"SO TELL ME THEN, GIVEN THAT THESE APPARENTLY VERY CAPABLE WONDERBOLTS ARE ONLY RECENTLY GETTING BACK INTO THE SWING OF THINGS, I ASSUME THAT MEANS A GOOD CHUNK OF MY TIME AWAY FROM RULING HAS BEEN QUIET?"

"Massively, Sir," Flash confirmed. "In fact, I daresay that the time under your daughters was probably the longest period of peace and quiet in Equestria's history."

Luna frowned to him. "More Celestia than me, if you'll recall."

Flash cleared his throat nervously. "Yes. But regardless, most ponies nowadays will have grown up during a time when they never really needed to worry about anything."

"A boring time all around," Discord added, much to the chagrin of the other two.

Solaris, meanwhile, was intrigued. "A FAR CRY FROM THE EQUESTRIA I REMEMBERED THEN. BACK THEN YOU COULDN'T GO A SINGLE DAY WITHOUT SOME BIG DANGER THAT NEEDED MY ATTENTION. HYDRAS, DRAGONS, SOME FOUL SORCERER, THAT SORT OF THING. THE LAND, THE WORLD, WAS DANGEROUS, AND PONIES WERE UNDER NEAR-CONSTANT THREAT."

Luna smiled to him. "Well, Father, I'm happy to report that's no longer the case."

Discord chuckled. "Well, unless you count all the myriad threats that have sprung up recently that our dear Twilight has had to face off against." A smirk came to him. "Yours truly, for example," he finished, not without some small measure of pride in doing so.

Flash looked to him with disapproval. "Not something you should be happy about, Discord."

But the ancient draconequus waved him off. "Oh pfft! Let me have my fun! I'd been stuck as a statue for a thousand years, remember? You can't blame me for wanting to have a little fun after all that, right?" Seeing the scowls from both Flash and Luna, he relented a little. "Okay, fine, maybe I did go somewhat overboard with it all."

"SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT FOR YOU," Solaris added.

Discord looked to him, naturally unhappy with the remark. "But it still proves my point. You talk of Equestria no longer being dangerous, but by my count the ponies have had nothing but danger after danger these past few years." He tapped his chin. "Almost as if the world was just waiting for Twilight to set off for Ponyville before deciding to go crazy. Weird, huh?"

Luna shook her head at him. "Twilight is not the only princess who has had to deal with dangers in her time. You'll recall that Celestia and I not only had to battle you, but Sombra as well."

Discord laughed to that. "Oh, and a wonderful job you did of that too! Two threats gone! Except, oh no! They weren't gone, were they? It all came back and, yet again, Twilight had to finish off the mess left behind."

Flash knew that what he was considering wasn't going to win him any favours, but even so he knew he had to voice his own thoughts on the matter. "Princess...he's not wrong." After seeing the mare look to him with surprise, he continued. "A lot of threats might have been defeated back in ancient times, but none of them ever stayed defeated. Sombra, Tirek, Discord, the Pony of Shadows, the list goes on. It really does seem that, whenever heroes of the past fought an enemy of Equestria, the most they could ever do was figuratively stuff it in a box, write 'do not open' on it and then walk away hoping nopony opens it."

Discord pointed to him. "See? This guy gets it."

Flash shot him a look, then softened as he turned to Luna again. "I mean no disrespect, but the fact that so many of what Princess Twilight has had to face was some evil of the past...it's not something we can ignore."

Luna clearly wanted to say something to refute that point, but after what appeared to be a full minute of thinking, she sighed, giving a slow nod. "Flash...you're not wrong. I wish I could say that Tia and I did as well as we could have done...but clearly it wasn't enough."

Flash, realising he'd brought the whole mood of the room down, considered what to say or do for a moment. Then, he smiled and, in a move far more forward than most of the guard, stepped towards her and placed his hoof upon her shoulder to gain her attention. "It wasn't for nothing. You and your sister? You gave us a millennium of peace. That's not nothing, and it's a feat that me and everypony else will be eternally grateful for."

Luna looked to him, taken aback by his gentle words, but like him she too smiled after a while, giving an appreciative look to the stallion. "Thank you, I...thank you."

"WELL, ISN'T THAT SWEET? BUT IT REALLY DOES PROVE MY POINT FROM CENTURIES AGO, DAUGHTER."

Luna facehoofed. "Oh no, here we go again."

"YOU SHOULD JUST EXECUTE YOUR FOES, AS I ALWAYS DID."

Flash looked to him with shock. "You...you killed them?!"

"IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME. FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION WEREN'T AN OPTION. ONE HAD TO BE RUTHLESS AND DIRECT TO PROTECT ONE'S OWN BACK THEN."

Luna looked to Flash, her face one of clear discomfort. "You'll recall, Flash, how even my sister and I often tried to vanquish our foes instead of reconcile with them in those far-off days." Then, her mood became more serious, and she narrowed her eyes at father. "Maybe it was necessary to be ruthless back then, but you probably went too far in making yourself ruthless, Father."

"FEELINGS LIKE UNCERTAINTY AND SYMPATHY FOR THOSE TERRIBLE ENEMIES WOULD'VE GOTTEN MY SUBJECTS KILLED. I HAD EVERY RIGHT TO CAST THEM OUT OF ME."

"You...you what?" Flash asked.

Looking to him, Luna explained. "My Father, in an effort to make himself into a stalwart protector of ponykind, exorcised many of his own personality traits. Traits he considered detrimental to his work. In essence, he carved out a piece of his very soul and discarded it."

"That's...that's insane!" Flash declared.

"Indeed," Luna agreed, with appropriate tiredness in her voice.

Flash paused, thinking on that. "But...where is it? That piece you threw away?"

"NOT SURE, ACTUALLY. NOTHING LIKE THAT EVER STAYS GONE FOREVER, SO MAYBE IT GOT ITSELF BORN AGAIN SOMEWHERE DOWN THE LINE. SO HEY, IF YOU EVER COME ACROSS A PONY WHO SEEMS LIKE THE EMBODIMENT OF GENTLENESS, CARE AND KINDNESS, YOU LET ME KNOW."

Now, Solaris might have expected something along the lines of a witty retort from Discord over that, but what he wasn't expecting was for those three before him to suddenly look stunned and almost worried, looking to one another and knowing they all thought the exact same thing. "You...you don't think...?" Flash began.

"No...no, total coincidence, has to be," Luna added.

"It would certainly put my relationship to her in a new and uncomfortable light," Discord said with a grimace.

Luna tapped her chin. "Though it would explain why she was resistance to your manipulations when you two first met."

"And why Princess Celestia had such a good feeling about her being the one to bring you into the fold," Flash speculated.

Discord slapped his paws over his own ears. "Ugh! Stop! That's all I'm going to be able to think about now!

"WHAT ARE YOU THREE BABBLING ABOUT?"

After again glancing to one another, the three had no real idea how to respond, so Flash, stepping forward, answered the king in possibly the least-convincing manner imaginable. "...Nothing?"

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