Luna strolled down the corridors of Canterlot Castle, lost in thought over what to do about Fluttershy and her nightmare troubles. In all her time as Princess of the Night, never before had she encountered nightmares as bad as this. Normally, what Luna would do would be to attack the problem at the source, to take the object of the pony's fear and bring it into the light, showing the poor soul that there's nothing to fear, and then calm them by assuring them that everything is fine now. But whenever she tried to confront the source in Fluttershy's nightmare, she found herself forced out before she could do anything to stop it.
It was all quite vexing to Luna, and she wished she knew the cause of it. Perhaps it was all subconscious? Could Fluttershy, for some reason or another, be keeping her out on purpose? It was not uncommon, but why would Fluttershy do such a thing to herself, even on a subconscious level? Luna sighed deeply and thought that perhaps tonight she'd have better luck in defeating the irksome nightmare. But first, she needed to do a little reading. After getting Twilight's letter expressing her concern, it got Luna to thinking that maybe there was something in the castle archives that could give her the solution to her problem, and considering how little options she had, it couldn't hurt. As she opened the door and set hoof into the archives, she was greeted by none other than Discord.
"Good evening, Princess." He said silkily, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Doing well I see."
"D-Discord, what a...nice surprise." Luna replied. "To what do I owe this little visit?"
"Oh not much." Discord said, floating lazily on his back and sounding a touch too casual. "I just wanted to see how busy you were."
Luna blinked in confusion. "Busy?" She echoed.
"Yes, busy with paperwork, or affairs of state, or monster slaying, or whatever it is that you princesses do all day."
She carefully eyed Discord, wondering where he was going with all of this. "Well, I haven't really been particularly busy, aside from my usual duties at night."
"Ah yes, of course." He said, doing a turn so that now he floated on his stomach, facing her. "How are your night duties going by the way?"
The way he looked at her made Luna think of a cat ready to pounce on its prey, sinking its claws into it. But now, Luna finally understood what the true nature of Discord's visit was.
"This is about Fluttershy, isn't it?" She said bluntly.
Discord seemed to bristle a little, but still retained his smile. "Well, since you brought it up, yes. In case you haven't noticed, Fluttershy has been having dream problems. Problems that a certain somepony can't be bothered to fix. Now I had considered that perhaps you've just been too busy to deal with it, But apparently you're not busy at all! Which leaves me with just one question." He leaned forward, his red eyes burning into her own. "Why haven't you been doing your job and helped Fluttershy already?"
The edge in Discord's voice was razor sharp, but Luna didn't want to give him the satisfaction of frightening her, so she did her best to appear unfazed.
"I assure you, Discord, that I've been doing everything I can for Fluttershy."
"Well clearly you haven't been doing enough."
"You don't understand, what Fluttershy is experiencing is different from anything I've ever encountered before, my usual methods haven't been able to do anything."
Discord snorted. "Not to speak ill of Fluttershy, but it doesn't take much to frighten her, so how bad could her nightmares really be?"
Luna opened her mouth but just as quickly closed it, averting her gaze. "I...I'd rather not say. Fluttershy wrote and asked that I not divulge the details of her dreams, especially to her friends."
Her reply made Discord all the more suspicious. What was so horrible that Fluttershy felt she couldn't talk to her friends (and more importantly him) about it?
"Does the dream have something to do with her friends?" He asked.
"I can't say." Luna answered.
"Oh just tell me already, will you Luna! Otherwise I won't stop pestering you, or that useless sister of yours."
At the mention of Celestia, Luna lost her composure. "My sister is not useless!"
"Seeing as how she gets overpowered by villains and has to be saved by a group of ponies on a regular basis, I'd qualify that as useless."
Luna could feel her cheeks getting warm. Discord smiled to himself, seeing that his little tactic was working. "Celestia does what she can, she might not always succeed but she tries!"
"A lot more than you, that's for certain." Discord scoffed.
"What's that's supposed to mean?"
"Oh nothing much, except for the fact that whenever your sister needs back up you seem to be nowhere in sight, leaving her to take on the task all by herself. I guess it really shouldn't surprise me that you'd do the same thing to Fluttershy."
"I'll have you know that I have been there for Celestia, and in the times I have not I've been busy resting from protecting the dream world all night."
"Yes, I'm sure that's very exhausting. Staying up all night and blasting at nightmares, must be dreadfully hard work."
"It is! Have you ever tried to defeat a chaos lord before in nightmare? It's not an easy thing to do!"
Discord froze. "Chaos lord?"
Luna also stiffened, realizing what she said and putting a hoof to her mouth.
"Fluttershy's, been having nightmares about...me?" Luna could see the emotions swirling around in Discord, the most prominent being hurt and sadness. "i thought...I mean, we're friends, why would she be so afraid of me that she'd have nightmares?"
"It could have something to do with your recent behavior." Luna said. "Her dreams center around you regressing to your former self, tormenting her and treating your friendship as nothing more than a meaningless act."
"But it's not meaningless!" He cried defensively. "I'll admit there was a time when I was unsure, but I've come to see that our friendship is worth more than anything. I would never--"
"That may be how you feel." Luna interrupted. "But whenever I try to confront the nightmare you in the dream, he always manages to push me out of the dream, keeping me from interfering with his tormenting."
Discord tightened his fists. The thought of some horrible beast tormenting Fluttershy was bad enough, but to hear that he was the tormentor made his blood boil. In fact, little fumes of smoke rose up from his head while a distinct bubbling sound emanated from his stomach. Right then and there, Discord had made a decision.
"I'm going with you into Fluttershy's dream." He said.
Luna's eyes widened. "What?! No, absolutely not."
"How come?"
"Not only do you not have any experience in dealing with nightmares, but there's no telling what could happen in the dream if you were there."
"Exactly! You need someone unpredictable, someone powerful, and dashing, to help you out. You said yourself that you've tried your usual way, so why not try an unusual way?"
As much as she hated to admit it, Discord did have a point. She could use his power to help, it'd even be enough to keep herself from getting thrust out before she could take action. "I don't know..."
"Please Luna, let me help Fluttershy." This was the first time Luna ever heard Discord say please before. It was probably killing him to have to say it, especially to her, but she could also tell that he really wanted to help.
"Promise you won't get into much trouble?"
Discord flashed into a scout uniform and gave a salute. "Scout's honor."
Luna sighed. "Alright, tonight you and I will travel into Fluttershy's dream and try to confront the nightmare once and for all. Okay?"
"Wouldn't miss it." He replied, and disappeared.
"I hope I'm doing the right thing." She muttered worriedly to herself.