Twilight rolled her eyes at the crass joke, but couldn’t stifle her snicker. “Discord, that was horrible.”

Still grinning, Discord cocked his head with a shrug. “I’m just saying-”

Discord’s expression went sober. Twilight’s gut sank as he spun to face some seemingly random spot on the ceiling. “No.” he whispered, the word more pitiful than any she’d heard. She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but Discord was gone before she could form the words.

Blinking, Twilight cleared the stars from her eyes. Dread nagged at her. Whatever had happened, had to be bad. “Spike!” She’d send a letter to Celestia, then go check on Fluttershy.

“Spike!” she called again, trotting to her desk for quill and paper.

“What’s wrong?” Spike answered running into the room.

“I’m not sure. We need-”

The flash of Discord’s magic interrupted her. As her eyes cleared she found a gruesome scene on the stone floor. In a quickly growing pool of blood, Discord sat cradling a stallion. Or rather most of one.

The shivering creature was a mess of flesh either burned or pierced with ragged bits of metal. One leg had been torn from the shoulder, and exposed ribs showed things Twilight had hoped to never see.

The stallion whimpered.

“Shh..” Discord cooed with a tone Fluttershy would have been proud of.

Magic crackled around Discord as the blood on the floor slowly reversed it course, marching back into the wounds from which it fell. Twilight could feel reality ripple around her as one by one the shrapnel pulled free and rang against the floor. Discord was breaking rules that even he wasn’t supposed to break. A leg formed from aether, new flesh grew out of burned wounds. Soot fell away from the stallion as gashes closed and fur regrew—revealing his smokey coat to be ivory: a sharp contrast to the jet-black mane.

Discord smiled when the stallion gasped for breath. Reaching out with a paw, Discord covered the stallion’s wild eyes with a paw. “Sleep and forget,” he said, letting the stallion slump to the floor.

As the stallion fell to gentle sleep, Discord’s form seemed to lose its focus. His body faded translucent, and the tips of his tail unraveling into crackling mist. Looking down at the largest bit of shrapnel, Discord smiled as only he could. He gave Twilight a wink. With a grunt, he twisted and pulled at it till it looked like a misplaced unicorn horn.

Again reality twisted in the room, fighting Discord’s magic as he spat on the horn’s broad end then stuck it to the stallion’s forehead. Another wink of magic, and Twilight was looking at a steel-horned unicorn.

“I'm afraid that’s all I can do for him,” Discord said, studying his talons as they began to fade to smoke. “I’m going to have to go heal up from this for a while. Take care of old Tin Heart for me, would you?” he asked, patting Tin Heart’s mark of a wood ax and felt heart.

“Who is he?” Twilight asked, not sure who to be more concerned for.

With effort, Discord opened the door to his home plane. “The first one to try and be my friend. Even before Fluttershy. I never got to repay him. Tell Fluttershy I’ll be fine” A long yawn escaped him as he floated through the hole between worlds. “I just need to sleep this off.”

Reality within the room shifted, sensing Discord’s weakness, it slammed the portal shut.

“What just happened?” Spike asked.

“I have no idea.” Stepping closer to Tin Heart, she scooped him into her magic. "Go get a doctor. I'll put him in a bed."

Author's Note

What if ~~Q~~ Discord saved Data from death?