Domestic Drabbles of Discord's Dimension

by GeekCat

Organized Chaos

Discord nervously followed Fluttershy through the kitchen. His heart pounded, his mind racing as he tried to imagine what punishment Fluttershy had thought up. Will I be cooking desserts for a week? But I like baking, even if I'm terrible... Be forced to catch knives!? ...wait, no...Fluttershy can hardly leave an uncovered knife sitting in the open, let alone throw it at someone...

Fluttershy walked past their personal pantry...and stopped in front of the extra pantry for Sweet Feathers Animal Sanctuary. He swallowed thickly, already not liking where this was going.

"For your behavior last week, and taking down that company..." she said. "Twilight told me to punish you somehow."

He grumbled, grinding his teeth. "As though she hadn't done enough already..." He shuddered as he thought of all of the dull community service he had to do, and that even more horrifyingly dull, practically unused, guest room.

She coughed into her hoof, bringing his attention back to the present. "And so...I'm going to have to ask you to organize this pantry," she said, gesturing to the door next to her. "All of it."

"..."

"...Discord?" she said, almost nervously.

"...rebooting," he said in a robotic voice, his eyes a shade of blue. "Please wait..."

She sighed, scuffing a hoof against the ground. She glanced down at the floor, then back up at him...then at the pantry door.

He blinked, his eyes returning back to normal. "Reboot complete," he said. Then in his normal voice, he said, "Flutters dear...love of my life, star in my sky...surely you can't mean the whole pantry, can you?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "I said the whole pantry, and I meant it," she said. "Besides...it's really not that big, Discord. And I have a list to help you." She pointed to it, sitting on a clipboard hanging next to the door.

"But...that'll take all afternoon!" he bemoaned, tugging on his ears.

"I think you'll be able to finish by dinner," she said. "...especially if you start without trying to stall by complaining."

Drat. She was too good, being so easily able to see right through his plans! "So...get things in order, cleaned, and with the appropriate amounts?" he said with a sigh.

"Mhmm. But before you start, I'd like to lay out a couple of...ground rules, I guess you could call them," she said.

He snorted, crossing his arms. "What, like 'no eating in the pantry' or 'no magic allowed'?"

"Not...exactly," she said. "Though I would prefer if you took care of this by hand instead of with magic."

She held up a wing and started to count rules off on her feathers. "First: if you're feeling unwell from too much order, leave right away. Second: if you have any questions, come see me...I'll try to stay nearby. Third: I'll try to check up on you every fifteen minutes or so."

"...oh," he said weakly. Those all sounded like...rules put in place to protect him. "I'll keep...all of that in mind," he said. "Anything else?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Just make sure we have the correct amounts of everything on the list, and see if you can get things in order in there."

He frowned, slowly nodding. "...let's just get this over with," he said snatching up the clipboard and throwing open the pantry door. The hallway of shelves stocked with food seemed to stretch away from him, laughing and mocking him.

He grit his teeth, shoved up his fur like sleeves, and marched in. "No order can best me!" he declared with determination. "You'll see! Even without magic, this'll be a snap!"

---

"And...twenty," he said with a sigh. "Twenty radishes. Twenty. Stinking. Radishes." He glared down at the list in his hand. Twenty seemed to be the desired number of radishes, so he aggressively checked that off.

He let the list hover in the air beside him as he nudged the root vegetables into nice, neat rows. He sent a tendril of magic into each, making sure that they were fresh. Once satisfied, he wiped the sweat off of his brow...and shifted over to the next item on the list.

Fortunately, this pantry already had a pretty good semblance of order...since it was Fluttershy's area, after all. But he still had to make sure that everything was in the general order of the list, that there was the correct number of everything, that there were no messes or rotting food...he stuck out his tongue.

The door to the pantry creaked open, and Fluttershy walked in. "How's everything going?" she asked, quickly trotting up to him.

"Oh, juuuuust peachy," he said, rolling his eyes as he counted the number of peaches. They were short one, so he snapped up a fresh, juicy one.

She stepped closer, draping a wing over his back as she looked at the shelves. "You seem to be making good progress," she said.

"Oh yes, wonderful progress. I'm just delighted," he said, checking off peaches and moving on to the next thing. "Is it enough progress to take a break?"

"Well...how are you feeling?" she asked.

He scowled. "Grumpy, tired, and...ugh, orderly," he said with a shudder.

"But not sick, or unwell?" she pressed.

"...No, not yet," he said with a huff.

"Then I'd appreciate it if you kept going," she said, reaching up to give his paw a squeeze. "As I said, if you start to feel really unwell, leave right away! I'll make you a cup of tea for the next time I come in."

His ears perked up. "...singing ginseng?" he said.

"If that's what you want," she said with a nod. "Now...I'll leave you to it."

She stepped to the doorway, rapping her hoof against the door. "I think it'd be a good idea to leave this open," she said. "So, um...I can peek in on you, or you can get to chaos quickly if you have to."

"Alright," he said with a nod. There goes my privacy to slack off, he thought. Though...this meant he could take breaks without being surrounded by order! ...and if Fluttershy kept insisting on the whole pantry being organized, slacking off would probably just prolong this torture.

She smiled and headed over to the kitchen stove, probably to boil that tea she promised. He sighed, running a tongue over his dry lips and nudging a few carrots into their proper place as he started to count them.

---

Discord continued going through the pantry, slowly working his way down the list. Everything felt like a dreary haze of food and numbers, clarity only truly coming back when Fluttershy brought him a cup of tea, along with some snacks. The tea was different each time, even if it was just a different number of sugar cubes or an extra dollop of honey or chocolate syrup, and he was grateful for the small bits of chaos he could get.

He gulped down each cup in seconds, and devoured the snacks in just a few bites. Fluttershy would ask how he was feeling, looking him over and feeling his forehead. But although he was terribly bored and frustrated, he wasn't in any danger...and her tea seemed to give him an extra boost to keep pushing forward, making him feel better, if only for a few moments.

He checked off on the number of potatoes, of which there were quite a few. He looked down at his list for the next item. Nothing on the page after potatoes. He lifted the sheet of paper to look at the next one...and just saw an empty clipboard.

It slipped from his grip and clattered to the floor, the completed pages all fluttering back into place. His jaw dropped, and he glanced around the pantry. It was all clean and sickeningly organized...everything in its place, with the correct numbers of everything.

After taking a few seconds to let it sink in, he grabbed the clipboard and ran out the door. "I'm freeeeeee!" he roared, his voicing echoing down the hallway.

Fluttershy yelped from nearby, surprised enough that the cup of tea she was holding slipped from her hooves, crashing to the floor. "I can fix that," he said, snapping his fingers. The cup fragments levitated and pulled themselves together, attaching to each other with molten silver filling the cracks. The tea puddle spiraled up in a tornado, whirling its way towards the sink drain.

"You finished?" she said, holding out a hoof. He quickly placed the clipboard in it, and stood to the side of the door, presenting it like a game show host.

She read through each paper, smiling and nodding...and chuckling at a couple of doodles he couldn't help but make to stave off the boredom. She then looked up and at the organized pantry, nodding in satisfaction. "You did very well, Discord," she said with a smile. "Thank you."

"Yeah...but I never want to do that alone again," he said, placing a hand against his head. With his victory high and his last shot of caffeine wearing off, he was starting to feel tired, with the beginnings of a headache. "...how long did that take? I was too busy counting everything to register your number of visits."

She bit her lip, looking away with slight nervousness. "...three hours," she said quietly, and with a small wince.

His eyes went blank, and he felt a systems crash almost coming back again. Three. Hours!? He had complained that it would take all afternoon, but...he didn't expect to hear that all that organizing had actually taken such a large chunk out of his day!

The exhaustion he felt rushed up, threatening to overtake him...and it came with its friend, a splitting headache. He scowled and groaned, pushing himself off of the wall and stumbling towards the living room. He heard Fluttershy doing something behind him, before the sound of her hoofsteps told him she was following.

After walking through (and bumping against) the doorway, he flopped onto the couch, his head nestling into a soft pillow. His head still pounded, but lying down made his exhaustion feel less pressing. Fluttershy slowly approached, holding something in her mouth.

"I figured you might want this," she said, holding it out to him enough he could see it was an ice pack. "...headache?"

He slowly nodded, and she placed it on top of his head. It was wonderful cold, dulling most of the pain...though there was still an unpleasant throbbing sensation under his temples. Stupid orderly pantry.

"Whhhhhy....?" he whined, placing his hands on top of his head. "Why would you make me organize an entire room, after all the organization I faced last week!?" He knew this was borderline guilt-tripping, but he felt too...too infected with order to really care.

Fluttershy's face scrunched up, and she took a deep breath through her nose. "...Discord," she said slowly. "If you had a choice, would you organize all of that again?" He quickly shook his head. "Would you try and get somebody else to do it?" He nodded.

"And...if you were a pony living in Canterlot, is there anyone you could hire to organize your things?" she asked.

He briefly opened his mouth...then shut it with a click. "...no, not anymore," he said. "Because I got rid of the one company that offered to organize things."

She slowly nodded. "I know order is dangerous—sometimes even deadly!—for you, but...some ponies, even if they like having things in order, don't like to do it themselves," she said. "Like the clients of that company."

"...so," he said, popping his lips. "Is this a lesson in how I should have tried to co-exist with the company? Spoken with Twilight instead of crushing them like a soda can? Because there's proof that they were pretty shady, doing some legally gray stuff..."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You didn't target them for doing shady stuff. You targeted them because of their business goals." He flinched, looking away. It was true...he had only found the evidence of their shadier things after infiltrating them, and had only collected it to save his own hide if he had to.

"...so I should have talked with Twilight, trusting that a friend would listen to my side before rushing off and supporting something that would hurt me," he said. She nodded, and he sighed. "Seems like the less fun option, but okay..."

"Discord, you complained about that company half the nights you came back from them," she said, raising an eyebrow. "And the only time you really seemed happy was after you 'finished' them. That doesn't sound very fun."

"...huh," he said, eyes widening in realization. Infiltrating a company had founded like exciting spy work, and causing the silly string explosion had been fun, but...now that she mentioned it, he could remember the grueling task of organization, having to tread carefully to keep his cover. And the company wasn't kind enough to check on him, bringing him delicious tea to help him keep going...

"...I was a real dummy last week, for not listening to you," he mumbled. "Heck, I...I even went overboard on chaos and entertainment when I was home to try and distract you from worrying about me." She blinked in shock, and he glanced at the floor.

"I know that I...I'm not perfect. And I'll probably keep making foolish mistakes," he said. "But...in the future, I promise I'll listen to you...if you're still willing to help and support me."

There was a pause...and then, he felt her wrap her forelegs around his neck. "Oh, Discord," she said. "I'll always be here to help you. ...though, listening to me before going through with crazy plans would make things easier."

He chuckled a little, as did she, and she placed a feather-light kiss on his cheek. "I'll make a pot of leftovers soup for supper," she said, gently rubbing a hoof against his cheek. He sighed and closed his eyes, smiling the slightest bit. "You just rest until you feel better, okay?"

He gave a tiny nod, and he felt her pull away and stand up. He heard her pause by the record player and slide something on...and soon, the soothing sound of static filled the room. Then, he felt a thick blanket draped over him, and opened his eyes. Fluttershy had given him a multicolored, chaotic mess of a blanket—one of the first things they had knit together.

She smiled and patted his side before heading into the kitchen. He sighed, closing his eyes once again. With the ice cooling his headache, and soothing chaos surrounding him...He was already starting to feel a little bit better. And with a lesson learned, hopefully he wouldn't have to face an organized punishment for a long time.

Comments

[Annie_TC]

Oh a chapter connected to the one before it!, it's been a while since the last time. And I love how fluttershy teach discord the lesson, very clever.
I guess we have 5 chapters left right? Man I'm going to miss this, but we still have some time before it's over, so let's all enjoy it and be thankful that it happened.

[ChubbyNia]

Nice lesson to be learned, what are you gonna write for chapter 100 something special probably?

[ChubbyNia]

10975119
Ikr!