"Discord!"
Twilight's voice echoed around the path to Fluttershy's house, and louder still echoed her steps as she made her way through it. "Discord!" she called again, as the rest of her friends walked behind her.
"Ugh. Come on!" Rainbow Dash shouted, rising slightly in the air and looking around. "Where is he hiding?"
"Indeed, where is he?" Discord asked, toying with his beard, a serious expression on his face. The rest of his body slithered out from its hiding spot behind Twilight's neck, and he too began to look around. "Who are we looking for, anyway?"
"Discord!" This time, it was Rarity who spoke out.
"Oh, me?" The draconequus put his paw to his chest, drawing back in surprise. "Well in that case, there I am." He pointed towards a nearby set of two palm trees, and at the hammock hanging between them. On it, Discord peacefully lay, sunglasses over his eyes and a tanning reflector held in his arms.
The group of six ponies looked between the trees and where Discord had been floating up until a moment prior, only to find he was no longer there. Rolling their eyes, they all headed towards his new location, Twilight choosing to directly teleport there in front of him.
"Nothing."
She stopped for a moment, her mouth half open. She ate the question she'd been meaning to ask back up, and instead went with a more simple, more immediate one. "What?"
Discord folded his reflector, the hammock, and the trees, and tucked them behind the frame of his glasses. He then removed his glasses and folded them away from reality. "I had nothing to do with any of this." He gestured vaguely towards Canterlot. "And much to my displeasure, I know just as little about it as you all do."
"Sure, and Fa-"
Pinkie was cut off suddenly, but it took Twilight a moment to realise why. She first had to turn towards the mare, and see her five friends frozen in place, even those above ground. "Discord," she flatly uttered, turning back towards him.
"It's hard to juggle a conversation with six different ponies," he replied while casually juggling six balls, each with the colour and cutie mark of one of them. "Besides, this gives me a chance to talk to you in stopped time in circumstances slightly less dire than the other time. And space. And us." He let the balls fall towards the sky. "But I'm being honest, Twilight," he continued, watching them go. "I know nothing about what that thing is, why it's here, how it got here, I know nothing."
That got him a flat, skeptical look.
Playing with a dial that had appeared in the air and watching Pinkie move slightly forwards and backwards in time, it took Discord a moment to notice Twilight's expression. "Oh come on. You bring the entire country to the brink of ruin three to five times, depending on how you count, and suddenly everyone thinks you're behind the giant mysterious monster that came out of nowhere and is bringing chaos everywhere."
"Yes."
Discord looked to the side. "Okay, fine, it's a fair conclusion to draw. But really, Twilight, think of it. It has not been two months since I last almost doomed us all. Don't you think I have learned my lesson for at least a year or so?" As he said that, he coiled around Twilight, beaming a smile at her.
"Alright, fine." Twilight brought a hoof to her face. "I trust you, and we need you. Will you at least help us figure ou- What are you doing?"
Discord pushed his suitcase closed. "As I said, I know nothing about this. So, since I've decided to make myself forgivable after the recent Grogar kerfuffle, I'm going to do some research for once." He snapped a door into existence, and began looking for a key out of a set he was suddenly holding.
"Research? Wait, where are you going?" Twilight stepped to his side.
"The library, of course. That's where all the knowledge is."
The key turned in its hole, the lock clicked, and the door opened. Behind it, rows of bookshelves stretching out as far as the eye could see, impossibly tall, thin bridges suspended between them to walk from one to the other. Twilight stared, her eyes wide, her mouth wider. Only because Discord pushed it closed with a talon did drool not leak from its corners.
She turned to look at the draconequus. "So you're saying there's a dimension out there of just books? Of all the books?" She threw another quick glance past the door. "And you never told me?"
Discord looked back at her. "If I had let you in, there would not have been an Equestria left for you to go back to once you were done with it. Maybe not even a planet." He looked forward once again. "And there are things in there better left unread." His tone grew far more serious for a moment as he said that. "Anyway. I might take a few eternities in there. I'll try to get back around two years from now or sooner. But in case I'm not back in the next two centuries, leave me a note saying I took too long."
And with that he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
"-rything is- Hey, where did he go?"