-Twisted Ankles-

A constant, steady beep filled Rainbow’s ears, though she struggled to realize it as she slowly slipped out of her dreamless sleep. She couldn’t ignore the painful ache in her shoulders though, which was more than enough to finally force her to get up and find the source of her discomfort.

She pushed herself up with a groan of protest as she started to emerge from between the course sheets. For a moment she wondered when she’d changed her sheets and started to feel around for her cloud comforter, but a tug on the inside of one of her elbows stopped her dead.

The sight of the IV taped to her arm was both shocking and unsettling. She couldn’t even remember what happened to put her here, but now she could realize the hospital bed for what it was and the heart monitor that was wrapped tightly around the same arm. She looked over her shoulder at the wrap around her pained wing in despair, and groaned ar the itchy gauze that felt like it was far too tight.

She twisted around in the covers when she heard a door open, unable to see anything past a pale colored curtain partition. It parted as she sat up to reveal a stocky, olive colored unicorn, his striking red mane clashed enough to make Rainbow’s eyes hurt just to look at him. His white lab coat had overly stuffed pockets with both the normal medical supplies she’d come to know from her previous visits to hospitals, as well as a few small bags and a large pair of salad tongs for some reason. His smile was strained around a large bandage that was holding together a thin gash on his nose.

“Good … afternoon, sleeping beauty!” he said loudly as he checked a clock somewhere outside the curtain. Rainbow flinched at the volume of his voice and inadvertently bumped her injured wing against the headboard behind her. When she flinched and clutched at her shoulder with a grimace the doctor lost his joviality, he checked the IV drip before he came back over to her.

“I’ll increase the anesthetic for the pain, but first could you tell me how much pain you’re in?” he asked, his voice at a much more tolerable volume and surprisingly serious. “On a scale of one to ten, with one being almost no pain and ten being the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your life,” he instructed, removing her hoof from her shoulder with a bit of magic to look over the injury himself.

“Freaking ten!” Rainbow grunted, pulling her hoof away angrily. She couldn’t say why she was angry, mostly the pain, but she felt a little bad for snapping at the doctor. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“It’s fine, I get it,” the doctor said, he waved a hoof as he moved over to her chart at the end of the bed and penned something down. He paused with a start, seeming to have realized something. “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself,” he said with a wide smile that could have rivaled one from Pinkie Pie. “I’m Doctor Clean Cut. Scholarly gentlecolt, all around extraordinaire and personal advisor to the Princesses. At your service.”

“Rainbow Dash,” she said reflexively, even though he was probably already aware of who she was. He seemed awfully proud of all those titles, but something told Rainbow that most of them were self appointed. “I’ve never seen you around- Wait, where am I?” she mumbled as she rubbed some of the sleep out of her eyes.

The doctor laughed, but Rainbow didn’t see anything funny in what she’d said. “Honey, you’re in the Royal wing of the Canterlot Hospital,” he said once he’d stopped laughing, he paused though at her shocked expression. “You don’t remember what happened?” he asked with concern once again snapped into place on his features. He hummed in thought. “Some slight amnesia isn’t abnormal, that bump to your head probably didn’t help you any.” At Rainbow’s confused expression he said “When you fell we think you dropped the weight you were carrying and it hit your head. Or did you think that bandage on your temple was just to make you look tougher?”

“Huh?” Rainbow’s hoof instinctively went to the side of her head and immediately found the thickly folded piece of gauze that held down a rather largely swollen spot.

“How much can you remember? Please tell me as much as you can,” Doctor Clean Cut asked as he offered her a glass of water from the table near her bed.

Rainbow took the water in a haze and rubbed her scalp in a vain attempt to kickstart her brain. “Uhm … I remember getting to the training camp with the Wonderbolts. And - Uh … We left to go to the … the Guard training grounds to use some of their equipment, we were running weights around the track …” She shook her head, that was all she could recall about the last few days.

Clean Cut let out a steady breath as he nodded. “That’s fine, from what I heard you were knocked down almost immediately. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d blacked out for the whole thing,” he said with a wave of his hoof. “The important thing is that you’re safe now-”

“But what happened?!” Rainbow said, not ready to hear somepony’s sad excuse for a reassuring talk.

“A juvenile dragon snuck its way onto the palace grounds during a kerfuffle in the gardens, while the Guard’s attention was away and it curled up in a hidden alcove next to the track on the training grounds. The official story is that it was looking for a new place to start a horde, and that when the wonderbolt trainees went to use the grounds it became agitated and attacked you,” he explained, but she could tell the scripted description by the sour frown on the doctor’s face.

“The official story? Does that mean something else happened?” she asked incredulously, which was enough to make the doctor shrink into himself. “I have a right to know! I'm gonna have to leave the training program because of this!” she yelled, anger built in her again. She groaned as she realized what she’d just said and how true it really was, it would take months to get back to the peak condition she was at before she’d gotten into the program.

“I have instructions from Celestia to not tell anyone what happened, but I think that’s mostly because she wants to keep the true gravity of the situation out of the public’s attention. So I’ll tell you,” Clean Cut relinquished. He shrank down into himself somewhat as his magic pulled the curtain all the way open.

Rainbow’s breath caught in her throat as she looked out into the rest of the room. Several other beds were occupied by what she could only guess were Royal Guards, most of which sported injuries to their faces or forelegs.

“You see,” Clean Cut continued, “this is a rather ... delicate situation we find ourselves in. The - ah ... pony who intervened was being held under heavy guard by order of the Princesses, when he escaped he went to the fields where you and the dragon were. We all just happened to get in the way-" He motioned toward his nose and the bandage there. "Unfortunately the situation becomes more complicated because of the fact that his kind haven't been seen in thousands of years, and Princess Celestia is rather concerned about how dangerous this individual is.

"The dragon was killed in the fight and you both were injured, thankfully as his doctor that means I now hold sovereignty over what happens to my guest. The reason you're here with these Guards is because you were all directly injured by him or effected by him, and I'm concerned about ... infections," he finished as he eyed Rainbow carefully.

Rainbow huffed in agitation. "That brings up a lot more questions than answers, Doc," she said unhappily.

Clean Cut nodded in understanding as he twisted a nob on her IV, a subtle increase the medicine that dripped out of it for her. "It's like I said; complicated and delicate. You shouldn't have to worry though, from what I can tell, he saved your life." He smiled as he turned back to her and took in the surprised look on Rainbow’s face. "You would have bled out in the grass if he hadn't stepped in and stopped the bleeding for you, but again the Princess expresses concerns of infection-"

"You keep saying 'infection,' can't any old doctor prescribe some penicillin or something for that?" Rainbow asked incredulously. She almost let herself smirk at the doctor’s surprised expression, he obviously hadn't expected her to be that perceptive. Yeah, that's right, she thought smugly, I can be smart when I want to.

Clean Cut nodded and offered her a smile. "You're absolutely right, miss Dash. But just the fact that he snuck into the country, noble intentions or no, brings up the concern of communicable diseases. But-" He gave a frustrated sigh and knitted his brows together, "-how to do this without being too obtuse ... There's also his heritage to consider, we're afraid that the method he used to help you could cause adverse side effects in the near future.

"It's a special magic that his kind have, one that can heal as much as it can hurt. His methods come into question, your status comes into play, and it's a big mess," he explained.

"Alright, fine. So, what? I just sit here for however long you tell me to until you declare me 'clean'?" Rainbow made sure he could see her air quotes and frowned in his direction as she folded her hooves across her chest.

"Well, no," he said, much to Rainbow’s surprise. "I wouldn't object to allowing you to get up and stretch your legs, escorted of course. And there'll be no using that wing of yours for at least three weeks, and then I want to put you into a bit of physical therapy to make sure it's healed properly," he said.

Rainbow nearly leapt out of the bed as soon as he was done talking, eager to be anywhere but stuck in a bed in a room doing nothing. Unfortunately her body wasn't ready for something like that and she immediately stumbled into Clean Cut while she fought off tunnel vision.

"Take it easy," Clean Cut grunted as he set her down on the floor, he had surprisingly strong hooves for a unicorn. "You might be a little weak and lightheaded, you lost quite a bit of blood before you came in here," he explained. Once Rainbow recovered he helped her back to her hooves.

"So," Rainbow said once she could stand on her own, "Does this dragon-slaying pony have a name? I've gotta meet somepony who can take on a dragon in a fight and win!"

The doctor chuckled. He took her IV drip bag and hooked it to a wheeled stand for her. "Oh, Uhm ... he's not exactly the knight-in-shining-armor type that one might picture. We think his name is Coalback," he said. He pushed the IV drip stand over to her and disconnected her from the heart monitor. "I could attempt to arrange a visit, but he's been extremely uncooperative since we brought him back in ..."

"What's that supposed to-"

A crash outside the door cut off Rainbow’s question, quickly followed up by loud yelling. "Damnit," Clean Cut hissed under his breath as he trotted off. He paused at the door to turn back to her with a hurried explanation. "I need to go take care of this, stay here!" He was out the door and down the hall before Rainbow could voice a protest.

Rainbow stayed in her spot for a few moments, she listened as the noise grew. Finally she let out a frustrated grunt, pulled the pole along behind her and lurched forward on achy legs. There was not a chance in the world that she was going to just sit around in the otherwise boring hospital room while something so obviously interesting happened just down the hall! She ducked her head out of the door and caught sight of a Guard helmet as it skittered out of a heavy door at the end of the hall. She headed towards it and the noise.

The only word in the yelling Rainbow could understand was a very forceful “NO!”, broken only by the now familiar sound of the doctor’s voice as he yelled orders, berated somepony and attempted to calm whoever else was yelling all at once. A loud crash overtook all the noise as Rainbow got to the door, a deep baritone started up again in what Rainbow could only call very angry gibberish filled the air in the following silence.

When Rainbow finally came into the room it was in disarray, Clean Cut stood firmly on one side with a cowering nurse behind him. Several Guards, one missing his helmet and a gash on his forehead, pointed their spears down at a pony being held down by the doctor’s greenish magic. A table was smashed next to the bed in the room, which itself was a complete mess. The baritone, unintelligible voice erupted from the crouched, grey pony under Clean Cuts hold, backed up against one of the walls.

An argument between the Guards and the doctor had erupted over the yelling of the subdued stallion, they crowded the air with their voices. Clean Cut more pointedly yelled at a muscular Unicorn who hefted both a spear and syringe with something clear and silvery in color inside it.

"Put down the spears!" Clean Cut yelled at the guards.

"No, we're putting it down!" The injured guard bellowed back, met with a surprisingly real snarl from the grey pony at the end of his spear.

"You're only making this worse for everypony, put down the spears!"

"He'll rip us to shreds the first chance he gets!" The large Unicorn bellowed, she jabbed at the trapped pony with her spear and raised the syringe threateningly.

"Especially if you keep threatening him with your sun-damned spears!" Clean Cut barked back. His curse made the guard give the doctor a glare of protest.

"Back off already!" Rainbow yelled, loud enough that her voice nearly gave out and so it cut off whatever protest the Sergeant could come up with. She stomped into the room and planted her hooves down right in front of the Guard and got right in her face, an admittedly less threatening display than she'd hoped as the IV scraped along beside her and with one of her wings pinned up at an odd angle.

"Now, Sergeant," Clean Cut said, calmer now. "I'd like to remind you that not only am I the superior authority in this room, but that as an Element of Harmony, Miss Dash also outranks you. So be a good soldier mare and take your post along the wall," he said, a grim warning hid underneath the sober facade.

The guard stared down at Rainbow with a hard glare, which made her think that it was more a lack of brainpower than it was insubordination that was keeping her there. She might have even stuck with that theory for her own amusement if her angry glare hadn't shifted to the pony behind Rainbow; who literally growled in response.

Rainbow spun around on instinct alone, her hindbrain screamed at her but she could not discern what it said. The grey pony she'd seen before seemed a whole lot bigger this much closer to him, especially with his face twisted into the very image of fury: Teeth that did not look like a pony's bared to the gums, thick pink tongue pressed behind them and held back the sound of a rockslide. The shaggy grey fur on his withers rippled with the muscles in his shoulders as he pushed against the magic draped over him, intense green eyes locked on the Sergeant through an unkempt black salt and pepper mane.

His whole coat was dappled in a pattern that, while somewhat symmetrical, looked like someone had dropped a bucket of black paint onto the grey Pegasus' head. His wings were bunched up at an odd angle underneath Clean Cut's magical grasp, their dappled gradient only making the stallion look even bigger as they bristled around him. A tattered set of bandages hung off his flanks, whatever had been wrapped around his wings were completely ripped off and a large swath of stained gauze hung precariously off his barrel.

One of his hooves scraped at the floor, Clean Cut's magic crackled but never touched the three brass rings on the upper half of that arm. The pony's other hooves were solidly resisting Clean Cut's grasp, but their positioning was awkward. It was like the stallion's hooves were too long for him, and he kept trying to put his pasterns down on the floor only to shakily correct it.

"You see, you’re wrong, doctor," the guard hissed behind Rainbow. "It doesn't care about her, or any of us. You should have let us put it down while it was still properly contained-"

"You are dismissed, Sergeant!" Clean Cut barked, any semblance of companionable suggestion completely gone now. "Report to your barracks until I or your CO have summoned you. Now soldier!" Rainbow never expected to hear it from the kindly doctor she'd just met, but he sounded a lot like Spitfire; a very powerful voice backed up by a long career in the military. The thick guard finally gave up, she didn't surrender her attitude through the entire march out the door and left her spear leaning against the frame of it. The other Guards reluctantly backed into positions along the walls without their leader present and donned the telltale 'as indifferent as a statue’ look with practiced ease.

The stallion relaxed his face once the Unicorn Guard was out of sight, but turned his glare to the cowering nurse next. Or rather, the shattered syringe on the floor next to her. Rainbow could almost see anger boiling up inside the stallion as he stared at the syringe, watching the muscles in his neck and jaw tighten until she was sure they would snap like high tension wires.

She stepped around until she was between him and the syringe and he seemed to notice her for the first time. The low growl in his throat fell but didn't die, and he donned a confused expression.

"Cool it down, dude," Rainbow said, she talked like her friends did whenever she got too hot headed. Although, to keep her own cool with the rather threatening rumble from deep in the pony’s chest was not easy. "It's cool, that jerk's gone. Now can you ... sit down so the Doc can take a look at you?" she asked him, his eyes narrowed in contemplation this time rather than anger. She wanted to glance Clean Cut’s way, either to get support from him or to hurry him up in doing what she’d just said, but she was unsure what would happen if she looked away from the stallion for too long.

The grey pegasus let out an explosive sigh through his nose and practically collapsed onto the floor as he let his hooves relax. His wings drooped to the floor with an audible thump, eyes blank as the stallion simply took a moment to visibly pull himself together. Now that his ears weren’t pressed flat to his skull, Rainbow could see a pair of ivory spikes pierced through the left one.

Before Rainbow could say anything, the doctor had already sidled up to the stallion’s side. The doctor immediately started to fuss over the ripped bandages, cut them free with his magic and simultaneously summoned fresh gauze. Rainbow flinched as she caught sight of the ragged hole in the stallion’s barrel that Clean Cut worked on. She watched despite herself as Clean Cut unpacked a small plastic bag and retrieved a purple erb with the salad tongs in his coat, she turned a sickly shade of green as he pressed it between the raw and bruised flesh around the large wound.

“Nurse, get her back to her bed,” Clean Cut mumbled as he fussed over the multitude of torn bandages on the stallion. “We’ll be having a discussion about reading patients’ charts later,” he growled, his magic swept away the broken syringe and its contents to deposit it into a biohazard container on the wall.

The stallion flinched and snorted in discomfort as he was tended to, but was surprisingly calm under the doctor’s hooves. “Yes, yes. I know, Coalback,” Clean Cut mumbled under his breath to the pegasus, he retied his large wings down so that they wouldn’t inadvertently stretch out the injury again.

The Nurse’s nervous hoof jumped Rainbow out of her trance, which nearly scared Rainbow into emptying whatever was in her stomach. “Oh crap, don’t touch me!” she spat on reflex, she curled in around her stomach to try and keep a hold on her awakened gag reflex.

The Nurse recoiled instantly, but responded to a hurried request for a “Pan!” from Clean Cut and slid a shiny bedpan under Rainbow’s nose.

Once she’d recovered from her bout of nausea, thankfully without any retching, Rainbow came to a reeling realization. “Wait a second, this is Coalback?”

Clean Cut sighed, glared at the shivering Nurse and finished up the bandages without looking at them. “Yes, and as you can see he’s been rather upset lately. The circumstances he finds himself in are understandably stressful, which is why I’d hoped to delay him meeting you properly until things had smoothed out,” Clean Cut said and stepped back from the grey pony.

Coalback rose unsteadily to his hooves and stood more than a hoof’s width taller than the doctor’s horn. His legs were longer than Rainbow expected them to be, which made it almost look like he stood on raised horseshoes even though he wore none. The doctor steadied Coalback and started to lead him back over to the mass of bedsheets that was the bed.

Coalback’s hooves clattered on the floor as he unsteadily resisted the doctor’s coaxing, instead he wobbled forward a few steps toward Rainbow. She froze as, without a word, Coalback leaned in close and started to sniff her withers.

“Woah there, dude!” Rainbow jumped back away from him. “We just met,” she said pointedly. Whether Coalback understood a word she said was unclear, but he did seem to understand that his invasion of space had gone unappreciated. He stretched out his neck in her direction anyway, still sniffed the air, but didn’t try to follow her this time.

Instead he pulled back, and an expression of realization sparked onto his rough face. “Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?” he asked bluntly. Everyone in the room froze at the sound of his words. Rainbow had taken the assumption that Coalback simply couldn’t speak, and the suddenly very clear linguistics skills he demonstrated surprised everyone. “Talar þú íslensku?” Coalback tried after a moment, ears aimed forward at her expectantly.

“Uh …” was all she could come up with in response.

“An bhfuil Gaeilge agat? A bheil Gàidhlig agat? Vy govorite po-russki? ¿Habla usted español? Parlez-vous français? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Coalback rattled off, growing more crestfallen with each unanswered question. Each was obviously in another language but none that Rainbow knew. She’d never learned any other languages anyway, and usually just tuned out when other ponies spoke in them. Finally, as a last attempt, Coalback sputtered out “Rih la dohla ri Fadoh Fafala?”

In an instant Clean Cut jumped up. “That! I recognise that!” The doctor bolted around Coalback’s side and took up position just beside Rainbow. “So rih! So dohla laso fafala!” he said, another beaming smile on his face.

“You do?” Rainbow asked, Coalback’s surprised “La rih?” came at the same time.

"This is incredible!" Clean Cut yelled, giddy like a school colt with a new toy. "It's been centuries since anyone has spoken this language, not even the Princesses will speak it anymore!" he gushed, whatever professionalism that had held his manners in check forgone.

He was off like a rocket, spat off words and questions at Coalback as fast as his lips would move. The Unicorn was starting to act more like a love struck yearling than a doctor at this point. Though when Coalback shook his head and sputtered out “So rih rih so laso fafala la,” the doctor drooped visibly.

"What did he say?" Rainbow asked, her curiosity overcame the feeling of nausea that still hung over her.

Clean Cut sighed. "He was just explaining that he only knows very little in this language. Which is somewhat frustrating for me considering that none of those languages seemed familiar at all," he said and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Thefa fathe' rihthe fa Coalback. Therih fa la rihthe?" Coalback asked, swallowing as he looked directly at Rainbow Dash expectantly.

"What did he say?" she asked Clean Cut, and broke his thinking expression with a prod from her hoof.

He gave a start and had to catch up to the conversation with a few hurried glances. "Oh!" he said as he finally realized what he'd missed. "He was asking you for your name," he said with a warm smile and stepped out from between them.

"Oh, uh ... Rainbow Dash," she told Coalback. She shook her head when he repeated exactly what she’d said as her name. "Rainbow Dash," she said pointedly. She motioned to her chest with a hoof and stumbling as she inadvertently stretched her sore shoulder.

Coalback leaned in faster than she ever would have expected the large and unsteady pony to have and caught her with his withers, he pushed her back to her hooves. "Rainbow Dash?" he asked and eyed the bandages wrapped around her wing with a sniff.

Rainbow froze, unsure what to do as the stallion simply leaned over her: Practically leaned on her. One part of her screamed to push him away, another that she couldn't push over a pony as injured as he was. As a result she ended up short circuited with her reddening face pressed into his throat as he stared at her wing, and her at the scars hidden in his thick fur.

Finally, apparently satisfied that her wing was attached correctly, Coalback leaned back. Though he never backed away. With a curious look on his face he twisted around to stare at his own shoulders and flexed his wings against his own bandages.

"La do may sola, Coalback. Fathe may may rihri may the," Clean Cut said gently, using a hoof to coax Coalback back towards the bed. Clean Cut's magic instantly remade the bed for his patient and helped push the large stallion onto the bed. The doctor didn't seem concerned about the immense amount of creaking coming from the bed as the pegasus climbed on.

"You too, Rainbow Dash," Clean Cut said once Coalback was settled on the bed. He turned to her and started to lead her out of the room. "This was far too much excitement for the both of you, I'd like you to lie down for the rest of today."

"Wait!" Rainbow protested and twisted around the doctor to look back at the stallion who tugged at the sheets to make them to his satisfaction again. "Thanks," she said to him and made him pause to look at her. He paid attention even though she knew he couldn't understand a word. "You know, for helping me out," she explained quickly, she gave the doctor an expectant look until he translated for her.

Coalback stiffened, as if he were surprised. Then, trancelike, he bowed as best he could without standing from the bed.

“FORE!” Discord bellowed, his giraffe shaped golf club swung out to send the golf ball sized mouse down his “range” - which was actually just a large expanse of the wastelands that he’d specially adjusted.

The ball arced high over his latest masterpiece, which let him look over it yet again and smile. The ball made a satisfying squeal as it flew away over the sideways beaks that reached skywards and filled the valley floor with teeth and green gums in hope of a treat. The mouse fell out of sight and disappeared among the maws, the satisfying sounds that Discord’s creations made as they fought over the morsel only made his smile grow all the wider.

He watched for awhile as their rippling greenish flesh writhed, a strange effect produced by the creatures crawling over each other. There were already so many, almost enough but not quite. Discord didn’t care though, this colony he’d planted only a short year ago when he escaped had already multiplied at such a fantastic rate that even if he had been “imprisoned” again they would have eventually achieved an immense amount of chaos.

The skittering hooves of a changeling worker brought him out of his musings. “What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?” Discord asked without a glance their way, he flicked his golf cap and reached down the throat of the jaguar he’d changed into his bag and pulled out another mouse. The jaguar glared at him, but his magic kept her powerless.

“Queen Chrysalis has requested to be informed of when exactly you will be fulfilling your end of the bargain,” it buzzed, the greenish glow behind its blue eyes pulsed dimly at him. “She is concerned that you are taking advantage of her hospitality.” It’s bug eyes narrowed in a vain attempt to pressure Discord into giving an answer.

Discord only rolled his eyes at the bug creature and took up his golfing position again. “I’m working on it,” he said. He dropped the ball onto its unicorn horn tee and eyed it carefully. It would be so much easier if his golf club didn't shiver in fear. “I think that the Queen,” he said sarcastically, “has forgotten that if not for moi then she, and all of you insects, would be nothing more than smears in the dirt … or meals for my pets,” he said as he took his next swing and sent the next mouse to its doom as punctuation to his last statement. His bag even looked just a bit more appreciative of her current position.

Discord threw his club over his shoulder and wrapped it around his neck like a coat as he donned a thoughtful expression. “However, since poor Sparky didn’t get along with Fido, I will need a new way to break up those damned Elements,” he mused as he eyed the golf bag he’d been carefully cultivating for his purposes for a moment. He looked to the worker, who shot fearfully in front of him, and a smile grew. “Yes, your kind might just be useful after all …”

He leaned down to the worker and finally took the moment to look for the very subtle signs of gender on their faces. He found it so blissfully chaotic how only one or two ever really became fertile, it almost made him sad for this little female. Almost.

“My dear,” he said after a moment as he draped his lion paw over her shoulders and pinning down her wings forcefully. “Call me that little gryphon flock we detained awhile ago, and my little ‘separatist’ friends,” he said and grinned with a smile that could have curdled milk. Her eyes flashed green for a moment, then the same yellow of his eyes.

The changeling sped away as fast as her thin and torn wings could carry her, rocketed toward sharp-edged mass that was slowly being built on the side of a nearby crag. He leaned against his jaguar bag as he watched it speed away and drummed his claw in thought between her ears.

The control he had on Chrysalis and her Changelings was not one he was completely used to: he liked to work off of ponies’ weaknesses, but had little experience with non-chaos-magic methods to his control. Even his jaguar bag was a new experiment for him. He wanted followers, lots of followers. So that even if he was occupied elsewhere and could not stretch his will over them, they would be utterly and completely ready to follow his orders anyway. A long term plan was needed, even if he was to enact his revenge in only a short time.

He needed to save as much energy as possible, he’d already stretched so much in this damned demesne. Discord turned his head at that thought and glared at the horizon. As he watched a near invisible flash from a storm hundreds of miles away confirmed his slow and steady sucker punch was still in effect, which drained his power even if only on a cosmically miniscule scale it was significant here and now. He could still feel the tiny seed of chaos he'd planted the day of his 'reimprisonment' pulse away and angrily grow and influence it's 'potting'.

Several changelings barreled back toward him, slats with each “guest” tied down to it drug behind them. He smiled as they came to a halt. He stood and leaned down so he was eye to eye with the first rust red Unicorn that made up the rag tag group of ponies and gryphons. “Hello,” he said, whimsically he dragged out the word as if he’d just stumbled across some oddity on a normal stroll. The stallion flinched, his magic flickered around the ring over his horn in fear. “Time to make you germs useful,” he snickered, his eyes flashed with chaos magic. He smiled his toothy smile when he saw the resistance drain out of the stallion like a plug had been pulled, his yellow eyes reflected in the stallion’s for just a flash.

"I see trees of green," he sang as he strolled down the line, his magic easily ripped out the useless mortal minds and filled them with thoughts of him and his will at leisure. "Red roses too ..."

Author's Notes:

Yet another, in very uncommonly timely fashion! Hope you like foreshadowing cut it's pretty heavy in this chapter!
Feel free to give me any criticisms down in the comments, most of them are helpful ...