Thirteen centuries ago, shortly after Discord's defeat

In the skies over the Castle of the Two Sisters, said ponies and several pegasi were battling one powerful, yet unbelievable enemy.

Grabbing a pony and throwing it at a window, the creature evaded what felt like the thousandth magic beam in the last hour before tying the tails of two other pegasi together, making them lose control and fall.

While three more dived to their rescue, Celestia let loose a white fireball from below, hitting the attacker head on; but any burnt body part simply fixed itself, like the last hundred times. The Princesses were holding back less and less against the creature, hoping to cause a more permanent damage; but it was useless.

Luna shot forward and managed to hold it between her chest and forelegs while trapping it in magical binds. But it simply turned into liquid and fell like multicolored rain before reassembling itself.

The alicorns glared at it, with some cuts and bruises and out of breath.

The stuffed toy glared back.

No, really; it was a stuffed toy.

Small, with threads and patches and buttons for eyes... that acted and moved like it were real ones.

It would be more surprising and baffling if it wasn't a a stuffed toy of Discord.

With a huff, it twirled in the air around them, even as more pegasi soldiers arrived to the scene.

"This is getting us nowhere. Release him from his prison now, or I'll force you to."

"We won't let such a cruel tyrant free to torment our subjects again, creature!" Luna bellowed, the Canterlot Royal Voice resounding in the sky and giving a slight headache to almost every soldier present.

"My sister is right; he's too much of a risk to Equestria and its inhabitants," added Celestia in a lower but equally serious voice. The stuffed toy narrowed its 'eyes' as a purple glow that was awfully familiar to the alicorns emanated from its body.

"So be it."

Mini D had been taking it easy on them, but they were out of patience. They would have to do this the hard way. My arcane form should be enough to defeat the-

A metallic hand with two fingers appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the toy so suddenly, everyone just stared at it in utter bemusement. Then it pulled away, vanishing in an instant along with Mini D.

After a few seconds, Luna turned her head slightly.

"So... is that it?" She asked her sister, who didn't have better luck at trying to process just what had happened.

The Present

It had been a long month for Discord. Both the bursting joy of being free and the apocaliptic anger at the alicorn sisters had subsided, leaving behind a mild shock and a cold, cold hatred capable of rotting the purest heart.

And a string of headaches.

After refusing to say what happened and turning the conversation around at every chance, Discord spent a day getting to know Fluttershy better. She was patient and liked almost any animal she came across, but was shy around other beings with the ability to speak more complex languages. When he asked, all he understood was that it had to do about bullying or something in her childhood. Seeing at how vehemently she refused when he offered her to give her bullies some payback (something about how revenge was wrong; what a silly pony she was), he changed the subject.

She then asked about him, and he shared some hobbies with her. The tamer ones, of course; anything that required moderate amounts of chaos scared her and made her uncomfortable, and then she felt bad when she caught on his dissappointment and annoyance at her reluctance.

"I'm sorry."

She would say that a lot, and he spent half the time being nonchalant to try and brush her worries away (metaphorically speaking, of course), and the other time checking his acting mask, trying to fix the damn cracks on it.

"You knew this would happen, Discord; they're beings of Order," Kevin reminded him every time his powers made the pegasus uncomfortable. And he could notice; she was bad at lying and/or hiding her emotions.

"We are the change, the unknown," Eris gently reminded him; " she already fears what she knows. If you want this to work-"

"Why you'd want this spineless pony to be your friend in the first place is a mistery, though," grumbled Chryssie, earning a smack from the other Spirit.

"-You're going to have to be patient with her."

Patience wasn't always his best quality, but in this case he didn't have a lot of choices. An uncommon situation for him.

Anyway, they tried. They argued when he did something she found wrong, they shared stories with hot chocolate and marshmallows in front of the fireplace, they cooked and cleaned... he almost lived there.

Sometimes, the other Bearers would drop by to 'visit' (But Discord would bet his tail it was to make sure he wasn't doing something harmful to Fluttershy, which bothered him; who did they think he was?).

The Spirit was more than happy to annoy them to no end, throwing pranks at the ponies every couple of minutes. At least, until Fluttershy proposed for him to try and make friends with them.

Discord laughed for a while, until he noticed she wasn't joking.

"HAHAHAHAHA! HAHA, haha, hahaha, haha... haha... ha... are you serious?"

"And they call us crazy," Kevin quipped.

"Discord, it... it would make things easier for all if you got along with them. I... I don't want my friends to fight," was her answer, so genuine and only with a bit of sadness and misery in it. The draconequus wasn't sure if it was an act or not. Fluttershy was always open with her emotions, after all.

Well... if I try and succeed, they'll stop annoying me. So much.

"Then what are you waiting for?!" Meridian demanded, mentally pushing Discord out of the house.

And so, our beloved Spirit of Chaos decided to spent a day with each Bearer to try and plant the seeds of friendship.

Saturday, Twilight informed him that freezing a road to skate along it to reach a place faster wasn't a good thing to do if everyone else did't gave their consent, or were even warned before doing it. Something about bruises and a broken bone or seven was among her tirade, but he got bored halfway so he tuned her out.

Sunday, Rarity left him deaf with her shrills when he tried to help in the creation of new dresses (something Fluttershy had suggested); it wasn't his fault the clothes tried to eat her cat, or that their colors were so out of fashion it was a crime in modern times. How was he supposed to know about that last one, anyway?

Monday, he decided to spend some time with Applejack and see if a farmer's life was any different these days. She ended the day wanting to kick him all the way to the moon... well, more than usual. He wasn't sure why; maybe it was because he danced with one of her trees, or when he accidentally started a fire when showing off some fireworks. But hey, he put it out, so that counted as a good thing, right? Fluttershy had said something about responsibility...

Tuesday, he decided to ignore his failures and continue the trend he started and went to see Rainbow... who wanted nothing to do with him. Eh, her loss; that way he could eat the ginormous banana split he made as a peace offering all by himself.

He slept all of Wednesday, after days of going nonstop.

He convinced Pinkie to have a prank war on Thursday... that she stopped, because his jokes were 'cruel' or something like that. Apparently most ponies lacked backbones and couldn't take jokes. The little orange pegasus was very offended when he put her on a chicken costume for a reason, though...

In Friday, he went to a tropical island to relax in a short vacation, which turned out to be a splendid idea. Though a lot of ponies groaned in desperation and frustration when he came back at nightfall. Way to make a guy feel loved, ladies and gentlemen...

It was Saturday again, so he went to the library and checked some books, after a lengthy discussion with Twilight about bureaucracy and how he had to register to take out a book. The new Rainbow Dash quickly did all the paperwork before he took half the library with him... or would have, if Celie's most loyal student didn't overreact and stopped him in horror.

He wasn't sure why, but he suspected she loved books too much to sleep in a building that had less than five hundred of them inside. The Spirits obviously immortalized her expressions and reactions in that moment for posterity, and convinced Discord to paint it and make copies to sell.

Most of the Bearers were angry at that, for some reason... except for Fluttershy, that was just nervous and Pinkie, that loved the idea of having a portrait of Twilight and chose the one with the funniest face. That was his only sale, but it sure was better than none.

"No, really: what's the problem with that? I even gave her the best portrait with a 50% discount! If I wasn't making this things with my magic, I'd be losing money."

All he got as an answer was a snort from Rainbow and several eye rolls.

Discord sighed, thouroughly annoyed. No matter what he tried, this wasn't working at all!

"This attempt of yours to form friendships with them had very few chances of working, even for us," pointed out Zero.

"You know, I wish Mini D was here so he could help me understand you ponies!" he proclaimed to the afternoon sky, his voice echoing slightly.

THUMP!

A giant, metalling hand (that Discord recognized instantly) slammed the ground at their left, startling everyone. It lifted in the air, revealing a stuffed toy almost identical to Discord partially buried into the ground.

It lifted itself from the small dent in the earth, and shook an angry fist at the hand.

"What what that for?!"

The hand simply vanished.

"Stupid jerk..." they mumbled, before noticing their audience. "... Discord?"

The draconequus looked in disbelief before rubbing his eyes, popping them out of his head (which freaked out everypony and Spike), cleaning them with a handkerchied and puting them back in before looking back on the toy.

Yep, it definitely was Mini D.

"... I wish for a giant BANANA SPLIT!!!" Pinkie screamed to the heavens with echo and everything, causing everyone to look around and see if something happened.

Apart from Mini D jumping to Discord's neck and hugging him, nothing did.

"Awww..." the pink pony lamented in utter dissappointment.

Author's Note

Well, and here we have the next chapter.

Presenting my new character: Mini D! Kinda obvious what the D stands for, no?

Previously known as The Assistant, Mini D is like Discord's Spike: helping in everything the Spirit works on, and making sure he doesn't go overboard (well, by the Spirits' standards).

We'll know more about him in the next chapters.