Unexpected Symptoms of Tatzlwurm Flu

by novianprincess

Chapter 8

The rain rolled in as scheduled. Watching from the window, Discord ruminated on how predictable the ponies liked their world. It was no wonder they were generally so boring as a species. Then, in a moment of clarity that surprised him, he had to admit that, with a new calamity, enemy or predator popping up as frequently as they did; maybe there was a deeply ingrained psychological reason for wanting to control the weather. Still, it made for a dull afternoon.

Fluttershy was enjoying it. She was sitting on the living room rug, a basket of sewing supplies at her side and a newly started quilt spread out in front of her. Carefully, delicately, she was pinning squares of fabric in place.

Discord drew a talon along the fogged window. The shrill, grating sound made Fluttershy look up from her work. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

He let his shoulders slump dramatically, pressing his forehead against the glass. “I’m booooorrred.”

She shook her head. “Why don’t you come over here and help me with this?”

He gave the little pegasus and her project a long look, considering.

“Come on,” she said, waving him over. “How about you pick out what colors should go where?”

His long ears pricked up. “I guess that might be fun,” he said, ambling over to her. He sat himself down opposite her, Indian-style on the rug. “You won’t mind if it turns out ugly?”

“Not as long as you like it,” she said. She pushed the basket closer to him. “Go ahead. You place them, and I’ll pin them down.”

He perused the fabric selections. She seemed to have every color under the sun. ‘Maybe Rarity’s been offloading her scraps here?’ he wondered. ‘That would explain the glitter to non-glitter ratio.’ He plucked a shimmery gold square and placed it in the center. Smiling, Fluttershy slipped a pin in it.

The draconequus built out from there, picking out each next square that caught his eye and plunking them down, patterns be damned. He was even actually enjoying himself. It wasn’t magic, but the opportunity to buck against convention was a welcome one. It was also a suitable way to kill time. He was finally starting to get some energy back, so for the first time in days he hadn’t felt like napping. The task she’d set him with, while menial, was almost fun. Not exciting, but he was still sick after all; he wasn’t quite ready for exciting anyway.

By the time he was nearly done, over an hour had passed without him realizing. He stuck the last square, a black fabric with silver spiders, and straightened up, stretching. He surveyed the final product with a touch of pride. It was a glorious mess, an absolute hodge-podge. “Perfect!” he declared.

Fluttershy giggled, setting the last pin in place. “It’s so unique!” she said. “I’ll try to have it all sewn together by the time you’re well.”
He cocked his head to one side. “That’s oddly specific. Why the deadline?”

“So you can take it with you when you leave, of course,” she answered.

“So I…?” The words trailed off as he felt the too familiar lump forming in his throat. He glanced down at the quilt again, then back up at the face of his friend. Fluttershy’s smile was demure.

“That is, if you want it, I mean,” she said. “I still don’t actually know where you live, but I thought it must get cold sometimes at night. I don’t know if that sort of thing bothers you, actually, now that I think about it. I’m sorry, maybe this was a silly idea.”

He reached out with his paw and chucked her gently on the chin, which served the dual purpose of quieting her and turning her gaze to him. “Maybe a touch silly, and sickeningly sweet, but I wouldn’t want it any other way, my dear. I’ll treasure it.”

She beamed and then launched herself at him, wrapping her front legs around his torso. Knocked backwards, he put a talon out to steady himself and laughed. “You and your pet should switch names,” he said. “You’re infinitely more the angel than he is.” She squeezed him tighter. “Easy now,” he gasped exaggeratedly. “Watch the ribs.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. She released him, backing up slightly. “I really don’t know where you live, you know,” she said. “I put my letters in my mailbox, just like you said to, and I know they reach you. But where do you stay when you’re not in Ponyville?”

“Oh, here and there.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I open a pocket in between dimensions and explore. I find the wastes beyond Equestria are an excellent place to have fun without disrupting anyponies lives, so I spend a good amount of time there. Once in a while I poke around the castle in Canterlot and bother the princesses, but only when I’m really bored, or they have something important to do.”

She made a ‘tsk’ at him, but didn’t scold. “Well.” She touched the folded up piled of pins and fabric. “I guess you can find a, er, dimensional pocket to keep this in. I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t really want to stay in one place very long.”

“True, it generally takes something drastic to make me sit still for any decent length of time,” he admitted. “Like my current illness. Or being a statue.”

“Speaking of your illness, I should get you another dosage of that tonic Applejack and I made yesterday,” she said, rising to her hooves.

“Eurgh, if you must.” He shuddered and stuck out his tongue.

“Now, now,” she said. “I think it really helped.” She headed for the kitchen. “You’ve been coughing a lot less than yesterday. And you’ve got more energy today too.”

He stroked his beard. He supposed that was true. The whole time they’d worked on the quilt he’d almost forgotten he was sick. His all-body ache had subsided, and he was feeling more restless than tired, which was a change. When the pegasus returned with a glass of the greenish black sludge, he obediently chocked it down.

“There you go,” she said, taking the glass back from him. “At this rate, you might be better by the end of the week!”

“We’ll see,” he said, gagging slightly. “Don’t want to rush these things, after all.”

“Of course.” She put the glass in the sink and returned to him once more. “What do you think, still bored? I’m afraid I didn’t have much else planned for this afternoon other than some cleaning.”

He stared at the ceiling. “I guess I could help with that.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that,” she said quickly, “You should rest, by all means.”

“I’m not particularly tired,” he said, standing up, “Come now, what would you have me do? Lie on the couch and watch you work?”

“Yes?”

“Pssh!” He waved a talon at her. “How little you think of me! I only wish I could conjure my maid costume.”

She giggled. “Well, all right. If you wouldn’t mind, it would be very helpful if you could dust the high shelves. Flying with the dust broom in my mouth is terribly awkward to do, so I hardly ever take care of that.”

“Certainly.”

They passed another few rainy hours that way – she pointing to hard-to-reach places, and he reaching them. Each time she thanked him, a feeling of contentment in his chest and it took him nearly the whole afternoon to figure out why it kept happening. It finally dawned on him as he cleared cobwebs from the ceiling beams. He felt useful, which was wholly new to him. He was surprised how much he liked it. He found himself asking for more to do, which led him into the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a stew Fluttershy had planned for dinner.

“You’re very good at that!” she observed.

“It helps to have fingers,” the draconequus said, waving them at her.

“I guess you’re right.” She nodded. “But we get by.”

He carried the cutting board, now over-laden with produce, to the stewpot and dumped them in. “What’s next?”

“Nothing,” she said, putting the lid on the pot. “We have to let this simmer for a while. I was thinking of lighting a fire, since the rain brought cooler air with it. But I can do that myself,” she continued, raising a hoof to stop him offering help. “You’ve been more the helpful already. Why don’t you rest a bit until dinner?”

He pouted, slinking after her back out into the living room. He settled onto the couch and watched her set about starting a fire, itching to jump up and do something, anything to aide her. She’d done so much for him already, after all. Didn’t she deserve it? ‘That and universes more.’ But the little pegasus, timid and mortal though she was, wasn’t helpless. She made short work of the task and soon the fire was blazing splendidly. She pulled the unfinished quilt out of its basket, settled on the rug in front of the fireplace and set to work sewing the patches in place. Angel appeared at the foot of the stairs and scurried over to snuggle up against her side. She leaned down, nuzzled his head once, and turned back to her work.

Discord sunk lower on the couch, his tail twitching. The little vermin didn’t appreciate her. Not like he did. What had the little fuzzball ever done but take her for granted and give her a hard time? He pointedly shot death glares at the rabbit, who was either ignoring him or contentedly oblivious.

Fluttershy looked up, and he wasn’t able to look away quickly enough. She frowned, glancing from the chimera, to her pet and back again. “Discord, would you like to come sit over her with us?”

He furrowed his brow as he felt his face grow hot. “I’m fine,” he muttered.

“Oh come on,” she said. “There’s plenty of room. And the fire feels so nice.”

He scowled more deeply, but his expression faltered as she smiled at him. After a moment, he asked quietly, “No judging?”
“No judging.”

In one swift movement he was down from the couch and across the room, curling his body around her, the little vermin, and her sewing project. His head, resting on his folded arms, was positioned near hers.

“There,” she said. “Isn’t that better?”

“Oh hush,” he mumbled, shutting his eyes. He felt her rub her cheek against his temple. He curled himself a little tighter around her.

“This is nice,” she said. “It’s like we’re a little family.”

He opened one eye, gazing curiously up at her. She was smiling so serenely, with the firelight dancing across her face, she looked practically ethereal.

From her other side, he heard Angel make a gagging noise.

“Oh Angel, that’s not nice,” Fluttershy chided. “You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that you’ve got a big brother now, and try to get along.”

Discord closed his eye again. ‘Big brother, eh? Guess we’re really sticking with the ‘family’ metaphor. There are worse things to be, I guess.’

Author's Note:

So a bit of writer's block and illness got in the way (darn you Summer cold! *shakes fist*), but here's Chapter 8 at last! A bit shorter than the last one, but I like how it turned out, and I hope you all do too! :)

Comments

[taterforlife]

Yes, it's short, but this is an amazing example of the phrase "quality over quantity". And here's why:
1. As much as I love to read, it can be hard to get physical, easy-to-see reactions out of me. Even if it's the best written thing I've read in years, I can get emotional over a written thing, but keep a straight face. I wasn't even halfway through this yet, and I was smiling out of joy when Discord is told he can have the quilt he helped make when it's finished.
2. I know you're Dislestia, I know, and that's cool, you're cool, everybody be cool. And obviously in this, Fluttershy called Discord 'Angel's little brother', so yeah, not fluttercord. But still, UGH, SO CUTE. And it was rocketing off the cuteness charts at the very beginning. I was content before it even finished. And the image of the three of them was so precious that I'm wishing so hard that I could draw so I could draw it in your honor for all of us to see, because that's perfect. I'd name it..."Family", or "Discord's Family", or something like that. You would have been mentioned.
3. The writing is so fantastic that I don't even care that it wasn't long (though honestly, I think it's a rather good length for a fanfic chapter). I'm happy with it as is. Don't change it. Like, at all. Even if you suddenly did become a fluttercord shipper, I still wouldn't want you to change it. It's perfect the way it is.
I can't think of any constructive criticism. Usually if I say just positive stuff, it's either because 1) I'm enamored with it, 2) I like it enough that I don't care about the issues it has even though I probably should tell the author so he/she can improve, or 3) because I'm afraid that particular author's feelings would be hurt. In your case, it's reason #1.

[Aurora Dimmet]

What? This isn't Fluttercord? Egh, Discolestia... slapping Chaos and Order together only works when it's personality-wise, not... practically elemental avatars. I've yet to see a shipfic between matter and anti-matter!

[alarajrogers]

4739088

Celestia's the avatar of the Sun. Keeping order is her job as a princess, not her nature as an avatar.

Discord/Celestia is essentially a heterosexual version of Picard/Q, the most popular ship with Q over in Star Trek fandom. (Of course Q doesn't know anyone like Fluttershy.)

And ship wars are pointless. Ampersand Fluttercord is just as adorable as ship Fluttercord (ampersand being platonic relationships), and Discord is too flexible an archetype for fiction to limit him to specific ships. I personally like tragic historical Dislestia and present-day fluffy Fluttercord whether ship or ampersand, but I'm open to any ship that's well written.

[Aurora Dimmet]

4740652

That's grand. This wasn't a shipping war, argument, or even a discussion, however. I was hoping this was Fluttercord. There was literally no point to considering I'd tried to start a shipping war, or any of the rest of your post beyond "Hey, I like Discolestia." which was the only relevant part in response to my post!

[Kendandra]

Again. I love this story. I do wonder though if this fits in with the season finale. Oh well, still great stuff.

[Jackie-Chaos-Bunny]

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW~! This was too adorable!

Awwww, Dissy doesn't wanna leave! Who can blame him, though? With a BFF like Fluttershy, I wouldn't wanna leave, either!

Angel would totally fit the "bratty little brother" role when it comes to Discord!

Great work as always!

[Frazzled Pony]

This is really cute. I'm a Fluttercord shipper myself, but their interaction is so cute and feels so natural that I don't care that that isn't what this is about. It's simply a nice read. And it's a bonus to see him bonding slowly with the other ponies.

And his complete, hypocritical assessment of Angel is brilliant. Pot, kettle, black.

For some odd reason I had deja-vu the entire chapter though, even though it stood as unread. Weird.

Happy writing.

[PastelButtons]

I absolutely adore this! I love the friendship Discord and Fluttershy have together and it's so beautiful here. This story has made my heart all warm and fuzzy. I do so hope you continue this as it's just perfection