So, after releasing Luna, we set our eye's on our next target: Discord.

This one was going to be tricky; he was trapped in stone and was not going to be released in the, quite literally, foreseeable future.

But, after doing much research on the topic of stone encasing enchantments, I discovered that the trapped being isn't actually turned to stone in the traditional sense. Really, the statue that is created is nothing but an article of the curser's creativity.

That brings me to another point: Celestia, when you trapped Discord, you did not put a breakable enchantment on him. Instead, you put a curse on Discord, which, as you know, is not reversible. And you did not just put a normal curse, you put a curse that contained Discord's information the statue, instead of killing him by molecularly transforming him into stone.

"I... I know this," Celestia spoke softly.

"As do I..." Luna followed.

"Then... then... why did you never tell me?"

"We all have our reasons, Twilight," Celestia answered.

"I suppose you are right."

Well, since you apparently know about the imprisonment, I'll skip to the relevant part: Scootaloo. You see, Scootaloo's involvement in this goes almost all the way back to when I arrived in Ponyville.

A few days after I arrived in Ponyville, we were all discussing what we would need to do for the next couple years to "lay low". Somepony happened to still be in the library, though, and was actively listening. Her name was Scootaloo, the little orange pegasus filly, friend to Applebloom and Sweetie Belle. She was very scared to say the least, but we eventually indoctrinated her into our deprived ways. Later, she became known as Steelwing.

Regardless, as you know, Discord was still "alive" in the stone, and could perceive a minute amount of information. So, all we had to do was "awaken" him. Scootaloo's arguing with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom wasn't necessary, but at the time she desperately wanted to help. So, we told her to go pick a fight with her friends in front of a weird statue.

"If I may ask, why did you need to free Discord? Or my sister for that matter?"

"Come on, Celestia, think about how much of a spoiler that would be! I can't just tell you."

The princess glared at her former student.

"Psht, we have seven years. We'll be fine. Live a little."

As I was saying, Scootaloo's actions led to the freeing of Discord. He was a rowdy one, alright, and gave us a bunch of trouble. When he took the gems, we actually began to worry a bit.

"What do we do, Twilight? He took the gems! How are we suppose to subdue him now?" Rarity asked, worried.

"We just have to play his little games, I suppose. I doubt he'd do anything too edgy, though," I replied.

"Yes, I agree with Twilight. We need to go into the maze he has prepared and retrieve the gems. However stupid this is, we don't have much a choice in the matter," Monotone backed me up.

And so, we went in the maze, not really knowing what to expect. Granted this was only the third major point to the whole plan, the previous ones had gone off without a hitch, but this one was very different. Now we had an insane being who had as much—if not more—power as an immortal alicorn and who wasn't on our side; it was quite the hindrance.

We wandered aimlessly around the maze; I tried making a map in the beginning, but the labyrinth changed every turn we made. The fact that it kept changing eventually led us to getting split up. It was Rarity who fell first, then Oracle, then Envy, then Monotone, Deathwing and eventually me.

We went our separate ways out of disdain and an extreme lack of moral, and had a lot of trouble breaking the spells which we had no idea we were even under.

Contrary to what your student has taught you, it was Envy, or Applejack, who reunited us. She eventually realized that a very ancient, very powerful type of manipulative curse had been placed on each of us. She went to me first, me being the leader, and stripped the curse away.

We went around to the others and did the same thing, eventually getting us all congregated in front of Discord's unofficial throne. We gathered the gems and shot him with a more simplistic but still equally effective stone-trap spell.

"I agree with sister that the actions you are taking seem to make little sense. Why would you free Discord and re-trap him?" Luna pointed out.

"Luna, you too? Can't you guys just wait? I'll explain it to you eventually, I promise."

It was actually a surprise to us when Discord was let out to be reformed. Deathwing played the part of quiet and meek Fluttershy, so I assigned her to deal with him. He did turn out to be a somewhat useful tool, though.

I never cared for the being myself. He always seemed to be a nuisance, and he remarkably close to discovering us on several occasions. Envy even had to forcibly erase part of his memory at one time.

I was tempted to turn him back into stone, but I realized it wasn’t really necessary if he didn’t hang around us too often, which he really didn’t.

Now, on to the “Tree of Harmony”. Really, all it was was an oddly shaped mineral vein. However, it was interesting to find that it had an inherent enchant bound to the lattice; the same enchantment that was already on the gems. This made it interesting, because the seeds that Discord apparently planted managed to somehow feed of the magic energy it absorbed from the air.

I’m not sure how it did this, but I have a feeling it had something to do with the fact that the plants were created with unruly magic.

“So how do you explain the chest by the tree? Or, the vein, if you like,” Celestia inquired.
“So you are skeptical about what I am saying? Fair enough, I never really bothered to look into it myself. It may be the Tree of Harmony as you say it is, but Rarity quickly identified it as a vein.
“I also find it unlikely that it honestly has anything to do with the gems, but the two did seem unusually attracted to one another.
“I can’t say that I don’t find it interesting that the gems embedded themselves into the vein after the Everfree incident. I simply mark it up as being one of Equestria’s many strange occurrences, and I paid it little heed until now. I shall look further into this, no doubt, that you have brought it up again. It interests me.”
“That is interesting indeed,” Luna spoke up, “Could it possibly have something to do with slots? We found the Elements detached from the tree originally, so is it possible that the gems are a positive to the tree’s negative, or vice versa?”
“This is an… interesting theory,” Twilight said hesitantly.
“You can just say you think it’s bad.” Luna rolled her eyes.
“At this time, I cannot say. I will meditate on this, though.”
“As will I,” Celestia said. “You have given me much to think about…. Many things I used to believe I now see as being false.”

Author's Note

So... yeah. It's alive. Kinda. I have no idea about what to name these chapters at this point, so I'm just choosing a random phrase from the text.