//------------------------------//
// Lucky Charm 
// Story: Domestic Drabbles of Discord's Dimension 
// by GeekCat 
//------------------------------//

"This is nice," Fluttershy said as she nibbled on her cucumber sandwich. "Spending the day in bed...maybe we should do this more often."

"Not too often," Discord said as he assembled a sandwich of peppers and chocolate sauce. "The first day is relaxing in a rebellious way. The days after that...it's kind of boring, frankly."

She smiled. "I don't think anything could get boring with you, Discord."

"You're completely right," he said, taking a bite of his sandwich and smearing chocolate all over his muzzle. "But riding our bed through the cosmos as a chaos-causing vehicle isn't quite the same as a lazy weekend day in bed, is it?"

She chuckled and shook her head, taking another bite of her sandwich. As she reached for her teacup, their calendar floated past. "Oh, excuse me," she said, reaching out and grabbing it. "I feel like there's something coming up this week..."

"I don't recall it," Discord said. "Then again, you've got a better mind for schedules and dates than I." He leaned over to read over her shoulder. "Anything written down?"

"Not for this week..." she said. She paused for a second, staring at the date of the coming Friday. "Oh, but Friday the thirteenth is coming up."

Discord frowned, chewing on a carrot pop. "Friday the thirteenth...is that some pony holiday?" He rubbed his temples. "Could you jog my memory?"

"Not a holiday...at least, I don't think it is," she said, releasing the calendar and letting it float away. "But Friday the thirteenth...it's supposed to be a day of bad luck. The unluckiest day of the year."

He stared at her blankly for a few moments. "...Shyfly, please tell me you don't actually believe that," he said slowly.

"Oh, no!" she said. "Not...not really. I mean, I think there is luck, but I don't think that...it being a certain date is just going to change that. Unless it happened to be some sort of...cosmic alignment, or magical element..."

He clapped his hands. "Correct! Gold star for you." He put a gold star sticker on her forehead. "Luck may or may not exist...I may or may not have caused bad luck for ponies in the past...but an arbitrary name and number assigned to a certain period of twenty-four hours won't do anything. Even if those things you mentioned did happen, those would be the causes—not some numbers."

"I thought so..." she murmured, leaning back against her pillows and taking another bite out of her sandwich. "I wonder why creatures think it's an unlucky day, anyway," she said. "I know that the number thirteen is supposed to be unlucky, but why Friday the thirteenth? Why not Thursday or Monday?"

Discord hummed in thought, reaching up and pulling a thick book out of thin air. A pair of gold spectacles appeared on him, and he began to thumb through the pages, still munching on his sandwich. Eventually, he stopped, tapping one of the paragraphs he had found.

"Well, according to the history books," he said, pushing the spectacles up his muzzle. "Something bad happened on a Friday once, to someone very important." He tossed the book aside. "Ponies connected the bad Friday with the number thirteen at some point, and suddenly, the date became unlucky."

He stroked his beard as he twirled the spectacles in his other hand. "Personally, I think they did it so that they didn't 'have to' consider every single Friday of their lives as bad luck."

"I guess that's one possible reason," she said. She kept munching on her sandwich, leaning against his side as she mulled over this information. "Why is thirteen an unlucky number, anyway?" she asked.

"Various coincidences," he said. "One of which...was probably—definitely my fault." He rubbed the back of his neck. "See, there was...a gathering of twelve creatures over something important, I forget what. Well, I was very offended that they didn't invite me! So I crashed their gathering, caused lots of chaos..."

"And you were the thirteenth creature there..." she said. "So thirteen was connected with chaos, which was connected to...bad luck?"

"Hey, I can't take all the credit for it," he said. "Just maybe...a good chunk of it. Ten percent? That's a pretty big pie slice, right?" He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. "Maybe even...thirteen percent."

She snorted and shoved his shoulder. "That's an awful joke," she said.

"But you're laughing!" he countered, poking her muzzle. She giggled. "See? You're proving me right!" She couldn't help but keep laughing, leaning against him to support herself.

After a few minutes, she was able to calm herself and resuming eating her sandwich. "So...on the subject," she said, still smiling. "Are any 'lucky items' actually lucky?"

"Hrrm," he said, scratching behind his ear. "...I don't know. Luck is hard to quantify, so it's difficult to say whether certain items will actually increase it." He garnished his sandwich with chives and took another bite. "Some of them are spell components, though. Like four-leaf clovers."

"Is that why ponies think they're lucky?" she asked as she polished off her sandwich. "Because they're important for magic?"

"That might be how it started," he said, passing her a carrot-ginger sandwich. "And generations later, after ponies grew up being told that things are lucky, they just know. Not to mention that with them being as rare as they are, it's a special occasion to find one."

He scowled and bit into his sandwich. "Frankly, it seems foolish," he grunted.

"How so?" she asked. He snapped up his sandwich and swallowed it in one gulp, then snapped his fingers. In one of his hands, a bright green four-leaf clover appeared, while in the other, he had a clover that almost seemed like a flower, with the sheer number of leaves it had.

"If I offered ponies either a four-leaf clover or a hundred-leaf one," he said, holding said clovers out to her. "They'd see one as 'lucky' and the other as a mutant freak." He tapped his temple. "It's not just about rarity, it's about what ponies think, what they 'know' from myths and legends. Four-leaf good, anything else...who cares?"

She nodded in understanding, then plucked the hundred-leaf clover from his hand and placed it in her mane. "I think this one is much more interesting," she said with a smile. "You can find four-leaf clovers...but this is one of a kind."

He smiled and adjusted the clover to fit more comfortably behind her ear. "You're a hundred-leaf clover out of ponies, Fluttershy," he murmured, stroking her cheek. She smiled and leaned into his touch.

"So, um...what sort of spells need four-leaf clovers?" she asked after he pulled away.

"Ooh, it's actually really interesting," he said, fixing himself a carrot dog with mustard. "They're a way to upgrade some types of spells, like potions. But, if you put in a three-leaf clover, it could blow up in your face--quite literally!"

He eagerly chattered about magic, and a few of the magical accidents he had seen in the past. She smiled and listened, enraptured as always by the stories he could spin.





The week passed without many incidences (aside from the maple syrup flood...the living room still smelled overly-sweet). Soon, it was Friday the thirteenth—something she noted when waking up, but didn't think much of. Her conversation with Discord banished any of the few fears she had of bad luck.

"Good morning," Discord said, already working at the kitchen counter as she entered, rubbing a bit of sleep out of her eyes. He floated over and kissed her forehead. "What would you like for breakfast? I already made some nice drinks."

"Mmm...how about crepes?" she said. "With bananas and blueberries..."

"And banana peppers!" Discord added, pouring some green liquid out of the blender and into a clear plastic cup. The drink vanished in a flash of light. "Crepes first, then special drinks?"

"Sounds good," she said, digging out some of the ingredients.

She and Discord worked together to make the crepes, and both of them ate their fill (though she declined any banana peppers). She sighed and patted her stomach, taking another sip of orange juice...which strangely had a four-leaf clover stuck on the rim of the glass. It made her smile a bit.

"Now, the drinks!" Discord said, snapping his fingers. "Are you more in the mood for a hot drink or a cold one?" he asked, holding up a tray in both hands, one with a steaming teacup, the other with a large green shake. "I have clover tea or mint shamrock shake."

She stared blankly at him. "...they both have four-leaf clovers in them, don't they?" she said.

He flinched. "Ack! You figured me out!" He frowned and looked away. "Well...they're still tasty. And there's no proof that the clovers won't give you good luck, so..."

She sighed. "I thought you didn't believe in the date leading to bad luck," she said.

He frowned and rubbed at the back of his neck, letting the trays float in the air. "Well...I just don't want to take any chances, y'know?" He shrugged. "If the date is unlucky, the clovers will give you back your luck. If there's nothing to it, then nothing happens!"

"I guess that's true..." she said. "...alright. May I try the clover tea?"

"Of course!" he said, bowing and holding the tray out to her. She smiled and took the teacup, while he grabbed the shake and began to loudly slurp on it.

She slowly sipped her tea. Her eyebrows rose in surprise a bit. The tea's flavor was different, but not totally unpleasant. There was also a hint of... "Is there mint in the tea, too?"

He pulled the straw out of his mouth and nodded. "Yeah...I wasn't sure if you would like the taste of clover, so I wanted to add something sweet. Just in case."

"Oh, thank you," she said, taking another sip. "The clover and mint...they actually go pretty well together."

"Oh, good!" he said. "They go together well in the shake, too." He held it out to her. "Wanna try?"

She nodded, trading her tea for his shake. She took a small sip, closing her eyes and humming in appreciation.

He smirked a bit, sniggering as she took another sip of the shake. "What is it?" she asked between sips.

"Indirect kiss," he said, his grin widening a bit. He pointed at the straw...the same straw he had used.

She stared blankly for a second...and then snorted. Giggles bubbled up from her throat as Discord continuing snickering. "Y-you're so silly sometimes!" she managed to say between giggles.

"I know," he said a little smugly. "But you love me anyway."

"Mhmm!" she said, leaning over to place a small kiss on his nose. His nose twitched, and she caught the tip of his tail wagging. She giggled again. He grinned and picked up her teacup, smirking and staring at her as he took a long, slow sip, not breaking eye contact.

This was enough to send her into a laughing fit.

After a few minutes to calm down, she recovered enough to take a few more sips of the shake (Discord still sniggered a few times). They each traded drinks a few times...as well as a couple of kisses.

But eventually, both cups were emptied. Fluttershy sighed and stretched her wings. "Those were both really nice," she said. "I'd love to stay a bit longer, but I think I should head to the sanctuary now."

She stood up, as did Discord. He pulled back the space in front of her like a curtain, revealing a portal to the sanctuary. He bowed and gestured for her to enter. "Thank you," she said, placing a small kiss on his nose and smiling as his ears wiggled happily.

She hopped through the portal, and Discord floated after her. "I feel like helping today," he said. "I mean...helping you makes me less likely to tip someone's luck closer to bad than good."

She smiled, shaking her head a little. "Of course you can help," she said. "Though...if you want to take a break to play harmless pranks, I won't mind."

His ears perked up, and he smiled. She started walking down the path, looking up at the trees. "Let's see... there are some animals I'd like to get more exotic food for," she said. "And it'd be great if you could comb the lakes for anything that doesn't belong..."

Suddenly, Discord grabbed her under her forelegs and hoisted her into the air. She squeaked. "Mud puddle," he said, nodding towards the ground. She glanced down at saw that there was indeed a mud puddle—a fairly large one. "Looks deep," he continued, floating over the puddle.

"Sorry about that," he said, cradling her close to his chest. "I'd just hate for you to get your coat all muddy before you even got a chance to start working."

She blinked, then grinned up at him. "You know, this might sound cheesy," she said. "But I think that you're my lucky charm."

He stared at her for a second, then set her gently back on her hooves. "That is cheesy," he said, looking away and covering his face with his paw. But she could still clearly see his blush, which made her grin widen a bit.

"C'mon," she said, trotting forward. "Maybe there's some task we can do together. I'll keep an eye out for mud puddles this time."

His lips twitched upwards in a smile. "Yeah..." he said. "We can be each other's lucky charms for today." He smiled and ruffled her mane, making her laugh as they continued through the sanctuary.