Fluttershy had accepted that it was one of those days.
The first time it happened she was sitting in the grass seperating all the edible herbs and fungi she had collected in the woods that afternoon. It was a beautiful, sunny day and a light breeze meant the temperature was comfortable, not stifling. She enjoyed the sensation of the wind ruffling her mane and wing feathers and hummed to herself. Dragonflies danced about on the lilypads of the nearby pond. A few feet away lay Discord, his paw and talon flat on the ground and his head upright so that he looked like an elongated version of an Anugyptian Sphinx. He was looking out over the pond. She briefly wondered what he was thinking about, but decided not to disturb him. Quiet moments were rare things with him.
She was just contemplating the possibility of making wild garlic soup for supper, when she heard a tiny whimper.
Discord's body was rigid and he was staring straight ahead, as if he was looking at nothing, and -- rather disturbingly-- nothing was gaping back at him. But the sound he was making was not right. Fluttershy knew what an animal in distress sounded like, and sapient animals were often no different.
"Discord?"
The strangled whine continued, and Discord continued to hold himself rigid, as if any sudden movement might make part of him rupture.
Fluttershy quickly set down her wicker basket and moved towards him. She tentatively placed a hoof on the side of his body.
All of a sudden he came to life, angrily.
"NO!" he shouted. His lion claws unsheathed.
She leapt back, startled. She wasn't afraid of Discord, but she was afraid for him.
He had lain in a curled up heap for the rest of the afternoon, in a grumpy mood. He repeatedly said he wanted to be left alone, so eventually she walked back to the cottage with her basket in tow.
Later on that evening when she was chopping up wild garlic leaves, Discord came in from outside. He looked dishevelled and his eyes were redder than usual, as if he had been crying.
"Fluttershy, I'm sorry."
She looked up at him. "Are you alright?"
"Maybe...I don't know. Can we talk?"
She put down the kitchen knife and wiped her hooves on her apron, then she took the kettle off the boil and poured them both some mint tea. They both sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace, though there was no fire going.
"What happened, Discord?"
Discord held his cup of tea in his paw and talon but made no move to drink it. He seemed to be grasping the hot cup as if his life depended on it.
"Discord?"
He nearly jumped at the sound of her voice. He looked at her worried face. Then he said simply: "Fluttershy, how do I know that you're real?"
"What?"
"I can create almost anything, Fluttershy. How do I know what I'm seeing is reality? I might be back in that...that thing, suffocating and my chaos doesn't exist. I need you to tell me my chaos is real."
He punched the wall with his paw and it suddenly started raining sideways inside the cottage. The rain lashed against the two friends. Fluttershy felt her mane billowing around her as the extreme power of the storm contained in her cottage blew through it. It was freezing cold. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, then as suddenly as it had appeared, the storm subsided.
"Did you see that?" he asked her. "Did you feel it? Was that real?"
They were both soaked through from the rain. There were puddles on the floor of the cottage.
"It was real," said Fluttershy breathlessly.
After towelling them both off and talking long into the night, she learnt that he had been holding himself rigid because he was straining to take in as much sensation around him as possible. He was trying to feel the breeze on his fur, trying to smell the herbs she was crushing, trying to feel the grass between his lizard toes. Touch, Smell, Taste. These three things seemed most important.
Fluttershy was coming to realize that despite the energetic and bolshy attitude of her friend, that there was a side to him that he never let anyone but her see and today, much like that day she had found him whimpering by the pond, he was not himself. He was remembering what it was like to be a statue, whether he wanted to or not.
Today she had found him curled up in the corner of the room. He was muttering something about "nothingness" and how "everything was grey." She knelt beside him and pressed her forehead to his. They had discussed this; He was getting better with touch, and when she did this she was trying to help him ground himself.
At first she had suggested focusing on the sound of her voice, but Discord reminded her that he was able to hear everything while he was a statue, so it wasn't a reliable method for staying grounded. So now she touched his face while she spoke.
"It's okay, Discord. I'm here. You're safe. You're free."
His paw reached out to her and he stroked her face almost as if he was blind and couldn't see her, and the sensation of touch was meant to reassure him. She placed her hoof over it and he trembled. She knew if anyone else saw him like this he would likely react very badly to it; spitting bitter, sarcastic comments to whoever happened to be standing nearby. It was his way of protecting himself. He hated to show any sign of weakness.
"You're free, and I'm your friend and I won't let anything happen to you. Please trust me."
His words rushed out in a torrent. "I do. I trust you. I just don't trust my senses. I just...nothing seems real sometimes. How do I know you're real?" His voice sounded desperate and raw. "Sometimes when I was a statue I would think I had escaped and it turned out I was hallucinating and I'd come to and be back in that stillness. There was nothing. The only sense I had left was sound, and my brain would just create images to go with it and ...ngggh. Listen to me! I sound like I'm hysterical. But you could not be real. Maybe I just remember you from the maze and my mind is just trying to cope by creating someone who wants me around. Maybe all that stuff about friendship you guys said to me wormed it's way into my brain and I'm just fantasizing." He laughed, but it was a desperate laugh instead of his usual playful one.
"I'm real. I'm here. And I want you around." Her hoof stroked his mane gently. His ears flattened against his head and he closed his eyes.
"Fluttershy, I love you," he whispered.
She wasn't sure whether he meant as a friend or something more but she decided to focus on that later and continued to stroke the back of his mane with her hoof while she had her forehead pressed against his, and she told him everything was going to be okay, though she wasn't entirely sure that was true. She knew it was going to take time for him to accept that he did have her friendship, and she wasn't going to abandon him, and he wasn't going to go back into stone. Most days he seemed to believe this, but sometimes things were quite bad, and he would stare into space until he eventually snapped out of it. Sometimes it took hours. Sometimes it took days. No one knew but her.
A thousand years in stone. Why did everybody act like that was no big deal and he was just supposed to get over it in an eyeblink? As someone who was used to caring for others, Fluttershy had noticed something was wrong early on when nobody else had. She supposed in a way she couldn't blame everyone else. Discord had pretended that nothing was wrong, so how would anyone else realize?
Discord was the type of person who was loathe to show any signs of weakness to others and he would pretend everything was hunky dory even when he was screaming inside. He had done it at the gala. He was terrified that Fluttershy no longer wanted to be his friend, and what was worse was that he actually felt that was inevitable. He was being punished for what he had done, and that was just the way of the world, and what did he expect, really? But of course he had tried to hide his fears and his jealousy, because talking about it with her would just show how much he needed her. But now she knew and she would do her best to help him get through this.
On one occassion she had suggested he have a nice nap and that he might feel refreshed when he woke up later, but that had apparently been the wrong thing to say.
"I don't want to go to sleep. What if I don't wake up?"
"Huh? Of course you'll wake up. You go to sleep every night."
"Yes, but not when I'm feeling like this. I make it a point not to sleep because I could wake up and the nothingness will be there again instead of this place."
"It might do you some good..."
"I don't want to."
"Are you sure, I mean...it could be good for..."
"No, please. Don't make me. You can't make me."
She was taken aback by how how desperately vehement his voice sounded.
"Of...of course I can't. I wasn't trying to make you."
He looked at her sadly. In reality he should have been comforting her for the way he had hurt her with Tirek, but Fluttershy was stronger than she looked. She didn't even know about the nightmares. Luna did, of course.
"How about a nice bath, then? I can run you one."
He thought about it.
"I...yes. That would be nice, actually."
Fluttershy ran upstairs and turned on the tap. She poured some lavender scented bubblebath into the water as the steam rose up. She knew Discord preferred bubblegum scented bubblebath, but she didn't have any to hand. Besides, lavender was supposed to have a calming effect. Well, as calming as could be expected when you were trying to calm down the Spirit of Chaos.
She led him to the bath by his paw and he followed her.
"Okay," she said, about to leave. "I'll just be downstairs if you need..."
"Stay."
"What?"
"Stay and talk to me. What if I fall asleep in the tub?"
She had never heard him ask a question that made him seem so vulnerable. He was a being who could warp the laws of physics. He had clawed open a portal to another dimension with his sharp talons. He lived in a dimension that drove most ponies temporarily insane within minutes.
Yet he was looking at her like he was afraid he would drown if left to his own devices.
She knew that if anyone found out about this he would feel extremely embarrassed, which is why she had no intention of telling anyone.
"I'll stay."
He tentatively climbed into the tub. It was just the right temperature and he felt it soak into his feathers. Regardless of how good it felt, however, he still felt rather numb.
Fluttershy noticed the blank stare on his face again and she walked over to the tub. She gently ran some water over his head as he closed his eyes. Then she took some shampoo and lathered it into his dark mane. He sighed. It felt undeniably good. Touch.
Fluttershy could still feel the tension in his neck as she ran her hooves through his hair.
She decided to try humour. That was often the way Discord healed himself.
"Um, how about a joke?"
He raised an eyebrow. Jokes were not something Fluttershy excelled at.
"Go on, then," he said.
"Why was the dog arrested for having puppies?"
"I have no idea. Enlighten me."
"It was littering."
He cracked a smile. "That was terrible, Flutter Nutter," he said. She giggled softly. He very much enjoyed the sound of her laugh, but he couldn't trust sounds. Hearing things didn't mean he wasn't still in stone.
"Tree Hugger told me that one."
"That explains why it was so awful then," he smirked at her.
She shook her head and smiled. She knew he no longer had a problem with her friend and was teasing her. That was good, the old teasing mischievous Discord was coming back. She washed the shampoo out of his mane and held out a big fluffy towel, which Discord wrapped around himself.
"Feel better?"
"A little."
Fluttershy made them some tea then they sat on the rug by the fireplace. This time the fire was lit and Discord wriggled his lizard toes at the warmth.
Fluttershy smiled at the little movement and he spotted her expression out of the corner of his eye.
"You know, if it weren't for you I'd still be in there," he said.
"It was Princess Celestia's idea to get you out," said Fluttershy modestly.
"I know, but you pulled it off. And you know? I never thanked you for it. So...thank you."
"You're very welcome, Discord."
The draconequus suddenly realized he felt very sleepy.
"You know, I think maybe I will try to get some sleep tonight. Can I have the sofa bed?"
"Of course."
He fidgeted and looked at the floor.
"Do you want me to stay with you?"
He nodded.
In answer, Fluttershy went over to the cupboard and pulled out a big, wool throw. Discord got up and curled up on the sofa and the pegasus joined him, covering them both with the warm blanket. He wrapped his paw around her shoulders and she returned his embrace. Discord slowly felt his tumultuous, churning anxiety drain away as Kindness held him.
He felt the soft brush of her wings against his face and the smell of her mane. One day, if he ever did end up back in that grey, empty place, he would focus on those sensations until he found his way back home.