"What is it you'd wish for, Pinkie?"

"If I made a wish, it would be that Twilight was happy. That's all I want."

...

Twilight awoke in a cold sweat, shivering. She leaned over the side of her bed, grasping the headboard in a hoof while she hung her head and gasped deeply, her breath gone from her lungs.

Spike stared at her from across the room, his eyes glinting oddly in the sparse light of early morning. "Twilight?"

Tears dripped off her chin, and Twilight felt that deep, gnawing sadness crash over her again and again, beating down on her like waves on the shore, eroding at her sanity.

There was a void. Something was missing.

But she couldn't figure out what it was. She never could. It sat at the back of her mind, cloying at her every thought, begging her to fill the hole in her chest somehow; it haunted her in her nightmares, figures and voices that became nothing but sad echoes when she awoke. She ran a hoof over her eyes as a sob wracked her body.

A gentle claw lighted on her forearm, and she jerked away. Spike retracted his arm with a pained expression. "I just… Are you okay?"

Twilight shook her head, licking her lips in an attempt to ease the sensation of being brittle and useless. "No," she croaked, "It's happening again. The dreams."

Spike clambered onto the bed next to her and hesitantly draped his arms around her barrel in a gentle hug. "I'm sorry, Twilight. Are you positive that Princess Luna can't help?"

Twilight nodded, scooting herself around to return the hug. "She said she doesn't understand it. Her night magic can't alleviate nightmares that she says she can't even sense."

Spike couldn't think of anything to say, so he just squeezed her tighter.

"They're probably not even nightmares," Twilight murmured. "Maybe they're visions. Luna is not well versed in those." She stroked a hoof along the spines of Spike's head. "They're rare. Nopony really knows much about them."

"Twilight…?"

Twilight's gaze hardened as she stared at the wall. "There's only one that I can think of who might just have the knowledge I need."

Spike trembled in her forearms, but Twilight didn't pay him any mind. She needed answers, and she would get them.

One way or another.

...

They were suspended in a field of purplish mist that swirled around them, mixing with other, fainter colors and giving off the unmistakable scent of sulfur. Runes flashed and faded along the invisible walls of the sphere of Twilight's visitation plane: red, green, bright blue; each with its own meaning and warning.

A powerful entity was approaching. He was about to breach the sanctuary. Be careful.

Twilight was expecting him, and so he entered without fuss.

"Why hello. It's been a while since you and your little friends saw me last. I was beginning to think you'd never visit."

Twilight fought against the scowl that tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Discord."

The draconequus floated across the small space allotted to him, free from his stone casing, and writhed his snake-like body around in loops and figure eights. "Oh come on, Twilight Sparkle, you did not call me here just to glower at me. You must have some pressing issue on your mind." He flicked the wrist of his lion paw, and stared sadly at his empty fingers when nothing happened. "And I suppose that means you're not interested in my services, so it must be some puzzle if you're coming to me."

Twilight stomped a hoof against the ground, scouring little marks into the faux grass beneath her. "I am having visions, and you're going to help me figure them out."

Discord twirled himself around so that his head was resting on a portion of his back, peering at Twilight upside down as the hairs of his beard tickled the tip of his nose. "So demanding. Certainly the princesses could help you? Why would you need the Lord of Chaos?"

Twilight said nothing, and Discord straightened himself and floated over to her, rubbing his chin absentmindedly as he circled her lazily. "Hmm." he hummed, grinning menacingly, "I think I know why you're here. You've lost something, haven't you?"

Twilight's ears perked and she couldn't keep herself from nodding excitedly. "Y-yes! That's it!" She clamped a hoof over her mouth, mortified to have lost her cool, and Discord laughed.

"Aha! I knew it." He kicked his hoof over his scaly knee and rested his head on his hands. "I know exactly what you're looking for, my dear. But the real question is: do you want to know?"

Twilight opened her mouth to answer emphatically, but Discord interrupted her, "Or better yet, do you think you can live with the knowledge of what you've lost? You need to decide if you'd prefer the bliss of your ignorance or the pain of your understanding. Think carefully now."

But Twilight knew that she could not willingly stay ignorant; that was not something that was possible for Twilight Sparkle. She would take steps towards enlightenment, no matter how painful those steps might be.

"I want to know."

Discord's smile drooped. "So be it."

A/N: The Prompt: Someone goes to seek advice from an unexpected source. (This one was written in 2012 before Discord's redemption.)