> Crash landing > by EmeraldRing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > The crash > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy glided gently through the cobalt sky as Celestia's golden sun sparkled down on the timid Pegasus' wings, casting a shadow on the lush shamrock coloured grass below her. A few stray clouds littered the pale sky, casting small shadows of their own. Yes, she loved her afternoon flights (even though she never flew very high at all). A gentle breeze brushed her soft, feathered wings. The buttermilk mare had just finished delivering food and supplies to the ponyville animals and was rather tired, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy looking after her animals (and all the wild ones). She was surrounded by the most beautiful birds who accompanied her: goldcrests, collared doves, lapwings and jays. When all of a sudden her birds chirped loudly and flew away, frightened by something unseen. Scared, Fluttershy whipped around to see if anything was there "Hello?" She cried out, hoping it was nothing, she couldn't see anything that could pose a threat to her or her animals and nopony had answered her call. Then she heard it. "Fluttershy... Flutter...shy" At that Fluttershy panicked, nothing was there, but she had definitely heard 'it' calling her name. Normally Fluttershy would run/fly straight to her cottage, but not this time, she was not thinking clearly and all she could think was that she had to fly as fast as her wings could carry her (which was surprisingly fast). When she accidentally flew all the way into the Everfree forest. She pushed her wings to their limit. She needed to be above the tree tops or else a timberwolf (or something equally as terrifying) might snap at her and she could be lunch. The yellow pegasus shuddered at the thought. Discord sat in his castle of chaos, he was bored. He had already flown all over the world and had done everything he could think of and now had nothing to do, so he decided he would visit his one good friend Fluttershy. He snapped his talons and, in a flash, was at Flutter's sweet little cottage. When he called out for her and got no reply he realised that she wasn't there and growled in frustration, he new that she was probably taking care of her animals. Discord figured that none of his other 'friends' would like to see him so he teleported back to his castle, and drunk some chocolate milk to make him feel better. Fluttershy suddenly realised how deep she had flown into the Everfree forest and yelped, she was going to turn back when she heard it again. "Fluttershy... Flutt...er...shy" She screamed. Fluttershy decided that the best thing to do was to keep flying. Her small, delicate wings weren't used to all of this flying which caused one of them to falter while she was flying over Discord's castle. She fell. She screamed. She crashed. Discord heard a crash in the left wing of his castle and quickly teleported over to where the sound had come from, hoping that it wasn't another mail 'accident', Discord thought, groaning as he remembered last time, when a wardrobe fell from the sky. He gasped in shock at what he saw. Fluttershy lay on the ground, her soft rosy mane sprawled over her face, filled with pieces of rubble, one of her wings was caught in an awkward position, so was one of her legs, and she was covered in cuts and bruises. She was still breathing, fortunately, but was unconscious, unfortunately he was oblivious to what had happened before the crash. Discord teleported her freinds over. They needed to know and see this. "Ahhhh" Fluttershy's friends screamed when they caught sight of their best fried lying on the floor, looking like she was near death. Rainbow, who was very protective of Flutters, jumped to the conclusion that this was all Discord's fault. "Alright, why did you do this to Flutters you big bully. I'm gonna pound you for this" Rainbow flew up so tha she was eye level with the innocent Discord who immediately had to dodged a punch from the angered, cyan pegasus . "Hey! It wasn't me. She crashed through my roof and I thought that you might want to see her, so that we can help her get better, sheesh" Discord cried out in his defence after recovering. "He might be right Rainbow, look at the hole in his roof, and he did bring us here, didn't he" Twilight said to Rainbow, who was slowly landing back on all fours. "I...guess" Rainbow Dash said suspiciously. "I can use a healing spell on her, but I don't know if she will wake up" Discord said hopefully. "Well then what are yer waitin for" Applejack cried out while stomping her hoof for emphasis. With that Discord hurriedly snapped his talons and all of the cuts and bruises on the half dead mare vanished (her wing and leg were fine as well). After removing any pieces of debris from her mane and tail, Rarity alway had multiple hairbrushes on her, Discord teleported them all back to Fluttershy's cottage and laid the silent and petrified pegasus on her bed and tucked her under the butterfly patterned quilt. When the others questioned him as to why they weren't in a hospital, he would simply say that she was healed, just sleeping and that nothing could happen to her, but he did put a protection spell on her room. She would need help eating, of course, but that wouldn't be to difficult considering that she would still swallow if food was put in her mouth, same with water, but it had to be soup. All of Flutter's friends decided that they would take turns watching her, even Discord. Now all they have to do is wait. > Dream World > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy looked around, this wasn't the Everfree forest, or Discord's castle. all around her was a musky brown ground that seemed to go on forever and the sky was no longer a deep blue but was the darkest black she had ever seen. The shy mare squinted her eyes but nothing was visible and nothing was there. "Hello? Is anypony there? Please. I..I don't want to be... alone" the gentle mare started to quietly sob to herself as she lay down on the dusty ground and curled into herself. Thud. A loud noise awoke fluttershy from her slumber. she looked up and screamed. Fluttershy ran. She had never run that fast before, not in her entire life. The red scaled dragon was close behind her, she could feel its hot breath on her back which only made her run faster. The flame dragon suddenly shot out five of its diamond like talons and held fluttershy in its stone cold grip. She screamed. "Raging Heat, I demand that you release her immediately" a familiar voice shouted. Upon hearing this the fearsome dragon dropped fluttershy. The timid mare looked up, and was so very thankful at what she saw. It had been Twilight who had saved her but her other four friends were there too. Then it hit her, her friends called this dragon by name and it listened to them. "Now now Raging Heat you should know by now that we make the kills, not you" Twilight said as if this had happened before. Fluttershy gasped. Raging Heat looked at the five mares with an apologetic look in his emerald eyes and its ears drooping. "Wh-what" fluttershy stammered. All her friends looked at fluttershy with slightly manic smiles plastered to their faces. Fluttershy backed away, only to walk into Raging Heat and collapse as her legs gave way. "You know," Rarity said in a higher pitched voice," I've always wanted to see what happens when a pegasus bleeds to death" "No...I won't let you hurt her" a deep voice growled behind the dragon. Suddenly fluttershy was teleported far away from the dangerous mares and their pet dragon. "Discord!" Fluttershy hugged her draconequus friend. Discord happily returned the embrace, gently rubbing her back to calm her as she cried out of shock and relief. "You know...I do find this a bit strange" Discord said in a confusing manner making fluttershy pull away and star at him, confused. "What's strange" fluttershy questioned. "Let me explain. When you were flying you fell and slipped into unconsciousness, oh, and this is a dream, but you can still get hurt. Also, I am not the real Discord, only a duplicate, created by your memories of him, and your mind, to keep you safe, I am your brains way of defending you, but I am still Discord" the duplicate explained,"in a way" he muttered to himself. "So why is it so strange?" Fluttershy asked, a little confused. "Well, your mind could have made one of your friends appear to protect you, but you chose me instead, the one who nearly everypony fears. You trust me with your life more than you do your friends" fluttershy blushed slightly at that. "Then why did my friends try to kill me?" Fluttershy started to sob quietly again and buried her face into Discord's chest. "I think that in this world you will encounter your worst fears, two of them must be dragons and your friends turning on you," futtershy nodded at this, a few more tears leaking out of her eyes "but your mind has put me here to protect you, so I will." Discord said firmly while looking straight into her teal eyes. Fluttershy hugged discord again, and the two stayed like that for a while, relishing in the calmness of the moment. > It's you turn Discord > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Throughout the week Fluttershy's friends took turns watching her (making sure she was fed and comfortable), they would each watch her for a day and due to the fact that twilight was now a princess, rainbow dash had to look after the weather (as the new captain), rarity had just received a huge request from sapphire shores for her designs, applejack had to look after her family and the farm and pinkie pie had a load of party planning to do, Discord was put in charge of fluttershy for the weekend. "Are you really sure we can trust him with flutters?" Rainbow questioned, "I mean I know he's 'reformed' and all, but this is Discord, Dis-cord, you know, the Lord of Chaos" "I do not believe he will harm fluttershy, she was the only one to resist his manipulations back at the maze and was the only one who had ever given him a chance by becoming his friend, I think he respects her enough to not ever wish her harm" twilight said logically. "Twi's got a point ya know and I think we should give him the benefit o' the doubt" applejack said in agreement. So it was decided that Discord would look after fluttershy that weekend. Discord was just finishing fluttershy's soup (he had wanted to make it himself, for reason he still was unsure of), when he heard fluttershy yelp, he dashed up into her room to check on her. He had been warned that she would sometimes cry out in fear only to be found peacefully sleeping a while later, but that didn't stop Discord from being alarmed at her sudden outburst. when he arrived in her room, as expected, she was again sleeping peacefully. Discord let out a sigh of relief, but it did not escape his attention that she looked as though she was hugging some invisible being. Discord thought nothing of it and went back downstairs to pick up the bowl of soup that he had left on the counter in Fluttershy's cosy kitchen. He quickly teleported into fluttershy's room and propped her head up with the base of his snake-like tail. moving slowly but purposefully he pressed the enticing vegetable soup up to the canary pegasus' lips and tilted the bowl slightly as the warm beverage seeped down her throat. Fluttershy slowly began swallowing the delicious soup until it had been drained and only a slightly heated bowl was left in discord's empty hands. Smiling softly at the delicate pegasus, Discord carefully exited the room, taking one short glance at his sleeping friend before taking his leave. When he arrived downstairs in fluttershy's living room he sat down on his favourite couch, he had nothing to really do today so he just started to think (a dangerous habit, I know ). Discord started to think about fluttershy. She really is amazing "What?!" Discord exclaimed loudly, glad that fluttershy's cottage was outside the town, otherwise somepony would have most definitely heard him, and that would cause trouble. Despite how much he loved trouble, for some reason he wasn't up for it, only due t what he had just thought to himself. I mean... she's an amazing... friend... yeah, that's it Discord quickly shook any other thoughts from his mind. *In the dream world* "Sooo, your afraid of caves?" 'Discord' questioned. "N-no-no-not re-really, j-just th-the c-cold a-and th-the dar-dark," Fluttershy chattered through her teeth in response while curling herself in-wards to protect herself from the cold. 'Discord' lay down next to her, but kept his distance, telling her not to fall asleep because is she does then her body temperature could drop and she could die, literally. However, Fluttershy was so exhausted that she was asleep by the time he had finished explaining. What do I do now? I know the real me has developed feelings for her, nothing major though, she subconsciously knows this too, her friends as well, I can't let her die, it would also mean that I failed my task to protect her. What to do, what to do!? Then it hit him, in away it felt like it did hit him as he felt a pain on his head and the idea popped out of nowhere, not entirely sure if what he was about to do would work 'Discord' curled his long snake-like body around the timid pegasus and shared his body heat with her, vowing to stay awake so that his body heat would not drop. to 'Discord's' surprise Fluttershy snuggled into his chest and sighed contently, failing to keep down the blush slight blush building in her cheeks. 'Discord' chuckled at this but did his best to hide his amusement as to not awaken the sleeping pony and lay his head down in hope of getting some sleep himself. *The real world* Discord's cheeks were heating up like an active volcano as fluttershy curled into him. When he had found her she was shivering like crazy and no amount of blankets helped, so he used the next best thing, his own body heat. The chaotic spirit had been really quite surprised that his idea had worked. No way would he ever tell any of his other friends about this, he would never hear the end of it. Rarity would talk about it when fluttershy woke up too, that wouldn't end well; Discord knew he wouldn't have to worry about the embarrassment though because Rainbow Dash would kill him anyway.