The Tale of the Terrible Doctor Twilight

by alarajrogers

Rating: teen
Tags: Discord, Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Spike
Length: 20588

Twilight's convinced Discord hasn't really reformed, and has found a weapon to replace the Elements -- a reforming spell Discord missed eating. But a cornered draconequus is a dangerous beast...

Twilight's convinced Discord hasn't really reformed, and has found a weapon to replace the Elements -- a reforming spell Discord missed eating. But panicking an entity like Discord is probably never a good idea. And Twilight's about to learn that the good intentions that pave the road to hell don't make the destination a nicer place to live...

There is now a Progress Bar. Part of "Next of Kin to Chaos", my Discord-as-Q series, set after "Negotiating Terms" and before "Hit Me".

(Note: gets a Dark tag but this is not super dark; after all if Discord destroyed the universe he'd find he had nothing to play with later, and both "Hit Me" and "The King Who Would Be Man" happen after this story.)

A page for this series now exists: Next of Kin to Chaos

Published 2013-12-05 17:20:05 UTC
Last updated 2016-01-03 07:15:06 UTC

The Reforming Spell

It had been a week since Discord had "reformed", although Twilight Sparkle was still mentally putting quotes around the word, and she had been watching him carefully. While Fluttershy seemed convinced that he genuinely had the best interests of ponies at heart now... and Twilight did have to admit that he did seem to truly like Fluttershy, or at least, he listened to her when he didn't listen to anyone else... Twilight was putting together a list of evidence that this was, at best, giving him an excessive benefit of the doubt.

Number one: She had tried to get him to write a Friendship Report to Celestia on the grounds that it had been such a help to her to produce such reports while she was learning what it meant to have friends. She'd thought she'd had a success after he'd actually done one and sent it. However, after the Princess got her coat back to its normal color, the lemons out of her bathtub and persuaded the foals who lived in the palace, the children of the servants and the guards, that possibly they should stop singing "The Song That Doesn't End", she informed Twilight that under no circumstances was she to attempt to pressure Discord into writing any sort of report on anything ever again. And on top of all that, he'd eaten the book on friendship she'd given him to read, and had the nerve to complain that she should have put pepper on it.

Number two: He had generated a tornado near Cloudsdale, on the grounds that pegasi in his time got training in dealing with serious weather, and Rainbow Dash had been complaining about wanting a real challenge. The weather ponies had gotten it under control and no one had gotten hurt and Rainbow Dash confessed secretly that she'd found it really exhilarating, but absolutely no one was to admit to Discord that they had gained any benefit from it in any way because no one wanted more tornados. Fluttershy had sniffled about all the animals that could have gotten hurt if the pegasi hadn't gotten it under control so quickly, and Discord had promised not to make another tornado, but... it was Discord.

Number three: He had taken the Cutie Mark Crusaders into dragon territory to go exploring. They had not come back with exploring cutie marks. He had not informed their families. Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack had been on the verge of actually fighting with Fluttershy over her vow not to use her Element against him by the time they came back chattering eagerly about what a great time they'd had exploring dragon country and meeting dragons, and then they'd actually gotten into a lengthy conversation with Spike where they'd told him everything they'd seen, so it had all in all been a benefit... except for the part where three of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony had ganged up on a fourth yelling at her because they were afraid for their little sisters (or sister figure in Rainbow and Scootaloo's case.) Twilight was not convinced this hadn't been Discord's purpose in the first place.

Number four: He'd gone to Mexicavallo and brought back a little pink earth filly with a brown mane who'd already gotten her cutie mark (hers actually was in exploring) to meet the Princesses. He'd also gifted her with boots for her pet monkey that enabled him to talk. That part was actually kind of sweet. The part that was, well, Discord was the fact that again, he hadn't asked her parents or told them where she was. Also, he'd brought with her a kleptomaniac fox from her home town who had nearly made off with Luna's crown, a large number of jewels, all the palace silverware, and several of the statues in the Canterlot garden before little Exploradora (Dora for short) had used a spell on him, chanting "Swiper, no swiping!" at him three times, which apparently forced him to give all the stuff back. Dora being an earth filly, the fact that she could use magic was certainly very interesting and some ammunition for Twilight's theory that earth ponies and pegasi could, and probably should be, trained in magic in some cases. And the filly had certainly enjoyed herself, and her klepto fox acquaintance hadn't actually managed to keep anything he stole, and the monkey seemed to really like being able to talk. All in all, if Discord had bothered to inform her parents before he'd kidnapped their daughter it might have been wholly beneficial... but Twilight couldn't consider the terror the parents had experienced before Celestia had been able to notify them of what was going on to be anything other than deliberate on Discord's part.

Number five: Under the grounds of teaching the Cutie Mark Crusaders how chaotic the Equestrian language was and helping them with their spelling, he had wandered around Ponyville with them transforming things in ways that were consistent with either adding or removing a silent "e" to their name. This had resulted in Fluttershy having to rehome a little bear cub to a new family because he had been a wooden storage cube and neither she nor the CMC had been willing to let Discord turn him back into one now that he was a living creature. Everything else had been turned back, but many ponies had been quite bothered by finding that their cans had become canes, their tubs had become tubes, and whatnot. Rarity did admit privately afterward that the jaunty little cap she'd been wearing had made a rather magnificent cape, but no one ran around wearing capes except Trixie so it was not really in fashion.

Number six: When Fluttershy asked him to help with the housecleaning, he'd started by enchanting a mop and broom to do the work on their own, then run out the door to Pinkie Pie's claiming that he forgot his hat, then invited Pinkie Pie to to go with him to Neighpon without telling her that he was supposed to be helping Fluttershy clean. Twilight Sparkle had ended up having to undo the spell after the mop and the broom had begun chasing Fluttershy's pets around trying to sweep them up or mop them. Neither Discord nor Pinkie Pie had bothered to notify anyone what they were doing, and they were gone the entire day. Pinkie, at least, was genuinely sorry for worrying her friends afterward. Discord had obviously still thought it was funny, and while he'd technically apologized to Fluttershy Twilight was fairly convinced that he either couldn't comprehend why what he'd done was wrong, or he comprehended it just fine but didn't care. She leaned toward the latter, herself.

And this was after being reformed for one week. She was only surprised she hadn't found something amazingly inappropriate he'd done on the seventh day, but maybe the reports just hadn't come in yet, since that was yesterday.

In Twilight's opinion, he wasn't reformed at all. He genuinely did seem to like Fluttershy, since he listened to her when he didn't listen to anyone else, and he'd stopped tormenting her pets or trying to annoy her deliberately (most of the time) and according to Fluttershy, she had actually gotten him to make dinner on occasion and it was both edible and not 100% tooth-rotting empty calories. And he was getting along well with Pinkie, which honestly wasn't a surprise, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders liked him now... which wasn't necessarily a good thing, to be truthful. It gave him an emotional hold on three Bearers of Harmony who didn't like him; Rarity and Applejack and Rainbow Dash would do what they had to do, but they'd be a lot less willing to turn him into stone if it would break the little fillies' hearts. He didn't have to try to win them over, just their little sisters.

Twilight was the only one he didn't have any kind of emotional hold on at all. He learned fast, Twilight thought. Maybe he did really like Fluttershy, but Twilight was convinced that he was once again trying to use the ties of friendship against the Bearers to protect himself, only he'd learned enough about friendship by now that he was going about it in the opposite direction. Now he was creating potential strife between ponies who loved each other by convincing some of them to like him, thus paralyzing the ones who didn't.

He didn't understand why ponies didn't like his chaos, or he didn't care, or both. He was restraining himself for Fluttershy's sake and because it was part of a long-range plan to incapacitate the Bearers of the Elements so they couldn't turn him back to stone, without doing anything that was obviously harmful to anypony. Twilight was almost certain of this. He kept doing things that seemed benign but had malicious strings attached, like wonderful fun trips for foals that terrified their families, or that were obviously malicious but not enough to justify moving against him, like the tornado.

But Twilight had found a new weapon.

He wasn't afraid of the Elements anymore. Fluttershy had vowed not to use hers and she'd never break a promise to a friend. Pinkie Pie hadn't made him any promises but it had been hard to get her to focus on defeating Discord the first time they'd done it because she'd actually enjoyed some of the chaos; Twilight suspected Discord would have to actually kill somepony before Pinkie would be willing to move against him again. There was now nothing anypony could hold over his head to make him behave himself except his supposed friendship with Fluttershy, and he was Discord. He was conflict and disharmony incarnate. How long could friendship possibly bind him from doing what was in his nature to do, when friendship itself was antithetical to what he was?

No, she'd needed another stick to hold over his rump, and she'd found it. One of the books in Princess Celestia's library of magic had a reforming spell in it that he'd missed eating. And Twilight had memorized it. So short of killing her or erasing her memory – either of which were actions that would lead even Fluttershy to break her promise – Discord had no way to prevent her from using it, except to behave himself, by her standards of behaving himself and not Fluttershy's overly lenient ones.

So she was very, very cheerful in a grimly determined way as she waited for her friends, and Discord, to arrive at the library, so she could inform Discord in front of the others that his days of abusing his privileges were over.

Rarity was the first to arrive. "Oh, Twilight, I must look a perfect fright," she said. "I came here as quickly as I could, since you said you would need support dealing with Discord, and I'm sure it's ruined my mane. Am I in time? He isn't here yet, is he?"

"No, I had Owlowscious carry the message over to Fluttershy's; he'll go slower than the magic I used to send messages to Applejack and Rainbow DO NOT FLY THROUGH MY—" The multicolored streak of pegasus skidded across the library floor, having sailed in through the open window, stopping just short of crashing into a precariously balanced book cart.

"I brought my Element," Rainbow Dash said. "Is this a fight? Are we setting up an ambush? I came as fast as I could!" She appeared to notice Rarity for the first time. "Oh, hi, Rarity, were you here already?"

"No, I'd just arrived."

"Huh." Rainbow shrugged. "Thought I'd be first. Oh well, I was coming all the way from Cloudsdale."

That was... absurdly fast. It was not normally a ten minute flight from Cloudsdale to Ponyville. Either Rainbow Dash had been closer by than she was implying when she got the message, or she was breaking the laws of physics almost as flagrantly as Pinkie Pie usually did. "Did you have to fly in the window?" Twilight demanded, aggravated. "You could have hit the books!"

"But I didn't. Because I am just that awesome."

Spike arrived with Pinkie Pie. He was out of breath; Pinkie was not. "Hi, everypony! Are we getting together for a party or something?"

"I explained to her about Discord," Spike panted. "Oh, hi, Rarity! Hey, can I get you a cup of tea or something?"

"Spike, you're just arriving yourself," Rarity said, "after running about delivering Twilight's message to myself and Pinkie. I do think you should take time to relax and compose yourself before waiting on any of us. Though some tea will be lovely once you've had a chance to rest."

"This isn't a party, Pinkie," Twilight said. "Did you remember to bring your Element?"

"I did, but we're not going to need it. Discord's our friend now, remember? If he goes back to being a bad guy again I will totally never make him another cupcake in his life, and boy, he's not gonna want that!"

"I'm really not so sure he is our friend," Twilight said. "Pinkie, I know he's been hanging out with you lately—"

"He's actually really fun once you get to know him! And also once he stops being all psycho maniacal laughter and mutating animals into weird creatures and making everypony's houses float in the air."

"He attacked Cloudsdale with a tornado," Rainbow Dash growled. "Does anyone else buy that BS about he was trying to help us practice handling tornados?"

"Well, you did say you found the challenge exhilarating, darling."

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna tell him that! What if we hadn't been able to get it under control?"

"He has been lovely with the girls lately. At least since we put our hooves down about informing us of their location and getting permission."

"It's only been a week," Twilight said.

Applejack arrived. "Looks like the gang's almost all here," she said. "What's the plan, Twilight? Ah'm guessin' that since Fluttershy and Discord ain't here yet, you arranged stuff for us to be able to make a plan before they show up?"

"Kind of. Look, we all know – well, except maybe for Pinkie – that regardless of what Fluttershy thinks, and regardless of what he told Princess Celestia, we probably cannot trust Discord. We also know that we're not going to be able to use the Elements on him as long as Fluttershy keeps her promise—"

"I didn't make any promises, but I wouldn't wanna turn him into stone unless I knew he was really hurting somepony," Pinkie said. "I know he can be a big jerk, but I actually think Fluttershy's right and he's trying to learn how to be a decent pony! Dragon goat lion eagle thingy."

"Pinkie, what we call that varmint is a lyin' liar what lies," Applejack said. "Just 'cause he's actin' all nice to you now—"

"Yeah, Pinkie, have you forgotten what he did to us?" Rainbow demanded. "He made you hate laughter!"

"He said he was sorry," Pinkie said.

"No, he didn't," Twilight said, puzzled. "He's never apologized for a single thing."

"Just to me! The other day. He said he was sorry he did that because I was the only one who appreciated his work even one tiny little bit and he didn't like having to mess with me but he didn't want to get turned into stone! Which I can understand because I have known a lot of rocks, and you wanna talk about boring, there is nothing more boring than being a rock. I tried to throw some rocks a party to cheer them up one time and I think it worked a tiny little bit but who knows with rocks!"

"Well, he's never apologized to me," Rarity said.

"And speaking of rocks..." Rainbow Dash deadpanned.

Rarity glared at her. "Are you speaking of the thing we all agreed we would never speak of again?"

"Ain't never apologized to me neither, and he made me a liar. Pinkie, anypony who likes to laugh could have a day where they ain't feelin' like laughin' or bein' cheerful, but when it's part of your personal honor to be honest, you lie one time and it's like it ruins you forever. Sometimes Ah just don't even get why you fillies all forgave me for that."

"'Cause we were all big mean jerks because of Discord, that's why," Pinkie said. "You weren't really a liar."

"But ah was. Ain't like with Fluttershy, he just up and straight messed with her mind. But the rest of us, he opened a door and we walked through it, and we gotta live with that. Ah ain't sure why you can forgive that so easy, Pinkie."

"That's easy! I was just thinking that maybe he went a little bit crazy because he's actually a disembodied energy being from another dimension and he had all his feelings about Equestria locked up in his stone statue body and then he got sucked back into it and all those feelings hit him like a sucker punch and that made him really really mad at Princess Celestia so he decided to plunge Equestria into chaos because he was really upset about being a statue!"

Everypony looked at Pinkie Pie. "Just a feeling I get," she said.

"Ah ain't sure that would justify it anyway," Applejack said.

"The point is," Twilight said, "it's obvious that Discord may have toned down the chaos, but he hasn't stopped by any means. And as long as he doesn't do anything that upsets Fluttershy enough to break her promise to him, why would he have to? He has almost free reign; Fluttershy takes her promises almost as seriously as Pinkie does, and if she's decided to trust him and give him the benefit of the doubt... we all know how far she'll give anypony the benefit of the doubt. And she's just not going to want to believe she's misjudged him."

"So what's your plan, Twi?" Rainbow Dash asked. "We can't use the Elements against him to keep him in line if Fluttershy won't cooperate, and you're right, Fluttershy's basically gonna be useless unless he starts making it rain anvils or something. Have you got something else?"

Twilight grinned. "I do, actually. And it's a doozy."

At this point Discord and Fluttershy teleported in, in a flash of light. Discord's forelimbs were flung wide, and there was a small explosion of confetti as they appeared. "Buongiornio, mes amis!" Discord shouted, mixing languages with little regard to accuracy. "We have arrived!"

"Uh... hi," Fluttershy murmured.

"I'm glad you're here," Twilight said. She smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Discord, I've been reviewing the reports of the things you've been up to since you supposedly 'reformed'."

"Supposedly?" Discord sighed heavily. "This again?" He turned to the little yellow pegasus next to him. "Fluttershy, they're being so mean to me."

"I, um, I did say it would be better if you told the parents of all those little fillies?"

"Haven’t you ever heard 'it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission?'"

"I ain't got a lot of forgiveness in mah heart for you right now, Discord," Applejack said. She glanced over at Rarity. "The only reason Ah haven’t told Apple Bloom to stay well the hay away from you is that Sweetie Belle and Scoots would hafta do it too, and the girls had a point that makin' friends with you was supposed to be what reformin' you was about. But you took 'em to dragon country for a whole day—"

"A whole schoolday, I might add," Rarity said. "I was a perfect wreck when Miss Cheerilee asked me if Sweetie was ill! I'm sure you cannot imagine how stressful it is when you don't know where your loved ones are, or if they're possibly hurt or worse."

"Yeah, we turned this whole town upside down looking for those kids!" Rainbow Dash said. "And it turned out they were with you the whole time, and you didn't bother to tell anypony. Not even Fluttershy."

Discord smirked. "So? Have you called me here to use your Elements on me, then? For shame, Twilight, not offering the condemned prisoner a last meal." In a flash he was dressed in the black and white striped uniform of a convicted criminal that used to be common before the zebras had pointed out that it was incredibly racist. He had a cigar in one paw, and a plate of chocolate-colored spaghetti in his other. "Let me just finish my dinner, and then you can lead me out to the courtyard and do what you must. Oh, but wait!" The uniform, cigar and plate of spaghetti all vanished. "I almost forgot." He scooped up Fluttershy and held her out the way he once had Twilight when he was gloating about turning Ponyville into the Chaos Capital of Equestria. "My dear, dear friend here isn't going to use hers! You're down an Element! Whatever shall you do?"

"Discord, can you put me down please?"

"Oh, of course, Fluttershy." He set her down gently in front of him. "Forgive me, I got a trifle carried away."

"It – it's all right but I really don't like being, you know, where everypony's looking at me..."

"No one would turn you into a statue for being inconsiderate about the way you entertain foals," Twilight said. "Although you've done it twice now, even though you were warned the first time."

"Oh, come on, Dora's parents let her run all over the jungles of Mexicavallo by herself! She has a map for a cutie mark!"

"That's not your call to make, Discord. You're not one of her parents, you're not even a friend of the family, and I can't even imagine why a little filly would have trusted you enough to go with you to Canterlot, but I wouldn't be shocked if she was just a little grey when she got there."

"Well, actually no," Rarity said. "I was actually in Canterlot browsing the shops that day, so I had the opportunity to meet the adorable little adventurer, and her colors were quite vivid."

Discord sniffed. "Just because all the ponies in Ponyville are racist toward draconequui doesn't mean everypony is. Exploradora Rosada has friends of all different types of species. I should bring Fluttershy to meet her, she has an aunt and uncle who run a wild animal rescue."

"I, um, actually that does sort of sound like something I might like? If they're nice ponies who really like taking care of animals?"

"I hardly think you have any call to talk of racism when you just wore that horrible zebra-mocking costume minutes ago," Rarity said sternly.

Discord blinked at her. "Zebra mocking? I was mocking ponies' traditional costume for felons. If I'd been mocking zebras... well, if zebras I'd been mocking, in rhymes I would be talking. What, are there racial tensions with zebras now?" He manufactured a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes, as if he were beginning to tear up, which he wasn't. "Oh, dear me, I've missed so much, being trapped in stone for a thousand years! What other astonishing new developments have there been? Next you'll be telling me that Earth ponies fly around in balloons."

"We actually do!" Pinkie Pie said. "In fact we used a balloon when we were fighting you to go get Rainbow Dash! And... you already knew that, didn't you."

Twilight cleared her throat. "As I was saying... nopony's going to turn you to stone for taking foals on excursions where they didn't get hurt, as long as you get permission in the future. But there's a pattern here. You completely disrupted Ponyville by changing things to match their spelling if you added or removed a silent 'e'—"

"That was educational."

"You threw a tornado at Cloudsdale—"

"Which they handled admirably!" He was suddenly wearing a top hat, which he took off and tipped to Rainbow Dash. "Kudos to you and your team, Rainbow Dash, you performed splendidly."

"Yeah, but what if we hadn't? Then ponies could've gotten hurt!"

"Oh, I was positive the incredibly awesome Rainbow Dash could handle the situation. Scootaloo assured me you would know how to deal with a tornado! To be honest, in fact, it was the little dear's idea."

Rainbow Dash snorted. "Yeah, right. Scootaloo probably said I was so awesome I could beat a tornado and you took that like she was telling you to attack Cloudsdale with one. I know Scootaloo isn't that irresponsible that she actually suggested that you make a tornado."

"Are you so sure? She and her little pals did let me out the first time, you know."

"It doesn't even matter if she did or not, you're supposed to be a grownup! How old are you, like twenty thousand?"

"Try five billion."

"Well, then grow the buck up! A filly who hasn't even gotten a cutie mark might say something stupid because she's not thinking things through, but you oughta know better!"

"The point is," Twilight said, noting grimly that Discord was smirking and enjoying himself as he riled the other mares up against him, "that you are deliberately misbehaving and causing disharmony, in ways that aren't catastrophic enough to justify using the Elements against you even if Fluttershy hadn't promised not to. You have your supposed benevolent excuse for everything you've done—"

"He's, um, he's been really good about making dinner!" Fluttershy interjected. "And, um, sometimes he helps with feeding the animals..."

"Just stop it, Fluttershy," Applejack said. "We all know you're gonna defend him, and we all know it's 'cause you're a kind, considerate, loving friend that he doesn't deserve. But you can't go givin' him cover for the bad he's been doin'."

"Actually," Spike said, bringing in tea, "you know what else?"

Twilight turned. "What?"

"You haven't checked the books since he got here, did you?"

"What did he do?"

"Rearranged them all. I was just shelving Maps of the Gryphon Lands while I was waiting for the water to boil, and then it disappeared, along with all the other books in the reference section, and now it's full of comics and Daring Do and adventures and stuff."

Twilight turned back and glared at Discord. "You've been in my home for less than ten minutes and you had to rearrange all my books? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE TO RESHELVE THEM ALL???"

"Pish posh, Twilight. I kept your categorization schema; all the books are still alphabetized, they're still with books on similar topics, I've just rearranged the shelving scheme. A fresh new look for your library, to help attract more patrons! After all, the only reason you put reference material in the center shelving was that you would find reference material enticing, but I assure you, nopony else does. By putting the sort of exciting, easy-to-read books that attract the non-intellectual sort of ponies in the center, I'm helping you inspire new readers and bringing more traffic to your library! Surely it can only be a good thing if more ponies use your facility, right?"

"You put cookbooks next to medical texts," Spike pointed out.

"What, you think doctors never get hungry?"

Twilight took a very deep breath. "This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. You do something chaotic that's guaranteed to upset somepony, and claim you had a benevolent reason for it. Some of the time you might even have a benevolent reason for it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's something that's absolutely certain to upset somepony, whether it's frightening parents by luring their daughter off on some kind of adventure, terrifying your best friend's pets with the cleaning implements you enchanted to clean her house for her when you know how much her pets mean to her... I mean, this is Fluttershy! The only pony in the universe willing to make friends with you when you wouldn't even meet her halfway!"

"Um, Twilight, Discord and I already talked about this, so, uh, I don't really feel right, being an example here..."

"That's right, Twilight," Discord said, smirking. "Fluttershy and I would prefer to keep our personal lives personal."

Fluttershy turned bright red. "Discord! That came out all wrong sounding..."

He looked down at her. "Why, what's wrong with it?" he asked, eyes wide in a parody of innocence. "Surely you're not implying that your dear friends would read something sordid into such a simple statement. Don't you trust your friends, Fluttershy?"

"Leave her alone!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "You are the worst excuse for a friend I ever saw!"

"Leave her alone?" This time Discord's look of bewilderment almost looked sincere. "What was I doing? I was defending you ponies... giving you the benefit of the doubt. See if I do that again."

Applejack scowled at him. "Ah don't trust you," she said. "You got more twists than a carnival pretzel, and you live alone with our friend. You could do anything to her and we wouldn't know about or be able to do anything about it."

Discord smiled coldly. "Oh, but Applejack," he said. "I don't need to be living with a pony to do anything I want to her. Why, right at this very minute your sweet old grandma is in her rocker, knitting, safe and sound in her home with your brother and sister right with her. If I had truly malevolent intentions... the stove is on, she's roasting a casserole. It would be truly, truly awful if the stove suddenly developed a terrible malfunction, wouldn't it? Did you know that an improperly vented stove can fill a room with a colorless, odorless, undetectable, poisonous gas?"

Rainbow Dash launched herself at him, slamming him to the ground, where Applejack pinned his neck with a hoof. "You had better not be threatening mah family, you son of a snake, or Ah will find a way to end you!"

Discord smirked. "With what?" he asked, and suddenly Applejack had Rainbow Dash's wings, which were flapping on their own, lifting her off of him. Both she and Rainbow Dash shouted in startlement, and in Dash's case a little bit of panic.

"Discord! Stop this right now!" Fluttershy shouted.

Pinkie Pie landed her whole body straddling Discord's neck, staring down at him. "Don't make us have to fight you, Dissy," she said. "You really, really like to kick hornets' nests, but you know who doesn't like that? Hornets. And also all the ponies anyplace near the hornets. And the thing with hornets is they're super tiny but there's lots and lots of them and they can sting, and it hurts a lot! Did you ever get stung by a hornet?"

"Is this metaphorical or literal?" Discord said. "Because if you mean real hornets, like the ones in Rarity's bag, then no."

Rarity shrieked as her posh, elegant handcrafted purse opened on its own under the pressure of a horde of loudly buzzing insects. Spike charged at her, grabbed the purse, and breathed fire at it and the hornets that were starting to escape. "Rarity, are you ok?"

"Oh, I'm just fine, Spike," Rarity said weakly, breathing hard. "Thanks to your quick reflexes! But I do hope that didn't destroy my purse; it was one of my best."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't have destroyed anything of yours," Spike said, grinning broadly. "That's the messenger fire. All it did was..." he trailed off, realizing something in horror. "...sent the purse to Canterlot..."

Discord grabbed Pinkie Pie and planted a giant smooch on her cheek before setting her down and coming to his feet like he didn't have to worry about pesky things like bones. "Oh, Pinkie Pie, thank you for the inspiration! Now I must go see Celestia! This is bound to be hilarity incarnate!"

Fluttershy glared up at him. "Purse! Here. Now. With no hornets. Hornets back to their nest. And you, stop riling everyone up! And you don't get to leave to go see Princess Celestia in the middle of an argument!"

"Moooom, you never let me have any fun," Discord whined, but snapped his talon, and a hornetless purse landed on Rarity's head.

"My mane!" Rarity shrieked, as her purse crushed her elaborately styled and coiffed manedo and disarranged it completely.

Ignoring Rarity, or at least pretending to, Discord continued, "A shame, I was so looking forward to seeing how Celestia had modernized pest control since my day."

"Ah'll show you modern pest control," Applejack growled, the Element on her neck glowing. Somewhere in the fracas she had lost Rainbow Dash's wings, which were back on Dash.

"That's not modern at all," Discord scoffed. "Those things are positively ancient."

"Yeah, sometimes the old things are the best things!" Dash shouted, her own element glowing.

"Everypony please just stop..." Fluttershy murmured.

Pinkie Pie now had a party cannon pointed at Discord. "Don't make me use this, buster," she said. "You will not like it if I have to use this."

Discord's eyes widened in glee. "You're going to shoot me with a party? Glorious! Fire when ready!"

"You asked for it," Pinkie Pie said, and set off the cannon.

A moment later Pinkie Pie was standing where Discord had been a second ago, Discord was behind the cannon, and Pinkie was covered from head to toe with spinach. "Oh, my nemesis!" Discord said, parodying a look of terror. "Second only to the Elements of Harmony as a weapon against me! Healthy food! "

"Yeah, I knew you wouldn't like that," Pinkie said proudly, acting for all the world as if she'd successfully hit him and not as if he'd reversed their positions so the spinach had hit her instead.

"Everypony... please..." Fluttershy whimpered.

Twilight had had enough of this. "EVERYPONY STOP RIGHT NOW!"

Every pony, plus the dragon and the draconequus, stopped what they were doing.

"You think this is all hilarious, Discord, don't you?" Twilight said softly into the resulting quiet. "You can play pranks, you can make threats, and it's all fun and games to you. You don't think anything here can hurt you, because you don't think Fluttershy will use her Element, and that's the only weapon we have against you."

Discord had begun to nod along with her. "Hmm. Yup. I'd say that just about sums it up!"

"I found a reforming spell and memorized it," Twilight said, letting the spell light up her horn.

The last time she'd seen the draconequus' expression change that radically, it was when he'd just realized he was turning to stone again. Discord actually took a step backward. "Now, Twilight, let's not be hasty about anything here..."

Twilight smiled fiercely. The look of fear in Discord's eyes filled her with savage joy. "Looks like I found another weapon, doesn't it?"

She wasn't planning on actually using it – yet. She just wanted him terrified. So she let magic build up in her horn, knowing Discord would be able to see the spell sitting there. The rest of her friends had formed into a rough circle around Discord, except for Fluttershy, who was next to him, looking up at him with a look of shock on her face.

"You don't know what you're dealing with," Discord said, breathing hard, eyes riveted to her horn. "Where did you even get such a spell? I thought I got them all!"

"You missed the protected books in Princess Celestia's private library," Twilight smirked. "It took some doing, but I found one in there. And I memorized it. So it won't do you any good to eat the spell now."

Discord had actually gone visibly pale under his fur. "One of the ones from Celestia's protected library? She lets you go in there?"

"Princess Celestia trusts me," Twilight said.

"Well, then she's an idiot!" Discord said, an edge of panic in his voice. "If you think those spells are anything a little pony like you should be playing around with—"

"Discord, if you're reformed, why are you so scared of a reforming spell?" Twilight asked triumphantly. She took a step toward him, horn glowing, and he actually took another step backward. "If I cast that spell on, say, Spike, or on Fluttershy, or anypony else here, nothing bad would happen to them. There's nothing for the spell to work on, when a pony doesn't need to reform."

He shook his head wildly. "That's not how they work. How could Celestia be so irresponsible as to let you get your hooves on magic you don't even begin to comprehend?"

"That is how they work! I've been studying magic for years, I know how reforming spells work! If there's nothing to reform, the spell has no effect! The fact that you're afraid proves you're not really reformed!"

"Do it, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "If he's messing with Fluttershy now, it's only a matter of time before he'll be messing with Ponyville!"

"Evil little snake threatened mah family," Applejack growled. "Ah say do it."

Fluttershy shook her head, and said something, but her voice was too tiny to hear it.

"I didn't threaten your family! I pointed out that I could threaten your family if I wanted to but I wasn't doing it! I was just making a point, Applejack, I had no intention of harming your family!" Discord sounded both indignant and more than a little panicked. "Look, I like your little sister, she's adorably chaotic, I'd never do something to harm her even if her older sister's an insufferable moron!"

"Guess what?" Twilight said, grinning. "I've adjusted the spell so that it goes off the nanosecond anything tries to tamper with my horn, and it'll follow any spell energies touching my horn back to the source. So if you try to stop me by taking my magic... you're getting a targeted reforming spell directly to the face, and even if you try teleporting, it'll follow your magic."

Rarity took a deep breath. "I must agree that the miscreant has demonstrated that, friendship with Fluttershy or no, he is still incorrigible," she said. "Why, I could have been seriously hurt by a swarm of hornets inside my purse while I was carrying it. I vote yes, Twilight. Reform him."

"I wasn't going to let the hornets hurt you! It was a joke! Pinkie Pie gave me too good of a setup to pass up!"

Pinkie, who had managed to divest herself of the spinach, glared at him. "You don't take the stuff I say and use it to hurt my friends as a joke," she said. "That is Not Funny."

"Don't, Twilight, he's scared," Fluttershy whispered, but her voice was so tiny Twilight could pretend she hadn't even spoken. If Fluttershy hadn't made that stupid promise, they wouldn't be in this position. She wasn't going to show mercy just because Fluttershy wanted her to; Fluttershy would let Discord walk all over them, and insist on giving him the benefit of the doubt, up to the moment that a pony ended up hurt or dead.

"What do you say, Pinkie?" Twilight said, knowing that Pinkie was the most likely after Fluttershy to try to give Discord the benefit of the doubt.

Pinkie shook her head, her mane drooping. "Twilight, I... I can't be the deciding vote on something like this... I don't think so, okay? I think maybe things got a little out of hand. I mean, he did get rid of the hornets the moment Fluttershy told him to, and he hasn't actually hurt anypony yet..."

"Yet," Rainbow Dash said. "He took my wings and put them on Applejack!"

"I gave them back to you!"

"You never should've taken'em in the first place!"

"Answer me, Discord," Twilight said. "If you're reformed, why are you scared of a reforming spell? It's like me being upset about a spell that turns somepony's coat purple."

"Well, actually, dear, that's not the best analogy," Rarity said. "There are different shades of the color purple, and you would look so unfortunate in a bluer shade. And what if having a spell for purple on top of purple increased the purple saturation so it approached black?"

"You're not helping, Rarity."

"I'm just pointing out that the analogy isn't entirely sound."

"No, it's actually perfect," Discord said, a bitter tone in his voice. "What makes you think that a reforming spell produces effects even vaguely approaching what reforming by free will would?"

"What makes you think any of us but Fluttershy and maybe Pinkie think you've reformed by free will?" Twilight shot back.

"Because if I hadn't reformed, why haven't I unleashed total chaos all over Equestria?"

"Not wanting to make your only friend so mad at you she breaks her promise not to attack you isn't the same thing as reforming! You don't care if ponies are miserable as long as the only pony you care about isn't too mad at you! And she lets you get away with everything!"

"Please don't," Fluttershy whispered.

Discord looked down at Fluttershy, with an expression that on anypony else Twilight would have described as anguished, but there was no way Discord actually had that kind of depth of emotion so it was obviously a put-on so they'd feel sympathy for him. "Fluttershy, I don't want to do this..."

That sounded like a threat. Twilight threw a teleport shield up around the room. Discord's head whipped around to look at her, a stricken expression on his face. "You don't know what you're doing, Twilight, don't do this," he warned, but if he'd intended it to be menacing the panic in his voice ruined it.

"There's one more vote," Twilight said. "Spike? What do you think?"

Spike looked hard at Discord, then sighed. "He could have really hurt Rarity, and it was just for a stupid joke. I don't... I wouldn't wanna put him in stone at this point, I don't think what he's done is that bad... but it's only a matter of time before he does something worse, and a reforming spell isn't a punishment, it'll just make him behave. So... yeah. I say do it."

"Wait! Twilight, you don't know about the side effects of that thing! You know nothing about that spell!"

"And let me guess, you're going to tell me. Because you have no reason to lie and make it sound worse than it is."

"I'll get you a book. There's a book that has the side effects. Please, Twilight, you can't just go using a spell you don't understand anything about without even doing the research to understand how it works!" Before she could say anything, he reached a paw out to where her books on knitting ought to be, and a tome of magic spells flew into his hand.

"Discord, I've read that one cover to cover. It's a manual of friendship spells. It says absolutely nothing about reforming spells or their side effects!"

He was thumbing through the book rapidly, flipping pages like a dealer shuffling cards. "I know that," he said. "But it'll tell me how to find the other book."

"How?" Twilight demanded.

"And if you know where this other book is, how come you need to look up where it is?" Rainbow Dash asked triumphantly, as if she'd caught Discord lying.

"Do I look like the sort of guy who remembers where he put the stuff he left lying around?" Discord asked irritably. "Besides, a thousand years in stone, remember? Okay, there we go." He tossed the friendship spell book at Twilight, who instinctively redirected her magic to catch it. "I'll go get you that book and be right back, Sparky. Ta!"

And then Twilight's teleportation shield shattered, driving her to her knees with a sudden agonizing pain in her horn, and Discord vanished.

Author's Note

The Dora the Explorer reference is so blatant this this is almost a crossover, so I won't insult anyone's intelligence by asking them to guess. :-) Cavallo is Spanish for horse, so I put the horse pun into the native language of the territory. :-)

The whole "silent e" thing is a reference to the Electric Company of my childhood. Yeah, I know the likelihood that Equestrian has silent e's is highly dubious, but la la la I can't hear you it was funny.

Pinkie's stunt with the cannon was not actually intended to hurt Discord and she doesn't actually care that it hit her instead; she was trying to break the tension and be deliberately goofy because she felt like the attitudes of the others were rapidly spiraling out of control and that they were headed for a genuine fight with Discord, which she doesn't want. So she tried to pull a silly stunt to make Discord and the ponies laugh and stop fighting, and it might have worked on Discord if it had worked on the others, but the others are too used to Pinkie being silly to be willing to stand down from their angry positions and Discord's not going to back down while there's still ponies who want to fight him.

The Feral Spirit

"Well, that went well," Rainbow Dash muttered.

A strange sound came from Fluttershy. Twilight turned, and saw the yellow pegasus glaring at her, eyes spilling with tears, an expression of fury on her face. Taken aback, Twilight actually took a step backward from her. "Fluttershy, what--?"

"Twilight. You. STUPID!" Fluttershy shouted, her voice cracking, wings beating. She lifted off the ground and was in Twilight's face in two wingbeats. To Twilight's – and everypony else's, and possibly even Fluttershy's own – shock, she swung her hoof and slapped Twilight in the face.

And then she dropped to the ground, exploded into tears, and threw her arms around Twilight, who was still stunned by the fact that Fluttershy of all ponies had slapped her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was so scared, you're so stupid, Twilight, why wouldn't you listen to me, I was so scared, I was so scared..."

"Hon, you all right?" Applejack asked tentatively.

"You're all STUPID!" Fluttershy screamed, and started sobbing brokenly again, still hugging Twilight. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I should have been louder but why didn't you listen, I was so scared..."

"For Discord?" Twilight asked disbelievingly. She knew Fluttershy considered the chaos god her friend and actually believed in him, but this seemed like an extreme reaction.

"For you! For all of us! And for Discord! But especially you, Twilight, I'm so sorry I hit you, that was so mean of me, I'm sorry, I just got so scared... I thought he was going to, he was going to..."

"Wait." She pushed Fluttershy off of her so she could see the pegasus' face. "You thought your friend, who you're always giving a lot of slack to, was going to do something to me?"

"You think I'm so dumb!" Fluttershy crumpled to the floor, still crying hysterically. "You never listen to me even though this is my job, Princess Celestia told me, but you think I don't know what I'm doing, you think I'm so dumb but you're so stupid, you don't know how to do what I do and that's ok, we all know how to do different things but you think you know everything and I was trying to tell you and you wouldn't listen..."

Rainbow Dash knelt down beside the other pegasus. "Hey. Hey, Flutters, it's ok. It's ok. We're gonna listen now, ok? Everypony's safe, nopony got hurt—"

"Well, aside from my mane being ruined," Rarity said, but then sighed. "But I suppose that's a small price to pay considering what Discord is capable of."

"Rainbow Dash's right," Applejack said. "We're all of us sorry we didn't listen to you, Fluttershy, but nopony got hurt. We're all ok."

"It's okay!" Pinkie said, with a tray of cupcakes that Twilight could have sworn there was no realistic way for her to suddenly acquire. She knelt down next to Fluttershy and pulled the strap holding the cupcake tray off her head, allowing the tray to sit on the floor. "Dissy didn't do anything terrible, Fluttershy, we're all fine! See, you were right, he doesn't want to hurt us now! Come on, have a cupcake, it'll cheer you up!"

"I, uh, thank you but, uh, I don't really have an, an appetite right now," Fluttershy whispered. "Maybe, maybe later?"

"Okie dokie lokie! Saving 'em for later!" Pinkie put the strap back around her neck and bounced off with the tray.

"Why don't I make you some tea, darling?" Rarity said. "I know the perfect calming blend."

"I'll help!" Spike said, and followed Rarity eagerly into the kitchen. "I'll show you where we keep all the tea blends, Rarity!"

Twilight felt completely at a loss. Everypony was doing something to try to comfort Fluttershy except her. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, who'd come back without the cupcakes, were all crowded around Fluttershy, petting her or hugging her or simply being there for her, and they had her surrounded. Spike and Rarity were doing something. Twilight didn't know what she could do. The press of bodies around Fluttershy didn't seem to leave any room for her, and she felt so awful and guilty for making Fluttershy cry like this, but why? What had Fluttershy so terrified? Twilight had just been trying to protect everypony from Discord!

And if Discord was Fluttershy's friend, why would she be so scared of him? Was it all an act? Was he abusing her in secret? Oh, if that was the case she wasn't going to wait for him to give her any ridiculous piece of propaganda, she was just going to hit him with the reforming spell straight out, no questions asked.

"What has Discord been doing to you, Fluttershy?" Twilight finally asked. She didn't want to frighten her friend or set her off crying again, but if Discord was hurting her Twilight needed to know.

Fluttershy looked at her with an expression of total confusion. "Doing? To me?"

"Yes! You say he's your friend but now you're telling us you're terrified of him—"

"I'm not," Fluttershy whispered, crumpling in on herself. "I'm... you don't understand..."

"Sugarcube, Twilight's right. If Discord's been doin' something to ya—"

"No!" Fluttershy shouted. "None of you are listening!" She started to cry again.

"Okay. Back off, guys," Rainbow Dash said, waving a hoof at Applejack and Twilight. "Hey. Hey, Flutters, it's okay. We weren't letting you talk, we were jumping to all kinds of conclusions, I know it upsets you. But you gotta tell us what it is you want to tell us, okay? 'Cause we're dumb, we don't know what you're thinking here and yeah, you're an expert in stuff we don't know anything about. I don't know why it is you'd be friends with Discord if you're scared of him, but you're gonna tell us now, right? And we're gonna shut up and listen." She looked up at Twilight and Applejack. "Right, fillies?"

"Right," Twilight said.

"Darned tootin'," Applejack said.

Rarity and Spike came in, Spike carrying the teacup. "Fluttershy, I hope you don't mind, I iced the tea for you," Rarity said. "If you'd like it warm there's still some in the kettle, but I thought it best to give you something calming you can drink right away, without waiting for it to cool down."

"Th-thank you..."

Spike gave Fluttershy the teacup. "No problem!"

Fluttershy took a few sips while Twilight's impatience grew. What had Discord done to her friend?

Eventually Fluttershy managed to stop crying. "I'm... I'm sorry, everypony, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have gotten so upset with all of you," she said in almost her normal tone of voice. "I just..."

"It's okay, sugarcube," Applejack said. "We know you were just lookin' out for us."

"Okay." Fluttershy took another sip of her drink. "Okay. So Princess Celestia asked me to reform Discord, right? And I figured out why after I spent some time with him. Because I know a lot about taming wild animals. And the thing you don't ever do with a wild animal is, you don't ever box it into a corner. If it thinks you're threatening it and it has nowhere to run... it'll bite you. That's what wild animals do."

Twilight took a deep breath. "Discord's not an animal, Fluttershy. Just because he's got all those mixed up animal parts—"

"I'm not stupid, Twilight," Fluttershy said softly. "We're all animals. Ponies are animals, dragons are animals. Everything alive's an animal."

"Except plants!" Pinkie said. "And sometimes rocks!"

"Right, ok, but the point is? Just because an animal talks and thinks doesn't make it not an animal. And ponies... we're civilized animals. Like, we're tame animals. We don't hurt each other on purpose if we can avoid it. We try to work together. We're friends with each other. So we're not wild. But Discord... Discord is feral. You have to understand that."

"Well, I will admit he looks rather savage, particularly with that fang, but—"

Fluttershy cut Rarity off. "No, that's not it! Like, Spike here. Spike, when you're grown up you'll look like a scary creature because dragons are scary creatures, but you won't really be a scary creature, you'll be a civilized creature. Like ponies. Tame. Friendly. Creatures who get along with each other, in, in harmony. It doesn't matter how scary somepony looks, it's how they are. How they think. Spike was raised with love and friends so he'll always be civilized."

"I hope so," Spike said. "I don't wanna be some kind of scary creature."

"But Discord... I think he wasn't. He acts like he wasn't. I mean he's very smart, and he's not violent – he uses his powers to be annoying, or even when he's, even when he's being evil, he hurts ponies with words and playing with their mind. I don't mean he's going to bite anypony. But... he doesn't need to. He's so powerful. If Discord gets scared and bites... he's not going to use his teeth. He's going to use his power. And even the princesses can't stand up to his power if he isn't holding back."

Twilight sighed with frustration. "Fluttershy, we can't go around living in fear of Discord, letting him do whatever he wants whenever he wants! If he's so dangerous, why did you agree not to put him in stone?"

"You don't understand, Twilight!" Fluttershy got to her feet. "Princess Celestia told me to reform Discord. That's just like telling me to tame a wild animal. If you want to put an animal in a cage so it doesn't hurt anypony... that's cruel! Maybe you might have to do it if you can't tame it but it's so cruel to keep an animal in a cage, you need to try to tame it if you can. It's the same with Discord!"

Rainbow Dash said skeptically, "Wild animals don't know any better. Discord does. How do you tame something that's as smart as a pony, Fluttershy? He could do the right thing, he just doesn't want to."

"I just... let me explain." Fluttershy paced a little bit, nervously, all but walking around in circles. "So animals that live among ponies, tame animals? They feel the same way ponies do. They understand friendship and love. They know that somepony is going to take care of them and protect them, and they want to give those feelings back. That's harmony, right? But in wild places, like, like the Everfree. Animals have to take care of themselves. Nopony's going to do it for them. Every other creature they meet is maybe dangerous. Maybe it's their food, or it thinks they're its food, or it's angry because it thinks they want to steal its food, or steal its mate or its territory. There's no love, there's no friendship. Except between mothers with their babies, and timberwolves in a pack. Every creature fights every other creature." She took a deep breath. "So when you find one of them? They don't understand friendship. They don't understand love. They don't understand that you just want to help them. They think every creature is an enemy. And if they didn't think that, they'd get killed or eaten. So they have to think that way. So when you want to take care of them you have to be very, very careful to make sure they understand that you are a friend, and it's hard because they don't understand friendship."

"But, Fluttershy." Applejack was also skeptical. "Ah see the point you're makin', but there ain't nopony tryin' to eat Discord. Natural creatures are that way because they've gotta be, but he oughta know better!"

"But he doesn't," Fluttershy said. "I don't know what made him that way. Maybe it's because he's the Spirit of Disharmony. Or maybe he spent his life fighting other spirits. I don't know, and it doesn't matter. The point is that to reform Discord, I've had to treat him like a feral animal. Feral animals growl at you if you get too close, and they steal your food, and they pee in places you don't want them to. Well, he doesn't do those things, but he insults ponies, he plays pranks, he tries to rile ponies up and make them fight each other... and you say he ought to know better, Applejack, but the reason we know better is that we care about each other. Ponies worry about how other ponies feel. I have to teach Discord how to care about how ponies feel. And why he should. And it isn't easy, but it is working, slowly... or at least it was..."

"What do you mean at least it was?" Twilight asked.

"I mean you... might've... made it not work anymore? He was scared, Twilight. I could see it in his face."

"We all could," Applejack said. "But he threatened mah family, Fluttershy. Am Ah supposed to take that lyin' down?"

"You, uh, you accused him of... of doing mean things to me. Or that he might. I know it sounded like he threatened your family, and, and, if he said those things about my parents I would have been really really upset with him? But what he was saying was that... oh, he really doesn't understand how ponies feel. He isn't scared of things like his family getting hurt. I don't even know if he has one. He was trying to say that he hasn't done any bad things to your family or anypony else even though he could so you shouldn't be afraid of him doing bad things to me, but he doesn't understand how to say things like that without it being scary because he doesn't understand what it's like to feel afraid for the ponies you love."

"So why is it a bad thing to make him understand fear?" Twilight said. "If he isn't afraid for the ponies he cares about because there aren't any, then we have to threaten him to make him understand what it's like to be afraid."

Fluttershy shook her head. "Feral animals bite when you corner them," she whispered. "When he said he didn't want to do this... I was so scared. I thought he was going to kill you. He looked... he was scared, but he looked like he was grieving, like he was about to lose something he really cared about... and he said that, and I thought, I thought he was trying to ask for me to understand and then he was going to kill you to protect himself even though he didn't want to because I'd never forgive him and I was so scared I couldn't even talk... because he's feral and you had him in a corner, Twilight, you scared him and I was so afraid he was going to bite you. Not literally, but with his powers. And... and Twilight, he can kill. He doesn't like to do it but he can. He... he has. He told me."

Rainbow Dash said angrily, "He told you he's killed ponies? Like what, he was threatening you? He was trying to scare you?"

Fluttershy sighed. "No. He was telling me why I shouldn't be his friend because he doesn't really deserve one. And... and a lot of that is, uh, private, I mean, if somepony confides in you you don't just gossip about it to your friends, but... Discord talks to me. I know he's sincere about trying to get along with us. I know he really does want friends. But he doesn't know how and he's scared because he can get anything he wants by snapping his claws except a friend, so he's not used to not knowing how to get what he wants. Most of the time he's silly and he plays pranks or he wants to play games but sometimes he, uh, sometimes he really talks to me? So I know him better than anypony else here. But he's wild. He's starting to learn to trust but if you scare him he might do anything."

"So we have to let him do whatever he wants?" Twilight said. "Because he can threaten us all he wants or frighten us or make a mess of our lives, but the moment he gets scared he's going to attack us so we can't threaten him?"

"uh... yes? Exactly?"

"Fluttershy, how in tarnation are we supposed to live that way? And why should we? Just 'cause he's more powerful than us? You know darned well we can stop him any time you want to! Why should we just let him do whatever the hay he wants when we've got the power to make him stop?"

"Ahem," Pinkie Pie said. "Because Fluttershy promised, duh. It wasn't a Pinkie Promise so I guess she could break it if Discord did something really awful but it was still a promise to a friend and you shouldn't break those!"

"That's not why," Fluttershy said. "That was my reason until he told me about what it's like being turned to stone. It's cruel. It's really, really cruel to do to anypony. And, and the first time we did it, we really didn't have a choice? Even Discord admitted that to me, he knows we didn't have a choice. But there's another way now, so... I can't do something that mean to somepony if there's any way to get them to behave without hurting them. I just can't."

"Darling, wouldn't being turned to stone just make one unconscious? Twilight, you were attacked by a cockatrice, surely you'd know. Is it that terrible to be turned to stone?"

"Well, it was really frightening at first when I realized what was happening, but I did lose consciousness. I wasn't aware of being stone while I was. It's definitely very frightening because you don't know if you'll ever be brought back to life and if nopony ever restores you, you know it's basically like being dead. So I suppose for somepony like Discord, where he'd have no reason to think anypony would ever undo the spell, maybe he's afraid of going into stone and never waking up."

"He doesn't sleep, Twilight," Fluttershy said softly.

Suddenly Twilight remembered that Discord had plainly heard the entire conversation between Celestia and the Element Bearers about reforming him before they unstoned him. And that he'd claimed that it was lonely being stone. He didn't sleep. Maybe he couldn't?

Maybe he couldn't lose consciousness?

She didn't want to empathize with Discord, but the horror of it was too great. What would it be like to be frozen, unable to move, to speak, to see... for a thousand years? Unable to sleep, unable to die, trapped paralyzed in your own flesh and knowing, knowing there would never be anypony coming to the rescue, there would never be anypony trying to help you out of friendship or compassion because you have no friends and no one would ever feel compassion for you? For a thousand years? Wondering if it would be forever? No reason to hope that it might not be?

"So why is he so scared of a reforming spell?" Twilight asked. "I... see what you mean, about it being cruel to turn him into stone. If he wasn't asleep in there... that's pretty horrifying. But if we used a reforming spell we would never need to turn him to stone! He'd be safe!"

"For values of 'safe' that really shouldn't be considered part of the appropriate range for safety, perhaps," Discord said behind her. "What have you all done to Fluttershy?"

"They – they didn't. I was just, I was scared!" Fluttershy got up and ran to Discord, who was holding a book in his talon. "I didn't know if you would ever come back! Or if you were just going to make it rain chocolate all over Ponyville and everything we worked on together would be ruined and I would never get to be your friend again..."

Twilight frowned. What Fluttershy was saying to Discord sounded perfectly sincere, but didn't really match what she'd said to Twilight. And then Twilight realized that Fluttershy was the Element of Kindness, not Honesty. She wasn't lying, but she was putting a spin on the truth to Discord to make him feel better, implying she'd been more afraid of losing his friendship than of him doing something horrible to her other friends.

"Now, Fluttershy, what kind of a friend would I be if I gave up on you just because one of your friends wants to rip my mind out through my eyeballs with a buttonhook and replace it with a large wad of cotton stuffing?" Discord said, as Fluttershy hugged him. "I'm sure Twilight isn't going to do anything hasty. Why, I'm sure by now she's considered the fact that she got this spell from Celestia's private library, meaning Princess Celestia has had this spell the whole time, and yet apparently never chose to use it on either myself or Nightmare Moon, but in fact preferred to banish her own sister to the moon for a thousand years rather than use this particular spell. And I'm sure even Twilight isn't arrogant enough to think she knows so much better than her beloved Princess Celestia."

Twilight frowned. He... had a point, there.

"Don't listen to him, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash said. "You don't know what the Princess was thinking of; just because you had an idea she didn't doesn't mean you're better than her or smarter than her, it just means you're a different pony with a different perspective! You could have a perfectly good idea she just never thought of!"

Discord was smiling at Fluttershy, his tone as jovial and humorous as always, but there was something wrong with his eyes. They were fixed on her, not Fluttershy, and they were very, very cold and hard. Twilight shuddered. For a moment she seriously considered firing off the spell anyway, now that he didn't expect it. But... maybe he had a point? Princess Celestia hadn't used this spell when she could have, and while the Princess might have thought that locking Discord in stone was more merciful if she hadn't realized that he couldn't sleep, surely she would have tried to use the spell to turn her sister back into Luna rather than sending her to the moon for a thousand years. Of course, possibly it wouldn't work on a separate entity like Nightmare Moon ; Luna couldn't be reformed because Luna was good already, and Nightmare Moon couldn't be reformed because she was Luna's evil side and to reform her was essentially to destroy her, and what consequences might there be to literally destroying the evil in a pony's psyche rather than suppressing it?

"I think Discord promised me a book on the subject," Twilight said. "I'm willing to do more research before I rush into this." She looked straight at Discord as she said so.

"I am a draconequus of my word," Discord said, and proffered her the book in his talon. "This should tell you exactly what you need to know about the consequences of reforming spells and why they should not be used."

"And it's totally unbiased, I'm sure," Twilight said dryly.

"Twilight Sparkle, here I thought you were an accomplished researcher. Surely you know how to read past the biases in a work and identify what is most likely to be true versus what's simply the author's spin. Besides, bias or no, I think you'll find this makes quite a compelling argument."

She levitated the book from his claws and brought it over to herself. When she saw the title she scowled. "The Tale of the Terrible Doctor Twilight? Discord, is this some kind of a sick joke?"

"It's not a joke at all, I assure you," he said, his voice colder and more serious than she could ever remember hearing him.

"Then why, exactly, does it have a title like that?"

"That's not the title," Pinkie Pie said, frowning, peering over Twilight's shoulder. "It's something about cupcakes! Let me see... I see cupcakes, I see pie, I can't make out the rest of it..."

"It's encrypted," Discord said. "Twilight, your experience as a powerful unicorn mage will activate the true potential of the book. Pinkie wouldn't get the same experience out of reading it as you would. And this book is dangerous in the hooves of an untrained or unmagical pony, so Pinkie, back off."

"Okie dokie lokie! But if it's really about cupcakes can I read it later?"

"It's encrypted to unicorn mages and it has my name on it?"

"As if you're the only unicorn to ever be named Twilight. Isn't that your mother's name? For that matter if I recall correctly the female magi in your family have had the name Twilight going back a very long time."

That was true, she admitted to herself. Her mother was Twilight Velvet, her grandmother wasn't a Twilight but her great-aunt had been Twilight Moon, her great-grandmother had been Twilight Starshine, there'd been a Twilight Silver who'd been a great and important mage shortly after the Discordian era... despite herself her heart beat faster with sudden eagerness. What if this was a book about one of her ancestors, one of the Twilights before her who had been powerful mages? It was family tradition that the oldest daughter of the line have the name Twilight, and most of them had been very powerful unicorns, though very few had been in her own league. She flipped to the middle of the book, and frowned in dismay. "This is unreadable gobbledygook," she complained. "Is this even Equestrian?"

"Encrypted, Twilight, is not a word referring to Mexicallavan mummy gods of the kind who routinely have their tombs disturbed by Daring Do. You need to start from the beginning."

"Darling, are you sure this is a good idea?" Rarity asked. "As you said, the likelihood that Discord would provide an unbiased perspective on the matter seems absurdly small."

"It's just a book, Rarity," Twilight said. "It's not even a spellbook. Knowledge can't harm me."

"Ah ain't so sure on that, sugarcube," Applejack said. "So-called knowledge that's nothin' but a pack of lies can do a lot of damage."

"Well, I think I'm good enough with ancient texts that I ought to be able to tell whether this is a pack of lies or not," Twilight said.

"What if we just ask Princess Celestia?" Spike said. "Discord said she didn't use a reforming spell on him or Princess Luna, so why don't we write to her right now and ask why not? If the spells are really bad, she'll tell us!"

"It's a good idea, Spike, but I can't go running to the Princess every time I have a question about anything," Twilight said. "I'm supposed to be an advanced student at this point, so I need to consult my own research before bothering the Princess." Besides, if it was really about one of the former Twilights, she wanted to read it. And if she consulted Princess Celestia, the Princess would certainly answer her question about why she had not used reforming spells on Luna and Discord when she could have, but she might also tell Twilight not to read the book Discord was giving her. Discord hadn't said it was a spellbook, and the title suggested it was lore or history, not spells, but a mage-encrypted tome was, in fact, a dangerous thing. Twilight was certain she could handle it, whatever it was; she didn't want to be warned off by the Princess being overprotective of her student. At this point, after she'd faced Nightmare Moon, Discord himself, the Changelings, King Sombra... Twilight had confidence in herself that she could handle any kind of magical threat, especially with her friends all around her and the Elements of Harmony at hand.

She flipped open the first page of the book. Her eyes fell on the first line. Twilight Sparkle was a unicorn who loved books, it said.

What--?

And then Twilight was falling, and the world went dark around her.

Twilight's eyes glowed, and her whole body went rigid, as the book fell to the floor.

"DISCORD!" Rainbow Dash screamed, lunging at him through the air, knocking him into the bookshelf-filled wall behind him. "What did you do to Twilight?"

"Exactly what I said." There was no humor in his tone. He snapped his talon, and Rainbow was back on the ground, wingless, her wings held in Discord's lion paw. "The book I've given her will teach her exactly what it means to use a reforming spell on someone."

"Free Twilight now, Discord!" Fluttershy shouted. "And give Rainbow Dash back her wings!"

"Not if she's going to keep attacking me. It gets tedious."

Abruptly he went flying sideways, crashing into the floor. "Ah don't need wings to attack you!" Applejack said, looking back over her shoulder after having bucked Discord. "You want more where that came from, you keep this up!"

"Oh, you all think you're so very dangerous," Discord said sardonically, picking himself up off the floor. "What if I turn your hind legs into marshmallow fluff, Applejack, how are you going to buck me then?"

He yelped then suddenly and turned to face Rarity. "Did you... just shove a sewing needle through my ear?" he asked disbelievingly.

"And you can be grateful it wasn't your eye, you awful excuse for an... anything!" Rarity shouted. "Release Twilight right now!"
"I'm sending a letter to Princess Celestia," Spike said, hastily.

Although nopony saw her move, Pinkie Pie was suddenly on Discord's neck, hooves wrapped tightly around its flexible length. She grabbed his beard with her teeth and dragged his head around to face her glare. "Let. Twilight. Go. Now."

"You are all incredibly annoying." He snapped the paw that Rainbow Dash was trying to leap at to grab her wings, and all of them were suddenly on the other side of the room... with their Elements of Harmony on the floor where they'd been standing a moment ago.

"Cow crap!" Applejack shouted. "The Elements!"

Rarity's bag flew from her side again, scooped up the Elements, and flew to the ceiling, where it hovered. Without her wings, Rainbow couldn't reach it, and Rarity's efforts to pull it down telekinetically were obviously being stymied by Discord's far greater power. "Now," Discord said. "Perhaps we can discuss this like civilized ponies?"

Fluttershy felt as if her heart was going to snap in half. She was the only one who hadn't been teleported to the other side of the room. She and Twilight were the only ones still wearing their Elements, and Twilight was still standing as if frozen, eyes glowing. Her one Element could do nothing; even if she decided to break her promise, even if the others still had theirs, the fact that Twilight couldn't use hers made them useless. But the fact that Discord had scooped up everypony else's suggested that he didn't really trust her. Or that he didn't really trust that four together would have no effect.

She flew up to Discord's face. This hadn't worked the last time she tried it, but it was all she had left, if he was going to betray friendship exactly as she'd feared he would, after Twilight had cornered him. Part of her mind was wailing for him, that he'd made such progress and he'd been so close and now it was ruined and it wasn't even entirely his fault it was ruined, it was Twilight's fault and the others as well as him, and now she'd lost him back to his dark side; the rest of her was screaming in fear for Twilight and the rest of her friends, and all Ponyville, and all Equestria. Fluttershy mustered up all her power, and brought the Stare to bear against Discord's eyes. "Discord, release Twilight. Now."

The last time she'd tried to Stare him, he had pretended it had worked, pleading with her, "Not the Stare!", and then started laughing uproariously and wiggling with hysteria in midair, mocking her completely. This time, he said, "You know that doesn’t work on me," without a joking note, with irritation but also uncertainty, and he looked away, as if he didn't dare meet her eyes. As if the Stare would work if she could only get him to look at her.

"Look at me, Discord!" she said, commandingly.

"Why, so you can make googly eyes at me?" He still wasn't looking at her.

"So you can explain, to my face, why you want to throw our friendship away! I deserve that much!" She would not cry. Not now. She had to be strong.

"What makes you think I want to do any such thing?"

"Because Twilight--!"

"Got what she was begging for," Discord interrupted. "She won't be harmed. The spell will show her what she needs to know, and then she'll wake up the wiser for it. I haven't done anything to justify all of you deciding to attack me; I defended myself from her plans to attack, and she isn't hurt."

"Prove it," Rainbow Dash said.

"I don't need to. Time will prove it. And until it does I'll take my leave of you. Right now I don't want to see or hear from any of you."

He snapped again, and vanished. Rainbow Dash's wings reappared on her back, and the purse with the Elements in it fell from the ceiling and clattered to the library floor.

Fluttershy landed and began to weep, looking at Twilight's still, standing form and glowing eyes. It felt like this was her fault. It had been her job to reform Discord. She'd been his only good friend; it had been her job to protect him from her other friends, and them from him, and she'd failed, and now he hated all of them and Twilight was frozen and Discord was probably going to go cause chaos and her friends would hate her for being such an incompetent pony that she'd failed the most important job Princess Celestia had ever given her and she'd betrayed all her friends, Discord for her mare friends and her mare friends for Discord.

"Don’t cry, sugarcube," Applejack said, coming over and putting a hoof around her. "He ain't worth it."

"Twilight will be fine," Pinkie said, but shakily, as if she was trying to convince herself. "She's probably just having like a weird vision or something and she'll totally snap out of it and wake up any minute now!" Pinkie poked Twilight, who didn't move. "Any minute now!"

"I told Princess Celestia," Spike said, looking at Twilight with anguish in his face. "We just have to wait for her to reply."

Rarity had scooped up the bag containing the Elements, and carried it over to where everypony was congregating around Fluttershy. "Darling, I know you don't want to break a promise to a friend," she said, telekinetically passing out everypony else's Elements to them. "But under the circumstances... once Twilight wakes up, if she wakes up, I think we must seriously reconsider the possibility of returning Discord to stone, at least for the moment."

"Yeah." Rainbow Dash was preening, her wings in total disarray after Discord had removed them and then returned them, but she'd joined the group huddled around Fluttershy. "Sometimes, Flutters... you know, when a feral animal won't stop biting ponies... you know sometimes we've gotta put it down."

Fluttershy began to cry even harder. She just wanted none of this whole event to have happened and everything to go back to normal the way it had been before she and Discord had even gotten here. The thought of hurting him like that, after he'd told her just how terrible it had been for him to be trapped, unable to move or see or speak, for so long... and yet, after what he'd just done to Twilight....

Please be okay, Twilight, she begged silently through her tears. Please, please be okay.

Twilight Sparkle Was A Unicorn Who Loved Books

Twilight Sparkle was a unicorn who loved books.

Her parents and older brother couldn't understand this. While their attitude toward book learning wasn't quite as hostile as the rest of the world's, they did find her interest confusing and somewhat alien. They were willing to support her, to a point, but they were constantly demanding that she go outside and get some fresh air, that she leave her room and her books and go socialize, that she play, that she make friends.

She did her best to obey, but the fact was that the rest of the world was much less understanding. When she spoke and revealed her advanced vocabulary, when she accidentally mentioned that she'd learned something from a book, when she talked about the things she loved and was interested in at the moment – which was invariably whatever book she was reading at the time – other foals turned from her, or turned on her. No one dared physically bully her; she was the most magically powerful unicorn foal in Canterlot, and the special protégé of the princess. But the insults, the cold shoulders, the stares, the laughing, the notes passed behind her back, the parties she was invited to only to discover they weren't actually happening, the parties that every other foal was invited to that she was not... oh, there was no hope of Twilight ever having a close friend. Nopony understood what she loved, and most of them actively despised it, and despised her for loving it.

She'd bring books to school and be sent to the headmaster's office to be chastised, because books weren't appropriate in a school and it meant she wasn't listening to the lecture. Lectures and class discussions were supposed to be how ponies were meant to learn, how they were meant to behave. Harmony demanded that ponies work together, that they learn from each other, play with each other, spend all their time with each other, or else harmony might be destroyed. Why, if everypony went off into a corner and read, ponies would never interact with each other, and the harmony of pony existence would shatter. And since unicorns drew their magic from harmony, she was told, she would not only destroy her own magic but the magic of every other unicorn in existence if she spent too much time reading.

Twilight Sparkle decided that she hated harmony.

this isn't right

She'd wanted to be good. She'd wanted to do the right thing. But everypony insisted that the way she wanted to live her life was bad, wrong and antisocial, and that she was a bad pony for wanting it. She shouldn't want to turn to books to learn from ponies she had never and could never meet and talk to! She should be content with what she could learn from her fellow ponies! Again and again she heard lectures on this topic, and all they did was make her angrier at her fellow ponies and less willing to care about what they thought. If harmony couldn't fit her into it without having to bend her into a completely incomprehensible shape, if she had to be somepony completely different than what she was in order to mesh with the others... then maybe she didn't want to mesh. Maybe she wanted to be alone with her books.

What was wrong with a little reading, anyway?

The only thing that kept her from hating everypony in existence was her relationship with her mentor, Princess Celestia.

Celestia actually had books. Actually understood why anypony would want to read them. She didn't spend very much time reading any more, but Twilight fully understood that. Celestia was very busy being a princess, after all. She had to raise both the sun and the moon, she had to fulfill her court responsibilities. Celestia did occasionally tell her that she needed to get out and make some friends, but whenever Twilight tried, the subject of books would come up and Twilight would be mocked, so why should she try to make friends with ponies like that? Much better to bury herself in a book.

Besides, she had Spike to take care of.

Spike was younger than she was, and craved social contact, but because he was a dragon the company of ponies could be dangerous for him. Some ponies might think he was a threat and attack him, Twilight feared. So she tried her best to keep him in the castle with her, helping her with her studies under Princess Celestia, and when he insisted on going out, she'd go out with him. She wouldn't socialize; she knew better. Nopony was ever going to be her friend. She was just there to make sure they didn't hurt Spike. When some ponies tried to invite him to parties – which she was not invited to, or which she knew she wasn't really invited to even if she had an invitation – she would intervene, making up a prior engagement that Spike had to be at, and she never allowed him to be alone with other ponies.

but that isn't what happened

One day Princess Celestia sent Twilight to a small town called Ponyville to set up a library there. At first Twilight was very excited, thinking that perhaps the ponies in this small, backward town actually did appreciate books, and that was why Celestia wanted a library to be set up there. But no, that proved not to be the case. The ponies of Ponyville were just as derisive of books as every other pony Twilight had ever met... with two exceptions.

She had to send Spike on errands, by himself, because she had to work on building and organizing the library, acquiring more books, and so forth. In his travels across town, Spike met a pegasus named Fluttershy, who lived on the ground caring for animals and hated to fly. Fluttershy had been bullied by her fellow pegasi for her reluctance to fly, and being terminally shy, she didn't want to attend classes to learn how to be a veterinarian, where she would be surrounded by earth ponies and unicorns since pegasi almost never went into animal care. But Fluttershy's love of animals led her to speak to Spike, because she'd never seen a baby dragon. When Spike told her why he was in Ponyville and what Twilight was doing, Fluttershy was utterly thrilled to find out that there were books on animal care in the library Twilight was setting up. Soon she was visiting every day, bringing Twilight dinners in a basket so Twilight could concentrate on her work, and then settling down for a few hours to read about animals in a quiet location.

She was Twilight's first real friend, ever.

The second was a unicorn named Rarity, a dressmaker who subscribed to fashion magazines, so she was familiar with the concept of reading. Rarity was amazed to discover that there were pictures in Twilight's book of old-style fashions from a hundred or two hundred years ago, fashions that ponykind had entirely forgotten. She was also pleased to discover that there were books on techniques of jewelry making that she didn't know – she had never wanted to take a class in jewelry making, because she used gems heavily in her fashions and taking a class would imply to other ponies that she didn't know what she was doing with gems. Rarity, who had a talent for finding gems, would bring them as snacks for Spike, who had befriended her, and come to look over the fashions, or the jewelry making, and show her creations off to Twilight and Fluttershy to get a first impression before she revealed them to the public. Fluttershy also had an interest in fashion, so Twilight's only unicorn friend bonded with her only pegasus friend, and soon they were a tight-knit group.

Three other ponies were drawn in to their group despite having no interest in books. Rainbow Dash, a brash jock who represented everything Twilight hated about ponies in general and pegasi in particular, was nonetheless Fluttershy's best childhood friend, and so she came to visit at Fluttershy's instigation. Twilight started reading to her from a series of adventure stories about a pegasus who was as much larger than life as Rainbow Dash wished she was, and soon Rainbow was mesmerized, coming to the library frequently to hear Twilight read the adventure tales. A baker named Pinkie Pie had made it her mission to befriend everyone in town, and though Twilight had frequently pushed her away for being loud, pushy, overly manic and having no interest in books, Pinkie knew Rarity. She kept trying to "brighten up" the library – which was quite bright; Twilight did not appreciate eyestrain – with balloons and streamers and silly decorations, and she didn't get the point to books, but she seemed to feel that Twilight was some sort of difficult friendship problem that Pinkie needed to solve, and kept trying to get Twilight to be more social. While this didn't work, it did bring Pinkie into their group, and with Pinkie came Applejack, a fellow earth pony Pinkie had close dealings with because her farm supplied Pinkie's employer with apples. Applejack was another example of everything Twilight hated about ponies, a deliberate know-nothing who hated any hint of newer technologies that could possibly supplant her family's traditional, earth-pony ways of doing things... until her brother hurt his back badly, and Applejack was forced to turn to Twilight's magic and knowledge of the new mechanical technologies to find a way to harvest all the apples without her brother's help. After that, she allowed that there was some value to books, after all, though she still didn't think anypony could be healthy and happy if they spent their life around them like Twilight did.

Princess Celestia and Twilight's parents and older brother were all thrilled that she had made some friends. And for a while Twilight was content. She had five friends, plus her close companion Spike, plus her family, plus Princess Celestia. What pony really needed more for companionship? A few friends who appreciated books, or at least didn't spend all their time spitting on what Twilight loved, was good enough. The rest of ponykind could go to Tartarus for all she cared, but these few, at least, she cared for deeply.

Had she never made such friends, she might never have suffered the heartbreak she suffered, later, when they turned on her. Having never suffered that heartbreak, perhaps she would never have committed the crimes that she did. In later years, Twilight would look back at her friendships with bitterness, feeling that the playwright Spear Shaker had been wrong; it was not better to have loved and lost than to have loved at all. Had she never loved at all, perhaps everything might have been different.

i don't want i don't want this i don't want to live this life i don't want to read this anymore

stop

please, stop

One day, while experimenting with some spells that she'd read about in the works of Starswirl the Bearded, a long-dead unicorn mage who had also loved books and had written a large number of them, Twilight accidentally teleported herself to the Frozen North, and changed her life.

She couldn't figure out how to get back, immediately, so she had to take shelter in a cave. And in that cave, the shadows came to life, and formed themselves into the shape of a gray unicorn with a black mane, red eyes with green irises that leaked magic, and an eerily misshapen, blood red horn.

"A pony trespasses in my domain..." the shadow unicorn whispered. "Why are you here, little pony?"

Twilight stood her ground, putting a magical shield around herself and preparing for the possibility that she might have to fight for her life. She was very frightened, but she tried to keep it out of her voice. "I mean no trespass. I was just experimenting with a spell that accidentally teleported me here. I'll go as soon as I can figure out exactly what it was I did and reverse it."

"A pony who studies the old magic. It's been a very long time since I've seen one of your kind." The unicorn smiled broadly. "I thought that the pursuit of knowledge had died out from ponykind."

"It more or less has," Twilight said bitterly. "My whole life they've been telling me 'don't read books! Learn from other ponies! What you find in books is suspect and could be evil!' As if there's something wrong with trying to learn more, or studying from ponies who you've never met or who have died! I mean, if ponies write the book, and then you read it, aren't you still learning from ponies?"

"One would think," the shadow unicorn said dryly.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to vent at you," she added quickly, because she still didn't know whether the unicorn made of shadows was friend or foe. "It's just so frustrating."

"I can imagine." He chuckled. "Perhaps we can help each other, little pony."

"Help each other?" Twilight asked.

"I have a palace full of books, and grimoires, and tomes of unusual and forgotten magic. But I can no longer return there." He lowered his head. "My horn is the only part of me that is truly here. Within these caves, I can summon enough shadow to form a body... but I cannot travel in daylight, for it disperses my shadow self. And my palace is too far from here for me to gallop within a single night. If you would carry me to my palace, the source of my power, I can form a true body and walk under the sun once more. In return, I can give you access to my libraries, and allow you to study any magic you desire."

that's sombra got to be don't fall for it don't fall don't

Twilight's eyes were as round as saucers. "Any magic I desire?" she repeated, thrilled by the possibilities. Then a thought occurred to her. "But wait. If you're such a powerful mage yourself – which you'd have to be to have all those books – why can't you just teleport to your palace, or make a carriage and drive it with telekinesis at faster than pony speed? If the carriage was enclosed and had curtains you could even keep enough shadows to maintain yourself!"

The shadow laughed again. Green and purple smoke flowed from the edges of his eyes. "Little filly, do you have any idea how much magic it takes to animate one's own body from shadows? I do not have the strength to do anything with my magic but stay alive and corporeal. Once I am returned to my palace, I will be able to recreate my body, and no longer need to hold shadows together with my magic to have an animate form at all."

"That sounds like amazing magic," Twilight said. "Princess Celestia's never taught me anything like that."

"Celestia? She has trained you?"

Twilight nodded. "I'm her personal student."

This time when the shadow pony laughed, there was a note of genuine delight in it. "A student of Celestia's! Well, filly. I would take great pleasure in teaching you the magic that Celestia never will. Bring me to my castle, and if you so wish, you may have two mentors in the art of magic."

"That sounds wonderful," Twilight said. no it's a trick don't fall for it "What do you need me to do?"

The unicorn – whose name was Sombra, and who revealed he had once been king of a vast empire, vanished into the mists of time – used shadow to draw Twilight a map of the route to his lost palace. Twilight was to put his horn in her saddlebag – she was wearing one because she'd planned on teleporting to Canterlot, though teleporting as far as wherever this place might be hadn't been any part of her plan – and travel for two days to the east. At the palace, she was to remove his horn once she was in shadow, and he could rebuild himself then.

There were no ponies who lived up here – any empire there had once been was at least a thousand years gone. Twilight wished she had the opportunity to research Sombra, or to contact Princess Celestia and ask if the shadow unicorn could be trusted, but she had some reasonable confidence that she could take care of herself. She was the Princess' student. She had saved the town from a baby Ursa Minor once. She was powerful. And while attempting to use the teleport spell again would leave her lost, once again with no bearings at all... she could tell from how cold it was and the angle of the sun that she was in the Frozen North, and it would be easy enough to get to Equestria by just trotting south for as long as it took. So if Sombra tried to betray her, she had an escape route.

no please it's a trap it has to be why can't i make this stop? i don't want to do this i don't i don't

So for two days, Twilight headed toward Sombra's palace. In the night, he accompanied her, talking with her – though she did most of the talking, really. He asked her what she knew of magic, testing her knowledge. Twilight was prepared for any test, even an impromptu pop quiz like this one. There were things Sombra spoke of that she knew nothing of, and yet, as soon as he spoke of them and she realized they were possible things, that existed, she found that she was hungry to know more. Hungers of other sorts were harder to satisfy; she had brought only a small bag of trail mix in her saddlebag, and there was nothing edible in these frozen lands, not even grass.

In the night, Sombra's strange magic protected her from the cold, as she ran within a blanket of shadows. She wouldn't have thought shadows could warm a pony, but somehow they kept her own body heat in. During the day, the sun was high, but the cold was bitter, and the sun barely warmed her. There were ponds of icy cold water, not quite frozen, that she could drink from. At that temperature she knew they would have no microbes that could harm her, but bringing cold into her body was almost unbearable. Twilight used up her own magic on warming spells to protect herself. By the time she reached the abandoned ruin that Sombra's palace had become, she was weak with hunger, cold and overuse of magic.

"I'm sorry," she said, setting the horn down in a shadow cast by a broken wall. "Your palace... it looks like somepony destroyed it centuries ago." In her heart she mourned for the books.

"That shall be no object," Sombra said.

His shadows spread over everything, and where they touched a wall, black crystal grew, rebuilding. Once the walls had reached a great height, the crystal grew into high, arched roofs, and met in the middle. Before long, a palace of glittering dark crystal stood where there had been ruins.

"Now we wait," Sombra said.

Within an hour, a pack of Diamond Dogs came to investigate the crystal structure. Panting and barking in delight, they invaded the palace, digging at the foundations that were still solid stone to cause them to buckle, letting walls of crystal fall to the ground and shatter. Twilight hid in Sombra's audience chamber, behind his new crystalline throne. Sombra, by contrast, stood his ground in the center of the room, smiling.

"King Sombra, why don't you do anything about the Diamond Dogs? They're destroying your palace!"

"I built it today. I can rebuild it as easily. Watch and learn, young Twilight Sparkle."

When the leader of the Diamond Dogs strutted arrogantly into the audience chamber, he demanded that Sombra leave the premises. "This is Diamond Dog territory now. We've laid claim to these crystals, and if you don't want to spend the rest of your life underground digging in our mines, pony, you'd better go now."

"I think not," Sombra said. "Rather, I think you will stay."

And then spines of black crystal shot out of the floor, creating circles that entrapped the Dogs. The crystal grew together, walling them in as they yelped and whined and barked frantically. And then it moved inward, surrounding them completely, freezing them in crystal.

Twilight drew back. "D-did you kill them?" she asked, disbelieving.

"They are of no use to me dead," Sombra said. Bolts of purple energy crackled through the air from the columns where the Diamond Dogs were held prisoner to the shadow cloud that was Sombra himself. "It is their magic, paltry as it is, that will give me life again."

His body solidified. No longer could she see through any part of it. Fallen leaves and dead grass that had blown into the palace when it was a ruin lifted and merged together, becoming a royal red cape. Metal shot from within the earth, forming into greaves and a circlet, that fastened to his body.

"But – what are you doing to the Diamond Dogs?"

Sombra smiled cruelly. "They will not die. Come with me."

Twilight balked. "I'm not sure..."

"I need you to see to my library, Twilight Sparkle. The books have been buried beneath the earth. You are a trained librarian; you can assess their condition and tell me if they can be salvaged. Afterward, we shall eat."

"I'm not sure where you're going to get anything to eat. This is a frozen wasteland, and I don't think anything you had in your palace would have survived all these years..."

"Choose to study with me, and you may well learn how I plan to get something to eat." He grinned. "Transmutation of the nonliving to the nonliving and the living to the living is a parlor trick. True magic will enable you to transmute that which is not alive and never was – dirt, rock, crystals – into that which was once made from life. Food."

Well. Twilight was very hungry, and didn't think she had the strength to teleport anywhere after her journey, and Sombra's magic had warmed the palace considerably. The notion of going back out into the chill because she didn't like how he handled trespassers who'd planned to steal what he'd made and threatened to enslave him in his own domain... it did not appeal. So she followed Sombra.

nooooo

something awful's about to happen, i know it

Down a very, very, very long staircase they went. Deep within the earth, the palace as it had been was largely intact, though saturated with dirt and dust. She would have expected there to be living things making use of the levels below the earth as a den, but while there were droppings and bones, there was no evidence of anything alive.

Sombra pushed open a door. Inside was darkness. Twilight lit her horn, but it illuminated nothing in the deep black beyond.

"Allow me," said Sombra. His power crackled, and lanterns in the ceiling lit with cold bluish light. Twilight gasped.

The room was the size of Princess Celestia's audience chamber, and entirely lined with books.

Hastily she pulled a tome from the shelf with her horn, and flipped it open, inspecting it. "No water damage... that's good... some insect damage, not so good, but the environment was dry, so I'd expect that to be pretty minimal... the parchment's still holding up after all these years..." She lifted her head and looked at Sombra. "I think they'll be okay. It'll take a lot longer than I can spare to clean them all and inspect them all for damage; my friends will worry about me. But I could do a night's work, maybe get a thousand of them or so done, after we eat."

Sombra nodded. "That would please me. Afterward, perhaps we will make arrangements. If you can come to my palace at regular intervals, you can work to restore my library and my books, and read what is within them. Take some home for study and return them when you've finished. Ask me if there are questions about what you have read."

"That... sounds pretty good, actually," Twilight said. A twinge of conscience bothered her about the Diamond Dogs, still, but Sombra had said they wouldn't be harmed, and thus far he'd honored his word to her.

In another, smaller chamber – though to say it was smaller was not to say it was small, given the enormity of the library – Sombra cleared rubble from the door, and restored the caved-in walls of the room. They lit up from inside with a purplish light, as some of his crystals had in the rooms upstairs to provide light. Then he gestured at what had once been a fine oak table, now an oak slab with two legs still standing, covered in rock and dirt. The table reassembled itself, as the rock and dirt first floated into the air, and then landed on the table... as plates, covered with foodstuff. There were freshly picked flowers aplenty, some of them species Twilight had never seen. There were sweet potatoes, split, buttered and steaming. There were carrots, apples, celery stalks, squash and exotic vegetables Twilight had never seen, all well-seasoned.

Wine was provided in goblets, but Twilight was not accustomed to drink, and requested water instead. The same ice cold water that had seemed to freeze her insides when she'd drunk it on the trail was perfect and refreshing here in the warmth with delicious food. Twilight ate and ate until she could eat no more; she had never missed a meal in her life short of being too buried in a book to notice time passing, certainly never while exerting herself physically. The trip to Sombra's palace had worn her out terribly, starved and exhausted her. When she was done eating, she could barely keep her eyes open; she'd stayed awake these two days, fearing the consequence should she sleep in the cold.

Sombra offered her a room. He reconstructed one for her, rebuilding what had been the suite of most likely a fancy noblemare before dirt had covered everything into a clean and sumptuous place for her to bathe and sleep. He even thawed the bath unguents and beauty products the previous owner had used, as they had for the most part frozen inside little jars. The fact that the room was made of polished granite and black crystal, that the reading lights in the room were cold lights and harsh to read by, and that the warm light of the fireplace and the logs burning within it wasn't sufficient to read by, made Twilight uncomfortable; she was used to brightly lit rooms, and if the walls were dark, they were dark-stained wood, not dark rock. Canterlot Palace was made largely of crystals, but they were in pale colors and let through a great deal of light. On the other hand, her belly was full, she was clean again, and she was so very, very tired. Twilight had little trouble falling into a dreamless sleep.

no oh celestia don't sleep there don't

In the morning when she rose, she found that Sombra had left her a breakfast in her room, a repast of eggs and cheese and hay. Twilight ate quickly, and went up the very long flight of stairs to Sombra's audience chamber, hoping to find him there. She was not disappointed.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get any work done on your books last night, but I was just so tired," she said. "And it's been three days now; I really have to get home and let my friends and Princess Celestia know I'm okay."

"Of course," Sombra said. "When do you wish to return?"

"In four days I'll come back, if you can help me with the spell I used to get here."

"I will open and close the door for you," Sombra said. "I have already traced you back to your origin point; I can return you to where you came." Her eyes went wide. "It's a simple spell, though the results require great concentration and attention to detail. Would you like to learn it?"

"I'd love to!"

"Then in four days, I will open a gate to your home at midnight. Come through and your lessons will begin. I don't know where the book is that will show you that spell, and I would prefer you learn it before completing your work in the library, so this once I will teach it to you."

"That's fine," Twilight said. "I don't mind learning directly from a good teacher, even though I'll always prefer books. It's just that so many of them are... oh dear Celestia!" For she'd seen the Diamond Dogs, still in their crystal prisons. None of them had moved, but their bodies had withered. They looked starved, ribs clearly showing through their hide. "What's happened to them?" She spun on Sombra. "What have you done to them? You said they wouldn't be harmed!"

Sombra chuckled. "I said they wouldn't die. And I keep my word." He gestured with his horn, and their prisons broke open, the Dogs falling out, too weak to stand. They whined. One of them cried for mercy, begging to be allowed to return to their den; the others didn't even seem to be able to speak.

"What did you do!" Twilight screamed.

"I fed. On their magic, on their life force, on their fear. My body is newly restored, and it required so much of my own magic to rebuild it, I would never have had enough to begin restoring my palace." He smirked at her. "And you have directly benefited from my feeding, Twilight. The food I conjured for you last night, and this morning, was made with their life force. The magic that restored my... advisor's... old quarters so you could have the restful sleep you deserved came from their terror, their despair. You have benefited from their suffering as much as I have." Rock swirled through the air and formed into bowls of kibble, suitable for a pet dog, and bowls of water. "Now they may eat their fill and return to their dens. I no longer need them. My own magic is fully restored now."

"You fed on them... you took their magic... their life force..."

"They chose to trespass in my domain," Sombra said. "Another time, I might have killed them for such a transgression. Such was the way, in the Empire. But I was merciful this time, as I had need of what they could provide. So they were punished, and now they have served their sentence, and can go free."

it's still not right stop listening to him stop letting him confuse you letting him make you believe stop this isn't me this isn't me this isn't

Twilight took a deep breath. Who was she to judge the morals of a pony who had last lived in solid flesh centuries ago? Who wasn't even from Equestria? Perhaps by the standards of Sombra's culture he had been merciful.

no no this is not the time for cultural relativism it's evil he's evil don't let him fool you no

"I... guess you're right," she said, feeling guilty about what she'd unknowingly taken from the Dogs. "As long as they get enough food and water and get back to their dens, they should be fine eventually... right?"

"Of course," Sombra said.

"And it's not like you're going to do it again. This was a one-time thing because they were trespassing when you really needed the energy boost. You don't need it anymore."

"Correct."

"I... guess it's okay, then," Twilight said reluctantly. She didn't want to antagonize her new friend or make him feel so uncomfortable that he didn't invite her to come back. All those books! All that forbidden magic! A pony who understood the joy of reading! "I'll be back in four days to clean up the library and start restoring the books, then."

"I look forward to it, Twilight Sparkle."

He opened a magical portal directly to her workroom, and she stepped through it.

When Spike asked her where she had been, and subsequently when all of her friends asked and then Princess Celestia, she told them all the same thing. She was experimenting with a spell that allowed her to teleport great distances, and she'd accidentally teleported to someplace in the middle of nowhere. It had taken her a few days to get back, and she still wasn't exactly sure how she did it. So she was planning on running further experiments, but now that she had more of a handle on what she was doing, she felt sure it wouldn't take her several days to figure out how to get back, next time.

She never mentioned Sombra at all.

Spike paced restlessly as he and the other five sat vigil on Twilight. She was still standing there, eyes glowing, responding to nothing. They'd tried aromatherapy, they'd tried ice cubes, they'd tried smacking her – Spike had even pinched – but nothing. And now Spike was getting more and more worried because there had been no message from Princess Celestia.

"I, uh, I think maybe I should write the Princess again?"

"Good thinkin', Spike," Applejack said. "I wonder what's takin' her so dadgurn long to reply?"

A bright light flashed above all their heads, and there was Discord, coiled in the air. "Let's not go running to share every little thing with Celestia just now, shall we?"

"You!" Spike screamed up at Discord. "You blocked it, didn't you? The letter I sent! You blocked it!"

"I mmmmmmight have?" Discord examined his claws. "Or I mmmmight not have?"

Rainbow Dash charged at him, and bounced off an invisible shield around him. "That's lower than low! You're interfering with us telling Princess Celestia even though Twilight's in danger because you know what trouble you're gonna be in now!"

"Actually," and here Discord righted himself and sat up, on air, "I'm interfering with you telling Princess Celestia because I think that Twilight is going to want us to keep it our little secret that she was playing with reformation spells. Or, at least, if she knows what Celestia thinks of the particular spell she was ready to use on me, she'd want us to keep it on the down low."

"What're you babbling about?" Applejack asked, furiously. "Twilight didn't do anythin' wrong! She was studyin' a spell she got from Princess Celestia!"

"From Celestia's private library. A protected book. Meaning Twilight had to break an encrypted magical lock on the book to get the reforming spell she wanted."

"Um, Discord," Fluttershy said, flying up to join him, "if the spell is one that Princess Celestia would be angry at Twilight for casting, why don't you just let her go from your spell and we'll tell her so? She would never do anything knowingly if she thought it would anger the Princess."

"Can't stop a moving train," Discord said. "Twilight hasn't even gotten to the good part yet."

"The 'good part'?" Rarity asked, trembling with outrage. "What is good about being imprisoned in some sort of awful magical stasis? I heard you say you don't turn ponies to stone, with great self-righteousness I might add, and yet what have you done to Twilight but lock her in place, exactly as if she were a statue?"

"You seriously think that's what's happening?" Discord chortled and rolled onto his back. Rainbow tried to make another flight at him, and failed, despite the fact that Fluttershy was right next to him and well within the area of effect if he was casting a protective shield.

"Well, then, explain it to us," Rarity snapped. "Because there are other means of contacting Princess Celestia, and if you want us to believe your story that Twilight would be better off if we didn't—"

"Twilight's reading a book," Discord said. "It's a very interesting book, and she's just gotten to the part where things start to get dramatic."

"But she dropped her book! How can she be reading the book if she dropped it on the floor?" Pinkie asked, holding up the book in question. "Hay, this is called 'Pinkie Pie's Recipe for Cupcakes!' But you said it was some sort of encrypted—"

The book flew out of Pinkie's hoof and into Discord's paw. "That's more than enough of that, Pinkie," Discord said. "You of all ponies should never, ever, ever read this book."

"All right then, how is it that it had a different title when Twilight was lookin' at it?" Applejack demanded. "She said it was called 'Tale of the Terrible Doctor Twilight.'"

"And so it was. For her." Discord landed. "The book takes the memories of whoever is reading it, and weaves them into its tale. The general story is always the same – not in terms of plot, but in terms of theme, certain events happening, et cetera – but it tells the story with the life experiences of the reader, as the reader lives the story as if she were reliving her own life."

"You said the book was supposed to show Twilight why you don't use reforming spells!" Spike shouted. "How is a book that makes her relive her own life going to do that?"

"She's not reliving her life. Was I unclear about that?" Discord pouted in mock sympathy. "So very sorry. She's living someone else's life, but with her own memories and personality grafted onto it to the greatest extent possible. For example, if this book was about Applejack's life, then Twilight would be living through a world where she and her big brother Shining Armor and little brother Spike all live together and work on a book farm, growing books by hoof to sell to libraries, collectors and average citizens."

"But there isn't any such thing as a book farm," Pinkie said.

"Says the mare who grew up on a rock farm."

"What? There's nothing weird about a rock farm!"

"Whose life is she reading then? If, um, it's okay to tell me..."

Discord looked at Fluttershy for several long seconds. "No," he finally said. "Let Twilight tell you about it when she's done with the book, if she chooses, and maybe you can figure it out. I will tell you this much, though. Regardless of whose life is being told through the book... the book always ends with that person's worst fear coming true. So if it were about Applejack, then Twilight and her family would lose the book farm and be forced off of it, their good name besmirched and them driven into poverty, perhaps even being forced to separate to survive."

Applejack stared at Discord coldly. "I don't recall givin' you permission to go explorin' in my brain."

"You gave me permission when you willingly took up the only weapon that can harm me, and took on Celestia's request to go use it against me," Discord said, equally coldly. "I didn't go spelunking in your brain today, Applejack. I researched you the first time I got free. You should be thankful I didn't use the threat of your absolute worst fear to break you."

"Discord, we have talked about this," Fluttershy said. "You shouldn't talk about when you were a villain and trying to fight us if you want to be friends now!"

"Do I want to be friends now?" he asked. "Do I, Fluttershy?"

"Yes. You do. You could have hurt Twilight, or any of us, a lot worse if you didn't still want to be friends, and you wouldn't care about Princess Celestia finding out – not for yourself and not for Twilight's sake. So you do still want to be friends."

"Yeah, well, I think he blew it," Rainbow Dash said. "Seriously? Fluttershy, you expect us to still try to be friends with him after he's pulled this stunt?"

"Will Twilight be hurt in any way by this book?"

"Reading a compelling tragic novel can always hurt," Discord said. "She will not suffer any physical harm, and any mental or emotional harm she takes from the book will probably be something she can get over. Probably."

"All right, then," Fluttershy said, moving into position in front of Discord's face. "If she does – if whatever Twilight experiences from this book causes her permanent mental or emotional harm – I will never forgive you. Never." She turned the full force of her Stare on Discord. He actually backed up.

"I—well, that's really up to her," he said quickly. "If she's strong she'll get over it."

"And if it turns out she's not strong, and she doesn't get over it? I will never speak to you again, and our friendship will be destroyed." She closed her eyes, no longer Staring at Discord, and flew back down to the floor. "I – I just thought y-you ought to kn-know..." A sob escaped her. Pinkie drew her into a hug.

"Don't worry, Fluttershy! Twilight's tough! She can take it!" She looked up at Discord, and with the same face she used to enforce Pinkie Promises, she said, "She'd better."

"Oh, I see, a mare tries to turn my brain into jello and that's okay, but when I make her read a book with an unhappy ending, that's worth destroying friendships over," Discord said. "Nice to see how much you really care, Fluttershy."

"If she had hurt you with that spell I would never have forgiven her either," Fluttershy said. "Right now... right now I'm... I'm really, really angry at both of you." She lowered her head, letting her mane fall and obscure her face. "My friends shouldn't be hurting my friends."

"Tell her that. I acted in self-defense!"

"I reckon we'll see about that when Twilight wakes up," Applejack said.

"Yeah, how about you call me when that happens," Discord said sharply, and vanished.