//------------------------------//
// 1 A Typical Tuesday 
// Story: The Griffonstone Infestation 
// by Brass Polish 
//------------------------------//

	“Ivatt was always a free spirit. Easily the pick of the flying pig litter,” grinned Discord. “I thought he and Trixie would get along swimmingly. I never would’ve guessed Trixie’s piggyback ride would’ve ended with a face full of curry.”
Fluttershy had learned long ago not to sip her tea while Discord was telling his stories. Angel still hadn’t forgiven her for that spit take on that very first Tuesday Tea.
“So anyway,” Discord went on, growing a second mouth so he could talk and eat his cheese and tomato sandwich at the same time, “after I lost sight of Ivatt and Trixie, I figured I’ll ride Horwich to Twilight’s castle and get a head start setting up for Guys’ Night. Or… well, I guess we can’t call it Guys’ Night anymore. Not since Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Ladybug joined us.”
“Uh, his name’s Lazybug,” Fluttershy corrected.
Discord raised an eyebrow. “So that’s why Crookneck the Drifting Sage kept casting hypochondria spells at Captain Wuz under his breath. That’ll need sorting out later this week.”

Fluttershy took a gulp of tea. “You mean you have Guys’ Night more than once a week?”
“I believe I just said we can’t really call it Guys’ Night anymore,” sneered Discord.
He conjured a pair of yellow pony ears and grafted them onto Fluttershy’s head.
“That should help,” he grinned.
“I mean you play Ogres & Oubliettes with Spike, Big Mac, Rainbow, Pinkie, and Lazybug twice a week?” asked Fluttershy.
“Unless Rainbow’s away zooming around with the Wonderbolts,” answered Discord. “Then it’s just the five of us.”
“But we only have tea once a week,” said Fluttershy.
Discord chuckled. “It’s Tuesday Tea, Fluttershy. And Tuesday only happens once a week. Mind you, there was a time when it didn’t, back when I was ruling Equestria.”
He sighed contently
“Salad days,” he said dreamily.

“And what’s this?” he went on with a devilish glint in his eyes. “Is there a little green monster welling up inside you?”
“No,” objected Fluttershy.
“I think I had that look that time I met your little buddy from that club,” grinned Discord.
“You mean Tree Hugger from the Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures?”
“Boy I remember how much I wanted to feed her to Senior Dryer Lint just because I thought she was stealing you away from me,” Discord snorted. “Now I suspect you’d like to do that same with Garbunkle and the rest of our party?”
Fluttershy knew it’d be futile to hide how she felt about this.
“Well, it’s not like you’ve tried to get out of having tea with me,” she reasoned. “Accept for that one time with Tirek.”
“Oh, don’t go on about that,” muttered Discord. “I was young and impressionable then.”
“It only happened over a year ago,” Fluttershy frowned.
“Well, younger.”
“So I really don’t have any reason to be jealous,” said Fluttershy. “I mean, I’m the one who recommended you ask Spike and Big Mac if you could join them. Like I said, it never hurts to expand your circle of friends.”

Discord glanced at the window.
“Have you been doing that lately?” he asked, pointing.
Fluttershy turned her head and saw a bright, bubbly beaked face beaming at her and waving energetically.
“That’s Gabby the letter carrier from Griffonstone,” she said, getting up off her chair.
She saw that Gabby had a sealed envelope clamped in her beak.
“Who’d be writing to you from Griffonstone?” asked Discord. “I thought you said that friend of Rainbow’s and Pinkie’s is still not really in your good books.”
“Well, no, I still haven’t really talked to Gilda,” said Fluttershy as she shuffled towards the window. “Even though Rainbow and Pinkie say she’s sorry for how she acted when she came to Ponyville. It must be…”
Gabby seemed to have taken Fluttershy’s movement towards the window as an invitation to come in. She opened the window and burst in, giving Fluttershy a big hug.
“Hi, Fluttershy! I haven’t seen you since my cute-ceañera!” she squeaked. “How’ve you been?!”
Discord smirked. “A griffon having a cute-ceañera?”
“Yep!” smiled Gabby, completely unperturbed being in the presence of the Spirit of Chaos. “And hi! Who are you?”
“I am Captain Wuz-- I mean Discord!” grunted the draconequus.
He conjured an extra tea cup for Gabby.
“Oh, yeah! You’re the one with the crazy powers. Huh. Maybe I should’ve gone to you when I wanted to get a cutie mark,” chuckled Gabby. “If you can give a pony an extra pair of ears…”
Fluttershy realised she still had four ears, and quickly tore the fake ones off her head.

“Anyway, I’m here with this letter for Fluttershy from George,” Gilda passed the envelope to Fluttershy.
“Oh, yeah. You told me about that peanut farmer from Griffonstone last month,” recalled Discord. “You know, between him being a member of the rare creatures club and Gabby here being a member of the recovering blank flanks club, Equestria might end up changing its name soon.”
“That would be kinda cool,” said Gabby, scratching her chin. “But I still love it in Griffonstone.”
Fluttershy opened the letter.
“George says he wants to invite me to his farm to show me a project he’s been working on,” she told Discord and Gabby.
“What kind of project do you think a peanut farmer would do?” wondered Discord. “If he thinks he’s discovered a use for the shells and skins, I gotta tell him, he’s way too late to take credit for that.”
“I love his peanut butter. I put in on Gilda’s scones. It’s delicious,” sighed Gabby.
“He’s studied the language of other animals for years. He even wrote a vampire fruit bat phrasebook,” said Fluttershy. “Maybe he’s written even more phrasebooks and wants to show them to me.”
“So he spent years of his life actually studying animal languages, did he?” asked Discord. “Well, that’s much more impressive.”

Fluttershy frowned. “More impressive than what?”
Discord took a long sip from his tea cup… and was plainly making it take longer by constantly refilling it.
“Discord, what are you implying?” demanded Fluttershy.
“Uh, hey Fluttershy, Gabby interrupted, “you can take your time writing your reply to George. I’m gonna go golfing with Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle while I’m in town.”
And she flew out the open window. Fluttershy carried on glaring at Discord.
“Well,” Discord said when at last he finished his seemingly bottomless cup of tea, “it’s been a delightful Tuesday as always, but…”
Fluttershy knew it’d be an uphill struggle to try and squeeze a confession out of someone who could disapparate in the blink of an eye, but she was gonna try anyway.
“Before you go, I’d love to know what George being fluent in animal speak is more impressive than,” she insisted.
“In my experience, there’s very little more irritating than being told something you already know,” said Discord oily. “I’ll spare you the pleonasms. Let me know if you decide to visit Georgie Porgie next week so I know that we won’t be having our Tuesday Tea then.”
And as Fluttershy predicted, Discord melted away into the cracks in the floor and vanished without trace.

Fluttershy did indeed know what Discord was implying; unlike Fluttershy, who had an inherent ability to understand animals, George had to work at acquiring the ability to comprehend tweets, meows, barks, and suchlike noises. If Fluttershy wasn’t feeling jealous before, she certainly was now.
“Alright, Discord,” she muttered. “I will tell George I’ll go to see his project next week. Then you can spend your Tuesday firing arrows as cardboard cut-outs of octopi or something silly like that.”
She took a blank sheet of paper and wrote her reply to George’s invitation. She then stuffed it into an envelope and cleaned up the tea supplies while she waited for Gabby to return. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Oh. Back already?” she asked when Gabby turned up barely an hour after she left.
“The golf course is closed,” sighed Gabby. “They’ve got a gopher problem.”
“Gophers? Oh, dear. I should probably get them out of there and take them somewhere else where they can make their dens,” said Fluttershy.
“Oh, there’s no need,” said Gabby. “Apple Bloom said she’s gonna get her friend Lazybug to tell his sister Crosspatch about the problem. She says those two are pest ponies. They should straighten everything out in no time.”
Fluttershy grimaced.
“Is that your answer to George’s letter?” Gabby pointed to the sealed envelope on the coffee table.
She reached out for it, but Fluttershy swatted her talons away.
“Hold on. I wanna rewrite it,” she said through gritted teeth, grabbing another sheet of paper. “I’m gonna tell him I’m coming tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” asked Gabby as Fluttershy started writing. “But Scootaloo told me you were gonna be playing buckball tomorrow.”
“Oh, right,” Fluttershy had forgotten that the Splinterbolts had scheduled a game.
Then another letter carrier arrived at Fluttershy’s door.
“Hi, Derpy,” said Fluttershy, taking the letter she had for her.
The news was not favourable.
“What is it?” asked Derpy.
“It’s the Splinterbolts,” groaned Fluttershy. “They accidentally double-booked the defense position for our buckball team.”
“Huh. Scootaloo did say they are a fledgling operation run by volunteers,” interjected Gabby.
“But how could they overbook something that only needed one pony?” wondered Derpy. “And how could they forget you Fluttershy? Rainbow Dash told me you were the one who introduced the Splinterbolts to buckball.”
Fluttershy grabbed another blank paper.
“They can keep that other pegasus,” she said flatly. “I’m busy tomorrow. I’m off to Griffonstone.”

Crosspatch returned from the golf course soaking wet; not exactly a problem for her, but unusual for a job on land. She found Fluttershy waiting in her front yard.
“I need you to petsit for me,” said Fluttershy bluntly.
“Okay,” shrugged Crosspatch. “When?”
“Tomorrow. For a week.”
“Uh, well I’ll only be able to pop in and out of your cottage for about an hour a day,” said Crosspatch.
Fluttershy passed her the key to her cottage’s front door.
“Where you going then?” asked Crosspatch.
“Griffonstone,” answered Fluttershy.
“Oh. Gonna duff up that Gilda lady for scaring you and those ducks, huh?” chuckled Crosspatch. “Is that why you’re being so rough?”
Fluttershy squirmed. “No.”
“I’d like to go to Griffonstone,” said Crosspatch. “I never got to lay into the George fella for scaring the life outta me.”
“Oh, George is a good guy,” said Fluttershy. “He did try to save you and the others from that giant bat before he knew it was just an arts and crafts project. Actually, he’s the one I’m visiting in Griffonstone.”
“Huh. I bet they’ve got some weird animals in Griffonstone that we’ve never even heard of here in Ponyville,” grinned Crosspatch. “Let me guess. He wants your help repopulating an endangered species that have some kind of beneficial property.”
Fluttershy’s imagination began to run away with her and she quickly felt a lot better.
“Maybe,” she smiled. “Well, thanks for being my petsitter.”