He arrived with no warning, something Tirek didn’t expect. If anything could be expected of a creature like Discord, it was some degree of showmanship: swirling smoke, crackling flames, the stinging scent of ozone clawing at his nose. Instead, the Lord of Chaos simply was, where a moment before nothing had been--a ghost, still and silent, who just as soon might fade back into the mist.
“Have you come to gloat?” Tirek asked him. A rasping cough chased his words, itching in his throat before he swallowed it back. Weak though he was--devoid of magic and the strength to wield it--he still had his pride. So, it seemed, did Discord.
“I doubt it.” The draconequus raised a yellow-scaled claw, considering each talon with pantomimed disinterest. “Seems an awful waste of a trip to come all the way down here for that. It’s such a nightmare traveling through Tartarus this time of year. You wouldn’t believe the traffic.”
Tirek thought as much. Even for Discord, reaching this place was no easy feat. His cage had rusted away in time, but the veil of darkness around him remained, impenetrable and absolute in every direction. Only the cold stone beneath his hooves tethered him to reality, its unblemished chill his only anchor to what felt like an echo of life. His visitor’s identity notwithstanding, he couldn’t help but relish the change in scenery. Discord was, after all, the only visitor he recalled ever receiving down here.
“The Princesses sent you.”
Tirek’s statement was more accusation than question. In response, Discord merely shrugged, a pillar of rock rising behind him with the motion. His arm fell to his side when he sat down, but his claw stayed where it was, rotating in midair so he could examine its back side.
“In perfect honesty, it was their idea,” he admitted. As his talons rejoined his body, a hint of a smirk played across his lips. “Ironically, they thought I might… talk sense into you.”
Tirek laughed: a gravelly, knowing sound. “What fun is there in making sense?”
Discord’s smile grew. “What fun, indeed.”
Tirek sighed, for himself and Discord both. How low his former ally had sunk, and how completely this time. He’d been right to leave him behind, and wrong to show him mercy. The next time he was able, he wouldn’t make the same mistake.
“I was a fool to betray you,” Tirek began. “You’re more powerful than I ever was.”
“I am,” Discord confirmed. “And you were.”
“The ponies trust you,” Tirek went on. “Even after you double-crossed them. They’ve allowed you into my chamber. You could get me out.”
Discord dipped his chin, a thoughtful spark gleaming in his eyes. “I could.”
“Then let me help you! I’ll join you this time, follow your every command! Together, we could destroy the Elements of Harmony, make the Princesses grovel before us, take all of Equestria back for oursel--”
A sudden wheeze snuffed out the fire in his promise, and the hacking coughs that followed made the rest of it moot. When Tirek straightened again, Discord stood with him--his face expressionless, his eyes naked and dull.
“Lying doesn’t flatter you, Tirek,” he said, his brow taking on a judgmental tilt. “And believe me, you need all the help you can get.”
A scoff scratched at Tirek’s aching throat. “You’re one to talk,” he rasped. “What have you ever been but a liar?”
“Oh, many things,” Discord replied, counting off each answer on his golden-furred toes. “Joker, grinner, lover, sinner… and more than anything else, a fool like you.”
As Tirek glowered, Discord leaned forward and smiled again. “Oh, come now. Surely you must know that’s what we were. Liars who fooled Equestria, and fools who lied to ourselves. Did you ever really think you could hoard all of Equestria’s magic for yourself? Did you think the ponies who inhabit it would not object to such grotesquery… that they wouldn’t fight back?”
Discord went on before Tirek could respond. “Of course you did. Just as I did before you. It’s in our nature, you see--us poor, ambitious, ignorant imbeciles. Our strength came from our solitude, our total control over our every whim and desire. We bowed to no one, no pony, no thing…” He flicked his eyes away, his pointed glance sweeping around the formless cell. “And my oh my, just look at what it got us.”
“How gravely I misjudged you,” Tirek hissed. “Such power, such magical mastery over the very fabric of reality, and you’d rather wallow as a slave to those pathetic whelps than thrive as their master.” A raspy chuckle punctuated his charge, smoldering with equal parts malice and disgust. “Once I thought you were strong, but now I see the truth. You’re no better than the little ponies I conquered. In fact, I daresay you are one yourse--”
“I am not a pony!”
The venom in Discord’s retort at first filled Tirek with glee, but his satisfaction was short-lived. Discord composed himself within moments, and when he spoke again his tone was soft, almost to the point of sounding mournful.
“I am not a pony,” he said, “and I am not strong.”
So used to solitude as he was, Tirek found himself tongue-tied. The silence persisted for a moment, and then Discord continued.
“I suppose that’s what I admire about ponies,” he murmured. “They’re consistent. No matter how they suffer, under your hoof or anything else’s, they don’t break. They stay precisely the same: honest, humble, hardworking… merciful.”
“Consistent?” Tirek’s outrage gave him breath enough to voice it. “You’re Discord! The spirit of chaos! The last thing you should admire is consistency!”
“Is it?” Discord shot back. “Chaos is consistency, Tirek. Everyone doing the wrong thing, everything in its improper place… why, unpredictability is the most predictable thing there is! Now, deception, dishonesty, betrayal… saying one thing and meaning another. That is inconsistent. That is what you are, Tirek.” Discord’s grin grew wider--toothier. “And what I was for trusting you.”
Tirek’s anger grew cold in his chest. “The Princesses… you told me you mean to reform me!”
His visitor took one step forward, then a longer one. “No,” Discord murmured, “I didn’t.”
There was nowhere for Tirek to go. The darkness around his cell held him quivering in place. “What are you going to do to me?”
Discord towered over him. His claws were clenched. His smile was gone.
“Something a pony wouldn’t.”