//------------------------------// // Chapter 8. Proverbs 27:17 // Story: The Draconequus with the Dragon Tattoo // by A M Shark //------------------------------// Chapter 8 “As iron sharpens iron, so one friend sharpens another.”—Proverbs 27:17 After Discord disappeared, Fluttershy lay back in the bed, pulled the blankets back up over herself, and gazed up at the apple-studded web of branches that had replaced the cabin’s ceiling. She thought back on what Discord had said about picking those apples off the tree until they were down to Applejack’s killer. Seeing the various ponies’ pictures up there helped drive home the fact that behind one of those cheerful faces was a murderer in a way that the paper documents hadn’t been able to. Ponies weren’t always what they appeared to be; you just couldn’t judge a book by its cover. Speaking of not judging a book by its cover... Now Fluttershy’s thoughts drifted back to her unusual housemate. Last night as she’d lain shivering on that icy cave floor, fighting to remain conscious, she’d wished against all hope that she might be rescued. Based on Discord’s behavior when he’d first arrived, she’d never even considered that he might lift a finger to help her. But contrary to what she’d expected of him, he’d brought her back with him and tended to her while she was helpless. He had even sounded concerned when he’d asked how she was feeling earlier ... but what if that attitude was just an act to soften her up for a cruel blow later? He probably just didn’t want to lose his toy, the small cynical voice in her head warned. But what if he really has changed? another small voice asked. Fluttershy remembered how once, in an attempt to be more assertive, she’d spoken cruelly to Pinkie Pie and Rarity reducing them to the point of tears. But despite this they had been quick to forgive her when she’d apologized later. How would she have felt if her apology and attempt to later make things right had just been met with suspicion? That was different! You just got carried away and shot off your mouth. You didn’t really mean to hurt Rarity and Pinkie Pie that badly. Discord, on the other hoof, has spent the past days doing nothing but intentionally trying to hurt you, and he’s enjoyed it! But hadn’t she enjoyed the sense of power that had come with shoving other ponies around? Yes, at first she had, but she’d later regretted her actions. If that had been the case with her, was it so impossible that Discord could feel that way as well and was now trying to make amends? And what if he’s just lying about putting the information from those documents into the apples up there? the cynical voice challenged. They’re probably as empty as the one with Applejack in it. There’s only one way to find out about that, Fluttershy thought as she gathered her strength and flew up to the tree branches to examine the apples more closely. She flew to an apple with Braeburn’s picture on it and smacked it the way she’d seen Discord do with the Applejack one. The apple broke in half and she saw the picture of Braeburn in one half. In the other half was a list of biographical information. She brushed her hoof over the information and it seemed to scroll down to reveal more. Closing the apple, she moved to check several others and saw that they all too had information in them. Fluttershy was a firm believer in the idea of treating others the way you yourself wanted to be treated. It was one of the reasons she generally tried to be as soft-spoken and non-confrontational as possible. Now as she closed the apple she was holding, she thought to herself: Maybe Discord is planning to hurt me later ... but I’m going to take my chances and give him the benefit of the doubt. Over the next several days, the weather got steadily worse, but inside the cabin things were much better between Fluttershy and Discord. Fluttershy would have preferred to have earned the draconequus’s aid in a less drastic way but she couldn’t complain about the results. One day when she had finally gotten her strength back, Discord appeared next to her on the bed, magically stretching it in several directions to make room for the two of them, and got right down to business. “Now, the way I see it, this case has six questions we need to answer: what, where, when, who, how, and why. We’ve already got the answers to the first three. “Number 1. What are we trying to solve? Applejack’s death and disappearance. “Number 2. When did it happen? Ten years ago during her family reunion. “Number 3. Where did it happen? Here on this farm.” He grinned. “How about that? We’re already half way there. Now, to answer our last three questions, we have to go through our list of suspects AKA her family members and figure out which of them killed her. That’s our main goal but to get there we also have to figure out how they managed to kill her and cover it up, and why did they do it in the first place.” Fluttershy could only gape at him. She would have expected a neat little breakdown of the mystery from someone like Twilight, but not from this chaotic creature. Discord cocked an eyebrow at her. “What? Do I have something on my face?” Fluttershy blushed and looked away, embarrassed to be caught staring at him. “No—I mean, yes—I mean—” “Something stuck in my teeth?” the draconequus asked, pulling out his fang and making a show of examining it under a microscope. “No, it’s just that ... well, I, um...” Trying to find the right words to say, she fidgeted as he shoved his fang back in while watching her out of the corner of his eye. “I just didn’t expect you to say something so ... um ... logical.” Discord roared with laughter, and rolled right off the bed, clutching his stomach and kicking his legs in the air. Fluttershy wasn’t really sure what he found so hilarious. After several seconds he sat up, took one look at her face, and went into another bout of laughing. “Oh, your face,” he chuckled. Finally he got his laughing under control and said, “You do realize one must be well-versed in the ways of logic in order to break it in every way possible.” In his mind he added, And if that’s the sort of reaction I’d get, maybe I should play the logic card a little more often. It might help to up my unpredictability and really keep you ponies guessing. “I suppose that makes sense,” said Fluttershy and Discord winced as if she’d just said something obscene. “Back to business,” he said, flashing himself back onto the bed beside her. “We need to ‘prune down’ our suspect list.” A pair of oversized garden shears appeared in his hands. “Now, I doubt the killer would be anypony that died before the reunion or was born after it, so any Apples that fall into either of those categories can all go.” Shifting the shears to his eagle claw he allowed them to vanish in a flash of light before snapping the fingers on his lion paw. Immediately several of the apples on the ceiling exploded in clouds of pink smoke. The smoke from each of those clouds spread outward and some of it washed over the two detectives, morphing into splatters of whipped cream when it touched them. “Um, it might have been simpler to just pick them off the branches,” Fluttershy suggested tentatively. “Spoilsport,” Discord muttered but his tone was light and joking. He swiped a finger through the whipped cream on Fluttershy’s head as if skimming the icing off a cake. Fluttershy wiped the cream from her face, and licked it off her hooves. Admittedly, it didn’t taste half-bad but she didn’t look forward to trying to wash it out of her mane. As she was thinking this, she suddenly felt a breeze on her skull and gasped. Her mane! After licking the whipped cream from his fingers, Discord had reached back down and removed her mane from her head as easily as if it had been a wig. Now he was using it to towel the whipped cream off himself! “Discord,” she pleaded, blushing crimson, and trying to cover her now-bald head with her hooves. He just winked at her, and began twisting her mane into a thick pink rope before snapping it up at the ceiling like a whip. “Hooves down,” he ordered cheerfully, as he started flapping the detached mane in front of him like a bed sheet. Fluttershy shot him a look of anguish and his grin slipped several notches as he felt that same uncomfortable guilty twinge in his chest. He turned himself over onto his stomach in midair and brought his head down closer to hers. “Please put them down?” he asked, locking eyes with her. Fluttershy hesitated briefly, then, looking away from him and closing her eyes in shame, lowered her hooves. Discord swooped around behind her and carefully put her mane back on her head. Fluttershy’s eyes popped open when she felt him fluffing her mane like a hair stylist. All traces of whipped cream had vanished from her mane. In fact, all traces of it had vanished from the rest of her body as well. Even though she would have preferred not to have gotten covered in whipped cream, she did appreciate the fact that he’d cleaned things up after having his laugh as opposed to just leaving her to struggle with the results. He definitely wouldn’t have done that when he had first arrived. Discord meanwhile was looking up at the tree branches, his fingers continuing to automatically fluff and comb through Fluttershy’s mane. His method of removing several suspects from the list hadn’t made nearly as big a dent in it as he’d expected. He went back to thinking of the how, who, and why questions of the case. “How was she murdered?” he mused out loud. “That will be difficult to answer since we don’t have a body to examine.” “Couldn’t you just conjure her body for us to examine?” Fluttershy asked even though the idea of it made her feel a bit queasy. She’d seen her share of dead animals but another pony, especially a close friend... The draconequus shook his head. “Conjuring a random object and summoning an already existing one are different things. Summoning an already existing object takes less energy than conjuring up a brand-new one but I tend to favor the conjuring method because I need to know where the object I’m trying to summon is. “I could conjure up a copy of her corpse, but it wouldn’t show us the cause of death since I don’t know what she died of. And I can’t summon her actual corpse since I don’t know where it is. Even if I did, after ten years anything I summoned would probably be little more than dust.” Both detectives were silent for several seconds, realizing they’d hit a dead end, before Discord spoke up. “If we can’t answer ‘how?’ let’s see what we can do with ‘why?’. What reasons would there be to kill Applejack? Who benefits? What’s her will say?” “She ... she never made one.” “Well, has anypony gotten any of her things?” “No, I don’t think so. I think most of her stuff is still in her room. I think some of her clothes were donated to charity, but that was about it. And none of her extended family bought any of those things.” “I see.” Discord tapped his fingertips together as he studied the tree. “Hmm, how to narrow our search... how to narrow our search...” He looked down at Fluttershy and saw that she was holding the Applejack apple, which was empty save for her picture. “Hmm ... Maybe we should stop looking at the suspects and start looking at our victim.” Fluttershy’s head jerked up at the comment. “What do you mean?” “I think we need to focus on Applejack instead of on all these ponies. Find out if she did something that prompted one of them to kill her.” Fluttershy had to admit she hadn’t thought of that. She’d been sure she knew Applejack and that the earth pony had had nothing to hide. She had represented honesty after all. Then again, Applejack hadn’t told any of her friends about those apple-peeling rosebuds she used to make. If she hadn’t mentioned something as innocent as that, it didn’t seem so impossible that she might have kept other things from them. But surely she would have confided in her friends if she’d found something big enough to drive another pony to kill her. Then again, maybe she did intend to tell us, but was killed before she could, Fluttershy thought. Outside the wind suddenly let out a loud shriek as if to say: “Hey! I’m still out here you know!” Fluttershy glanced nervously out the window and as if sensing her thoughts, Discord wrapped an arm around her from behind and slipped the other under her hindquarters, so that she was sitting with her back against his chest. “We’ll go this way.” Before Fluttershy could ask what way he was talking about, she was surrounded by a blinding flash of light. A second later the light vanished and they were in Applejack’s room. Suddenly Discord cried out in pain and dropped her. Fluttershy landed with an “oof!” on the floor and turned to see what had caused Discord to cry out. She saw him flailing about, his body stuck through the bed’s headboard—No, wait! His body wasn’t stuck through the headboard. The headboard was stuck through his body! Then he vanished in another flash of light and reappeared in front of her. She pushed herself to her hooves. “Are you okay?” she asked, reaching a hoof toward him but hesitating to touch him, not sure if it might injure him farther. The draconequus winced and rubbed his middle. “Oh, sure. I’ll be fine in a bit. I’ve done that before. It hurts if you’re not ready for it but it’s not dangerous. At least not for me.” “You’re sure?” Fluttershy asked, peering uncertainly at his now-intact middle. Discord nodded, apparently fully recovered. “Yes, I’m sure. For me it’s like getting a paper cut. It’s not fatal but it’s not too pleasant either.” Fluttershy lowered her hoof and looked up at him musingly. “Discord, may I ask you a question?” “You just did.” “I mean besides that question.” Discord squinted one eye as if weighing the request before saying, “You may ... If I ask you something as well. Don’t answer my question and I won’t answer yours. Quid pro quo.” “Quid pro—?” “Quid pro quo. A question for a question, an answer for an answer, an eye for—eh, better stop there. Now, I’ll pose my question first if you don’t mind. Age before beauty you know.” Fluttershy laughed at that. She knew he was just joking, but deep down she couldn’t help feeling a bit flattered that he’d put her in the beauty category. Even if it didn’t really mean anything. “Go ahead.” “What’s up with the tail extensions?” Fluttershy blushed. She’d forgotten that he knew about her tail extensions. “I didn’t always have them. A couple of years back there was a storm and I was rescuing some baby mice, and a gate accidentally slammed on my tail ... and part of it sort of fell off. My tail I mean. So I’ve been taking hair out of my mane and weaving it into what’s left of my tail because it looks silly as just a stump.” Discord nodded thoughtfully. “And your question?” “Well, I was just wondering ... are you immortal?” Considering what she’d witnessed just moments ago, she was pretty sure he was and just wanted to have her suspicions confirmed. But instead his answer surprised her. “I don’t know.” “Wha—what do you mean you don’t know?” He shrugged. “I’m the only one of my kind so I can’t exactly look up what the average draconequus lifespan is. I’ve been around for a long time,” Of course, I spent a good thousand years of that time imprisoned in stone and you can’t really age normally in that condition... “but I don’t know if that means I’m immortal or just long-lived. An adult mayfly only lives a few hours so as far as it’s concerned one of you ponies might just as well be immortal but that doesn’t mean you truly are. And I also don’t know if it’s possible for me to be killed as I don’t really care to find out.” He paused a moment, then added, “The way I see it, I’m as young as I feel and I feel just fine, thank you very much.” The words came out cheerfully enough, but Fluttershy thought she caught a hint of falsehood in them. She tried to imagine being the only one of her kind. She tried to imagine going through life not knowing if she would eventually die or just keep going on forever. She’d never really thought that having a rough idea of one’s lifespan could be a blessing before but now... “I’m sorry. That must be hard. Not knowing how long you’ll live I mean.” “Forget it,” Discord said brusquely. “Let’s see if we can find—” Before he could finish the sentence the bedroom door swung open, and the draconequus promptly vanished in a flash of light. Apple Bloom and Big Mac both poked their heads in the room. “Fluttershy? What are you doing in here? Who were you talking to?” Fluttershy fumbled for an answer. Should she tell the siblings that she was looking into Applejack’s murder? Granny Smith had seemed pretty adamant about keeping it a secret but surely that didn’t extend to her own grandchildren. The wind shrieked outside the house, causing Apple Bloom to frown at Fluttershy. “And how’d you get over here?” Before Fluttershy could come up with a way to answer that, both she and the Apple siblings were startled by a flash of light. When it disappeared, there was a gray unicorn standing in its place. He shook his short black mane and Fluttershy noticed the tattoo stretched across his shoulder blades. It looked like a much smaller version of the dragon Discord had coiling around his body. In fact... Now she noticed the unicorn also had a barbed loop high up on one of his front legs, a wasp on his neck, and rings through his ears, nostril, and left eyebrow. “Um... Discord?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly. The unicorn turned and winked at her so that the Apple siblings couldn’t see it. “You called?” Fluttershy didn’t mean to stare at him but she couldn’t help it. Somehow hearing that familiar voice coming out of that unfamiliar form managed to be both reassuring and unnerving at the same time. “Fluttershy, what’s going on?” Apple Bloom demanded, looking back and forth from the pegasus to the strange new unicorn. “What are you doing here? Who is this?” In that moment Fluttershy decided to confide in Apple Bloom and Big Mac. At least about investigating Applejack’s death. “Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh,” she gestured toward the unicorn beside her. “This is Discord.” “Discord?” Apple Bloom repeated uncertainly as she and Big Mac studied the odd-looking unicorn. “I’m a terrible musician,” he explained. “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.” “Hmm.” The Apple siblings continued to study him, apparently sensing there was something a bit off about him but not really sure what. Fluttershy cleared her throat. “I know he might seem a little ... strange.” Discord chuckled at that. Oh, they have no idea... “But he’s really been a big help to me. He teleported us here from the cabin.” Then as quickly as she could Fluttershy explained what Granny Smith had told her about believing somepony from their family had murdered Applejack, how the two of them had disguised Fluttershy as Apple Butter to give her an excuse to investigate the family, and how she had then gotten stuck during the investigation and contacted Twilight for help. Before she could go any farther Discord suddenly put his hoof over her mouth. “And seeing as how Princess Twilight was too busy, I’m filling in instead,” he quickly interjected. If this interruption looked suspicious to the Apple siblings they didn’t show it. They just exchanged looks of their own. Then Big Mac nodded and Apple Bloom spoke up. “Fluttershy,” she said, sounding a bit uncomfortable. “I don’t know quite how to say this, but we’ve known you were trying to find Applejack’s killer since you got here.” Fluttershy pushed Discord’s hoof away from her mouth. “You have?” “Yup,” said Big Mac. “But Granny Smith made it sound like only she suspected Applejack was murdered.” Fluttershy paused then added. “By the way, how is Granny Smith doing?” “Napping. Not feeling so well,” said Apple Bloom before addressing Fluttershy’s earlier statement. “We don’t like to talk about it, but Big Mac and I have both suspected it as well. We’ve actually been investigating the rest of the family ourselves over the years.” Her ears drooped and frustration laced her voice. “But none of them seem to have had a reason to kill her. All of them seem just as confused over her disappearance as we are.” Looking back up at Fluttershy, she added, “To be honest, I don’t think your Apple Butter disguise fooled many of them. I think most of them agreed to give you their information because they don’t know who to trust in the family and want to know who killed Applejack as much as we do.” “Well,” said Fluttershy as she let this new information sink in. “Would you mind if Discord and I looked through Applejack’s things to see if we can find any clues?” Apple Bloom shrugged her shoulders. “You’re welcome to, but I don’t think ya’ll find much.” As soon as Apple Bloom and Big Mac were out of Applejack’s room, Discord magically shoved the door shut. No sooner had he magically locked it, then he flashed back into his draconequus form with all his tattoos and piercings back as well. “Oooh, much better,” he said, stretching his arms out in front of him before swinging them behind him and putting his paw and claw on his lower back. “Why did you make yourself look like that?” Fluttershy asked. Discord popped the vertebrae in his lower back, then proceeded to work his way up the rest of his long spine, each pop sounding like a squeaky toy being squeezed. “As much as I hated to deprive those ponies of the chance to admire my good looks, I felt that looking like a pony would raise fewer questions.” The two partners began searching Applejack’s room. The place hadn’t been completely neglected but judging by the thin layer of dust that covered most of it, the rest of the family seldom entered it. Fluttershy couldn’t help feeling a bit mortified as they started looking through Applejack’s things, as if she were somehow betraying her friend’s trust, and because of this she felt a tiny bit of relief deep down inside that Discord seemed to have no such qualms. Hopefully he might spot any things her discomfort kept her from noticing. She’d come to realize he was surprisingly adept at spotting logical patterns in things. He just preferred to tangle them up when he saw them rather than to point them out. Finally they came to Applejack’s bookshelf which seemed to contain some works of fiction, and what appeared to be financial records. Discord squinted thoughtfully at the financial books. “Maybe she was cheating other ponies out of their money,” he wondered aloud. At that Fluttershy suddenly flew right up in front of him, outraged. “She’d never do that!” “Why not?” he smirked. “That whole honesty act would have been the perfect cover-up so what makes you so sure she wouldn’t use it to her advantage?” “Because I know Applejack! She might not have been perfect but she believed in treating everypony she did business with fair-and-square!” Discord raised his hands in surrender. He hadn’t expected Fluttershy to defend Applejack’s honor so fiercely, and he almost felt a little bit jealous of the dead pony, that she could command that sort of devotion even though she’d ceased to exist a full decade ago. “That may be the case,” he said before flashing himself behind Flutteshy so that he was between her and the bookshelf. “But there might still be something hidden in one of these books. Look for anything that seems a bit out of place, an odd note, some underlined or crossed-out words, anything.” With that he picked up one of the books, and began flipping through it, taking only a fraction of a second to look at the pages. Fluttershy hovered by him, trying to read over his shoulder, but he was turning the pages so fast she only caught a word or two on each of them. Discord closed the book and let it drop to the floor. Fluttershy flew down, picked it up, and was about to look through it herself when Discord said, “Don’t bother. It’s just a list of cider customers. Nothing out of place in there. Try another book.” Fluttershy looked up at him suspiciously. “How do you know there’s nothing out of place in this book? You just barely glanced at the pages.” “That’s all that’s in there,” Discord snapped, turning and tossing another book over his shoulder toward her. She dropped the book she was holding and caught the new one reflexively. She stared at his back, wondering why he had suddenly gotten so testy with her. Then his dragon tattoo turned its head to face her, jerked its skull several times up in the direction of its owner’s head, and rolled its eyes before going back into its original position. Fluttershy bit down on the corners of her mouth to keep from laughing at the attitude the tattoo had displayed. Discord kept his back to her as he tried to decide which book to investigate next. He wasn’t sure what had prompted him to snap at her. Her question had been understandable and would have given him the perfect opportunity to brag about his abilities, so why had it bothered him? Because he was still smarting from the way she’d defended Applejack from him earlier. He had been able to tell from Fluttershy’s attitude that it had never even entered her head to question Applejack’s integrity. That, coupled with the fact that she had felt the need to question his information as if his word couldn’t be trusted had gotten under his skin as effectively as the ink that formed his tattoos. Why do you even care what she thinks of you? You’ve never cared what anypony has thought before. So what?! I’m entitled to change my mind. Isn’t chaos synonymous with change anyway? Isn’t— He shook his head. I’ve got to stop going off on these stupid tangents. I don’t care what she thinks of me! I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! I’m just going to repay her by helping her find out who killed her friend, no more no less! Once that’s done, we’ll be even, and that will be the end of it. He picked up another book, a western this time, and opened the front cover. He dipped his head down to put his face close to the book as if he were near-sighted. Fluttershy watched him, wondering why he didn’t conjure a pair of reading glasses for himself if he was having trouble reading. The draconequus had his pierced snout right up against the book’s spine. Then he seemed to push the rest of his face into the book as well. Fluttershy watched, half-expecting his head to break through the book’s spine, but the book didn’t even bow outward. Discord kept pressing his face against the book until his whole head, horn, antler and all, had vanished between the book’s first page and its front cover. Then he curved his neck over so that the book’s cover was parallel with the floor and slid his thumb back over the book’s pages, causing them to fan down toward the front cover. When the last page had fallen, he slammed the book shut, turned the book so that it was upright, opened the back cover, and pulled his head back out of the book. “Nothing in there either, except some spilled apple juice on one of the pages, and some apple pie crumbs between some of the others.” They continued looking through the books, Fluttershy doing it the old-fashioned way, and Discord alternating between that and his shove-his-head-in-the-book method depending on whether the books were hoof-written or typed, but neither found anything particularly interesting. Most of the books were just accounts of food and cider orders, lists of customers, or shopping lists. Finally Discord tugged down the last book, a particularly large one, and as he did, something small and thin that had been shoved under that book fell off the shelf onto the floor. Both Discord and Fluttershy looked down to see what appeared to be a small journal. They exchanged glances before Discord set the large book down and picked up the journal. He opened it and Fluttershy, after a brief hesitation, flew forward to look over his shoulder. At the sight of the journal’s contents, Fluttershy felt herself sag with a mixture of relief and disappointment. There were only a few entries in the journal and they seemed to consist entirely of shopping and catering lists, mostly of items that involved apples in some way. When they’d finished looking through the journal, Fluttershy expected Discord to toss it as he had the other books but instead he flipped back to the last entry. “Look at this,” he said, tapping the last list with a talon. “All the lists in here have something apple-related on them except this one.” It was a short list, just six items which he proceeded to read aloud: “Strawberry swirl, triple treat, sunny daze, cotton candy, sparkleworks, glitter glide.” “Glitter glide...” Fluttershy repeated softly, and Discord’s eyes flicked to her. “Those words mean anything to you?” “I ... I don’t know... There’s something familiar about them ... like I’ve heard them somewhere before... but I can’t place where.” She frowned and looked up at the ceiling as if the answer might be up there. Discord got up and went back to the large book he had set down, while Fluttershy began to pace, muttering “Glitter glide, glitter glide, glitter glide,” hoping it might jog her memory. Glancing back over at Discord she saw that he once again had his head literally buried in another book. She halted in her pacing to take a good long look at his tattoos. Maybe it was just because she’d spent so much of her recent time looking for patterns, but now she noticed one thing about the tattoos that she’d always missed before. The dragon, the wasps, the spirals, the barbed loops, and all the other designs all had a harsh jaggedness to them. The way they twisted over their hodge-podge canvas seemed to snarl “Back off!” Their style looked as if it would have been more at home on the body of a sullen brooding pony, rather than on someone with the careless cheerful attitude Discord usually seemed to display. Then again, his whole anatomy seemed to be a jumble of contrasting parts so maybe the fact that the tattoos seemed a bit out of place was intentional. Still as she continued to study the tattoos, their sharp designs suddenly brought to mind the quills of an injured porcupine she had cared for a few years back. When she had first approached it, the wounded creature had been frightened and had lashed out at her in self-defense. It had tried to smack her with its quill-covered tail at least a dozen times before she was finally able to calm it down enough to treat its injuries. Even after it had finally learned to trust her, the porcupine had remained suspicious of any of the other animals and would bristle up any time any of them approached it. Could Discord’s tattoos and piercings be intended as a sort of armor the way that porcupine’s quills had? A more subtle way of saying “Don’t touch me or you’ll get hurt.”? Then Discord pulled his head back out of the book and Fluttershy made a quick mental note to keep her musings on his appearance to herself. Somehow she didn’t think he’d appreciate being compared to one of her animals. As his head came up, Discord arched his back and iridescent rainbows glinted in the ink of his dragon tattoo. At the sight of those rainbows, Fluttershy suddenly realized why the words “glitter glide” had seemed familiar to her. She remembered years ago when she was still a filly in Cloudsdale, watching Rainbow Dash zipping through the air. Suddenly the blue pegasus was joined by a light green one whose mane and tail were streaked in pink, purple, and white. Glitter Glide had been every bit as athletic and competitive as Rainbow Dash and the two had often raced each other through obstacle courses. They’d never been able to determine who the better athlete was because while Rainbow Dash was the faster of the two, Glitter Glide had been the more agile. Now that Fluttershy thought about it, she couldn’t remember the last time over the past years that Rainbow Dash had even mentioned Glitter Glide. Had they had some sort of falling out? “Discord, I just remembered where I’ve heard of Glitter Glide before. She was a friend of my friend Rainbow Dash.” “But not of yours?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Well, we weren’t really enemies or anything like that, but she was really more Rainbow Dash’s friend than mine.” She looked down at the list. “If she’s the same Glitter Glide as is on this list, maybe the rest of the items are actually pony names as well.” Discord just stood there, frowning as if watching something on an invisible screen before saying, “Cotton Candy was in that list of cider customers, page 12. Glitter Glide was on page 23. Sparkleworks, Strawberry Swirl, and Sunny Daze were on page 47. And Triple Treat was on page 53.” Fluttershy snatched up the book and flipped to the pages he’d mentioned. Sure enough there were the names, just where he’d said they’d be. How could he know exactly where they’d be if he had only glanced at the pages earlier? Unless... “Discord ... do you have a photographic memory?” Discord grinned. “Oh no, I’ve got the next step up. A cinematic memory.” “A cinematic memory? I’ve never heard of that before. What’s it like?” Discord scooped her up and they were surrounded by a flash of light. When it disappeared they were back in the cabin. The Apple Family tree was still covering the ceiling, and her bed was still underneath it ... but why could she see herself and Discord sitting on the bed and having the same conversation they’d had earlier that day? “This is how a cinematic memory works,” Discord’s voice came from behind her. “Your choice of moving, still shot, color, black-and-white, with or without subtitles, various soundtracks, 2-D, 3-D, surround sound, and high definition.” There was a second flash of light and they were back in Applejack’s room again. “Wow. That was incredible,” Fluttershy said softly, and a smile tugged at the corners of Discord’s mouth as he felt a rush of pleasure similar to the one he’d had when she’d thanked him for making the Apple Family Tree. “Can you remember everything like that?” Fluttershy asked as he set her down. “Most things.” “I wish I could do that,” Fluttershy said enviously before she could stop herself. She covered her mouth and blushed. Discord’s smile wilted a bit. “Sometimes it’s not as great as you might think. For one thing, it doesn’t record on command. It’s usually on but every once in a while it shuts off for a bit.” He lowered himself into a sitting position, hands dangling over his knees. “Also it didn’t really come with a rewind/erase button. Once a memory is recorded in there I can recall every little detail of it with perfect clarity.” Looking away from her, he muttered more to himself than to her. “And there are some memories in there I’d prefer to forget.” “Do you want to talk about it?” Fluttershy asked, putting a hoof on his knee, near where his paw rested. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But if you do...” She trailed off as his fingers rose. They came back down as if he intended to drum them on his knee, but instead they came down on her hoof and absently spread over it. Discord didn’t seem fully aware of what he was doing and she wondered if one of those memories was playing through his head right now. She gave his paw a light squeeze and he absently returned the gesture. Then he suddenly seemed to notice what he was doing and jerked his paw out of her grasp. “It’s getting late. We should probably get back to the cabin.” He scooped her up again and flashed them back to the cabin. “You-ready-for-bed? You-should-be-in-bed. Let’s-get-you-to-bed. Goodnight!” he said in one long breath as he set her on her bed and almost threw the covers over her. “Discord, wait!” Her hooves wrapped around his wrists and, while he could have flashed himself out of her grasp, something in her voice made him halt. “Discord, what’s wrong?” “Nothing!” he snapped. Then his dragon tattoo twisted its head back over between his shoulder blades and sneezed a stream of orange-and-yellow ink down his back. He brought his tail up to wipe the ink away with its tufted end, only to have the ink set the tuft on fire. Fluttershy gasped but Discord just looked annoyed as he waved his tail rapidly back and forth to put the flames out. Traitor, he mentally snarled at the dragon tattoo, willing it not to move anymore. He blew on the soot-blackened tip of his tail and a fresh white tuft puffed out of it. He started to step back from the bed again only to feel Fluttershy’s hooves still clutching his wrists. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, preparing to twist his arms out of her grasp. “Discord, I want to talk about the case.” “Oh.” Yes, yes, the case. Murder, death, mystery ... all that nice stuff ... yes, let’s think about that. He seemed to relax and Fluttershy let go of his wrists. “I’m wondering,” she said. “about those names Applejack had written down in her journal. They didn’t seem to be in any of the other books as ponies she’d catered to. Just the cider customer list. Why would she pick those particular ponies out of all the ones in the cider list?” “I noticed that as well,” said Discord, stroking his beard and looking up at the ceiling. “The only one I really know anything about is Glitter Glide and I haven’t heard anything from her in years. All I can think of as to why Applejack might write her name down is that maybe she and Rainbow Dash were planning to have a three-way competition with Glitter Glide.” “Tell you what,” said Discord. “Tomorrow I’ll go out and check the registries to find out where those six ponies are now and what they’re up to.” “Should I go with you to help you look?” He shook his head. “A lot of those registries weren’t built when I was here last so I’d be teleporting into new places. If I ended up teleporting half into a wall or something by mistake, I’d be able to survive it; you wouldn’t.” Later that night, Fluttershy was in her bedroom, lying in the bed Discord had teleported back there for her. She was just dropping off to sleep when she heard the door creak softly open. She shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep as she heard Discord move across the room to stand beside the bed. For several seconds he just stood there. Then she felt the mattress go down in four places, two at the foot of the bed, and two on either side of her head. She was lying on her side, and she felt a soft breath on her cheek. Discord must be standing on the bed, bracing himself on his arms above her. Not sure what else to do, she continued pretending to be asleep while he stood silently over her. “What are you doing to me, Fluttershy?” he finally asked softly, and before she could decide whether or not to sit up and confront him, a flash of light turned the inside of her eyelids a bright red and he was gone, leaving her to muse not only on what she’d learned about the case, but also on what she’d learned about her partner.