> Kindness and the Seed of Shadow
>  by Raven-Flight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> It all started with a question
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“One lump, or two?”

“Just one will do for me, thank you.”  Rarity lifted the teacup with her magic to allow Fluttershy to drop in a single sugar cube.  Her spoon clinked conspicuously against the cup as it stirred the mixture.  When she finally raised the drink to her lips, she paused.  Her eyes were strained and gleaming.

“Rarity, is something wrong?”  Fluttershy put down her teacup and leaned forward as well as she was able.

“I-it’s nothing, darling.”  The unicorn sighed and set down her own cup.  “Okay, it’s not nothing.  I’m just a little distraught that Applejack is leaving us so soon.  Now that I’ve begun feeling settled and comfortable in Canterlot, she’s going back to Ponyville and things are going to change again.  I’m going to miss seeing her.”

“We all will, but she’ll visit sometimes, or you could visit her.  I don’t think it will be much different from when Pinkie and Rainbow left.  Even though Applejack is relocating like they did, she’s not really going to be all the way gone.”

“Oh, I know,” Rarity huffed.  “But still.”  She took a jam cookie off the plate and chewed it forcefully.  Fluttershy sipped her tea while Rarity finished and sighed again.  “I’m already getting busier with the boutique, and the farm is a full-time job for Applejack—more than full-time.  Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie still manage to return to Canterlot at least once a week, but I just don’t see how it could be possible for Applejack to visit even half as frequently.”

“You’re worried our friendships with Applejack will change if she’s not in our lives as much.”

“Why, yes!  I’ve really come to depend on her!  Who else could advise me in my business ventures with such forthrightness?  And you know, she was even coaching me through a little physical training to help me get stronger.  I won’t know how to proceed without her experience and patience!”

“Wow, Rarity, I knew you and Applejack were good friends, but I hadn’t realized just how much your relationship had developed!  I guess I understand now why you’re having trouble accepting this change.”

Rarity carefully set her teacup down on the table, then raised a hoof to her forehead and flung herself backward into the sofa.  “Oh, whatever shall I do, Fluttershy?”

“Have you told her how you feel?”

“Yes, of course, darling!”  The unicorn sat back up again, and it was obvious that she was trying hard to hold back tears.  “She said she was sad too, but she just couldn’t stay here in good conscience!  She said it wasn’t fair to leave Big Mac and Apple Bloom with all the farm chores and with caring for Granny Smith.  I understand her point, but oh, why must fate divide us so?”  Here, Rarity draped herself over the sofa again.

“What if you wrote each other letters?  I know it’s not the same as being together in person, but at least that would help you stay present in each others’ lives.”

“What a fabulous idea!”  Rarity jolted back upright, knocking her teacup over as she did.  “Oh, I’m so sorry!”  She picked up the empty cup in her magic and set it right, but there was still a puddle of earl grey on the table and dripping down to the floor.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”  Fluttershy rocked herself back and forth until she had enough momentum to heave herself off the chaise lounge.  When all four cloven hooves met the floor, she made her way to the kitchen to fetch some towels.  She tossed a few over her back and heard Rarity calling from the other room.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

“It’s fine,” she replied as she approached the spill.  But when Fluttershy placed a towel on the table to start wiping, Rarity stopped her.

“You must at least let me do that part, darling.”  Rarity took all the towels in her magic and soon had the entire mess cleaned up.  Once she had a new cup of tea in her hooves and the table setting was back to the way it had been, Fluttershy moved to sit down again.  It took her a very long ten seconds to carefully lower herself back into the chair.  Rarity’s brow furrowed as she watched.

“I’m very sorry, Fluttershy dear, I shouldn’t have made you get up like that.”

“Oh, I don’t really mind moving around a little.  It’s kind of hard right now, but I’m trying to enjoy it while I still can.”

“I’m sure, darling!  You must be due any time now, yes?”

“Not for another six weeks.”

“Surely you must be joking!  How can you still have six weeks left?”

Fluttershy giggled self-consciously.  She knew she looked about has huge as she felt.  “Its father was, um, not exactly a small stallion.  I guess the foal is planning to take after him in that regard!”

“Well, I hope it… goes alright for you.  I mean, of course it will!”  They both laughed uncomfortably, and Fluttershy munched on a jam cookie to fill the silence.  Rarity was about to sip her tea, then leaned forward instead.  “Do you ever wonder just how much your foal might take after its father?”

“Um, yes.  How exactly do you mean?”

“I mean what, well you see… Oh, there’s just no good way to put this, is there?  Please pardon my asking, but do you have any idea what it’s going to be?”

“Rarity, you already know I wanted to wait until the foal is born to find out what it is.  I don’t really care whether it’s a colt or a filly, since I plan to raise it just the same either way.”

“No, I mean—” Rarity planted a hoof on her forehead.  “I mean what race.  Will it be a normal pegasus, or a bat pony or shadow pony, or perhaps some kind of… combination, I suppose?”

Fluttershy blinked.  Yes, she’d thought of that, a little.  “Do you think that matters very much?”

“It certainly does!  Do you know much about shadow ponies?  It might have different needs than a… more typical foal, you know.  Why, you ought to prepare yourself as much as possible for anything!”

“Oh my.  You might be right.  Maybe I should do some research.”  As Fluttershy recalled, the father of her foal was enough above his own physical existence that he didn’t even need to sleep if he didn’t want to.  How would she get through the next few years of her life caring for a foal that never slept?

“Fluttershy, dear.”

“Huh?”  The pegasus startled out of her thoughts.

“Don’t fret about it.  Whatever happens, you know I’ll always be happy to assist you in any way you need, and the others will too, when they’re around.”  Rarity’s confident smile was contagious, and Fluttershy smiled back.

“Thank you.”

When the time eventually came for Rarity to be on her way, Fluttershy dug out some of her old, unused stationary and gave it to her.  After all, she had mostly needed it to write to Discord, many moons ago, but now that their correspondence was broken, she didn’t need so much of it.  Rarity, for her part, was giddy with delight.  She made overtures of writing and sending off a letter to Applejack that very day, even though Applejack herself wasn’t leaving Canterlot until tomorrow.

“That way she’ll have a letter already waiting for her when she gets home,” she had said on her way out the door.  Fluttershy only giggled and waved goodbye.

As soon as the door was closed, Discord appeared in a flash of confetti.

“Oh, I thought she would never leave!  Flutterdear, how was your little tea party?  Any news, any wild ideas, any juicy gossip?”  His tail wagged back and forth so fast, it blew the confetti off the floor and into a rainbow maelstrom in the middle of the room.  Just as quickly, it blew itself out, and the house was spotless once more.

“Well—”

“How are you feeling?  Why are you still standing?  Are you tired?  Let me help you!”  Hardly a syllable of protest had escaped Fluttershy’s throat before Discord had teleported her onto the chaise lounge and propped up her hooves.  The draconequus whizzed about fetching pillows and a blanket, fresh tea and a bowl of butterscotch candies.  When he finally calmed down, he was holding a huge page of typewritten text and gently fanning it over Fluttershy.  She could see it read “Marvelous Minty’s Mediocre Monday” at the top.

“Discord, I’m okay.  You don’t need to do all this.”

“Oh, but I do!  This isn’t for you, you see, it’s for me!  I worry about you and sometimes I just need to do something about it.”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow.  “But there’s nothing to do for me right now, so you’ve made up something to do to make yourself feel better.”

“Precisely!”  He bent down and gave her a peck on the cheek, then resumed his fanning.  “Just let me have this, alright?”

“Alright,” she giggled.  Fluttershy reached out from under the blanket and took one of the candies to suck on.

“So, you were going to tell me about your time with Rarity, I believe?”

“Oh!  Right.  Well, Rarity was feeling pretty downcast about Applejack moving back to Ponyville tomorrow.  She had a lot to say about how important Applejack is in her new life here in Canterlot.”

“Ugh, how mundane!  She knows I could teleport her back and forth for visits as often as she’d like, right?  I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“Rarity and the others have certainly accepted that you’re going to be a regular part of their lives now because of me, but I think they’d all rather you not make yourself too much of a daily presence...”

“I can’t imagine why not.  It seems none but you and I have a good taste in companions!”  Here Discord paused to bask in Fluttershy’s giggle.  “Ah, well, I suppose you would know them best.  I certainly don’t want to spend any more time in your friends’ ill favor, for your sake.  But do go on: did Rare-rare have anything actually interesting to say?”

It took Fluttershy a moment to reply, as she was busy incredulously mouthing “Rare-rare” to herself.  When she had gotten over her mild shock, she brought up her new worries about the possible race of her foal.  “Do you know anything about shadow ponies that might help us?”

Discord yawned.  “I never paid the shadow ponies much mind, honestly.  I can tell you their dark magic is pretty dangerous to anycreature except myself.  But hey!”  Discord suddenly jumped up and hovered over Fluttershy to look more directly into her face.  The giant sheet of paper kept on fanning.  “Is this really a matter of concern?  Do you mean to say you might produce a foal that’s not the same race as you?”  His eyes were wide with fascination.

“...yes?  That’s how reproduction works for mammals, and since it’s not just me, but me and the father that’s produced this foal, it stands to reason that the foal might end up having many of its father’s traits.  You don’t… know this?”

Discord huffed.  “Normally, I’d punish you for mocking me, but you’re just too delicate for that.  Yes, come to think of it, I guess some part of me was aware of how that all works.  I just never had a reason to care….”  He trailed off and started drifting away in the breeze from the fan.

“Discord?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m going to visit the castle tomorrow morning.  I’d like to do some research in the library.”

“That’s nice.”  His voice was further away and Fluttershy watched him drift on until he had passed right through the wall.  He seemed lost in thought about something, but at least he wasn’t interested in convincing her not to leave the cottage.

“Bye, dear!”  she called after him, then took another butterscotch candy and lost herself in her own contemplations.
> In the library
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy woke up the next morning to breakfast in bed.  A whole buffet of waffles, hash browns, fresh fruit, and a parfait was dangling from a branch above her head.  Even a steaming cup of tea was there, refusing to spill though the cup was upside-down.

“Look!  No paws or claws or hooves required!”  Discord had been lying in bed next to Fluttershy, and when she turned to look, he stretched his neck and started eating right off the tree.  Fluttershy followed suit, but only managed to finish half a waffle and a bite of parfait before her stomach started protesting.

“Thank you, Discord.  This is all very nice, but it’s a little more than I can handle right now.”

“Nonsense!  Your body needs nourishment at a time like this.  I forbid you to leave this bed until you’ve had more to eat!”  A cage descended over the entire bed and breakfast setup for emphasis.

Fluttershy rolled her eyes.  “Discord, I need to get going.  If I get to the castle library early enough, maybe I can catch Twilight there and get her help in my research.  I’m sure I’ll be plenty hungry in an hour or two; maybe you could package some of this up for me, and I’ll take it to go?”

“But you really should be resting!”

She responded with a stare.

“Ugh, very well, since I see you’re determined.”  The cage disappeared and little bubble-like packages grew around some of the food, which then dropped off the branch like overripe fruit.  Fluttershy set them on the nightstand and scooched toward the edge of the bed.  Discord slid himself under her back to help her tilt down onto her hooves.  He then gathered the packaged food in a bag and slung it over his shoulder.  “I might as well come too.  I have some research of my own I’d like to do.”

“Oh, okay!  I certainly never mind your company.”  The sweet smile she flashed at Discord set his heart a-flutter.  Sometimes he worried his presence was overbearing, but he could never stand to be very far from her for too long anymore.  How fortunate she had more tolerance for his presence than her friends did!

“Well then, shall we?”  Discord poised his fingers to snap.

“Wait!  The gardens are so lovely, and I rarely get to see them anymore.  I was really hoping to walk this morning.”

“I suppose it’s not that far.  But if you change your mind on the way, don’t you hesitate an instant to let me know!”

Fluttershy laughed.  “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Their walk really was short—not more than ten minutes by the shortest route and at a normal pace.  Of course it took Fluttershy rather longer than that and wore her out to cross from her cottage to the castle, but the air was refreshing, and, much to Discord’s dismay, she never changed her mind.  Not even when she noticed the strangers, those few ponies visiting the gardens that early in the morning, staring at her.  With her obviously swollen belly and a doting draconequus beside her, Fluttershy could have no doubt what they were thinking.  The new flowering hedges that rapidly grew up to block the strangers’ views did help her keep her nerves, though.


~*~*~*~


“Fluttershy, Discord, welcome!  What brings you here so early in the day?”  Twilight set down a quill as she greeted her friends.  There were four books open and at least a dozen more stacked on the desk where she sat, with titles like Ramifications of Trauma and Psychological Case Studies, Vol. IX.

“I’m here to do some research,” Fluttershy started, noting how wide Twilight’s eyes grew as she spoke.  “Rarity asked me a question yesterday, and I realized it would be best to have an answer for it.  Would you maybe have a few minutes before court begins to help me get started?”

“Of course,” Twilight exclaimed almost before Fluttershy had finished asking.  “So, what’s the question?”

Discord had been scanning the library.  He must have found what he was looking for, as Fluttershy felt him leave her side and begin floating upwards.  “I’m here for research too, but I won’t require any assistance,” he called as he soared away.

“Good luck!”  Fluttershy turned back toward Twilight.  “What are shadow ponies?  Will my foal be some sort of hybrid?  What can I expect?”

“Oh.  Yes, those are important questions.  Hmm.  I know shadow ponies are considered to be distinct from your typical pegasus, unicorn, or earth pony, but to what extent are their unique features heritable?  Has there ever been such a cross?  Huh!  I don’t know why I didn’t think about this sooner!  Fluttershy, do you realize you and your foal might represent an important scientific discovery?  We’ll need to design some studies!  This could be a—”

“Twilight!  Please, um, slow down a moment.”

“Right, sorry.”

“I need to take this one question at a time, starting with what shadow ponies even are, if they’re really so different from us.  Are you sure it’s not too much trouble to help me?  I know you’re busy with your royal duties.”

“Of course I’m helping you!  These kinds of questions will need expert inquiry.  It might take all day—or longer!  I can set aside the duties for a little while.”

“You can?  I mean, you’re the princess, but… Is that a good idea?”

Twilight laughed.  “I appreciate your concern, Fluttershy, but I’m not pretending to try to rule exactly like Celestia and Luna did.  I’ve already set up policies and appointed officials to cover for me for just this sort of thing.  I mean, I may not freak out as much as I used to, but I’m always going to need the occasional library binge.  I hope Equestria can respect that.  Besides, this project would be a great way for me to test out those policies to make sure the kingdom can really run smoothly without me on a normal day.”

“Well if that’s the case, I’ll be glad to have as much help as I can get!  Thank you, Twilight.”

“My pleasure!  Now before we get started, did you happen to have any idea what Discord came here to research?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t know.  Why?”

Twilight pointed toward a distant alcove in the library that was glowing with a colorful aura.  “It looks like he’s found it necessary to scour the entire Rare and Magical Creatures section.  I just hope he puts all the books back where he found them when he’s finished...”  The two friends giggled as Twilight led them toward the historical archives.  They collected a few books there, including a pamphlet that Twilight had written herself detailing the contents of a diary she had found deep in the castle at the Crystal Empire.  Next was a neglected corner of the extensive Magic and Spells section, where an ominous old book joined the collection floating along in Twilight’s aura.

Once Discord had apparently moved on, they also browsed the Rare and Magical Creatures section.  The Lord of Chaos must have returned the books properly, as Twilight had no trouble sweeping through the stacks and picking out the ones she thought they might need.  But just before they left the area, the alicorn paused.

“Wait a second.  The whole library should have been converted over to the Library of Congress system by now; it’s been moons since I gave the order...”  Twilight re-examined one of the shelves.  “This section is all in Dewey Decimal!”  Steam might as well have started pouring from her ears.  “DISCORD!”

There was no response, not even the most distant chuckle.  It was uncharacteristic for the trickster not to gloat over his jokes.

“Huh, I wonder what he’s up to...” Twilight mused, her anger suddenly dissipated.  She walked out into the main isle, peered up and down, and stifled a laugh.

“What is it?”  Fluttershy followed Twilight’s gaze and spotted the end of Discord’s tail poking out from between the shelves at the other end of the library.

“Whatever his inquiry had been, he must have gotten an answer.  He’s moved over to Fiction—the Romance section, actually.  My my, what can he be up to?”  A knowing grin spread on Twilight’s face as she gave Fluttershy a playful nudge. “Anyway, I think we’ve gotten just about everything we need.  Come on; now the fun begins!”

Fluttershy followed to a nearby table, her cheeks hot with a blush after Twilight’s jesting.  Soon they were both poring over their stack of books, taking notes whenever they encountered a piece of information that seemed relevant.

After three books had moved to Fluttershy’s “done” pile, and twelve to Twilight’s, there was a sudden sound of pounding rain.  Fluttershy looked up to see the alphabet cascading down onto their table, and while she was safe due to the umbrella Discord was holding over her head, Twilight and her notes were very quickly covered in gibberish.

“Hey!” spouted the alicorn, now frantically moving her books and notes out of the literary downpour.

Discord took no notice.  “I think I’ve wrapped up my own little research project, so I’ll be heading out now.  But if you should need anything, just speak my name and I will return.  Seriously!  Papercut, out of food, foal’s coming—”

Fluttershy held up her hoof.  “Discord.  Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

“I know, I know.”  He leaned down and gave Fluttershy a peck on top of her head.  “See you later, my dear!”  With that, Discord vanished in a flash of light, and so did the puddles of letters that had accumulated on the table.  Twilight, too, was no longer sprinkled in characters, except for a few still lingering across her forehead.  They spelled “e g g h e a d”.  The flustered alicorn couldn’t understand at first why Fluttershy burst out laughing.

By the time Twilight had magicked her forehead clean and gotten her books and notes re-organized on the table, Fluttershy’s stomach decided it was time for brunch and released a startling symphony of gurgles and howls.

“S-sorry,” she cowered, but it was too late: her noise had summoned a beast.

Poing, poing, poing, poingpoingpoiNGPOINGPOINGPOINGW H U M P

“Hiya, fillies!”  Pinkie Pie suddenly landed on the table, and Twilight wailed in agony as pages of notes went flying.

“Pinkie!”  Fluttershy beamed.  “So good to see you!  What brings you to Canterlot today?”

“PAPER!”

“Um… what?”

“See?”  Pinkie Pie whipped a sheet of vibrant tie-dye paper out of her mane.  “It’s a letter from Cheese Sandwich I just got!  He says he’s coming to Ponyville for a visit in a couple weeks, so I’m putting together a welcoming party!  There are a few extra special party supplies I needed that I can’t get back home, and I thought as long as I had to come to Canterlot, I might as well make the trip FUN and see my old pals!  Don’t’cha think??”

Twilight by now had gotten over the shock of Pinkie’s boisterous arrival.  “Of course!  Any day we get to see you is automatically a fun day, Pinkie.”

“D’aww, you sure know how to warm a mare’s heart!”  Pinkie paused for a moment, then bounced as if re-inflating.  “But hey!  I heard somepony’s tummy making a ruckus, so I came to help!”

Fluttershy retrieved the bag of food Discord had left with her.  “Oh, no need, Pinkie.  I brought some food along this morning.”

When Pinkie saw the fruits and waffles her friend was unpacking, though, her eyes grew humongous.  “But where’s the syrup?  The whipped cream?  The sprinkles?  That’s no good at all!  I’ll be right back!”  And she was gone as suddenly as she’d appeared.

“Well,” Twilight started, tapping her notes into an orderly stack, “I suppose now would be as good a time as any to take a break and maybe start putting some of our thoughts together.  How are you coming along?”

“I’ve found some things that seemed pretty important, but to be honest, I don’t really know what to make of any of it yet.  I could really use your insight.”

The two ponies whipped around to look when the library door suddenly banged open.  It was Pinkie Pie again, naturally, now with a rolling cart packed with food.

“Make way!  Pinkie’s traveling brunch buffet has arrived!  Fluttershy, here you’ll find the syrup and whipped cream and chocolate sauce and caramel sauce and caramel candies and chocolate chips and the sprinkles!  And I didn’t want you to feel left out, Twilight, so I brought some muffins and scones and strawberries and and and OH!  There’s also juice and tea and coffee and hot cocoa and whatever your stomach or your heart desires!  Dig in!”

Twilight and Fluttershy sat dumbfounded for a moment before the princess was finally able to find her words.

“Wow, Pinkie, you really went all out!  Thanks!”

“Anything for my best-est friends!”  The earth pony pulled up a chair and filled her own plate of goodies.  “So, what are you guys doing so intensely here in the library this morning?  Book club?  Reading contest?”

Fluttershy washed down a mouthful of waffle and answered.  “Twilight’s agreed to help me with some important research.”

“OOH, sounds exciting!”

“It sure is!” Twilight burst, spraying pastry crumbs all over her plate.  “We’re learning more about the shadow ponies to try and figure out what Fluttershy’s foal might be like.  As far as we know, there’s never been another successful shadow pony-pegasus cross!  This could be an important scientific discovery!”

Pinkie Pie gasped.  “You’re right!  What a great surprise!  Fluttershy’s little foal is going to captivate the whole world!  Oh, do let me foalsit sometimes, Fluttershy!  I just can’t wait to meet her—or him!”

“Me too,” Fluttershy returned, “But I want to be as prepared for anything as I can be.  That’s why we’re here.  Twilight, this book Sentient Beings of the Non-pony Kind talks about how most shadow ponies take the form of unicorns and can transform at will into clouds of shadow, but if their horns break, they die.  What do you think that means?  Are the shadow ponies descended from unicorns, or is it, maybe, the other way around?”

“Maybe neither.  This book I’ve been reading on Properties of Dark Magic mentions them as some sort of golem.  Shadow ponies are what happens when dark magic gains agency and fuses itself with a corpse.  So they seem sentient, but they’re just some sort of magical reaction between the destructive will of dark magic and the properties of the deceased brain it overtakes.”

Fluttershy furrowed her brow.  “I’m not sure I’m understanding this.”

“It means however much shadow ponies seem to be alive, apparently, they’re dead, and their bodies are just acting out the evil intentions of the dark magic.  Somehow, they can walk and talk, even eat and drink, or show some vestiges of a personality, all while being physically dead.”

Pinkie Pie’s elbows rested on the table and her hooves were on her face, which was twisted up in consternation.  “So they’re, like, un-dead?”

“But if his body is actually dead, how did he…?”  Fluttershy looked down at her belly.  She’d grown enough and felt enough kicks to know that her foal was certainly alive, whatever that meant about the father.

“Huh,” Twilight mused, briefly closing her eyes in thought.  “Now wait a minute.  He kept a diary when he ruled the Crystal Empire, and I took some notes on it.  I wonder if there’s anything he said about himself that can clue us in...”  While Twilight scanned her writing, Fluttershy sat brooding and Pinkie Pie thoughtfully chewed on a blueberry-cheesecake muffin.

Eventually, there was a thump on the table, and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie both looked up to see a frustrated Twilight slumping in her seat and glaring at the book she’d just slammed down.  “This is not making sense,” she huffed.

Pinkie Pie jumped onto the table and pressed her nose against the recently-discarded book.  “WHAT ARE YOU NOT TELLING US? Come on, spit it out!”

“Pinkie, it’s okay,” interrupted Twilight, capturing the excitable pony in her magical aura before anything regrettable happened.  “It’s not what the book’s not telling me; it’s what it is.”

“What do you mean, Twilight?”  Fluttershy asked, watching Pinkie Pie float back into her seat and blush an apology.

“I mean that as far as I can tell by what he said about himself, he wasn’t really dead, not at first, even though his mother was.  The Crystal Heart affected them differently.  It weakened his mother and the other shadow ponies and apparently eventually snuffed them out.  But it didn’t start touching him until he had reached a certain age.  So are shadow ponies dead, or are they alive?  Was he really a shadow pony?”  Twilight’s head dropped lower with every clause of confusion until she had planted her face onto the table.

Pinkie Pie rushed over to the hot water carafe she’d brought and swiftly delivered to Twilight a freshly-brewing cup of chamomile tea.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy gazed unseeingly into the stacks in thought.  “...I seem to recall that he was certain of being a shadow pony, but… Come to think of it, I’m also pretty sure his body wasn’t alive in the usual sense.  I mean, I did have to teach him how to sleep...”

Twilight looked up again and accepted Pinkie Pie’s offering of tea.  “Alright, so he was born to a shadow pony with a living body, but at some point along the way, he became shadow pony enough to be hurt by the Crystal Heart, and by the time he captured you, he was dead.  Undead.  So at some point, his body died, but his… his mind didn’t?  How does this all work?  Wait, Fluttershy!”

“What is it?”

“Discord has him with him in a pocket dimension, right?  Maybe you could ask him in person!”

“Oh, I...” Fluttershy began twirling a lock of her mane.  “I’d rather not see him again.  For a long time.  I… I couldn’t...”

“But—”

“OH OH OH OH!”  Pinkie Pie leaped out of her seat and started bouncing.  “What if—” She froze and her eyes locked into focus somewhere off into infinity.  “Sombra was born alive but with dark magic from his mom already attached to him and as HE grew IT grew until there was enough of it for the Crystal Heart to attack but he was still alive so that hurt so he destroyed the Heart and then his dark magic grew mature enough to take over his personality so then he killed his own body since he didn’t need it anymore and that’s how he finally transformed into a fully-fledged shadow pony!”  Pinkie Pie sucked in a huge, loud breath and started bouncing again.  “What’cha think, Twilight?”

“That sounds… Plausible, somehow.  How did you…?”

The bouncing mare hummed a nonchalant “I dunno”.  Then she halted when her gaze fell on Fluttershy.  “You okay?”

Fluttershy was shaking violently in her seat.

Twilight raised a hoof toward her friend.  “Fluttershy?”

The pegasus snapped to attention.  “I, um, have to go.  I—Sorry, it’s been lovely, but, um.  Discord?”

“You called?”  The draconequus spoke before his body even arrived in the room.

“Take me home.”

Flash.

Twilight and Pinkie Pie both stared at the spot where Fluttershy had just been sitting, and then they stared at each other.

“Did I say something to upset her?”  Pinkie Pie finally asked.

“I guess so.  —But I’m sure she knows you didn’t mean to!”

“Yeah...”  Pinkie Pie looked down at the table for a minute, and all the books, papers, and half-eaten plates of food scattered on it.  “So, uh, do you want some help cleaning all this up?”
> Lovers' quarrel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took a moment for Fluttershy to register that she was suddenly sitting upright in her bed.  Discord was perched at the foot, his eyes wide with concern.

“What’s wrong?  What do you need?  It’s not the foal, is it?”

“No, no, there’s no danger of anything.”  She was still shaking.  “Not… anymore...”

“Not anymore?  Were you being threatened?  It was Pinkie, I’ll bet!  That pony always seemed—”

“Discord, please!  Just give me a minute to think!”

There was a zipping sound, and the now-muted draconequus leaned forward to place a clock in Fluttershy’s hooves.  She took it and stared at the baguette-shaped second hand ticking in a steady circle until her shaking finally stopped.  Then she sighed.

“Actually, yes, it kind of was Pinkie.”

“I knew it!”  Discord shot up to his full height, suddenly wearing a police chief uniform.  He swung a pair of manacles off his belt as if preparing to go after the culprit when he suddenly found himself accidentally shackled to the bedpost.  Fluttershy giggled at the scene as the all-powerful Lord of Chaos yanked and struggled in vain; the bedpost would not budge.  Then in a flash, it was the bedpost wearing the uniform, and Discord donned a striped jumpsuit as he melodramatically dropped to his knees.  “Ya got me!  I always knew this day would come!  Please, go easy on me!”

It took another full minute for Fluttershy to stop laughing.  “Thank you, Discord.  I needed that.”

The manacles and costumes disappeared, and Discord stretched himself forward on his stomach so he was lying beside Fluttershy and peering into her face.  “Always happy to oblige!  Now tell me, my dear, what is the trouble?”

“My friends and I were trying to figure out what shadow ponies actually are when Pinkie suggested something that made sense—”

“In that case, I can see why you were so terrified.”

“No, I mean—” Fluttershy glared, but a little smile betrayed her amusement and Discord chuckled.  “Anyway, her suggestion made me realize: shadow ponies aren’t really born; they’re made!”

“...I could make a joke about that, but I’m sure you wouldn’t laugh.  So what’s that got to do with you?  Or the foal?”

The pegasus fixed her eyes on the far wall of the room and shivered once.  “He was born alive, a normal unicorn, except his mother was a shadow pony, and because of her there was already some dark magic fused to his body.  When that dark magic got strong enough, he must have transferred his personality completely into that matrix and killed his body, becoming a true shadow pony.  As if he decided to become one.  And if he could turn himself into one, do you think he could have turned other ponies into shadow ponies?”

Discord conjured a chalkboard and started scribbling.  “Theoretically that would be possible, but that would require a lot of dark magic and,” he ground a thick dot onto the board, “some way to make it stick to the pony.”  Chalk dust flew as a sharp spike appeared above the dot.  “That would mean, generally speaking, only unicorns and alicorns can become shadow ponies and stay shadow ponies, since they have their horns which can channel ambient magic, store it, and redistribute it.  So, Fluttershy,” Discord declared above the volume of his previous muttering, “if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, stop thinking it.  You are a pegasus, and it would not be possible by pony standards anyway.”

At that moment, the angry unicorn Discord had scribbled on the chalkboard blew a very loud raspberry.  The draconequus whipped back around, and with a hissed “why I oughtta,” he jumped into the chalkboard and became a two-dimensional doodle of himself.  He started chasing the unicorn in circles.

“But Discord,” protested Fluttershy, unfazed by the commotion.  “Remember how I used your chaos magic?”

The doodles were now wrestling, and Discord didn’t pause his assault to reply.  “You had my heart in your body.  It was what supplied the chaos magic to you.”

“Yes, but then after I gave your heart back, and you were dead.  I used chaos magic again to take your heart a second time and give you mine to revive you.”

“You told me that was because of your special magic as the Element of Kindness.  It means your body adapts and conforms to certain influences, especially if there’s a strong emotional connection.  This kindness magic, by the way, was not a thing in the whole history of me until you came along!  So after you’d had my heart once, you were able to wield chaos magic again on your own because after the first time, some of it stuck in your veins, and … Stuck… OH.”  The chalkboard melted up into a puddle on the ceiling, leaving Discord behind in his typical three-dimensional form.  He was staring at Fluttershy.

She was staring back.  “He tricked me into loving him, and the whole time I was there, he was filling me with more and more dark magic.  Just before you came he made me drink… something awful.  He had a glass of it himself and it didn’t do anything, but for me it tasted really bad, and after I finished… it got really hard to stay conscious.  I think… I think...”

“That was supposed to kill your body and complete the transformation.”

Tears began to spill from Fluttershy’s eyes.  “In the hospital, I must have been only moments away from becoming a shadow pony.  Undead.  Evil!”  Fluttershy wrapped her hooves around Discord when he moved closer and wept into his fur.  “You saved my life, Discord!  You saved it from something worse than death...”

For a minute, the two sat embracing as Fluttershy sorted through her conflicting emotions.  On the one hoof, there was belated fear for what hehad been doing, and on the other, relief over a fear unrealized.  She also felt safe, there in the arms of him who saved her and would always, always be there.

And then she felt his body tense, and she looked up, and his ears were pinned back.  “Discord?”

His mouth moved, but no words came out.  He tried again.  “I didn’t… I didn’t save your life...”  Discord’s gaze was far away.  “I saved your death...”

“What?”

“Shadow ponies don’t have to die.  As a shadow pony, you wouldn’t have to die...”

Now Fluttershy was tense too.  “Discord, please don’t go th—”

His eyes suddenly locked onto hers, and they were glittering with passion.  Or maybe tears.  “I saved your life for a few years—just a few moments, really—and robbed you of an eternity.”

“No.” It came out more hoarse than she’d intended.  “You can’t rob me of something I never had—”

“But you almost, you could have!”

“—and never wanted.”

Discord froze.  Thoughts sped through his mind at lightning speed.  Of course she never wanted it ponies don’t live forever why would she ever even think about it too many immortal creatures is a problem anyway but it’s not a problem for me so it shouldn’t be for her and doesn’t she want me forever too I can’t be alone for eternity!  All he could manage amid the chaos of his internal monologue was an echo: “...Never wanted?”

“It would hurt too much to outlive all my friends.  I wouldn’t even know what to do with all that time!”

“Aren’t I good enough?  I mean, I’ve lived this long and I’ve always found things to do and new things to experience.  Like you!  I’ve never fallen in love for real before!  And now you’re telling me I’ve finally found another creature I can’t bear to be without, and I could provide everything she’d ever wanted and more until the end of time, and she would rather grow old and die and leave me to wonder how I ever managed to survive alone for so long and how I could ever survive alone again?  So I get a few short years of happiness and then a whole eternity of grief and pain?  You really wish that for me?”

Fluttershy could hardly speak through her tears.  She reached up her arms to cradle his face in her hooves.  “Discord, I—”

He swatted her hooves away.  “No!  I was wrong.  I thought… you loved me, as much as I love you.”

“But I do!”

“Do you?  Do you?  Will you be immortal with me?  There’s still plenty of dark magic in you—I can feel it!  I bet I could help you turn shadow pony just like that.”  His fingers pressed together like he was about to snap.

“NO, DISCORD!”  There was a moment of stillness.  Fluttershy felt her heart pounding.  When Discord’s eyes narrowed, a deep, bitter remorse sprang up in her stomach.  “No, I mean—that’s not what I meant!  Um—I don’t mean I don’t love you! I—”

Discord cut her off by pressing a talon against her lips.  His expression was grim.  “I think I need some time to myself for a little while.”

“Discord, wait!”  Fluttershy reached out a hoof, but he was gone.  Her muscles all gave out at once and she collapsed into her bed, and she wept and wept until all sense of time passing evaporated and she had no more tears left to cry.


~*~*~*~


There was a knock on the door.  Fluttershy didn’t register it at first.  Then it came again, louder and faster, and this time it made her open her eyes.

“Coming!”  She shouted, or tried to, anyway.  It took Fluttershy long enough to heave herself out of bed and stumble toward the door that there was another bout of knocking before she opened it.

“FLUTTERSHY!” The enthusiasm of Pinkie Pie was unmistakable.  She was already wrapping her friend in an embrace before Fluttershy even had a chance to flinch in surprise.  “Hey, are you okay?  Your face is all wet oh no you’ve been crying!”

“Fluttershy, what happened?”  This time it was Twilight’s voice.  The pink and purple ponies let themselves into the house and Fluttershy felt herself floating across the room.  After the magenta aura laid her on her sofa, she finally had a chance to respond.

“I… don’t know if I can talk about it right now...”  It came out as a croak.

“Then we’ll just have to stick around and help you feel better until you can,” assured Pinkie Pie, pulling a blanket up around her friend.  Twilight nodded in agreement and walked toward the kitchen to start some tea brewing.

“Thank you.  I think I’m in need of the company.”

Pinkie sat down, and starting with a “well, in that case,” she launched into a story about a pegasus that flew overhead on the walk to the cottage, who must have been distracted by something because he flew into a tree, and then Pinkie got distracted laughing and bounced right into a bush.  That made Fluttershy giggle, and soon enough, Twilight returned with the tea.  Pinkie Pie finished her cup of honey-lemon-ginger in no time flat and proceeded to speed around the house with a feather duster, cleaning everything in sight.  Twilight placed herself in the seat next to Fluttershy and the two of them sipped their tea quietly together.

Half an hour later, they both turned to watch Pinkie Pie march past bipedally, carrying Fluttershy’s tear-soaked bedsheets toward the washtub.

“Oh, um, you really don’t have to do that, Pinkie,” called the pegasus.

“Nonsense!” came the only reply.  Fluttershy shook her head and smiled weakly.

Twilight set down her empty teacup.  “Feeling any better?”

“A little.  Thank you for staying with me, but I think you came here for another purpose.  May I ask what your visit was originally for?”

“Pinkie and I are going on a little trip to the Crystal Empire, and we wanted to invite you along.  I still have so many questions about shadow ponies, and if it’s true that they start out as normal unicorns, this question might be a matter of concern for Equestria’s national security.  Pinkie suggested we search the last known shadow pony stronghold for any artifacts we could study.  Even Cadence is on board after I wrote to her.  Since you’re probably more invested in this inquiry than anypony, I thought you might want to join us.”

“But what about your duties?”

“Like I said, national security.  It is my duty to look into this.  So what do you say?”

“Um, I’d love to but, um… There’s—I have a lot—well, I’m a lot right now.  It’s only getting harder to get around and… I don’t really want to think very much about this anymore...”

Twilight leaned forward.  “Fluttershy, did something happen?  You left the library in such a hurry earlier...”

“I realized something—or I thought I realized something, and then Discord… realized something...”

“Well, that’s SOMETHING!”  At that moment, Pinkie Pie bounded back into the room and set a cupcake in Fluttershy’s hooves.  “I hung your sheets up on the clothesline.  Are you feeling better enough to talk to us now?”

Fluttershy took a bite of the cupcake and set the rest on the coffeetable.  Then she took a deep breath and tried to explain herself.  Pinkie Pie was oddly still during the whole explanation, and Twilight’s jaw dropped when Fluttershy described how close she must have been to transforming into a shadow pony.

When Fluttershy paused to take another bite of the cupcake, Pinkie Pie moved to place a hoof on her shoulder.  “Is that what you were crying about when we found you?”

“Yes and no, I guess.  There’s also… I told Discord about all this already, and he didn’t exactly take it well...”

Twilight broke from her stunned paralysis.  “He must have been pretty upset that he nearly lost you!”

Fluttershy’s throat was constricting painfully as the tears began to well up again, but she knew she couldn’t stop there.  She had to tell her friends what happened, so she fought on.  “No.  He was upset because he thinks, because he saved me, he actually did lose me.”  Her friends’ silence was the same as saying “go on,” so she did.  “Shadow ponies don’t age and die.  Sombra was killing my body, but he was also making me immortal, in a way.  I told Discord I never wanted to be immortal, and then he got angry and disappeared...”

If it had been a race, Twilight would have won by a fraction of a second: her tears started flowing down her cheeks only an instant before Fluttershy’s did.  The alicorn got up and wrapped her hooves around the pegasus.  “Oh, Fluttershy!  I never wanted it either!  I understand how you must be feeling.”

It didn’t take long for Pinkie Pie to start crying and join in the hug too.

Eventually, Fluttershy’s tears slowed down and she spoke into somepony’s fur.  “Was I wrong to tell him that?”

Twilight pulled out of the embrace.  “No, but maybe the timing—”

“If you two are as much in love as everypony knows you are,” Pinkie Pie cut her off, “then you were going to need to have that conversation sooner or later!  Did Discord say where he was going or when he was coming back?”

“No...”

Twilight spoke again and this time wasn’t interrupted.  “Hey.  Discord loves you.  He’s afraid of losing you.  He’ll come back.”

“But he’s still going to lose me in the end.”

There was silence for a few moments, and in that time, Twilight’s face grew hard and distant.  Then she took both of Fluttershy’s hooves in her own and held Fluttershy’s gaze with such intensity that the pegasus could not look away.  “Not everypony can be immortal, but there have always been at least a few immortals around Equestria, and it’s been okay.  As long as those who have immortality are responsible about their decisions, they can be good to have around.  And I figure it’s those of us who really don’t want immortality who are the best candidates for receiving it.”  She sighed.  “What I’m saying is, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if you were to become immortal, and I certainly wouldn’t mind having one,” she looked over her shoulder and smiled at Pinkie Pie, who blushed, “one or more close friends by my side in the future of Equestria...”

Now Fluttershy sighed, removing her hooves from Twilight’s and staring helplessly down at them.  “I suppose I wouldn’t mind that part, but… not at the cost of turning into a shadow pony and giving my will over to the dark magic.  Maybe if there were another way, I would… think about being okay with it, but I’d still rather not.”

“Well, the magic surrounding alicorn ascension and the attendant achievement of immortality is complex and poorly-understood…”

Pinkie Pie leaned into Twilight’s field of view grinning around wide, pleading eyes.  “Wings?”

Twilight smirked and continued her thought.  “It can’t be wielded without strong purpose and great prophetic insight, and even then, the books say it can be remarkably dangerous...”

“Nevermind,” murmured the still-grinning earth pony, leaning back out of view.

Fluttershy picked up her half-finished cupcake again and contemplated it.   “It doesn’t matter anyway.  I still don’t like the idea of being immortal, and I’m definitely against the idea of being a shadow pony.  Whether or not to become immortal isn’t really a decision I have any power to make.  Sorry, Twilight.  I really do hate the idea of… leaving you…”  She set the cupcake down again.

“It’s okay.  Like you said, it’s not really an option anymore anyway, and I’m… I’m making peace with it.”  Pinkie Pie extended a hoof in sympathy, and Twilight responded with a weak smile.  “Anyway, I still need to learn what I can about the shadow ponies.  I take it you’d still rather not come along?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“I think I’ll ask Spike to check in on you while we’re gone.  He can help you with anything you need and send your letters in case you want to update us on the foal or draconequus situations...”

“Yes!”  Interjected Pinkie Pie.  “Update us lots! Every hour!”

Twilight raised an eyebrow.  “Every hour?”

“Every day,” amended Pinkie Pie.

“We shouldn’t be gone more than a week at most.  You’ll be alright, Fluttershy?”

“Yes, I think so.”  The three ponies said their goodbyes, and Fluttershy was left alone with her thoughts again.
> A little chaos to soothe the soul
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the safety of an empty pocket dimension, Discord meant to not be—to efface his boundaries and become pure chaos, as he used to do to calm himself.  But his physical form insisted on being physical, and his personhood impetuously persisted.  Here in nowhere, his will normally slipped into existence at the faintest phantom of thought, but his thoughts weren’t working this time.  He even snapped his fingers too, for good measure, but it failed.  Try as he might to exist as Spirit of Chaos, he was stuck being Discord, and feeling all the emotions Discord had accrued, and pondering all the problems Discord was fighting.

No Discord I don’t will you be immortal with me no Discord never wanted I love you never wanted never wanted never wanted

He snapped again, hoping for anything, anything, to take away his thoughts.

He got everything—flying endtables with potted petunias shouting profane follies and their words smelled of peppermint while fudge poured like rain from passing clouds that were no clouds but the metaphysical categories of reproach and futility.  And it spilled in and compressed until there was no air left and Discord was flailing in a sea that had no surface.

Then the sea turned to hot sauce, and it burned Discord outside and in until he had no thoughts at all but fight or flight and he could do neither.

Then the hot sauce shifted pinker and pinker until it was cotton candy instead.  No, now it was not.  It was hair, pink hair, her hair, everywhere.

Discord was afraid of it yet pacified.  She posed all problems but softened all fears.  Fluttershy.  His and not his, here and not here.  He floated along, his mind finally placid.

There was a reason I held out from her for so long.  I always knew: her fate is to perish, someday, and mine is to persist, always.  But fate’s a funny thing.  I knew loving her would hurt, but time and impossibility only made her more appealing.  What’s impossibility to the Spirit of Chaos, anyway?  Provocation.  Fascination.  Temptation.

Finally, the sea grew a surface, and Discord found above him a starry sky.  The stars were not stars; they were butterflies, white and flickering.  He watched them flutter and swirl and form so many constellations—now her wings, now her eyes… Now her lips.

I love her.  Of course I do.  That’s why I could never put her in that predicament; follow me into forever, or I’ll part from you.  But that’s what I just did!  No, I’ll go back.  In time, I’ll go back.  And apologize.  And appreciate every precious moment I can get.  But I have to learn to live without her.

He was freefalling into emptiness the moment the thought passed through his mind.

More friends.  They will forever be dying.  I will forever be making more.  I will learn to live without her.  Part of me will always be searching for a replacement, but how can she possibly be replaced?  Disappointment will follow me forever, but I will go on finding new friends forever.  For her.

Ponies popped up all around, facing him, smiling, waiting.

Discord bopped his head a few times.  “Come on, chaos, that’s pretty creepy.”

All the ponies disappeared but one.  A pegasus, bright blue.

Perfect!  I’ll take a pause from Fluttershy to find my independence, and I’ll improve some friendships while we’re apart.  Prepare yourself, Rainbow Dash!  Your impish friend is coming with plans to pester...

Poof!


~*~*~*~


“Rainbow Da—”

“DAAAAH!!”  Papers went flying, and Rainbow Dash with them.  “Discord!  What do you want?”

“Only to visit with a friend of mine.  It has been a while, hasn’t it, Dashie?”

Rainbow Dash alighted on the floor and started picking up the papers that had scattered around her desk.  “Yeah, I guess, but a little warning would have been nice!  I guess that’s a little more than I can expect from you, though, huh?”

Discord raised his eyebrow.

“Anyway, I’m kinda in the middle of some important work.  If you wanna stop by again some other time, at least I’ll know to expect you…”

“Important work, eh?  On paper, at your desk?  Since when did Rainbow Dash do office work?”  Discord floated closer to peer over the pegasus’s shoulder.

“Since yesterday.  Spitfire decided our Wonderbolt routines have been getting a bit stale and asked every member of the team to draft a show.  She said she wanted them for inspiration and we probably wouldn’t perform anypony’s ideas without some major modification, but I promised myself I’d come up with something so good, there would be nothing Spitfire could possibly change to make it better!”

“Really?  Oh, I’m just itching to know what kind of show the greatest Wonderbolt of them all would dream up!  Will there be fireworks?  Lightning strikes?  Mortal danger?”  Discord conjured little images of each of the effects as he listed them—miniature fireworks, lightning between his hands, and for the mortal danger one, the sound of ponies screaming.

“Yes, all of that!  Maybe?  Some of it?  Lightning would definitely be pretty awesome…”

“Do you mean to tell me you haven’t actually come up with anything yet?”

Rainbow Dash flipped through the papers where she’d been sketching ideas.  “Well, I’ve come up with a few sweet moves to use, but I guess I haven’t really come up with a plan to stitch them all together into a cohesive show yet.  Genius takes time, alright?  It would really help me think if I didn’t have any distracting draconequui hanging about my house.”

“Yes, well, I can see how that might be a nuisance,”  Discord ceded, cloning a new duplicate of himself with every word, “but sometimes collaborative thinking can really get those creative juices flowing!”  Each draconequus in the room was suddenly sipping on a juice box, making as much noise as possible through the flimsy straws.  “What do you say?  Would you let me help you?”

“Ugh, fine.  As long as there’s only one of you!”  Rainbow Dash glared at the horde of mischievous creatures crowding her living room.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”  All of the clones rapidly merged back into a single original, who then fell backwards onto Rainbow Dash’s sofa.  “Anyway, would chaos magic be within the realm of possibility for this show of yours?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?  You didn’t even think about it!”

“No.”

“But what if it’s disguised?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on!  It could be cool—”

“No.”

“—epic, even!”

“No.”

“Well, what would you consider?”

“N—uhh, I dunno.  It’s gotta be dramatic, entertaining, utterly awesome, and safe.  For the audience, I mean.  We Wonderbolts can handle anything.”

“Can you now?  What about...”  Discord started growing and changing shape.  The dimensions of Rainbow Dash’s living room grew to fit him.  “An Ursa Major?”

Rainbow Dash had been sifting through her papers.  When she turned to look at Discord, she yelped and fell out of her chair.  “I mean, uhh,” she flew up until she was level with the creature’s face and throwing mock punches at it.  “Yes, of course!  We could totally take an Ursa Major!  But like I said, it’s gotta be safe for the audience.”

Discord shrunk back into himself.  The room shrunk too, and the ceiling hit Rainbow Dash’s head on its way down, knocking her to the floor.  Discord did not acknowledge the assault.  “I can’t make any guarantees about a real Ursa Major’s attitude or acting abilities—not unless Fluttershy were there, anyway, and I don’t think she’d be into the idea—but I can tell you I can be perfectly safe when I want to be!”

After furiously shaking her head to clear the ache, Rainbow Dash flew up to Discord’s height, keeping a close eye on the ceiling lest it suddenly descend again.  “Okay, but why would the Wonderbolts fight you charading as an Ursa Major, especially if you weren’t intending to hurt anypony?  I mean, what’s the point of that?”

“The point is, it’s a show.  A dramatic battle between the forces of pony and malicious magical creature, staged with all kinds of tricks and stunts for your audience’s viewing pleasure!”  To illustrate his proposal, Discord summoned a flock of buttons and sent them after one of the throw pillows on the sofa, as if they were a troupe of pegasi attacking an Ursa Major.

Rainbow Dash sat down and lifted a hoof to her chin.  The buttons and pillow started flying circles around her head, but she ignored them.  “Huh.  That might actually be just a little bit awesome…  Yeah!  Hang on!”  The pegasus darted into her desk chair so fast it almost fell over sideways, but she was already rapidly scribbling on a sheet of graph paper.

Discord set the pillow back on the couch and caught the buttons in a jar, and then he set the jar upside-down on the coffeetable.  The still-animated buttons bumped themselves against the side of the glass facing the pillow.  A hairbreadth at a time, they were pushing the jar toward the edge of the table.  Discord watched for a moment with devious glee, then floated over to Rainbow Dash to watch her work.  “So, chaos magic is okay after all, then?”

“Sure.  Uh-huh.”

“Of course, when your little captain is awe-struck with your show and schedules a performance, I will be most happy to make myself available and come play my part as the angry, evil bear.”

“Great!”  Rainbow Dash finally set down her pencil and admired the sequence she’d just sketched.  “There’s no way Spitfire’s not gonna love this.  Once she comes around on the idea of you being part of the show, that is.  But I’m sure we can convince her.”

Discord grinned.  “Oh, this is so exciting!  I’ll get to use my magic, spread some chaos, and make ponies happy in the process instead of just terrorizing them!”

“Heh, you know,” the pegasus chuckled, elbowing Discord in his side, “I do sometimes love spreading some chaos and mildly terrorizing ponies myself.”

“You do?”

“Yeah!  You helped me get that office work done a lot sooner then I expected, so now I have tons of free time.  Wanna help me pull a few pranks?”

“Would I ever!”  As soon as he finished his exclamation, Discord’s whole body tingled and he suddenly twitched so hard that he fell over onto the floor.

“Uh, you okay?”  Rainbow Dash tilted her head in confusion but offered a hoof.

Discord took it and stood himself up again.  Then he scratched his head.  “Huh.  That was weird, even for me.  I’m feeling fine now, though...”  A thermometer appeared in Discord’s mouth, but instead of the tube filling with mercury, it somehow flashed the word “healthy”.

“Maybe it was just a fluke.  Still wanna go pranking?”

“Absolutely!”  The duo flew off into the afternoon to seek their first victim.  Shortly after they left, anypony who happened to fly by Rainbow Dash’s house might have heard the loud crash of a glass jar shattering.  Inside, a fleet of flying buttons started pummeling a throw pillow.





Applejack’s day had been long and hard, but she relished in the toil.  She had arrived in Ponyville on the morning train and had hardly set her belongings down in the house before she went out with Big Mac to inspect the fields and help tackle the chores.  Now it was sunset, and she took a moment to wipe the sweat off her brow before heading in for the evening.

“Oh, there ya are, Applejack!  I was fixin’ to think I’d dreamt you showin’ up this morning!”

“Aw, come on, Granny, you knew I’d be itchin’ to get back to work out there!”  Applejack reached out to give Granny Smith a hug, and Granny returned it with a chuckle.

“I understand all that, but listen here:  you were itchin’ so hard to get out there, ya must not have heard me sayin’ ya got some mail!  It came in shortly before you did this mornin’.  Looked like it was from one of your friends, so I went ahead and put it on the desk in your room.”

“Thanks!  I’ll go have a look at it in a bit.  For now, what can I do to help get dinner together?”

“Don’t you worry about that, dearie.  It’s your first day home in moons!  Go up there and see what that letter’s all about, and give your ol’ Granny the pleasure of cookin’ for ya again.  I’ll holler when it’s all ready.”

Applejack obeyed, for she knew her own stubbornness came from somewhere, and that somewhere was Granny Smith.  Besides; it was a little odd for one of her friends to write to her so soon after she’d left them.  Before she’d left, even, if the letter arrived home before she did!  It couldn’t have been a big emergency, or Twilight might have just teleported her back to the castle.  So what then?  The envelope indicated it was from Rarity.  Applejack carefully tore it open and sat on the edge of her bed as she started reading.

Dear Applejack,

I know you haven’t been home for very long by the time you’re reading this letter, but I wanted to make sure you knew there won’t be a single moment you’re forgotten to us in Canterlot.  It sure is difficult to part ways from our friends after we’ve been through so much together.  Hopefully the distance between us is never more than physical distance!  That’s why I’m writing—even though you’ve moved away now, I still want to be part of your life.  Getting to know you and spend time with you has truly added much to my own life, and you must understand that I am loath to forfeit your good influence!

Now, now, Applejack; you are the bearer of honesty, so don’t be so modest.  You know I’m right.  I’ve always been a little bit melodramatic, as you know, but you and your level head have always managed to keep me grounded.  I’ve learned a lot about myself the more I’ve gotten to know you, strange as it is to say, but it’s true.

And that is why, if you’re willing, I positively insist on your continued company, even if it must continue in the form of a written correspondence for the foreseeable future.  Would you grant me that, pretty please?

Give my regards to your family.

Forever your friend,
Rarity

A drop of water landed next to the name just as Applejack finished reading it.  The earth pony set the letter on her nightstand and wiped the rest of her tears away.  She had kept herself busy with work all day to avoid thinking about how much it hurt to move away from her friends, and now those thoughts were all flooding in.  Of course she knew her relationships with the other element bearers was too strong to fade over physical distance, but she still feared the changes.  This change, though, writing letters instead of talking face-to-face… Well, it wasn’t the most ideal, but it might be the next best thing, and the thought brought Applejack comfort.  She dug out a pen and some stationery, then sat herself at the desk and contemplated what she would write.

Dear Rarity,

“Applejack!  Dinnertime!”

“Comin’, Granny!”  Applejack quickened her writing and got a couple of lines down before setting the page aside and moving to join her family around the table.

Thank you so much for your letter.  I guess I needed it more than I would have been willing to acknowledge.  Anyway, I feel the same way, and I would be more than happy to write frequently if it means keeping you a part of my life…
> Bones in the deep
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It turned out Princess Cadence had a good lead.  She had detected a few underground tunnels and even an entrance to one right there in her castle, but there was never a good time to investigate them herself.

“I’d have sent some of my guard, but the crystal ponies can still be a little jumpy, and I just didn’t see the need to stir up any old fears.  I have no objection to you two going down there if you want, especially if it really is a matter of national security.  Just promise me you’ll come out for backup at the first sign of danger, okay Twilight?”

“Of course.  Pinkie and I will be careful.  If we don’t come back by an hour before sundown, would you send somepony to look for us?  I don’t anticipate getting into trouble, but I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to track time passing, and I’ll need to come back up to raise the moon anyway.”

“Sure thing.  Good luck!”

Twilight closed her eyes and recited an incantation that made her horn bubble with black shadow and purple flames burst from her eyes.  The cracked slab of stone in the floor slowly rose from its ancient resting place.  It ground up dust that made all three ponies cough, but when it cleared and Twilight released the dark magic, there was an ominous stairway before them, descending deep into the gloom.  Her horn now lit with a soft light, Twilight lead the way down.  Pinkie Pie gulped and followed.  When they had vanished from her sight, Princess Cadence motioned two guard ponies over to stand at the entrance and fought off a shiver as she tried not to think about what Twilight and Pinkie Pie might find.


~*~*~*~


Twilight felt Pinkie Pie’s sharp inhale behind her and hastily shoved a wing over her friend’s mouth.  “I agree: it’s amazing.  But let’s not shout about it until we’re absolutely certain there’s nopony else here.”

“Right,” Pinkie Pie whispered when the wing was removed.

The two ponies kept to the shadows as they crept deeper into a great cavern and the subterranean town inside it.  Twilight even extinguished her horn, both to make them less visible and because enough sunlight filtered through the crystal-packed fissures in the distant ceiling that they could find their way around by it.  After an hour of tense exploration where the only sound they heard was their own hoofsteps and heartbeats, Twilight finally sighed.

“Alright, I think we’ve determined we’re alone.”  Twilight heard the same sharp inhale as before and once again lifted her wing to stifle the coming shout.  “But, just to be safe, let’s keep our volume down to a reasonably quiet level, Pinkie.”

Pinkie Pie let out the breath she’d just taken and proceeded in her normal speaking voice.  “Wow!  This place is so neat!  It looks like there were a bunch of ponies living down here, and for who knows how long!”

“Shadow ponies,” Twilight corrected.  “The Crystal Heart has probably driven them all extinct by now, but it sure looks like they had something of a civilization.  Maybe we can find a library or archive.”

“Ooh!  Let’s try over there!”  Pinkie Pie started bouncing down the darkest street toward the largest building.  Then there was a loud, hollow clunk that echoed throughout the village and she stopped in her tracks.  “Uh, Twilight?”

The alicorn trotted up, pursed her lips, and gently lifted Pinkie Pie up in her magic and set her down a few hoofsteps away.  Her friend had landed herself in what looked like a unicorn skeleton.  Twilight noted with a knot in her stomach that the skull was stained purple and black around the horn, and a little ways down the spine too.  “...I’d say it’s pretty certain by now that there’s nopony else down here.  Nopony alive, anyway.  Let’s keep moving.”

Pinkie nodded, and they proceeded cautiously toward the building, watching their steps to avoid any more surprises.

Once they’d turned their backs, the skeleton slowly lifted its head and watched them go with barren, vacant eye sockets.


~*~*~*~


Soon enough, Twilight was settled and comfortable.  The room they had found certainly looked like a library, and of course, that was her native element.  Even if this one was dark, half-disintegrated, and choked with cobwebs.  She thought there might be a few more skeletons in here too, but she forced herself not to look too closely.  They were here for the books, and that was all.

“Okay, Pinkie, try to look for anything that says ‘archive’, ‘history’, or ‘records’, any of that sort of thing.  They might not use the same organization systems we do, so important information could really be anywhere.”

Pinkie Pie saluted and bounced off.  It only took 2.28 seconds for her to call back a report.  “Hey, how about this?  ‘CT: Biographies’.  Or or or, there’s this: ‘D: Histories’!  Would those help?”

Twilight trotted toward her friend’s voice.  “Yeah, actually, that’s perfect!  How did you find them so quickly?”

“Silly Twilight!  It’s just in Library of Congress order!”  Pinkie Pie bounded into view from the shadows and ran a hoof down her mane to make it as straight as Twilight’s, then struck a regal pose.  “As you once told me: ‘There are many excellent ways to organize a library, each with its own unique merits.  But the Library of Congress system, Pinkie, well, somehow it always makes me swoon...’” Pinkie Pie’s mane suddenly fluffed back out to its usual mess.  “So of course, I immediately went to a library and studied up on the system so I could put a summary of it in your party file!  Just in case I would ever need it!”

Twilight was so stunned, she hardly noticed Pinkie Pie’s wink.  “Wow, that’s… Actually pretty typical for you, come to think of it.  Shall we begin?  Here’s a scroll and quill.  Look through as many books as you can and jot down as much information about the shadow ponies as you think is relevant.  I’ll do the same over here, and we’ll compare notes in an hour.”

“Okey-dokey-lokey!”

When about an hour had passed, the two ponies met up in the central aisle.

“Find anything good?”  Twilight asked.

“Mmhmm!”  Pinkie Pie turned her scroll around so Twilight could appreciate how full of notes it was.  “You go first!”

“Well, to start from the beginning, one history mentioned a band of five unicorns who were expelled from Celestia’s School of Magic.  They all came to the Crystal Empire and soon attracted other unicorns out here with some sort of secret congregation.”

“Ooh!  I wonder if those were the same unicorns whose disciplinary records I found!  Breaking into a restricted archive, unauthorized use of lab equipment, theft of sensitive books, and lastly, practice of dark magic on school grounds—all from Celestia’s School of Magic.  That last write-up got them expelled.”

“Dark magic!”  Twilight exclaimed.  “Duh!  Those ponies got kicked out of Celestia’s school for trying to teach themselves forbidden magic, so they came to the farthest corner of the nation to start a cult!  I bet they were the founders of this underground colony.”

“More like an underground club!  I found reams and reams of minutes for something called ‘The Dark Council’.  The first record has five names in it, although different names than those on the disciplinary records...”

“They probably took on aliases,” Twilight suggested.

“Well listen to this,” Pinkie Pie continued, “Two years after the first meeting, one of them called Nox Invoco said ‘Our facilities have been prepared at last.  I move we begin our research toward the ‘Sacred Goal.’  Nopony ever explains what the ‘Sacred Goal’ is, though...”

Twilight lifted a hoof to her chin in thought.  After a minute, her hoof dropped and so did her ears.  “Immortality.  Remember what Fluttershy told us?  I bet that was their ‘Sacred Goal’.”

“No way!  What kind of ponies would die to get immortality?  That seems pretty backwards to me.”

“Maybe they didn’t know it would kill their bodies, but they were still living, in a sense.  At least, their memories and personalities were.”

“They sure seemed to think they were alive.  Look at this packet I found: Shadow Pony Biology.  It’s not really a book, though.  All the contents are kind of scribbled, and it’s super disorganized.  Even for me!”  Pinkie Pie held out a bound stack of papers, which Twilight was quick to snatch and examine.

“Hey!  These look like lab notes!”  The alicorn flipped rapidly through the pages, devouring the information like a certain earth pony devours cupcakes and filling her scroll with as many notes as it could hold.  Pinkie Pie simply sat down and watched.  Though it was rare for her not to be smiling, in those minutes, only a gleam in her eyes betrayed her awe and admiration for her friend’s voracity.

When Twilight finally pointed her quill at the scroll but found no room to write, she sighed.  “You know, I think we can just take this whole notebook out with us.  There’s a lot of valuable knowledge in it, but I’m out of room and I think it’s about time we get back aboveground.  Besides, I don’t think there’s anypony here who will mind.”  Twilight turned to tuck her writing and the lab notes into her saddlebag, but something caught her eye.  “Hey, what’s that?”

Pinkie Pie followed Twilight’s gaze to the back of the room, but by the time her eyes registered the faint glint of red light, Twilight was already walking toward it.  The pink pony’s tail flicked violently to the right and a chill ran up her spine, but she followed.

There against the back wall sat a pedestal with a glass case on top that was nearly opaque with age.  Twilight lifted the case away in her magic and gasped at what lay underneath.  A translucent red crystal, almost as big as her head, with absolutely perfect structure and clarity.  At both the top and bottom of its oblong shape was affixed a jewel-encrusted circlet of black metal, giving the impression that the crystal was wearing some sort of crown.  Twilight reached out to take the artifact in her hoof.

“W-WAIT!”

Twilight froze and glanced at her friend with concern.  Pinkie Pie’s teeth were inexplicably chattering, and she kept twitching her back legs.  When her body finally calmed down (except for the fear in her eyes), she elaborated.

“My Pinkie sense is going wild!  It’s never been this bad!  I don’t know what the signals are trying to tell me, but I think it has something to do with that scary crystal.  We really should just leave it alone and get out of here.”

The worry on Twilight’s face held for a moment longer, and then a pitying smirk broke through.  Her voice was unnervingly smooth.  “Oh, Pinkie.  No need to be so suspicious; we’re better than that.  We came here to learn all we could, remember?”  Without further hesitation, Twilight picked up the crystal and held it in her hooves, gazing at it as if in a trance.  She didn’t flinch when what looked like murky clouds began to swirl up inside the artifact.

Pinkie Pie could only watch in horror.  Twilight was aware of nothing but what she held in her hooves.  Before the alicorn’s eyes, an angry, half-rotten face appeared out of the clouds and snarled.

“EEP!”  Twilight flinched and dropped the crystal.  She watched it fall as if in slow motion, and dread sank into her stomach as she struggled to get her limbs moving to catch it.  Struggled, and failed.

CRASH!

The horrible sound echoed and echoed, reaching all corners of the cavern and lasting far longer than it should have.  Twilight and Pinkie Pie cowered a little deeper with each iteration of the sound until finally silence descended again like a hungry beast waiting to pounce.  A red smoke rose from the now-clear shards of crystal and quickly dissipated into the air.

“Pinkie,” Twilight whispered, “I think it’s time we got out of here...”

Then, the rattling started—first in the library stacks, and soon outside the building too.  The sound grew to a roar that permeated the entire subterranean town.  Twilight’s blood ran cold.

“The skeletons,” Pinkie Pie murmured.

Twilight whispered back.  “Get ready to run.”  She lowered her head and teleported them as far as she could.  With the dark magic interference, that was only as far as the edge of the town.  Their exit was still a hard gallop across open cavern ahead of them.  As soon as she was oriented, Twilight shouted “Now!  Come on!”

She and Pinkie Pie ran.  They could hear a stampede of clacking dead hooves growing behind them, drawing closer and closer, made impossibly fast by some grotesque, unnatural force.  Sweat poured down Twilight’s face and neck and a hazy blackness gnawed at her consciousness as her body struggled for oxygen.  She worried for Pinkie Pie, but the other mare managed to keep by her side.

“Pinkie… get… ahead!”

A few paces further and Pinkie complied, getting herself a body-length in front of her friend.  The stampede was looming louder and louder and Twilight could hardly even see for the noise, but she knew she would only get one chance to save them and had to focus all her attention and magic on that chance.

The dark entryway was just ahead now.  Another moment, and they would be through to the staircase.  Twilight felt the sensation of teeth snapping at the air right behind her back hooves and tried not to black out.

Pinkie made it through.  One more frantic breath, and…

Twilight cast a forcefield behind her as she cleared the opening, then she promptly crashed into Pinkie Pie.  Before even untangling themselves, both ponies’ heads shot up to look back into the cavern behind them.  The force field was visible but transparent, and on the other side, they saw…

“Nothing.  There’s no creature there,” Twilight breathed.  “You heard them too, right?”

Pinkie Pie was gasping too quickly to speak, but she managed to nod.

“Let’s figure it out later.  I just want to get out of here!”  Twilight shakily extracted her tangle of legs from Pinkie Pie’s and stood up.

“Your majesty!”  It was a stallion’s voice.

“We’re here!”  Twilight called.

“Oh, thank the Heart.”  Two crystal guardponies descended into view, a stallion and a mare.  “It’s almost time to raise the moon, and Princess Cadence was worried.  Are you ladies alright?”

Twilight watched Pinkie Pie shake her head, peered back into the empty cavern behind them and its deserted town, then shook her own head.  “I don’t know what just happened and I don’t want to make sense of it here.  But it’s a long way back up there, isn’t it?”  Her ears drooped as she gazed up the murky staircase.

The two guardponies bowed as well as they could on the stairs, and then the mare spoke.  “Would you allow us to assist you?”

Twilight offered a sheepish smile.  “Please.”

The mare guard was a unicorn and lifted Twilight carefully in her magic.  The stallion asked Pinkie Pie’s permission and then shuffled her onto his back.


~*~*~*~


“Twilight?”

“Hmm?”  Twilight turned her attention from the train window to Pinkie Pie.

“Do you really think just watching is going to be enough?”

“What do you mean?”

“Princess Cadence.  She said she’d watch the shadow pony cave, but what can that really do?  What if there’s another attack?”  Pinkie Pie’s attention was fixed on the floor, and alarmingly, there was not even a hint of a smile on her face.

Twilight put an arm around her friend’s shoulders, and Pinkie Pie leaned in until her head was resting on her.  “It’s alright, Pinkie. What happened down there was probably just a last pool of dark magic scattering.  By now, there’s probably almost none left, and it will all be gone after a few more years’ worth of Crystal Faires.  There isn’t really any point in sending other ponies down there to be frightened off like we were.”  Twilight felt the fur on her shoulder getting damp in the same moment Pinkie Pie sniffled.  “Oh, that really… got to you, didn’t it?”

Pinkie Pie buried her wet face deeper into Twilight’s shoulder.  “It’s hard to—sniff—giggle at the ghosties when you’re running for your life...”

“Hey, hey,” Twilight soothed, wrapping Pinkie Pie into a full embrace, “I’m here.  As long as we’re together, there’s nothing that can hurt us.”

After a few more moments of sniffling, Pinkie Pie slowly pushed herself back until she could attempt to give Twilight a smile.  “I know.  Our friendship can overcome anything, and you’re a really pret—sniff—I mean powerful alicorn.  But, it’s just...”

Twilight searched Pinkie Pie’s eyes, but her friend couldn’t meet her gaze.  “It’s just…?”

“It’s just, if that’s what a little dark magic can do… I mean, that was reallyreallyreally scary!  Can you imagine what Fluttershy was living with for all those moons?”

Now Twilight’s gaze dropped too.  “I try not to...”

“And even worse!  What if Fluttershy’s foal turns out to be a shadow pony?  What if it has dark magic?  I’m gonna want to just smother her cute widdle baby with love and sweets and joy and happiness, but—what if I’m afraid of them?  How’s that poor little foal going to feel if everypony is afraid of them?”

The sound of the train rushing down its tracks filled the silence while Twilight pondered Pinkie Pie’s worries.

Then she took her friend’s hooves in hers.  “No, Pinkie.  We won’t be afraid.  Even if Fluttershy’s foal is a shadow pony, we won’t be afraid.  We’re going to learn everything we can about shadow ponies and dark magic so we know what we’re dealing with, and then we’re going to help teach her foal to control its powers and be the sweetest, friendliest creature it can be!”

“You’re right, Twilight!”  Pinkie Pie held Twilight’s gaze with sparkling intensity while the bounce suddenly returned to her wild mane.  “Oh, oh!  You grabbed those lab notes, right?  Let’s get started learning right away!”

“Yes!  I like the way you think!”  Twilight lifted her saddlebag in her magic and peered inside.  Then she released her front left hoof from Pinkie Pie’s right and started physically rummaging around in the bag.  After a few seconds, Twilight unceremoniously dropped it back to the floor.  “It’s not here!  The notebook must have fallen out while we were running!  Now what will we do?  We can’t go back!”

“Hey, wait—didn’t you take notes on the notes that were most… noteworthy?”

Up flew the saddlebags again.  After another moment of digging: “YES!”  Again, the bag fell to the floor, now lighter by one crammed scroll.  “Thank you, Pinkie!  Shall we begin?”  Twilight proceeded to read her notes aloud as the train carried them back toward home.

Pinkie Pie listened attentively, and she never let go of Twilight’s other hoof.
> Draconequus in danger
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discord sat on a giant pillow floating in the vast, empty darkness.  There were butterflies of every color embroidered on it, but they fluttered across its surface with almost as much mobility as any real lepidopteran.  Discord watched their unpredictable swirls of motion for a while and then flopped forward onto his belly, propelling several of the animated embellishments away in all directions.

“There’s nocreature here,” he moaned.  “Why, why can I still feel your eyes on me?”  In the moments he spent waiting for the silent void to reply, Discord watched his fists clench and unclench, and when he tried to control them, the effort made his goat leg twitch and then fall still, tingling like it was asleep.  “I’m so pathetic.  Pining away and pretending I’m dying, and for what?  I used to be free!”

Discord sat up again and waited for the rushing sensation to clear from his head.  It felt like there were painful sparks arcing up his spine.  “No, no, no...”  He held his head and recovered a little clarity.  “No, that’s not true.  I used to be in stone.  With Fluttershy by my side, I’m freer than I have ever been.  And with me here, not by her side, she can be free too...”

One by one, the embroidered butterflies found themselves plucked off the pillow.  Discord released them into the air to fly in three dimensions.  When he got to the last one, he held on and contemplated it.  “Free to live...”  Discord let his hand convulse back into a fist.  “...and die, as she pleases.”  He opened his hand again and let the pulverized butterfly dissolve into the void and vanish.  All of the butterflies had flown away now, lost in the infinite darkness, free.

On a giant plain pillow sat Discord alone.  Small twitches began running up and down his muscles until he appeared to be vibrating in place.

I’m free to go back to her.  I’m free to stay here as long as I want.  I should go back to her, NOW.  NO, I’m enjoying my solitude.  Solitude is all you’ll get once she’s DEAD!

The pillow vanished and Discord instinctively curled into himself, floating helplessly in a fetal position in the vastness of eternal isolation.

“But I have friends,” he whimpered.

The void pressed in on him.  Surrounding, consuming.

Discord closed his eyes and curled tighter.  “I have friends...”  His lips moved, but his words were silent in the emptiness.  Dark and quiet and alone.  The draconequus spasmed.  And spasmed again.  No one was there to take pity.  No one but himself.





Dear Discord,

I miss you.  A lot.  I’m sorry I upset you the last time we talked.  I was confused and scared and I didn’t have my thoughts in order, but I certainly didn’t mean to imply there would ever be a moment for the rest of my life when I wouldn’t love you desperately.  That’s what scares you, I think—“the rest of my life”—but I’ve been considering that a lot in the week since you left, and I want you to be aware of my opinions now that I’ve had a little more time to think through them.

Fluttershy laid aside her pen and leaned back into the sofa.  Her stretching belly loomed large in her view from her reclined position, and she laid her hooves over it thoughtfully.  “Well, little one, what are my opinions on all this?”

The thought of outliving all her friends still scared her.  That much she knew.  As to the living forever part, what really made that so unappealing?  Overpopulation?  That’s not really a risk as long as there are only a few and they were very responsible, like Twilight had said.  Would her foal be immortal?  She wouldn’t have to worry about producing any (or any more) immortal foals as long as she stayed true to Discord for all eternity.  Ponies and shadow ponies were apparently close enough to reproduce, but a pony and a draconequus?  Unlikely.

So that’s not an issue, really.  Maybe it was that infinite time is just so daunting.  What would she do with it?  Discord said he’s always found ways to keep himself busy.  There would always be new ponies and new animals to help—as long as she got used to saying goodbye.  But maybe that would be kind of nice.  The helping, that is.

It took a few moments of shifting and pushing for Fluttershy to sit up again.  Reaching down to write was tricky with the foal in the way, but she was determined to keep going.

I definitely don’t want to be a shadow pony—I’m too scared to let the dark magic take over my body again.  But if there were another way, I think I would give the idea a chance.  You seem to like being immortal, after all, and I know you like me and I like you.  Plus, I’m sure Twilight wouldn’t mind having a friend to stick around with her.  So you see, there would still be a lot to talk about, but I love you, and I want to have that conversation.

Please come back.

Yours forever,
Fluttershy

She rolled up the scroll and stared at it.  Spike would be able to send it for her, but she would have to wait for him to come by, since she wasn’t really in a state to go searching for anycreature.

Even if there were good parts, becoming immortal would still be a kind of sacrifice to Fluttershy.  Not that she wasn’t willing to make sacrifices for Discord—he had already nearly died a couple of times for her sake, and she loved him enough to feel sure she would return the favor for him if it were ever necessary.  Even so, they’d only been together as couple for a few moons now, and she would want to give it more time before committing to such a major decision.

But no, it’s not a decision.  Not unless somecreature found a way to bestow immortality aside from becoming a shadow pony.  All these thoughts were just… hypotheticals.  Fluttershy stood up.

Her fur stood up too.  It felt like static electricity, and the air was somehow crackling.  A little light-filled rift tore into the space right in front of Fluttershy and her senses were flooded with a sensation of imminent danger.  She flung herself backward.

BOOM!

Fluttershy dared to open her eyes but saw only black and white: plumes of ash cascading upward out of so many glowing white fractures in space.  Then the fractures started to close, the air started to clear, and she saw…

“Fluttershy!  Help!  Please!”

There was Discord in the center of her mess of a living room, writhing and convulsing on the floor and digging his claws into his own skin.

“Discord!  Oh my goodness!  What happened?”  Instantly, Fluttershy was at his side.  She forced his hands away from his body and hooked his claws into the nearest throw pillow, then commenced a pat-down to search for the injury.

The draconequus kept on writhing, but he managed to start tearing apart the throw pillow instead of his own body.  His breathing was hard and fast, like a creature brought back from the brink of drowning.  “Don’t know… It was just a… little tingle… or a twitch… It got worse… and worse and...”

When Discord didn’t finish and Fluttershy didn’t find any wounds besides the scratches from his own claws, she took his face in her hooves.  “Discord, breathe slowly.  I’m here.”

He gulped and nodded.

“How long has this been going on?”

The longer Discord gazed into Fluttershy’s wide, anxious eyes, the more his body settled down.  “It started five… maybe six days ago…  I don’t know what caused it.  I was with… Rainbow Dash at the time.  What’s happening to me?”

Fluttershy stroked his mane.  “I don’t know.  You’ll be alright.  Just rest here a moment and breathe with me.”  She lead with deep, measured breaths, and Discord followed.  With every four-count exhale, she watched his muscles soften just a little bit more.  A few minutes of breathing found the pair still and calm at last.  “There, see?  You’re already much better.  Now we can try to figure out what went wrong.”

Discord sat himself up and then wrapped Fluttershy in a hug.  “Thank you.  I haven’t felt this stable in days.”

“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been suffering.  Now, is there anything you can think of that might possibly have been related to this attack?  Anything in the last couple of weeks you may have eaten, any unusual experiences, any extreme stress?”

“Hmm.”  Discord raised a claw to his chin.  “Well, I certainly felt extremely stressed last time we talked, when I decided to leave you for a while.  I suppose that could explain how it got started, but not how it got so exponentially worse…  In fact, this might be the first time I’ve stopped twitching and felt in control of myself since it got bad.”

“Maybe because this is the first time you’ve had a chance to relax and calm yourself?”

Discord didn’t hear the question.  There was a low rumble building in his ears, like the sound of mountains falling—and he would know that sound, for he’d witnessed the death of many an ancient mountain—until it was an all-consuming roar.  And inside the rumbling, there was something else.  Beats and consonants and syntax.  Chants and incantations in a language Discord had spent many millenia trying to forget.  All at once, he could understand, and worse, he recognized the sacred words.  Loud and pounding, screeching, threatening with promises as ancient as the Lord of Chaos himself.

“...Discord?”

Suddenly, the draconequus snatched up Fluttershy’s hooves, clinging to them desperately.  He stared into her face and his eyes were dark and wild.  “Fluttershy, I’m so sorry.  I’ll be back soon this time, if I can.  I have to go home right away.”

Just like that, he was gone.  Fluttershy sat astonished and stared at the vacant space where Discord had been just a heartbeat ago.  If he only needed to go home and back… How soon was soon?

When after five minutes her living room was still quiet and unchanged, Fluttershy finally stood up and started putting her furniture back in order.  The scorch mark on the floor might take some… scrubbing… but she could at least turn the armchair up and push the coffeetable back into place.  Then she found her letter to Discord, still rolled up and half-hidden in a corner of the room.  She stared at it in her hoof for a while, wondering if it was still appropriate to send it.  Wondering if Discord was really well enough to be alone.

After wiping more sweat off her brow from the exertion of tidying up the room, Fluttershy also wondered if she was really well enough to be alone.


~*~*~*~


He was flying so fast, his body stretched out across layers of spacetime and tears were streaming from his eyes even though there was no friction here to draw them out.  All around him were millions and millions of glowing portals scattered throughout an immensity of nonphysical space so vast, the measurement would be profoundly incomprehensible if the concept of measurement had any meaning in this plane.  Any mortal who so much as looked at the number if it existed would go mad on the spot.

Discord never worried himself about any of that, and he certainly wasn’t thinking of it now as he soared down the inter-dimensional corridor past worlds familiar and worlds unexplored at a speed that defied description.  He had to get home.  All along the way, his mind could hold only a single thought, and that thought echoed endlessly into the infinitude in his wake.

Mortal...

Mortal...


Mortal...



Mortal...
> Speculations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Applejack,

Thank you so much for the homemade cookies!  Apple-snickerdoodle is certainly not a flavor I’d ever heard of, but I must say, darling, I’m afraid you’ve quite spoiled me for anything else!  I know the Apple family prefers not to share their legendary recipes, so in that case, please feel free to send more of these cookies as often as you like!  I’ll be sure to share with Twilight, Spike, and Fluttershy whenever I see them.

Speaking of Fluttershy, I went to take tea with her just yesterday.  The poor dear has been particularly anxious lately, but she adamantly refused when I offered to stay with her for these last weeks before the foal comes.  I think I will pack up a few things and go stay with her anyway—whatever she says, she really ought not to be alone at a time like this!  She wouldn’t say why Discord has stopped checking in on her.  Anyway, the castle gardens are coming into full bloom and will be my inspiration and source material for my next line of dresses, so really, it would be advantageous for me to stay in her little cottage for a while (especially if Discord isn’t around).  She’s certain to let me stay if I frame it as her helping me instead of the other way around.  Oh, but best if you keep mailing to my house anyway.  I’ll still be checking in there frequently.

You know, Fluttershy mentioned something yesterday about her magic as the Bearer of Kindness, and it got me to thinking:  do the rest of us bearers have our own special kinds of magic too?  I’ve never noticed myself physically changing according to my emotional connections like Fluttershy does, so if generosity does have its own special magic, it’s not that.  On the other hoof, I haven’t really noticed anything about myself that might qualify as generosity magic.  What about you?  Does your honesty give you any special powers that you’ve noticed?  I must say your physical strength is really quite fantastic, but do you think it exceeds the boundaries of normal pony capabilities?

Just an interesting little thought for the day.  Anyway, I hope you are well.  Do you think I shall see you again when Fluttershy’s foal arrives?

Ever yours,
Rarity


~*~*~*~


Dear Rarity,

I’m so glad you liked the apple-snickerdoodle cookies.  I certainly trust you not to spread the recipe around if I gave it to you, but it might take me a bit to convince Granny of that.  In the meantime, enjoy another batch.  It’s bigger this time so you can give a whole bunch to Fluttershy.  I figure she might be craving the sweets right now.  I’m relieved to hear you’ll be staying with her—assuming your little plan worked, that is!  But it’s awful clever and I know you have the best of intentions, so I’m sure you succeeded.

Anyhow, I gave your idea of special magics some thought. I can’t say I can guess at what generosity magic might do unless it’s to make you uncommonly gorgeous and successful in all your efforts.  Although—that’s certainly pretty special, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily from any highfalutin' magic.  I don’t think my strength is magical either.  It’s nothing too special for an earth pony, and on that matter, I think Big Mac’s got me beat.  What about the others, though?  For Twilight, the magic of… well, the magic of magic seems to be just extra magic.  And Rainbow, maybe it’s the fancy flying?  Or the abundance of self-confidence?  Pinkie’s easy enough:  laughter magic’s gotta have something to do with all that energy and her freakishly fast metabolism…  This is all pretty entertaining to think about!

You’ll most certainly see me around the time Fluttershy’s foal arrives.  I’ll high-tail it over to Canterlot as fast as I can once I get the news the foal’s on its way.

Looking forward to seeing you again,
Applejack





Fluttershy was staring at the scorch mark on her floor again when she became aware of a knocking at her door.

“Fluttershy?  Fluttershy!  Are you alright in there?”  It was Twilight’s voice.

“Yes!  Come on in!”  She was still trying to rock herself down off the couch when Twilight and Pinkie Pie appeared in her living room.  Pinkie Pie hopped over and gently pushed her back into the seat.

“No need to get up for us, silly filly!  You just rest, and we’ll tell you all about what we found in the Crystal Empire!”

“If you want to know, that is,” Twilight added.

Fluttershy looked down at her taut belly and rested her hooves on it.  She wasn’t so sure anymore whether she wanted to know if her foal was going to be a shadow pony.  What if if was?  He or she might outlive her.  He or she might be born already given over to the evil pull of its dark magic.  She felt a series of little shoves and kicks under her hooves.

Then her ears pricked when a new thought occurred. What if her foal was a shadow pony, and that caused complications at birth?  What if the life she felt eagerly pushing at the boundaries of her womb flickered out like a candle flame as soon as it was free of her?  The thought of it dying—even though this foal would remind her for the rest of her life about the horrific experience that brought about its existence, that difficult reminder would be nothing to the pain of a precious life created and lost before it even got started.  If there was anything at all that might endanger her foal, Fluttershy would need to know about it.

“Yes.  Please tell me,” she sighed at last.

Twilight and Pinkie Pie sat themselves on either side of her on the couch, and then Twilight retrieved a scroll crammed with scrawled writing from her saddlebag.

“Alright,” Twilight began.  “It turns out that what we were thinking was right.  Shadow ponies are not a biologically-distinct species.”

“They’re all undead unicorns!”  Pinkie Pie interrupted.

Fluttershy felt a glimmer of hope.  Maybe there wouldn’t be problems with her foal after all.  It might turn out to be just like any other unicorn, or perhaps pegasus.

“...Yes, undead unicorns.”  Twilight made a face like she thought she could have made a more tactful description, but she went on.  “The first shadow ponies were a group of unicorns that hid from society and practiced dark magic, hoping to use it to attain immortality.  In allowing the dark magic to overtake and kill their bodies, they transformed into shadow ponies and succeeded in their goal.  Partly, at least.  What they gained was conditional immortality, meaning they wouldn’t age and die, but they could still be weakened and even killed.”

“They had gained power unlike any pony had ever had!”  Pinkie Pie exclaimed, launching into her Dramatic Story voice.  “But they knew they were trapped!  There in their secret underground fortress, they were brimming with power, but if they tried to leave, they would be hunted down and punished—or worse!  Even with all their dangerous magic, they would be vastly outnumbered on the surface world.  There were only two choices: either persuade Equestria to reverse its judgment on dark magic and live in peace but be unable to flex their abilities, or increase their numbers and take Equestria by force!”  Pinkie Pie lowered her head, flattened her ears, and rubbed her front hooves together.  “But dark magic had taken over their very blood,” she rumbled ominously, “and what do you think they chose?  Peace?  Or Power?”

Fluttershy shuddered.

Sensing her unease, Twilight rested a hoof on her shoulder.  “They didn’t succeed.  Pinkie found a volume of lab notes from when the shadow ponies were still working out what it meant to be a shadow pony.  They tried ponynapping different races of ponies and forcing them to turn shadow like them.  Only unicorns ever survived the transformation, but unicorns were also the most likely to be able to resist the dark magic and fight back.”

Fluttershy curled into herself as much as her swollen belly would let her.  “You mean they killed earth ponies and pegasi?”  she whispered.

Twilight nodded.

“Would… I have died?  I mean everything, my spirit too?”

At that question, Pinkie Pie leaned over and wrapped Fluttershy in a hug.

“I don’t think so,” Twilight offered.  “Because of your kindness magic.  You would have been the first non-unicorn shadow pony in history if S—”

Fluttershy flinched.

“—If he had had his way.”  Twilight now leaned down and hugged Fluttershy from the other side, so the pegasus was wrapped in friends all the way around.  “But that’s all behind us now,” Twilight cooed.  The trio sat in quiet stillness for a few moments.

Eventually, Fluttershy relaxed her muscles and broke the silence.  “So… What does all this mean for my foal?”

Twilight backed out of the embrace.  “Well, when the shadow ponies realized trying to transform adult ponies wasn’t working—”

“They tried to make foals!”  Pinkie Pie finished.

“They tried,” Twilight emphasized, “But it wasn’t very successful.  By that time, they had done enough kidnapping that the Crystal Empire was aware of their existence.  Princess Amore created the Crystal Heart and started the tradition of the Crystal Faire, and the shadow pony colony was beginning to weaken.  They tried to breed among themselves but discovered that it took an immense amount of dark magic from the parents—an amount that most individuals no longer had.  Apparently, they even tried reproducing with non-shadow ponies, to no success.  The lab notes describe how non-shadow mares lacked the dark magic for shadow seed to survive in their wombs.  And whether the father was a shadow pony or not, none of the shadow mares had enough dark magic to survive the pregnancy.”

“None except their queen!”  Pinkie interjected.  “She had collected all of the biggest and purest crystals she could find and cast a spell on them that made them capable of capturing ambient dark magic!  Because of those crystals, she became the most powerful shadow pony of them all, and she had enough dark magic to bring a pregnancy to term.”

“...But,” Twilight started again, “none of the shadow stallions had enough magic left to donate seed.  The queen ponynapped a non-shadow unicorn for the sire.  The records don’t say what happened to him, but the first foal was born to the shadow colony, and they hailed him as the savior of their kind.  The colt had a living body, so he was not yet a shadow pony, but dark magic was fused to him and it would grow as he did.  The Crystal Heart did not affect him at first, so the colony sent him to the surface to find and destroy it in order to save their conditionally-immortal lives.”

Fluttershy was transfixed by the story, but she snapped back to the present when Pinkie Pie whispered “that was Sombra.”  The foal in Fluttershy’s womb suddenly kicked hard and the mare’s heart started pounding.

Twilight, wrapped up in the story herself, didn’t notice Fluttershy’s descent into anxiety.  “Sombra eventually succeeded in destroying the Heart, as you know, but by the time he did, it was too late for his colony.  Just like that, Sombra went from being the first shadow pony foal to the last shadow pony alive.”

When Twilight finished, Fluttershy was crying.  The alicorn flinched as she realized she had just spoken the trigger word twice after Pinkie Pie had used it, and now their friend was caught in a panic.  Pinkie Pie was already squeezing Fluttershy in a tight embrace, so Twilight got up to fetch some soothing stimulants.  She put Fluttershy’s kettle on the stove and walked out to the garden while the water heated.  In just a couple of minutes, Twilight returned to her friends on the couch with a bouquet of lavender and a cup of chamomile tea.  The floral scents of both, along with Pinkie Pie’s gentle shoulder massage, helped break Fluttershy from her thought spiral and ease her back into reality.

By the time she got to the bottom of the cup of tea, Fluttershy had calmed back into her normal self.  “So,” she breathed at last, “my foal will be the second shadow foal ever born.”  Twilight nodded, and Fluttershy cautiously went on.  “And I have more dark magic in me right now than any of those weakened shadow mares who failed to deliver their foals?”

Stiffening, Twilight nodded again.

“Then why am I not a shadow pony right now?”

The alicorn lifted a hoof to her chin and thought about it.  “Maybe it’s because you have magic that only five other creatures in the whole world have right now.”

Fluttershy nodded.  “My element magic.  It balances the dark magic.  But my foal—what defense will it have against its dark magic?”

Twilight bit her lip and didn’t answer, so Pinkie Pie piped up.  “You could take your foal to live in the Crystal Empire...”

“But the Crystal Heart will attack when he or she gets older!”

“I don’t have any easy answers,” Twilight sighed.  “This is only the second shadow foal in history.  There’s just too much we don’t know.  But you’re a pegasus!  With any luck, your foal will be a pegasus too and won’t be able to generate its own dark magic.  The threat of becoming a shadow pony will be gone as soon as the foal is born.”

“Yes,” Fluttershy agreed.  “And if it’s not a pegasus?”

“I don’t know.  We’ll all pitch in to train it in the ways of harmony as well as we can, and then pray for the best.  I’ll search for a spell that might be able to safely detach the dark magic from your foal’s body if necessary, but that kind of thing has never been done before.  It will be difficult.  Everything about this is difficult.  But you’ll be surrounded at all times by friends who will do everything they can to help you bear it!  Right, Pinkie?”

“Right,” nodded the mare, just as another knock sounded on Fluttershy’s front door.  “I’ll get it!”  Pinkie Pie jumped up, and in a moment, Twilight and Fluttershy could hear a distant “Rarity!  Come on in!”

“Is everything alright, Fluttershy?” asked the unicorn as she followed Pinkie Pie into the living room.

“I think so.  Twilight and Pinkie Pie were just telling me everything they learned about shadow ponies and my foal.”

“Oh?  Well, you’ll have to tell me all about it!  I came over in the hopes that you would let me stay here for a little while.  The castle gardens are so lovely at this time of year that they’ve inspired my next line of dresses, and I thought it might help my work if I could live right in the middle of my inspiration—just for a little while.  What do you say?  Would you give an old friend shelter in these trying times?”  Rarity lifted her hoof to her forehead to exaggerate her mock desperation, but a gleam of humor shone in her eyes.

“Of course!  I would be happy to have you!”

Twilight and Pinkie Pie simultaneously beamed at Rarity, understanding the hidden intention behind her request.  Fluttershy would have a close and capable watch until the time came for the foal to arrive.   With that, the friends all exchanged a few words of greeting and Twilight and Pinkie Pie said their goodbyes, leaving Fluttershy alone with Rarity to process all she had just learned about her foal.
> Void
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I-i-it’s you!”

“Yes, it’s me.  Who’s in charge around here nowadays?”

“Y-you are!”

“Get up.  I never wanted any of your obeisance.  Who was in charge before I showed up just now?”

“I’ll take you to her.”

…

“You’re back!  My Lord—”

“None of that now.  Tell me: what knowledge has been gained about the founding spells?”

“Too much to summarize.  Come with me to the library, and I’ll—”

“There’s no time.”

“What do you mean?  O-of course there’s no time here.  There never has been.  You aren’t in a hurry to leave again, are you?”

He stared hard.  “If I’m right, and I plead against the founding forces I’m not, something is deeply, terribly wrong.”

“What could possibly be so wrong that even you and your matchless power could not right it?”

“I have become mortal.”
> Lovers' quarrel, revisited
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Diary,

Pinkie and I have just returned from our adventure.  It was rougher than I expected, and we went right from the train station to Fluttershy to tell her what we found, so now I am exhausted through and through.  Still, I can’t neglect my student.  It’s been over a week now since I’ve visited her, and I worry she may be getting lonely.  I just needed to collect my thoughts here, and then I will go to her.  After a lesson or two, if she’s responsive, then I’ll get some rest.  I am determined not to fail Cozy Glow again.

With suddenly infinitely many years of life ahead of me, I feel like my time and effort in every pursuit has been cheapened.  How can I make so, so many years worth my time?  Worth Equestria’s time?  Sometimes, after a week like this one, the only thing that keeps me going day after day after day is the thought of someday redeeming myself by reintroducing Cozy Glow back to society as a changed mare.

No, that’s not entirely true.  Cozy Glow’s education isn’t my only motivation.  Making the most of what time I have left with my friends is another way I justify my infinitely-extended life.  No time spent with friends is ever time wasted, and that’s why I’m especially glad Pinkie Pie was willing to accompany me on my research mission.  Her vivacity and utter joy for life is infectious.  It’s good for me.  Without Pinkie, I might forget to appreciate how so many little things are worth noticing and celebrating.  I’m really going to miss her, once she’s gone.  Sometimes I miss her even while she’s sitting right next to me.  Pinkie, and the others, with their all-too-short lives, they keep me going.

And then there’s Fluttershy’s foal.  I would be no friend to Fluttershy if I didn’t stand by her and help her raise her precious offspring when she needs it.  Truly, I’m excited to meet the little mystery, and I hope one day he or she will learn to call me “Auntie Twilight”.

Pinkie and I learned a lot about shadow ponies on our expedition, but I suppose the most important thing is that we really don’t know what to expect.  As we discovered, Fluttershy’s foal will be only the second born to a shadow pony parent in history.  I’ll have to write a book, I think, so the foal can learn something about itself when it gets old enough.

I’d better not start that now, though.  Cozy Glow is probably impatient for my return.





She woke with a jolt—somecreature was in the room with her!  Was it the Shadow King here to steal her away to captivity again?  Fluttershy could already feel the burning at the corners of her eyes and her breath caught in her throat.

“Fluttershy, good, you’re awake!”  It was not his voice.  Fluttershy instantly relaxed.

“Discord!  You’re back!”

The draconequus scooped Fluttershy into his arms, lifting her effortlessly as if she weighed nothing at all, and hugged her firmly, but gently.

She didn’t protest, but when Discord didn’t move again except to entwine his lion paw into her mane, Fluttershy grew worried.  “Discord, is there, um, something you need to tell me?”

Discord’s shoulders slumped as he continued to hold his pegasus.  He pulled his head back to peer into her eyes.  “I’m afraid so.  Can I take you to a pocket dimension with me?”

Fluttershy shivered.  For a moment, she remembered the crystal cave and the pony it imprisoned.

“No, not that one.  It’s another one I’ve created to be as peaceful and unlike reality as possible.”

Now Fluttershy raised an eyebrow.  Peaceful?  Discord?

He sighed.  “Yes, peaceful.  There are still a few things you don’t know about me, you know.  I need the escape.  Shall we?”

“Yes.”

Discord snapped, and the pair were suddenly in a wide forest glade.  It was night, and there were so many stars overhead, but it wasn’t exactly dark.  A little brook burbled a short trot away and there were night flowers swaying in the gentle breeze.  Discord set Fluttershy down beneath a broad, stately oak tree and laid himself beside her.

Gazing around in wonder, Fluttershy leaned into him.  “It’s… beautiful here.”

But he ignored her observation.  He was muttering to himself.  “How do I begin to talk about the end?”

Now, despite the overwhelming sense of peace in this dimension, Fluttershy’s heart raced.  “The end?”

Discord sighed again.  “It’s… hard to explain.  I love you—so very much, but...”

“Discord?”  Her voice was almost a screech.  He didn’t mean…?  Fluttershy leapt to her hooves as quickly as she could and moved in front of Discord.  She gazed at him, pleading, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“You’re… mortal.  I can’t...”

Tears sprang to her eyes.  Fluttershy moved forward and clasped her arms around his neck, afraid to let him go.  “No, please!  Discord, I need you!  Don’t leave me now!”

The words startled him.  Discord’s ears flicked and he finally looked into Fluttershy’s eyes.  “No, no, never!  What I mean is, I can’t leave you.  And as long as you’re mortal...” His eyes were glistening now too. “...So am I.”

Fluttershy let go of Discord and backed away in shock.  “What?   Wh-what do you mean?  How?”

“It’s true, I’m afraid!  Oh, to live for so many millions of years and suddenly to learn I’m to die in just a clawful more!”  Discord rolled onto his back and peered up at the stars flickering between the dappling oak leaves, as if beseeching them.  “So much left to do, to see!  And no time left for any of it!”

Watching him, Fluttershy could only stare in silence.  The last she’d known was that he was mourning the idea of living on for an eternity after her death, and now he’s decided he’s just as mortal as she was?  With a flash of horror, Fluttershy wondered if Discord was planning to end his own life when she died.

Discord rolled back over and sat up, suddenly collected and stern.  “But the solution is just impossible.  You told me you don’t want to be immortal, and I couldn’t dream of making that happen against your will.”  Discord shifted his gaze off to the distant trees, as if too ashamed of his thoughts to continue looking at Fluttershy.  “You would be angry with me forever.  Rightfully so!  Or, even if you agreed to it, you would have to be a shadow pony.  How could I ask that of you?  The dark magic would surely turn you into something not yourself.”  Now he looked at his paw and claw.  “My chaos magic is powerful, but making you immortal is one of very few things that I just… can’t do.”

When he was quiet and still, Fluttershy crept forward and sat in front of him so she could take his hands in her hooves.  “Discord, I still don’t understand.  You don’t have to die when I do.  I mean, I wouldn’t even mind if, once I’m gone, you found another creature to love and help keep you going.  You wouldn’t have to be alone forever...”

Discord held Fluttershy’s gaze, but his response was a trembling whisper.  “How can you say that?  Who could possibly bring me joy after you?  And besides,” he croaked, suddenly louder, “it doesn’t work like that.  I don’t have a choice in the matter.  I won’t be able to survive after you’re gone.  Or at least, I can’t in good conscience let myself go on living.”  His eyes darkened.  “That would be very bad for everycreature,” he gulped, “everywhere.”

Fluttershy released his hands and shook her head.  He was hiding something from her!  She frowned in determination.  “I want to help you.  Please explain all this to me so I can figure out what to do.”

Discord shook his head slowly, resigned and despairing.  “There’s nothing to be done.”

“If it’s for your own good...” She paused, swallowed, and forced out more words.  “You can leave me.  I don’t want you to, but—I could forgive you for it.  I wouldn’t think any less of you.”

“No, even if it makes me mortal to stay with you, I don’t want to leave you.  And I couldn’t, anyway!  Remember my episode of twitching and spasms?”  He sighed and hung his head.  “There’s just nothing to be done.”

Now Fluttershy’s eyes widened.  “Are you saying when you lost control of your body, that was because  you had been away from me?”

“Yes.”  Discord didn’t look up.

“But… How?  Why?”

“It’s a long explanation.  Part of my magic.  There’s no escape.”

Fluttershy let her tears fall freely, but she continued to stare at his drooping form.  After a minute, she wiped her eyes, sat down beside him again, and pressed her side into his.  “I’ve been thinking more about immortality while you’ve been gone,” she said at length.

He perked up just a little.  “...Oh?”

“Twilight pointed out to me that there are have always been a few immortals around Equestria, and as long as they’re responsible, it doesn’t really harm anycreature.  She said she thought the best immortals are those who never really wanted to live forever in the first place.  And, well, I still don’t like the idea.  I’d have to learn to be comfortable saying goodbyes.  I wouldn’t know what to do with all that time, but I guess you’ve always found some way to fill it.  There could be some good things too!  I imagine there will always be new friends to make and new creatures to help.  It would also mean I could stay by your side and keep you in line!”  She gave Discord a playful nudge.

Discord had been still and silent, transfixed, while Fluttershy spoke.  The little stream babbled in the distance as the draconequus studied the mare’s face.  There was a glint of hope in his eyes.  “…Are you sure?”

“Well, no.  I’m just saying that if somecreature found a way to make me immortal without resorting to dark magic, I would consider it.  Of course, I would still need to discuss it with my friends first.  And my foal, if it’s old enough to understand by then.”

“Okay.  I’ll take whatever consolation I can get.”  Discord turned and wrapped Fluttershy in a hug, then drew back after a few seconds and met Fluttershy’s eyes again.  “I know I’ve been gone a lot recently, but… Would you be upset if I left again to search?  You’ve given me some hope, and I have to see if I can find a way.”

Fluttershy looked down  “I miss you when you’re gone, but… I don’t want to stop you.  Just be back soon, alright?  The foal...”

“Yes, of course!  I promise I won’t be too long.  I’ll start twitching again if I’m not careful anyway.”  Discord raised his fingers to snap.

“Wait!”

He lowered his fingers again.  “...Yes?”

“Could you please stay and sit with me, just for a little while?”

He softened.  “You know, that would be lovely.”  When Discord snapped, he didn’t disappear, but instead conjured a plush seat of moss beneath them.  He sat and carefully set Fluttershy in his lap so he could hold her.  Then he snapped again, and Fluttershy gasped in awe as the stars seemed to rain down from above as little glowing drops of light, though somehow without depleting the dense patchwork of stars from the sky.  For a few minutes, watching the sparkling lightshow, Discord and Fluttershy were together again, and at peace, and almost happy.
> Running out of time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trembling in concentration and anxious anticipation, he squeezed the pipette bulb and released a droplet into the beaker.  As it dissolved, the solution flashed green, then gold.

“Oh, for the love of strange quarks!”  Discord swiped his arm across the lab bench, flinging his experiment to the ground.  He had hoped the protein he had isolated from dragon bone marrow could be made compatible with pony RNA, but no luck.  If Fluttershy was going to gain immortality or at least a vastly extended life (so he would have time to seek other solutions), it would not be through dragon biology.  He snapped away the mad scientist laboratory he had conjured and watched in dismay as his arm spasmed.  Then he opened a portal to Tartarus.


~*~*~*~


“Thank you for getting the dishes, Rarity.”

“You are most welcome!  You made us breakfast, after all, so it was only fair!”  Rarity placed the last plate in the cupboard and lifted a sketchpad and pencil in her aura.  “Well, I’m off to visit the lily pond now.  I plan to return to the cottage in an hour or two.  Will you be alright?”

“Of course!”

“Are you sure?  Is there anything I can get for you before I leave?  You really shouldn’t be moving around any more than strictly necessary at this point.”

“Rarity, I’m fine.  I’m not even due for another two weeks!  Go and sketch your lily designs before the morning dew evaporates.”

“Alright, alright, I’m going!  But I want to see you right there on that sofa when I get back!”  Rarity flashed her friend a good-natured smile, arranged a fashionable sun hat on her head, and stepped outside.


~*~*~*~


Luna woke with a start.  “BE GONE, FOUL BEAST,” she bellowed, flinging her pillow at the serpentine invader.

“Good morning to you too,” Discord chirped, dropping off the bed frame to land in a coil on the mattress.

“Oh, ‘tis only you.”  Luna’s glare quickly turned into a puzzlement.  “Discord, where is your left ear?”

“Huh?”  He reached up to pat the place where his ear should have been.  Then he grimaced.  “In Cerberus’s mouth, no doubt.”  When he snapped, his dripping, gnawed ear appeared back on his head.

“Cerberus?”

“He didn’t like the scooby snacks I brought him.  Anyway, I need your help.”

Luna ignored the uncharacteristic plea for assistance and shook her head in confusion.  “What business did you have with Cerberus?”

“Well, all I wanted was an innocent chat about something that’s important to both of us, but when he wouldn’t talk, I had to settle for a blood sample.  Not all of his heads were as distracted by the treats as I’d hoped.”

As he went on, Luna scooched backward on her bed and drew her quilt up around her.  She powered her horn too, for good measure.  “I hope you have not come to take a blood sample from me,” she growled.

“Oh, no,” Discord laughed.  “Nothing like that.  I only need a sample of your magic!”

“And just what do you plan to d—”

“It will be simple!”  Discord brightly interrupted.  He conjured a beaker full of clear liquid.  “Here!  Just telekinetically lift the solution out of the beaker, give it a little swirl or whatever, and drop it back in.  I need to see if the liquid changes color!”

Luna stared, motionless, her brows lowered and scrunched together in a line that almost bisected her face.  Then she smiled obligingly and lifted the liquid into the air as requested.

Discord watched the ball of fluid swish back and forth once before his face.  “Alright, that should do it.  Now just drop it gently—”

Splash!

“Very funny,” muttered Discord, his face soaked and dripping.  Luna was howling with laughter.  Then the spilled liquid turned a deep purple.  Discord sighed.  “Strike three.  Where to next?”  Before he could snap the failure juice out of Luna’s sheets, Discord flopped and fell off the bed.

“Discord!  Are you alright?”

“Just dandy,” he replied through gritted teeth.  “I still have a day or two before it gets bad, I think.  Anywho, thanks for the help, Lulu!  I’ll get out of your mane now.”

Luna stretched a hoof forward.  “Wait!  You never told me what this was about!”

But he was gone, and her bed was still soiled with Discord’s purple experiment.


~*~*~*~


Fluttershy stretched herself upward as far as she could, but the birdseed on the top shelf was still out of reach.  She scowled in determination, flapping her wings in an attempt to get a little extra lift and straining against all the extra weight she was carrying.  Just a little higher…

“AAAHHHH!”  Fluttershy clutched her belly and her wings forgot to flap.  She crashed the foot or so back to the ground and couldn’t move for the pain.

Angel appeared in the storage room doorway, saw his friend panting and sweating, and darted back out into the sanctuary.  All Fluttershy could do was squirm and pant and moan in agony.  She was dimly aware of some quiet noises in the background.

“Fluttershy?  Are you there?”  A wolf’s bark.  A rabbit’s frantic squealing.  A rush of wings.

“Fluttershy!  Holy Celestia, what happened?”  Rainbow Dash appeared at Fluttershy’s side just as the pain was beginning to release its hold.  She was drenched in sweat.

Fluttershy turned her wide eyes to her friend, but they were fixed unseeing on the distance.  “It’s happening.”


~*~*~*~


There he was again, in the darkness, alone.  Discord had come to his empty dimension to organize his thoughts, letting them spiral out into stars and galaxies and nebulas that he could arrange and rearrange until something like cohesion emerged.  With all the information he’d gathered on immortality in different species, surely there was something here that he could modify into a solution to their problem.  That was his hope.  Instead, as he began shifting his brightly-burning thoughts, his limbs disobeyed him, and the thoughts scattered wildly, seemingly of their own accord.

He realized too late that his twitching hands ordered a vast, sticky web into existence instead of the solar systems and star clusters he’d wanted.  In no time, some of his most dreaded thoughts pounced on him and wrapped him up in their silken lies.

I could never deserve her all I do is bring her pain it’s ridiculous to think the embodiment of chaos could love an embodiment of harmony the way she needs to be loved I’m mortal now anyway I might as well end it all this instant and release her from the prison of my affection...

That last lie had the fangs that pierced his heart and poisoned him.  Discord felt his body go limp in the trap right before he started seizing wildly.  His mouth was foaming and his eyes rolled up into his skull and in the hopeless blackness of his mind’s eye all he could see or think was her, her shining eyes, her sweet, kind smile.

The image suddenly focused its eyes on Discord as if aware of his gaze and opened its mouth.  “Discord, I need you.  Please come back now.”

Of course!  Discord realized with an electric jolt that he didn’t need to die here, alone.  He may have failed to find any answers this time, but Fluttershy would welcome him back anyway and her smiles and giggles and caresses would offer him repose from this murderous madness that was clawing at his soul.

The sticky, silken cocoon dissolved away at once and Discord hastily snapped his fingers to teleport out of there.


~*~*~*~


“Fluttershy?  Where are you?”  Discord had teleported home to the cottage, but there was nopony there.  She shouldn’t be out and about at a time like this!  She needed to rest for the foal!

Dread squeezed Discord’s stomach when he thought of Sombra and wondered if Fluttershy had been ponynapped again.  But he could feel the weight of the pocket dimension that was Sombra’s prison and knew that the shadow pony was still trapped safely inside.  Discord’s relief was short-lived.  That only meant he had even less of an idea how to find Fluttershy!

Discord tore through the house in a panic in search of clues.  His twitches were intensifying and he knew he was making an absolute disaster of a mess (by harmony-loving pony standards, anyway), but there was nothing he could do about it.  He had to find her!

Suddenly, dropping the cast iron skillet he had just picked up, Discord froze and facepalmed.  He had set the destination of his teleport to their house rather than Fluttershy herself.  All he needed to do to find her, barring some extremely unlikely magical disaster, was teleport again.  Discord inhaled, imagined her tender, loving face, and snapped again.

And there she was.  In a hospital bed, surrounded by ponies, looking exhausted, and cradling in her arms—Discord rubbed his eyes and looked again—two foals.  He could only stare helplessly in shock, all traces of twitches and spasms gone.

“Hi, Discord,” Fluttershy breathed.  “We were early.”
> Gathering and scattering
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

They were seated together on the carved stone bench overlooking the lily pond, the warm light of late evening casting the water in gold.  For a few precious minutes, neither dared to speak.  The golden sky faded to lavender and the brightness of the lilies grew muted when Rarity felt the stillness of the water was finally reflected in the calm of her mind.

“This is where I was when Rainbow Dash brought me the news,” she said quietly.

“It’s a lovely spot,” replied Applejack, staring intently at the water as if afraid she would betray a secret if she looked anywhere else.  “Almost as lovely as Fluttershy’s twins.  Can you believe she was carryin’ two little foals around all this time?  Heavens to Betsy!”

“That mare is stronger than she looks, that’s for certain.  I’m just glad Rainbow Dash happened upon her at the right moment!”

“Good old Dash.  She must have come straight for me after she got Fluttershy to the hospital.  She showed up at the farm panting from exertion and she was so worried and flustered, she near about picked me up and carried me back to Canterlot herself!”

“Oh my!” Rarity interjected.

“I had to buck her in the stomach to get her to stop jitterin’ and hush up!  That’s when I told her git on over back to Canterlot by herself, and Pinkie and I hopped on the first train out of Ponyville.  Awful lucky we were able to make it in time!”

“I’m glad you did.”  Rarity meant just to leave her response at that, but then she worried that Applejack might take it the wrong way and assume she meant she was particularly glad that Applejack, above anypony else, was able to come.  Then Rarity realized that “wrong way” was what she did actually mean, deep down, so she blurted “—Because it just wouldn’t have felt right, to have the foals arrive without the squad all there, and no Pinkie Pie party to celebrate them.  It’s good you—we all could be there.”

Applejack hummed in agreement, still keeping her eyes locked on the pond.  It was beginning to dull into tones of gray in the dim light.  Then jerking suddenly, she turned to face Rarity.  Both her front hooves were lifted and they stretched halfway toward the unicorn’s own hooves, but then they froze and went to Applejack’s hat instead, lifting it off to place it in her lap.  “You know, I…  I really...” She slumped.  “I really do appreciate all your letters.”

Rarity’s eyes widened but she held Applejack’s gaze, unsure what to think and afraid to breathe.

Applejack continued.  “Home just don’t feel like home no more with you—all of you—so far away.  I can’t explain it.  There at the farm, tendin’ the apples season after season and year after year, it’s the life I’ve wanted since I was a filly and I still want it, but somethin’ about it just ain’t enough anymore.  Every time I get one of your letters, though, it helps.  For a little while, everythin’ just clicks into place and I feel at peace, but then I remember you’re so far away, and I’ll write you a letter back but it takes so long before I get to know what you’ll say in response.  Ya know?  I miss bein’ able to converse with you in real time.”  Applejack lowered her eyes and wearily turned back to face the lilies again.

Rarity also turned back to the pond, whispering “I know.  I miss it too.”  Then she dared—did she dare?  They were best friends; of course she wouldn’t mind!  Then she dared to lean just a little bit to the left, until her white coat pressed into the orange of Applejack’s.  There was a pause, but Rarity didn’t feel her friend tensing as she’d worried.

Instead, after a few seconds, Applejack leaned in too, and just barely rested her head against Rarity’s.  The earth pony didn’t speak again, but Rarity could hear her friend’s breathing, and it was heavy with emotion.

“We’ll keep writing to each other, and some day, something will work out,” murmured Rarity, slowly letting her head slip down to Applejack’s shoulder and making sure to keep her horn pointed away from any fur.  “Much as I love high society, Ponyville is where I became the mare I am now, and I’ve realized that it feels more like home to me than even the most fashionable city.  I’ve been thinking lately that, once I get my business established and some good ponies hired to help run it, I might move back to Ponyville someday.  It might take a few years, but that’s the hope, anyway.”

“I’d like that,” whispered Applejack, and then silence fell again.  The last notes of birdsong drifted away in the cool evening breeze and reflections of stars began to stipple the surface of the pond and mingle with the muted lilies.

And still Rarity and Applejack sat, watching the world drift into slumber, neither of them quite ready to get up and leave behind the moment they’d shared.





Rainbow Dash reclined on a cloud, watching the sun sink toward the ground until she was higher in the sky than it was.  She flipped to her back, the better to see the stars as they emerged, and took another bite of the extra slice of cake she’d swiped from the foal-welcoming party.

Two foals.  If anypony could have the attention and patience to raise two foals at once, it was Fluttershy.  As far as Rainbow Dash was concerned, just one would be enough of a hooffull.  Sure, foals were cute and all, and everypony always said that raising foals was one of the most meaningful things one could do in life, but she couldn’t get over the feeling that a foal of her own would just get in her way or slow her down.  What would happen to her Wonderbolt career?  And what if the foal turned out not to like flying?  Would she be scorned by her colleagues?  Would she be saddled with the responsibility of figuring out how to support and get along with a foal who had nothing in common with her?

Rainbow Dash shoved the rest of the cake in her mouth.  It was milk chocolate with a funfetti frosting filling, and Rainbow tried to clear her mind by savoring its decadence as well as the thought of working all those calories off again at Wonderbolt practice tomorrow.  There was no point in worrying about what it would be like to raise her own foal right now anyway.  That wouldn’t even be an issue until she found a stallion she could tolerate—if she decided to go after stallions at all.  Right now, Rainbow Dash didn’t know what she wanted out of life, aside from rising in the ranks of the Wonderbolts and one day going down in the history books as the greatest flier who ever lived.  But she could do all that without a romantic partner.  It might be easier that way, anyway.

So that’s it, she decided, watching constellations of legendary heroes venerated by cultural memory blinking into existence out of the night sky.  Fluttershy can settle in and enjoy her family life, but I won’t feel any pressure to rush into anything.  I’ll foalsit and hang out with the twins from time to time and get a feel for what family life is really like by watching all of them.  Then, once I understand it better, the desire to have it myself will come when I’m ready.

Staring at the constellation of a great ancient warrior, Rainbow Dash thoughtfully licked the frosting off her hooves.  Or not, and it won’t make any difference to me.





Pinkie Pie noticed Applejack moping as they rode the train together back to Ponyville.  She noticed, but for once, she couldn’t find the spark she needed to try to cheer her friend up.  Pinkie Pie let Applejack go on moping without interfering, because she was moping too.

In a way, she knew, they were sad about the same thing.  It had been so exciting and refreshing for all six friends to be together, partying and hanging out and having a blast again.  Aside from the arrival of Fluttershy’s foals, it had been just like old times.  But now new responsibilities had beckoned, and they were splitting up again, and this time it was worse because Pinkie Pie was leaving not just her best friends behind, but two brand-new, miraculous, adorable little foals too!  She would go back to visit and foalsit and play often, but she could just tell her friend needed to be alone with her new family for a little while as they figured themselves out.  Pinkie Pie sighed in melancholy wonder.  Fluttershy, a young mother, two beautiful twins, and Discord, who obviously intended to be the father figure in the foals’ lives.  And what a fun, exciting father he would be!  How adorably in love he and Fluttershy were!

Pinkie Pie sighed again and rested her head on the train window, staring glumly out at the rapidly passing world.  That was the main reason she was so sad to leave.  She was afraid to admit it to herself, but she knew it was true.  She was a little jealous of their love.  Pinkie Pie had so much love to give, and she was so anxious for the day she had a partner of her own who could drink it in, breathe it, cherish it, nurture it, and offer their own love in return.  How she yearned for that pony she could share her crazy, exciting life with!

Worst of all, Pinkie Pie was pretty sure she was leaving that pony behind, even now.  She had tried to confess her affection at the party, but, well, it didn’t work out.  Maybe it was not meant to be after all.  Her stomach twisted up inside her at that moment, as if nauseated by the very thought.  When, when would she get a partner of her own to love?

Wiping a tear from her eye, the mare told herself she had moped enough for one train ride.  She was Pinkie Pie, after all!  She had a duty to be happy!  Cheese Sandwich would be in Ponyville very soon, and she wanted to give him the warmest, cheeriest welcome he had ever received!  He was such a good friend to her.  There was probably nopony in the world besides him who shared her enthusiasm for—nay, addiction to life, and she couldn’t overstate how amazing it was to her to have found a pony who understood her at that level.  Pinkie Pie wanted to be sure not to give Cheese Sandwich anything at all to worry about while he was visiting—least of all her and her personal regrets!

“Hey, sugarcube.”  Applejack nudged Pinkie Pie’s side.  “You’re lookin’ unusually glum.  Everything alright?”

Pinkie Pie startled at the touch, then offered Applejack a limp smile.  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.  It’s just so sad to leave again, you know?”

“Oh, I know,” Applejack nodded.  “Now listen here.  Everypony’s allowed to be sad sometimes, even the bright and sunny Pinkie Pie.  I’m not gonna ask you to pretend to be cheerful if you’re just not, and there’s no shame in feelin’ that way.  Just know that I’m here, and if there’s anything you need to help you work through your sadness, I’m more than willing to provide.”

“Thanks, Applejack.  I needed to hear that.”  Pinkie Pie paused and her eyes brightened a shade.  “And same to you!  Don’t think I haven’t noticed you being a pouty grump over there!  When we get back, prepare yourself for a whole cartload of cupcakes and confetti and cheering-up!  That’s how you can help me, Applejack.  Just let me try to help make you smile!”

Applejack summoned a smirk and gave her friend a playful punch in the arm.  “Ya got yourself a deal, there, missy!”

With one last, watery-eyed blink, Pinkie Pie pushed her disappointment behind her.  Now she had to focus all her concentration on making Applejack happy.  And Cheese Sandwich too, when he arrived.  Seeing their smiling faces would surely get her out of her funk in no time.





Twilight set down her quill.  She had already sketched an outline for her book on shadow ponies and even drafted the introduction since she left the foal-welcoming party.  Of course, she hadn’t left the party because she wasn’t enjoying herself; she had just enjoyed herself as much as she could with the thought of starting this book weighing on her.  She needed to at least get something down on paper before tomorrow’s royal duties forced all her personal projects to the back of her mind.

Giving her work a final critical skim, Twilight got up and moved to the foot of her bed.  A nightgown was waiting there, and she slipped into it with warm satisfaction.  The material was soft and cuddly, and the front of it read “File this princess under Zzzzz”.  It was the library-themed gift Pinkie Pie had hinted at.  Z, of course, was the Library of Congress system letter designation for materials related to library science.  It was a cute joke, suggesting that “this princess” prefers to be thought of as a librarian.  A sleepy librarian.  Twilight hugged herself, enjoying the coziness of the nightgown and pretending Pinkie Pie was there in her arms.  The thought her friend had put into this simple gift was really touching!  She replayed the scene on the ballroom balcony in her head.


~*~*~*~


“Here!  A little thanks for saving us on our adventure to the Crystal Empire!”

She took Pinkie’s package, replying with distraction as she tore open the wrapping.  “We weren’t really in any real danger, you know… Oh, wow, Pinkie, I love it!”

Pinkie grinned.  “I’m so glad!”

“Actually, I might go try it out right now!”  She hugged Pinkie.  “This party’s been a lot of fun, but I’m bushed, and you know me; I’ve never been one for late nights.”  No, that wasn’t quite right.  “Not unless I’m on a crazy research binge, anyway.  Thank you, Pinkie!  Good night!”  She turned to go back into the castle.

“Twilight, wait!”  Pinkie called after her.

“...Yes?”

“I also wanted to tell you I...”  It almost looked like Pinkie was blushing, but no, her fur was always that pink.  Right?  It was so hard to tell in that lighting.  “I love you.”

Twilight’s confusion melted away.  “I know that!  I love you too.”  She hugged Pinkie again and felt her friend grow almost feverishly warm at her touch.  “The love that binds friends and brought us all together is really incredible.  I don’t need any gifts to remind me of that, and I would never take it for granted.  Anyway, I’ll see you and Applejack off at the train station tomorrow morning.  Good night, and thank you again!”

Was that a thump she heard behind her as she walked away? No, it must have come from in front of her, where the others were all still partying.


~*~*~*~


What wonderful friends Twilight had!  Pinkie Pie was always so thoughtful, and the solidarity they had all shown in the last couple of days as they gathered around Fluttershy and her foals was really inspiring.  Celestia knows just how hard it may be for her to raise two half-shadow foals into good ponies.  Troublesome as the thought was, Twilight couldn’t feel worried.  Fluttershy had proven several times over that her kindness was capable of taming darkness, and if she ever needed help, she had her friends—and even Discord!—right there by her side.

Twilight crawled into her bed.  The raising of these two dark magic-infected foals into upstanding citizens of Equestria will make an excellent book unto itself one day, she thought with a smile, and soon she was asleep, and the “Zzzzz” on her nightgown might as well have been a transcription of her contented snoring.
> Bright future rising
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the day after Pinkie Pie’s foal-welcoming party, which itself was the evening of the day Fluttershy and her foals had been released from the hospital.  The last two days had been busy and exhausting, but rewarding in every way.  All the excitement must still have been with Fluttershy, as she slept fitfully and finally got out of bed just as the first light of dawn was glowing in the east.

Fluttershy peered into the crib where her foals lay.  Their cries were part of the reason Fluttershy hadn’t slept well, but she couldn’t blame them for that.  Now, they were just beginning to stir again, and would probably be crying for breakfast in a minute or two.  Their mother glanced out the window above their crib and saw that the clouds were rolling away to open the sky for a gloriously bright day.  She winced.  Lovely as sunlight still was to her, the long captivity she suffered only moons ago had caused her body to change profoundly in self-defense.  Fluttershy still retained a few of her bat-pony traits, and as a result, she had a harder time functioning in bright light nowadays.  This was the day she had told herself she would decide on names for her foals, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to give that important task the thought it would require if she was cowering and squinting uncomfortably in the shadows.

Fluttershy walked around to the other side of her bed and probed a hoof under the covers.  “Discord?  Are you up yet?”

The draconequus rose, rubbing the magically-induced sleep out of his eyes.  “I am now.  What do you need?”

“I was hoping you would take all of us to that pocket dimension.  The really peaceful one?  I want to name our foals today and I think it might help me think better.”

“Right now?”

Fluttershy glanced over at the crib when one of the foals began whimpering.  “If… That’s okay.”

“It certainly is.”  Discord rose into the air and moved to scoop both foals up and cradle them in his lion arm.  Then he snapped.

Fluttershy sat and looked around.  It was a little different this time.  The oak tree under which she and Discord had sat together to watch the stars fall was now covered in flowers of every shape and color.  At the other edge of the forest glade, near the banks of the stream, there were weeping willows swaying gently in the breeze.  Fireflies blinked in and out above the grass, and the atmosphere smelled of crushed sassafras.  As she was breathing it all in, Discord had set down the twins, and they were clumsily bundling over to her, mewling pitifully.

“Here, little ones,” Fluttershy purred, gently laying herself down and exposing her belly to the hungry foals.  The pair wasted no time in tucking themselves in for breakfast.

Discord laid himself beside Fluttershy, curling his body affectionately around the whole brood.  “It’s… amazing,” he said, looking on in wonder as the twins suckled.

“What is, Discord?”

“Why, them! A-and you!”  He gave Fluttershy a brief nuzzle.  “And I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it—you want me to be their father?  To help raise these foals into ponies?  Are you sure?  What if they don’t accept me?”

“They will.”

“Okay, and what if they do?  What, what if they try to emulate me and my crazy chaos?  You’d have a household of maniacs on your hooves!  How would you feel about that?”

“I think I would like that very much.”  Fluttershy used her wing to pull Discord’s face down toward hers so she could kiss him on the cheek.  “Your crazy chaos is part of what I like about you, you know.”

Discord didn’t respond.

“Discord, please, you know you can be honest with me.  Have you decided you don’t want to be their father?”

In a flash, Discord had shot himself into the air and hovered and swirled over Fluttershy’s head in writhing anguish.  “No, I do!  Of course I do!  I really, really want to be their father!  I want to be right there beside you for the rest of your life.”  He swallowed hard.  “And, and mine.  In fact, if I only have so little time left, there’s nothing in the whole multiverse I’d rather be doing!  It’s just…”  Discord trailed off into an exasperated moan and dumped himself back down into the grass.  He pressed his paw down firmly for a moment, then lifted it, releasing a little geyser of irridescent leaves that squirted up into the air and then drifted off to blow in indolent swirls around the glade.

Finally, he turned back to Fluttershy and sat down beside her.  “I’m just a little overwhelmed, that’s all.”  He gestured toward the foals, who were just backing away from Fluttershy and sloppily licking the milk off their lips.  “They’re so innocent, and pure, and wonderful, and I’m not sure I’m worthy of raising them.  And I really don’t want to blow my last chance in life to do something meaningful.”

Fluttershy sat up and leaned herself over to hug Discord.  “You old goofball,” she said.  “I know you’re scared, but I also know you know how much is wrong with what you just said.  You’ll make a wonderful father, and the twins will love you as much as I do.  And there’s no one right way to be a parent, so don’t fuss so much about trying to be perfect.  Also, you’ve already done so many meaningful things!  You’ve saved Equestria, and you’ve saved me, you’ve taught at least a few ponies the truth that chaos and harmony go hand-in-hoof, and you’ve proven to the whole world than anyone can learn the magic of friendship and love.”

Then she released the hug and leaned back to look Discord in the eyes.  “And you’ve won my heart.  Isn’t that at least a little bit meaningful?”

Discord wiped his watery eyes with the tuft of hair at the end of his tail and smiled back at his pegasus.  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“We’ll have each other for the rest of our lives, Discord.  I know there’s a lot to be uncertain about, but whatever comes up, we will always face it together.”

Fluttershy and Discord were still gazing at each other when a squeal caught their attention.  They both looked down at the moment one of the foals launched himself at Discord’s cloven hoof.  The foal collided with his target and bit down with his non-existent teeth, growling.

“Well, now,” Discord chuckled, lifting up the errant foal.  “That’s no way to treat your old man, is it?”  He booped the colt on his nose and then carefully set him back down next to his brother.  “I think that little fella is anxious for his name.”

“Hmm.”  Fluttershy studied the twins as they began to tussle.  Her first-born had a glittery black swirl of a mane and a coat that was a dark, velvety red, the color of rich blood.  His brother had a spiky mane of deep plum with faded pink highlights, and a coat that was a pale lavender-gray, almost like—no, he was rolling and squealing and full of life; it was not a deathly pallor.  Fluttershy looked back and forth between her sons and was reminded with grief of their father.  His influence in their dismal, morbid color palettes was obvious.

But she watched them wiggle and pounce on each other and smile with heartrending infant purity, and she was filled with hope.  No, she told herself, they’re just little flowers.  Yes, that’s how I’ll name them.

Fluttershy gently picked up the older foal, the red one, and hugged him against her chest.  She gazed up at the infinite swirls of stars overhead as if to confirm her choice with them, and then smiled at her son.  “Fiorello Garnet Dusk.  My sweet little flower.  And you,” she said, placing Fiorello back in the soft grass and turning to the foal who was now tugging at a lock of her tail, “what shall your name be?”

She picked up her second son and didn’t need to look up at the stars this time, for he was gazing at her with wide, soulful eyes that seemed to reflect the entire brilliant night sky back at her.  “You are a blossom full of starlight, my love.  Your name will be Coreopsis Stellurian Lux.”

Discord lifted Fiorello in one arm and then wrapped Fluttershy and Coreopsis in the other.  “Fiorello Garnet Dusk and Coreopsis Stellurian Lux,” he repeated.

Fluttershy nodded.  “Fio and Corey.”

“They’re perfect.”  For a few moments, they sat comfortably together, Fluttershy leaning into Discord, and both parents gently stroking a foal as they watched the fireflies and floating leaves dancing in the glade.

But there was still another thought tugging at the back of Discord’s mind.  “Hey, Fluttershy… You remember when we visited Twilight in the library for some research a couple weeks ago?”

“You never did tell me what you were researching while Twilight and I were off doing our thing.”

“Right, yes, well, I wasn’t really sure at the time I wanted to tell you.  But now I think I do.”

“Well?”  Fluttershy smiled up at him, expectantly.

“That was right after you reminded me how foals are a combination of their parents’ genetics.  It got me to thinking—what a beautifully chaotic thing!  There’s an awful lot one can make just from their own materials, but combine one creature’s resources with another?  The possibilities for creation are almost endless!  And you can combine the same two parents together over and over again and get something new and different every time, and each creation is simultaneously just like its source material and entirely novel!  It’s amazing!  It’s, it’s… It’s what chaos is all about, in a way!”  Discord paused to pant in his excitement.  In his arms, Fiorello was laughing in delight at his father’s impassioned rant.

Fluttershy looked on and felt herself warmed by Discord’s enthusiasm.  “I see your research was pretty successful, then.”

Discord met her gaze.  “No!  That’s not even what I was looking into at the library!”

“Oh?  What, then?”

“That’s the part I was hesitant to talk about,” he started, his voice much more reserved.  “That whole process of making foals seemed so exciting, I got to wondering if I could… try it out for myself, someday.”  He paused as if waiting for a response.

Fluttershy said nothing.  She could see he had more to say and was nervously holding it back.

After a moment in which Fio started gnawing on one of his lion fingers, Discord continued.  “I was looking up how well ponies are able to interbreed with other species.  I thought maybe one day, somepony… Y-you… Might be willing to try it with me.”  By now, Discord had hugged Fiorello much closer to him, as if subconsciously trying to hide behind the cheery little foal.  “I know: it’s a silly thought.  It’s probably not even possible anyway.”

Fluttershy regarded him for a minute, pausing in her stroking of Corey’s tummy.  Then she reached up and gave Discord’s neck a gentle kiss.  “It wouldn’t hurt to try and find out sometime, now would it?”

Discord flicked his ears in surprise.  “Really?”

“Sure!  But, let’s not bother with all of that until these two are a little older, don’t you think?”

“O-of course.”

Fluttershy tilted her lips up toward Discord’s and the two of them shared a kiss while the foals in each of their arms swatted playfully at one another.

And when they pulled apart, and set Fio and Corey back in the grass, and leaned into each other and entwined their tails, and watched their foals play together, Discord’s breath caught in his throat.  He realized that for once, he was content.  More than content.  For the first time since he had discovered his own mortality, he thought, he might just be a tiny bit excited for what the future could bring.


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THE END