“Love never fails.”—1 Corinthians 13:8
The next morning Fluttershy woke to find her mane all tangled around her head and neck, which was strange considering that the night before she’d taken care to arrange it specifically so that it wouldn’t tangle, but at the moment she had more important things to think about than that little mystery. Namely, Applejack’s return! Even now, after her theory had been proven correct, Fluttershy was still adjusting to the fact that a friend she’d believed dead for the past ten years had secretly been alive all that time. What must those years have been like for Applejack? Fluttershy couldn’t imagine just leaving her friends with no word of explanation, even if it was for their own protection.
Then she thought of the creatures that had been the cause of Applejack’s decision to go into hiding in the first place. Had they indeed been part-changeling, part-windigo? It would certainly explain a lot but there was no way to know for sure until Twilight finished examining them. Her earlier tests had been hampered by the fact that the bodies had been badly burned, but the part-windigo theory had given her new ideas on how to test them for windigo essence. Then more disturbing questions popped into Fluttershy’s head. If the changelings were part-windigo, how had they gotten that way? Where had they come from? Why had they killed those first six ponies? And what if there were more of them out there? The fact that nothing had attempted to attack her or the rest of her friends after those two changelings had been killed seemed to indicate that they had been the only ones out there, but the thought of there still being more of them filled Fluttershy with unease.
Suddenly she found herself longing for Discord’s embrace. They had known each other for such a short time compared to her other friends, and yet his touch was the one she seemed to crave the most. Then she remembered mentioning the day before that helping her find Applejack might mean he could be trusted enough now to go where he chose. She knew she should be glad at the opportunity to give him his freedom, and she was, but at the same time she now felt an unexpected twinge of sadness at the thought of no longer seeing him every day. She hadn’t realized until then just how much she would miss his company.
Going into the main room in search of a comb for her tangled mane, she saw Discord draped bonelessly over the couch, looking more like a wet sock than the master of chaos. He didn’t wake up when she passed him, but his dragon tattoo suddenly raised its head, tugging itself free from the side of Discord’s neck in the process, and watched her. As Fluttershy reached the opposite end of the room, the tattoo lowered its head, melted back down through its owner’s coat and into his skin, and, still watching Fluttershy, let out a contented sigh. This sent a whoosh of inky flames shooting out of its mouth and over Discord’s neck. The wasp tattoos all swarmed up away from the flames to the base of his skull, buzzing loudly. That buzzing seemed to act as an alarm because the draconequus jerked awake with a startled cry, and briefly thrashed about before falling off the couch.
Startled by the noise, Fluttershy whirled around to see him now sprawled on the floor with what seemed to be a long line of singed hair on the side of his neck near his dragon tattoo’s head.
“Oh my goodness. Discord, what happened?” She hurried over to him, and reached gingerly toward the burn on his neck, but before she could touch it, the draconequus flashed himself off the floor and up into a standing position.
“Oh, nothing,” he said breezily before grasping the edge of the burned patch and tugging on it. The scorched area peeled off like dried glue, exposing unscorched fur underneath. The wasp tattoos drifted back down onto the sides of his neck, buzzing in a grumbling sort of way. Wadding the strip of burned hair up into a ball, Discord glanced back down at Fluttershy. “Did you do something new with your mane? I like it that way.”
Fluttershy blushed though she wasn’t quite sure if it was from pleasure that he had complimented her mane, or embarrassment at what a fright it was at the time. “Oh no, it just got all tangled up somehow, and I was trying to find a comb to fix it.”
She started to turn away from him, but his paw stopped her. “If you must insist on ruining this exquisite example of chaos…” His look was regretful, but his eyes playful. “Then allow me.”
The couch shot forward and Discord plonked down on it with Fluttershy on his lap. A mirror flashed into existence in front of them and Discord angled Fluttershy’s face toward it.
“Hold still now.” He flipped all of her tangled mane up into a mound on top of her head. With her neck now exposed, she noticed that the bruises there had gone greenish. Not an appealing color, but better than the dark purple they had been for the past several days.
Discord skimmed his talons over her bandages. “While we’re at it, let’s change these bandages.” He conjured some fresh bandages before sliding one of his talons under the bandages on her head, and bringing his fingers together like a pair of scissors, cutting the bandages.
“Wait, hold on Discord,” said Fluttershy after he’d pulled the bandages off. Leaning closer to the mirror, she turned her head to get a better look at the stitches on its left side. “I think these stitches can come out now.”
Discord repeated his scissor-fingers movement on the stitches and gently pulled them out before smearing Fluttershy’s mane down so that it was once again growing out of the bare scalp where the scar was. “There we go.”
Then he leaned back and began twisting his fingers into her tangled mane. As Fluttershy watched in the mirror, she noticed that he seemed to be tying her mane into even more knots rather than untangling it, but decided not to question this.
“Discord, I was planning to go see how the others are doing, and find out when they’re throwing Applejack’s Welcome Back Party.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She frowned at his disinterested tone. Because of the way the mirror in front of her was positioned, his image cut off just a bit above his shoulders, preventing her from seeing his expression. She started to turn her head to look over her shoulder at him.
“Whoop, hold still,” he warned just before she felt a sharp tug on her scalp. Deciding that it was probably best not to twist about too much when his hands were buried in her mane, she resumed her original position.
When she had mentioned the other ponies and a party, Discord’s brain normally would have started musing on ways to stir things up, but at the moment the big thing on his mind was his feelings for Fluttershy. He couldn’t remember exactly how he’d fallen asleep after realizing that he was in love with her, but the next thing he knew he was sprawled on the floor with the object of his affection gazing down at him. He had felt flustered after being jolted awake in such a way and had quickly tried to cover this by acting casual. Or at least his idea of casual. When he’d gotten her in his lap, he had considered just blurting out his feelings for her right then and there, but then he’d remembered her reaction when he’d jokingly sprung that “I love you, marry me” statement on her and he hesitated.
What if she reacts the same way?
He considered this troubling thought for about two seconds before dismissing it with a mental snort. Oh, please. She was just startled, that was all. Still, he decided it would probably be better to ease her into things this time around and make it clear he wasn’t joking. But how to ease her into it?
That had never been his strongest point, and trying to figure it out with her sitting right there on his lap was proving to be harder than he thought. By then he’d turned her mane into a hopelessly snarled mess and leaned back a bit further to study his work. Then he suddenly pulled on a chunk of knotted hair and Fluttershy reflexively shut her eyes, bracing herself for a painful tug. But the tug turned out to be much gentler than she expected and the next moment she felt her mane fall down around her. Opening her eyes, she saw that her mane was now completely detangled.
She knew that she should have been used to him doing that sort of thing by now, but she couldn’t help asking, “How’d you do that?”
“Trade secret, my dear. Trade secret.”
Later that day Discord teleported the two of them to Carousel Boutique—the first place on Fluttershy’s list of places to visit that day—but made no move to follow Fluttershy when she started to go inside.
She looked back at him questioningly. “Aren’t you coming with me?”
“No, you go ahead and have fun with your friends. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, if you’re sure...” Fluttershy had just started to turn back toward the boutique’s door when Discord suddenly scooped her up and pressed his forehead against hers so that they were eyeball to eyeball.
“I’ll just be waiting for you back at the cottage,” His eyes narrowed, and his voice took on a sly tone. “With a surprise.”
Fluttershy frowned at him, causing his shaggy eyebrows to tickle against her forehead. “Discord, what are you—?”
His eyes lost their seductive look and his voice shifted back to its more light-hearted tone. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough, my dear. Now run along.” With that, he kissed her right on the nose with a comically loud “mwah!” before setting her down and disappearing.
For several seconds Fluttershy just stared at the spot where he’d been standing. There had been no mistaking it that time. He really had kissed her! But why? Had he just meant it as a joke? The exaggerated smooching sound he’d made seemed to indicate that.
Discord reappeared at the cottage. All right! he thought, clapping his hands together. Let’s do this!
He’d hoped that being away from Fluttershy for a bit would help him come up with a way to tell her his feelings. Let’s see, how do ponies go about doing this sort of thing? Then he laughed at the absurdity of the question. What do I care how ponies do this sort of thing? I’m not a pony!
But how do you do this sort of thing? a little voice in his head sneered. You’ve never been in love before.
Hmm. He’d have to think on that some more. Even after the time he’d spent with Fluttershy, he was still so accustomed to stirring up disharmony and getting under ponies’ skin, that the concept of liking a pony, let alone being in love with one, was strange to him. Admittedly the fact that, in pony years he might very well be old enough to be her many-times-great grandfather did not bother him. He hadn’t lied to her when he’d told her he didn’t know whether he was mortal or immortal, nor what his lifespan would be if he was the former. The centuries he had spent as a statue had thrown whatever lifespan he might have had completely out of whack, and he wasn’t sure if it had ever been completely in whack to begin with.
When Fluttershy went into the boutique, she heard Rarity’s voice coming indistinctly from one of the dressing rooms. She wondered if Apple Bloom had come in that day, but when she peeked in the dressing room, she saw that the pony Rarity was talking to wasn’t Apple Bloom, but Big Mac.
“Oh, Fluttershy, just the pony we wanted to see. How are you?” Rarity asked, suddenly noticing her.
“I’m doing all right. I just came to see how you were doing then I was going to head over to Sugar Cube Corner to see how Pinkie’s doing with the party planning.”
“Actually the party’s been postponed, at least for today.”
“Oh, why?”
“Well, Applejack and Twilight went back to the Crystal Empire today to sort things out with Amberlocks’ Orchards. Applejack has quite a lot of employees who depend on her now so she can’t just abandon the orchard and go back to Sweet Apple Acres. Then there’s also the changeling information Applejack’s been collecting. Since she never found a potion to see through changeling disguises, Twilight thought it would be a good idea to have one, especially if there are any more of those transparent ones around. If they’re really part-windigo, a potion that would reveal regular changelings might not work on them even if it does exist.”
Fluttershy frowned. “Wait a minute, you weren’t there when Applejack mentioned that. How did you know about her theory that they were part-windigo?”
“Oh, Twilight told me before she and Applejack left. She also told Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie so they went off to put the rest of Equestria on alert for signs of any more transparent changelings.
“Oh, by the way, Big Mac wanted to talk to you about something.” Rarity gave the big stallion a light nudge before trotting out of the dressing room. She winked at Fluttershy as she passed the pegasus. Fluttershy watched her go curiously before turning her attention back to Big Mac. He looked extremely nervous, shuffling his large hooves, and swallowing repeatedly.
Fluttershy tried to put him at ease by smiling encouragingly. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I-was-wondering-if-you’d-go-out-for-lunch-with-me,” he said in one quick breath quite unlike the usual drawl he spoke in when he bothered to use more than one-word replies.
Wha—? Fluttershy’s eyes went wide. Was he asking her out on a date?! She’d never even thought he was interested in her.
“I...” She wasn’t sure how she intended to reply, but as she looked at him, and saw just how much effort it had taken him to ask her out, she heard her mouth say, “Sure.”
Meanwhile in Fluttershy’s cottage, Discord was doing some remodeling for Fluttershy’s return, trying to make it look as romantic as possible. Angel Bunny had crawled off to hide under Fluttershy’s bed as that was the only place Discord didn’t touch with his magic. Redecorating the place didn’t take more than a few quick finger snaps; the problem was that the draconequus kept changing his mind, then changing it back when it came to how he wanted the place to look. He had tried something conventional like a ballroom one might see in Canterlot, but he couldn’t look at it long without wanting to flip everything askew. He had tried making it look like a peaceful garden but many of the plants came out looking distinctly carnivorous. And were carnivorous, and distinctly ill-mannered at that. They had taken some dealing with. Once that was done, he even changed the place to look like his idea of the perfect room with non-Euclidean angles and designs. But as pleasing as he found it, he couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that Fluttershy might find it uncomfortable, a feeling he normally thrived on inspiring in others, but not this time, and not with this pony.
“Oh, I give up!” Changing the room back to normal, he flung himself backward onto the couch in a fit of indecision. Glancing down at his long body, he suddenly noticed that the tattoo ordinarily coiling around it from neck to tail had disappeared sometime during his remodeling. He quickly checked the rest of his body, found it to be tattoo-free as well, and, giving his face a quick rubbing-over with his hands, discovered that his piercings and the jewelry in them were also gone.
Hmm, maybe it would be better that way. Maybe he shouldn’t try to make things so complicated. Maybe he should just tell her his feelings as he was now, without his ... coverings between them.
Fluttershy and Big Mac were seated at a table outside a fancy restaurant Rarity had suggested, looking over their menus. Fluttershy frowned behind hers.
What is wrong with me? The friend I thought was dead for ten years is back. I’m at a nice restaurant on a date with a stallion any mare would love to go out with. ... I should be the happiest mare in Equestria right now! ... But I’m not.
She glanced quickly around her, trying to figure out what was wrong.
It wasn’t the restaurant. Was it the fact that she was out on a date? When it came to such things, Fluttershy had often thought it might be nice to have a special somepony, but she’d always been too shy to ever make a move. She had never really been attracted to any particular stallion, but she had always harbored a vague image, little more than an outline, of what she felt would be the perfect one for her.
Her eyes flicked to Big Mac and only then did she realize that over the past several weeks that vague outline had become clearer and bolder.
Oh my goodness! Fluttershy ducked back behind her menu, her eyes wide. Oh my goodness! Am I ... am I…?
At one time, a stallion like Big Mac might have fit easily into that outline ... but now that outline had a long serpentine body and mismatched limbs.
Am I in love with Discord?!
Of course she knew that she loved him as a friend. After all they’d been through, there was no doubt of that, but she had never really thought of him as more than that. At least not on a conscious level. She had realized earlier that she’d miss Discord’s company if he left, but only now when faced with the possibility of dating another stallion did she also realize Discord was the one she wanted to have that position in her life.
She peeked over her menu at Big Mac again. He still looked as nervous and uncomfortable as he had when he’d first asked her out, which made Fluttershy feel rather sorry for him. But at the same time, she kept thinking: I don’t want to be here with you. I want to be with Discord.
She didn’t want to hurt the big stallion after he’d worked up the courage to ask her out, but in her heart she knew she had to make her feelings clear to him. Gathering her courage, she laid her menu down.
“Big Mac, do you really want to be here?”
His head jerked up, and, though he didn’t speak, the look in his eyes clearly said ‘Nope.’
Fluttershy kept her voice gentle. “Then why did you ask me out? Weren’t you going out with that teacher, Cheerilee?”
Big Mac looked down at the table. “I was, but then Applejack disappeared and I didn’t have time to date because I had to take over most of her chores.”
“Then why did you ask me out instead of going to see Cheerilee now that Applejack’s back?”
Big Mac looked embarrassed. “It was Rarity’s idea. I went to ask her what would be a good way to thank you for finding Applejack, and she said you’d like something like this.”
“But you don’t feel right about this because you don’t like me that way, and you don’t want to lead me on?”
He looked up to meet her gaze and nodded with a guilty “Yup.”
Suddenly relief flooded Fluttershy. “That’s all right, Big Mac.” A smile tugged at her mouth. “I like you as a friend, but I actually only said ‘yes’ to this because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings by saying ‘no.’ And all this time I’ve been worried about leading you on as well.”
Then the irony of the whole situation hit the two ponies and they burst out laughing. Here they were, trying to go through with this date to spare each other’s feelings, only to discover that being dumped was exactly what they both wanted.
“Friends then,” said Fluttershy, reaching across the table as she got her laughter under control. “Just two good friends celebrating the return of another good friend.”
“Eeyup,” said Big Mac, reaching across the table as well to lightly touch her hoof with his own larger one.
I can’t wait any longer! Discord flashed himself out of the cottage and began popping from place to place throughout Ponyville, looking for Fluttershy. Yes, he’d said he’d wait for her to get back to the cottage, but now he felt that if he kept his love for her a secret any longer he’d explode both figuratively and literally.
Once you find her, just snatch her up from wherever she is and tell her how you feel! Tell her you’re crazy about her, and that you don’t want to leave! Oh, where is she, where is she, where is she?!
Then he spotted her down below, sitting at a table, outside a restaurant ... holding hooves… with Big Mac.
The draconequus felt his whole body go rigid at the sight, and he hung there suspended in midair. The two ponies were looking at each other, smiling and laughing together in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.
The pain was greater than anything he could have imagined. As Fluttershy smiled at Big Mac, Discord suddenly wanted nothing more than to flash down there between them and literally reduce that stallion to jelly.
Then what are you waiting for?! You could do it in under a second! Go on! Do it! Do it! Do it!
But this new pain seemed to have paralyzed him.
Then Fluttershy reached across the table toward Big Mac. Unable to watch them any longer, Discord wrenched his gaze away. In a daze, he teleported back to Fluttershy’s cottage. When he materialized in her main room, he felt a sharp pain in his tail and snapped his head around to see that his tail had materialized through the back of the couch. He’d been so preoccupied he’d forgotten the couch was there. He teleported forward a few feet and rubbed at his now-intact tail. The pain in it faded quickly but the same could not be said for the pain in his heart.
He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but he had simply taken it for granted that Fluttershy would be thrilled that someone like him, with the power to alter reality with just a snap of his fingers, could have feelings for a pony such as her. He had been so caught up in this new sensation of being in love that the idea of Fluttershy preferring some plain ordinary stallion over him had never even entered his head. Nor had he ever thought that such an idea would hurt so much.
When they’d first met, he had spent multiple days trying to break her without success. Instead she had opened him up with her kindness ... only to now break him in a way he had never seen coming.
Well played, Fluttershy. he thought bitterly, shaking his head and choking out a short humorless laugh quite unlike his usual one. Oh Discord, what a fool you are.
As his head drooped lower, the loose ends of the scarf Fluttershy had given him swung down into his line of vision. Then he felt the familiar ink shooting up his back. With his eyes burning, he tore the scarf off his neck, wadded it into a ball, and hurled it into the trash before vanishing in a flash of light. In the split-second before he disappeared, the first tear fell from his eye to splash on the wooden floor.