Anonfilly, Harmony-less [Part 2]

 

Not an earthquake. Something deliberate.

 

A shadow falls over you—huge, jointed, wrong.

 

You look up.

 

Ahgg.

 

He’s bigger than memory or rumor. One massive purple eye stares down from a body like a boulder wrapped in spider legs. Webs drape from his fangs like old curtains, thick with centuries of dust and trapped leaves. He hasn’t moved much in a long time; the ground around him is a crater of petrified silk, ancient cocoons fused into stone.

 

His single eye fixes on you.

 

You don’t run. You just stare back with your small, round, human eyes.

 

The air changes. A low, rattling hiss escapes him—not threat, but recognition.

 

“Mistress…?” The voice is gravel dragged across stone, ancient and cracked from disuse. “No… not mistress. But the eyes…”

 

He lowers his massive head until his eye is level with your tiny filly face. You feel the chill of old webs brushing your mane.

 

“Eyes of the old ones,” he rumbles. “Witches’ eyes. Sharp. Hungry. Not pony soft. I served them. Carried them. Blocked paths for them. They promised forever.”

 

His legs shift, joints creaking like old doors.

 

“Gone now. All gone. Megan came. Light burned. Ponies sang. I hid. Waited. But you…”

 

He tilts his head, compound facets in that single eye catching your reflection a thousand times.

 

“You wear pony skin. But inside—witch eyes. Old blood. Dark blood.”

 

You don’t correct him. You don’t explain. You just stand there while he studies you like a puzzle missing too many pieces.

 

“Not here to command,” he says finally, almost disappointed. “Not here to promise. Just… passing.”

 

You shrug.

 

He exhales—a sound like wind through a tomb.

 

“Then pass, little almost-witch. The forest keeps its own now. No mistresses left to serve.”

 

He doesn’t stop you when you walk past. His shadow lingers, enormous and patient.

 

Behind you, the webs stir faintly, as if remembering old orders.

 

You stop walking.

 

The webs rustle behind you like old paper. Ahgg hasn’t moved, but his single eye tracks you, patient as stone.

 

You turn back.

 

He called them mistresses. Witches. Old ones.

 

You don’t know the stories. The show never showed them—only whispers in old books Twilight skimmed past, G1 relics too dusty for modern harmony lessons. But something in his voice, in the way he looked at your eyes, hooks in your chest like a burr.

 

You walk back into his shadow.

 

His massive head lowers again, fangs dripping ancient silk that hisses faintly where it touches the ground.

 

“What witches?” you ask. Your voice is flat, small, the same tone you use when Twilight asks where you’ve been.

 

Ahgg’s eye narrows, facets catching your reflection in fractured pieces.

 

“Old mistresses,” he rumbles. “Hydia. Reeka. Draggle. Lived in Volcano of Gloom. Made Smooze to drown pony lands in purple hate. I carried them. Spun webs for them. Blocked paths. Served.”

 

He shifts, legs creaking like dead trees.

 

“They had eyes like yours. Small. Sharp. Not pony big and soft. Human eyes. Witch eyes. Saw through lies. Wanted everything dark. Promised me forever if I obeyed. They used dark magic. Dark magic corrupts and twists. Creatures use it become ruined, monsters and ponies alike. Witches are different. Dark magic doesn't change them, nothing does. Instead they used dark magic like it's their birthright. Doesn't corrupt the soul because the soul refuses to change. Witches became gods amongst us.”

 

A low hiss escapes him—memory, not threat.

 

“Megan came. Human girl with rainbow power. Flutter ponies. Ponies sang. Smooze failed. Mistresses fled or worse. I hid deep. Waited centuries. Then I heard the war. Megan came again. With all the Alicorns. Used rainbow power on Witches. Megan, Alicorns, and Witches all died. They never returned.”

 

He leans closer. The air chills with old web-smell.

 

“You have the eyes. But no commands. No promises. No hate big enough to drown worlds. Just… empty.”

 

You stand there while he studies you.

 

You don’t correct him. Don’t explain the show, the transformation, the human you were.

 

You just ask the only question that matters.

 

“Are they really gone?”

 

Ahgg is silent for a long time. Dust drifts from his webs like ash.

 

“Yes,” he says finally. “Gone like old webs in sun. Nothing left but echoes. And eyes that sometimes wander.”

 

He lifts his head, retreating into shadow.

 

“Go, little almost-witch. No mistresses left to serve. No Smooze to spin for.”

 

This time when you walk away, he doesn’t watch.

 

The forest closes behind you, honest and indifferent.

 

But your eyes feel heavier.

 

Like they remember something you never lived.

 

===

 

You don’t stop walking after Ahgg.

 

His words—mistresses, witches, Volcano of Gloom—sit in your head like burrs that won’t shake loose. You’ve never heard the names before. The show skipped them, or buried them in old tapes nopony watches anymore. But the way he said “human eyes” like a prayer and a curse at once… it itches.

 

So you go deeper.

 

The Everfree shifts around you. Trees thin into blackened skeletons. The ground hardens, cracked basalt under your hooves instead of moss. The air smells wrong—sulfur and old ash, like a fire that never quite went out. No birds. No buzzing. Even the spite changelings don’t patrol this far.

 

Then you see it.

 

The Volcano of Gloom rises out of the forest like a rotten tooth. Once it must have been taller, grander—black stone laced with veins of dull purple crystal, craters pocking its sides like old wounds. Now it’s half-collapsed, one flank sheared away as if something huge took a bite. Vines choke the lower slopes, but they’re wrong vines—thick, waxy, pulsing faintly with a sickly violet glow. No steam rises from the crater. Whatever fire burned here died centuries ago.

 

You climb.

 

The path is there if you look: switchbacks carved into the stone, worn smooth by things that weren’t hooves. Webs drape across them—Ahgg’s work, maybe, or something older. They part when you brush them, brittle as burnt paper.

 

At the top, the crater yawns wide and empty. No lava. No Smooze. Just a vast bowl of cracked obsidian and the remnants of structures clinging to the inner walls—ruined towers, shattered cauldrons big enough to boil a dragon, balconies hanging by threads of stone. Everything coated in centuries of dust and silence.

 

You stand on the rim.

 

The wind up here is cold, carrying faint echoes that might be voices or just rock settling. You feel watched, but there’s nothing to watch with.

 

This was their place.

 

Hydia. Reeka. Draggle.

 

Humans—or human-shaped, at least—with witch eyes like yours. They tried to drown the world in purple hate and lost. Megan stopped them. Ponies sang. Everything ended the way pony stories always do.

 

You walk the rim until you find an entrance tunnel sloping down into the volcano’s heart. The air inside is warmer, stale, thick with old magic that prickles against your blank flank like static. Crystals embedded in the walls glow faintly when you pass—responding to something in you, or just remembering old masters.

 

The air thickens, heavy with the ghosts of old spells—sulfur and rot and something sharper, like ambition gone sour. Crystals pulse faintly in the walls, reacting to your presence with reluctant violet light. The passage opens into a vast chamber, half-collapsed, where the ceiling has caved in centuries ago and let vines strangle what’s left.

 

And there they are.

 

Portraits.

 

Massive, framed in blackened stone and twisted metal, hanging crooked on the remaining walls. Dust coats them thick, but the paint hasn’t faded. Witches—tall, sharp-featured women with eyes like yours. Small irises. Round pupils. Predatory.

 

Human eyes.

 

Some wear crowns of bone. Others hold staffs dripping painted Smooze. Their expressions are uniform: disdain, hunger, certainty.

 

You stand in the center of the ruined hall, small green filly dwarfed by the scale of it all.

 

The dust stirs without wind.

 

One portrait flickers first—the oldest, highest on the wall. A witch with hair like storm clouds and a smile like broken glass. Her painted eyes shift. Focus.

 

On you.

 

The frame creaks. Paint ripples like water.

 

A hand pushes out—real, three-dimensional, skin pale and veined with old magic. Then an arm. A shoulder. She steps halfway from the canvas, tethered by swirling colors at her waist, as if the painting is reluctant to let her go entirely.

 

Others follow. Five. Six. Ancestors of Hydia’s line, stirring from their eternal vigil.

 

Their voices come layered, echoing, like wind through a graveyard.

 

“Eyes…”

 

“…the old eyes…”

 

“…returned…”

 

You don’t flinch. You just look up with those small, sharp teal eyes they recognize too well.

 

The first one—the storm-haired matriarch—leans forward, half in, half out of her frame.

 

“Little echo,” she rasps, voice dry as ash. “Wearing pony skin. Carrying witch sight. What brings you to our tomb?”

 

You shrug.

 

“Found the place. Heard about witches with eyes like mine.”

 

Another steps partially out—a younger one, fierce, with a crown of thorns. She circles you in mid-air, tethered by paint threads.

 

“Gone, we are. Scattered. Burned by pony songs and human light. Hydia failed. Reeka. Draggle. Weak blood at the end. But you…”

 

She reaches out, fingers brushing your mane—cold, real, smelling of old canvas and ozone.

 

“…you walk free. No master. No Smooze. No vengeance.”

 

They murmur among themselves, voices overlapping.

 

“Advise her?”

 

“Command her?”

 

“Test her?”

 

The matriarch raises a hand. Silence falls.

 

“Child of old sight,” she says. “The world denied us. Ponies sang us into ruin. We endure here, in paint and memory, waiting for blood that remembers.”

 

She studies you.

 

“You remember nothing.”

 

It’s not a question.

 

You shake your head.

 

A sigh ripples through them—like wind through dead leaves.

 

“Then take this advice, little almost-witch: the ponies will never give you a place. Their harmony has no room for eyes like ours. Feed the scorn. Let it harden. Or sing their songs and lose what little you have left.”

 

One by one, they retreat—hands withdrawing, faces settling back into painted stillness. The matriarch lingers longest.

 

“We cannot leave forever,” she whispers. “But we watch. If the old hunger wakes in you… call.”

 

The chamber dims. Crystals fade.

 

You stand alone again among dust and silence.

 

The portraits are just paint once more.

 

But their voices linger in the stone like frost.

 

You don’t leave right away.

 

The chamber sits in silence after the portraits retreat, dust thick enough to choke on, cobwebs draping the frames like funeral veils. Everything here is ruin—cracked stone, shattered cauldrons, the faint violet glow of dying crystals. A tomb for witches who tried to drown the world and failed.

 

But they had your eyes.

 

Human eyes.

 

Sharp. Small. Predatory.

 

Evil or not, they were the last echoes of something that looked like what you used to be. Not ponies. Not harmony. Just ambition and spite and the refusal to sing along.

 

You start cleaning.

 

It’s pointless. You know it. A filly’s hooves against centuries of neglect. But you do it anyway.

 

You kick aside fallen stone. Brush dust from the lower frames with your tail—black mane sweeping centuries of grime into piles that stay piled, honest about being disturbed. You nudge broken furniture back against walls. Tear down the worst of the webs with your teeth, spitting out the bitter taste of old magic.

 

The portraits stir as you work.

 

Paint ripples. Eyes track you again.

 

The storm-haired matriarch emerges halfway once more, watching you sweep dust from her frame’s base.

 

“Little echo cleans our grave,” she rasps, voice dry but curious. “Why?”

 

You pause, hooves dirty, mane full of cobwebs.

 

“They were human,” you say. Flat. Simple. “Like I was. Before.”

 

Another portrait—a warlock with a beard like midnight—leans out, fingers steepled.

 

“Human,” he echoes. “Not pony. Not anymore. You honor monsters because they wore the same face once?”

 

You shrug.

 

“Monsters or not. They didn’t pretend.”

 

The matriarch’s painted lips curve—almost a smile.

 

“Respect from the void,” she murmurs. “Rare. Keep your tidying, child. The dust remembers us better than pony songs ever will.”

 

You keep working.

 

You clear a space in the center. Straighten the crooked frames as best you can with your mouth and hooves. Wipe grime from their faces so the eyes—your eyes—look out clearer.

 

They watch. Sometimes they speak—fragments of old spells, bitter memories of Megan’s light, warnings about harmony’s lies. You listen. You don’t answer much.

 

When you’re done, the chamber isn’t clean. It’s still a ruin.

 

But it’s respected ruin.

 

The portraits settle back into stillness, sharper now, less buried.

 

You stand in the center, small green filly surrounded by tall, sharp-eyed humans frozen in paint.

 

For the first time since you woke up in this body, the silence feels shared.

 

Not welcoming.

 

Just… acknowledged.

 

You leave when the crystals dim completely.

 

The volcano doesn’t pretend you belong.

 

But the portraits remember why you came.

 

===

 

You’re in the castle’s lower vaults again—storage rooms Twilight pretends are organized but are really just crystal corridors stuffed with sealed boxes, forgotten artifacts, and things too dangerous to throw away but too tempting to destroy. You come down here when the upper floors feel too bright, too full of pony concern.

 

Today you’re looking for nothing. Just walking. Hooves echoing too loud on crystal floors that never quite warm under you.

 

One door is ajar. Twilight must have been here recently—another report on the spite changelings, probably. A crate sits open, lid propped against the wall. Inside, wrapped in faded red cloth, something gleams.

 

You know it immediately.

 

The Alicorn Amulet.

 

Crimson gem set in black metal, winged alicorn head snarling at the center. You remember the episode perfectly: Trixie’s boasting turned to tyranny, Ponyville under her wheel, magic that bent reality like wet paper. Power bordering on Discord’s chaos, but paid for with corruption—dark magic eating the user from the inside until only malice remained.

 

Twilight locked it away after that. Sealed it. Warned everypony never to touch it.

 

You reach in and lift it.

 

The chain is cold. Heavy. The gem pulses once, like a heartbeat recognizing new blood.

 

You expect the rush—the whispers, the red haze in the vision, the slow slide into cruelty that Trixie couldn’t fight.

 

Nothing comes.

 

You turn it over in your hooves. The metal warms against your skin, but no darkness seeps in. No erosion. No claws hooking into your thoughts.

 

Your human soul—resilient, stubborn, the same stubbornness the painted witches carried—simply refuses to corrode.

 

You remember Ahgg’s words. The portraits’ warnings. Humans here wielded dark magic like water because it slid off them where it would shatter pony minds. They paid eventually—evil growing in the spaces the magic left behind—but they could drink deep without immediate ruin.

 

You slip the chain over your neck.

 

The weight settles against your chest. The gem flares once, bright and hungry.

 

Power floods you—not the warm, harmonious glow Twilight commands, but something rawer. Sharper. Like holding lightning that doesn’t care who it burns.

 

You lift a hoof. The air ripples. A nearby crate lifts, spins, reassembles itself into perfect crystalline order without you even trying.

 

No whispers.

 

No urge to conquer.

 

Just power.

 

Clean. Vast. Waiting.

 

You stand there in the dim vault, small green filly wearing an artifact that once turned a showmare into a tyrant.

 

And you feel nothing pulling you toward evil.

 

Only the cold, clear certainty that you could do anything.

 

Anything at all.

 

Twilight’s seals on the crate are still intact. She’ll never know it’s gone unless she checks.

 

You tuck the amulet beneath your mane, chain hidden against your coat.

 

The crystal floors stay cold beneath your hooves.

 

And for the first time since arriving in this world, something here answers when you reach for it.

 

Without asking permission.

 

Without pretending you belong.

 

===

 

You return to the volcano again, the Alicorn Amulet a cold weight against your chest, its power humming quietly like a question no one asks out loud.

 

The chamber feels different this time—less like a tomb, more like something waiting to exhale. The portraits stir the moment your hooves cross the threshold. Paint ripples harder. Eyes snap open with sharper hunger.

 

They see the amulet immediately. Crimson light leaks from beneath your mane, painting the ruins in blood-tinted shadows.

 

The matriarch emerges fully this time, stepping out until only her heels remain tethered to the canvas. Others follow—warlocks and witches crowding the air like ghosts at a feast.

 

Their voices rise together, layered and ancient, in a song you’ve never heard but somehow recognize in your bones.

 

"Why can't you be evil like I taught you?

Why won't you misbehave the way you should?

You never use the power we have bought you—

You just aren't bad enough to be good!

 

Work hard at being vicious,

And if you're real ambitious,

You might wind up an evil witch like me.

A terrible, detestable,

Contemptible, despicable,

An evil witch like me!"

 

The song echoes through the chamber, bouncing off cracked stone and dying crystals. Their painted faces twist with pride—sharp smiles, gleaming eyes, hands gesturing like conductors of old malice.

 

They sing of legacy. Of daughters (and sons) who disappointed by being too soft, too lazy, too content with small cruelties when grand ones waited.

 

The lyrics paint them clear:

 

Ambitious. They crave scale—world-drowning Smooze, eternal gloom, pony tears in rivers. Small evils bore them.

 

Proud. Evil isn’t shame to hide; it’s a crown to wear. Terrible, detestable, contemptible, despicable—and they list the words like medals.

 

Impatient with weakness. They scold failure not out of love, but because mediocrity dilutes the bloodline. Goodness is the ultimate betrayal.

 

Manipulative. The song is a lecture wrapped in melody—teaching, goading, promising that true power lies in embracing the dark without hesitation.

 

When the last note fades, they hover closer, eyes fixed on you.

 

“You have the eyes,” the matriarch whispers. “The soul. The artifact. But not the song in your heart.”

 

A warlock chuckles, dry and cracked. “No fire to be vicious. No ambition to be despicable.”

 

They watch you, waiting for the spark.

 

You stand there, small green filly in the center of their ancestral chorus.

 

The amulet pulses once—patient, unused.

 

You feel nothing rise to meet their pride.

 

Just the same flat emptiness.

 

You turn and leave without a word.

 

Behind you, the song starts again—quieter this time, like a lullaby for something that never woke.

 

The portraits sing to the dust.

 

And you walk back into the Everfree, where no one demands you be evil enough to be good.

 

===

 

You slip back into the castle long after moonrise, hooves silent on crystal that never warms to your touch. The halls are dim, lit only by the faint glow of enchanted sconces that flicker like they’re trying too hard to be welcoming. You smell lavender and old parchment—Twilight’s worry-scent, baked into the air.

 

You pause in the shadowed corridor outside the library. The Alicorn Amulet rests heavy against your chest, chain biting into your coat, gem pulsing with that patient, obedient hunger.

 

You focus.

 

No spell words. No pony flourish. Just intent—cold, flat, human.

 

The amulet answers.

 

Crimson light flares once beneath your mane, then folds inward like ink in water. The chain thins to nothing against your skin. The gem vanishes from sight and touch, but you feel it still—weightless now, invisible, waiting. Power cloaked because you don’t want the questions. Don’t want Twilight’s wide eyes and frantic lectures about corruption and responsibility.

 

You keep walking.

 

Your room is the same: small bed too soft, window overlooking Ponyville’s twinkling lights that never quite reach you. You close the door. Sit in the dark.

 

The portraits’ words circle like smoke you can’t wave away.

 

“The ponies will never give you a place. Their harmony has no room for eyes like ours.”

 

You stare at your reflection in the window—small green filly, black mane falling across teal eyes that are too sharp, too small, too human. No cutie mark. No song in your chest. No warmth when Twilight hugs you.

 

Harmony-less.

 

The word fits better than any pony name ever could.

 

You have power now. God-level, if you wanted. Reality to twist. Shadows to raise. Worlds to darken if the mood struck. The amulet waits for a command that never comes.

 

But there’s no mood.

 

No drive.

 

No fire.

 

You could stay here—drift between castle and Everfree, tidying ruins and teaching monsters to feed on their own scars. You could vanish into the forest tomorrow and never come back. You could walk into Ponyville wearing the amulet visible and watch harmony crack around you.

 

None of it matters.

 

You lie on the too-soft bed in the dark, invisible amulet humming against your chest like a second heartbeat that isn’t yours. The power is there—vast, obedient, darker than anything pony magic dares to be. You could do things with it. Real things. Terrible things. Pointless things.

 

You think about turning yourself human.

 

Just reach in, twist the shape of your body the way Trixie twisted weather and stone. Tall again. Two legs. Hands. Skin instead of coat. Those sharp human eyes in a human face. You could walk on hind legs through Ponyville and watch the harmony crack wide open—foals screaming, adults backing away, Twilight’s lectures turning to panic.

 

But then what?

 

You’d be taller. Stranger. More wrong. No cutie mark to hide behind. No filly innocence to soften the edges. Just a naked human in a world of colorful ponies, predator eyes on full display. They’d fear you faster. Hate you cleaner. Drive you out sooner.

 

Belonging? Further away than ever.

 

You think about the portraits. About calling their blood back.

 

The amulet could do it—rip through the veil of centuries, pull Hydia, Reeka, Draggle from whatever ash or exile they ended in. Incompetent, yes. Hydia’s temper, Reeka’s laziness, Draggle’s clumsiness—failures painted in every memory. But give them real power this time. Not brittle old spells and failing Smooze. Dark magic that listens. Reality that bends.

 

They could flood Equestria again. Scheme bigger. Fail spectacularly, maybe. Or not.

 

You could stand beside them—little green filly with the old eyes, wielding the amulet like a key. Family, of a sort. Humans wearing witch skin. Monsters unapologetic.

 

But they’d want the song. The fire. The drive to drown the world in gloom because beauty offends them. You’d watch them scheme and sing and push, and you’d feel…

 

Nothing.

 

Just the same flat observation: interesting plan. Efficient cruelty. No urge to help. No delight in the coming dark.

 

They’d call you weak blood too, eventually.

 

You think about home.

 

The amulet can’t reach that far—no portal between worlds, no thread back to the place you woke up human. The mirror in Canterlot only leads to some pastel high school dimension, humans with pony ears and magic that still sings harmony. Not home. Just another stage where you’d be the wrong shape again.

 

Options.

 

All of them open doors.

 

None of them lead to a room where you fit.

 

The amulet waits, patient, invisible.

 

Power without purpose.

 

You close your eyes in the dark that isn’t dark enough.

 

The castle breathes around you—full of friendship and future songs and ponies who believe belonging is something you earn by smiling right.

 

You stay very still.

 

And the emptiness asks its question again, quieter this time.

 

What now?

 

No answer comes.

 

The night stretches on, honest and indifferent.

 

And you still don’t know.

 

===

 

You leave the castle at dawn, when the sky is still the color of old bruises and Ponyville hasn’t started pretending everything is bright yet. The Alicorn Amulet stays invisible against your chest—power cloaked, waiting, useless.

 

You don’t know why you’re going to Fluttershy’s cottage.

 

You just walk.

 

The path is familiar now—past the schoolyard where foals will soon burst into song, past the market stalls setting up with forced cheer. Nopony stops you. They rarely do. You’re the quiet green filly who doesn’t join in, doesn’t smile right, doesn’t belong.

 

Fluttershy’s cottage appears like something from a picture book you never believed in: flowers too perfect, animals too tame, roof thatched with the patience of somepony who has nothing but time and kindness.

 

Discord is there, of course.

 

He’s lounging upside-down in mid-air above the chicken coop, wearing a straw hat backwards and sipping tea from a cup that’s also a rubber duck. The chickens cluck in polite confusion.

 

Fluttershy is inside, humming to a family of hedgehogs. She doesn’t see you yet.

 

Discord does.

 

His mismatched eyes lock on you immediately. The rubber-duck cup pauses halfway to his mouth.

 

“Well, well,” he drawls, flipping right-side up with a snap that makes the air smell like cotton candy and ozone. “The little void comes visiting. To what do I owe the displeasure?”

 

You stop at the gate. The animals nearest you—bunnies, birds—edge away without realizing why.

 

“I want to ask you something,” you say. Flat. Small.

 

Discord’s grin widens, sharp as broken glass.

 

“Ask away, my dear harmony-less harbinger. I’m all ears. And antlers. And whatever this is.” He flicks the eagle talon on his left hand.

 

You don’t smile.

 

“How do you do it?” you ask. “Having power like… like you have. God-level. Reality-twisting. But no goals. No place you really fit. Fluttershy’s nice. She gets you now. But before her—what did you do? Just chaos? Games? Terror for fun?”

 

Discord’s grin falters. Just a fraction.

 

He floats down until he’s eye-level with you, towering and mismatched and suddenly quieter.

 

“Before her,” he says, voice softer but still edged with that chaotic lilt, “I ruled. I played. I turned Equestria into my personal playground because boredom is the only thing scarier than oblivion. I made clouds rain chocolate and rivers run backwards and ponies dance until their hooves bled—because if I stopped, I’d have to sit with the fact that nothing mattered and no one wanted me around when I wasn’t entertaining them.”

 

He snaps his fingers. A tiny chocolate raincloud appears over your head, drizzling just enough to darken your mane. You don’t flinch.

 

“It didn’t fix anything,” he continues. “Chaos for chaos’s sake is just… noise. Loud, colorful noise to drown out the silence where belonging should be. I was free. I was powerful. I was alone in a way no prison of stone ever managed.”

 

The cloud vanishes.

 

“Then Fluttershy looked at me—really looked—and didn’t run. Didn’t demand I change completely. Just… offered a place at the table. And suddenly the games weren’t the only thing keeping me from unraveling.”

 

He studies you, head tilted.

 

“You’re not me, little void. You don’t have the chaos itch. You don’t want to play. You just… are. Empty in a way even I never managed. Power won’t fill that for you. Chaos won’t. Terror won’t. Not even friendship, if it feels forced.”

 

He leans closer, voice almost gentle.

 

“Before her, I coped by making the world too loud to hear the quiet. It worked. Barely. But it’s no way to live.”

 

Fluttershy steps out then, wiping her hooves on a towel, smiling softly when she sees you.

 

“Oh! Hello, Anon. Would you like some tea?”

 

You look at her—at the kindness that never quite reaches you the way it reaches everypony else.

 

You shake your head.

 

Discord watches you turn and walk away.

 

Neither of them calls after you.

 

The path back to the Everfree feels longer.

 

The amulet stays silent.

 

And the quiet follows you all the way into the trees, louder than any chaos Discord ever made.

 

===

 

You drift back to the castle more often now, not out of want but because the Everfree’s honesty has started to feel like another kind of noise. The spite changelings’ grinding hum carries farther each week, a low vibration you feel in your hooves even when you’re miles away. Their borders push outward in slow, deliberate increments—resin spires rising overnight, patrols claiming new ridges without fanfare or declaration.

 

Equestria notices.

 

You sit in the map room sometimes, invisible in the corner shadows while Twilight pores over fresh reports. Her quill scratches frantic notes as royal guards describe black-carapace delegations turning away Equestrian survey teams at the forest edge with nothing more than cold stares and serrated wings. No violence. No demands. Just refusal.

 

Celestia sends envoys—carefully chosen unicorns wrapped in diplomatic banners and polite smiles. They return sooner than expected, ears flat, voices quiet. The spite changelings meet them at newly carved border stones, listen to offers of trade or truce or shared knowledge, and answer with the same flat certainty: we require nothing from you.

 

No threats. No boasting. Just the quiet pride of creatures who have stopped measuring their worth by pony approval.

 

Luna’s night scouts report the same. Shadowed flights over the expanding hive reveal no preparations for invasion—only expansion for its own sake. Brood chambers deepening. Fungus gardens spreading. Weapons forged from resin and bone, but stacked unused. The empire grows because it can, not because it must conquer to survive.

 

Twilight paces during council meetings you eavesdrop on from the vents. She speaks of containment strategies and friendship outreach, but her voice wavers. The old playbook—offer love, demonstrate harmony, wait for transformation—fails against a foe that feeds on the memory of every rejected olive branch.

 

Border incidents remain rare and bloodless. A lost pegasus foal wanders too close and is escorted back to the edge by two silent drones—no harm, no ransom, no message beyond the implicit warning. A royal cartographer’s team finds their maps altered overnight—new hive boundaries etched in frost-green resin over old pony trails. No sabotage. Just statement: this is ours now.

 

Chrysalis sends no ambassadors to Canterlot. No demands. No ultimatums. The silence itself becomes the diplomacy: we exist. We endure. We need nothing from your light.

 

Equestria responds with wary distance. Patrols along the Everfree double, but orders are strict—no provocation. Trade routes skirt wider around the forest. Ponyville parents warn foals away from the trees with new urgency. The spite empire is not at war. It simply does not negotiate.

 

You watch Twilight’s maps fill with cautious red lines marking the expanding black. You listen to her mutter about the impossibility of diplomacy with a nation that thrives on indifference.

 

Then more reports reach Twilight’s castle—whispers from border guards, hurried letters from Cloudsdale pegasi who fly supply routes near the eastern peaks. Griffonstone stirs. Not with the old greed for lost gold, but with something sharper. Curiosity. Calculation.

 

Griffonstone’s griffons have never bowed easily to pony harmony. Their city clings to jagged cliffs like a broken crown, proud even in ruin. They hoard bits and memories of glory, scorning the bright songs and open hooves Equestria offers. Strength earns their respect; weakness earns contempt. When Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash visited years ago, dragging recipes for griffon scones behind them like reluctant gifts, the improvement was marginal at best—enough to keep bellies fuller, roofs patched, but not enough to remake a people who measure worth in talon and pride, not hugs.

 

The fact holds true, etched in every cynical glare from Grandpa Gruff and every guarded nod from Gilda.

 

Now those same griffons look westward, toward the Everfree’s deepening black.

 

A delegation wings its way across the borderlands—small, deliberate, unannounced. Grandpa Gruff leads, feathers molting but eyes sharp as ever. Gilda flies at his flank, taller now, quieter, her gaze measuring distances the way a hunter measures prey. A handful of younger griffons follow, talons clutching rolled parchments and samples of their best scones wrapped in oiled cloth—offerings, not tribute.

 

They land at the edge of the spite empire’s newest resin ridge. No banners. No diplomatic flourishes. Just the heavy beat of wings and the scrape of talons on black stone.

 

Spite drones meet them without surprise. Matte carapaces gleam dully in the filtered light. Frost-green eyes regard the visitors with the same cold certainty they offer every outsider. No hostility. No welcome. Just presence.

 

Grandpa Gruff steps forward, voice gravel and wind.

 

“We heard about your… changes,” he rasps. “No more sneaking. No more begging pony scraps. You build. You hunt. You take what’s yours and need nothing from anybird else.”

 

A lead drone tilts its head. Wings remain folded, serrated edges catching faint light.

 

“We endure,” it answers, voice low and grinding. “We require nothing from those who once called us monsters.”

 

Gilda’s eyes narrow, but there is recognition in them. Respect, even.

 

“That’s what we came to see,” she says. “Griffonstone’s been scraping by on pony charity and old stories too long. Scones pay bills, but they don’t buy pride. You’ve got pride. Real pride. The kind that doesn’t ask permission.”

 

The drones do not smile. They do not need to.

 

Grandpa Gruff unwraps a scone, offers it—not as gift, but as gesture between equals.

 

“We’re not here for friendship lessons,” he grunts. “We’re here to talk strength. Trade. Borders. Maybe more. You don’t need ponies. We’re tired of pretending we do.”

 

The lead drone accepts the scone. Bites. Chews slowly. The resin ridge hums faintly beneath their talons, the empire’s heartbeat steady and cold.

 

Chrysalis emerges then, stepping from shadowed archways taller than any griffon wingspan. Her frost-edged mane catches what little light dares enter her domain. She regards the delegation with the calm of a queen who has stopped measuring power by conquest and started measuring it by refusal.

 

“You fly far to speak of pride,” she says, voice smooth and venom-cold. “We share that tongue. But understand: we trade only with those who bring something we cannot take ourselves. And we take nothing that requires gratitude.”

 

Grandpa Gruff meets her gaze without flinching.

 

“We bring talons that remember how to fight for what’s ours,” he answers. “And eyes that see pony harmony for the leash it is.”

 

Silence stretches, heavy as resin.

 

No immediate alliance forms. No grand declarations echo through the spires.

 

But the delegation does not leave empty-taloned. They depart with samples of hardened resin tools—blades that do not dull, armor light as feather and strong as spite. The drones receive crates of griffon scones and rolled maps of eastern peaks rich in untapped ore.

 

Small exchanges. Honest ones.

 

No promises of friendship.

 

Just the quiet recognition between creatures who have learned the same lesson at different costs: strength needs no permission, and pride is worth more than any pony smile.

 

You then hear more rumors from the wind that howls down from the northern peaks—cold, blunt, carrying the distant crash of something massive being smashed in approval rather than rage. Twilight’s latest stack of reports confirms it weeks later, parchments stamped with yak hoofprints and sealed in rough wax. Yakyakistan has taken notice of the spite empire.

 

The yaks have always been a people apart. Their attitudes and beliefs are rooted deep in snow and stone: pride as immovable as their mountains, traditions that must be followed to the letter, perfection demanded in every horn-carving and snow sculpture. Anything less than perfect is smashed without hesitation. They do not bend easily to outside ways; pony harmony once nearly shattered an alliance because Pinkie Pie’s party cave was not “yak enough.” Only her sacrifice—destroying her own treasures to mirror yak honesty—earned their respect. They value strength, authenticity, and the unyielding adherence to what is theirs. Weakness offends them. Pretense offends them more.

 

This is fact, etched in every episode of yak fury and eventual, hard-won camaraderie.

 

Now those same yaks look south toward the Everfree’s black spires with something closer to recognition than fear.

 

A delegation arrives unannounced, as yaks do—hooves thundering across frozen borders, horns lowered not in charge but in blunt greeting. Prince Rutherford leads, massive and bellowing, flanked by warriors whose braided manes rattle with bone beads. They carry no gifts wrapped in pony politeness. Only crude sleds loaded with carved yak horns, barrels of fermented snowberry mash, and slabs of smoked mountain goat—offerings that say strength shared, not charity begged.

 

The spite changelings meet them at a newly raised resin gate on the northern fringe. Drones stand silent, frost-green eyes unblinking. Chrysalis emerges atop a jagged archway, wings mantled, regarding the yaks with the calm of a queen who has nothing to prove.

 

Rutherford stomps forward, voice booming like avalanche.

 

“Yaks hear of changelings who smash pony lies! No more hiding! No more begging love scraps! You take pride! You build strong! Yaks like strong!”

 

A drone steps aside, allowing passage without ceremony.

 

Chrysalis descends slowly. Her voice carries the grinding cold of her new sustenance.

 

“We endure without permission,” she answers. “We require nothing from those who sing of friendship while hoarding it.”

 

Rutherford laughs—a sound like boulders colliding.

 

“Yaks know pony songs! Pretty words! Then smash when not perfect! You smash pretense instead. Good smash!”

 

No long speeches follow. No treaties signed in flowing script. The yaks are invited inside—not as supplicants, but as creatures who understand the value of unapologetic existence. They feast in vast resin halls on mash and goat, smashing empty barrels in approval when the spite drones demonstrate how a single memory of rejection can fuel a drone for weeks. The yaks roar approval. Barrels shatter. Resin echoes.

 

Trade begins quietly. Yak horn and bone for hardened resin tools that do not dull in snow. Fermented mash for fungus brews that burn cold in the gut. Border patrols share ridges, exchanging nods rather than words. When a pony survey team strays too close to the shared northern edge, yak warriors and spite drones turn them back together—one with bellowed warnings, the other with silent, freezing stares.

 

No formal alliance is declared. Yaks do not sign papers. Spite changelings do not need them.

 

But the northern border grows quieter. Stronger. Two peoples who measure worth in endurance and pride rather than harmony find they have no need to clash.

 

Twilight’s reports grow thicker with worry. Celestia sends cautious letters to Yakyakistan, reminding Rutherford of old friendships. He smashes the scroll in reply—not in rage, but in blunt dismissal—and sends back a single carved horn etched with one word: STRONG.

 

===

 

The spite empire no longer hides its growth; black resin spires rise bold against the sky, and patrols move with the unhurried certainty of creatures who have nothing left to prove. Word travels slowly through the trees, carried by displaced predators and wary zebra rhymes, but it reaches even Ponyville’s brighter streets: Griffonstone and Yakyakistan have turned their eyes southward.

 

The relations begin as recognition rather than alliance. Griffons and yaks have never fully bent to pony harmony. Griffonstone clings to its jagged pride, measuring worth in talon and treasure rather than shared smiles; even after Pinkie Pie’s scones eased their hunger, they accepted help with gritted beaks, resentful of the implication that they needed saving. Yakyakistan demands perfection in its own image—anything less is smashed—and pony parties, however well-meaning, once nearly shattered a treaty because they were not yak enough. Both peoples value strength that stands alone, pride that asks no permission, authenticity that refuses to soften its edges for Celestia’s program of friendship and change.

 

The spite empire offers something they understand without translation: endurance forged from rejection, power that feeds on scorn rather than approval. No sermons about opening hearts. No demands to transform into something brighter and more palatable. Just the quiet example of a nation that thrives without pony intervention.

 

Griffon delegations return more often, wings cutting clean lines across the sky. They bring ore samples and forged talons, receive resin blades in return that never dull against mountain wind. Conversations are blunt—tales of pony charity accepted only when it served griffon pride, stories of old glories reclaimed without begging. Spite drones listen with frozen eyes, sharing in turn how rejection became sustenance. No treaties are signed; griffons do not bow to paper, and the empire needs no oaths. Trade grows because both sides see profit in tools that honor strength, not sentiment.

 

Yaks thunder south in greater numbers, sleds heavy with horn carvings and barrels that crash satisfyingly when emptied in approval. They smash resin cups in celebration when drones demonstrate how a single memory of pony disdain can fuel flight for days. Rutherford bellows laughter that echoes through new halls, declaring the empire “strong like yak!” in a voice that needs no harmony to carry. Joint patrols form along northern ridges—yak warriors and spite drones turning back pony surveyors with bellowed warnings and silent stares. The message is the same: we stand as we are.

 

Shared belief binds them without ceremony. Pride and strength matter more than pony promises of friendship. Neither griffons nor yaks wish to change to “get with Celestia’s program”; they desire to be strong on their own terms, without intervention that demands they soften or share what was never freely given. The spite empire embodies that refusal perfectly—it exists unapologetically, feeding on the very scorn once directed at it, needing nothing from harmony’s light.

 

Equestria watches the warming relations with growing unease. Twilight’s maps fill with cautious markings as trade routes shift, as joint border stones rise unmarked by pony magic. Celestia sends careful letters reminding old allies of shared history; they return unread or smashed. No war brews. No grand coalition forms against harmony. Just three peoples finding common ground in the simple truth that strength needs no permission, and pride is worth more than any forced smile.

 

You walk the borders sometimes, small green shadow unnoticed by griffon wings or yak hooves. The hum feels steadier now, joined by distant hawk cries and avalanche laughter.

 

The world tilts further from its bright center.

 

And harmony learns, slowly, that not every neighbor wishes to join the song.

 

===

 

Chrysalis stands atop the highest spire of her expanding empire, frost-edged wings mantled against the cold wind that howls through the Everfree’s upper canopy. Below her, the resin halls thrum with steady activity—drones forging new blades from blackened secretion, patrols returning with fresh kills, grubs curling in chambers that need no stolen love to warm them. The spite flows through it all, dense and immutable, a sustenance that asks nothing of the outside world.

 

Her gaze drifts northward and eastward, where yak thunder and griffon wings have become familiar sounds on the wind. The delegations come more often now, bringing their blunt offerings and sharper questions. She reflects on them with the calm certainty of a queen who has finally shed the last chains of desperation.

 

The yaks and griffons are kin, in a way her old hunger never allowed her to recognize. They do not bow to pony harmony. They do not reshape themselves to fit Celestia’s bright mold. They demand the right to exist on their own terms—yaks smashing anything that fails their standard of perfection, griffons clutching pride like the last golden bit in a ruined treasury. They resent the intervention that comes wrapped in smiles and lessons, the demand to change, to soften, to share what was never freely given. Like her changelings once did, they have scraped by on the edges of pony generosity, accepting help only when it served their survival, never their soul.

 

Now they look to her empire and see a mirror.

 

Chrysalis feels no sentimental warmth for them. Sentiment is a pony weakness. But she recognizes the shared refusal—the quiet, grinding pride that says we will thrive without your approval. The spite empire needs nothing they bring to flourish. Food is hunted. Ore is claimed from deeper earth. Information flows from the forest itself. Their barrels of mash and crates of horn are pleasant additions, not necessities. Accepting them costs nothing she cannot afford to lose; refusing them would cost the subtle advantage of eyes and talons beyond her borders.

 

In return, she gives them weapons and armor forged from spite-hardened resin. Unbreakable. Unyielding. No maintenance required—no sharpening, no repair, no weakening over time. The endurance of scorn made manifest. For creatures who measure worth in strength, this is priceless. Yak warriors can charge into blizzards with blades that never dull. Griffon mercenaries can dive through storms with armor that never cracks. Logistics simplified to a single truth: the weapon endures because the wielder’s pride endures.

 

They take these gifts without gratitude that demands repayment. No pony-style debt of friendship. Just the honest exchange between peoples who understand that strength shared is strength multiplied, not surrendered.

 

Chrysalis turns her gaze inward, to the cold stone in every changeling gut that grows heavier with every distant pony sigh of disappointment. The yaks and griffons add their own layers now—tales of rejected alliances, of charity that tasted like chains. The empire grows not through conquest, but through resonance.

 

She feels, for the first time, the satisfaction of kin recognized—not in love, not in need, but in the shared refusal to ask permission to exist.

 

The wind howls colder.

 

The spires rise higher.

 

And Chrysalis smiles, fangs gleaming in frost-green light, knowing her empire stands stronger for neighbors who understand the true value of pride.

 

===

 

Far beyond the Everfree’s choking green, where the land cracks open into scorched earth and rivers of lava crawl like living veins, the Dragon Lands stir. Smoke rises thicker from volcanic vents, carrying the distant roar of wings and the clang of claws on stone. Dragon Lord Ember stands atop her father’s old perch—now hers—gazing southward through the haze. Reports have reached her on wings of younger dragons who flew too close to the forest’s edge, drawn by the unnatural black spires piercing the canopy like broken obsidian fangs.

 

They speak of changelings changed.

 

Not the colorful, fluttering swarm that Thorax leads—those soft, reformed things that hoard love like shiny trinkets and sing pony songs. No. These are different. Matte black. Frost-green eyes. Armor and weapons that never break, never dull, forged from something colder than dragonfire. A species that once infiltrated and begged for emotional scraps now stands self-sustained, pride carved into every resin ridge, endurance humming in every wingbeat.

 

Dragons understand this language.

 

Ember listens to the scouts—Garble among them, older now, scars deeper, voice rougher with reluctant respect. They describe patrols that do not flee dragon shadow, borders that expand without declaration, a quiet certainty that says we take what we need and owe nothing to any creature’s approval.

 

Dragons have always valued strength that stands alone. Hoards are not shared lightly. Territory is claimed with fire and claw. Pony friendship lessons reached them once—Ember herself opened the door a crack, allowing trade and tentative alliances—but the old ways linger. Greed is growth. Pride is survival. Weakness is scorched earth. They remember changelings as sneaky thieves, skulking in disguise for love like scavengers picking at dragon leftovers.

 

Now those same creatures thrive without begging.

 

Garble snorts smoke, eyes narrowed. “They don’t ask. They don’t bow. They just… are. And their gear—blades that laugh at dragonfire wear. Armor that shrugs off lava splash. No fixing. No forging new. Just endures.”

 

Ember’s tail lashes, cracking stone. She feels the pull—the recognition of a people who turned rejection into armor. Dragons do not need pony harmony to persist. They take gems because gems are theirs by right of strength. They hoard because sharing weakens the hoard. The spite empire mirrors this: self-sustained, proud, taking what they want with the quiet certainty that no one can make them beg again.

 

Interest kindles like ember in dry tinder.

 

A delegation forms—small, deliberate, dragon-sized. Ember leads, wings broad, scepter gripped loosely but ready. Garble and a handful of others follow, carrying no tribute that smells of weakness. Only samples of dragon-forged steel and raw gems pulled fresh from volcanic veins—offerings between equals, not supplicants.

 

They land at the empire’s southern edge, where resin meets scorched earth. Heat shimmers between them. Spite drones meet them without fear—frost eyes steady against dragon glare. Chrysalis emerges atop a spire that overlooks the lava plains, wings mantled, regarding the dragons with the calm of a queen who has nothing to prove.

 

Ember steps forward, voice rumbling like distant eruption.

 

“We heard of changelings who stopped crawling for scraps,” she says. “Who turned pony scorn into something that burns colder than greed. Your weapons don’t break. Your pride doesn’t bend. Dragons respect that.”

 

Chrysalis’s smile is slow, sharp, frost-edged.

 

“We endure,” she answers. “We require nothing from those who demand we change to earn their light.”

 

Ember’s eyes narrow, but there is recognition there. Respect.

 

“We don’t change for ponies either,” she replies. “We take. We hoard. We stand. Your endurance interests us. Your unbreakable tools interest us more.”

 

No long negotiations follow. Dragons do not waste breath on pretty words. Samples are exchanged—dragon steel for resin blades that shrug off magma, gems for armor plates that need no repair. Conversations are blunt: tales of pony interventions politely refused, of strength measured in what you keep rather than what you share.

 

Trade begins quietly. Dragonfire-forged goods for spite-hardened equipment that simplifies war logistics to a single truth: the weapon lasts as long as the wielder’s pride. Joint patrols form along the southern lava borders—dragons soaring overhead, drones marching below—turning back any pony scout with flame and frost in equal measure.

 

No formal alliance is declared. Dragons do not sign treaties. The spite empire needs no oaths.

 

But the southern border grows hotter. Stronger. Two peoples who measure worth in endurance and pride find they have no need to clash.

 

The Dragon Lands watch the black spires rise higher.

 

And the world tilts further, as fire finds kinship in frost.

 

===

 

In the highest chamber of Canterlot Castle, where the stained-glass windows depict victories bathed in eternal sunlight, five ponies gather around a table that has borne the weight of too many crises. Celestia sits at the head, her mane dimmer than memory allows. Luna stands beside her, stars in her coat moving slower than usual. Twilight paces, wings twitching with every step. Cadence sits with hooves folded tight, the Crystal Heart’s distant pulse uneasy in her chest. Shining Armor stands at attention, jaw set, but his eyes betray the same quiet alarm they all share.

 

The map before them is no longer the bright, friendly Cutie Map. It is a military chart now—borders marked in cautious red, trade routes crossed out or rerouted, new lines drawn in black ink that seems to drink the light.

 

Twilight breaks the silence first, voice thin with the strain of too many sleepless nights.

 

“They don’t need us anymore.”

 

Celestia does not look up from the map. “They never truly did,” she says quietly. “We told ourselves they did. We offered help, lessons, friendship, and called it salvation. But Griffonstone accepted our scones with gritted beaks. Yakyakistan tolerated our parties only when we learned to smash with them. The dragons opened their borders a crack and never let us forget it was their choice.”

 

Luna’s gaze is fixed on the southern reaches, where the Dragon Lands meet the Everfree’s black fringe. “And now they look to Chrysalis’s empire and see a mirror. Strength that asks no permission. Pride that feeds on rejection rather than approval. Trade that demands no gratitude. Weapons that endure because the wielders refuse to break.”

 

Shining Armor’s hoof comes down hard enough to rattle the inkpots. “It’s not just trade,” he says. “It’s recognition. Griffons fly south with ore and take back resin blades that never dull. Yaks thunder in with mash and horn and leave with armor that shrugs off blizzard and battle alike. Dragons send steel and gems and receive tools that need no repair—logistical superiority we can’t match without constant forging and maintenance. They’re not allying against us. They’re simply… ceasing to need us.”

 

Cadence’s voice is soft, but it cuts deeper than anger. “We taught them friendship was the only way to thrive. We showed them harmony as the highest strength. And now they watch a nation built on the opposite principle—self-dependence forged from scorn—and see it working. They see themselves in it. And they choose it.”

 

Twilight stops pacing. Her wings droop.

 

“Diplomatic ties are fraying,” she says. “Letters returned unread. Invitations declined without explanation. Joint festivals canceled because ‘strength does not celebrate with those who demand change.’ We’re not at war. We’re just… irrelevant.”

 

Celestia finally lifts her eyes. The sun outside seems to hesitate on the horizon, as if waiting for her command it no longer fully trusts.

 

“We built a world where harmony was the only acceptable path,” she says. “We offered it as salvation to every creature who struggled. And now a path has opened that rejects salvation entirely. One that says: we will endure without you. We will thrive without changing for you. And it is spreading.”

 

Luna’s voice is low, almost wondering. “The spite empire does not conquer. It resonates. And creatures who have always chafed under our light are answering the call.”

 

Silence settles, heavy as winter snow.

 

No one speaks of war. No one suggests force. They have learned, over centuries, that harmony imposed is no harmony at all.

 

They only watch the map, where black lines grow bolder and red lines retreat.

 

===

 

Thorax stands on the highest balcony of the reformed hive, wings folded tight against his shimmering carapace as he watches the distant black spires pierce the Everfree canopy like frozen flames. The colors of his hive glow softly around him—pastel blues and pinks and greens pulsing with shared love, laughter drifting up from the chambers below where changelings play and feast and embrace without reservation. It should feel like victory. It does, most days.

 

But not today.

 

Reports filter in on iridescent wings: the spite empire expands without war, without conquest, without need. They hunt. They build. They trade with griffons, yaks, dragons on terms of blunt equality—no gratitude demanded, no change required. Those same races, once grudging recipients of pony aid, now resonate with Chrysalis’s cold mirror. They see creatures who turned scorn into sustenance, who thrive on the very rejection Equestria once offered as proof of their monstrosity. Griffons fly south with straighter wings. Yaks thunder in with louder approval. Dragons send smoke signals of interest. All of them drawn to a nation that asks no permission to exist.

 

Thorax feels the doubt settle in his chest like a stone he cannot transform away.

 

He chose love. He chose sharing. He believed it was freedom—the bright, open freedom to be accepted as they were, once the masks came off and the colors bloomed. Ponies embraced them. Festivals welcomed them. Foals no longer flinched at their fangs. It felt like salvation.

 

But now he watches the spite changelings stand unapologetically themselves—black carapaces gleaming without shame, frost eyes steady without plea, pride humming in every wingbeat—and wonders if his freedom came with invisible chains.

 

Some of his own swarm feel it too.

 

In the lower halls, younger changelings gather in quiet clusters, their glow dimmer than usual. They speak in hushed tones of cousins they never met, of a hive that needs no pony smiles to shine. One drone, newly matured, confesses to Thorax in the twilight gardens: “They don’t change for anyling. They don’t soften their edges. They just… are. And the world bends around them instead of demanding they bend. Is that not truer freedom?”

 

Another admits to dreaming in frost-green, waking with the cold weight of memories they never lived—rejections transformed into armor, scorn compressed into endless endurance.

 

Thorax listens. He offers reassurance—the warmth of shared love, the proof of their bright halls—but the words taste thinner now. He remembers his own transformation, the rush of acceptance that felt like flying after centuries of crawling. It was real. It is real.

 

Yet the doubt lingers.

 

The spite empire does not war. It simply exists, resonant and cold, drawing others who have always chafed under harmony’s light. And in that quiet thriving, some reformed changelings see a mirror they cannot unsee: a freedom that requires nothing from the world except the refusal to ask.

 

Thorax watches the black spires rise higher on the horizon.

 

His colors still glow.

 

But the stone in his chest grows heavier.

 

And for the first time, he wonders which path will outlast the other.

 

===

 

Pharynx stands on a patrol ledge of the reformed hive, wings half-spread, eyes narrowed toward the distant black spires that claw at the southern horizon. His carapace still carries the deeper purple hues of his reformation, but the scars from old battles remain—reminders of a time when strength meant fangs bared and no apologies given. He is Thorax’s older brother, fact etched in canon: introduced as the fierce, unreformed defender of the hive in the days before change, skeptical of love-sharing, protective to the point of isolation. He reformed only after Starlight Glimmer’s intervention proved that vulnerability could coexist with survival, taking his place as head of hive security—gruff, tactical, still the one who trains drones to fight even in a world of bright colors and open hearts.

 

Now he watches the spite empire thrive, and the stone in his chest is sharper than his brother’s.

 

He remembers the old ways clearly. The hunger. The disguises. The constant calculation of risk versus reward. He stayed unreformed longer than most, clinging to the belief that softness would doom them. When Thorax’s path proved him wrong—when colors bloomed and pony acceptance followed—he adapted. He protected the new hive with the same ferocity, channeling old instincts into drills and defenses. Love sustains them now. Sharing strengthens them. It works.

 

But the spite empire works too.

 

They do not war. They do not beg. They expand with the quiet certainty of predators who have stopped pretending to be prey. Their weapons never break. Their armor never needs repair. Their pride is a weapon in itself—dense, cold, self-renewing. Griffons, yaks, dragons—all creatures who have always measured worth in talon, horn, and flame—resonate with them. Trade flows. Borders strengthen. No pony lectures required.

 

Pharynx feels the pull like an old wound reopening.

 

He sees in Chrysalis’s changelings what he once fought for: unapologetic existence. Black carapaces worn without shame. Frost eyes that do not plead. Strength that asks no permission and needs no approval to endure. They are themselves—fully, fiercely—without softening a single edge for harmony’s sake.

 

Some nights, during quiet patrols, he wonders if Thorax’s freedom is the truer one. Love is warm. Love is shared. Love opened doors. But those doors came with conditions—change first, then acceptance. Smile brighter. Sing louder. Prove you are no longer monster.

 

The spite empire proves nothing. It simply stands.

 

Pharynx does not voice the doubt aloud. He is loyal. He trains the young drones harder, sharpens defenses against threats that may never come. He tells Thorax the hive is secure, the colors bright, the love strong.

 

But when he looks south, he sees cousins who never had to choose between strength and belonging.

 

They chose strength.

 

And belonging followed on their own terms.

 

The stone in his chest grows heavier.

 

And for the first time since reformation, Pharynx wonders if the old ways were not entirely wrong.

 

===

 

Starlight Glimmer stands at the edge of the Everfree, cloak pulled tight against the chill that seems to seep from the black resin spires now visible even from Ponyville’s outskirts. Her horn glows faintly under the hood—scrying spells woven thin and careful, the kind Twilight taught her for “diplomatic observation” but which feel more like spying every time she uses them. She tells herself it’s necessary. Somepony has to look closer when the official reports start sounding like surrender.

 

She has been watching for weeks.

 

First the griffons—Gilda and Grandpa Gruff flying south with crates that clink like forged metal, returning with resin-wrapped bundles that gleam cold even in sunlight. Then the yaks—Rutherford’s thunderous caravans crossing borders without the old wary glances at pony escorts, sleds loaded heavier on the return trip. Now dragons—Ember herself seen once, silhouette unmistakable against the horizon, landing at the empire’s southern gate and leaving with samples that smoke but do not melt.

 

Starlight’s spells catch fragments: conversations in blunt languages, no pretty words, no friendship lectures. Just recognition. Trade. Pride.

 

She feels it like a hoof to the chest.

 

She knows this song. She wrote a verse of it once.

 

Equality by force. Cutie marks removed because difference bred resentment, because some had more and others scraped by. She told herself it was fairness. She told herself ponies would be happier without the weight of specialness. She built a town on the refusal to ask permission for a different way.

 

And she was wrong.

 

Harmony—messy, bright, demanding—proved stronger. Friendship—unequal, unpredictable, generous—filled the holes her system left. She changed. She learned. She grew.

 

But watching the spite empire resonate with griffons, yaks, dragons—watching them choose a mirror of strength that needs no pony approval—she feels the old certainty stir like a nightmare she thought banished.

 

They are thriving.

 

Not through conquest. Not through war. Through simple, cold refusal: we will not change for you. We will not soften. We will take scorn and make it armor. And other creatures—creatures who have always chafed under harmony’s gentle yoke—are answering the call.

 

Starlight’s scrying spell flickers over a recent exchange: a yak warrior testing a resin blade against dragonforged steel, laughing as it holds without a scratch. No maintenance. No weakness. Endless endurance because the wielder refuses to break.

 

She remembers her old equal sign cutie mark—forced sameness as strength. This is different. This is unapologetic difference as strength. No demand that others conform. Just the quiet example: stand as you are, and the world will learn to step aside.

 

It terrifies her more than Chrysalis’s old invasions ever did.

 

Because invasions can be repelled. Rainbow power works on hunger.

 

But resonance?

 

How do you fight a truth that works?

 

Starlight ends the spell. The forest edge feels colder. She thinks of Thorax’s worried letters, of Pharynx’s silence, of Twilight’s pacing. She thinks of her own past—how close she came to building something that looked a lot like this empire, only wrapped in smiles instead of frost.

 

She does not know the answer yet.

 

But she knows she will keep watching.

 

Because somepony has to understand what happens when the world discovers it can stand without harmony’s light.

 

And because part of her—small, buried, ashamed—recognizes the appeal.

 

===

 

Discord floats above the chaos of his own dimension—a teacup upside-down pouring upward into a cloud shaped like Celestia’s disapproving face—when the ripples reach him. Not pony magic. Not harmony’s tidy glow. Something colder. Grinding. Deliciously stubborn.

 

He snaps his fingers and appears above the Everfree, invisible for once, just to watch.

 

Black spires claw higher than before. Resin gleams like frozen venom. Drones patrol with wings that cut the air without apology. And beyond the borders—griffons banking sharp turns with resin blades strapped to talons, yaks thundering across snow with armor that shrugs off blizzards, dragons soaring south with crates of unbreakable tools clutched in claws.

 

All of them trading. Growing. Thriving.

 

Without a single friendship lesson.

 

Discord’s grin stretches wider than physics allows.

 

He remembers his own reign—cotton-candy clouds, chocolate rain, rivers running backward, ponies dancing until their hooves bled. Chaos for chaos’s sake. No need for approval. No begging for love or harmony. Just the sheer, stubborn refusal to fit Celestia’s neat little mold.

 

They stoned him for it.

 

Twice.

 

Now he watches creatures do the same—not with chaos, but with spite. Cold. Dense. Self-sustaining. Turning every rejected olive branch, every smug pony smile, every demand to change into armor. Pride forged from the very scorn harmony once offered as proof of their unworthiness.

 

And it works.

 

Griffonstone sharpens its talons without pony scones as crutches. Yakyakistan smashes perfection on its own terms. Dragons hoard with greed unsoftened by friendship speeches. The spite empire stands at the center, needing nothing from Celestia’s light, and the others orbit closer—not out of love, but recognition.

 

Discord feels something almost like nostalgia.

 

He was the first to say no. To refuse the program. To thrive outside the light until they forced him back in with stone and rainbows and, eventually, one pegasus who looked at him without flinching.

 

Fluttershy made the quiet bearable.

 

But watching this new stubbornness spread—this cold refusal blooming into empires—he wonders.

 

What if he’d had allies back then? Not begging for scraps of chaos, but standing unapologetically beside him, feeding on the same rejection?

 

Celestia’s harmony once claimed the only path to thriving was her path.

 

Now the world answers: no.

 

Discord’s laughter echoes across the treetops—sharp, delighted, a little wistful.

 

He doesn’t join them. He’s reformed, after all. Tea parties. Friendship reports. The occasional sanctioned prank.

 

But he watches.

 

And for the first time in centuries, the spirit of chaos feels the thrill of seeing harmony’s light cast long, cold shadows where other things learn to grow.

 

The world tilts.

 

And Discord floats in the balance, grinning at the crack.