> The Draconequus with the Dragon Tattoo
>  by A M Shark
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The old earth pony gazed out of her bedroom window at the farm's apple orchard. She could see a large red stallion and a pale yellow young mare hurrying from the barn to the orchard with empty baskets which they loaded up with apples and brought back to the barn. The old pony would have been out there helping them, but the cold weather had been making her joints hurt worse than usual.

She sighed as she continued watching her grandchildren work. Even after all this time it didn't look right to see just the two of them working out there without their middle sibling. She would have felt better if the farm had still been under Applejack's care. While Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh were both hard workers, neither of them had quite the drive Applejack used to have when it came to running the farm...

She shook her head. It was no use thinking like that; no use wishing for what could have been. The dull ache in her back legs had been growing steadily worse and now it was begging her to go lie down. She turned from the window and moved slowly toward her bed. She was almost there when one of her front hooves bumped something that fell to the floor with a clunk and a rustle. Looking down, she felt an ache in her heart that for once wasn't a physical one.

The something she had bumped was a corked and sealed bottle of cider. Tied to its neck was a bunch of rosebuds made out of dried apple peelings. A casual observer might have thought it a pretty gift but the sight of it only made Granny Smith shudder. Not wanting to see it any longer, she picked it up in her mouth and made her way to the closet. Nudging the door open, she was greeted with the sight of even more cider bottles. The little bunches of dried apple rosebuds had shriveled, crumpled, and fallen off most of them, but other than that they were identical to the one she now held. She set the new bottle down among the others and just stood there for several seconds, looking at them. One of those bottles had been delivered anonymously to the farm every year, ever since...

For the first time in a long while she found herself counting the bottles. There were ten of them.

Ten bottles.

Ten years.

Ten years since Applejack had vanished from her family's life without a trace.

> Chapter 1. James 1:2-3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 1

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."—James 1:2-3






Winter was on its way in Equestria, ponies were gearing up to stay indoors, and in Ponyville Fluttershy's name was currently worse than mud.

"I'm not sure what happened," Fluttershy sighed. She was standing in Carousel Boutique, confiding her problems to Rarity as the white unicorn worked on a new dress design.

"What do you mean, darling?" Rarity asked, pausing in her work to peer at Fluttershy over her work glasses.

Fluttershy drew in a deep breath and plunged into the story of how she had ended up in her current less-than-pleasant situation. She had been tending to her animals, helping them get ready for winter when the animals all seemed to go crazy. They had stampeded into Ponyville and gotten into the supplies in the market stalls. She had tried to stop them, but they hadn't listened to her. It had taken most of the citizens of Ponyville to drive the animals away, and since she had been taking care of the animals, the town had blamed Fluttershy for the accident. She'd had to give away almost all her money to pay for the damages.

"And now I'm all out of bits, and everypony is still mad at me," she concluded.

"Ooh, bummer," said a new voice, startling both Fluttershy and Rarity. They turned to see Pinkie Pie bouncing across the room, a bakery box balanced on her head. Neither of them had heard her come in. How the box didn't fly off her head when she bounced was a mystery they had long given up trying to solve. She landed between them and with a quick little jerk of her head the box's lid flipped open.

"Cupcake?" she asked, lowering her head so that the box slid smoothly off and landed right-side up on the floor.

"Oh, don't mind if I do," said Rarity, using her magic to levitate a cupcake from the box.

Pinkie selected two cupcakes from the box, tossed one into her mouth and held the other one out to Fluttershy.

"Thanks, but I'm not really hungry right now," said Fluttershy.

Pinkie set the cupcake down and threw her forelegs around Fluttershy's neck, pulling her into a tight hug. "Don't worry about everypony in Ponyville. Just give them some time to cool down. They'll come around soon enough."

"I suppose so," Fluttershy said doubtfully, partly because she wasn't so sure the advice would work, and partly because she wouldn't have expected this sort of advice from Pinkie. She would have expected the energetic earth pony to suggest she race all over Ponyville apologizing non-stop to everypony she saw. Then again, Pinkie had mellowed a tad ever since Applejack's disappearance. She was still her fun-loving self, but there were times when she seemed to become oddly quiet and contemplative.

Pinkie gave Fluttershy an extra tight squeeze, lifting the pegasus off her front hooves in the process. "Just wait until they need somepony to handle the animals again and they'll suddenly be your biggest fans," she chirped before releasing Fluttershy, picking up the cupcake box, and bouncing out of the boutique, evidently feeling her job there was done.

When Pinkie paused to glance over her shoulder, Fluttershy gave her a small smile of thanks. However, that smile disappeared as soon as the pink pony did. The trouble with ponies needing someone to take care of the animals was that the animals in question wouldn't be out of their hideouts until winter was over. Fluttershy's heart sank even lower at the thought of having to wait that long before getting back on Ponyville's good side.

Her musing on these depressing thoughts was interrupted when the bell above the front door jingled. She and Rarity looked up again to see a young pale yellow earth pony trotting up to them.

"Sorry I'm late, Rarity," she panted. "Harvesting the apples took longer than I thought."

Rarity waved a hoof dismissively. "Oh, don't worry about it, dear."

Anytime Fluttershy saw one of the former Cutie Mark Crusaders, it amazed her how fast time had gone by. It seemed like just a few days ago she had been foal-sitting them, but there was no denying that the three fillies had now grown into young mares. As fillies they had seldom been apart, constantly trying to earn their cutie marks, but now that they'd finally gotten them, the three seemed to have drifted apart. Oh, they were still friends, but their different talents had led them to pursue different interests and they didn't get together as often as when they were younger.

Now as Fluttershy watched Apple Bloom and Rarity, she felt a familiar mixture of amusement and sorrow; amusement as she tried to imagine Applejack's reaction to the fact that her little sister had begun to take after Rarity in fashion sense; and sorrow that the orange earth pony had missed seeing her little sister grow up.

Fluttershy could still remember when she and the rest of her friends had gotten the news that Applejack was missing. It had been the day after the Apple Family Reunion. Applejack had been seen at the reunion, but there had been so many other relatives also there that it would have been quite easy to lose her in a crowd. At first her siblings and grandmother had assumed she was just off with other family members when they couldn't seem to find her. It wasn't until most of their relatives had left that they realized Applejack was missing. They had contacted their relatives to see if Applejack had left with them by mistake, but everypony claimed that they hadn't seen her since leaving the reunion.

After several days had gone by with no word from Applejack; Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Twilight, and Spike had spent months traveling Equestria, showing pictures of their friend to everypony they met, and asking if they had seen her, but their search had been fruitless. They had managed to find Applejack before when she had disappeared after a Canterlot Rodeo Show, but this time after searching for over a year with no results they were forced to give up their search.

In the ten years since then, much to many ponies' surprise, Apple Bloom had gravitated toward Rarity as a sort of substitute older sister and now she balanced her work on the farm with working as Rarity's assistant.

Fluttershy's thoughts were interrupted yet again when the bell above the boutique's door jingled again. The ponies looked up to see Granny Smith walking in.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, I wanted Granny Smith to see some of my designs," said Apple Bloom.

While Rarity and Apple Bloom talked and worked on several designs, Fluttershy stood there, letting them drape her in several different dress designs, and letting her mind drift back to the animal stampede that had turned Ponyville against her. When she had questioned the animals about what had led to their rampage, they had told her they couldn't explain why they had done what they had done. All they could tell her besides that was a huge storm was coming.

"Is something wrong, Fluttershy?" Apple Bloom asked suddenly.

"Hm? Oh, well ... I..." Fluttershy fumbled for an answer before Rarity came to her rescue and explained the situation to her assistant.

"And now I don't know how I'm going to get the supplies I need," Fluttershy added, once Rarity had finished the story.

"If that's the case, why don't you stay at our farm?" Granny Smith called out from the other side of the room. "We've got enough supplies for a few extra ponies."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose—"

"You wouldn't. We've got a little cabin in an abandoned part of the orchard. You can stay there if you want privacy."

Fluttershy thought about it. It might be a good idea to get away from Ponyville for a bit. Maybe the time away would help her find a way to restore her reputation. "Okay," she said.





It was late in the afternoon in Canterlot and the Princesses Celestia and Luna were walking through the Canterlot gardens. A casual observer might have assumed that they were just taking a stroll, visiting with each other as most sisters did. But a closer examination revealed a certain tenseness in their movements that they couldn't quite disguise. As they moved through the sculpture garden, this tenseness became even more pronounced. Finally they reached their destination: one of the statues.

It was of a creature known as a draconequus. Its head was similar to a pony's, but its long, snake-like body had the limbs of several different animals. Over the centuries, the many gardeners and landscapers that had worked in the gardens had almost always agreed on one thing: that this particular statue was an eyesore among the other otherwise pleasing array of figures. Celestia had just endured their fuming and refused to put the statue in storage. She had decided long ago to keep the statue outside where it could be easily seen because it was not just any old statue.

Sealed inside it was her old enemy Discord. Imprisoning him had been a task neither Celestia nor Luna had enjoyed but they had had little choice in the matter. When free Discord had the ability to warp reality as he chose and this coupled with the fact that he had viewed Equestria and its inhabitants as nothing more than toys put there for his entertainment had been a dangerous combination. He had bucked every attempt to restrain him and finally, in a last desperate attempt to spare their land and subjects from him, Celestia and Luna had used the Elements of Harmony to turn him to stone.

When the Elements had chosen new bearers, Celestia had feared the spell imprisoning Discord would break and he might be free again. But that had been over a decade ago and his statue still showed no sign of cracking. Still it was better to be safe than sorry and the two royal sisters continued to regularly check on the statue.

Now they spread their wings and flew up to the statue, checking it from every angle. As they circled its head, they looked at its frozen stone face. Even the piercings in its ears, nose, and eyebrows had been turned to stone. In a few places the stone hinted at the texture of Discord's feathers, fur, and scales, but it showed nothing of the various tattoos that had covered much of his bizarre body. The only one Celestia could remember very clearly was a large one of a dragon that slithered up the back of his neck and coiled around and around his long body. How the tattoo had shown through his fur, she didn't know but she had found that trying to make sense of most of the things the draconequus had been able to do just resulted in a headache. The strangeness of his tattoos were actually among the more milder of his oddities.

Finishing their inspection and discovering no cracks, Celestia and Luna exchanged relieved looks.

"Looks like the spell still holds," said Celestia as they landed and walked away. As the princesses left the garden, the statues stood silent and motionless on their columns. Minutes ticked by and the garden remained empty. A half hour rolled by and there was still no sign of activity in the garden. But a very soft faint tapping and rattling sound was coming from the draconequus statue.

Unknown to the royal sisters, Discord's stone prison had indeed been slowly weakening over the past ten years. Now he was mentally prodding at the stone, trying to find its weakest areas. It was difficult because he had to take care he didn't break any of the weak spots just yet. If he tried to break the stone too soon, he might only produce cracks in it, and even the tiniest crack would put the royal sisters on alert. If he could have moved, Discord would probably have ground his teeth.

He wanted out. The thought that his freedom might be close was almost more maddening than the shock he had felt when he had first found himself imprisoned. But he forced himself to be patient, forced himself to remember that he couldn't afford to let any cracks appear in the stone until he was quite sure he could succeed in breaking it completely.
> Chapter 2. James 1:4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2

"Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."—James 1:4





"You sure you'll be okay out here?" Rainbow Dash asked as she plopped some of Fluttershy's yarn-filled saddlebags down on the cabin floor.

Fluttershy glanced around the cabin. It had been divided into four rooms: a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room. They were small but considering it would just be herself and Angel staying there for the next couple of months, they would do. "We'll be fine. Thanks for helping me move my things here."

"Hey, no problem," the blue pegasus grinned. "I'd planned to stop over here anyway. Wanted to get some Sweet Apple Acres Cider." She flew down closer to Fluttershy to whisper in her ear. "Word of advice: when the snow starts coming down, don't go out any more than you have to. Looks like we've got a pretty bad blizzard on the way."

As if affirming this, a great burst of wind howled outside and even though it didn't get through the thick cabin walls, Fluttershy trembled. "Can't the weather ponies thin the clouds out?"

"They've been trying. Even we Wonderbolts have been trying but as soon as we clear the clouds up they come right back just as thick as ever. The best we can do is make sure everypony stays inside with plenty of blankets, fuel, and food, and wait till this thing blows over on its own. That's why I came to get some more cider. I intend to spend this winter reading and sipping cider."

Fluttershy smiled back up at her friend. Over the years the athletic pegasus had become quite an avid reader, mostly of adventure stories and mysteries. "I hope you enjoy yourself."

"Oh, I intend to," said Rainbow Dash, swooping back out the cabin door.





"Thank you for inviting me to dinner and letting me stay here," Fluttershy said later that evening as she and the Apple family finished up their supper.

"Shucks, weren't nothing. It was nice to have you over," said Apple Bloom.

"Eeyup," said Big Mac.

Granny Smith didn't say anything but she took Fluttershy off to the side later while they were cleaning up and whispered, "Meet me upstairs. There's something I need to tell you."

What would she have to tell me that she couldn't just tell me now? Fluttershy wondered. However, she decided to go along with the old pony's request and followed her upstairs after they'd finished cleaning up.

Once they were alone in Granny Smith's room, the old earth pony eased herself onto the bed. With a pained expression, she spent several moments adjusting herself on the bed. Fluttershy thought the expression was merely due to physical discomfort until Granny Smith blurted out, "I had another reason for offering to let you stay here."

"Another reason?"

Granny Smith nodded. "I suppose you know that Applejack went missing after the family reunion all those years ago."

Fluttershy nodded in turn. "We tried our hardest to find her, but no one had seen her." Fluttershy wasn't sure what that statement had to do with her staying at the farm, but before she could give it much thought Granny Smith spoke again.

"I know you tried, and I think I know why you couldn't find her."

"What do you mean?"

Granny Smith looked around as if to make sure they weren't being observed. Then leaning in close she whispered, "You're the first pony I've ever told this to. I haven't even told Apple Bloom or Big Mac, but," she dropped her voice to an even lower whisper. "I believe Applejack was murdered and somepony from the Apple family did it."

Fluttershy gaped at her, stunned. While she and the rest of Applejack's friends had not discussed it in great detail, after all their fruitless searching they had come to an unspoken agreement that the earth pony must be dead. Why else would she never have contacted them in the past years? Fluttershy herself had vaguely felt that Applejack must have met with some sort of accident. She might have slipped away during the reunion, fallen into a river, drown and been swept away. She might have gone into the Everfree Forest and been attacked and eaten by some creature. Either one of those cases would explain why they hadn't found her body, but murder?! And by a member of her own family?!

No, the idea was absurd. There was no way that—

"I don't like to speak badly of my kinfolks," said Granny Smith. "but the more I've thought about it over the years, it's the only thing that makes sense."

"But there's so many ways she could have disappeared. So many reasons why we couldn't find her—"

"But murder is the only reason that explains what's in there," said Granny Smith, pointing to her closet.

Fluttershy looked nervously at the closet. Not sure what to expect, she opened it cautiously and peeked in. She breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw that in the closet were just rows of fancy corked-and-sealed cider bottles.

However her relief was quickly replaced with confusion. "I don't understand. What do these bottles have to do with Applejack disappearing?"

"It's those rosebuds that are with them."

Fluttershy peered closer at the rosebuds and realized that they weren't actual flowers but dried apple peelings rolled into the shape of roses. A clever little idea but... "I still don't understand."

"I didn't think you would. I doubt Applejack told any of you, but when she was younger, we had some relatives from Manehatten come to visit and we wanted to impress them. Applejack had been planning to get some flowers for the table to make it look nice, but she had been so busy making cider that she ran out of time. So she gathered up the apple peelings left over from the cider-making and rolled them into little rosebuds just like those, and used them instead.

"After that, those little flowers became something of a secret trademark for her. Sometimes she'd tuck them into gifts or just give them on their own, but they've always been something that she reserved for other Apples." Granny Smith's face looked even droopier than usual. "We've received one of those bottles with those rosebuds every year since Applejack disappeared. Why would they be coming that regularly if she had just died a natural death? Who would be sending them? Only another Apple would know those rosebuds were associated with Applejack. That's why I think one of them murdered Applejack and has been sending those bottles here to taunt me."

She gave Fluttershy an apologetic glance. "That's why I asked you here. I'm hoping you can help me find out who killed Applejack."

"I—uh—b-b-but how?" Fluttershy spluttered. She was still reeling from the revelation that Applejack had been murdered. Now she of all ponies was being asked to find the murderer?!

"I already have a plan." Granny Smith pulled an old battered-looking book from under a pillow and flipped to a bookmarked page. "There's a potion in here that can temporarily change cutie marks. I've already made it and if you drink it, it will make your cutie mark look more apple-themed. I'll then introduce you to the rest of the family as Apple Butter. Your story will be that you just discovered you're related to the Apples and want to know more about your new family. That will give you an excuse to look through all our information and records. I've been checking through our family tree over the years, trying to find out who could have wanted to kill Applejack, and now I'm hoping your newer eyes might spot something I missed."

So it would be like a research project. "But why ask me to do it? I'm not that good at that sort of research. That's more Twilight's thing—"

"But she's too well-known as a princess. Rainbow Dash is a famous Wonderbolt, Rarity is a famous fashion designer, and Pinkie Pie is a famous party pony."

Fluttershy could see where she was going with this. While Fluttershy was famous to a certain degree, she'd kept much more out of the public eye than the rest of her friends had. If disguised, her cover would be much harder to blow than theirs would. But still she couldn't ignore the fact that mystery-solving was far from her strongest point. She'd read her share of mysteries but her track record for solving them before the fictional detectives was pretty low. Still as she looked at Granny Smith's wrinkled face, she found herself wanting to help the old pony. She had to at least try.

"Before I agree to this, will you explain why you're telling me all this now? How come you haven't mentioned any of this to anypony before?"

Granny Smith sighed. "Because I hate thinking that one of my own killed Applejack. I've been trying to deny it all my life, but this year I went to the doctors and found out that I'm dying. They think I have roughly about another year to live. And knowing that, I've realized that I don't want to die without knowing for sure what happened to Applejack. Now I know I wasn't right to put you in this position but—"

Fluttershy raised a hoof. "I understand why you did, and I can't promise I'll be able to find Applejack's killer, but ... I'll try."





Discord continued his soft tapping of the stone. It felt thinner. He put all his strength into trying to arch backward ... and felt the stone crack!

Oh come on, oh, please let the rest break! Please let the rest break! Please let the rest break! He tried to twist in another direction and was rewarded with the sensation of even more cracks appearing in the stone. He would have whooped if he could have moved his mouth. Instead he contented himself with a low chuckle in the back of his throat.

Now if I can just... With a quick surge of all the energy he'd been harboring since he'd been imprisoned, he broke completely through and tumbled to the ground! He landed in a thin layer of newly fallen snow only to promptly leap back to his feet, chuckling and practically prancing with glee. He was out! He was out! After all these centuries he was finally out!

He jumped again and this time floated in midair. Oh yes! He still had it. He looked down at the disturbed snow and swept it smooth with his tail. Then he cracked his knuckles and stretched his limbs before snapping the fingers of his eagle talon. A statue that looked just like him appeared on the pedestal where he had been. The royal sisters would probably eventually realize it wasn't him but it would do for now until he had taken steps to ensure they couldn't imprison him again. He threw a sarcastic salute toward the castle. Hope you enjoy the new lawn ornament, princesses. I hate to miss your visits, but I got places to go.

> Chapter 3. Ecclesiasties 4:9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor."—Ecclesiastes 4:9






Fluttershy stared at the huge pile of papers in the middle of the cabin's main room.

It didn't seem this big when it was in the wagon, she thought. The longer she stared at the pile, the more she began to feel that she'd taken on an impossible task.

Granny Smith's part of the plan seemed to have gone off without a hitch. Fluttershy had drunk the potion and it had turned the butterflies on her hindquarters into coral-colored apples. When Granny Smith had started introducing Fluttershy to the rest of the extended Apple family as Apple Butter—a pegasus who had just recently learned that she was distantly related to them—they had all welcomed her cheerfully. When Apple Butter had claimed that she wanted to research the family members to learn more about them, they had all been quite ready and willing to cooperate. In fact, none of them had shown any hesitation at all. None of them had acted as if they had anything to hide. Normally this sort of attitude might have helped set Fluttershy at ease, but with Applejack's murder in mind she had barely been able to suppress a chill rolling down her spine as she met pony after pony. Somewhere behind one of those smiles had been a killer, and a killer who had managed to hide his or her crime for the past ten years.

It had taken Granny Smith and Fluttershy some time to gather all the records from the different family members. It would have been quicker with Apple Bloom and Big Mac along to help, but Granny Smith hadn't wanted to tell them about her belief that a fellow family member had murdered Applejack.

"It was hard enough telling you," she'd said to Fluttershy. "Hard enough thinking about it myself."

When they'd finally gotten back to the farm and hauled the papers into the cabin, Granny Smith had gone off to rest. She had needed to lean against Fluttershy for support and it made the pegasus realize just how much the excursion had taken out of the old pony.

Now Fluttershy was alone in the cabin, apart from Angel who was sleeping in his bed. Glancing down, she saw that the apples on her hindquarters were shifting back to butterflies. Granny Smith had left the potion, extra ingredients, and the book containing the recipe with Fluttershy in case she might need to use it again or brew more of it, but Fluttershy doubted it would ever come to that. Considering how bad the upcoming storm was supposed to be, she'd probably be spending her whole visit in the cabin. Spending it looking through those papers for a lead on Applejack's killer.

Looking back at the huge pile of papers, Fluttershy felt as if she'd been charged with the task of shoveling a snow-covered field with a drinking straw. But then she thought of what Granny Smith had said about not having long left to live, and she thought of Applejack, dead these past ten years while her killer went free. She couldn't let them down. She had to at least try. She had to start somewhere.

She picked up a paper near the top of the pile and began to read.





Princess Twilight Sparkle and her assistant Spike were both fast asleep, completely unaware of the intruder prowling in the study.

Discord had guessed correctly that the spell keeping him imprisoned had weakened since the royal sisters were no longer connected to the Elements. He'd also been able to gather that this new princess wielded the Element of Magic, and that five other ponies now wielded the other five Elements that helped power that magic.

His first thought had been to steal the Elements and hide them where none of the ponies could find them, but after considering this, he decided against it. Better to trick the wielders of Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Kindness into being the opposite of their Elements. Then the Element of Magic would be useless. Rather than cutting off a snake's head to kill its body, this would be like cutting off an octopus's arms to incapacitate it. It should be interesting, a perfect chance to stretch his abilities after all that time alone. Plus, watching them try to imprison him only to find that their weapons were useless would be much more entertaining than just leaving them unarmed and helpless.

Yes, he decided. Take them out and there's nothing this new princess or any other can do to stop you.





Fluttershy let her head thump lightly on the stack of papers she'd been slogging through. Who am I kidding? I don't know how to do this.

She'd spent the past few days reading through the records, but the words, the names, everything just seemed to slip out of her head. It didn't help that she wasn't even sure what she was looking for in terms of clues. I need Twilight. I bet she'd be able to find Applejack's killer...

Fluttershy's head shot up. Why can't she come help me? I could write to her and explain what's going on. Even if she can't come, maybe she can give me some pointers. It can't hurt to check and I'm not getting anywhere on this on my own.

She quickly jotted down a letter explaining her situation to Twilight. She briefly debated whether she should tell Twilight about Granny Smith's belief that Applejack had been murdered. The old earth pony had been pretty adamant that the rest of the Apple family not know about Fluttershy's real reasons for studying their records, but it would probably be best to let Twilight know all the details, if only so that the alicorn could give her the best pointers.

As Fluttershy stepped outside, the wind whipped her mane out behind her and nearly tore the letter out of her mouth. Oh my goodness, I didn't think it would get this bad this quickly.

The falling snow was already up to her fetlocks. She picked her way over the cold fields to the farm's mailbox and shoved the letter in. She tried to run back to the cabin but it wasn't easy on the slippery ground. Once she got back inside, she let the heat wash over her. She looked out of one of the windows at the darkening landscape. It would be hard to travel in that weather, she thought. What if Twilight can't make it? What if she doesn't even get my letter?





Meanwhile far above the cabin, ghostly transparent figures in the rough shape of ponies circled through the air.





Three down, two to go. Discord thought as he materialized outside Fluttershy's cottage. He had found Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity earlier and had psychologically manipulated them into becoming the opposite of their Elements.

The pink earth pony had been the easiest to trick. He had brought up her secret fear that her many pony friends were not really her friends, but just a lot of ponies who hung out with her and secretly laughed at her behind her back. From there it had been child's play to steamroller her mentally.

Rainbow Dash had been almost as easy to trick. All he'd had to do was start prodding at the fact that being loyal to some would require her being disloyal to others.

Rarity had resisted at first, but when he planted the idea that her generosity was wasted on those who didn't appreciate it, she had gone down as well. Now he just had to take down Applejack and Fluttershy.

The cold wind sent shivers through his long snake-like body as he peered through the cottage window. Seeing no sign of the pegasus, he teleported inside to begin searching for her. Once inside he noticed that the house wasn't much warmer than the world outside. If it weren't for the fact that there was still plenty of furniture in the cottage, Discord would have guessed that no pony had lived in it for some time.

Puzzled, he flopped down on the couch and scratched his head. Maybe this was the wrong cottage.

No, he'd looked all over Ponyville and hadn't seen any other cottages like this one.

Maybe she was staying with a friend. Maybe he'd missed something when he was looking through Twilight's report for information on her friends.

He teleported back to the outside of the Canterlot Castle and a gust of wind promptly slammed him into the side of a tower. Wincing, he snapped his talons, intending to make the wind disappear. It died down to a soft breeze for about five seconds. Then another gust suddenly surged up and took its place. Deciding that trying to make each of these gusts of wind magically go away would be about as effective as trying to destroy an ant hill by stomping on every individual insect, he did his best to ignore them as he inch-wormed his way up the tower toward Twilight's room.

Peeking in the window, he saw a gray mailmare with a letter clamped in her mouth, apparently looking around for the princess. After several seconds of fruitless searching she shrugged her withers and put the letter down on Twilight's desk before trotting out of the room.

As soon as the mailmare was gone, Discord teleported into the room and saw that the letter was addressed to Twilight, from Fluttershy. And what have we here? he mused as he flashed the letter into his paw, unfolded it, and scanned its contents.

Well, well, well. So that's where you're hiding. And you want Twilight to come help you solve this little case regarding another one of your friends. He almost laughed aloud, but managed to restrain it to his thoughts. Oh, you'll get some help, my dear. But it won't be from your princess pal.

> Chapter 4. Matthew 5:44
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,"—Matthew 5:44





That morning Fluttershy woke to the soft whiff-whiff-whiff-whiff-whiff of delicate wings beating. Opening her eyes, she looked up to see what appeared to be an off-white butterfly flapping about over her head.

"Oh, hello. Where did you come from?" she asked it. She hadn't seen any signs of insects either in the cabin or outside of it ever since she'd arrived. In fact, she'd been sure the weather had been too cold for them for quite some time now.

The butterfly ignored her question and flew higher until its wings almost brushed the ceiling. Then it flew toward the far end of the room before suddenly looping around and zooming toward Fluttershy like a bullet. The pony's eyes widened at this unexpected attack and she instinctively dodged to the side. The butterfly crashed into the headboard hard enough to rock the bed back on two legs a fraction before bouncing off and tumbling across the covers in a crumpled heap.

Fluttershy gasped. "Oh my goodness! Are you all right?" She reached out, intending to take the butterfly gently in her hooves when it suddenly shot back up into the air and snapped its wings open. The wings stretched out farther than they had earlier and it was then that Fluttershy realized it wasn't a real butterfly, but paper that had been folded up into the shape of one. The paper finished unfolding itself and floated slowly down onto the bed where it lay limp and lifeless.

As she studied the former piece of airborne origami, Fluttershy noticed it had writing on one side of it, and, after a moment's hesitation, she picked it up to read it.

Fluttershy,

Princess Twilight Sparkle has received your letter but is currently too busy to come help you. She will be sending a substitute in her place.

That was all. No signature. No information on the substitute, and no information about when or how he or she was supposed to arrive.

Fluttershy frowned at the letter. It didn't seem in-character for Twilight to write such a brief formal note. At the very least, Fluttershy had expected Twilight to express the same shock she herself had felt at the news that Applejack had been murdered by a member of her own family.

Well, maybe she really is just that busy and somepony else wrote this for her, Fluttershy thought. She wondered, if Twilight herself hadn't written the letter, who had. Had he or she had a part in its bizarre delivery as well?





Outside Discord clung to the side of the cabin, watching Fluttershy through the window. He had shrunk himself down to just a few inches long so that he could wedge himself between two logs and get somewhat out of the wind. He'd gotten some chuckles out of torpedoing that butterfly-shaped letter at her.

So that's the Element of Kindness's bearer, he thought, far from impressed with what he saw. It shouldn't take too long to make her realize that being nice gets you nowhere.





Carrying the letter in her mouth, Fluttershy trotted from the bedroom into the cabin's main room. Angel was sleeping in his basket near the fireplace, and the yarn and needles she'd brought for knitting were on the floor beside the couch. Stacked against one wall were the Apple family records. After giving up trying to make sense of them on her own, she'd arranged them in several neat stacks that were almost as tall as she was.

She moved to one of the windows to peer outside. The fields were now entirely white with snow. The orchard's bare branches resembled gnarled black hands clawing at the gray sky above as the wind blew them about. There was no sign of anypony as far as she could see. She took the letter out of her mouth to check it again, turning it over just to make sure she hadn't missed anything. Nope. No information about when her help was expected to arrive—

Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!

Fluttershy jumped at the unexpected knocking on the cabin door. She looked back out the window. Whoever was knocking must have been teleported right to the front door because there was still no sign of a trail leading to the cabin.

Trotting to the door, she reached out to open it, but a sudden uneasy feeling made her hesitate. She realized that the door didn't have a peephole on it like the one to her own cottage had. She hadn't really thought about it when she'd first moved into the cabin, but now she realized that the only way to know who was at the door was to open it up.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Who is that?" Fluttershy asked tentatively.

There was no answer.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door just a few inches so that she could peek out. Cold air leaked around the opening into the cabin, causing her to shiver. Seeing nothing, she pushed the door open just a little wider.

She could still see no sign of anypony, so she pushed the door open still wider, looking in both directions. All she saw was the empty landscape.

Maybe the wind was just making the door rattle, she thought. The knocking hadn't sounded like a door rattling but she couldn't think of any other explanation as to what would create the sound when there was no sign of any pony nearby.

Not wanting to let any more cold air in, she pushed the door shut, turned around...

And leaped backward with a squeak of shock.

Floating several feet off the floor, and leaning back with his hands behind his head was a ... well, Fluttershy wasn't quite sure what the creature was.

His head looked a bit like a pony's but his scruffy beard and the horn-and-antler combo on his skull gave him a slightly goat-like appearance. A long fang jutting down from one side of his mouth made him look even less pony-like. The furry brown body attached to that head was long and snake-like, and terminated in an equally long scaly tail. Two wings, one leathery and one feathered, were growing from the creature's back but he didn't seem to be using them to maintain his midair position. His four legs were all limbs of different animals: a lion and an eagle for the right and left front limbs respectively, something scaly for the right back leg, and something hoofed for the left back one.

As if to just top off his bizarre appearance, the creature had a collection of studs and rings through his ears, nose, nostril, both shaggy eyebrows, and the side of his mouth opposite his fang. There were also what appeared to be tattoos over most of his body. The most noticeable ones were several wasps scattered over his long neck on either side of his bristly black mane; a spiral pattern on his lion shoulder; two barbed loops on his eagle limb, one on the wrist and one around the biceps; and last though far from least, a large stylized dragon whose head emerged over one furry shoulder and whose long body wound around and around his own long one, giving him an almost striped appearance.

Fluttershy had been so stunned at the sight of this creature that had materialized in the cabin that she just stood there pressed against the door and gaping at him, taking in every strange detail. Her new visitor just grinned at her while she tried to find her voice.

Finally she managed to stammer out, "Wh-who ... wh-wh-what ... are you? How did—?"

"Who am I?" he replied, leaning forward so that he was now floating in a sitting position, and placing his eagle claw on his chest. "Discord. What am I? A draconequus, otherwise known as the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. You might have heard of me."

At the words "chaos and disharmony," Fluttershy suddenly remembered a frightening stained glass image she had seen many years ago of a creature that had looked very similar to this one. At the time, she had thought the image had just been made up to represent the abstract concepts of chaos and disharmony. She'd never expected that such a creature could actually be real. Now that it was standing, well, floating before her in the flesh she felt the familiar knot of fear rise in her throat.

She swallowed nervously. "Wha—what are you doing here?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head, making reproving clicking sounds with his tongue. "Now, is that any way to talk to your new aid?"

"New aid—?" Fluttershy's eyes widened. "You're Twilight's substitute?" When she'd thought about the substitute mentioned in Twilight's note she had vaguely been expecting some unicorn. Never had she expected Twilight to send her someone like this.

But then again, we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, she thought. Maybe there's more to him than meets the eye. He must be all right if Twilight sent him. She lowered herself back onto all fours and took a few tentative steps toward him.

"It's nice to meet you, um, Discord," she said, smiling in spite of her nervousness. "I suppose you already know I'm Fluttershy." She pointed to the basket where her pet bunny was still sleeping. "That's Angel." She moved to the stacks of records. "This is what I need help with. You see—"

Before she could finish her sentence, Discord rolled himself about in a somersault so that he was floating on his stomach rather than his back, yawned, and snapped his talons. The many sheets of paper sailed into the air like a flock of birds. A second snap of his talons, and the papers had turned into bouncy balls that proceeded to ricochet all over the cabin.

Fluttershy let out a small surprised shriek. Angel jerked awake, stared at their newcomer, and promptly took cover under the couch.

"What did you do?" Fluttershy whisper-shouted at Discord, covering her head with her hooves in an attempt to protect it from the pelting balls.

Discord regarded the bouncy balls with a critical eye as they whizzed past him before he snapped his talons a third time. The bouncy balls turned into larger, less bouncy ones that settled on the floor in a layer that reached to Fluttershy's stomach.

She looked around at the sea of colorful balls, her brain still trying to adjust to the fact that mere seconds ago they had been sheets of information on the Apple family. "Um, could you change these back?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I could if I wanted to, but I don't feel like it."

Fluttershy's head shot up, shocked at his flippant attitude. "But I need those records back the way they were!" she said, flying up to him. "Twilight didn't send you here to—"

She felt the words die on her tongue as Discord smirked and arched one brow.

Fluttershy swallowed uneasily. "She did send you ... didn't she?"

"You said it, my dear. I didn't." He paused a moment, then added almost as an afterthought. "You know your detective skills really are pathetic."

His comment stung, but she had to admit that so far her attempts to solve Applejack's disappearance showed there might at least be some truth in what he said. And even if he wasn't the aid Twilight had sent, he did seem to know something about that aid. Maybe the gentle humble approach would soften him up a bit and he would share what he knew.

"I know they are," she said, referring to her detection skills. "That's why I contacted Twilight for help—but then I guess you already knew that because you mentioned an aid when you first got here. I suppose you were just playing a joke when you pretended you were that aid and you really fooled me." She forced out a quick soft little laugh. "Yes, you really fooled me. But can we put that aside now? I mean, finding out what happened to Applejack is really important to me and to some other ponies depending on me. So maybe you could just tell me when and how Twilight's substitute is supposed to get here and—"

At that moment Discord shut his eyes and hit his forehead with his palm. "Look, no one's coming to help you," he said, sounding annoyed for the first time.

"But I got a letter saying—"

Discord held up a hand, palm upward and two rolled-up sheets of paper appeared in it with a flash of light. "This look familiar?" he asked, letting them unroll with a flick of his wrist.

Fluttershy recognized both the letter she'd written and the one she'd gotten earlier. She looked up from them to meet his face, realization dawning on her. "Did you write this?"

"Bravo, Sherlock," he said sarcastically.

Exactly what he meant by that Fluttershy wasn't sure, but his tone of voice made her uneasy.

"And incidentally I didn't write it on Twilight Sparkle's orders," he added, tossing both notes into the air where they vanished in a flash of light. "She doesn't even know you wrote to her in the first place."

At those words Fluttershy felt the cold grip of fear tighten around her throat. Ever since Discord had appeared in the cabin, she hadn't been able to shake a vague but growing sense of uneasiness. Now at the news that her letter had never even reached its destination, that sense of unease went from slowly growing to rapidly erupting.

"What do you want with me?" she whispered, as she tried to fly backward to put more distance between them.

Before she'd moved back more than a few inches, he suddenly reached out and grabbed her by the wings, bringing her toward him until they were almost eyeball to eyeball.

"Aww, you mean you can't guess? Isn't the title 'Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony' a big enough clue for you?" he asked, using his free hand to make the gesture for quotation marks. "If you can't catch something that obvious, no wonder you haven't been able to find your friend's killer. You probably couldn't find your own tail if it grew out of your nose." And with that he brought his free hand up to her face and before she could so much as squeak in protest he had yanked something out of her nose.

Clapping her hooves over her muzzle, she gasped when she saw that he was now holding what appeared to be her tail in his hand.

"Hmm, extensions. What do you know?" he commented, glancing over at it.

Still keeping one hoof over her muzzle, Fluttershy felt behind her to see how many extensions he'd magicked off her tail. To her horror, she discovered he'd managed to take not just her extensions but her whole tail along with them.

Discord suddenly let go of her, letting her drop into the layer of balls on the floor. She scrambled up and fled to her room. In the back of her mind she knew this was probably a vain attempt to escape, but at the front of her mind all she could think of was putting as much distance between herself and the draconequus as possible. She saw Angel's long ears popping up out of the balls near the bedroom door before he jumped through it. She darted in right behind him and slammed the door shut. As she leaned against the door, she felt something brush her back legs and jumped with a squeak of fear. Looking down, she got another shock when she saw that her tail, extensions and all, was right back in its proper place.





In the main room, Discord chuckled as he heard Fluttershy's frightened squeak. Yes, this should be interesting, he thought to himself.





The next several days were hard ones for Fluttershy. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so powerless. She couldn't boot her new housemate out of the cabin because he could just teleport himself right back in. She couldn't take herself and Angel out because the snow storms were getting steadily worse, and for that same reason she couldn't count on anypony coming to help her. The most she could do was at least try to live with the draconequus, but that was proving to be far from easy. She tried being gentle with him and he ignored it. She tried to be firm with him and he laughed at her. At one point she even tried using the Stare on him, only to have him shrug it off like it was nothing.

Discord, on the other hoof, lost no opportunity to insult her, ridicule her, and wreak chaos in the cabin. One day, he even magically yanked the cabin off the ground and let it spin end over end. The balls he still hadn't turned back into papers rained all over the room like colorful hail and everything else in the cabin was crashing about as well.

"Discord! Stop!" Fluttershy cried out as she snatched Angel up to keep him from getting squashed by any falling items. Tucking the old bunny in the crook of one front leg, she flew over to where Discord was floating. The tattooed draconequus seemed completely impervious to the chaos around him, a fact that Fluttershy found quite annoying, and that also gave her the courage she hadn't been able to work up on her own.

"Put! This! Cabin! Down! Now!" she shouted, sticking her muzzle right in his pierced face. "Put it down, now! This instant!"

His shaggy eyebrows went up and for a second Fluttershy thought she saw a flash of surprise on his face. But then he let out a hearty chuckle.

"With pleasure!" He snapped his fingers and the cabin promptly came down with a crash. Not expecting him to put the cabin down so quickly, Fluttershy was slammed into the ceiling as it descended. She fell to the floor, instinctively wrapping her body around Angel to protect him. She tried to brace herself for smacking into the hard wood, not having time to slow her fall with her wings, and found herself landing in a huge pile of papers. Sitting up she saw that in addition to putting the house down, Discord seemed to have changed the records back.

She looked up at Discord to see him still up in the air, only this time he was actually beating his wings rather than just floating there. She felt her anger from earlier melt away at the realization that he'd listened to her.

"Thank you," she said softly. "Thank you for putting the cabin down and changing these back."

She reached toward some of the papers, only to have them all scuttle out of her reach like huge white cockroaches. She shut her eyes and softly but deeply breathed in and out. Of course he would do something like that.

When she opened her eyes, she saw him watching her with interest. She wanted to be both angry with him and patient with him, but all she could summon was a sort of weary frustration, as if her feelings knew that any other reaction would be useless.

"Discord," she said in a resigned voice. "I'm going to take Angel to my room, so... Could you please give us some alone time?" At this point she wasn't even sure why she bothered to tell him this. Maybe she still held a faint hope that he had a more considerate side buried somewhere in there.

Discord gave her a 'do-I-even-need-to-answer-that?'-look.

"Please," Fluttershy said as she stood up with Angel wrapped in one of her front legs. "Please just leave us alone." Head down she walked toward her room, expecting him to magically slam the door shut, but he did not. Going inside, she glanced back at him one more time. He had lowered himself enough to plant his back feet on the floor and was watching her with an unreadable expression. Then a smile twitched across his mouth and he raised his paw with the fingers together as if intending to snap them.

With a gasp, Fluttershy slammed the door shut. She sat there, quivering, waiting for the draconequus to snap her back into the main room, but several minutes went by and this did not happen.

Then Fluttershy felt Angel reach up to pat her face with a paw. His white coat didn't show aging as well as that of a darker colored rabbit would, but when she stroked it Fluttershy could tell it was much thinner than it had once been, and his once shiny eyes were now going cloudy. She didn't like to think about it often but she couldn't ignore the fact that her pet was nearing the end of his life. Now looking at her old bunny made her think of how Granny Smith had said she didn't have much longer to live, and thinking of that made her think about her task to find Applejack's killer.

Tears filled her eyes as she cuddled Angel close to her. "I don't know what to do, Angel," she whimpered as the tears spilled down her cheeks. "I just don't know what to do."

Angel pulled himself up higher on her shoulder and rubbed his head against her cheek, ignoring the tears that soaked his head and ears, and offering what comfort he could.
> Chapter 5. Ecclesiastes 4:10
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 5

"If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity the one who falls and has no one to help him up."—Ecclesiastes 4:10





Fluttershy tried to keep her frustrated sobs quiet so that Discord wouldn't hear her, but outside the bedroom he could hear her just fine. The draconequus let out a soft groan and massaged his forehead with a paw. He'd been careful not to let it show but over the past several days he himself had been growing steadily more frustrated. He had brainwashed Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash with ease and yet this timid little pegasus, who he had hardly expected to present a challenge, had somehow managed to resist all his manipulation.

At first this had surprised and intrigued him, but now it was only irritating. If Applejack was indeed dead as they believed, Fluttershy was the only pony still standing in his way. Technically there was still Twilight Sparkle to deal with, but he was sure there was no way she could take him down without her friends to help power the Elements. Of course, the fact that Applejack wasn't around might be enough to keep the Elements from working so Fluttershy's corruption might not be necessary ... but the fact that he had already spent several days trying to force her into being the opposite of her Element made him reluctant to abandon the scheme.

Which brought him right back to the crux of the matter: Though she clearly feared him, Fluttershy had found the courage to stand up to him, but he had yet to get any cruel or sadistic reactions out of her. That was all he needed to throw her under his spell and that was the one thing he just ... couldn't ... get! The fact that this was the only thing holding up his plans for Equestria made the pegasus's existence feel like a rock he kept stubbing his toe on with every other step, and waiting for that one essential reaction was beginning to feel like rooting for a sport's team that just wouldn't get off the bench.

He had been so sure he'd pushed her hard enough with his antics just a few minutes earlier. When she'd gotten right in his face and yelled at him, he had been eagerly anticipating the moment when she would finally drop that kindness act she'd been trying on him since he'd arrived.

And that moment never came. As soon as he'd dropped the cabin back to the ground (intentionally not giving her a chance to prepare for it) she'd just put away all that anger and politely thanked him for listening to her. At that point Discord had felt irritated enough to tear out his own bushy eyebrows. Not just magically detach them but actually yank them out, roots and all. He had granted the pony her requested alone time merely because he needed some of his own.

Levitating his legs back off the floor, he glided back and forth across the room, drumming his eagle talons lightly on his upper right arm and tugging at his beard with his lion paw while he reviewed his options.

If he couldn't manipulate Fluttershy into being cruel, he could always just jab her on the skull and brainwash her manually but the idea held no appeal to him. Sure, the results would be the same and no one would ever have to know that he had taken that short cut...

But he would know. And any time he looked at the pegasus afterward he would be forced to remember that he had cheated at his own game, and that by cheating at his own game he had essentially admitted that he hadn't been able to win against her.

No, he decided. No pony is going to beat me at my own game! Especially not one afraid of her own shadow!

He might resort to the manual brainwashing if things became desperate, but right now there was still time to break her the more entertaining way. He just needed to formulate a new method of attack. He glanced out the window at the snow-covered landscape which now looked almost like a blank canvas waiting to be splattered with paint. The simile sparked a new idea in his mind. There was only so much that even he could do in this little cabin. Maybe going out and having a larger space to manipulate would give the scheming section of his brain fresh inspiration. It'd be a shame to let all that blank whiteness go to waste. A shame not to fill it with something weird and colorful.





Fluttershy finally managed to get her crying under control. She offered Angel a small watery smile as thanks for his comfort. Then the smile slipped when she realized that she hadn't heard anything outside the room, and the fact that it was that quiet made her wonder what Discord was up to. Putting Angel on her bed, she went to the door and opened it a crack just in time to see Discord teleport away from the window and over to the front door.

"What are you doing?" she asked fearfully as she saw him put his paw on the door knob.

"What does it look like? I'm going out."

Fluttershy pushed her bedroom door open all the way and ran toward him. "But-but-but it keeps storming out there! What if you get lost? What if you freeze to death?" As much as she disliked the draconequus, she didn't want him to end up freezing to death in a blizzard. "What if—?"

"Oh, please." Discord said, making a coat appear on his body and a scarf appear around his neck. "You honestly believe flakes of frozen water are going to hurt me?"

"But—"

"See you later." With that, Discord pulled the door open and let a wall of snow tumble into the cabin. Fluttershy shrieked in alarm and ran forward to try and push the door shut on the snow. Discord disappeared in a flash of light. As Fluttershy struggled to force the door shut, she saw him materialize outside and wave good-bye to her.

Tears of anger filled her eyes as she looked at the snow now covering the cabin floor. You did that on purpose, she seethed as she watched him fly off. You could have just teleported outside without opening the door, but you wanted to leave me with a huge mess to deal with.





Unbeknownst to its inhabitants, several semitransparent pony-shaped creatures were currently swirling through the air above the cabin, drinking in the strong emotions that emanated from it. When the draconequus appeared outside the cabin they could sense that his heart was as cold as the air around them. As he moved away from the cabin, they followed him, invisible against the clouds, and feeding on the power coming from him.





Despite the cold, Discord was enjoying himself, changing the landscape around him into anything that came to mind. He didn't make any of those changes permanent, but rather designed them to slowly fade, allowing them to bleed together one on top of the other. Jungle, tundra, candyland, and many other places, all with a few bizarre details mixed into them. The snow continued to fall but he didn't mind. It was an interesting effect, watching it cover the cacti, the palm trees, and the gumdrop trees all at the same time.

However, he was beginning to get tired of working against the wind. Any time he tried to redirect it, more gusts took its place. Spotting a cave some distance away, he teleported to it to get out of the wind.

"Brrr," he commented, making his coat and scarf disappear as he shook off whatever snow had managed to stick to his scales and fur. He also shook his head from side to side, causing the wasp tattoos on his neck to fly about over it as though agitated before settling back down in different positions. Then he grabbed his dragon tattoo by the neck and peeled it away from where it emerged over his shoulder. The tattoo let out an annoyed screech and spat out a stream of multi-colored ink that splattered across the cave wall. Ignoring this, Discord pulled the tattoo paw-over-claw and it began to slide up off his body. Once it was completely off, and still screeching in protest, he shook it out like a sheet. Finally satisfied, he slung it back over his shoulder, causing the tattoo to slap wetly across his upper back before it wrapped around and around his body. The tattoo stuck wherever it touched and sunk through the fur to the skin below.

Flashing his coat and scarf back on, he glanced around the cave before jumping into the air. With a snap of his fingers, he turned the cave's floor into ice and its walls to rubber. Landing, he skated across the ice, bouncing off the now-elastic walls like a pinball, and letting his mind drift back to a certain butter-colored pony.

Thinking back to their last encounters, he realized he'd almost gotten to her. Maybe he didn't need to change his tactics after all. Maybe it was just a matter of wearing her down, and—while she'd proven to be more resilient than he'd expected—he had indeed been wearing her down. Musing on this, he continued to skate about until his feet were numb and his legs felt tired. Slowing to a stop, he leaned over, resting his hands on his knees. Maybe it was time to go back, he decided.

He straightened up, crouched to take off ... and to his surprise found that he couldn't move his feet! Looking down, he saw that both his feet were encased in ice, and that more ice was silently but swiftly creeping up his legs! He let out an annoyed grunt and snapped his talons, intending to make the ice disappear. But the ice did not disappear or even slow its progress. Now it had reached his hips. He tried to smash the ice with his tail but the ice had already reached his tail's base and was traveling over its length. He felt his tail halt in mid-swing. Twisting his neck around he was just in time to see the tufted end of his tail get swallowed up by the ice. Now the ice had reached the middle of his long body.

He tried changing the ice into water, marshmallows, lasagna, jello, anything he could think of but the ice stubbornly remained ice. Now it was up to his chest. He conjured up a blowtorch and tried applying it to the ice, but it had no more effect than anything else he had tried. He flashed the blowtorch back out of existence, intending to replace it with a larger more powerful flamethrower, but by then the ice had traveled over his arms and before he knew it, his hands were encased in the stuff as well. At that point he gave in to blind panic. Now the ice was racing up his neck. He twisted his head this way and that, grunting, straining, trying to will the inevitable not to happen...

Then the ice closed over his face. For the first time in days he couldn't move, not a finger or a toe. He couldn't make a sound. He couldn't shiver in the cold that surrounded him. He couldn't even make his eyes go wide in horror though they were trying for all they were worth. All the memories of being imprisoned in stone came rushing back. Once again he was trapped.
> Chapter 6. John 15:13
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 6

"No greater love has anyone than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."—John 15:13





Soon after Discord left, Fluttershy began the long process of cleaning up the mess he'd left behind. She gathered up the papers that had been scattered throughout the cabin, stacking them in her bedroom this time. She scooped up most of the snow and piled it in tubs and buckets to use as water later on. Then she used the rest of the now-melted snow to wash the floor.

Why are you doing this? she wondered to herself. He'll just undo it all as soon as he comes back. But she continued cleaning anyway. She intended to enjoy a tidy cabin while she could.

By the time she'd finished cleaning up, she felt too tired to try and look through the Apple family records, so she decided to spend some time knitting, hoping it would help her recharge. The only skeins of yarn she now had were the ones Discord had changed into multi-colored things that were thread-thin in some places and as thick as the average pony's hoof in others, so her knitting results were uneven and looked nothing like the original pattern, but the process was soothing even in spite of this.

As her needles clicked away, the wind screamed long and loud outside. After several minutes she put down her knitting and went to the window to look outside. The snow was swirling so thickly she could barely see out. She shivered at the thought of being out there in that storm. She'd heard stories of ponies who had gone out in such storms, had become lost, and ended up freezing just a few feet from their houses.

Thank goodness I have everything I need in here, she thought. Of course the heavier storm probably meant that Discord would be popping back into the cabin all too soon. She went back to her knitting, and as she worked she waited with a sense of dread for the draconequus to materialize.

The hours crawled by with no sign of him. She eventually put the knitting aside to feed Angel and to get her own supper. Still Discord did not appear. She tucked Angel into his bed and Discord still hadn't appeared.

Finally she went to her own bed and curled up under the blankets. She shut her eyes, pretending to be asleep but inwardly braced for the sound of Discord's return. He'd probably just been waiting for her to fall asleep so that he could pop in and terrify her. As the minutes ticked by with still no sign of him, she began to wish he would just appear and get it over with. Still he didn't appear and, finally weary of bracing herself for his return, she tried to fall asleep.

But sleep wouldn't come.

Instead she just kept thinking of him. Where was he? Why wasn't he back? Had he created a new place to stay? Maybe he had, but the magic she'd seen him doing outside had all seemed to wear off after a few minutes. Shame the same couldn't be said for what he'd done inside.

What if he had gotten lost out there?

It would serve him right! she thought with satisfaction, and promptly regretted the thought a moment later. She would have been quite happy to never have to see the draconequus again but she wouldn't wish that fate on anyone.

She sighed, frustrated that he could bother her so much even when he wasn't around. Try as she might, she just couldn't seem to sleep if she didn't know whether or not he was all right.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, she kept thinking as she got out of bed. This is idiotic. You warned him not to go out and he just threw it back in your face like he's done with everything else. After how he's acted, you have no obligation to go out looking for him.

And yet even as she thought this she began putting on her heaviest winter coat. The blue-and-white coat had no openings for her wings, but she doubted she could have flown in the current storm anyway.

This is crazy! her mind screamed at her. What if you get lost out there?

I'll be careful, she tried to reassure herself. I'll tie some yarn to the cabin door and let it trail behind me. Then if I get lost I can just follow it back here.

And how long do you intend to be out there? the little voice in the back of her head asked. You could easily freeze to death before you make it back here.

This time she had no answer for the voice. She only knew that she had to find out if Discord was all right. If he had frozen to death it would be too bad but she had warned him. If he hadn't ... well, she couldn't really say that she'd be glad. Her kind nature, the side of her that had a hard time watching other creatures suffer, would feel relieved, but the rest of her was all too aware that Discord's continued existence would mean more torment for her.

And what about Angel? Who will take care of him if you can't get back here?

He knows where the food is. He can look after himself. He—

She moved over to where the old bunny was sleeping. Even with Discord around, Angel had been sleeping a lot more often than he used to. She knew that bunnies normally lived about ten or twelve years and, thanks to her care, Angel was a good bit past that but he was no more immortal than she was. Looking down at him, she found herself wondering if someday he would just go to sleep and not wake up. That possibility suddenly seemed much more likely than she wanted to admit. She stroked his head gently with her hoof, whispering a soft goodbye before going to her saddlebags and tucking the largest ball of yarn she could find into one of them.

When Fluttershy pulled the door open a crack, the wind outside shrieked and she almost changed her mind about going out right then and there. But her heart wouldn't let her, and she forced herself to step out. The snow around the cabin was piled higher than her chest and she had to dig at it with her hooves to make space for herself. Even with her coat on, it was bitter cold. Neither the moon nor a single star could be seen in the dark cloudy sky above. And below that vast blackness the snowy landscape was a dreary gray.

Already shivering, Fluttershy pulled the door shut behind her and, hooves trembling, tied one end of the yarn in her saddlebag to the door knob.





Trapped in his new ice prison, Discord was mentally cursing himself. Why hadn't he been able to stop this? Why had his magic had no effect on this ice? He'd had those several days of glorious freedom and now he was stuck right back where he'd been for the last thousand years. Well, not exactly right back where he'd been stuck but close enough! Once again he was unable to move, unable to interact with the world, unable to do anything!

Hadn't that pegasus warned him that going outside would be a bad idea? Of course he'd scoffed at the idea because he was Discord. He had the kind of power no other creature in Equestria had and thus the dangers and perils they faced didn't apply to him, had never applied to him...

And wasn't it that kind of attitude that allowed the royal sisters to imprison you in the first place? a small disgusted voice in the back of his mind asked. Assuming you could just magic away any inconvenience that cropped up in your path?





"Discord!" Fluttershy called over the howl of the wind. She had been wading through the snow almost up to her chin. On the one hoof, the deep snow kept her body from being buffeted by the wind, but on the other hoof, it also made the going a lot more difficult.

"Discord!" She wasn't sure how far her usually soft voice would carry in the storm but she continued to call out his name at intervals. Snowflakes blew into her face, making it difficult to see.

You should go back. You'll never find him out here. In fact he's probably back at the cabin now, all warm and cozy, laughing at the fact that you're struggling out here trying to find him, the voice in her head kept urging her. Turn back now before you freeze.

No, she thought. Just five more steps, and then I'll turn back. Just five more steps. Just five more steps. Just five more steps.

She'd been repeating that phrase over and over to herself for who-knew how many steps ever since she'd first left the cabin.

You can't keep this up. You know you can't! the voice in her head protested and Fluttershy had to admit that the voice was right. She had gone out intending to search until she found the draconequus, but it was beginning to look like that might not be possible.

There was a brief lull in the wind before it started back up again, and in that brief lull Fluttershy saw a cave in the distance. I'll keep going until I reach that cave, she thought. Then I'll rest there out of the wind and snow for a bit. Then I'll head back. Her drive to find Discord had begun to fade after what must have been several hours of wading through snow. If she couldn't find him, and he didn't turn up on his own, she would just have to accept not knowing what had happened to him ... just as she had been forced to do with Applejack all those years ago.

Still calling Discord's name every five minutes, she neared the cave. The snow looked a lot shallower at the cave's entrance, and she lunged forward, eager to no longer be buried up to her chin. As she burst through the snow, her hooves struck ice and she felt herself slipping. Squealing, she scrabbled her hooves against the ice but was unable to get any traction and went sliding into the cave. Her left legs went one way, her right legs went the other way, and she went sprawling on her stomach. Her thickly padded coat helped cushion her fall but did nothing to slow her down. Whimpering, she squeezed her eyes shut as she spun across the ice.





Discord was still fuming to himself when he heard a faint voice calling his name. At first he thought he must have imagined it, but then a few minutes later, he heard it again.

"Discord!"

That sounds like Fluttershy! he thought, now even more certain he was imagining it. There was no way that she would be out—

His thoughts were interrupted by a combination of squealing and scuffling, and the next moment a blue, white, pale yellow, and pale pink blur came spinning into the room across the ice. It bounced off his ice prison like a pinball before slowly coming to a stop, facing him. If he could have moved, Discord would have blinked and rubbed his eyes to make sure they weren't playing tricks on him.

As Fluttershy came to a stop, she cautiously cracked an eye open. Then both her eyes flew open and she stared up at the twisted figure of the draconequus and the thick layer of ice encasing him.

"Oh, my goodness." She pushed herself up onto all fours and half-ran, half-slid closer to him. His eyes followed her as she circled him.

"Oh, my goodness," she repeated as she put out a hoof to touch his icy side just above the hip. "Don't worry, Discord! I'll get you out! ... somehow." She lowered her head and shut her eyes. Think Fluttershy, think! How can you break that ice?

Why do you even want to break him out of there? demanded that small voice in the back of her head. It would serve him right if you just left him here and followed your yarn back to the cabin—

Her eyes popped open. The yarn! she mentally shouted. That was it! She could follow the yarn back to the cabin, find something there to break the ice, then bring it back to the cave to free him.

"Hold on, Discord. I'll be right back." She put a hoof in her saddlebag ... and froze. Her yarn was gone! She tore off her saddlebag, turned it upside down and shook it. No yarn came out! Tossing the saddlebag back over her back, she ran toward the middle of the cave, searching frantically for her yarn. Then she spotted it at the far end of the cave in the direction of its entrance. It must have been jostled out of her bag when she'd fallen and gone sliding into the cave earlier.

She began gathering it up and tucking it back into her bag as she made her way back to the cave's entrance. Looking out, she saw that the storm had gotten even worse. The snow was starting to pile up inside the cave's entrance as well as outside of it. The cold wind seemed to bite through her padded coat as if it were merely a light jacket. Fluttershy felt her heart quail at the thought of going back out there but what choice did she have?

She was just readying herself to step out of the cave when a new thought made her halt. She had intended to gather up her yarn trail as she followed it back to the cabin but now it occurred to her that, if she did that, she might not be able to find her way back to the cave. She looked about for something to tie the free end of her yarn to, but could find nothing on the icy floor and the walls were too smooth.

Then she thought of Discord. I can tie the free end of the yarn around him, she thought, hurrying back to him. She was halfway across the room when she discovered to her dismay that the yarn was too short to reach the draconequus, let alone to tie around him. She tried to stretch the yarn a little farther. Come on, she thought. Come on, just a little—

The yarn snapped, causing Fluttershy to sit down hard on her rear end. Oh, what was she going to do? If she tried to follow the yarn back without tying it down to something, she wouldn't be able to find the cave again, but there was nothing within reach for her to tie it to.

So just go back to the cabin and stay there, the little voice in her head said. Forget about Discord.

She looked back at the draconequus, meeting yellow eyes that almost seemed to be pleading with her for help, and knew she couldn't bring herself to leave without trying to free him.

She ran across the ice toward him, turned her back to him and swung her hind legs up, slamming her back hooves into the ice surrounding him. Unfortunately when she brought her back legs up, her front hooves once again slipped on the ice and once again she sprawled on her stomach.

She pushed herself back up onto her hooves and took several deep breaths as if bracing herself for something. Then as Discord watched, she pulled off her coat, thus freeing her wings, and flew up into the air out of his sight. Then she shot down toward him, slamming her back hooves against his ice prison. Discord couldn't see her do it but he could feel the faint vibrations from her blow traveling through the ice. Fluttershy flew up and came down again, striking the same area and trying to ignore the cold now seeping into her body without her coat. It was a bit warmer in the cave than it was outside but not much.

Fluttershy tried flying in again and striking the ice this time from a different angle. She flew about and kicked the ice again and again until both her legs and wings were trembling from exertion. She landed in front of Discord and sat bent over with her head down and her sides heaving. Finally she raised her head to study her work ... and felt her heart sink. Her efforts had barely put a shallow dent in the ice. She knew her kicks could never hope to compare with Rainbow Dash's in terms of speed nor with Applejack's in terms of strength, but it still felt like a slap in the face when she was forced to view her poor results.

Pushing herself onto her feet again, she narrowed her eyes before flying up and delivering another kick to Discord's prison. She kept sending kick after kick after kick until once again she could barely stay in the air. This time she landed stretched out across Discord's ice-encased back and lay there, breathing hard.

Inside the ice, Discord could feel Fluttershy's heart crashing wildly against his back as if it might burst. Finally it slowed down a bit and then Fluttershy was flying again, gearing up for another round. Frozen in place, Discord could only watch in amazement as again and again, she would try to break the ice around him, then drop to the ground and try to recover. At first all that flying and kicking seemed to help keep the pony warm, but now he could see that the combination of cold temperatures and heavy exercise was beginning to take its toll on her. Every time she went down Discord was sure that that time she wouldn't be getting back up and yet each time she somehow managed to.

Crouching on trembling legs, she flapped her wings yet again. She lifted into the air and was level with Discord's shoulder when her wings suddenly seemed to lock up and she fell back to the ground. She landed with her body draped across his reptile foot. She tried to move her wings but was just rewarded with painful spasms for her trouble. She tried to stand but her limbs felt so heavy she could barely move them.

"I'm sorry," she panted, not sure if he could hear but still feeling the need to say it. Tears leaked from her eyes, forming an icy crust on her lashes. She'd done all she could to try and free him and it hadn't been enough. Please let me last just a little longer. Just to get him out.

Then the foot underneath her twitched.

Then it jerked up and off the ground, taking her with it. She sailed a short distance before landing with a painful oof! Looking up, she saw small thin cracks traveling up the ice that covered Discord. His legs were already free and the ice was breaking off the rest of his body in many chunks.

It worked! Fluttershy mentally cheered, not expecting that last little prayer to be answered so quickly if at all. It worked! It worked! It worked! He's free now—

Suddenly her silent cheering stopped. She had felt bad for him when he was trapped, but now as the ice continued to crumble off him, all the memories of the past several days with him came rushing back. And she had just freed that thing to let it loose in her life again! What had she been thinking?

She tried to force herself to her hooves but collapsed back to the ground before she'd even managed to get them underneath her. More tears dripped from her eyes to join the ones already frozen in her lashes at the realization that she was going to die in this cave. She was so cold she could barely feel her body, every breath hurt, and she didn't even have the strength to crawl to her coat much less trek all the way back to the cabin. As she lay, trying to force the icy air into her lungs she realized with a sort of dull surprise that she wasn't afraid to die. She was simply too exhausted to feel afraid or to feel much of anything else. All she seemed to have the energy for was sorrow. Sorrow that she had failed in her task for the Apple family. Sorrow that she hadn't had a chance to make things right with Ponyville. And sorrow that she'd thrown her life away trying to save a creature that wouldn't even care.

Would you have rather lived knowing you left him trapped in that ice?

No, she thought. In spite of how he'd treated her, her heart—her stupid, soft, idiotic heart—had refused to let her abandon him. She remembered how the draconequus had scoffed at her kindness. Maybe he had been right. After all, look where it had gotten her.

But none of these sorrows came close to the grief she felt at the knowledge that none of her friends were nearby. She wondered if they would ever discover her body. If they did, would the cold have preserved it, or would her corpse have started rotting by the time somepony stumbled across it? Or would her disappearance be like Applejack's? Would her friends spend the rest of their lives never knowing what had happened to her body and having to accept that she was dead due to the fact that searching all of Equestria had turned up no trace of her? The thought of leaving them like that with no closure pained her more than any of the physical cold around her could have. She wondered if Applejack had had similar thoughts in her last moments. Had the earth pony even had time to think of such things before her life had been snuffed out?

I guess I'll find out the answer to that soon enough, Applejack, because it looks like I'll be joining you, was Fluttershy's penultimate thought.

Her final one was: I wish I could have seen the rest of my friends just one last time.

Then the darkness closed over her completely.

Deep in unconsciousness, she didn't feel the mismatched hands as they lifted her from the ground.

> Chapter 7. Psalm 38:18
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7

"But I confess my sins; I am deeply sorry for what I have done."—Psalm 38:18





As Fluttershy collapsed across Discord's foot, he could feel her heartbeat and it was much more erratic than when he'd felt it earlier. He heard her straining to get back on her feet only to collapse again. Then he heard her murmured apology and he would have swung his head down to stare at her if he could have moved.

It's not your fault, he found himself thinking to her. You did the best you could.

Then Fluttershy's heartbeat seemed to slow and the last of her body heat seemed to flow through the ice toward him. Her earlier blows had put shallow scrapes and dents in the ice but hadn't managed to fully penetrate it. Now that last tiny bit of heat suddenly seemed to punch through the ice like an ice pick and Discord felt the ice imprisoning his foot crack! At the realization that they could now move again, his foot claws twitched spasmodically. Then, as if that first crack had set off a chain reaction, the rest of the ice around him starting at his legs and traveling up, began breaking as well. As the ice around his legs shattered, he swung his right foot up and off the ice, forgetting for the moment that there was a pony lying across it. He repeated the process with his other leg, then twisted his body as one would a towel to wring it out, feeling the ice break away from him in large chunks.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fluttershy once again trying to stand, only to once again slump face-down on the ice. Then looking down, the draconequus saw that once again the ice on the floor was creeping toward him! He shot into the air so fast he slammed his head into the cave ceiling. His horn and antler got stuck in the ceiling so he detached them from his skull, yanked them free from the ceiling, and jammed them back on his head. Looking back down, he saw that the new layer of ice had closed over where he'd been standing just seconds ago. And it was now creeping toward where Fluttershy lay.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Discord whirled his long body around and darted back to the ground, scooping Fluttershy into his arms. Grabbing her coat up with his tail, he brought it around and hastily bundled it around her like a blanket before teleporting the both of them out of the cave.

He was so intent on getting them out of there that he overshot the distance to the cabin and they appeared on top of it rather than inside it. He'd barely had time to register this when a strong wind yanked him off his feet and sent him spinning through the air. As large snowflakes pelted him, he thought he caught glimpses of ghostly pony-like shapes but they were so faint and moved by so quickly that he couldn't be sure. The wind buffeted him this way and that, and Fluttershy was almost torn out of his arms. Squeezing her tight against his chest, he tried to teleport them inside the cabin and this time he succeeded.

They went tumbling across the floor and ended up in front of the fireplace. Discord dumped Fluttershy on the floor, sat up, and snapped his fingers, causing a fire to roar up from the fireplace. Making his coat and scarf disappear, he flashed himself into a standing position in front of the fire and turned his back to it, writhing ecstatically as the fire melted the snow that had gotten both trapped in his fur and stuck to his scales. He moaned as it sent waves of heat running up and down his back. His dragon tattoo seemed to relax and stretch across his body like a lizard basking in the sun. Then he turned to face the fire so he would get done all over, and stood there until steam had started curling up from his fur. Feeling much better, he stepped back and looked over at Fluttershy.

The pony hadn't moved from the spot where he'd dumped her. Her padded coat had flopped off and she was curled in a loose ball, trembling. She did not react when he approached her, so he put his foot on her side, intending to roll her over. But as soon as he touched her, his eyes widened and he jerked his foot back. The pony's body was as icy cold as the world outside had been!

Crouching down closer to her, he reached out his paw, this time ready for the cold, and pushed Fluttershy onto her side before quickly withdrawing his paw again. All this time the pony's eyes stayed shut. Now on her side, she tried to curl up again, still shivering.

As he gazed down at her, a strange heavy feeling settled on Discord's heart. It was a sensation he could never remember feeling before but he knew where it was coming from. It was coming from the knowledge that Fluttershy would never have gone out in that blizzard if it hadn't have been for him; that she wouldn't be in her current condition if it hadn't been for him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a white shape moving and looked up to see Angel hopping over to where Fluttershy lay. The old bunny patted at the pony's head, repeatedly pulling his paw back as quickly as Discord had. Then he fixed his cloudy eyes on the draconequus in a disapproving scowl. If he had tried that a few days ago, Discord would probably have turned him into a cookie jar, but now the draconequus just looked away guiltily. When he chanced a glance back, he saw Angel disappearing into Fluttershy's room. A minute later the bunny reappeared, lugging the blanket from her bed. With a snap of his talons, Discord flashed the blanket away from Angel and onto Fluttershy. He'd done it partly in hopes of annoying Angel, but the bunny just ignored him and began tucking the blanket more securely around his owner. Rankled at this, Discord picked up Fluttershy, blanket and all, and moved to set her in front of the fire. He could feel her shivering through the blanket and he held her out at arms' length, not wanting her cold body to touch him even through the material. He placed her right where he'd been standing earlier so she could get the full benefit of the fire's heat and stepped back to study her.

As he gazed at her it began to sink in that he was now in an awkward situation. She'd risked her life to rescue him, something nopony had ever done before. Granted he couldn't remember the last time he'd ever been in a situation where he'd needed to be rescued but that didn't change the fact that he was now in her debt.

He shut his eyes and pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. "What have I gotten myself into?" he muttered. He wanted to get back to his plans for taking back Equestria, but if he did that now his triumph would later be marred by the fact that he owed his freedom to Fluttershy. On the one hoof, there was a wonderful sense of irony in the idea that in freeing him, she had essentially helped hand Equestria over to him.

But by accepting that, I might just as well admit I can't conquer Equestria on my own. And I can! he thought to himself, mentally shouting the last bit for emphasis. Then a new idea popped into his head: He would pay off his debt to Fluttershy and as soon as they were even, he could cheerfully go back to planning his hostile takeover!

But how do you plan to pay her back?

He looked back over at Fluttershy, who currently looked like little more than a dark shivering lump silhouetted against the fire. He flashed closer to her, startling Angel who had been crouching beside her, and lifted the blanket to examine her. The blanket felt warm and toasty, but underneath it Fluttershy's body still felt as cold as it had earlier. Frowning, he snapped several more blankets into existence and wrapped them around her as well.

As he stepped back again, his thoughts returned to the matter of paying off his debt. Just tending to her like this didn't feel like it qualified. What else could he do?

Then he remembered the reason Fluttershy had tried to contact Twilight in the first place. He snapped his talons and the stacks of Apple family documents flashed into the room. At the sight of them, he fought the urge to groan. Going through those documents was not going to be fun but the sooner he got started, the sooner he'd be done; and the sooner he'd be done, the sooner he could get back to the fun stuff. With a flick of one talon, he sent several pages swooping up into the air where he could look at them more easily. His eyes zipped back and forth over them while his hands flexed and flourished as if molding an invisible mound of clay.

After several minutes, he decided to take a break from absorbing information to check once again on Fluttershy. Angel had climbed on top of the blankets covering her and had fallen asleep there. Discord absently flashed the bunny back into its bed, not in the mood to deal with it waking up and glaring at him, even if such a reaction normally brought a smirk to his face.

The extra blankets hadn't made the slightest difference. The outside ones had been heated just fine but none of that heat seemed to have reached Fluttershy.

Maybe she needs something warm closer to her, he thought, conjuring several hot water bottles and shoving them underneath the blankets with her before going back to studying the documents. Several minutes later, he checked on her yet again.

The hot water bottles had all gone cold and Fluttershy was still shivering away. Seeing this, Discord was sorely tempted to stomp off in a rage.

"You're doing this just to annoy me aren't you?!" he snapped at the shivering pegasus. "Stupid pony," he muttered.

That stupid pony is the reason you're in here instead of still out there stuck in that ice, a little mocking voice in his head pointed out. Discord sighed and crouched down next to Fluttershy again. He put his eagle claw under her chin and turned her face to study it. He could feel her jaw vibrating as her teeth chattered, and she still felt as cold as she had the last time he'd checked, but this time he kept his claw on her face regardless of how unpleasant it felt.

What am I doing wrong? he mentally asked her shivering face. Why can't I get you to warm up? I give you a fire, blankets, and hot water bottles. What more do I have to... Suddenly another possibility occurred to him.

Oh no! I am not doing that! He yanked his claw away from her and crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head like a stubborn foal. No, no, no, no! I won't do it! You can't make me! Then he made the mistake of looking back down at Fluttershy's pathetic, shivering form.

He groaned. Alright, I'll do it. He crooked a finger and the blankets all rose up into the air. Grimacing, he dropped to the floor, slithered across it to Fluttershy and coiled his body around and around hers. Gritting his teeth and wishing he was doing almost anything else, he tried to get reasonably comfortable considering it felt like he was coiled around a soft vibrating block of ice.

He cocked an eyebrow. Now that was an idea: Ice cubes that looked like regular old ice but felt soft and squishy to the touch. Imagine dumping a load of those on ponies and seeing their reactions when they expected to be hit with something hard and got something soft instead. And for that matter why would the ice cubes have to be cold? They could be warm instead. Hmm. I'm going to have to remember that one, he thought, mentally filing the idea away for later use.

But this thought could only temporarily distract him from the unpleasant coldness now pressed against him. So to get his mind on something else he began working his way through more of the Apple family documents. That worked for a bit as well, but eventually the cold emanating from Fluttershy's body began to gnaw at him like an itch. He'd gotten through a good-sized chunk of the documents before the cold finally became too strong to ignore. He sent the last page he'd been reading into the finished stack and twisted his neck around to glare at the pony that had remained stubbornly cold despite all his efforts to warm her.

"What more do you want from me?!" he demanded. "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?!"

Fluttershy's only response was continued shivering, and yelling at her hadn't felt nearly as satisfying as he'd thought it would.

He sighed and spoke in a softer voice. "Look, Fluttershy, I..." he stopped, suddenly unsure of what to say. "I ... I'm-sorry-this-happened!"

He winced. Ooh, saying that had hurt! Swallowing, he tried to get the rest out. "I guess ... what I'm trying to say is ... I don't want you to die because you came out looking for me." Hearing himself say it out loud, he realized that it was surprisingly true. He had no problem tricking, brainwashing or otherwise manipulating ponies, but he didn't want this one's death on his conscience. It was strange, even to him, but that didn't make it any less true.

Unsure of what else to do or say, he reached over and placed a paw on her shivering brow as if bestowing a blessing and, trying to express all the regret he was feeling, whispered, "Please don't die because of what you did for me."

He couldn't tell if Fluttershy could hear him but then he noticed a sudden change in her breathing. It had gone from shuddering respirations to quick shallow puffs as if something was keeping her from being able to breathe any deeper. Discord's eyes widened in alarm and he moved his paw from her forehead to her throat, thinking to check if something was blocking it, when Fluttershy's head suddenly lulled back and her shivering lessened. For a brief terrible moment, he thought she had died, but then his paw—which was still on her throat—felt a steady pulse. He used both his hands to cup her face and examine it. She still felt cold and shivers still racked her body, but they were not as bad as they had been earlier and her teeth no longer chattered. Then he noticed that her body no longer seemed quite as cold as it had earlier. Loosening his coils, he reached into them and pressed the back of his eagle claw against her side to make sure that the cold hadn't just numbed his body and fooled him.

No, he had not been fooled. Her body was definitely getting warmer. Withdrawing his claw, he tightened his coils back around her. He wasn't sure why sharing his own body heat seemed to be working when nothing else had but he didn't intend to leave her until she'd completely stopped shivering.

Waving a claw toward the Apple Family documents he continued going through them.





Several hours later, Discord flicked the last paper into the finished pile and let his head flop down to the floor on top of his crossed arms. "Whew! Finally."

Then he noticed that Fluttershy was no longer shivering. Shortening his coils, he settled his shoulders against the floor so that Fluttershy's head was resting on his chest. Looking down at her, he saw that she was fast asleep, her breathing deep and regular. Gently putting his paw to her forehead he found that it was now pleasantly warm.

"Mmmm." Still asleep, she rubbed her cheek against his chest and stroked his fur with a hoof.

An involuntary smile twitched across Discord's mouth at the sensation. He'd been debating whether to go put her in her bed or to keep her in front of the fire which had burned down to glowing coals. Now he decided to do both. With a snap of his fingers, her bed materialized underneath the two of them, and with another snap the blankets (which until that point he had left floating in the air) lowered to settle over them. Discord shifted enough so that he could drape an arm over Fluttershy, conjured a pillow for himself, and drifted off to sleep.





When the sky outside lightened from a pitch black to a medium gray, Fluttershy woke to find herself wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and wondering where she was. She saw fat snowflakes swirling against the cabin window and remembered vaguely being out where it was so terribly cold but the current warmth was making her brain feel sluggish and she couldn't seem to recall much more than that. Plus, she was currently much too comfortable to get up. When she put her head back down, her cheek pressed against something furry that was rising and falling in time with the sound of someone's deep breathing. Then her sluggish mind registered the fact that there was an arm draped across her withers. Maybe she'd taken shelter with Harry the bear...

Then the warm tunnel around her shifted slightly and she felt the arm across her withers slide farther around her until its hand came into view. Looking down at it, all her vague dreaminess vanished when she saw that the arm was a scaly yellow eagle's limb with a barbed tattoo around its wrist. Looking back up, she now noticed a long gray neck draped over a large pillow that prevented her from seeing the head attached to that neck. But she didn't need to see his head to know who that neck belonged to. Twisting around to look at her body, she realized to her horror that it was wrapped in furry serpentine coils that could only be Discord's.

Fighting against her rising panic, she put her hooves against one of the coils and tried to squeeze her way out of it. Scarcely had she started then there was a loud snort from behind the pillow and Discord's body suddenly shifted so that the length she'd been lying on was now beside her rather than under her. Before she could pull herself free of his coils, his arm suddenly tightened around her, pinning her upper forelegs to her sides. She froze as his neck curled around on the pillow and brought his head close to hers. He grunted, flicked an ear causing the earrings in it to jangle slightly ... and slept on.

Fluttershy slowly let out the breath she'd been holding, relieved that she hadn't woken him up. Though there was still the mystery of how they had ended up in this uncomfortably close proximity...

She watched his face for any sign that he might be waking up but saw none. Up until that moment, she'd never really had the opportunity to actually study his face in great detail. Now, as she took in the rings puncturing his nose, nostril, and lower lip; the studs hooked through his shaggy eyebrows; and the multiple earrings looped through his ears; she noticed that they had all been rammed through their respective flesh in a way that seemed specifically designed to look painful. Before she could give much thought to this observation, one of his eyelids suddenly twitched and she froze, waiting to see if it would open. It didn't, but it did remind her that she needed to get away from him before he woke up.

She tried to pull her forelegs out from under his pinning arm. Finally she got them free and began using them to try and lift his arm enough for her to wiggle out from under it. Her hooves pressed against the bicep of his eagle arm with its jaggedly barbed tattooed loop, and as she pushed at it, her hooves parted the fur, allowing her to more clearly see the ink scratched deep into the skin below. Like with the piercings on his face, the tattooing looked as if it had hurt, and she couldn't help wondering what had possessed him to mark-up his already hard-to-overlook body in this manner.

Suddenly one of Discord's eyes popped open behind her. "Good morning," he said cheerfully.

Fluttershy froze again. "Um, good morning?" she said uneasily. She'd come to realize that whenever Discord sounded that cheerful it always meant bad news.

"How are you feeling?" he asked and to her surprise he actually sounded like he genuinely wanted to know rather than like he was mocking her.

"I—" she broke off as the events of last night all came rushing back: going out in the blizzard, finding Discord in that cave, trying to break him out of the ice, believing herself done for... But then how had she gotten back here? Had—?

She looked up to meet Discord's yellow eyes. "Did ... did you bring me back here?"

"Not only did I, but I did," he said, propping his head up on his lion paw and lifting his eagle arm off her. He didn't seem to be in any hurry to start messing with her so Fluttershy wondered if maybe she could get a chance to make sense of at least a few of the Apple Family documents before he decided to resume tormenting her. Oh, she was really starting to regret worrying about him enough to go out after him.

She began wiggling out of his coils. "Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Really I do. But I really have to go through those records. Please excuse me." She leapt to her feet ... only to have her legs give out from under her.

"Oh, there's no rush," Discord said, studying his talons before flashing himself into a standing position beside the bed. Reaching over, he pulled the four or five blankets over Fluttershy, tucking them around her so that just her head was poking out.

"No, I can't wait," Fluttershy said, struggling out of the blankets. "I have to—" With a great effort she pushed herself into a sitting position ... and with very little effort, Discord pushed her back down.

"You stay there," he said, holding her down with a finger against her chest.

She tried to push his paw away. "But the records—"

"Already taken care of."

She stopped struggling. "Wh-what?"

He took his finger off her chest and moved to prop his left arm on the bed's headboard. "Watch this," he said, snapping the fingers of his lion paw.

The wood ceiling above them seemed to bubble as if it were made of liquid. Then a large portion of it descended, looking like an upside-down tree stump. This "tree stump" then proceeded to sprout branches. The branches spread out to cover most of the ceiling. Apples started growing on most of those branches. In the space of just a few minutes it looked as if someone had removed the cabin's roof and jammed an uprooted apple tree upside-down in its place.

Fluttershy looked from the tree to Discord in confusion. "What is this for—?" she started to ask when Discord suddenly stretched his arm out over her and up toward the tree. Except instead of stretching his arm out the way she would have stretched out her foreleg to reach something, his arm literally got longer as if it were made of rubber. He snapped an apple off one of the branches and, retracting his arm back to its more usual length, dropped the apple in Fluttershy's lap. Looking down at it, she saw an image of Applejack on its shiny red skin. Discord reached down and gave the top of the apple a sharp smack with his paw. The apple broke in two neat halves and Flutteshy could now see a much clearer picture of Applejack in one of them as if the apple were some sort of giant locket. Her hooves automatically put the two halves back together and they joined seamlessly becoming a single apple again. Then she pulled experimentally at the apple's sides and it split into two neat halves again. Looking back up at the tree she now noticed that all the apples had similar images of ponies on them.

"This," Discord said, jerking his head in the direction of the tree. "is our new version of the Apple Family Tree. All the information in those documents is up there." He raised a paw and seemed to be studying its claws. "I figure that as we eliminate suspects, we can pluck their apples off there, and by the time we're down to one apple, we'll have found our murderer."

This statement was greeted with silence and when Discord turned his head enough to look at Fluttershy, she was sitting there, gaping at him, her expression clearly saying: Who are you and what have you done with Discord?

He mentally chuckled. Oh, I haven't done anything with him, my dear. I can assure you he's still right here, right where I'm—

"You did this for me?" she asked softly, and Discord suddenly lost his train of gloating thought as he realized he'd misread her expression.

He let out a quick cough as if clearing his throat. "Of course." He coughed again, trying to maintain his composure. "I just started looking through those papers and I got a little curious and I thought this would be easier to work with—" His rambling broke off as Fluttershy suddenly reached over and grabbed his paw in both hooves.

"Thank you for making this," she said, letting go of his paw with one hoof to gesture toward the tree. "This will be so much easier to work with than just those stacks of paper," she continued, lowering her hoof to grasp his paw again. "I really can't thank you enough for it."

Discord had gone completely motionless at her touch. Physical contact was nothing new to him. When interacting with other creatures he seldom kept his hands to himself, but up until now he had always been the initiator. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had willingly reached out and touched him except possibly to smack him away. Certainly nothing like the way Fluttershy was holding his paw now.

Not knowing how to deal with this new feeling, he tried changing the subject. "You're probably hungry. I'll get you some soup."

With that he flashed out of her grasp and into the kitchen. Three more flashes and the stove was lit, a pot of soup was sitting on it, and a floating ladle was stirring said soup. He could have just conjured a bowl of hot soup for her right there beside the bed but he had wanted an excuse to get away from her a few minutes to collect his thoughts.

He raised his paw in front of his face and flexed the fingers as if to make sure Fluttershy's touch hadn't changed it in some way. Then remembering the surprise and gratitude he'd heard in her voice, he lowered his paw to rub at his chest, trying to understand the new emotion that was growing there. The closest thing he could think of to compare it to was when he'd been ruling Equestria and remaking it as he chose, but even that comparison didn't quite fit. He let the soup stir itself, paying just enough attention to it to keep it from sloshing while he continued to ponder his feelings.

Thinking back over his life, he realized that he could recall no instance when he'd used his magic solely for someone else's benefit. Anything he'd done had been for his own enjoyment and he had never cared one way or the other whether anyone else liked it or not. Then again he'd never been in anypony's debt before either. It had always been him against the rest of Equestria with the rest of Equestria decidedly outclassed.

But last night he had started going through those records not for his own pleasure but to try and even things up between himself and Fluttershy. He'd gone in expecting to hate every second of it, but when he'd come up with that idea for the Apple Family Tree, constructing it from the information in those documents had turned out to be ... surprisingly painless.

Plus, reluctant as he was to admit it, reading up on the family really had hooked his interest. They seemed so close that the idea of one of them being a murderer that had managed to hide all trace of the crime and spent the next ten years tormenting an old pony with it just didn't seem to fit ... just didn't seem to make sense.

Thought you liked things that way, that little voice in his head taunted.

His brows pulled down in an annoyed frown. Sure, he did like when things didn't make sense, but on his terms. And the fact that this case had managed to baffle several ponies without his involvement made him feel insulted, as if this killer was encroaching on his territory, or cutting into his business.

Yes, that was it! He just didn't want this killer taking his title of Confusion-Causer. That was all.

Really that was all.
> Chapter 8. Proverbs 27:17
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 8
“As iron sharpens iron, so one friend sharpens another.”—Proverbs 27:17




After Discord disappeared, Fluttershy lay back in the bed, pulled the blankets back up over herself, and gazed up at the apple-studded web of branches that had replaced the cabin’s ceiling. She thought back on what Discord had said about picking those apples off the tree until they were down to Applejack’s killer. Seeing the various ponies’ pictures up there helped drive home the fact that behind one of those cheerful faces was a murderer in a way that the paper documents hadn’t been able to.

Ponies weren’t always what they appeared to be; you just couldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Speaking of not judging a book by its cover...

Now Fluttershy’s thoughts drifted back to her unusual housemate. Last night as she’d lain shivering on that icy cave floor, fighting to remain conscious, she’d wished against all hope that she might be rescued. Based on Discord’s behavior when he’d first arrived, she’d never even considered that he might lift a finger to help her. But contrary to what she’d expected of him, he’d brought her back with him and tended to her while she was helpless. He had even sounded concerned when he’d asked how she was feeling earlier ... but what if that attitude was just an act to soften her up for a cruel blow later?

He probably just didn’t want to lose his toy, the small cynical voice in her head warned.

But what if he really has changed? another small voice asked.

Fluttershy remembered how once, in an attempt to be more assertive, she’d spoken cruelly to Pinkie Pie and Rarity reducing them to the point of tears. But despite this they had been quick to forgive her when she’d apologized later. How would she have felt if her apology and attempt to later make things right had just been met with suspicion?

That was different! You just got carried away and shot off your mouth. You didn’t really mean to hurt Rarity and Pinkie Pie that badly. Discord, on the other hoof, has spent the past days doing nothing but intentionally trying to hurt you, and he’s enjoyed it!

But hadn’t she enjoyed the sense of power that had come with shoving other ponies around? Yes, at first she had, but she’d later regretted her actions. If that had been the case with her, was it so impossible that Discord could feel that way as well and was now trying to make amends?

And what if he’s just lying about putting the information from those documents into the apples up there? the cynical voice challenged. They’re probably as empty as the one with Applejack in it.

There’s only one way to find out about that, Fluttershy thought as she gathered her strength and flew up to the tree branches to examine the apples more closely. She flew to an apple with Braeburn’s picture on it and smacked it the way she’d seen Discord do with the Applejack one. The apple broke in half and she saw the picture of Braeburn in one half. In the other half was a list of biographical information. She brushed her hoof over the information and it seemed to scroll down to reveal more. Closing the apple, she moved to check several others and saw that they all too had information in them.

Fluttershy was a firm believer in the idea of treating others the way you yourself wanted to be treated. It was one of the reasons she generally tried to be as soft-spoken and non-confrontational as possible. Now as she closed the apple she was holding, she thought to herself: Maybe Discord is planning to hurt me later ... but I’m going to take my chances and give him the benefit of the doubt.





Over the next several days, the weather got steadily worse, but inside the cabin things were much better between Fluttershy and Discord. Fluttershy would have preferred to have earned the draconequus’s aid in a less drastic way but she couldn’t complain about the results.

One day when she had finally gotten her strength back, Discord appeared next to her on the bed, magically stretching it in several directions to make room for the two of them, and got right down to business.

“Now, the way I see it, this case has six questions we need to answer: what, where, when, who, how, and why. We’ve already got the answers to the first three.

“Number 1. What are we trying to solve? Applejack’s death and disappearance.

“Number 2. When did it happen? Ten years ago during her family reunion.

“Number 3. Where did it happen? Here on this farm.”

He grinned. “How about that? We’re already half way there. Now, to answer our last three questions, we have to go through our list of suspects AKA her family members and figure out which of them killed her. That’s our main goal but to get there we also have to figure out how they managed to kill her and cover it up, and why did they do it in the first place.”

Fluttershy could only gape at him. She would have expected a neat little breakdown of the mystery from someone like Twilight, but not from this chaotic creature.

Discord cocked an eyebrow at her. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

Fluttershy blushed and looked away, embarrassed to be caught staring at him. “No—I mean, yes—I mean—”

“Something stuck in my teeth?” the draconequus asked, pulling out his fang and making a show of examining it under a microscope.

“No, it’s just that ... well, I, um...” Trying to find the right words to say, she fidgeted as he shoved his fang back in while watching her out of the corner of his eye. “I just didn’t expect you to say something so ... um ... logical.”

Discord roared with laughter, and rolled right off the bed, clutching his stomach and kicking his legs in the air. Fluttershy wasn’t really sure what he found so hilarious. After several seconds he sat up, took one look at her face, and went into another bout of laughing.

“Oh, your face,” he chuckled. Finally he got his laughing under control and said, “You do realize one must be well-versed in the ways of logic in order to break it in every way possible.” In his mind he added, And if that’s the sort of reaction I’d get, maybe I should play the logic card a little more often. It might help to up my unpredictability and really keep you ponies guessing.


“I suppose that makes sense,” said Fluttershy and Discord winced as if she’d just said something obscene.

“Back to business,” he said, flashing himself back onto the bed beside her. “We need to ‘prune down’ our suspect list.” A pair of oversized garden shears appeared in his hands. “Now, I doubt the killer would be anypony that died before the reunion or was born after it, so any Apples that fall into either of those categories can all go.” Shifting the shears to his eagle claw he allowed them to vanish in a flash of light before snapping the fingers on his lion paw. Immediately several of the apples on the ceiling exploded in clouds of pink smoke. The smoke from each of those clouds spread outward and some of it washed over the two detectives, morphing into splatters of whipped cream when it touched them.

“Um, it might have been simpler to just pick them off the branches,” Fluttershy suggested tentatively.

“Spoilsport,” Discord muttered but his tone was light and joking. He swiped a finger through the whipped cream on Fluttershy’s head as if skimming the icing off a cake. Fluttershy wiped the cream from her face, and licked it off her hooves. Admittedly, it didn’t taste half-bad but she didn’t look forward to trying to wash it out of her mane. As she was thinking this, she suddenly felt a breeze on her skull and gasped. Her mane!

After licking the whipped cream from his fingers, Discord had reached back down and removed her mane from her head as easily as if it had been a wig. Now he was using it to towel the whipped cream off himself!

“Discord,” she pleaded, blushing crimson, and trying to cover her now-bald head with her hooves. He just winked at her, and began twisting her mane into a thick pink rope before snapping it up at the ceiling like a whip.

“Hooves down,” he ordered cheerfully, as he started flapping the detached mane in front of him like a bed sheet. Fluttershy shot him a look of anguish and his grin slipped several notches as he felt that same uncomfortable guilty twinge in his chest. He turned himself over onto his stomach in midair and brought his head down closer to hers. “Please put them down?” he asked, locking eyes with her.

Fluttershy hesitated briefly, then, looking away from him and closing her eyes in shame, lowered her hooves. Discord swooped around behind her and carefully put her mane back on her head. Fluttershy’s eyes popped open when she felt him fluffing her mane like a hair stylist. All traces of whipped cream had vanished from her mane. In fact, all traces of it had vanished from the rest of her body as well.

Even though she would have preferred not to have gotten covered in whipped cream, she did appreciate the fact that he’d cleaned things up after having his laugh as opposed to just leaving her to struggle with the results. He definitely wouldn’t have done that when he had first arrived.





Discord meanwhile was looking up at the tree branches, his fingers continuing to automatically fluff and comb through Fluttershy’s mane. His method of removing several suspects from the list hadn’t made nearly as big a dent in it as he’d expected. He went back to thinking of the how, who, and why questions of the case.

“How was she murdered?” he mused out loud. “That will be difficult to answer since we don’t have a body to examine.”

“Couldn’t you just conjure her body for us to examine?” Fluttershy asked even though the idea of it made her feel a bit queasy. She’d seen her share of dead animals but another pony, especially a close friend...

The draconequus shook his head. “Conjuring a random object and summoning an already existing one are different things. Summoning an already existing object takes less energy than conjuring up a brand-new one but I tend to favor the conjuring method because I need to know where the object I’m trying to summon is.

“I could conjure up a copy of her corpse, but it wouldn’t show us the cause of death since I don’t know what she died of. And I can’t summon her actual corpse since I don’t know where it is. Even if I did, after ten years anything I summoned would probably be little more than dust.”

Both detectives were silent for several seconds, realizing they’d hit a dead end, before Discord spoke up. “If we can’t answer ‘how?’ let’s see what we can do with ‘why?’. What reasons would there be to kill Applejack? Who benefits? What’s her will say?”

“She ... she never made one.”

“Well, has anypony gotten any of her things?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think most of her stuff is still in her room. I think some of her clothes were donated to charity, but that was about it. And none of her extended family bought any of those things.”

“I see.” Discord tapped his fingertips together as he studied the tree. “Hmm, how to narrow our search... how to narrow our search...” He looked down at Fluttershy and saw that she was holding the Applejack apple, which was empty save for her picture. “Hmm ... Maybe we should stop looking at the suspects and start looking at our victim.”

Fluttershy’s head jerked up at the comment. “What do you mean?”

“I think we need to focus on Applejack instead of on all these ponies. Find out if she did something that prompted one of them to kill her.”

Fluttershy had to admit she hadn’t thought of that. She’d been sure she knew Applejack and that the earth pony had had nothing to hide. She had represented honesty after all. Then again, Applejack hadn’t told any of her friends about those apple-peeling rosebuds she used to make. If she hadn’t mentioned something as innocent as that, it didn’t seem so impossible that she might have kept other things from them. But surely she would have confided in her friends if she’d found something big enough to drive another pony to kill her.

Then again, maybe she did intend to tell us, but was killed before she could, Fluttershy thought.

Outside the wind suddenly let out a loud shriek as if to say: “Hey! I’m still out here you know!”

Fluttershy glanced nervously out the window and as if sensing her thoughts, Discord wrapped an arm around her from behind and slipped the other under her hindquarters, so that she was sitting with her back against his chest. “We’ll go this way.”

Before Fluttershy could ask what way he was talking about, she was surrounded by a blinding flash of light. A second later the light vanished and they were in Applejack’s room.

Suddenly Discord cried out in pain and dropped her. Fluttershy landed with an “oof!” on the floor and turned to see what had caused Discord to cry out. She saw him flailing about, his body stuck through the bed’s headboard—No, wait! His body wasn’t stuck through the headboard. The headboard was stuck through his body! Then he vanished in another flash of light and reappeared in front of her.

She pushed herself to her hooves. “Are you okay?” she asked, reaching a hoof toward him but hesitating to touch him, not sure if it might injure him farther.

The draconequus winced and rubbed his middle. “Oh, sure. I’ll be fine in a bit. I’ve done that before. It hurts if you’re not ready for it but it’s not dangerous. At least not for me.”

“You’re sure?” Fluttershy asked, peering uncertainly at his now-intact middle.

Discord nodded, apparently fully recovered. “Yes, I’m sure. For me it’s like getting a paper cut. It’s not fatal but it’s not too pleasant either.”

Fluttershy lowered her hoof and looked up at him musingly. “Discord, may I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

“I mean besides that question.”

Discord squinted one eye as if weighing the request before saying, “You may ... If I ask you something as well. Don’t answer my question and I won’t answer yours. Quid pro quo.”

“Quid pro—?”

“Quid pro quo. A question for a question, an answer for an answer, an eye for—eh, better stop there. Now, I’ll pose my question first if you don’t mind. Age before beauty you know.”

Fluttershy laughed at that. She knew he was just joking, but deep down she couldn’t help feeling a bit flattered that he’d put her in the beauty category. Even if it didn’t really mean anything. “Go ahead.”

“What’s up with the tail extensions?”

Fluttershy blushed. She’d forgotten that he knew about her tail extensions. “I didn’t always have them. A couple of years back there was a storm and I was rescuing some baby mice, and a gate accidentally slammed on my tail ... and part of it sort of fell off. My tail I mean. So I’ve been taking hair out of my mane and weaving it into what’s left of my tail because it looks silly as just a stump.”

Discord nodded thoughtfully. “And your question?”

“Well, I was just wondering ... are you immortal?” Considering what she’d witnessed just moments ago, she was pretty sure he was and just wanted to have her suspicions confirmed.

But instead his answer surprised her.

“I don’t know.”

“Wha—what do you mean you don’t know?”

He shrugged. “I’m the only one of my kind so I can’t exactly look up what the average draconequus lifespan is. I’ve been around for a long time,” Of course, I spent a good thousand years of that time imprisoned in stone and you can’t really age normally in that condition... “but I don’t know if that means I’m immortal or just long-lived. An adult mayfly only lives a few hours so as far as it’s concerned one of you ponies might just as well be immortal but that doesn’t mean you truly are. And I also don’t know if it’s possible for me to be killed as I don’t really care to find out.” He paused a moment, then added, “The way I see it, I’m as young as I feel and I feel just fine, thank you very much.” The words came out cheerfully enough, but Fluttershy thought she caught a hint of falsehood in them.

She tried to imagine being the only one of her kind. She tried to imagine going through life not knowing if she would eventually die or just keep going on forever. She’d never really thought that having a rough idea of one’s lifespan could be a blessing before but now... “I’m sorry. That must be hard. Not knowing how long you’ll live I mean.”

“Forget it,” Discord said brusquely. “Let’s see if we can find—”

Before he could finish the sentence the bedroom door swung open, and the draconequus promptly vanished in a flash of light. Apple Bloom and Big Mac both poked their heads in the room.

“Fluttershy? What are you doing in here? Who were you talking to?”

Fluttershy fumbled for an answer. Should she tell the siblings that she was looking into Applejack’s murder? Granny Smith had seemed pretty adamant about keeping it a secret but surely that didn’t extend to her own grandchildren.

The wind shrieked outside the house, causing Apple Bloom to frown at Fluttershy. “And how’d you get over here?”

Before Fluttershy could come up with a way to answer that, both she and the Apple siblings were startled by a flash of light. When it disappeared, there was a gray unicorn standing in its place. He shook his short black mane and Fluttershy noticed the tattoo stretched across his shoulder blades. It looked like a much smaller version of the dragon Discord had coiling around his body. In fact...

Now she noticed the unicorn also had a barbed loop high up on one of his front legs, a wasp on his neck, and rings through his ears, nostril, and left eyebrow.

“Um... Discord?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly.

The unicorn turned and winked at her so that the Apple siblings couldn’t see it. “You called?”

Fluttershy didn’t mean to stare at him but she couldn’t help it. Somehow hearing that familiar voice coming out of that unfamiliar form managed to be both reassuring and unnerving at the same time.

“Fluttershy, what’s going on?” Apple Bloom demanded, looking back and forth from the pegasus to the strange new unicorn. “What are you doing here? Who is this?”

In that moment Fluttershy decided to confide in Apple Bloom and Big Mac. At least about investigating Applejack’s death.

“Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh,” she gestured toward the unicorn beside her. “This is Discord.”

“Discord?” Apple Bloom repeated uncertainly as she and Big Mac studied the odd-looking unicorn.

“I’m a terrible musician,” he explained. “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

“Hmm.” The Apple siblings continued to study him, apparently sensing there was something a bit off about him but not really sure what.

Fluttershy cleared her throat. “I know he might seem a little ... strange.”

Discord chuckled at that. Oh, they have no idea...

“But he’s really been a big help to me. He teleported us here from the cabin.” Then as quickly as she could Fluttershy explained what Granny Smith had told her about believing somepony from their family had murdered Applejack, how the two of them had disguised Fluttershy as Apple Butter to give her an excuse to investigate the family, and how she had then gotten stuck during the investigation and contacted Twilight for help. Before she could go any farther Discord suddenly put his hoof over her mouth.

“And seeing as how Princess Twilight was too busy, I’m filling in instead,” he quickly interjected.

If this interruption looked suspicious to the Apple siblings they didn’t show it. They just exchanged looks of their own. Then Big Mac nodded and Apple Bloom spoke up.

“Fluttershy,” she said, sounding a bit uncomfortable. “I don’t know quite how to say this, but we’ve known you were trying to find Applejack’s killer since you got here.”

Fluttershy pushed Discord’s hoof away from her mouth. “You have?”

“Yup,” said Big Mac.

“But Granny Smith made it sound like only she suspected Applejack was murdered.” Fluttershy paused then added. “By the way, how is Granny Smith doing?”

“Napping. Not feeling so well,” said Apple Bloom before addressing Fluttershy’s earlier statement. “We don’t like to talk about it, but Big Mac and I have both suspected it as well. We’ve actually been investigating the rest of the family ourselves over the years.” Her ears drooped and frustration laced her voice. “But none of them seem to have had a reason to kill her. All of them seem just as confused over her disappearance as we are.” Looking back up at Fluttershy, she added, “To be honest, I don’t think your Apple Butter disguise fooled many of them. I think most of them agreed to give you their information because they don’t know who to trust in the family and want to know who killed Applejack as much as we do.”

“Well,” said Fluttershy as she let this new information sink in. “Would you mind if Discord and I looked through Applejack’s things to see if we can find any clues?”

Apple Bloom shrugged her shoulders. “You’re welcome to, but I don’t think ya’ll find much.”





As soon as Apple Bloom and Big Mac were out of Applejack’s room, Discord magically shoved the door shut. No sooner had he magically locked it, then he flashed back into his draconequus form with all his tattoos and piercings back as well.

“Oooh, much better,” he said, stretching his arms out in front of him before swinging them behind him and putting his paw and claw on his lower back.

“Why did you make yourself look like that?” Fluttershy asked.

Discord popped the vertebrae in his lower back, then proceeded to work his way up the rest of his long spine, each pop sounding like a squeaky toy being squeezed. “As much as I hated to deprive those ponies of the chance to admire my good looks, I felt that looking like a pony would raise fewer questions.”





The two partners began searching Applejack’s room. The place hadn’t been completely neglected but judging by the thin layer of dust that covered most of it, the rest of the family seldom entered it. Fluttershy couldn’t help feeling a bit mortified as they started looking through Applejack’s things, as if she were somehow betraying her friend’s trust, and because of this she felt a tiny bit of relief deep down inside that Discord seemed to have no such qualms. Hopefully he might spot any things her discomfort kept her from noticing. She’d come to realize he was surprisingly adept at spotting logical patterns in things. He just preferred to tangle them up when he saw them rather than to point them out.

Finally they came to Applejack’s bookshelf which seemed to contain some works of fiction, and what appeared to be financial records. Discord squinted thoughtfully at the financial books. “Maybe she was cheating other ponies out of their money,” he wondered aloud.

At that Fluttershy suddenly flew right up in front of him, outraged. “She’d never do that!”

“Why not?” he smirked. “That whole honesty act would have been the perfect cover-up so what makes you so sure she wouldn’t use it to her advantage?”

“Because I know Applejack! She might not have been perfect but she believed in treating everypony she did business with fair-and-square!”

Discord raised his hands in surrender. He hadn’t expected Fluttershy to defend Applejack’s honor so fiercely, and he almost felt a little bit jealous of the dead pony, that she could command that sort of devotion even though she’d ceased to exist a full decade ago.

“That may be the case,” he said before flashing himself behind Flutteshy so that he was between her and the bookshelf. “But there might still be something hidden in one of these books. Look for anything that seems a bit out of place, an odd note, some underlined or crossed-out words, anything.” With that he picked up one of the books, and began flipping through it, taking only a fraction of a second to look at the pages. Fluttershy hovered by him, trying to read over his shoulder, but he was turning the pages so fast she only caught a word or two on each of them. Discord closed the book and let it drop to the floor.

Fluttershy flew down, picked it up, and was about to look through it herself when Discord said, “Don’t bother. It’s just a list of cider customers. Nothing out of place in there. Try another book.”

Fluttershy looked up at him suspiciously. “How do you know there’s nothing out of place in this book? You just barely glanced at the pages.”

“That’s all that’s in there,” Discord snapped, turning and tossing another book over his shoulder toward her. She dropped the book she was holding and caught the new one reflexively. She stared at his back, wondering why he had suddenly gotten so testy with her. Then his dragon tattoo turned its head to face her, jerked its skull several times up in the direction of its owner’s head, and rolled its eyes before going back into its original position. Fluttershy bit down on the corners of her mouth to keep from laughing at the attitude the tattoo had displayed.



Discord kept his back to her as he tried to decide which book to investigate next. He wasn’t sure what had prompted him to snap at her. Her question had been understandable and would have given him the perfect opportunity to brag about his abilities, so why had it bothered him?

Because he was still smarting from the way she’d defended Applejack from him earlier. He had been able to tell from Fluttershy’s attitude that it had never even entered her head to question Applejack’s integrity. That, coupled with the fact that she had felt the need to question his information as if his word couldn’t be trusted had gotten under his skin as effectively as the ink that formed his tattoos.

Why do you even care what she thinks of you? You’ve never cared what anypony has thought before.

So what?! I’m entitled to change my mind. Isn’t chaos synonymous with change anyway? Isn’t—

He shook his head. I’ve got to stop going off on these stupid tangents. I don’t care what she thinks of me! I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! I’m just going to repay her by helping her find out who killed her friend, no more no less! Once that’s done, we’ll be even, and that will be the end of it.

He picked up another book, a western this time, and opened the front cover. He dipped his head down to put his face close to the book as if he were near-sighted. Fluttershy watched him, wondering why he didn’t conjure a pair of reading glasses for himself if he was having trouble reading.

The draconequus had his pierced snout right up against the book’s spine. Then he seemed to push the rest of his face into the book as well. Fluttershy watched, half-expecting his head to break through the book’s spine, but the book didn’t even bow outward. Discord kept pressing his face against the book until his whole head, horn, antler and all, had vanished between the book’s first page and its front cover. Then he curved his neck over so that the book’s cover was parallel with the floor and slid his thumb back over the book’s pages, causing them to fan down toward the front cover. When the last page had fallen, he slammed the book shut, turned the book so that it was upright, opened the back cover, and pulled his head back out of the book.

“Nothing in there either, except some spilled apple juice on one of the pages, and some apple pie crumbs between some of the others.”



They continued looking through the books, Fluttershy doing it the old-fashioned way, and Discord alternating between that and his shove-his-head-in-the-book method depending on whether the books were hoof-written or typed, but neither found anything particularly interesting. Most of the books were just accounts of food and cider orders, lists of customers, or shopping lists.

Finally Discord tugged down the last book, a particularly large one, and as he did, something small and thin that had been shoved under that book fell off the shelf onto the floor. Both Discord and Fluttershy looked down to see what appeared to be a small journal. They exchanged glances before Discord set the large book down and picked up the journal. He opened it and Fluttershy, after a brief hesitation, flew forward to look over his shoulder. At the sight of the journal’s contents, Fluttershy felt herself sag with a mixture of relief and disappointment. There were only a few entries in the journal and they seemed to consist entirely of shopping and catering lists, mostly of items that involved apples in some way. When they’d finished looking through the journal, Fluttershy expected Discord to toss it as he had the other books but instead he flipped back to the last entry.

“Look at this,” he said, tapping the last list with a talon. “All the lists in here have something apple-related on them except this one.”

It was a short list, just six items which he proceeded to read aloud: “Strawberry swirl, triple treat, sunny daze, cotton candy, sparkleworks, glitter glide.”

“Glitter glide...” Fluttershy repeated softly, and Discord’s eyes flicked to her.

“Those words mean anything to you?”

“I ... I don’t know... There’s something familiar about them ... like I’ve heard them somewhere before... but I can’t place where.” She frowned and looked up at the ceiling as if the answer might be up there.

Discord got up and went back to the large book he had set down, while Fluttershy began to pace, muttering “Glitter glide, glitter glide, glitter glide,” hoping it might jog her memory. Glancing back over at Discord she saw that he once again had his head literally buried in another book. She halted in her pacing to take a good long look at his tattoos. Maybe it was just because she’d spent so much of her recent time looking for patterns, but now she noticed one thing about the tattoos that she’d always missed before.

The dragon, the wasps, the spirals, the barbed loops, and all the other designs all had a harsh jaggedness to them. The way they twisted over their hodge-podge canvas seemed to snarl “Back off!” Their style looked as if it would have been more at home on the body of a sullen brooding pony, rather than on someone with the careless cheerful attitude Discord usually seemed to display. Then again, his whole anatomy seemed to be a jumble of contrasting parts so maybe the fact that the tattoos seemed a bit out of place was intentional.

Still as she continued to study the tattoos, their sharp designs suddenly brought to mind the quills of an injured porcupine she had cared for a few years back. When she had first approached it, the wounded creature had been frightened and had lashed out at her in self-defense. It had tried to smack her with its quill-covered tail at least a dozen times before she was finally able to calm it down enough to treat its injuries. Even after it had finally learned to trust her, the porcupine had remained suspicious of any of the other animals and would bristle up any time any of them approached it.

Could Discord’s tattoos and piercings be intended as a sort of armor the way that porcupine’s quills had? A more subtle way of saying “Don’t touch me or you’ll get hurt.”?

Then Discord pulled his head back out of the book and Fluttershy made a quick mental note to keep her musings on his appearance to herself. Somehow she didn’t think he’d appreciate being compared to one of her animals.

As his head came up, Discord arched his back and iridescent rainbows glinted in the ink of his dragon tattoo. At the sight of those rainbows, Fluttershy suddenly realized why the words “glitter glide” had seemed familiar to her. She remembered years ago when she was still a filly in Cloudsdale, watching Rainbow Dash zipping through the air. Suddenly the blue pegasus was joined by a light green one whose mane and tail were streaked in pink, purple, and white. Glitter Glide had been every bit as athletic and competitive as Rainbow Dash and the two had often raced each other through obstacle courses. They’d never been able to determine who the better athlete was because while Rainbow Dash was the faster of the two, Glitter Glide had been the more agile. Now that Fluttershy thought about it, she couldn’t remember the last time over the past years that Rainbow Dash had even mentioned Glitter Glide. Had they had some sort of falling out?

“Discord, I just remembered where I’ve heard of Glitter Glide before. She was a friend of my friend Rainbow Dash.”

“But not of yours?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, we weren’t really enemies or anything like that, but she was really more Rainbow Dash’s friend than mine.” She looked down at the list. “If she’s the same Glitter Glide as is on this list, maybe the rest of the items are actually pony names as well.”

Discord just stood there, frowning as if watching something on an invisible screen before saying, “Cotton Candy was in that list of cider customers, page 12. Glitter Glide was on page 23. Sparkleworks, Strawberry Swirl, and Sunny Daze were on page 47. And Triple Treat was on page 53.”

Fluttershy snatched up the book and flipped to the pages he’d mentioned. Sure enough there were the names, just where he’d said they’d be. How could he know exactly where they’d be if he had only glanced at the pages earlier? Unless...

“Discord ... do you have a photographic memory?”

Discord grinned. “Oh no, I’ve got the next step up. A cinematic memory.”

“A cinematic memory? I’ve never heard of that before. What’s it like?”

Discord scooped her up and they were surrounded by a flash of light. When it disappeared they were back in the cabin. The Apple Family tree was still covering the ceiling, and her bed was still underneath it ... but why could she see herself and Discord sitting on the bed and having the same conversation they’d had earlier that day?

“This is how a cinematic memory works,” Discord’s voice came from behind her. “Your choice of moving, still shot, color, black-and-white, with or without subtitles, various soundtracks, 2-D, 3-D, surround sound, and high definition.” There was a second flash of light and they were back in Applejack’s room again.

“Wow. That was incredible,” Fluttershy said softly, and a smile tugged at the corners of Discord’s mouth as he felt a rush of pleasure similar to the one he’d had when she’d thanked him for making the Apple Family Tree.

“Can you remember everything like that?” Fluttershy asked as he set her down.

“Most things.”

“I wish I could do that,” Fluttershy said enviously before she could stop herself. She covered her mouth and blushed.

Discord’s smile wilted a bit. “Sometimes it’s not as great as you might think. For one thing, it doesn’t record on command. It’s usually on but every once in a while it shuts off for a bit.” He lowered himself into a sitting position, hands dangling over his knees. “Also it didn’t really come with a rewind/erase button. Once a memory is recorded in there I can recall every little detail of it with perfect clarity.” Looking away from her, he muttered more to himself than to her. “And there are some memories in there I’d prefer to forget.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Fluttershy asked, putting a hoof on his knee, near where his paw rested. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But if you do...” She trailed off as his fingers rose. They came back down as if he intended to drum them on his knee, but instead they came down on her hoof and absently spread over it. Discord didn’t seem fully aware of what he was doing and she wondered if one of those memories was playing through his head right now. She gave his paw a light squeeze and he absently returned the gesture. Then he suddenly seemed to notice what he was doing and jerked his paw out of her grasp.

“It’s getting late. We should probably get back to the cabin.” He scooped her up again and flashed them back to the cabin.

“You-ready-for-bed? You-should-be-in-bed. Let’s-get-you-to-bed. Goodnight!” he said in one long breath as he set her on her bed and almost threw the covers over her.

“Discord, wait!” Her hooves wrapped around his wrists and, while he could have flashed himself out of her grasp, something in her voice made him halt. “Discord, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” he snapped. Then his dragon tattoo twisted its head back over between his shoulder blades and sneezed a stream of orange-and-yellow ink down his back. He brought his tail up to wipe the ink away with its tufted end, only to have the ink set the tuft on fire. Fluttershy gasped but Discord just looked annoyed as he waved his tail rapidly back and forth to put the flames out.

Traitor, he mentally snarled at the dragon tattoo, willing it not to move anymore. He blew on the soot-blackened tip of his tail and a fresh white tuft puffed out of it. He started to step back from the bed again only to feel Fluttershy’s hooves still clutching his wrists.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, preparing to twist his arms out of her grasp.

“Discord, I want to talk about the case.”

“Oh.” Yes, yes, the case. Murder, death, mystery ... all that nice stuff ... yes, let’s think about that.

He seemed to relax and Fluttershy let go of his wrists.

“I’m wondering,” she said. “about those names Applejack had written down in her journal. They didn’t seem to be in any of the other books as ponies she’d catered to. Just the cider customer list. Why would she pick those particular ponies out of all the ones in the cider list?”

“I noticed that as well,” said Discord, stroking his beard and looking up at the ceiling.

“The only one I really know anything about is Glitter Glide and I haven’t heard anything from her in years. All I can think of as to why Applejack might write her name down is that maybe she and Rainbow Dash were planning to have a three-way competition with Glitter Glide.”

“Tell you what,” said Discord. “Tomorrow I’ll go out and check the registries to find out where those six ponies are now and what they’re up to.”

“Should I go with you to help you look?”

He shook his head. “A lot of those registries weren’t built when I was here last so I’d be teleporting into new places. If I ended up teleporting half into a wall or something by mistake, I’d be able to survive it; you wouldn’t.”



Later that night, Fluttershy was in her bedroom, lying in the bed Discord had teleported back there for her. She was just dropping off to sleep when she heard the door creak softly open. She shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep as she heard Discord move across the room to stand beside the bed.

For several seconds he just stood there. Then she felt the mattress go down in four places, two at the foot of the bed, and two on either side of her head. She was lying on her side, and she felt a soft breath on her cheek. Discord must be standing on the bed, bracing himself on his arms above her. Not sure what else to do, she continued pretending to be asleep while he stood silently over her.

“What are you doing to me, Fluttershy?” he finally asked softly, and before she could decide whether or not to sit up and confront him, a flash of light turned the inside of her eyelids a bright red and he was gone, leaving her to muse not only on what she’d learned about the case, but also on what she’d learned about her partner.
> Chapter 9. Ezekiel 36:26
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 9

“And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”—Ezekiel 36:26





When Fluttershy woke the next day, she went into the main room to find Discord already gone and the books they’d been looking through the day before lying in the middle of the room. She found the tiny journal on top of the pile and paged through it.

The first list was titled “Petal Blossom” and the items on it were:

1 apple cake

3 jugs cider

4 doz. apple spice muffins

3 batch apple turnovers

3 lb. apple chips

1 corn cake

1 doz. popcorn balls

1 loaf pumpkin bread

2 apple pies

On a hunch, Fluttershy looked through the list of cider customers, searching for the name Petal Blossom and after a few minutes she located it. She looked through the rest of the lists in the journal and was able to match each of their titles with the names of ponies in the cider customer list. When she got to the last list that consisted only of the six pony names, she studied them for several seconds before getting out her knitting to give her hooves something to do while she thought on the names.

Why would Applejack have a list of customers with no list of orders under their names? The list hadn’t been dated, so what if Applejack had written it but hadn’t had a chance to add their orders before she’d died?

Her thoughts were interrupted when Discord suddenly flashed into the room with several thick books tucked under his arm. “Honey, I’m home,” he quipped.

Fluttershy set aside her knitting and trotted up to him. “Did you find out where Glitter Glide and the rest of the ponies on that list are?”

“Oh, I found out alright,” he said and the joking manner faded from his voice. “All six of those ponies have been spending the past decade six feet under.”

Fluttershy felt her throat tighten up. “You mean they’re ... they’re dead?”

“Oh, yes. Quite dead ... and all killed in the same manner.”

Setting down the books he was holding, which Fluttershy now saw were various registries, he snapped his talons, causing a large map of Equestria to appear on one of the cabin walls. A rolled-up paper flashed into his hand and he threw it at the map like a dart. The scroll struck Baltimare and stuck there like a piece of well-cooked spaghetti. Then it unrolled, revealing itself to be a photograph of a white earth pony with a dark pink mane and tail, and dressed in a white lab coat and goggles.

“Strawberry Swirl worked as a botanist in Baltimare, apparently experimenting with combining different fruits together. Apples that tasted like grapes, bananas that tasted like kiwis and strawberries.” He snorted scornfully. “She should have put me on the job. I could have gotten results,” he snapped his talons and several different types of fruit sprouted on the branches above them. “like that.” And maybe I will when this is over, he thought, imagining some ponies biting into watermelon slices only to discover that they tasted like bananas.

“Discord...” Fluttershy’s soft voice jerked him back to the real world.

“Hmm?”

“What happened to her?”

“Oh, one day she didn’t come in for work. Her lab partners went to her house but she wasn’t there. They checked all the other places she normally went, but there was still no sign of her. Then two weeks later a garbage collector found her dead in a dumpster. When they examined her, it turned out she’d been strangled to death. They never found out who killed her.”

He conjured more scrolls and tossed them one after another at the map, explaining who the ponies on them were.

Triple Treat was a lavender unicorn with a coral-colored mane and tail. She had worked in Manehattan as a commercial baker who had specialized in fancy cakes and other elegant foods.

Cotton Candy was a magenta earth pony with a frizzy mane and tail the same light blue as her namesake. She had worked as a party planner in Fillydelphia, a fact that combined with her looks made her seem so much like Pinkie Pie that Fluttershy found it unsettling.

Both Triple Treat and Cotton Candy had gone the same way as Strawberry Swirl. One day they hadn’t shown up for work, and a few weeks later their strangled corpses were found in dumpsters.

Glitter Glide had been working as a weather pony in Cloudsdale.

“She’d applied to the Wonderbolt Academy and had been accepted, but didn’t show up for the first day of training,” said Discord. “A week later, she was found floating in a river. The ponies that discovered her thought at first that she’d drown, but further examination revealed that she’d died of strangulation before she’d ended up in the river.”

Sparkleworks was a light orange unicorn with a blue mane and tail. She had been an explosives expert and firework-maker in Appleloosa. Two and a half weeks after not showing up for a blasting operation on the outskirts of the town, she, like Glitter Glide, had been found floating in a river.

The last pony on the list, Sunny Daze, was a loopy-looking white pegasus whose bright orange mane and tail were full of yellow and magenta streaks. She had been a painter who spent most of her time in Los Pegasus. She would often go off alone for weeks at a time so her disappearance hadn’t been noticed as soon as those of the other ponies. It wasn’t until the day when her body washed up on the banks of a river several miles from Los Pegasus that anypony realized she was dead.

Fluttershy gazed up at the map of Equestria and at the six photos marking the six locations each of the ponies had disappeared from. Those poor ponies, she thought sadly, wondering about the friends and family members they must have left behind. They had all come from different towns and cities, they had all had different professions, and yet they had all been killed in the same manner. Could that be the reason Applejack had written their names down?

Discord’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Apart from their deaths, the only thing they seemed to have in common was being Sweet Apple Acres cider customers.” After a pause he added, “I hear Applejack was pretty good with a rope.” and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Discord,” Fluttershy’s voice was as soft as usual but there was a hint of steel in it. “You’d better not be implying that she killed them.”

Floating in midair, the draconequus propped himself up on his elbows, clasped his paw in his claw, rested his chin on them, and gazed at her with an air of polite interest.

“You have an alternative theory?” There was something in his tone that made Fluttershy feel he’d already come up with another theory himself and wanted to see if she could deduce it without his help.

She swallowed, choosing her words carefully. “Well ... I know Applejack wouldn’t have killed them ... but maybe she found out who did ... and was killed so she couldn’t expose them.”

He golf-clapped. “Very good, Fluttershy. That’s just what I was thinking.”





They spent the next several days combing through the lists of Applejack’s customers to see if any of the rest of them had met with fates similar to those of the current six victims. In the past years several of them had died but all their deaths had been either natural causes or unfortunate accidents. Only those first six had been unsolved murders, and only those six had occurred before Applejack’s disappearance.

Discord also magically sliced wedges off the Apples on the ceiling and stuck them on the map wherever those particular Apples lived. Most of the Apples were earth ponies, but there were a few pegasi and unicorns scattered among them.

“I’d say it’s about time to start putting together a profile of our killer,” said Discord when they’d finally finished going through the customer list. Both he and Fluttershy felt that their theory about Applejack being killed to cover up the other murders was their strongest lead. He studied the seven photographs stuck to the map; they had added Applejack’s photo on top of Sweet Apple Acres.

“Hmm. We’ll have to consider the fact that the bodies of the other six ponies were all found while Applejack’s body is still missing,” he mused, stroking his beard. “There wasn’t too much effort put into hiding the others. They were dumped as if the killer didn’t care if they were found or not. My guess is the killer didn’t think they’d be traced back to him or her, but didn’t want to risk Applejack’s death being connected with them, and thus put more effort into hiding her body. That makes me think Applejack wasn’t one of the intended victims, but rather was killed because she knew too much.”

Fluttershy nodded. “That does seem to fit. When they didn’t show up for their usual cider orders, Applejack must have noticed the similarity in their deaths that everypony else missed. But what about the cider bottles...”

“Pardon?”

Realizing Discord didn’t know about the cider bottles, which might be an important clue in themselves, Fluttershy quickly explained their yearly arrival, and why they had led Granny Smith to believe a fellow family member had killed Applejack and had been taunting her about it ever since.

When she had finished her explanation, Discord vanished and reappeared a few seconds later with the ten cider bottles. A table flashed into existence in front of him and he set the bottles down on it. He and Fluttershy began going over each bottle carefully, hoping they might find some clue about its sender.

Fluttershy sighed. “I’ve seen this type of bottle before. It’s made in Canterlot but it’s sold all over Equestria so it could have been bought in any of those cities or towns. The apples for the dried peelings could have been bought just about anywhere as well. Or they could have been grown by the killer.”

Discord tilted one of the bottles, hearing its contents slosh. “Let’s take a look at what’s in them.” Uncorking the bottle, he flashed a pair of tankards onto the table and poured the bottle’s contents into them. He stuck a glowing talon into one of the tankards and stirred the liquid. “Hmm. No poison. No oddball ingredients. Nope, it’s just plain old regular cider.” He sounded disappointed. Then a new idea seemed to occur to him. Two more tankards flashed onto the table, this time accompanied by a jug of Sweet Apple Acres cider that had been in the cabin kitchen.

“Let’s do a taste test,” he said, picking up the tankard he’d been stirring. “See how the two types of cider compare.”

First they tried the bottled cider, then they tried the Sweet Apple Acres cider. Fluttershy had expected the Sweet Apple Acres cider to be better just by default but was in for a surprise.

“They’re about the same,” she said, when they’d finished their taste test. “If I didn’t know any better I would have sworn I just had two tankards from the same jug.”

“Same here,” said Discord. “Which probably means they were made with the same recipe...” he slumped. “Which probably just means they’re using a family recipe that all the Apples know and it doesn’t really add anything to our case.”

By then it was getting dark and cold so Discord snapped a fire into the fireplace. Though they didn’t voice their thoughts aloud, it was clear from their expressions that both detectives were feeling stuck. They had found a possible answer to their question of why Applejack had been killed, but they seemed no closer to answering the question of who had done it.

“Maybe we should take a break,” Fluttershy suggested. “and come back to the case tomorrow with a fresh start.”

Discord decided that she had a point. “In that case, let’s have something to drink besides cider.”

He snapped his talons and two large tall glasses of what appeared to be chocolate milk appeared in midair in front of him. A second later, a bucket of ice and a scooper appeared next to him. He scooped up a heaping pile of ice and poured it into one of the glasses. Putting the glass on the floor, he gave it a shove, sending it sliding toward Fluttershy. Then he turned and dumped a heaping scoop of ice into the remaining glass as well.

Fluttershy eyed the beverage with a touch of apprehension. Chocolate milk with lots of ice in it was not her idea of a cozy by-the-fire-type drink but the least she could do was be appreciative of his effort. She took a small sip, then her eyes widened in surprise when the liquid that touched her lips turned out to be much warmer than she’d expected, almost like hot cocoa. She looked up to see Discord blowing on his own drink before taking a sip.

“Aren’t you going to drink the glass instead of the milk?” she asked, referring to a stunt she’d seen him do a few days earlier.

Discord flicked his eagle hand to the side with a dismissive “Tuh! That is an acquired taste, my dear Fluttershy,” he said in a mock pompous voice. “Tis all in the delivery.” Bringing his head down closer to hers as if sharing classified information, he shifted back to his regular voice. “It’s great the first time around, but once ponies start expecting it, it loses something.”

Drawing back, he winked at her and she responded with a soft laugh. Though she knew it had just been part of his snob act, she had enjoyed hearing him say “my dear Fluttershy” without any of the sarcasm he would have employed when they’d first met.

Despite deciding to take a small break from the case, Fluttershy still felt her eyes drifting toward the map covered with photos and apple slices, and she wondered aloud, “Maybe if we could figure out which Apple was in all those locations at the time those ponies disappeared—”

“Fluttershy ... are we sure ... it was only one Apple who committed the murders? How do we know it wasn’t several of them working together?”

As these questions sunk in, Fluttershy realized with dismay that it was true. She had just been assuming that there had only been one pony involved in Applejack’s death, but now that she looked back at their evidence there was no concrete proof of that.

If more ponies were involved ... how could they possibly know which ones to rule out?





They decided to sleep on it.

Fluttershy went back to her bedroom. She glanced absently at the calendar and froze when she realized what date it was. Hearth’s Warming was tomorrow!

With the way it had been storming nonstop there had been little difference between night and day, and she had been so occupied with the case that she’d lost track of the days and had paused each day only long enough to check them off the calendar.

Now she wished she could have done something special for Hearth’s Warming. It was too late to send any presents to her friends. The fact that it was still storming outside made the idea of trying to visit them out of the question. Maybe she could give Discord a present ... but what?

Her eyes lit on the scarf she’d been knitting over the past several days. It was long enough to wrap around one’s neck several times. Maybe it would do.

She held the scarf up to examine it, and felt her heart sink. The scarf was a mess. It was thin in some areas and thick in others. Its colors all seemed to clash, and strings were trailing from almost every row. It looked like a giant ratty, multi-colored woolly bear caterpillar that had been pinched thin in some places and over-inflated in others. One glance at it would probably have given Rarity a heart attack.

But Rarity isn’t here, and really what else can I give? Fluttershy wondered. She searched for something to wrap the present in, but could find nothing. Finally she had to make-do with tucking it into one of her saddlebags. She jotted “Happy Hearth’s Warming” on a scrap of paper and slipped it into the bag so that the corner was poking out.

She peeked back into the main room to see Discord snoozing on a long oddly-shaped bed he’d conjured for himself. She moved quietly to the bed, intending to put the saddlebag at its foot, when one of Discord’s eyes popped open.

“What’s that?”

Fluttershy froze like a filly caught doing something wrong. Before she could set the saddlebag down, it suddenly disappeared from her mouth and reappeared in Discord’s hand as he sat up.

“It’s ... your Hearth’s Warming present,” she mumbled, looking at the floor. In his hands, the present looked even more pathetic than it had when she was holding it. Why would he even want that joke of a scarf from her? He could snap a dozen scarves or anything else he wanted into existence in less than a minute. She scraped a hoof nervously against the floor. “I—”

She stopped and looked up when she heard the rustle of the saddlebag being opened. “You’re supposed to wait til—” But it was already too late.

Discord had brought his tail around to hold the saddlebag with his tail tuft as he held the scarf up in both hands and examined it through narrowed eyes. At the sight of his expression, Fluttershy dropped her head again. Of course he was unimpressed with her efforts.

Well, if nothing else, maybe he’d at least get a few chuckles out of her feeble attempt at a gift. “I know it’s not much, but—”

“No one’s ever given me a present before,” he said in a soft awestruck voice that managed to startle her far more than if he’d shouted.

“Never? Not even on your birthday?”

He let out a humorless snort. “I don’t even know when my birthday is. I never bothered to keep track considering I never really had anyone to celebrate it with.”

“But surely you’ve had at least one friend before.” Fluttershy may not have been as out-going or have as many friends as somepony like Pinkie Pie, but even in her loneliest moments she had always had at least one friend.

“No,” he said softly with none of his usual flippancy.

Fluttershy remembered the doubts she’d had earlier about giving him that present. Deep down she’d begun to feel more than a little jealous of the fact that he could top anything she slaved over with just a snap of his fingers. She’d tried to deny it but underneath her soft-spoken manner she had been seething with envy at his power.

But now she began to realize that when it came to forming friendships Discord’s power may have crippled him as effectively as her shyness had her. Maybe even more effectively.

She had often run into situations she couldn’t handle on her own where she had been forced to put her trust in her friends. It was in their weakest moments as well as their strong ones when their friendship showed its true power.

Discord’s never had to put his trust in anypony, she realized. He’s never experienced any of that... And suddenly the power he wielded seemed like a poor trade-off when compared with the wealth of love and trust she and her friends had cultivated over the years. In that moment all the envy she’d been secretly harboring toward him fell away to be replaced with compassion.

“You have one now,” she said, wrapping her forelegs around his body from the side. At her touch, Discord went as still as if he’d been turned back to stone. Then Fluttershy felt his eagle claw stroking her mane with uncharacteristic tentativeness.





Outside the cabin, snow had heaped up almost to the roof. The wind howled and shrieked, but inside the cabin was warm and cozy.

Fluttershy was curled up near the fire, wrapped in a blanket and dozing with Angel in a nest of blankets near her belly. Discord was lying on his stomach with her blanket-clad back against his side and his long body curled around hers in a huge C. Discord himself wasn’t that sleepy yet and was currently reviewing all he had done with Fluttershy in the past few days. Ever since she had risked her life to break him out of that ice he had felt his hard heart softening toward her.

Hearing her declare herself his friend had felt like being offered a plate of food he’d been waving away all his life, only to finally try a bite and find it unexpectedly delicious.

Looking down at her, he fingered the scarf he now had wrapped around his neck. He liked its lumpy uneven appearance, and the way its colors tangled together instead of following a pattern, but there was more to it than that. It wasn’t like the things he could instantly make or unmake with a snap of his fingers. It had taken time and effort for her to make it; he had seen that with his own eyes. Giving the scarf to him had meant that, in a sense, she had given that time and effort to him, and the thought melted the last stony layers from his heart. Wrapping his lion arm around her, he let his long neck curl along the floor and gently nuzzled her mane as he finally surrendered to the feelings that had been growing over the past weeks and allowed their new alien warmth to flow into his heart.

As his eyes drifted shut, he little suspected that warmth would be accompanied by a powerful surge of magic. The magic burst from him and whooshed unseen through the cabin.

Outside the semitransparent pony-shaped creatures that had been circling the cabin and the farm were knocked out of the air and down into the snow as the magic struck them like a tidal wave. It rushed on, billowing outward to the far edges of Equestria, doing the same with all the other semitransparent pony-shaped creatures it encountered before it dissipated. For the first time in weeks the wind was silent and the snow ceased to fall.
> Chapter 10. Matthew 5:4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 10

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”—Matthew 5:4





The next morning, Discord woke with an unpleasant tickling sensation in his throat and nose, and realized that during his sleep he’d buried his face even farther into Fluttershy’s mane and was currently breathing it in. Spitting out several of the long hairs that had gotten into his mouth, he pulled his face back out of her mane. Or rather he tried to, only to discover that his face jewelry had somehow gotten snarled in her hair.

“Ow!”

His yelp combined with a painful tugging on her scalp woke Fluttershy. She tried to roll over to look at him, but it just made the pulling on her scalp worse. “Wha—Ow! Discord, what’s going—Ow!”

His only reply was an “Ow!” of his own before he clamped his hands around her head, holding it in place. “I’m tangled. Don’t try to move.”

“You’re ... tangled?” Fluttershy wanted to turn around to look at him and see what he was talking about but his paw held her head down while his claw started fumbling through her mane.

“Ouch!” she squeaked as he accidentally ripped several hairs out of her scalp.

“Sorry—ow!” was his response when Fluttershy’s head automatically moved in the same direction as the pulled-out hair, unwittingly dragging his face with it.

It took several seconds, during which the air was punctuated with their agonized cries, before it occurred to Discord to separate them by flashing himself to the other end of the room. Fluttershy sat up, massaging her now-tender scalp, and looked over to see Discord applying similar treatment to his face.

“Ooh, if that’s what having a friend entails, I’ll pass,” Discord muttered.

Fluttershy wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but the comment brought a laugh bubbling up from her belly. She bit down on the corners of her mouth, trying to hold the laugh back in case he was serious, but she couldn’t prevent a small whimpery giggle from sneaking out.

Hearing this, Discord looked over at her, worried that she was crying over his comment, and saw instead that she was trying not to giggle. Then the giggle finally broke through and tumbled out. Once it was out, it just kept growing.

Fluttershy was about to try and apologize between the giggles when they were suddenly joined by the draconequus’s deeper, more resonant laugh and she knew no apology was necessary.

“Ah, that was a delightful way to start the morning, wasn’t it?” he chuckled.

“Hee, hee, hee, yes, it was.” Fluttershy joked back. “Hee, hee, though most ponies would have preferred breakfast in bed.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Discord snapped his talons and Fluttershy suddenly found herself sitting in a huge bed complete with canopy. A long elegant table stretched across the bed and was piled high with platters of eggs, pancakes, waffles, and some crinkled, greasy-looking, red-and-white strips of something that she couldn’t identify.

“Too much?” Discord’s voice sounded as if he were calling up to her from the bottom of a well. She pushed the canopy back and felt her stomach lurch when she saw that the bed’s mattress was so thick she was much higher than the cabin’s ceiling should have been. She was so high up that Angel looked like little more than a cotton ball with ears, and Discord was experiencing the rare opportunity of being able to look up at her rather than down.

“Um, maybe just a bit,” Fluttershy called down to him. The bed vanished in a flash of light and Fluttershy found herself plunging down through the air. Terror gripped her, but before she could start flapping her wings in an attempt to slow her fall, a pair of mismatched arms caught her. Still spooked, she flung her forelegs around his neck, just in case his hold on her slipped.

“Aw, did you miss me?” he joked, lowering his head until his beard brushed across her forehead.

“I...” she started to loosen her hold from around his neck when she noticed a ray of sunlight coming in through the window. “Discord, look! The storm’s stopped!”

He twisted his head around like an owl to see what she was pointing at. Then he flashed them over to the window. The night before, the snow had piled up past the window, but now there was only a bit of it in the corners. A thick layer of snow still covered everything outside but it seemed to be melting at a surprising pace.





They ended up eating a breakfast of oatmeal prepared by Fluttershy and several of the fruits Discord had conjured when talking about Strawberry Swirl. While the fruit looked ordinary on the outside, whatever it contained inside was a gamble. Fluttershy had cut one orange in half intending to squeeze its juice out only to discover that it had milk in it.

“Discord,” she said, eating some segments of another orange that tasted like cranberry juice. “I’ve been thinking about how we concentrated on Applejack rather than on the rest of the family, and wondered if maybe we should try doing the same with the other six victims. Maybe their families have been getting things the way Sweet Apple Acres has been getting those cider bottles.”

Discord’s eyes narrowed and Fluttershy guessed that he was scanning his cinematic memory for information on the victims’ families. “None of them had any living family at the time they disappeared,” he said after several seconds. “Except Sunny Daze. She had one sister called Skywishes, and that sister’s still alive.”

“Maybe we could go ask her about her sister and see if Sunny Daze ever met any of the Apples, or did anything to make them kill her.” As soon as she said this, another thought occurred to Fluttershy and she frowned.

“What is it?” Discord asked, resting his elbows on the table and propping his head on his loosely fisted hands.

“I just realized we’d have to ask Skywishes about things that happened over ten years ago. Ponies can forget a lot in that time. I can barely remember anything about the last time I saw Applejack.” She sighed, toying with her glass of squeezed-from-an-orange milk. “It’s a shame we ponies don’t have cinematic memories like you do.”

“Hmm.” Discord’s eyebrows went up a fraction then lowered as he studied the claws on his paw.

“What are you thinking about?” Fluttershy asked after several seconds had passed without a word.

“I love you, marry me,” Discord said as casually as if he’d asked her to pass the oatmeal.

Fluttershy had just taken a sip of her milk and promptly choked on it. Despite growing used to Discord’s idiosyncrasies, that statement had come so completely out of left field that it had left her flabbergasted. “Are ... are you serious?!” she managed to cough out.

“No, I just wanted to see what you’d do,” he said, lowering his head and smirking at her through his shaggy eyebrows.

Fluttershy squirmed. “Discord, can we please get back to the case?”

“Of course,” he chuckled, reaching over and ruffling her mane. Then his fingers slipped farther into her hair and his talons lightly scraped small circles over her scalp in a meditative way. “Fluttershy, I want to try something. You said you didn’t remember much about the last time you saw Applejack.”

“Yes,” Fluttershy replied, not really sure where he was going with this.

“It occurred to me that while your memory of that time isn’t very clear, all the details of what you witnessed are still buried in your subconscious. If we extracted that memory from your mind and put it in mine, maybe my cinematic memory can enhance the details and make them clearer.”

“You can do that?”

“I’ve never really tried before, but I don’t see why not.”

“Do you ... think it might hurt?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t believe it would.”

Fluttershy didn’t find that answer particularly reassuring. Still, she considered the proposed idea. It seemed to have its pros and cons. The thought of Discord, or for that matter anyone, poking around in her mind made her uncomfortable. But if it worked, it might provide some more clues to locating Applejack’s killer.

Finally she decided it couldn’t hurt to at least test Discord’s idea out on herself.

“All right. Let’s try it. What do I do?”

Discord teleported himself over in front of her. “Just relax, dear,” he said, placing his hands on either side of her head. Gold light radiated from them and he added, “It might be easier if you close your eyes.”

Fluttershy couldn’t help gulping nervously, but she shut her eyes and did her best to relax.

Discord frowned. “Fluttershy, stop thinking about your animals and what you’ll have for supper.”

Her eyes popped open. “Oh, sorry.” She hadn’t even realized she’d been thinking about those things.

He took his hands away from her head and tapped his chin pensively. “Apparently memory-extraction isn’t as simple as flipping through a book to find the scene you want. There are a lot of thoughts in there and I can’t just dig through them to find the ones I want. Well, I probably could but it’s like trying to grab the right dirt speck out of a pool of muddy water. Try to concentrate on one thing. Think about the last time you saw Applejack. Try to remember as many details as you can.”

“Okay.” Fluttershy shut her eyes again and a few seconds later she felt Discord’s hands pressing gently over the sides of her head. Then she concentrated on the last time she’d seen Applejack. Let’s see, she remembered going to the market to buy ... she couldn’t remember. Cherries? Celery? She wasn’t sure. She’d seen Applejack pulling a cart of ... something. She’d stopped to chat with Applejack about nothing in particular. It distressed her to realize how unimportant her last moments with her friend had been to her at the time. Granted back then she’d had no idea that would be the last time she’d ever see Applejack, but still...

As she continued trying to recall the faint details of that day, she could feel Discord’s fingers prodding at her head, starting at the base of her skull and making their way up the back of her head to the crown before moving to her temples.

“Okay, you can stop now,” he said, finally taking his hands away from her head.

Opening her eyes, Fluttershy found herself looking Discord full in the hands. Both the long scaly fingers of the left one and the short furry fingers of the right were coated to the knuckles in a glowing multi-colored opaque substance that looked almost like rainbow-colored honey.

“What’s that?”

“Your memories. Well, technically it’s a copy of them,” he said, peeling the substance off his left index finger as if it were dried glue. He rolled the substance between his palms, forming it into a ball the size of a small marble. He let go of it and it remained floating in midair.

“Care to help me?” he asked, pulling the substance off another finger and flicking it toward her. She put her hooves up reflexively to catch it. It didn’t feel as sticky as she’d expected based on its appearance.

“Just roll it into a ball like I did,” he directed. It took Fluttershy a bit longer to form the substance into a ball than it had for Discord, and when she finished she let go of the ball, expecting it to fall to the floor but it remained suspended just the way the one he had made had done. Finally when Discord had finished removing all the material from his fingers they had created eight floating opaque marbles.

“Now for the clean-up.” Discord reached out and swiped all eight marbles out of the air. Cocking his head to the side, he tipped the marbles into his ear before shaking his head about as if to get them settled. Then he sent his head spinning like a top. After several seconds, he raised his paw and smacked his head, sending it spinning in the opposite direction. He let it spin in that direction for several seconds as well before grabbing his head in both hands to halt it.

“Well, let’s see what this gets us,” he said, placing a hand on Fluttershy’s back and they were surrounded by a flash of light. When the light disappeared, Fluttershy found herself back in the market all those years ago. She was moving among the stalls but it felt as if she were being carried, and she couldn’t control which direction she looked.

“Discord...”

“I’m here.” She felt his hand knead the hide between her shoulders. “Looks like we can only see what you saw back then.”

Fluttershy watched through her past-self’s eyes as she moved among the stalls, buying asparagus, apricots, and lettuce. All the details of that day: the pleasant sunshine, the bright colors of the stalls, the various ponies she saw in her peripheral vision, the sounds, the smells, everything she didn’t remember remembering played out before her.

Her past-self was starting to leave the market when Applejack came into view, pulling a cart piled high with colorful fabric.

“Hello, Applejack,” her past-self called and Applejack started.

“Huh, oh, um, howdy Fluttershy.”

“Have you been to see Rarity?” Fluttershy’s past-self asked as she trotted over to look in the cart. At the time she had just casually glanced into it, only mildly curious about what it contained, but now her present-self stared good and hard at its contents, trying to memorize all that she saw. The cart was full of not only fabrics, but also of various baking ingredients, several books, and even a jar containing a layer of ground up gemstones with several solid ones poking out of it.

“Y-yeah, I saw her,” she heard Applejack stammer. “Her, and Twilight, and Pinkie. Just needed some stuff for the family reunion, you know,” Applejack babbled as if on edge.

Fluttershy’s past-self looked up from the cart’s contents. “Are you all right, Applejack?”

The earth pony glanced up from a shopping list she’d been scanning. “Hmm. What? Oh, fine, fine,” she muttered absently. At the time, Fluttershy had dismissed her friend’s absentmindedness as preoccupation with getting ready for the family reunion. But now she wondered if Applejack had actually had something far more sinister on her mind.

“Discord, can you replay this bit with Applejack?”

She heard him snap his fingers somewhere above her, and her past-self was suddenly trotting up to greet Applejack again. Now she focused all her attention on the earth pony’s voice and mannerisms, and this time she saw not just pre-reunion jitters, but genuine fear, the kind she herself had experienced so often but almost never witnessed in Applejack.

“Uh, look, I’m late. I gotta get going,” Applejack said before trotting briskly away.

“See you,” Fluttershy’s past-self called after her, and Fluttershy’s present-self felt a painful twinge in her chest at the knowledge that that casual remark would prove to be a lie.

When Applejack was out of sight, Discord flashed himself and Fluttershy back to the cabin.

“Did you get anything from that?” Discord asked and she looked up at him.

“Applejack was afraid. I think she knew or at least suspected that somepony coming to her family reunion was a murderer.”

He ran a hand over her head, nodding. “So you had some clues in here all along,” he said musingly. “You just didn’t know you knew.”

She leaned against his side. “If I saw some clues without realizing it, maybe some of the Apple family members at the reunion did as well.”





A little later that day three figures could be seen trekking over the snow-covered fields toward the farm house. One was a yellow pegasus in a white-and-blue coat. Perched on her back was the second figure, a white bunny wearing a bright green scarf and earmuffs that made him easier to spot in the snow. When Fluttershy and Discord had decided to pay the farm a visit, Angel had wanted to go with his owner after spending so much time being cooped up inside. The third figure was a gray unicorn with some tattoos, a snow vest, and a scraggly multi-colored scarf.

As they made their way over the snow-covered fields, Fluttershy kept stealing glances at Discord. The last time he had used this pony disguise she hadn’t had much time to study it. Now the more she looked at him she found that to her surprise she didn’t really like how he looked as a pony. As stallions went, he was definitely handsome but somehow it ... just didn’t seem to suit him.

Are you saying you wish he was ugly?

No, it’s not that ... it’s just that...

That what?

She wasn’t really sure what. She knew it was still Discord so why did she keep wishing she had the draconequus with her instead of this stallion? Did it have to do with his looks? In his regular form he was not handsome, but neither would she have classified him as ugly. And she definitely wouldn’t have described him as average for obvious reasons. Well, if his appearance wasn’t handsome, ugly, or average, than what was it?

His appearance was ... interesting. Yes, that was the word to describe it. Interesting.

Then she found her thoughts drifting back to the statement Discord had sprung on her at breakfast. While he no longer treated her with the maliciousness he’d first displayed, he did seem to get a kick out of flustering her, and he had definitely succeeded that time. She had been relieved when he had said he didn’t really mean it ... but at the same time she found herself wondering: What would I have said if he had been serious?

All she drew was a blank.

Little did she suspect that Discord himself was currently thinking about the same thing. Fluttershy’s flustered response had amused him as he’d expected it to, but at the same time it had brought an unexpected sense of rejection that baffled him.

When they reached the farm, Fluttershy saw Big Mac outside and called out to him.

“Hello, Big Mac, how are you?”

The big stallion just heaved his shoulders in a shrug.

“Where are Granny Smith and Apple Bloom?”

This time both his head and ears drooped.

“Is something wrong?” Fluttershy asked.

Big Mac sighed. “Granny had a stroke last night. We got a couple rescue ponies to fly her to the hospital this morning. Apple Bloom went with her.”

“Oh my goodness,” Fluttershy breathed. “Will she be all right?”

“Don’t know. She looked pretty bad.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry about that,” said Fluttershy putting a hoof on his shoulder. She had intended to speak with Granny Smith about what she and Discord had discovered so far, but now she was faced with the possibility that the old pony would die before she could meet with her again. “Big Mac, there’s something we have to tell you.”

She then proceeded to explain how Discord had tapped into her last memory of seeing Applejack and helped her recall several important details.

“So would you let us look at your memory of the family reunion?” Fluttershy asked.

“Eeyup.”

“Then close your eyes and start thinking about it,” said Discord. Big Mac obeyed and Discord pressed his horn first against the pony’s forehead, then began skimming it this way and that over Big Mac’s head. Fluttershy meanwhile took Angel inside and put him to sleep on a cushion. Maybe she was being over-cautious but she felt that being yanked into somepony’s memory might be too much of a shock for him in his old age.

When she went back outside, Discord was stepping back from Big Mac with his horn coated in that same multi-colored material. After making sure Big Mac’s eyes were still closed, he changed his left front leg back into an eagle claw and used it to peel bits of the material off his horn. The bits of material floated in the air like small gooey-looking clouds.

“You can open your eyes now,” he directed Big Mac, as he changed his left limb back into a pony’s. Then he and Fluttershy began rolling the floating material into marble-sized balls.

Big Mac watched as Discord dumped the finished marbles into his ear. The big stallion’s eyes almost bugged out of his head but he made no comment when Discord spun his own head first one way and then the other.

“All right. Here we go,” said Discord and suddenly they were outside surrounded by a huge crowd of ponies, mostly earth ones but here and there some unicorns and pegasi were scattered in among them as well.

“Watch for Applejack,” Discord directed. “We need to pin down the last time you saw her.”

They watched the reunion play out through the senses of Big Mac’s past-self. Every now and then they caught glimpses of Applejack among the other ponies. Then sometime near the end of the reunion they could no longer spot her.

When the reunion had ended, Discord flashed the three of them back outside. “When was the last time either of you saw her in that memory?” he asked.

“When the colts and fillies went off to run an obstacle course,” said Fluttershy. “Big Mac walks across her path and I never saw her again after that.”

“Eeyup.”

“Hmm. That’s the last time I saw her as well,” said Discord. He flashed them back into the memory a little bit before the time they’d mentioned.

Fluttershy trained all her attention on Applejack as Big Mac’s past-self moved her closer to her missing friend. She couldn’t tell if Applejack was saying anything over the general hubbub of the crowd but the earth pony appeared to be smiling at somepony. Then as Big Mac’s past-self began to carry her past Applejack, Fluttershy saw her friend look up over the crowd, and Applejack’s smile suddenly vanished to be replaced with a look of fear. Two seconds later Applejack was out of her line of vision.

“Discord! Big Mac! Did you see that?”

“I did indeed,” said Discord, flashing them back out of the memory. He began to pace. “What could she have seen to make her look like that?” He glanced about and a new idea seemed to occur to him. He flashed himself, Fluttershy, and Big Mac to the spot where the last memory of Applejack had been.

"Let's see…if you were walking about here," he said, using his magic to flash Big Mac into one position. "That would put Applejack about here." Through a series of pushes and nudges he got Fluttershy standing in roughly the same spot Applejack had been standing in. He frowned, probably concentrating on the memory as he stood on his hind legs and began adjusting and tilting Fluttershy's head with his hooves. After a couple minutes of adjusting, he stepped back. "Now tell me what you see, Fluttershy."

"The second floor of the house. I'm looking straight into the window of Applejack's room."

"In that case, I'm going to take us back into the memory and see if we can catch a glimpse of what she's looking at."

They flashed into the memory and Big Mac's past-self carried them past Applejack before turning and walking into the crowd in front of the house. He was looking straight ahead rather than up, but he was taller than Applejack so they could still see the house's upper level. Then as he neared the other ponies, he lowered his head to look at them, and the house's second level went out of view.

"Discord, can you go back and pause the memory?! I think I saw something up there!"

Discord snapped the memory back to the point where they were passing Applejack.

"There! Right there!" cried Fluttershy. The memory froze.

Just before Big Mac's past-self had lowered his head, a pony had walked past Applejack's window. A light yellow filly with a large pink bow.





"Big Mac, did Apple Bloom ever tell you what she was doing in Applejack's room?" Fluttershy asked as Discord flashed the three of them back out of the memory.

"She's never mentioned it. Until now I never even knew she was up there. I thought she was with the other fillies."

Fluttershy frowned as they tromped back into the house. If Apple Bloom and Big Mac had confided their suspicions about Applejack's disappearance to each other, why would Apple Bloom have held back an important piece of information like that? What reason would she—?

"Wait a minute. Where's Angel?" The cushion she'd left him on was empty. "Angel! Angel!"

"Maybe he already went back to the cabin." Discord suggested. He vanished and about a minute later reappeared. "Nope, not there. Unless he's hopping around someway along the halfway point."

This didn't ease Fluttershy's worry. She wanted to search the house for him, but the thought of him out there in the snow alone, even with a scarf and earmuffs frightened her. She could think of no reason for him to go out there…but what if he had?

Then Big Mac suggested he could search the house for Angel while they searched for him on their way back to the cabin. He also promised to speak to Apple Bloom when she got back from the hospital about accessing her memories and to ask her what she'd been doing up in Applejack's room.

Now Fluttershy and Discord (still in his pony disguise) were walking slowly back to the cabin. They scanned the landscape for any traces of green that would be Angel's scarf or earmuffs, but saw neither this, nor any other sign of any critters stirring. While they walked, they discussed what they'd seen in both Fluttershy's and Big Mac's memories.

"If we could see Apple Bloom's memory from that day," said Fluttershy, looking over at Discord. "Maybe we'd find something that's now missing from Applejack's—" As she looked toward the cabin, she suddenly stopped in mid-sentence and let out a long shuddering gasp.

Discord snapped his head around to look at her. "What is it?"

Not answering, Fluttershy bolted ahead of him only to come to an abrupt halt in front of the cabin.

"Oh no." Fluttershy’s forehooves came up to her face and she sat down on her haunches. Shaking her head back and forth, she hid her eyes with her hooves.

Discord hurried up behind her and halted as well when he saw what was in front of her. There was a large bloodstain on the snow in front of the cabin door and lying on top of that bloodstain was a rabbit's white-furred body with a green scarf around its neck, and a pair of blood-soaked earmuffs nearby.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no," Fluttershy kept repeating, her voice growing steadily more tearful.

Then she felt a familiar pair of mismatched hands on her shoulders. Looking up she saw that Discord had transformed back to his pierced, tattooed draconequus-self.

"It's-it's A-A-A-A-Angel!" she choked out, tears spilling from her eyes. "His head's all crushed! Oh, Angel!" she moaned, breaking down completely and burying her face in her hooves again.

Discord hadn't much cared for the old bunny himself, but Fluttershy's devastated sobs now tore at his heart. He felt at a loss as to what to do. He had the power to alter reality with a snap of his fingers but even he couldn't resurrect his friend's pet.

Still, as he looked down at Fluttershy's shaking head he knew he had to do something. And if he couldn't fix this situation with his own powers…maybe he could try using a few of hers.

"There, there," he murmured, trying to sound soothing while massaging her shoulders gently. At the same time, he looked down at Angel's corpse, taking in every detail. The body hadn't been torn apart the way it would have if he'd been attacked by a predator. It looked as if somepony had killed him by stomping on his head and had then left the body where it lay. Discord swiveled his long neck this way and that, searching for any signs of ponies having come or gone but apart from the tracks he and Fluttershy had left, the snow-covered fields were as blank and white as a fresh sheet of paper.

Then holding his eagle claw out, palm up, he made an urn-like jar materialize in it. He tossed the jar lightly into the air and as it flew toward Angel's carcass its lid popped off. The jar scooped up the bunny's remains, the scarf, the earmuffs, and most of the bloodstained snow, and the lid sealed itself again. Discord wasn't sure what Fluttershy would want to do with Angel's remains but for now at least they were where she wouldn't have to look at them.

Fluttershy pulled her hooves away from her face in surprise when he tugged her back toward him. He slid one arm around her, and the other underneath her, lifting her bridal-style.

Still crying, she curled up against him so that her face was buried in the loose ends of his scarf. Straightening up to his full considerable height, he wrapped his arms more securely around her, suddenly feeling oddly protective. When the storm had broken, Applejack's killer or killers must have come to try and scare Fluttershy off the case. Looking around again, but still seeing nopony else around, he carried her into the cabin.

His dragon tattoo slid its head from where it was stretched over his neck to down across his throat closer to Fluttershy's head. Glaring down at the tattoo, he slapped its head, causing it to retreat back to its original position.

"He was old," Fluttershy whimpered against his chest. "I knew he didn't have much longer to live but I ... I ... I didn't think it would be like that!"

"Fluttershy, listen to me," he said, trying to keep his voice gentle but at the same time get her attention. "Listen to me. I know this is hard, but I need you to hear this. I need you to think."

He slipped his eagle hand in between her face and his chest to lift her head. The tears continued to fall and she sniffed, trying to stop them, but she didn't try to turn away from him.

"Angel wasn't killed by some sort of wild animal. He wasn't torn up enough for that. He was killed by a pony. He wasn't there when I flashed myself over here earlier. That means he was put there between the time we left the farm and the time we got here, but there aren't any tracks to this cabin but our own. How could that have happened?"

Fluttershy fought to hold back her tears while she thought of what Discord had said.

"A ... pegasus could have flown to the cabin and then flown away without us seeing it,” she choked out.

Discord nodded. Go on.

"A unicorn might have been able to teleport right to the cabin door, then teleport away. An earth pony could have brushed away its tracks ... but that would have taken time, and we can see around the cabin for several miles. An earth pony could have walked in our tracks to disguise their own…but that would have been slow going as well, and we would have run into them on our way back."

Discord continued to nod. That's it Fluttershy, come on, just a few more steps…

Fluttershy's eyes widened in realization. "You think Applejack's killer or killers did that to him to scare me off the case. And that for them to put his body there at least one of them would have to be a unicorn or a pegasus."

Not taking his eyes off her, Discord snapped his talons and nearly all the Apples on the ceiling fell to the floor, leaving only the ones with pegasi or unicorns on them.
> Chapter 11. Proverbs 14:5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 11

“An honest witness does not deceive, but a false witness pours out lies.”—Proverbs 14:5





They decided to cremate Angel’s remains so that Fluttershy could take his ashes back to her cottage later on. Fluttershy couldn’t bring herself to look inside the urn, not even to remove the bloodstained scarf and earmuffs, so Discord conjured a special smokeless fire into it that would burn its contents but nothing else.

“That fire will probably take an hour or so to do its job,” he said, dusting off his hands. “In the meantime, I’m going to start looking through these profiles.” With that, he plucked a pegasus apple from the ceiling and smacked it open. Then he felt Fluttershy tap him on the hip and looked down at her.

“Discord, we need to let Big Mac know about ... Angel.” She choked on her pet’s name but she managed not to break down. “And Apple Bloom is supposed to get back here soon. We have to let them know to be careful in case Angel’s ... in case his killer is still out there.” That killer or killers have already murdered seven ponies so what’s to stop them from going after Apple Bloom and Big Mac?

Discord looked down at her, then up at the ceiling, then down at her, then up at the ceiling again. Fluttershy was shifting from hoof to hoof, wondering what was taking him so long. If the killer was out there they couldn’t afford to—

The draconequus snapped his talons and a light flashed around Fluttershy’s neck, making her squint. When the light vanished, she looked down to see a short purple tube-like whistle hanging from a string around her neck.

Discord leaned down until his head was only a little higher than hers, and took the tube-like whistle in his fingers. “I’m going to teleport you back to the farm house. When you’re ready to come back or if you see any ponies apart from your two friends, especially unicorns or pegasi, just blow this. I’ll hear it and be there—” he vanished and reappeared standing beside her with his paw resting lightly on her head. “—in a flash.”

Fluttershy studied the whistle then gave it an experimental blow. It produced no sound, but Discord promptly clamped his hands over his ringed-and-studded ears. “Stop it!”

“Sorry!” Fluttershy whispered, quickly letting go of the whistle so that it bounced against her chest on its string.

The draconequus waggled a finger in his ear. “I probably should have warned you about that. Nopony else will hear that thing no matter how hard you blow into it, but I’ll be able to hear it no matter where I am.”

Another snap of his fingers and Fluttershy was suddenly standing in front of the farmhouse. She wondered briefly why Discord had sent her back alone, but decided that could wait until later. She looked all around her but saw no other ponies and no tracks in the snow save for the ones she and Discord had left earlier, and some smaller ones that could be Apple Bloom’s.

Turning back to the door, she knocked on it. “Big Mac?”

After several knocks, it opened to reveal Apple Bloom. “Fluttershy? What are you doing here?”

“I need to speak with you and your brother. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. I just got back here. Haven’t seen him yet.”

Fluttershy looked behind herself again but the land still looked as empty as it had when she’d last checked it. “May I come in? This is important.” She tried to keep her voice calm but she couldn’t prevent a slight tremor from creeping into it.

“Uh, sure,” said Apple Bloom, opening the door. “What’s going on?”

“Let’s find your brother. Then I’ll explain.”

They wandered through the house, calling Big Mac’s name but got no response. They looked out the windows but saw no tracks leaving the house. The unease that had been gnawing at Fluttershy’s stomach began to grow into genuine fear. Had the killer gotten to Big Mac already? He was a lot bigger and stronger than any of the other victims had been; what sort of pony or ponies would it take to overpower him?

“What are you worried about, Fluttershy?” Apple Bloom asked.

Turning to the young mare, Fluttershy told her of the same things she’d told Big Mac earlier that day. She spoke of how she believed Applejack had been killed because she’d discovered who was behind several other murders. She spoke of how she and Discord had peeked into her memories, and of how they’d come to the farmhouse intending to share what they’d found out with Granny Smith.

“How is your grandmother doing, by the way?”

Apple Bloom’s ears drooped. “Not that great. She’s still alive, but they think she’s only got a fifty-fifty chance.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Apple Bloom.”

Apple Bloom sighed. “It’s all right, but ... what about the case? Do you know who killed Applejack?”

The hopefulness in her voice made Fluttershy wish she could say yes, but all she could say was, “Not yet, but I think we’re getting close.” Then she proceeded to describe looking into Big Mac’s memory.

“Then we saw you up in Applejack’s room—”

“Now hold on!” Apple Bloom interrupted. “What are you talking about? I never went in Applejack’s room that day!”

The vehemence in the younger pony’s voice startled Fluttershy. “But your brother’s memory showed you up there—”

“Well, then he’s remembering wrong because I never went up there!”

“Now, Apple Bloom,” Fluttershy said gently, trying to calm her down. “Maybe you just don’t remember going up there, but if we could look in your memories—”

“I’m telling you, I never went up there!” Apple Bloom shouted and this time Fluttershy saw tears in her eyes. “Do you think I’d lie about that?!”

“No, no! I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant—”

All the anger seemed to go out of Apple Bloom and she looked away from Fluttershy, wiping furiously at her eyes as tears fell from them.

“Oh, Apple Bloom,” Fluttershy murmured, wrapping her foreleg around the younger mare’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy...” Apple Bloom whimpered. “I just miss her so much! Even after all these years. ... If I knew anything I thought would help find her killer, I’d share it but I don’t ... And I guess ... when it sounded like you were implying that I was hiding something it just ... I don’t know.”

“It’s all right, sweetie,” Fluttershy said, pulling her close and rubbing her back soothingly. But at the same time she felt torn inside. Had Big Mac remembered things wrong? Could she have possibly remembered things wrong as well? Or had Apple Bloom just lied to her?

Then she remembered that Big Mac was missing and that the important thing to do right now was to find him.

What if he went outside to look for Angel and followed the tracks Discord and I left? Now that she thought about it, their tracks had gone both ways and were far from neat, so another pony could easily have walked in them without leaving an obvious trail of their own. And the fact that Discord had just flashed her over here would explain why she might not have seen Big Mac.

“Apple Bloom, I need you to listen to me. After we finished looking into your brother’s memories, we couldn’t find Angel, but when Discord and I got back to the cabin ... we ... found him. Angel, I mean.” The memory of her pet lying there with his head smashed in brought fresh pain to her heart, but she pushed on. “He’d been killed. We think Applejack’s killer did it and may still be out there.”

Apple Bloom gasped and Fluttershy turned her so they were face-to-face.

“Now listen. I’m going out there to look for your brother, but I want you to be here in case he comes back in the meantime. Lock the doors and don’t open them for anypony except me or your brother. Even if it’s somepony you know. Do you understand?”

“But what about—?”

“I said, ‘Do you understand?’”

“Yeah, I understand. But what about you? What if you run into the killer?”

“If I see anypony, I’ll call Discord. He gave me a way to contact him and he’ll be able to help me out.” The calmness with which she was able to say this impressed even her.





Fluttershy walked slowly over the trail she and Discord had made, watching for any sign of Big Mac or of any other pony. Then as she was passing through the orchard about halfway to the cabin, she turned around to look behind her and saw a red shape appear over the top of a hill near the farmhouse.

He must have followed our tracks out here; then made a wide circle back around to the house, Fluttershy thought, relaxing as she saw Big Mac disappear into the farm house. At least he was all right.

Then she heard a loud snap above her head and several clumps of snow landed on her. Looking up, she gasped and dove to the side. She landed sprawled out in the snow and a tree branch almost as large as she was smashed into the snow right where she had been standing.

As she lifted her face out of the snow, she heard another loud snap above her. She rolled instinctively to the side and saw a second huge branch land in the imprint she’d left in the snow. She didn’t roll very far before she felt a sharp yank on her hindquarters. Her tail extensions had gotten caught under the branch!

Then she heard more branches snapping above her like firecrackers. She lunged forward, wincing as she felt her tail extensions rip out. It didn’t hurt as much as it would have if her actual tail had been pinned but it still hurt. She couldn’t fly with her winter jacket on, and she was too busy trying to avoid the snapping branches to blow the whistle Discord had given her. She zigzagged this way and that, trying to go in the direction of the cabin but no matter which way she went a huge branch always seemed to be crashing toward her. Snow and large splinters of wood pelted her and, while her jacket provided her with some protection she still felt sharp stings on her face and hindquarters.

Then a branch as large as one of her legs struck her a grazing blow on the left side of the head! Pain flared up, and, clamping a hoof to the side of her head she felt that it was already wet with blood! But there was no time to stop and examine the wound as still more branches hurled down toward her.

She had no idea how long she was trapped among those trees, dodging their branches but it felt like hours. Blood ran into her eye, blinding it but all she could do was blink and occasionally swipe at it while she moved. Then suddenly she reached the edge of the trees! She charged forward and just as she cleared them she heard another branch land just behind her, its twigs scraping over her hindquarters like grasping claws. The sensation conjured images of the branches coming to life, seizing her, and dragging her back in among them, and the thought of that lent a fresh burst of speed to her limbs. She raced up the hill to the cabin, slipping and stumbling several times on the melting snow but barely slowing. Reaching the cabin door, she yanked it open and darted in. Slamming the door behind her, she leaned back against it, trying to get her breath back and calm her pounding heart.

It’s okay. It’s okay now, she kept repeating in her mind. It’s okay now. It’s okay—


Then a gray head with a pierced face popped up over the back of a couch that hadn’t been there earlier in the day, startling her. With a small yip, she jumped to the side away from the couch, overbalanced, and fell over backward, her hind legs shooting up over her head. As she lay there, she heard Discord chuckling. Blushing at the thought of how ridiculous she must currently look, she kicked her back legs to bring herself into a sitting position.





Discord had laughed at his friend’s botched acrobatics routine out of habit, but his amusement promptly died when Fluttershy sat up and he saw the blood running down the left side of her face.

“What happened?” he demanded, but Fluttershy ignored him as she pushed herself up onto all fours and ran to the bathroom.

“What happened?” he repeated, lifting into the air above the couch, the wasp tattoos on his neck swarming about agitatedly.

Fluttershy stared into the bathroom mirror. The whole left side of her face was smeared with blood. It had made a deep crimson streak in her mane, and was soaking into the shoulder of her winter coat. Then Discord vanished from above the couch and reappeared right behind her, stretching his neck down so that his head was close to hers.

“Fluttershy, what happened?!” She cringed away from him as if his words had struck her like a whip. Realizing that she must think his anger was directed at her, he quickly tried to soften his voice. “Fluttershy, I’m not angry with you, I just...” He fell silent, suddenly not sure how to complete the sentence. Seeing her bloodied and trembling had awakened something in him that not even her earlier grief for her pet had.

Fluttershy let out a shuddering breath. “It’s all right, Discord,” she said, pressing a dry washcloth to her head to put pressure on the bleeding. “I guess I’m just still on edge.”

“Fluttershy,” There was no anger in his voice this time, only concern. “What happened? Why didn’t you call me to flash you back here?”

Fluttershy took the cloth away from her head to see how much blood it had soaked up before pressing it back in place, still shaking. “I’ll explain in a bit, Discord. But right now I need to take care of this cut.”

“Here, I’ll take care of it,” said Discord, raising a hand to snap his fingers.

“No!” she gasped.

“No?” he repeated, not sure if he’d heard her right.

She shook her head. “Don’t try to fix it magically. It could be dangerous.”

As a general rule ponies treated magical injuries with magic, but let ordinary wounds like scrapes and bruises heal naturally. When they tried to do otherwise, their bodies tended to react badly. Something about forcing their bodies to repair themselves at an unnatural pace. Fluttershy wasn’t sure how similar Discord’s magic was to pony magic but after what she’d just gone through she didn’t want to take any chances. Discord himself was about to disregard her words and just go through with casting the healing spell when she looked up to meet his eyes.

“Please, don’t do it.” The fact that the fear in her voice was directed at him caused him to halt. He wanted to get rid of that wound on her head, but not if his intended method got that sort of reaction out of her. He lowered his hand and, though Fluttershy continued to shake, she did seem to relax a fraction.

“Thank you,” she said before using her free hoof to fumble with the front of her coat. “Um, could you maybe help me get this off—?”

Her jacket and whistle vanished and reappeared dangling from Discord’s eagle claw. She smiled her thanks at him and he gave her a two-fingered salute.

“Anything else I can do for you?” he asked, draping the coat over his lion arm like a napkin.

“Well...” Fluttershy looked down at her body. She had plenty of scratches on her hindquarters but fortunately none of them looked like anything a little time and cleaning wouldn’t take care of. The main concern was the cut on the left side of her head, which was still bleeding pretty badly. Looking back into the mirror, she tried to pull her mane back to get a better look at the wound but it was high enough on her scalp that her hair was hiding it and the blood was causing the strands to stick together. “I need something to shave this area here, so I can get a better look at this wound.”

“Ahem, if I may,” Discord said, gathering up her mane as if intending to pull it into a ponytail and giving it two light tugs before raising his pierced brows.

“You want to take my mane off?”

“It could save you some time.”

“Alright.”

Discord got a firmer grip on her mane and whisked it painlessly from her head. Fluttershy suddenly felt strangely naked with her mane and tail extensions gone, and wrapped her free foreleg around her body. Interpreting her discomfort as being cold, Discord conjured a towel covered in swirls of yellow, orange, and blue. The towel glided through the air to Fluttershy and wrapped itself around her.

“Oh, thank you.” The fact that he’d just offered her something to cover herself up with when she hadn’t even thought to ask was unexpectedly sweet. However she couldn’t help grimacing when she looked back in the mirror to examine the wound on her now-bald head.

“Ooh, that looks bad,” said Discord, stretching his neck around so that he was looking at the left side of her head upside down.

“I know. It will probably need stitches, but I can’t be sure until I get this blood cleaned off.”

“Ah, say no more.” With a snap of his talons he flashed her into the tub. A second flash and a pair of smaller wooden tubs filled with water appeared at the other side of the room. A third flash sent Fluttershy’s mane into one of the tubs where it lay looking like a hairy jellyfish, and a fourth flash sent her coat into the other where it proceeded to scour the bloodstains off itself with a scrub brush. Discord used a fifth and final flash to teleport himself over beside the tub that contained Fluttershy. He put a hand on the showerhead and the pipe supporting it suddenly went limp and floppy. Holding the showerhead by its now-flexible neck, he turned it away from Fluttershy before clicking it on and testing the water on the palm of his paw. “How do you want your water, my dear? Hot or cold?”

“Warm, but not boiling hot.”

“Hmm. What do you think?” he asked, holding the nozzle out to her.

She put her hoof into the stream of water and found it to be pleasantly warm. “That’s good.” She drew her hoof back to grasp the towel wrapped around her. “Um, could you give me some privacy?” Even though she knew he’d already seen everything there was to see, the idea of him seeing it now without her mane and tail made her uncomfortable.

“Nnnno,” he said, stretching the word out.

“Well, can you at least shut your eyes while I take this towel off?”

“Nnnno, leave it on.”

“But it’ll get all wet.”

“I know. Leave it on anyway.”

At that moment, blood ran into Fluttershy’s eye. Blinking in an attempt to clear it, she reached for the showerhead only to have Discord move it out of her reach.

“Leave this to me, darling.” With his free hand, Discord pushed her back until she was reclining against one of the tub’s sides, then brought the showerhead nozzle around to guide it over her head. Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut and tilted her head back as the water ran over it. The water spilled down over her neck and body as Discord moved the showerhead slowly back-and-forth and side-to-side. She braced herself for the unpleasant sensation of the drenched towel clinging to her but got a surprise.

“This towel you gave me isn’t getting wet!” Her eyes popped open and she blinked through the water at Discord. “You knew it was going to do that, didn’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice oozing mock innocence.





As Discord repeatedly passed the showerhead over Fluttershy he noticed that it seemed to wash not only the blood from her head but the tension from her body. Pulling the dry towel more snuggly around her soaking body, she rested the uninjured side of her head against the tub. Her eyes started to drift shut and her shaking eased. She let out an occasional snort or splutter to keep the water out of her mouth and nose but between those sounds her breathing had become steady and regular.

It would have been a sweet picture if it weren’t for the large gash in her scalp. When he’d first gotten Fluttershy in the tub, Discord had slipped on his mask of cheerful fooling around but underneath he felt far from cheerful. When she’d mentioned going back to speak with Big Mac, he had opted to stay at the cabin and look over profiles because he had been reluctant to resume his pony disguise, an excuse for sending Fluttershy back alone that now seemed disgustingly flimsy to him.

He had sent her back there, fully confident that he’d thought of everything to keep her safe. And instead this had happened.





Fluttershy heard Discord’s voice cut through the soothing spatter of drops around her. “Fluttershy, how did this happen to you? And why didn’t you call me?”

She drew a deep breath and snorted the water away from her face again before speaking in as calm a voice as she could. “When you sent me back to the farmhouse, Big Mac wasn’t there but Apple Bloom was. I told her about what we’d discovered so far, then told her to wait at the house while I went out to look for her brother. The only tracks leading to the farmhouse were ours and Apple Bloom’s, and the only ones leading away from it were ours, so I thought maybe he’d followed our tracks. I started following our tracks, looking for him, and then saw him come over a hill behind the farmhouse. I guessed that he must have followed our tracks and then made a wide circle back to the farmhouse. I was going through the orchard at the time and ... well ... the branches above me just started breaking and I was too busy trying to dodge them to call you. Then one of them struck me on the head.”

By then the wound on her head had stopped bleeding and Discord clicked the showerhead off before letting go of it so that it slithered back into its original position.

He propped his elbows on the edge of the tub and studied her. “And you didn’t see any other ponies around while you were out there?”

“No...” Fluttershy hesitated then added. “But there might have been some out there that I didn’t notice while trying to avoid the branches.”

He cocked an eyebrow before tapping her forehead lightly with a talon. “Should we check that?”

This suggestion reminded her of her conversation with Apple Bloom. “Discord, when I spoke with Apple Bloom, I mentioned seeing her in Applejack’s room in Big Mac’s memory and she denied ever going in there during the family reunion. Is it possible that the memories we saw were wrong? That our perceptions colored them somehow?”

“Absolutely not,” Discord replied matter-of-factly. “When I pull those memories out, all we’re looking at is what the senses recorded at the time. It’s the same as a camera snapping a photo. If we saw it, then that’s what happened.”

This news both relieved and saddened Fluttershy. “Well, that’s good to know ... but it also means that Apple Bloom lied to me.” Why would she do that? Had she been threatened by the killer or killers? If so, what could they have threatened her with that would prompt her to withhold information on her own sister’s murder?

“Discord, do you think that you could ... No! No, never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I was just wondering if you could look in Apple Bloom’s memories to see what she’s hiding.” Fluttershy mentally cringed that this thought had even entered her head. Yes, Apple Bloom had lied to her, but Fluttershy also knew that the young earth pony’s grief for her sister had been genuine. The idea of sending her partner to forcefully wrestle the memories out of the young mare felt like a betrayal of trust and a violation of the worst kind. She couldn’t allow that even if it might solve the case.

Discord’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “It was tricky enough to find the correct memories in your brain when you were just relaxing. If you’d tried to hide them, I probably could have found them eventually, but like I said earlier: it’s like trying to pick the right dirt speck out of muddy water.”

Relief filled her at this statement. “Then forget I brought it up ... but let’s try what you suggested about looking in my memory again. Maybe we can find some clues in there.” Closing her eyes, she felt Discord’s fingers prod her head as she thought back to her experience in the trees. She shivered as she remembered the terror that had filled her and winced when Discord’s fingers poked a little too close to her scalp wound. She’d have to check it soon to see if it needed stitches.





It took Discord less than a minute to get the memories he needed. When he had finished and started transferring them into his own mind, Fluttershy toweled herself off (the towel seemed to soak up the water like a sponge but remained pleasantly dry) and climbed out of the tub. Still covered in the dry towel, she moved to examine her wound in the mirror. The wound had stopped bleeding for now but looked as if it might start up again soon. And she was definitely going to need stitches.

She found the first aid kit, smeared the wound with some ointment to keep it clean, and began threading a curved suture needle. Holding the needle between her hooves, she held the thread in her mouth as she guided it through the needle’s eye. It wasn’t until she’d finished knotting the end of the thread that she realized there was a problem with her intended plan of sewing herself up. She had often stitched up her animal friends when they had been injured but she’d always done it with the needle held in her mouth. She couldn’t very well do that now and her hooves didn’t have the dexterity needed to guide the needle properly.

“Discord, are you very familiar with sewing or needles?”

“I did these, myself.”

She turned to see him propped on his stomach in midair with two duplicates floating nearby. One of them held a tattoo machine and was bent over a coil of the original’s dragon tattoo where it stretched over his back, while the other was busy driving a needle through one of the original’s nostrils.

“Well, I need you to help me stitch up this gash.”

“What?!” The duplicates vanished and Discord spun his body around to bring himself into an upright position as he stared down at her in alarm. Jabbing holes in his own face and body was one thing, but the idea of sticking his friend with a needle ... repeatedly...

“Please, Discord. I need it sewn up before it starts bleeding again and my hooves aren’t steady enough to do it.”

Well, when she put it like that...

“You’re aware it will likely hurt,” he warned.

Fluttershy swallowed but didn’t back down. “I know it will, but I can deal with it since it’s necessary.”

You did want to help her, he thought to himself. Not quite what he’d had in mind, but...

He snapped his fingers and Fluttershy suddenly found herself wearing a hospital gown and lying on an operating table with a bright light shining down on her.

“Discord...?” She was wondering if he had just teleported her to a hospital to let somepony else take care of her, when she caught sight of him on her right. The draconequus was gloved, gowned, and masked as if gearing up to perform open heart surgery.

“Oh, you can’t expect me to perform a delicate operation like this without the proper equipment now, can you?” he said, stretching out a surgical glove so that its cuff snapped theatrically against his wrist. “You ready to be put under?” he asked, wheeling an anesthetic machine over beside the table.

Fluttershy gave him a small smile, but her voice was urgent. “No, Discord. That will take too long. Just stitch up the wound now, please.”

“Ah, my apologies.” He sent the machine shooting across the room with a flick of his fingers and it vanished in a flash of light just before it crashed into the wall. Moving to the table, he rolled Fluttershy over onto her side so that she was facing him with the left side of her head aimed ceilingward. Then she felt his gloved claw pinching her split-open scalp together. She heard him take a deep breath then let it out slowly. “You ready, darling?”

Fluttershy braced herself. “Yes.”

She felt the knuckles of his gloved paw caress her cheek lightly. Then she felt the sting of the needle. She winced and couldn’t help letting out a whimper.





Discord hadn’t turned the cabin bathroom into an operating room just for the sake of a simple gag; he’d had another reason as well. Being dressed in the surgical gear, especially the mask, freed him from the need to keep his expression under control. He’d done all right so far but he wasn’t sure he could with the task ahead.

At the sound of Fluttershy’s whimper, he halted, not wanting to cause her more pain by forcing that curved needle farther through her scalp. Fluttershy turned her gaze up to him, but since his eyes were the only part of his face currently visible she couldn’t tell what was going on behind them.

“Discord, don’t stop. I need you to do this, please.” she begged.

Who’d have thought that in the space of roughly a month he could go from cheerfully tormenting her to not being able to stand causing her pain? But she was right. She did need him to do this. Gritting his teeth, he slid the needle all the way through her scalp. She squeezed her eyes tight shut but didn’t whimper again. He pulled the stitch tight, and readied himself for the second stitch. After that first whimper, Fluttershy allowed no more than grunts to escape her as he worked.

Finally the wound was stitched shut and he tied the thread off in a fancy bow.

“Now I’ll have you know that hurt me worse than it did you,” he said, dabbing at the wound with some gauze.

Fluttershy laughed weakly. “Yes, but not in the same place.”

Discord blinked several times, then chuckled. “Ahh, well-put, my dear.”





A few minutes later, Fluttershy was sitting up on the table facing Discord while he helped her bandage her stitched-up wound.

“Well, shall we take a look at that memory?” he asked as he finished tucking in the last strip of tape that now encircled Fluttershy’s head.

“I think we should.”

“Your wish is my command,” he said, placing a gloved hand on her still-bald, but now bandaged head.

Fluttershy was surrounded by a flash of light and when it cleared she was suddenly back among the trees with their branches crashing around her. It wasn’t like the other times when her past-self had carried her along like a passenger. It all felt so real! All the fear and desperation poured back into her as she ran this way and that with the clawing branches raining around her. Then she cried out in pain as she was struck once again on the side of the head.

Oh, no! No, please!

It was all snow, and sharp sticks, and heavy branches!

Please no!

Then suddenly she was surrounded by a second light and when it cleared she was lying on her back on the operating table again. She was shaking and her eyes were bulging. The light above her struck them painfully and she squeezed them shut, curling onto her side away from it.

“Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.” She tried to clasp her hooves together but they were trembling too badly.

Then a pair of gloved hands took her gently by the fetlocks and held her hooves steady. She opened her eyes to see Discord kneeling beside the table. He was tall enough that he towered over her even in that position but it still generated a sense of closeness and intimacy that hadn’t been there when he’d been standing.

“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I had no idea that would happen. I honestly didn’t.” Discord’s voice was unusually subdued. Most of his expression was hidden behind his mask but the eyes above it showed concern.

As her terror died away, tears of regret filled Fluttershy’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Discord. I don’t know what happened. I just sort of panicked. It all felt so real. How could it have—?”

He snaked his tail around and wiped the tears from her eyes with its tufted end. “I think it was because that memory was still fresh in your mind, so putting it through mine made the already vivid details even more vivid. Also you were under a lot of stress at the time that memory was forming, whereas you were relaxed during your memory with Applejack. I think all those factors combined to act as a trigger that didn’t affect me, but caused you to feel as if you were living it all over again.”

“Oh,” she breathed, taking in what he’d just said.

He looked down at his gloved hands, still clasped around her fetlocks. “I never should have put you through that—”

“Discord, it wasn’t your fault,” she said sharply. “You didn’t realize that would happen anymore than I did. And I agreed to do it. It wasn’t like you were forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do.” She rotated her hooves in his grasp enough to press them against the undersides of his wrists before going on in a softer voice, “Please don’t blame yourself. What we need to concentrate on now is the case.”

“You’re right,” he said, letting go of her fetlocks. He raised a hand and her mane, now completely dry and free of bloodstains, flashed into it. Beckoning for her to sit up, he began attaching it to her scalp, taking care to keep it out of the way of the bandages that circled her skull like a headband.

Then he scooped her off the table before making it disappear, turning the operating room back into the bathroom, and flashing them into the main room. Fluttershy was still wearing the flimsy hospital gown, but Discord had swapped his surgical gear for his scarf and snow vest. Fluttershy’s coat was hanging by its sleeves in front of the fireplace, doing pull-ups. Discord flashed it away from the mantle and back onto Fluttershy’s body, simultaneously making the hospital gown disappear.

“What are we doing?” Fluttershy asked as Discord swung her around onto his back.

“We’re going back to that orchard to get your tail extensions and to get a look at those branches. I didn’t see any ponies in your memory but I want to check something else.”





Discord glided over the trees with Fluttershy on his back. With her forelegs wrapped around his neck, she peered down at the zigzagging trail she’d left, noticing that it was dotted here and there with drops of blood. The branches all around and near the trail had been broken, but the rest of the trees in the orchard seemed to be fairly intact. Then both she and Discord saw a spot of pink against the snow. Swooping down to hover near the fallen branches, he flashed the extensions into his paw and then to Fluttershy’s tail. He stretched his neck down toward the branch that had been pinning the extensions, and she couldn’t tell if he was staring at it, sniffing at it, doing a bit of both, or doing something else entirely. He moved his head toward several more branches; then stretched his eagle arm down to prod at their splintered ends.

“Just as I thought,” he said, retracting his arm and neck. “These branches didn’t break under the weight of snow. They were snapped with magic.”





“You know what to do,” Discord said as they flew over the farmhouse. He flashed Fluttershy down in front of its front door, and she gave it several rapid knocks.

“Who’s there?” said Apple Bloom’s voice.

“It’s Fluttershy, Apple Bloom.”

The door opened revealing both the Apple siblings.

Fluttershy lost no time with introductions. “Apple Bloom, Big Mac, I was attacked on my way back to the cabin. We’re pretty sure it was the same ponies that killed Angel and Applejack, and we think they might come after you. I just wanted to let you know that Discord is going to put a shield around your house that only the two of you can go through. Stay inside until you hear back from me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Eeyup.”

“Good. I have to go now.”

She trotted around the farmhouse and was suddenly flashed back up into Discord’s arms high above the ground.

“I told them,” she said.

“Good. The shield’s in place. Once we get back to the cabin, I’ll do the same there. Then we’ll start working our way through the Apple unicorn profiles. See if we can figure out which of them would be strong enough magically to break those branches while still staying far enough away to remain hidden.”

He flashed them several feet above the cabin, and stayed hovering there while he shifted Fluttershy onto his back again.

“Hold on a minute,” he said, conjuring a pair of thermal vision goggles. He slipped them over his eyes, and peered through them down at the cabin. “Nope, nopony in there,” he said, removing the goggles and flashing them back out of existence.

Landing, he opened the cabin door, intending to walk inside, but he hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he came to a sharp halt. At the same time, Fluttershy’s forelegs tightened reflexively around his neck. As one they stared around the room.

Every document that made up their investigation, every note, every picture, every apple be it on the floor or ceiling ... was now gone!
> Chapter 12. Numbers 32:23
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 12

“And you may be sure that your sin will find you out.”—Numbers 32:23





For several seconds the pegasus and draconequus just stood there, staring in disbelief at the room that had been stripped of all their investigation results.

Then Fluttershy felt a cool breeze rustle through her tail and jerked her head around to look behind her. Whether Discord felt the same breeze, or her movement snapped him back to reality, Fluttershy wasn’t sure, but he suddenly leaned back and phased his neck, shoulders, and upper body through her as if they were made of air. She pawed at the air as the neck her forelegs had been wrapped around was suddenly behind her instead.

Before she could fall to the floor, Discord wrapped his lion arm around her, tucking her against his chest, before snapping his talons.

“There,” he said, before swatting the door shut with his tail. “Now nopony can get in or out of here except us.”

“And ... you’re sure there aren’t any other ponies in here?” she asked, leaning forward to look up at him. “What if they’re using some sort of invisibility spell?”

He turned her about and set her down facing him before conjuring a pair of glasses into his claw and holding them out to her. “See for yourself.”

He disappeared in a flash of light as she took the glasses. After glancing quickly around the cabin, she slipped the glasses on and promptly jerked back in surprise when she saw him standing just a few feet from her. She lifted the glasses and no longer saw him. She lowered them and he was there again.

“Those glasses will reveal anything currently invisible in this cabin. Do you see any ponies?”

She looked around the cabin’s main room and peered into the other rooms as well, but saw no sign of any other ponies. As she moved back into the main room, Discord reached down and removed her glasses. Fluttershy watched the glasses float across the room to settle on the fireplace mantel.

A second later Discord reappeared beside the fireplace. He swept the room with his own gaze before conjuring a candy cane into his paw. Biting the curved end off, he spat it out and it hit the floor with a small explosion. Repositioning the remaining part of the candy cane so that it was clamped between the first two fingers of his paw, he stuck one end of it in his mouth and sucked it briefly before taking it back out and exhaling a stream of pink vapor that congealed into a floating cloud of cotton candy.

“Discord...?” Fluttershy started to ask as the cloud drifted toward the ceiling, but he silenced her with a raised talon.

“I’m thinking,” he said, moving away from the fireplace. He began to pace the room, sucking on the candy cane and blowing more clouds of cotton candy out through his pierced nose. When he’d covered a good portion of the ceiling in the clouds, Fluttershy pulled off her winter jacket to free her wings and moved to hover in front of him.

“Discord?”

He halted and gazed at her with one brow cocked, the candy cane still in his mouth.

“Um, the fact that our records were stolen... It really isn’t that big a deal, is it?”

He plucked the candy cane from his mouth. “Well...” he said uncomfortably, turning the candy cane over and over in his taloned fingers.

“I mean, you probably have all the information stored in your head, right?”

“Well...”

“So you could just conjure up some new records for us.”

“Well...”

Fluttershy frowned at his repeated utterance of that word. “Is something wrong?”

“Well...”

“Don’t you remember the information you put in the Apple Family Tree?” she prodded gently.

Discord made a sound that was half groan, half sigh. “I put that information in the Family Tree so I wouldn’t have to remember it.”

“But I thought your memory stores all those details whether you want it to or not.”

“It does that most of the time, but there are occasions when it just seems to shut off for a bit. I can’t make it do that on command and I still haven’t figured out what triggers it. When it does happen, I still store the memory but the details are much fuzzier than anything my cinematic memory records when it’s on.”

“Oh ... Well, could you maybe conjure some documents from what you do remember?”

“I could ... but my memories on several of them are pretty fuzzy. Trying to conjure anything from those could result in some documents with mistakes in them.” He gave a wry smile. “And of course most of those fuzzy memories are of the Apple unicorns.”

He stuck the candy cane back in his mouth, took a quick pull on it, turned his head so that he was looking over Fluttershy’s shoulder rather than straight at her, and exhaled one more cloud of cotton candy through his nostrils. “Looks like our best option is for me to go out and track down some new copies of those profiles. But first some precautions.”

A light flashed around Fluttershy’s neck and the purple whistle he’d given her earlier was back in place. He flashed the candy cane away before snapping his fingers. The cotton candy clouds above them all contracted into tiny pink sugar cubes that tumbled into his open paw.

“Save those for later,” he muttered, tucking them into his scarf. “Now to ensure I can still keep an eye on things while I’m gone.” He smacked the back of his head, causing one of his yellow eyeballs to fly out of its socket and land in his palm. Fluttershy grimaced at the sight of his empty eye socket before she could stop herself.

Seeing his reflection in her eyes, Discord snapped a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses into existence and slipped them over his eyes, or rather eye.

“Better?” he asked, arching one shaggy brow.

Fluttershy blushed, but before she could reply, Discord had already turned away and flashed the glasses he’d set on the mantel into his claw.

“Wear these while I’m gone,” he said, holding the glasses out to her. “That way if anypony tries to sneak up here while invisible, you’ll be able to see them.”

Fluttershy took the glasses and fluttered back down to the floor. Looking back up at Discord, she saw him conjure what appeared to be a contact lens into his claw. He jammed his eyeball into the contact lens before vanishing in a flash of light and reappearing a few seconds later. He was no longer holding the eyeball, but was still wearing the sunglasses so Fluttershy couldn’t tell whether or not he’d put the eyeball back in its socket.

This mystery was solved when Discord said, “I put that eye outside above the door. It will record what it sees, but I’m not going to be paying attention to it while I’m gone. So I’m going to rely on you to call me with that whistle if you see anything, understand?”

“Yes, but Discord, wouldn’t it be better if I went with you?”

“No, I’ll be able to find what we need much quicker alone, and you’ll be safer staying here.”

“But there must be something I can do to help.” Fluttershy couldn’t deny that her recent experiences had frightened her, and that the thought of just being able to hide out in the cabin had its appeal. But it didn’t feel right to just stay there and twiddle her hooves while Discord went out to continue their investigation.

“Darling, need I remind you that as of this morning, somepony beat your pet’s head in and just tried to do the same to you? If that doesn’t confirm that we’re on the killer’s trail, I don’t know what does. You can help best by staying here and keeping an eye out for any ponies that might try to break in here again.”

Bending his long body over to bring its upper portion down closer to her level, he pushed her mane back with his paw, letting his fingers brush lightly across the bandage that circled her head.

As gentle as his touch was, Fluttershy still felt a twinge of pain go through the wound on the left side of her head. And yet, despite that, she still found herself leaning her head into his paw, as if drawing comfort from it.

Then, after a moment’s hesitation, Discord slipped his fingers further into her mane, moving his paw to more fully cup the side of her head, and brought his mouth close to her ear. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Discord, please be careful,” she said, putting her hoof on his wrist.

When they had first met he would have responded to this by scoffing at the idea that someone with his abilities would have to be careful, but now he just responded to it with, “I will.”

He started to draw his head back from hers, then on a sudden impulse leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on her bandaged forehead before slipping his hand back out of her mane and vanishing in a flash of light.





Fluttershy put a hoof to her bandaged forehead. Did he just...? It had happened so fast and hadn’t felt like much more than a faint pressure through the bandages...

No, she must have imagined it. He’d probably just bumped his muzzle against her forehead by accident when he’d pulled back from her.

But the way he had pressed his mouth there had felt too gentle, too controlled to be an accident.

And why did some part of her wish it hadn’t been an accident?

She sighed. You’re probably making a big deal out of nothing, Fluttershy. Even if it had been intentional, he was probably just trying to fluster you like he did at breakfast.


At the thought of breakfast, Fluttershy realized with surprise that she hadn’t eaten a thing since that morning. On the heels of that thought, she also realized that she didn’t feel the least bit hungry, even though she knew that logically she should. She could almost hear the small voice in her head snorting, You’re trying to apply logic to this situation? Just look at who you’ve been hanging out with for the past several weeks.


Then she remembered that she was still holding the glasses Discord had given her and put them on. Now wearing them, she moved to look out the windows, both hoping and dreading that she would now see somepony looking back in at her. The sun had started sinking, turning the sky a soft orange, and below it the landscape looked just as empty as it had every other time she’d looked out there. She felt that this should have reassured her but instead it just made her feel more uneasy.

Discord had pointed out that they were getting close to pinning down their quarry, but that quarry had been desperate enough to steal their information, attempt to kill her ... and succeed in killing Angel.

Her heart clenched at the memory of seeing her pet lying in the snow with his head smashed in. Turning toward the fireplace, she saw the urn Discord had conjured to hold what was left of Angel, and realized that she hadn’t thanked him for doing that, for sparing her from having to look at her pet’s mutilated corpse. She made a mental note to do that as soon as he got back.

Flying up to the urn, she lifted its lid and looked inside at a mound of dark ashes that looked as if they could have come from a wood fire rather than from a rabbit’s corpse.

“I’m sorry, Angel,” she whispered, tears pricking her eyes as she closed the urn and cradled it to her chest. The bunny had been a hoof-full (mostly when he was younger, he had mellowed quite a bit in his old age) but Fluttershy had loved him regardless.

After the initial shock of finding his body, things had happened so fast that she hadn’t really had a chance to adjust to the fact that her pet was now gone. Now it truly began to sink in. Pulling off the glasses to wipe her eyes, her gaze drifted toward Angel’s empty basket. Over the past year he had done rarely more than sleep and occasionally eat. By the time she’d arrived at the cabin, she knew in her heart that he probably had only a few months left at the most. She had expected to wake up one day to discover he had died in his sleep. She hadn’t been looking forward to that day, but she had resigned herself to the fact that it would come eventually. But the thought that somepony would murder him to send a message to her—

“Fluttershy!” shouted a female voice with a country accent.

Apple Bloom?! Keeping the urn tucked in one foreleg, Fluttershy put the invisibility glasses back on and flew to the door. Pulling it open, she saw Apple Bloom standing five feet from it, striking an invisible wall with one forehoof.

“What are you doing out there?!” Fluttershy whisper-shouted. “I told you to stay inside until you heard back from me.”

“I know, but look what we found.”

Then Big Mac appeared over the hill, holding a struggling white something in his mouth. As he drew nearer, Fluttershy’s eyes went wide and the urn slipped from her hooves to roll across the floor.

Thrashing all four of its limbs about like an overturned cockroach was a very familiar-looking bunny. Fluttershy’s wings folded in unconsciously and she landed, staring at the struggling bunny. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be! He was dead! She’d seen his corpse herself!

Then the bunny landed a kick on Big Mac’s jaw that caused the stallion’s mouth to pop open, dropping him. He hit the ground and bolted toward Fluttershy, only to bounce off the invisible wall. He picked himself back up and began clawing at the wall.

“Angel?” Fluttershy breathed, stepping out of the cabin, moving to the edge of the force field, and crouching down to peer into the bunny’s cloudy eyes. “Is ... is that you?”

Had the corpse on her doorstep been some sort of cruel trick? Before Fluttershy could give this much more thought, Apple Bloom took several steps toward the bunny and he bolted away from her, bounding off through the snow.

“Wait Angel!” Fluttershy shouted after him, dashing through the force field after him. As she passed the Apple siblings, she shouted to them, “Stay close to me!” As she galloped after Angel, a small voice in her head was warning her to get back inside and call Discord, but she was afraid to let Angel out of her sight. Afraid that if that happened, the killer would catch him and she would have to endure the horror of finding his trampled body on her doorstep yet again.

“Come back, Angel! Come back!” she shouted. She heard hooves pounding behind her, and chanced a glance over her shoulder to see Apple Bloom and Big Mac hurrying after her, both with branches clutched in their mouths for protection.

Good, she thought before turning her attention back to the bunny in front of her. In the dim light his white fur was almost invisible against the snow. Beating her wings to try and put on an extra burst of speed, she lunged for Angel ... and grabbed him!

She hit the ground running and tried to slow down so the Apple siblings could catch up with her. Hopping along on one front leg, she tucked Angel into the crook of her other front leg, and raised the whistle to her mouth, intending to blow it to alert Discord wherever he was...

Then something large and heavy slammed into the back of her head! Stars exploded in her vision and she felt Angel slip from her grasp. She tried to hold onto him, but it felt as if her legs had turned to water. She stumbled and pitched forward into the snow. She lay there, trying to will herself not to pass out, but knowing that she was losing the battle.

The whistle... she thought dazedly. Have to blow it ... Have to let Discord know...


Then black nothingness.
> Chapter 13. Proverbs 19:9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 13

“A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will perish.”—Proverbs 19:9





Fluttershy woke with a throbbing, skull-splitting headache. Groaning, she tried to bring her hooves up to cradle her head. But something was stopping them.

Wha—?


She raised her head from the ground to look down at her body, and felt something like a rough collar chafe against her neck. A rope was tied around her middle, pinning her wings to her sides. Her front legs and hind ones were bound together at the fetlocks by a long rope that trailed up into the air. Her eyes followed the rope to see that it was draped over a wooden beam high above her. The pounding in her head got worse and she lowered it back to the ground. She gasped as a large lump on the back of her head touched the ground and sent fresh waves of pain shooting through her skull. Moaning, she turned her head to the side so that her cheek was pressed against the ground instead. When the pounding had eased up just a bit, she opened her eyes to see what was around her.

She was lying in a dimly-lit room that looked like some sort of cellar or basement. She strained against the ropes binding her legs but they were tight, and after several seconds she was forced to give up. She closed her eyes again, trying to think. How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was—

“It’s about time you woke up.”

Fluttershy’s eyes popped open. She knew that voice. But she couldn’t remember it ever sounding that cold before or normally using that many words.

Then Big Mac stepped into her line of vision.

“Big Mac? Where are we? What’s going on?”

The big stallion looked past her. “Where’s the bunny?” he asked, apparently speaking to someone on Fluttershy’s other side.

Fluttershy looked in that direction, wincing as the movement sent another round of pain pounding through her skull, and saw Apple Bloom trotting down a set of stairs to join them.

“He dove into a hole in the ground,” said the young mare. “Trying to dig him out would have taken too long so I just collapsed the tunnel on him. Even if he somehow managed to survive that, he won’t be able to dig his way out before the oxygen runs out.” Turning to Fluttershy, she smirked and added, “Congratulations, Fluttershy. Looks like your little bunny’s really dead this time around.”

“You mean that ... was Angel? ... And the ... corpse was a fake?”

Apple Bloom chuckled. “Just a simple little simulacrum spell I found in one of my old potion books, but it fooled both you and your hodge-podge buddy.”

Fluttershy could think of no way to reply. She had still been trying to adjust to the fact that Angel was dead. Now she’d discovered that the ashes she’d been mourning over were not in fact the remains of her pet. And at the same time she had just learned that while Angel hadn’t had his head stomped in earlier that day, he’d been crushed under a load of earth that evening. Part of her wanted to break down and cry again over her pet’s death, but she still felt too stunned to react.

“But why would you do that?” she finally asked when she managed to find her voice.

“So we could lure you out here, seeing as how it’s time for you to join our other victims,” Apple Bloom said cheerfully.

Other victims...?! Fluttershy gaped at the youngest Apple sibling, not believing what she’d just heard. “Apple Bloom, are you ... are you saying ... it was you?! ... both of you?!”

The Apple siblings both smiled down at her in a way that said clearer than words: Yes.

Fluttershy’s mind was spinning. It’s not possible. They can’t be behind the killings!

She stared at Apple Bloom. “I’ve watched you grow up. I used to foal-sit you. ... You were just a filly when the first murders happened!”

The younger mare’s only response was a laugh which Big Mac joined in on. Fluttershy stared at the stallion. He had been an adult when the murders had happened. Had he been behind them and dragged his little sister into them? Had Apple Bloom lied earlier to cover her brother? She just couldn’t match the idea of a seven-time murderer with the quiet hard-working stallion she’d known for years.





(Earlier that evening)

Angel had been beating on the force field separating him from his owner when Apple Bloom had moved toward him. She had captured him earlier that day, but he had managed to escape, and had spent the rest of the day trying to evade her and her brother. It had been quite cold in the snow but his white coat had provided good camouflage. Unfortunately he had finally gotten caught again and they had brought him back to the cabin to try and lure Fluttershy out.

Now, realizing that Fluttershy might step out from the shield’s protection, he bolted away from the Apples, hoping she would follow him away from them.

“Wait Angel!” he heard his owner shout. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her running after him. As she passed the Apples, he felt a brief flash of relief but it was quickly squashed when she shouted to them, “Stay close to me!”

Unable to explain the danger to Fluttershy, he tried to move faster, hoping to put more space between them and the Apples. Then Fluttershy caught up with him and snatched him up. Twisting around, he looked over her shoulder in time to see Big Mac slam the branch he was holding into the back of Fluttershy’s head hard enough to snap the branch in half.

Angel fell to the ground and landed in a snow drift as Fluttershy pitched forward. Clawing his way out of the snow drift, he saw the Apple siblings circling the fallen pegasus. Apple Bloom used her teeth to pull Fluttershy’s glasses off and tossed them to the side where they landed on a flattened icy patch of snow. Big Mac raised his hoof and stomped the glasses into fragments. Apple Bloom then yanked the purple whistle from Fluttershy’s neck, breaking the string holding it in the process. She tossed it aside as she had the glasses, but the fact that it was tube-shaped caused it to roll across the packed snow.

As Big Mac moved after it to crush it as well, Angel leaped out of the snow drift and grabbed the broken ends of the whistle’s string in his mouth, bounding away from the Apples.

“I’ll get him!” he heard Apple Bloom shout. “You take care of Fluttershy.”

Glancing behind him, he saw Apple Bloom running toward him while Big Mac pushed his head under Fluttershy’s body so that she was draped over his back like a set of saddlebags.

Then he was too busy trying to outrun Apple Bloom to watch what was happening to Fluttershy. Fear and adrenaline had given him unexpected speed earlier, but now the exertion and his old age were both beginning to take their toll on him. Dragging the whistle behind him hampered his movements still further.

Finally out of desperation he dove into a hole in the ground. He huddled as far back in the hole as he could, chest and sides heaving as he tried to get his breath back. Then he felt the ground above him shake and clumps of dirt fell on him. Realizing what was happening, he tried to run back up the tunnel out of the hole, but it had already collapsed, trapping him.

The old bunny could do nothing but huddle against the tunnel’s wall, trying to avoid the great clumps of falling earth by being as small a target as possible.





(Now)

Fluttershy couldn’t believe it. She’d just heard the Apple siblings unapologetically admit to committing the murders, but she still couldn’t believe it.

When she finally found her voice again, all she could ask was, “Why would you do it? Why would you murder those ponies?”

“You really never thought to suspect us, did you?” Apple Bloom chuckled. “As for why ... Oh, let’s just say we wanted to see if we could get away with it.”

This can’t be happening. “But Applejack? Your own sister—?”

Suddenly the cruel amusement vanished from both the earth ponies’ faces and their expressions hardened.

“What did you find out about Applejack?” Apple Bloom demanded. “Tell us! What happened to her?”

Fluttershy stared at the young mare, confused. “You ... you killed her. Didn’t you?”

“Oh, we wanted to.” Apple Bloom muttered. “We wanted to so badly. But then she disappeared.”

Then Big Mac nudged Apple Bloom with his hoof. “We don’t have time for this. Her mix-and-match partner could get back at any moment.”

Apple Bloom sighed. “You’re right. She doesn’t know where Applejack is anyway. Let’s get to work.”

Big Mac moved over to the rope that was looped over the beam and connected to Fluttershy’s fetlocks. He grabbed the free end of the rope and began backing up. Fluttershy gasped as she was yanked around onto her back and lifted into the air. Hanging upside down by her hooves, she felt the blood rush into her head as she revolved in the air.

“Careful,” said Apple Bloom. “We don’t want her to suffocate all at once.” Then she grabbed the end of another dangling rope, and the rough collar around Fluttershy’s neck, which she now realized with horror was a noose, jerked tight. She tried to scream but all that came out was a choking cough. Then, as Big Mac kept pulling her upward, the noose tightened until she couldn’t even squeak.

Head pounding and lungs screaming for air, she could only look down at the two ponies below her. Around the ropes in their teeth, their faces were set in sadistic grins she never would have thought to see there. Then as the pressure around her throat grew more painful, her vision began to blur and fade.





Buried deep under the earth and snow, Angel stirred. The earth was pressing down on him, crushing him. The oxygen was leaking away quickly as well. But he still had the whistle with him. With no other options available, he sucked in as much of the remaining oxygen as he dared, and blew into the whistle as hard as he could.





Far from Sweet Apple Acres, Discord had tracked down new sets of Apple Family documents and was currently floating in the air on his back next to a copy machine he’d conjured. Hands behind his head, and his one eye half-closed behind his sunglasses, he alternately hummed and whistled various tunes, not really needing to concentrate on the documents as they floated in and out of the copy machine.

Then a shrill blast exploded inside his head so loud it almost broke his eardrums. The draconequus doubled over, clutching his head as his long body spun in a circle. Out of reflex, he twisted his heavily-pierced ears shut but it did nothing to block out the noise bashing off the insides of his skull.

Fluttershy!

Both he and the copy machine vanished in a flash of light, leaving the papers to float lazily to the floor. He had put a spell on the whistle that would allow him to teleport right to wherever it was being blown. He'd expected to end up back in the cabin, but instead he found himself outside a good hundred yards from the cabin. He looked around but saw no sign of Fluttershy.

However the blast in his head still continued to shrill. Then he realized that the noise seemed to be coming from underneath his feet. Swinging his lower body backward off the ground so that he was floating in midair, he flicked a finger upward and a large chunk of earth ripped out of the ground right where the sound seemed to be coming from.

What in the world?

He pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead to get a clearer view inside the hole he'd created, and saw a white rabbit blowing on the whistle he'd given Fluttershy. He flashed the bunny out of the hole and into his paw to get a better look at it. Holding it by the scruff of the neck, he yanked the whistle away from it. Immediately the noise in his head was silenced. Sighing in relief, he turned his attention back to the squeaking and struggling bunny, which he now noticed looked quite old. Old and familiar.

Is that Angel?


Squinting his empty eye socket, he raised the bunny for a closer look and on the way up it grabbed his scarf in its teeth and yanked at it wildly.

"Stop that!" Discord snapped. The bunny continued to squeal and flail about, clearly trying to communicate something.

"Oh, hang on a second," Discord muttered irritably and snapped his talons right in front of the bunny's face. Immediately a deep breathless but still stentorian voice exploded from the bunny's mouth; an effect that would ordinarily have made Discord laugh, but the words that came with that voice effectively slammed the door on any humor he might have been feeling.

"They've got her! ... We've got to … stop them! They're ... going to kill ... Fluttershy!"

Galvanized into action at those words, Discord slung the bunny up onto his shoulders where it hooked its claws into his scarf. Then he flashed the two of them to just outside the force field-protected cabin. Seeing the new set of tracks leading away from it, he swooped through the air in that direction.

Still flying, he snapped his talons and his eyeball flashed into his paw. Tilting his head back, he tossed the eye into the air like it was a piece of popcorn and it plunked into its socket. He pushed down on his eyelids, then pushed them back up. An image sprang out of his eyes as if they were film projectors. He watched the images while at the same time keeping his eyes trained on the ground below. In the images he saw Apple Bloom and Big Mac approaching the cabin with the struggling bunny. He saw Fluttershy come out, exchange words with them, then chase after the fleeing bunny. He saw Apple Bloom and Big Mac snatch up branches and follow her. Then as they topped a hill Fluttershy caught up with the bunny and the Apples caught up with her. Big Mac swung his branch, bringing it crashing down on Fluttershy's head so hard Discord cringed just watching it. Then Fluttershy plunged out of sight over the hill and the Apples followed her.





As Big Mac continued to pull her higher and the noose around her neck drew tighter, Fluttershy knew she couldn't hold out much longer. Her eyes were squeezed shut in pain and her lungs felt as if they were going to burst.

Then, right when she felt as if her head was about to pop off and her life was about to be snuffed out, the ropes binding her suddenly snapped as if they were made of spaghetti. No if about it, they had turned to spaghetti! Barely conscious, she plunged toward the floor, but then a golden glow surrounded her, halting her fall in midair before lowering her gently to the floor.

Before the Apples could move toward her, Discord suddenly appeared in front of them, dressed in SWAT gear. He flung his arms out to the sides and both the Apples went flying into the far wall where they slid to the floor and lay there, stunned.

Satisfied that they wouldn't be getting up soon, the draconequus flashed himself to Fluttershy's side. Yanking off his SWAT helmet and goggles, he knelt next to her and tried to tug the noose off her neck. To his horror, he found that even though he'd turned the noose to spaghetti, it had already cut so deeply into Fluttershy's throat that he had difficulty getting his fingers under it. Ripping the spaghetti strands away, he tried to recall what one was supposed to do in this sort of situation.

CPR? Shock treatment? He wasn't sure. He'd never bothered to learn what was needed to save a strangled pony. He tried to check her pulse, but his fingers were shaking so much when he put them to her battered neck that he couldn't tell if he'd felt a pulse or if it had just been wishful thinking. He rolled her onto her back and put his ear to her chest. Was that a heart beat? He thought it might be a very faint one, but once again the tension in his own body and the rabid beat of his own heart made it difficult to be sure. Then he moved his ear near her mouth but felt no breath.

No breath, that’s not good! "Fluttershy." He shook her shoulder gingerly, wanting her to wake up, but at the same time not wanting to risk injuring her farther. But Fluttershy's head just flopped limply from side to side. "Fluttershy! Oh, no. No, no, come on, Fluttershy, breathe!"

But she just lay there, so pitifully terribly lifeless, with that dark imprint of the noose showing hideously through her pale coat.





Fluttershy’s lungs begged weakly for air but her constricted windpipe seemed paralyzed, unable to open. She thought she felt trembling fingers on her throat, then vaguely registered that she was being rolled over onto her back. Something that seemed to be covered in rings and spikes pressed lightly against her chest. Then it disappeared and she felt the same sensation briefly against her muzzle before it disappeared from there as well.

Then she heard Discord's voice distant and muffled as though through a fog, and struggled to respond.

Discord? Oh, thank goodness you arrived in time! she tried to say but all that came out of her throat was a raspy wheezy whistle. Oh, my goodness! she gasped inside her head. Is that me?!






Tears blurred Discord's vision at the realization that he'd gotten there too late to save his friend. He was about to scoop up her body and cradle it to him, when Fluttershy's eyes suddenly flew open and a hideous rasping whistle came rattling out of her throat. That whistle was followed by another equally raspy one as she fought to suck oxygen into her constricted airway. Her vision swam and she struggled to focus on the face above her.

Even with its piercings, over-sized fang, scruffy beard and eyebrows, and different-sized pupils, it was undoubtedly the most beautiful face she'd ever seen.

"Oh, thank goodness," Discord sighed reverently, nearly going limp with relief. “Thank Celestia.” He stroked Fluttershy’s cheeks and forehead with a sort of gentle desperation as she continued to gulp down air in great harsh gasps. Before he could stop them, the tears in his eyes slid down his snout and dripped off to land in Fluttershy’s eyes, causing her to blink rapidly.

"Hhhhh-ord!" she wheezed, trying to say his name. Then an old bunny slid down from the draconequus's back, and hopped over to nuzzle Fluttershy's temple with his head. "Hhhay-jil?"

"Shh. Don’t try to talk now." said Discord, continuing to caress her face as she rolled onto her side, still wheezing. "Just concentrate on breathing." In that moment, he felt like just leaning right down and covering her face with kisses but he restrained himself, knowing he should probably give her as much room as possible to breathe.

Then he heard several groans from the other side of the room and snapped his head up in that direction. The Apple siblings were getting back on their feet. Discord's eyes narrowed to slits and his lips pulled back from his teeth. He raised his claw and a gold aura surrounded each of the ponies, lifting them into the air and dragging them toward him. They struggled and squirmed in his magical grasp but could not get free.

Then pale blue-green beams of light suddenly shot from their foreheads toward him. The beams struck his claw and the draconequus recoiled with a yelp, shaking his claw as if it had been burned. The gold aura around both of the ponies disappeared and they tumbled to the floor. As they landed, light blue-green flames erupted from their bodies. When the flames cleared a second later, dark-colored pony-like creatures stood in their places.

Changelings! Fluttershy gasped inside her head but all that came from her throat was a wheezy "Hhhhh-hings."

But there was something different about these changelings. Unlike the ones she'd seen years ago, these ones looked more pony-like than insect-like, and as they flew into the air their bodies seemed to grow transparent as if they were made of glass.

The changelings sent another blast at Discord and the draconequus yanked his flak vest wide open, revealing a large bloodless hole that went clear through his body at chest height. The beam shot through this hole to smash into the wall behind him. The gaping hole in his chest sealed itself back together before he closed the flak vest again.

The changelings were both almost completely transparent, little more than gleaming outlines, but then Discord made a move as if brandishing a whip. A line of brightly-colored glow-in-the-dark paint hurtled through the air to splatter the changelings and a good portion of the wall behind them. Then they turned and shot their magic at Fluttershy.

The pegasus tried to move her legs, to get out of the way, but each of her limbs seemed to weigh a ton. The beams shot toward her and Angel, but Discord was already there, snatching them off the ground. Angel ended up sandwiched between them, clinging to his owner's mane. Fluttershy's head and limbs flopped bonelessly as Discord wrapped his arms around her and twisted about to take the blast on the back of his flak vest. The force of the blast propelled him toward the crumbling wall, but he swung his lower body about so that he struck the wall feet first instead of squashing Angel and Fluttershy against it. Looking up, he saw the paint-splattered changelings fly up the stairs.

"I'm going after them," he said, straightening up with Fluttershy still dangling from his arms.

The two changelings were both flying off in different directions when Discord flashed himself outside. Tucking Fluttershy under one arm, he snapped his fingers. Duplicate Discords appeared below them and chased after the fleeing changelings. Each of the changelings fired off magical blasts at their pursuers that seemed to vaporize pieces off the duplicates but those pieces just regenerated. The duplicates herded the changelings back together, but as soon as the changelings were close enough to touch they shot another larger blast of magic at the Discord duplicates. This time the blast disintegrated the duplicates completely, and neither of them reformed.

Realizing that they were stronger together than apart the changelings now zoomed off together rather than trying to split up again. If it weren’t for the glow-in-the-dark splatters still coating parts of them, their transparent bodies would have been completely invisible in the dark. Discord shot after them, conjuring nets, walls, sheets of flypaper, anything to catch the changelings, but they either dodged these things, or blasted through them with their magic.

The draconequus gritted his teeth as the changelings continued to evade his attempts to catch them.

Dodge this! he thought, snapping his talons and this time putting all his rage into it.

The branches of the trees in the orchard below them burst into flames that clung to the branches like blazing leaves but did not spread down to consume the trees' trunks. Then there was a monstrous creaking sound as the trees began flexing their branches and yanking their roots out of the ground. The burning trees started wading through the snow to form a burning forest. When they neared each other, several of the trees seemed to melt together to form much larger trees. The large trees used their branches to snatch up the smaller trees and hurl them into the air like discuses. All of this took time to describe but it happened in the space of just a few seconds.

The burning trees hurled through the air after the changelings, spreading their branches out like flaming nets. Reaching the changelings, they closed their branches around them, trapping the changelings in giant twiggy fists. The trees fell back to the ground, causing several of the still earth-bound trees to leap out of the way as they plowed through the snow.

A short distance away, Discord hit the ground feet first in a skid. With Fluttershy still dangling from his right arm, he thrust his eagle one out to break his fall so his face wouldn't smack into the snow. Straightening up, he walked toward the burning trees that had captured the changelings and snapped his talons, extinguishing the flames.

Fluttershy scrabbled her hooves against his arm, and looking down he saw that she was trying to push herself higher to breathe more easily. ("Oops.") He quickly shoved his claw under her hindquarters to boost her up. Fluttershy sucked in several wheezy breaths as she took in the scene in front of her. Smoke curled up from the uncharred branches but apart from that there was no movement. After several minutes with no sign of the changelings stirring from their traps, Discord flew over and snapped the tuft at the end of his tail. The trees opened their branches and two charred figures fell to the ground.

"Are they—?" Before Fluttershy could finish the question, Discord turned her head away from the sight with his eagle claw. "Are either of them still alive?"

After a moment Discord sighed. "No."

"Oh," Fluttershy said numbly, not sure how to feel. She knew she should feel relieved that her would-be-murderers were now dead, but she just felt overwhelmed. Why had those changelings seemed so different from the ones she'd seen before? How long had they been disguised as Apple Bloom and Big Mac? And what had happened to the original Apple siblings?





Feeling there was nothing they could do with the charred changeling husks, Discord and Fluttershy decided to go back to the hideout to see if there was anything they could learn about the changelings. Exhaustion had caught up with Angel so he just clung to Fluttershy's back, only half-awake. Discord flashed them back to the hideout and Fluttershy saw that it was Sweet Apple Acres' old root cellar. Still holding Fluttershy, Discord flew down the stairs. One of the walls had been mostly demolished by the changelings' blast, revealing another room behind it.

And lying there, squirming on the floor of that room ...

Were Apple Bloom and Big Mac both hogtied and muzzled with what appeared to be changeling webbing.

"Oh, my goodness," Fluttershy wheezed. She tried to fly out of Discord's arms to go help the bound ponies, but the draconequus hung onto her.

"It might be another trap," he warned, and Fluttershy felt her face flush. How could she forget that so soon after it had nearly ended her life? Before she could give this much more thought, Discord raised his free hand and a ball of fire erupted from it. Drawing his arm back, he hurled the fireball at the Apple siblings. Their eyes went wide and they started thrashing about, yelling through the webbing that was muzzling them. The fireball engulfed the two of them. Fluttershy tried to scream but it only came out as a pathetic whistle. Then the fireball vanished, revealing that the Apple siblings were not burned or even scorched. Instead they were soaking wet as if someone had upended a tub of water over them.

For about five seconds, the Apple siblings just lay there. Then they started struggling and yelling through their gags again. Only this time they sounded indignant rather than afraid.

Fluttershy hadn't moved but Discord could feel her heart beating wildly against his arm. He put his hand on her shoulder and she flinched.

"You just threw fire at them. You could have—"

"All it would have done is soak them. As it just did. If they were changelings, I figured that since they didn't know the fire wouldn't hurt them, they'd drop the act and try to get away."

"Oh," Fluttershy whispered, realizing now that Discord had been trying to protect her.

The draconequus snapped his fingers and the webbing detached itself from the Apple siblings, jumped to the floor, and skittered away like gummy spiders. The Apple siblings both sat up, spitting, swiping the water out of their faces, and stretching the cramps out of their limbs.

"Humph! You’re welcome.” Discord said in a louder-than-normal voice and both the Apple siblings started, realizing that they’d heard that voice before ... but from a different source. Now they stared at the draconequus, taking in his mixed-up body, the ink designs that decorated that body, the scarf and flak jacket he was still wearing, and the studs and rings scattered across his facial features.

“Fluttershy,” said Apple Bloom. “is that—?”

All Fluttershy could think to say was "Um, Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh. Meet Discord ... Again ... As he really is.”





It took the Apple siblings a bit of time to adjust to the fact that the visitor they’d thought was merely a somewhat odd-looking pony was actually far more than that. But once they had, they, the old bunny, the pegasus, and the draconequus began trying to piece together what had happened that day. It all began to fit. Apple Bloom hadn't lied about being in Applejack's room. She really had been off with the other fillies and they'd seen a changeling disguised as her in Big Mac's memory.

They learned from Angel that a changeling had snuck into the house disguised as Fluttershy and had snatched him while they were outside. This changeling along with its partner had tied him up and told him that they had planted a fake corpse for Fluttershy to find, seeming to enjoy the pain it brought him, knowing that Fluttershy would not come looking for him. Then they had captured Big Mac shortly after Fluttershy and Discord had left him. One changeling had snatched Apple Bloom right after Fluttershy had visited her, ("So that was a changeling, I saw going into the house. Not Big Mac,” said Fluttershy.) while the other had turned transparent and had flown above the trees, using its magic to break any branch Fluttershy got close to. By then Angel had managed to chew through his bonds and escaped while the changelings dragged the Apple siblings into the root cellar. The changelings had revealed themselves to the Apple siblings, saying that they intended to kill Fluttershy before doing the same to the Apple siblings themselves.

"They told us they were behind the murders and they killed Applejack because she was snooping around," said Apple Bloom, then a look of agony crossed her face. "They said they were disguised as us when they killed her … that she died believing Big Mac and I were the murderers."

The big stallion nodded, unable to bring himself to say "Yup."

"That's horrible," Fluttershy breathed. But in the back of her mind, she thought of what the changelings had told her. Why had the changelings told Big Mac and Apple Bloom that they'd murdered Applejack, but told her that Applejack had disappeared before they could kill her? Who had they been lying to?




Apple Bloom and Big Mac decided that they wanted to spend the night at the hospital, both to be near their grandmother, and to tell her what they'd learned if possible. Discord flashed the group to a shadowed corner outside of the hospital, and, once the Apple siblings were safely inside, flashed himself, Fluttershy, and Angel back to the cabin. Angel slipped off Fluttershy's back, headed straight for his bed, and sprawled out on it.

Fluttershy went over and nudged his back with her hoof. "Angel, you can't go to sleep just yet. You need to eat something first."

The old bunny opened one cloudy eye and gave her a look that said, "Do I have to?"

"Yes, you do," said Fluttershy firmly. "I'll go make you a salad and—"

Discord snapped his fingers and a salad appeared right beside her.

"Oh, thank you, Discord," she murmured.

"Mm-hmm." He nodded absently, picking up the urn and pouring the ashes into his paw. He studied them for a bit before letting them pour into the fireplace, and wiping his paw on the fur of his lower back. "I thought so. They used a chunk of wood as the base for the simulacrum."

At Fluttershy's urging, Angel ate a few bites of the salad before rolling over and going to sleep. Fluttershy would have preferred it if he'd eaten all the salad but decided to let him sleep since the day's events had clearly taken a lot out of him.

Plonking down on the couch, Discord conjured a plate of sandwiches and flashed Fluttershy over beside him. "If he had to eat, you should as well," he said, holding the plate out to her. Still feeling rather shell-shocked, Fluttershy didn't feel much like eating, but her stomach disagreed because it let out a loud growl. She took a sandwich, and began chewing it automatically. Eating it turned out to be rather slow going as her throat hurt almost too much to swallow, but hunger pushed her on.

Discord chewed on a sandwich of his own, not taking his eyes off her. He took in the bruises and scrapes on her body, especially the ones the ropes had made. While she worked on finishing her sandwiches, he flashed out of the room, and reappeared a few seconds later with a tube of ointment and bandages. Picking Fluttershy up, he settled her on his lap so that she was lying back against his thighs, lifted one of her front legs into the air, and began massaging the ointment into the abrasions the ropes had left on it. Fluttershy just lay there numbly and let him work his way through all four of her legs.

It wasn't until he began to work on her neck that Fluttershy let out a long shuddering sob.

Discord jerked his hands away from her. "Sorry, did I hurt you?"

"N-no," she choked out, trying and failing to hold back more sobs. "It's not that, it's just that ... that ... I was so scared! ... And I thought Angel was dead, and then it turned out he wasn't. And then the Apples tried to kill me, and then they turned out not to be the real Apples, and then there was the whole thing with Applejack and ... and ... I don't know..." She buried her face in her hooves as the force of her sobs shook her whole body.

Then she felt his hands grip her gently by the shoulders. "It's all right now, darling. Do you hear me? You're safe now."

She mopped at her tears before looking up at him, embarrassed. "I know. But I just can't seem to stop crying."

Remembering how dazed she'd acted earlier, he suddenly understood. All her feelings from earlier: terror, relief, shock, and many more feelings were trying to express themselves at once, and were now pouring themselves out through tears. As she looked up at him, drowning in a chaotic storm of her own emotions, he realized that she needed an anchor, a lifeline ... something or someone to help her make sense of what she was going through.

He lifted her from his lap and, leaning back, set her higher up on his body, closer to his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. "Go ahead and cry then. Just get it all out, dear. Trust me, it'll help."

Needing no further urging, Fluttershy buried her face against his chest and let the tears fall. His dragon tattoo pulled itself farther up his body so it could stretch its neck over his shoulder. It slid its head onto the part of his chest Fluttershy's face was currently pressed against and proceeded to move its head back and forth as if rubbing it against Fluttershy's head. The wasps on the sides of his neck swarmed down to the base of his throat. However, they couldn't move any closer to Fluttershy with the dragon in the way, so they just hovered nearby.

Other times Discord would have smacked the tattoos back into their original positions, but right now he was too busy concentrating on Fluttershy. He stroked her back and rested his cheek lightly against the top of her head. Strange that he of all creatures would be called upon to guide her through the chaotic turmoil that was currently overwhelming her. But as she clung to him, her crying muffled against his chest fur, he felt that there was no other part he'd rather play.

As Fluttershy's tears finally thinned out, she heard Discord say in a soft but clear voice, "Happy Hearth's Warming."

Fluttershy's eyes widened. She'd completely forgotten that it was Hearth's Warming. "I'm sorry, Discord. I wanted to do something special for you for this Hearth's Warming…" She trailed off as he put his paw gently against her neck.

Unbidden, the image of her lying lifeless on the floor with the noose marks standing out on her neck like some ghastly collar sprang up in his mind. With it came the memory of the agony he'd felt in those long seconds before she'd taken that first breath. Taking care not to put too much pressure on her bruises, his fingers found the pulse in her neck. With that pulse came the confirmation that she was alive. Bruised, bloodied, and aching, but alive.

"Right now, knowing you're here and safe is all I need," he said, rubbing small circles over her pulse before letting his fingers slide from her neck to her cheek.

Fluttershy had thought she had no more tears left to cry, but those words proved her wrong. "Discord, that's ... that's so sweet ... I don't know what to say..." Then she buried her face in his chest fur again as a fresh bout of crying overtook her.

She felt his arms wrap around her again, and his hands caress her back. Then his beard brushed against her cheek as he put his mouth close to her ear, and murmured, "There now, Fluttershy. There now, I won't let go."





True to his word, he didn't let go. He held her until she'd cried herself to sleep.

For the first time since she had been recovering from nearly freezing to death, Fluttershy slept with Discord's body wrapped around hers. Little did she know that the draconequus was doing it as much for his own sake as for hers. He hadn't been able to completely shake the image of her lying there limp and lifeless from his mind. Nor could he forget the sound of her struggling to breathe. Now he needed to be able to hear and feel her deep steady breathing (broken now and then with an occasional soft snuffle) to reassure himself that she was still alive.

He had rolled his upper body over enough so that Fluttershy was lying on her side, facing him with her mane tumbling over the first of his body coils. Moving carefully so as not to hurt or wake her, he slipped his lion limb underneath her head, and shifted so that he was propped on his elbows above her. Her expression was peaceful, beautiful almost, but it was marred by the fact that her face was damp and blotchy from crying. And the bruises from her attempted strangling were still vivid and unlikely to fade for days.

"Nopony's ever going to hurt you like that again, Fluttershy," he whispered, leaning down and touching her forehead with his own. "I promise you, if anypony ever tries to harm you, they'll have to go through me."

Drawing back, he hooked one of his talons underneath her bandages and slid them back away from her forehead, using his magic to stretch them in a way they never could have stretched ordinarily. Then as if to seal the deal, he tilted her face upwards, brought his own head back down, and pressed his lips against her now-exposed forehead. When he'd kissed her earlier, it had been no more than a quick peck, but now he took his time. He wasn't sure how long he kissed her and was mildly surprised to realize he didn't really care.

Then Fluttershy snuffled and he pulled his head back, gently replacing her bandages and watching to see if his kiss had accidentally awakened her. As he raised his head from hers, his beard tickled across her face, causing her nose to twitch but not causing her to sneeze. Her eyes flickered open but she still seemed to be at least three-quarters asleep.

"Discord," she murmured, and he shifted back onto his side, still supporting her head with his paw. Yawning, she turned her head, and pressed her forehead against his throat just above his scarf. "Thank goodness you arrived in time," she murmured, dropping back off to sleep.

"Oh, amen to that, my dear," he whispered, resting his claw against her chest, where he could feel her heart beating in time with the pulse in his wrist. "Amen to that."
> Chapter 14. Proverbs 25:15
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 14

“Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.”—Proverbs 25:15






Weak sunlight streamed in through the window, causing Fluttershy’s eyelids to twitch open. She was lying on her side with her chin resting on Discord’s left shoulder and her cheek pillowed against his neck. The coils of his warm body were wrapped around her from tail to just behind her front legs, and his eagle arm was wrapped loosely around her neck. It was strange to think that being in such a position would once have sent her into a full-blown panic, but now it only brought a sense of security.

The last thing Fluttershy remembered was crying herself to sleep in Discord’s arms. Considering what she’d faced the day before, she had feared having a nightmare but had felt too exhausted to resist falling asleep. But the expected nightmares hadn’t come. Instead she had slept quite soundly.

Well, maybe not quite soundly.

She’d had at least one dream. Shutting her eyes, she now tried to recall its details. All she could really remember was that it had been dark in the dream ... and she’d been vaguely aware of Discord leaning over her and ... kissing her on the forehead. A small half-amused half-wistful smile crept across her face at the absurdity of the idea. The fact that she’d actually been able to feel his lips, complete with that fang on one side of his mouth and that ring through his lower lip on the other, pressing against her forehead with no bandages between them pretty much confirmed that she’d been dreaming.

Oh, Fluttershy, where do you get these silly ideas from? she thought, shaking her head. Why in the world would he have done that?


Is it so silly? the small voice in her head prodded. He kissed you on the forehead before he left yesterday.


Fluttershy’s eyelids cracked open again and she frowned. It was true. At least he’d seemed to kiss her—

Her thoughts were interrupted as Discord, still asleep, tightened his eagle arm around her neck and slid his lion paw underneath her to wrap around her shoulders. The arm around her neck wasn’t tight enough to choke, but it did put enough pressure on her bruised throat to make her wince. This discomfort drew her attention to a throbbing that had started on the back of her head, and an itching that had started on its left side where it was pressed against Discord’s neck.

Squirming about, she lifted her head away from him ... and noticed something odd, well, odder than usual about his arm. The barbed tattoo that ordinarily looped around his biceps was gone!

Twisting her head around to follow the line of his neck, she saw that the wasp tattoos it normally sported were missing as well. In fact, all his tattoos seemed to be missing!

“Discord,” she called, shaking his neck.

The draconequus snorted himself awake. “Hmm! What is it? What’s going on?” He snapped his head up, pulling her closer to his chest and out of his coils in the process. “What’s wrong?” He twisted his head a full three-hundred and sixty degrees, searching the room for any possible danger.

“Muffings wrong.” Fluttershy’s voice came out muffled against his chest. “At least I don’t think so,” she added as he loosened his hold on her enough so that she could raise her face clear of his chest fur.

“What do you mean?” Discord asked.

Looking up to meet his gaze, Fluttershy now saw that not only were his tattoos gone, but the studs and rings he normally had on his face and in his ears were gone as well. And not as if he’d merely taken them out, but as if he’d never had them in the first place. There weren’t even any tell-tale indentations marking where the jewelry had been the night before.

Discord frowned at her. “What is it?”

“Your tattoos and piercings, they’re all gone.”

He blinked then raised one of his now-unpierced eyebrows. “Really?”

He snapped a full-length mirror into existence above them and let it hover there. Fluttershy swallowed, not comfortable with something that big and heavy-looking floating over her, but Discord seemed too busy scrutinizing his reflection to notice.

“Hmm.” He kneaded his facial features with his paw. “Hmm. Huh.” Then he shrugged and snapped the mirror back out of existence.

Looking back down at Fluttershy, a concerned expression flashed across his face. “Your head’s bleeding.” Lifting her in his arms, he let his long body uncoil and straighten into a standing position. “Come on. Let’s have a look at that.”

“But ... what about your tattoos and piercings? Why are they gone?” The fact that Discord seemed to be acting so nonchalant about their sudden absence was almost as baffling as the absence itself.

The draconequus was silent for a moment, and when he finally spoke his voice was thoughtful.

“I guess I don’t need them anymore.”





When they got a look at Fluttershy’s head, it turned out her stitches had broken sometime during the night before and the wound had started bleeding again. Out of respect for her earlier wishes, Discord didn’t try to heal the cut magically. But he did use a bit of his magic to fuse the threads of her stitches back together before helping her clean up the blood and swapping the stained bandages for fresh ones. He also gave her another ointment rubdown, trying to be especially gentle with her neck since the bruises around her throat made it currently look like the skin of an overripe banana.

Lifting her mane, Discord whistled at the sight of the lump that had sprouted where the tree branch had been slammed into Fluttershy’s head. Snapping his talons, he conjured an ice pack. “Here. You’ll want to get that swelling down or you’ll have to pay double the next time you get a manecut.”

He let go of the pack and it floated over to Fluttershy like a cloud. Once it reached her, it proceeded to hover near her head, coming down every now and then to put gentle pressure on that swollen lump.

With the ice pack floating along after her, Fluttershy went to check on Angel. When she nudged him, the old bunny stirred enough to nuzzle her hoof with his head, but didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move from his bed. Considering the part he’d played in her rescue, Fluttershy decided he had earned a breakfast in bed, and went to find him something to eat.

As she bustled about, fixing Angel’s breakfast, Discord leaned against the wall, watching her and flossing his impressive array of teeth. What he hoped to accomplish by doing that before breakfast rather than after, Fluttershy wasn’t sure but didn’t bother to ask. She put a salad down on the floor near Angel’s bed in a spot where he could reach it easily without having to leave his bed. By that time the swelling on her head had gone down enough that she no longer needed the ice pack and Discord flashed it away.





Later as Fluttershy and Discord ate their own breakfast, it began to dawn on Discord that their investigation was done. The killers they’d been trying to find were dead. Apple Bloom and Big Mac knew about it and intended to tell their grandmother as soon as possible. What was there really left for him and Fluttershy to do?

Fluttershy meanwhile had been surreptitiously studying Discord. She’d noticed that he kept twitching his ears, raising and lowering his eyebrows, and rubbing at his nose. A couple of times she even saw him pressing his forked tongue against the inside of his lower lip. All these little actions made Fluttershy smile inwardly since it reminded her of when her tail had undergone its impromptu docking, and how odd it had felt to suddenly have all the weight of that long hair gone. While the draconequus didn’t seem to regret losing either his piercings or his tattoos, their absence was clearly taking some time to get used to.

I guess I don’t need them anymore, he’d said.

His appearance was still unusual, but now he looked much more approachable without all the hardware on his face and the jagged designs etched across his body. She thought back to how strangely out-of-character it had seemed to her that he had chosen to cover himself in such fierce-looking images and pierce his face in ways that didn’t look so much decorative as they did painful. Now, seeing him in a sense “unmasked,” she remembered wondering if he’d used those tattoos and piercings to discourage ponies from trying to get close to him.

And yet the night before, when he’d held her close and whispered words of comfort in her ear, she hadn’t even noticed the rings in his nose, the studs in his brows, or the ink on his arms. All she’d seen was the friend who had saved her life.

The thought triggered her memory of the Apple Bloom changeling’s words.

“Discord...”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Last night...” She swallowed and the action sent a twinge of pain through her bruised throat, causing her to put a hoof against it. “When the ... changelings had me tied up ... before they tried to strangle me ... one of them asked me what happened to Applejack.”

Discord frowned. “I thought they killed her.”

Fluttershy looked down at the table, letting her mane fall on either side of her face. “That’s what they told Apple Bloom and Big Mac. But later on they told me that she disappeared before they could.”

Discord stared at her bowed head as his mind adjusted to this new piece of information. The puzzle had been completed, all the pieces had been fit into place ... and now Fluttershy had whipped out a new piece that somehow needed to fit into that puzzle. A piece that could possibly change the whole picture.

“Why didn’t you mention this the night before?” he asked, reaching over and putting a talon under her chin to tilt her face back up toward his.

Fluttershy blushed. “Because I wasn’t sure who they were lying to, and I wasn’t thinking very clearly last night. ... But now I am thinking clearly ... and I still don’t know who they were lying to. Everything else we found out last night seemed to fit together ... but I can’t stop wondering if somepony else killed Applejack before the changelings could get to her.”





After replacing the magical shield around the cabin so that no pony could get in and bother Angel, the two detectives went back to where they’d left the changeling bodies the night before. Neither of them were very optimistic about finding clues there, but they couldn’t think of any other place to start.

It had warmed up considerably so Fluttershy was wearing only a scarf and the whistle Discord had given her. The draconequus had ditched his snow vest but still wore the scarf Fluttershy had made for him. He hadn’t taken it off since she’d given it to him.

The trees were still where they had landed the night before but seemed to have stuck their roots back in the ground. Some of their trunks were straight but most were twisted into shapes they could never have achieved naturally. Other than that they seemed completely unharmed. If Fluttershy hadn't seen it the night before, she never would have guessed that they had previously been blazing with fire.

The same could not be said for the changelings' bodies though. Seeing their charred corpses once again gave Fluttershy mixed feelings. Considering the fact that they had been cheerfully trying to kill her just before their own deaths, she guessed she should probably feel glad that they were gone, and on a certain level she was relieved. But at the same time she found her stupid soft heart wishing her would-be murderers had been captured alive rather than killed. She knew from Discord that he hadn't intended to kill the changelings. He had only wanted to keep them from escaping and, when they had eluded all his more restrained attempts to catch them, he had pulled out the big guns. And unfortunately the big guns had worked a little too well.

As for Discord's feelings, the fact that the changelings had tormented Fluttershy with her pet's death, injured her, and attempted to kill her not once but twice in the space of one day had effectively robbed him of the ability to regret their deaths on a personal level. But he did regret them on an investigative level. If he had managed to take the changelings alive, he and Fluttershy could have questioned them, and possibly have learned why they had murdered those first six ponies and whether or not they'd killed Applejack as well. But now any information the changelings might have had to offer had died with them.

Still it wouldn't hurt to check the bodies on the off-chance that they might carry some clues.

The partners were about twenty feet from the corpses when they both heard a loud, "There they are!" above and behind them.

Fluttershy's head jerked up. That sounded like Rainbow Dash!


She started to turn in the direction of the voice, but she'd barely begun to move when Discord whipped around so fast his limbs blurred. Fluttershy's eyes widened as she saw splatters of iridescent ink shoot up the draconequus's back like a gravity-defying paint spill. Most of the spill morphed into a familiar dragon-shaped tattoo. The tattoo arched its back, ripping its whole body away from Discord's spine before whipping itself back down so that its inky body slapped around his torso in its familiar circling manner. The ink splatters that had landed on Discord's neck formed into swarming wasps, and lines of ink twisted into barbed loops and spirals that tangled around his limbs like vines. He took a step backward, and she saw sunlight glinting once again off metal in his ears and face.

The next moment he'd scooped her up and was holding her against his chest.

"Let her go, you creep!" Rainbow Dash's voice yelled, and looking up Fluttershy saw the multicolored pegasus streaking toward them like a guided missile. Just before she reached them, Discord flashed himself and Fluttershy out of the way, causing Rainbow Dash to dive headfirst into the snow.

She jumped back up, shook herself, and whirled around, looking about for them. "Get back here, you—!" Then she saw them a few feet away. Her magenta eyes widened and her voice came out low and terrible. "What did he do to you?"

What did—? Then Fluttershy remembered the bandages on her head and the bruises on her throat. "Rainbow, this isn't what it looks like."

Rainbow Dash spluttered. "It looks like somepony beat you upside the head with a tree branch!"

"Well, I suppose in that case it is what it looks like," Discord muttered.

"Discord, that's not—" Fluttershy was about to say "helping," but her voice was suddenly drown out by a much louder higher-pitched one.

"Don't worry, Fluttershy! We'll save you!"

Pinkie Pie!


Sure enough Pinkie Pie and Rarity were racing down the hill toward them. Flying behind them was Twilight with Spike perched on her back, and ... was that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna behind them?

Pinkie whipped out her party cannon, and as it continued to roll down the hill, she hopped hind legs first into it, and fired. She shot toward Fluttershy and Discord, trailing several balloons tied around her middle. As she whizzed past them, she wrapped her forelegs around Fluttershy as if giving one of her famous hugs, and yanked the pegasus right out of Discord's arms. As the two ponies continued to fly through the air, Pinkie pulled out a pin and popped the balloons trailing behind her. A set of drag shoots unfurled from the balloons' remains, jerking the two ponies to a halt and allowing them to float gently to the ground.

"Pinkie, what are you—?"

Scarcely had they touched down then Pinkie let go of Fluttershy and flung the descending drag shoots over her, wrapping the pegasus up like a burrito.

"You'll thank us later. I got her, Twilight! Quick! Cast the spell!"

Spell?! Fluttershy tried to get out from the canvas only to get shoved down and pinned to the ground.

"Hurry Twilight! She's fighting!" shouted Pinkie Pie.

"Pinkie, be careful!" Fluttershy heard Rarity gasp. "We don't want to smother her."

"Oops," said Pinkie.

Rarity's light blue magic surrounded the canvas cocoon as she and Pinkie loosened it enough for Fluttershy to poke her head out of the top. What she saw was Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and the royal sisters circling Discord, firing attacks at him. Twilight lowered her head and Spike sent a blast of fire at the draconequus. A snap of Discord's fingers, and the fire transformed into ice. Before Spike could fully spit the column of ice out of his mouth, its weight yanked him off Twilight's back, forcing Rainbow Dash to swoop in and catch him as he fell. The ice thunked into the snow and stuck there like a stalagmite.





As he dodged the alicorns' magical attacks, and Rainbow Dash's aerial ones, the draconequus knew that magically he was more than a match for any of them, but this sudden attack of theirs had taken him completely by surprise.

Inside his mind was whirling. How did they know he was here? And why weren't the three he'd manipulated behaving like the opposite of their elements?





Fluttershy squirmed in her canvas burrito, squeaking, "Pinkie! Rarity! Too tight!"

"Oh, dear." Rarity quickly used her magic to loosen the canvases a bit more. As soon as she did this, Fluttershy took the opportunity to shoot out of them and race toward the fighting. Pinkie tried to tackle her but missed.

"Girls, stop!" Fluttershy shouted. Discord turned at the sound of her voice, and she leaped toward him, wrapping her forelegs around his neck. The flying ponies all swerved or extinguished their magic to avoid hitting her.

"Stop it!" she shouted at them, even the princesses. "All of you! Stop attacking him! He doesn't deserve this! He saved my life!"

That got everyone's attention and they all went still whether in the air or on the ground.

"Saved your life?" Celestia repeated softly.

"Oh no! She's delusional!" Pinkie exclaimed, clapping her hooves to the sides of her head. Then she did a double take, suddenly realizing something. "Wait a minute! Why aren't you acting all mean?"

Of all the things Pinkie could have said, Fluttershy had not been expecting that. "Mean? Why would I be acting mean?"

"Because he tricked you into being the opposite of your element like he did with the rest of us!" said Rarity, pointing at Discord. The draconequus fiddled uncomfortably with the claws on both his hands.

Fluttershy looked from her friends to him, but he avoided her eyes. "Discord ... do you know what she's talking about?"

The draconequus snorted dismissively. "No, of course not. I have no idea what they're—" Suddenly his dragon tattoo stretched its head around to the front of his throat, and hawked up a huge glob of bright red ink that arched through the air and splattered over Discord's hands, making it look as if he'd just dipped them in blood. This action had come so completely out of left field that for several seconds the draconequus, the five ponies, the dragon, and the royal sisters just stood or hovered there, staring at the draconequus's now-red hands.

Fluttershy looked up from his hands to his face. "Discord..." He jerked his gaze away from hers again, but not before she saw the guilt in his eyes. Fluttershy suddenly let go of him and hovered there, staring at him. He still had the same mixed-up body, the same tattoos and facial piercings, the same scarf she'd given him ... but it was as if some stranger had suddenly taken her partner's place.





I ought to wring your neck even if you're just an over-grown blob of ink! Discord mentally gritted through his teeth at the tattoo, which had already resumed its usual place.

When he felt Fluttershy's forelegs disappear from around his neck, he quickly looked to see where she'd gone. The distrust he then saw in her big soft eyes seemed to cut into him like a knife.

"Fluttershy..." His paw moved automatically to cup her cheek, remembering too late that both his hands were still covered in fresh ink. Fluttershy jerked away at his touch and his hand left a crimson smear across the left side of her face, like a callback to the wound she'd received the day earlier. The draconequus had been used to ponies flinching away from his touch and it had never particularly bothered him before. But now getting such treatment from Fluttershy seemed to twist the blade even farther into his heart. Fluttershy looked from him to her friends and back again several times. No one said anything, waiting to see what she'd do.

Then Fluttershy suddenly pulled her wings in and dropped to the ground. She hit the snow running, not to her friends, not to Discord, but away from all of them.

"Fluttershy!" her friends shouted after her, but she ignored them.

"Fluttershy, wait!" Discord pushed off the ground, intending to fly after her, but Rainbow Dash swooped in front of him blocking his way.

"You leave her alone!" the blue pegasus ordered, jabbing her hoof right in his face. "You touch her again and I'll—"

"—have to catch me first." Discord pointed out before vanishing in a flash of light.

"Quick, we have to go after Fluttershy," said Twilight.

"Wait, Twilight," said Celestia. She didn't raise her voice but it carried enough that all the ponies heard it and stared up at her. Even Luna gave her sister a look of confusion.

"You may follow her at a distance, but don't approach her just yet," Celestia continued.

"But..." Twilight hesitated, want to obey her ruler, but wanting to help her friend as well.

Celestia seemed to sense this and nodded. "You may see Fluttershy, after I have had a chance to speak with her."





Fluttershy half ran and half flew over the snow, not knowing where she was headed, only wanting to put distance between herself and the source of her current confusion. She felt as if she were being torn in two. She didn’t want to believe Discord had done what her friends had claimed, but why would they have made up something like that? And then there was the way Discord had started to deny their accusations before his dragon tattoo had taken it upon itself to expose his guilt in vivid detail.

Now everything she thought she knew about him had been cast in doubt. Memories of him aiding her with the case, binding up her injuries, and comforting her flashed through her mind. Had all of that been a lie just to gain her trust?

She ran until she came to a river with a bridge spanning it. She stopped at the river bank and tried to catch her breath. Looking down into the water, she saw the crimson streak Discord's hand had left on her face. The sight reminded her vividly of when she'd looked into the mirror yesterday at the blood running down her face. She remembered the anger Discord had expressed when he first saw that blood, and how he'd later tried to curb that anger and be gentle with her. Now she found herself wondering if the anger, the gentleness, both, or neither had been an act.

Turning from the river, she scooped up some snow and started scrubbing her face with it, trying to get rid of that red stain. The process left her face cold and wet but when she looked back into the river she was now free of the ink stains.

"Fluttershy."

The pegasus whirled around to see Princess Celestia standing just a few feet from her. Fluttershy quickly lowered her gaze to the ground. Despite the fact that Celestia had always treated her with kindness, Fluttershy couldn't help feeling rather intimidated by the princess. "Your Majesty?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"Don't be afraid, Fluttershy," said Celestia, approaching her and using a hoof to lift the timid pony's face upward. There was no disappointment or anger in the princess's face, only a small smile of encouragement that filled Fluttershy with a longing to just pour out her emotions to Celestia like a young filly to her mother.

"Fluttershy, I want you to hear your friends' stories. And then I want them to hear yours."





When Fluttershy's friends arrived at the river bank a few minutes later, Celestia cast a spell to prevent anyone from being able to overhear them as they told their stories.

Fluttershy learned that yesterday, when they had discovered that the blizzard had ended, Twilight and Spike had gone to Ponyville to spend Hearth's Warming with their friends.

They'd arrived at Sugar Cube Corner to find Pinkie Pie acting like a complete grump. The Cakes had informed them that Pinkie had been that way ever since the blizzard had started and that they'd been wondering if she were suffering from cabin fever from being cooped up inside for so long. But when Pinkie's grouchy attitude persisted even after going outside, the Cakes, Twilight, and Spike began to suspect something else might be up.

A visit to Rarity found the white unicorn hoarding everything in sight, and a visit to the Wonderbolts revealed that after the blizzard ended Rainbow Dash hadn't shown up for drills or to help clear the skies as they had expected her to. Spike and Twilight then paid a visit to Fluttershy's cottage as well only to discover that it was locked up and empty, and questioning their friends on her whereabouts met with no cooperation whatsoever.

Twilight had sent word to Celestia that her friends were acting strange, and later that night Luna had reported that she'd seen a strange forest fire at Sweet Apple Acres that had ended as soon as it had started. These combined reports prompted the royal sisters to run some tests on the decoy statue Discord had left behind and discover that it was fake. Then they'd told Twilight about Discord and how they thought he might be connected to her friends' strange behavior.

Twilight, Spike, and the royal sisters had spent the next morning rounding up Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity so that Twilight could break the spell they were under. With the three ponies back to their true states, they and their restorers had put the pieces together and confirmed that Discord had indeed visited the three of them. They had then told Twilight, Spike, Celestia, and Luna where Fluttershy had been staying, and, fearing Discord might have paid her a visit as well, had rushed there, intent on rescuing her.

Then it was Fluttershy's turn to recount her side of the story, starting with the day she'd first arrived at the cabin. As she told of her stay at the cabin, of how she'd been tasked with finding Applejack's murderer, of how she'd tried to contact Twilight, of Discord's arrival, and all that had followed, she found to her surprise that her own confusion over his actions began to clear. Discord had indeed been as horrible as her friends had described him. At first. But then somewhere along the way he had changed. He'd had several occasions where he could have just let her die; where it would have suited his purposes much better, but instead he had rescued her. He had done so just last night. All the concern he'd shown for her over the past days couldn't have all been an act. Nopony was that convincing.





Unbeknownst to the group of ponies, Discord was currently invisible, floating quite near them, and fuming that he couldn't hear a thing that they were saying.

Well, maybe not completely unbeknownst, he thought grudgingly, using the fur on his lower back to scrub the crimson ink off his hands. Celestia must have suspected that he'd try to spy on them and had found a way to prevent it. Which was really annoying!

He watched the various ponies, trying to read their lips but that could only get him so far.





Fluttershy told her friends what had happened to her up until that morning when she and Discord had gone out to look at the changeling corpses. The only thing she left out was the changelings telling her that Applejack had disappeared before they could kill her. It wasn't that she wanted to lie to her friends by not mentioning this, (For all she knew the changelings had been lying to her when they'd told her that.) but she wanted some more time to think on it before sharing it.

After Fluttershy finished her story, Celestia was silent for several moments. She had been aware of Applejack's mysterious disappearance ten years ago, but she like the others had come to believe the earth pony had met with some unfortunate accident. Over those years, they had waited for the Element of Honesty to choose a new bearer but that had yet to happen. Which raised the obvious question of: How would they stop Discord without all the Element Bearers?

When Celestia had banished Luna she had always held onto the hope of her sister's reformation, but she had never held such a thought when it came to Discord. All those centuries she had firmly believed that the only way to protect her subjects from the draconequus was to condemn him to an eternity in stone. But now the ruler of Equestria began to feel she might need to readjust her thinking. Fluttershy had just revealed that she had managed not only to resist Discord's initial manipulation, but also to win his aid in her mission to solve Applejack's murder. Even if they could find another way to turn him back to stone, the fact that he'd gotten out once proved that there was a very real chance he could do it again sometime in the future. But if he could be converted from an enemy to an ally...





Discord watched the group as Celestia spoke to them. Then most of them started to trot over the bridge toward Ponyville.

Twilight stopped by Fluttershy. "You sure you'll be all right?"

The draconequus started in surprise when he heard her voice. Celestia must have just lifted the spell.

Fluttershy nodded, and seemed to say, "Just let me talk to him, alone."

Spike and all of the ponies either walked or flew into Ponyville, except for Fluttershy and Celestia, who stopped at the middle of the bridge. Then Fluttershy reached under her scarf, pulled out the whistle Discord had given her, and blew into it.

After straining his ears for so long, trying in vain to hear what the ponies had been saying, the sound of the whistle in his head was like an explosion.





Fluttershy watched her friends head into Ponyville, intending to stop by the hospital and pay their respects to the Apple family, before taking out her whistle and blowing a quick blast.

Immediately Discord appeared in front of her. "Give me that!" he shouted, snatching the whistle from her. His head was filled with brief seconds of blissful silence before he heard the voice of his old enemy coming from behind him.

"Hear me out, Discord." Celestia's voice was an emotionless command and he turned to face her, not because he felt compelled to obey, but to see if her face was as expressionless as her voice.

Celestia's expression was calm. "Fluttershy has been pleading your case with me, Discord, and I've decided not to have you re-imprisoned."

"Considering you don't have all the Element Bearers, it's not like you could even if you wanted to," he pointed out smugly.

Celestia's eyes hardened briefly. "There are other, less merciful ways to imprison you, than turning you to stone, Discord. But I'm offering you a chance to prove I needn't employ them. Consider yourself on probation."

“Oh, deep and abiding joy,” was his sarcastic response before plucking out his eyes and tossing them like a pair of dice so that they rolled down the bridge and disappeared from sight.

Celestia ignored this. "Fluttershy has claimed you as her friend, so she will be reporting back to me on your progress."

Discord was still eyeless but the muscles around his empty sockets seemed to twitch in Fluttershy's direction.

"You will continue staying with her at the Apple cabin, and when she is ready to leave, you will go with her back to her cottage," said Celestia.

Fluttershy had been standing quietly with her head down ever since Discord had snatched his whistle back from her, but then something bumped against her hoof and she jumped with a small squeak. Looking down, she saw that Discord's eyeballs were staring up at her. Somehow they had managed to roll down one end of the bridge and up the opposite one. Discord blew into the whistle and his eyeballs rolled past Fluttershy over to him. Then he gave the whistle a quick suck and his eyes shot up as if they'd been snagged by a vacuum cleaner. They squeezed through the much smaller opening in the whistle's end, Discord's jaw flexed as if he were swallowing, and his eyes popped back up in his eye sockets.

With his eyes back in their proper place, he studied Celestia suspiciously, trying to find the catch in what she was proposing. "And what makes you think I won't just mind control Fluttershy to tell you what I want her to tell you?"

Fluttershy's head jerked up at that and she looked from him to Celestia, but the alicorn just gave her a small quick knowing smile before turning back to the draconequus.

"I don't believe that will be a problem, but Discord..." She paused and he raised an eyebrow, waiting. "I want you to think long and hard about what you want." Celestia said finally.

Think about what you want—Discord frowned. The fact that Celestia had said that while addressing him didn't seem right. "Would you care to repeat that?"

"I want you to think about and then decide what it is you want, Discord, because sooner or later, all get what they want ... but they don't always like it."

He cocked an eyebrow again. "Isn't it my job to be cryptic?"

"Oh, I'm not being cryptic, Discord. Just sharing a simple truth." Turning, she leaned down to Fluttershy. Speaking softly but making no effort to conceal her words from Discord, she said, "Think about what you want as well, Fluttershy. And remember that in the right light, a weakness may become a strength."

Then, before Fluttershy could question this, Celestia spread her wings and flew away, leaving Fluttershy and Discord alone on the bridge. Fluttershy watched the princess disappear into the sky, before turning back to Discord. He still wasn't looking at her, but his dragon tattoo slid its head from its usual position along the side of his neck to the back of it. It poked its head through his bristly mane like a tiger peeking through tall grass, and looked down at her with a hopeful expression.

Fluttershy had to smile at the irony of things. The draconequus may have intended for his tattoos to send the message: I don't need anypony! but sometimes they seemed determined to do just the opposite.

"Discord." She flew up behind him and laid a hoof on his back. Underneath his fur, she felt his muscles flinch slightly at her touch but other than that he made no move to get away from her, even though he could easily have teleported out of her reach. Encouraged by this, she went on. "When I told Princess Celestia about what happened, it gave me some time to think..."

The multiple earrings edging his ears clinked together as he flicked said ears back in her direction, still not looking at her but clearly listening.

Fluttershy paused, running her hoof down his back in short gentle strokes while mentally arranging her next words. "And I've decided I still want to be your friend, if you'll let me. But it's up to you."

The dragon tattoo started trying to stick its head underneath where her hoof landed. Discord reached over his shoulder and seized the dragon tattoo by the neck, and dragged its head and neck back over his shoulder to face him. The tattoo hissed its displeasure at him.

"Cut it out!" he ordered, before slamming his free hand down on its head as if smashing a bug. The tattoo made a noise that sounded like a whiny grumble before he released it and it snapped back into its proper place.

Fluttershy winced at the abuse he'd just shown the belligerent body art, but didn't allow her hoof to falter in its continued stroking. "I'm going back to the cabin to start supper. Come home when you're ready to."

Then she felt a sudden surge of boldness and ran her hoof up his back instead of down, causing him to shiver involuntarily as she stroked his fur the wrong way. Startled at receiving this sort of teasing gesture from the shy pony, Discord turned his head, neck, and upper body around to look at her, but she had already landed and was trotting away down the path.

She hadn't gone far when she heard his hoof-and-claws alternately clopping and clicking on the stones behind her. He caught up with her, and she saw his hands come down into view on either side of her head as he slipped the purple tube-shaped whistle back down around her neck.

Turning, she nuzzled his hip just above his goat leg, the highest point she could reach in her current position. Then she felt him briefly cup the back of her head very gently so as not to hurt the still-tender lump there.

Not exchanging another word, not needing to, they walked back to the cabin together.
> Chapter 15. Matthew 7:7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 15

"Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened to you."—Matthew 7:7





As they walked back to the cabin, Discord rested his eagle claw lightly on Fluttershy's head. He could have just flashed the two of them back to the cabin in under a second, but he wanted to use the time walking there to think on what had just happened that day.

Up until he'd seen Rainbow Dash streaking toward them, he'd almost completely forgotten about what he'd done to Fluttershy's friends, and it disturbed him to realize just how much his time with the pegasus had taken his mind off his original plans.

What doubly disturbed him was how strangely ambivalent he felt toward Fluttershy herself. The fact that she had so thoroughly distracted him did not invoke the expected anger it should have. And it wasn't until that moment when she had flinched distrustfully away from him that he realized just how accustomed he'd become to her welcoming his touch.

He looked down at her head with his taloned fingers twisted loosely into her mane. His eyes flicked to the barbed loops that encircled his wrist and biceps, and he remembered how they had mysteriously disappeared that morning. When disguising himself with another shape like a pony’s, he’d often gotten rid of some of his piercings, and/or shrunken his tattoos, simply because there was so much less space on a pony’s body than on his own. But that had been the first time they had simply disappeared of their own accord ... the first time since he'd gotten them that someone had seen him in his natural form without them...

Then there were the strange feelings that had risen in him when Fluttershy had informed him that she still wanted to be his friend ... and the way she had just told him to come home when he was ready to, as if she trusted him to come back to her rather than just flash away to the other side of Equestria...

He mentally sighed as he pinched the skin between his eyes with his paw. He was supposed to confuse and unsettle ponies not the other way around.

Then he remembered why they had come out there in the first place and halted. The fingers he still had buried in Fluttershy's mane caused her head to jerk back and she halted as well, looking up at him.

"What is it, Discord?"

"What about those changeling corpses we were going to look at?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. Twilight is sending some ponies to get them so she can study them and maybe find out why they seemed different from changelings we'd seen before."

Discord frowned at that and, removing his hand from her mane, crossed his arms. He wasn't sure how he should feel that Twilight was stepping in on the case, but he felt robbed. Granted he wouldn't even have been involved in the case if Fluttershy hadn't been trying to contact Twilight but still—

"Um, Discord?" Fluttershy's soft hesitant voice jerked him out of his thoughts.

"Hmm?"

She looked down at the ground and rubbed one of her forelegs with the other. "Um, do you remember what I told you about what the changelings told me last night?"

"I do."

"Well ... when I told my friends about what happened, I didn't really mention that part to them."

Discord's eyebrows went up at this news. Then he felt a rush of conspiratorial glee at the realization that Fluttershy had chosen to share this piece of information only with him. She however seemed to be growing steadily more uncomfortable and this put a damper on his brightening attitude.

"What's wrong?" he asked, stretching his neck down so that he could look her in the face.

"Well, Discord..." Fluttershy fidgeted and licked her lips nervously, then plunged on. "I want you to help me look through my memories of when the changelings captured me last night."

Discord jerked back as if a rattlesnake had just tried to bite him on the face. He stared down at Fluttershy in shock. "Darling, you do remember what happened the last time we tried that?"

Fluttershy swallowed but pushed on. "I do remember. But I've been thinking about it all day and I feel I have to see it again."

"No! Forget it!" Discord thrust his hands behind his back and caused them to fuse together in a lumpy mass; as if afraid they might start probing Fluttershy's head of their own accord.

"Please, Discord. At the time I was too shocked at the idea of Apple Bloom and Big Mac being the murderers to notice much else. But now I think there might be some clues in those scenes if I watch them knowing that the Apples are really changelings. Please, would you—?"

"I told you the answer is No! I'm not going to put you through that again." He looked away from her, but she flew up to hover in front of him, taking his pierced face between her hooves and turning it back toward her before he could pull away. Her turquoise eyes met his yellow ones.

"Please Discord. I know the risks, but I have to see. If there are any clues in there I have to know."

Discord shut his eyes, but Fluttershy's pleading expression had already done its work.

"Oh, very well," he muttered. "But I'm doing it under protest."

Despite the seriousness of what she was asking him to do, Fluttershy couldn't help feeling a tad amused at his sulky attitude.

"Come on, let's get this over with," he grumbled, bringing his hands, now back to their usual state, out from behind his back. Taking her by the shoulders, he pushed her down until her hooves touched the ground in front of him. His hands began glowing as he moved them to the sides of her head, taking care with the stitched left side. Fluttershy shut her eyes and thought back to the night before.





"You sure you still want to do this?" Discord asked after he had given the extracted memories a spin in his cinematic one.

Fluttershy looked scared but determined. "I have to."

Discord's sulky attitude was gone, but his reluctance was still there. "Just ... try to remember it's not really happening. No matter how real it feels."

Fluttershy nodded and braced herself. "I'm ready, Discord."

"All right," he sighed before cupping her face in his hands. "Don't be afraid, Fluttershy."

Then she was surrounded by bright light.





When the light cleared, Fluttershy was suddenly back in the root cellar with her limbs tied and her head aching horribly.

"It's about time you woke up."

She felt the familiar sense of shock at the sound of Big Mac's voice.

It's not him, she tried to remind herself. It might look and sound like Big Mac but it's not him.

"Big Mac?" she felt her throat form the words. "Where are we? What's going on?"

It's not them! It's not them! It's not them! Fluttershy had to keep forcing herself to remember as the scene played out before her. Pay attention! It's not real! It's not happening again! she yelled inside her head even as all her senses screamed that it was indeed real and all the shock and horror she had felt at the time came flooding back. It's not real! It's not real!





For Discord, watching the events as they played out through Fluttershy's eyes was far different from hearing her describe them. While the scene didn't affect him in the visceral way it did her, he did get a new sense of her helplessness that he hadn't had before. He could also feel her shivering under his hands as she fought not to let the memory suck her under.

That's it, Fluttershy, he urged. Don't be afraid. Keep fighting it.





Fluttershy could faintly hear her partner's voice as she continued struggling against the numb disbelief that had filled her back when the memory had been reality. She tried to pay close attention to the disguised changelings' attitudes and actions, hoping to spot some clue as to whether or not they had lied to her about Applejack. They both seemed quite amused at her horror when they confessed to murdering the six ponies in Applejack's journal.

"But Applejack? Your own sister—?" It's not really them! It's not really them! Applejack's real siblings are captured and tied up just like I am! It's not really them!


"What did you find out about Applejack? Tell us! What happened to her?"

Why would they ask that if they told Big Mac and Apple Bloom that they killed Applejack while disguised as them? Why would they—?

"You ... you killed her. Didn't you?"

"Oh, we wanted to. We wanted to so badly. But then she disappeared."

"We don't have time for this. Her mix-and-match partner could get back at any moment."

"You're right. She doesn't know where Applejack is anyway. Let's get to work."

It isn't real! It isn't real! It isn't—

Fluttershy's mental chant was interrupted as she felt herself being yanked into the air and dangling upside-down by her legs.

"Careful. We don't want her to suffocate all at once."

This isn't really happen—

Then that thought was shattered as she felt the all-too-real sensation of the noose biting into her neck. She choked as the rope tightened. How could this not be real?! It was real! She could feel a very real noose cutting into her throat!





Feeling Fluttershy start to writhe, Discord snatched her up in his arms and yanked the two of them out of the memory. As they reappeared in the real world, Fluttershy thrashed about so hard he dropped her. She hit the snow on her back, wheezing.

"Fluttershy!"

The pony's eyes were open but she didn't seem to see or hear him. She pawed wildly at her bruised throat, trying to loosen the non-existent noose she thought was there. Fearful that she would do further damage to her already battered throat, Discord grabbed her forelegs by the fetlocks and pinned them down on either side of her.





Let me go! Fluttershy screamed inside her head as her forelegs were suddenly pinned and the noose continued to tighten. I can't breathe!

She kicked out with her hind legs in a desperate attempt to free herself.





Discord grunted as one of Fluttershy's kicks caught him in the chest. The draconequus flipped his long body over her so that he was standing bent over backwards, still holding her down as her back legs kicked at empty air. Fluttershy snapped her head back and forth, still breathing in those horrible shallow wheezes.

The last time he'd flashed them back out of the memory, she had come out frightened and trembling, but she hadn't still been trapped inside the sensations of the memory.

What if she ended up actually suffocating while convinced that she was being choked to death?

Fighting his own panic, Discord transformed his tail tuft into fingers and clamped them around Fluttershy's head, holding it steady as he shoved his own forehead down against hers.

"Come on, Fluttershy! Snap out of it! There's no noose around your throat, so ignore it! Ignore everything except what I'm telling you. You're not choking, you hear me?! You're not choking, so ignore that noose and breathe!"





Deep in her panic, Fluttershy heard him. Ignore the noose and breathe?! How could she possibly be expected to do that? The noose was the very thing keeping her from breathing in the first place!

"Don't you die on me like this! Breathe will you!"

Hearing the desperation in his voice, Fluttershy found it in her to ignore the noose cutting into her neck and try to suck in a large breath of air. Then the pressure on her throat suddenly seemed to dissolve and she could breathe freely again.

At first she didn't know where she was. Then she realized she was lying on her back in the snow, with her front legs pinned down on either side of her.

And Discord was above her with his forehead pressed against hers.

"Discord...?" she panted.

At the sound of her voice, he pulled his head back from hers with a look of relief on his face.

"Discord, what—?"

Before she could finish the question, his eyes suddenly narrowed and Fluttershy was blinded by another flash of light. When it disappeared, she and Discord were back in the cabin and he was standing upright with her in his arms. He set her down roughly on her bed and stalked away from her.

"Discord—"

He whipped around to glare at her. "Don't ever ask me to do that again!" he snapped. "If you do, I'll take you right back to that root cellar and string you up myself!" Then he seemed to realize what he'd just said and let out a low moan. "Oh, forgive me, Fluttershy. I didn't mean that."

She gave him a weary smile. "I know you didn't." She hesitated a moment, then added, "And thank you for going through that with me. Even though you didn't want to."

His expression softened and he moved back to the bed, kneeling beside it. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm still a bit shaken I think," she said, wrapping her forelegs around her body. "I knew it would be hard to experience all that over again, but ... I didn't realize just how frightening it would be ... feeling them string me up all over again." Unconsciously she put a hoof to her bruised throat as she went on, her voice trembling. "I thought I was going to die and there was nothing I could do to stop it."

She looked up at him, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. "I don't remember if I ever thanked you for saving me." Taking his paw in both hooves, she lifted it to her face and rubbed her cheek against the back of it. "Thank you, Discord. I'd be dead now if it weren't for you."

Discord's own eyes suddenly looked rather watery. Then he turned away and seemed to rub or scratch at his face with his free hand.

"Discord ... are you crying?"

"No, this thing just isn't in crooked enough and it's bothering me," he said, tugging on one of his nose rings hard enough to make both himself and Fluttershy wince. He gave the ring several twists in different directions before letting go of it and opening and shutting his eyes in a series of grimaces.

"Ahh, that's better," he said, pulling his paw free from her hooves. "Makes your eyes water though," he added, rubbing his thumbs back and forth across the edges of his closed eyelids. Fluttershy glanced at the rings hooked through his nose. Neither of them seemed to have changed position in the slightest and he'd never complained about them before.

Then his dragon tattoo suddenly used an inky claw to sketch what appeared to be a pair of pants on its host's left shoulder. It then snorted inky flames onto the pants, causing them to turn to ashes which it promptly swept away with a claw. Discord stopped rubbing at his eyes just as the dragon tattoo finished its clean-up and froze in place again.

"So you're sure you're all right?" he asked, propping his arms on the edge of the bed.

She nodded. "I just need some time to think about what I saw and heard in that memory."

"You sure? Because I can get you anything if you need it."

She shook her head though she had to admit that his fussing over her was rather sweet, especially after what she'd just forced him to do. "That won't be necessary. I just need some time to think, to clear my head."

Standing back up, Discord conjured a candy cane and held it out to her with the curved end under her nose. "Here. Take a bite. It will help with the head-clearing."

Fluttershy looked from the candy cane to him then back at the candy cane. Exactly how it would allegedly help with the head-clearing, she wasn't sure. But then again with the things Discord conjured, appearances could often be deceiving. So she leaned forward and bit the curved end off of the candy cane. First the taste of peppermint filled her mouth. Then it was replaced with regular mint that was then replaced with chocolate.

"This will help too," Discord added, conjuring a glass of water for her as well. Swallowing down the chocolate, Fluttershy took the offered water and took a cautious sip, expecting it to taste like something else, or to change color or texture, or maybe for the glass to disappear, but it just remained an ordinary glass of water. While she sipped, Discord stuck one end of the remaining candy cane in his mouth briefly before taking it back out and blowing a stream of blue cotton candy up at the ceiling.

"You said you were going to start supper, but it looks like it's still a little early for that, so how about lunch?" he asked, sticking the candy cane behind his ear.





"Starting lunch" turned out to consist of Discord magically conducting and shuffling various ingredients together into sandwiches while Fluttershy watched. She'd seen ponies spread both peanut butter and jelly on sandwiches before but this was the first time she had seen anyone slice those particular condiments up and deal them. Along with the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, there were several other conventional combos like cheese, cucumber, and daisy, but there were also several more ... eccentric combos. ("Don't try the triangular-cut ones," Discord warned. "Some of them have cement in them.")

The draconequus had just sent the final sandwich springing across the table and leaping onto an already large pile of sandwiches, when there was a knock at the door.

"Fluttershy?" called Twilight's voice.

Moving to the door, Fluttershy opened it. "Come on in, Twilight. We were just about to have lunch."

Twilight started to step forward and suddenly ran into an invisible wall.

"Whoops," said Discord in a suspiciously innocent voice before snapping his talons. "There. All clear."

"Sorry about that," said Fluttershy, as Twilight put a hoof out in front of her, feeling about for any unseen obstacles before trying to move forward again. "I had Discord put a shield around the cabin so nopony could come in and hurt Angel while we were gone. I forgot it was still up."

"Right," said Twilight, rubbing her nose while glancing from Fluttershy to Discord, still not entirely sure what to think of him.

"We were just about to have lunch," Fluttershy said quickly. "Would you care to join us?"

“You’ll enjoy the triangular-cut sandwiches,” Discord said, tipping the plate toward her, and Fluttershy gave him a warning look.

"Sorry, but I can't stay long,” said Twilight. “I just wanted to check how you were doing, and to let you know I got those changelings sent back to Canterlot for examination. I'll keep you posted on whether I find out anything."

"Oh, that's good. ... Um, did you stop at the hospital to see how the Apples were doing?"

Twilight nodded. "Well, Granny Smith survived that stroke, but she's still pretty weak and they're not sure how much longer she has. Apple Bloom and Big Mac are staying there so they can be near her just in case she gets worse. ... And they told her about the changelings ... so now she knows who killed Applejack." Twilight's voice lowered on the last part as if she found it hard to say.

Discord darted a glance toward Fluttershy to see if she would mention the fact that the changelings had given her a different story than they had given the Apple siblings but she didn't. She just asked how the Apple family was dealing with the news about Applejack's murder.

"It's pretty hard on them," Twilight said sadly. "knowing that Applejack died believing they were killing her. But I think they're also a bit relieved to know that the murderer wasn't somepony from their family like they'd thought it was."





"Discord?"

The two partners were sitting in front of the fire with a plate of sandwiches between them. Fluttershy was lying on her stomach with Angel curled up between her front legs. She had been nibbling on a peanut butter-and-pickle sandwich, one of Discord's more unusual combos that she had selected by mistake but had turned out to taste surprisingly good.

Discord meanwhile, having had his fill of sandwiches, was lying on his back beside her. He had taken the candy cane back from behind his ear and was currently trying to exhale pink and blue cotton candy out of his mouth and nose at the same time to see if he could get them to mingle together and turn purple. He stopped this experiment to turn his attention to her.

"Discord, I've been thinking on what we saw in my memory and about what the Apple siblings told us about when the changelings captured them ... and some things just don't add up. Why did it matter to the changelings that I or the Apple siblings know they were behind those murders? And if they were willing to kill those ponies, why didn't they do the same with Angel?" She stroked the old bunny's thinning coat. "Why go to the trouble of creating and planting a fake corpse if they were just going to kill him later anyway?"

If they needed to get rid of you before I got back, why did they strangle you slowly instead of snapping your neck with one swift hard yank? Discord wondered as he looked at the bruises on her throat. Then he thought uncomfortably of when he'd tried to trick Fluttershy into being the opposite of her Element. The fact that Applejack no longer existed to wield the Element of Honesty had removed the need to corrupt Fluttershy, and yet he had continued trying to do it because toying with her had amused him.

He thought of the changelings choking his friend slowly and painfully, of the pleasure he'd seen on their faces. Had he had a similar expression as he tormented her when they had first met? His cinematic memory gave him the option of viewing his own memories from multiple view shots to check that, but suddenly he was afraid to know.

"Discord, about the changelings not killing Applejack—"

The draconequus quickly covered his musing by jetting a cloud of salmon-colored cotton candy from his nostrils before lifting his head from the floor to look down at her. "You believe that?"

Fluttershy hesitated then nodded. "I think so. Every time the changelings had two ways of doing things they seemed to pick the crueler of the two options. If they'd wanted to hurt me, they could have just confessed that they'd killed Applejack if that was the truth. But the fact that they didn't makes me think…" hesitating again before continuing in a softer voice. "that somepony else got to her before they did."

Discord understood what she was saying. Applejack had vanished sometime during the reunion that had been made up of Apples and several disguised changelings. If the changelings hadn't captured and killed her ... that left only the Apples.





This conclusion left Fluttershy feeling torn. Should she go and tell Applejack's siblings and grandmother that their suspicions about the rest of their family had been right? Her head told her it was the honest thing to do, but her heart told her it would be like ripping open a freshly healed wound to destroy what little closure they now had. There was also the fact that Granny Smith might die soon. What if she died before Applejack's killer could be identified? Would it be kinder to let her die believing her family was innocent of Applejack's murder? Or to let her die knowing the truth?

At Discord's suggestion, they decided to continue investigating the Apple family in secret and tell nopony else at least not until they got some more information.

"If the killers think they're safe, they might get careless and make a slip," he reasoned.





A few days later they were packing up to head back to Fluttershy's cottage. Apart from her yarn and some of Angel's equipment, Fluttershy hadn't brought much with her, but after the ransacking the changelings had given the cabin she and Discord made a thorough search of the place to make sure everything was accounted for.

"Hello, what's this?" said Discord retrieving a vial and battered book from behind the bed.

"Oh, that's the potion Granny Smith gave me when we went to get those records from the rest of the Apple family," said Fluttershy, taking the vial from him. "And that's the book with the potion recipe in it, just in case I needed to make more."

"Hmm." Discord squinted at the book and began to flip curiously through it.

Fluttershy smiled wryly as she watched him. "But then we got snowed in by the blizzard and I never needed to use the potion after that." She lowered her head thinking, And according to Big Mac and Apple Bloom that "Apple Butter" disguise didn't fool many of their family members anyway. "I guess the changelings must have missed it. I forgot I even had it until now."

"Hold on, there's a page missing here. See?" Discord held the book out toward her. He was right. One of the book's pages had been torn out so neatly and carefully she could barely see the ragged edge near the book's spine. She never would have noticed it if it weren't for the book's page numbers.

"You suppose there was a clue on that page so the changelings ripped it out?" Discord mused.

Fluttershy frowned. "But ... why would they just take out one page and leave the rest of the book? It's not a very big or heavy one so it wouldn't be difficult to carry. Several of the ones they stole from us were much bigger."

"You do have a point there."

"I wonder if Granny Smith gave it to me, knowing that page was missing."





Once they were settled in at Fluttershy's cottage, they decided she would go to the hospital to question Granny Smith about the book's missing page while he set about recollecting information on the Apples so they could rebuild their suspect profiles. They hadn't been able to find any of the documents the changelings had stolen and were forced to conclude that the changelings must have burned them or otherwise destroyed them.

Apple Bloom and Big Mac were there when Fluttershy was let in to see Granny Smith. The old earth pony had tubes hooking her up to machines and she looked much paler and thinner than Fluttershy last remembered. Big Mac and Apple Bloom looked as if their grandmother's condition was putting a considerable strain on them as well.

Fluttershy greeted them before moving to the bedside. "Granny Smith?"

"Eh," the old pony said vaguely as she tried to focus on the pegasus beside her.

"Do you remember this book you gave me?" Fluttershy held up the potion book.

"Eh," the old pony nodded slightly.

"Well, did you know one of its pages is missing?"

"No, just saw it laying around. Figured it was Apple Bloom's."

At this, Apple Bloom moved to the bedside as well to get a better look at the book. "No, I never used that one. It's not mine."

Big Mac denied ever having seen it before as well.





If it doesn't belong to any of them, that means either Applejack brought it to the farm, or some other family member or friend must have brought it and left it by mistake, Fluttershy thought as she left the hospital. She headed in the direction of the library, intending to find out if it had a copy of the same book. It was probably a dead end but it couldn't hurt to find out what was on that missing page.

Twilight wasn't at the library but Spike was. "Hey, Fluttershy, what's going on?"

"Um, I wanted to see if the library had a copy of this book," said Fluttershy, holding it out to him.

Spike glanced over it. "Oh yeah. We got that one. I'll get it."

While he was scaling a ladder to reach the desired book, Rarity poked her head in the open door. "Hello?"

Fluttershy waved her in. "Come on in, Rarity. What brings you here?"

"Oh, I was just bringing something for Spike," Rarity jerked her head toward her saddlebags. "To make up for how I acted when—" she halted uncomfortably. "You know." She hesitated then asked, "Fluttershy, are you sure you're all right with letting that ... that ..." Rarity tried to come up with an appropriate word to call Discord then gave up. "Him staying with you?" The white unicorn knew her friend would often go to great lengths to be nice to somepony and this time she was worried Fluttershy might have bitten off more than she could chew just to please her ruler. "Are you sure you're not just doing it because Princess Celestia decided you should?"

"He saved my life Rarity," Fluttershy pointed out gently though she couldn't really blame her friend for being concerned. "I know what he did to you and Rainbow and Pinkie was wrong, but he's changed since then." Their conversation was interrupted as Spike joined them.

"Here's that book you wanted, Fluttershy," he said, holding it out to her. "Oh hi, Rarity. What's up?"

"Oh, I just wanted to give you this Sparkling Cider to make up for things earlier," said Rarity, levitating a fancy cider bottle out of her saddlebag.

"Sparkling Cider?" Fluttershy asked as she took the book.

"Yes, it's a brand I found out about several years ago," said Rarity. "It's quite good and very popular among high class ponies."

Spike covered his face uncomfortably. "I know this sounds disloyal but I actually think it's better than the stuff from Sweet Apple Acres."

"Well, that's understandable," said Rarity. "Considering it has gems mixed into it."

"Ahh," Fluttershy nodded absently as she flipped through the book to the correct page.

When she found it, she froze, staring at it. The memory of seeing Applejack in the market place for the last time flashed through her mind. Then she slammed the book shut, causing both Spike and Rarity to jump.

"Fluttershy—?" they both started to ask.

"I have to go," she said, flying out of the door with both books clutched in her hooves. She heard them calling after her, but she ignored them. If this new theory of hers turned out to be correct, she had to move fast. And she needed to share this information with Discord before sharing it with anypony else.

"Discord!" she panted as she burst into the cottage, but he wasn't there. She blew on the whistle he'd given her. It produced no sound, but he suddenly appeared in front of her, clutching his ears.

"That's it! I'm taking that whistle back!"

Fluttershy felt the whistle promptly vanish from her mouth and saw it reappear in Discord's hand. He tossed the whistle, string and all, into his mouth and crunched it like a potato chip before turning his attention back to her.

"Now, what can I do for you?" he asked brightly.

Fluttershy was still puffing from flying so fast. "I found out ... what was on ... that missing page," she panted, holding up the two books. "and Discord ... I think I know what happened to Applejack."
> Chapter 16. John 8:32
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 16
“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”—John 8:32




“We have to move fast,” said Fluttershy, turning back to the door. “We have to get to the Crystal Empire. I’ll explain on the—”

Discord’s hands closed on her shoulders and the cottage around them disappeared in a flash of light to be replaced by a field right outside the Crystal Empire.

“—way. Oh, um...” In her hurry, she’d briefly forgotten he could use that mode of travel, and suddenly finding herself in the intended destination left her feeling disoriented.

Discord let go of her shoulders, and turning to look at him, Fluttershy saw him tenting his fingers together as he eyed her expectantly. “Hmm?” He arched one shaggy brow, and the gesture seemed to bring Fluttershy back to reality. She flew up to hover near his head, glanced quickly about to make sure no one else was around, and began to whisper into his ear.



“All of these ingredients are pretty common,” said Fluttershy, looking down at the library book. Both she and Discord were currently in a tent he’d conjured for them on the field. Fluttershy was perched on a stylist chair in the middle of the tent, while Discord stood behind her with his crossed arms resting on the top of the chair’s backrest, and his long neck stretched over her shoulder. He was dressed in a sugar pink salon tunic that looked doubly odd with his tattoos emerging out from under it.

“Most ponies could find or buy them easily,” Fluttershy went on. “Except this one: powdered gemstones. Beating them into powder is hard work, so that will narrow our search down.”

“Well, let’s get to it then.” Discord straightened up and walked around in front of her, making a show of frowning and measuring off her face with his hands. “Are you sure you want the complete makeover?” he joked. “Because I just doubt if I have the heart.”

“Please just do it, Discord.” She had gotten used to his habit of teasing before actually buckling down to do the job, but this time she felt they really did need to hurry.

“Well, the customer is always right,” he said in a mock regretful voice before cracking his knuckles. It only took him a few finger snaps to turn her eyes a light sky blue, her mane and tail a soft green, and her coat a pale lavender.

Moving to her side, he pulled a comb from his tunic pocket and began to run it through her mane. With each stroke it changed the light green strands from straight to curly. Then he pulled a tube from the pocket of his salon tunic and squirted a lavender-colored paste into his paw. He began to smear it over the bandages on her forehead.

“What does that do?” Fluttershy asked.

In response he snapped his talons and a mirror appeared floating a little to the left and in front of him. Looking into it, Fluttershy saw that where the paste was now smeared over the bandages they had the same color and texture as her now-lavender coat. Once all the bandages were covered nopony would even know they were there.

“Hold still.” said Discord. “I’m going to try and be careful but this is probably going to hurt anyway.”

Fluttershy held still but she couldn’t help wincing as he rubbed the paste over her neck to help conceal the bruises that still showed even through her new coat color. When he was finished, she looked back at her reflection. He’d done a good job. She hardly recognized herself.

“Oh, almost forgot.” He stepped back around her, and gave her a light slap on her left hindquarter, right where her cutie mark was located. The slap hadn’t been hard enough to hurt but it startled her enough to make her squeak. Before she could recover from her shock, he repeated the gesture on her other side. Looking down, she saw that he’d altered the butterflies on her hindquarters so that they now looked more like flowers.



Shortly afterward a lavender-colored pegasus, who when asked her name answered with Wisteria, began making her way through the Crystal Empire, stopping at jeweler after jeweler, asking where she could buy powdered gemstones or pay to have the jewels she’d brought with her ground up.

“Excuse me,” she said, walking into the latest jeweler’s store. A pale pink crystal pony and a periwinkle blue unicorn looked up from behind the counter at her. The lavender pegasus ducked her head, causing her curly mane to tumble down either side of her face before she looked back up. “Um, I was wondering if you sell powdered gemstones here.”

The crystal pony jeweler shook her head. “No, sorry. We don’t sell any powdered ones here.”

“Oh, well ... do you have anything that could grind up these jewels I brought with me?” Wisteria asked, opening her saddlebag to reveal several gemstones.

The jeweler peered down at them, then shook her head. “Nope. We have instruments for cutting gems but not for grinding them I’m afraid. Sorry.”

“Well, thanks anyway.”

Wisteria turned to go back outside when the unicorn suddenly called out to her.

“Wait, hold on! I just remembered someplace you could probably get powdered gemstones. Amberlocks’ Orchards.”

Wisteria turned back to her. “Amberlocks’ Orchards?”

The unicorn nodded. “They use powdered gemstones in their Sparkling Cider.”

Sparkling Cider! The name sent bells clanging in Wisteria’s head as she remembered Spike and Rarity mentioning it before she’d raced from the library. Rarity had said that the cider had gemstones in it, but Wisteria had only been half-listening at the time and couldn’t remember if Rarity had mentioned the gems being powdered or not.

“Oh, that’s right,” said the crystal pony. “I forgot about them, but it’s true they do buy a lot of gems from both us and other jewelers that they then grind up for their cider. Maybe if you go to them, you could pay them to grind up your jewels or get them to sell you the powdered ones without mixing them into the cider.”

Wisteria moved back over to the counter. “Can you tell me more about this Amberlocks’ Orchards?”



The periwinkle unicorn ended up guiding Wisteria to the place. Apparently the orchard had been started about eight or nine years ago on the outskirts of the Crystal Empire and had been doing good business since then. When the two ponies reached a hill overlooking the orchard, Wisteria noticed that the apple trees in it didn’t seem to be crystal ones but regular ones. Though it was hard to tell for sure since winter had currently stripped them of all their fruit and leaves. Still even though there were no apples to harvest, the orchard was full of ponies, both crystal and ordinary, loading what appeared to be crates of cider onto carts.

“Which one is the owner you mentioned? Amberlocks?” Wisteria asked the unicorn.

“That one over there, directing the crate-moving,” said the unicorn, pointing to one of the crystal ponies.

As Wisteria studied that particular pony, she noticed that Amberlocks’s name was a bit of a misnomer. Her braided tail and short mane weren’t amber but a silvery white, and her coat was much closer to gold than to amber.

“She’d probably be the best one to talk to about your powdered gemstones,” said the unicorn. “Though she can be a little hard to get a hold of. Keeps to herself mostly. Shall I go try and introduce you to her?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Wisteria said quickly. “I’ll just wait here and introduce myself to her when she’s a bit less busy.”

“You sure? It’s no trouble.”

“No, you’ve done more than enough. Thank you.” Wisteria managed to keep her voice and manner pleasant but inside she was vibrating with nervous tension. If she wanted to find out if her theory was true, she had to time her meeting with Amberlocks just right.

“You’re sure?” the unicorn repeated, frowning at her.

“Yes, I’m sure. Thank you.”

The unicorn studied Wisteria for a few seconds more, then she shrugged dismissively. “Okay, if that’s how you want to do it.”



As soon as the unicorn left, Wisteria flew up onto a cloud above the orchard. The sun had started setting by then and the orchard’s employees had started leaving. However, there were still far too many of them around Amberlocks for Wisteria to want to risk confronting her. She had to be sure the crystal pony was completely alone to test her theory. Wisteria lay down on her stomach on the cloud and as soon as she settled a tiny draconequus swung out of her curly mane and landed beside her, leaning against one of her forehooves. They’d decided earlier when searching for powdered gemstone suppliers that one pony would attract less attention than two of them, so Discord had opted to ride along, hidden in her mane.

“Did you catch everything we were talking about?” the disguised pegasus asked.

“I did indeed.” Because he’d shrunk himself down so small, Fluttershy had expected his voice to come out in a high-pitched squeak and was surprised to hear instead the same baritone he had at his usual size. He disappeared in a tiny flash of light and Fluttershy rested her head on the cloud, watching the ponies below her, and waiting for him to return. About a minute later a tuft of the cloud detached itself from the rest and wafted through the air to bump Fluttershy right between the eyes. Before she could brush it away, it suddenly transformed into Discord, still tiny enough that he could cross his arms on top of her nose.

“I’m pleased to report that my reconnaissance was a success,” he stated in a mock officious voice. “And lookie what I found in old Amberlocks’s house,” he added in a singsong voice as he pointed in front of Fluttershy. A small pile of drying apple peelings, and a bottle identical to the ones that had been arriving yearly at Sweet Apple Acres appeared there.

Fluttershy felt her breath catch at the sight of those items. Don’t get too excited, the small voice in her head warned. It is an apple orchard after all. The fact that there might be a lot of drying apple peels lying around might not mean that much. And you said yourself that those particular bottles are sold all over Equestria...


“Something on your mind?” the tiny draconequus flew backward to see her whole face more clearly.

Fluttershy sighed. “Oh, I’m just wondering... What if I’m wrong? What if my whole theory turns out to be wrong?”

Discord studied her, then flashed the bottle and apple peelings away before disappearing again.

“Discord—?” she started to ask then gasped as an unseen force suddenly wrapped around her and pulled her backward. She started to struggle against the unseen force, but halted when she heard Discord’s voice right next to her ear.

“Don’t worry, Fluttershy. It’s just me.”

She was pulled down onto her side and now she recognized his familiar arms, one furred and the other scaled, wrapped around her and his chest pressing into her back. Looking down at where his arms should have been, she saw nothing, and looking over her shoulder at where the rest of him should have been, she saw nothing there as well.

“Discord? What are you doing? Why can’t I see you?”

“How else am I supposed to hold you without attracting the attention of any nearby ponies? Gorgeous as I am, ponies just can’t help noticing me. A fact that I’m ordinarily extremely proud of. Tonight however...”

He trailed off and Fluttershy suddenly felt him nuzzle her cheek. She let out a small surprised giggle, and raised her shoulder, pressing her cheek down against it in reflex. The nuzzling had been unexpected but not unpleasant or unwel—

Wait a minute; does he not have his nose rings? Before she could be sure, he’d pulled his head back away from hers. She reached her forelegs out in the direction his muzzle had moved.

“Where are you?” she asked, groping at the air with her hooves. He must have lowered his head back down toward hers because after a few seconds of feeling only empty air she found his beard, found his chin, found his fang, then found his muzzle. As her hoof brushed over his muzzle, which had the same velvety texture as her own, she found that she hadn’t been mistaken. The rings he normally wore in his nose as well as the one in his lower lip did indeed seem to be missing. His eagle arm shifted around her and she felt his taloned fingers brush her now-curly mane back from her face. His other arm pulled her close and as her back pressed against his invisible body she wondered if he was still covered with the coils of a certain tattoo. If not, was that why he didn’t want to risk any ponies nearby seeing him?

“Try to get some rest, Fluttershy,” he murmured. “Our best bet for catching Amberlocks alone is first thing in the morning tomorrow. We’ll worry about whether or not you’re right then.” He started to pull his muzzle back out of her hooves, but she tightened her hold on him.

“Wait.” Wrapping her forelegs around his muzzle, she leaned in until her cheek encountered his invisible one. She felt his facial muscles twitch but couldn’t tell what expression was currently on his face. “Discord, whatever happens tomorrow, I just want you to know that ... well ... I’ve enjoyed working with you.”

I’ve enjoyed working with you. The words seemed to echo in his head. They were ones he had never expected to have directed at him. He was the epitome of chaos and disharmony for crying out loud! Those concepts were the most important things in the world to him! He was supposed to inflict them on other creatures, not work alongside those other creatures!

Then he felt his breath catch as Fluttershy gently rubbed her cheek against his. I do like causing chaos and disharmony! he insisted to himself. I really, really, really do like it! Then in a much more subdued tone came the thought: But I kind of like this too.


Fluttershy’s grip on his muzzle loosened and, grateful that she couldn’t see any of the expressions currently at war on his face, he pulled his muzzle gently out of her grasp. “Try to get some rest, Fluttershy,” he repeated.

As she closed her eyes, Fluttershy thought about tomorrow and how she would confront Amberlocks.



It was strange for Fluttershy to wake the next day and find herself snuggled up against nothing at all. She could feel Discord’s arm draped over her and his chest pressing into her back, but when she raised her head to look behind her only a long shallow furrow in the cloud indicated that there was someone lying there.

She felt her way up his arm until she found his shoulder and shook it. “Discord, are you awake?”

There was a grunt nearby, the arm lifted from her, and the furrow behind her shifted, getting shallower in some places and deeper in others. “I am now.”

Suddenly their surroundings disappeared, and Fluttershy found herself sitting on an enormous tree branch with Discord beside her, now visible with his face pierced and his body tattooed. Looking around, Fluttershy realized that Discord had teleported them down into the orchard and shrunk them down so that nopony would notice them. Looking down at herself, she saw that her coat was pale yellow once again and the locks of hair that fell down on either side of her face were straight and pale pink instead of curly and pale green. Quickly checking herself over, she saw that all the rest of her disguise was gone as well.

The two partners hadn’t had breakfast yet, so at Fluttershy’s request, Discord conjured some peanut butter-and-pickle sandwiches for them. As they ate, they watched both the house and surrounding orchard for any sign of Amberlocks or any other pony. Fluttershy would raise her head and scan the area in between bites of sandwich, while Discord had simply sprouted an extra head to monitor the area while the other head focused on eating. As it ate, this head also observed Fluttershy and noticed that she was drawing in deep breaths through her nose and letting them back out again in equally deep exhalations.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“Some,” she admitted. “I know I’ll only be talking to one pony, but I feel like I’m about to go out in front of a bunch of them. And I was pretty sure of my theory yesterday but now... I’m still afraid of turning out to be wrong.”

Discord reached over and put his paw on her back. Still watching the area around them with one head, he leaned the other one down close to her. “You know you’re not going to be completely alone,” he said, his voice not quite a whisper but considerably softer than it normally was. “You won’t see me, but I’ll be with you. Just like last night.”

“Thanks Discord, I appreciate that.” Smiling her gratitude at him, she reached over her shoulder and patted his arm before going back to her sandwich.

Just as they were finishing up their sandwiches, Amberlocks stepped out of her house and trotted down toward the orchard.

“Now,” Fluttershy whispered as the crystal pony passed underneath them.

Discord thumped his two heads together, causing them to merge back into one. Snapping his fingers, he teleported Fluttershy down behind the tree, changing her back to her regular size at the same time. Peeking around the tree, Fluttershy now saw Amberlocks standing with her back to her, watching the path for any sign of orchard employees.

Fluttershy drew in a deep breath and let it out. Time to find out if my theory is right.


Checking the bandages on her head, and pulling her scarf down to expose her bruised throat, she walked quickly but quietly up to the crystal pony, took in a second deep breath...

And spoke the two words she’d been psyching herself up to say all last night.

“Hello, Applejack.”
> 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.
> Chapter 18. 1 Corinthians 13:8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Love never fails.”—1 Corinthians 13:8





The next morning Fluttershy woke to find her mane all tangled around her head and neck, which was strange considering that the night before she’d taken care to arrange it specifically so that it wouldn’t tangle, but at the moment she had more important things to think about than that little mystery. Namely, Applejack’s return! Even now, after her theory had been proven correct, Fluttershy was still adjusting to the fact that a friend she’d believed dead for the past ten years had secretly been alive all that time. What must those years have been like for Applejack? Fluttershy couldn’t imagine just leaving her friends with no word of explanation, even if it was for their own protection.

Then she thought of the creatures that had been the cause of Applejack’s decision to go into hiding in the first place. Had they indeed been part-changeling, part-windigo? It would certainly explain a lot but there was no way to know for sure until Twilight finished examining them. Her earlier tests had been hampered by the fact that the bodies had been badly burned, but the part-windigo theory had given her new ideas on how to test them for windigo essence. Then more disturbing questions popped into Fluttershy’s head. If the changelings were part-windigo, how had they gotten that way? Where had they come from? Why had they killed those first six ponies? And what if there were more of them out there? The fact that nothing had attempted to attack her or the rest of her friends after those two changelings had been killed seemed to indicate that they had been the only ones out there, but the thought of there still being more of them filled Fluttershy with unease.

Suddenly she found herself longing for Discord’s embrace. They had known each other for such a short time compared to her other friends, and yet his touch was the one she seemed to crave the most. Then she remembered mentioning the day before that helping her find Applejack might mean he could be trusted enough now to go where he chose. She knew she should be glad at the opportunity to give him his freedom, and she was, but at the same time she now felt an unexpected twinge of sadness at the thought of no longer seeing him every day. She hadn’t realized until then just how much she would miss his company.

Going into the main room in search of a comb for her tangled mane, she saw Discord draped bonelessly over the couch, looking more like a wet sock than the master of chaos. He didn’t wake up when she passed him, but his dragon tattoo suddenly raised its head, tugging itself free from the side of Discord’s neck in the process, and watched her. As Fluttershy reached the opposite end of the room, the tattoo lowered its head, melted back down through its owner’s coat and into his skin, and, still watching Fluttershy, let out a contented sigh. This sent a whoosh of inky flames shooting out of its mouth and over Discord’s neck. The wasp tattoos all swarmed up away from the flames to the base of his skull, buzzing loudly. That buzzing seemed to act as an alarm because the draconequus jerked awake with a startled cry, and briefly thrashed about before falling off the couch.

Startled by the noise, Fluttershy whirled around to see him now sprawled on the floor with what seemed to be a long line of singed hair on the side of his neck near his dragon tattoo’s head.

“Oh my goodness. Discord, what happened?” She hurried over to him, and reached gingerly toward the burn on his neck, but before she could touch it, the draconequus flashed himself off the floor and up into a standing position.

“Oh, nothing,” he said breezily before grasping the edge of the burned patch and tugging on it. The scorched area peeled off like dried glue, exposing unscorched fur underneath. The wasp tattoos drifted back down onto the sides of his neck, buzzing in a grumbling sort of way. Wadding the strip of burned hair up into a ball, Discord glanced back down at Fluttershy. “Did you do something new with your mane? I like it that way.”

Fluttershy blushed though she wasn’t quite sure if it was from pleasure that he had complimented her mane, or embarrassment at what a fright it was at the time. “Oh no, it just got all tangled up somehow, and I was trying to find a comb to fix it.”

She started to turn away from him, but his paw stopped her. “If you must insist on ruining this exquisite example of chaos…” His look was regretful, but his eyes playful. “Then allow me.”

The couch shot forward and Discord plonked down on it with Fluttershy on his lap. A mirror flashed into existence in front of them and Discord angled Fluttershy’s face toward it.

“Hold still now.” He flipped all of her tangled mane up into a mound on top of her head. With her neck now exposed, she noticed that the bruises there had gone greenish. Not an appealing color, but better than the dark purple they had been for the past several days.

Discord skimmed his talons over her bandages. “While we’re at it, let’s change these bandages.” He conjured some fresh bandages before sliding one of his talons under the bandages on her head, and bringing his fingers together like a pair of scissors, cutting the bandages.

“Wait, hold on Discord,” said Fluttershy after he’d pulled the bandages off. Leaning closer to the mirror, she turned her head to get a better look at the stitches on its left side. “I think these stitches can come out now.”

Discord repeated his scissor-fingers movement on the stitches and gently pulled them out before smearing Fluttershy’s mane down so that it was once again growing out of the bare scalp where the scar was. “There we go.”

Then he leaned back and began twisting his fingers into her tangled mane. As Fluttershy watched in the mirror, she noticed that he seemed to be tying her mane into even more knots rather than untangling it, but decided not to question this.

“Discord, I was planning to go see how the others are doing, and find out when they’re throwing Applejack’s Welcome Back Party.”

“Mm-hmm.”

She frowned at his disinterested tone. Because of the way the mirror in front of her was positioned, his image cut off just a bit above his shoulders, preventing her from seeing his expression. She started to turn her head to look over her shoulder at him.

“Whoop, hold still,” he warned just before she felt a sharp tug on her scalp. Deciding that it was probably best not to twist about too much when his hands were buried in her mane, she resumed her original position.





When she had mentioned the other ponies and a party, Discord’s brain normally would have started musing on ways to stir things up, but at the moment the big thing on his mind was his feelings for Fluttershy. He couldn’t remember exactly how he’d fallen asleep after realizing that he was in love with her, but the next thing he knew he was sprawled on the floor with the object of his affection gazing down at him. He had felt flustered after being jolted awake in such a way and had quickly tried to cover this by acting casual. Or at least his idea of casual. When he’d gotten her in his lap, he had considered just blurting out his feelings for her right then and there, but then he’d remembered her reaction when he’d jokingly sprung that “I love you, marry me” statement on her and he hesitated.

What if she reacts the same way?


He considered this troubling thought for about two seconds before dismissing it with a mental snort. Oh, please. She was just startled, that was all. Still, he decided it would probably be better to ease her into things this time around and make it clear he wasn’t joking. But how to ease her into it?

That had never been his strongest point, and trying to figure it out with her sitting right there on his lap was proving to be harder than he thought. By then he’d turned her mane into a hopelessly snarled mess and leaned back a bit further to study his work. Then he suddenly pulled on a chunk of knotted hair and Fluttershy reflexively shut her eyes, bracing herself for a painful tug. But the tug turned out to be much gentler than she expected and the next moment she felt her mane fall down around her. Opening her eyes, she saw that her mane was now completely detangled.

She knew that she should have been used to him doing that sort of thing by now, but she couldn’t help asking, “How’d you do that?”

“Trade secret, my dear. Trade secret.”





Later that day Discord teleported the two of them to Carousel Boutique—the first place on Fluttershy’s list of places to visit that day—but made no move to follow Fluttershy when she started to go inside.

She looked back at him questioningly. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

“No, you go ahead and have fun with your friends. I’ll be fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure...” Fluttershy had just started to turn back toward the boutique’s door when Discord suddenly scooped her up and pressed his forehead against hers so that they were eyeball to eyeball.

“I’ll just be waiting for you back at the cottage,” His eyes narrowed, and his voice took on a sly tone. “With a surprise.”

Fluttershy frowned at him, causing his shaggy eyebrows to tickle against her forehead. “Discord, what are you—?”

His eyes lost their seductive look and his voice shifted back to its more light-hearted tone. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough, my dear. Now run along.” With that, he kissed her right on the nose with a comically loud “mwah!” before setting her down and disappearing.

For several seconds Fluttershy just stared at the spot where he’d been standing. There had been no mistaking it that time. He really had kissed her! But why? Had he just meant it as a joke? The exaggerated smooching sound he’d made seemed to indicate that.





Discord reappeared at the cottage. All right! he thought, clapping his hands together. Let’s do this!


He’d hoped that being away from Fluttershy for a bit would help him come up with a way to tell her his feelings. Let’s see, how do ponies go about doing this sort of thing? Then he laughed at the absurdity of the question. What do I care how ponies do this sort of thing? I’m not a pony!

But how do you do this sort of thing? a little voice in his head sneered. You’ve never been in love before.


Hmm. He’d have to think on that some more. Even after the time he’d spent with Fluttershy, he was still so accustomed to stirring up disharmony and getting under ponies’ skin, that the concept of liking a pony, let alone being in love with one, was strange to him. Admittedly the fact that, in pony years he might very well be old enough to be her many-times-great grandfather did not bother him. He hadn’t lied to her when he’d told her he didn’t know whether he was mortal or immortal, nor what his lifespan would be if he was the former. The centuries he had spent as a statue had thrown whatever lifespan he might have had completely out of whack, and he wasn’t sure if it had ever been completely in whack to begin with.





When Fluttershy went into the boutique, she heard Rarity’s voice coming indistinctly from one of the dressing rooms. She wondered if Apple Bloom had come in that day, but when she peeked in the dressing room, she saw that the pony Rarity was talking to wasn’t Apple Bloom, but Big Mac.

“Oh, Fluttershy, just the pony we wanted to see. How are you?” Rarity asked, suddenly noticing her.

“I’m doing all right. I just came to see how you were doing then I was going to head over to Sugar Cube Corner to see how Pinkie’s doing with the party planning.”

“Actually the party’s been postponed, at least for today.”

“Oh, why?”

“Well, Applejack and Twilight went back to the Crystal Empire today to sort things out with Amberlocks’ Orchards. Applejack has quite a lot of employees who depend on her now so she can’t just abandon the orchard and go back to Sweet Apple Acres. Then there’s also the changeling information Applejack’s been collecting. Since she never found a potion to see through changeling disguises, Twilight thought it would be a good idea to have one, especially if there are any more of those transparent ones around. If they’re really part-windigo, a potion that would reveal regular changelings might not work on them even if it does exist.”

Fluttershy frowned. “Wait a minute, you weren’t there when Applejack mentioned that. How did you know about her theory that they were part-windigo?”

“Oh, Twilight told me before she and Applejack left. She also told Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie so they went off to put the rest of Equestria on alert for signs of any more transparent changelings.

“Oh, by the way, Big Mac wanted to talk to you about something.” Rarity gave the big stallion a light nudge before trotting out of the dressing room. She winked at Fluttershy as she passed the pegasus. Fluttershy watched her go curiously before turning her attention back to Big Mac. He looked extremely nervous, shuffling his large hooves, and swallowing repeatedly.

Fluttershy tried to put him at ease by smiling encouragingly. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I-was-wondering-if-you’d-go-out-for-lunch-with-me,” he said in one quick breath quite unlike the usual drawl he spoke in when he bothered to use more than one-word replies.

Wha—? Fluttershy’s eyes went wide. Was he asking her out on a date?! She’d never even thought he was interested in her.

“I...” She wasn’t sure how she intended to reply, but as she looked at him, and saw just how much effort it had taken him to ask her out, she heard her mouth say, “Sure.”





Meanwhile in Fluttershy’s cottage, Discord was doing some remodeling for Fluttershy’s return, trying to make it look as romantic as possible. Angel Bunny had crawled off to hide under Fluttershy’s bed as that was the only place Discord didn’t touch with his magic. Redecorating the place didn’t take more than a few quick finger snaps; the problem was that the draconequus kept changing his mind, then changing it back when it came to how he wanted the place to look. He had tried something conventional like a ballroom one might see in Canterlot, but he couldn’t look at it long without wanting to flip everything askew. He had tried making it look like a peaceful garden but many of the plants came out looking distinctly carnivorous. And were carnivorous, and distinctly ill-mannered at that. They had taken some dealing with. Once that was done, he even changed the place to look like his idea of the perfect room with non-Euclidean angles and designs. But as pleasing as he found it, he couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that Fluttershy might find it uncomfortable, a feeling he normally thrived on inspiring in others, but not this time, and not with this pony.

“Oh, I give up!” Changing the room back to normal, he flung himself backward onto the couch in a fit of indecision. Glancing down at his long body, he suddenly noticed that the tattoo ordinarily coiling around it from neck to tail had disappeared sometime during his remodeling. He quickly checked the rest of his body, found it to be tattoo-free as well, and, giving his face a quick rubbing-over with his hands, discovered that his piercings and the jewelry in them were also gone.

Hmm, maybe it would be better that way. Maybe he shouldn’t try to make things so complicated. Maybe he should just tell her his feelings as he was now, without his ... coverings between them.





Fluttershy and Big Mac were seated at a table outside a fancy restaurant Rarity had suggested, looking over their menus. Fluttershy frowned behind hers.

What is wrong with me? The friend I thought was dead for ten years is back. I’m at a nice restaurant on a date with a stallion any mare would love to go out with. ... I should be the happiest mare in Equestria right now! ... But I’m not.


She glanced quickly around her, trying to figure out what was wrong.

It wasn’t the restaurant. Was it the fact that she was out on a date? When it came to such things, Fluttershy had often thought it might be nice to have a special somepony, but she’d always been too shy to ever make a move. She had never really been attracted to any particular stallion, but she had always harbored a vague image, little more than an outline, of what she felt would be the perfect one for her.

Her eyes flicked to Big Mac and only then did she realize that over the past several weeks that vague outline had become clearer and bolder.

Oh my goodness! Fluttershy ducked back behind her menu, her eyes wide. Oh my goodness! Am I ... am I…?

At one time, a stallion like Big Mac might have fit easily into that outline ... but now that outline had a long serpentine body and mismatched limbs.

Am I in love with Discord?!

Of course she knew that she loved him as a friend. After all they’d been through, there was no doubt of that, but she had never really thought of him as more than that. At least not on a conscious level. She had realized earlier that she’d miss Discord’s company if he left, but only now when faced with the possibility of dating another stallion did she also realize Discord was the one she wanted to have that position in her life.

She peeked over her menu at Big Mac again. He still looked as nervous and uncomfortable as he had when he’d first asked her out, which made Fluttershy feel rather sorry for him. But at the same time, she kept thinking: I don’t want to be here with you. I want to be with Discord.


She didn’t want to hurt the big stallion after he’d worked up the courage to ask her out, but in her heart she knew she had to make her feelings clear to him. Gathering her courage, she laid her menu down.

“Big Mac, do you really want to be here?”

His head jerked up, and, though he didn’t speak, the look in his eyes clearly said ‘Nope.’

Fluttershy kept her voice gentle. “Then why did you ask me out? Weren’t you going out with that teacher, Cheerilee?”

Big Mac looked down at the table. “I was, but then Applejack disappeared and I didn’t have time to date because I had to take over most of her chores.”

“Then why did you ask me out instead of going to see Cheerilee now that Applejack’s back?”

Big Mac looked embarrassed. “It was Rarity’s idea. I went to ask her what would be a good way to thank you for finding Applejack, and she said you’d like something like this.”

“But you don’t feel right about this because you don’t like me that way, and you don’t want to lead me on?”

He looked up to meet her gaze and nodded with a guilty “Yup.”

Suddenly relief flooded Fluttershy. “That’s all right, Big Mac.” A smile tugged at her mouth. “I like you as a friend, but I actually only said ‘yes’ to this because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings by saying ‘no.’ And all this time I’ve been worried about leading you on as well.”

Then the irony of the whole situation hit the two ponies and they burst out laughing. Here they were, trying to go through with this date to spare each other’s feelings, only to discover that being dumped was exactly what they both wanted.

“Friends then,” said Fluttershy, reaching across the table as she got her laughter under control. “Just two good friends celebrating the return of another good friend.”

“Eeyup,” said Big Mac, reaching across the table as well to lightly touch her hoof with his own larger one.





I can’t wait any longer! Discord flashed himself out of the cottage and began popping from place to place throughout Ponyville, looking for Fluttershy. Yes, he’d said he’d wait for her to get back to the cottage, but now he felt that if he kept his love for her a secret any longer he’d explode both figuratively and literally.

Once you find her, just snatch her up from wherever she is and tell her how you feel! Tell her you’re crazy about her, and that you don’t want to leave! Oh, where is she, where is she, where is she?!


Then he spotted her down below, sitting at a table, outside a restaurant ... holding hooves… with Big Mac.

The draconequus felt his whole body go rigid at the sight, and he hung there suspended in midair. The two ponies were looking at each other, smiling and laughing together in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.

The pain was greater than anything he could have imagined. As Fluttershy smiled at Big Mac, Discord suddenly wanted nothing more than to flash down there between them and literally reduce that stallion to jelly.

Then what are you waiting for?! You could do it in under a second! Go on! Do it! Do it! Do it!

But this new pain seemed to have paralyzed him.

Then Fluttershy reached across the table toward Big Mac. Unable to watch them any longer, Discord wrenched his gaze away. In a daze, he teleported back to Fluttershy’s cottage. When he materialized in her main room, he felt a sharp pain in his tail and snapped his head around to see that his tail had materialized through the back of the couch. He’d been so preoccupied he’d forgotten the couch was there. He teleported forward a few feet and rubbed at his now-intact tail. The pain in it faded quickly but the same could not be said for the pain in his heart.

He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but he had simply taken it for granted that Fluttershy would be thrilled that someone like him, with the power to alter reality with just a snap of his fingers, could have feelings for a pony such as her. He had been so caught up in this new sensation of being in love that the idea of Fluttershy preferring some plain ordinary stallion over him had never even entered his head. Nor had he ever thought that such an idea would hurt so much.

When they’d first met, he had spent multiple days trying to break her without success. Instead she had opened him up with her kindness ... only to now break him in a way he had never seen coming.

Well played, Fluttershy. he thought bitterly, shaking his head and choking out a short humorless laugh quite unlike his usual one. Oh Discord, what a fool you are.

As his head drooped lower, the loose ends of the scarf Fluttershy had given him swung down into his line of vision. Then he felt the familiar ink shooting up his back. With his eyes burning, he tore the scarf off his neck, wadded it into a ball, and hurled it into the trash before vanishing in a flash of light. In the split-second before he disappeared, the first tear fell from his eye to splash on the wooden floor.
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy’s lunch with Big Mac ended quickly, and they parted ways amiably. Big Mac went to find Cheerilee, to explain things to her, and prevent any rumors about his and Fluttershy’s relationship. Fluttershy in the meantime decided to go back to her cottage. There might not be a party to look forward to that day, but there was that surprise Discord had mentioned.

“Discord?” she called as she went into her cottage.

No answer.

“Discord? Discord?”

Still no answer.

“Discord, if you’re trying to pull some kind of joke, this isn’t funny.” Still there was no answer nor any sign of him.

“Are you trying to play hide-and-seek with me?”

No answer.

Sighing, she started looking under the furniture and into corners Discord would ordinarily have been much too big to fit into. All the while she wondered if he would suddenly pop into existence and startle her.

She went into her bedroom, peeked under the bed.

“Angel? What are you doing under there? Have you seen Discord?”

The old bunny crawled out from under the bed and pointed out the door, indicating that was where he’d last seen the draconequus.

Fluttershy frowned in the direction he’d pointed, but then she thanked him, and—thinking he would be more comfortable on top of her bed rather than under it—picked him up, and put him there, before going back out of the bedroom to continue searching for her partner. As she searched, she kept calling his name but was met with silence each time.

“Discord?” she asked in a much more uncertain tone as she started checking through the kitchen cupboards. Then something colorful sticking out of the trash caught her eye, and she hurried over to see what it was. There wadded up on top of the garbage was the colorful scarf she had given Discord.

Seeing it there, Fluttershy felt as if she’s just been punched in the chest.

When they’d first started working together she’d suspected that he might be softening her up for a cruel blow later on. But nothing had prepared her for this.

He had never taken that scarf off since she had given it to him. The fact that it had been tossed in the trash could mean only one thing; Discord was gone and he didn’t intend on coming back.

Pulling the scarf from the trash, she clung to it as the tears started to fall.

Meanwhile, outside the cottage, several part-pony, part-insectile creatures—all semitransparent and nearly invisible in the dimming light—hovered just over the roof, feeding off the sorrow emanating from the pony underneath it.





“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”—1 Corinthians 13:13