“Bravo!”
Ponyville's annual Hearth's Warming Eve pageant was, as always, well received. A few years in, the whole thing was as much a tradition as a performance, in which Ponyville's most famous residents acted out a rough approximation of the Hearth's Warming Eve story as a reminder of the power and importance of friendship. That, and it was a chance to have a party in Princess Twilight's castle. There was something for everypony: the play for the foals and fillies, and an open bar for their parents. As the curtain went down, the audience clapped their hooves together and cheered-- even if one voice in particular drowned out the others.
“Bravo! Bravo! Bravissimo!”
Discord snapped his clawed fingers, and the opera glasses he'd been holding a moment before instantly morphed into a megaphone.
“Encore! Encore! But only the parts with Fluttershy!”
Starlight Glimmer, in some kind of subconscious desire for penance due to her prior life of villainy, had sat down next to Discord-- and as such, she was well within deafening range of his megaphone. In her best 'I want to talk to your manager' tone, she cleared her throat. “Discord? I don't think that's exactly appropriate.”
“Oh! You're right. Sorry.” Discord nodded, then went back to his megaphone. Louder, this time. “Encore! But only the parts with Private Pansy!”
Starlight Glimmer sighed. Around them, the other ponies in the audience left their seats, getting a head-start on the line for the bar.
“I'm glad you liked the show, Discord.” Fluttershy, still wearing the oversized helmet of her Private Pansy costume, peeked out from a side door leading into the ballroom-turned-theater.
“Oh! Fluttershy! I didn't see you there!” Discord tossed the megaphone over his shoulder, where it promptly exploded into a flock of parakeets.
“I get that a lot.” Fluttershy smiled, and pushed the visor of her helmet up. “But, um-- as much as I appreciate your support, you really should be applauding everypony who helped put the show together. It wasn't all about me.”
“But it should have been!” said Discord. “Why, Fluttershy, don't you know that you are Best Pony? It's been proven. With science.” He snapped his fingers again, conjuring up a large poster with a pie-chart, broken up into six sections (of which the yellow section with a familiar butterfly logo was by far the largest).
Starlight Glimmer squinted at the chart. “I don't think your methodology is exactly objective.”
“That's the same thing Twilight said.” Discord rolled the poster up and tucked it away under his arm.
“She does have a thing about proper statistical analysis.” Starlight Glimmer mused.
“But, um, Discord?” Fluttershy put a gentle hoof on the chaos-creature's elbow. “I'd love to hear what you thought of my performance. But wouldn't it be easier to talk sometimes a little, uh ... quieter?”
“But of course!” Discord grinned. “Some ponies just don't know how to appreciate the arts. Shall we?”
Fluttershy nodded, and extended one wing to gently guide Discord out of the main ballroom. As the two left, Starlight Glimmer met Fluttershy's eyes and mouthed a silent 'Thank you.' If Discord noticed, he didn't show it.
“I meant it when I said you were the best part of the play, you know.” Discord said as they strolled through the halls of Twilight's palace. “I mean, to think-- little, timid Fluttershy, treading the boards? Why, when I first met you, you could barely even order a cup of tea without having a panic attack.”
“And when I first met you, you were trying to plunge the world into eternal chaos.” Fluttershy smiled when she said it.
“Why, was that a joke? My goodness, the stage has changed you more than I thought! I do hope you'll remember me at the awards ceremony.” Discord snapped a variety of gold-plated award statues into existence and idly began to juggle them. “Or ceremonies, I should say.”
“Oh, I could never forget you, Discord.” Fluttershy said. “And it's true, acting in the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant every year has made me a little less anxious, but I don't think I'd ever make a career out of it.”
“Are you sure? As honestly, you were so good that it made me look past all the historical inaccuracies!” Discord dropped the golden statues, and they vanished into nothingness.
Fluttershy blinked. “All the what?”
“You know-- all the anachronisms and suchlike. I suppose it's inevitable in any stage adaptation. It's not the sort of thing most creatures would notice if they weren't there.”
“If they weren't-- you were at the first Hearth's Warming Eve?”
“Of course I was! I was just a wee spirit of dissonance at the time. It was sometime before Celestia and Luna saw fit to imprison me in stone for a millennium (not that I'm bitter about that, really). It was before the two of them even ruled Equestria! I think. Linear time gets a little hazy, you know. Or, well, I suppose you don't, but I won't hold it against you.”
“I never knew you were there.”
“Well, I suppose you wouldn't. None of the stories or plays or anything bother mentioning me-- if I'd known it was going to be a thing, I would've done more than point and laugh.”
“That doesn't sound very nice.”
“Yes, well, I wasn't very nice. Though to be fair, neither were the Windigos. They were just so one-note, you know? I could get on board with the whole 'feeding on dissent' thing, but you'd think they would do something more interesting than drop a few glaciers on ponies. Honestly.”
Fluttershy peered at Discord.
“But all of that is behind me because I'm a better creature now?” Discord added on.
“Good.” Fluttershy smiled again. “Just like I'm working on being more ... assertive, I know you're working very hard at being good. And since you've worked so hard, I decided to get you a present.”
The yellow pegasus stopped beside one of the (many) decorative fir trees set up inside Twilight's palace, and pulled a box wrapped in red and green paper from beneath the tree.
“For me! You shouldn't have! But I'm glad you did anyway.” Discord's claws made short work of the wrapping paper, revealing a brownish-grayish loaf of ostensibly organic origin.
“A brick! How thoughtful!” Discord hefted the present in his lion's paw, feeling the balance. “Why, it's the perfect thing to throw in the middle of a riot!”
Fluttershy put a hoof down. “No riots.”
“Aw.”
“Besides, it's not a brick.”
“Then what is it?”
“It's a fruitcake.”
“Are you sure? Cakes usually have icing, and fruits usually have--” Discord held the fruitcake at arm's length. “--color.”
“You don't like it?” Fluttershy's lip started to quiver. “I'm sorry-- I didn't know what else to get you, so I thought this could be kind of a Hearth's Warming Eve tradition, and ... and ... “ Tears began to well at the corners of her eyes. “--I guess it was a stupid idea anyway.”
“But I love stupid ideas!” Discord blurted, for lack of anything better to say. “Why, this whole holiday is stupid! It's just a seasonal equinox festival designed to ward off the inevitable existential dread that comes from being cooped up inside all winter.”
“Oh.” Fluttershy sniffled and turned to leave. “If that's how you feel, then forget I even bothered.”
“Wait!” Discord disappeared, then re-materialized in front of his best (and possibly only) friend. “I'm sorry! It's just that this is one of those ... mortal things that I never can quite wrap my brain around. Like, you know, eating food for sustaining your terribly frail corporeal form. But that doesn't mean I can't try to see what it's like for myself! Watch!”
With that, Discord bit a large chunk out of the fruitcake (though even with his magic-infused form, it took him more than a little effort to do so). He chewed for a few moments, then tilted his head to the side, thoughtful.
Fluttershy, meanwhile, could only look on, both hopeful and perplexed. “Um ... how is it?” She said after a long pause.
Discord choked down the mouthful of fruitcake, then coughed. “It's a-- mmm, what's the right word-- ah!” He snapped his fingers. “It's a monstrosity!”
Fluttershy started crying. Openly.
“But that's a good thing!” Discord added on, slightly panicked.
Fluttershy blinked in the middle of her sniffling. “It-- what?”
“Here, Fluttershy-- look at this.” Discord turned the fruitcake so he could show Fluttershy where he'd taken a bite out of it. “There's cherries, and raisins, and dried apricots, and ... I'm not exactly sure what those little bluish things are and I'd rather not think too hard about it.”
“If you don't like it you can just tell me.”
“I don't like it, Fluttershy-- I love it! Don't you see? This fruitcake is a frankly insane amalgamation of things that honestly should never have been put together-- just like me!”
“Oh.” Fluttershy said. “I ... guess that makes sense?”
“Or at least as much sense as anything that has to do with me can.” Discord smiled his snaggletoothed grin. “You should be proud of yourself, Fluttershy, as you found the one thing in the whole holiday that actually suits me.” He took another bite of the fruitcake, and chewed on it, thoughtful. “You know, this isn't even that bad. Then again, I don't have to worry about something so pedestrian as digestion.”
“You mean it, though? You really like the fruitcake?”
“I just had to get my mind around it, that's all. It's perfect, Fluttershy. You're perfect.” Discord drifted closer to the yellow pony-- only to suddenly draw back as a thought struck him. “Oh! And here I didn't get you anything!”
“That's okay.”
“No, no it is not! Here you gave me a surprisingly thoughtful bit of holiday cheer, and I've got ... nothing. Well, nothing yet. Tell me, Fluttershy-- what is it that you've always wanted? Whatever your fondest wish is, tell me. I won't even monkey paw any of it, I swear.”
Fluttershy blinked. “Monkey's paw? What do monkeys have to do with Hearth's Warming Eve? They won't get too cold because of the wintery weather, will they? Oh, please don't bring any monkeys here! They're supposed to be tropical animals!”
“No monkeys, paws or otherwise. Got it.” Discord said. “But really, Fluttershy-- just tell me what you'd like, and I'll make it happen. You know I'd do anything for you.”
“... anything?” Fluttershy said, voice small.
“Everything.”
“Well, um. You don't have to do everything for me. In fact, um-- I'd rather you didn't. I know you like using your magic powers as much as you can, but sometimes it's better to do things the regular way. Especially when sometimes it's easy to get a little carried away with magic even when you have the best of intentions.”
“Yes, yes, that's all and good, but you still haven't told me what you'd like for Hearth's Warming's Eve.”
“Oh. Well.” Fluttershy took in a deep, bracing breath, then shook her hair out of her eyes before she looked up at Discord. “All you-- all I –want ... is to share another holiday tradition. If that's okay.”
“It's more than okay! Just name it, Fluttershy, and we can spend the rest of the winter break doing ... whatever. Baking cookies, drinking eggnog, haunting jaded misers with visions of their past to scare them into repenting their wicked ways?”
“Oh, nothing as complicated as that.”
“What have you got in mind, then?”
“Mistletoe.”