Family of Chaos (14) End (Patreon)

Hurricane spent her first few days helping turn the abandoned old property into something ponies could live in. There was something soothing that came from the repetition of simple chores, in sweeping and stacking and hanging. They fixed broken boards, painted, and hung displays.

Rarity's boxes weren't just huge, they were packed to the brim, and unloaded into a fully-fledged shop. There wasn't just inventory and mannequins inside, but all the sewing machinery, patterns, and tools to make more.

She'd thought far less of the other essentials to make a place into a home, but that was where Twilight came in.

Soon enough the upper levels were comfortable. There were pans in the kitchen and food on the shelves. If it wasn't for the company, Hurricane probably would've just thought of the trip as the same kind she took every lifetime, rebuilding somewhere new and starting over.

But working with the two unicorns, the process was far faster, at the cost of stealth.

Usually, Hurricane Force spent her first few years without attracting much notice. She learned the local customs, got to know the important ponies, and worked whatever jobs were open to new applicants. That way, she could build up a name for herself so slowly that nopony would ever think of her as an outsider. Most of her workers back in Wingapore probably thought she was born there.

Twilight and Rarity made that impossible, even if her transformation might have otherwise enabled it. A pair of strange unicorns, giant payments of bits straight from Canterlot's treasury—there was no keeping secret.

She still tried. Hurricane made her way out with her second sunrise in Hollow Shades, stepping out onto the balcony overlooking the town. It was built almost directly below the canopy level, leaving it in deep shadow and making the sun visible only faintly from between the leaves.

Instead of a town teeming with life, she found a small smattering of ponies down there, with only the largest shops open. Hurricane suppressed a yawn, then spread her wings. The strange light was already playing tricks on her sleep cycle. At least the princess didn't send me to the arctic.

Her wings didn't move the way she expected, with joints in different places and strange ways of catching the air. She managed to glide down to market level anyway, even if her landing was a little ungraceful.

Lifetimes of flight experience and you're making me start over.

She'd pick the skills up quickly if she put her mind to it, she was sure. But Hurricane Force still planned on reversing the transformation soon. Why bother learning when the problem would take care of itself?

She attracted only a few odd looks as she landed, mostly from earth ponies. A group seemed to be gathering near a set of steps, each one with identical saddlebags and hooked poles on their backs.

She approached one in back, putting on the friendliest smile she could. "Morning! Beautiful day in Hollow Shades, isn't it?"

The earth pony mare was about her own visible age, and had far fewer patches on her vest than most others. That probably made her a junior member of whatever company this was. "Sure is!" She turned, then saw Hurricane's wings. "I don't know you. Must be that new bat down from Canterlot."

She nodded. Easier to accept the partially-incorrect story than correct it. "Looks that way, yeah. What are you ponies up to? Anything fun?"

"On some days," said another pony ahead of the first in line. This was a stallion, about the same age. "Looks like it's gonna be another scorcher out there. But you won't notice. Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Probably hasn't adapted to the schedule yet, Onyx," said the mare. "Canterlot doesn't have very many bats. The whole city is up at one time, instead of two."

"Alright everypony, out we go! Harvesting time!" The mare at the front of the line lifted one hoof, pointing down the steps. "You can make new friends when you're off shift, come on!"

"Sorry," the young mare said, turning to go. "Guess we'll see you around! Welcome to Hollow Shades! It's a great place, especially for thestrals like you. You'll love it here!" They vanished down the steps, descending to the forest below. Each one took the poles off their backs as they went, revealing a sharp blade on the end.

Hurricane made another slow circuit of the village, walking past each of the three central platforms. Theirs was the largest, but there were two others at different altitudes, both higher. Despite what the mayor said, neither of those had any easy ways for ponies without wings to reach them, only a perilous ladder that nopony short of Daring Do would attempt to climb.

Neither of those platforms had any shops open yet, just lots of signs proclaiming they would “open at moonrise.”

She rested near a bench, suppressing another involuntary yawn. She wasn't supposed to curl up and wait for the magic to fail, right? Hurricane Force hadn't spent the last thousand years drifting. She needed motion, change, exploration!

She glared sideways at her bat wings. So much for starting another weather factory. Can't do that without weather magic. There was no reply.

There aren't enough pegasus ponies to make a factory work anyway. No wonder Hollow Shades had to make do with wild weather, they had no other choice.

Hollow Shades did have one promising place to scout for new information—a public notice board near city hall, covered with fliers and posters in various stages of sun-bleaching. Of them all, only one caught her eye—an excavation soliciting brave ponies to explore the ruins of ancient thestral cities near Hollow Shades. It even said bats were preferred!

She took the oldest and most faded copy of the flier down from the board, tucking it under one wing. But she couldn't check if they were still hiring—they wouldn't open until moonrise.

She landed outside Rarity's shop, just as both unicorns emerged from within. They levitated large paint buckets between them, along with various brushes and rollers.

"Hurricane!" Rarity said, grinning. "Just the mare we hoped to find. Want to help with some painting? I simply can't imagine opening with the exterior looking so... drab."

Whatever the front of the shop had once been, only flakes of paint remained, peeling to reveal bark underneath. Only the biggest shops had color, most settled for planter boxes or flags hung nearby. Obviously that wouldn't be good enough for Rarity.

"Course." She spread both wings. "But don't ask for the small details. I'm still re-learning how to fly."

"That shouldn't be a problem." Rarity settled her buckets atop the waiting painter's cloth, then popped open the lids. "We're doing the base coat for now. Everything is white, except the window. Perhaps you could start at the top and work your way down?"

"I can try." She struggled to lift a roller with her wing, but it slipped back to the ground. She would have to use her mouth for painting today, apparently.

The work was exhausting—far worse than it had any right to be, given she was only helping with a simple chore. But everything about her new wings made the task more difficult, draining her stamina rapidly.

That, and the frustrating need to keep the brush in her mouth for the entire job. It meant she could only listen as Twilight and Rarity discussed their plans. Twilight needed to be ready to leave when the next train visited, while Rarity was settling in for a long stay.

"I know my little sister will be sorry to see me away for so long. Our parents are... more than a little absent-minded. But for such a good cause, I simply had no other choice!"

They finished the first coat around noon, and trotted back inside for some rest and refreshments. And with every moment she spent in Hollow Shades, Hurricane felt more confident in her decision to stay. Yes, this would work out perfectly. She could spend a few years living here, running Rarity's store and getting to know the local bats.

If anyone would be willing to take her in, it would be the outcast thestrals. They knew what it was like to have ponies hate them because of how they looked.

She could do this.

[hr]

Hurricane lived a long time in Hollow Shades. Years were never something she cared about, given her ancient origin and immortality. One day was much like a thousand others. Yet these years were spent differently than anywhere she had lived in Equestria before.

For the first time, she was honest with ponies about what she was—not a pony, despite how she looked. She was a creature of chaos and would eventually look like one. A few close friends even learned about her efforts to use as much of her magic as possible, so it couldn't come overflowing by accident.

The more she got to know the ponies and other creatures of Hollow Shades, the more she felt as though she had a reason to use her magic, and less excuse needed to burn it away on whatever silly thing happened to come up. Maybe a pony was sick with something that had no cure, or maybe the village was attacked by strange monsters that rampaged their way up from the untamed wilderness to the south.

Hurricane had the answer to both, and other things besides. She was an ancient being of incalculable magic, well beyond the affairs of a little town of ponies. She gave them all the magic she had and made many friends in return.

Eventually, her magic finally failed her, and so did the pony disguise. They saw her for who she really was.

There were no riots, no dead ponies in the streets, or really much trouble at all. The thestrals were a little intimidated at first, but none of her new friends cared terribly much about the change. The most she ever got were questions about whether or not she was actually Discord, given he had popped up in newspapers a few times by then.

Once she told them no, that was all it took. Ponies moved on, more amused by the change than they were frightened.

If anything, it was Hurricane herself who had the most trouble with the transformation. She might really look like a Draconequus, a haphazard assemblage of genetics from across many worlds. But she felt like a pony.

Chaos magic could do some incredible things, including change how she looked. So long as she could do it without repressing her magic again and creating unsafe outbursts of chaos—it wasn't really that hard. She could be a pony when it suited her, and her natural self when she needed to be.

Eventually, the day came that she hosted the monarchs of Equestria, led by the night princess and many bats in escort. They visited her shop, spoke with many ponies around the city, before the two came alone into the shop, locking the door behind them.

Rarity's shop was not the same place it had been when she first set it up. The ceilings were higher now, for obvious reasons. Likewise, many of the fashions were suited to bats more than other creatures. Everything had wingholes, and often paired well with sunglasses.

"You've come for judgment," Hurricane said, stepping out from the back room. She looked like a bat in that moment, though that didn't mean she followed the usual bat rules. She levitated several boxes of clothes along with her while she walked. A little harmless chaos went a long way to keep her magic under control.

"I'm ready. But if you're going to turn me into a statue, at least let me stand in the fountain in the center of town. I'd like to be able to see everypony."

Princess Celestia sighed, lowering her head to Hurricane. "That was another era, Bedlam. Another life."

"For both of us," Princess Luna added, eyeing her sister. "The world is kinder now, and we kinder with it. Forgiveness is better than conquest."

Hurricane dropped the dress box to the ground beside her. She barely even dared to look up at the princesses, for fear of what she might see. Maybe it was a trick, a lie, some scheme to get her guard down before the death-blow.

The royal ponies had no magic boiling in front of them or spells about to cast. She felt nothing. Besides—these two didn't wield the Elements of Harmony anymore. If they really had come to judge her, they wouldn't be alone.

"I passed?"

"You passed long ago," Luna said. "Those first months following your arrival, we had many watchful eyes. What they reported was a pony who had found a new home. She made friends and did her part for her community."

"On behalf of Equestria, we're offering you the welcome you did not receive many years ago. You've shown you can control your magic and will use it for the benefit of other creatures. So long as you continue to do this, you will be welcome anywhere across Equestria."

How long Hurricane had waited for those words—it felt like its own little eternity, as real as any of those she spent in the uncreated void. Yet this one brought a much more satisfying conclusion to all that pain.

She could resent them for taking so long, and perhaps an older Hurricane would have. But her new self was better than that too, more mature. She was ready to forgive them too.

Before the royal visitors could make their departure, Princess Luna lingered for a few parting words. "You may have heard—your brother is living as a citizen of Equestria too. If you see him, encourage him in his own rehabilitation. Discord has not taken as readily to friendship as you."

My brother. The real reason Equestria had turned on her in the first place, and nearly destroyed her. The reason she spent so many lifetimes in hiding. The ponies had released him at last?

There was no chance she could completely avoid encountering him, of course. Her relationship with the spirit of chaos was older than Equestria by far, filtered through a hundred inexpressible natures that ponies had no names for. They were close, that was the important thing. Whatever disagreements they had in a given universe, she knew he would not stay away.

Hurricane said nothing to her new friends. There was nothing anypony could do to prevent her older brother from making his appearance, now that he was released. If he intended to destroy what she had built, he would be in for a painful surprise. She would not stand by and let him rampage this time around.

That wasn't what happened, though. Discord's arrival was even less dramatic than the Equestrian monarchs’, weeks before. Hurricane was sitting on her balcony in the early morning, enjoying a little warm tea before bed. Until she realized there was someone sitting in the chair beside her, drinking something that was decidedly not tea at all.

"Hello, sister. It's been a long time."

Her disguise was not as complete as it used to be. It would not fool magical probing, even from a unicorn. Her brother's ability to sniff out chaos was far stronger than any unicorn's scrying.

"I heard you were free again," Hurricane said, looking back. "Equestria says you're reformed."

"Oh, I am." He floated towards her, over the open space off the edge of the balcony. At least, it had been open. The balcony stretched and deformed to accommodate it, getting bigger and smaller at strange angles. It might be quite disorienting if she was an ordinary pony. "On the straight and narrow from here on. No more rewriting cosmological constants, no more making living creatures more interesting. It's all friendship and ponies going forward."

Hurricane wasn't a typical pony, though. Hurricane didn't have to look away to keep from getting confused.

"I won't let you hurt anypony here," she said, keeping her voice neutral. She could not make it a challenge, or Discord would rise to it. She was just describing a fact, as certain and absolute as the sunrise. "Hollow Shades is fine the way it is."

Discord made an exaggerated yawning gesture, stretching his mouth wide enough to swallow a pony whole. But there was no attack, and it snapped back to size a second later. "That's a terrible shame, sister. You know you're living beneath your potential here—dressed up, playing nice with these dreadfully predictable beings. We traveled here through time and space, for this?"

Hurricane shrugged. "Equestria won't last forever. Everything changes. Sooner or later, my friends will be gone, and I'll move on. But right here, right now—it's perfect."

Her brother was silent for a long time. The sun rose behind him, far too bright for Hurricane's bat eyes. They narrowed to slits, leaving distorted imprints around her brother's outline.

He floated closer, looming over her. "You know I'm never going to let you live this down. When the pressure gets to you, when Equestria is gone—I'm going to remind you about a little shop selling clothes to bats."

"What about you?" she countered. "You're playing nice too, aren't you? Made friends with this... mare. Fluttershy, right?"

Discord's demeanor changed. His posture stiffened, and he floated away from her. "Don't bring her into this. Fluttershy is different. Not like other ponies at all."

Bedlam smiled at her brother. "Maybe we're not so different after all," she said. "You made a friend. Maybe one day, you'll make more."

He closed the distance in a flash, looming huge over her. "Don't count on it." He vanished a second later, leaving Hurricane Force alone on her balcony.

More importantly, leaving Hollow Shades exactly as it had been.

Maybe there was hope for her older brother after all.