//------------------------------//
// Nightmares and Admissions 
// Story: The Haven 
// by Original Usermane 
//------------------------------//

	Ponies had started gathering around the foot of the castle, so Twilight went out to do some crowd control. Once she’d calmed them down, they started coming in and celebrating Tirek’s defeat while the friends sent out a rainbow of friendship around Equestria. Discord decided he really ought to explain to the Princesses everything that had happened while they were in Tartarus, since nopony had bothered to fill them in, yet. He summoned a bouquet of prank flowers wrapped in a report on what had gone on, then presented it to Celestia with a wink.
She raised an eyebrow and took them gingerly with her magic, not trusting their seeming innocence for a second. She’d unwrap them from a safe distance away once they’d returned to Canterlot.
They spent the rest of the day at the castle until everypony had left. Fluttershy pulled Discord aside.
“Weren’t you going to tell them?” she asked. Discord sighed.
“Well, in light of everything that happened, I think I’ll let them get a bit more used to me, first,” Discord decided.
“Alright,” Fluttershy agreed. “I’m just glad you’re safe. When Tirek took your magic away, I was so worried!” She hugged him tearfully, something he returned gratefully.
“It all worked out in the end,” he soothed. “Besides, nothing could compare to how worried I was when it happened that I wouldn’t be able to keep you safe.” Fluttershy blushed.
“What are you two losers talking about?” Rainbow asked, flying over suspiciously, being unnecessarily, though understandably, protective of Fluttershy.
“Just apologizing again,” Discord lied. Rainbow gave him a suspicious glare and let it slide, flying off again.
“That was close,” Fluttershy noted. Discord nodded. “Maybe we should get home. I’m sure the animals are wondering where I’ve been, anyway, and they’re probably hungry by now.”
“I’ll follow a few minutes later so we don’t arouse more suspicion from the rainbow one.”
Soon enough they were both at home, animals taken care of, and settled down for the night. Discord had crashed on her couch again rather than returning to the haven for the night.
In the middle of the night, Fluttershy woke up screaming, and Discord, woken by the sound, was at her side in an instant.
“What is it?” he asked quickly, getting into a defensive position. Fluttershy shuddered and started crying.
“I… nightmare,” she said, wiping her still streaming eyes pitifully. “Tirek- he was back, and he took your magic, and stepped on you,and I couldn’t stop him, and-” she broke down crying again. “Princess Luna was coming to try and help, but I woke up.” Discord was shocked. She was like this because she was worried about him?
“Fluttershy, I’m fine,” he soothed, taking her in his arms gently. “Look at me.” She obeyed. He smiled and ran his paw through her hair.
“Don’t let anything like that happen ever again,” she demanded. “I was so worried.” He chuckled.
“I won-” he was cut off when she pecked him forcefully on the lips. She backed away almost immediately, blushing furiously, and hid her face in her mane as she started freaking out.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!” she panicked. “I don’t know what came over me, I shouldn’t have assumed, oh please forgive m-” Discord cut her off in the same way, lingering a few seconds longer before pulling away and finally letting all his feelings for her show in his eyes. She calmed down and returned the look. No words were exchanged past that point. They weren’t needed. Discord curled his long body into a protective circle around Fluttershy and lay one arm over her while she curled into his side and drifted back to sleep.
The next morning dawned happily- Celestia’s relief regarding Tirek’s capture was evident in the beautiful colors of the sunrise. Discord woke himself when the light hit him, still curled comfortably around a lightly snoozing Fluttershy. She shifted a few minutes later and soon awoke herself. When she remembered where she was, what had happened the night before, and that Discord was still around her, she blushed happily and buried her face in his fur. He chuckled deeply and kissed her forehead.
“Good morning, Fluttershy, dear,” he said softly. The endearment he’d used for so long took on a whole new meaning now, and Fluttershy’s heart lived up to her name and fluttered shyly.
“So, you, um, I mean, we…” Fluttershy stuttered.
“I love you,” Discord said simply, deciding that there was no point in skirting around the issue anymore. Fluttershy turned red enough to resemble Big Mac for a moment.
“I love you, too,” she said happily when she found her voice again. Discord grinned, more content than he’d been in his whole extremely long life.
Neither of them was very eager to get out of bed, just sitting in quiet contentment for nearly half an hour before forcing themselves to go downstairs and eat breakfast. Fluttershy also fed the animals, as always. Discord spontaneously pulled Fluttershy into several small kisses, and a disgruntled squirrel handed a smug Angel Bunny all of his winnings.
“Maybe we should tell them now,” Fluttershy said softly, resting her head against Discord’s shoulder while he held her and danced happily to his own humming. “I mean, they’ve opened up a bit if yesterday is any indication, and this is such happy news…”
“I don’t know, Fluttershy,” he said reluctantly, though the humming was still going on in the background. “They’re certainly being friendlier for no apparent reason, but that could have just been a victory high. I don’t want any residual anger they have for me to be directed at you… maybe we should still wait until I’m a part of the group to tell them about us and my living here. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to let on about what I’ve been doing for Celestia, though.”
“Well…” Fluttershy sighed. “I guess. But soon. I want to be able to share this with my friends.” She nuzzled him sweetly.
The rebuilding process started that day, and the Earth ponies especially were busy re-growing the huge swaths of forest that Tirek had destroyed during his rampage. The unicorns worked mostly with buildings, since levitation came in handy, and Twilight was instructing a group of them in the total rebuilding of the original library- she didn’t want to live in a castle. The pegasi were making sure the weather stayed clear and that efforts went along as smoothly as possible. Fluttershy, not being much of a flier, helped keep an eye on the fillies at the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ glowing recommendation while the older ponies worked. Discord had decided to lend a claw, too, more eager than ever to get into ponies’ good books now that there was a real reason for it.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders were technically still young enough that they should have been staying with Fluttershy, but they eagerly spread out to lend a helping hoof before Fluttershy could say anything. Applebloom was a great help to the reconstruction effort, Sweetie Belle’s constant cheerful humming lifted many spirits wherever she went, and Scootaloo delivered supplies and messages all over town in the blink of an eye on her scooter. Discord watched all of this in amusement.
“Everypony knows what their special talents are except them, huh?” he asked Fluttershy with a snicker when he was taking a little break.
“Just about,” Fluttershy agreed with a laugh.
“Why hasn’t anypony just told them?” Discord asked.
“Well, ponies believe that your cutie mark is something you have to discover for yourself,” Fluttershy explained. “Although sometimes I feel bad for them. They have such wonderful talents that they can’t even see themselves, and they’re the last three in their class who don’t have their cutie marks, now.”
“Hmm…” Discord said thoughtfully.
“Discord, what are you thinking?” asked Fluttershy warningly. “Rarity and Applejack won’t thank you if you just tell them, you know, and Rainbow Dash is protective of Scootaloo, too.”
“Oh, I wasn’t going to just tell them,” Discord explained. “I just thought I might… point them in the right direction?” He disappeared and reappeared in from of Sweetie Belle. “What a lovely voice. You’ve quite a talent.”
“Um… thanks?” Sweetie said cautiously, taking a step back. Discord huffed, gave up, and switched to Scootaloo.
“You’re quite fast on your scooter, there,” he hinted. “A real speed demon.”
“Get away from me!” Scootaloo shouted at him, and sped away. He growled after her and turned to find Applebloom. She noticed him watching and hid. He returned to Fluttershy, covering a laugh behind her hoof.
“They’re completely oblivious,” he complained.
“You think nopony’s tried that before?” Fluttershy asked. “They think about their cutie marks all the time- except when somepony is trying to subtly help them with it.”
“Hopeless,” Discord sighed, shaking his head. He watched in amusement as the three joined forces again and tried to get their cutie marks in debris clearing. He shook his head and left Fluttershy again to get back to work.
“Thanks for your help, Discord,” Twilight said, somewhat reluctantly, coming up to him. “You’ve been… surprisingly helpful.”
“This is fairly normal, actually,” Discord said dismissively. “Nearly a daily event ever since Celestia got her hooves on me.” Twilight paused.
“Huh?” she asked, confused. Discord chuckled, thrilled with the thought of Twilight’s reaction to the upcoming revelations.
“What, you’ve forgotten why Celestia had you reform me already? It certainly wasn’t so I could go off on my own and live a nice quiet life in the middle of nowhere somewhere unsupervised. She ‘had a use for my magic’. I’ve been doing this sort of thing on the east coast after the natural disasters lately.”
“But… if you’ve been working with Celestia this whole time, then why…” Twilight trailed off, trying not to be insensitive.
“Why would I betray her for Tirek?” Discord laughed. Twilight frowned and nodded. “There was much more going on there that you all didn’t know about, actually.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked suspiciously.
“The whole thing was planned,” Discord said with a mischievous grin.
“WHAT!?” Twilight exploded. Fluttershy watched from a distance in well-concealed amusement. She could guess what had just happened. Discord was really  rubbing off on her.
“I’m surprised you never questioned it, honestly. They told you that I could sense magical imbalances. Well, that included the very first time he did it. We’d already discussed a plan for me to join and double-cross Tirek before they informed you of it at all.”
“WHAT!?”
“Of course, things didn’t quite work out the way we expected,” Discord continued, taking great joy in her shocked and disbelieving expression. “Tirek double-crossed me before I had a chance to use my magic against him. That’s what I get for trying to wait for you to show up, I suppose. Ah well, it all worked out in the end.”
“You mean to say you were working for Celestia THE WHOLE TIME!?” Twilight exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t she tell me!?”
“Double agents are always more effective when the people on your side believe it, too,” Discord said as if it were obvious. “Plus, I thought it would be funnier.” Twilight groaned and face-hoofed.
“On the bright side, your newest bosom buddy is a fantastic actor,” Discord said pompously, summoning a stage around himself and taking a bow as flowers threw themselves at him out of nowhere.
“You are unbelievable,” Twilight said, shaking her head and walking off, irritated. Discord got rid of the stage and grinned after her.
“I think that went well,” Discord said, coming over to Fluttershy, who giggled.
By the end of the day, the news had spread to the rest of Twilight’s incredulous friends, who all had very similar reactions to Twilight. Which is to say, shocked and irritated. Fluttershy was the last pony that they went to, and the other four had all tagged along with Twilight. Discord had already gone home, and Fluttershy had just seen the last of the fillies safely back to their families when her friends approached her.
“Discord was on our side the whole time!” Applejack announced, shaking her head. “Darn trickster.”
“Um…” Fluttershy said reluctantly, kicking timidly at the ground. “I… actually knew the whole time.” Rarity fainted dramatically, Pinkie did a spit-take, and the others’ jaws dropped.
“You… but... how!?” Twilight exclaimed.
“He told me,” Fluttershy said, lying only by omission. “We’re close friends, and he didn’t want me to think that he’d really betrayed me.”
“I did not see that coming,” Rainbow said, shaking it off. “I mean, I guess we all knew you were closer than anypony else was to him, but I never thought about it like that. You, of all ponies, knowing about this the whole time.”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” Fluttershy apologized. “But Discord and Celestia needed it to be a secret for the plan to work, so…”
“It’s not your fault,” Twilight assured. “You were right to do what the princess asked, we’re just surprised, is all.”
They left her alone after that, all going home to process the sudden change of information they’d received. She returned home to find Discord offering her fish-shaped chocolates and flowers that had square-shaped petals.
“I figured it’s my job to be romantic,” Discord explained sheepishly. Fluttershy giggled.
“It’s greatly appreciated,” she said happily, flapping her wings so she was level with his head and giving him a kiss.
“Well, if that’s the result, I’ll have to do it more often,” he flirted. Fluttershy smiled and kissed him again. Angel, on the floor by the mousehole, gagged dramatically, but good-naturedly. He’d made peace with draconequus by now, and the new relationship had won him a bet, so he wasn’t complaining. For now.