//------------------------------// // 5 Not jealous at all // Story: My Little Pony: love is magic // by Star Hope //------------------------------// Discord appeared in the animal sanctuary surprising Dr. Fauna, who dropped the clipboard she was carrying. “You must be the Dr. Fauna I’ve heard so much about,” he said in a friendly way. Fluttershy had told him how she had been helping her with the sanctuary, but till now he hadn't met her in person, or rather, in pony. “Yes, that's me and…” she looked at him for a moment. “I guess you are Discord.” “Himself,” he confirmed. “I'm looking for Fluttershy, is she around?” he added without paying attention to the expression on her face. She pointed with her hoof towards a group of trees near the waterfall. Looking over there, his expression turned of annoyance when he saw who was with her. Keeping his friendly voice, he thanked Dr. Fauna, who just smiled awkwardly at him, then he teleported himself materializing between Fluttershy and Tamer. “Fluttershy! Just the pony I was looking for,” he said enthusiastically, then he looked at Tamer with displeasure. “And… you." “Discord! What are you doing here?” Fluttershy asked. “It's not that I’m not happy to see you, but you had never come to the sanctuary before.” “Oh, you know, I didn't have anything to do so I decided to come and visit my dear friend Fluttershy.” “Actually, it was my idea,” his double with spectacles said after appearing next to him. “You shut up,” the original said pushing him out of sight. “And what's he doing here?” he added pointing his thumb at Tamer. “The pukwudgies have cured from the cold,” Fluttershy explained caressing a purple one next to her. “But I thought it would be better to keep them a few days in the sanctuary to make sure they've fully recovered before returning them to the Everfree forest, Tamer has helped me to bring them from my house.” “How nice of him,” Discord said sarcastically narrowing his eyes as he forced a smile. “I should be going now,” Tamer said and, before leaving, he added addressing to Fluttershy, “About your question earlier, I'd love to go.” “Great, see you then,” she said smiling as she waved him goodbye with her hoof. “Go where?” Discord asked. “This afternoon, Rainbow is doing an aero display with the Wonderbolts in Canterlot, we'll all go to see her and I asked Tamer if he wanted to come.” “Sounds fun, I'm in,” Discord said faking excitement. “I thought you didn't like the Wonderbolts.” Discord grimaced, Fluttershy wasn't going to buy that all of a sudden he wanted to go see what he called ‘flying braggarts’, he remained quiet for a moment trying to come up with a good excuse. “And I still don't, but I still want to go to cheer for Rainbow Dash, I'm also her friend, you know?” “Oh, of course.” She was surprised that he wanted to attend something he considered boring just because Rainbow was on it, specially knowing that they weren't specially the best of friends, but she decided not to question his reason and she was also glad that he'd accompany them, she always had fun with Discord. “I'm sure Rainbow will be happy that you come,” she added. “What's Discord doing here?!” Rainbow exclaimed when she saw the draconequus arrive to the stadium with the rest. That afternoon they all had gone on the train to Canterlot, Discord sat strategically between Fluttershy and Tamer. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Cheese Sandwich and the CMC came with them as well. When they arrived they met with Twilight, Spike and Rarity, who was already there for her Canterlot boutique. Together, they went to the stadium where the aero display would take place. There, they met with Rainbow Dash, who was wearing her uniform. She had gone to greet her friends before the performance, to her surprise, she saw Discord with them. It's not that she disliked him, but when he showed up it was usually to cause trouble and the last thing she wanted was for him to do one of his tricks while they were flying. “Okay, what are you up to?” she asked him. “Is that a way to talk to a friend? To think that I came here just to see you do your air stunts,” he said pretending to be ofended. “Riiiight…” Rainbow said still suspicious, then she flew up to face him. “This is my first show as sub-captain and it's very important to me, so don't try do any of your tricks or I'll do a Sonic Rainboom right into your face,” she added pointing threateningly at him with her hoof. “I wouldn't dream of it,” he said innocently an angel halo appearing on his head. “I should go back with the rest, the show is about to start,” Rainbow told the others. Before leaving she made a gesture to Discord with her hoof to tell him that she would be watching him. Once she was gone, they all headed to the bleachers. Discord's gaze passed to Tamer who was walking next to Fluttershy, the halo on his head shattered like glass and disappeared as he narrowed his currently red-glowing eyes. “Still going to deny you’re jealous?” Spike asked flying next to him. “I'm not, but I don't trust that guy,” Discord said. “Why not?” “He's just so…” he paused to find the right word, annoying?, irritating? “Suspicious,” he finally said. “What do you find suspicious about him?” Spike asked pointing at Tamer who was having a conversation with Twilight, Fluttershy and Rarity about the boutique the last one was opening in Yakyakistan, completely oblivious to what they were saying. “Somepony who appears out of nowhere and happens to have the same interests as Fluttershy? Come on!” “Well, that's how most couples are made.” “They're not a couple,” Discord replied sounding more annoyed than he intended. “And they won't be if I can help it.” Spike raised an eyebrow. “But it's not because I'm jealous, I'm doing it for Fluttershy, she's too innocent to realize he's trying to trick her into fall in love with him and then he'll betray her once he gets what he wants.” “And that is…” “I don't know yet, but I'm sure is nothing good,” Discord answered focusing his gaze once again. “You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?” Spike said. He didn't get an answer because the draconequus’s attention was once again focused on keeping Fluttershy and Tamer apart, he hurried to take the seat next to Fluttershy before Tamer could, but it backfired because he sat on the other side next to her. “This is not going to end well,” Spike said to himself as he watched the scene. On the other side next to Discord sat Pinkie Pie followed by Cheese Sandwich. Perfect, he thought crossing his arms, he couldn't quite decide if he found them more cloying or annoying. Attending the aero display hadn't been as bad as Discord had thought it would be, it was worst. First, Cheese and Pinkie wouldn't stop making puns about the stunts, he liked puns more than anypony, but even he had a limit and those two had managed to reach it. He could see Dashy's ego swell from where he was, he could already hear her bragging about her Upside Loop or whatever at he end of the show. And, there where two pegasi in the row in front of him that kept making a fuss with each movement she made, like it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen and were dressing as if they had just come out of the gift shop from a Rainbow Dash theme park. On top of that, that whole thing was absolutely boring to him, he had to control himself not to use his magic to spice things up. If all that weren't enough, between flips and pirouettes, Tamer had managed to get annoyingly close to Fluttershy. When he noticed that, all of Discord's attention went to try to find a way to separate them. He first thought of using his own tail to pull Fluttershy closer to him and away from Tamer, but he decided it wasn't a good idea because then he and Fluttershy would be… it wasn't a good idea. He tried to push Tamer away, but he couldn't reach him without Fluttershy noticing. He also thought of using his magic to lengthen the bench, but discarded the idea because everypony would notice that. As he tried to come up with something, his gaze remained fixed on them, once again he felt that strange feeling in his chest. They were a few inches from each other, now their hooves were touching and she… was she blushing? Discord clenched his fists involuntarily, he was so distracted that he didn't hear the gasps of the ponies around. Without realizing it, he got trapped in a rage spiral, although it wasn't quite rage, it was a different feeling which he couldn't identify and that oppressed his chest. It was Fluttershy's voice that snapped him out of his trance, she said something he didn't quite hear about some clouds. It was then that he looked back at the circuit on top of which a bunch of weird-looking green clouds had appeared, they looked unstable and small flashes of light could be seen inside of them, also green. He only was able to see them for a few seconds because in the moment he looked at them, they disappeared. Once the show was over, they all met with Rainbow dash at the exit of the stadium, it was almost time for Twilight to lower the sun and raise the moon. Rainbow was angry about the incident with the clouds and the first thing she did was confront Discord about it. “Which part of ‘no tricks’ did you not understand?!” she scolded flying to be at the level of his face. “We've had to modify the end of the routine to avoid crushing into those weird radioactive clouds of yours.” “That wasn't my doing,” he assured raising both his claw and paw. “My clouds are made of pink cotton candy, they're not green." He actually wasn't completely sure about it, he certainly hadn't intended to create those clouds and he never had used his chaos magic without realizing it before, so it could had been him, right? “You really expect me to believe that you had nothing to do with it?” “If Discord says it wasn't him, I believe him,” Fluttershy said putting a hoof on his shoulder. Discord looked at the pegasus smiling warmly at her show of trust, no matter what happened he could always count on her. She always believed in him, even when nopony else did. “Come on! Who else would do something like that?” Rainbow asked still not believing the draconequus’s word. When he heard that sentence, a thought crossed his mind and he instantly looked in certain orange unicorn’s direction. “What matters is that nopony was harmed, I'll investigate this incident to find out what may have happened,” Twilight intervened. She talked in a calmed and impartial way, it was obvious she had learned to deal with this kind of disagreements as the ruler of Equestria. “We'd all better get some rest.” They all agreed with her. The ones that had come in the train headed to the station, all of them except for Discord who was still looking at Tamer thoughtfully. “Aren't you coming?” Fluttershy asked him. “I think I'll return to my dimension from here” he answered. He actually wanted to speak with Spikes without her knowing. He thought about it for a moment, doing that meant that he wouldn’t be there during the train ride to meddle between Fluttershy and Tamer, but it was just a ride of half an hour, not like she would fall for him with that. “Oh, well. Good night then.” She said a bit disappointed. “Good night.” Twilight went in the opposite direction towards the castle next to Rainbow Dash, who would be staying there for the night. Spike was a few steps behind them when, to his surprise, a lion paw grabbed him and took him to a hidden spot. Twilight and Rainbow didn't notice it and kept walking. “So you don't think Discord had anything to do with it either?” Rainbow asked incredulously. “I think that we shouldn't jump to any conclusion until we are sure of what or who did it." “I'll tell you who did it,” Discord said grabbing the confused Spike by the shoulders. “Camel Twistering.” “Who?” Spike asked. “That ridiculous unicorn who's trying to trick Fluttershy.” “You think Tamer Whispering created those clouds? Why?” “To incriminate me, of course. He’s realized I don't buy his lies and is trying to get me out of the way by causing trouble knowing that everypony will think it was me.” “Do you realize how paranoid that sounded?” Spike said. “You may not believe me now, but it's a matter of time before he shows his true colors and you all see the phony he really is.” With that, an idea came to his mind and a lightbulb appeared above his head, he smiled mischievously as a plan started to form in his head. All he needed was somecreature able to get on his nerves till he showed his true face; somecreature irritating and capricious who enjoyed annoying others, and he knew just the furball he needed.