Fluttershy was awake a little later than usual that next morning, and she found herself hurrying through her usual breakfast and morning chores before heading outside to tend to the animals. There was a badger with a broken paw that had been staying with her for the last few days, and upon making sure that the rabbits, ducks, and butterflies didn’t have any immediate needs, she turned her attentions to him. “I hope you’re feeling better today,” she said to him with a smile. “May I please see your paw?”
Badgers were often surly, and this one was no different, but Fluttershy was slowly getting on his good side by being gentle and patient with him. He harrumphed for a second or two, but Fluttershy waited patiently, and finally he offered her his bandaged paw.
“The swelling’s gone down,” she murmured, patting the wound carefully. “I would imagine that the fracture is healing nicely. As long as you take it easy—“
The badger suddenly fidgeted and pulled away, his eyes on something behind Fluttershy.
Surprised, Fluttershy turned around. In the air above her was the mail pony, Muffins, looking a bit discombobulated. She smiled when Fluttershy saw her, though, and handed her a regally sealed envelope before flying off.
“What in Equestria…” Fluttershy murmured, tearing open the seal and reading the letter inside. It was quite short.
Dear Fluttershy,
Please come to the palace immediately. It is a matter of some urgency.
-Princess Celestia
Fluttershy’s blood ran cold.
The stained glass windows.
They had been real, as Fluttershy had somewhat suspected. And Celestia found out. And she knew that she was behind their destruction.
And oh no, oh no, oh no, this was very very bad.
The animals in her yard, all noticing her very abrupt, horrified panic, gathered around her questioningly. Even Pumpkin Dog, who had been rummaging off who-knows-where for the past few days, lumbered into view and sat on his hind vines, barking out a concerned “¿Qué?”
And all Fluttershy could do was meekly look up from the letter, her face as white as a sheet.
“I’m in big trouble…”
…
The entire train ride to Canterlot, Fluttershy kept nervously clicking her front hooves together and frantically switching her glance from the window to the train car aisle and then back again, over and over and over. The only thing she could think of was just what she was going to say to Celestia, and while it started out panicky and rambly and nonsensical, by the time they reached their destination it had been running through her head so many times that it seemed to have straightened itself out into a mostly concise, very contrite apology.
Princess Celestia, I’m so, SO sorry for breaking your windowpanes. Just because I don’t like them doesn’t give me the right to destroy them. I understand that I’ve made a giant mess, and I’m sorry. I will pay for any and all damages.
…how much would that even cost, anyway? Probably far more bits than Fluttershy had…
Again, I am sorry. So, so sorry. Please forgive me. And did I mention that I’m sorry?
There was no way this was going to go well.
She reached the palace entrance and, upon meekly introducing herself to the guard on duty, was swiftly led down a familiar corridor.
The doors flung open, and Fluttershy winced, turning her head away in shame.
“Fluttershy! Thank goodness you’ve come so quickly,” said Celestia, who was already waiting for her in the hallway. “There’s a problem in the sculpture garden.”
“Princess Celestia,” Fluttershy blurted out, “I’m so sorry for… wait, what?”
What?
“A very large and territorial eagle has taken up residence on the sculpture of myself and Luna,” Celestia continued, either not noticing Fluttershy's outburst or not paying it any heed. “Normally I wouldn’t mind, but it’s made its nest right on top of my head… and it’s scaring away all the visitors.”
Distracted, Fluttershy craned her neck to look behind Celestia and down the hallway, with every strained glass window looking intact and exactly as it should be.
“What?” Fluttershy asked again in a small voice.
“Like I said, it is a very large eagle,” said Celestia. “And it leaves very large, um… messes,” she continued, as diplomatically as she could. “I was hoping you could try to convince it to move its nest somewhere else. It can still stay in the garden if it wants, just as long as it stays off the statues.”
Fluttershy blinked.
“Will you be able to help? I’m sorry for sending you here on such short notice, but we have visitors from the Crystal Empire arriving later today, and I was hoping to have the eagle in a more suitable place by the time they arrive. And also to allow time to give the sculpture a good scrubbing.”
“Um… yes, I’ll help, I’ll do my best,” Fluttershy stammered.
“Thank you,” smiled Celestia. “Come this way.” She turned and headed down the corridor of stained glass windowpanes. Carefully, Fluttershy followed her, her trot slowing profusely as she approached the greatly disliked, greatly blatant, and greatly still standing in one piece pane depicting Discord’s most recent defeat.
Sensing that she had fallen behind her, Celestia paused and looked behind her shoulder. “Is something wrong, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy quickly shook her head.
“N-nothing…”
…
It had taken a fair bit of convincing to persuade the eagle to move her nest to a more suitable location, like a tree or a craggy cliff. And, as Celestia had implied, the statue was left covered with numerous bird droppings when the eagle finally consented. So after helping to carry the nest to a sturdy tree overlooking the gardens, Fluttershy had helped Celestia to scrub the sculpture clean, which took even more time. When they finally finished it was time for a late lunch, which Celestia had insisted Fluttershy have at the palace with both herself and Princess Luna as thanks for her help. Fluttershy made small talk as best as she could (which was to say, not very well) and, while the princesses were very friendly and inviting, she was slightly relieved to finally head back for home.
She did some grocery shopping upon arriving back in Ponyville, encountering Rarity there. She chatted about the latest gossip, and Fluttershy told her about the eagle and the sculpture (although mentioning nothing about the stained glass windows or just what she had been doing the previous night), and they cheerfully bade each other farewell after their errands were done. Upon arriving home, Fluttershy quickly put all her groceries away before going out to check up on all the animals again (they were all fine, although Pumpkin Dog had wandered off again). Once that task was done, she glanced at her garden, which was looking a bit overgrown, and headed there next, crouching down on the ground to better see the numerous weeds sprouting up.
The first one she pulled came up with a rather tough yank.
Fluttershy bit her lip. Now that all the socializing of the day had quieted down and she was alone again, she was better able to process just what had happened… although she still wasn’t sure how to process it.
She had been so sure last night that the windows she’d broken were the real ones.
Yanking up another weed, Fluttershy shook her head at herself. It was ludicrous to think that. After all, Discord had said that they weren’t the real ones. And plenty of them weren’t “real”—those numerous ones that showed only her weren’t anywhere to be found in Celestia’s hall. Clearly he had snapped those ones out of thin air—so why did she think that the ones based on the real deals were any different?
And… why was she disappointed that they hadn’t been real?
Groaning softly to herself, Fluttershy wiped a few beads of sweat from her brow as she crawled through tangled overgrowth towards the next weed. Okay, okay, she knew why. It wasn’t a pleasant truth, but she had to be honest with herself. She wanted them gone. She still felt a sense of overwhelming dread whenever she so much as thought about the blasted things, let alone looked at them. Having them gone for good… it would certainly be a weight off her chest.
True, it would be replaced by a different weight, a weight of guilt for destroying them… but she had a feeling that weight would be naturally lifted from her far sooner than the first one would.
And she was well aware that that was a terrible thing to think.
It was with these thoughts that she weeded her garden, the yanking and digging of invasive plants growing rougher and rougher the longer she was at it. When she had finally finished, the garden looked more open, but a little rougher around the soil.
Fluttershy headed back inside to clean up, washing her hooves in the sink and wiping off sweat and dirt from her body with a rag. She probably needed a shower after all that, but she was still feeling antsy—almost more antsy since before working on her weeding, in fact—and figured, if nothing else, she might as well channel her nervous energy into cleaning up the inside of her house, too. So once her body was to a state that wasn’t too outwardly dirty, she took up her broom and dustpan and headed to her main room to sweep the floor. She started in the far corner, where her writing desk sat.
The urge to write a letter was far stronger than her urge to clean.
But she knew that she was still being stupid, so she swept her broom across the corner of the room far more forcefully than was probably necessary. There was no point to writing a letter anyway right now… Oh hi Discord, how are you? Say, did you know that when you told me that none of those stained glass windows were real that I actually apparently didn’t believe you so I’m trying to figure out why you’d actually tell the truth about that and why this bothers me so much and AARGH.
She swept the debris into the dustpan with one quick, jerky movement. Stay away from that desk, Fluttershy, don’t make more of a fool of yourself than you already have, she chided herself.
Still, though, her gaze fell upon the desk, or more importantly the little interdimensional mailbox that was the small drawer on the top left. Despite herself, she flew over and opened it, hoping to see a letter that she could actually respond to. There wasn’t anything, of course, and she knew this; the drawer let her know pretty blatantly whenever she received something.
She groaned in slight aggravation. She wished he’d write her another letter, if only to get her mind off of their most recent excursion.
“Just… what?” she demanded in a soft voice to the drawer.
What indeed… why was she talking to her desk?! Vexed at herself, she quickly pushed the drawer shut and picked up the broom again. Obsessing over this problem, which wasn’t even a problem at all because it was a good thing that she hadn’t actually destroyed anything real, was not only completely foolish but it also wasn’t going to help her get any of her chores done. She began to sweep the floor again, still with an antsy fervor but with a little more focus this time too.
But her focus was sliced into ribbons with the sudden, loud “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!” proclamation from her desk, complete with the telltale, upright red flag.
Startled, Fluttershy dropped the broom, letting it clatter uselessly to the floor. It seemed that she had gotten her wish, but the timing seemed a bit suspect. Had Discord actually heard her through the mailbox and written in response to her nonsensical question? On the one hoof Fluttershy found that thought preposterous, since it had been hardly enough time to write out a response, but then again, she had only said two short words—maybe this was just one or two words in reply? That was all that could be expected, after all.
And besides, it could just be a coincidence. He could have spent all day writing her a letter for all she knew, and only just now got it sent to her, however it was he even did that.
The broom on the floor forgotten, Fluttershy bit her lip and opened the drawer. She was surprised, but only a little bit, to find not a letter inside but Discord himself, in a small enough size to fit in the drawer. “I’m going to need a little more than that,” he said to her sardonically.
“Uh… what?”
“Yes! Exactly! More than a ‘what’, if you please.”
Fluttershy shook her head, her tousled mane bouncing against her forehead. “It’s… nothing. I’m just being foolish. It’s nothing worth talking about.”
“Oh, I highly doubt that.” Discord gave her an upside-down smile, as he had draped half of his body over the edge of the open shelf, dangling from it like a very unusual-looking string. “You know I’m always interested in whatever you have to say.”
Feeling her cheeks twinge a bit from the unexpected compliment, Fluttershy shook her head again. “Well, I don’t want to talk about it, because I’ve been thinking about it half the day and it’s stupid and I don’t want to keep thinking about it.”
“So yelling at your mailbox to me helps you with that how, exactly?” He was still sort of smiling at her.
Fluttershy sighed in resignation and slid down into the desk chair. “It’s kind of… long. And complicated. I still don’t really understand it myself.”
“Sounds intriguing,” Discord said, smiling more eagerly now. In a snap and a flash he was his normal size again, yet still in his dangling, reclining position, draped completely over her desk this time and sending her papers fluttering to the floor. “Give me all the complicated, confusing details.”
Awkwardly, Fluttershy tapped her front hooves together, her eyes darting downwards. “I, um, I was called to Princess Celestia’s castle today…”
“How horrid.” Discord had plucked off one of the claws on his paw with his talon and was using it to pick at his teeth.
Fluttershy sat up straighter, the words (and then some) suddenly tumbling out of her mouth without warning.
“Last night, I know you said that those stained glass windows weren’t the real ones, but I kind of sort of thought that maybe they were, and when Celestia asked to see me I thought for sure it was because she found out and knew what I did, but they were all fine—and I know, I should have known that because you told me that the ones I broke weren’t the real ones, but I thought that maybe you kind of fudged the truth a little because I don’t like them, and you don’t like them, and maybe if I thought they weren’t real I’d be more willing to get rid of something that neither one of us likes, but they’re still there, and I don’t know, I just thought—“
She was shushed with a furry finger (thankfully with its claw reattached) against her lips. “That is far too much thinking for one day, Fluttershy,” Discord said matter-of-factly.
“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy blurted out. “I—I guess I didn’t believe you, even though you were telling the truth… I think maybe part of me didn’t want to believe you. That’s horrible of me and I’m sorry…”
“You hate those windows even more than I thought,” Discord said, pulling his finger away from her and rolling over on her desk so that he was now lying on his belly. He laid his face in his palms and kicked his feet back and forth. “I do admit, allowing you to believe that those weren’t the real windows would be something I would do. What a great friend; you know me so well already!”
“But…” Fluttershy began.
“But,” Discord continued, arching a bushy eyebrow in her direction, “in this case, I actually was telling you the truth. As you know.”
Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. And it’s good that you did. Destroying the real ones would be wrong. But still…” She sighed helplessly, feeling her eyes narrow a bit. “I just wish those things were gone.”
“Well, you know that normally, I’d do anything for my dearest friend, but now that I’m sort of halfway in Celestia’s good graces, I’m not exactly willing to throw that away on such a wishy-washy desire.”
“I’m not asking you to destroy them,” Fluttershy said quickly. “Please don’t destroy them. Just because I don’t like them doesn’t give me the right to break them. It’s just… I don’t know, maybe we could…”
And she stopped herself right then and there, not giving that idea the dignity of a verbalization.
But she had still said enough to pique Discord’s interest. “Maybe we could what?” he asked eagerly.
“Nothing,” Fluttershy said, fiercely shaking her head.
“Come now, don’t leave me hanging!” He was once again draped over her desk, his head and half of his body dangling off the edge.
She carefully pushed his tail, dangling from the other edge, out of her way and moved towards the broom she’d left lying on the floor. “I need to keep cleaning.”
Abruptly the broom turned into a podium stacked with microphones on the top, and Fluttershy was suddenly standing behind them all. She was surrounded by five Discords, all shoving even more mics in her face. “The public needs to know your brilliant idea!” one of them proclaimed.
Fluttershy tried to ignore all of the mics and move the broom… podium… it had once been a broom, anyway…
“The story of the century,” another Discord quipped in a disappointed tone, “and we can’t get two syllables out of her.”
Fluttershy sighed, a bit impatiently. “Discord…”
The podium turned back into a broom, the mics disappeared, and only one Discord remained, crossing his arms a bit grumpily. “Can I at least get an exclusive interview later?”
Sighing again, Fluttershy swept at the floor in an unfocused swoop. “Alright, I’ll tell you… but it’s a terrible idea. I was going to say that… maybe we could… um… deface them. Like draw on them, or something. But,” she continued harshly, as Discord was looking positively gleeful at this idea, “we are not going to think about that anymore, because like I said, it’s a terrible idea—“
But between the words “terrible” and “idea”, Discord had already teleported them right into Celestia’s palace, and Fluttershy suddenly found herself surrounded by the windowpanes that plagued her.
She squeaked in surprise for just a brief moment before glaring at the draconequus responsible. “Discord!” she hissed. “I told you, this is a terrible idea!”
“Yes, it’s horrendous!” Discord was already climbing up the wall like a lizard, approaching the pane depicting him holding ponies like marionettes over a burning pit. “Horrendously perfect!” He started scribbling on the pane with a marker.
“This isn’t right!” Fluttershy protested.
“No, it’s not—you don’t have a marker.” One suddenly appeared in Discord’s tail, and he flicked it towards her without even looking. “There, now you get to have fun too.”
“But—“
“It’ll all wash off with the magic eraser on the end.”
Surprised, Fluttershy examined the marker, which did indeed seem to have something that looked like a white, spongy marshmallow on the end.
“So don’t worry about making mistakes!” Discord continued. “Just think of them as ‘happy accidents’.” Another marker had materialized wrapped in the tip of his tail, and he was now scribbling over “his” windowpane with two limbs.
“Well…” Fluttershy said, uneasily, “if it’ll wash off when I’m done, then I suppose… maybe I could do a little bit…” She raised her voice a little bit. “You are going to remove all of your markings when you’re done, right?”
Discord looked at her with a dramatic gasp. “What?! You’ll have me remove all traces of my artistically genius improvements?” The panel he had been working on showed the three ponies under his strings with speech bubbles that shimmered, having them say “OH DISCORD YOU ARE THE GREATEST RULER THE UNIVERSE HAS EVER KNOWN!” “TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!” “COTTON CANDY ROADS FOREVER YAY!” and the image of Discord was now wearing sunglasses and holding up a huge foam sign that said “#1 LORD OF CHAOS”. They were all shimmering too, almost rippling like ocean waves.
It was silly, and absolutely not the right thing to have done, but Fluttershy found herself giggling a bit at it despite herself.
Discord seemed to beam at this. “Just wait until you see the next one,” he said eagerly, crawling over towards the one of Celestia and Luna trapping him the first time.
“I shouldn’t be encouraging you,” Fluttershy called after him, although without much conviction in her voice. “Besides,” she added quietly, a determined look setting into her eyes, “this was my idea.” She flew over to the panel showing her and the other Element bearers in their soft, circular frames. She ignored the images of her friends; she wasn’t really bothered by those.
No, she turned her ire to the one that showed her, its soft yellows and pinks looking dissonantly cheerful and heroic.
She bit her lip.
“Well, here’s what I think of that,” she murmured, and taking her marker, she drew a big X over it.
She had to admit, it felt kind of good to do that.
“Saaaaayyyy,” Discord said, suddenly appearing next to the pane, still clutching the wall vertically like a reptile, “I have a barstool that looks just like that.”
“With a big X over it?” Fluttershy teased.
“Hmm, now that you mention it, no.” Discord stroked his beard as if this was some sort of new revelation to him. “Do you think it’s an improvement?”
“And just what is going on in here?!”
The new voice bellowed in with such alarm and authority that Fluttershy and Discord dropped all three of their markers as they spun their heads around to the sound. It was Princess Celestia, standing in the doorway, her mouth slightly agape and her eyes quickly narrowing.
“Oopsie,” Discord said in a small voice. “Busted!” He and Fluttershy were suddenly outfitted with orange jumpsuits.
“Discord,” Celestia said, her mouth tight and her voice sounding as if she was only barely managing to keep from screaming, “do you mind explaining the meaning of this?”
“Well, since you asked, yes, actually, I do mind,” said Discord, shrugging offhandedly as the jumpsuits disappeared.
“These windowpanes are sacred. They tell of the history of Equestria to all who come through here, and all who will in the future. They are not to be tampered with!”
“Pish-posh. If you’re going to use that excuse you could at least have the decency to make them historically accurate.” Discord scoffed a bit. “I never held ponies by marionette strings. Now, I believe I did turn one or two into hand puppets at one time…”
“Wait!” Fluttershy spoke up, her voice coming out as almost a squeak. “Y-your Highness, this was actually my idea. I’m sorry. I’ll clean it all up.”
Celestia raised an incredulous eyebrow in Fluttershy’s direction. Discord also looked at her with surprise, as if he had been fully expecting her to let him take the fall for this.
After a few awkward moments of silence, Celestia finally found her voice, sounding only a smidgen less irritated compared to how she had addressed Discord. “Then would you care to explain just what this is all about, Fluttershy?”
“I, uh…” Fluttershy straightened her posture, her wings flapping more strongly as she found her resolve. “With all due respect, Your Highness, I don’t like your stained glass windows. Well, the ones that show me, at least. I wanted… well, in truth, part of me wants to destroy them. But since I know I shouldn’t do that… I thought I could deface them instead. Which I know I shouldn’t do that either,” she hastily added. “I was going to fix everything before we left, I promise.”
Celestia continued to regard Fluttershy with an expression of pure befuddlement, her eyes bulged out at uneven degrees. If the situation wasn’t so tense Fluttershy might have even laughed a bit at how funny she looked. The princess turned her attention to Discord, her glare now questioning, although no less befuddled.
Discord just shrugged. “Those are the facts as far as I know them, don’t expect any further clarification from me.”
Celestia looked back at Fluttershy. “May I ask why you dislike them so much?”
Fluttershy hesitated, her eyes growing wide. She was vaguely aware of the answer, true, but she’d never put it into words before even in her own mind, much less spoken out loud. Discord had never asked her why—he probably was completely unconcerned about something like reasoning, after all—which had given Fluttershy the luxury of avoiding having to explain herself.
Until now, of course.
“B-because…” Fluttershy’s voice faltered. Her tongue felt heavy and dry in her throat, and her wing flaps were slower and more labored now. Celestia simply waited, and even Discord was regarding her carefully, waiting for her answer. “Y-you said that these windowpanes are sacred.”
“Yes, I did,” Celestia said levelly.
“When—when I think about ponies walking through these halls, through this palace, and looking up and seeing me… even years, maybe centuries from now, they’ll still come through here and see me, as if… as if I’m somepony important, when I just want—I don’t want to be special.”
Two jarring sounds happened simultaneously at that. From Celestia, she exhaled through her nostrils with a somewhat surprised snort. And from Discord, a loud “Ha!” that sounded rather mirthless.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that, Fluttershy,” said Celestia, finally giving her the tiniest of smiles.
“As much as I hate to agree with Lester, she’s right,” added Discord. “That ship sailed a looooong time ago.” And he was on the ship suddenly sailing off down the hallway to demonstrate.
“It’s just… too much,” Fluttershy offered, shrugging awkwardly. “I never asked for any of this. And no, I wouldn’t change anything that led me to this point—everything I’ve been through has brought me closer to my friends… I probably wouldn’t even have any close friends if not for my adventures,” she admitted. “And if I’m really needed to save Equestria, then of course I’ll do whatever I need to do. But…” She looked back at the windowpanes, feeling her body ripple uneasily. “When I see myself in these panes… it’s just so much attention on me. And these panes will be here long after I’m gone, and ponies will still be looking at me and talking about me, when I just want to be… forgotten.”
The room fell quiet again. Celestia continued to regard Fluttershy with an expression that no longer looked angry, yet was still quite firm. Discord was also staring at her, no longer sailing away or doing anything remotely, well, Discord-ish. He was just standing there giving her a look of honest surprise and bewilderment.
Fluttershy gulped, suddenly feeling very heavy. Her wings flapped twice more but the weight in the silent air was too much for them, and she rather abruptly landed, her hooves hitting the floor with an echoing clicking sound.
Celestia stepped forward, approaching her.
“Thank you for telling me this, Fluttershy.”
Unsure how to respond to that, Fluttershy simply nodded meekly.
“Being a hero comes with many lofty expectations… even, as you rightfully stated, long after you are departed from this world. But it is then that your impact will be the most important. Perhaps, in a century or two, the fate of Equestria will lie in the hooves of a pony just like you. And perhaps the push she will need in order to believe in herself is seeing the proof of your success.”
Fluttershy sighed, her gaze falling to the ground. She knew Celestia was right… and it was kind of maddening how she always seemed to be right, even about unpleasant truths such as this.
“Besides,” Celestia continued, a slight chuckle in her voice, “a big X drawn through your portrait will only draw even more attention towards it.”
Fluttershy blushed in shame. “I’ll clean it up.”
She only just barely heard the slightest of snaps, but it was enough to make her jerk her head up in surprise. Discord was craning his neck towards the panes, an almost cheeky grin on his face. “Too late!”
Fluttershy and Celestia both turned quickly towards the panes as well, only to find them all looking exactly as they were supposed to look.
Celestia turned back to Discord, still with a small, thin smile on her face. “Charitable,” she said simply.
“Well, even though this was her idea, I’m the one who did most of the defacing,” Discord said, also keeping his smile. “I had to assuage my besmirched behavior somehow. She’s clearly a bad influence on me,” he added in an over-the-top stage whisper. “But don’t you worry, I can get her to see the error of her ways and reform her.”
Fluttershy blushed again, trying to hide her smile in her mane.
“I suppose now that everything’s cleaned up, we’re all done here,” said Celestia, turning away from them and walking back towards the door. Before exiting, however, she turned and gave both of them a firm stare. “This had better not happen again, though.”
Fluttershy frantically shook her head. “It won’t. I promise.”
Celestia smiled. “Then, Discord, I trust you can escort her home?”
“’Escort’ is such an ostentatious way to refer to it,” muttered Discord, raising his eagle talons in the air to snap.
Seeing this, Fluttershy blurted out as fast as she could, “Goodbye, Your—“
Snap!
“—Highness.”
They were back at her cottage. “That was fun,” exclaimed Discord, still grinning widely. “The most fun I’ve had since the plunder vines!”
“Fun” wasn’t exactly how Fluttershy would refer to either of those things, but her rumbling stomach redirected her thoughts. “Oh, gosh, I didn’t realize how late it was.” She looked up at Discord. “Would you like to stay for supper?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said, regarding her fondly. “After that wonderful bout of delinquency, I’m famished!”
…
Fortunately, since Fluttershy had gone grocery shopping earlier that day, she had plenty of food. She prepared cucumber sandwiches for them, allowing Discord to add eraser shavings to his—and even trying a tiny bit in one of hers, which she had to admit wasn’t that bad. She also brewed some chamomile tea and set out a plate of sugar cookies she’d bought from Sugar Cube Corner earlier that week, with Discord showing his approval of the desert by gobbling up nearly all of them at once.
Their conversation didn’t focus on their graffiti escapade, much to Fluttershy’s relief. Instead, they chatted some more about setting aside a regular date to meet up for tea, solidifying the Tuesday afternoons she had suggested in her most recent letter (and with today being Saturday, this meant that it was only a few days away, which they were both excited to realize). Discord told Fluttershy all about a lagoon in Chaosville that sang opera whenever the temperature was too warm for its liking and sang Gregorian chants whenever it was too cold, and the trees near it that grew upside down, with tangled roots spreading out all over the sky. Fluttershy giggled out loud when he told her about a flugelhorn bird nesting in its roots that tried to harmonize with the singing lagoon and got splashed with its warm water for its troubles. In turn, Fluttershy told Discord about helping out Celestia earlier that day with the eagle and the statue. She worried that her own story was rather dull in comparison to his, but he listened very attentively, and laughed uproariously when he heard about the eagle pooping all over Celestia’s sculpture.
“I suppose it was kind of funny,” Fluttershy admitted, sipping the last bit of tea from her saucer. Her dinner plate was long since empty, as was Discord’s, and the plate of sugar cookies had only one left. “Messy, though. It took awhile to clean.”
“Kept you out of the hall of windows for a bit, at least,” said Discord, popping the last cookie into his mouth (literally, like a firecracker).
“Well… yes, I suppose so.” Fluttershy sat up and began gathering the used dishes. “Until later… of course.”
Discord stroked his beard in thought, a devious smirk crawling up his face. “Next time we partake in a little stained glass vandalism, I’m going to draw a flock of seagulls crapping all over Celestia’s mane.”
Fluttershy shook her head fiercely. “No, we’re not doing anything like that again. I mean it this time,” she added with a smirk at Discord’s incredulous chuckle. “I’ve gotten it out of my system.”
“Just as well,” said Discord with an amiable shrug, standing up from the couch. “You’re already too late, anyway.”
Fluttershy stopped, giving him a questioning look. “What do you mean by that?”
“Your whole quest to try to be unimportant and forgotten.”
“I…” Fluttershy blinked rapidly. She wanted to okay with this, she knew she had to be okay with this, but… it was going to take awhile. “I’ll come to terms with those stained glass windows someday.”
“No, I mean even without those windows.” Discord hesitated for a moment, his face softening into a thoughtful frown. Fluttershy waited as well, surprised at his sudden vulnerability.
“Because,” he finally continued, looking her directly in the eyes, “even if those windows never existed, I can tell you that centuries, even millennia from now… I will still remember you.”
Fluttershy drew in her breath, her throat growing dry.
And Discord suddenly brightened. “Well! See you on Tuesday, then!” And with a snap of his fingers, he was gone.
And left alone, Fluttershy weakly set the dirty dishes down on the coffee table, her heart pounding with surprise.