Rippling clouds.
Dark thunderbeds and onyx skies.
Shrieks in the distance, growing closer...
Rainbow Dash was asleep. She knew that she was. Perhaps that's why she took all of these images in stride. The mare glided along, her mane full and long, The scars on her body had vanished; she was just as she remembered from a time lost forever.
Her body felt weightless. Perthaps because there was no Element of Loyalty weighing her down. Normally, this would have scared her. But in his place... this strange sky of smoldering obsidian bands... she suffered no fear.
She flew. She observed. With casual grace, she watched as the heavens shifted past her.
The shrieks increased in volume, circling around her now.
Rainbow Dash's brow furrowed. She leaned her head forward, squinting in an effort to pierce the thunderous barriers lingering ahead.
Something flickered amidst the billowing malaise. Fixed points of lunar light—all in pairs. Like fangs.
Somehow, Rainbow Dash knew.
Thus—when the leather bodies pierced the cloud and filled the atmosphere with screams—she barely flinched.
Rainbow Dash awoke slowly... calmly.
One eye fluttered open, followed by the other.
She was safe. She was relaxed. She was curled up in the same fuzzy blue ball as before—only countless hours had passed. Her searching eyes pierced the fog, and on the far end of the tent she spotted Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. The two ghostly mares "sat" casually by the canvas exit, chatting amicably with one another. Both spirits had their flanks to Rainbow. Neither had noticed yet that she had woken up.
Rainbow took a deep breath. Just as she started to stir her stiff muscles—
"Pleasant dreams?"
"... ... ..." Without moving, Rainbow looked to her right.
A serpentine shadow with black antlers reclined against the tent fabric beside her. Faking a yawn, the figure brought a dark paw to his goat's muzzle and gestured with his talon while continuing:
"You're not all that scared of them anymore, are you?"
Rainbow Dash was silent.
"Of course, there's probably a reason for that." The figure shifted into the light. A pair of red-on-yellow eyes peered above a fanged grin. "You no longer have me cooped up in there." He pointed a talon at Rainbow's skull. "Must have been terribly claustrophobic to have shared all those visions of loosening teeth, free falls, and embarrassing days showing up to school with your clothes on."
Rainbow blinked.
"It was the only way we could connect for a while, y'know." Discord pointed at her skull again. "Up there. Up where it's fuzzy and oh so blue." He did a ballerina leap across the tent and piroutted to a stop behind Twilight and Fluttershy. "After all, what's more chaotic than dreams? True... there is an ounce of logic forming a basic, narrative thread to the nightly cabesa shuffle. But your poor Princess Luna must have been killing herself to drown herself in so much unpredictability for so long—on behalf of the Equestrian populous!" His brow furrowed with a touch of mischief. "Unless... of course... harmony was never quite her forte from the beginning. And she's the one in charge of both the sun and moon nowadays! Oh, how blissfully... scathingly ironic!"
"... ... ...."
"Pssssst. Hey." Balancing on his tail, Discord aimed the ends of his lower limbs at the rumps of Twilight and Fluttershy respectfully. "Which of them do you think will fly farther if I give it the ol' punt? My money's on the lavender unicorn; her egghead's gotta have some weight to it."
Rainbow's nostrils flared. With very little hesitation, she suddenly whispered, "You won't kick them."
"Why not?" Discord snaked his head about and pouted upside-down at Rainbow. "You don't think it'll connect?"
"I've tolerated you this long," Rainbow murmured so that only he could hear. "I doubt you'll want to ruin the attention so soon."
"... ... ..." Discord stared long and hard at Rainbow. At last, he retracted from the two mares, slinking back to Rainbow's side. "Well, you've got me there, Sparky." He reclined with a casual smirk cradled in a lazy paw. "I guess you really do miss having me up in there."
"I don't miss a thing about you," Rainbow muttered. "And if you disappeared tomorrow, I still wouldn't."
"Oh, how you wound me!" Eyelashes fluttering, Discord reached a talon to "dust off" Rainbow's bangs. "And to think I kept your insides all nice and tidy while you were dozing off the spider juice."
Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "... ... ...what could you possibly have learned from any of this?"
"What—you mean while you were drooling for weeks under a coma?" Discord shrugged. "Why—I couldn't possibly have learned a single thing!" He lingered, then winked at her. "Unless... you actually believe me capable of gleaming something."
Rainbow's jaws tightened. "Just because you were perculating in my head after I freed Applejack, causing countless nightmares to mess with me—"
"Oh, we both know I've been with you far longer. That was just the only place where you and I could—how should I say it—commune with one another. At least for a while." Discord pretended to examine his claws. "Dreams are simply the sludge of the day, dredged up and heated under a pressure cooker overnight. No—you don't have to thank me for venting off the excess steam. Then again, if you had the good sense to let me out sooner intead of the rest of your sappy gal-pals, then maybe it wouldn't have been so taxing on you."
"I didn't choose the order my friends were released," Rainbow Dash hissed. "Yaerfaerda chose!"
"That's certainly a convenient notion, isn't it? Did you officially come to trust all things taught to you by the dusty runes in those stuffy little Machine World chambers you eventually Mary-Sue'd your way into on the flipside?"
"They haven't steered me wrong yet."
"But you don't seem the kind of pegasus to be 'steered' so easily." Discord folded his arms. "After all, what did Abaddon call it? Ilrifa's Codex? Maybe... Sparky... just maybe all of the answers you've ever wanted were written inside you from the beginning."
Rainbow looked confused.
"Don't give me that expression, young lady! You could be worse off, y'know!" Discord sported a smug grin. "Have you noticed how often you're suffering from paralytic dizzy attacks as of late?"
The mare fidgeted. She bit the edge of her lip.
"Now... are you going to chalk that all to the Dark Side? To the depths of which you've sunk into chaos itself?" His fang glinted. "Or the degree to which you've unleashed the chaos that's been bubbling inside of you."
"This..." Rainbow sighed. "...is just another elaborate ruse to get me to talk to you more, isn't it?"
"Sparky, you've chosen to talk to me!" Discord stood tall in the tent and bowed. "Instead of banishing me upon first fizzle, you've kept me in your dashing presence! I'm flattered, really! But I can still tell we've got a long way to go. Nevertheless, there's hope yet! After all, if there's anything I've picked up about you... the further you go, the more stable you get. Even if all around you is instability."
Rainbow glanced at Twilight and Fluttershy across the tent. Her tail flicked nervously.
"That's why I think we can make such a good team, you and I..." Discord leaned in, his voice taking on a slightly breathy tone. "Do the smart thing, Sparky. Ditch the pastel echo chamber. Except for the floofy-goofy one, I find them all rather... redundantly trite in their own respective moralities. But me? Ohhhh boyoooo... with me by your side we can explore all the crazy little puzzles left festering in your brain." He tilted his chin up with a knowing glint. "And—while we're at it—we can tackle a few of the conundrums looming before your fragile loyal conscience."
Rainbow sighed, and she smirked slightly. "You get more and more friggin' desperate each time I listen to you."
"Ah...!" He pointed a talon. "...that can only mean there will be a 'next time' that you listen to me."
"... ... ..."
"A delightfully dumb expression if I ever saw one, Sparky." Discord spun in a circle, rematerializing with a business suit and suitcase. "Very well. I'll be on my way. But don't relish my absence, Sparky. Now that I'm on the outside..." He pointed at her skull again. "...that leaves a lot of space on the inside. And—tell me..." His red-on-yellow eyes narrowed. "... ... ...do you really think there's nopony else looking in on that vacancy?"
Rainbow merely raised an eyebrow. She opened her muzzle as if to ask something.
Discord saw it, and he grinned. "Ciao!" And he walked into himself, disappearing cyclonically with a vaprous burp of his suitcase. The air of the tent was clear once again.
Rainbow Dash must have shot up to her hooves, because Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy heard her movement and turned around. They brightened upon seeing their anchor awake.
"Oh!" Fluttershy grinned. "Rainbow Dash!"
"Morning, Rainbow!" Twilight Sparkle floated closer. "Is there anything we can help you with?"
Rainbow Dash looked at her friends, blinking wide.
Her friends looked back, grinning.
Rainbow fumbled... squirmed... then finally opened her muzzle: "... ... ...I gotta pee." And she galloped briskly out of the tent, dragging two confused ghosts along with her.