"Discord?" Fluttershy looked around her home, peeking under cushions and around pots. Discord could be anywhere, she knew, at any time. Her only hope was to call for him and assume he would appear when he was ready to do so. "Are you there?"
A soft thump on her leg announced Angel's presence. He had kicked her lightly. Looking towards him, he thrust a paw towards the outside world.
"Is something going on?" She walked around him towards the exit and opened the door. There was Discord, sunbathing peacefully on her lawn as if he'd been there for hours, though she was certain he was not there when she had first come home. "There he is!" She was happy to see him, even if he hadn't appeared right in front of her.
"Now there was... something I wanted to ask him." She remembered the notebook at least and reached for it, flipping through it, learning all about the prince all over from the top. "Oh, oh dear... Hmm... I see..."
"Is it that good?" Discord was standing behind her, peering over her shoulder as she read. "You don't normally call for me just to start reading a book. Are you starting a reading club? Am I invited? You really have to tell me what we're reading first."
Fluttershy squeaked, dropping the book in surprise. "Discord! Don't sneak up on a mare like that."
He casually caught the notebook before it hit the ground and glanced at the page before his eyes narrowed. "Oh no you don't!" He tossed the book to Fluttershy. "You should stop reading that, it'll give you a headache."
"I am aware, unfortunately." She tilted her head up at him. "But we really do need your help with it. I'll be there twice for our next meeting, I mean, there will be two of me at the same time, and you shouldn't worry about it. One of them won't actually be me."
Discord hiked a brow. "I can practically smell order dripping from this, and let me remind, that's really not the best smell."
Fluttershy twitched an ear up at him. "But I'm pretty orderly, and we all work, you know... to keep order... Do we... stink?"
Discord leaned in, wearing a clothespin on his nose from nowhere and having never put it on. "You're worth mild unpleasantness, my dear. Besides, even you and the girls aren't this bad."
She smiled gently, a thought coming to her in her coy expression. "But, Discord, isn't the most fun thing to take something so perfectly orderly and give it a little twist? You wouldn't even get anypony mad at you, and you could help us get around this big heap of order in a way I'm certain only a chaotic person like you could."
He tapped a foot, stroking his chin at the same time. "Well, when you put it that way... That is something of a bad habit of mine. Very well, I'll expect a stinkier Fluttershy at our little gathering. Anything else?"
Fluttershy turned the book around in her wings, flipping back to that part in the plans. "Mmmm, nope. The fake me will come out first and likely say hello. You should treat them kindly. I'll come out second. Poor thing will likely be surprised, but we'll all be in on it."
"Ooo, it's a practical joke? Why didn't you start with that in the first place." He flashed an almost-malignant grin. "Pranking a force of order sounds like fun. Count me in."
"I knew we could rely on you." She hugged him, and he became that much more convinced that he had chosen correctly.
"Hey, Rainbow."
Rainbow looked down from where she was flying to see a bland grey pony. Bland... grey... Oh yeah! She came for a landing as she drew out her notebook. "One second." She began reading quickly, catching herself back up. "Yeah, uh huh... Hey, Prince, oh yeah, keep talking."
"Um, hi. I thought I'd just... try saying hello." He tilted his head at her, looking unsure. "You seem to remember me, sort of."
"Sort of," she agreed, lowering the book. "More like I keep reminding myself. I am so looking forward to this being fixed. How's it going?"
"I was going to chillax by the pond and hope nopony needed me for anything."
"About that..." Rainbow glanced at one of the later notes. "Turns out, Fluttershy can't make a meeting with Discord. How do you think he'll react to that? Guy can get a little hard to read when it comes to Fluttershy, especially when she's not there."
He gasped, his voice changing mid noise as he became a she, color flooding into him. He was Fluttershy. "Oh my..." He glanced back at himself, spreading one wing, then the other. His wings always felt so much more real when he was wearing a pony that actually had them.
Rainbow squinted a little. "Huh, not like a changeling at all." She started taking notes. "You just... kinda flow... Does that feel weird?"
"Very," agreed the prince with Fluttershy's voice. "Especially when I become a mare. The more different the pony is from where I started, the more things have to flow around. At least it doesn't hurt, usually." He rubbed behind his altered head. "She has her meetings at her house, right?"
Rainbow cocked a brow. "Wonder how it'd work if you had to be Celestia."
"Oh my... I hope that never happens. I think I'd just... die." He shook his head quickly. "I wonder if Discord will see right through me... I may just end up with a migraine the moment he sees me." He sighed gently in the soft sigh only Fluttershy had. "Nothing for it. If I don't try to fill in, the curse will get mad."
Rainbow reached for him with a free wing, patting his shoulder. "You really do look, and sound, just like her. Kinda cool if you ask me." She casually took some more notes about the act. "Say, now I'm curious... can you talk to animals?"
The prince looked around for an animal, and saw a cat perched on the inside of a windowsill. "I suppose we could find out." He lifted into the air gently, moving at the speed Fluttershy would be comfortable with on a slow ascent to the feline. "Hello there, Misses Kitty."
The cat met eyes with the prince, and he knew. The cat was judging him, harshly. Who was this pony that was interrupting her sunbathing? Did she have food? Likely not.
"Oh, um, no, no treats, sorry..."
Then what use was she? The cat jumped down out of sight.
"That wasn't very polite..." He flew down back to Rainbow Dash. "It worked, but that cat was kind of... rude."
"See: Every other cat ever?" Rainbow snorted softly. "Hay, we met a bipedal one and the first thing he does? Try to sell us as slaves. Cats are like that."
"I suppose that's true." The prince smiled a little. "It was kind of neat though, being able to know what they were thinking. I suppose I should get over to her cabin. I should feed them too, if I'm taking her place."
"Yeah, you do that." Rainbow quickly made a last note and tucked the book away. "I'll catch you later, alright? Remember, you can always say hi at me, even if I don't notice you at first."
The prince's smile only deepened. "You did say that, and it worked... thank you. This has to be really frustrating for you."
"I got this." She patted where the notebook was tucked away. "It'll take more than some lame curse to get past Rainbow Dash!" She soared away with a rainbow trail, the conversation abruptly over.
The prince trotted towards Fluttershy's cottage. "She is a much nicer pony than I would have guessed..." He had expected an egotistical braggart... which she was... but she was also a really nice pony on top of that. "She really cares..." About him. What made him worth all the trouble, he wasn't sure, but he also kind of liked it. That made two ponies that cared about him.
He saw a bear, Fluttershy's friend the bear? He wasn't sure, but he raised a hoof in a soft wave. "Hello there."
The bear made a soft noise, but he knew it was a greeting, and an invitation for a hug.
What would Fluttershy do? Accept the hug, of course. He flew up to the bear and they exchanged a brief embrace. "How is everyone doing?"
He made some bear noises and pointed. The chickens needed some feed, and the goat had eaten something it shouldn't have.
"Oh my, I'll take care of that." Falling into Fluttershy's patterns made finding the feed easy, and he poured just a little into the chicken's area for them to peck up. "Enjoy." He put the feed away and looked around. "Now where is that goat."
"Baa."
The prince perked a yellow ear. Looking towards the sound, there was the goat, a little green around the gills. "Oh dear." Though he thought sheep went baa. "What did you eat?"
"Baa." A tasty looking horseshoe.
The prince's eyes widened. A whole metal shoe?! "What kind of shoe?"
"Baa." About as big as the prince's head, purple, and soft.
Not metal. The prince let out a sigh of relief. Right, ponies could wear normal shoes if they wanted to. "Well you just sit right down and I'll get something for you."
The medicine was in the house, he just kind of... knew. He walked to the cottage and nudged it open. Fortunately, ponies rarely locked their doors. They were trusting souls.
"Ah, there you are."
He squeaked at the sound of Discord's voice. "Oh! Right." He had forgotten why he had come in the first place, to see Discord. "I just need to, um, give a goat some tummy medicine and I'll be right with you."
Discord watched him move past, peering at him a bit oddly. "That is peculiar, even for me..."
The prince found the medicine and rushed back out past Discord to deliver it to the goat. The label thankfully said how much to give. "Open wide." With a gaping goat mouth, she squirted in the medicine. "Now swallow, and you'll feel better soon. Um... if you feel... queasy, don't fight it." Throwing up the problem was a perfectly valid way to get past the issue.
"Now, I have to entertain a guest. You can rest here or at the shelter."
"Baa." Thanks.
Confident the goat would recover, he returned to the house, where Discord was staring at him oddly. "Um..."
"Trust me, the feeling's mutual." He coughed into a fist. "So... Fluttershy, dear dear Fluttershy. How are you?"
He glanced away and back. "I should put this away." He hurried past Discord, only to crash into another yellow pony.
Fluttershy squeaked softly. "Oh, hello there."
"Yep, there... he? is." Applejack poked her head out from another room.
"Fascinating." Twilight poked her head out too, a quill scribbling wildly in the air above her, jotting onto a book much like Rainbow's.
The prince yelped, dropping the medicine to the ground with a thump, thankfully not breaking the bottle. But the agony he expected did not visit him. He was still Fluttershy, in front of Fluttershy and all her friends.
"Don't look so worried." Rainbow was there, leaning in from a window. "We planned this."
Fluttershy pulled out her notebook and quickly flipped through it. "Oh, yes, right. Prince, I would like you to continue filling in for me, please."
His color had started to fade faintly with the thought that he wasn't required, but that reversed course, becoming vibrantly Fluttershy, minus the extra horn on his head. "I am really confused right now. What are we... doing, and does Discord kn--"
"Yes I know." He huffed softly, standing just behind the prince. "Not that I like it, but I know. Now will someone tell me what's really going on?"