Discord stared blankly at the grass and hedges in front of him. When the elements imprisoned him in stone they left his senses intact so that he wouldn’t lose what small ties to sanity he had left by roaming the empty void. While their intentions were pure, Discord wished that they hadn’t done it. At least in the void he would have a blank canvas to paint his imagination upon. However as fate would have it, he was left with the ever-unchanging shades of green, colors left untouched even in the fall. Celestia doesn’t allow her garden to be tampered by the weather. She kept the winter and dead seasons at bay so as to not endanger the polychromatic plants that dotted the emerald terrace. He could do little with his thoughts, it was like trying to draw something new when the art is already present.
He’d spent months sitting there. Of course he wasn’t entirely alone, he was in a public garden after all. There would be ponies trotting through at most hours of the day, ranging from a couple enjoying a romantic stroll to a group of school-aged foals on a field trip. As the days dragged by, they became increasingly tedious, each one seemingly a carbon copy of the last. But today, an unexpected visit from an old friend would break the daily cycle of dull repetition.
A tiny white sphere of light began to materialize in the center of his vision. It grew in mass and intensity before vanishing, immediately followed by an explosion of resplendent energy. Discord’s vision took a moment to return after the radiant blast had engulfed the world before him. His eyes eventually readjusted from the flash of magic, and he instantly recognized the form in front of him. It was nice to see a familiar face.
Long time no see, Celestia. What brings you to my humble prison?
Celestia turned to face him, as though she had heard his thoughts and was readying to give a response.
“Hello, Discord,” she spoke the name as if she was expecting him to be able to respond.
Oh you know I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m very busy today. Life of a statue and all.
Celestia looked at him expectantly for a moment, then gave a disappointed sigh and lowered her head to face the ground. After a few moments of silence, Discord caught a brief glimpse of a tear as it dropped from her cheek into the still blades of grass beneath her, vanishing as quickly as it came. Discord felt a cold touch of pain in his stomach. He hated to see her cry, a sight he had seen only once before and had hoped he’d never again witness.
Why must you cry? It makes m-
His thoughts were cut short as Celestia’s slender horn began to glow. The light seemed to flood onto the ground like liquid before it pooled over to the base of his statue. Discord couldn’t see that the magic was creeping up the sides of his stone prison, slithering in tendrils and vines of soft white light. Discord could feel the magic as it reached his feet and continued coursing up his body, the warmest touch he had felt in so many years. He would’ve shivered if it were possible.
He was almost fully encased in the heated luminance of the goddess’ magic by now. His mind was calm and happy. He knew that right now she was either freeing him or killing him, and either prospect would be a welcome one. The stone cracked once, then made a rumbling noise as chunks of stone tumbled over each other in a race to reach the ground. Discord could feel the breeze touching patches of his now exposed skin, like he was taking his first step into the sunlight after an eternity in the dark.
A few moments of crumbling later and the crying sun goddess had finished stripping Discord of his stone prison. He stretched his limbs and felt his aches fall away from him, not unlike the stones before them. After a gnarly yawn, the draconequus smacked his lips once and tilted his head down to look at Celestia. He laughed a bit.
“I’m glad you could make it! Now I bet you’re all wondering why I gathered you here toda-“
“Quiet, Discord. I didn’t free you so that you could make jokes. Tell me how you did it!”
Discord didn’t let his confusion show. Instead he chose to play this off like he has done with so many other serious issues. Life is a game, after all, even when it may not seem like it.
“Whatever do you mean, your highness? I have done nothing that I can recall. Your precious Elements of Harmonicas saw to that now, didn’t they?” he said in his iconic playful tone.
“Harmony…” he heard Celestia quietly correct him under her breath. He let it go unchecked and listened as she continued to speak. “No games, Discord. You’ve taken her from me, and now you’re going to give her back.” Celestia’s voice shook as she struggled to hold back more tears. “Twilight…” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else.
Let’s turn that sadness into anger. I need you to hate me. Discord’s thoughts trailed off into incoherent nonsense as he rifled his brain for a response. No logical reply came.
“Celestia, my dear, I’m afraid I really don’t know what you’re talking about. So how about you show me what it is that’s causing you problems and I’ll try to muster up some small part of me that might care.” The words hurt as they left Discord’s lips. He had wanted to make her angry, not hurt her more. He realized how stupid and poor his choice of words really were, but didn’t let it show on his face. He looked at Celestia as though truly indifferent to the world around him and just waited for her to respond.
She glared at him, a brief flash of burning fury passed over her face before vanishing. Perhaps he had made her angry after all. He was too entranced in her eyes to even notice when her horn began to light up once again. He hadn’t noticed until the light became so bright it blocked her eyes from his view and he realized she was casting a teleport spell. The light grew slowly until it was within arm’s reach of Discord. He reached out his eagle’s talon to touch it, and as soon as he did it exploded in a flurry of blinding white. For an instant he closed his eyes, but then it was gone.
He cracked one eye open, and saw the gray fur of a small pony walking in front of him. After a quick verification that looking around wouldn’t result in his eyeballs burning out of his head, he let them open the rest of the way. He was met with the sight of yet another familiar face.
“Twilight Sparkle! How’s my favorite element of magic? You’re looking a little pale, have you been eating your greens?” Despite the obviously jesting nature, Discord sounded genuinely concerned.
The colorless unicorn just continued to walk, without so much as acknowledging Discord’s presence. Her head hung low and her hooves kicked up dirt, leaving tiny clouds of dust in her wake. Discord finally began to look around the area he had been teleported to. The dirt road in front of him was the only feature for miles around. The grass stretched out far into the distance, not stopping until it reached the mountains, which were so far off that they seemed like no more than little uneven, white-tipped teeth. He turned to study the landscape behind him, but was instead met by Celestia’s furious stare.
Celestia stood only inches away, not breaking her eye contact with him. “Bring her back,” she spoke through clenched teeth.
“Back from where, your highness? Perhaps you hadn’t noticed, but she’s right here, see?” Discord picked Twilight up and placed her in front of him, before forming a smile on her face with his hands. Twilight was doing nothing to stop his manipulation, having lost motivation to do anything. “Oh she looks so happy to see you!”
Choosing when to hold his tongue had never been his strong suit, and this particular occasion was no exception. The fire in Celestia’s eyes turned into a raging inferno. She now seemed to be contemplating various ways to do the good draconequus harm, and Discord knew it.
He gave a nervous chuckle. His ideas failing as he stared at the seething goddess in front of him. With no plans for a quick escape, he looked at Celestia with the most innocent face he could muster. He brought Twilight’s hoof up with his hand, offering it to Celestia.
“Friends?”
Discord’s nervous smile vanished as Celestia stood. After levitating Twilight out of his embrace and setting her gently to the side, her attention turned back to Discord. The terrified draconequus took a few steps back, then tripped over his mismatched feet and tumbled onto the ground. Celestia was still advancing on him, coming to a stop only once she was standing above him looking straight down into his eyes.
“NOW!” she shouted, loud enough to make the Royal Canterlot voice sound like one of Fluttershy’s hushed squeaks.
The ground was still vibrating from the loud burst when Discord quickly scuttled himself out from under Celestia’s imposing stance. He stood and brushed some dirt from the front of his fur coat before silently walking over to Twilight, and with a snap of his fingers a workbench appeared before him. He grabbed Twilight by the horn and tail, tossed her on the table and flipped her over onto her back. Celestia just stared at him as he did it, forgiving his ridiculous theatrics on the grounds that she knew he was making at least some form of progress.
Discord tilted the lamp on the corner of the bench, aiming it down to Twilight’s stomach to illuminate his work area. He then reached to the top of his head, pulling a welder’s mask down over his face that had materialized from nowhere, much like all his other tools. Celestia became a bit nervous at the sight of the mask, thinking of no good reasons he would need such a thing. She stepped around the bench and stood on the side opposite to Discord, looking at him quizzically.
Discord noticed and looked up at her. “Mmph grf thrsh prffy stptrded.” The incomprehensible noise elicited him a confused look from Celestia. His excellent manners caused him to lift the mask from his face.
“I said ‘let’s get this party started.’ Please, Celestia try to keep up.” He watched her for a moment waiting for her to reply when he noticed a smile creep onto her face. Despite all her rage, she couldn’t help but smile at his random antics.
“You know those masks don’t muffle your voice like that, right?” She poked at him.
Discord smiled and put the mask back down over his face. “I know.”
With that, Discord turned his attention back to the mare strewn across his work area. He took each of Twilight’s hooves and strapped them to the bench so that she wouldn’t struggle while he worked, not that she would even bother trying in her current state. After that he looked over the unicorn making sure everything was coming along the way he’d planned. He gave himself an accomplished nod and got to work.
“Scalpel,” he demanded, reaching his paw across the table toward Celestia, never taking his eyes off the unicorn. Celestia nervously reached into the toolbox that had suddenly appeared at her hooves and grabbed the razor sharp object. She lifted it and put into Discord’s paw, scared of where he might be going with it.
To her relief, Discord simply took the tool and tossed it behind him without even glancing at it. He then grabbed a zipper that he conjured just below Twilight’s neck, giving it a yank as it unzipped down her stomach. Celestia winced as she watched and went to stop him, afraid that he would hurt the poor mare. Before she could even call out his name, Discord had launched his hands inside the Unicorn’s body and was pulling out massive amounts of cottony fluff.
He started rummaging through the zippered opening in Twilight’s body, strange clinking and clamoring noises emanating from the hole. After a few minutes Discord paused, before pulling out another piece of stuffing that seemed no different from the pieces before it. He held it up above his head. He reached inside Twilight one last time, this time removing a pair of binoculars. He put the binoculars backwards against his eyes, and began to examine the ball of fluff.
“Aha!” he proclaimed. “That’s the issue right there!”
Celestia’s mood visibly brightened at the notion Discord might have a solution to Twilight’s problem. She cantered around the workbench that the unicorn was still laying open upon. Celestia came up to the side of Discord, and after giving the fluff a quick glance she turned her face to his, which now had no mask and was smiling at her.
“So what is that? What’s causing Twilight to be so… drained?” She asked, her mood was still positive as she questioned him.
Discord turned to the princess, genuine confusion painted on his face. “What? This fluff is just the reason she felt so lumpy when I picked her up. I don’t need to go rummaging through her body to find out what’s wrong with her personality. I know what’s wrong with her personality," he said casually as he dropped the fluff and binoculars, lowering his arms to his sides.
Celestia looked confused once again, but didn’t say anything this time and instead watched Discord as he walked back over to Twilight. He zipped her up, the zipper vanishing as soon as he was done. He then proceeded to unbind each of her hooves from the table, turned off the lamp, and helped her stand up. The workbench vanished immediately after she slid off of it.
Celestia finally broke the silence, speaking up when Discord failed to elaborate. “So what’s wrong with her personality, then? This looks suspiciously like your work, Discord,” she stated bluntly, not even attempting to hide the accusation in her tone.
Discord released Twilight as she got her balance back and looked up at Celestia. “It looks like my doing because it is my doing, except this time… I didn’t do it.” He laughed as he watched Celestia’s face go from slightly confused to utterly lost. “Understand?”
Celestia gave a snort, feeling her anger come back. She glared at Discord once again, making sure he took note of it before she continued. “So if you did it, but didn’t do it, then what’s wrong with her and how do we fix it?”
“We don’t,” he said, still watching Celestia’s eyes. “We can’t. But what we can do, is help her fix it herself. Do you remember when I put the spell on her? Normally I could remove the spell using magic, but she conquered it of her own will. Sadly, there were still traces of the spell hiding somewhere in her mind, and some recent event triggered it and caused it to break out and flourish again. This new infection wasn’t caused by magic, but rather a physical reaction to something that had recently happened. Magic can’t be used to reverse that, it seems we’re going to have to play detective for a while, Celestia.” He began gasping for air after the huge monologue, just to add dramatic effect. After materializing a detective’s hat on top of his head and a pipe in his mouth, he walked over to Celestia and wrapped an arm around her. “Play nicely, and soon we should have this all sorted out,” he finalized, puffing purple smoke from his pipe.