Celestia removed her wing from Nix’s shoulder, folding it back and staring down upon him. He wilted further, clutching his media player more closely to his chest, still refusing to meet her eyes. She sighed and stared off into the distance.

“You know, when she was younger, Luna always liked to help hurt animals.”

“I wouldn’t know. Her ten thousand years are jumbled together with my paltry millennium. Trying to even think about it just brings up her discovering nuclear fission on accident when she first tried to control your sun. Man, were you pissed.” Nix allowed himself a weak smile, still avoiding Celestia’s eyes.

“Yes, I was.” She chuckled. “Thankfully she only tested it out away from land. The coastal carrion birds fed well that year. And she caught on soon enough. Even if she still hasn’t quite mastered the actual colors that go into a sunset.”

“And how well did you manage her burning stars, I wonder?”

The princess snorted. “I didn’t. For a thousand years, they fell to the night sky at random, sometimes far away from the constellations of those they knew and loved in life. I can’t tell you how many times I almost released my sister over their cries. Because of the soulmeld spell, I had an entirely new set of subjects to attend to, ponies that had passed beyond the veil and that I had no ability to guide.”

“To guide, or to control?” the human mused.

“To guide,” she said sternly. “The only thing Luna truly controls is the moon she herself created. The stars...” Celestia paused thoughtfully. “Though their light is small, their presence is eternal. Luna cannot control their positions, so much as kindly ask that they comply. And my little sister is nothing if not kind. And the stars? They are enamored with her. In as much as they spurned her in life, and she them, they adore each other in death.”

“How very macabre,” Nix muttered. “Although a bit ironic, since my immortal ass just got curb-stomped by the pony version of Death.”

“And ‘Death’ was embraced warmly by ‘Resurrection’, if I recall my sister’s retelling of the night’s events correctly,” she added with a small smile.

“Meh, your sister’s pretty old at this point,” Nix said, waving his hand dismissively. “When you get older, the memory’s the first thing to go, trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Celestia said. The conversation lulled for a few moments before Nix spoke up.

“So she liked to take care of hurt animals, then?”

“Yes,” Celestia replied. “A very, very long time ago, back when we were both still young.”

“She does realize I’m not a pet, right?”

Celestia smirked. “I’ve seen the obsidian cage she’s having built to place in her new castle wing, you know.”

“That’s not very funny.”

“It’s much larger than the one I have for Philomena. She might even let you out every couple centuries or so if you’re a good enough song-bird.”

Nix thought for a second. “I think she’d let me out sooner if I was a bad song-bird. I doubt she’d last a few hours with me shrieking in her ear, to be honest.”

“It’s comforting to me that my sister is every bit as immortal as I. I doubt she’d allow herself to remain alive for that long with you locked in the same room.”

“Nor you, were you locked in a room devoid of pastries,” Nix remarked drily.

“I could always cage you in with me, you know,” Celestia said, amused. “A pretty cage, painted pink, and glittering with purple hearts.”

“You would have me caged in a fucked up Valentine’s Day prison,” he retorted. “Although pony or not, those flanks aren’t doing you any favors. I’d at least hope for a steady supply of carrots to remind you of that, throughout our eternity together.”

“That could be arranged,” she said enigmatically.

“What, the love cage, or your diet?” Nix smiled innocently.

“I’m beginning to see why my sister decided to renovate Ponyville’s roads with a primate,” she replied flatly.

“And I’m beginning to see why I prefer being a makeshift bouncy ball skipping across the road over trying to outwit a 10,000 year-old princess. Honestly, it’s a bit out of my pay-grade. I just stab or shoot things that bother me too much. Usually without unmaking entire realities...” Nix met Celestia’s gaze finally. “So? What’ll it be? A gilded cage? Banishment? Death- oh, wait, ha ha.”

She frowned down at him. “Honestly, Nix, I have no idea what to do with you. I could imprison you in stone, but history suggests you’d merely break out after a time. You have more than you know in common with a certain other individual. I could imprison you in the moon, and there’s little chance the souls up there might break you free as they did my sister, but I worry what might occur were you to break yourself free. I could do nothing...but I won’t. You endangered countless lives today, Nix.”

“She was going to die,” Nix mumbled quietly.

“Was her life worth more than those of all Equestria?”

The human remained silent for a time. “To me? Yes. I’m not sure I can handle any more blood on my hands. I didn’t know that would happen, but to be blunt, it was either break reality so I could heal her, or break reality to turn back time so I wouldn’t have to. I’ve only tried to turn back time once, and if it weren’t for Odin, well...my world would have been much more short-lived.”

Celestia cocked an eyebrow at that. “I was honestly not expecting that answer, Nix.”

“What were you expecting?”

“A sarcastic remark. An insult. Maybe, some tiny part of me expected you to agree with me.”

“I get it. I’m an ass. I’ve known that since long before I started sprouting fiery wings from my back and blowing up worlds and unmaking existences.”

“No, no,” she cooed, smiling a bit to herself. “I’m well-versed in dealing with...‘asses’. I trust you remember my nephew, Blue Blood?”

Nix looked up harshly, a reflective blue sheen over his eyes. “Lady, I don’t even remember my own fucking little sister at this point. What makes you think I’ll remember some pastel-colored fucking horse?”

Celestia continued smiling. “But you do remember ‘Dancie’, yes?”

The human’s eyes narrowed. “Of course I remember Ridge Dancer. Kinda the whole reason we’re having this conversation, unless you’ve forgotten.”

The white alicorn’s smiled deepened. “I...yes, of course. How silly of me.”

Nix’s gaze fell back to the dull black screen in his hands. “So what happens, I wonder?” Celestia’s face tilted slightly. “When I’ve forgotten my other sister? When I’ve forgotten Mark?” The princess held her tongue, her pink eyes somber. “What happens when I’ve forgotten that I’m...that I’m human, that there are others like me? That I have somewhere to return to? When a million years pass? A billion?” The human concentrated fiercely on the media player in his hand. His knuckles began to whiten. “Do I just become some...some thing, wandering about aimlessly between worlds, killing monsters and evil gods and anything that crosses me?” He paused. “What happens when I forget the difference between a monster, and its victims?” Nix looked up soberly, the glow gone from his dark blue eyes. “What happens then, Tia?”

“I can’t answer that for you, Phoenix, not completely. Your predicament is a bit outside the range of my expertise, I’m sad to say.”

“Honestly, I was an idiot to think I could ever make it back. There are an infinite number of realities out there, and the likelihood of me randomly finding the right one?” Nix chuckled bitterly. “But I had to have something to hold onto, didn’t I? You wanna know something fucked up?” Celestia regarded him silently. “There for a century or two, I thought about what might happen if I happened across a reality with my sister...sisters...but where I also still existed. I wondered if I had it in me to kill the ‘me’ in those realities, to take his place.”

“And?”

The human sighed. “It would be a lie. My sister’s personality might be the same, but her soul would be different. Funny thing; an infinite number of realities, an infinite number of people, and yet every soul is different. Every last one. Sarah would talk the same, act the same, and so would Mick. The boss at my job would still be an ass. 7 billion people would still be almost exactly the same, the only difference in that world being that someone picked up a pair of socks with their right hand instead of their left 700 hundred years ago. Less change than that, even. An atom zigs instead of zags. Out of a single atom’s different path through the atmosphere of my world, which is itself nothing more than an atom in the expanse of the universe, an infinite number of realities are born.

“And yet, every Sarah in every world? They all harbor a soul that’s uniquely their own. Even the lifeforces of identical bacteria differ. If I made it to a world that was functionally identical but not the same, not home, made it back to my ‘sister’, I’d laugh with her, cry with her, live...whatever life I could with her if I managed to go back to being human, but...”

“...it wouldn’t be the same,” Celestia finished sadly.

“No, it wouldn’t. I’d always know, deep down, that somewhere, my real sister was alone.”

“Then I trust abandoning the search is...?”

“And abandon what few family and friends I have left? I’m...I’ve gotten pretty fucked up over the last millennia, but even I can’t imagine doing that to them. Somewhere out there, my sister is waking up to a bright and happy life, until after a few seconds she remembers that, one day, I just up and disappeared for no reason. No note, no goodbye, no closure, nothing. And she’s going to start her day in tears, crying over me after I worked so hard to make sure she never had to again.

“No, I really do have to make it home somehow. My chances of success are so small they might as well be fuckin’ zero, but the only thing keeping me sane is that I have to try. If not, they’ll always wonder what happened to me, why I abandoned them. What kind of monster would I be to just allow my big sis to be heart-broken, and Mike, and the other...my little...FUCK!” Nix snarled and drove his elbow into the tree at his back, sending cracks through its thick trunk as its heights shuddered.

Celestia ignored the outburst. “Which do you think might hurt worse, Nix?” she asked gently. “Not knowing, or being reunited with someone who had become...someone else while they were away?”

The human glared up at her with so much hurt she nearly dropped the even mask it took her millennia to perfect. She remained quiet for a long time. “From what I know of your past, your sisters and your friend are very, very close. It would be hard for them, yes, but they still have each other. They could move on, and eventually find peace. Eventually, your family would overcome their grief. Your absence would never be forgotten, but after a time that absence would no longer deny them happiness. I am...no stranger to grief. Nor my sister. Nor any of my ponies, as hard as I’ve tried to spare them from it. Do you really think your family wants you to torture yourself like this? To know that they’re the reason you’ve gone through so much hardship?”

“That’s not how it works, Tia.”

“No, it isn’t. But it is how they’ll see it. You know guilt, Nix. It drives you, because you feel responsible for your family’s happiness and feel you have failed them. Grief may lessen, and eventually be forgotten. But guilt? It can be ignored for a time. Lessened. Atoned for. In rare cases, even healed by time. But in most cases, guilt is a seed buried deep inside that blossoms into a despair far greater than the grief of loss. Would you rather your family grieve, or feel guilty?”

“That’s not fair,” he said.

“Difficult situations rarely are,” Celestia replied.

“Well, then, you’ve lived ten fuckin’ millennia. Spare me some of the wisdom you’ve no doubt picked up along the way. What do you think I should do?”

After a long pause, she murmured, “You could just stay here, Nix. My sister and I are immortal, as are a few others in this world. You would never want for companionship. And Equestria is-”

“A paradise, and I its looming serpent.”

“Poetic, coming from you, though I miss the reference.”

“It’s unimportant, Tia.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“It’s an old creation myth from my,” he paused, “from my home.” He scowled. “In the beginning there was a paradise. Much like your ‘Grove’, I suppose. A snake led to its downfall. Of course, knowing Sammael, it’s far more likely that the snake died trying to prevent the dissolution of such a paradise. God knows Lucy would have never corrupted a place like that.”

“Lucy?”

“I...she...” The human paused, his palms massaging his forehead. “I don’t remember. But that’s beside the point. Luna has shared my...experiences with you, yes?”

The alicorn nodded slowly. “She gave me the summarized version.”

“How many times have I entered a new universe in empty space? Or an unoccupied planet?”

“To my knowledge, none,” Celestia replied carefully, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“Nor to mine. I...it’s pretty chaotic when I make a jump, Tia. I have almost no control. The infinite spread of the universes before me is, quite honestly, breathtaking and belittling. There are so many. So many glimmering, shining weaves spread out in defiance against the empty abyss of nothingness, of the absolute, blackened harmony that forms their backdrops. Universes protest chaotically, musically against the black velvet silence that bears them. When I die...no, when my soul—when the cosmic soul inside of me—is exhausted, I am flung into this unfeeling oblivion, and I use almost all my power to scrabble desperately towards the nearest source of light, of warmth, that glitters within my...well, not ‘sight’. Within my perception.” The human took a breath. “I hurtle towards these ever-changing lights of threads and weaves, press against them, and break through into their embrace. Statistically speaking, I should end up in empty space somewhere within them. But I never do.” Celestia drew her head back slightly, her eyes widening. The human sloughed off his distracted revery and looked up at her.

“Everywhere I’ve appeared has been populated. Everywhere, Tia. And they’ve all had problems. Bad problems. World-threatening monsters. Mind-flaying gods. Demonic crusades against the innocents of the world. But problems.” His eyes seemed to be pleading with her. “Every one.” He looked around fearfully. “And now I’m in your world.”

Princess Celestia stared at him neutrally.

“Please banish me,” he said simply. He dropped his gaze and cradled his media player on his chest. “I’m dangerous.”

“You’re assuming that you are the cause of these problems,” she said. “There’s always the chance that a greater power is guiding your path to the places that require your presence most.”

“I’ve considered that. After due consideration, said ‘greater power’ should hope I never get my fucking burning talons on it,” Nix said darkly. “Gods that have tried to jerk me around in the past have met decidedly unkind fates. That thing about souls I told you? Doesn’t apply to ‘em. They only get one soul across all worlds.” He stared off into the distance. “I kill a god in one world, their physical manifestations die in them all.”

“That’s...horrifying.”

“It’s what they deserve. I’ve only been back to a reality once, and then only because Merlin meddled with things he wasn’t supposed to. I let Morgana go the first time as a mercy. The second time, I was too late to save him from her. Never again, Tia.” He glared up at her. “And you should be glad I didn’t show up a thousand years ago, or your sister, Discord, and that motherfucking slaver you had up north would have met decidedly less kind fates at the end of my swords.”

“You say this, knowing full well how Luna and Discord have turned out?”

“Discord is so annoying I might still kill him, and from what little I remember of Lu’s memories, he’s probably playing a larger game than you suspect.”

“A thought that had crossed my mind. One of the main reasons I left the Elements of Harmony with Twilight, actually. For now, however, he seems content to merely be in the presence of his friend. But the point remains.”

“And my swords are still sharp,” Nix said dully. “I would have killed them all without question. As Lu and Discord are now, I would not. I only get snapshots of each world’s history. The past rarely matters to me, because I will invariably leave these worlds as soon as I can. What matters isn’t the personal history, but the crimes they commit that are within my power to stop.”

“And the punishment for these crimes is always death?”

“Not necessarily. You and your sister are still alive, despite the abuse you put me through.”

“You could barely move when you ran from my room, Nix,” Celestia said teasingly.

Nix blew out a puff of air through pursed lips, then plucked a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He was much more satisfied when he blew out a puff of smoke. “Muramasa can cut through anything. Including the threads holding your soul in place. Granted, there are a lot of threads, and in my weakened state it would be very, very difficult to cut them all, but there’s a chance I could. And if I would, your body wouldn’t die, not immediately. Your soul simply disperses into entropy and your mind would cease to exist. Your body would remain a soulless husk, still technically alive biologically, but mindless and comatose until its cells simply starved to death and you wasted away.” The human drew Umbra, ponderously examining the dull sheen of the moon’s light on its surface for a few seconds. “Lux is a good weapon for weakening gods. So far as guns go, it’s a damn warhammer, a veritable weapon of mass destruction. But Umbra, here?” He shook the black pistol for emphasis. “Precision work. If I wanted to I could dump enough shots into your body’s concentrated magical centers, fast enough that you wouldn’t even see my hand draw my weapon. And that’s with what little power I have available to me. I’d start with your horn, then hit the rest. Properly disabled, it would be small matter to shoot your damn soul until nothing remains. This black jacket you let me keep when I accidentally resummoned it? You don’t even want to know what it does.”

Nix holstered his gun and stared Celestia in the eye. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. You are very, very powerful, but you don’t shield yourself against simple attacks that might end you. Maybe it’s because you and Lu have been relatively alone for your lives without much conflict, but you have no idea how to protect the very soul that keeps you alive, nor does she. I’m surprised you weren’t both killed outright by Discord; he has defenses against those sort of attacks, somehow. I’d need a lot of my power to weaken him before I killed him, as is usually the case with immortals. I’d been meaning to ask you about that, but considering my recent actions, it’s no longer relevant. I’m a greater threat to your world than he ever was. Please, Tia, just use your magic to put me somewhere I can’t hurt anyone, even inadvertently.”

Celestia closed her eyes, rubbing a hoof on her forehead. “This conversation has been...enlightening,” Celestia said after a time. “I have decided upon a suitable punishment for you.” She gazed down her muzzle at the human, her light pink eyes flecked with molten steel as her horn began to glow. “Until further notice, you are confined to Ponyville and its surrounding areas. Any attempts to leave the township or the land past Cloudsdale and the Everfree will result in your immediate expulsion to a place I didn’t even have the heart to send Luna after her crimes.” The yellow glow of her horn extended and subsumed the human before fading into the background. “Furthermore, you are tasked with one thing, and one thing only.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Nix said, staring at the ground.

“Make some friends.”

“But I just told you-”

“This isn’t up for negotiation, Nix. You nearly broke my world, my home. To save a life, for certain, but the act cannot be forgiven, nor your own nature. You are host to a...terrifying amount of power. Yet your control of said power is questionable. Out of apprehension of that power, of what it might do to my little ponies, I’ve gone so far as to release a very old god from imprisonment. As much as Discord’s actions spelled disaster for my world, I believe them to be little more than the expression of loneliness before a host to such a terrifying omnipotence such as you possess.

“You asked what you might become when you lost everything? As I said, I cannot answer that question completely. I can say with reasonable certainty, however, that what you become might be akin to Discord. Unbridled power coupled with a despairing boredom and a lack of purpose. So, as much as Discord has discovered—or perhaps rediscovered—the magic of friendship, I task you as well with such an endeavor:

Make some friends.”

“What does that even fucking mean?” Nix said, frustration twisting his voice. “You talk about it like it’s some fucking switch between poni- between people that can be flipped on, and then suddenly everything is hunky-fuckin’-dory. One second, they’re talking to each other, and the next a light bulb lights up over their heads and, fuckin’ yay, they’re friends now and they can go fucking skip through flowery fuckin’ meadows. That isn’t how that shit works, Tia, and you know it. It’s a childish oversimplification of social interaction.”

“How does it work, then, Nix?”

“You’re asking the wrong guy. So far as I remember, last person I actually called a friend was Merlin. That was 800 years ago.”

“So far as you remember. How do you not know you’ve had friends since then?”

“...I don’t. But I also know, judging from the fragmented mess I can remember, that things are pretty fucked for people I hang around too long.”

“And what if that is merely a result of your subconscious inclination towards guilt? What if all your bad memories are a result of your loneliness? What if you feel as though you’re betraying those you left behind by finding others you enjoy being around?”

“I’m betraying those I haven’t yet left behind by growing close. A month, a thousand years, a million? In the end, they’ll be taken from me. They’ll grow old and die.”

“Everyone dies, Phoenix.”

“I don’t. You don’t, unless you really piss me off. And even when I happen across other immortals, I eventually have to leave to another existence. Mortal, immortal, it makes no difference. In both cases, they’re torn from me, and I from them.” He frowned fiercely. “And they always give me the same damn look, every fucking time. Pity. Sad pity. And I fucking hate it!” he snarled, swinging his forearm into the tree behind him. A section of its trunk exploded in a shower of splinters and bark, and the tree crashed to the ground away from the pair. Nix slumped against what was left of the stump.

Celestia shook her head sadly. “You’ll never be able to leave Equestria without regaining your power, and you’ll never regain that without getting close to others. Without trusting them. Without laughing with them. Without accepting their generosity, and being kind in return. Without-”

“Being loyal to them blahblahblah. Yeah, I heard the kid’s speech when her purple ass was leading me around that boring ass village. I even kind of listened when she kept blathering on about the Elements of Harmony. You and her both talk too much, Cakebeard.” Celestia stared down at the human emotionlessly. He sighed and his hands flopped to his sides. “I’ll try. No promises!” he warned. “But I’ll at least try.”

“That’s all I ask, Nix.”

“Oh, and one more thing?” he asked, his eyes focused again on the black screen in his hand.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to be alone for a while.”

Princess Celestia cantered up beside the human and sat down. Her wing shot out and wrapped around his shoulder as his eyes widened. She drew him close.

“I’m old,” she intoned. “Old enough to know when one has been alone for long enough.”

Nix was quiet as his head rested tiredly against her shoulder, wrapped protectively in an ivory wing. The two remained that way until it came time to raise the sun. Grudgingly standing up and wincing at the rays of morning light pouring through the forest, he stretched and told her, “I’ll try, Celestia. I still think it’s stupid, a lot more stupid than I am, but I’ll try.” He looked back only to find himself alone in the forest. He snorted to himself. “Fuckin’ teleporters. Hate it when they pull that mysterious disappearance bullshit.” He felt her lifeforce from a very great distance. She might well have been on the far side of the world, depending on the planet’s size. He shook his head ruefully.

“Ya’ know, I really do like you, Tia,” he said to the empty air, “so I almost feel bad about lying to you.” His mind reached out until he located a handful of familiar lifeforces to the south. ’Sparky. Lyre-Unicorn-Thingy. Swordspony. Lu...’ He assumed this cluster was located in Ponyville. He turned his back to them and took a step before rustling in the underbrush nearby halted him.

As he stopped, a creaking wooden form exploded from a nearby bush, shooting out a puff of leaves, and sailed through the air towards him. Its green eyes glowed victoriously as its wooden fangs sank into his arm. In a blur, Nix drew his silver gun with his free hand and jammed the barrel into the creature’s snout. The pistol was bigger than the wolf’s head. It growled at him with the tinny ferocity of a chihuahua, glowering up at him through the tiny, luminescent green marbles in its face. He holstered his weapon and held his arm up. The small wolf’s jaws held firm, hanging limply in the air from his forearm. The tiny thing probably wouldn’t have stood taller than his knees. He loosed an annoyed sigh.

“That’s probably not the best idea, pup.” It stared back at him, shifting its jaws slightly as it made a slight suckling sound. Nix could feel a miniscule amount of his lifeforce leaving his body into the wolf pup’s jaws. It growled cutely at him. “You do know I killed your mom, right?” Another growl. “Whatever, eat your fill. I won’t be here for much longer, anyway.” Tiny rivulets of maple syrup dripped from the timber pup’s mouth around his arm. Nix simply stared and waited patiently as the young one fed on his lifeforce.

After a minute or so, the pup released his arm with a pop and landed lithely on the ground in front of him. It immediately fell onto its back, its tongue—a single orange leaf—lolling contentedly as it stared up at him with half-lidded eyes. Its wooden belly bulged comically after its meal. A few nearby twigs rattled slightly before flying towards the pup and integrating into it. It cooed happily.

“Well, glad my lifeforce was useful for something other than just keeping me alive. Hey, pup?” It swiveled its head up and met his eyes.

“Ragh?” it garbled out questioningly.

“Don’t stick around here for too long. You might run into a sociopathic walking battery, or a living battering ram of a mare with issues.” The wolf merely continued looking at him as it lay on its back, its front paws drawn up to its chest. Its twig of a tail began wagging slowly. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m leaving. Alone.” Its tail stopped wagging. “I just figure the local timber wolf population has been thinned enough, at this point. Go back to the forest, pup.”

“Ragh?” it repeated its questioning whine. Nix ignored it as flame burst from his shoulders. He gazed ponderously at the light orange pinions in his flaming wings. “I would’ve preferred blue, but this’ll work,” he muttered to himself before flapping his wings and bursting into the air, aiming towards the gold-tinged clouds and not looking back. The wooden wolf-pup sat up and stared after him with green eyes that momentarily flashed teal before settling on their original color. It shrank with the forest as Nix broke through the early morning’s clouds. He hovered in the air for a moment before setting off through the pink and yellow sky away from the sunrise, and Ponyville.

Nix glided above the clouds and wondered how long it would take for him to pass the threshold of his prison. Tia swore she would send him off to somewhere terrible if he violated the boundaries she set for him, and he intended to hold the princess to her word. She could blather on about friendship and togetherness all she wanted, but he knew how dangerous his presence was. He wasn’t going to chance endangering innocent ponies if he could help it, even if most of them were annoying and naive as fuck.

While he didn’t like it, he’d just have to go back for his two swords after regaining most of his powers. The princesses would hardly be an obstacle, then. Tia would be in for a rude awakening when she realized that just because she was almost as powerful as Sammael was, Nix had defeated the god while Sammy was supercharged with the hijacked souls of billions. Her display of force back in Canterlot would have just made him laugh piteously were he able to wield the full force of his own lifeforce. He wondered why Lu hadn’t given her sister the full scoop. Whatever, this world was just a stepping stone on his way home. No point in thinking too much about its inhabitants. He flew west, away from the rising sun, for a few more minutes before he began hearing something odd.

It was...music? His flight slowed until he was simply hovering in the air above the clouds. A dull, repeating whump-whump could be heard in the distance. It sounded familiar to him, for some reason, though he was more intrigued by the song that seemed to emanate from everywhere around him. It was symphonic music, and the urgent strings that made up its intro tugged at his memory.

“Is that...” he muttered to himself, looking around for the source, “is that Ride of the Valkyries?”

The clouds beneath him darkened as a large shape loomed in their wispy embrace before the shadow burst through their whitened edges, spilling off the large machine like dancing smoke as an Apache attack helicopter burst into the morning sky. The ashen face of the pilot, hidden mostly by a helmet and aviator sunglasses, cracked a toothy grin, revealing one fang that was disproportionately large.

“Dun-dun-dun-dun-duuuun-dun! Dun-dun-dun-duuun-dun! Dun-dun-dun-duuuuuuuhn!” Discord sang cheerily. Nix was somehow able to hear him perfectly through the cockpit and the whumping thunder of the helicopter’s rotors as the warmachine leveled off even with him. He stared at the Apache, severely confused, before the gatling gun underneath the craft’s nose slowly whirred to life.

“Oh, fuck me-” Nix dove as the shattering report of the gun shredded the air where he just exited. With a flap of his wings he leveled off just above the cloud’s surface and tore through the sky, rolling and zig-zagging as best he could as the attack chopper’s gatling gun continued its barrage, tracer rounds shrieking through the spaces he had just occupied before dodging away.

“Dun-dun-dun-dun-duuuun-dun! Dun-dun-dun-duuun-dun! Dun-dun-dun-duuuuuuuhn!” Discord continued singing, the Apache angled forward in pursuit of the fleeing human as its machine gun continued hammering the skies.

“Shut the fuck up already, you fucking psycho!” The report of the machine gun immediately cut out. Nix almost allowed himself a sigh of relief before he noticed a bright green targeting reticle hovering in the air near him. It flew towards him, and not wanting to know just what the fuck would happen if it centered on him, he did his best to dodge. His powers, though having grown since he arrived, weren’t enough to allow him to alter space-time just yet. As such, his dodging was in vain as the reticle finally centered on him. It flashed a couple times and began glowing red.

Nix sighed.

“What’s the rush, Nixxie? Stick around a bit!” The dragonequus began to cackle madly as his thumb flicked up a red safety switch on the throttle and he jammed the talon’s digit home on a big red button. The cockpit beeped a couple times before the Apache rocked back as two humongous rockets fired off from its wings. Discord squinted his eyes shut and laughed even harder as the human stopped trying to escape and stared in horror at the winding missiles as they bore down upon him.

Nix drew both his guns and started firing blindly at the approaching missiles. Almost immediately one exploded violently in the morning sky, sending a wave of smoke and heat over the human. He trained his weapons towards the last spot he had seen the missile before something big, cylindrical, and white slammed into his chest and exploded. He gaped when he found himself coated in an amber, sticky substance. He tried bringing his arms up only to find the viscous fluid rubberbanding them back to his sides. The stuff even seemed to coat his flaming wings, impeding their movement and folding them up against his back. ‘That’s not even fucking possible,’ Nix thought as his flight was stolen from him and he rocketed through the clouds, towards the forest below. He crashed through several trees, tumbling painfully through the canopy and wincing as his wings blackened more than a few of their limbs. He came to rest after a few hundred meters, half-buried in a blackened ditch of melted glass and soil.

His bones began popping into place as he started healing. He was rudely interrupted in his efforts by a pair of hands belonging to a bear and an eagle as they grasped his shoulders and dragged his face into a serpentine form.

“Goose! Goose! Noooooo!” Discord wailed.

“Put me the fuck down right this second before I end you.”

“Ah, ah,” the dragonequus chided, patting the human gently on the back. “Manners first, my good sir.”

The barrel of a silver pistol found itself jammed into the snout of the patchwork serpent. Discord’s lips twitched towards a smile before Nix pulled the trigger, releasing a violent blast point blank into the chaos god’s face. His eyes widened as his muzzle twirled around his head, finally settling down at the back of his skull.

“Hmph, how rude,” Discord muttered as he reached behind his head and dragged his snout around, resetting it on the front of his face. “You do know I could have made that sticky substance something white, salty, and trauma-inducing, right?”

Nix stared back dully at the dragonequus, Lux still leveled at his snout. “Put. Me. Down.”

“Fine,” Discord harrumphed, flippantly tossing the human to the ground. “You know, an endless eternity of cynical boredom is so much easier if you have fun every once in a while.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Nix grumbled as he tried to wipe the maple syrup off his wings and arms. With the snap of a bear’s paws, the sticky fluid disappeared, and Nix stood, dusting himself off. He glared at Discord. The dragonequus smiled back at the human.

“If you’ve had your fun, I think I’ll be leaving now.”

“Wrong direction, newbie.”

“What the fuck did you just call me?” Nix whipped around violently, an angry snarl on his face.

“Uh, ‘newbie’,” Discord responded from over Nix’s shoulder. The human shot a glare at the pair of yellow and red eyes staring back at him from a few inches away. Discord leaned back, his head resting in two mismatched arms, and began floating through the air around the human on his back. “You are new here, aren’t you? I mean, I think I would have noticed, even if my mental faculties aren’t quite what they used to be.”

“Look, I just spent the night talking to two immortals, I don’t need another conversation that retreads the same ground.”

Discord snorted. “Immortals? Those two? Hardly. They’re just a few millennia old.”

“And you?”

“I stopped counting the years after the first sun died and I found another habitable world, boy. And then another. And another. I’m older than you can possibly know.”

Nix waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve heard the ‘Ooh, I’m an immortal possessing wisdom the likes of which your mortal mind is incapable of comprehending’ speech countless times. It usually preceded me ripping out their immortal souls and tearing them to shreds while they begged for their lives.”

“Oh, no, no, you’re going about this all wrong, Nixxie,” Discord said disappointedly, gazing down at his talons in mock ponderance. “This is the part where I repeat ad nauseum everything you’ve been told by the princesses and relate to you about how a certain pink-haired mare led me to change my ways.”

“To change your ways. Right.” Nix stared at Discord flatly.

Discord smiled back at him. “Look, son-”

“-you’d have to be a bigger alcoholic than I am to call me that-”

“-you’re not wrong, but you don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. Avoid the ponies for as long as you like. I won’t stop you.”

“You shot me down with maple fucking syrup.”

The dragonequus ignored him. “Eventually, though, you’ll come to your senses. Tia might be insufferable. And a little chubby.” The chaos god scratched his chin thoughtfully. “But she isn’t wrong. You won’t leave this place without mastering Harmony. And I would know. I’ve been here for quite some time.”

“Blah blah make some friends blah blah. Look, I get it. Are you done?”

Discord smiled at the human, who shifted uncomfortably under the false innocence. “Yes, I suppose I am. For now. And I’m also going to help you. For now.” His smiled deepened as he snapped his talons. The forest disappeared from around the human and he was again hovering in the air above the clouds.

‘I swear to fuck that I’m getting really sick and tired of gods and their veiled messages.’ He turned to continue flying away from familiar lifeforces—this time, they felt much further away—before his body froze and a golden light seized his every limb, paralyzing him. The air before him crackled with yellow electricity as he bumped against some kind of barrier, before a black hole ripped open and shadowy tendrils dragged him through. A second later, the open sky wavered and sent out a gentle ripple of golden energy before settling; the human was nowhere to be found.

Nix awoke in a black cave, obsidian stalactites oozing out from the blackened glass of the cavern’s ceiling as a sickly, blue-green fog whisked dully around his feet. His surroundings were dark, but the pale mist seemed to give off enough ambient light for him to catch his bearings. He couldn’t see more than a couple dozen meters in either direction, even with the light, as a repressive darkness seemed to force itself on his perceptions, dulling his senses and emotions. If he could sum up his surroundings in one word, he’d probably choose ‘depressing’. ‘Ominous’ would have been a close second, he guessed.

The one break from the landscape of the cavern were the looming, black double doors behind him.

He shrugged and pushed them open. And came face-to-tooth with a pair of salivating canine jaws that could swallow him whole. The jaws were attached to a head that dwarfed him in size, which was attached to a large, darkly furred body of a wolf with two other heads.

“Uh...Cerberus?” Nix asked.

All three heads released a roar which shook his bones and flecked his face with no small amount of canine saliva. With a disgusted look, he wiped the dog slobber off his face and began backing away slowly, reaching for his pistols. As he backed away, however, the dog stood down, and he abandoned his draw.

“So, a three-headed guard dog, huh?” The creature’s hateful eyes merely watched the human carefully, waiting. “Which would make this Tartarus, back on my world.” The gargantuan dog continued staring. “Kind of a weird coincidence, but I did want to be banished. Good enough, I suppose. Don’t worry, boy. I’d rather not escape any time soon. Safer that way for everyone else. And when I do have enough power?” The lips of the dog’s three heads began to peal back in a snarl. “You couldn’t stop me, anyway.” Nix’s eyes flashed a bright blue as he tried to meet the gaze of Cerberus’s three heads before he realized they were focused on something behind him.

He froze, hearing the rasping sound of scales dragging across soil. He gingerly sent out his lifeforce, recoiling severely when it touched a soul he recognized all too well. He drew his pistols in a flash and whirled around, burying their barrels in the throat of a beautiful, pale-faced woman.

“Now, Sean, is that any way to greet an old friend,” the woman lilted, one of the snakes that made up her hair stroking his wrist softly.

“You bitch-” Nix started, trying to squeeze the triggers of both his pistols. He found himself unable to move his hands, as they were suddenly encased in stone. He glared angrily at Medusa as the petrification spread upwards from his hands and feet, overtaking his entire body. He snarled, “This isn’t-” before the stone engulfed his face.

“Hmm, fool boy,” the snake-woman said dismissively. “You never were one for tactics. It’s almost shameful to have you as part of my collection, Godslayer or not.” She ran one clawed finger down the stone face of her newest statue. She turned away. “No matter. Welcome to Tartarus, boy.”

Small cracks began to emerge in the statue of Nix, each emitting bright orange rays of burning light.

Author's Notes:

It took me way too long to get this chapter out. Really sorry about that.

I probably should have edited it more, but oh well. Enjoy. Or make fun of me for being a terrible writer. Whatever floats yer boat.