The Voices (In My Head Again)

After Sketch’s death everypony in town return to their usual routines, Applejack keeps up with her farm, Twilight buries herself in the library with her studies, Pinkie stays pink, Fluttershy tends to all the critters in ponyville, Rainbow keeps flying circles around all the other pegasi, Rarity designs the summer line, and Spike, well, Spike found something from Sketch to keep him occupied for a while.

“Spike! Spike! Number one assistant, where are you?!” Twilight calls out as she roams the castle looking for Spike. She eventually finds him in his room staring intently at the tablet except for this time it isn’t displaying the heroics of heroes and the downfall of villains, it is….

“Spike, what are you reading?” Twilight asks, her curiosity piqued.

“Some guide book to making an adventurer for a game called Pathfinder, there’s also another book in here for Dungeons & Dragons, it is really cool! It is like our tabletop game except better!” Spike cheers as he shows Twilight the various monsters from the bestiary along with some pictures of famous heroes.

“Huh, too bad you two didn’t get to play it together, anyway, I need your help, I can’t find the book on ancient light magic.”

“The third to top shelf on the bookshelf fifth from the far back right corner and it has a white a gold binding.” Spike answers without even looking up from the tablet, Twilight doesn’t know how he does it but is always appreciative of his help.

“Thanks, Spike,” Twilight says as she trots off back to bury her muzzle back into ancient times.

As Spike, went through the tabletop game books he’s intrigued by the various creatures that one can fight in these games, one actually scares him, the beholder, to him the only thing he could think of is a unicorn with dozens of horns each casting spells at random in various directions. That isn’t the thing that scares him, it is all the eyes on the ends of tentacles and the giant mouth that could swallow you whole.

Meanwhile, in the library Twilight is researching ways to figure out how Sketch first ended up in Equestria, this book, in particular, contains spells known as multi-dimensional doorway spells letting you see other worlds. Only the princesses, mainly Celestia, had any form of success with this spell due to its insurmountable difficulty and raw power needed to cast it. Twilight is reading this book for hours on end without rest, she’s determined to find out what caused his appearance here, sure Discord said he brought him here after a similar accident but how? After reading the spell tens of times she thinks she understands it, maybe if she cast a time travel spell and then cast it maybe she could disrupt Discord’s casting and let Sketch die in peace in his world instead of dying in this one. Or, maybe if she was really good at it she could stop him dead in his world altogether!

“Ah, ah, ah, Twilight, you shouldn’t meddle with forces beyond your control.” A voice echoes throughout the library startling her as she looks around for the source.Before she can find the source of the voice the book glows brightly and when she looks back down the pages are now blank.

“No, no, no, no, no, no! I was so close!” Twilight panics as she tries to recall all the components for the spell but some of it eludes her.

“Twilight, what’s wrong?” Spike asks as he walks in and immediately notices a look of defeat on her face. “What happened this time, the wrong book?”

“No, I was trying to find a way to prevent Sketch from dying the first time before he got here and dies again, but when I found a spell I could use to look into his world something stopped me and erased the book!” Twilight explains as she levitates the book and shows Spike the blank pages.

“Huh, what do you think happened?”

“I think I have an idea…” Twilight replies as she puts on her saddle bag and slips the book into one of the bags and heads out of the library.

“Oh Fluttershy, this tea is simply delightful!” Discord cheers as he sips the tea, the cup slowly pouring down his throat before setting down the tea on the table.

“I am so glad, I really do enjoy our tea parties, want to host the next one?”

“I think the first one was a disaster enough, so why not again?” Discord chuckles as there is a knock at the door.

“I’ll get that Di-” Before Fluttershy could finish her sentence Discord waves a claw and the door opens upward, slamming against the ceiling.

“Oh, hello Twilight, what brings you here?” Discord asks nonchalantly as he eats a cucumber finger sandwich.

“I think you know why I’m here,” Twilight says as she gets out the white and gold book from her saddlebags and shows it to them.

“It’s a book, did you want me to sign it?” discord asks, his right pointer finger turning into a yellow pen.

“No! I was trying to stop Sketch from dying in his world so he wouldn’t be brought here and then die in a magical mishap but the book’s text faded after some voice from beyond told me “Ah, ah, ah, Twilight, you shouldn’t meddle with forces beyond your control.” and then poof, it's gone!”

“Why do you suspect me? I’ve been here the entire time, right Fluttershy?” Discord asks as his head spins to face Fluttershy who simply nods in response.

“B-but then who, how? If it wasn’t you then....” Twilight just plops down on the floor in confusion wondering what in Tartarus is going on here.

“Twilight, this may be hard for you to understand, but there are other forces out there more powerful than me, Luna, or even Celestia, maybe someone doesn’t want you meddling in their business?”

“All I wanted to do was save Sketch, who would want him dead?”

Maybe it isn’t the fact that they want him dead, maybe they need him to die for some reason we can’t comprehend.” Discord explains.

“What makes you think that?”

“Do you know how much trouble I got into for going there and bringing someone back?”

“You got in trouble? But you’re Discord, you are the personification of chaos! Who could possibly punish you? Did they threaten you with something similar to the elements of harmony?”

“Oh you silly pony, there are much worse things than the elements.”

“Like?”

“Never existing, heed my warning Twilight, let this be, just go about your business as usual and forget about him.” Discord suggests as he returns to his tea on the table where he takes a bite of the remaining tea.

Twilight is more confused than ever right now, someone punished Discord with something worse than the elements of harmony? What is going on here and who is behind it?