My Little Pony Friendship is Magic

What Costs Nothing

By Kendell2

Tartarus. Ponies debated what this place actually was. Some said it was the resting place of wicked souls. Some said it was 'merely' the most high security prison to ever exist. One thing all agreed on, however, is that every monstrous thing in that horrible place below the earth was a thing that Equestria should be glad never saw the light of day again.

This was especially true of it's now most infamous inmate.

Lord Tirek sat in his cell. Not long ago, he had been the ruler of all creation. The lord of all things. The weather was his. The land was his. The sun was his. The moon was his. Chaos was his. Love was his. Magic was his. Everything had been his. Every. Last. Thing.

And then six little ponies had robbed him of it all in a moment!

Tirek gave a roar of fury, slamming a fist into the ground, hardly caring about the ripples of pain the impact sent through his weakened frame.

“How?! Where did their power come from?! Why couldn't I beat six powerless, pathetic little ponies?! Why?!” he bellowed in rage.

His voice echoed through the caverns of Tartarus. The roar and bellows of his fellow inmates at the start were the only other noise in the desolate place. When they settled down, Tirek was once more in silence...until another noise caught his attention.

“Why? That's a good question, old friend. Why was defeat how your reign did end?”

Tirek turned, finding a familiar face inches from his bars. “Discord?!”

The Centaur didn't recoil in fear of the Chaos Spirit. If there was one thing about Tirek that could be said, he wasn't a coward.

Discord chuckled. “Howdy, Tirek, long time no see...”

Tirek was taken back. Not because Discord was there, he'd been fully expecting Discord to come destroy him in retribution for his actions if the Spirit was permitted to do so, but by how LITTLE malice was in his tone and body language.

“...That's it? I stab you in the back and that is all you have to say to me?”

Discord gave a small laugh. “No, I have an awful lot to say, I just thought I'd be polite,” he stated in his characteristic energetic tone. Tirek almost felt like the draconequus was being legitimately friendly. “What I'm really here to say is to talk about the answer to that question you asked.”

Tirek blinked, the ancient centaur taking a few weak steps towards the bars, but didn't touch them. “What question?”

The personification of chaos gave a sigh. He snapped his fingers and a boombox suddenly manifested in front of Tirek's face.

“How?! Where did their power come from?! Why couldn't I beat six powerless, pathetic little ponies?! Why?!” Tirek's own voice yelled back in his face, startling the frail centaur enough to send him staggering back.

The centaur snarled in rage and tried to throttle Discord through the bars, but screamed in pain as his flesh touched the metal bars. He staggered back, the areas his body had touched them smoking from contact.

Discord tisked, waving a finger like a disapproving parent. “Now now, Tirek, don't forget those bars are made of blessed iron. Might not be too much of a pain to a full powered demon of your level, but you're far from full powered after literally being blasted to Tartarus.”

Tirek snarled in rage, holding his burned arms.

“Now where was I?” the personification of chaos asked, tapping his chin lightly. “Oh yes, the questions you asked. It's rather ironic. When those six stuffed me back in that stone prison, I was asking myself the same question.”

“I'm surprised you aren't right back there...” Tirek muttered, looking on the free Draconequus with envious eyes. “You betrayed them to me, and yet they let YOU walk free but leave me to rot down here!”

Discord was suddenly on top of the cage looking in on Tirek. “You know, I'm just as surprised as you are! But the answer to BOTH questions is the exact same thing!”

“And that would be?”

“Oh you know me, Tirek buddy, I'm never one for straight up answers,” the Draconequus replied with a coy smirk, producing a paper with the words 'answers' written on it. Said scroll was promptly folded into an origami turtle with five heads. Discord then teleported, appearing dressed as a game show host with a purplish pony with a swirly white and purple mane (and matching eyes) acting as a showgirl at some sort of screen. “So let's play a little guessing game, shall we?”

Tirek found the strength to roll his eyes in annoyance.

“What costs nothing, but is worth everything? Weighs nothing, but can last a lifetime?”

Tirek snarled. “The answer is obvious: power. It has no cost but ripping it from those who don't deserve it, it weighs nothing but so long as your strong will last your entire life.”

Tirek found a buzzer ringing in his ears.

“We're sorry, that answer is incorrect,” Discord replied. “Would you like to guess again?”

The imprisoned Centaur roared in fury, trying to form a beam between the nubs now where his great horns had once been, but only succeeding in giving himself a headache.

“Now now, Tirek, don't go straining yourself,” the embodiment of Chaos replied, seeming concerned. Of course, since this was Discord, the legitimacy of that concern was debatable.

Tirek glared daggers at the chaos spirit. “If you're hear to end me, just get on with it!”

This time Discord laughed and rolled on his back.

“What's so funny?”

“Oh, the idea I'm here to take you out. Even when I was an evil overlord I had no interest in breaking my...toys. And besides, taking an incredibly creative revenge on you would be PREDICTABLE and I'm anything but. I'm not here to do anything of the sort, if anything, I'm here to thank you.”

Tirek's jaw dropped. The demonic centaur was at a loss for words for a few moments.

Discord teleported a 'thank you' fruit basket into the cage with the fallen centaur. “Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely livid that you hurt my friends...and livid with myself for helping you.”

The words Tirek had almost managed to get out vanished on his tongue when he saw Discord actually show legitimate remorse.

“But you managed to do something that no entity in the eons I've lived has ever done,” the draconequus said in a sincere tone. “For a thousand years after I took over, I manipulated ponies, broke their hearts, and left them little more than depressed wrecks of their former selves. I corrupted ponies into horrid strangers their friends would weep at the sight of...and you, Lord Tirek, finally gave me a taste of my own medicine I needed to get the REAL punchline: that my 'toys' weren't toys. You know, before I'd thought nearly losing Fluttershy's friendship was that, but I needed an even bigger kick in the pants to get it through my thick skull what my victims felt like. And your hooves did the kicking.”

“Because you let friendship make you weak. Just like I said it did.”

“Eh, I prefer to blame a misunderstanding of it myself...or the writing staff at Hasbro.”

Discord produced a big, hot, succulent piece of cooked steak (naturally not from any sapient cattle) on a plate and slid it to the Centaur. “It's not poisoned or anything, that'd be FAR too predictable. It's a token of my sincere thanks. I'd return the favor you did me, but it looks like Twiley and her friends already did that.”

Tirek stared at the plate. A part of him wanted to throw it out of the cage, into the lava deep below out of spite...but good food was a luxury he knew he wouldn't see again for a LONG time while sealed away in the depths of the planet.

“What's a matter? Too greedy to let wrath have its way when you're given something you want literally on a platter?”

Tirek finally gave a small smirk or pride. “I'm more greedy than a dragon. That's the one thing I respect about those scaly mountains of flesh and bone: they get it. They don't hide their greed, they let it show open and out loud! Like you once did. In the end, only yourself matters. Compassion? Friendship? Love? Things that bind the true us we all are.”

Discord gave a smirk that made Tirek think of someone who'd just captured their opponent's king. “Really? Well if you're as greedy as you say you are, why did you throw your brother away?”

Tirek snarled in rage. “He betrayed ME! He stabbed ME in the back! Don't you DARE make me out as the one who wronged HIM! I did NOTHING to him! He did EVERYTHING to me.”

Discord slithered around Tirek's prison like a cobra. “Ah, but if I recall, there's more to the story than that.”

Discord's voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “I can see the past, Tirek. I saw what happened in that cave a thousand years ago. Your brother didn't JUST stab you in the back out of nowhere. He didn't instantly turn you in to Celly and Lulu. He bargained with you. He tried to reason with you. He tried every last thing he could to convince you to stop before pressing the big red button.”

Tirek snarled. “You know nothing! He was throwing everything we'd worked for away!”

“Oh, I know a lot more than you think. You know how I'm Spirit of Chaos? That means in this soul of mine exist six virtues that, only recently I've come to remember have their positive AND negative sides. Their virtues and their sins. One of those virtues is Desire. You are greedy. I AM desire. So I'd say I know a lot about those things.”

“Then why betray yourself for something as meaningless as friendship?!”

“Because friendship isn't meaningless, and neither is a brother. They're things you can possess, and to greed, nothing you can possess is meaningless. Especially something that is ONLY yours. Like your ONLY brother.”

Tirek found his words stick in his throat.

“You had a brother. You had his love. You had his admiration. Even when he knew you were the BAD GUY he still loved you enough to try and reason with you every single way he possibly could. You had everything one could ask for in a brother, and you threw him, and all that away. Let him walk right out of your cave while you continued on with your evil plans.”

“He abandoned ME!”

“Then why did he give you his prized position as he left as a sign he still loved you?”

“A worthless trinket!”

“Then why did you keep his amulet for over a thousand years? There's a convenient lava pit right over there, and even those scrawny arms of yours had the strength to throw a little piece of metal that far.”

Tirek's eyes widened for a moment, his memories of that amulet hanging around his neck until Discord withholding information made old wounds fresh...to his shock, a part of him felt naked without it there.

“You can't just purge all the happy memories you had with Scorpan from your soul, Tirek. They're a part of you, they ALWAYS will be. And so will your love for him. After all, if he meant nothing to you at all, why did what he do hurt even to this very moment? When you care nothing for someone, their betrayal doesn't leave a wound. And from the looks of it, that wound left one nasty scar. And trust me, I've caused enough to recognize one when I see it.”

Discord's face suddenly was right in front of Tirek's, but to the centaur's surprise, no swirling circles manifested. There was no brainwashing here. “He never abandoned you, you abandoned him. Your real family. Your ONLY family. The one blood relation you had left. And you threw him away like trash.”

Discord gave a genuinely sympathetic look. “...You turned your back on something you wanted. You don't deserve to call yourself greedy.”

In a moment, Discord was back outside the cage, and Tirek was left shaking, his head spinning after Discord did what he did best.

Discord sighed, looking down at a picture of Fluttershy now in his eagle claw. “I suppose in a way we're both that kind of fool...but we can both get what we wanted back. Scorpan isn't dead, you know. Demon blood, does wonders to slow down the aging process.”

The Draconequus packed up his things, stuffing the game show stage into a duffel bag. The pony that he'd summoned to help him eagerly jumped in afterward. “Visiting hours are over, Tirek, I'll be back next week, same time. Unfortunately, I've got lots of 'rebuilding burned bridges to do.'”

Discord trotted slowly down the staircase leading up to the Centaur's prison.

“...Discord...”

The Spirit of Chaos gave a smirk, looking back to the now conflicted centaur. “Yes?”

“...What was the answer to my question? To your riddle?”

“Oh Tirek, you should know by now,” Discord gave a sincerely friendly smile. “If the answers are just given, they can be ignored. If they're figured out, there's no way they can be...See you later, buddy.”

Fin

Author's Notes:

I know a few people have used this same premise, but I've yet to see it be used for a more serious tone. Not that there's anything wrong with playing it for laughs, I just wanted to try and play it a little more seriously with only a little bit of comedy involved.

Hope you like it!