//------------------------------//
// Stone 
// Story: Shared Fates 
// by ChaoticKindness 
//------------------------------//

"Together forever, I can't think of anything they would want LESS," Discord mused, smugly thumping the horn of a particularly enraged stone changeling queen. He'd won! Him, and his friends. Rainbow lasers and friendship had saved the day once again.

Even so...why was there a nagging, twisting feeling somewhere deep inside of him? Hmph. He'd dealt with 'little voices' like this before, ones that told him to 'stop tormenting that pony', 'maybe that's going a bit too far, even for Discord' or 'don't make such a big mess inside of Fluttershy's cottage'. He'd just...shut it away, for now. Yes. This was HIS victory! He was going to enjoy it!


---


He'd shut the voice away. Yes. It had been weeks, and he had thought he'd almost gotten rid of it. HAD THOUGHT, emphasis on the HAD. When he was out playing pranks with Rainbow Dash, having tea with his favorite yellow pony, or playing O&O with the guys, he hadn't had time to be with his thoughts.


But now, on the first free day he'd had in a while, he was sitting on his couch, knitting a five-legged sweater for the eldritch abomination that lived under his kitchen sink. And the voice was here. It was louder.
For Celestia's sake, why did that filly have to get frozen in stone with that...LOOK...on her face? Couldn't she have had some evil snarl for her expression like Chrysalis had? But, no, of couuursseee not. Cozy Glow had to have been frozen with that dumb, terrified...


Terrified. Something felt tight in his chest, and he felt the knitting needles slip from his claws as he curled into a noodle-esque ball on his couch. He remembered....feeling that way. The first time he was encased in stone? Well, he hadn't expected it in the least. He was the Master of Chaos, of course. Nobody could keep him down, no one could tether him. But they had, for a thousand years, no less. His backup plan hadn't worked.
A thousand years with his thoughts. It was...

UGH. No. He wasn't going down that rabbit hole of pity again. He'd promised himself that he was never going to be some sad little sap who would spend his nights reliving the agony of hearing everything, but being unable to make a sound.
Besides, the three of them had totally deserved to receive a harsh punishment for all of the awful things they did! They WERE all awful, all three of them, and they had put his friends in danger on multiple occasions, no less! But...maybe he'd deserved his punishment, too. But now, that didn't make him feel any better about any of it. Or make him feel any less pity for them being the same state that he had been in for so long.


He huffed, and crawled off of his couch, and stepped out of his front door, standing on his porch with his hands on his hips and looking around at the ever-shifting abyss he called home.

"You can't say that you didn't TRY," he mumbled to himself. "Even if you aren't a Fluttershy, you gave those three boneheads all of the basic ingredients of friendship, didn't you?"

He listed off on his eagle talon. "They teamed up and worked together, kind of learned to tolerate each other...why didn't that work? Friendship IS magic, isn't it? If Twilight and her friends can encounter big baddies and reform them, then why didn't it work when...I sort of...maybe...tried?"

He sighed, and rubbed his paw down his face, flicking his tail in a frustrated motion. "Oh, shut up. Stop it. Hmph. I guess at this rate, I won't be able to have a nice, peaceful knitting session for the next millennia. As much as I hate to...maybe I should get some advice."


--


The statue of Tirek, Cozy Glow and Queen Chrysalis had been relocated to the (rebuilt) Canterlot Castle's statue garden. Of course, that seemed to be the place where the ponies kept all of their frozen adversaries. 

Discord stood, wearing a dapper black tuxedo and leaning on a black shining cane, twiddling a fake mustache he'd conjured onto his face while he waited.
His left ear perked as he heard the faintest flapping of pegasus wings, and his tail swished excitedly. Even after being her friend for a few years already, his dumb draconequus heart would beat faster every time he heard her coming, and it felt like the butterflies from her cutie mark had been set free in his chest. 


Fluttershy turned the bend, smiling and waving a hoof as she caught side of her tall friend. "Hi, Discord! Sorry I'm a few minutes late, but here I am," she cocked her head a little as little pink butterflies flew away from where they'd been surrounding Discord's chest. "Oh, how nice! You made some little friends. They love the flowers here, don't they?"


Discord rubbed the back of his neck shyly, and smirked. "Oh, of course, those were totally naturally occurring butterflies that live here...naturally...in the garden. They weren't created as a magical manifestation of my emotions or anything."
When Fluttershy raised her eyebrow slightly at him, Discord cleared his throat and clicked his cane against the ground. "Whilst butterflies are a wildly interesting topic, that isn't the matter which I called you here for, my dearest Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy's wings gently stopped flapping as she lowered herself to the ground, and she gave an uncomfortable glance at the statue of the three villains beside them, seeming to notice it for the first time and grimace a little, before glancing back at Discord. "Oh, okay. Then, what is it that you wanted to talk about?"

Discord followed her gaze at the statues and sighed, mumbling something under his breath.

Fluttershy frowned, leaning forward with her hoof behind her ear. "Um, what's that? I'm sorry...but um...your voice...I can't..."

Discord spoke up, covering his eyes with his eagle talon out of shame. "I think I FEEL BAD!"

Fluttershy blinked in surprised. "You feel bad? For what?"


Discord lowered his eagle talon, and used it to gesture to the statue beside them. "For that. For...them. I guess. I don't know. I don't especially spend a lot of time sitting around feeling bad, but I keep thinking these stupid thoughts. I thought I could just shut them away, like I usually do with thoughts I didn't like, but it hasn't been working. So, you know, you're the kind one! Give me advice, or something, please!"

The butter-yellow pegasus seemed to consider this for a moment, looking carefully into his eyes, then she rubbed her hoof against her mane pensively. "I think I understand. You feel bad, because they're encased in stone, like you were. And you even helped Princesses Celestia and Luna do it to them."

Discord ripped off the fake mustache, which had started to grow very itchy, and threw it on the ground. It started to crawl away like a caterpillar. "...maybe..."

Fluttershy scuffed her hoof on the ground for a second, then looked up at him, giving a warm smile. "You're very kind, Discord."

Discord wasn't sure what kind of response he had expected out of Fluttershy, but that surely wasn't it. He stepped back, seeming to be taken aback as well. "What?"

Fluttershy gently fluttered her wings, flying up to take his lion paw in her hooves and look him straight in the eyes. "I know that you set up challenges to help Twilight, but...you wanted to help them too, didn't you?"


Discord was hyper-aware of the soft, gentle touch of Fluttershy's hooves against his paw, and he felt a warm blush creeping up his ears. "I-ah...um," he stammered, and sheepishly looked away from his dearest friend. "You...hit the nail on the head, I suppose--" the claws on his eagle talon fell off, and transformed into nails, clinking on the ground around them before disappearing (couldn't have Fluttershy accidentally stepping on one, you know, got to keep things safe). "I didn't EXACTLY come at cosplaying as my creator with the goal of becoming a villain reformer, but you know, life has a funny way of happening, doesn't it?"


The pegasus gently moved her paws to his cheeks and turned his head to face hers. "I know you feel really bad about the whole situation with the three of them going so wrong, but...you really have grown. You wanted to help Twilight, and help them, too. That--" she paused for a moment, his previous statement seeming to fully sink in. "Cosplaying...your creator?"
Discord himself blinked for a moment. "Oh, I never told you about that?"
Fluttershy gently let go of the draconequus, seeming to be suddenly doing all that she could to keep from bursting with curiosity, which most ponies wouldn't have noticed--but he saw that her eyes had seemed to magically grow a size. "No, I don't think you have..."

Discord conjured an easy chair out of thin air, and leaned back into it, putting his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. "You know Grogar. Father of monsters, big baddie, totally not great dude. A lot of ponies haven't heard of him these days, but yes. He made monsters to set free onto the land, to cause chaos and destruction and all that--I was one of them."

Fluttershy gasped, putting her hooves over her mouth. "You had a goat dad!"

Discord opened one eye, and couldn't help but give her a lopsided smirk. "Well, yes, I suppose I did. But I never considered him much of a FATHER, more of a grumpy old boss. I wasn't ever one of his favorite creations, I didn't listen well to instruction. Plus, you know, there was so much more out there! I couldn't be expected to stay around in ol' Boringtown! I hit the road and I didn't look back. Only later was it that I heard that the old goat had been vanquished by the great and powerful Gusty...and I...ah. Well, let's say I never saw him again."


The kind pegasus in front of him squeaked, and before he knew it, she had thrown herself onto him in a hug--with more power than he'd expected a little pegasus to hold--squeezing her forelegs around his chest. "Oh, Discord, I'm so, so sorry! I never knew! That must have been so hard...to lose him...and never, ever be able to see him again! That's so sad..."


Discord felt the blush threatening to tingle back down his ears again, except this time it was on his cheeks, too, and he...rather liked the feeling of having her so near. He patted her gently on the back, not quite knowing what reaction he should give at this point.

"Oh, no, no no. Don't feel bad. Shhh." he gently peeled her off of him, and held her out in front of him like a teddy bear being held aloft. "That was a loooong time ago! And, I have you now! I'm right as rain, my dear!"

And with that, a thundercloud cracked overhead and poured down buckets of rain on them. They were both immediately drenched, and Fluttershy shivered like a wet dog, her wet mane clinging to the side of her face.


Discord jumped in surprise, and quickly darted away from the rain cloud, pulling Fluttershy over with him. "Sorry! Chaos magic, you know. I have to be careful what I say sometimes."

Fluttershy smiled a bit, and chuckled. "Oh, that's okay."

Discord noticed that she was still shivering a bit in the chill Canterlot night air, though, so he pulled off his tuxedo jacket and rubbed her down with it, and when he was done, she was a puffy yellow pegasus ball.

He grinned down at her, and chuckled. "All better?"

Fluttershy grinned back, and nodded. "All better."

He poofed away the wet tuxedo jacket, and ran his eagle talon through her soft, dry fur. "Very fluffy. Has anyone ever told you how fluffy you are before?"

Fluttershy put her hoof over her mouth to stifle a giggle, "Well, not exactly, but thank you Discord," she said. She frowned a little as the statue of Cozy Glow, Tirek and Queen Chrysalis caught her gaze from the corner of her eye, again.

Discord sat down beside her in the grass, leaning his chin on his lion paw. "So, what's your advice for me, then?"
Fluttershy looked up at him for a moment, then leaned closer to him, rubbing her muzzle against the soft fur on his chest in a comforting way. "You...could have asked me for help earlier, you know. If I knew--when you knew--that you wanted to try reforming them, we could have done it together."


The draconequus sighed, and put his arm around her shoulders. "Never."

Fluttershy's ears pinned back, and she looked up at him in hurt surprise.

Discord's eyes widened, and he quickly shook her head. "Not that I don't like doing things together with you! That's not it at all, my dear. It's just...well, these baddies were BAD. And I knew it. I was trying my best to be careful, and even then, it all blew up in my face, didn't it?"

An explosion happened as his eyes exploded out of his head, spewing yellow and red confetti, and smoke burst up into the air, floating all around them. Fluttershy's eyes widened slightly in surprise, but she quickly looked relieved as Discord blinked and his eyes returned and grew back to normal. 

"First, Tirek put you all in danger, and then what happened with Queen Chrysalis honestly...was...startling for me," Discord admitted, in a low voice. "For a little while, I was afraid that I'd never see you again, looking all through that dumb bug castle. When I had you in my arms again--" a strong blush crept across Discord's cheeks, as he looked away. "I knew I never wanted to let anything hurt you again. I had a system, you know. I was going to set up the perfect challenges for Twilight's growth, so perfect and controlled by ME that no one could get hurt."


He shrugged, flopping onto his back into the grass. "Bottom line, I'm the most one pegasus of kindness should be expected to handle, it'd be too much to throw three dangerous villains onto you all at once. I couldn't do that to you. And I wouldn't want anyone else to."


Fluttershy leaned back in the grass with him, putting her forelegs behind her neck and looking up at the stars above them.
"I'm not that fragile, but...I understand. You want to keep me safe, and I respect that. But..." she looked over at him, beside her. "We don't have to do it all at once. Or even all three at once. We can try again at reforming them. Just because they're turned to stone, doesn't mean that it has to be permanent. If it's something that matters a lot to you, then...I think we should try. Please, just...let me help this time, okay?"
She gave him one of her warm, winning smiles, that absolutely melted his stone cold heart of chaos to mushy-gushy goo. "You'll be by my side, and we can be careful. We'll prepare and make sure we're ready this time."

Discord had a lot of questions and doubts nagging at the back of his mind, but? Right there, under the Canterlot stars, beside the pony he cared most about? They didn't seem so important.

"...Alright," he quietly agreed. "I'll...we can...try again. And we'll take the time we need, to make sure we do it right." He gently poked her on the nose. "Together."