Salvation a la Mode and a Cup of Tea

by Commander30

Chapter 5

Now that she had an easy way of contacting him, Fluttershy found that she was much more disposed to write Discord letters.

And the next one she’d written him was certainly more interesting than her first. Twilight had become an alicorn! Wasn’t that exciting? Fluttershy had told him in detail about how it had happened, at least as best as she could determine from her own experiences and how Twilight had explained everything to them later. It was surprising, and definitely a huge change in their lives, but Fluttershy had to admit that Twilight definitely deserved the honor and prestige that came along with her new position.

Of course, just the next day later, a mysterious threat had appeared from the Everfree Forest, and the Element bearers were kept busy with trying to figure out how to deal with it… and Discord had also, um, “helped” in his own unique way. Fluttershy wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it, but she knew better than to question him, because after all, he wasn’t keen on explanations for anything.

Although, the very next day, she got one… sort of… in the form of her very first letter from him, delivered through the peculiar desk drawer displaying an upright red flag and loudly proclaiming “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!”

It took her a minute to be able to read it, true, due to all of the letters randomly spinning around the page as she read it. But she grew accustomed to it after awhile.

My dear Fluttershy,

Your news of Twilight Sparklepants’ new form gave me the most excitement I’ve felt since—well, since finding that cactus plush for you, which was pretty recent, BUT STILL GRANT ME THIS JOY I BEG YOU. Alicorns are so stuffy and serious, and yes, Twilight was predisposed to this “upgrade”, wasn’t she? She’ll need PLENTY of character development to be truly worthy of the title of “princess”, as I’m sure you’ll agree. I’m certainly happy to oblige to “develop” her. After all, what are friends for?

Besides, I imagine that you’re happy to have found that Tree of Harmony? I mean I’m certainly not happy to see that blasted plant again, but on the other paw it was very welcome to relieve you of the burden of your Element. You always tug at it so awkwardly when it’s stuck around your neck. And I don’t blame you. It looks quite cumbersome. I’d have pitched it long ago if I were you, but I suppose letting a magical tree gobble it up is the next best thing.

I look forward to discussing this with you in person at our next tea party, at the specified time of whateverscheduleyouponieskeepIhavenocluewhatdayoftheweekitevenis. But if it’s to spend time with you again, I’ll keep whatever schedule you want! I’ll even sent a reminder and everything!

Tell Pumpkin Dog I said hi.

Your friend,

Discord

The letter had given Fluttershy a warm smile that lasted throughout the day that nearly everypony she saw commented on. And that evening, she finally got the chance to respond.

Dear Discord,

It was such a joy to receive a letter from you! I’ve already read it four times. I really love how the letters in the words keep rotating around and around. I guess I don’t know how much you actually like doing things like writing letters, but I hope you’ll write me more often. It makes me happy to hear from you.

Well, I think Twilight’s still a little peeved that you didn’t tell her right away what was going on with the plunder vines, but she’s dealing with it as best as she can, I suppose. I think she’s finally starting to get used to her wings, too. Already she’s flying almost better than I do, although I suppose that’s not a very high bar. She also already has another stained glass window in Princess Celestia’s palace. I’m just glad that I’m not in this one this time. I think I’m in three of the panes, and that’s three too many, in my point of view. I think Twilight was a little nervous about her solo one at first, but now she’s happy and proud to be in so many, and I’m happy and proud for her, too. I know she’ll be an amazing princess.

I suppose I am a bit relieved to be free of the burden of my Element, although I also understand that it’s needed to keep Equestria safe. It’s a very mixed bag. If I can find a way to keep everypony safe without having to rely on its awful powers again, I would be the happiest I’ve ever been. But I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. The safety and happiness of others come before my own desires, after all.

I would definitely love to schedule a regular time to see you—and to have tea, I have plenty of it! Would Tuesday afternoons work for you? I know your schedule is quite different from mine, so if that’s not doable, please let me know as soon as possible. I can rearrange things. Just let me know.

Pumpkin Dog misses you! I think he really likes those real wooden pencil treats of yours. Make sure to bring some more next time you’re here!

Your friend,

Fluttershy

Upon finishing the letter, she sealed it and stuffed it into her discordant drawer in her desk, knowing that it would reach its intended recipient.

She then attended to her animals and her domestic chores for the evening, her attentions entirely focused on the tasks at hand. She had nearly forgotten about the letter she’d just written, in fact.

Nearly, but not entirely.

That night, she laid in bed soporifically, the events of the last few days enough to drain her energy into what was promising to be an acceptant, acquiescent sleep.

It was more than what she was usually granted after major events, after all, so she would thankfully count her blessings… after some rest.

She had nearly completely drifted off to the sandman’s domain when the snap and bright flash of light jolted her awake.

“Ah, Fluttershy! Good evening!” Discord was snaking out of her lower bedpost, eager and enthusiastic in whatever he wanted to tell her.

Wearily, Fluttershy rubbed at her eyes. “Uh… good evening, Discord… I was trying to…”

“Rest, I know,” Discord interrupted, throwing an arm around her withers. “But your latest letter demanded an immediate response.”

“I… I can wait on the response,” Fluttershy answered uneasily.

“Nonsense!” The paw around Fluttershy’s withers tightened fondly as Discord motioned with his eagle claw. “The hesitation I detected in your words betrayed a pressing need to know the truth.”

“Uh… about what?’ Fluttershy stammered. She hadn’t realized she’d been asking any sort of question at all in her letter other than a regular date to meet up, and that certainly didn’t demand an immediate answer, did it?

“About Celestia’s stained glass windows,” Discord answered.

Fluttershy gasped.

“Now, granted, I know as little about them as you do,” Discord admitted. “But perhaps we could discover the truth about them together?”

“But… what truths about them are unknown?” Fluttershy asked, sitting up straighter. “They’re, um, pretty straightforward.”

“Hmm, do tell,” Discord murmured, taking notes in a spiral-bound notebook.

“Well… they’re signs of commemoration, showcasing great events of the past and, um… the heroic ponies responsible.” The last part of this sentence was mumbled into near gibberish.

“The hewofic moapies remumumuhf, interesting,” Discord said.

Fluttershy straightened up again, feeling ridiculous at herself. Because this was ridiculous. “And anypony would be absolutely grateful to be honored in such a way,” she said firmly.

“Aha!” Discord lightly tapped the tip of her nose with his pencil. “But you are not just anypony!”

“I, uh, I…” Fluttershy stammered again, her heart sinking. “…no,” she finally admitted quietly. “I actually… hate them.”

“And the truth has come a-knocking!” In Discord’s place a door suddenly appeared, with the sound of rapping at the frame. Fluttershy turned the handle and Discord strolled out, smirking at her. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“No, not really,” Fluttershy said, frowning. “I don’t really like to hate anything. Especially not something as… inoffensive as stained glass windows.”

“On the contrary, their sharp, unmoving pictures that lend themselves to no nuance whatsoever is appallingly offensive.”

“I don’t even hate all of them,” said Fluttershy quickly. “Or even most of them. I mean… I don’t really like most of them, but the only ones I really… hate… are the ones that show…”

“Ooh, let me guess,” said Discord, raising a hand in the air. “You?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I know… it’s silly…”

“Absolutely. It makes no sense whatsoever. I love it!”

“Can we please talk about something else?”

“No. Because…” Discord leaned in closer to Fluttershy, speaking in an effected stage whisper. “I believe I know how to solve your problem.”

“My… problem?”

“Yes! You’ll just have to come with me.” He pulled away from her and held out his paw expectantly.

Fluttershy blinked.

She was still pretty tired, and wary from the direction this conversation had gone, and really had no idea what Discord was talking about (although that at least was fairly expected). But, well… she was awake now, and (while she hated to admit it) intrigued. It was probably just best to see for herself what he wanted to show her.

So she held out a hoof and took his outstretched paw. “Alright.”

And they were instantly transported out of her cottage and into… somewhere.

The sky was a deep purple, nearly black, and dotted with thousands of glistening stars. But where Fluttershy was situated, she was instead bathed in yellow and pink lights.

And when she saw why, she screeched and ducked as much into her own mane as she could.

She was surrounded by tall, immense stained glass windows, every single one of them depicting herself.

“Pretty good likenesses, wouldn’t you say?” Discord said, floating lazily next to her and sounding rather pleased with himself. “I nearly gave you a buzz cut in one of them, but I held myself back.”

“Why did you bring me here?!” Fluttershy gasped out. “You… I just told you that I hate these!”

“Of course. And you know what you do with things that you hate, right?”

“Uh… cower and run away and try to avoid them entirely for the rest of your life?”

Discord blinked, looking a bit surprised. “Hmm. I’d never thought of that before…” He brightened up again. “But no, the correct answer is that you destroy them!”

Fluttershy drew in her breath. “Destroy?”

“Correct! These have all been lovingly hand-crafted by only the finest of chaos magic with the express purpose of being shattered into a million pieces at your hooves.” He balled up his fists and shook excitedly, looking on the verge of letting out a giant squee. “So what are you waiting for?”

Meekly, Fluttershy poked her head out from her mane and made herself look at the glass again. “They all look so… nice. I mean, I don’t like seeing myself like this, but I couldn’t possibly destroy such beautiful craftsmanship.”

“Just think of them as like bubblewrap, then,” Discord said with a shrug.

Fluttershy still felt unsure about the whole thing. “These aren’t… real, right? I mean, they’re not the ones in Celestia’s castle?”

“Of course not.” Discord looked a little put out by that. “Really, Fluttershy, I’m offended. Mine are much better than hers.”

“And… you really want me to destroy these?”

“Let’s just say, on a scale of one to ten, I’m at about a twenty-one and a half.”

“O-okay.” Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy straightened her neck and stepped up to the nearest windowpane. The sight still filled her with intense disquiet and unease… maybe smashing them to bits really would help her feel bit better?

She flung out a foreleg and tapped the glass. Nothing happened.

She could actually hear Discord rolling his eyes, even though they stayed in his head this time. “Come on, you can do better than that.”

Squinting her eyes and gritting her teeth, Fluttershy tried again, with more force this time. Still nothing.

“That wouldn’t even break a stick! You’ve got to really be destructive.” Discord’s ears perked up eagerly, giving Fluttershy only the tiniest bit of warning as to what was coming next. “Like this!” And suddenly his tail cracked out like a whip, smacking the pane and shattering it into thousands of tiny shards.

“Aaahh!” Fluttershy yelped, still standing right in the crossfire. She instinctively dived under her forelegs and covered her head as well as she could.

“Ah, that’s more like it,” Discord said in a self-satisfied tone. “The rest are all yours—wait, why are you cowering?!” He sounded almost offended at that.

“B-because I don’t want to get hit with broken glass!” Fluttershy gasped out.

“And you won’t! My dear Fluttershy, did you really think that I would let you get hurt here?”

“I… didn’t think either way about that,” Fluttershy admitted.

“Well, don’t think too fast.” And before Fluttershy could move, Discord grabbed a broken piece off the ground and flung it right at her. Fluttershy didn’t even have time to flinch or close her eyes… and thus she saw that it seemed to bounce right off of her before even hitting her.

No longer frightened but still a bit wary, she attempted to pick up the piece to examine for herself, but found that if she tried to get any closer than about an inch to it, something seemed to stop her, and in fact the shard seemed to push back from her as if she and it were similarly charged magnetic poles.

“Really.” Discord scoffed at her. “You trust me so little?”

“Sorry, but it’s… it’s an instinct thing, I did it without even thinking, and—Discord!” she suddenly shrieked in terror. “Your body is covered in glass shards!”

“Oh, is it?” Discord remarked lightly. He pulled a larger one out of the base of his tail and took a look. “What luck! I have treats for later!” He popped the shard in his mouth and munched on it. “And one for now.”

“Are you hurt?” Fluttershy asked frantically.

“Negative, sarge. And neither are you. So now that that’s all cleared up…” As his long tail flicked against itself and popped another glass shard out, he motioned again towards the other windowpanes. “They’re all feeling very left out, you know.”

Fluttershy’s hooves pawed at the ground, making the shards next to them do a bizarre dance in order to stay away from her. She looked up, seeing yet another stained glass depiction of herself, almost mocking her in its calm serenity.

Her eyes narrowed in determination.

She ran towards it… and past it. Rearing up on her forelegs like Applejack would against a particularly enormous tree, she bucked her back legs solidly and squarely against the glass.

It shattered in a very satisfying crash.

“Yes! YES!” Discord cheered over the tinkling of falling glass, donning a cheerleader’s outfit and pom-poms. “Go Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy breathed heavily, looking at the translucent pink and yellow mess all around her, and felt herself smile. This was… gratifying. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, and it probably wasn’t right to deal with her feelings by being destructive this way… but there were clearly no rules here. And, if only for a moment, she was happy to chuck away any notions about what was “right” or “wrong”.

She made a running gallop towards the next pane, shattering it with an even stronger kick.

Another horrible eternally tranquil Fluttershy, gone.

She ran towards the next one, almost laughing with glee this time. She barreled into it head-first, crashing through in a shower of shards. The shards all caught the brilliant light cast by the sky full of stars, leaving twinkling, shining colors scattered around the area. She gasped in wonder—she’d never seen anything so beautiful; had never even imagined that such beauty was possible.

She wanted more of it.

She spun around, focusing on the next pane—wait, why was she green in this one? Oh well. No matter. That would just add more beautiful colors to her glass canvas.

Run. Gallop. Smash. And her shame and unease and guilt became another magnificent, stunning, twinkling glass waterfall.

She destroyed another pane. And another. And another. And more colors dazzled around her and even the crashing and tinkling of broken glass seemed almost musical to her ears. She laughed blissfully, feeling light enough that she wasn’t sure if she had started flying at some point or not, and not really caring either way.

She had never felt so free before.

There were only a few left now. Turning to the next one, Fluttershy hesitated once again. The others had just been unfamiliar scenes that didn’t tie to anything in reality, but this one was very familiar. It was the one of Fluttershy and her friends surrounding Nightmare Moon.

“You… promise that this isn’t the real one?” Fluttershy asked, turning back to Discord.

“Scout’s honor!” Discord remarked, dressed appropriately.

Fluttershy regarded the pane again. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him… but it looked so real…

And, well so what if it was the real one? Didn’t she want never to see these again… for anyone never to see these again?

So she shrieked out something that was nearly a battle cry, reared up on her hind legs, and smashed it to smithereens.

“Ooooohhhh!” a crowd of Discords murmured approvingly.

Fluttershy turned to the next one. This was the one that simply showed the six Element Bearers in their round, perfect bubbles. She remembered how the stained glass Discord had lounged so nonchalantly on the bubble showing her form that very first day and growled dangerously.

I am not a lounge chair.

This was a nonsensical pre-attack thought, but it was still enough to send her shrieking once more, running straight through the center of the pane and shattering it profusely.

There was now only one pane left, and Fluttershy felt her eyes burn with anger the instant they fell upon it. It was the one of the six ponies, all looking artificially posed and calm and dissonantly happy, surrounding and condemning Discord’s twisted, shocked form.

“This,” growled Fluttershy, “is the one I hate most of all!”

“Ooh, me too!” Discord cried out gleefully.

Fluttershy took a running leap, aiming her body not at the middle this time, but right at her own, horrible form. She wanted this one to not shatter into shards, but disintegrate into dust.

CRASH!

It was done.

Fluttershy panted heavily as the last of the stained glass sprinkled down around her like huge, sparkling raindrops. They tinkled and clattered against each other until they had all settled down, and then it was silent once more.

Discord was practically hopping from foot to hoof, looking just as pleased with her as he was with himself. “Called it! That did make you feel better!”

Still panting, Fluttershy raised her gaze upwards, still overwhelmed by the beauty of the night sky, wherever they even were. “Yes,” she said, smiling. “It did.”

“Now then,” said Discord eagerly, popping up next to her, “for your next wanton destruction of highly breakable artifacts, I believe I saw some fine crystal dinnerware down the next avenue over.”

Fluttershy blinked, a little slowly and groggily. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, she remembered that she had nearly been asleep before Discord had whisked her off here. “I… I can’t tonight, Discord, I’m exhausted.”

“What does that have to do with anything?’ Discord asked genuinely.

Despite her fatigue, Fluttershy managed a small chuckle. “I need to go to sleep.”

“Really?” Discord’s eyes turned into confused question marks. “Didn’t you just sleep yesterday?”

Still smiling, Fluttershy said, “I had a wonderful time here, but I really should be going to bed now. Please take me home.”

“Very well,” Discord muttered with a disappointed sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to destroy all that crystal myself. Or better yet, turn it into rubber.” He snapped his fingers and in an instant, they were back in her own room.

Fluttershy flopped onto her bed, her head hitting her pillow with a soft, satisfying smack. “That was a lot of fun,” she murmured to Discord. “Thank you.”

“Any time, dear Fluttershy.” Discord smiled warmly at her and snapped again, causing her blankets to all pull up and tuck around her like a warm cocoon. “I hope you don’t mind if I took a little souvenir from your mess.”

Blinking deeply and struggling to stay awake, she mumbled, “What is it?”

“You missed this one.” Smirking, Discord presented the circular pane of Fluttershy’s head, the one that he had enjoyed lounging on the very first time they’d met.

Sighing, Fluttershy’s eyelids grew too heavy to open again. She was certain she’d destroyed that one… although maybe this was just a copy? “That’s not a lounge chair,” she murmured, nearly incoherently.

“Can it be a barstool, then?” Discord asked instantly.

She was already half-asleep, but Fluttershy still giggled lightly. “That’s fine.”

The last thing she heard before completely drifting off to sleep was Discord’s fond “Sweet dreams!” and the snap of his departure.

Comments

[Alchemik]

“Can it be a barstool, then?” Discord asked instantly.

Ah, yes, the classic commemorative barstool. Personally, I prefer the lampshade, but as needs must.