Discord had snapped his fingers again, and Charis found herself in a bleak barren desert. All around her was scorched rock. The sun burned overhead, large angry and red. It didn’t look the same as the sun she remembered.

“What is this place?” asked Charis. “And why is it so hot?”

“This… this my dear student is the reality right next door where I failed to do my job,” Discord stated, making a grand gesture with his forelegs. “This is the future where I allowed Luna to remain sane. I was benevolent and never became a tyrant. Celestia had nothing to struggle for, nothing to strive against. She and Luna were ridiculously happy. Until one day, the power went to Celestia’s head, because she has absolute power. And it corrupted her absolutely. Luna tried to stop her. Celestia unraveled her sister’s immortality and then burned her into nothingness. Celestia didn’t stop there. There was nothing that could stop her. She burned off every trace of life from this ball of rock and mud, boiled away the oceans, and now, she roams the universe, looking for more things to burn. She’s burned away countless civilisations upon other worlds. Moving from star to star, sun to sun, she goes looking for planets orbiting those suns and any life that may exist upon them.”

“So you prevented this from happening?” Charis said, struggling to understand.

“Yes. I had to. As you can see, the alternative is quite bleak. I had to give a young Celestia something to strive against to shape her into the monarch she is today. But that wasn’t enough. I had to pick one of the royal sisters and drive them into madness, really, it had to be done. I chose Luna, the weaker of the two, knowing that Celestia could make the world recover from the extended period of night. There would be no way for Luna to do the reverse. I had to hedge my bets and make sure that life endured for the sake of balance,” Discord explained.

“Wait, your reformation,” Charis gasped.

“You are far too clever my little pony…” Discord chortled.

“Your reformation is an act!” Charis exclaimed.

“Yes. Now that the balance has been established for the time being, I can tone it down and only need to worry about maintaining equilibrium rather than having to force it. Maintenance is important, otherwise, things go out of balance again,” Discord explained.

“So you are lying about being reformed,” Charis blurted.

“Lying is such an ugly word,” Discord muttered. “I am merely playing the role I am required to play. I didn’t actually want to be evil, but things much bigger than I am compelled me to do some very unpleasant things. I saw the outcomes of what might happen if I didn’t act. Would you let this happen?” Discord asked as he gestured to the scorched earth all around him.

“Well… no. I guess not,” Charis admitted. “And you are telling me all of this?”

“Well, you are my student now… isn’t this what I am supposed to do?” Discord queried. “I know you will not tell the others. I will show you things over time, reveal small truths, and then greater truths. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“More than anything,” Charis replied, looking around.

“I could show you a world where Luna was victorious and the world was shrouded in eternal night. Surprisingly, life survives. Luna eventually drives Nightmare Moon from her mind. Celestia remains locked in the sun for a thousand years. Luna changes the plant life and even the ponies. She preserves life rather than allow it to freeze away. When Celestia is finally released, she cannot release the sun from its shroud of darkness because it would destroy all life on the planet. She and her sister make peace,” Discord said.

“So Celestia really is that destructive?” Charis asked. “Or could be?”

“Celestia is all about fire and burning. Fire is important. It is just as much a force of chaos as I am. Celestia and I aren’t that different really. Luna on the other paw is a different creature. The moon controls the tides. The moon is where the cycles of life are synched. Estrus is tied to the moon. Luna does not know it, but she is the guardian of all life on on this planet. She keeps the biological cycles synched, allowing the propagation of life to continue. Her moon controls all cycles of fertility for every species. Luna’s power is subtle, but it is perhaps even more important than her sister. Luna’s power is also another form of chaos hiding in the guise of order. Her so called harmony is really just nature doing what nature has always done. Finding a way,” Discord explained.

“So Celestia had to be subdued somehow to allow Luna to continue her function. We couldn’t risk having Celestia go bad, so she had be made responsible and feel some kind of emotional obligation for life all around her as well as a duty to protect and care for her sister,” Charis reasoned. “Rather than a prison, like say, being turned to stone, you bound her with guilt and shame for failing her sister.”

Discord nodded, looking pleased.

“So who do you answer to?” Charis asked.

“I don’t know, but I can feel it nudge me sometimes. I get feelings. Intuitions. That was part of the reason I didn’t take you as my student for so long. There was no clear indicator either way. And there still isn’t,” Discord admitted. “And now that I have placed a seed of my essence in you, giving you my mark, I suspect that you will soon feel the nudges as well. Call it another intuition perhaps.”

Charis stared at the bleak landscape all around them. There was absolutely nothing but rocks and fine powdery sand.

“You would burn to death right now if I wasn’t protecting you,” Discord stated, watching the filly study her surroundings.

“So you prevented this from happening by being a massive pain in Celestia’s ass, and making her protective of her ponies, whom you threatened and ruled over as a tyrant?” Charis asked.

“Yep, pretty much. I failed here. I was kind. I was gentle. I treated everything here the way I treat you or Fluttershy right now. I didn’t have the heart to do the cruel merciless things required to mold Celestia into a responsible force of nature. And this is what happened,” Discord replied.

“This is terrible,” Charis stated.

“Sometimes, you have to kill to be kind. An act of cruelty is really generousity. Lying is honesty. Betrayal is loyalty. And remorseless derision is the only way to preserve laughter. I have had to do all of these things. I have had to live with all of these things. We spoke of morality before, but now that you have glimpsed beyond the usual mortal curtain, what do you think of morality now?” Discord questioned.

“I don’t know yet. Ask me that when I have had to kill something out of kindness. When I have had to indulge in selflessness of my cruelty, giving it freely away to all those around me. When I have had to live a lie to uphold integrity. When I have had to become a traitor to preserve those I hold dear. Or when I have had to heartlessly mock those I would rather comfort with gentle humour,” Charis replied.

“You are fit to be my student I believe. Listen to you. You do understand. I suppose this is why I make sense to you. What is it like living among your fellow ponies, knowing that such thoughts lurk in your mind and such awful things exist in your heart?” Discord asked.

“I’ve never fit in. Ever. I have been pushed away by everypony I have ever met,” Charis replied. “And how could they be so awful if they serve a higher purpose? What might seem bad at the time might be necessary and good when viewed from outside the situation. I can accept that.”

“Very good,” Discord praised.

“Why don’t Celestia and Luna know about this? Have you tried showing them? Explaining this?” Charis asked.

“I can’t do that. Celestia knowing that she had been manipulated, it would undo all of the good the manipulation has done for her. And neither one of them are ready for such truths. It would destroy them, they are far too weak.” Discord admitted.

“But I am an earth pony… I am just a nopony… I’ve taken it in quite well I think. I can’t say for certain, and they are alicorns, certainly they are stronger than I am,” Charis argued.

“Because you are a nopony. You don’t raise the sun or the moon. You don’t have absolute power granted to you by some divine beneficial serendipity extended by the universe. You are strong because you are weak. They are weak because they are strong. Their great strengths are millstones around their necks. You are nothing. You said it yourself. You are free. There are no obligations from you. No responsibility. If you stumbled, it would be no great loss. Hence, you have strength. I was once like you. Nothing. A nobody. I had no purpose, no meaning. No obvious sense of destiny. You can take in these harsh truths and they don’t undo everything you believe in, because you believe in nothing. You are strong Charis. You wore me down and hounded me until I finally became annoyed. You rejected the nihilism presented to you by the universe and sought something better. You were ready to create your own sense of purpose, something your fellow equine-kind are completely incapable of doing. Are you ready to return to them?” said Discord, his words odd because he never once stopped to draw breath, everything had simply been said without pause.

“This place is dead and we don’t belong here,” Charis stated, looking up at her mentor.

“You are correct,” Discord agreed. He snapped his fingers.

Discord was gone, off to join Fluttershy for tea. Charis studied the ponies all around her, ponies were oblivious to the small truths and the larger truths that protected their existence. Ponies who lived because they hadn’t been burned away by the sun. Ponies that owed their existence to Discord. And would never know.

Of course, Charis questioned these truths shown to her, these were possible truths. She had no way of knowing which reality she lived in, or if Discord truly was what he claimed to be in this reality.

Yet his words held grains of truth, and she had to accept that. Perhaps this was a test, and more truth would be revealed later, absolute truth, where there was no means of denial.

Except that Charis didn’t believe in absolute truth. Only absolute perceptions, which could perhaps be also proven false, if given the right angle and insight.

Potentially, all things were true, even the untrue things. Because of this, she had to accept that all things were potentially possible, even if highly improbable. Chaos made all things possible and probable, and as she had learned earlier, the truth was hiding in blatant falsehoods.

Princess Celestia believed Discord to be the reformed enemy, but the potential truth was, she had been reformed before she had a chance to become the enemy. She had never realised her probable potential, and now, she was living a lie which sheltered her from the truth, which would be destructive. It was easier to accept Discord as the common foe and it united ponykind. Except that Discord was no longer the common foe, so what was holding ponykind together?

Charis did not know. Perhaps society would break down again and Discord would become the enemy needed to bring everypony together. Perhaps she would become that enemy. Perhaps Discord would set up one of the new alicorns to take a fall and bring ponykind together. Her mind was open to all of these possibilities now, however improbable they might be.

One thing was true. Charis was no longer a pony. Now, now she was a student of chaos. She didn’t know what that made her, not exactly, but so far it had changed the fundamental nature of her being.

Author's Notes:

Another chapter. Discussion is expected.

Let me know if I missed any booboos.

Enjoy.