Trembling in concentration and anxious anticipation, he squeezed the pipette bulb and released a droplet into the beaker. As it dissolved, the solution flashed green, then gold.
“Oh, for the love of strange quarks!” Discord swiped his arm across the lab bench, flinging his experiment to the ground. He had hoped the protein he had isolated from dragon bone marrow could be made compatible with pony RNA, but no luck. If Fluttershy was going to gain immortality or at least a vastly extended life (so he would have time to seek other solutions), it would not be through dragon biology. He snapped away the mad scientist laboratory he had conjured and watched in dismay as his arm spasmed. Then he opened a portal to Tartarus.
~*~*~*~
“Thank you for getting the dishes, Rarity.”
“You are most welcome! You made us breakfast, after all, so it was only fair!” Rarity placed the last plate in the cupboard and lifted a sketchpad and pencil in her aura. “Well, I’m off to visit the lily pond now. I plan to return to the cottage in an hour or two. Will you be alright?”
“Of course!”
“Are you sure? Is there anything I can get for you before I leave? You really shouldn’t be moving around any more than strictly necessary at this point.”
“Rarity, I’m fine. I’m not even due for another two weeks! Go and sketch your lily designs before the morning dew evaporates.”
“Alright, alright, I’m going! But I want to see you right there on that sofa when I get back!” Rarity flashed her friend a good-natured smile, arranged a fashionable sun hat on her head, and stepped outside.
~*~*~*~
Luna woke with a start. “BE GONE, FOUL BEAST,” she bellowed, flinging her pillow at the serpentine invader.
“Good morning to you too,” Discord chirped, dropping off the bed frame to land in a coil on the mattress.
“Oh, ‘tis only you.” Luna’s glare quickly turned into a puzzlement. “Discord, where is your left ear?”
“Huh?” He reached up to pat the place where his ear should have been. Then he grimaced. “In Cerberus’s mouth, no doubt.” When he snapped, his dripping, gnawed ear appeared back on his head.
“Cerberus?”
“He didn’t like the scooby snacks I brought him. Anyway, I need your help.”
Luna ignored the uncharacteristic plea for assistance and shook her head in confusion. “What business did you have with Cerberus?”
“Well, all I wanted was an innocent chat about something that’s important to both of us, but when he wouldn’t talk, I had to settle for a blood sample. Not all of his heads were as distracted by the treats as I’d hoped.”
As he went on, Luna scooched backward on her bed and drew her quilt up around her. She powered her horn too, for good measure. “I hope you have not come to take a blood sample from me,” she growled.
“Oh, no,” Discord laughed. “Nothing like that. I only need a sample of your magic!”
“And just what do you plan to d—”
“It will be simple!” Discord brightly interrupted. He conjured a beaker full of clear liquid. “Here! Just telekinetically lift the solution out of the beaker, give it a little swirl or whatever, and drop it back in. I need to see if the liquid changes color!”
Luna stared, motionless, her brows lowered and scrunched together in a line that almost bisected her face. Then she smiled obligingly and lifted the liquid into the air as requested.
Discord watched the ball of fluid swish back and forth once before his face. “Alright, that should do it. Now just drop it gently—”
Splash!
“Very funny,” muttered Discord, his face soaked and dripping. Luna was howling with laughter. Then the spilled liquid turned a deep purple. Discord sighed. “Strike three. Where to next?” Before he could snap the failure juice out of Luna’s sheets, Discord flopped and fell off the bed.
“Discord! Are you alright?”
“Just dandy,” he replied through gritted teeth. “I still have a day or two before it gets bad, I think. Anywho, thanks for the help, Lulu! I’ll get out of your mane now.”
Luna stretched a hoof forward. “Wait! You never told me what this was about!”
But he was gone, and her bed was still soiled with Discord’s purple experiment.
~*~*~*~
Fluttershy stretched herself upward as far as she could, but the birdseed on the top shelf was still out of reach. She scowled in determination, flapping her wings in an attempt to get a little extra lift and straining against all the extra weight she was carrying. Just a little higher…
“AAAHHHH!” Fluttershy clutched her belly and her wings forgot to flap. She crashed the foot or so back to the ground and couldn’t move for the pain.
Angel appeared in the storage room doorway, saw his friend panting and sweating, and darted back out into the sanctuary. All Fluttershy could do was squirm and pant and moan in agony. She was dimly aware of some quiet noises in the background.
“Fluttershy? Are you there?” A wolf’s bark. A rabbit’s frantic squealing. A rush of wings.
“Fluttershy! Holy Celestia, what happened?” Rainbow Dash appeared at Fluttershy’s side just as the pain was beginning to release its hold. She was drenched in sweat.
Fluttershy turned her wide eyes to her friend, but they were fixed unseeing on the distance. “It’s happening.”
~*~*~*~
There he was again, in the darkness, alone. Discord had come to his empty dimension to organize his thoughts, letting them spiral out into stars and galaxies and nebulas that he could arrange and rearrange until something like cohesion emerged. With all the information he’d gathered on immortality in different species, surely there was something here that he could modify into a solution to their problem. That was his hope. Instead, as he began shifting his brightly-burning thoughts, his limbs disobeyed him, and the thoughts scattered wildly, seemingly of their own accord.
He realized too late that his twitching hands ordered a vast, sticky web into existence instead of the solar systems and star clusters he’d wanted. In no time, some of his most dreaded thoughts pounced on him and wrapped him up in their silken lies.
I could never deserve her all I do is bring her pain it’s ridiculous to think the embodiment of chaos could love an embodiment of harmony the way she needs to be loved I’m mortal now anyway I might as well end it all this instant and release her from the prison of my affection...
That last lie had the fangs that pierced his heart and poisoned him. Discord felt his body go limp in the trap right before he started seizing wildly. His mouth was foaming and his eyes rolled up into his skull and in the hopeless blackness of his mind’s eye all he could see or think was her, her shining eyes, her sweet, kind smile.
The image suddenly focused its eyes on Discord as if aware of his gaze and opened its mouth. “Discord, I need you. Please come back now.”
Of course! Discord realized with an electric jolt that he didn’t need to die here, alone. He may have failed to find any answers this time, but Fluttershy would welcome him back anyway and her smiles and giggles and caresses would offer him repose from this murderous madness that was clawing at his soul.
The sticky, silken cocoon dissolved away at once and Discord hastily snapped his fingers to teleport out of there.
~*~*~*~
“Fluttershy? Where are you?” Discord had teleported home to the cottage, but there was nopony there. She shouldn’t be out and about at a time like this! She needed to rest for the foal!
Dread squeezed Discord’s stomach when he thought of Sombra and wondered if Fluttershy had been ponynapped again. But he could feel the weight of the pocket dimension that was Sombra’s prison and knew that the shadow pony was still trapped safely inside. Discord’s relief was short-lived. That only meant he had even less of an idea how to find Fluttershy!
Discord tore through the house in a panic in search of clues. His twitches were intensifying and he knew he was making an absolute disaster of a mess (by harmony-loving pony standards, anyway), but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to find her!
Suddenly, dropping the cast iron skillet he had just picked up, Discord froze and facepalmed. He had set the destination of his teleport to their house rather than Fluttershy herself. All he needed to do to find her, barring some extremely unlikely magical disaster, was teleport again. Discord inhaled, imagined her tender, loving face, and snapped again.
And there she was. In a hospital bed, surrounded by ponies, looking exhausted, and cradling in her arms—Discord rubbed his eyes and looked again—two foals. He could only stare helplessly in shock, all traces of twitches and spasms gone.
“Hi, Discord,” Fluttershy breathed. “We were early.”