That was the first indication Spike had of what they were looking for. It reassured him. This wasn't a wild goose chase, and Discord hadn't lied to him; this was going to help save his friends. A shard of Harmony sounded like it could be very helpful.
The sun didn't move at all, the whole time. So Spike had no idea how long they were traveling through the forest, Discord staggering like a drunken pony and almost falling over a few times, and Spike's feet and legs getting tired from trying to keep up with Discord, because even when staggering and unsteady the draconequus still had much longer legs than Spike. Eventually, though, they stopped. "It's here."
"Where?" Spike asked, somewhat irritably. After marching through this forest with Discord for what felt like it had to be at least an hour, he wasn't much in the mood. "I don't see anything."
"Sparkly crystal tree piece. Right there." Discord pointed at the ground ahead of them.
Spike moved forward so he could see better, and whistled. "Okay, yeah! That is definitely a sparkly crystal tree piece!"
It looked delicious, honestly. It shone like a diamond, but it was shaped like a tree branch. It had facets, smooth and polished. Spike found that he wasn't quite drooling, but his mouth was definitely watering a bit.� It had been so long since Twilight had allowed him to eat a gem. Days. "I... don't suppose it's safe for me to take just a tiny nibble?"
Discord laughed. It wasn't a mocking laugh or a sardonic laugh, it was the full-bodied laughter of someone responding to a joke. "Oh, that's marvelous, Spike, I needed that," he said. "Eat a piece of the Tree of Harmony!" And then he was laughing again.
�"I'm guessing that's a no."
"Oh, stop, stop. I've thrown up too many times recently, my ribs hurt, my whole abdomen hurts, I can't stand laughing this much! Please stop being so funny!"
Spike made an exasperated noise. "Okay, what do you want me to do with it?"
"Just carry it. We're going to find my friends and give it to them, and I can't touch it."
"Why, what happens to you if you do?"
"In my weakened condition, without being able to fight back? I have no idea, but it won't be good." He shuddered.
Spike shrugged, and picked the branch up. It was a little too large for him to fit it in his pocket, unfortunately, and the pockets on his skin were uncomfortable if they were forced open. But the branch wasn't heavy or hard to carry. "Got it. What do we do next?"
Discord sat down heavily. "Now I use my magic to figure out where my friends are. If they're safe, I'll contact them and let them know where we are. If they're in danger... I guess I'll see if I can teleport to Canterlot."
"You are not looking like the kind of guy who's healthy enough to teleport to Canterlot."
"I'm not." Discord closed his eyes. "I doubt I'd make it, but they came for me and that's why they're in danger. I have to do something about it."
That was a sentiment Spike understood. He sat down as well. "Don't suppose you could use your magic to find some gems? I'm feeling really peckish right now."
"I don't find gems." Discord glared at Spike. "When I'm at my full power, I can make gems, but finding them? Pff. I have better things to do."
"Just in case anyone forgot you were a jerk for a single solitary moment," Spike mumbled.
"Do be quiet. I need some concentration for this." He closed his eyes again and breathed deeply.
"I guess I just sit here," Spike said to no one in particular.