“And that’s how Equestria was made!” Pinkie finished, unzipping her Fluttershy costume and letting it fall to the floor. Fluttershy and Discord’s jaws hung open in disbelief as Pinkie finished up the last year’s worth of the story in a perfect imitation of Fluttershy’s voice, until the last line, anyway.
“Wait… how long has Pinkie been the one telling the story?” Twilight asked, suddenly noticing when the voice changed. She had been too busy trying to think things through while the story was happening to pay attention to Pinkie’s costume change.
“Since the part where we defeated Tirek,” Discord said with a raised eyebrow.
“Why didn’t you stop her?” Twilight asked irritatedly.
“Oh, well, I didn’t want to interrupt. That would be rude,” Fluttershy said.
“Then why didn’t Discord interrupt? Rude is one of his key features!”
“Well, for one, her Fluttershy imitation is spot-on, I must say,” Discord said, applauding lightly. “That, and somehow she was getting everything right.”
“Honestly?” Applejack asked.
“Well, except the bit about us adopting a family of parasprites and training them as ninjas. I don’t know where she got that idea,” Discord said with a shrug.
“It just came to me!” Pinkie said cheerfully.
“So, Pinkie, how did you know all of that?” Fluttershy asked.
“It was pretty obvious, silly filly,” Pinkie laughed. “I mean, honestly! Whenever we all spontaneously burst into a song about ponies and friendship when we have adventures, he’s always in Fluttershy’s window, at least since Twilight became a princess!”
“I don’t remember that ever happening,” Rarity said, raising an eyebrow.
“Nopony ever does,” Pinkie said sadly, shaking her head.
“I guess it makes a little more sense, now,” Twilight said reluctantly. “The story, I mean, not whatever Pinkie Pie was talking about.”
“She did miss some bits, though!” Discord popped in. “Watch this!” He grabbed an apple and squeezed it so a bit of juice dripped down, and Fluttershy’s eyes immediately grew into slits, and fangs blossomed. Just as her ears were starting to become pointier, she launched herself upwards onto the apple, knocked it out of his paw, and immediately drained it of all of its juice. Only when it was dry did Fluttershy return to her senses. Her friends all stared at her with varying degrees of horror. Fluttershy turned a slightly irritated look on her husband.
“It would’ve been better to tell them first,” Fluttershy scolded. Discord put on his widest eyes and jutted out his lower lip slightly.
“Sorry dear,” he pouted. Fluttershy sighed. She couldn’t stay mad at that face (or any face, to be honest). She turned back to her friends.
“Um…”
“The spell didn’t work!?” Twilight exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me, I could’ve tried to fix it!”
“I didn’t want to be a bother. It’s not much of a problem, really. As long as I eat apples on a fairly regular basis it doesn’t pop up,” Fluttershy assured her.
“Plus it’s hot,” Discord supplied helpfully. Fluttershy blushed.
“That would explain why ya started buying so many more apples all of a sudden,” Applejack mused.
“One thing I don’t get,” Rainbow piped up. “How the hay has your house stayed so normal-looking with Discord living here!?”
“Well, I suppose you did want to know why he reached outside for the scrapbooks,” Fluttershy sighed.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Rainbow asked. Fluttershy stood up.
“Follow me,” Fluttershy said, and led the way outside. Once everypony was outside, Fluttershy closed the door behind them. “Alright, why don’t you all come in, and we can continue this discussion.”
“Fluttershy… we just were inside,” Rainbow pointed out.
“Yes, but… this is different,” Fluttershy said, and pushed the door open the other way so they were looking in at the half of the house that both Fluttershy and Discord thought of as home- the haven.
“What the hay?” Applejack exclaimed.
“This is where Discord was staying this whole time, ever since he was reformed,” Fluttershy explained, leading them inside. “You get inside by opening the door the wrong way. That’s why he had to reach outside. He was actually reaching into the haven, since we keep them in our bedroom.”
“You live in here!?” Pinkie exclaimed. “That’s so fun! It’s so bright and… bouncy!”
“So thrilled you approve,” Discord said smugly.
“Ever since we got married, this has become what we really see as home,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “I still work with the animals in the normal half, of course. I think the constant change here would scare them, since he redecorates almost every day.”
“It’s more than simple redecoration!” Discord scoffed. “The whole layout gets rearranged!”
“It’s givin’ me a headache just lookin’ at it,” Applejack grumbled, unimpressed by the bright swirling colors and odd shapes.
“Fine. It was about time for some remodeling, anyway,” Discord huffed, and with a snap, the whole front room had been set up like a professional conference room, though the table was oddly shaped and each of the chairs was a different color and style. They all took their seats.
“And… you say Celestia has known about this the whole time?” Twilight asked.
“Well, not the whole time,” Fluttershy amended. “I mean, she’s known he was here, obviously, but she didn’t actually know that we were together until we asked her to do the ceremony…”
“Even though I’d tried to tell her when we got engaged,” Discord piped in. “Thought I was joking, for some reason.” All of their guests gave him a flat, unamused look.
The discussion went on as Fluttershy calmly answered all of her friends’ questions and Discord made unhelpful comments.
By late that evening, her friends had enough to process to be getting on with. One by one they made their excuses and went home.
“I thought they’d never leave,” Discord huffed. “You’re pregnant!”
“I thought we’d established that,” Fluttershy said.
“Well, sure, but now I have a chance to think about it!” Discord exclaimed. He started hyperventilating and summoned up a paper bag to deal with it.
“Discord, what’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked worriedly.
“I’m having a really difficult time picturing myself as a father…” Discord grimaced. “It hurts my head.” He summoned an ice pack to help him deal with it.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Fluttershy said soothingly. “I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful father to our foal. They’ll never want for anything, I’m sure.”
“Chaos magic is useful like that,” Discord agreed hesitantly.
“And I’ll be here with you every step of the way,” Fluttershy said happily. Discord grinned.
“Thank chaos for that,” Discord said.
“Now let’s go to bed. I’m tired,” Fluttershy suggested. Discord immediately picked her up, flew her to their room, and they went to sleep.