“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky.
It was a lovely day in Ponyville, especially if you were a mailpony. No awkward gusts or fat clouds to get in the way, and the sky was mostly devoid of other Pegasi. However, moving store signs was less possible, as Derpy painfully found out.
She flittered to the ground and picked up her letters as quickly as she could. After the third sign of the day, she was quite behind schedule. Derpy never noticed the eyeball watching the scene play out, nor the laugh of a floating triangle.
“Gotta tell you, Discord,” Bill said as he observed the checker piece he had just claimed in their game. “I always liked this Derpy Pegasus – crazy eyes and downright adorable.” He flicked it away into the void of the lord of chaos’s realm.
Their checkerboard pieces each had similar scenes playing out on them, like little round television screens: on Discord’s side, the ponies of Equestria, and on Bill’s side, the residents of Gravity Falls.
“Well, I can’t say the same for your little playthings,” Discord sighed, analyzing the board. “What’s the deal with the cops?”
“Relationship, but the big wigs aren’t as progressive as the neighbors,” Bill sighed. “How have things been in Equestria since Twilight’s ascension?”
“They’ve been fine. My tests are going as expected. They think I’m just some mischief maker on the side, the goof-off.”
“It’s always the fools that know the way the world works – that’s why I’d love to meet that Pinkie Pie some time. Talk shop and all that.” Bill looked up at him. “You seem awfully calm for what’s about to happen.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Discord moved his piece, claiming one of Bill’s pieces that had a scene playing out with Manly Dan squaring off with a bear. He flicked it away into the void.
“The end.”
It made Discord flinch ever so slightly and his clawed hand clenched at the thought.
“Ah, yes. That.”
“Not to pick on the birds and the bees, but it’s a natural thing to happen. Even beings of chaos like us can’t last forever,” Bill said. He glanced down at the board then back up at Discord. “So, you gonna tell her or what?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Discord sniffed dismissively.
“Come on, patchwork.” The dream demon snickered. “Denial might work half the time with those ponies of yours, but it’s not going to get by me.” He gestured to the board. “I’m talking about that pale yellow ball of shyness and kindness you’ve been keeping guarded.”
Discord glanced down and mentally scolded himself. Sure enough, still at the starting line on his side of the board was a checker piece depicting a familiar Pegasus tending to several squirrels in their tree. It brought a fond smile to his face as he watched her work at what she did best.
“Safe and protected – as she should be,” he thought.
Bill cleared his throat uncomfortably, snapping Discord from his thoughts and back to the game at hand. “Like I said: are you going to tell her or what?” the triangle asked.
“Oh if it were only that simple, Bill,” the draconequus sighed, pushing away from the board slightly and crossing his arms. “How could she reciprocate something like that with something like me?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been asking yourself since you two became best buds?” Bill pointed out. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you – I don’t have much use for mortals outside of puppetry – so I can’t really give you advice on the subject. Isn’t there someone in your world you could ask?”
Discord rubbed his chin, looking away thoughtfully before sighing. “Well, there is my opposite side in the balance of harmony, I suppose,” he said. “She always gave good advice for Twilight, even if she didn’t try to be as active a player in her ascension as I did.”
“Well, there you go,” Bill said. In swirls of blue fire, the checker pieces remaining on Bill’s side whisked away. Discord did something similar for his pieces, snapping them out of existence. “I’ll let you get to it then. Best of luck.” He extended a hand to him. “To whatever comes next.”
Discord shook it with a nod. “To whatever comes next.” He frowned when he took his hand back. “What was that thing you were doing again?”
“An original little piece I like to call ‘Weirdmageddon.’ Should be a real showstopper!” Bill laughed and vanished in a bright flash. Discord chuckled after him.
“That’s the Bill Cipher I know – always one for the theatrical.” He snapped out of existence.
Celestia had wanted to do livelier things when she and Luna had been trotting about Equestria on their bucket list quest. However, sitting here in her quaint home in Silver Shoals, seated before a canvas with a paintbrush captured in her magic, tranquility and relaxation were beginning to grow on her.
It wasn’t fighting monsters or fixing pony problems, or even jumping off of a perfectly good airship, but she was enjoying what she was making. All the careful brushstrokes that went into a tree, and the broad swipes of filling the sky. It was a simple landscape: a hill overlooking a sunset in the distance.
A tired, familiar smile crossed her face and she dipped the brush into the cup of water to cleanse it for the next color. She turned on her stool to find Discord standing before her, fidgeting uncomfortably and adverting his gaze – a decidedly un-Discord thing to do.
“It must be something quite troublesome for you to not make your usual, dramatic entrance, Discord,” the alicorn remarked.
“Well, there is still the little matter of you being mad at me after what I did with Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis,” Discord admitted.
Celestia sighed, as if removing a weight from her chest. “Discord, what’s in the past is in the past. It was rectified, and all is right with Equestria now. I won’t say I approve of what you did, but there’s no sense in still being upset over it.”
“That’s a relief.” However, the draconequus didn’t seem to show it.
Celestia tilted her head. “You have something more serious on your mind, I see. And you came to me for advice as opposed to Twilight?”
“Celestia, please, you’ve known me far longer than your student. And you have a much better glimpse into things than her as well. You know very well what’s upon us.” Discord frowned at her. Celestia raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise – a serious-looking Discord was a rare sight.
“Ah. Yes. That.” Celestia glanced back at her landscape. “There isn’t anything we can do about that, you know. No magic in Equestria can stop it, not even you or I.”
Discord’s hands gripped one another behind his back and his face turned downward. “I am well aware… I would’ve done something already if I could. It’s about…”
“Fluttershy?” Discord’s attention snapped back to her. “Discord, please. As someone who is – was – the opposite side of the balance from you for so long, I can tell you I’ve seen opposites attract before. And I haven’t seen a stronger pull than between you and her.”
“How do I do it?” Discord almost pleaded. “I just… I don’t know. And we have so little time left.”
Celestia got up from her stool, trotting over to Discord and setting a hoof on his shoulder. “You have to ask yourself: does the fear of failing, the fear of rejection, mean you’re willing to risk the last chance you’ll ever have to speak your mind? The last chance to get those emotions off your chest before the void claims you?”
“When you put it that way, it seems so easy,” Discord muttered, his ears drooping. “I guess I have been quite the fool for not saying it sooner.”
“Perhaps you were unsure all this time. It’s funny how the risk of losing something forever can often tell us more about how we feel for that something than all the time we’ve spent with it.” Celestia’s smile turned sad. “I didn’t know how much I truly cared about Luna until she was banished: how much I had wronged her, how little love I showed for her. The idea of loss puts things in perspective.”
Discord ran the scenario in his head. Never saying anything to Fluttershy this whole time. He spent their last moments with her, as he had always intended to, but towards the end, she looked up at him. There was something inquiring, almost pleading, in her teal eyes. Then everything went white before he could say anything.
A shiver visibly ran down the length of the draconequus and he shook his head firmly. His serious look turned to one of determination. “You’re right, Celestia. Better I be a rejected fool than one who kept his mouth shut.” His look softened. “Thank you. I know we haven’t gotten along much, but—”
He was cut off when the alicorn wrapped one hoof and one wing around him in a hug. “We’ve been opposing forces for a long time, Discord, but we were a necessity. I despise you as much as I despise the moon rising in place of the sun.”
Discord smiled softly and hugged her back, but quickly released her. “I have no time to lose. It’s getting closer to sunset.” He turned to walk out, but paused. Looking back at her, he gave her the smile of saying goodbye to one’s oldest friend. “To whatever comes next.”
“To whatever comes next,” Celestia replied with a nod.
As he left with a snap rather than by the door, Celestia returned to her landscape. She glossed it over in a new perspective, and finally decided it needed something more.
Out of her paint supplies next to her levitated pale yellow, light pink, brown, green, pale blue…
“What’s the hurry, Discord?” Fluttershy asked, flittering after him with picnic basket in hoof. It was unusual enough for the draconequus to pull her from her animals so abruptly – even if her animals had said everything was fine – but he wasn’t even snapping them to the location himself.
“Coloratura – or Rara, as she’s calling herself – is performing,” Discord replied as they arrived at the top of the hill. “I thought you liked her music?”
“Oh, I do. I can’t say I’ve been to a concert before hers, but I really enjoyed her performance in Ponyville,” Fluttershy replied with a nod.
However, as they both paused, they were greeted with the ending notes of a piano and orchestra ensemble and the cheers and applause of the crowd. Discord slumped and sighed. “Oh drat, we missed it.”
Fluttershy smiled and produced the picnic blanket from the basket. She spread it out on the hill and settled down on it. She looked up at Discord and patted the spot next to her. The draconequus all but flopped onto the blanket.
“I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I was really hoping we could’ve made it to hear her perform,” he said with a sigh. “I guess I’ve lost my touch with my timing as of recently.”
“It’s alright, Discord.” She set a hoof on Discord’s arm, causing him to jump slightly. “It was very thoughtful, and I enjoy spending time with you. And we’ll still have a beautiful view of the sun when it sets.”
Discord looked past the stage and crowd, over to the hills in the distance. The sky was turning orange slowly as the large ball of gas out in space was slowly being lowered towards the horizon. Somewhere in his head, he thought Twilight might be trying to buy him some time, but shrugged it off. She couldn’t have known, could she?
“Fluttershy,” he said, a lump forming in his throat he tried to swallow. “There’s something I need to tell you. I should’ve told you sooner but…” He bit his lower lip to button what he wanted to say – but there was no use in worrying her about the end she couldn’t see coming. Best to let it happen naturally. “But it’s taken me some time to gather my thoughts.”
The Pegasus looked up at him curiously. In her teal eyes, Discord could see that curious look from his scenario. It was now or never. His look turned serious, and she blinked in surprise.
“Fluttershy, you’ve been the kindest pony to me, more than anypony else in my life. And it’s been a long life. There was always something different about you, something incorruptible, something unwavering. You were the one being I could never fool, the one pony who cared about me no matter what happened. No matter how many times I messed up, you were there with a welcoming embrace. You made my life in Equestria have meaning, rather than the chaos it was before.” Bracing himself, he concluded with shut eyes. “Fluttershy, I think… I think I love you.”
There was silence, save for the crowd down below. A gentle breeze brushed past them, and there was hardly a breath from the Pegasus beside him.
Then all at once he felt her grab him tightly in her forelegs, her face buried into his side. He felt the dampness of tears against his feathery coat that comprised his midsection. Hesitantly, he set a hand on her pale pink mane and ran his fingers through it.
“Discord… I…” she choked out. He looked down at her. Her eyes were watery, as if she was mourning something, but there was a smile on her face, as if her hopes had come true. “I think I love you, too.” She sniffled. “My life was always just quiet and fearful before you came along. But you were always someone I could rely on. You never faulted me for my fears. You brought such excitement to the quiet – excitement I was able to handle. You did mess up, but everyone makes mistakes. And… I never doubted you cared about me. I just… never thought you could return something like how I feel about you.” Her face nestled back against his side and he smiled at her.
Discord had done many things to his body over the centuries. He had turned into just about everything and everyone he could think of at some point in time. He had altered his body into various states of matter, and had even turned himself into a ghost to teach Starlight a lesson. None of those things felt as satisfying as the warmth in his chest, as if a dozen vices had broken open all at once.
His arm wrapped around her to hold her close, and he craned his neck down to kiss her forehead. As if to anticipate him, she craned upward at the same time, and their lips met in a brief, surprising kiss. They pulled back, blinking at one another, before she giggled and he gave a soft chuckle.
Fluttershy perked up when she heard a commotion from below. “Oh! Rara’s going to sing her song at the end! We didn’t miss the whole show after all.” Discord smiled down at her, then at the stage as Rara welcomed three foals onto the stage to sing with her – a tradition of closing her concerts that had started in Ponyville.
Fluttershy nestled comfortably against him as the lyrics drifted up. Discord’s focus was off into the distance, watching the sun begin to touch the distant hills. “Not a bad way to end, I suppose,” he mused to himself.
“Equestria, the land I love. A land of harmony.”
“Our flag does wave, from high above, for ponykind to see.”
“Equestria, a land of friends. Where ponykind do roam.”
“They say true friendship never ends – Equestria, my home.”
Dedicated to a show, and a community, that inspires friendship.