Fluttershy stood against the wall of the palace ballroom, watching Equestria’s elite spin across the dance floor dressed in their finest, and resolved to herself that this was most definitely the last Grand Galloping Gala she would ever attend.
The truth of the matter is that she hadn’t even really wanted to attend this one. She still winced with shame whenever she contemplated her… inappropriate behavior at last year’s gala. And besides, there were just so many ponies in attendance, and Fluttershy didn’t enjoy crowds on a good day… So when her invitation had arrived in the mail, Fluttershy had set it aside with a frown, making a mental note to send Princess Celestia her regrets.
But, of course, later that day she had lunch with Rarity, who of course was filled to the brim with excitement for the upcoming gala, and who had already sketched up ideas for the designs of all her friends’ dresses. Fluttershy could do nothing but smile politely as Rarity raved about how big an event the gala was going to be this year, and how amazing her creations were going to be. She even gave Fluttershy the ideas she’d sketched for her dress, all of them lovely, and Fluttershy had a hard time voicing any negativity in regards to the event at hoof.
She had taken the sketches with her on her trip to observe the breezies, looking them over one evening while trying to find the words to tell Rarity that, while she loved all of the designs, she unfortunately wouldn’t be wearing any of them. And she still had to figure out how to give the bad news to Celestia, too. And, heck, even Twilight—since she was an alicorn now, she was also directly involved in the planning. Twilight always put her all into planning things, no matter the occasion… she would likely take it personally if Fluttershy opted out of attending…
Fluttershy groaned softly. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Hey,” called out Tree Hugger, an earth pony who Fluttershy had met at the retreat. She sauntered up behind Fluttershy and looked at the sketches in front of her. “Groovy dresses. Did you draw these?”
Fluttershy smiled. Although she was, well, shy, she had taken a liking to the laid-back pony, finding her agreeable and very easy to talk to. “Oh goodness, no, my friend Rarity did. Although they are all designs for me.”
“Far out,” said Tree Hugger. “What’s the occasion?”
“The Grand Galloping Gala.”
“Whoa, for real? Righteous.” Tree Hugger’s eyelids actually perked up a bit at that, her true excitement enough to cut through her phlegmatic countenance. “I’ve always wanted to attend the gala. What an honor for you.”
Fluttershy blinked. She didn’t really consider it an honor at this point, but seeing as she was the only one who didn’t seem excited for this…
…and seeing that her invitation came with a “you and a guest” that had been impossible to fulfill, since any guests Fluttershy would have brought were already invited…
…and seeing that Tree Hugger was nice and a pony Fluttershy wanted to get to know better and who really wanted to go…
“Would you like to go with me?” Fluttershy blurted out. “I can bring a guest, but all of my friends are also Twilight and Celestia’s friends, so they’re all invited already on their own…”
“Oh wow, thanks,” said Tree Hugger, with a lidded smile. “That would be totally radical to go.”
“Just one thing,” Fluttershy said softly, giving a guilty glance back at the sketches. “Could you help me decide which design to go for?”
Tree Hugger gave them a quick once-over before looking back at Fluttershy and saying, languidly yet decisively, “The peacock dress.”
And, well, there it was. There was no need to tell Celestia or Twilight or Rarity that she wouldn’t be attending the gala, because she was attending it now with Tree Hugger. She still didn’t really want to go herself, of course, but coming up with a reason why she couldn’t back out of it was an easier pill to swallow than the prospect of explaining multiple times that she would be staying home that night.
So her choice was made.
She did her best to fake enthusiasm when asked about the upcoming gala. It wasn’t so hard with Rarity, really. Her design for the peacock dress really was lovely, and Fluttershy was looking forward to seeing it in person and wearing it. In fact, during a last-minute fitting for the dress the Tuesday morning before the gala, Fluttershy was so taken with how beautiful it was that she was actually, to some extent, looking forward to the event. Wearing such a pretty dress, spending time with her new friend, introducing her to all her other friends… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad this year.
She was feeling optimistic enough about the whole ordeal, in fact, that the topic eked through in her conversation with Discord during their usual teatime. Discord had seemed excited too, saying why of course, he’d love to attend the ball with her, thanks so much for asking!
And Fluttershy’s optimism stuttered and petered out with a pathetic wheeze.
Wait. Had Celestia and Twilight actually not invited Discord? Were they still holding a grudge over what he’d done last month? Of course what he’d done had been absolutely terrible, but he felt awful about it too and had apologized profusely, and it had really seemed to Fluttershy that the two of them were very willing to forgive him. Was she mistaken? And did it matter anyway, because she didn’t really want to go before asking Tree Hugger and she only would have asked Discord if he wanted to go, and he hadn’t mentioned wanting to go until now, and why was she only realizing all of this now? A mere four days before the gala, when the plans had already been cemented into stone?
How had this become such a mess?
And, of course, things became a literal mess at the gala.
And even after Discord had calmed down, and apologized to Tree Hugger for being a jealous jerk and trying to banish her to an alternate dimension, and the two of them had even started chatting and—despite all odds—seemed to be getting along well after all that… Fluttershy couldn’t take much joy in the current situation.
Because most of the other guests were avoiding her, throwing judgmental stares her way when they thought she wouldn’t notice. And, well, how could she blame them? She was the pony who had turned into an insane love-hungry monster at last year’s gala, and she was the pony who had the reality-warping bitter jealous friend who seemingly didn’t want her interacting with anyone else at this year’s.
So, of course, stares and avoidances were to be expected.
Fluttershy tried to ignore all of that, though, and while most of the other guests were dancing and socializing, she had taken the time to chat with the Smooze. Most everyone was surprised he could even talk at all, even Discord, but Fluttershy had a way of understanding nearly every creature around. The Smooze didn’t have a whole lot to say, but he was friendly enough. He also didn’t appear to be as close to Discord as Discord had implied, although he was all in all happy to be at the gala. Fluttershy decided to err on the side of thinking it was nice of Discord to invite him to the gala, ignoring the other part of her that worried that he’d just used him as a pawn.
With how well everything seemed to be going right now, Fluttershy was eager for any excuse to let Discord off the hook for any lingering misdeeds. Right now he was on the dance floor with Tree Hugger, spinning her upwards from the floor in mini whirlwinds, and Tree Hugger for her part seemed to be enjoying the unique experience. It was definitely preferable to being nearly thrown into an alternate dimension filled with sock puppets, anyway.
Fluttershy frowned.
“Isn’t some handsome stallion gonna ask me to dance?” Sweetie Belle whined, looking longingly at the dance floor. Her sister had, of course, been dancing all night, catching the attention of many stallions. Right now Rarity was seemingly gliding on the floor with her latest partner, gleaming and nearly sparkling with pride from the attention she garnered.
“Or me?” Apple Bloom, standing right next to her friend, said with a sigh.
Scootaloo, standing on the other side of Apple Bloom, just huffed. “Why do you want to dance out there? Seems boring.”
“Y’all are too young, anyway,” Applejack said with a light chuckle. “Unless y’all want to dance with each other.”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders all brightened considerably at this suggestion. “Yeah! We can have fun without waiting for a stallion!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed.
“Let’s go before the song ends!” Scootaloo said, leading her two friends onto the dance floor, nearly barreling into Pinkie Pie.
“Whoops, sorry, girls! WHEEE!” Pinkie grabbed her dance partner, another stallion who Fluttershy didn’t recognize, and zipped off in a mad dance. Nopony danced as eagerly and with as much liveliness as Pinkie Pie. She was asked to dance nearly as often as Rarity was. While she didn’t have Rarity’s stunning beauty, Pinkie’s outgoing and fun personality ensured the attention of plenty of stallions in her own right, although she didn’t accept every offer, making sure to spend some songs as downtime to hang out with her sister Maud.
“Give the poor guy a breather, Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash hollered from behind Applejack. She had found the drink table, and a tumbler filled with a light brown liquid was grasped in her wing feathers. Fluttershy didn’t think she sounded too drunk… yet, anyway. Hopefully she’d remain on the respectful side of tipsy for the night. She was Scootaloo’s chaperone, after all.
“Um, excuse me.” A young unicorn stallion approached the three ponies (and the Smooze), looking a bit nervous yet still offering a friendly smile. “Are… are you Rainbow Dash?”
“In the flesh!” Rainbow affirmed with a proud grin.
The stallion seemed to beam a bit, too. “I, um, hope you don’t find me presumptuous, but I’m a huge fan of yours, and I was wondering i-if you’d like to dance with me? I have it on good authority that the next song will be a bit slower.”
Rainbow gulped down the rest of her drink with one swift chug. “The speed of the song doesn’t matter, I’ll dance fast either way. Think you can keep up?” But she didn’t even give the stallion a chance to answer, instead yanking him by the foreleg and pulling him along, nearly knocking over Applejack and Fluttershy on their way to the dance floor.
“Make sure to give the poor guy a breather, Rainbow!” Applejack called out with a chuckle. Fluttershy giggled just a bit, too.
The gala musicians were drawing the current song to a close, and Tree Hugger literally slid back to the group, as if riding an invisible slide. “Far out,” she said approvingly. “With the aura of that song and your moves, Discord, I’m in tune with the universe.”
“There are far worse things to be than a universal tuner, I suppose,” Discord said amiably, seeming to grab the invisible slide and roll it back up with a single shake, and tucking it into a jacket pocket. “How are you doing, Smooze? Still smoozing?”
The Smooze made a content, gurgling sound.
“He’s having a lovely time,” Fluttershy translated with a small smile. “And he’s been on his best behavior. He’s only eaten two small serving spoons.”
“Smooze,” said Tree Hugger in a disarming drawl, “tell me all about your travels. The harmony you’ve found with utensils. Your malleable countenance. Your unique and special being.”
The Smooze seemed pleased by this as well, and oozed to follow Tree Hugger.
Applejack, watching them leave, scratched a hoof behind her ear with an awkward chuckle. “Well, every pot’s got a lid, I suppose…”
“Oh, he’s quite charming,” Fluttershy said to her. “He’s been in seven layers of the planet’s crust.” She turned her head and raised an eyebrow in Discord’s direction. “Did you know that, Discord?”
“I’ll have oodles of crusty conversations with him at a later date,” Discord muttered, pouting a bit. “But right now, dear wallflower, it’s your turn to go out for a whirl on the dance floor and hear me out.”
Fluttershy blanched, her throat drying up. “Um, actually, um… I’m not a good dancer,” she stammered out.
“Ah, see, that’s the beauty of it! You don’t have to do anything at all.” Discord snapped his fingers and while nothing seemed to change regarding the outward appearance of Fluttershy’s shoes, she could still sense that they were lighter somehow, able to glide effortlessly despite their owner’s lack of dancing skill. “Except listen to me.”
Fluttershy’s eyes were still wide with slight terror at the prospect of dancing. She couldn’t dance! Her eyes flickered towards Applejack with a silent plea for help, but Applejack didn’t seem to take the hint. “Go on, sugarcube,” she told her, smiling. “Nopony’s gonna judge your dancing abilities out there.”
“But… but who will watch the fillies?” Fluttershy said, glancing towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were still on the dance floor but now simply chattering excitedly amongst each other, drowning out the start of the next song.
“I can handle ‘em on my own. Go on.” Applejack motioned with her head towards Discord.
Fluttershy continued to stammer out syllables that weren’t quite forming into fully-worded excuses, and Discord sighed dramatically and unhappily at it. “Trust me, Fluttershy, I understand that my behavior has made the prospect of being seen with me a bit distasteful, but—“
“No, no, it—it isn’t that,” Fluttershy stammered. Even though it kind of was. And she quickly raised herself on her hind legs and extended a forehoof to Discord before she offended him more, or stammered more, or just made this whole awkward situation even more awkward.
Discord’s gloom vanished, and he beamed happily as he took her hoof in his talons and carefully placed his paw on her withers. He was perched on his hind legs as well, but due to being much longer in the torso than his pegasus friend, he had curved his body into a bit of an s-shape to be able to look her eye-to-eye. Not that the position seemed to be at all uncomfortable for him, though—there were advantages to being part snake, Fluttershy supposed. He led her out to the floor, and indeed, Fluttershy’s shoes caused her to follow gracefully after him. She didn’t even have to think about lifting her hooves.
“Now then,” Discord said to her, having the decency to keep his voice rather low, “before we get started, let me confirm that yes, I already apologized to Arbor Embracer, and yes, she accepted my apology—she said that I had very strong chakras, and while I have no inkling what that even means, I’m happy to trust the expert on the matter.”
“Okay,” Fluttershy said slowly, blinking in confusion. “Thank you for letting me know, but why are you telling me this?”
“Because I now owe you an apology. And having cleared up the matter of the apology that you clearly deemed more important, I’m hoping that this time you’ll accept yours.”
Fluttershy sighed wearily. “And to think, I thought this was just because you enjoyed my company.”
“Well, of course it’s that too!” Discord exclaimed rather loudly, stammering a bit on the words. “Believe you me, there’s no pony I’d rather humble myself before than you!”
The dimming of the lights caught Fluttershy too off-guard to respond right away. The words of the stallion who’d asked Rainbow to dance flashed across her mind—he’d promised the next song would be a slow one, and it was indeed. What’s more, it was a slow song that Fluttershy was intimately familiar with. It was the theme song to one of her favorite movies, Bid Time Return. And it brought with it a wave of memories and emotions and expectations that every other circumstance of this night had thoroughly trampled until this precise moment.
She had first seen the movie in one of the more awkward phases of her life—that phase where she was teetering between fillyhood and marehood. She liked to think that she wasn’t quite as impressionable as some of her peers were—she already knew exactly what she wanted out of life, after all, she’d already dedicated herself to her animals one hundred and ten percent—but she still felt lost sometimes. And she absolutely felt lonely, it was just a natural state of being for her… and romantic novels and movies could suck her in like a vacuum. So when she’d first seen the movie about an earth pony stallion who saw an old photograph of a beautiful pegasus mare and became obsessed with finding a way to be with her, despite the time barrier, Fluttershy had been swept away. She cried her heart out at her first viewing of the movie. And the second. And even the beautiful theme song was enough to get the tears flowing, if she was in the appropriate mental frame for it.
And nights of school dances were certainly some of those times. Fluttershy desperately wanted to attend them. She wanted some attractive stallion to notice her, to sweep her off onto the dance floor, to make her feel like she was the only creature in the universe who mattered at that moment. But… she never even set hoof at any of them. She was so shy that she could barely look any of her classmates in the eye, let alone any handsome colt who might take a fancy to her. And if one did? If one actually did ask her for a dance? Fluttershy had enough self-awareness to know that she would never be able to accept. She’d freeze up and be rendered unable to say anything other than a terrified squeak and a dance would never happen and there was no point to going at all. So she stayed at home, putting her phonograph record of the Bid Time Return theme on near constant repeat as she laid in her bed and wept softly in mourning of all the opportunities she would never take.
And so, right there, on that dance floor, Fluttershy drew in her breath at where she’d found herself. She was at a dance. For the second time. And this wasn’t just any dance, no sir, this was the Grand Galloping Gala, only one of the most important and prestigious social events of the year. And here she was, out on the dance floor with (as crazy as it might sound) her closest friend in the entire world, dressed in her finest and her hooves gliding gracefully to one of her favorite songs… but the whole circumstances of the situation, of this whole event in general, had been so unpleasant that she hadn’t even realized it until now.
See, young Fluttershy, all of your dreams will eventually come true. Except even then you’ll still wish you were at home.
She’d stopped so suddenly with the steamroller of realization and emotions that the first strands of the song brought her, and Discord stopped too, the paw on her back slacking disbelievingly. “Really? After everything I’ve ever done, this is the one thing you find unforgivable? This? I know it was horrible, but really, in comparison—“
“No,” Fluttershy blurted out quickly, shaking her head, “it’s—this song—it’s from one of my favorite movies…” She gazed over at the musicians, letting the music wash over her, everything else slipping away.
After a moment, Discord very gently guided her along with him, his steps (and her enchanted ones) unexpectedly delicate. “It is clearly quite the song to be able to distract you so wholly from my attempts at the apology I still owe you.”
Fluttershy sighed.
Be that as it may, it still wasn’t quite enough to distract her from the fact that she hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place. And that this year’s gala had become almost as much of a disaster as last year’s. And that she was tired. So tired. And frustrated.
“You really want to make it up to me?” she asked Discord suddenly.
Discord blinked at her in a momentary confusion. “Was there some part of what I said that conveyed ambiguity? I assure you, my dear, there was none intended.”
“Discord,” she interrupted firmly. She held her gaze firm with him. The words out of her mouth and the conviction with them surprised even her. This was bolder than she’d ever been before, but she had no desire to change course now. “My birthday is next week.”
Discord blinked again.
The corner of Fluttershy’s mouth tugged upwards in the slightest of smiles. “You could… maybe… come up with something then.”
Discord considered this for a few seconds longer before pulling Fluttershy back into their dance. Their legs were gliding again, but now their bodies were very close, close enough so that Discord could speak directly into Fluttershy’s ear. “I’ve never celebrated a pony’s birthday before,” he said in a low voice.
Fluttershy stammered a bit. “W-well, this will be the first of many, I’m sure.”
“Such faith in my social standing.”
“Absolutely,” Fluttershy responded instantly. Her conviction was enough to pull Discord away from her by a degree or so to give her a slightly surprised glance. “You’re a natural for parties and celebrations. You’re fun and clever and creative…”
Fluttershy didn’t consider herself one to butter someone up like this, but Discord was brightening so much at her words that she couldn’t help but lay it on just a little thick. She knew his ego couldn’t resist a challenge like this, after all. “And I know that you’ll come up with something amazing for my birthday.”
The song ended, the lights came back on, and some of the ponies on the dance floor began to disperse, still leaving the odd couple in the middle a wide berth. It took just a second more for Discord to grin, suddenly twirling Fluttershy into a deep dip, even though the music had ended. Fluttershy let out a small squeak of surprise at this new position, the skin underneath her fur feeling tingly.
Discord leaned in close again, keeping his response for her ears alone.
“I won’t let you down.”