Forever Young
“I’ve never seen Rarity act so odd,” said Fluttershy. She lay on her back, gazing into the sky, her recliner a serpent’s tail thicker and stronger than the massive limbs surrounding her. The tail belonged to Discord, who on this drowsy summer afternoon was stretched out, idly counting the clouds from his perch in the treetops. Barely stirring a talon, he stamped “73” on the side of a passing puff of cumulus.
“There we were,” said Fluttershy, “just leaving the spa, when Rarity grabbed me by the shoulders. She said, ‘I swore I’d never ask, but it’s driving me to distraction.’ Then, out of nowhere, she accused me of having a secret and pleaded with me to tell her what it was.”
“Secret?” asked Discord. “74” appeared on a blank tuft of cloud.
“She said, ‘You always look so young. However do you do it?’ ”
Discord’s tail stiffened. Its tension was palpable against Fluttershy’s back as she raced on with her story. “ ‘I’m a unicorn. I know all the tricks, and I know how to spot them. But you!’ She pressed her face right up against mine, like she was looking for a lash in my eye. ‘I can’t figure it out,’ she said. ‘You must tell me!’ ”
Discord kept his eyes riveted on the heavens. “And what did you tell her?” he asked, a touch too casually.
Fluttershy turned onto her stomach. “What could I say? I told Rarity I had no idea what she was talking about, but I don’t think she believed me. She must think I’m keeping something from her.”
A tremor passed down Discord’s tail. “How astonishing! Where could Rarity possibly have gotten such an idea?”
“That’s what I couldn’t understand, so I went and talked to Twilight.”
“Oh?” Discord’s gaze never wavered, but he was no longer branding clouds. “And did the Princess—” Discord made no effort to mask the sneer in his voice. “—have an explanation?”
“She said she had noticed that I never seemed to look any older but hadn’t given it much thought. It was a big surprise to me, because I never noticed it at all.”
Discord’s tail relaxed by degrees. “So Twilight thinks Rarity is overreacting.”
“She must be. It’s not like I’m doing anything special.”
“Of course not,” said Discord, his voice pure silk.
“Right,” said Fluttershy. She laid her head down on her crossed forelimbs. The shadows moved before she spoke again. “Maybe I just look young for my age. What else could it be?” Another pause. “I mean, the princesses never look older, but that’s because they’re princesses.” More time passed. “It would take something like an age spell... but that’s silly. Who would—”
There was a long silence, filled only by the rustling of leaves and the connecting of dots. Fluttershy raised up and sought her friend’s eyes. “Discord? What do you know about this?”
Discord whistled innocently and continued to look away. A miniature Discord, robed in white, appeared on his shoulder—or as much of a shoulder as can be found on a draconequus. Mini-Discord plucked the golden halo from above his head and held it against his chest. “Who? Little old me?” the doppelgänger answered in a wounded voice.
“Please, Discord, I need you to be serious with me.”
Discord’s tiny twin vanished. Slowly, he turned to meet Fluttershy’s gaze. “Would it really be so terrible never to grow old?”
Fluttershy’s world began to spin in slow motion as the blood rushed from her head. “What have you done?” she asked, panic edging her voice.
“It was for you—I swear. You ponies live such ridiculously short lives. You’re wide-eyed foals one minute, doddering invalids the next. You don’t get to experience any more of life than a mayfly.”
“It was you,” said Fluttershy in disbelief. “You just went ahead and did it. How could you?”
“You act as if I had turned that rabbit of yours into ear muffs—not the worst idea I’ve ever had, by the way.” Seeing Fluttershy’s stunned expression, he returned to the matter at claw. “Most ponies would beg for the gift of immortality.”
Fluttershy was on her hooves. “You could have asked! You could have at least told me!”
Discord threw his arms wide. “Why do you ponies insist on making everything so difficult? Always a hundred reasons why you can’t do this or you can’t do that. Hang the reasons!” Nooses dropped from the branches. “Better yet, give me one reason why you shouldn’t live forever.”
Fluttershy stood her ground. “I’ll give you four: Their names are Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie.”
Discord snorted. “Really? Is that all? I’ll do for them what I did for you. Think of it: all six Elements of Harmony, friends together through eternity. A snap of my talons, and it’s done.” Discord primed his claw to act.
“Wait!” cried Fluttershy. In a blur of motion, she leapt up and seized Discord’s raised claw.
“Oh, for goodness— And you wonder why I never tell you anything.”
“I’m not saying ‘no,’ ” said Fluttershy, “just ‘not yet.’ It needs to be their choice.”
Discord’s calculating stare sent a chill through Fluttershy. “As you wish, ma chère,” he said at last, accompanied by a bow of the head. “Ask your friends. I’m betting Rarity will fight to be first in line.”
He may be right, thought Fluttershy. What would be wrong with the six of us living forever?
“I can’t imagine a reason for your friends to refuse,” said Discord, “but you ponies have a talent for finding the cloud around every silver lining. I promise this, though: I’ll remove every obstacle between you and immortality.”
Rarity wore her most contrite look as she faced Fluttershy across the café table. “I’m so glad you invited me to lunch. I’ve been wanting to apologize for that awful outburst the other day. I really am a vain old thing.”
“It’s all right, Rarity. I understand, but it got me to thinking.” Fluttershy bit her lower lip, then plunged ahead. “If you could be young forever, would you?”
Rarity looked up from her menu, eyebrows arched in surprise. “Such a question.” She considered a moment. “But I’ll play along.” Rarity closed her eyes and let herself be transported to a paradise of eternal youth. A purr escaped her as a smile crept across her face. “I would save a fortune on spa treatments.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief when they reopened. “Oh, who am I kidding? Wild stallions couldn’t keep me away from the spa.”
“I’m not joking, Rarity. What if you really, really could be young forever?”
Rarity regarded her friend with curiosity. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Fluttershy’s anxious expression was reply enough.
“Well,” Rarity began uncertainly, “I can’t say I’ve never thought about it, especially with everything that’s happened to Twilight.” Rarity looked off into the distance and collected her thoughts. “As a filly, I always dreamed of becoming a princess. It only took attending the Grand Galloping Gala to teach me what a horror marrying into royalty would be. And ascending to princesshood on merit is frankly too much for a mare who has her hooves full juggling a career in fashion while being Element of Generosity.”
Fluttershy pressed. “What if nothing else had to change? What if you just woke up one morning and never got a day older?”
The mares’ waiter arrived before Rarity could respond. She waited until he left with their orders before answering. “I don’t see immortality so much being a burden as being a barrier between ponies. Think of Twilight: As hard as she tries, it still gets between her and us. We’re all long past the tiara and her being princess and an alicorn and whatnot, but there’s a chasm that will grow until our deaths make it uncrossable.” Rarity shuddered. “Sorry, Fluttershy. There’s no way I can talk about this without being morbid. Perhaps we should—”
“It’s okay, Rarity. I did ask the question. I want you to tell me how you feel.”
“Very well, if you’re sure.” If Rarity was hoping for Fluttershy to change the subject, she was sorely disappointed. “I don’t know how Twilight does it. If it was me, every visit with my friends would be a reminder of how I’d be alive long after they had turned to dust.”
This was not the conversation Fluttershy was expecting. She had been as convinced as Discord that Rarity would leap at the prospect of eternal life. Fluttershy, though, had so far opened the door just a crack. She was prepared to swing it as wide as required. “Suppose, just suppose, the six of us could live forever.”
“It would be a comfort not to go through eternity alone, and Twilight wouldn’t have to watch her friends die one after another. Still… it’s one thing to watch one’s parents age, but Sweetie Belle? The thought of attending my little sister’s funeral is obscene.” Rarity’s water glass trembled as she lifted it to her lips. “And if I had foals of my own? Would they be immortal, or would I stand untouched by time while they lived out their lives and died? That’s too high a price just to avoid crow’s feet.”
There was now pain in Rarity’s eyes, but it was no good to come this far and stop short. Fluttershy asked one final question. “What if you could grant immortality to anypony you chose?”
Rarity again took her time considering. “I don’t see the good in having some ponies be immortal and not others. There couldn’t help but be a gulf between them. For me to make one immortal, I’d have to make them all immortal.”
There it is, thought Fluttershy. That is what it will take for me to accept immortality: nothing less than Discord bestowing eternal life on the entire pony race. The scope, the audacity of such a thing took Fluttershy’s breath away. It would remake the world. It’s impossible... isn’t it? But what if it wasn’t?
Was Discord right? Did ponies suffer from a failure of imagination? It might seem impossible to her, but Fluttershy had not the slightest doubt that, if she asked, Discord would make it happen in a heartbeat. The idea of it sent a shiver up her spine.
Their waiter returned with lunch. Fluttershy picked at her salad as she debated with herself. Why not? Why not?
Rarity’s fork paused in mid-air as she echoed Fluttershy’s unvoiced question. “I wonder. A world where everypony lives forever. Could that really work?”
Fluttershy said nothing.
Rarity took a bite of her fruit plate and chewed thoughtfully before answering herself. “Ponies would still want to have families. The old need to make way for the young. What happens when the land fills with old minds in young bodies? Dear Celestia, am I so selfish that I wouldn’t give up my place to generations waiting to be born?”
There was nowhere left for Fluttershy to go. Never knowing it, Rarity had condemned their immortality to death.
A funereal pall hung over the rest of the meal. It was only after picking up her napkin and blotting her lips a final time that Rarity spoke. “Twilight might have lectured me on how foalish I’ve been. You let me discover it for myself. Thank you, Fluttershy. I don’t give you nearly the credit you deserve. I’ll try to age a little more gracefully from now on.” Rarity’s solemn expression brightened. “Enough of this depressing talk. Let me tell you who came into the boutique the other day.”
The conversation that followed was as congenial as it was forgettable. Fluttershy occupied herself, both then and on the walk back to her cottage, with how she would deliver a message sure to be both unexpected and unwelcome. She no more than arrived home, when Discord made his grand entrance in a blaze of pyrotechnics. He bowed low to Fluttershy and swept the floor with an ostrich-plumed cavalier hat. “How was your lunch with the fair Lady Rarity?”
“It was… nice.”
“And did the subject of immortality happen to come up?”
“Um… yes…” said Fluttershy, unable to hide her nervousness. “Can we sit down?”
Discord’s eyes narrowed. Fluttershy took a spot on the couch and patted the cushion. Discord materialized beside her an instant later. “I’m sensing that perhaps not all went as planned.”
“I’m sorry, Discord. You’ve made the most generous offer a pony could ever receive, but I can’t accept it. I’m asking you to remove the spell you put on me. Please.”
“But why? Doesn’t Rarity realize that I’m prepared to grant her never-ending youth? Eternal beauty? Whatever the problem is, I can fix it.”
Fluttershy met Discord’s look of bewilderment and hurt with beseeching eyes. “Some things can’t be fixed without breaking other things. It’s like trying to pick one strand out of a spider’s web. Once you do, you disturb the strand next to it, and fixing that strand disturbs two more. Pretty soon, the whole web is torn apart. Ponies just weren’t made to be immortal.”
Discord’s mouth took a cruel set. “Then don’t worry about Rarity. Don’t worry about any of them.” Pyramids of burning coals filled otherwise vacant eye sockets. “Unlike your so-called friends—” Neon quotation marks flashed in mid-air. “—I’m not anxious to see you die. They had their chance. There’s no reason why you should have to miss out on their account. Don’t you see? I’m doing all of this for you.”
An electric charge of fear shot through Fluttershy, but she refused to look away. “No, you’re doing all of this for you. As long as you have me for yourself, nopony else matters.”
Discord recoiled as if slapped, but he wasn’t giving up. He pressed the tip of a talon against his tongue. Fluttershy remembered receiving a first-hoof demonstration of how Discord could derange a pony’s mind with a single touch. She spoke his name.
That single quiet word brought Discord back to himself. The fire left his eyes. His claw returned to what passed for his lap as he hung his head. “No. You would no longer be Fluttershy. It would only be another way of losing you.” Discord took a deep breath and let it out. “I grant you your wish. I remove my spell.” Before Fluttershy could react, Discord raised his paw and snapped.
There was no flash of light. Fluttershy felt no change inside. She cocked a suspicious eye at Discord. “Are you sure?”
“I know you ponies have to have razzle-dazzle with your magic, but yes, I’m sure. Remember, though, my offer stands. The day you ask is the day you’ll have your youth back forever.”
Discord stared glumly at the floor. His sinuous form slumped. Fluttershy tried lifting the mood for his sake. “Will you still like me when I’m an old gray mare?” she teased.
Discord did his best to return Fluttershy’s smile. “It will take more than a few gray hairs to get rid of me.”
The passing decades turned Fluttershy’s mane and tail to silver. Her step slowed, and her wings no longer bore her weight. Her afternoons lost in conversation among the treetops were distant memories. But still she kept company with Discord.
The first day of fall was the kind of damp cold that cuts clear to the bone, but a roaring fire banished the chill from Fluttershy’s cottage, as she gossiped with Discord over tea and cookies. “Pinkie says that, as much fun as being a grandmother is, being a great-grandmother is even funner—um, more fun.”
On the table between Fluttershy and Discord stood a distant descendant of Angel Bunny, thumping his back foot and glaring up at the draconequus with naked dislike. Discord amused himself by goading the rabbit with faces as only he could make them. “It’s not as if you’ve gone without the patter of little paws around here.”
“That’s true,” said Fluttershy. “I suppose I’ve had the biggest family in Ponyville.” She scooped up the rabbit, snuggled him, and deposited him on the floor before he could inspire further chaotic creativity.
“Any other stunning revelations from your little get-together?” Discord said, referring to a meeting days before between Princess Celestia and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony.
“You know, every time I see the Princess, she tells me how big a help you’ve been to her. She says you’re nothing like the tyrant you were millennia ago.”
“Ah, that Celestia. Always the charmer,” Discord observed dryly. “Nopony gives a compliment like her. Perhaps someday she’ll mention that to your friends.”
“They really have come around. I know they’d be your friends too if you gave them half a chance.”
“Pinkie Pie? Possibly. Some of the others? Maybe. But honestly, whatever do you see in that Twilight Sparkle?” Discord made a dismissive noise. “What a suck-up. Being elevated to princess should have cured her, but it only made her worse. If she had her nose any further up Celestia’s butt, she could taste her food for her.”
Fluttershy drilled Discord with a look that would peel the hide from an ursa major. Frost coated her words. “Those are not just princesses but my friends you’re talking about. You will take that back and apologize this instant.”
“Very well. I retract my disrespectful, if totally accurate, remarks concerning Princesses Celestia and Twilight Sparkle and most humbly apologize.” A whip appeared. Discord leaned forward and vigorously applied it to his back. “Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!” Discord cried out between cracks of the lash. The sight would have been horrifying had he been flogging himself with anything other than a pink feather boa.
Fluttershy’s brows gathered like angry thunderheads. “If you’re only going to pretend to be sorry, I’m only going to pretend to forgive you. We need a different topic for discussion.”
Discord smirked and rewarded himself with a sip of tea. Seeing Fluttershy’s empty cup, he reached out for the teapot, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepening a fraction as he raised it. Discord slid his claw beneath the pot and moved to fill Fluttershy’s cup. Any other pony would have noticed nothing, but Fluttershy’s sensitivity to the aches and pains of her animals had only grown more acute with the years. “Sit that down, and let me see your paw,” she demanded.
“Whatever do you—”
“Now, mister.”
Fluttershy found herself looking down at seven paws. Discord rested his chin on an eighth paw and pouted.
“No more games. Please.” The last word carried all the weariness Fluttershy felt at Discord’s evasions.
Six paws retreated across the table. Fluttershy examined the remaining paw front and back, then raised both hooves and gingerly probed the joints. They were swollen, and Discord flinched when she no more than touched one enlarged knuckle. Something here was all too familiar, yet wildly out of place. “You have arthritis,” Fluttershy said in a level voice. Her attention moved from Discord’s paw to his face. “How is it possible that you have arthritis?”
Discord hastily dropped his eyes. “It’s nothing, really,” he mumbled.
“Discord,” Fluttershy insisted.
“Please, Fluttershy, you’re making something out of—”
Fluttershy’s voice quavered. “Tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
Discord closed his eyes. His next words came slowly. “Congratulations, Inspector, you caught me, as I knew you inevitably must.” He paused before confirming Fluttershy’s worst suspicions. “I’m aging.” Discord’s eyes once again met hers. In them, Fluttershy read a plea for understanding. “You wouldn’t stay young with me, so I chose to grow old with you.”
Fluttershy’s vision went gray at the edges. The sound of her own voice seemed to come from miles off. “That means—”
“Someday. A long time from now. I promise you won’t have to cry at my funeral.”
Both hooves went to Fluttershy’s mouth as tears welled up. “I did this to you.”
Discord rolled his eyes. “You ponies are convinced everything is about you. You really need to get over yourselves. Nopony put a crossbow to my head. After eleven thousand years, I think I’m capable of making my own decisions.”
“You didn’t need to do this.”
“Didn’t I just get done saying that? Of course I didn’t have to do what I did. I chose to do it.”
“But—”
Discord held up a paw and shook his bowed head. After a moment to collect himself, he spoke, this time in a gentler tone. “You once accused me of being selfish, of not wanting to share you with anypony else. You were right. I was selfish then, and I’m being selfish now.
“I stayed on the shore and watched, smug and self satisfied, while half-a-thousand generations of ponies drifted past me on time’s river. Now there’s a pony I want to join out on that stream. She’ll go to places I’ve never seen, and I want to see them with her. If she refuses, if she insists on leaving me on the shore, I’ll undo everything I’ve done and stay behind. But Fluttershy, I ask of you only one kindness: Wherever you’re going, take me with you.”
Fluttershy sat, saying nothing, then rose and came around the table to sit next to Discord. She picked up his paw and tenderly massaged it.
“You needn’t do that,” he said.
“Hush. Old friends take care of each other.”
Discord’s turn to care for Fluttershy would come years later. Failing health confined her to her bed, from which Discord never strayed far. He did all that Fluttershy could not. He tended her animals, prepared her meals, and nursed her with fierce devotion. He was at her bedside when Fluttershy drew her final breath in the depths of a late-autumn night.
Discord had promised Fluttershy that she would be spared weeping over his grave. Instead he, with all of Ponyville and the beasts and birds of the field, wept over hers. Fluttershy left Discord her cottage and with it some duties. He worked to ensure that the animals who had come to rely on Fluttershy would be cared for in perpetuity. He repaired the interior of the cottage over the cold winter months and its grounds and exterior with the coming of spring. Discord found solace in keeping up the garden that had been Fluttershy’s pride for so many years. And he saw to it that, when the time came, the cottage would pass into worthy hooves.
Life’s hold upon Discord diminished with each responsibility that he discharged. Fluttershy’s cottage was the first and only home Discord ever knew, and her couch his only bed. It was there he was found, a last placid smile on his lips, a year to the day after Fluttershy’s passing.
Ponies debated what lurked beneath that final smile throughout the winter. Many had never accepted the idea that Discord could be anything but a monster. To them, Discord’s death could only be a trick, and they waited with dread for the other horseshoe to drop.
If there were skeptics, there were also romantics, and two opinions split this second group. One side believed that at the last, Discord had looked back on his mortal years and was content. The other side argued that, as a draconequus, Discord might have looked forward, glimpsed some thing—or some pony—waiting for him at the end of time’s river, and rejoiced. It was a silly dispute, of course, for who’s to say both sides weren’t right?