Chapter 17. Luke 15:32
Chapter 17
“But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and has been found.’”—Luke 15:32
The crystal pony tensed at the sound of the name. Then she turned slowly toward Fluttershy, speaking in a clipped, precise voice nothing like Applejack’s country accent.
“Sorry, you must be—” At the sight of Fluttershy’s bandaged head and bruised throat, Amberlocks’s words died off in a gasp. “Fluttershy, what—?” Then she caught herself. “I mean, uh ... Sorry, there must be some mistake.”
She was trying to act casual, but Fluttershy could tell that the sight of her battered features had shocked the crystal pony into making a crucial slip.
“It’s all right, Applejack—” she said, taking a few slow, tentative steps forward.
“You’ve got me confused with somepony else,” said Amberlocks, shaking her head as she backed away. “I don’t know any Applejack.”
Fluttershy didn’t let her gaze waver from the crystal pony’s. “Then how did you know my name?”
“I—uh—well—you’re one of Princess Twilight’s friends!” Amberlocks’s ears were splayed to the side of her head, a nervous tick in her eye. “Everypony knows about them!”
“If you know about her friends, then wouldn’t you know that one of them was named Applejack?”
“Um...” The crystal pony bit her lip, realizing that she’d just dug herself into a deeper hole. Her eyes darted about as if searching for an escape route, and Fluttershy seized the opportunity.
“Applejack, your grandmother is very sick, and she might die soon. She and your siblings think you were murdered.”
Amberlocks visibly paled at this news. “W-what makes them think this Applejack character was murdered?”
“Because you made them think that.” Amberlocks looked as if Fluttershy had physically struck her. Seeing that, Fluttershy was quick to explain how she had ended up at the old Apple cabin, how Applejack’s siblings and grandmother believed the cider bottles being sent to the farm were coming from her murderer, and how Fluttershy had ended up investigating the Apple family. She had gotten to the part where she had sent Twilight a letter for help only to end up working with Discord instead, when Amberlocks interrupted her.
“Um, listen. Suppose I was this Applejack character ... what makes you think I am her?”
“Elementary, my dear Amberlocks,” Discord said in a mock pompous voice, causing both ponies to jump as neither of them had heard him materialize nearby. “And unfortunately it also involved enough ‘order and method,’” he made the hand gesture for quotation marks, “to kill off whatever little gray cells I have left.”
Amberlocks stared at the draconequus, her eyes looking so big Fluttershy half-expected them to pop out and land in the snow, but Discord didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable with her gaping at him.
“Applejack, this is Discord, my ... um ... partner.”
“Enchanté,” said Discord with a bow, before glancing over at Fluttershy. “I’ll take it from here.”
Three cushy theater seats suddenly appeared underneath the three of them. Amberlocks cried out in surprise as her chair slid across the ground next to the other two, so that they formed a row of seats with Amberlocks on one side, Fluttershy on the other, and Discord in the middle.
“What’s going on?!” Amberlocks tried to jump out of her chair but Discord blocked her with his tail.
“Popcorn?” He asked, holding a bucket of it out to Amberlocks. “It’s strawberry-flavored.”
Amberlocks eyed the popcorn uneasily as if she expected it to explode.
“Discord,” Fluttershy said warningly, before leaning across him to Amberlocks. They needed to fill her in on things quickly to get her to trust them, but so far Discord’s methods were proving a bit counterproductive. “Don’t worry, Applejack. I know Discord’s a little ... different—”
“A little?” Looking down, Discord quirked an eyebrow at his partner, which she ignored.
“—but he’s really been a great help and a great friend.”
Discord raised his head, with an expression on his face that couldn’t decide if it wanted to look insulted or flattered.
Amberlocks studied Fluttershy for several long seconds, and the confidence displayed by the normally timid pegasus seemed to reassure her because she settled back in her chair. Fluttershy settled back in her chair as well and gave Discord a quick permissive nod. The draconequus responded with a chuckle.
“Hang onto your hat, my little pony,” he said, giving Amberlocks’s head a quick pat. “Whoops, give me a second.” A cowpony hat appeared in his hand and he plonked it down on Amberlocks’s head. “There we go, much better.” With a snap of his talons, he flashed all three of them into his memory.
Fluttershy noticed immediately that things were different then when they had looked in her own memory because Discord had opted to show things from an outside viewpoint. She saw herself back in the cabin, peeking around the door at the outside world. She closed the door, turned around, and jumped back with a startled squeak. Suddenly the image froze.
“Let’s skip to the part where we actually get started working on the case,” said Discord, holding up a remote control and pressing a button on it. The scene in front of them suddenly sped up and after a few seconds, Discord pressed the button again. Now they were suddenly watching Fluttershy and Discord in Applejack’s room.
“Oops, too far.” Discord hit the rewind button, intending to go to the point where he caused the Apple Family Tree to grow out of the ceiling. However, this time he ended up going too far back and stopped at the moment when he’d been trying to warm Fluttershy with his own body heat.
“What more do you want from me?!” his past-self yelled at the shivering past-Fluttershy. “Do you want me to admit I was stupid to go out there? Is that what it’s going to take? Fine! I admit it! I was stupid for going out when you said it was a bad idea! This whole stupid situation is all my fault! There! Happy?!”
“Yipe! You weren’t supposed to see that!” said Discord, covering Fluttershy’s eyes with his paws.
Paws?
Putting her hooves up to feel the back of the hands covering her eyes, she discovered that she hadn’t been mistaken. There were indeed two paws being pressed over her eyes.
Then she heard a sigh followed by Discord’s voice now much softer. “Look, Fluttershy, I... I... I’m-sorry-this-happened!”
“You didn’t hear that either!” he said, covering her ears with a second pair of paws.
“Ow! Discord, my head!” It hadn’t actually hurt that much, but her words had the desired effect. All four of the paws promptly sprang away from her head.
“Sorry! I didn’t break your stitches again, did I?”
“No.” Glancing around him, she saw that he had tried to cover Amberlocks’s eyes and ears with four eagle claws, but she was leaning out of his reach, holding the hat up as a makeshift decoy. Discord noticed this as well, and quickly retracted his extra limbs.
“You know what? This is taking too long. I’m switching to montage mode.” With that, he picked up the remote and pressed another button on it. The scenes of investigation now began playing out in a series of clips, and Fluttershy couldn’t help noticing that all of their more cozier moments, such as when she’d given him his Hearth's Warming Present, had been cut out. She wondered why Discord had chosen to exclude those moments, but at the same time was rather glad because while telling someone about those moments had been one thing, letting someone see them as they happened was different. Even though she hadn’t really done anything to feel ashamed of in those scenes, she still felt uncomfortable with someone else seeing them, because they had been special moments she and Discord had shared together that she didn’t want to share with the rest of the world. As the investigation of several days was compacted into just a few minutes, she found her mind shifting back to that moment when she’d seen Discord wrapped around her unconscious body and shouting at her.
“Discord…” she whispered and nudged him in the side.
He looked down at her.
“Why were you yelling at me like that earlier?” she whispered. “And ... why did you coil around me instead of just putting me under blankets?”
He hesitated a few seconds before whispering an answer back. “I did put you under a bunch of blankets but none of them seemed to warm you up. So I tried coiling around you to share my body heat and for some reason that did work.”
Amberlocks let out a thoughtful “Hmm” reminding them that they had another observer and both turned their attention back to the memories. When they reached the part where Discord flashed into the root cellar to find the disguised changelings strangling her, Fluttershy shut her eyes and buried her face against his side, not wanting to watch the scene lest it trigger things for her. Then she felt Discord’s paw slip around her and hold her close.
Finally they came to the moment when Fluttershy had stepped out from behind the orchard tree and confronted Amberlocks. It was at that moment that Discord flashed them back into the real world. Fluttershy looked across him at Amberlocks. The crystal pony looked a bit disoriented and shell-shocked from what she’d just witnessed, but then she jerked around to look at the pegasus.
“Fluttershy,” her voice was shaky. “I’ve got to get to that hospital. I’ve got to see Granny...” She closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead with her hoof, murmuring under her breath. “Oh, Granny ... Big Mac ... Apple Bloom, how could I do this to you?”
At the realization that Amberlocks—no, Applejack—was no longer trying to deny her identity, Fluttershy felt a smile tug at her mouth.
“Welcome back, Applejack,” she said fondly as she fluttered up from her seat and swooped around past Discord to enfold the crystal pony in a tight hug. She felt Applejack's forehooves lift and twitch a couple times before they came around her shoulders and returned the hug just as fiercely. Fluttershy held her friend close and nuzzled into her white mane as Applejack began to shudder and sob now that the weight of hiding all those years was finally lifted, babbling about how much she had missed everypony and how sorry she was for all the pain she caused. Whispering comforting words, Fluttershy closed her eyes and continued to hug the other pony close. Breathing in her scent, she remembered all the times over the last ten years where she would have given almost anything to be able to hold her friend one more time and do this.
Eventually Applejack's outburst ran its course and she lifted her head to wipe at her eyes.
“Fluttershy, as… as wonderful as it is to see you again, I really need to get to that hospital as soon as pos—”
Right on cue, Discord snapped his talons and the three of them were suddenly right in the hospital hall right outside Granny Smith’s room.
“—sible. Uh...” Applejack looked around, and Fluttershy couldn’t help smiling at the befuddled expression on her friend’s face, thinking that she must have had a similar look when Discord had teleported her to the Crystal Empire.
“Yeah, he does that.”
“Uh huh,” Applejack remarked before her expression grew serious. “Look, Sugarcube--”
She was stopped when the pegasus put a hoof on her chest. Fluttershy’s expression had grown as serious as her own. “Applejack, I know you want to see your family, but your grandmother’s still pretty weak from that stroke, and she’s thought you were dead for years. If you just walk in there now, it might be too much of a shock for her. Let me go in and explain things first. Please.”
Applejack looked longingly at the door, but then sighed and nodded. “Alright. You go ahead and do that.”
Fluttershy nodded and hugged her friend again. She was just as reluctant to break it as Applejack but eventually forced herself to let go. With a final comforting pat on the withers, she turned and opened the door to the hospital room. She glanced behind her to see if Discord would come in as well, but instead he vanished. Applejack had taken her new hat off and was fiddling nervously with its brim as she watched Fluttershy.
“I’ll try to be quick,” said Fluttershy as she shut the door behind her. Granny Smith appeared to be sleeping but as Fluttershy moved closer to the bed, the old pony’s eyes opened a crack. Fluttershy was just trying to figure out how to best bring up the subject of Applejack when Discord suddenly appeared in the room, holding Apple Bloom and Big Mac, who he plonked down on the floor.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I brought you here. As it turns out, Fluttershy and I have some new information for you. You remember those changelings? Well, it turns out they didn’t kill Applejack.”
“What? But they told us they did!” said Apple Bloom as she picked herself up.
“They lied,” Discord said, sticking his face right in hers. “Oh, they fully intended to kill her, but somepony else beat them to it.”
Granny Smith’s heart monitor started speeding up at this, and Fluttershy looked worriedly at it.
“Discord...” This wasn’t how she’d wanted to prepare the Apple family for the news about Applejack, but the draconequus ignored her.
Straightening up, he raised his hand and one of the cider bottles with the apple-peeling rosebuds flashed into it. “It turns out your suspicions about these were correct. Somepony from your family was in fact sending you these bottles. But it was the one family member none of us ever thought to suspect.”
“Apple Fritter? Red Delicious? Apple Honey? Jazz? Jonagold? Honeycrisp? SweeTango?”
“Wrong. Wrong. All wrong,” Discord chirped, clearly having way too much fun stringing his audience along. “And I mean Honeycrisp, honestly? No, it was the one family member this whole thing started with.”
The siblings looked toward their grandmother. “Granny Smith?” asked Apple Bloom.
Before Discord could respond, Fluttershy’s normally soft voice suddenly rang out. “No, Applejack.”
Discord smacked his forehead with his palm. “Fluttershy, you’re spoiling the whole thing!”
“Wha—Applejack? But how?”
“We all made a very big mistake.” Fluttershy explained as she stepped in front of the draconequus. “Applejack’s killer wasn’t sending you those bottles to torment you over her death. Applejack herself was sending them to try and let you know she was all right.”
All three Apples stared at her.
“You mean ... she’s …” Apple Bloom’s voice was unsteady. “She’s alive? ... But how…?”
Fluttershy felt it was time. “Why don’t we let her tell you?” Moving to the door, she pushed it open. “Come on in, Applejack.”
The crystal pony stepped into the room, her hat on and her head down. Swallowing, she scraped at the floor with her hoof before looking up to meet the eyes staring at her. “Howdy, y’all.” A sheepish smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t let the disguise fool ya.”
“Applejack?” Apple Bloom breathed. Big Mac stared and Granny Smith struggled in the bed to better see who was at the door.
Eyes shiny with tears, Applejack ran to the bedside. “I’m sorry Granny Smith! It’s true. I’ve been sending that cider all those years to let you know I was all right. I never meant to hurt you, or any of the rest of the family.”
The old mare’s already wrinkled face creased more in a wondering smile as her hoof stroked Applejack’s face, tracing the familiar features in that crystal mask. “Applejack. It is you.”
Applejack was almost bowled off her legs as she was nearly tackled by an excited Apple Bloom, the young mare flinging her forelegs around her sister’s neck and burying her muzzle in her short mane. Big Mac was a little slower, but the crushing hug he enfolded the rest of his family in made it clear how he felt.
“Oh, Apple Bloom, look at you,” said Applejack as she managed to bring her little sister’s face around to hers. “All grown up now.”
Fluttershy smiled softly as she watched their reunion from near the door, wanting to give them some privacy. She glanced over to where Discord had been standing earlier and noticed he was no longer there. Then he suddenly appeared next to her, causing her to jump to the side in surprise. He was holding four ponies and a dragon, all of whom he dropped in an unceremonious heap on the floor.
“Discord, why did you bring us here?” Twilight demanded as she and Spike tried to detangle themselves from the rest of the group. The two of them must have been taking notes because Spike was holding a notebook and quill. Pinkie must have been baking because she was dusted with flour. Rarity was soaking wet and clutching a towel to herself. Whatever Rainbow Dash had been doing earlier was not obvious, but, when she hit the ground, a postcard flew out of her hooves and flipped across the floor.
“Oooh, who’s that from?” said Pinkie, as she scurried after it. “Ray, see you at the usual place at the usual ti—”
“Give me that!” Rainbow Dash shouted, pouncing on the card, and hiding it against her chest.
“Fluttershy, what’s going on?” Twilight asked less sharply than she’d addressed Discord but still sounding annoyed. Fluttershy rubbed her forehead. She was going to have to talk with Discord about just snatching up ponies at awkward moments.
Then Applejack detached herself from her family and moved tentatively toward her friends. “Uh ... howdy, ya’ll. It’s been a while.”
Five heads snapped around towards her, the expressions on their faces clearly showing that their owners had never expected to hear that voice again in their lives.
Applejack fidgeted nervously under their gaze. “I, uh ... I know I might look different but it will wear off, and—”
“Applejack!” Pinkie squealed, before she, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Twilight, and Spike all swarmed the crystal pony. It was impossible to tell who reached her first.
Fluttershy and Discord watched off to the side as Applejack embraced and was embraced by her friends.
Fluttershy wiped happy tears from her eyes. “Look at that, Discord,” she said, fluttering up to put a hoof on his shoulder. “None of that would have been possible without your help.”
He groaned and rubbed his forehead with his paw. “Must you rub it in?” he muttered and she laughed softly.
Then his eyes widened in alarm as Pinkie Pie detached herself from the pile of hugging friends, and bounded across the room toward them. She tackled him around his long snaky middle in a tight hug…
And Discord writhed as if she were gutting him before vanishing in a flash of light.
“Hey, where’d he go?” asked Pinkie looking around.
Fluttershy suddenly felt something long and skinny moving about in her hair, and felt a small smile tug at her mouth. “Oh, he’ll show up again.”
“It all started with Strawberry Swirl,” said Applejack. They had all left the hospital to let Granny Smith get some rest. Big Mac and Apple Bloom had gone back to the farm to prepare it for their sister’s return. Pinkie Pie had gone off to put together a party to celebrate the same, and Rainbow Dash and Rarity had gone with her to help her. Worried about Angel since she had been gone for almost a day, Fluttershy had insisted on going back home. Applejack, Twilight, and Spike had chosen to accompany her and now all of them were walking there while Applejack told her side of the story.
“When I was out delivering her order of cider one year, she made mention that she was doing experiments crossing different fruits with each other.” Applejack’s voice kept slipping in and out of its country accent. Disguising it for ten years was proving to be a hard habit to break. “We got to talking about how the different fruit flavors might affect my family recipes, and she agreed to give me some of her fruit to try when I came around next year.”
Applejack paused for a bit before going on. “But when that next year came around, I never got the chance. Instead I got the news that she’d been murdered and no one knew who had done it. So I started reading up all I could on the case.
“One night I was out making a delivery in Tall Tale. It was real late and I was about to go to bed, but then I looked out my window and I saw this pegasus flying along in a weird way, like it was asleep and something invisible was carrying it. I went out to see what was going on and saw the pegasus drop into the river just outside of town. I thought she might have been unconscious and would drown, so I dove in and paddled after her. But before I could reach her, something I couldn’t see shoved my head under the water and held me down.” She swallowed and shivered a bit at the memory. “I struggled and managed to buck whatever was holding me down off. When I came up for air, I could just barely see these transparent things that looked like a cross between ponies and undisguised changelings. They tried to shove me under the water again, and we struggled.
“I don’t remember how long we fought but I managed to get out of the water, and ran back to town. Those transparent changelings shouted after me that they’d kill me for what I’d seen, but that they’d pick the time and place. I got back inside and locked things up tight. I watched for any sign of the changelings coming but they didn’t show up that night.”
“Why didn’t you tell anypony about it?” asked Spike.
“I wanted to. I was going to, actually, but they stopped me. The, uh, next morning when I came down, the deskpony asked how I was doing, if my swim had gone alright, and if I had been thinking about making a fuss about what I’d seen. He gave a flicker of his magic to show what he meant.” Applejack shuddered, her tail flicking about. “I bolted out of there and tried to get to a guard station, but I didn’t know where one was. I tried asking some ponies, but those changelings were following me. They kept coming up to me in different guises, warning me against doing what I was trying. When I got to the station, the one at the front told me that I didn’t want to say nothing to no pony, before flashing his magic to make clear what he meant.
“I got outta town right quick after that. All the way home I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see those transparent changelings lurking in the bushes or hiding in the trees or something. Maybe I did catch some glimpses of them, I don’t know. Eventually I made it home to the Acres.”
Applejack looked at her friends and hung her head. “I wasn’t the only one, though. I got to the house and found Granny Smith sitting on the porch like she always does. I was right in the middle of telling her what happened in Tall Tale when Big Mac comes out of the house and asks what I’m doing, telling a silly story like that. No pony would believe such a thing after all. That’s when they dropped their disguises. They said they knew who I was and where I lived, and that they’d kill me and every pony I cared about if I told anypony. Then they went all transparent and flew up into the clouds. Apple Bloom and Big Mac trotted in from the orchards a few moments later. At least … they looked like Apple Bloom and Big Mac.” She looked between Fluttershy and Twilight. “I’m sorry, girls. From that moment onwards I wasn’t sure if anypony I spoke to was a real pony or a disguised changeling. I just couldn’t risk my family or any of you over it.
“I found out later that the pegasus I’d seen dropped into the river was Glitter Glide, and that she’d been strangled to death the same way Strawberry Swirl had.”
“So you figured the changelings might have killed both of them?” Twilight asked.
“I didn’t have any concrete proof, but I did suspect it. That’s when I started secretly looking up other cider customers and found out that Cotton Candy, Triple Treat, Sparkleworks, and Sunny Daze had all been murdered in the same manner as well.”
“I did notice that you seemed to be spending a lot more time than usual at the library,” Spike commented.
“I wanted to tell ya’ll what I’d found out, but like I said, I was afraid of accidentally telling a changeling disguised as one of you and putting you in danger as well as myself.”
“So you engineered your own disappearance to try and buy yourself some more time?” Twilight guessed.
Applejack bit her lip and nodded. “I started looking for a potion that would allow me to see through changeling disguises. I never found any recipes for that, but I did find a one for looking like a crystal pony.”
“That was the page that was missing from that library book I asked you to get,” Fluttershy told Spike. “When I saw the recipe, I remembered that Applejack had had a jar of both whole gemstones and powdered ones in her cart. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now it seemed a little strange to me that she would be using those instead of bits.”
“I burned that page a while back, so no one would find it on me,” said Applejack. “After ten years, I have it memorized.”
“But how’d you disappear during the family reunion?” Twilight asked. “And what about the whole Amberlocks’ Orchards thing?”
“I panicked. After seeing that changeling disguised as Apple Bloom poking around in my room, I was worried they’d realized what I was up to. I didn’t dare alert the ponies around me because I had no way of knowing how many of them might also be disguised changelings, and I couldn’t stand the thought of them doing to me what they’d done to Strawberry Swirl, Glitter Glide, and the other ponies, right there in the middle of the reunion. I knew that’d kill Granny, too, never mind what it’d do to everypony else. So I slipped away and, when nopony was looking, I hid in the storage area of one of the stagecoaches from Appleloosa. I stayed hidden in there until the coach had left the farm, and didn’t get out until it was dark, when I was pretty sure nopony else was around. I had the crystal pony potion hidden under my hat and drank some when I got out of the coach. I cut my mane, and...” she broke off with a pained look on her face. “...tore my hat apart. I burned both and snuck out of Appleloosa, heading off for the Crystal Empire. I hadn’t had time to bring anything with me but the potion and some bits. When I got to the Crystal Empire, I managed to find work on some of the farms there to support myself in the beginning and earn enough to start my Sparkling Cider business as a cover for needing powdered gemstones. The fact that the drink got popular was a happy accident. When I had enough to start the orchard, I handled all its finances myself, and kept it a secret how much gem powder was put in the cider so no pony realized I was also using some for my disguise.”
At the mention of the disguise, Fluttershy noticed that the potion’s effects seemed to be wearing off because even though Applejack still gleamed, the gold of her coat had shifted closer to its true orange and her white mane and tail had darkened to blonde.
Spike snorted and shook his head. “And all this time I’ve been feeling disloyal for liking that stuff more than Sweet Apple Acres,” he muttered.
Applejack chuckled at that before turning serious again. “I started sending those cider bottles to the farm anonymously hoping they’d realize it meant I was alive but that I couldn’t risk telling them where I was. I’d hoped that if the changelings got a hold of the bottles it wouldn’t provide them any clues as to where the bottles were coming from.” Her ears drooped and she looked rather guilty. “I guess it didn’t work all that well, anyway.” Then her head drooped. “And I never really tried to contact the rest of you. Maybe I should have but I just couldn’t think of a way that wouldn’t risk tipping off the changelings.”
Spike put his claw on her shoulder. “Hey, you did what you thought you had to do to protect your family and us.” Despite the pain Applejack’s disappearance had caused him and the rest of their friends, none of them could really find it in their hearts to be angry with her as it was clear that her actions had been far from easy.
Applejack gave him a grateful smile. “I didn’t spend all my time as Amberlocks just brewing cider though. I also kept secretly studying changelings, trying to find out why those ones seemed able to go all transparent, and why they didn’t just kill me right away ... And thanks to what you told me about the blizzard, Fluttershy, I think I now have a theory why.”
Twilight, Spike, and Fluttershy all leaned forward to hear this theory, and Fluttershy felt Discord’s movements tickle her scalp as he shifted about in his hiding place in her mane.
Applejack looked around before whispering to them. “I don’t think they were pure changelings. ... I think they were part windigo.”
“That’s it!” Twilight squeaked. “That must be it! I’ll have to do some tests to be sure but that would explain so much. If they were part windigo, that must mean they could feed off negative emotions as well as your love for something. And they wouldn’t have to take its shape to do that.” Her eyes widened. “What if they fed on the grief of everypony missing you for the past ten years, and that gave them enough power to cause the blizzard?”
Fluttershy remembered how the changelings had tormented her and Angel, and how when they’d strung her up one of them had said to make sure she didn’t suffocate all at once.
Then she remembered how agitated her animals had acted—it seemed so long ago now—before the storm. Could they have sensed the windigo-changeling hybrids’ growing power, and panicked because they hadn’t been able to understand what they were sensing?
Meanwhile in her mane, Discord thought of when he’d gone out into that storm and had gotten trapped in that ice. He remembered thinking that he might have seen some ghostly pony-like shapes flying around him and Fluttershy outside the cabin. Those must have been the changelings that had attacked Fluttershy later on. If they could indeed feed off negative emotions, they must have been able to feed off the misery he’d inflicted on Fluttershy as well as on his own frustration at being unable to manipulate her. Had he given them enough power to imprison him?
His thoughts were interrupted by Twilight murmuring. “Let’s see, if they fed off negative emotions and love ... I bet the fact that Discord had no love in his heart back then left him vulnerable to their windigo powers.”
Discord was about to flash himself out of Fluttershy’s mane and back to his regular size with an “I heard that!”, but Twilight’s next words caused him to halt.
“And when he got trapped, I bet Fluttershy’s love is what broke—”
“Love?” Fluttershy repeated incredulously. “But I didn’t love Discord! I didn’t even like him back then!”
The words sent a sharp pain through the draconequus’s heart, but before he could think of how to react, Twilight again caused him to stay where he was.
“But you still went out in that storm after him.”
It was true, Discord realized. Fluttershy hadn’t wanted to go out there, but she had chosen to anyway. And she had chosen to stay in the cave and try to get him out of that ice when she’d had every right to just leave him there and go back to the cabin.
“I...” Fluttershy opened her mouth to protest but no words came out. “But… but I didn’t feel loving,” she finally said lamely.
Twilight smiled like a teacher looking forward to teaching a lesson. “Fluttershy, love isn’t just an emotion. It’s a choice. You may have hated him in your heart at the time, but you loved him through your actions.”
“And when did you become the love expert?” Spike teased, elbowing his employer.
Twilight was indignant. “Hey, I understand love. For your information, friendship happens to be a type of love. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“And being sister-in-law to the princess of love doesn’t hurt either.”
Twilight ignored this and turned back to Fluttershy. “The point is, I think that since windigoes feed on hurtful feelings and changelings feed on emotional love, an act of sacrificial love could counteract their powers. None of us would have blamed you if you’d just left Discord trapped in that cave, but instead you chose to stay and try to free him, even to the point of putting your own survival on the line. I don’t think even the most powerful physical blow could have broken that ice, but the fact that you were willing to make that sort of sacrifice did.”
“And it sounds like after she freed him, Discord saved her with some sacrificial love of his own as well,” said Applejack.
Twilight glanced over at her. “He did?”
Discord’s ears pricked up at that. I did?
“When he first brought her back to the cabin, creating all those blankets took no effort on his part. They didn’t cost him anything. But sharing his own body heat with her meant sacrificing his own physical comfort to help her.”
Not to mention my pride, Discord thought, remembering how much it had hurt to get the words ‘I’m sorry’ out of his mouth.
When they reached Fluttershy’s house, she gave them her goodbyes and Applejack a departing hug before heading inside. Angel was lying in his basket, and appeared to be asleep but opened one eye a crack when she drew near him.
“How are you doing Angel?” she asked crouching down to nuzzle him. He stretched stiffly and crawled forward enough to push his head under her chin and rub it there for a few seconds before lying back down. Fluttershy fluffed his pillow and went to prepare his food.
“You can come out now, Discord,” she said when she was in the kitchen. “It’s just the two of us.” She giggled. “Though I never thought I’d see the day when you would get that frightened.”
He promptly appeared in front of her, curving his neck down to stick his muzzle right in her face.
“I was no such thing!” he said indignantly. “I merely thought it was getting too stuffy in that hospital room and after being stuck in stone for several hundred years, I have no intention of spending my valuable time in a stuffy room.”
“Hmm. Then why did you spend all that time hiding in my mane? I would think that would be even stuffier.”
“Humph!” Straightening up, he crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back to her. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Smiling and giving her head an amused shake, she fluttered up in front of him and put her forelegs around his neck. “Oh, don’t be that way, Discord.”
“I’ll be any way I want,” he retorted, when Fluttershy suddenly stopped flapping her wings and hung from his neck, her weight pressing down on his crossed arms. Without thinking about what he was doing, he phased his arms through her body and put them under her so that he was supporting her. She rubbed her cheek against his throat above his scarf. At first he tried to hold onto his indignation, but eventually chuckled in a resigned way. “You know me too well, Fluttershy. Ponies will say we’re in love.”
Fluttershy giggled, then suddenly went silent. “Discord … I think the fact that you helped me track down Applejack might be what we need to convince Princess Celestia that you can be trusted now. When I tell her about this, you might not have to stay here any longer if you don’t want to.”
He jerked at those words as if in surprise. She tried to look up at him but he put his hand up to the back of her head, keeping it pressed against his neck.
“Discord, is something wrong?”
“No,” he said quickly. “No, I just realized that the case is really over this time.” His shoulders shook with laughter. “Unless of course you’d like to pull out another clue you’ve been keeping from the rest of us again.”
She giggled. “Not this time.”
The draconequus chuckled again as well, but unseen by Fluttershy the grin quickly slipped from his face to be replaced by a frown. He had paid his debt. He and Fluttershy were even now. He could go back to planning his hostile takeover, and finally achieve what he’d wanted for over a thousand years. So why did the idea bring no joy to his heart? Why did he feel that he’d lost something now that the case had been solved?
Later that night, as Fluttershy slept, Discord lay on the couch, trying to analyze his feelings on his current situation. He should be thrilled that he no longer owed Fluttershy, considering it was the very reason he had helped her. But somehow trying to even up the score between them had become less and less important over those days he’d spent with her ... over those days he’d worked with her…
Working with somepony ... that in itself was an action he’d never dreamed of performing. All his life it had been him on one side and the rest of Equestria on the other. It was just the way things were and since he enjoyed baiting and toying with his opponents he’d never felt the need to try anything else.
But working alongside Fluttershy, instead of against her, had turned out to be unexpectedly ... well ... enjoyable.
He absentmindedly flashed a candy cane into his claw, took a pull on it, and sent cotton candy billowing out his nostrils in twin streams. The cloud it formed looked like a certain long-maned pegasus.
“You’re trying to tell me something aren’t you?” he asked it.
The cloud nodded before losing its shape.
“Bah.” Sitting up, Discord decided to check on the actual Fluttershy, and flashed himself into her room. He glided silently through the air to her bedside. The sight of her lying there reminded him of when he’d first seen her at the cabin, of how unimpressed he had felt at the sight of her. He had thought her so dull and plain to look at.
Dull and plain?! Fluttershy isn’t dull and plain! I don’t like things that are dull and plain! Frowning, he gently turned her face with the tips of his fingers, studying her to try and figure out what had changed about her appearance. It couldn’t have been the bruises on her throat or the bandages on her head. Taking care not to wake her, he rearranged her mane to hide both the bandages and the bruises so he could study her without them distracting him.
No, she still had the same boring features he’d first seen through the cabin window. And yet ... somehow, those features had managed to become beautiful to him.
How strange.
He flashed himself back out of the room. He hadn’t truly stayed with Fluttershy on Celestia’s orders. He had stayed to continue helping his partner work on the case. Now, with that excuse to stay near her gone, he realized that he didn’t want to leave. He wanted... What did he want?
Ponies will say we’re—
His eyes widened in shock as the dawning realization hit him with the force of a sledgehammer blow between the eyes. He fell back onto the couch, his lower body swinging up above him before thumping back down.
He had tossed those words out so casually, so jokingly, had put so little thought into them, that it only made this new revelation all the more stunning. He had no idea exactly how or when it had happened but he…
Discord…
The Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony…
For the first time in his long life…
Was in love.
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I think it works great! And YES! Discord admitted it!
I enjoy how it was presented, personally. I mean, I can't imagine writing a mystery period. Mysteries aren't simply going from point A to "this guy murdered so-and-so." It takes a lot of effort to work well, and here it shows.
Overall, I just love this story. It feels genuine. Kind of like I can imagine this happening despite it being alternate universe and Discord's appearance being vastly different. It's just so good!
And if I could just have a moment for that ending:
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Kay all done. All that I need to do is favorite this, because why hadn't I done so beforehand? Man, I'm awful!
I think the mystery side works fine, so no worries there.
I will admit this morning when I saw there was a new chapter I outright squeed!
Hey it's my drawing. *chuckles*
Yay, he admitted it, but only to himself! Now he needs to admit it to her!
I may have cried. Reunions always punch me in the feels!
I strongly agree with everyone else. I definitely think the mystery is perfect as it is and I was able to suss out some clues along the way pretty well :D *is proud*. And to finally say "Oml! Yes, of course!" as Applejack told her side of the story felt pretty good.
Okay now that I've caught up.....OH MY GUADALOL!!!!!!!!
CanIjusttellyouhowmuchI'veenjoyedthisstorysofar?!?ItotallyknewAmberlockswasApplejackandIfreakedoutwhenmineandFluttershy'stheorywastruebutthestoryitselfwasamazingIlikehowit'snotjustfocusedonthemysteryorromancebutbothatthesametimeabdthatiswasverywellwrittenanddeservesaspotinmytoppersonalfavorites!!!!!!!!!!
Hopefully you can understand what I said, but yeah I'm loving it so far!!!!! Truthfully, this took me three weeks to read because the chapters felt long to me and I couldn't find the time, but then again it took me six MONTHS to read Phantom Opera Discord, mainly because after chapter 22, I was like:
"No! I am done with this! Bye bye see ya later!!!" But this.....I didn't give up on! I read about 7 chapters in a day (not my highest record but still amazing!) because I am SOOO into this book! Okay I let it all out, phew!
Thanks for notifying me, I didn't get a notification. But anyhow, this chapter is well worth the wait! At least what I waited, anyways, don't know about the other guys and gals. That was so precious when Discord finally realized he was in love with Fluttershy.
I believe the story works fine as it is now, the relationship built at a steady pace and the mystery as well. It's good not to be too drawn out, and I think this story is perfect how it is. Can't wait for more! 
Sorry this comment is so disjointed, I just think of things, and write them down.
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Regarding the amount of focus on the mystery: Thanks everyone. I've found it rather tricky to get the right balance between the "building the Fluttercord relationship" moments and the "developing the mystery" moments so I'm glad to hear you think the mystery works fine as is.
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Wow, thanks. It really means a lot to me to hear you feel that way about the story.
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*chuckles as well* And I thank you for the inspiration.
Yay! Another chapter!
I'm glad AJ wasn't dead lol! EEE! Discord has finally found out he's in love! Yes! Wuv it!
6157326 *chuckles* It took me a bit of decoding, but I was able to understand what you said, and I'm honored that you decided to put this story in your top personal favorites list.
Yas:) Discord you figured it out
6168676 this was an awesome story! For a lot of it I thought you acually killed off Applejack! *sigh* I love Fluttercord. I love this one, even if it took me two and a half hours to read. And I can read Harry Potter and the deathly hallows book in three days flat! You did a great job on this.
6168676 If you can please make some sorta sequel!
I can't wait for the ending
This story is fab. Before this chapter came out I kept wondering how Applejack would justify running away, when she could have called on the other elements to help her out, but yeah you solved that just fine.
Discord is so in character. I love his pouty little quips back to Fluttershy.
Ok, so I'm really wondering what Fluttershy was thinking as she went to bed. I think she might be missing having Discord wrapped around her like the past couple nights. After all that has gone down, having him there had to feel incredibly safe and comforting. Kinda surprised she could fall asleep. I've read back over this a few times now and love the really natural and believable change that takes place moving them from enmity to love. Also do they use Bible verses in the novel that inspired this, or is that your addition, a Shark?
Anywho, I'm dying for an end, but happy to wait for it to be something you really love and are happy with. Thanks!
6258755 Thanks. Glad to hear you're enjoying it, but the story's not over yet. We've still got a few more chapters to go, which I'll post as soon as I can.
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It's a bit of both actually. In the original novel some Bible verses ended up providing clues to the murder cases, but I couldn't really figure out how to work in a MLP equivalent to that plot point so I ended up just cutting it from my version. However, I still wanted to work that element in somewhere, and (since I'm too lazy to come up with proper chapter titles) I decided to challenge myself to see if I could start each chapter off with a Bible verse that could provide a bit of a hint as to what happens in that chapter.
*chuckles* Thanks. As I mentioned in my author's note, chapter 18 is proving to be a tricky one to write, but I do hope to have it posted sometime this month. Though exactly how soon this month I unfortunately cannot say. But in the meantime, I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed the story so far.
At least there were no elements that were present in the original tale.
And you still managed to make it sound quite good, full marks for that.
And... Yeah, I think we all saw that one coming.
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I'm guessing you're referring to the R-rated stuff.
Yay for full marks!
This was adorable and I really liked the tale. But..i really wonder how the changelings and the windigos became one...that part got a bit trippy.
Love is a choice. How true that is.
You know, by strange happenstance, the meditation that came up in my readings today was specifically about the virtues of Kindness and Love. Some of those Bible passages looked awfully familiar, and I appreciated the timing.
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Wow, cool that it worked out that way. And thanks for your other comments as well. Hope you enjoyed the story.