As Discord reached the ponies and dragon - closely followed by the rest of the Princes - he saw that only some of the artifacts remained, while Twilight and the others had their Elements back. "...huh," he mused as he floated before them all. "This is unexpected. Well, this is your victory, and I won't fight it." Donning sunglasses, he made a target appear over his stomach. "You may fire when ready."

"Actually..." Twilight spoke up carefully. "We've...kinda, sorta, decided that maybe we shouldn't." She chuckled nervously.

Discord blinked in surprise. "Wait, you just won. You aren't surrendering, are you?"

"No," Luna corrected. "We are...negotiating."

"Oh, I see," Discord mused as he conjured a table for them all to sit around, complete with platters of cheese and crackers with glasses that endlessly filled with chocolate milk from the cotton candy clouds that floated over them, twisty straws leading from the glasses to the ponies' and dragon's mouth. He chuckled at how the three fillies and the dragon immediately started slurping up the tasty treat.

"Hey!" Pinkie snapped angrily. She pointed at her own glass. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Confused, Discord glanced over at Sanguine, hoping for a clue. Chuckling, Sanguine pulled out a bowl and spooned a dollop of whipped cream onto the top of Pinkie's glass.

"Thanks, Saggy!" Pinkie beamed, leaning over to give Sanguine a kiss on the cheek before she started slurping up her cheese and crackers through her swirly straw before chomping down on her chocolate milk.

"How much did she absorb from you?" Discord demanded of Sanguine curiously.

"...real time or distilled time?" Sanguine asked curiously.

"Pinkie's casual disregard for standard physics aside," Celestia interrupted, "we do have negotiations to focus on."

"Unless you've got some cupcakes to throw?" Pinkie asked Sanguine eagerly.

Sanguine started to respond, then noticed a glower from Discord. "Perhaps after the significantly important situation we're in the middle of is resolved," he promised.

"Okie-dokie-loki!" Pinkie beamed up at him, her tail wagging eagerly.

"So, you were saying about negotiations?" Discord asked Celestia firmly.

Celestia nodded. "Simply put, when taking what you've done in Equestria since your time in Aurbis as the start of a blank slate...well, simply put, on the scale you seem to be used to, it isn't anything worthy of an imprisonment sentence."

"Especially not when you can clean it up with a snap of your talons," Spike added.

"So we are hoping to establish a set of terms you will be willing to agree to so that you can roam free in Equestria without excessively disrupting it to the point we would have to act as we did in our first encounter," Luna explained.

Discord rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Let me see if I've got this straight...you don't find my games by their nature to be incompatible with the world you've built, so you want to agree on a set of ground rules for all future games...and if those can be agreed on, I can play as many games as I want within Equestria without fear of Element retribution?"

"That about sums it up," Applejack confirmed.

"Well, I see no problem with that," Discord agreed warmly, settling down in his chair. "A game's no fun without clear rules. So what'd you have in mind?"

"For starters, how about the rules you laid down for these games?" Sweetie Belle suggested. "No permanent physical or emotional harm to players, and always a chance to win?"

"That seems like a good basis," Discord agreed, jotting the rules down on a sheet of paper.

"And don't involve nobody who can't take it," Applejack spoke up. "Mah Granny ain't as young as she used ta be, and ah doubt she'd handle being thrown into the sorta thing ya can make happen on a whim, especially not if'n ya dropped it on her as a surprise."

"With a caveat that he may provide temporary restoration of past physical or mental capacities to handle the game if the party agrees?" Clavicus Vile offered. "To take your example, your Granny is to old too handle the games...but if she agrees to temporarily regaining her youth for the game, then can she be involved?"

"Well, shoot, ah don't see no problems with that, long as that fits those first two rules," Applejack allowed.

"Perhaps a blanket 'terms of games agreed upon before games are initiated, even if initiated at a later date' ruling?" Jyggorath suggested. "That ought to cover all such situations." The ponies glanced around at each other, then nodded. "And I think we should also lay down that no one who isn't of their majority can be allowed to wager anything on the outcomes of these games."

"Oh absolutely," Discord agreed. "Last thing I'd want to do is get a kid hurt from my antics." He wrote down what was being discussed. "Anything else?"

"Clean up afterwards," Rarity insisted. "It's only polite not to leave a mess behind after playing a game."

Nodding, Discord added that, then looked up to hear any other submissions.

Everyone gathered around the table glanced back and forth. Pinkie shot her hoof into the air. "Oh! Oh! Free passage for us back and forth between Equestria and the Realms of Oblivion! I wanna be able to see Saggy whenever I want!"

"I have no objections to that," Discord chuckled dryly as Sanguine actually blushed at the look Pinkie shot his way. "Just tell me where to install the Realm gates, and I'll zap them into place." As he finished writing down the rules, he showed them to Celestia and Luna. "Are these terms acceptable?"

Celestia and Luna glanced over the rules. "Indubitably," Luna confirmed.

"If we'd had this back when we first met, we'd never had to lock you in stone the first time around," Celestia observed dryly.

Discord clapped his mismatched hands together. "Then these games are officially concluded with total victory for all involved," he declared proudly. "Now we come to some issues that arose during the games." Snapping his talons, he conjured a sheaf of papers and a pair of reading glasses. "First off, Twilight Sparkle."

"Huh?" Twilight asked in surprise, jerking her head out of Mora's card catalogue.

"You issued a challenge to Hermaeus Mora for your trial," Discord observed. "What was the exact wording of the challenge?"

"Umm...I challenged him for the Realm and this card catalogue," Twilight responded nervously. "Why?"

"So...not for his throne?" Discord clarified.

"What would I want with a throne?" Twilight demanded crossly. "I barely have enough time in my day to read, study, and spend time with my friends as is without having to be a Princess, too! I've seen how little free time Princess Celestia gets." She failed to notice Celestia and Luna exchanging uncomfortable glances.

Discord turned a grin towards Hermaeus Mora. "Well, good news for you. You're still the Daedric Prince of Knowledge. However, as far as your Realm is concerned, she's in charge of it now."

"So...I have all the administrative headaches of being a Daedric Prince, while she gets all the privileges?" Hermaeus Mora clarified.

"That is the meaning of her terms of the challenges," Discord teased playfully.

"Curse you Twilight Sparkle!" Hermaeus Mora roared angrily, making the three fillies giggle.

"And now we come to Rainbow Dash," Discord continued. "I'm afraid your situation is much more black and white. You killed Mehrunus Dagon in his own Realm, with his own weapon, during a challenge fight between the two. The mantle of Daedric Prince of Destruction is now yours."

Rainbow said nothing, simply staring at Discord for a while before going to back to clutching Scootaloo as tightly as the filly would allow...which was only limited by her capacity to breathe.

Discord coughed uncomfortably, tugging at a shirt collar he conjured specifically to tug at. "Now, there is the matter of you being both an Equestrian citizen and an Element Bearer, and the fact that these might come in conflict with being a Daedric Prince. I'm afraid Daedric matters must take priority over being a citizen of Equestria, but Element matters will take priority over Daedric matters...at least unless and until you designate a proxy from Aurbis to stand in for you when you can't make it."

"Right, whatever," Rainbow grunted, plainly not wanting to think about any of this for a while.

"Ohalsoyou'reanagelessimmortalnow," Discord said quickly, covering most of it with a cough.

"Whazzat?" Rainbow demanded, lifting her head.

"Oh, nothing important," Discord deflected. "Not for a few decades, anyway."

"Well, if that's all the important business," Celestia began as she got to her hooves. "I believe it's time for us to go home. There's a lot of paperwork waiting, if nothing else..."