I own this stuff. Sure. Totally.

*realizes there are people behind her and looks back to find a large army of angry lawyers glaring at her*

...on second thought...

No. I own nothing. This entire fanfic would become a movie if that were the case.

By the time they reached the place Discord had made his nest, he was immune to Starswirl's chatty voice. If he had thought about it, he would've been very thankful for the fact.

He turned into the chamber that housed his nest, set Starswirl's gem down on top of it, and climbed up after him. It swayed dangerously, almost fell over, and miraculously stayed upright, although it was now leaning at an impossible angle. Not that it hadn't been before, but it was certainly worse now.

Once on top, he made himself as comfortable as possible, and picked up Starswirl's gem.

The unicorn stopped giggling insanely and noticed their surroundings. He raised an eyebrow at the nest they were on top of and whistled. And for a moment, he almost looked like a normal pony, albeit a strangely dressed one.

"There are so many things wrong with the architecture of this thing, I would be here for years if I tried to list them. How is it standing?"

Discord grins feebly.

"Just a result of my natural charm, I suppose," he told the pony, in a weak attempt at humor, "and I must say, I'm pretty proud of it, considering I built it by hand. Or claw, as it were."

Starswirl puzzled over this statement for a moment, before grinning suddenly.

"You're a draconequus!" he exclaimed triumphantly, excitement in his voice. "Haven't heard of your kind in ages. How is everyone in your country? Made any major magical advances recently?"

And there it was; the road he tried very hard to never wander down, the one that led to emotions he prefered not to deal with.

"I don't know," he lied, "I've kinda been a statue for the last thousand years, so I've lost contact."

Starswirl sagged in disappointment, but accepted it with a nod.

Discord sighed quietly in relief.

Not as quietly as he intended, apparently, because the unicorn swung his head to look at him. They stared for a while, before Starswirl said the words that changed the course of history.

"There's a really cool spell I think you should try. It'll totally be fun."

A/N: You didn't really think I would pass up the opportunity to torture them, did you? I am no different than any other author in that I enjoy making the puppets in my head miserable.

In fact, I quite look forward to making them miserable. Some occasions will be more severe than others, of course, but the entire purpose of this fanfic is to embarrass, humiliate, and otherwise torture these six characters; who will be appearing in the next chapter. Then the fun will really start. :D

(You didn't honestly think you were lucky enough to get through the whole story without me monologuing at least once, did you? Yeah, you just wish you were that lucky. I am evil, after all.)