Chapter 11
“An honest witness does not deceive, but a false witness pours out lies.”—Proverbs 14:5
They decided to cremate Angel’s remains so that Fluttershy could take his ashes back to her cottage later on. Fluttershy couldn’t bring herself to look inside the urn, not even to remove the bloodstained scarf and earmuffs, so Discord conjured a special smokeless fire into it that would burn its contents but nothing else.
“That fire will probably take an hour or so to do its job,” he said, dusting off his hands. “In the meantime, I’m going to start looking through these profiles.” With that, he plucked a pegasus apple from the ceiling and smacked it open. Then he felt Fluttershy tap him on the hip and looked down at her.
“Discord, we need to let Big Mac know about ... Angel.” She choked on her pet’s name but she managed not to break down. “And Apple Bloom is supposed to get back here soon. We have to let them know to be careful in case Angel’s ... in case his killer is still out there.” That killer or killers have already murdered seven ponies so what’s to stop them from going after Apple Bloom and Big Mac?
Discord looked down at her, then up at the ceiling, then down at her, then up at the ceiling again. Fluttershy was shifting from hoof to hoof, wondering what was taking him so long. If the killer was out there they couldn’t afford to—
The draconequus snapped his talons and a light flashed around Fluttershy’s neck, making her squint. When the light vanished, she looked down to see a short purple tube-like whistle hanging from a string around her neck.
Discord leaned down until his head was only a little higher than hers, and took the tube-like whistle in his fingers. “I’m going to teleport you back to the farm house. When you’re ready to come back or if you see any ponies apart from your two friends, especially unicorns or pegasi, just blow this. I’ll hear it and be there—” he vanished and reappeared standing beside her with his paw resting lightly on her head. “—in a flash.”
Fluttershy studied the whistle then gave it an experimental blow. It produced no sound, but Discord promptly clamped his hands over his ringed-and-studded ears. “Stop it!”
“Sorry!” Fluttershy whispered, quickly letting go of the whistle so that it bounced against her chest on its string.
The draconequus waggled a finger in his ear. “I probably should have warned you about that. Nopony else will hear that thing no matter how hard you blow into it, but I’ll be able to hear it no matter where I am.”
Another snap of his fingers and Fluttershy was suddenly standing in front of the farmhouse. She wondered briefly why Discord had sent her back alone, but decided that could wait until later. She looked all around her but saw no other ponies and no tracks in the snow save for the ones she and Discord had left earlier, and some smaller ones that could be Apple Bloom’s.
Turning back to the door, she knocked on it. “Big Mac?”
After several knocks, it opened to reveal Apple Bloom. “Fluttershy? What are you doing here?”
“I need to speak with you and your brother. Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I just got back here. Haven’t seen him yet.”
Fluttershy looked behind herself again but the land still looked as empty as it had when she’d last checked it. “May I come in? This is important.” She tried to keep her voice calm but she couldn’t prevent a slight tremor from creeping into it.
“Uh, sure,” said Apple Bloom, opening the door. “What’s going on?”
“Let’s find your brother. Then I’ll explain.”
They wandered through the house, calling Big Mac’s name but got no response. They looked out the windows but saw no tracks leaving the house. The unease that had been gnawing at Fluttershy’s stomach began to grow into genuine fear. Had the killer gotten to Big Mac already? He was a lot bigger and stronger than any of the other victims had been; what sort of pony or ponies would it take to overpower him?
“What are you worried about, Fluttershy?” Apple Bloom asked.
Turning to the young mare, Fluttershy told her of the same things she’d told Big Mac earlier that day. She spoke of how she believed Applejack had been killed because she’d discovered who was behind several other murders. She spoke of how she and Discord had peeked into her memories, and of how they’d come to the farmhouse intending to share what they’d found out with Granny Smith.
“How is your grandmother doing, by the way?”
Apple Bloom’s ears drooped. “Not that great. She’s still alive, but they think she’s only got a fifty-fifty chance.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Apple Bloom.”
Apple Bloom sighed. “It’s all right, but ... what about the case? Do you know who killed Applejack?”
The hopefulness in her voice made Fluttershy wish she could say yes, but all she could say was, “Not yet, but I think we’re getting close.” Then she proceeded to describe looking into Big Mac’s memory.
“Then we saw you up in Applejack’s room—”
“Now hold on!” Apple Bloom interrupted. “What are you talking about? I never went in Applejack’s room that day!”
The vehemence in the younger pony’s voice startled Fluttershy. “But your brother’s memory showed you up there—”
“Well, then he’s remembering wrong because I never went up there!”
“Now, Apple Bloom,” Fluttershy said gently, trying to calm her down. “Maybe you just don’t remember going up there, but if we could look in your memories—”
“I’m telling you, I never went up there!” Apple Bloom shouted and this time Fluttershy saw tears in her eyes. “Do you think I’d lie about that?!”
“No, no! I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant—”
All the anger seemed to go out of Apple Bloom and she looked away from Fluttershy, wiping furiously at her eyes as tears fell from them.
“Oh, Apple Bloom,” Fluttershy murmured, wrapping her foreleg around the younger mare’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Fluttershy...” Apple Bloom whimpered. “I just miss her so much! Even after all these years. ... If I knew anything I thought would help find her killer, I’d share it but I don’t ... And I guess ... when it sounded like you were implying that I was hiding something it just ... I don’t know.”
“It’s all right, sweetie,” Fluttershy said, pulling her close and rubbing her back soothingly. But at the same time she felt torn inside. Had Big Mac remembered things wrong? Could she have possibly remembered things wrong as well? Or had Apple Bloom just lied to her?
Then she remembered that Big Mac was missing and that the important thing to do right now was to find him.
What if he went outside to look for Angel and followed the tracks Discord and I left? Now that she thought about it, their tracks had gone both ways and were far from neat, so another pony could easily have walked in them without leaving an obvious trail of their own. And the fact that Discord had just flashed her over here would explain why she might not have seen Big Mac.
“Apple Bloom, I need you to listen to me. After we finished looking into your brother’s memories, we couldn’t find Angel, but when Discord and I got back to the cabin ... we ... found him. Angel, I mean.” The memory of her pet lying there with his head smashed in brought fresh pain to her heart, but she pushed on. “He’d been killed. We think Applejack’s killer did it and may still be out there.”
Apple Bloom gasped and Fluttershy turned her so they were face-to-face.
“Now listen. I’m going out there to look for your brother, but I want you to be here in case he comes back in the meantime. Lock the doors and don’t open them for anypony except me or your brother. Even if it’s somepony you know. Do you understand?”
“But what about—?”
“I said, ‘Do you understand?’”
“Yeah, I understand. But what about you? What if you run into the killer?”
“If I see anypony, I’ll call Discord. He gave me a way to contact him and he’ll be able to help me out.” The calmness with which she was able to say this impressed even her.
Fluttershy walked slowly over the trail she and Discord had made, watching for any sign of Big Mac or of any other pony. Then as she was passing through the orchard about halfway to the cabin, she turned around to look behind her and saw a red shape appear over the top of a hill near the farmhouse.
He must have followed our tracks out here; then made a wide circle back around to the house, Fluttershy thought, relaxing as she saw Big Mac disappear into the farm house. At least he was all right.
Then she heard a loud snap above her head and several clumps of snow landed on her. Looking up, she gasped and dove to the side. She landed sprawled out in the snow and a tree branch almost as large as she was smashed into the snow right where she had been standing.
As she lifted her face out of the snow, she heard another loud snap above her. She rolled instinctively to the side and saw a second huge branch land in the imprint she’d left in the snow. She didn’t roll very far before she felt a sharp yank on her hindquarters. Her tail extensions had gotten caught under the branch!
Then she heard more branches snapping above her like firecrackers. She lunged forward, wincing as she felt her tail extensions rip out. It didn’t hurt as much as it would have if her actual tail had been pinned but it still hurt. She couldn’t fly with her winter jacket on, and she was too busy trying to avoid the snapping branches to blow the whistle Discord had given her. She zigzagged this way and that, trying to go in the direction of the cabin but no matter which way she went a huge branch always seemed to be crashing toward her. Snow and large splinters of wood pelted her and, while her jacket provided her with some protection she still felt sharp stings on her face and hindquarters.
Then a branch as large as one of her legs struck her a grazing blow on the left side of the head! Pain flared up, and, clamping a hoof to the side of her head she felt that it was already wet with blood! But there was no time to stop and examine the wound as still more branches hurled down toward her.
She had no idea how long she was trapped among those trees, dodging their branches but it felt like hours. Blood ran into her eye, blinding it but all she could do was blink and occasionally swipe at it while she moved. Then suddenly she reached the edge of the trees! She charged forward and just as she cleared them she heard another branch land just behind her, its twigs scraping over her hindquarters like grasping claws. The sensation conjured images of the branches coming to life, seizing her, and dragging her back in among them, and the thought of that lent a fresh burst of speed to her limbs. She raced up the hill to the cabin, slipping and stumbling several times on the melting snow but barely slowing. Reaching the cabin door, she yanked it open and darted in. Slamming the door behind her, she leaned back against it, trying to get her breath back and calm her pounding heart.
It’s okay. It’s okay now, she kept repeating in her mind. It’s okay now. It’s okay—
Then a gray head with a pierced face popped up over the back of a couch that hadn’t been there earlier in the day, startling her. With a small yip, she jumped to the side away from the couch, overbalanced, and fell over backward, her hind legs shooting up over her head. As she lay there, she heard Discord chuckling. Blushing at the thought of how ridiculous she must currently look, she kicked her back legs to bring herself into a sitting position.
Discord had laughed at his friend’s botched acrobatics routine out of habit, but his amusement promptly died when Fluttershy sat up and he saw the blood running down the left side of her face.
“What happened?” he demanded, but Fluttershy ignored him as she pushed herself up onto all fours and ran to the bathroom.
“What happened?” he repeated, lifting into the air above the couch, the wasp tattoos on his neck swarming about agitatedly.
Fluttershy stared into the bathroom mirror. The whole left side of her face was smeared with blood. It had made a deep crimson streak in her mane, and was soaking into the shoulder of her winter coat. Then Discord vanished from above the couch and reappeared right behind her, stretching his neck down so that his head was close to hers.
“Fluttershy, what happened?!” She cringed away from him as if his words had struck her like a whip. Realizing that she must think his anger was directed at her, he quickly tried to soften his voice. “Fluttershy, I’m not angry with you, I just...” He fell silent, suddenly not sure how to complete the sentence. Seeing her bloodied and trembling had awakened something in him that not even her earlier grief for her pet had.
Fluttershy let out a shuddering breath. “It’s all right, Discord,” she said, pressing a dry washcloth to her head to put pressure on the bleeding. “I guess I’m just still on edge.”
“Fluttershy,” There was no anger in his voice this time, only concern. “What happened? Why didn’t you call me to flash you back here?”
Fluttershy took the cloth away from her head to see how much blood it had soaked up before pressing it back in place, still shaking. “I’ll explain in a bit, Discord. But right now I need to take care of this cut.”
“Here, I’ll take care of it,” said Discord, raising a hand to snap his fingers.
“No!” she gasped.
“No?” he repeated, not sure if he’d heard her right.
She shook her head. “Don’t try to fix it magically. It could be dangerous.”
As a general rule ponies treated magical injuries with magic, but let ordinary wounds like scrapes and bruises heal naturally. When they tried to do otherwise, their bodies tended to react badly. Something about forcing their bodies to repair themselves at an unnatural pace. Fluttershy wasn’t sure how similar Discord’s magic was to pony magic but after what she’d just gone through she didn’t want to take any chances. Discord himself was about to disregard her words and just go through with casting the healing spell when she looked up to meet his eyes.
“Please, don’t do it.” The fact that the fear in her voice was directed at him caused him to halt. He wanted to get rid of that wound on her head, but not if his intended method got that sort of reaction out of her. He lowered his hand and, though Fluttershy continued to shake, she did seem to relax a fraction.
“Thank you,” she said before using her free hoof to fumble with the front of her coat. “Um, could you maybe help me get this off—?”
Her jacket and whistle vanished and reappeared dangling from Discord’s eagle claw. She smiled her thanks at him and he gave her a two-fingered salute.
“Anything else I can do for you?” he asked, draping the coat over his lion arm like a napkin.
“Well...” Fluttershy looked down at her body. She had plenty of scratches on her hindquarters but fortunately none of them looked like anything a little time and cleaning wouldn’t take care of. The main concern was the cut on the left side of her head, which was still bleeding pretty badly. Looking back into the mirror, she tried to pull her mane back to get a better look at the wound but it was high enough on her scalp that her hair was hiding it and the blood was causing the strands to stick together. “I need something to shave this area here, so I can get a better look at this wound.”
“Ahem, if I may,” Discord said, gathering up her mane as if intending to pull it into a ponytail and giving it two light tugs before raising his pierced brows.
“You want to take my mane off?”
“It could save you some time.”
“Alright.”
Discord got a firmer grip on her mane and whisked it painlessly from her head. Fluttershy suddenly felt strangely naked with her mane and tail extensions gone, and wrapped her free foreleg around her body. Interpreting her discomfort as being cold, Discord conjured a towel covered in swirls of yellow, orange, and blue. The towel glided through the air to Fluttershy and wrapped itself around her.
“Oh, thank you.” The fact that he’d just offered her something to cover herself up with when she hadn’t even thought to ask was unexpectedly sweet. However she couldn’t help grimacing when she looked back in the mirror to examine the wound on her now-bald head.
“Ooh, that looks bad,” said Discord, stretching his neck around so that he was looking at the left side of her head upside down.
“I know. It will probably need stitches, but I can’t be sure until I get this blood cleaned off.”
“Ah, say no more.” With a snap of his talons he flashed her into the tub. A second flash and a pair of smaller wooden tubs filled with water appeared at the other side of the room. A third flash sent Fluttershy’s mane into one of the tubs where it lay looking like a hairy jellyfish, and a fourth flash sent her coat into the other where it proceeded to scour the bloodstains off itself with a scrub brush. Discord used a fifth and final flash to teleport himself over beside the tub that contained Fluttershy. He put a hand on the showerhead and the pipe supporting it suddenly went limp and floppy. Holding the showerhead by its now-flexible neck, he turned it away from Fluttershy before clicking it on and testing the water on the palm of his paw. “How do you want your water, my dear? Hot or cold?”
“Warm, but not boiling hot.”
“Hmm. What do you think?” he asked, holding the nozzle out to her.
She put her hoof into the stream of water and found it to be pleasantly warm. “That’s good.” She drew her hoof back to grasp the towel wrapped around her. “Um, could you give me some privacy?” Even though she knew he’d already seen everything there was to see, the idea of him seeing it now without her mane and tail made her uncomfortable.
“Nnnno,” he said, stretching the word out.
“Well, can you at least shut your eyes while I take this towel off?”
“Nnnno, leave it on.”
“But it’ll get all wet.”
“I know. Leave it on anyway.”
At that moment, blood ran into Fluttershy’s eye. Blinking in an attempt to clear it, she reached for the showerhead only to have Discord move it out of her reach.
“Leave this to me, darling.” With his free hand, Discord pushed her back until she was reclining against one of the tub’s sides, then brought the showerhead nozzle around to guide it over her head. Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut and tilted her head back as the water ran over it. The water spilled down over her neck and body as Discord moved the showerhead slowly back-and-forth and side-to-side. She braced herself for the unpleasant sensation of the drenched towel clinging to her but got a surprise.
“This towel you gave me isn’t getting wet!” Her eyes popped open and she blinked through the water at Discord. “You knew it was going to do that, didn’t you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice oozing mock innocence.
As Discord repeatedly passed the showerhead over Fluttershy he noticed that it seemed to wash not only the blood from her head but the tension from her body. Pulling the dry towel more snuggly around her soaking body, she rested the uninjured side of her head against the tub. Her eyes started to drift shut and her shaking eased. She let out an occasional snort or splutter to keep the water out of her mouth and nose but between those sounds her breathing had become steady and regular.
It would have been a sweet picture if it weren’t for the large gash in her scalp. When he’d first gotten Fluttershy in the tub, Discord had slipped on his mask of cheerful fooling around but underneath he felt far from cheerful. When she’d mentioned going back to speak with Big Mac, he had opted to stay at the cabin and look over profiles because he had been reluctant to resume his pony disguise, an excuse for sending Fluttershy back alone that now seemed disgustingly flimsy to him.
He had sent her back there, fully confident that he’d thought of everything to keep her safe. And instead this had happened.
Fluttershy heard Discord’s voice cut through the soothing spatter of drops around her. “Fluttershy, how did this happen to you? And why didn’t you call me?”
She drew a deep breath and snorted the water away from her face again before speaking in as calm a voice as she could. “When you sent me back to the farmhouse, Big Mac wasn’t there but Apple Bloom was. I told her about what we’d discovered so far, then told her to wait at the house while I went out to look for her brother. The only tracks leading to the farmhouse were ours and Apple Bloom’s, and the only ones leading away from it were ours, so I thought maybe he’d followed our tracks. I started following our tracks, looking for him, and then saw him come over a hill behind the farmhouse. I guessed that he must have followed our tracks and then made a wide circle back to the farmhouse. I was going through the orchard at the time and ... well ... the branches above me just started breaking and I was too busy trying to dodge them to call you. Then one of them struck me on the head.”
By then the wound on her head had stopped bleeding and Discord clicked the showerhead off before letting go of it so that it slithered back into its original position.
He propped his elbows on the edge of the tub and studied her. “And you didn’t see any other ponies around while you were out there?”
“No...” Fluttershy hesitated then added. “But there might have been some out there that I didn’t notice while trying to avoid the branches.”
He cocked an eyebrow before tapping her forehead lightly with a talon. “Should we check that?”
This suggestion reminded her of her conversation with Apple Bloom. “Discord, when I spoke with Apple Bloom, I mentioned seeing her in Applejack’s room in Big Mac’s memory and she denied ever going in there during the family reunion. Is it possible that the memories we saw were wrong? That our perceptions colored them somehow?”
“Absolutely not,” Discord replied matter-of-factly. “When I pull those memories out, all we’re looking at is what the senses recorded at the time. It’s the same as a camera snapping a photo. If we saw it, then that’s what happened.”
This news both relieved and saddened Fluttershy. “Well, that’s good to know ... but it also means that Apple Bloom lied to me.” Why would she do that? Had she been threatened by the killer or killers? If so, what could they have threatened her with that would prompt her to withhold information on her own sister’s murder?
“Discord, do you think that you could ... No! No, never mind.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing.”
“What is it?”
“Well, I was just wondering if you could look in Apple Bloom’s memories to see what she’s hiding.” Fluttershy mentally cringed that this thought had even entered her head. Yes, Apple Bloom had lied to her, but Fluttershy also knew that the young earth pony’s grief for her sister had been genuine. The idea of sending her partner to forcefully wrestle the memories out of the young mare felt like a betrayal of trust and a violation of the worst kind. She couldn’t allow that even if it might solve the case.
Discord’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “It was tricky enough to find the correct memories in your brain when you were just relaxing. If you’d tried to hide them, I probably could have found them eventually, but like I said earlier: it’s like trying to pick the right dirt speck out of muddy water.”
Relief filled her at this statement. “Then forget I brought it up ... but let’s try what you suggested about looking in my memory again. Maybe we can find some clues in there.” Closing her eyes, she felt Discord’s fingers prod her head as she thought back to her experience in the trees. She shivered as she remembered the terror that had filled her and winced when Discord’s fingers poked a little too close to her scalp wound. She’d have to check it soon to see if it needed stitches.
It took Discord less than a minute to get the memories he needed. When he had finished and started transferring them into his own mind, Fluttershy toweled herself off (the towel seemed to soak up the water like a sponge but remained pleasantly dry) and climbed out of the tub. Still covered in the dry towel, she moved to examine her wound in the mirror. The wound had stopped bleeding for now but looked as if it might start up again soon. And she was definitely going to need stitches.
She found the first aid kit, smeared the wound with some ointment to keep it clean, and began threading a curved suture needle. Holding the needle between her hooves, she held the thread in her mouth as she guided it through the needle’s eye. It wasn’t until she’d finished knotting the end of the thread that she realized there was a problem with her intended plan of sewing herself up. She had often stitched up her animal friends when they had been injured but she’d always done it with the needle held in her mouth. She couldn’t very well do that now and her hooves didn’t have the dexterity needed to guide the needle properly.
“Discord, are you very familiar with sewing or needles?”
“I did these, myself.”
She turned to see him propped on his stomach in midair with two duplicates floating nearby. One of them held a tattoo machine and was bent over a coil of the original’s dragon tattoo where it stretched over his back, while the other was busy driving a needle through one of the original’s nostrils.
“Well, I need you to help me stitch up this gash.”
“What?!” The duplicates vanished and Discord spun his body around to bring himself into an upright position as he stared down at her in alarm. Jabbing holes in his own face and body was one thing, but the idea of sticking his friend with a needle ... repeatedly...
“Please, Discord. I need it sewn up before it starts bleeding again and my hooves aren’t steady enough to do it.”
Well, when she put it like that...
“You’re aware it will likely hurt,” he warned.
Fluttershy swallowed but didn’t back down. “I know it will, but I can deal with it since it’s necessary.”
You did want to help her, he thought to himself. Not quite what he’d had in mind, but...
He snapped his fingers and Fluttershy suddenly found herself wearing a hospital gown and lying on an operating table with a bright light shining down on her.
“Discord...?” She was wondering if he had just teleported her to a hospital to let somepony else take care of her, when she caught sight of him on her right. The draconequus was gloved, gowned, and masked as if gearing up to perform open heart surgery.
“Oh, you can’t expect me to perform a delicate operation like this without the proper equipment now, can you?” he said, stretching out a surgical glove so that its cuff snapped theatrically against his wrist. “You ready to be put under?” he asked, wheeling an anesthetic machine over beside the table.
Fluttershy gave him a small smile, but her voice was urgent. “No, Discord. That will take too long. Just stitch up the wound now, please.”
“Ah, my apologies.” He sent the machine shooting across the room with a flick of his fingers and it vanished in a flash of light just before it crashed into the wall. Moving to the table, he rolled Fluttershy over onto her side so that she was facing him with the left side of her head aimed ceilingward. Then she felt his gloved claw pinching her split-open scalp together. She heard him take a deep breath then let it out slowly. “You ready, darling?”
Fluttershy braced herself. “Yes.”
She felt the knuckles of his gloved paw caress her cheek lightly. Then she felt the sting of the needle. She winced and couldn’t help letting out a whimper.
Discord hadn’t turned the cabin bathroom into an operating room just for the sake of a simple gag; he’d had another reason as well. Being dressed in the surgical gear, especially the mask, freed him from the need to keep his expression under control. He’d done all right so far but he wasn’t sure he could with the task ahead.
At the sound of Fluttershy’s whimper, he halted, not wanting to cause her more pain by forcing that curved needle farther through her scalp. Fluttershy turned her gaze up to him, but since his eyes were the only part of his face currently visible she couldn’t tell what was going on behind them.
“Discord, don’t stop. I need you to do this, please.” she begged.
Who’d have thought that in the space of roughly a month he could go from cheerfully tormenting her to not being able to stand causing her pain? But she was right. She did need him to do this. Gritting his teeth, he slid the needle all the way through her scalp. She squeezed her eyes tight shut but didn’t whimper again. He pulled the stitch tight, and readied himself for the second stitch. After that first whimper, Fluttershy allowed no more than grunts to escape her as he worked.
Finally the wound was stitched shut and he tied the thread off in a fancy bow.
“Now I’ll have you know that hurt me worse than it did you,” he said, dabbing at the wound with some gauze.
Fluttershy laughed weakly. “Yes, but not in the same place.”
Discord blinked several times, then chuckled. “Ahh, well-put, my dear.”
A few minutes later, Fluttershy was sitting up on the table facing Discord while he helped her bandage her stitched-up wound.
“Well, shall we take a look at that memory?” he asked as he finished tucking in the last strip of tape that now encircled Fluttershy’s head.
“I think we should.”
“Your wish is my command,” he said, placing a gloved hand on her still-bald, but now bandaged head.
Fluttershy was surrounded by a flash of light and when it cleared she was suddenly back among the trees with their branches crashing around her. It wasn’t like the other times when her past-self had carried her along like a passenger. It all felt so real! All the fear and desperation poured back into her as she ran this way and that with the clawing branches raining around her. Then she cried out in pain as she was struck once again on the side of the head.
Oh, no! No, please!
It was all snow, and sharp sticks, and heavy branches!
Please no!
Then suddenly she was surrounded by a second light and when it cleared she was lying on her back on the operating table again. She was shaking and her eyes were bulging. The light above her struck them painfully and she squeezed them shut, curling onto her side away from it.
“Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.” She tried to clasp her hooves together but they were trembling too badly.
Then a pair of gloved hands took her gently by the fetlocks and held her hooves steady. She opened her eyes to see Discord kneeling beside the table. He was tall enough that he towered over her even in that position but it still generated a sense of closeness and intimacy that hadn’t been there when he’d been standing.
“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I had no idea that would happen. I honestly didn’t.” Discord’s voice was unusually subdued. Most of his expression was hidden behind his mask but the eyes above it showed concern.
As her terror died away, tears of regret filled Fluttershy’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Discord. I don’t know what happened. I just sort of panicked. It all felt so real. How could it have—?”
He snaked his tail around and wiped the tears from her eyes with its tufted end. “I think it was because that memory was still fresh in your mind, so putting it through mine made the already vivid details even more vivid. Also you were under a lot of stress at the time that memory was forming, whereas you were relaxed during your memory with Applejack. I think all those factors combined to act as a trigger that didn’t affect me, but caused you to feel as if you were living it all over again.”
“Oh,” she breathed, taking in what he’d just said.
He looked down at his gloved hands, still clasped around her fetlocks. “I never should have put you through that—”
“Discord, it wasn’t your fault,” she said sharply. “You didn’t realize that would happen anymore than I did. And I agreed to do it. It wasn’t like you were forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do.” She rotated her hooves in his grasp enough to press them against the undersides of his wrists before going on in a softer voice, “Please don’t blame yourself. What we need to concentrate on now is the case.”
“You’re right,” he said, letting go of her fetlocks. He raised a hand and her mane, now completely dry and free of bloodstains, flashed into it. Beckoning for her to sit up, he began attaching it to her scalp, taking care to keep it out of the way of the bandages that circled her skull like a headband.
Then he scooped her off the table before making it disappear, turning the operating room back into the bathroom, and flashing them into the main room. Fluttershy was still wearing the flimsy hospital gown, but Discord had swapped his surgical gear for his scarf and snow vest. Fluttershy’s coat was hanging by its sleeves in front of the fireplace, doing pull-ups. Discord flashed it away from the mantle and back onto Fluttershy’s body, simultaneously making the hospital gown disappear.
“What are we doing?” Fluttershy asked as Discord swung her around onto his back.
“We’re going back to that orchard to get your tail extensions and to get a look at those branches. I didn’t see any ponies in your memory but I want to check something else.”
Discord glided over the trees with Fluttershy on his back. With her forelegs wrapped around his neck, she peered down at the zigzagging trail she’d left, noticing that it was dotted here and there with drops of blood. The branches all around and near the trail had been broken, but the rest of the trees in the orchard seemed to be fairly intact. Then both she and Discord saw a spot of pink against the snow. Swooping down to hover near the fallen branches, he flashed the extensions into his paw and then to Fluttershy’s tail. He stretched his neck down toward the branch that had been pinning the extensions, and she couldn’t tell if he was staring at it, sniffing at it, doing a bit of both, or doing something else entirely. He moved his head toward several more branches; then stretched his eagle arm down to prod at their splintered ends.
“Just as I thought,” he said, retracting his arm and neck. “These branches didn’t break under the weight of snow. They were snapped with magic.”
“You know what to do,” Discord said as they flew over the farmhouse. He flashed Fluttershy down in front of its front door, and she gave it several rapid knocks.
“Who’s there?” said Apple Bloom’s voice.
“It’s Fluttershy, Apple Bloom.”
The door opened revealing both the Apple siblings.
Fluttershy lost no time with introductions. “Apple Bloom, Big Mac, I was attacked on my way back to the cabin. We’re pretty sure it was the same ponies that killed Angel and Applejack, and we think they might come after you. I just wanted to let you know that Discord is going to put a shield around your house that only the two of you can go through. Stay inside until you hear back from me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Eeyup.”
“Good. I have to go now.”
She trotted around the farmhouse and was suddenly flashed back up into Discord’s arms high above the ground.
“I told them,” she said.
“Good. The shield’s in place. Once we get back to the cabin, I’ll do the same there. Then we’ll start working our way through the Apple unicorn profiles. See if we can figure out which of them would be strong enough magically to break those branches while still staying far enough away to remain hidden.”
He flashed them several feet above the cabin, and stayed hovering there while he shifted Fluttershy onto his back again.
“Hold on a minute,” he said, conjuring a pair of thermal vision goggles. He slipped them over his eyes, and peered through them down at the cabin. “Nope, nopony in there,” he said, removing the goggles and flashing them back out of existence.
Landing, he opened the cabin door, intending to walk inside, but he hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he came to a sharp halt. At the same time, Fluttershy’s forelegs tightened reflexively around his neck. As one they stared around the room.
Every document that made up their investigation, every note, every picture, every apple be it on the floor or ceiling ... was now gone!