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For the first time in a very long time Discord didn’t care about Equestria. He didn’t care about how to up the ante in his ongoing prank war with Pinkie Pie. He didn’t care about his plans on how to best annoy the purple Alicorn who he never grew tired of messing with. He didn’t care about how strange it was that heavy rain had begun to fall outside. He didn’t even really care about who he was. All that he cared about at the time was the yellow Pegasus with the pink mane. All he cared about was the mare that he was currently holding in his arms.
All he cared about was his wife and the precious time still had left with her.
Their wedding was a grand yet simple affair. By her request they kept it reasonably quiet. Their honeymoon to a small coastal village at the edge of a seemingly endless sea was equally simple. There were a great many things he could have done or conjured to liven things up; but the small things such as her smile somehow made his usual antics dull by comparison. Before he fell for the gentle mare an entire week without any random fits of mischief would have felt comparable to watching grass grow and then watching it reverse back to seed at the same pace it had when it came up. After letting her into his hear however, simple moments of almost nothing happening were more like small morsels that he just never had enough of.
Granted sometimes he did slip and make things a touch more interesting. Sometimes they were intentional and sometimes they were from a genuine lack of judgement. For the ceremony and the week that followed he was too busy enjoying the intoxication of her affections.
He gently shifted her body with his paw so he could feel her heart beating against his own. Little things like that just somehow meant much more than they used to. Her faint blush and gentle nuzzling against his neck was never a surprise reaction but every time was just as powerful as the first one. Her limbs softly squeezing his body was barely noticed by his sturdier frame but his heart always felt a powerful tug as if the beating organ wanted to be part of her. Her own breath slightly swaying his fur now felt like a very noticeable autumn breeze that made him feel as if the world existed just for him. Before he had her in his life like this he never would have even felt it.
Discord gently kissed her head through her mane and breathed deeply the scent of her soft hair. His left eye glanced to the floor below them. Sure she had allowed him to hold her against him while lying on air above the ground but somehow this time it was different. Normally she eventually grew anxious about the notion of falling but this time she was as composed as she would be if they were in the grass or on her bed. Usually she tightly clung to him with the determination of a vice but this time her back legs hung idle and rested. Her tail casually draped down from his form and she gave no signs of worry. Early attempts of this resulted in her fluttering off abruptly at the slightest amount of sliding. This time he was allowed to gently nudge her and she responded by getting more comfortable.
A few years ago he never would have pictured himself where he currently was. He never would have considered the value of tranquility shared with somepony you love. Granted there was a slightly notable itch that begged for a touch more noise or color but quietly holding the mare against him while forgetting that there was a whole world outside was just more gratifying than having Big Macintosh wake up with Twilight’s wings.
He forgot his thoughts and looked at the window. The rain had picked up and rolling thunder could be heard. Fluttershy didn’t budge. Not even the slightest squeak came out of her. Sometimes the distinct rumbling made her react in a way that suggested that lightning struck the ground right under her tail but whenever she was in his arms she didn’t seem to notice.
The gentle nothing that prevailed was halted when she slowly inched up his neck.
“Discord?” She softly asked while lightly tracing the edge of her hoof along his body “Do you think…that well…I was…”
She paused and was clearly reconsidering her thoughts. Discord replied by gently running his claw through her mane and down her back. He gently traced a single digit up and down her spine, sending a very subtle sensation through her body. He bent his neck so his eyes could meet hers and smiled warmly as he waited for her to find the words.
“Do you…can we…Discord I would…do you think we could have a foal?”
The world that didn’t exist suddenly did in fact exist and ground down to a halt. He prepared to channel a spell to stretch the second into an hour so he could rattle the notion around. The question was inevitable; he saw it coming quite some time ago. He didn’t weave the magic though, in his most private thoughts he already knew his answer even if his chaotic nature slightly feared being tied down in such a way. Images that spawned from his own fevered mind came crashing down. The silhouette of his imaginary daughter from when he escaped his statue prison seemed to be looking at them through the window for a brief moment. Discord looked back into Fluttershy’s eyes and she patiently waited for his answer.
She wasn’t fretting. She wasn’t hiding behind her mane. She wasn’t softly apologizing for putting him on the spot. She met his gaze and took mellow breaths as if nothing happened. His neck contorted more and he quickly darted his tongue at her nose. She giggled softly in response.
“I’d like that my dearest Fluttershy” he finally said as his left eye returned to the unoccupied window. “I think…no I know that I’m ready to start a family with you. I mean I still want you all to myself but I guess I can share you with a small part of us.”
She smiled and nuzzled his neck for a brief moment. Fluttershy drew her head up to plant a soft kiss on the Draconequus’ lips. Discord gently ran his paw down her back and she reclaimed eye contact.
“You think…maybe…” She half whispered as a new blush came over her.
He kissed the Pegasus back. The feeling of her lips against his ignited a jolt in body. Her body heat seeping into him felt strong enough to withstand a blizzard under the full support of the entire weather patrol. His entire world softly snuggled his chest as his claw slowly traced through her tail. She gently kissed his chest and let his voiceless answer soak into her mind. Discord gently guided her chin with his paw to put her eyes back on his own ocular orbs.
“You know” Discord slowly said after a brief delay. “If we’re going to do this then I’ll have to be a pony. I probably might make it a slightly awkward affair since I won’t be readily used to making such a body preform.”
She gave him a reassuring smile and his concerns about performance melted and flowed away like the rain on the window. The rain soon went back to this list of things he was ignoring in favor of the time he had with his beloved mare.
“It can’t be as awkward as our first time.” She replied with a blush and a giggle.
He fondly remembered their first time in such embrace. As eager as he was and as composed as she was the events were halted by a very sudden realization: that it would take a bit of creativity to get their parts to comfortably match up. That was also the first time it was suggested that they try it with Discord being in pony form but that was halted by another concern. Discord had never before had any need for protective spells or wrappings and thus was unequipped. The only thing that kept them from an unplanned addition was a simple fact of biology. The evening had slowly turned into them exploring ideas on how to copulate and that quickly turned into talking out ideas for positions with minimal chances of her becoming uncomfortable if he got too excited.
It was also the first time he got her to laugh despite being thoroughly embarrassed.
Discord returned to the present and let out a slight laugh.
“Well I suppose it wouldn’t be all that bad if we had a night like that again.” He said before gently kissing her forehead. “At least this time one of us will have a good idea of what to do.”
She blushed slightly as she nodded. Her mane slightly draped over her face and he slowly brushed it away with his paw. Fluttershy softly nuzzled his neck and gently guided a hoof to his claw. She slowly nudged it so it was pointing downwards to their bed.
Discord descended downwards, pausing only to draw the shades closed with his tail.
Discord took a moment to glance out the window and at the world outside. Specifically he was looking at a tree he planted. He spent a fair amount of time planning on a treehouse for the child he was expecting. He smiled as he imagined the days ahead. They played out sort of like they always had but this time it was going to be real. Also this time he had an incredible wife to share it all with.
He glanced at the couch across the room and saw his favorite pony in the world lying sprawled out without a care in the world. She was still the same pony he loved but there was one very recent change. He glided over just an inch off the floor and gently ran a paw over her body, favoring the place where their future child was currently living in. He sat down at the edge of the couch while gently moving his wife’s head to his lap. She smiled faintly and rolled onto her side. The new position brought with it very mild snoring.
Discord chuckled to himself. Fluttershy snoring was just one new thing he had adjusted to over the past few months. Her strange new appetite and palette was a very curious thing compared to his own standards of odd. Pumpkin pancakes with a side of a three onion risotto? Jelly bean, banana and pepper sandwich? Spinach ravioli pie?
He paused and admitted that the last one was actually somehow not that bad.
Discord stretched his claw towards the other side of the couch and magically commanded a pale blue blanket to drape over his love. Her response was to shift around again into a new comfortable spot which was only an inch away from the one she was already in. He gently moved his paw over her barrel and stopped abruptly. He could have sworn that he felt something comparable to a heart that only beat once. With pure fascination and excitement he kept his paw still. Fluttershy shifted slightly as he felt another kick. Discord could feel his heart add an additional beat to its rhythm as he waited for another tiny sign of life from their soon to be newest member of the family. Another kick and liquid joy crept from the corner of his eye. He slowly moved his paw along and felt another kick. He swore that she had followed him. A few minutes passed and soon added up to an hour and nothing happened. He withdrew his paw and worked on containing himself.
“It’s all right little one” he quietly said to his unborn child. “I can wait a little longer for you.”
Of course deep down he knew that he said it purely for the benefit of the mother and child. For Discord the wait was unbearable. He was too focused on what was coming to think about what he was doing. He had arranged a temporary cease fire with Pinkie and was very aware of the betting pool that was steadily growing in the Cake household and had stretched to other ponies in town. The Draconequus let out a slight laugh. Almost two thousand bits was now waiting for the pony who correctly predicted the hour of his retaliation for the incident where Pinkie’s shadow had somehow replaced his own.
It still boggled him when he thought of how she pulled that off.
He turned his attention to his sleeping wife. She had shifted again and her eyes were open. Fluttershy elected to lie there and gaze off into nothing before deeply yawning. Discord glanced to the window and at the tree outside. He could have sworn that for an instant he saw a small foal sitting on a low branch and looking right at him. He closed his eyes and stretched and gave another glance. This time for a fraction of a second the mysterious child was on the ground sitting upright and looking at him. He continued to stare at the tree long after the illusion had passed. He breathed deeply and looked down at his wife who was giving him an inquisitive look.
“Something on your mind Dizzy?” Fluttershy asked out of concern.
“Any day now. That is what’s on my mind.” Discord responded while gently stroking her mane.
Fluttershy stretched and casually kicked the blanket off her body, letting it hit the floor. She rolled onto her back and looked to the window that had captured her husband’s attention. Discord looked again and just for a flash he saw the featureless child again, this time it stood a bit closer to the house. He wondered if his mind was starting to crack from the waiting. The precious memories of playing with his imaginary daughter flooded his mind. The sound of her laughter, her antics while riding a cotton candy cloud, the infinite curiosity that shown in her swirled eyes, and so many other powerful images stormed his brain. He glanced at where Fluttershy was growing their child and slowly ran his paw over the area.
He took a moment to remind himself that it was equally possible that she would bless them with a son. Discord felt another drop creep away from his eye. No matter what she was carrying he was going to love their child. Whether it was a filly, foal or any and all points in-between he didn’t care.
He looked at the window and for a longer period he saw the shadowed outline of a filly pressed against the window, knocking with a hoof. He ran his paw along Fluttershy’s body and felt another kick. Discord’s eyes widened when he realized that the illusion’s knock was in sync with the kick.
“It might be closer than we think dearest” Discord said softly as the child disappeared from his sight.
“You think so?” She asked while tilting her head back to make eye contact.
“Call it a hunch.”
“I call it wishful thinking” she replied with a faint giggle.
Fluttershy rested her hoof on top of his paw and held it against her womb. Discord nearly jumped when the sensation of something touching him occurred on his shoulder. He did jump slightly when he heard a faint giggle behind him. Fluttershy’s eyes suddenly went quite wide and her breathing became erratic.
“Discord! It’s time!”
In Discord’s fully justified surge of adrenaline and panic he wove a spell and channeled it with indefatigable purpose. The floor beneath them turned into a portal and Discord let himself fall through with Fluttershy held securely in his arms.
The hospital had seen many things since its first day of opening. Many minor injuries from brave children and a hooffull of broken wing incidents (most of them belonging to Rainbow Dash) were quite common but furniture falling through the ceiling was a new one. Amidst the chaos Discord charged the front desk like a mad rabid animal and barely managed to avoid a very familiar pink pony popping out of the debris. Upon reaching the desk and the very surprised pony behind it he dropped the panicked state of mind and addressed the pony in the most polite manner he could.
“Excuse me but my wife has gone into labor.”
He looked behind him at the sight of furniture and floorboards having crashed into the lobby. He glanced at a small calendar on the wall and at the clock next to it. Discord took a moment to recall the town’s shared wager.
“Huh…August thirtieth at two thirty in the afternoon…”
“DISCORD GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME!!!”
And with that the betting pool vanished from his mind. Things turned into a blur as they were ushered deeper into the hospital. Discord stood in a stunned daze when he himself was prevented physically from going through a door that doctors took his wife through.
“I guess…I’ll just wait here then?”
He stood staring that the doors.
Discord regained the thoughts on the betting pool for when he would cause an act of random chaos and summoned the chart that had signatures and predictions from most of Ponyville. He inched his claw around until he found the date and hour of the portal incident that left Pinkie buried.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw that somepony with the name Screwball had claimed the spot and concluded that everything he knew about the universe was wrong.
Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes turned into hours. The torturous passage of time was similar to the pace he experienced when he was locked in stone. There was an entire world carrying on while all he could do was sit and think. He couldn’t be part of it and there was nothing he could do about it.
Well there were a lot of things he could do but the safety of his mate and child were more important to Discord than satisfying himself. He could use his power to just make the birth happen. He could turn into a pony and impersonate a doctor. He could put himself into a state of hibernation and just sleep until it was over. Discord had many other fevered ideas that roamed into his mind on how to just make the day fast forward to the ideal conclusion but for every scheme he could think of he could conjure two reasons for why he shouldn’t interfere.
The most noteworthy one being that there was no good way to predict how residual energy from any spell he cast would affect their child. With the events that made up the afternoon it was painfully obvious that their child had inherited a portion of his power. The sounds and sights that only he seemed to see and the fact that she somehow come into some wealth before being born were firm reminders that he needed to show restraint.
No matter how badly he wanted to be in the room with her.
For the first time in a long time Discord felt truly helpless; and he didn’t care for it very much.
The Draconequus paced down the hall to the end and turned around to trek back. At the opposite end of the hall he turned and restarted his mindless migration. Sometimes he stopped at the door that kept him from his wife and child. Sometimes he knelt down to look through a keyhole only to give up upon rediscovering that there was no keyhole to peek through. He sometimes let one of his eyes fall to the floor to look under the crack of the door then gave up when he couldn’t really see anything. On occasion Discord considered making the door transparent so he could see but as soon as he reached for his power he was reminded of how loose his grip always was.
For the first time in his life he cursed the nature of his magic for being whimsical and free; and then laughed at the irony that the former Master of Chaos had shunned a form of freedom.
Another trip down the hall and another trip back to the other end. Somepony had brought a chair to the hall facing the door that blocked him from witnessing a miracle of nature. He never used it. Discord already knew that after half a minute he would be fidgeting uncomfortably and making the wait worse for himself. If anything he interpreted the chair as a cruel joke that came only because there was an unwritten promise against retaliation. Sitting and waiting was not a talent he was known for. Granted the past few months offered a list of exceptions but today was different. Back then waiting was a choice that he had made. Today, in a hallway of a hospital the choice was made for him. He would have to wait just a little longer.
Or a few hours longer. Discord really didn’t have any real idea as to how long labor normally took. The hallway didn’t have any clock he could consult. There was no window from where he could take note of the sun’s position. He had no way of measuring how long he had been in the hall. For all he knew it could have only been ten minutes.
Discord decided to keep count of how many times he traced the hall from one end to the other and got bored of it when he reached the twenty third lap. He knelt down to peek through the keyhole and was thwarted by the fact that there still wasn’t one. Another journey down the hall and back around again. Another pause at the door. Another obscene hand gesture for the chair. Another trip to the end of the hallway.
Abruptly the stopped walking at the sound of the door opening. He didn’t take note about what the ponies coming out looked like. He didn’t even remember how many even went in there. With a single step that more resembled a quick leap he planted himself near the open door and one of the doctors decided to say something to him.
“There were a lot of concerns since you’re not a pony; but everything went fine. Would you like to go in?”
Without a word Discord made his way into the room. He didn’t take note of how big it was. He didn’t look to the window to check the time. He didn’t notice the color of the walls or the floor. All he cared about was the figure resting in a simple hospital bed near the window. All he cared about was the yellow Pegasus with the pink mane. All he cared about was the tiny bundle cradled in her fore hooves. He slowly made his way to the side of the bed and looked at his wife. She appeared to be exhausted beyond measure and yet at peace. Her smile made the weight of the day just fall out of existence. The way she looked down at what she was holding made him forget countless hours of waiting for this day to come. His eyes ventured to the small figure securely wrapped in a pink blanket. He saw the tiny face and mane of their child. Discord saw a newborn filly that he had seen before, but for the first time she was really in front of her.
Fluttershy offered Discord a glance and slowly inched the newborn towards him. She didn’t seem to have the strength to speak but the message was clear.
Discord carefully took their newest family member into his arms and gazed down upon what he saw. He stood dazed and continued to look at what he was holding.
“We did it” Fluttershy half whispered. “We did it Dizzy.”
Tears were inevitable for the Draconequus now.
“Well to be fair, you did most of the work. You carried her in you for months…and you brought her into the world” Discord choked out as his vision grew increasingly obstructed by liquid joy. “Our little filly…our precious daughter…”
Discord paused as he briefly considered a curious notion.
“It’s a daughter right?”
Fluttershy’s soft laugh was all the answer he needed. He continued to look down upon the sleeping newborn. He carefully moved his paw and delicately ran a digit though her unique purple mane with white swirled streaks. He slowly brought her back down to Fluttershy and carefully laid down next to her and found himself once again stunned at what he was seeing.
“I know what you’re thinking Dizzy” The gentle mare softly said. “It’s ok with me.”
Another drop of joy escaped him as he once again.
“Are you sure Fluttershy? You did the hardest parts, you can pick the name if you want.”
“We both know what we’re naming our first child.”
Discord took out his eyes and dried them on his chest before setting them back in.
“Welcome to the world Screwball…”
Discord’s heart skipped a beat when their daughter opened her eyes. She looked right at them and uttered an incomprehensible syllable.
Discord had never heard something so precious in his life. Judging by Fluttershy’s excited breath she had reached the same conclusion. Fluttershy slowly brought the filly just a bit closer to them and Discord carefully ran his paw across the infant’s mane. Little Screwball looked at them as if she already somehow knew them. Discord was very familiar with what his imagination spawned but for the first time he was truly bonding with his daughter.
“So…who won the bet that the town had going on?” Fluttershy quietly asked as she leaned her weight into Discord’s side.
“You’ll never guess who it was.”
“Looks like we did then.” She replied with a soft grin. “I was a little sneaky and put her name in since we weren’t allowed to guess.”
Discord blinked. He liked it more when he believed that his daughter had somehow done it; but he accepted the reality. He had their daughter in front of them, nothing else mattered. The time, weather, impending hospital bill, none of it was important. All that he cared about was in the room with him. Discord softly kissed his wife’s head and she slowly gave Screwball back to him. His eyes went wide as a curious notion crashed around his mind.
“Wait…you called her our first child.”
Fluttershy’s relaxed breath, neutral expression and closed eyes were all the answer he got. He adjusted himself a bit and she turned onto her side and wrapped a foreleg around him. He looked down at their little miracle and saw that she also had fallen asleep. Discord glanced at the window and was greeted by the moon. He never noticed that it was up. He carefully turned the wrapped filly to face the celestial body.
“I’m telling you before I tell your sister because you’re the first convenient pony I can possibly show off to. Don’t let it get to your head.”
For a brief moment he swore that a lone sun ray crept over the horizon. For the first time in a long time a slightly sinister grin came over Discord. He looked down at his sleeping daughter and shared what came into his head.
“There’s a good chance that you got some of my power little one; and that means that Princess Celestia might insist on enrolling you into her school for gifted Unicorns to keep two or three eyes on you.”
Discord softly rocked the infant as he went on.
“You are going to have so much fun and give her so many grey hairs.”