Labyrinth: Return of Discord

Discord's mind went blank for a moment.  The other ponies and Spike were yelling, but their voices were distant echoes.

Celestia raised a hoof to silence the others as Discord raised his claw.

Snap.

In a flash of light, Fluttershy appeared in between him and the cage.  His hearing returned when she sat up and looked at nothing in particular.  He frowned at the inhabitants of the cage.

Twilight stared at the monochrome pegasus.  "Oh, Fluttershy..."

"It's quite impolite to lie, you know, Celestia!"  He lowered to the ground and walked over to Fluttershy.  "Look, she's quite alive."

Celestia shook her head.  "Can you look at her and say that again, Discord?"

Discord glanced at the pegasus.  She continued to stare straight ahead.  "She's alive."  He leaned down closer to her.  "You're alive."  He looked back at the princess.  "There, I said it."

"I was not lying."  She stood and walked to the bars.  "I cannot sense her.  She has given up, and now she is gone."

"Forever?"  Pinkie whimpered.

"Forever?"  Discord echoed softly.  He coiled around the pegasus and tried to meet her gaze.  "No.  This is a trick.  You're just trying to make me give up the throne!"

Celestia gave a heavy sigh.  "I believed that keeping her from you was the way to save her, but I see now that the opposite is true.  I am sorry, Twilight."  She looked at the young alicorn.  "I am to blame for this."

Applejack tried to distract herself by shaking Rarity.  Spike did his best to help console Twilight.  Luna hugged her sister.  Rainbow Dash remained confused by the whole situation, which irritated her, so she kicked one of the bars.

Pinkie leaned against the bars.  "Kiss her!"  She grinned.  "You're her prince, so kiss her!"

Discord looked at the pink pony with a frown.  "I am and will do no such thing."

Twilight's head lifted rather suddenly.  "That gives me an idea!"  She jumped to her hooves and looked up at Celestia with hope.  "Fluttershy is this way because her heart is broken, right?"  She started to beam.  "Then maybe Cadence can help!"

The elder princess raised one brow.  "I do not think her magic will be of use."

"Of course it will!  I've seen it do amazing things!"  She looked back at Discord.  "Discord, you have to take Fluttershy to the Crystal Empire to see Cadence!"

"Take who to the what?"  He frowned.

Twilight rolled her eyes.  "Just go!"

"But how can I-  Oh, right."  Rather anticlimactically, he snapped and both he and Fluttershy disappeared.

Discord took a moment to look around his new surroundings.  He whistled.  "Well, this is... different.  The Crystal Empire, huh?"  He grinned.  "I'll have to keep this place in mind for when I take over Equestria."

"For when you what?"

His head twisted at an impossible angle to look at an alicorn standing behind him and he frowned.  "What?  More alicorns?  Tia and Luna sure must have been busy!"

The pink alicorn's cheeks reddened.  He sensed her magic flare and he jumped to his feet, paw and claw displayed in a sign of peace.

"Hey, hey, I'm here on official business!"

The alicorn raised her head and eyed him with suspicion.  "What sort of..."  She gasped when she saw Fluttershy behind him.  "Fluttershy?!"  She ran forward.  "What has happened to her?!"

"That's what I want to know."  He rolled his eyes.  His arms crossed over his chest.  "I was minding my own business, when Tia said something about a 'broken heart'."  He looked at her.  "I suppose you're Cadence."

"Princess Mi Amore Cadenza."  She looked at him with growing suspicion.  "Who exactly are you?"

"Who am I?"  He feigned shock.  "Why, I am the magnificent, the glorious, the wonderful Discord, spirit of chaos!"

"And why are you here?"

His superior air faded and he slumped forward.  "Because Tia told me to."

She stepped toward him and pressed her horn to his chest.

"Hey, watch where you point that thing!"

Her eyes narrowed.  "Why did Princess Celestia send you and not Twilight?"

"Because... Well, you see..."  A tuxedo appeared on his torso and he tugged at the tight collar.  "My, my, it's awfully hot in here!  Have you thought about opening some windows?"

The room they were standing in had floor to ceiling openings to the outside.  A breeze swept through as if to accentuate that fact.

"Well, if you must know."  The tuxedo disappeared.  "Twilight and her little friends are trapped, and I was the only one who could bring poor little Fluttershy to you."

Cadence's suspicion remained in place, but she returned to Fluttershy's side.  "What exactly happened to her?"

"What's with all the questions?  Just fix her so I can take her back!"

"Discord..."  She nosed her head under one of Fluttershy's forelegs.  "Help me carry her to the couch."

"Carry her?  Why would I do that when she's already on the couch?"

Cadence blinked, a little startled when the pegasus disappeared and reappeared.  She looked over at the draconequus with a light frown.  "Now, would you like to explain exactly what is going on?"

He returned her frown with a strained smile.  "Is it necessary to fixing her?"

She eyed him up and down, then raised a hoof to point at him as realization spread across her face.  "Did... you break her heart?"

The smile fell.  He put his paw to his chest.  "What is with you ponies and your accusations!  All I did was merely fool her, use her, and leave her.  Now, how is any of that a cause for a broken heart?"

She stared at him.

He stared back.

"Are you serious?"

"Hardly ever, but I'm not sure what that has to do with this."  He leaned back into the air and floated above the ground.

She sighed and walked over to sit on the couch.  She lifted Fluttershy's head, put it in her lap, and stroked the light grey mane.  "Discord, why don't you have a seat."

"I'm fine where I am, thank you."

"Then I hope you are comfortable, because there is a lot to discuss.  First...  I can't 'fix' her."

He frowned and inclined his head.  "Then why did they send me to you?"

"Because I am the princess of love."

There was a pause before he asked in a voice mocking hers, "Are you serious?"

"Yes."  She gently coaxed the sticky green candy out of the pegasus's coat.  "I am."

"Well, then that makes you rather useless, doesn't it?"  He snorted.  "She's not in love."

"No, you're right."  A soft sigh escaped her.  "But she could have been."  Her hoof lowered to touch the barely moving chest.  "I can sense the seed of love within her, but it is crippled.  Something has corrupted it, and her."

His gaze darted away.  He idly picked at his paw.  "And I suppose you're going to blame me for that corruption."

"Shouldn't I?"  Her horn glowed and a light blue aura surrounded the pegasus in her lap.

Discord couldn't help but turn his head to watch as the magic aura fluctuated, then lifted into the air.  Music flowed from it.  Music from the ballroom.  His face appeared in varying hues of blue, looking down, clearly from her perspective.

"This is where it started."  She looked at him with a small frown.  "Surely you remember this."

"I..."  He trailed off.

The sudden burst of emotion chased away the buzzing in his head and for a moment, he only heard the gentle music swaying through the room.  Slowly, he lowered to the floor.

"As the world falls down," he murmured as his vision sang the words.

He shook his head and reeled back, paw and claw raising to grab his forehead.

"No!"  A low growl erupted in his chest.  "What are you doing?"

"I am not doing anything other than showing you."  The blue aura started to fade.  "That is where the love in her heart began."

Just before it faded completely, it lifted from Fluttershy and shot through the air, encircling Discord.

"Now, what about you?  Celestia would not send you if you were not involved."

"What are you-  Hey, that tickles!"  He tried to wave the glittering aura away, but it was too late.

A soft, warm embrace squeezed him tight, then shot through his chest and came out the other side.  There was no pain, however; only warmth.  He turned to look at where it escaped from him and saw darkness.  He frowned.

"See?  There is no 'seed of love'.  It's just black."

Cadence frowned.  "Black?  Why would you see nothing?"

"Oh."  He waved his paw dismissively.  "Well, I've been trapped in stone for a thousand years or so.  That may have something to do with it."  He paused, then gave a vigorous shake of his head and turned to look at her.  "Oh, look at me, following along with your little game!  Are you trying to suggest that I have a little-"  He waved his paw and claw to gesture air quotes.  "- 'seed of love' in me, too?"

Before she could respond, sound fell out of the blue and black aura floating behind him.

"My love, I have seen you in the middle of a dream

My love, such a sweet dream is an omen of love

Let us refuse, both of us, that our hereafter be dreary and grey

We will await our hour of joy

You, my destiny, I will know to love you

I have dreamed it..."

Discord slumped forward.  His gaze fell to the floor.

Of course he remembered that enchanting, delicate voice which had wandered into his dark loneliness from such a distance.  It had taken all of his trapped energy to seek it out, to hear more, but by the time he had found it, the singing had stopped.

The memory of the voice continued.

"Oh, good morning Angel Bunny."

He remembered how much he seethed to hear that voice talking to something else.  He had at that moment hated whomever 'Angel Bunny' was.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?  I was just singing...  Oh, yes, I'll get your breakfast ready right away."

Chaos magic had originally driven him mad.  Centuries of nothing but his own thoughts, his own insane rambling, trapped and unable to release the turmoil boiling within him... It all had driven him madder.  And yet that voice, somewhere in the distance, calmed him.  It stilled the raging disorder of his mind.

For a length of time that was unknown to him, he strained against the magic that trapped him until he found a way to her.  He had wanted to bring that calming presence into his madness.

His chest burned with the emotions that stirred there.

But she had rejected him.  She had turned him away.  Was he supposed to simply forgive her?

His gaze lifted from the ground and moved across the floor, raising until it landed on the weak pegasus.

The better question was, how could he not?