In retrospect, of all the things I know now, it could be considered ironic how the Seventh of Siral would become a salvager of Equestria and the world, in his own unorthodox way. Of course history dismissed him as a maverick power, as I too did. But given Discord's exuberance in his solitary life with great power, he was akin to a child in behaviour, to the point where him being a spawn of Siral's experiments was the last possible idea.
To think, of all the evils, of all the deeds of Siral, my once former friend, they were not the biggest cataclysm the world would face that I would witness.
After he vanished, along with Chack, I sensed no others of his creations, neither the Being of Envy nor Pride, anywhere. I presumed they vanished or lost their true power in his absence, or they were dead. Whatever the case, they were history.
But Siral's seeds, the darkness he spread so subtly in a last bid to get his own in revenge on Alicorn-kind, a race he deemed dangerous to existence through their tyranny and power, would take hold.
Subtle, but clear to those who knew. But who would believe me? All it did was solidify the most desperate, most ambitious of goals, acquiring a power that Siral himself warned me of, that I didn't approve of, for fear of untold damage it would do.
I theorize that was his ultimate plan as a backup, to let them die by the weapon they dared forge, a power to rule over each other, and in turn if they wished, the world.
On that day, the Civil War would end very abruptly. And soon, a new power would arise to fill the void left by the Alicorns.
But the new power would not need to harm the Alicorn rulers enough to overthrow them, whatever the faction. They brought their own downfall upon themselves when they fought for the ultimate power, as their struggles destabilised it.
Like children fighting over a toy, it was going to unleash damage. Nothing is without consequence, and their actions had suitable consequences.
But in the end, I lament the end of an era in such a manner. But they were too far ingrained in their own pride, their own ideas, to listen to a Wizard, 'outdated' as the Royalists called me, whereas the Nationalists would view me as an enemy before that at least.
Of course, such factions very swiftly became irrelevent after the cataclysm.
All that I worked with for years came to an end on the day the heavens bleed light, and a great ripple of disruptive magic was felt to those who knew where to look.
Yet in the least, there was hope for the future. I had ensured that much.

Personal diaries of Starswirl the Bearded

Nightfall
23rd February, 68 BNM
Northern frozen wastes

The vast, snow covered plains this far north, beyond the borders of even the New Gryphon Empire or the Crystal Empire of Equestria, normally were quiet, isolated, pristine and untouched by civilization. The stark landscape was not a place where interests from those in civilization could be met.
But it was what was strongest this far north that interested them. Overhead, glimmering in the night sky, the focus of immense energies across the planet, the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, hung over the darkened skies, as this far north was always in permanent night this time of year.
But across the frozen wastes, even from far away, echoes of fierce battle carried.
And from the Aurora overhead, streaking down in small ribbons of light towards the opposing sides, the energy of the cosmic infinite flowed to the Alicorns leading the battle from both sides.

It was unknown which side had the idea first, though in secret it had been Siral's seeds of evil stroking their ambitions that did it. What was known was that when they came to the northern wastes, to harness the ultimate power of the cosmic level magic that was strongest, and most easily acquired here, they arrived at the same time.
Only a few minutes passed before the battle had begun, a mad scramble to get the upper hand. Infantry ponies towed their artillery pieces, cavalry pegasi attacked from the flanks, while the Unicorns unleashed devastating barrages of spells and curses towards each opposing side.
But it was the Alicorns who would decide the tide of battle, as the streaks of pure energy each side harvested from overhead emporwered their leaders. The immense energy was rained down upon their own armies, enhancing their fighting spirit, strength and magic where best used, or unleashed against the other armies in a hailstorm of magic barrages that obliterated flesh and armour with ease.
Thunderbolts rained from the heavens with no thunderclouds as their source, great beams of light that scorched the snow capped earth black, and blasted avalanches of melted snow and water away into the further wastes that were spared from the clash of the armies. Energy fields protected the armies from attacks sent their way by the most powerful spells, and the front lines were a mess of hoof to hoof, blade to blade, and close quarters spellwork.
But as battle dragged on, a few wary eyes turned skywards, seeing the Aurora overhead beginning to slowly pulsate in brightness, almost like a heart.
More blood was shed, more energy harnessed and unleashed, and soon the northern lights were ablaze.
As battle began to fade, as they pulled back to lick their wounds slightly before assaulting each other yet again, the bright pulses of the Aurora didn't cease. Rumbles consumed the earth.
Far away, even as far as the south pole, the skies became alight with faint flashes of multicoloured sparks, almost like stars going off in the distance. Small earthquakes went off around the world all at once, as did volcanoes, though it was so spread out that it never truly unleashed nature's full wrath in one location.
Save for one.
Overhead, at the source of the energy being tapped, lightning bolts as bright as the sun lit up the night sky, the sky crisscrossed with so many to the point where a blinding white web of bolts turned night into day. A massive electrical storm consumed the plains for miles around, trapping the clashing armies within its heart, and providing those smaller armies on both the Nationalist side, and the Royalist side, with the view of the cataclysm about to unleash.
The energies built, and unseen, a large bolt of the cosmic energy, drawn from the earth and the moon, built and built like a twisting rope. The moon shook slightly, appearing to tremble for a moment in its orbit through the skies, as the earth trembled as well.
Then, the balance broke. The discharge surged down into the planet, into its core, the energy surging outwards as the very rotation of the planet itself was drawn on in a self-feeding loop of energy.
Later science would show that the very kinetic energy of both the planet's rotation, and the moon's orbit, was being drawn on now, and ousted.
From afar, the planet and the moon seemed to radiate energy across all spectrums, and now, slowly, that energy caused the earth's spin, and the moon's orbit, to begin to slow.
Harnessing the energy for their own use so recklessly opened up a pathway for runaway energy to bleed off the planets. The clash of powers had its toll on the world.
But they wouldn't live to see it, as the feedback's strongest ousting of energy on the planet itself came from the origin of the disturbance.

In the distance, the sight was spectacular and beautiful. To those in the midst of it, it was terror.
The feedback loop cycled the unfathomable magical energies drawn out and intensified by the Alicorns and their armies harnessing it, over and over. The electrical storm, almost a sphere of light, built and built, the Aurora borealis high overhead seemingly drawn in towards it like water into a vortex. Green lights swirled slowly around the concentrated veil of light, electrical arcs flaring brighter and brighter.
Craters were blasted in the frigid landscape, entire divisions struck down in an instant, vaporised. Stalwart magic wielders stood theri ground, the struggle now turning to get the intense energy, formed from their colliding barrages of attacks over seizing control of this nexus of energy, under control and subdued.
But it was too late.
The frigid wastelands turned silent, as the pegasi, Earth ponies, Unicorns and handful of Alicorn leaders waiting further back from the main battleplains from both factions saw the light suddenly contract violently in on itself, sucking many on the wastelands up faster then could be registered. No distant screams, no resistance, they were simply gone, absorbed by the moment of intense energy flux.
Then, the hyper contracted ball of energy twinkled for but a moment, an infinitesimally small pinprick of light around which the Aurora borealis flowed into. Erupting out of that point, what was witnessed would defy comprehension.
Silence, as the white pinpoint of light suddenly burst open, and engulfed the landscape in cleansing energy in every spectrum of colour, the snap that reverberated bursting the eardrums of anybody close enough to actually see the light from the blast. Snow was blasted off, waves thrust into the sea, the earth trembled as the ground wrenched itself upwards in the violent shockwaves as the energy also set it ablaze.
As the Alicorn leader looked upon his Royalist army, the segment that hadn't been claimed by the blast down on the actual plains, he saw theri bodies consumed in an instant, bursting into ash and their bones turning to dust that was then bown apart just as easily. The energy wave consumed him, and he knew nothing.
What supernovae would erupt in the night sky were to be forgotten in wake of these events, even as 8 Alicorns, of the only remaining 12 in existence, were killed in the same blast in the far frozen north.
Outside of the blast, a great shockwave of light spread through the Aurora, a ripple of visible energy that streaked all over the planet.
It would become the inspiration for many fables, myths, especially with what would immediately follow. In more ways then one, the next few days would be the longest, and darkest, for the planet as a whole, but especially for Equestria, the nation whose leaders were responsible. Leaders with ambitions of power, nurtured by a Unicorn wizard's curse ever so slightly to conduct this mad grab for power.
The Alicorns had strived to alter nature itself for their own power. They succeeded, and it led to their destruction, and the energy bleedoff had devastating effects across the nation.
History would see those Alicorns who would emerge after this cataclysm as unique, the first of their kind, as history was forgotten as chaos, in more ways then one, took over.
History wouldn't be entirely wrong on that count.

Early Afternoon
23rd February, 68 BNM
Nokotaford, Royal Palace

The light had come from the north, a large shockwave of ethereal light that shot out without a breath of wind in its wake, all over the land.
Across Equestria, the shockwave was akin to a warm breeze to most. But to a select few, it had more dire consequences.
For Unicorns, the shockwave felt like a static shock on their skin, tolerable but clearly felt, as their kin across cities and villages in Equestria all would shrug off the mild pain.
But Alicorns...
After the shockwave, there were none.
As of that day, Alicorns numbered a few dozen, no more, no less, having lost many in the civil war. But the cataclysm in the north, rooted in Alicorns harnessing the power, caused their power to be sucked into the release of energy that disrupted the entire planet.
Every Alicorn in Equestria was suddenly downgraded. Every Alicorn was now a Unicorn, Pegasi, or Earth Pony, depending on their lineage stretching as far back as the first non-Alicorn. Their unique biology, coupled with the cataclysm their kind unleashed, became their undoing.

Starswirl stared in shock, as he saw not two Alicorn sisters stood before him as he taught them new spells, but two Unicorns of the exact same colour, eyes and voice. Even he felt the shockwave, but he came out unschathed. Yet he knew, he felt it. Unlike other Unicorns, he'd trained to sense disturbences.
"The fools, whatever they did, those fools!" Starswirl whispered under his breath. Before him, Celestia helped Luna up, as the shockwave had all but electrocuted them during the sapping of the inbuilt magic that made them Alicorns.
"Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine Celly, fine, what happened?" Luna shook her head, the now less ethereal light blue mane a clear contrast to what she had been about 10 seconds ago. Before her, Celestia's similarly less shimmering pink mane caused the younger sister to blink incredulously for a few moments, as Celestia turned to Stasrwirl for answers:
"I'm not certain, are you Sta-."
"Something's happened to every Alicorn, I'm certain of it. I warned them, too much of that powerful spell and it would backfire on them!"
"Was it to do with the campaign in the far north?" Luna asked, as her mind wracked about military involvements the Royalist council had oh so kindly rebuked their involvement from.
"What else could it be?" Starswirl surmised, the Wizard's mind racing as he looked at the situation at hoof. He had no idea of what was about to come, none of them did.
But really, who could have anticipated any of this?

Next Day
Mid-Afternoon
24th February, 68 BNM
Vanhoover, Royalist Headquarters Castle
'War Room'

Something was terribly wrong, that much was obvious. The war was stopped, by all sides. No agreements, no treaties, no negotiations, just shock. Utter shock.
The moon was fixed in place, and the Sun had yet to set. Slowly and slowly they had come to a stop, as noticed by astronomers and astrologers who watched for their own reasons each.
The days and nights were eternal now, wherever one was in the world depending.
The days became scorching, the night or darker areas frigid. Crops began to die, and the weather took a turn for the worse. Equestria had come to a standstill.
Pandemonium unfolded across the world, and it would become known as the longest days in history.
And to those who could sense it, the power vacuum meant opportunity was knocking louder then ever before.

"We cannot let this go on!"
"Oh I agree, but about it being your lot that tries to fix this mess..."
Out of the top of the wooden table, a face seemed to emerge from the carved wood, to the surprise, and slow horror, of those ex-Alicorns and their guards gathered in the 'war room'.
An elongated snout with fur, a hybrid of a dragon and donkey, but as it rose out, the wood seeming to melt like liquid as the figure surged up like a wooden sculpture, mismatched wings and limbs also rose.
A creature that would become known as a Draconeraqus, a being of chaos with extremely powerful magic, the only known one of his kind.
"That is all fine and dandy, but there's a slight problem with that idea of yours. You don't have any power, magic or otherwise by extension, anymore."
The creature slowly came to hover over the table, his skin and features turning from the wood colour to reveal his true colours. The main body was brown, but greyish on the head, and the tail was reddish in scales. There was a pegasi-esqe blue wing, a dark purple draconian wing, a lion paw and an eagle talon, a donkey and a dragon leg, all mismashed onto the same creature that also sported a single deer antler and a bulky horn akin to an Alicorn's in size.
The creature seemed to sport a haughty smile on his single, snaggle-toothed maw, as he paced before them, feet stepping on an invisible surface above them as he grinned gleefully at them, his long neck straining down mockingly:
"My idea is better, and here it is. I bring back the day and night, but I get to make this world my own to rule and shape as I see fit."
"Preposterous! Seize this foul demon!"
A cry from one of the Unicorns gathered signalled to the guards, as they rushed the creature. But the creature flicked his lion wrist, and the guards were frozen in place as a mysterious magic glued their hooves to the floor, or their wings to their bodies, and robbed the Unicorns of their horns inexplicably:
"Oh please, do try and stop me. The only reason I didn't try anything before was because your Alicorn kind's numbers and the war made it not worth the trouble. But now, now I can have some fun..."
The creature held out a single eagle claw, as he hovered over the table that they had been meeting at, and clicked it once.
Unicorn horns and Pegasi wings vanished from more then just the guards, and suddenly, every pony in the castle began to hover, as gravity was taken away from the building.

A mad cackle from the creature responsible echoed as he flew forth over the horizon, the castle that was once the Vanhoover Royalist HQ now slowly flipping end on end, hovering where it had once been situated, gravity turned asunder there. The streets were shadowed by more buildings slowly creaking off their foundations, and the local church even seemed to sprout its foundations and literally walk off over the hills.
Trees came to life, their branches ripping fruits and seeds from their forms and hurling them at each other or at ponies who once lived in the city.
Livestock for non-slaughter purposes were melded into deformed, strange hybrids. A flock of two ended cows flew in loose formations across the rooftops, and some ponies became plagued by a band of angry pigs using their tails as springs to bounce after them in pursuit.
It would be the first of Discord's rule.

2 days pass
Baltimare [once Discord had his way with it]

He had it. Equestria was in his grasp. But there was a problem. The day and night were still static, and he himself could only bear the hot and cold wherever he traveled so much.
"What good is a chaotic kingdom if the day and night kill those I could have fun with? And the same thing day in and day out is boring. Wouldn't you agree?"
The Lord of Chaos hovered before the tree of stone and salvaged port docks he had built, as giant balls of bread dough acted as cocoons for those ponies unfortunate enough to be caught where they were when he came.
The sailor earth pony's muffled words were indecipherable, to which Discord merely shrugged, waving a hand at the one of many bitter sailor ponies as he flew out over the bay of Baltimare:
"No pleasing anypony."
Discord had been meandering about Equestria, namely the ex-Nationalist capital.
Suffice to say, his chaotic exploits, with no Alicorn rulers, no true opposition to him, were utterly free to unleash as they saw fit.
Yet now, as he flew up high over he bay, he focused his attention, as he delved deep into the magical senses he had imbued from birth:

He felt it. The energy drain in the Moon and in the Day cycles. Powerful, but he could do it, he thought he could at least.

For hours, the Draconeraqus focused on the task at hand, a rare distraction from his usual skylarking across his newfound, easily conquered Equestria.
Scoffing slightly as he paused, Discord mused to himself as he hovered hundreds of feet over the bay:
"Hmm, this might take time."
Glancing his gaze upwards, Discord's usually entertained gaze turned wary slightly, as he saw the Moon hanging where it was, also with the Sun low on the horizon. He had sensed the energy needed, and he had doubts himself.
After some thought, Discord mused to himself with a shrug:
"A temporary fix perhaps, until I'm certain I can get it done."
Holding a hand up, he began to chant, mind racing with thoughts going towards finding the right spell, making one from scratch.
But deep down, a part of him always wondered where he got such power as he did, and where he had come from. It wasn't like he could remember.
After all, the first thing he remembers is awakening in a forest, alone, with these powers and these looks.
It wasn't like he'd had a life before that.

Across Equestria, even as it was too witnessed by a Wizard leading two Alicorn sisters to refuge, away from the madman who had taken Equestria in the few days of utter chaos, the change was evident.
As the being used his magic, the Sun moved, as did the moon. The greatest irony being that a being of utter chaos restored the greatest harmony to be had on this world, for the sake of convenience and having a world to rule.
Yet Starswirl knew this was a temporary fix. The damage had been done, and Discord knew it too.
It wasn't long before the days wore on, and Discord had to grow accustomed to pushing the sun and moon every single day at some point. It was the only, the singular and sole scheduled event he kept to, in an established rule of utter insanity and ludicrous, rampant creative anarchy.
But for Starswirl, teaching the two princesses became top priority, and nothing else mattered at this point.
To think, Equestria fell in just a few short days, from a mighty, but divided realm, to one that was the plaything of a being that now held the power over night and day across the world.
Other nations considered it a blessing that Discord didn't see much reason to go beyond Equestria's borders, aside from the odd skirmish south into the mutthican wastes and the New Gryphon north. No part of Equestria was spared, save for the Everfree forest, the only part of Equestria Discord felt was untamed still by looks alone. But all other places fell to his power, and the Crystal Empire's only respite was that Discord found all that snow and wasteland rather boring and dull. But without Equstria to trade with, the Empire suffered as its economy tanked.
But hope remained, hidden away under a Wizard's care, a forest deity's growth, and to be harnessed by two princesses and ex-Alicorns the former would teach to use what he would leave behind.

Author's Notes:

In a bid to distinguish this chapter, the journal style entry starts it. After all, this is Starswirl's story after all, first and foremost.
Discord's rise to power is rather abrupt, but I've said in the story how. But long story short, the feedback/backlash against the power usage robs all Alicorns of their power, even the two sisters. Making Equestria a sitting duck of a nation, one Discord has been keeping an eye on.
More from Discord's POV next chapter.