Tirek? Admitting he was wrong? That set off a few alarm bells. But maybe he had simply explained himself well enough that the old centaur finally got the point. But that would be giving him the benefit of the doubt, and he couldn’t very well do that, now could he?

Discord stroked his goatee for a moment, mulling over Tirek’s words. He did, however, make a few good points there. The draconequus was the catalyst for pretty much all the craziness that went down… just the way he liked it, really.

“Hm… well, I suppose you’re right. If it wasn’t for me, you would never have gotten as far as you did. And, if it wasn’t for me, Twilight and her friends would never have unlocked that quaint little box of theirs.”

“Then again, I suppose you should get most of the credit for that one!”

Discord resumed circling around Tirek’s cage, mimicking a backstroke as he continued.

“If it wasn’t for you, I would never have acquired such a shiny little medal! If it wasn’t for you, I would never have thought to give that medal to Twilight as a token of our true friendship!”

He paused to grin at Tirek, the smug look on his face almost unbearable, he was sure.

“If it wasn’t for you, you wouldn’t be locked in a cage right now. Isn’t that deliciously ironic?”

The crooked-postured centaur withdraws within himself in a disquieted state of unease as Discord suspiciously parsed through his.. frankly, generous wording. In truth, Tirek’s first instinct compelled him to appeal to Discord’s ego solely to derail him from acting upon his first vindictive whim, but there was at least a kernel of truth to his apparent admiration for his former ally. If nothing else, he felt power was something inherently worth respecting - even simply as a means to an end towards the slightest possible off-chance of seizing it for himself.

All the same, he was silently relieved to see the Draconequus eager to return to boasting than keep onto his confrontational trajectory. Words, were evidently a cheap weapon which Tirek was glad to be assaulted by, given the endless possibility of gruesome alternatives such an incomprehensible entity could wrought upon him… Even so, however, the centaur seemed thoroughly peeved by Discord’s conceit that he ‘wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did’ without him. Which may well have been true, if the fool hadn’t gotten IN his way to begin with! The pure venom emanating from Tirek’s stare could have snuffed the life out of any weaker-hearted creature, but it seemed to Discord of no even remotely perceptible concern - more likely though, perhaps, he simply wasn’t even paying attention.

As he continued on with his insulting exposition, the centaur kept on a sneering, stone-cold poker face. These insinuations of supposed failures on his part weighed little on him, since after all, how could any of this gibberish have ever been apparent without this hindsight? Still, though, the abstract but paradoxically literal nature of this explanation which he owed his defeat to had piqued his curiosity immensely. Since from the very instant he had been barred back into this cage, he’s been wracking his brain towards a logical explanation for that mysterious rainbow of light which had came out of nowhere and vanquished him in a mere matter of seconds. 

All the same… though words may not yield the same results as ruthless force, the smugness on that crooked face provoked Tirek with such upset he might have bitten him right in his stupid, noodly fool throat if he were only sharing this cage with him. But, since no such wish-fulfillment possibility had intercepted his present reality, he doubled down to assert full focus onto his situation as-is, and how he could possibly profit from Discord’s present, grandiose state of mind. He may not have had his brutal might to fall back on, but there were at least a few avenues of advantage to take in being underestimated…

“This all seems as though circumstance has either yielded highly into your favor to land a victory into your lap by the blind tidings of sheer dumb luck… Or, I sense this was perhaps all a ruse of such elaborate design that I couldn’t have begun to comprehend it!” The centaur inquisitively raised an eyebrow as he addressed his free floating visitor, as if suspicious of his eccentric visual displays as though it was hiding something immensely deeper underneath it all. “If my suspicions are correct, I clearly had no hope of any true victory. I was as good as captured the instant you shackled me in chains!” The centaur embellishes his bitter words with a modicum of surprise, which he hoped to mask his insincerity with.

Discord was, by now, idly fidgeting with his stick, bending it slightly between his hands as if it were made of rubber–which, in all likelihood, it was. How in the world was he going to explain the intricate complexities of friendship to a creature who didn’t care for it? This was Twilight’s job, not his.

“I must admit, I genuinely regret working with you, Tirek. I like to think I made that perfectly clear when you stole my magic in front of Fluttershy and the rest. They seemed to understand that.”

There was surprisingly somber pause, before he cheerfully added, “Oh, and that little amulet you gave me turned into a magical key that unlocked the magic that put you back in Tartarus, so I think that gave me a few brownie points!”

“True purpose? Tirek, old boy, I’m the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony! My purpose is to cause chaos! I can do that without taking over all of Equestria, and the ponies very much enjoy my unique brand of fun!”

He leaned in once more, lightly poking the frail centaur’s nose, and his voice lowered an octave, taking on a sinister tone.

“As for power, well… I have the power to turn you into a decidedly grouchy frog for the rest of your days, so I’m not too worried about that.”

Tirek just stared at the Draconequus blankly, with little enthusiasm regarding his first explanation. Of course he showed remorse AFTER he was betrayed, what was he even telling him? And it scarcely weighed upon his mind that those six had “forgave” Discord in their magic-less state, the were desperate! Tirek reasoned, and even the least reliable of resources would’ve been essential in the state he left them… But, in light of Discord’s sudden little aside regarding Scorpan’s medallion, being some sort of key which was instrumental in his defeat? There he immediately perked back up with a lively spark of nonverbal outrage. Tirek’s temperament seemed to grow even worse as the Discord went on, his cheerful tone clashing harshly against the centaur’s soured disposition.

The simple light touch on the nose nearly sent the frail old ghoul off -  but something in Discord’s tone, and the subsequent threat he articulates, delays his reaction. Tirek instead then simply stared down the Spirit of Chaos with his piercing, hateful yellow eyes, trying to read the mismatched creature to see what quality of weakness he could barb at next - only until it dawns on him, that he really wasn’t bluffing. That thought… The mounting realization of the true scale of power he was trifling against, sent a horrible chill of terror up the centuried old man’s spine, a frightful reaction which he had not been familiar with for ages. For once, finally, Tirek yielded with a fearful gaze - which he then consciously dialed back to a calmer appearance, until reaching a decidedly thoughtful state of total unreality as he tries to process this information all at once.

“I– perhaps I was.. wrong about you, Discord.” He replies with little confidence, with an uncharacteristically lower tone than he usually carried himself with, as though he were lamenting the theory more to himself. Further; he wisely takes a light step back from the direction in which Discord addressed him, seeming to take refuge now in his cage.

“Oh no, I just came here to gloat, to be quite frank.” At least he was being honest about it. Discord floated in lazy circles around Tirek’s prison, hands folded behind his head.

“You see, that’s where you’re wrong. They trust me even more than ever! I guess I should thank you, actually, for helping me decide what was more important: freedom to do what I want, or friendship from ponies who actually care. And with that friendship comes a whole new sort of freedom.”

The draconequus conjured up a stick and rattled it along the bars of the cage, emphasizing his point.

First, I drew this before Discord’s canon pony life design was revealed.

Trickster Discord by: NastyLand (deviantART)