“I don’t like this.”

“Oh?” Celestia looked up from her tea and across the table at Discord as the draconequus frowned at a cup of… she wasn’t sure, exactly, “I thought this pot turned out quite well, actually...”

“I’m not talking about the tea and you darn well know it sunshine,” Discord shot back as he slammed his cup down, making the castle staff milling about the garden around them jump – partly due to the sudden sound, partly due to it sounding less like teacup-on-saucer and more like cat-out-of-catapult, “Why in the name of me did you even send me back there, after what we discussed?”

Celestia spelled away the spot of tea Discord had spilled as she refilled her own cup, “I needed your notes; Twilight would realize my actual level of interest in her work if I asked her and she can become nervous when it comes to-” she was interrupted again, this time by a cloth-bound and heavily earmarked tome hitting the table, “-my perceived scrutiny.”

“Well you don’t have to worry about that,” Discord said in tone just short of a growl, “After yesterday she’ll be too busy trying to work out why I left.”

“You didn’t say anything compromising, did you?” Celestia asked, one eyebrow climbing slightly as she sipped her tea.

“Oh, don’t worry your Highness,” Discord said, emphasizing the last world, “All I told her was that we were done and I was working with you.”

“My student can be quite stubborn when she sets her mind to something,” Celestia said, “Are you certain she won’t be following after you?”

Discord stared down into his cup for a moment before sighing, “No,” he said as he drained the cup in one pull, “I think I burned that bridge quite well.”

“And if anyone could make that judgment, it would be you.”

Discord arched an eyebrow, “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Celestia calmly stirred a few cubes of sugar into her tea, “That few in my long memory were as skilled at destroying relationships like you were; if you say one of your own relations is over, then I have no reason to doubt you.”

“Few others, huh…?” Discord leaned back with a tired grin. He stared at Celestia for a moment before saying, “Then why send me?”

“As I said,” Celestia began, “I required-”

“No you didn’t,” Discord cut her off, “You know what Twilight’s working on – you’ve always known. You aren’t actually involved in the work, so its not like the details mattered. And even if it did, you don’t have to send me in – you have other ponies for that. Good little sycophants. But instead you send me, with strict orders not to tell your precious student what I was actually doing and to make sure I wasn’t followed on pain of eternal ignorance. Into a situation where you knew I would run into her. So why on Equis would you do that to your oh-so-precious ‘student’?”

The table was quiet for a long moment until Celestia spoke again, “It was for her own good. Her actions as of late have been… uncharacteristic of her. I needed to determine the cause of the matter before it was too late.”

“So that’s why you’ve stalled on me for the past week,” Discord said, “You want to keep me busy and away from Twilight until you can be sure I didn’t ruin her.”

“Exactly.”

Discord blinked owlishly at Celestia’s calm admittance. “Wait – you actually sabotaged Twilight’s research just because you wanted me away from here? You didn’t even care before!”

“Before, I thought Twilight had the matter in hoof,” Celestia replied, looking up from her tea and at the draconequus across from her, “I’ve always believed you could be more, Discord, if only you could get past your own nature. Fluttershy was able to convince you to restrain yourself, but with Twilight and her research, I was hoping you might learn the value in being… productive.”

“Ah – you weren’t expecting Twilight to start taking after me, were you?” Discord was grinning again as he toyed with his saucer, though it didn’t have its usual mirth behind it, “You know, Twilight’s parents are supposed to pull the ‘panties in a knot over the daughters boyfriend’ shtick, not immortal demi-goddesses.”

“One, you aren’t her boyfriend,” Celestia replied, “Two – this has nothing to do with her relationships and everything to do with her future. I may be unable to reform you but-”

“You see, that’s the problem,” Discord cut in again, and his grin widened slightly as he noticed it was finally getting to the princess, “You all think in the same way – that I’m dangerous. That something is wrong with me. Fluttershy just thinks its something I need to work out of my system – like a midnight craving for double-chocolate fudge cake. You and Lulu at least know better – that chaos is what I am. The difference between you two though, is that when the gloves come off you can’t help but think that Twilight isn’t up to it. Luna seems more confident in her, but having a mare rip a malignant persona from your psyche likely invites some level of confidence.”

Any reply Celestia was going to make was cut off as a guard ran toward the table, coming to a stop a few paces away and snapping off a salute before speaking, “Your highness! There has been an incident in the East Collections Hall!”

“What sort of incident?” Celestia asked as she rose from her seat.

“We...” the guard shuffled nervously, “...We aren’t sure; nothing our mages try does anything!”

Celestia turned to Discord with a questioning glance, “Hey, it wasn’t me!” He defended himself, before adding, “Well, at least not directly.”

The guard arched an eyebrow, “Directly?”

“Reality hasn’t been playing nice recently, remember?” Discord said with a shrug as he hopped out of his chair and cracked his neck, “Well, nothing for it I suppose – lead the way, Hank.”

The guard blinked, “My name is Bastion.”

“Yeah, sure whatever-” Discord waved dismissively, “Do you want me to un-buck your pile of trinkets or not?”

The guard turned to Celestia, who simply sighed, “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”

Discord fell into step just behind the guard, forcing Celestia to follow along a step behind and to the draconequus’ back. “So, tell me Hank,” Discord said as they were led through the halls, “What can you tell us about the incident?”

“The first reports of strange activity were at zero-six hundred this morning,” the guard replied, “some of the archivists were reporting that their quills were moving of what appeared to be their own volition.”

“You performed the standard spell-sweeps in response, I assume?” Celestia asked, very politely pushing past Discord.

“Yes ma’am,” the guard said with a nod, “None of the stored artifacts were active, and there were no active spellforms in the space that we could detect. Given the limited scope of the initial report, we assumed it was just wind and a paranoid researcher and returned to normal operations.”

“I’m guessing things went completely pear-shaped not long after?” Discord asked.

The guard stopped and turned to look at him, “How did you know?”

“Because, my little pony,” Discord replied, “Chaos always has a sense of comedic timing,” he waved a claw dismissively as the reached the end of a hall, “Twilight had a theory about cross-string vibrations and inverted probabilistic wave-forms, but the short of it is that there is a reason that you don’t tempt fate like that. So,” Discord leaned close to the stallion with a large, toothy grin, “What’s the damage?”

“W-well,” the guard said nervously as he back up a few paces, right into a large door, “Take a look for yourself.”

The door chose that moment to swing open without the guards help, a pair of unicorns rushing out past the trio and down the hall screaming. Celestia and Discord stared after them for a moment before Discord quipped, “You know, I expect this sort of thing in Ponyville, but I honestly thought you ran a tighter ship than this Sunshine.”

“You know, I am actually surprised this sort of situation doesn’t happen more often...” Celestia said absently before giving her head a barely noticeable shake and saying more loudly to Bastion, “Please, lead the way Lieutenant.”

Bastion nodded curtly before pulling the door open the entire way and, after taking a deep breath, stepping into the hall beyond. What followed was what sounded like a cross between an angry flock of birds and a herd of foals in a glass shop. Carefully, Discord stuck his head into the room and, on seeing what lay inside, paused, “...Huh. Wasn’t expecting that.”

Celestia carefully peered inside and couldn’t help but admit that Discord’s assessment was spot-on. All around the room, thousands of different objects in a hundred different shapes flew about on nearly as many different styles of wings. Crystalline, feathered, membranous, insectile, paper and more. “I wonder where all the keys came from though...”

“How many couches were in here?” Discord asked before clapping loudly, “Okay then! Princess, what you have here is what we refer to as a focused non-terminal repeating phantasmagoria, or a class five full roaming anomaly – and a real nasty one too,” Without any further preamble, Discord waded into the middle of the room and, as Celestia and the guard watched, the maelstrom of knickknacks flew around and past him, “But as stupid as they might be, they know a fellow piece of chaos when they see it.”

“I’ll say,” The guard said as he stepped forward, “That is one hay of a-” he was cut off as he tapestry wrapped around his head and turned him into a pile of flailing limbs until the Princess could help him free himself.

“Helps if you’re, you know, chaotic,” Discord pointed out before turning to the Princess, “You might be able to walk around without a problem though.”

Celestia shot a glare at him as she finished freeing her guard, “If you are attempting to imply something about me, Discord...”

“I am,” Discord replied, “But mostly just voicing a theory,” he gestured for her to come closer, “Come on – if I’m right, you’ll be fine.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow, “And if you’re wrong?”

“Then you’ll still be fine,” Discord replied, “I doubt a flying key is going to manage to hurt an alicorn.”

After a moment of hesitation, Celestia stepped forward into the hall. As she watched, the swarm of flying objects diverted around her, just like Discord said they would. She watched as a formation of quills glided past her head, “Fascinating. Though I imagine it’s not due to what you were implying before.”

Discord chuckled as he held out a claw, and a pair of keys alighted onto his talons, “Observant as always Sunshine – try touching one of them.”

Nodding, Celestia gently reached out with one hoof toward a nearby book that had landed on the floor just in front of her. As soon as she came within a hoof’s width of it though, the book gave a screech and shot off as fast as its parchment wings could carry it. “Water doesn’t care about more water,” Discord said as he stroked the back of the key still on his claw, “But it can douse a fire. Throw water on a powerful enough fire though, and it just turns to steam,” he gestured at the room around him, “This is a room full of chaos and you are the maintainer of the sun, the grand maintainer of order herself. Of course they’d be terrified of you.”

“But not terrified enough to leave my castle, it would seem.” Celestia said.

“Of course not,” Discord said back as he reached out with both arms, light beginning to coalesce around his claw and paw, “Anyhow – lecture time over. You want this cleaned up, yes? I could use a workout after this week.”

“Discord,” Celestia said in a warning tone as the guard stepped just slightly behind her, “If you are about to make anything blow up...”

“Blow up?” Bastion said from behind the princess, “I don’t wanna blow up!”

“...then I can assure you that we can work out another way to fix this.” Celestia finished as she shot the guard behind her a quick glance.

“Oh, come on,” Discord didn’t look up from his work as he replied, busy weaving the light together like some sort of complicated string trick, “If it means anything, I promise you that this spell does not explode...” there was a moment where the only sound was the flutter of flying objects and the soft ringing of magic, “...usually.”

“...I’m casting a containment ward,” Celestia said with a sigh as she began to charge the spell.

“Ixnay on the spell-bay!” Discord shouted as he stomped one cloven hoof into the ground. Instantly, a rubber ball bounced out of no-where to smack the princess in the horn, causing the alicorn to wince and her spell to dissipate, “I need absolute silence for this.”

Celestia gives a barely-audible annoyed huff but nonetheless complied with the request as she and her guard waited for Discord to finish his spell. After a few minutes, Discord spin around with a loud, “Ta-da!”

Celestia and the guard both stare at the strange object in Discord’s claw. It was a multi-faceted pentagonal crystal of translucent blue, a strange glowing emanating from inside it. “Behold, the Thing!”

“Okay,” the guard said hesitantly, “But… what is it?”

Discord stared back at him for a moment before letting out a dejected sigh, “Well, if you want to be technical,” Discord began to explain as he started tossing the crystal back and forth, “It’s an engram – wrapped up inside here is a very, very powerful spell based on some theoretical work Twilight and I had been working on...” he shot Celestia a quick glance, “...until recently.”

Celestia watched the engram carefully, “How powerful?”

“Well...” Discord hemmed and hawed for a time, rolling the glowing crystal across his shoulders before he said, “You’re familiar with First Impact, right?”

“The theoretical asteroid impact that brought the Windigo’s to Equestria,” Celestia replied, “of course.”

“Well, this,” Discord held the engram out, “Would cause Second Impact if mistreated.” Discord considered the crystal, setting it to spinning on the tip of his claw, “So – pretty much like any other black-level item I suppose.”

Despite his white coat, the guard managed to visibly pale, “Should you really be playing with it like that then?”

“Ah, good point,” Discord replied, tossing the engram into the air and catching it in his paw. He gave Celestia and the Guard a friendly, non-threatening smile before he casually tossed the sphere over his shoulder.

To Celestia’s credit, her initial response was nominally more productive then her guards. While he simply went bug-eyed, the princess attempted to catch the engram in a telekinetic spell…

...that simply bounced right off of it an instant before it crashed into the ground and shattered.

Both ponies present threw up shields as the spell contained in the engram exploded outwards and across the room with a whistling whoosh and a shower of sparks. Celestia braced for the inevitable catastrophic explosion…

...and waited…

...and waited…

“Where’s the kaboom?” the guard hesitantly asked, “There was supposed to be an equis-shattering kaboom.”

Carefully, Celestia lowered her shield as she braced herself for whatever was left of her Castle’s wing.

Suspended mid-air around the space hung a myriad flying forms, there wings frozen mid-flap. None of them moved, even as Discord nudged them out of the way as he walked past, sending them tumbling slowly, “Oh come on, like I’d shatter the planet while I was still on it,” Discord idly nudged a key until was on a collision course with a dictionary before adding, “And dear Fluttershy would also be upset with me, but mostly the former...”

Celestia took Discord’s momentary distraction to carefully recompose herself before striding into the room, “Most impressive Discord, but I do hope that this isn’t your entire solution – unless the anomaly is contained?”

“Not even remotely,” Discord replied with a toothy smile, “This was just the setup! Honestly, I can’t do anything with your junk drawer flitting about. No, my actual plan is...” he reached behind – and past, based on how much of his arm vanished – his back before pulling out a bizarre set of spectacles, sporting a series of colored lenses on small armatures, “...these babies. Sorta. Kinda. Not really. Trust me on this.”

Celestia arched an eyebrow, “I haven’t trusted you in a millennia and a half.”

“And yet I don’t remember that half bit,” Discord shot back as he donned the glasses, “So there you go! Now, where was I…?” Discord glanced around the room before giving a small nod, “Ah, yes – now, let’s see...” he reached up and tilted all of the lenses out, and as he did so, the entire hall space filled with what Celestia could only describe as a labyrinth of strings in every form and color imaginable, stretching from and between seemingly everything. Thin blue-ish strings interlinked the numerous airborne objects, while thicker threads stretched down from them to the ground at odd angles. Other lines seemed to lead from one object to the next with no apparent pattern, varying in color and pattern. Some trailed out like tendrils, coiled mid-air or draped out like tails, “Behold – the inside of my head!”

“Faust I hope not,” Celestia murmured before she could catch herself. She quickly said more loudly, “What sort of spell is this?”

“It’s a sort of sensory projection,” Discord said, waving around him, “This is a fairly close approximation of how Twilight and I, at least partially, perceive chaos.”

“So, then,” Celestia began to ask as she peered closely at one the the strings that seemed to coil across several objects before terminating at her hoof, “These strings are…?”

“Relationships,” Discord replied, “Lines of interaction or potential interaction. Twilight could explain it better,” he waved his claw vaguely, “Something about acasual systems and vibrational resonances… anyhow. This is everything – a little much for us. What we need is...” he slowly lowered two of the lenses into place, “This.”

When the lenses slipped into place, a vast number of the strings vanished, leaving only a webway of purple etheral yarn. “These,” Discord said, “Are… well, I forget what Twilight called them. Something about non-symmetric First-order gauge tensors or some-such. But they should indicate the flow of chaos.”

“Fascinating,” Celestia found herself studying one the lines more closely, “If we could equip our guards with these...”

“It wouldn’t work,” Discord finished for her, “Since, one, you need to use chaos magic to make them work in the first place, meaning you need a draconequus on hoof. And two, what the hay would your guards do once they did find a nexus of chaotic energy? Other then get the organs alphabetized and-or turned into citrus fruit.”

“...Citrus fruit?” Bastion said nervously.

“So, you’re stuck calling me.” Discord finished, “Who ya’ gonna call? Now – if we keep following the lines back... and back… and back...” Discord slowly traced the lines across the room, around a set of wrought iron and glass shelves and under a massive wooden table. More lines joined into the main trunk until it reached column and wound its way up until burying itself inside a dark corner near the ceiling, “...and there we are!”

“Excellent,” Celestia said with a relieved sigh, “Now, would you kindly remove it?”

“Can’t.”

Celestia blinked, “Pardon?”

“I can’t,” Discord repeated, “Well, I can – but not like that. I mean, I’m assuming you still want the castle and stuff intact so… yeah.”

Celestia stared up at the corner before bringing her hoof to her face with a groan, “Okay then, Discord – what do you need to remove it?”

“Hrmm...” Discord mulled it over for a moment, “… chalk, salt, a compass, a small knife, a bowl, a loaf of bread, some honey, and a black canvas duster. I’d just summon them, but...” he gestured at the corner, “...you know.”

Celestia let out another sigh before turning to the guard, “Lieutenant Bastion, did you get all that?”

“Yes, your Highness,” the guard replied, “But it may take some time to find everything...”

“Discord, how stable is this anomaly?” Celestia asked.

“Quite,” Discord assured her, “Especially because I stopped time for it. So, no rush.”

“Very well,” Celestia turned back to her guard, “Lieutenant.”

“Your Highness,” Bastion gave her a sharp salute before turning and marching out of the room at a somewhat faster then professional speed.

Discord and Celestia watched him go until, as his last steps faded away, Discord gave a relieved sigh, “Finally – took him long enough. Your guards have annoyingly sharp senses, you know that?”

“Wait, what?” Celestia blinked in surprise as Discord snaked his way up the column and began prodding at the anomaly. Despite appearing to just be shadows, whenever Discord poked at it his claw bounced off as if he had prodded at a large ball of rubber, “Discord, did you just send my Guard to collect a bunch of useless items?”

“Of course not!” Discord said, turning to look at her in shock, “All of those things are very useful,” He shrugged as he turned back to the anomaly, “Just not, you know, with this particular problem.”

“...You needed him gone, didn’t you?” Celestia stated flatly. It wasn’t really a question.

“Can’t go accidentally melting his brain when I start debugging n-dimentional cross-weaves...” Discord replied as he unwrapped himself from the column and strode across the top of the nearest set of shelves, “Luckily for you, alicorn minds are made of sterner stuff.”

“Given I have never been directly exposed to chaos magic in such a matter,” Celestia said as she watched, “How would you know that?”

“Because Twilight’s adorable little head didn’t explode when she ended up accidentally upgrading herself,” Discord replied as he adjusted the glasses, “Now, prepare yourself – I’m removing the limiters,” Celestia took a steadying breath and gave him a sharp nod, “Okay – release restraint level...one.”

One of the lenses slid up and suddenly the whole world… tilted. That was the only way Celestia could describe it despite the fact that nothing in the room had really changed. It was the same length, width, height, color, lighting level, angle… yet, something was still off. As if the room was somehow more than before. “What...did you just do?”

“I partially shifted the room into phase with… whatever the space this thinks its supposed to be in. “ Discord said as he waved vaguely at the corner. Now, when Celestia looked at it, she could see something beyond the shadow – or, rather, between it. What it was, she truly had no idea. Discord seemed unfazed by it, whatever it was, “Okay then – let’s see what we’ve got to work with.” Without further preamble, he shoved his claw through the not-gap up to his elbow, “There’s got to be a fulcrum release lever somewhere...ah,” his arm twisted around, “Right side.”

There was a loud, thundering thunk as suddenly the threads around the room were sucked back into the corner with a rolling rumble until the room was string-free.

“And there we have it!” Discord said as he hopped back down to the floor, landing before Celestia with a flourish and a bow, “All fixed and ready for-” he paused as he looked around the room, “-Almost forgot,” he tapped his hoof three times and the spell-freeze spell instantly dissipated, causing every object previously frozen mid-flight to fall to the ground in a cacophony of crashes.

“Your highness, I’ve found all the items requested by-” Bastion paused as he stepped into the hall, looking up from an over-stuffed saddlebag and around the room, “...Oh. Did I miss it?”

“Yes you did, my boy!” Discord replied cheerfully, “Don’t fret though – I’m sure there will be an encore at some point, given the way things are going.”

“That’s not reassuring,” the guard replied.

Discord arched an eyebrow, “Was it supposed to be?”

The guard mulled that statement over for a minute or two before informing the Princess that he was going to return the borrowed items and then saluted, turned and walked out. Celestia watched him go for a moment before turning to Discord with a questioning look, “Are you trying to drive my staff mad?”

“Yes, yes I am,” Discord replied as he skated around the clutter on the floor and to the door, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m done here.”

“I suppose you are,” Celestia replied as she took in the mess before her, “I’ll inform the maid staff to tidy up here and then we can-”

“You can do whatever you like,” Discord replied, cutting her off as he lazily slid past her, “I’m leaving.”

“Leaving?” Celestia echoed in surprise as she spun around, “Leaving to where?”

“Dunno – maybe the Badlands. Probably Ponyville,” Discord said with a shrug as he did a quick twirl and dipped into a bow, “Either would be more productive then cooling my heels here, so I bid you adieu.”

Celestia’s brow furrowed as she reluctantly followed a few paces behind the draconequus, “You still haven’t learned anything about your past though.”

“And you still aren’t sharing,” Discord replied, “So what’s a draconequus to do? Not like I’m going to let you stall forever. Would rather do something interesting then sit around being bored.”

“There’s places you might not be bored,” Celestia replied almost conversationally after a moment, “But the truth is you’re probably safer on the move – and my agents never stop moving,” Discord paused mid-ski and glanced toward the Princess.

“I'm confused,” Discord said, squinting at the stoic-faced princess, “No wait, I think maybe you're confused.”

“Maybe it has become apparent to you that the kingdom could use an expert in… unusual matters,” Celestia continued, “You aren’t malicious – I’m not sure how reliable you are, all things considered, but you aren’t malicious and that isn’t nothing. You work by my rules, keep yourself from doing anything crazy,” Celestia stated calmly as she met Discord’s gaze, “and you might be able to find your answers here.”

Discord leaned back as he tapped at his chin, “I’m trying to put this as delicately as I can – Was there something in your tea or did you just get a good look at what I did back there?”

“I can assure you that I am not mentally impaired,” Celestia assured him, “I can offer you challenges, the opportunity to put your powers to use and the chance to rediscover everything you’ve forgotten.”

“But only if I play by your rules.” Discord added.

“The only reason you are free now was by my edict, Discord,” Celestia reminded him, “I’m sure you realize that I could contain you if I could. I don’t because it wouldn’t be...”

“Tasteful?” Discord suggested.

“Nice,” Celestia finished, “I want to help you, Discord, the same that I want to help any of my subjects.”

“Well, Sunshine,” Discord paced around Celestia as he summoned a fedora and donned it, “It sounds like a nice offer – very nice. Too nice, in fact,” he twisted around her until his face was a hairs breadth from hers, “What’s the catch?”

“You would never work with Twilight Sparkle again,” Celestia stated flatly, “I could try to justify it to you in a dozen ways, but the simple truth is that I just don’t trust you.”

“Yet you want to give me a job,” Discord said as he took a few paces back, “And to trust me with dealing with unnatural disasters – what? You planning on foalsitting me all the time? Giving me a nanny?”

“You will be tracked, but otherwise? No,” Celestia replied, “You would be free to do whatever you like within reason and granted full rights the same as any of my other agents – full archive access, quarters in the castle or a living stipend...”

“But I could never talk to Twilight again.” Discord reiterated.

“You could never work with her again,” Celestia corrected him, “Seeing her would be unavoidable given your close ties with Fluttershy, but before her accident the two of you barely interacted. Returning to such an arrangement shouldn’t be problematic nor would it be unsustainable.”

“And why should I take this offer, hmm?” Discord asked, “What’s to stop me from just, say, heading back to Twilight, telling her what a manipulative ball of flaming indigestion you’ve been and getting her to help me with the research – since, lets be honest, that’s the only part of your package I’m even remotely interested in.”

Celestia arched an eyebrow, “What makes you think Twilight would have access to the relevant records?”

“What? You going to hide them from her?” Discord asked, “Hide books? From Twilight Sparkle? Tia, I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t hide them,” Celestia replied with a shrug, “I don’t have to – What you’re after isn’t written down in a book or scroll,” Celestia lightly tapped the side of her head with a hoof, “It’s in here. Everything you want to know is in here,” She lowered her hoof and began walking toward Discord, “and all you need to do to get to it...” she stopped as she reached the draconequus, looking up at him a she laid a hoof on his chest, “Is make me trust you.”

Discord snorted and turned away, “Unlikely.”

“More likely then you think,” Celestia replied as she lowered her own gaze, her eyes slipping close for a moment, “I would like to trust you, truly – but I can’t yet. Not in good conscience. No matter how much...” the Princess trailed off before stepping back and looking up at Discord, stoic once again, “I am not the villain here, no matter what you think.”

“Of course not,” Discord said with a scoff, “I am – this is my redemption arc after all.”

Celestia rolled her eyes before she strolled past him, “Please at least consider my offer, Discord,” the draconequus gave a derisive snort but the princess ignored it as she continued past him. As she reached the corner though, she turned back to him and asked, “If this is your redemption arc though, why won’t you let me save you?”

Discord blinked owlishly at that as Celestia vanished around the corner and he found that, even as he mulled it over, he couldn’t think of a good reply.

Author's Notes:

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