Spike delivered it to her at her house without reading it, since it was hers, and left again quickly to go back to Twilight, who had curled up in her bedroom and started hyperventilating after Fluttershy and the others left, trying to come to terms with whatever craziness was happening. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to think about this situation. As far as she had known, none of her friends even had special someponies, so the fact that Fluttershy was suddenly pregnant and happy about it was hard to process.
Fluttershy read the letter and smiled softly at Discord’s reaction. She hoped he’d be back before her friends got there. She really wanted to talk to him before they got there. The later in the day it got, the more she was thinking that Discord would be out cold long enough that she’d have to face her friends alone.
Sure enough, they turned up at the door with no sign of Discord.
“Oh, you’re all here,” Fluttershy greeted nervously. “Um, please come in. I thought we should maybe discuss things over dinner…”
“There’s an extra place setting…” Rarity pointed out, then put two and two together. “Is… whoever the father is coming?”
“Maybe?” Fluttershy responded helplessly. “Celestia said he kind of lost consciousness when he heard, so…”
“What I don’t understand is why this is the first any of us’ve heard of all this,” Applejack demanded. Fluttershy looked down ashamedly.
“We had our reasons,” she said. “Although I suppose in hindsight the truth should’ve been told a long time ago. I’ve… been hiding quite a few things from all of you for a long time, now, and it’s high time you all knew, though I was hoping that the father would have woken up and come to help me explain by now…”
“How long is a ‘long time’?” Rainbow asked. Fluttershy gulped.
“Well… since before Twilight became a princess,” she admitted guiltily.
“That long!?” Twilight exclaimed. “And you’re just telling us about whatever all of this is now!? We’re your friends! Why couldn’t you trust us with this sooner?”
“It’s… complicated,” Fluttershy sighed, setting the example and sitting down at the dinner table. Her friends followed suit and settled in to listen to Fluttershy’s explanation. “You see, the father… he needed a place to stay, and for, um, many various reasons, Celestia decided that the best possible place for him was here with me.”
“He lives here with you!?” Rarity exclaimed. “Since before Twilight became an alicorn, you say!? How have none of us ever seen him!?”
“We’ve kept him hidden on purpose,” Fluttershy explained. “It was better for everypony when they didn’t know he was here. We started out just being friends, but… well, we started having feelings for each other. We finally admitted it and became a couple right after Tirek was defeated.”
“Why couldn’t you have told us then?” Rarity asked. “We would’ve been happy for you if you’d told us, dear, there was no reason to keep it hidden.”
“Um… I don’t know that that’s necessarily true, actually... “ Fluttershy said. She hurriedly continued before anypony could ask her why. “Anyway, after the snakebite incident, he was really worried about me, and he kind of proposed in the heat of the moment.”
“You’re engaged!?” Rarity gasped dramatically, eyes widening.
“Not anymore,” Fluttershy admitted, taking a deep breath. “We eloped a few months ago. Celestia did the ceremony and Luna was our witness.”
“You’re married!?” they all shrieked. Only Pinkie Pie continued the exclamation. “And I didn’t get to plan a reception!?”
“Oh my goodness, Pinkie, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t even thought about that. But if it makes you feel better, we can always have another ceremony with all of you. In fact, I would like that very much. At least, that is… once you get used to it. It will be a lot to take in all at once, I know…”
“But darling, you keep avoiding something important. Who is the father? Who could you possibly have married that would require so many secrets for all this time?” Rarity asked. Fluttershy floundered. She had really been hoping that Discord would be there with her for this…
“Well, it’s-” At that moment, her silent prayer was answered in a flash of light, and a frantic and oblivious Discord appeared, too frazzled to notice that he friends were all sitting around the table and staring at him in surprise, disgust, horror, shock, etc, though none of them seemed to have pieced together what was so significant about his appearance at that exact moment. That soon changed. Discord, oblivious to their audience, grabbed Fluttershy and held her up to his face excitedly.
“Fluttershy! Celestia! Letter! Pregnant!” he squeed joyfully, unable to form full sentences. Fluttershy giggled and nodded happily, forgetting herself for a moment that her friends were watching. Twilight was the first to start piecing together the truth, but the others followed soon after when Discord kissed Fluttershy firmly in celebration.
“NO!” Twilight shrieked, beyond horrified.
“DISCORD!?” the others all exclaimed together.
“Hmm?” Discord asked, turning to face them. He winced in realization. “Ooohhh, they’re already here. How much had you told them?”
“I was seconds away from telling them that it was you that I was talking about,” Fluttershy said.
“Perfect timing, then,” Discord said smugly. Figuring the secret was out, anyway, he kissed his wife again happily before curling his long body around her protectively on the floor while Rarity swooned dramatically. Pinkie took a swig and did a spit-take before saying, “WHAT!?”
“DISCORD!?” Twilight shrieked again.
“‘Fraid so,” he agreed. “Surprise!”
“Yeah, actually!” Rainbow snapped.
“Look, girls,” Fluttershy said. “I know you don’t like him-”
“Don’t like him!?” Applejack shouted. “That crook has been a pain in the patooty ever since he stopped being stone!”
“Most of it was just simple misunderstandings that you never let him explain,” Fluttershy defended. “Can you please just listen?”
“Only if you plan on explaining how in Equestria you fell for… that!” Rainbow exclaimed, gesturing vaguely at Discord, who rolled his eyes.
“It’s kind of a long story…” Fluttershy said uncertainly, but she suddenly had an idea. “Oh! But it’s all written down!”
“Oh yeah,” Discord nodded. “Who knew those would come in handy? It just goes to show that scrapbooking is NOT a useless hobby. I’ll grab them.” He stretched his arm unnaturally as it bended out the window, opened the door from the outside into the haven, up the stairs into their bedroom, and grabbed the scrapbooks, before reeling in his arms like a fishing line. “Here they are.”
“Uh… why were those outside?” Rainbow asked.
“They weren’t,” Discord replied.
“Then why did you reach outside to get them?” Rainbow demanded.
“Um… I’ll explain in just a second, but we should start from the beginning,” Fluttershy said. She took the first scrapbook from Discord and propped it up on the table so her friends could see the first page. Well, technically it was the second scrapbook that they’d made, but it was the one that was first chronologically, so… “When we first reformed Discord, he still didn’t have very much respect for Celestia…” Discord sniggered unapologetically.
“You say that like it’s supposed to shock us somehow,” Applejack said skeptically.
“Yes, well, he wasn’t exactly on his, um, best behavior for her. It was only about ten minutes after the two of them left that they were back at my door and Celestia asked me to give him a place to stay…”