Not Ron Drawde

by Petrichord

1.1 One clover, and a bee.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy birthday!”

Fluttershy opened her eyes. A faint breeze blew through her open window as sunlight tickled her right cheek, which wasn’t nearly enough to distract her from the bulbous yellow eyes that leered down at her.

Fluttershy blinked and yawned. “Good morning, Discord.”

“Good? Well, I’d certainly consider that a significant understatement. Today is a particularly monumental occasion out of the unending stream of monumental occasions that constitute sapient existence. It is the culmination of every single biological event in the history of existence, and arguably the pinnacle of the universe from which it sprung. And do you know why that might happen to be?”

Fluttershy smiled. “Because it’s your birthday?”

Discord blinked.

“Wh-no! It’s not my birthday! I dare say, Spirits of Chaos and Disharmony don’t even have birthdays, except when we do. Which is entirely a fabricated construct, properly speaking - and whether or not you construe that as a real birthday depends on whether you value the numerical passage of time over the celebratory trappings concerning such - wait a minute.” Discord’s eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you?”

“Well, um. I-it was a legitimate question, wasn’t it? I didn’t know if you had a birthday or not, um, being that, well…”

“Of course it’s a legitimate question. It’s also a fantastic workaround of the entire purpose of our little earlybird meeting, which is to say…” Discord reared back, brandishing a pink-and-yellow noisemaker at least two meters longer than Fluttershy herself. Taking a deep breath, Discord put the noisemaker to his lips.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Discord, don’t-”

Discord’s cheeks puffed out as he blew into the noisemaker.

Instead of a porcelain-shattering honk, the noisemaker emitted a music-box tinkle: a familiar tune, set in andante to the key of F, which plinked for precisely nineteen notes before lapsing into an expectant silence.

“Happy birthday…” Fluttershy filled in.

“...To you. Honestly, to think that you’d require me to actually coax an acknowledgement out of you that today is the date precisely eight months and twenty one days after your parents decided to conceive you! Most ponies are absolutely enamored with this particular time in their lives. What, perhaps, might be vexing you? Is it a question of age? Is it a dissatisfaction with cake?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I just, um...I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it to you. I-I mean, I know that Pinkie really likes taking care of birthdays and, um, party planning, but...but I thought that it would be kind of rude to, you know, make a big deal out of it to everypony else.”

“A big deal? Why, of course not. It’s an absurdly, fantastically amazing deal! Which is why…”

Discord sat down at the foot of Fluttershy’s bed.

“...I thought we could spend a bit of time together before everypony else arrives.”

Fluttershy sat up. Discord snapped his fingers, caught a teacup and saucer as they popped up through a hole in the floor and offered them to her. As Fluttershy leaned over to take the tea, a lock of her mane fell in front of one of her eyes, tinting her field of vision in a paler shade of rose. Tossing her mane back with a shake of her head, Fluttershy sipped her tea.

“Silver Needle.” Fluttershy swallowed, a contented smile spreading over her face. “I’ve only had this once before. It’s supposed to be really rare.”

“Perhaps that’s because it is rare. I could have done impossibly rare, of course, but a little birdie told me that you weren’t likely to be fond of puce pumice tea or serendipitous bubblegum blend.”
Discord turned his head towards the window. “Isn’t that right, captain Bluebeard Jason the Marauder, fifth of his name?”

A bluejay perched on the windowsill twittered, flapped his wings and took off.

“That means ‘yes’, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy shook her head “Um. That sounded more like an epitaph to me.”

“What?”

“It was really naughty, too. I should probably have a talk with him.”

Discord stared incredulously at Fluttershy, who managed to hold her expression for all of two seconds before dissolving into a fit of giggles. Her shoulders shook as she laughed, and the teacup in her hoof trembled as the same lock of mane tumbled in front of her eyes.

“Well, look at you pranking the prankster! And here I had assumed that being kind to the Element of Kindness would be the greatest bout of archetypal judo today. Well done, Fluttershy.”

“Oh! It was just, um, just a spur of the moment thing. I wasn’t trying to make a point.”

“Your lack of a point should be the point. Satire is best left to the cynical and abrasive, but there’s nothing wrong with anypony laying a batch of bird eggs on a whim.”

“Wh-what?”

Discord smirked. “Having a lark.”

Fluttershy snorted, accidentally sloshing her teacup enough that half of the tea spilled over the saucer and onto her bedsheets.

Her thin bedsheets.

Scalding hot tea.

Fluttershy yelped, lost her grip and dropped the rest of the tea. Shock turned to pain as she screamed, scrabbling to get the sheets off her as she heard the snapping of fingers-

-and the soothing pastels of her bedroom turned into the lush greens of grass, the intense blue of the summer sky, the brilliant glare of sunlight.

Then gravity took hold, and Fluttershy fell into a large, freezing body of water.

The pegasus flailed, splashing about wildly as she pulled herself to the surface. The world around her spun as she sputtered and gasped, scalding tea swapped for a chilling lake. Her hoof reached up into thin air, and a familiar paw grabbed her hoof, tugging her out of the water. Fluttershy blinked, coughing as she heard a second snapping of fingers-

-and she tumbled onto a grassbank, mane clinging to her face, body thudding against the grass.

Fluttershy laid there for two seconds, not moving.

Then, with a soft moan, she tilted her head upward. Shoving her wet mane out of her eyes, she stared at Discord, who was either doing a reasonable job of looking apologetic or a fantastic job of feigning guilt.

“Well. That was unexpected,” Discord gulped. “Ah...I rather wouldn’t have recommended spilling the tea. Besides the risk of injury, it also does a remarkably good job of staining bedsheets and necessitating a change in laundry-”

“Discord.”

Discord fell silent. Fluttershy squeezed some of the water out of her mane, and unsteadily pushed herself up onto her hooves.

“I’m sorry,” Discord muttered. “I didn’t mean...I panicked.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean it. It isn’t a disingenuous apology-”

“I know.” Fluttershy exhaled. Discord fell silent.

Fluttershy continued to squeeze out her mane.

“Well.” Discord coughed. “That rather warrants a do-over, don’t you think?”

Fluttershy stopped mid-squeeze. “Um. You can do that?”

“No! Not literally speaking, anyway. Not that I hadn’t considered that it might not be out of the equation, but - it’s rather out of the equation. Much as i’m loath to admit it, there are certain things that the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony simply cannot do.” Discord flopped onto the ground, body growing carpet-thin and dribbling out in front of her. “You’ll keep my shocking dearth of true omnipotence on the down-low, won’t you?”

“Wouldn’t that be keeping a secret?” Fluttershy tucked her bangs behind her ear. “I mean, it’s not a very big one, but i still don’t think friends are supposed to do that.”

“Oh, nonsense! It’s not a secret! Just a discretionary speck of information.” Discord curled upright and raised his paw, chuckling. “There are some things that aren’t secrets, per se, but bothersome bits to discuss in public. The way you listen to the radio in the shower and sing along with the songs you know, for example.”

Fluttershy’s cheeks flushed. “Um, How did you-”

“The pop station, I might add. The ones with the songs about romantic entanglements and waggling hips-”

Fluttershy’s cheeks turned dark red. “I’m not sure anypony needs to know that-”

“Though I’m fairly certain you aren’t supposed to pitch your voice an octave higher when you get to the bridge about the dance floor in-”

“Discord!” Fluttershy sputtered, sitting down and burying her face with her forehooves.

Discord fell silent. Fluttershy breathed deeply and tried to think the least embarrassing thoughts possible.

“...Going over the names of Full Moons in your head again?” Discord said after a few seconds.

Fluttershy nodded.

“Remind me what comes before the Full Corn Moon?”

“Full Sturgeon Moon.” Fluttershy paused. “You already knew that, didn’t you.”

“Of course. Feeling a bit calmer?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“We’ll keep things discreet?”

Fluttershy nodded.

Discord exhaled. “That’s a relief. Well - now that I’ve gone and ruined an otherwise splendid day, how about if we try to un-ruin it?” Discord raised his paw, then paused. “Ah. Would you mind if i circumvented this whole ordeal of walking with a timely act of teleportation?”

Fluttershy blinked. Abruptly, she relaxed and smiled at Discord. “O-okay.”

Discord snapped his fingers. Abruptly, the grass and sky were supplanted with the floor and the ceiling of Fluttershy’s cottage, as if nature had never been there at all.

“Excellent.” Discord snapped his fingers again. “Now, as I’m absolutely certain you’re aware of, a birthday is utterly remiss without at least one present. And, since i can’t be certain that Twilight won’t gift you a semi-dusty tome of irrelevant blather, or Rainbow Dash some symbol of self-aggrandizement, or et cetera et cetera et cetera” Discord continued, “I’ve left it up to myself to-”

Discord trailed off. Fluttershy was still, inexplicably, smiling at him.

“...what?”

“Oh, um. I’m just really happy that you, well...asked for my permission.”

“To teleport?” Discord blinked. “Well, it’d be rather uncouth of me not to ask, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing you would have done a few months ago.”

“Of course it is.”

Fluttershy giggled. “You’re blushing!”

“I am not.”

“But, um-”

“This is heat exertion. It’s unnaturally warm in here. Clearly, your cottage is better insulated than it needs to be.”

Fluttershy’s smile widened. “If you say so.”

“You know what else I’ll say?” Discord sniffed. “I’ll say that you’re probably considering drying off, but before that - you should probably look for your present.”

Fluttershy blinked. “My, um. My present?”

“Yes, your present. You don’t think I’d let a birthday pass you by without deigning to give you some sort of gift, now, would I?”

“Well, um. Th-thank you, Discord.”

The two of them lapsed into silence.

Finally, Discord crossed his arms. “Well? Aren’t you going to look for it?”

“Look for it?”

Discord rolled his eyes. “It wouldn’t feel rewarding to get the present if I just forked it over to you. So, yes: you’ll have to find it.”

“Well, um...where would it be? Anywhere in the cottage?”

“I should have known that you’d lack the sort of verve necessary to puzzle out these sorts of conundrums on your own. Fine.” Discord sighed. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the second-to-last place you’d normally look.”

Fluttershy paused, then looked around the living room. Everything seemed in place, save for a large white vase on the mantle-

“No,” Fluttershy mumbled. “That isn’t it.”

“Pardon?”

Fluttershy stared at the vase for two and a half moments. Abruptly, she gasped, beaming. “I think I get it!”

Discord quirked an eyebrow. “Do you, now?”

“Yes! The new vase would have been obvious, but then I thought it would have been *too* obvious. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Because normally, if you were looking for something, you wouldn’t pay attention to the obvious hiding spots. You’d search the unexpected and unassuming places, first, because you’d think that nopony would hide something in such an obvious place. So normally, the last place you end up looking is the first place you’d normally expect it to be, right?”

Discord smirked. “Go on…”

“So that means that if it’s the second-to-last place I’d normally look, it’d be the second place I’d normally expect. Which means that the vase would be the first place I’d normally expect, so it can’t be there.”

“And…?”

“...if I woke up in my bedroom...that’s where it would be, right? The second-most-likely place?”

Discord sniffed. “Congratulations. You’ve managed to posit an assumption that sounds more ludicrous than I look.”

Fluttershy’s ears drooped. “Oh…”

“Ha! I’m kidding,” Discord guffawed. “You’re spot on the money, Fluttershy. I dare say that you’ve learned to think like a true Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony.”

Grinning, Fluttershy trotted into her bedroom. After a half-second pause, she looked under her bed and withdrew a small white box, wrapped in a delicate pink ribbon.

“Open it!” Discord chortled.

Fluttershy paused for significantly longer than a half-second. “Um…”

“I promise it’s not an automatic air horn again.”

“But what about-”

“Or a brand of Parliament-class self-lighting firecrackers, or a cuckoo clock from the distant kingdom of dilated time. Or a swarm of stinger-less and friendly wasps, though I’ll state yet again that you were in absolutely no danger-”

“I know.” Fluttershy undid the ribbon, opened the box and gasped.

Inside the present was a pendant, fastened with a silver chain. A large opal with almost uncountable flecks of color caught the light of the morning sun, causing it to dazzle with every conceivable hue. Within the beautiful gemstone was an intricate carving in white: a pony’s head, set in profile.

“It’s beautiful!”

“What, the rock? Hardly as beautiful as the figure inside of it.”

Fluttershy held the pendant up to her face.

“It’s me…”

“Of course it’s you. Do you think it would be personal at all if i gave you a bauble with somepony else’s face carved into it? Besides, I dare say that it’d be a far uglier trinket without you.”

“Discord, it’s…” Fluttershy trailed off, turning to look at him. “It’s…”

“A cameo. That’s the proper word for this sort of trifle. Taken from the purest vein of opal, honed by one of the finest gem crafters in the city of canals. The inset comes from his best friend Buoneighratti, who carved it from a bone from one of his brightest pupils. Donated posthumously, of course. That’s what you get for living in the city of canals and never bothering to learn how to swim, the poor sod. For the record.” Discord added, cutting Fluttershy off with the raise of one paw, “Not crafted with any sort of magic or chaotic chicanery, god’s honor.”

“But...but this must have cost a fortune. How did you afford this?”

“As it turns out, I make for the most…inspirational sort of model. Once La Bellezza Del Caos is released next month, I’m certain the world will agree that it was a fair trade.”

“I don’t know what to say…” Fluttershy trailed off.

“Well, ah. I suppose I haven’t given you much of a chance to get a word in edgewise, have I? Which is to say, one might think that I’ve almost deliberately been dithering about at this current moment, by acknowledging the fact that I’m rambling and preempting you from interjecting into this pseudo-monologue-”

“Discord…”

“-Which could stem from a variety of factors, one of them potentially, which is to say not necessarily, an unexpected and certainly unwelcome case of-”

“Discord.”

“-Nerves, Fluttershy. Nervousness. The very substance that you seem to be entirely constructed of when forced to enter any sort of unanticipated social situation, and no less than ninety-five percent of anticipated ones-”

“Discord.”

“-Which is understandable at this particular moment when all things considered you’re probably going to lose your temper with me and please tell me you liked your present Fluttershy I‘m begging you please tell me that you like it-”

Fluttershy set the cameo down on the floor and wordlessly took Discord’s claw in her hoof. The draconequus gasped, then fell silent.

“I love it, Discord.”

Discord’s claw trembled. “Ah. I mean, ah...Thank you, Fluttershy.”

“Discord, you know how there’s a saying that the value of a gift comes from the thought put into it?”

“Tripe. Nonsense. Belief in that sort of rubbish leads to giving away hand-me-down socks during the holidays, and I won’t abide by that drivel. Aaaaaaaand I suppose I’ve gone and missed the point of what you were about to say, haven’t I?”

Silence.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I won’t interrupt. Please continue.”

“I know that you could have, well...conjured one up with chaos, but...but the fact that you thought about it so much, and...the fact that you spent…”

“Weeks. Weeks posing next to a slab of rock. In a slanderous pose. While being ogled by a bearded poof with a penchant for chattering about otherworldly muses.”

Silence.

“I’m not lying, Fluttershy. I promise.”

“I know you weren’t. But you planned this out, and worked for weeks, and talked with famous artists about making something that was like...like this.” Fluttershy smiled. “I don’t know of anypony who would have worked this hard on a present like this.”

Discord snorted. “Of course you do. Charity and her dresses, Pickle Fry and her veritable bandwagon of birthday enterprises-”

“-give their own presents their own way. But you gave your own present your own way, and you put at least as much time and effort into it as they did into their presents. And that’s part of why it’s one of the most beautiful birthday presents I’ve ever been given.”

Discord fell silent. For a few seconds, he neither moved, nor spoke. Abruptly, he squeezed Fluttershy’s hoof.

“I wasn’t expecting to learn a friendship lesson, you know.”

“It never hurts to learn something new, Discord.”

“That’s supposed to be the sort of lesson I’d teach you, isn’t it?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“...You really think it’s beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“But solely for the thought put into it, right?”

“Especially for the thought put into it, Discord. But even if you hadn’t thought about it at all, it would still be a beautiful pendant.”

“Cameo.”

“Cameo. I’m sorry.”

Discord squeezed her hoof again. “Don’t be. I’m...incredibly relieved that you like it.”

“Thank you.”

“...Why are you thanking me? I should be thanking you.”

“Well, um. If you think about it, I should be thanking you in the first place.”

“But if we had assumed a chronological chain of thanking events, then your current thank is misplaced, or else an expression of gratitude over my expression of gratitude in a remarkably silly manner.”

Fluttershy giggled. Discord turned to face her, and the two of them made eye contact.

Silence.

“Well.” Discord coughed. “This is beginning to grow uncomfortably sentimental, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to be, Discord.”

Discord blushed. “Sentimental?”

“Uncomfortable.”

The doorbell rang.

Comments

[Spiritofchaos227]

That was wonderfully awkward and I've never related to a spirit of chaos more. I love it