//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Assistant Veterinarian 
// Story: Discord Gets a Job 
// by kingfish 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 1: Assistant Veterinarian

"No! Not that! Anything but that!" Discord melodramatically held the back of his lion paw to his forehead and leaned until he was bent over backwards. Twilight was underneath him, pushing and prodding him and trying to get him to make progress toward the dark, dank hole of gloom and despair that was Fluttershy's cottage.
"Why are you being such a foal?" asked Twilight in frustration. "I thought you two were best buddies."
"Why, we were!" said Discord, smiling in an attempt to better get the point across. "We were bestest friends, closest comrades, birds of a feather, chummy chums, peas in a pod, bread and butter—"
"Okay, I get it!" Twilight gave another strong push, but this time it was too much and Discord fell backward on top of her. She poked her head out from under his left wing and huffed upward to get it out of her face.
"Uuh!" she groaned. "I've had enough of this!" She wriggled out from under his body and stood up, looking down at the poor draconequus with contempt. "You will get up and march yourself right up to that cottage, or I'll convince Celestia to turn you back to stone."
"But... whyyy?" Discord pleaded, sticking out his lip.
"You are supposed to be applying for a job, not whining like a lost puppy. And I thought a veterinary job at Fluttershy's was the best place to start. So get off your butt and walk."
"Ugh, fine. Party pooper." Discord flashed into a standing position and began walking toward the cottage. "Might as well get it over with."

Animals of all shapes and sizes ran, scampered, crawled, slithered, and flew in all conceivable directions within the tiny dwelling belonging to Fluttershy. Suddenly, a small rabbit inexplicably came out of the fray rocketing through the air toward the draconequus as he and Twilight entered. Discord simply split his head and neck down the middle, but Twilight was not so lucky, being directly behind him. Angel impacted her face with a smack, sending a carrot flying past her head into the yard.
"Angel! You come right back with that carrot!" Fluttershy appeared and galloped toward the door. Angel hopped off Twilight's head and bolted across the yard, grabbing the carrot mid-stride and scampering into the bushes. "You'll ruin your appetite!" yelled Fluttershy after him, but it was no use. The pegasus stopped in the door frame and suddenly seemed to notice the duo.
"Oh," she said. "Hi, Twilight." She refused to say hello to Discord. Eesh, for such a timid pony, she could hold a grudge. How long had it been? Two days, at least. Possibly three. They all should have gotten over it ages ago.
"Hello, Fluttershy," replied the princess. "Celestia has tasked me with supervising Discord while he attempts to gain a job. I decided that since you two were such good friends, then he would be less likely to get bored, and so this would be the perfect place for him to start."
"Oh, my." Fluttershy shifted on her hooves, clearly uncomfortable. About what, Discord could not say. "I-I don't know if that's such a good idea..."
"Please, Fluttershy? It couldn't hurt, could it? Just let him tend to some of the more self-sufficient animals; help him get used to the responsibility."
"Well... If it's important..."
"Oh, thank you so much, Fluttershy." Twilight hugged her friend tightly. "Tell you what," she said when she pulled away. "I'll take you to the spa or something sometime as remuneration."
"Oh, um, okay."
"I'll go get something to eat, and I'll be back in two hours. Don't let him get into too much trouble."
"Trouble?" he said. "Me? Why, when have I ever gotten into trouble?" A glowing yellow halo appeared above Discord's head and he was suddenly clothed in a quite flattering white robe. Twilight rolled her eyes.
"I'm just going to assume that was rhetorical." She spread her wings and gently flew away, leaving Discord to his own devices; while under Fluttershy's supervision, of course.
"So, Flutters," said Discord, clapping his forelimbs together, "what first?"
"Uh, well, first you can... uh... go and get some fish for Harry. He's been ever so hungry since he started getting ready for hibernation."
"And... what will you be doing?" Fluttershy walked uneasily past him out into the yard.
"I, uh... I need to go find Angel. I don't want him to ruin his dinner."
"Talk to you later?"
"Um, okay. Later." With that, Discord set about getting to work.

Fluttershy's cottage was chaos. Not the somewhat controlled and completely ridiculous chaos that Discord had engaged in after his escape from stone imprisonment, but the uncontrollable, unfixable, and more normal chaos of a house full of wild animals.
Discord was sitting tied up in a cauldron with several animals marching around him carrying sticks like picket signs. In fact, now that he thought about it, the situation seemed oddly familiar, but he could not seem to place it.
The main reason he had not yet escaped was that he was too busy trying to fix things elsewhere. Every time he thought he had fixed a problem in one place, a completely unrelated problem poked up somewhere else.
As soon as he finished putting the pieces of the shattered tortoise back together, the beavers started burping flurries of snow. And when the snake finally got his alarm clock turned back into a head, the oven opened and suddenly sprouted hundreds of purple tentacles. Okay, so maybe it wasn't the normal type of chaos. But it was still hard for Discord to fix. Naturally, it was at that moment that Fluttershy walked in.
"Wha...?" She must have been at a loss for words. Good thing, too, as her mouth decided to jump off her face of its own accord and blew a raspberry at her. "Dmm-hmm!" she mumbled through her sudden lack of a mouth.
"Sorry, Fluttershy!" he snapped his eagle claw and her mouth was back to its rightful place. "I didn't mean to do that, I swear! Everything's just happening on its own!"
"You better not be lying to me," said Fluttershy skeptically. Discord put up his paw and claw innocently.
"I'm not! Honest! Every time I fix one thing, something else goes wrong. Oh, pooh. Hold on." He waved his arms as if sculpting something, trying to put a rabbit's suddenly Ponyasso-like facial features back in order. It only made matters worse.
The rabbit's face ended up ticking like a clock, with the two ears and a bundle of whiskers acting as the hour, minute, and second hooves respectively, and his protruding tongue acting as the pendulum. His eyes moved back and forth like a metronome, causing him to stumble in disorientation as he tried to walk away. Discord chuckled inwardly, but opted not to voice his amusement.
And of course, then Twilight walked in to pick up Discord, as it was 1:00 and two hours had passed. Obviously, since Twilight was there. Honestly, what other conclusion could you have come to?
"What IS this?!" she cried.
"I can't help it!" said Discord in frustration. "It just keeps happening and I can't fix it!" As if in response to his sentence, several large holes opened up in the floor, each one forming a large soap bubble as if being blown into from below. Several of the bubbles picked up animal passengers on their way toward the ceiling, carrying them higher and higher. Discord sighed and telescopically extended his eagle claw to pop one of the bubbles, causing all the others to pop in turn. It then retracted to its normal length.
"I think I know what's wrong," said Fluttershy. The attention of both the other occupants of the cottage turned to her, and did not deviate despite the fireworks display suddenly occurring in the kitchen sink.
"I think he's bored," she explained. "And he must be doing this without meaning to because he needs to do something."
"Fluttershy," said Twilight, "that's brilliant! It makes sense now! Discord's body must be overflowing with chaos magic wanting to escape, and the fact that he's bored out of his mind working a job could only be aggravating the problem! We need to get him to do something engaging, something to occupy his brain..."
"How about a game?" said Fluttershy. Twilight snapped to attention.
"That's perfect!" She paused and her expression became confused. "What kind of game?" Fluttershy thought for a moment.
"What about Candy Land?"
"Ooh, goody!" said Discord, clapping his mismatched hands together. "I love that game!"
Twilight quickly got out and set up the gameboard on the table, laying out and shuffling the cards. Discord flashed away his bindings and pulled up a chair, with Fluttershy doing the same. They each took a piece to play; Fluttershy took the yellow pony and Discord the blue, and they set them on the first square of the board. Discord turned his piece into a blue draconequus, much to the exasperation of Twilight.
Discord drew the first card and immediately started giggling excitedly.
"Ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo! I got orange!" Discord set his piece on the first orange square, then slid it over the connected path. "I get to use the Rainbow Trail! Your turn!" Fluttershy drew a card of her own. It was a red card, giving her a move of a measly single square.
"Aww," said Discord. "Well, that's not fun."
"No," said Fluttershy simply.
"Oh, Fluttershy, are you still mad at me about the business with Tirek?"
"I was never mad at you. I'm just disappointed."
"Oh, come now, Fluttershy. Surely I can cheer you up." When Fluttershy drew her next card, she discovered that it was a triple red. She looked at Discord and raised an eyebrow, and he quickly caved. "Oh, fine, I'll leave the cards alone." The triple red card then morphed into a single green and she moved accordingly. Discord thought he heard Twilight saying something about the chaos winding down, but he was too occupied with Fluttershy to pay attention.
"Would you at least try to cheer up?" said Discord.
"I don't know how I can cheer up after you betrayed me like that." Discord's ears became limp and drooped, and a few seconds later his horns followed suit. Even his small beard seemed to lose some of its poofiness.
"You think I betrayed you?" he asked sadly. Candyland was now all but forgotten in favor of more serious issues.
"You did betray me," replied Fluttershy with a small sniffle. "I taught you the concept of friendship, and offered to be your friend even before you understood it. Then when Tirek came back you decided to leave me behind." Tears were in her eyes now. "I just don't see why you would do something like that."
"Are you going to finish your game?" Twilight asked in slight annoyance. She may as well have been a ghost.
"I... I guess I thought that Tirek was my friend. He helped me, and he welcomed my help in return, and I thought that was what friendship was. But then he took my magic, and I realized that he wasn't really my friend; I was just another tool. If helping someone and getting help back wasn't friendship, I didn't know what was."
"Please finish your game," said Twilight.
"But I do now," he continued. "I learned that friendship means staying with someone even through tough times, no matter what. Tirek left me as soon as I was no longer useful, because he wasn't my friend. But I'll never leave you, Fluttershy, and I hope you won't leave me, either, because we are friends. Right?"
Fluttershy sniffled, smiled, and nodded, then quickly grabbed Discord in a firm hug. She rested her head on his shoulder and cried a bit, but not too much, because she had her friend back. Twilight poked her head in and interrupted the two.
"I would really appreciate it if you finished your game," she said urgently.
"You wouldn't have another breakdown if we didn't, right?" asked Fluttershy.
"No! Well... maybe." And so the draconequus and pegasus resumed their game of Candyland.

"I think we need a change of protocol," said Twilight as they left Fluttershy's cottage.
"And what would that be?" Discord replied.
"From now on, to avoid more incidents of catastrophic boredom, you will be able to pick which jobs you apply for."
"Oh, goody!"
"But," Twilight said quickly, "all jobs must be first approved by me for application. No law enforcement jobs for you."
"Party pooper."