"Okay, can we just go back to that sort of important point?" Flash began. "You took out a piece of your soul...your own soul?! That's...that's not something ponies can typically do, your highness!"

Luna smiled to him. "It might have caught your notice, Flash, but my Father is hardly an ordinary pony."

Flash sighed. "Oh, no questions there, Princess. He's powerful, he's royal, he's an alicorn, and he's ancient beyond reckoning." He paused, then added one. "Oh, and he's also currently a talking skeleton, so there's that." After letting his own words sink in, he looked to the king with an apologetic expression. "No offense."

"NONE TAKEN," Solaris responded. "BUT MY DAUGHTER WAS NOT REFERRING MERELY TO THOSE POINTS, BUT TO A MORE...SUBSTANTIVE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MYSELF AND OTHER PONIES."

Discord chuckled. "The same thing that makes me different from you ponies really."

Flash looked to one and the other, clearly confused by what they were suggesting, so it eventually fell to Luna, who placed a hoof upon the guard's shoulder before speaking gently to him. "My Father is, well...he's a Greater Power. One of a select few who stand above all other beings in this world."

Slowly, Flash's eyes widened, and he was clearly shocked to have heard that, his attention darting back to the enthroned king. "You...you're a god?!"

"I DON'T LIKE THAT WORD, BUT SURE, I GUESS THAT'S A GOOD COMPARISON FOR A PONY LIKE YOU TO UNDERSTAND. SMALL G THOUGH." After seeing Flash arch an eyebrow to him, Solaris continued. "YES, I KNOW THIS SPEECH DEVICE MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO ACTUALLY USE SMALL G'S, BUT THE POINT STILL STANDS."

Again, it was upon Luna to elaborate. "There are, as you probably suspect, great forces in our world. And there are those that are born as representatives and embodiments of those forces. Powerful, immortal, for all intents and purposes you were right in your initial description. But they are not, nor require, to be worshipped by mortal peoples as a deity might."

Flash, clearly struggling to absorb all this, took a moment to gather his thoughts as best he could, then finally got some words out. "Okay, so...what kinds of beings are we talking about here?"

Luna gave him a nod. "You'll have likely heard of more than a few of them, especially in recent years. And all of them exist as a result of not only inevitable forces within our world, but also the feelings, thoughts and emotions of those who live within that world."

Discord stepped forward, chiming in. "And something you need to know right here and now is that they embody all of those aspects, even the parts we don't like to think about." He smirked. "For instance, the Pony of Shadows comes across as this big, malevolent monster from a child's story book, but that's because he embodies something all mortals, whether they want to admit it or not, have felt. Resentment." He started counting off his fingers. "If you've ever felt abandoned by others, unappreciated by them, or just generally felt that the world was unfair, then boom! You've seen a big ole load of fuel for that shadow."

Flash frowned. "But I thought the Pony of Shadows was just that unicorn, Stygian, letting himself get corrupted by dark magic or something."

Discord waggled his finger in front of him. "Nope! Wrongo! You see, my lad, the Greater Powers often can't exist in the physical world the way you do...unless somecreature gives them a chance. Like, say, an unhappy stallion who'd just been rejected by his friends. He opened his heart and soul to those bitter feelings and, well, the rest is history."

"A grim prospect," Flash mused.

Luna nodded in agreement. "Indeed. But..." she continued, starting to smile. "That same way into our world was how we got the power that later took on the name of the Tree of Harmony."

That admission caught Flash's interest instantly. "The Tree? Where the Elements of Harmony are?" He grimaced. "Or...were, I suppose."

"Quite," Luna concurred. "That power took form in our realm when my mentor, Starswirl, and the heroic Pillars planted that seed into the ground. And as the name suggests, it is the embodiment of harmony. When peoples work together, when they cooperate, when they befriend one another, be they ponies or dragons or yaks or anycreature else, it grew and strengthened, eventually yielding the fruit of those friendships."

"The Elements," Flash put together himself.

Luna smiled to him again. "Correct. And you needn't concern yourself with the Tree's fall, Flash. The power remains, as does it's purpose. The form may be gone, but what was important about it still acts upon the world, always growing with every friendship formed."

Flash thought on that. "But...the Tree was just a, well, tree. It wasn't a thinking, speaking being like the Pony of Shadows...was it?"

A mischievous look came to the moon princess. "I have visited the dreams of many of the young, my friend. You'd be surprised."

Though Flash definitely wanted to ask further about that, he also knew there were other, more pressing questions to ask right now. "Any others out there I need to know about? Or worry about, even?"

"PROBABLY. HAVE YOU HEARD THE STORY OF THE WINDIGOS?"

Flash shrugged. "Who hasn't? They're the monsters from the story of the very founding of Equestria. And all of us got a good reminder of how real they are recently."

Discord, appropriately, looked embarrassed after that remark, but said nothing as Solaris continued speaking. "WELL, THEIR PURPOSE IN OUR WORLD IS FAR MORE UNPLEASANT THAN THE TREE, BUT IT IS JUST AS INEVITABLE. THEY ARE THE COLD BITTERNESS OF ISOLATION. THEY ARE THE HARM ONE INFLICTS UPON THEMSELVES AND THOSE AROUND THEM WHEN THEY DRIVE OTHERS AWAY AND CONSIDER ONLY THEIR OWN INTERESTS."

Luna again added her voice to the matter. "If the Tree of Harmony is the warmth and light of friendship, then the Windigos are the dark and cold of what remains when those friendships end."

Flash nodded slowly, accepting that. "Let's hope we never have to face them again."

Discord finally spoke up, his tone one of amusement. "Small chance of that, m'lad. Like everyone we've talked about, these forces will always be there. They may be diminished, even forgotten about entirely, but they'll always be there, waiting, lingering on the edge of the world and in people's minds, looking for the right opportunity, the right opening, to make their comeback."

It wasn't a pleasant thought, but it was one that drew Flash's attention to Discord. "And you? You say you're one of these Greater Powers?"

In typical Discord fashion, he gave a sweeping and theatrical bow to the stallion. "Indeed, my good Sentry."

Flash looked to him sceptically. "And what do you represent? Chaos, I'm assuming?"

Another laugh from the draconequus. "Oh, far more than that. You know the old saying, variety is the spice of life? Well, that's me! I'm that special ingredient in the world that makes life interesting and fun. You're welcome."

Immediately, Discord got himself a psychically-created hoof slapping him at the back of the head, followed shortly by the monotone, yet still irritated, voice of Solaris. "STOP MAKING YOURSELF SOUND BETTER THAN YOU ARE."

Discord grumbled for a bit, then sighed. "Okay, fine, if you want me to be boring about it!" Folding his arms, he looked to Flash again. "I'm the embodiment of just how impossible it is to control the world and one's own life. You may make all the plans and contingencies in the world but in the end there will always be things unaccounted for that throw a wrench into the works. Maybe it'll result in something good, maybe something bad instead, it's a total coin-flip. But in the end, it's a force that nocreature will ever be truly rid of." His smile returned. "Twilight making intricate schemes to win at trivia trot? Enter Pinkie, the unexpected and unaccounted-for to turn the event upside down and make Twilight realise her own faults. And that's just one example." He stepped closer to Flash, patting himself on the chest. "That's what I am, Sentry. I am the unexpected, the unplanned and the unpredictable."

Flash blinked, then considered all that. "Well...that certainly gives me a lot to think about."

"I should hope so," Discord remarked.

Then, after a long silence, the stallion glanced up to his current charge, curiosity clearly growing in him. "And you, Sir?"

"I AM THE EMBODIMENT OF THAT MOST ESSENTIAL OF FORCES. ORDER. THE NEED TO MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD AND ENSURE STABILITY FOR THOSE WITHIN IT. IF YOU HAVE EVER FELT THE NEED FOR YOUR LIFE, OR THE LIVES OF OTHERS, TO KNOW PEACE AND SAFETY, IT HAS BEEN I THAT YOU HAVE BEEN CONTRIBUTING TO. PONYKIND WORKING TOGETHER, BEING A NATION UNIFIED IN THE SHARED GOAL OF LIVING IN A WORLD FREE OF DANGER AND UNCERTAINTY, THAT HAS BEEN MY PURPOSE."

"Basically, he's everything I'm not," Discord countered. "If I'm fine with things going with the flow, he wants to know where it's all heading. If I'm the unexpected, he's the expected. And so on and so forth."

Flash looked from one to the other. "So...you two are each other's opposites." At long last, a smile came to him. "No wonder you don't like each other."

"Oh no," Discord interrupted. "I don't like him because he's a complete and utter flank-hole."

"TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE."

"Ugh, here we go again," Luna groaned.

Walking up to her, Flash spoke to Luna with a renewed feeling of understanding. "So you and Celestia are demigods? That...actually explains a lot."

Luna looked back to him, regaining her smile. "Trust me, the glamour of it gets old after a while." The two turned in unison, seeing the spat between Solaris and Discord continue to flare up, with insults being thrown back all over the place, eventually leading to Luna taking a deep breath before turning to head out of the chamber. "Care for another tea break, Lieutenant?"

Flash, looking from her to the two Greater Powers, eventually trotted after her. "Yeah, sounds pretty good right now."

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