Celestia and I stood alone in the middle of the Electronics room of the humanities wing. The room was protected by guards and surrounded by privacy spells; noone would disturb us. "So, what troubles you, Sir Arcturus?

"Several things," I confessed. "Firstly, and really the most obvious.... I could buy a few accidental items crossing over due to the gate. But this?" I swept my arm around, indicating the room. "This stuff-- most of it's in pristine condition. A lot of it is rare to find. That little ASIMO robot there? There's only like a half-dozen of them in existence, they're cutting edge technology right off the lab floor and worth millions of bits. This room alone is worth a sultan's ransom. You've filled a museum with things your gate has plucked from Earth, myself included. This goes a little bit beyond accidental. Please convince me that you're not methodically plundering my world!"

Celestia sighed and moved closer, lowering her head to mine. "I understand your suspicions--"

"Don't understand them; fix them!"

"--but it is not us picking the placement of the mirror gate anymore," she hissed.

That froze me. "Then who?" I whispered back.

Celestia shook her head. "We still do not know. The gate is no longer under our control. It's having these...unpredictable spurts now. Some force outside ether of our universe is sending out bursts of some sort that shake the very fabric of the gate. Like ocean surges, or gusts of wind blowing through the mirror like a, a giant bubble wand. And every surge there's a new burst of things being flung through. Nothing living, yet...."

"Then close it down! Yank the plug on it!"

"If we do, there's no way to track down the source--- and no guarantee that the portal will even close. There's a good possibility that instead it will... pinch off and wander away. It only stays pinned to the mirror so long as we keep the mirror activated."

I had visions of a portal of indeterminate size wandering over the Equestrian landscape, randomly burping out objects from my world. The chaos that would cause....

Chaos....

I looked at her, but before I could speak she seemed to read my mind. "No, not him. Not Discord. We checked very thoroughly; he is still sound asleep in his stone prison. I went so far as to treble the bindings; I had every unicorn in my service throw every spell they could think of on him. Then Luna and I added a few more ourselves besides. Then we put guards and monitoring spells on top of that; he hasn't so much as twitched a brain cell since we re-fossilized him." Celestia managed a wry grin. "It is most definitely not him."

"And what of the other draconequi?" I muttered.

Celestia's smile dimmed. "Other draconequi? We... only ever encountered him." Her eyes filled with alarm. "What cause do you have to believe that there are more?"

"No proof yet, just logical questions," I said. "Was he really the only one? If so, then why give his species a name? And it's my observation that there is very rarely just one of any living thing."

"It doesn't seem quite Discord's style, though..."

"Not Discord's, maybe. But there's more than one way to spread chaos. We have legends back on Earth of unbelievable chaos being caused with a single horseshoe nail, a misplaced drop of honey, a single golden apple." I regarded the electronics around us. "And events in real life. Billions in lost profits and damage caused by a single malicious computer program. People killed by a two-line glitch in a program controlling a medical machine. Entire cities plunged into darkness by a single burned out switch. Harmony begets order begets complexity begets a thousand places where chaos can throw the balance the other direction."

I turned and faced her. One idea begat another; whole sections of my little-used brain were finally lighting up. "The balance.... the balance, that's it isn't it? Discord didn't feed off of chaos, he fed off of order. That's why he didn't flee when he had a chance, isn't it--- Equestria is his feeding grounds. It's like the balance between plants and animals; they each depend on each other for survival, each feeding off what the other creates.... oxygen and carbon dioxide, fruit and fertilizer...."

"That's why you have to seed the clouds to make true snowflakes instead of just flakes of ice. That's why you have to fabricate clouds, and manually shift the seasons, and guide the migratory birds--- blow me no smoke about merely observing, those pegasi are there to make sure they move on schedule--- and all the other little cyclical changes in the climate and the weather and nature. Chaos is change, and ever since you imprisoned Discord there's been a shortage of chaos, hasn't there? Just not enough to reach the tipping point that triggers cloud formation or snowflake crystals or migratory or hibernation instincts."

Celestia scowled thunderously. "So you suggest we release that monster to restore the 'balance' between good and evil---"

I shook my head furiously and waved my hands in negation. "No no no! Ugh. First off, Chaos and Order are neither good nor evil. Order is stability and structure, Chaos is change. Discord may have been in charge of a necessary cosmic force, but evil is a choice made by thinking beings.... and it was his decision as a thinking being to take his power as an agent of chaos and be a jerk. And if it comes down to a choice between letting a sadistic monster run loose and having to cope with a little chaos deficit, we can all survive a little chaos shortage."  

I thought for a moment. "It would explain a few other things, too. Like my own ridiculous run of luck."

"Luck?" Celestia said.

"Yes. Your Highness, I don't know how things are here, but back home success takes hard work, often a lifetime of it, and even then it rarely pays off. Some few people do "fall upstairs," but it generally turns around to bite them in the plot if they don't know how to handle it.

"But since coming here, I've gone from a broke, nearly unemployed, trailer-dwelling nobody long past his prime to living in a palace, wearing fine suits, eating fine food, gold jingling in my pocket--- fame, fortune, political influence and a circle of ever growing fans and friends.... on little to no virtue on my part. Every suggestion I've made has been eagerly adopted, every idea I've had has been golden--- not an hour ago a simple windfall of an idea has panned out and may turn two of my friends into millionaires.... it's verging on the ridiculous." I looked down at my ponderous stomach. "I'm amazed ponies haven't started calling me 'Buddha' and rubbing my belly for good luck."

"And your point being---?" Celestia chuckled.

"That unless it normally rains luck around here, something is really altering the tables of probability in Equestria," I said. "Maybe it's a side effect of poking at the walls of time and space, maybe it's just a consequence of moving from one bubble of probability to another with a higher natural quotient.... but I think it's somehow tied to whatever's happening to the mirror gate."

We both pondered that ominous thought. "I will have my scholars look into it," Celestia said finally. "Thank you for speaking so candidly, Sir Arthur." She paused. "Arthur," she said, "It may be that someone or something has messed about with chance and luck in my realm. But please don't entirely discredit your own hand in your success. Being blessed with luck is one thing. Making good use of it is another. And you have done your best to be both wise and generous with your own."

"I'll... try to keep that in mind," I hedged. "Thank you, your Highness."

"Oh, and one more thing," she said. She stepped over to me--

And rubbed my tummy with her hoof. "Wish me luck," she singsonged, crinkling her nose in my face. "Wubba wubba wubba the lucky tum tum..."

I made an exasperated noise at her. She laughed and vanished in a splash of light, leaving half a dozen computer screens warbling and staticking in her wake....And me alone in the room with a handful of her bodyguards, all of whom were struggling hard not to laugh.

I just glared at them. "Don't you have royalty to catch up with?"

It was, of course, common knowledge within twenty four hours.....