I have walked the path of deceit and I have seen what it can bring. I will try to atone for my transgressions but some secrets are best kept at heart. Under different circumstances I would’ve have continued to lecture about where this path will lead but my time is growing short. I’m afraid that I’m about to reach life’s great crossroad again, and this time most paths will be barred.

I didn’t have much time left. Was that fact sobering? No, nor was it tragic. Perhaps justified could be used to describe the situation I was in, but then again it didn’t sound quite right either. A bit too melodramatic if you ask me. However whether I could find a proper word to describe my situation held little importance in the end. The result would be the same no matter what I called it.

So here I lay, confined to this bed staring at the ceiling. Every breath was I took was a small battle of its own and the smell of antiseptic had already become the norm. It wasn’t that strange though, after having spent almost two full months in this hospital bed. I had already accepted that my fate was sealed, so all I waited for now was the final surrender of my body.

I understand that all this talk of my pending demise might be confusing, so let me take you back to the time when everything began to crumble around me.

I had finally managed to return to my normal routine. My life had been, more or less, restored and I felt that I once more had the power to forge a future for myself. It had been two incredibly trying months that had passed, and I had taken every measure to combat everything that would potentially remind me of Equestria. Among those measures, leaving everything related to MLP behind had been my first and hardest decision. It would only have served to rip open the floodgate of memories that I was trying to shut. But even with such drastic measures the months had been trying.

There’s no point in sugarcoating what I had been doing those first two months. I had been living life by just making up excuse after excuse to keep my thoughts away from Equestria and Celestia. I went out drinking with friends, had a one night stand, buried myself in studies and come yuletide I spent all my time surrounding myself with every activity I could possibly think of. Yes, what I did was nothing but to create another mask for myself to wear. One that was forged out of everything I remembered my old life to be.

In the beginning it was just something to hide behind, nothing more than a tool to cope with my actions. But just like my other masks it slowly turned into something I could assume and dispel at will. Yes after two months I had regained control over myself and my memories.
I don’t know if I want to refer to the incident that followed as karma or if it was just fate, since I normally believe in neither. The timing however seemed to perfect though, just like a lot of other things had been during my adventure.

I’m of course talking about the reason why I’m unable to leave this bed. It had not even been a week after I told myself that my life could finally resume. When that life knocked me down.

“Good, but you can be even faster!” my sensei called out.

“Hai!” the Japanese term for yes rang out in the dojo.

We had been practicing basic techniques the entire session by applying them to mock scenarios designed to improve two things. The first one being speed, as you may have already guessed, and the other being the ability to accurately gauge the range of your own attacks. In other words, we were to learn from which distance we could start to launch an attack and actually hit our opponent. It was one of my sensei’s favorite drills, and I have to admit that I enjoyed this particular style of practice as well. Especially if your “target” was allowed to counter your attack, should he or she see an opening.

The true challenge to something like this was to sell your feint though. Why? Because countering will always be faster and easier than going on the offensive. So without a feint that bought you that window of time to land your true attack, be it kick or punch, you were doomed. What I’m saying is that it will always be easier to be a defensive fighter. Personally though I have always preferred to walk in between offense and defense but I could not deny facts.

Currently I was sparring against what is called a “kouhai” in Japanese. It’s quite a broad term but in short it’s someone who’s in a junior position relative to yours. Be it time spent at a certain establishment or simply a difference in age, such as a senior student versus a sophomore. Given this situation I had to lower the skill ceiling so that I was hovering just out of reach for my kouhai. This served one major function and that was the rapid improvement provided by trying to reach an obstacle that while challenging was not unattainable.

I was grateful for not having to perform at my max though. Throughout this session I had been feeling more strain than usual, and my breathing was already quite labored. It wasn’t anything that worried me though, no one will perform at his or her top capacity a hundred percent of the time. So this was likely just one of those days when my performance had taken a small dip. Perhaps I was coming down with a cold or something? I thought idly.

“Yame!” sensei’s command rang out and all activity in the dojo ceased.

He waited a few seconds for everyone to exchange the ceremonial bow and murmur of thank you very much in Japanese before speaking up again.

“Take a short water break and then return to your original positions.”

As one body all of us moved over to our water bottles and in my case a towel. I quickly wiped the sweat off my face and went to observe my fellow students. Counting myself there were currently five black belts present besides sensei. A pretty decent turnout seeing how we had a total of eight black belts practicing at our dojo currently. My observations were cut short as I felt a rising need to cough, so I raised the towel that was still in my hand to cover my mouth. A surprisingly violent cough later I lowered the towel and dropped it next to my water bottle, had I been paying attention I would probably have seen the red flecks that now adorned it.

“Okay brake is over! Get your gloves and mouth guard’s and grab a new partner.” Sensei called out.

Looked like sensei had decided that we were going to have a bit more freedom now. I caught the eye of a fellow black belt named Cassandra, or Cas as everyone called her, and picked a spot in the dojo. Cassandra and I were quite evenly matched when it came to skill and speed but I had one advantage over her, and that was my reach. Standing just above six feet tall I had quite the unfair advantage when it came punches and kicks. Cassandra never complained though, she just smiled and said that it was good practice. So with a bow we signified that we were ready to beat the living daylights out of each other.

Cassandra struck first and I quickly stepped out of reach, followed by a counter attack of my own. For a few seconds we danced back and forth like this, then quick as a viper Cassandra dashed in. With a quick leg feint she got me to lower my guard before delivering a quick strike to the side of my head.

“Great job Cas.” Sensei said as he passed by us before heading down towards a couple of less advanced students who were awkwardly trying to use techniques they hadn’t quite grasped yet.

We settled back into our respective stances again, and this time I took the offensive almost immediately. But as I attempted a high feint, mostly to close the distance, I once again felt the urge to cough rise rapidly. I hoped back and held up a hand to signal a short break, before coughing into my elbow. Still unaware I lowered myself into a fighting stance when the coughing died down and was surprised to find that Cas was looking at me, clearly concerned.

“Hey are you okay?” she asked.

Confused I started to say that I was fine, but I never got further than opening my mouth before I devolved into violent coughs again. I threw up my arm to cover it out of reflex and suddenly I realized what had had Cassandra concerned. The normally white Gi that I was wearing was speckled red with blood on the arm I had coughed on.

I tried to look up, to formulate a response to Cas, but the coughing didn’t seem to die down. And suddenly it was getting harder and harder to breath. I could feel myself slowly start to get lightheaded as I coughed and struggled to keep air coming in. Somewhere in my subconscious I was aware that someone was trying to talk to, no shout something to me. The last thing I remember from that day was someone supporting me so that I didn’t fall before darkness overtook me.

I had been rushed to the very hospital where I still resided, and after a multitude of tests the cause of my collapse had been found. Pulmonary carcinoma or in layman’s terms lung cancer. Everyone was in a state of chock and no one could piece together where it had come from. I had no history of smoking nor had any type of cancer ever been present in my family. To make matters worse it was already in a stage were chemotherapy and surgery were deemed impossible. Yet despite all this I knew, I wasn’t sure how but I knew that this was the final act of Grief. The entire idea of me beating her had been a misconception, she had simply been changed into the most malignant form possible when crossing the veil.

At that point, at that realization, everything that I had pushed away and all the walls I had built to make me forget came crumbling down. I had cried, and when the tears dried up anger had replaced them. I would lash out at everything, and everyone who came to visit. Until even my anger waned. I was left with an empty feeling and so I started to write, to document the events that had lead up to this point, for I had nothing else left. Slowly I came to accept my pending end at the whims of this tumor. And over the two following months my strength was quickly sapped, until I could do little else but write.

For two long months I spent the time I had left compiling my experiences in Equestria, planning to leave it as a file for my family to find. While we’re on the subject of my family I think it’s important to note that they seemed to have taken it harder than I have… no that’s not quite right. I was definitely the one who took it the hardest, but compared to my family I had come to terms with the inevitable. It may be because I could connect my situation to my actions or it might be something else entirely. The important point though was that I could focus on leaving my tale behind. Whether it would be read and more importantly believed I could not control.

It had of course not only been family that visited. During the first month there had been a lot of activity from friends and fellow students, both from practice and the university. One type of phrase I had quickly grown to despise was when they expressed how surreal it all felt. Often I had wanted to scream out in anger that if it was surreal for them guess how I felt. But such visits had died off more or less after the first month, and now I only got the occasional visit from those I regarded as my closest friends. We couldn’t do much except talk or play a game or two of magic the gathering, but it comforting to know that they cared.

I felt a cough building so I closed the lid on the laptop I had been using before collapsing into weak coughs. The hand used to cover the mouth quickly showed a couple of small blood droplets, as it did most of the time now. The coughing died down and I tried to draw breath again only to realize that I couldn’t. My brain quite hazy from different pain meds was slow to register it as a problem. So I tried again but was met with the same result.

A strangely subdued feeling of panic started to rise as memories of being chocked by Dreamcatcher’s magic surfaced from my subconscious. In my drug addled weak state I was only vaguely aware of the increased beeping of the machinery around me. My vision was growing dim and I could barely distinguish my right hand, reaching for something, anything. But I was alone, alone in the dark. Not like this… A final thought ran out before I felt my last shred of consciousness start to slip.

Discord had noticed the moment he was released for his so called reformation that things were different. Not that he cared all too much, but mainly out of curiosity he had dug around for the cause. He had been quite surprised at what he found at first, but had eventually filed it away as useful for getting under Celestia’s skin. Oh yes, a most marvelous and cruel joke could be constructed from this.

That had been his thoughts about a year ago, but that had changed now. What he once sought to turn into a practical joke was a shining beacon of what he regarded as a last chance. Two weeks back him doing what he was planning would’ve have been unthinkable to him. But with the recent betrayal of Tirek, he felt that perhaps this might help him to start to walk the path of redemption.

Discord snapped his fingers, summoning a large grandfather clock, for the fifth time in what had to be less than two minutes. The arms of the clock were slowly moving backwards and in about ten minutes they would stop. His timing in this had to be perfect, and that unnerved him. For the first time in a bit more than a millennia he would try to actually force the chaotic nature of his magic to do his bidding. Unlike pony magic chaos magic always had to be balanced. Create something here, something would have to disappear there. But you could circumvent it by pulling something straight out of your personal magic well, if you were of draconequus descent. The only problem was that the well was a limited source that would slowly replenish when not used. And now he was probably going to use every last bit of his currently stored up magic.

Accessing his well was an act that he normally reserved for emergencies, as it would leave him in a precarious position if he burnt it at a regular basis. It was a common misconception that he was actually all powerful. Well, he had never said he wasn’t and he hoped to keep it that way. But enough of that he was getting off track, he needed to focus he would only get on shot at this. With another snap of his fingers he vanished, it was almost time. When he reappeared he was in a pocket plane of sorts, one that only he knew of and he visited often.

“Hello again sister.” He murmured.

He was met with silence, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. His sister had not been able to speak for many millennia after all. He looked around at the white marble walls and at the area in the center where his sister rested. Nothing here had changed, it never would unless he made it so. And yet he was about to do just that wasn’t he?

“I think I finally understand you now sister. Why you did it. It was never just to rebel as I had always believed.” He said again, addressing the center area.

He snapped his fingers a third time, summoning the grandfather clock once again. Two minutes. He began to mentally draw the spell matrix he had frantically been working on over the past two weeks.

“Well this is good bye for a while then sister. The next time we see each other it won’t be in this dusty old place, I hope. Oh no, don’t give me that look I’m sure you will like him just fine.” He exclaimed jovially.

With a final snap of his fingers he reached for the personal well of chaos energy that was inside of him and feed it into the matrix. He felt his body enter the ether and from there he focused his energy to tear the very fabric of reality. Just like he had expected he met resistance but eventually a tear formed, satisfied but drained Discord floated away in the ether. His now empty well would refill, but that would take months. Well perhaps some time away from everything would be a welcome vacation. After all the soul will do the rest. He thought idly, as he floated in darkness.

My eyes flew open as I sat up with a desperate gasp for air, before devolving into a now familiar cough. My throat felt dry like a desert and everything around me was brightly illuminated which forced me to close my eyes again. I slowly opened my eyes to a squint, and was met with the blurry image of a chamber that definitely couldn’t belong to the hospital.

Author's Notes:

Yes this was a double feature of sorts, if you count the recap/hook. Anyway some of you that are observant may have noticed that some things have changed.
This story for example will tackle more adult themes later on, and will have darker undertones at times. Don't let that scare you away though as the core will be more of what you have come to expect from Of Stars Descending.

In the upcoming chapter, currently titled "The antechamber to adventure", I will have a new reveal ready to go. Err, a few new reveals when I think about it.
But until then enjoy my trademark cliffhanger.

Taldear.