The Birth of Harmony

Part 2

by AugieDog

"Where-?" Clover stared at the crater around her, couldn't keep from thinking about the ponies who'd been in those now-vanished buildings, couldn't keep from wondering-

"Shhhh," came a soft voice above her, and she blinked at Cadence, the pink winged unicorn's striped mane flowing in the damp, chocolate-scented breeze. "Don't let him unnerve you."

A bark of a laugh from Discord, hovering overhead on his mismatched wings. "Excellent advice, my dear! But I fear it's wasted on our little Clover." He settled to the ground, the dirt making a sound like air rushing out of a punctured balloon under him. "You'd almost think that 'unnerved' was her middle name."

Snorting, Pansy glared at Discord. "Shows what you know! Clover's middle name is 'the'!"

Discord choked, his nostrils flaring, then doubled over, hooting with laughter. "I swear, Pansy! You get funnier every time I see you!"

Pansy blinked, and Smart Cookie stepped around Cadence. "Keep it up, laughing boy," she said. "'Cause I reckon you're about to find the joke's on you."

Wings flapped on either side of them, the other two winged unicorns landing. "Yes," Celestia said. "Things might soon become a bit more serious than you care for, Discord."

"Oooooo..." Discord's eyes went wide. "I like you." He narrowed his gaze at Luna. "You, not so much. You've a lean and hungry look: makes me nervous. And that pink one?" He waved his lion paw. "I've already got more cotton candy than I know what to do with, to be honest."

Luna's smile showed more teeth, Clover thought, than a pony's mouth ought to have. "Isn't he cute, sisters? Perhaps when we're done with him, we can prop him up in a garden somewhere..."

"We'll see," Celestia answered.

"After all," Cadence chimed in, "could be we resolve this disagreement amicably."

Clover found she was shaking her head. "Amicable isn't a word Lord Discord knows."

Shaking his head as well, Discord clicked his tongue. "What do I have to do, Clover the Clever, so you'll stop calling me 'Lord?'" He touched his eagle claws to his chest, a curly white wig appearing between his horns. "It makes me sound like some minor official in one of your unicorn courts." The wig burst into flame, Discord stepping sideways to leave it floating there on fire, his voice suddenly a growl: "And I'm not a minor anything! Let's get that straight right here and right now!"

"What you are," Celestia said, she and Luna moving to stand beside Cadence, "is a nuisance."

Luna nodded. "A major one, yes, we'll grant you that."

Cadence snickered. "But still just a nuisance."

The wig exploded, Discord staring at them open-mouthed, and for all that Clover wanted to cower down next to Pansy, she didn't want to miss a word the three mares were saying. It was so perfect, everything she'd been wanting to say to Discord since he'd first swooped in and disrupted all the hopes and dreams she and her friends had had for Equestria.

"Well!" Discord looked shocked, but Clover could smell his sardonic glee. "You know, I'm starting to get the feeling you ladies don't care for my company."

Celestia tapped a hoof in the mud. "You have two choices, Discord. Either you leave here on your own." Her eyes narrowed. "Or you don't."

"My sweet Celestia, my lovely Luna, and my cuddlesome Cadence." Discord grinned, and Clover felt her ears fold, saw surprise ripple over the others' flanks. "Oh, yes," he went on, his voice quieter than Clover had ever known it to be. "I've heard your names whispered on the winds of legend, have known since the very first tick of the cosmic cuckoo clock that we would meet at this time in this place." He combed a claw through his scraggly beard. "Funny thing, though: neither the winds nor the cuckoo ever say exactly how I'll whip you like the sorry mules you are." He shrugged, a grin splitting his face like an axe splitting a log. "Guess we'll all find out together."

As one, Celestia and Luna leaped upward, their wings flashing, Clover catching her breath as energy both dark and light crackled from their horns to slam directly into Discord. Writhing and swirling like smoke, he only laughed, his voice vast and echoing back from Canterlot's towers: "Oh, my, yes! This will be fun!" Blood red fire spouted from him, a rotten vegetable stink making Clover wince, but two earth-shaking thuds forced her eyes to open, her heart freezing to see Celestia and Luna skidding face-first through the dirt halfway back to the sliced-up buildings.

They sprang into the air again instantly, redirected their fire, blasted him over and over, but Discord seemed to shrug off each attack, his claws hurling balls of sickly green vapor, huge arcs of electricity, and custard pies with equal abandon and pretty good accuracy, Clover had to admit.

"Dang!" Smart Cookie shouted after several minutes of back-and-forth had sent the two winged unicorns crashing to the ground another four or five times. She nudged Cadence, still standing between them and the fight. "Reckon they could use your help there, ma'am?"

"We all have our places," Cadence replied, but Clover could see the tendons standing out in her neck, her pinion feathers twitching her obvious desire to take flight and join her sisters. "And mine for now is here."

"But-" Pansy had actually gotten to her hoofs, was staring up at the fight from between Cadence's front legs. "This isn't working! We need a different way!"

Cookie nodded. "A smarter way, at least." An explosion overhead made her ears flatten. "Them girls is tough as anything I've ever seen, but this is only getting us nowhere!"

"Yes." Clover grasped after the ideas flitting fast as fireflies through her. "The magic of friendship we kindled that night in the cave, we need to...to expand its reach, need to add more elements to it, need...need Celestia, Luna and Cadence with the power they draw from all ponies everywhere, need to bring that into harmony with the power we drew from each other that night." She looked from Cookie to Pansy, saw once more the love and trust and belief there even though she had to admit she was rambling more than-

"Very well!" The words tolled out of Cadence as deep and clear as the note of a bell, her wings flaring up to cover the sky. "Sisters! Attend us here!" And when she tucked her wings back against her flanks, Clover's jaw dropped to see the deep blue of a perfect afternoon above her, something she hadn't seen in so long, she'd almost forgotten how beautiful it was.

"Where-?" Pansy gasped.

"-are we?" Cookie finished.

"We're safe," Cadence murmured, and Clover stared around at the serene green meadow rolling up to the crest of a hill on one side, rolling down to the trees of a shady and dappled forest on the other.

"For a few moments, perhaps." Celestia was panting, she and Luna winging in to land, soot and ash staining the formerly pristine white and black of their respective coats.

Luna shook her mane. "But we dare not stay. This is the last place we would wish Discord to discover!"

"True." Cadence looked back and forth between the other two, and Clover could easily hear her reluctance as she said, "I have to agree with our mortal friends, however, sisters: these tactics are proving less than effective."

A snort from Luna, but Celestia nodded and said, "We're certainly open to suggestions."

And suddenly, five pairs of eyes fixed on Clover, the expectations she saw in them so heavy, she almost staggered backwards under the weight. "Clover?" Smart Cookie touched a hoof to her shoulder. "What was it you was saying about elements and harmony and the like?"

"I-" Thoughts flashed through her again, concepts she'd learned during her apprenticeship with Star Swirl the Bearded, principles she'd discovered on her own after that night in the cave, after her mind had opened to so many new possibilities-

But she couldn't drive away the constant hiss of Discord's snicker, the sneer that always made her name into an insult. Clover the Clever? If she was so clever, why hadn't she been able to drive Discord off? Why had she stood idly by and allowed him to slither into Equestria, to destroy everything she'd devoted her life to?

"I-" she said again, and it all came tumbling out: "I don't know! I'm flying completely blind here, and I don't even have wings!" She glanced up, met Celestia's deep purple gaze, had to look away. "I don't know how I formed the Fire of Friendship, don't know how I summoned you three, don't have a single idea at all about what we can do next!"

"And yet," a familiar voice said behind her, "you keep doing that next thing, and you keep doing it well."

Spinning, she stared at the figure stepping from the forest, her mane standing on end at the jingle of the bells along the brim of his unmistakable hat. "Star Swirl!" she shouted, galloping down the gentle slope to throw her front legs around his neck, his well-remembered scent-old books and peppermint-tickling her nose. How many years had it been since she-?

Gasping, she leaped back. "But you-! Before we even came to Equestria, you...you-!"

"Died?" He cocked his head, the little sideways crook of his beard telling Clover that this was undoubtedly and impossibly her old mentor. "I'm fairly certain that's the word you're looking for."

All Clover could do was shiver and stare.

Star Swirl sighed. "The world works on principles you're only beginning to discover, Clover, principles I myself didn't have an inkling of while I was among the living." He smiled, and for all that Clover wanted to rush forward and hug him again, she couldn't make herself move. "You've surpassed me in every way, not only by finding the key to the magic that saved all ponydom from frozen doom but also by then developing that magic until you could create-" His gaze moved, focused past her, and Clover turned to see Celestia, Luna, and Cadence standing between Pansy and Smart Cookie.

"Oh, Clover," she heard him whisper. "I'm so proud of you."

Nothing could've stopped her then from whirling, pulling him close. "I miss you every day!"

"Shhhh..." A nuzzle at her ear, a hoof stroking her mane. "We'll be together again, never fear. But for now-" He stepped back, Clover blinking till her tears cleared and she could see his smile again. "You have a power in you, you and your friends, a power I never even imagined. Use that power, Clover the Clever, and save our peoples once again."

A spark rustled in her chest, and nodding, she turned, saw her friends further up the hill, had to gasp as the spark burst into a flame, a fire even larger than the one that had sprung out of her that night in the cave. "It's the six of us!" she shouted, charging toward them. "We're the focus, the center around which everything turns! Pansy, your generosity and loyalty brought forth Luna! Cookie, the laughter and kindness that you've shared with Cadence! And my...my..." Her thoughts faltered, doubts once more-

Cookie laughed, the sound steadying and feeding the fire. "Your stupid honesty, Clover!"

Pansy's eyes shone. "And your wonderful, incredible magic!"

She reached the group, saw the winged unicorns' horns glowing, her own horn as warm and soothing as a swallow of cocoa on a winter morning. "That's it," Celestia whispered. "Concentrate, everypony! The elements of harmony are within our grasp!" She lowered her head, touched her horn to Clover's, and the power that flowed out of her and into her made Clover's knees as rubbery as half-inflated balloons.

Two more horns, then, black and pink, two front hoofs, dun-colored and lemon-yellow, and Clover's heart flooded with joy, a part of her stirring like she was coming awake, coming alive, yawning and stretching and-

Light blossomed, and Clover gasped to feel the ground slip away beneath her, the air laughing and dancing to raise her and the others into the blue, blue sky. "The Elements of Harmony!" Celestia said again, and a golden necklace spun into existence in front of Clover, a ruby-red crystal at the front in the shape of her cutie mark. Other flashes showed her the necklaces springing up before Cookie, Luna, Cadence, and Pansy, and when hers slipped around her neck, the excitement and peaceful joy she felt made Clover resolve to do whatever she could to spread that feeling to all ponies everywhere.

One last flash of light, a sunburst tiara settling onto Celestia's brow. "And now, my friends," the sun mare said. "I believe we have some harmony to spread."

Cheers from the others, and Clover looked back, saw Star Swirl with head bowed, a smile on his lips and tears in his eyes. Then the lush green landscape vanished in golden fire, the dingy gray skies and sour milk mud of the crater in the center of Canterlot popping back into place, Discord stretched out in the dirt below and peeking at the face-down cards in the solitaire game he was playing.

"Discord!" The force of Celestia's voice blew the cards away. "This ends now!"

Yawning, Discord sat up and blinked. "Gracious! What lovely accessories!" His eyes narrowed, his thin lips curling. "I certainly hope you brought one for me. After all, it's my birthday..."

Luna snorted, her voice every bit as forceful as her sister's: "Fear not, tyrant: they're all for you!"

Cadence held up her hoofs, her words almost a whisper after the other two. "Please, Discord. Can't we come to some agreement that would have you leave us in peace?"

Slowly, Discord shook his head, but his eyes, Clover noticed with a shock, fastened themselves on hers. "Tell them why, Clover the Clever," he said. "As the only honest creature within the sound of my voice, tell them the truth."

Clover shivered, didn't want to know what he meant, didn't want her mind to make the connections it was suddenly making, didn't want to think the thoughts now crackling through her head. "It...it can't be..."

His grin sharp as a shattered window, Discord waved his lion paw at Celestia, Luna, and Cadence, confusion on their faces. "It was at your express command, dear Clover, that these three lovely and talented thingamajigs sprang forth from the better natures of all ponykind, was it not? So how can you deny that you also have the power to manifest the less flower-bedecked aspects of yourself and your fellow little ponies?" He jabbed an eagle claw at his own chest. "How can you deny that I am every bit as much a part of your hearts and minds as yon sweet shimmering sylphs? How can you say that you did not create me the same way you created them?"

Silence fell over the crater quieter than anything Clover had ever heard. Pansy and Cookie were staring open-mouthed at her, but the closed eyes and turned heads of the three winged unicorns told Clover all she needed to know. "It's true," she told Discord, his smile growing even more jagged. "We did create you, all of us, every pony who's ever refused to accept a real apology, who's told a dishonest lie, who's pushed another away for no good reason. You are our responsibility, and we can't turn away from that."

"Exactly!" He tossed confetti into the air. "One big happy family: that's us!"

"Except-!" Clover shouted, the power building inside her, the glow of her necklace reflecting that of her friends'. "We won't be ruled by you anymore! Yes, you're a part of us, but in the name of Harmony, we won't let you be the only part! We won't even let you be the biggest part!"

Celestia aimed her horn at Discord. "We can't unmake you, spirit, but we can certainly do our best to contain you!"

Discord clicked his tongue. "Don't talk nonsense, girls. Now, let's have our little 'Kumbaya' moment and get back to fighting, shall we? All together!" He touched his lion paw to his chest, stretched his eagle claw out, tipped his head back and began to sing: "Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday, dear me! Happy birthday to-!"

Clover unleashed her power, saw the light flood from the others at the same moment, crashing over Discord with a blast that made her mane stream out behind her. And when the light cleared, there stood Discord frozen in mid-song, smooth and gray and made of stone.

Another rush of power, and Clover looked up, saw the spongy pink and brown clouds popping like soap bubbles, the sky clearing for the first time in longer than she wanted to think about. "Let's call it dawn, shall we?" Celestia asked, and tears blurred Clover's sight of the sun slowly starting over the horizon, the dank gray sky deepening to blue.

A cheer rose from the city, and unicorns began zapping into the dirt below them, their eyes wide and fixed on the three winged unicorns. "Clover!" somepony shouted, and she looked down to see Princess Platinum waving wildly. "It worked! Your plan! You...you summoned help!"

"Yes, your highness!" she called; she turned a quick glance to Celestia, and the big sun mare nodded, her horn glowing to lower them all to the ground.

Clover got hug after hug, first from Cookie and Pansy, then from just about everypony she'd ever met while pegasi swooped down, earth ponies sprinting into Discord's crater from the streets of the city around it. The crowds stayed silent, though, looking up at the winged unicorns with wonder in their eyes, and Clover could hardly believe it when, after she'd introduced Princess Platinum to the three newcomers, the princess levitated her own crown from her head and bowed. "Royal pony sisters," she said. "Wherever you've come from, please say you'll do us the honor of staying."

Celestia's smile in the full light of the morning sun was more dazzling than Clover had imagined it would be. "We don't want to be a bother," she said.

"Ha!" Armor clattering, Commander Hurricane dropped into the spot beside Princess Platinum. "For taking out Discord, I'm gonna name you three admirals of the pegasi for life!"

"Yeah!" Chancellor Puddinghead pushed her way through the crowd to stand at the princess's other side. "And you're Big Cheeses of the earth ponies now, too!" She swept a front hoof over the desolate landscape. "You can put your castle right here, and then we can all come visit you all the time!"

"Or-" Luna's horn began to glow. "A lovely garden, I'm thinking, with a hedge maze and statuary." The glow reached out, wrapped around the stone figure of Discord, straightened it in the mud. "We already have the first, after all."

Slightly nervous laughter from the crowd, Celestia rolling her eyes. "Thank you, ponies of Equestria!" she said then, her voice so loud, Clover was sure the whole city-maybe the whole country-could hear her. "Then we'll stay!"

More cheers, but Celestia raising her hoof cut them off: "With the proviso that you allow us to make ourselves useful. I'll ask, therefore, your collective permission to take over the daily duty of seeing to the sun rise."

Luna's eyes lit up. "Oooo, yes! And I shall work my magic upon the night!"

"And I," Cadence said, again so much softer than her sisters, "I shall appear to each pony once you've all seen your allotted days and nights that I may guide you into the Groves Beyond." She bent down to Clover and whispered, "As I've already been doing, if the truth be known..."

Clover blinked at her, Princess Platinum calling out, "Then this will be a day of festivities such as Equestria has never known! The defeat of Discord and the arrival of our new princesses: Celestia, Luna and Cadence!"

"You got that right!" Commander Hurricane bellowed.

"Party!" Chancellor Puddinghead waved her hoofs.

Unicorns popped in with musical instruments, ponies grabbing them up and starting a schottische Clover hadn't heard in years. But as much as the dance called to her, she couldn't take her eyes off Cadence's. "But-," she sputtered. "Didn't...didn't Pansy and Cookie and I just create you? So how could you-? How could Star Swirl-? And how could Discord say he'd known about you since the beginning of-"

"Time's a funny thing," Cadence said with a smile, the rainbow seeming to shimmer behind the cloud of her cutie mark. "It only takes a moment to change the whole world, after all, but the consequences of changes like you make, Clover the Clever, they ripple out in every direction as if a pebble had been dropped into a pond. Now, if you'll excuse me..." She spread her wings. "I believe we have a party breaking out around us!" She leaped into the blue above to join her sisters, swirling with Commander Hurricane and the other pegasi to the music, earth ponies and unicorns dancing and singing along.

A nudge at Clover's right flank, and she turned to see Smart Cookie grinning back at her. Another nudge, then, on her left, and she looked over to see Pansy swaying little dancing steps in the mud. "No more thinking," Pansy said, mock sternness in her voice.

Clover started to protest, but Cookie prodded her in the side again. "At least for the rest of the day!"

"Hmmmm..." Clover tapped her chin, pretended to be thinking it over, then threw her front legs around her friends' necks with a laugh. "All right! But just this once!"