When the castle guards left for the night, the last to leave remembered he had forgotten his pass to leave. He told his guardmates to go ahead without him, and doubled back through the maze.

He searched for ten minutes before finding it at the foot of the statue. Having found it, he almost left immediately, but curiosity prompted him to take a closer look at the thing. Truly, it was ugly, with its mismatched body parts and contorted pose. And it deserved every bit of its punishment, for being so evil, and doing so much damage. Even with all that in mind, however, he couldn't help but notice the look of terror on its face. Then he remembered what Ponyville had looked like under its reign, and his sympathy evaporated.

If it was so terrified of being turned back into stone, he shouldn't have done those things.

Turning his nose up in disgust, he picked up what he came for and started to leave. He paused for a second as he realized something.

Wait...were there cracks there before? Huh. Must have been, cause there they are, plain as day. The statue's disintegrating, probably. Serves it right.

With this cheerful thought lightening his mood, he trotted away, leaving the statue unguarded. After all, it was just a statue now, and couldn't do anything anymore.

Discord waited until the guard was gone, then broke the last of the stone away from his body, breathed the fresh air deeply and stretched. He looked around to make sure no one else was there, painfully aware of how low his magic was after using it all to break the seal on his prison. He used the time it took him to get the cramps of his limbs to think about what to do now that he was out of stone.

He couldn't try to take revenge, not yet. Not until he had more magic built back up.

So what could he do?

The spirit finished stretching. His muscles were beyond stiff from 7 years in stone, but it wasn't as bad as the last time he broke out, when he couldn't move for ages. And really, the only way to get them better was to start moving around. He forced himself to focus on gathering his magic and teleporting somewhere safer than the backyard of his two biggest enemies. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.

A dizzying rush of power picked him up and unceremoniously dropped him in the closest safe place he was able to think of. His head was spinning too much to get up right away, so he waited until his vision stopped spinning - and the number of fingers on his hand decreased from some number above twenty, back down to its proper ten - before he tried to move. He was dismayed to see that his magic had interpreted safe as somewhere deserted. Normally, this would translate to someplace like the Everfree Forest, but in the state he was in, it landed him in a tunnel branching off of the crystal mines.

The same crystal mines the princesses had decreed were unsafe after three separate cave-ins in one month.

Normally, he didn't agree with them on anything, since they were his mortal enemies, but this was one instance he could wholeheartedly do so. He eyed the support beams warily, wincing as they creaked ominously. He checked his magic levels and was dismayed to find himself completely out.

At least they'll never look for me down here. That's one upside, I suppose.