Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter Ninety-Two

"All right, class," said Cheerilee. "Good lesson. Now it's that time again, time for a dip in the pool of the past: history. Truffle Shuffle, you said you'd found a guest speaker, one who knows a great deal about the current topic of our history class?"

"Yeah," Truffle Shuffle said excitedly. "One of the guys I play cards with on Fridays. He—"

The classroom door burst open and Discord slithered in across the floor, rearing up like a cobra when he reached the front of the room. "I know a great deal about your history curriculum," he said, "because I was there when that history happened."

He turned to loom over Cheerilee. "Miss Cheerilee," he said softly, taking her hoof in his claw and kissing it. "I must thank you for that stirring lecture about me, oh, it must have been over a year ago now. And assigning homework about me as punishment, even. How delightful. If you'd stayed around a bit longer, you might have seen my heart beating as my stone prison cracked, or heard my pleasant laughter. Did you? No? Well, nevertheless, it's nice to hear your voice again. Reminds me of what it was like to be free."

"All… right then," Cheerilee said uneasily. "I can make this work. Everypony, please give a warm welcome to our history class guest speaker… Mr. Discord."

The students applauded nervously as Cheerilee returned to her desk, yielding the floor to Discord.

"Thank you," he said. "My homeboy Truffle Shuffle tells me your topic today is the history of Equestria's rulers."

"That's correct," said Cheerilee.

"Well, let's get started, we've got a bit of ground to cover," said Discord, grasping a cord which had suddenly appeared beside his head. He pulled it down and produced a flat white screen, which was completely blank apart from four tiny square portraits in the top-left corner.

"Hey, I said 'a bit'," Discord said defensively. "Equestria has only ever had four rulers." He tapped the screen gently, and the four pictures expanded to take up the entire screen. "And I was there, and I can tell you the whole sad sorry tale."

Discord dragged his finger along the screen, and three of the pictures vanished, leaving the leftmost one to expand further, taking up the entire screen: a picture of a pink unicorn with pale blue eyes and an elaborately curled yellow-and-pink mane, wearing a platinum crown studded with deep purple gems, and a flowing purple cape with white trim.

"When Equestria was born, it was ruled by Princess Platinum—we all know this story," Discord said. "The history books and Hearth's Warming Eve pageants seem to imply that her personality improved after the incident with the blizzardy horsey things. Wrong! Wrong!" He cackled. "This fickle, self-centered bitch—"

"Mr. Discord!" Cheerilee scolded. "This is a classroom."

"Sorry," Discord said flatly. "Anyway, Platinum here… turns out, offering up your friendship doesn't work on everypony. She put on a parade every day to show off her fine fabrics, the ponies in her court, the crown jewels, and… herself. Every day! For five hours! And attendance was mandatory. Oh, you wouldn't believe how many days of perfectly good lives were wasted at those freaking things. I give her credit, though, for finding the crown jewels in the first place and commissioning them to be cut into those gorgeous shapes. I like those, the old crown jewels. I don't know, maybe they just bring out ponies' covetous side." He smiled suddenly and snapped his fingers, changing the subject. "Hey, you know that rumor that Platinum and Clover the Clever were secretly in love? The one that all the pageants milk for all it's worth by having them snuggle and stuff? I don't know if they were in love, but they were sleeping together."

"Oh!" Cheerilee gasped.

"They'd go at it all night long!" Discord reminisced, leaning backward with his hands behind his head. "Clover, that poor girl, what kind of horrible leverage must the princess have had over her to—have I gone off-topic?"

"A little bit," Cheerilee grumbled.

"Can I have a look at the textbook?"

"Please."

Discord picked up a copy of the textbook from Cheerilee's desk and flipped through it, finding a page and looking it over. "Okay, Platinum… I assume you want me to talk about what Equestria was like under her rule?" He snapped the book shut. "Well, I don't care about that. Let's get to the fun part! Platinum eventually passed the throne on to her only child. She only had one child because she was often banging Clover instead of her husband. …I would like to reiterate, Platinum and Clover were totally doing it."

"Mr. Discord!" Cheerilee snapped.

"Right! Platinum's daughter—" He swapped out the picture of Princess Platinum for another: a hot-pink mare with wings and a horn, wearing a crown not quite as fancy as Platinum's had been. Her long and straight mane was striped with four colors: blue, blue-green, white, and yellow. Her eyes were a remarkably pale pink, almost white, and her face was blank and emotionless.

"Princess Amethyst Abjurer Dweomer," said Discord. "Or, as we all called her, Princess Bubbles." He glanced at the picture briefly, then stared at it, stunned. "Oh, wow. To be looking into her eyes again. Those cold, dead, unfocused eyes. Like the eyes of a doll, or a shark. Or a shark doll. Lifeless eyes. And the terrible storm going on behind them. I… I may need a minute."

He continued staring at the portrait for a long minute, then shook his head to clear it and took a deep breath. "Okay… the story of Princess Bubbles' reign goes hoof-in-claw with that of her successor." He flicked the screen again, and the portrait of Bubbles was replaced by a surprisingly regal and majestic image of Discord himself, in profile. "Oh hey, that's me. SWEETIE BELLE!"

Sweetie Belle jumped in surprise at her name being suddenly bellowed. "GAH! What?"

"You've read the book on the origins of Hearts and Hooves Day," Discord said casually. "You know this story. Tell it to us."

Sweetie Belle swallowed, and shifted uneasily in her seat. "Um… well… Prince Dragonglass brewed a love potion for them to share. But it left them unable to look away from each other and unable to perform their royal duties, which allowed you to take over Equestria."

Discord nodded. "Close. And true to what you learn from books. But not entirely accurate." He switched the image on the screen back to Princess Bubbles. "Miss Cheerilee, this is going to start deviating from what's written in your textbook."

"Start?" Cheerilee demanded.

"First detail you need to get right: Prince Dragonglass was Bubbles' cousin, the only relative she had in Equestria, and so her only true heir. With both of them declared incompetent and unfit for duty, rule of Equestria was passed to the next highest-ranking individual in Equestria, the high chancellor of the kingdom—me."

"Wait a minute," said Cheerilee. "You're saying you inherited Equestria? Legally?"

"Yes," said Discord. "Not exactly 'morally'. After all, I'm the one who gave Dragonglass the recipe. But legally. I'm telling the truth here! It seems that as of late, I always do." He turned his back to the class, revealing the Elements of Harmony attached to his spine, and tapped the gem of Honesty.

"You had a taste of my love poison, didn't you, Miss Cheerilee?" Discord said casually, gesturing to the Crusaders. "Whipped up by these three, as I recall. Do you think I should charge them royalties for their use of my product? Cutie Mark Crusaders, doing more to further my cause than many." He zipped among the desks, weaving around them in unnecessarily complicated patterns to make his way to the Crusaders. "Applegoth here, their brave leader. Sweetie Belle, the brains and the beauty. And Scootaloo, who… oh, who the hell cares?"

"Hey!" Scootaloo exclaimed as Discord stood upright and drifted back to the front of the room.

"Whaaaat was I talking about?" Discord wondered. He caught sight of the portrait of Princess Bubbles, and jumped in alarm. "Oh, right. Princess Bubbles. Yes, I inherited her throne. I spent years maneuvering myself into exactly such a position. Started from the bottom, worked my way to the throne. A real Equestrian success story! Apple Bloom, you have a question?"

"No," Apple Bloom peeped.

"I saw you. You were about to say something."

"…Yeah," Apple Bloom admitted.

"Go ahead, then," Discord encouraged.

"Why would you do that?" Apple Bloom muttered. "Why take that kind of time to become the ruler when you could've just… taken over?"

"You know, I don't think this is really relevant to—" Cheerilee began.

"That's a good question," said Discord. "I had to earn my way to the throne on account of a curse my mother put on me."

Cheerilee stared incredulously. "Your mother?" she blurted.

"Yes," said Discord. "I was cursed to have no powers. None at all. But all curses have an escape clause: I'd get my powers back if I became a king. Technically my title was 'Prince', but still, number one guy in Equestria. A sweet enough gig to remove the curse. I heartily enjoyed having my powers back and the legal right to do whatever I wanted with them… not that I needed or wanted legal authority, but still, nice to know. Equestria was a world of chaos. Not quite as impressive as my return last year, as Equestria was smaller way back then and I didn't quite know everything I was capable of, but it was mine. Sadly, all of that lasted only a few months before this one had to come along and wreck it."

The screen displayed an image of a young Princess Celestia, with a pale pink coat and solid pink mane. "Celestia," Discord sneered. "Usurper, petrificator, sister-banisher, 'make six ordinary ponies do all the work'-er. She is an immoral and unsavory character who should be rebelled against, and it must be true, because I just said it. I don't get why ponies like her so much. Doesn't your love for her seem a bit one-sided? All her condescending smugness—but enough about her, let's go back to me."

Wild-eyed, his hands trembling, he switched the image back to himself. "MY MOTHER!" he roared. "…Did horrible things to me. Not only did she make me live as a powerless, ordinary guy for millennia—millennia!—but my powers only worked within the borders of the kingdom I ruled. I wanted to create an entire world of chaos, but had to settle for JUST EQUESTRIA! Maddening. Always, she was a step ahead of me, but someday, I'll get the jump on her and spill her guts all across the countryside! I'm going to pull out her spine and carry her vertebrae around in a big bag, and plant each vertebra in the ground like a seed, and grow a terrifying mountain range that no explorer will ever dare to enter! AH-HAHAHAHAHA!"

"Mr. Discord—" Cheerilee said in concern.

"Shush, I'm ranting!" Discord snarled, his eyes bulging now. "And Princess Bubbles—I am so sick of her being painted as the victim in the whole love poison ordeal. She never performed her royal duties! She sat in her throne room and stared at the crown jewels all day! Anypony who touched the jewels, touched her, made her look away, they were violently punished. She was mad. And her magical power was immense. Maybe the power drove her mad, maybe her madness allowed her to unleash her full power, I don't know."

His voice cracked as he continued, his wild ramblings suddenly sounding like a pitiful plea. "You ponies might think you know fear, but I know true fear. And nothing in the world could ever be more frightening than Princess Bubbles when she was forced to look away from her crown jewels." He shuddered. "Any threat to Equestria you can name—me, Nightmare Moon, an army of changelings, my mother, Sørmur dï Mitgaeard—is nothing, nothing, compared to what would ensue if Princess Bubbles returned. Which… she might."

"How?" Scootaloo whispered.

Discord glared at her, seeming to be aware of his surroundings for the first time in several minutes. "What do you mean, how? How might she return? I don't want to talk about it. Anyway, now you know the unvarnished truth about the history of Equestria's monarchy. It's not in your books, it won't help you pass any tests, but it's the real story. If you're ever again interested in really studying history, call me up. Because it's likely that whatever event you're talking about, I was, if not there, then at least paying attention. Aaaaaagh, memories. Pathetic."

He sighed and slouched, not moving.

"Um… sir?" Cheerilee said cautiously.

"Mmm." He scratched his nose absently. "I was just trying to give a lecture. I didn't realize all these old emotions would start bubbling up from my past. Stupid past."

With a snap of his fingers, he set the screen he had conjured up on fire, burning it down to nothingness, and he vanished in the screen of smokeless fire.

The classroom was still and silent for a few moments.

"Truffle Shuffle?"

"Yeah, Miss Cheerilee?"

"I'll raise your final history grade by five percent if you promise to never let him come back here again," Cheerilee said, visibly shaken down to her core.

"Sounds good," Truffle Shuffle agreed uneasily.