"You shouldn't have to stop being you." Comforting smiled up at her spiritual mother. "Making you do it to save me is not fair, of me. I won't."
Harmony shuddered softly. "That is... the correct answer..." But the answer they wanted to hear? The tremble of her lips spoke against it, though her eyes remained unblinking. "I... will fulfill my oath. You are free... I hope you survive, but I will not stop you from passing if that is the case."
Discord nudged Harmony aside as if they weighed nothing. "Well, you shot her down, but we didn't make any promises. Now, me? I love breaking a few rules. It's what I do. So go on, let me! I promise you'll still have two arms and two legs." He held up two fingers with each proclamation. "And, since you have your heart set on it, two wings! All without Harmony having to get her hooves all dirty. Win win!"
Comforting considered Discord with a skeptical eye. "What do you get out of this?"
"How cold! Still, you're not wrong... I do get something out of this." With a snap, an image of Fluttershy appeared, smiling gently. "If you go, like this, it will break her little heart, which will break my little heart. We can't have that... But if I save you, well, then she'll be happy with me. And I like that. See, nothing fancy. I'm a chaos spirit of few needs." He batted his lashes at Comforting. "So let me."
Comforting poked him softly. "Will I be mad?"
"Maybe a little." He wobbled a hand. "If we're being honest, but you'll get over it, and have fun! I don't do a lot of 'not fun' things, you can trust me on that. Not my style." He flicked off some dust that surely hadn't been there before in the utter void. "Now, don't mean to hassle you, but I do need a decision. Time is running out."
Harmony set a hoof on his back. "I have a question. Why are you asking? You made no promise to ask. You could just do it. I have stepped aside, and she has no power over you, even in oath. Why do you wait? It feels against your nature."
"Oh ho! But being unpredictable is my nature." He made a tally in the void, leaving a bright white mark. "One point for chaos right there. Besides, if she says yes, I bet we'll have to chat more often, and making her mad at me forever would really get in the way of that." He set his hands on his hips. "So I want her buy in. Two options left! We wait and hope for the best... Your friends and family fret over your bedside, waiting, hoping... Or... We can spare them that. Snap!" He snapped his fingers but didn't make the trademark sound. "You are reborn, and they're spared that drama. Like that. I'm not even asking anything in return, avoiding Fluttershy's misery is payment enough."
Comforting imagined the other ponies, by her bed in the hospital. There would be sniffles in the air. They'd probably cry, just waiting for her to bounce back, or not. It would hurt them all... "I don't want that... At all..." The idea of inflicting such pain, when she had the choice not to... It felt just as selfish as demanding Harmony betray herself. "Please."
"As you command."
His snap broke the world.
To most spirits, it would be a confusing and new place, but Comforting had visited the astral plane once before. She landed with a soft oomph as she splatted on her belly as if she had been tossed bodilly there. "What?" She sat up and looked around. Compared to the void, it felt practically busy with the infinite stars in all directions. "Celestia?"
"Close." Discord casually stepped around a galaxy, wearing Celestia's rainments. The torc bounced against his chest as he jogged closer. "But not quite. Now, there is a tradition to this, and I'm not really a big 'tradition' kinda guy, but I thought maybe it'd be fun?"
Comforting reared up and bopped one of his barely hanging on golden gloves, sending it flying away into space. "This isn't your look."
"It really isn't." He casually shook off the rest of Celestia's clothing, tiara falling by his feet. "Now, Twilight visited here once, and left a princess! You will not do that."
"I won't? I'm... not upset at that, but still confused." Comforting peered down the path between the stars. "If not a princess, then what? You said two arms, two legs, and two wings."
"Oh, yes. I did promise... Now, me? I don't do promises often, but I did make that one, and I plan to keep it, so there." He blew a ripe raspberry at the confused Comforting. "So let's get walking as I highlight your most, mm, chaotic moments."
He cleared his throat before dissolving into a coughing bit. "You know what? Forget the song. Those are always so hard. How about a rhyme? Zecora would be proud. Did you meet her? You should, classy mare."
Comforting followed after Discord with clear confusion. "Alright?" There was no harm in some rhyming, right?
"It all started here. Sight extending clear. You were very dead. You refused an end." To their left, an image of Celestia with her head down low, whispering to a faded mote of light.
He held up a hand to whisper, "I wouldn't want to go out that way either. Now where were we? Ah, yes. Meeting chaos gods. Beating all the odds." A new image appeared, Comforting and Discord meeting hoof to hand, both smiling.
Comforting squinted at the image. "Did we ever do that?"
"It's symbolic," sighed out Discord. "Went to school for teens.... Oh forget it. Hats off to zebra-butt. How does she do it so effortlessly?!" He snapped his fingers, causing Zecora to pop into being. "Mmm, no, if I end up with an alizebra, I will be haunted forever." Another snap, and Zecora was sent home with some confusion. "Let's just talk. Everything you saw, you changed. You weren't allowed at that school, but you managed it. The moment you got in, you got to changing it from the inside. You made friends and got to changing them." Images of the Young Six appeared. "You reached out to a griffon. You reminded a yak of old ways from an old soul. You gave a pony a chance to be an older brother. You taught a changeling that just looking is not enough to really see." Each statement came with an image of the event. "You even tried to break fate itself, to help them. Sure, you failed..." An image appeared of the Young Six and Harmony putting an end to Cozy Glow's scheme. "But you tried. You are and were a force of chaos from the start... You just didn't realize it."
A new image, Harmony smiling in her distant way. "Why, even her. She loves you, you know, in that detached way she has, but she's admitted it herself. You're not part of her plans. I think maybe that's why she likes you so much, because she knows she couldn't boss you around, but you eagerly want to help her anyway. It's a new thing, for her. Little chaosling, you've come so far, and I am so proud."
"You're acting like you... We barely talked! I thought you were avoiding me, to be honest." Comforting scrunched her face at him. "Why the turnaround now?"
"That's easy! I wasn't sure what to do." He stroked his beard softly. "And, being the social butterfly I am, I just shut up and watched. But, I did watch... Kept half an eye on you the entire time." A new image, Diamond Tiara, locked in stone. "Good look for her... " A new image, Comforting's eyes shifting colors wildly. "Ah, almost forgot. You were already a shapeshifter, and that's not a normal pony thing."
"It's just my eyes." She pointed at herself, but had no mirror to see if they had changed. She was pretty sure they had.
"That's still more than they usually do. Trust me on this. But let's get to the real meat of things." Many images formed, snatches of time with Harmony and Comforting chatting silently with one another. "You gave her quite the confusion, and she kept coming back for more. You took destiny itself, tweaked its nose, and challenged it, and if that isn't chaotic, what else even compares?" He clapped his hands with a grin. "I love it."
"Why are you going over this? I'm not a chaos spirit."
"Hmmm..."
Comforting didn't like that noise. "You're hiding something from me."
"Yes, but not for long." He came to a smooth halt. "We've reached the end of the line." That was literal, the road among the stars ending just past him. "Which means it's time for you to take your next step." He reached for her and casually snatched out... something. It felt quite odd coming out of her, as if someone casually plucked out her liver, without pain, and still attached to her somehow. "This is the chaos I was speaking of. I'm not taking it, promise. In fact, it's the key to the next step, isn't that lovely? Now..." He raised the glow and Comforting hovered up with it. "It's time."
Strange pins and needles swept through her with a sharp gasp. It was like her body was on fire, not burning, but... changing? Something was happening, and she squirmed, floating in the air, with the strange sensations of it. "W-what?" She squeezed her eyes shut, senses overloaded. She had to surrender, washed away in the torrent of change that threatened to overwhelm her entirely. Is that what Twilight had felt?
Fluttershy squeaked. She had just gotten in the door when Comforting vanished with a bright pop. "W-what?"
"Outside!" came a call from the waiting area, Apple Bloom shouting. "Outside!"
Fluttershy took a step back, staring at where Comforting had been. "I'll be right back," she promised, unsure if it would be heard by the filly not even there. She raced out to find the crusaders outside, gawking as strange new colors swirled together into a ball, making hues that'd never seen before, or even knew were possible.
There was no word to describe them, being beyond the perception of all watching it, but they knew the colors were new and intense, as if blue and red were somehow brought together instead of the fake combination of pink, and there were many of them, congealing into a ball.
With a loud splitting tear, the ball began to split like an egg suddenly broke in half. Dropping out of this strange structure was a little figure that coughed and shook.
"Oh my..." Fluttershy began to approach the strange creature. "What... are you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Discord opened a door to enter. It vanished when he closed it behind himself. "The result of my hard work."
Fluttershy quirked an ear back where she had come from in the hospital. "I should... get back to Comforting. DIscord, do you know where she is?"
"I certainly do." He waved over the form as it rose not to four legs, but two. "I present, Comforting Shade."
Fluttershy and the crusaders all gasped in shared shock.
"Hi, mom," ventured the new Comforting awkwardly. "I hope I didn't worry you."
"You... certainly did... But if you're alright now..."
Scootaloo was on Comforting in a flash. "Woah! You got wings!" She was not shy about inspecting them with her hooves. "But they don't match..."
Apple Bloom squinted at Discord. "Just like somecreature else ah know! What'd you do to her?"
Discord raised his hands. "Hey. I only did what she asked for, nothing more than that."
Sweetie raised a hoof to her chin. "Is she even a pony?"
Fluttershy swallowed thickly. "I... don't think we could say that..."