Discord's mother is coming to visit. Fluttershy offers to help him get through it. Only one problem: Fluttershy will need to pretend to be his match, both romantically and power-wise. Easy, right?
The stars are right, and Orion's Belt is about to sag. That can only mean one thing.
Discord's mom is coming to visit him and lecture him about his life choices, delivering a millennium worth of grief over breakfast tea.
But not to worry: Fluttershy will there for him, for moral support, specifically by pretending to be the girlfriend his mother has wanted him to get since time immemorial. Of course, such a ruse requires giving her phenomenal fey powers, as well as a little bit of preparation in Ponyville.
Afternoon tea with Discord started out as it usually did for Fluttershy: cucumber sandwiches, hot tea, cease and desist letter from the Canterlot Order of Physical Sciences. Conversation was jovial with the draconequus now that his latest mistake had been corrected and forgiven. Twilight had been getting into her new role as sole ruler of Equestria for the past few months, and Fluttershy was giddy to note that her royal friend had been getting taller and taller every time she saw her.
Then talk shifted to more mundane things, the sort she knew Discord appreciated, if only to ground him a little bit in reality, or to remind him that he could relax, since reality did not need his constant attention to provide more chaos to those living in it.
“So the potion seller nearly drowned, the bird seed vendor was arrested, and the wizard hasn’t been seen since!” she shouted, or as much as Fluttershy could be said to shout with fits of giggles. “Anyway, that’s how I got my magical birdkeeping license.”
Discord cackled with laughter. “Bahahahah! Oh, Fluttershy, how do you get into these situations? And without any help from me, no less.”
“No help at all?”
“None from me, I promise. It’s too soon for me to get up to that kind of mischief again after last time. Besides, I can’t take care of birds anyway.” He idly stirred his tea with a finger he’d turned into a spoon. “Can’t take care of anything alive, come to think of it. Every time I try to make something, it goes out of control. But I suppose that’s just the nature of the beast.” He looked himself over, finger back to normal. “Well, one of the beasts in me, at any rate.”
She snickered. “I’m so excited to have a phoenix to take care of, even if it is sad that she needs it. But Sweet Feather Sanctuary has been so light after last big release, Priscilla can relax and get used to it. Of course, I am expecting a visit from the expert later today. But in the meantime, my mother came over yesterday to help, since she’s had a few magical birds in the house before.”
He froze in mid-sip. Then his tea froze. He made a strange gargling sound with his tongue stuck in a block of chai, before he snapped his fingers and melted it over his cup. “Sorry about that. You were saying?”
“I was just saying my mother-”
Discord went stiff as a board then. In the kitchen behind her, she heard her sink explode. The explosion smelled like mint.
“Discord, is there something you want to tell me?”
“No.” He settled back down and fixed her sink with a snap of his feline fingers. “But I suppose I should anyway. It’s nothing, really, it’s just the whole ‘mother’ thing, it doesn’t sit well with me. I haven’t even heard the word for so long.”
“Oh. You don’t have a good relationship with your mother, then?”
Discord cringed. “Not in the slightest. But don’t let that stop you: you have a lovely mother who was coming to help, how did that go?”
“Discord,” Fluttershy said. “Do you need help with anything? Anything involving your mother, I mean?”
He didn’t react at all the fourth time the m-word dropped. “No, no, not at all. My mother and I hardly ever even see each other these days, there’s nothing to help.”
Fluttershy thought for a moment. “Wait, then how long has it been since you’ve spoken to her? With, umm, you know, the whole stone thing and all.”
“It’s been a long time, and I couldn’t be happier. She only comes around when Orion’s Belt sags and he has to pull up his celestial pants. Which, thankfully, doesn’t happen that often.”
“It’s happening this week, actually.”
Discord’s left eyelid twitched. “What? The Cosmic Sagging wasn’t supposed to happen for another two centuries!”
Fluttershy went to get an astronomical calendar from her bookcase. It was right between the dictionary and the fourteenth edition of ‘Definitive Equestrian History’ to come out that year, as ‘History’ had a hard time remaining ‘Definitive’ in Equestria, something Fluttershy had experienced first-hoof. Astronomy, thankfully, was mostly constant, or at least had a two-week notice before any major changes, delivered via friendly-worded (aside from being in all-caps) letter. The calendar she had now was up to date, and it didn’t take her long to find the right day. “Umm, no, it’s tomorrow. See?”
“I don’t understand.” His mouth agape, Discord grabbed the astronomical calendar. “This is all wrong, the night sky isn’t supposed to look like this. Why are the stars so out of alignment?” He furrowed his brow and looked up. “And why do you even have this?”
“Twilight gave it to me for my birthday. She said I might need it for my bird friends, now that Princess Luna has time to correct the star signs again and, you know, migration season is coming up.”
Discord slapped himself in the forehead so hard he caused a gust that opened every single window in the room. “Right, Luna. Of course she did. Well, that’s just great. Now I need to think of a way to get out from under this. Mother hasn’t spoken to me for so long since I was in stone, that’s going to be a millennium worth of grief. Wait! Of course, what was I thinking? I’ll just cause some good old mischief and get myself turned back into stone for a week or so. Maybe I’ll start a war.”
Fluttershy grimaced. “Maybe you should think that through a little bit?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it all planned out. This little number always works.” He conjured up a giant horse made of whicker and wood, just big enough to touch the ceiling with its ears. “Think the Cutie Mark Crusaders would volunteer for a little field trip? I’m sure I’ve got something lying around I can bribe them with.” He pulled thin air aside to reveal a set of coat racks filled with glorious sets of wings ranging from angelic to majestic, ancient eldritch tomes that pulsed with pure arcane power, and a handful of jugs of apple juice.
“Discord, no!”
“Fine, I’ll get permission from their parents first.” With a grunt, he put the bribes away and opened up an atlas out of nothingness between his claws, before pulling a compass out of his left ear. “Let’s see, Shire Lanka’s East, Vanhoover is North, and the local graveyard is right down that awa-”
“No, Discord,” Fluttershy insisted. “No starting a war, please.”
He rolled his eyes, but got rid of the whicker mare. “Alright, how about a border dispute?”
“No!”
“A food fight?”
“No, Discord.”
“Okay, fine, a buckball riot and I’ll donate some rice pudding to charity, but that’s my final offer!”
“You can’t avoid your mother by getting stoned.”
He gave her a non-committal shrug and draped himself in mid-air, before conjuring up a pair of sunglasses and a miniature Sun. “I’ve considered bronzing, too, but I don’t think Celestia will help me get a tan that quickly.”
“No getting stoned, Discord, I’m serious. You can’t just use that as an escape.”
Both the Sun and glasses disappeared when he got back up on his feet. “And why not? Getting stoned is a perfectly fine way to avoid your problems, ask Tree Hugger.”
“I don’t mean it like that, I mean you shouldn’t. Why do you want to avoid your mother so badly?”
Discord sighed. For some reason, Fluttershy wondered if there was any creature running around with cotton candy wings all of a sudden, and whether the weather forecast for today included breakfast cereal for dinner.
Discord was quite the rule-breaker when it came to diet, after all.
“You don’t understand, Fluttershy. My family is a bunch of chaos spirits and sowers of misfortune. They’re walking bundles of stress on an intergalactic scale, nothing like your family.”
“You’ve met my brother, haven’t you?” she asked.
He took a moment to process that thought. “Point taken. Well, the thing is: we’re all spirits of chaos, yes, but we’re still a family. We may be immortal, but we’re not mmm… eternal, exactly, not from your perspective. We are concepts made flesh, but we are our own individuals, individuals who experience things and remember things, or forget, as we grow. We still have notions of mortal things, things we’re subject to, like time passing and finiteness, and, shall we say, successive generations?” He cleared his throat. Moths came out, which was unusual: most of the time he managed to cough up pigeons when he did that around her.
She nodded solemnly. “Oh. Oh my, yes, I think I understand. You mean your mother-”
“Keeps asking me to find a mate,” he spat. “Yes. Most of my, err, let’s call them ‘peers’ for now, they’ve already spawned their own little seeds of chaos, if they haven’t found a way to weasel out of it. Not me, though, and she won’t let it go. All throughout the millennia, it’s been ‘Why can’t you find a good little demon girl?’ or ‘Why don’t you ask that cute fairy out on a date sometime?’ and always, always, that final question.” He tore at his eye sockets. “The Great Irritant. The Bachelor’s Bane.”
Again, Fluttershy nodded in understanding. “When are you going to give me grand-children?”
He threw himself up, shouting at the ceiling before turning his attention back on her. “Exactly! It’s infuriating! I’m a Lord of Chaos! I spread strife and disorder wherever I go, it’s the meaning of my existence! I don’t have time to think about offspring! What would I even do with them? Leave them at daycare in the Crystal Empire nursery slash doomsday bunker? Send them to kindergarten in Canterlot? I do not need Celestia or Twilight to have another excuse to bother me, especially for parent-teacher conferences. ‘Your child doesn’t play well with others,’ well duh! It’s hard to play nice when you change species every time you get the hiccups!”
Fluttershy blinked. “Gosh, I never really thought about it like that. You… you had a childhood? I suppose it makes sense, but still, that must have been, umm, interesting?”
“Interesting, sure, that’s one word for it. Even the Chineighse couldn’t wish for something more interesting than draconequus foalhood. I’ll spare you the details of my species going through adolescence.” He gagged, in that particular way he normally only did when Twilight or Celestia was being diplomatic and preaching good morals. “Chaos acne is no fun for anyone involved, and mother still insists I should try procreating? Honestly, I think she just wants my grandchildren for a handy snack.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“In my family, it is. Queen Xenos, a cousin from my father’s side of the family, she got eaten five times before she evolved that acidic blood of hers. And then she went and colonised a few planets, as a single mother, of course, and now her legion is an example for the rest of our generation to have our faces rubbed in.” He growled. “Darn parasitic cheater, never even went on a date, just started popping out eggs like some infernal hen. Her children are so clingy, too, always trying to hug everyone.”
Fluttershy rolled her eyes. He was trying to deflect. That wouldn’t help anyone. “You are going to have to talk to your mother, Discord. You can’t avoid her forever.”
“I can try. Celestia sure helped last time.”
“Can’t you fool her, then? You are a spirit of chaos, after all.”
Discord stroked his goatee and looked out the nearest window. “Celestia is still a bit dim, especially by solar spirit standards. The problem is getting Twilight to do it this time, though, she’s not quite as trigger-happy. Starlight Glimmer is, obviously, but how am I going to get her to stone me and not do anything worse?” He grimaced at the thought. “I fear no pony magic, Fluttershy, but the things that mare can do? It scares me.”
“I meant tricking your mother,” she clarified. “If she really bothers you that much, isn’t there some way you can make her happy without having to give up your freedom? She’s not omniscient, is she?”
“Not any more omniscient than most mothers when it comes to their offspring, so no. She can’t enter Equestria, either, and she can only come into my home when the stars allow it, so she is quite blind to most things I get up to.” He took out his eyeballs, blew on them as if to clean a pair of glasses, wiped them on a hoofkerchief, then popped them back into their sockets. “Most things. She does have her agents here and there, but they’re pathetically easy to spot and they can be dispatched by any pony magic, really.”
“Really? That easily? How come?”
Discord gagged and waggled his finger at her. “You really shouldn’t think about that too much. Let’s just say her nature doesn’t mix well with the magic of this world. She knows some of Equestrian history, and she can sense when my magic shifts, so she knows a few things, yes. Anything that’s been going on for the past few centuries, any major shifts in power that last past a generation, she can catch wind of. She doesn’t think in terms of time, only in generations.” He got a faraway look in his eyes then. He snapped out of it quickly, but it was enough to shake him. “So no, she can’t keep perfect tabs on me. Of course I’ve thought about tricking her, what do you think? It should be easy for the likes of me. The problem is she would recognise my magic if I tried, and then I’d never hear the end of it, literally. No, the only way to get anything past her is if I find an actual mate, someone who isn’t touched by my brand of magic.”
“And you don’t know anyone? Other, umm, beings like you? You knew the Smooze, aren’t there females from the sort of place he’s from?” She quickly amended that idea. “You know, females that are, maybe, a little more solid? That you could ask? Just for one night, just to pretend?”
“Ugh, I could, but it’s not likely they’d accept. And even if they did, some things even I’m not willing to risk.” He shuddered. “I could ask an archfey, maybe, but making deals with them is so unpredictable, it’s dangerous.”
Fluttershy quirked an eyebrow. “Dangerous? To-to you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Oh, don’t act so surprised, you know what I’ve had to contend with. Being all-powerful doesn’t mean being invincible, not when your power can be taken away, and archfey are definitely capable of taking powers away.”
“And that’s really the only option?”
“No, there are other options, but they’re all bad in their own special way.” With a snap of his claw, Discord opened up a hole in reality to stick his thumb through, and bright light shone down from it, followed by the sound of a singing choir. “If I try going up into the celestial plane, I’ll only find stuck-up rules lawyers. They hate me by default.” He pulled a rope on the edge of the hole, and a flushing sound cut off the choir, before the hole closed in a swirling motion. Then he clipped his thumbs on air, mimicking opening a suitcase, and opened a hole downward. Once it was done, he pointed at the flames and screams wafting up from it. “If I try going down into the demonic realms, I’ll only find lazy layabouts who are slaves to their own instincts. Not exactly wife material, if you get my drift.” He idly conjured up some marshmallows on sticks to roast over the fire. “My mother might approve, but I have standards, thank you very much, and a deal with a demon tends to be costly. I really don’t want to lose half of everything I own to a she-demon before a celestial tribunal.”
“Wow. I never knew things were so complicated for you.” Fluttershy took one of the sticks and nibbled on the hell-scorched marshmallow. A little eggy, perhaps, from the sulphur smell, but it was tasty, still. “But still, what about where you live? There must be other life there, too?”
“In the Elemental Chaos?” He looked up wistfully, ate the stick and its chewy treat, then slammed the trunk shut on a pair of red hands that were trying to clamber up. They shrieked, but quickly retreated, so nothing came through. “Sorry, Phyllis! Anyway, out in the neighbourhood around Chaosville there’s always dragons, the big ones, not the little things you have here. Very powerful in magic, too, capable of shapeshifting. They’re fun, sometimes, and they’d be able to do it, but they get greedy. Subtlety and deceit are not in their nature, not like archfey. No, archfey is the only thing that would work. An archfey could do it, easily, but they have their own issues.”
“Umm, Discord?”
“Yes?”
“I still don’t know what an archfey is, either,” Fluttershy said. “Are they aggressive?”
“Not aggressive, exactly, but tricky. A fey creature, a normal fey, you see, like faeries and such, they live in a reality governed by rules, like yours, but it’s a set of rules that allows for chaos, like mine.” He pursed his lips, thinking. “You’ve met some, I think: those Breezies from a while back, those were fey. So are Kirin, though their fey blood is a little thin.”
“Oh. Yes, I remember those. They were tricky to deal with.”
“No kidding. To put it simply: an archfey is to a Kirin what an alicorn is to a pony. You can tell they’re similar, but one has power as a, well, a status, there’s a sort of purity and essence to them, a default that’s not there in the lower rungs. The problem is that in terms of chaos and magic, archfey are up pretty high, like draconequuses are. On top of that, you have to be very careful what you say around any kind of fey, because words are things to them, as tangible as the table you’re sitting at.”
That did explain why the Kirin were so eager to suppress their words.
“To a fey creature, a promise is like a physical ball and chain, a command is like a slap in the face, and a deal is like a deed of ownership. Normal, weaker fey, eh, they get around fine enough, they seem eccentric compared to most intelligent creatures at worst. But archfey? Archfey are pureblooded, even the ones that weren’t born pure. They’re not orderly creatures, they like a bit of chaos here and there, but they are authority incarnate. They get around everywhere a little bit, but they usually make their homes in the Wild Realms, where their magic is strongest. Fey magic, you see, is all about rules. An archfey’s magic, being more pure, acts like cosmic rules in small pockets.”
“So they… make their own laws? That doesn’t sound so bad,” Fluttershy tried.
“It’s not the laws that are the problem: it’s how strongly they can enforce them. When you enter an archfey’s domain, once you are in their space, you’re at their mercy. Everything you do in an archfey’s domain, you do because they allow it. It’s a law of their realm, like the laws of gravity here, except not as easily broken. I’d be powerless if I walked into that, and so would my mother, incidentally. Twilight would tell you: it’s a state-based magic, something that is first, not something that does, and that’s a lot harder to watch out for. Magic that is can sneak up on you, and it obeys weird rules, even by my standards. Archfey aren’t nearly as strong outside of their home, easily dealt with in realms like this if you know the rules, but on their home turf?” Discord grimaced. “You wipe your feet when you walk in, or they’ll mop the floor with you, and turn you into a mop for the convenience.”
Fluttershy’s ears perked. She’d heard a way out and she wasn’t about to let it go to waste. “But you said they live in a Wild Realm. Wild, like wild animals? Maybe I could help you find one? Do you know any?”
“That’s very sweet of you, Fluttershy, but it’s far too dangerous. I have some weight to throw around in their circles, but a mortal like you would get lost in seconds. Though I suppose you would probably like them if you got to know them.” He shrugged. “You might even pass for one if you bluff hard enough and stick some branches in your mane, maybe toss some glitter on those wings. But you’d be found out the second you had to flex some real power, and I won’t have that.”
“Oh.” She pouted. “It’s a shame you can’t turn me into one, then. I’d be more than happy to help you get through a meeting with your mother.”
Discord chuckled. “Haha, oh, if only, but no, I can’t. Any power I could give with a snap of my fingers, I could take away with a snap of my fingers. And if I could do that, my mother certainly could, and would purely for the fun of it. I couldn’t do that.” A lightbulb shaped like a golden apple appeared above his head. He grabbed it and started eating it, ignoring the sounds of broken glass. He swallowed, then tapped his chin. “Although… there is someone who could.”
“Really?”
“Well, I mean, theoretically, sure. I do happen to be on good terms with a being who specialises in things like this, and she would be able to turn you into an archfey, no problem, put a timer on it and everything.” His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “But I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that. A change like that would be very unsettling, and you’d still be dealing with my mother.”
“But I want to help, Discord. If this is really so much trouble for you, you shouldn’t have to do it alone.”
His head hung for a moment, before he caught himself. “I’m not sure you realise what it is you’re offering. You’d be having tea, breakfast tea, with my mother. You’d be dealing with one of the most toxic creatures in the known world on an empty stomach. The stars don’t work the same way in my home, you could be stuck with her for ten minutes to an hour and she would grill you, literally if you slip up even once. You’d have to lie, and be physically incapable of doing so. Fey creatures cannot tell lies, it goes against every fibre of their being; they can only deal in half-truths. You’re really willing to be corrupted like that? For breakfast? For me?”
“Of course I’m willing to do that,” she replied, pressing her chest forward to show confidence, just like she’d learned from her friends. “As a friend, I simply can’t sit by and let you deal with something so stressful on your own.”
“But you wouldn’t be yourself, not entirely, at least.”
“So? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve turned into something different. I’ve been a Breezie, a bat pony, a supermodel, a singer, I’m sure I can handle being a powerful, umm, ‘fey’ creature for a little while,” she argued. “It sounds fun. Besides, maybe your mother isn’t so bad. Maybe if she sees you with a proper mare, if she gets used to the idea that you’re fine without her attention and she can let nature take its course, she might ease up.”
“I appreciate the naive sentiment, but that’s very unlikely. Still.” He winced. “As much as I want to, I won’t turn down any help. I can show you an acquaintance of mine, she should have some ideas. If you’re absolutely sure?”
“I’m sure. Snap us there.”
A snap, crackle, and pop later, Fluttershy found herself standing next to Discord in an orchard. Looking back, she realised they were at the edge of it, and beyond it lay an infinite starry void. Looking up, she realised she wasn’t on Equestria, or the dream realm, or any realm she could remember. The Sun was too small, and the stars could be seen in the dark sky even though it was daytime. No moon, though, which struck her as an oversight.
Her ears flitted back and forth at the silence, too. No birds chirping, no breeze, no rustle of leaves.
There was a stomp, though. When she looked to its source, there was Tirek again.
She yelped for a second, then realised the creature wasn’t Tirek at all. For one thing, Tirek wasn’t green. For another, Tirek’s legs were decidedly more equine, even with the split hooves. In fact, the whole lower portion of this green fellow’s body was different: more deer-like.
“Ah, Discord, it’s you,” said the creature. “My apologies for any fright I may have instilled upon your diminutive compatriot there.” His words sounded more deliberate than normal, like a language teacher trying their best to set a good example.
“Oh, it’s nothing, Bragi,” Discord replied. “Fluttershy’s seen a centaur before, right?”
Centaur. That was the name of Tirek’s species. And this Bragi individual was the same, except his lower body was that of, if she wasn’t mistaken, a very very burly bull moose. Up top, now that she could see him more clearly, he looked almost handsome, at least to her pony sensibilities. What she thought were horns turned out to be sharp and elaborate antlers, red deer ones, maybe water deer, but definitely not moose. The mane and beard were still there, much like Tirek’s, but Bragi had more of the Southern style sideburns than the pointy devil beard style.
He also lacked Tirek’s nose ring. Pondering that, she made a mental note that next time Tirek broke out, someone should really just try to yank that ring around with some magic. She was pretty sure a septum in agony would be enough distraction to keep anyone from using eldritch life-force-draining magic.
Looking up at her friend with that train of thought finished, she noticed Discord was smaller than she remembered.
He was hunching over, more than usual with his snake-like form.
Discord was making himself look smaller, without using magic.
Taking that as a sign he had reason to be afraid, she took charge of the situation. “Umm, yes. Hello, Mister Bragi, sir. Uh, we’re here for, um...”
He held a hand up and lay back down on the lawn chair she now realised he’d been lounging on before their arrival. Apparently he’d been reading something, and decided to continue. “Say no more, little one. The wife’s on the way.”
Right. Discord said ‘she’ will have some ideas. And that is definitely not a ‘she.’
A lighter sound hit her ears, a gentle clopping that approached them. Somehow, she felt like giggling with every pitter patter she heard. It wasn’t long until her eyes caught the source.
The creature that came through the orchard was also a centaur, like Bragi, but smaller in stature, and clearly female. This one had a vibrant yellow mane done up in braids, the shape and colour reminded the mare of a braided loaf of bread. The centaur’s skin up above was a pale pink, and she hid some of her body with green cloth wrapped around the modest bumps of her chest. The hide of her lower body was golden, though, much brighter than her mane, and quite short, too. The dainty little split hooves, the slender limbs, and the flag tail all marked the lower body as being cervine, but a more delicate and elegant species than the one Bragi’s body rested on.
Discord smiled, his serpentine form still hunched over. “Fluttershy, this is Idun. Idun, this is Fluttershy.”
“Well, aren’t you just the cutest little pony mare.” Idun sniffed the air. “Quite a lot of scents on you as well.” She huffed at Discord and put her hands by her cervine shoulderblades. “Don’t tell me this ne’er do well stole you from a zoo?”
“Close, but not exactly. She owns an animal sanctuary,” Discord said. “She’s an Equestrian pony.”
Up close, Fluttershy could see Idun’s eyes. They were a light green, and weirdly enough their gaze had a smell to it, if such a thing were possible. An apple-y aroma filled her senses every time she looked at Idun’s face, only disappearing when she looked away or blinked.
“Ah, a friend from your new haunt, then.” Idun leaned in with a welcoming smile. “And what brings you to the orchard, sweetie? Some poor creature need a little pick-me-up? I’m a little more careful with my boons these days, but I can make an exception for a good cause, just tell me who the patient is and I’ll fetch an apple for you lickety split. Who needs my help? A panda? Wait, no, your world’s pandas are fine. Platypus? Does Equestria have platypi? Does Equestria need platypi? I know a place with some spare platypi lying around if you’re in the market.”
“Umm, that would be nice, but platypi are fine in my world, Miss Idun. It’s not that kind of visit,” Fluttershy replied. “My sanctuary is for animals recovering from surgery, I’m not a full vet, exactly. I don’t do that kind of care myself.”
Idun looked at Discord’s face, chuckling in a friendly tone. “You? You need one of my apples?” She playfully slapped him in the shoulder. “Come on, you big lug, you didn’t need to bring a cutie along to soften me up for that, you know I won’t deny you.”
“It’s not one of your golden apples I’m asking for, Idun; it’s one of the smaller ones.” He looked down at the ground and popped his antler off to scratch the back of his neck. “Umm, it’s m-my mother. Mother is coming to visit.”
Idun’s face went slack with shock. “Oh. Oh, dear, I’m sorry, we don’t really keep track of those constellations that much anymore, I didn’t realise. Are you alright, Discord?”
Bragi stood up and came towards them. With the way her friend stayed hunched over, it struck Fluttershy how small Discord looked compared to Bragi.
He could make himself look bigger if he wanted to. He’s really taking this hard.
“Do you need a place to stay?” Bragi asked. “We can conceal you until Orion’s Belt comes back up.”
Discord fidgeted. Nothing exploded, which Fluttershy took as another sign things were dire. He popped the antler back with a huff. “No, no, nothing like that. Me and Fluttershy were discussing and the topic came up, well, we had a bit of an idea that maybe, if you were so inclined, you might see fit to...”
Idun smirked. “You want to pull a fast one on Medea, don’t you? Want me to turn your friend into something with a little more of a kick?”
Medea. So that’s his mother’s name: Medea.
“That’s the long and short of it, yes,” he replied.
Idun clapped her hands and stamped her delicate hooves on the grass with giddy excitement. “That is by far the most positively adorable use for an apple I’ve heard yet. Let me get a good look at you.” She looked Fluttershy over, up and down. “Hmm, yes, I think someone of your background would do well as an… archfey, perhaps? Something with a little greenery?”
“That’s what we figured. Not permanently, please, Idun,” Discord said, hands clasped together in a pleading motion. “She is still mortal, and I like her just the way she is. This is only to get through the visit tomorrow morning.”
“That is uncharacteristically reticent of you,” said Bragi. “Are you feeling well? Aside from the obvious.”
“I am fine, thank you,” Discord said with a hint of annoyance.
Fluttershy’s head spun.
Discord noticed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, right, you don’t know. Long story short: Idun is a spirit of, umm, I guess spirit-ness, you’d call it. She spreads youth and immortality wherever she goes, the same way I spread chaos. It’s in her nature, these apples are how she does it. Every single one of these trees has a fruit that can make you immortal, different kinds of immortality, too. Bragi here is her husband: not a full deity, but a, oh, what was it, psychic pump, I think is the word?”
“Oh, a psychopomp. You welcome the dead into the afterlife,” Fluttershy said.
Bragi bowed his head in respect. “Only one particular afterlife, and not a very popular one these days, so I am left pursuing the heights of eloquence with my time between charges. And on that subject: I am impressed, Mare Fluttershy. Quite a well-educated pony you must be, to know that word.”
“I got a dictionary last Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
“Last what?” Bragi asked.
“Winter Solstice,” Discord clarified, before turning to Fluttershy. “Twilight or Starlight?”
“Rainbow Dash. I think it might have been a re-gift, but I didn’t mind.” Fluttershy smiled, and heard the pitter-patter of deer hooves again. She’d only lost sight of Idun for a second, but already the centaur had fetched a green apple for her.
Idun presented it to her gently. It reminded Fluttershy of her mother, when the little filly would try new tasty treats that might burn her tongue. “Now be careful, little pony. This is enough of a dose to turn you for three days. You’ll be a full archfey for that time, nation-render level, with all the powers and weaknesses that come with it. Does she know all of them yet?”
“Some, but not all,” Discord said.
Idun held a finger up and started counting. “Be careful around cold iron and silver, for touching those will burn your skin. Stay away from the flow of fast running water. Getting caught in a river is one of the ways you can lose your magic: it washes away quicker than you get it back, and you can still drown. But most importantly, you must beware of any pacts or promises made in your presence. It doesn’t matter who’s making them, it will latch onto your presence and make it binding. On top of that, lying will be impossible for you, but speaking half-truths will become second nature, and very tempting, addictively so. Words have far greater power in the presence of an archfey, and that power goes both ways. That goes for you too, Discord, you know the rules. Avoid absolute statements around her, you don’t know how that kind of magic might backfire.”
Fluttershy let out a breath to steady herself. “Okay. Here goes.” Then she took a bite.
She blinked, and suddenly the whole apple was gone.
She couldn’t remember how many bites she’d taken, but her mouth was full.
The pieces hit her stomach, and she felt a tickle as the magic felt like it dissolved inside her, permeating her flesh. A pressure started to form in her skull, making her close her eyes.
She stretched out her wings, because they started to feel stiff and numb. Her hooves felt like they were vibrating, and there was a stinging sensation right above and behind them.
Dizziness overtook her.
Then wonder. She giggled and flicked her ears. They felt slightly different. She tried to move her tail, that was very different, a lot shorter now, both the flesh of the muscles and the hairs had been cut down to size.
Awkward, foreign pressures were constantly pressing into her skin and bones, yet she couldn’t quite panic about it. It felt natural. “Oh, oh my. This is a little unsettling. But only a little.”
“Ah, there we go.” Idun fanned her with a giant clover leaf. The gust made glittery dust fall off of the mare.
Fluttershy tried her wings again. They didn’t feel articulate at all now, a pair of stiff limbs she could only flex up and down, no curling, somewhat similar to her short stint as a Breezie. More power in them, though, a lot more power, she didn’t dare look at them yet. When she turned her head to look at Discord and Idun, there was more of that stiffness on her skull, and more weight, too.
Everyone looked flabbergasted. She bit her lip and tried to move her hooves. Without looking, she could sense it: split hooves, cervine, most likely, given the theme of the place.
Finally, she bit the proverbial bullet and asked the question she wanted to.
“You look finished,” Idun said. “And you look like you may possibly want to be careful for a little while, at least until you get things under control. Discord?”
“I’ll get her home, no problem,” he replied. “And thank you again.”
“Yes, thank you,” Fluttershy managed to say before she was whisked away, back to her cottage.
She looked up at Discord. He wasn’t slumping anymore, but he looked an unusual mix of worried and happy.
“They seemed like nice, umm, centaurs,” she started.
“They are. On a cosmic level, they’re about the nicest spirits you could find.”
“Wouldn’t that make them your, you know, your first friends?”
“I wouldn’t say that. It’s a long story. I suppose I can call Bragi my friend now, yes, but Idun is different, always has been. No one ever calls Idun a friend, not really. Just like no one really calls me a friend.” He quickly perked up and clapped his claws together. “That is, until recently, of course.”
“Of course. I understand: centuries without friends and only a few years with them, it’s easy to forget. Umm, is it okay for me to look at myself in a mirror now?”
“Yes, yes.” He quickly summoned up a full-length mirror for her to look into. “Have a gander.” Something honked when he held the mirror up to her, but she ignored it.
“Oh, dear. I have antlers.” She reached up at her head to feel and, sure enough, she had an adorable little rack now. A branching one at that, like a pair of thick arcs resting on her head, with tines sticking out. She’d never had any deer with a rack like that in her sanctuary, but the shape looked vaguely familiar, so at least that was still natural.
“Hmm, yes, deer and a little bit of insect thrown in, if my eyes don’t deceive me. I remember seeing those wings on a colt once, in another world. They don’t look bad on you,” Discord noted.
“Thank you.” The wings were definitely not natural. They were solid translucent masses, almost like butterfly wings, but much pointier, the same triple tip shape as a maple leaf top, and green. They were also, upon close inspection, the source of the glitter Idun had fanned off. Fluttershy was thankful she wasn’t shedding anything.
Down below, something felt wrapped around her, but it wasn’t a bad sensation or look: she almost looked like she was wearing part of her first Gala dress. Her hide was marked by little strings of ivy, connected without biting into her skin. She tried focusing on the growths to make leaves open and close, then flowers. It worked as easily as flexing a muscle.
Licking her lips, she inspected how her mouth felt with the cleft. That was more familiar, very deer-like. Her nose was fluffy, though, which wasn’t. Deer had shiny smooth noses, not fluffy ones, with only a few exceptions. She didn’t know what all the exceptions were, but she knew they could be easily recognised by the nose. Moose was one, but her snout wasn’t big or broad enough to be a moose. As she’d anticipated, her tail was now also that of a deer.
She did a double take when she saw her cutie mark: it had been completely consumed by the fey magic. The three pink butterflies were still there, thankfully, but now they were sitting on a set of bright orange flowers with purple in their centre, and her haunches were adorned with a leaf pattern all the way down to her cannons. At least it gave her the illusion of wearing pants, she figured. Her ears looked deerish as well, at first glance, but she quickly corrected herself and realised they had more of a batty appearance, lacking the conical shape that separates horse ears from deer ones.
And of course, if she had taken on more deer traits, she could guess what the little pressure above her hooves was as well.
Dew claws. I have dew claws now.
On a whim, and noticing the dark brown colour, she tried to lick one.
Huh. Licorice wood.
“This isn’t so bad,” she said, admiring herself. “I was expecting to turn into more of a ferocious beast.”
“Careful, Fluttershy: you might still get to that part.”
“What happens now?” she asked.
“For starters, you’ll have to learn how to pretend to be a high fey to fool mother. Doing some typical faerie magic ought to help.”
“And how do I do that?”
“The low level stuff should be easy. It’s authoritative magic, so think something, but think it loud. Pretend you’re commanding the room to be clean.”
She nodded and faced the furniture. “Okay. Umm, room? Clean up, please.”
Discord shook his head. “Not like that. A room cannot clean up: the command is to become clean. You’re going to have to be careful with your words while you’re like this. Pretend you’re a Queen issuing a decree.”
Oh. Well, I suppose I did play Princess Celestia that one time. I could do something like that. She took a deep breath in and concentrated. “By my decree as archfey: become clean!”
Suddenly, violently, all the teacups and the kettle flung themselves into the sink for a quick bath, before floating over into the correct cupboards, which opened and closed without so much as a peep.
A broom came by and swept over the floor, pillows fluffed themselves, and then the still open windows let in a completely coincidental breeze that smelled of flowers and washed away most of the scent of animal feed.
“Thank you,” she said to the broom. “Now, what else do you need me to do?”
Discord held up his feline claw to his mouth, thinking. “You won’t able to lie tomorrow, but we can work around that. All you need to really do is make sure mother believes you’re my girlfriend. So, if she asks, repeat after me: when we first met, we fought each other. You’re a very respected nature spirit with ties to Celestia. You command wild and magical beasts that terrify mere mortals.”
“We fought each other when we first met. I’m a very respected nature spirit with ties to Celestia. I can command wild and magical beasts that terrify mere mortals.” She stifled a giggle as she said it. It felt exhilarating to say such things, to be deceptive without truly lying. It tickled her ears and soothed her throat.
That’s odd. I didn’t even notice my throat was aching until it stopped.
“Perfect. Half-truths are much more effective than lies, anyway.”
“I don’t know, Discord. We are-” Her voice cut off. “We-” Again her voice caught. The ache in her throat didn’t return, though, and that somehow felt stranger than the inability to say something untruthful.
“Told you.” He winked at her. “You can’t lie now: it’s a major handicap. But it also means mother won’t suspect anything.”
“Alright. But we’re still going to have to pretend. Oh, maybe I can go get some things for tea?”
He scratched his head. “I suppose that’s not a bad idea per se, but are you sure? Everything you’d get would smell of Ponyville. Mother would know it’s not fey-made.”
“So? We’re pretending I’m a fey living in Equestria, right? It would make sense that I drink from pony tea kettles and cups. Oh, and you could make your home look like I’ve been living there for a while, too,” she suggested. “Make it fey-friendly, but don’t do it like last time. Maybe you can keep it chaotic.”
“Ooh, that’s clever thought, actually. I’ll have to think, and get some extra opinions.”
A second Discord, this one wearing a vest and glasses, along with a pencil on his right ear, came walking by with blue paper under his shoulders. “Alright, fine, I’ll open up my schedule to help redecorate.”
“Problem solved,” said Discord. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Just give me a shout if you need me, and remember: no hard statements, no trying to lie, and don’t make any promises.”
“I know. And no iron or running water. Really, Discord, it’s almost like you don’t trust me,” Fluttershy said.
“Tell me about it,” said a second Fluttershy right next to her. “For someone so powerful, he sure is a worrywort.”
“It’s almost like all that magic drives him crazy,” said a third on her left.
“Eep!” Fluttershy flapped her green wings and flailed her front hooves around, making the duplicates disappear. “Okay, that was startling. That might take some getting used to.”
“Not been a fey for ten minutes and she’s already making duplicates of herself,” the second Discord said. His proud smile quickly turned into a worried wince. “That’s impressive, and concerning. She’s going to need to get her powers under control fast.”
“She will,” Discord stated. “Idun always goes the whole nine yards with her boons, and Fluttershy is more than deserving of them. You’re a strong mare, you can handle this kind of power. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some prepwork to do.”
With that, he vanished, taking his decorator clone with him.
Fluttershy sighed. She squinted, and all her windows closed at her mental command. That pressure in her throat, that residual ache, it softened and hardened at random, it seemed. Probably part of the transformation, she concluded. Turning to more pressing matters, nothing was on her immediate schedule for the day, so she could prepare. “Angel Bunny? I’ll be out in Ponyville for a little while. Be good while I’m gone.”
She walked over to the door, then stopped.
“I suppose I won’t get another chance to do this anytime soon. To Sweet Apple Acres!”
Her world went white, then the smell of falling leaves entered her nostrils. The smell filled her to her core, then popped her like a bubble.
Fluttershy appeared with the stiff wind of winter. Given that it was July, she felt somewhat confused, but decided to take it in stride and try a summer breeze later. She’d made it to the Apple family orchard in one piece and that’s all that mattered.
Nothing to worry about.
It’s just some extra magical power. You’ve had powerful magic running through you before, you can handle it.
I’m sure everypony will understand.
“Ahah! Gotcha!”
Something slammed into her from behind and grabbed her antlers. Then a net fell over both her and the weight. The weight felt vaguely filly-shaped, and for some reason Fluttershy felt a sudden urge to start hoarding breakfast cereal.
“I caught’im! I finally caught the Great Seedling!”
The accent matched the weight. “Umm, Apple Bloom? It’s me, Fluttershy.”
“Wait, what?” Apple Bloom wiggled the antlers. “But I just saw you blink in out of thin air. How do I know this ain’t some trick?”
“Apple Bloom! What did I tell you about catchin’ ponies in a net?!” Applejack yelled as she came running out of a nearby chicken coop.
“Don’t catch no one you ain’t plannin’ to kill or marry,” Apple Bloom droned.
“That’s right. Unless it’s a critter or a relative, then relocatin’s an option, too. So no catching Fluttershy, either!”
“But look at her: I thought it was the Great Seedling! Ain’t there some exemption in the rulebook for that?”
Applejack rolled her eyes and got the net off. “We’ll see. And how do you even get yourself under your own net?”
“On purpose, of course: it’s standard practice for catching faerie folk and the like.”
“That is correct,” Fluttershy said. “I’m not sure why, though?”
“Of course it is. So uh, Fluttershy?” Applejack raised an eyebrow, confused. “If that is you, say something only you would know.”
Fluttershy blinked and thought. The command felt off, somehow, strange. She felt an instinctual urge building up to make Applejack regret asking for it. It rattled her, because Applejack was her friend, of course, she’d never want to hurt her feelings. “Umm… we almost lost our voices to the Kirin.”
“Anypony eavesdroppin’ long enough would know that,” Apple Bloom argued.
That urge got stronger then, and she stifled a giggle when another thought popped up. “Well, they wouldn’t know Applejack tried to make friends with a lovely golden brown Kirin, before she found out that one just so happened to be-”
“Okay, okay!” Applejack interrupted. “That’s something only you’d know, never mind, that’s definitely the real Fluttershy.” She looked her over again, up and down. “So are ya okay, then? Are you a deer now or what? Is there some emergency I need to know about?”
“Yes, no, and no.” Fluttershy thought for a moment. “In that order. No emergency you need to know about.”
Applejack leered at Fluttershy, in that particular way she reserved for fraudsters, hucksters, and over-enthusiastic adepts of the arcane arts. “But there is an emergency.”
“Sort of,” Fluttershy admitted.
“Just not one I should know about.”
“Um, yes. I’m sure I can handle it without you knowing the details.” Fluttershy suppressed a squeal of joy at the omission.
“Uhuh. And this emergency requires you to be all foresty because...”
“Oh, that’s exactly the part you don’t really need to know about. It’s just something between me and a friend.”
“Wait, what?” Applejack took her hat off and fanned herself, presumably to cool her brain at all this logical thinking. “A friend asked you to turn into this?”
Fluttershy’s mind raced. The words she sought got tangled up in half-truths and omissions before she could think to utter them. Her throat felt great, at least. “No, they didn’t ask, but I volunteered. In fact, I had to insist a little.”
“Consarnit, Fluttershy, speak up and speak plainly already, you don’t have to be all vague about it now!” Applejack aggressively donned her hat again. “How’d you turn into this thing? What even are ya?”
She sighed. “I am kind of, sort of an archfey now.”
“Ooh, ooh, I read about those!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “They’re nature spirits, kinda like the Great Seedling, except stronger.”
“That’s correct. I may have possibly eaten a magic apple to make me like this for three days.”
Applejack blinked. “Stronger than the Great Seedling? How much stronger? Like one of the Princesses or stronger than that?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be, well, like Tirek strong, or Discord strong,” Apple Bloom replied.
“So a lot stronger, then,” Applejack said. “Well, that clears that up, at least. And you’re sure it’ll only last for three days?”
“I was told that it’s for three days only, and that is long enough for me.”
“Long enough to do what?”
“To…” she swallowed her first response. “To, umm, help out a friend with some very troubling family situations.”
Applejack smirked when she realised. “Ah. Discord did this.”
“You could say he had a helping hand in it, yes.”
“Okay, keep your secrets, I won’t pry. As long as you’re fine with it, ain’t my place to judge. But what do you need from me, then?”
“Some Zap Apple Jam would be lovely, if you can still spare any, that is,” Fluttershy said.
Applejack gestured behind her and led the way. “Follow me, I reckon we’ve got some jars in the cellar, still.”
“That would be perfect.” Fluttershy followed a respectable two paces behind, still carrying the little faerie catcher on her back.
“Does this mean I don’t get to have our crops blessed?” Apple Bloom asked with a whine.
“Apple Bloom, Fluttershy is not the Great Seedling. Let her go already, she can’t do crop blessings.” Applejack opened a trapdoor by the barn and went down.
The words hit Fluttershy to her core. Her stomach knotted, to the point she stayed out of the basement.
This is Applejack’s home. This is her domain. I don’t have any authority here. Is that why I feel weaker?
“Well now, that’s not entirely true,” she said to the filly, her words flowing forth before she could catch them. “I do have some new magic now. And you did catch me, so why don’t we agree you get a request, but not a wish. You know, something within reason?”
Apple Bloom hopped off. “What could we get, then? Ooh, I know: how about a little upgrade to our clubhouse? It’s been getting a mite crowded ever since Scootaloo decided to sublet the place for the Rainbow Dash fanclub, not to mention Sweetie Belle usin’ it for rejected script storage, and she sure does get a lot of rejections.”
“Hang on now, sis,” Applejack came up from the basement with two jars on her back. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to use magic to spruce up your clubhouse just like that. Didn’t you have that surplus of magic wands still lying about in there?”
Apple Bloom grinned. “Oh yeah, we did get a couple cutie mark discoveries after that last civil war re-enactment.”
“Uhuh: two in duelling, one in animal handling, and fifteen in first aid, not to mention your latest trip to court. Honestly, Apple Bloom, your criminal record’s startin’ to look like a stamp collection with all the restraining orders you get.”
“Hey, that Unicorn judge was clearly biased against Earth ponies. How was I supposed to know that pumpkin was gonna explode?” Apple Bloom asked.
“By checking the amount of fireworks you stuffed in it before y’all used it for target practice. And maybe not using Wands of Fireball without having a proper license in the first place.”
The filly stomped a hoof on the ground. “I told ya: I checked the laws for artifact use, and there was no mention of needin’ any sorta license.”
“You used the Applecorky lawbook, Apple Bloom! Ponyville’s got different laws!” Applejack argued.
Apple Bloom grumbled. “Ain’t my fault Twilight put the wrong lawbook in front of me. That kinda thing don’t belong in local court anyway: it ought to be federal. And what does it even matter? We have a really good lawyer.”
“Yeah, top notch, with all the practice you give him.” Applejack rolled her eyes before turning to Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, just don’t go usin’ magic on that clubhouse while there’s magic wands in there, you hear?” Applejack gave her the jars, and Fluttershy paid in bits that she only now realised she’d left at home. Regardless, they appeared from between her split hooves without a second thought. She even noticed the dirt smudge on one fiver she’d dropped near the honey stand last Tuesday.
“I promi-” She shuddered. The weight of an anvil fell on her head. She blinked and flicked her fluffy bat ears. “I promise I won’t use my new powers on the clubhouse while there are any magic wands in there.”
Applejack furrowed her brow. “Or magic staves.”
The added rule felt like a slap in her face.
“Or magic quarterstaffs.”
That one was a kick to her gut. She never did apologise to Rainbow Dash for that one time around the dragon migration, she realised.
“Or any rods, neither.”
Fluttershy gestured with her hoof, exposing her wooden dew claws and pointing them like a wand, and a little vine wrapped around Applejack’s mouth, binding it shut. “Tell you what, Applejack, I’ll come by the day after tomorrow, and if Apple Bloom has cleaned up everything magical in the clubhouse, and only if, I promise I will fix it up just the way she likes it, permanently, nothing that will disappear when I’m back to normal. These powers only last three days, so it’ll have to be done by then or it won’t be done at all. Deal?”
Applejack blinked twice, confused by the sudden foliage snaring her mouth, but nodded.
“Perfect.”
Fluttershy turned to walk away, and felt another odd weight on her. This time it was a gentle tug on her right hind hoof, like a ball and chain.
Right. Be careful making promises or deals. But that wasn’t so bad. I can do this.
Another gesture, and the vine disappeared.
She flicked her ears back as she left, her senses heightened for any gossip behind her back. She didn’t recall being warned about that, but she had to admit such a thing did make sense for fey creatures to do.
“What do you think she’s gonna do?” she heard Apple Bloom ask.
“I don’t know, and I think I don’t wanna know. At least she’s showing some restraint using her magic.”
Fluttershy snickered.
Restraint. That’s hilarious.
After a quick stop back home, Fluttershy decided to fly to Sugarcube Corner, both to avoid making a spectacle of her magic and to get some practice with her new wings.
Nopony really batted an eye at her new form as she went across town. She wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or worried by that fact.
Pinkie Pie noticed, though, and immediately greeted Fluttershy with a gasp. “Fluttershy! You look amazing! Did you go to Manehattan to get a new look? Ooh, is there a new exchange student in Twilight’s school? Did you find that green gooey magic Rarity used that one time and we never really tracked down and we really maybe should before it turns you all crazy like it did her?”
“Umm, no, nothing like that,” Fluttershy replied. “Any of that.”
“Ooh. So did Apple Bloom have a misfire with all those wands she’s stocking, then?”
“Impossible,” came a voice in the corner. “Every wand I delivered was labelled as child-proof, and only went up to challenge level three. Transmutation magic starts at level five for wands, or four for rods, for which I do not have the license to deliver. Besides, clearly your friend here is a fey, not a transmuted pony. The specular reflection in the wings is a dead giveaway.”
She had heard of him before, and met him around town on a few occasions, but hearing Mudbriar speak so plainly and with such authority on a topic tickled the archfey’s senses. It was calming, somehow, but also intimidating. That was a mix of emotions Fluttershy wasn’t used to, at least when she wasn’t around Rainbow Dash.
“Yes,” she said, haltingly. “I think I should be an archfey now. That’s why I look a little different.”
“I’ll say. Nice antlers,” Pinkie blinked, before gasping again. “Wait, are you a boy deer now, too? Do I get to throw another ‘Mare becoming a stallion’ party?”
“What do you mean ‘another’ one?” Mudbriar asked, stirring his tea. From the looks of it, he was sipping licorice tea, and taking his time enjoying a type of cake Fluttershy hadn’t seen around Ponyville yet, something with a lot of thin branches in it for some reason. “Is this a common occurrence in Ponyville?”
“More common than you might think,” Fluttershy replied. “Twilight Sparkle, in the past, that is, may have gotten a little too, umm, excited when she did her experiments from time to time.”
“Ah. A lack of restraint in magic experimentation. Not too surprising.”
“Oh no, I’m very sure restraint was always involved in her experiments,” Fluttershy noted. “Especially the ones for transmutation. But I don’t think she ever did anything like that permanently. And she doesn’t come by to continue her research much anymore.”
“Then why the parties?”
“Because Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy replied.
“Of course.”
“Well, are you a boy deer?” Pinkie asked.
Fluttershy looked herself over, if only to double-check. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure I’d know if I was. My voice is still the same, but the antlers do feel a little strange, I suppose.”
“Technically, judging from the shape up front, those are reindeer antlers. It is normal for the females of that species to have a so-called rack. Although you are wearing it several months out of season.” Mudbriar rubbed his chin. “On the other hoof, fey creatures are known to behave outside of established rules of nature and time. The wings are clearly pure fey, the tail is cervine like the antlers, but a different species.”
“I think that means ‘no’ then, Pinkie.”
“So are you getting married to a deer? Are you taking a trip to Caneighda? Are you gonna talk to moose? Do you need me to make a mousse? Because I know where you can get a mousse moose, isn’t that funny?” On and on Pinkie went, showering Fluttershy with questions.
The noise didn’t bother her so much as the words did. Question, question, random remark, question, more randomness. The words pressed at her mind, overwhelming her, tightening their grip on her throat.
“No, no, that really won’t be nece-Pinkie...” Fluttershy threw her head back and let out a grunt.
“Honestly, I’m starting to feel like I’m talking to myself,” said a second Fluttershy on her left.
“I know,” said another Fluttershy on her right. “We really should do something about that.”
“Why not indulge the poor dear?” Said the left one. “She’s so curious and excited, who knows when she’ll get to see something like this again?”
“I know,” said the right one, smiling impishly. “That won’t be until Saturday next week, at least.”
Pinkie gasped, for a third time. “Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh, did you go to the Mirror Pool? Where’s the real Fluttershy?”
“We’re all the real Fluttershy, Pinkie,” they said in unison.
“Hmm, fey twinning, very interesting.” Mudbriar took another long sip of his licorice tea. “I’ve never seen it channelled by a living creature before, but it does look familiar, if a bit rough around the edges.”
“What do you mean, ‘rough?’” The rightmost Fluttershy asked. “I am an archfey, nothing about my magic is rough.”
“Oh, I mean no offence. Twinning is indeed meant to produce a perfect copy. Yours, however, lack the sparkle in their wings.” He pointed at the green wings of all three. “Classic sign of imperfect replication: only the original has the source of the magic. Minor duplicates are only good as decoys. Perfect duplicates can cast spells on their own.”
Much to Fluttershy’s dismay, she had to admit only she sparkled, while her duplicates did not. “You know how this magic works?”
“Wands, staves, any type of magical sticks, really, are generally enchanted and replicated in the same manner, so technically I do. This is the first time I’ve seen it on a stick that could talk.” He took a bite from his cake. It smelled heavily of vanilla, even at that distance. “That is, not counting the one time I ran into a Kirin with what I could only assume was a speech impediment, but that was clearly a statistical anomaly. I’m still waiting on the Canterlot Academy Department of Magical Anatomy to decide whether Kirin forehead appendages count as sticks.”
“I thought those were horns?” said the right Fluttershy.
“With that branching and ring pattern? Hardly. Although it could be symbiotic, but I’d need another sample to be sure. The Kirin I asked was unable to voice any consent on the matter, so all I ever got was an imprint.”
Pinkie Pie’s ‘quiet’ dam finally burst. “Wait, wait, wait! Fluttershy, are you telling me you can do magic now?” She leaned over the counter so hard her eyes bulged.
“I suppose, yes. I haven’t tried much, though.”
“Ooh, ooh! Can you do that orange frog spell Twilight did that one time?” Pinkie Pie put an orange in front of her.
Fluttershy looked at her duplicates. They both shrugged.
“Might as well,” said the left one.
“Okay. I decree: orange frog!” She felt the energy jump up from her throat into her antlers, where it swirled and built until it launched at the orange. The thing sprouted legs, hopped around, then opened its citrusy mouth to croak.
“Technically, that’s a tangerine,” Mudbriar said.
“He does have a point,” said the right Fluttershy. “You only added the legs. You can change it to an orange, easy enough.”
Another command, a mental one this time, and the tangerine frog became a full orange. Her breath caught again, that dull ache in her throat popping up at such a random time.
“Thank you. It’s important to be specific in these things, as I’m sure you’ll agree.” Mudbriar nodded at the duplicate.
“Of course. One must be specific in matters of magic,” said the duplicate. “Wouldn’t want to end up with a flooded bathroom and a floor full of splinters.”
“Exactly,” Mudbriar said, smiling before shaking his head wistfully. “Such a waste of perfectly good sticks, that was.”
“Oh, what about making things fly?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Can you turn off gravity like Discord?”
“Good question. Can I?” Fluttershy asked herself.
The left herself nodded, the right one tapped her chin. “I’m pretty sure that would require spellwork, which we don’t have. You can try calling out the name of the spell, though. I think it’s ‘Reverse gravity.’”
“If you say so. Reverse gravity!”
All at once, Sugarcube Corner felt like it was falling. Pinkie floated, Mudbriar rose up from his seat, and confections threatened to become airborne.
Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief. Her throat felt better again.
I wonder if it’s when I cast a big spell.
She squinted, and dispelled the effect.
Mudbriar landed with a dull ‘plop’ on his rear, and continued his teatime treat. “Technically that doesn’t turn off gravity, it only weakens it, and presumably it only weakens the gravity of one object in particular, namely the floor. But that is the proper name of the spell, yes. You’d get a seven out of ten for that in Canterlot.”
“Only seven?” asked the left duplicate. “Why not ten?”
“Canterlot academic rules: one point subtracted for shouting the spell instead of thinking it, one point for not thinking it in a dead language. And if it’s not a language Unicorns killed purely for the purpose of magic, you’d lose that last point, too.”
“Meh, fair enough,” said the right duplicate.
“And what about summoning? Can you make a 400 hooves tall platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings?”
“Oh please, red horns and golden wings only,” the left one quickly replied. “I have standards.”
“Really?” said the real Fluttershy.
“Don’t mind her, she’s joking,” said the right one. “Pink horns and silver wings, coming up. Right?”
Fluttershy closed her eyes and concentrated. Power built up, the image of the conjuration took on weight and reality.
Missus Cake came in, her blue coat covered in splotches of flour. “I really don’t want to be rude, but we do have customers that need to get their orders. So, if you don’t mind?”
Only now did Fluttershy realise she’d turned off gravity in someone else’s home.
Wait. I can do that on someone else’s domain? How does that work?
“Technically, she was ordering something before Pinkie Pie interrupted her,” Mudbriar clarified.
“That’s fine, dearie. What would you like, then?” Missus Cake asked.
“Right. I’d like, umm...” she shook her head. “I wa-wa...” She shook it again. Her tongue felt numb, her antlers heavy all of a sudden.
“And that would be authoritative depletion, another classic weakness of fey creatures,” Mudbriar explained. "Too much exertion of authority from different sources in a small timeframe, it numbs the vocal chords temporarily, especially the untrained ones."
“Really? I wasn’t told about that,” Fluttershy said in a more hushed whisper than usual, even by her standards.
“You wouldn't be. It’s not a fey weakness, specifically. It’s a phenomenon inherent to all magical creatures that use that particular type of magic, which fey happen to have the greatest overlap with. Barking out a list of what you desire should still work.”
Fluttershy took a big gulp of air in. Her duplicates took a step back, before she barked out her entire order in one go. “One teacake platter, four dishes of donuts, six scones, and the tropical fruit mix, now!” She gasped. “Oh, I mean… please? Sorry, I’m still getting used to this.”
Missus Cake waved away the remark and went to get the order. “Don’t worry about it, dear. You’re obviously going through a difficult transition, and we’re all very supportive here, even if those changes come with some mood swings.”
“I’m pretty sure I won’t be turning into a stallion,” said the left Fluttershy.
“Of course not, dear, not with that lovely rack.”
“Not a buck, either. I hope,” said the right one.
“That’s fine, too, dearie, you call yourself whatever you feel like. That’ll be fifteen bits, please.”
Fluttershy quickly paid her dues, collected her things, and teleported out before Pinkie could distract her.
“That goes in the fridge.” She strode confidently into her kitchen and put away the treats. “Okay. I think I’m getting the hang of this new magic. It’s going just fine.”
She looked around.
“No duplicates this time. Good.”
Angel Bunny came up to her, tugging at the vines connected to her skin.
“It’s okay, Angel Bunny, I won’t forget you. And this doesn’t hurt at all, see? Watch this.” She closed her eyes, and with a mere thought she teleported all the food she needed to the few animals in her care, including a slice of carrot for Angel. Most of her patients were in her house now, with the lion’s share of her long-term charges having left the sanctuary a few weeks earlier. She reminded herself there was only one critter at the sanctuary she really needed to worry about, but that one had been mostly taken care of already, and she was expecting a visit from an expert later to help settle on a course of treatment.
Don’t forget about Priscilla and you’ll be fine.
Everything is fine.
“Perfect. I have plenty of time left. Alone. With my thoughts.”
“You know, you could consider a spa visit.”
“Just to clean up and relax before visiting.”
Fluttershy jumped. Angel Bunny nearly choked on his carrot piece.
“Ugh, why do you two keep showing up?” Fluttershy asked. “Am I splitting myself on accident now?”
The two other Fluttershies grinned and started speaking like a hive mind. It made the original feel left out, and oddly nostalgic as a result.
“Maybe.”
“You might be.”
“It’s a very real possibility.”
“But we might also be the result of you not being born with a horn.”
“And not knowing how to control your magic very well.”
“Which is a shame.”
“Because you might have more fun that way.”
“On the other hoof,” said the one on the left. “We could be some trick Discord’s mother is playing on you because she knows what you’re going to try and do.”
“Or we might be the result of some head trauma you suffered recently.”
“Most likely something involving the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”
“Or Rainbow Dash.”
“Or Pinkie Pie.”
“Or jumping at the sight of your own shadow.”
Fluttershy pressed a hoof to her forehead. “Girls, this is not helping. I need to get this under control. I can’t just twin myself and have you two talking about whatever is on your mind. This is important, for Discord, for my friend. For our friend.”
The left one rolled her eyes. “You know, the last option is that we’re simply the natural result of you becoming a fey.”
The right one nodded. “You heard Mudbriar: this sort of magic is typical for our kind. It’s natural for things like trees to split off and become new organisms. No reason to think your magic doesn’t work the same way.”
“I understand that, but I still need to keep it under control.”
“You’re the one who’s letting happen, Fluttershy. Maybe you shouldn’t ask us why we keep showing up.” The left one prodded her chest. “Maybe you should ask yourself.”
Fluttershy sighed. “I’m doubting myself again, aren’t I? Is that what this throat ache is?”
“I’m not sure,” said the left one. “But whatever that is, we don’t feel it.”
“No. You don’t feel that, so you two can talk when I can’t. I have to figure this out if I want to help my friend. You two… you’re still me. But you’re different. How?”
“More powerful,” said one.
“More cunning,” said the other.
“More confident,” Fluttershy concluded. She rose up. “You’re my thorns, you only show up as a defence mechanism. Well, you won’t have to. I don’t need extra bodies to speak for me, I don’t need extra bodies to be confident. I can do all that myself. And I can be better than confident: I am responsible and dependable.”
“Well said,” said the left Fluttershy. “Couldn’t have put it better myself, so what are you gonna do first?”
“I suppose you are right: a spa visit would do me some good. I’ll have to look presentable for Discord’s mother tomorrow, and going early would let me get my natural scent back, not to mention fix anything that might go wrong. I wouldn’t want to look like I’m trying too hard. Maybe if I look the part, I won’t be splitting hairs and splitting myself anymore, either.”
Fluttershy found herself appearing at the spa, right in front of the reception desk. She’d managed to conjure a spring breeze with her arrival this time, late May by her estimate but still not quite summery enough.
Lotus had been reading a magazine and nearly fell out of her seat. “Oh! Miss Fluttershy, is that you?”
“Umm, yes,” Fluttershy replied. “I’m very sorry to barge in like this. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“It is fine.” Lotus walked over to her, dusting off any smudge from her blue coat. “You are obviously going through an important transition, and we are very understanding here, no questions asked. What is it you need from us?”
Fluttershy felt the correction form in her throat, but she swallowed it. No need to break the illusion and have to explain the whole thing again, after all. “I realise it’s a little bit short-term, but I could really use a beauty treatment.”
“Of course, Miss Fluttershy, the minimalist stress relief, it is no problem at all. Our main masseur is currently giving his weekly weightlifting class for the local children, and our coupon season ended just two days ago, so...” Lotus gestured to the reception hall, and the great emptiness therein. “Business is slow today, we should have no problem giving you our undivided attention.”
“Thank you. And, umm, not the minimalist today, please,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Oh?”
With a deep breath in, Fluttershy puffed up her chest and nodded. “The full treatment today. Sauna, mud, bath, ice… umm, whichever order you think is best.”
Aloe came in, surprised but quickly getting the gist of the situation from the looks of it. “Miss Fluttershy, did I hear correctly? You mean you wish to have a full facial mask today?”
She nodded. “And the hoof filing, and my, umm, you know...”
“Your very pretty and completely natural rack?” Aloe gestured at the antlers.
“Yes. I think that might need some treatment, if that’s an option.” Fluttershy stifled a gulp. “I’m not sure what style would be appropriate, but I am meeting someone tomorrow. Someone very important and very powerful, a close relative to one of my friends, and I need to look well. I’m not sure what that looks like, though, so if you have any ideas?”
“Oh yes, we can arrange that. Those look like reindeer antlers to me, no?” Lotus asked.
Aloe gave her a confident nod. “We have kept up with the fashions of the North since the School of Friendship opened. We have not had any deer customers yet, but we are prepared. We know exactly how to make that sort of presence look regal.”
“Perfect.”
The first order of business, now that Fluttershy had deer fur, was a long soak. According to the spa ponies, deer of all varieties tended to struggle most with parasites and bloodsuckers: ticks, mosquitoes, and the like. In modern times, such a nuisance was less of a pressing issue, but the fact remained that as a tribe, deer tended to attract certain things more than ponies did. Besides that, once Fluttershy explained that this change was recent, the pair immediately insisted on a rinse as well.
It was summer, they reasoned, and it simply would not do to go into an important meeting whilst shedding.
“We will shine the antlers with some Flare Bee beeswax after trimming,” Lotus started.
“You mean Flash Bees?” Fluttershy asked.
“No, no: Flare Bees, they are domesticated. Will we require the scissors or filing, do you think?” Aloe asked.
“We will have to consult the literature for that,” Lotus replied. “What about your dew claws, Miss Fluttershy? And those plant growths? Are they synthetic?”
“Oh, umm… they’re wooden, actually. The plants are part of me. I’m not sure if that makes a difference?”
The two exchanged a glance and nodded. “Beeswax,” Aloe said. “Definitely beeswax. But soak in the water first. You will want to be certain the innervation is complete, lest we draw blood from an incomplete rack.”
Fluttershy stifled a gasp. “Blood? You can bleed out of these?”
“Only when they are underdeveloped and covered in velvet, which some sections can be at the bottom, they are harder to shave off alone. I’m surprised you don’t know. You must have seen many fine and great racks in your day.”
“I have, but never one like what I’m wearing.”
Lotus smiled at her. “It is nothing to worry about, the general rules are the same across species. Relax in the warm water, it will help. And do not worry if the plants start to get a little soggy, they can recover. We had symbiotic customers at the resort before we moved to Ponyville, we know what to do.”
She was led to one of the back rooms, where the tubs had double edges and were equipped with extra streams on the bottom to help get rid of any shedding hair.
Fluttershy lay back in one of the tubs, and soon she was soaking in warm water. The pressure below loosened little clumps of fur, while her plant growths seemed completely unaffected by the situation. Still, she kept the leaves and buds in, leaving only the vine threads around her limbs.
“There we go.” Aloe put an extra showerhead over the tub. “You may rinse your mane under there as much as you like, we will prepare a conditioner in the meantime. Lemongrass or lavender?”
“Good question,” Lotus replied before Fluttershy could. “I believe lemongrass is in season in the North now, but lavender has been getting more popular among the moose. We should check the magazines, to be sure. Do call us if you need any help, Miss Fluttershy. We will make sure you get the best treatment.”
“That sounds lovely.” Fluttershy lounged back, well away from the running water above her head. Already the tub overflowed, and the extra water fell over the first edge, along with the loose clumps of fur.
Time passed, and her thoughts drifted off.
This isn’t so bad. I can relax.
She stared at the stream of running water, so close by, and wondered.
It’s only a little stream. And I do need to rinse my mane.
I’m sure Discord would be impressed if I tried it.
He’d say it was brave of me, wouldn’t he? Of course he would.
It can’t be that bad.
With a quick turn and beat from her faerie wings, she settled under the stream to let it wash over her head.
With a shock, her body froze. Her lungs stopped, her heart started pounding, and she went under before she realised what was happening. Unfamiliar hooves slipped over the bottom of the tub, only managing to get her head above water for a second before she went completely submerged again.
I can’t get up under that. I can’t move underwater.
She pushed herself up, and faced the paralysing stream again for a breath of air.
Wait, no. I can’t move under running water. I can still swim and push once I’m under.
She beat her wings to go deeper down, and pushed herself forward against the wall.
Choking, spluttering, she got up. She rubbed her nose, her ears hurt from the water she’d gotten in.
“Oh my goodness, are you okay?” Lotus turned the shower off.
“Yes. I am fine. I, umm, I’m not used to bathing with this new body, that’s all. Still getting used to it. I hope I didn’t scratch your tub with my rack,” Fluttershy replied.
“No, it is designed to withstand that. May I?” The blue mare checked her antlers. “It’s only a short soak, but it will suffice. This new hide of yours is more tender than usual, very prone to pruning. Come, we have already found a style I think you will like. You shouldn’t stay in there after that.”
While she was still shaken from her near-drowning, Fluttershy did end up enjoying the rest of the treatment. Her antlers were cut and groomed into a more blunt, unoffensive round shape, while her hooves were sharpened at the bottoms, to better accentuate her legs, according to the spa ponies.
Beeswax was applied liberally to her rack, hooves, and dew claws, while a mud mask worked its magic into her face. Her wings were tended to gently, with a soft brush dipped in an etheric oil Fluttershy couldn’t pronounce the name of, let alone know what was in it.
And, of course, she was brushed and perfumed extensively.
She had none of her anxiety about it now, she was too drained for that.
I could have died.
I could have died because I wasn’t careful enough, just once.
Fluttershy flew back home, not wanting to risk another accident. The oils and perfumes applied to her coat needed time to evaporate anyway. She smelled nice, and she had to admit she looked much better than she could remember ever looking.
Still, doubt had crept into her thoughts, and that familiar lump in her throat came and went as she thought about the morning’s events. She opened the door to her cottage and walked in with a sigh, greeted by the scent of bird seed and at least five varieties of fur.
“I’m home!” she called out.
Angel Bunny ran over to greet her, but he was swiftly shoved aside by a star shower.
“Fluttershy!” Discord greeted. “You look magnificent, did you do something with your magic?”
“Umm, no, I uh, I just went to the spa. I thought I should look nice, at least, for tomorrow.”
“Good thinking. I would have just snapped my fingers, of course, but, again, mother would notice.”
She bit her lip.
“Is something wrong?” Discord asked. “Did anything happen? Does anypony need a lesson in manners, by any chance?” He cracked his knuckles eagerly.
“No, nothing like that. B-back at the spa, I… I got the idea that maybe I could impress you and I… stuck my head under the shower. I almost drowned, in a bath. I feel like such a fool.”
His shoulders slumped, but he did manage to give her a smile. “Ah. Idun did warn you: that’s a notorious weakness in creatures like you.”
“It didn’t bother the Kirin. They could walk right into a running river.”
“Yes, a magical river,” Discord argued, straightened up again. “Magical water’s not a problem, that’s all over their natural habitat. No, it’s the non-magical stuff that’ll get you, any fey will tell you that.”
“I nearly drowned,” she repeated. “It happened so quickly. I didn’t even realise I could be so scared.”
“And yet here you stand, looking better than ever.” He sighed. “Do you want to back out? You don’t have to do this, remember?”
“I know, but I want to. And I’ll need to know how to act tomorrow for that to work. I’m just not sure if I really can.”
“Only one way to find out.” He pointed a thumb in a direction that required a degree in quantum mechanics to explain. “I have prepared my home in the meantime, we can work on your magic there. That is, if you’re sure.”
She nodded and rubbed at her sore throat, her voice still croaking. “I’m sure. Maybe I’ll feel better once I can do some more magic.”
“Excellent plan.”
A snap of the fingers, a star shower, and they were in Discord’s abode. He’d spruced up the place, literally: the corners of his main living room were now decorated with miniature spruce and pine trees. In the new dining nook in front of the kitchen, he’d replaced the upside down volcano with Plunder Vines. In fact, all of the gravity had been set to normal, presumably to accommodate the new living things in the house.
She took a deep breath in, and realised she felt home.
Then she heard a creaking on Discord’s table, and realised the smallest pine in the room was waving at her.
She dashed towards it as soon as she noticed. “Oh my. Hi, little guy. Or is that a girl? What is it?” At first glance, it was a bipedal bonsai pine tree, no larger than a cat, with both its tree trunk legs firmly in the flowerpot.
“That? That’s an Ent-Pine.” Discord floated over to her. “I still had one lying around from my old buddy Postumus, I haunted his spellcaster university a few times back in the Pre-Classical era.” He chuckled and looked away. “Ah, so much molten cheese, I really should give him a call sometime. Anyway, do you like it?”
“It’s adorable.”
“It’s yours.”
“Really?”
“Well, yes. I can’t take care of living things, remember? Besides, it might help you in the magical department once all this is over. Its powers are seasonal, and knowledge-based, it’s kind of a teacher’s assistant for wizards, it can be handy to have around if you get more phoenixes or whatnot. I’m pretty sure I saw a stick expert in Ponyville, he could tell you what it can do.”
“Mudbriar?”
“That’s the one, Maud’s boyfriend. So, what do you think?”
She breathed in the atmosphere again and looked around. For a moment, the soreness in her throat and chest faded from the sheer joy. “It looks great, Discord. It’s just what I’d do if I did live here. Except maybe one thing.” With a smile and a flourish, she waved her hoof and caused a flurry of leaves to form in the middle of the room. When it passed, Discord’s chairs and table had been replaced by her own. “I’d probably bring up some of my own furniture. You know, just to put my own little stamp on things.”
“Ah. Good thinking. You really do make a good archfey. Now, teleportation and animation are simple magics for creatures like us, but the fey excel in curses, especially those that change shapes or affect age, or even the mind.”
“Okay. That’s the magic they build their homes with?”
He chuckled. “Oh, no: that’s the magic they fight with. They decree what happens to intruders, what any trespassers become as a punishment. If the archfey happens to be on its own domain, those decrees can become absolute, and sometimes permanent. If they’re not, then it becomes a struggle of will. Mortals, they tend to lose struggles like that. Creatures of chaos, like my mother, will fight dirty and turn such magic against you. Decrees go both ways, and you can get tongue-tied into admitting weakness, or defeat.”
“And I won’t have the home advantage here, either,” she noted.
“No, getting you to extend your power into my home would take far too long, I imagine. I’m not even sure how that would work, now that you mention it. Rule-based magic never sat well with me, anyway. So what we need to work on is strengthening your willpower.” He set an empty flowerpot on the table, next to the Ent-pine. “Fey are fond of transmutation magic above all others, even more so than illusions and enchantment. Try it: turn this flowerpot into a teakettle.”
Fluttershy squinted and concentrated. “Umm, okay… please become a teakettle?”
Nothing happened.
“No, no, no, command it to become a teakettle,” Discord insisted. “I saw you commanding your room to become clean just a few hours ago, you brought the table up, you can do this.”
“Teakettle!” she shouted.
Again, nothing happened.
Discord stuck a finger in his right ear, wincing. “Alright, little tip: shouting doesn’t actually help your magic all that much, it only makes you go a little hoarse. Which, admittedly, wouldn’t make much of a difference for you, but still. Try it again. Maybe do a different form: make a toy train.”
Fluttershy snorted and pushed past the pain in her throat. “Alright: by my decree as archfey: become a train!”
The flowerpot remained as it was, stubbornly refusing to change careers.
“Why isn’t this working? It was working before.”
Discord scratched his head in confusion. “Honestly? I’m not sure. I don’t have the same expertise with fey magic as I do with chaos. It’s because you’re thinking too much, I would imagine. You need to use your voice, your words.”
“But I am using my voice,” she argued, rubbing her neck.
“No, you’re not, you’re using your vocal chords. Any old creature can do that. Oh, but, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Ponies never learned how to use their inner voice, their true will.”
“I really do not understand that, umm, still.”
“Of course you don’t, it’s not your fault. Princess Luna would tell you all about it, she knows the basics. It’s not about you speaking, it’s about your voice, your very soul. And unfortunately, it’s something ponies tend to ignore. You learn to walk, you learn to speak, but you never learn how to think. Mortal thoughts run around like crazy all the time. And unlike me, you ponies don’t have any ways to work with that kind of craziness.”
Fluttershy rubbed her chin. “Okay, I think I understand what you mean. Only Unicorns really learn how to control their thoughts, because they learn magic. And even then, only wizards really do it. That would explain why Starlight and Sunburst are so different in level.”
“Now there’s a thought: what if I got Starlight Glimmer to do the pretending?” The draconequus leaned back and floated off, thinking. “I could even ask some other ponies. Idun might call it a little trivial to spend so many apples, but mother would never suspect a thing.”
“No, Discord. This is something I want to do, as a friend. You shouldn’t have to show that kind of weakness to anypony else.”
He set himself upright and on the floor again. “And I appreciate that more than you can ever know. But we’re still running into the same problem: you never learned magic. You never learned how to control your own thoughts. Even Pegasus magic isn’t something taught in schools these days. You’re less than a novice.”
“Maybe.” She squinted at the flowerpot. “But I can learn. I didn’t get to where I am now by giving up anytime things got hard: I only gave up when I had to and nopony could see me.”
Discord arched an eyebrow.
She grumbled ever so gently under her breath. “Right. Can’t lie, even about that. How do other fey do it?”
“Usually? They don’t share their secrets, not the powerful ones, at least. Even if they told you, they wouldn’t be able to make you do it unless you let them control your thoughts, and that’s a risk you don’t want to take, ever.” He shook his head hard enough to make a rattling sound.
“Then how do wizards do it? They have schools for wizards, there must be something we can use?”
“Wizards are easy to explain, yes. They learn to imagine things as vividly as if it were real life, and then use their mental voice to cast out a command. But that’s the short version of it, the whole thing takes weeks of mental prepwork and a lot of mindbogglingly boring theory. Mortal minds can’t just blitz to that sort of thing.”
“So… maybe a spell would work, then?”
Finally, Discord nodded. “That’s not a bad idea, I guess? A little cliché, but it might work. I mean, fey do tend to rhyme an awful lot, especially when cursing.”
Fluttershy smiled. “Okay. Let’s try… alakazam!”
If the flowerpot heard the command, it did not react. The Ent-pine next to it shook its head.
“Again,” Discord said.
Her nostrils flared, her eyes narrowed. “Higgitis figgitis!”
Still, no luck.
“Again.”
Anger started to build in the archfey. Curse words bubbled up to the surface of her consciousness, fuelled by impotent rage and petty annoyance. “Balderdash!”
The flowerpot did not care.
Fluttershy sighed. A second Fluttershy appeared next to her.
“I think we both know where this is going.”
Fluttershy let her head collapse onto the table. It had been hours, or it felt like hours, at least. Her throat felt raw, her tongue dry, her eyes misty.
The flowerpot, by all appearances, felt like a flowerpot, and quite happy to remain so.
“I can’t do it, Discord. It’s not working anymore. I’m losing my powers.”
“No, don’t say that!” Discord quickly picked her up. “You’re a mighty archfey, you just hit a snag, that’s all.”
She managed to sit upright, even with her splitting headache. She reached out a hoof, and Discord gave her some tea. Even her double had vanished.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I was turning off gravity just a few hours ago.”
“Really? I’m impressed; I wouldn’t have expected that until after two weeks, at least.”
She tried to repeat the motions from before, to get something, anything at this point. “But why can’t I do it now? What’s changed?”
He shrugged. “You can’t be overthinking it at this point, not when you’re this tired. Even mortal minds shut up after that much work. You know what it could be? Maybe your mind has caught up with your magic.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that aside from the random craziness of your own head, even if you get that under control, most mortals have this sort of problem when they’re given a lot of power all at once. Don’t you remember how Cozy Glow fought you when she had the Bell’s power?”
“She was awful.” Fluttershy shivered, her wings spreading faerie dust over the floor. “And tricky.”
“At first, she was. She used a beam, and shields, even a little portal magic, at first. But then as time wore on, why, she couldn’t even use that magic to warm herself up once the Windigos came into play. Why do you suppose that is?”
“She forgot she had that power, maybe?”
“Close enough. When a mortal mind is given a lot of power all at once, it opens them up to new things. New thoughts pour in, new opportunities.” Discord demonstrated the concept with a balloon that became over-inflated. “But the thing is, they’re not used to handling the pressure of all those things. It makes a lot of noise, you might say, more noise than usual. For example, you’re not bothered by the sound of your own heartbeat or the sight of your own shadow, are you?”
“There was that one time I had to care for a colony of Shadowbats. They can make themselves invisible in the shade and, well, they weren’t very nice. That was around the time we had our first dragon incident, too.” She whimpered at the thought.
“Getting a little sidetracked here. My point is: mortals have a way of filtering things out. There’s a whole host of smells your nose picks up but your head doesn’t tell you about. There’s a whole world of background noise you learn to ignore from the moment you’re born.” He deflated the balloon, then popped it with a prick of his claw. “The same is true for magic. After a while, you get used to it, and you start to filter things out. So really, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing: it means you’ll look and feel more genuine.”
“But it means I can’t use my magic anymore. I didn’t learn quickly enough, and now it’s all gone?”
“Not gone: out of reach, for now. Pony babies go through the same thing, especially the ones with powerful parents. You’ll get it in time, I’m sure. You always pull through.”
“That’s not true, Discord,” Fluttershy argued. “You’ve never seen me fail, but I’ve still failed.”
A smile formed on his lips, the sort of genuine smile she didn’t often see on him. “Perhaps. But have you ever seen me fail?”
“Technically, there was that time you had your powers stolen not so long ago,” she blurted out.
“Okay, that’s true, but-”
“And then there was the time you got caught by changelings.”
“Well, they cheated, and-”
“Cozy Glow managed to lock you out of Equestria when she started her plot.”
He rubbed his temples at the thought of it. “Artifact magic can be such a drag, yes, however-”
“I’m pretty sure Starlight said she banished you from the school at one point, but I don’t think that word means the same thing to a pony who doesn’t know magic,” Fluttershy continued.
“It doesn’t. My point is-”
“And then, of course, there was the time you offered to help me assemble my new furniture for the sanctuary.”
“Those Scandineighvians need to work on their instruction manuals, that whole incident is entirely on them!” He cleared his throat, collecting himself after that outburst. “What I’m trying to say is: sure, by your limited mortal understanding, I may possibly, perhaps, from a certain perspective, have had one or two failures around you. But do you think I’m any less of a Lord of Chaos for that? Do you think I’m weak because of that, or stupid?”
“Well...”
He groaned. “Don’t answer that last one until you can lie again, please.”
“I mean of course I don’t.”
“Oh. That’s nice to know. But then why would you assume anyone else does it to you?”
“Umm, because I’m usually the nicest pony in the room?” She held a hoof up to her mouth. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Terrible, but true. The best kind of terrible.” Discord smirked. “Look, Fluttershy, mastering magic isn’t as hard as you might think. The whole mental noise thing? Forget I even said it, it stops mattering beyond a certain level of power, and once you tire yourself out, it stops mattering to a normal pony anyway. With what you’re wielding, what I wield, it all becomes a question of volume and essence, power and purity. Thanks to Idun’s apple, you already have both.”
“Then what am I missing?”
“The will to use it.” He clenched his fists at her, in a pleading gesture of encouragement. “The highest of level of magic is pure willpower. You’re too used to having petty little wants and desires. Think bigger. Try wanting things more deeply, desire something, anything. Don’t let that one little accident in the tub cloud your judgement and make you second-guess everything, you’re stronger than that. It doesn’t matter what’s stopping you from doing it: once you find the way to will something, truly want something, all of that goes away.”
Fluttershy took a deep breath in and closed her eyes. “I’ll try. But how?”
“Think about all those faerie tales about ponies finding spirits or hags and talking stars to make wishes come true. Think of what you would ask if you found something like that. And then realise you don’t have to look, because you are the one fulfilling your wish. When you want something so deeply, so profoundly, the noise will stop on its own, and the magic will flow. So tell me, what is your wish?”
She nodded and started thinking out loud. “More than anything in the world, I wish for my animals to be okay. I wish for-oh my gosh, Priscilla!” Her eyes shot open.
“Who?”
“Priscilla, the phoenix I was telling you about. From the potion seller.”
“Oh, right. You were expecting someone to come by, weren’t you? What time were they arriving?”
“She’s probably waiting. All because I can’t master fey magic.” Fluttershy whipped her head back, wings aglow. “To Sweet Feather Sanctuary!”
Discord came teleporting in right behind her. “It’s funny, really, you didn’t have a problem teleporting away when one of your animals was in trouble.” He wrung his hands together with a dark grin. “Perhaps if we had a little talk with Angel Bunny?”
Fluttershy heard him, but didn’t pay him any heed. There was a Kirin friend of hers waiting in the sanctuary. She had been somewhat surprised to learn Kirin had a great knowledge of phoenix care, but given the flammable tendencies of both species, it made some sense. “Autumn Blaze, hi! I hope I didn’t keep you waiting. I was caught up in something and I completely lost track of time.”
“Oh, hi, Fluttershy. It’s no problem, really, I was just getting to know little Priscilla here. Nice new look you got there. And is that…” The Kirin sniffed the air. “Is that fey magic I smell on you?”
“It is. You like it?”
“Yeah, that looks really nice on you, I’ve gotta say.” Autumn inspected her, circling around the archfey. “Discord set you up with that?”
“A friend of a friend did,” Fluttershy replied. “Oh, Discord, this is Autumn Blaze. Autumn Blaze, this is Discord.”
“We met already,” Autumn said. “Back at the place with the thing. You know, the triple rainbow blast?”
“Right, you were there, too. Okay, let’s get it over with.” He made a wiping motion over his chest to bring forth a bullseye, and offered some rotten tomatoes to the Kirin.
She waved the offer away. “Oh, I don’t blame you for that. I’ve had the same sort of thing happen, remember? We’ve made plenty of messes back home that nearly dragged everyone around us down, all with good intentions. I’m sure whatever you were thinking, it made sense to you at the time.”
Discord shrugged and got rid of the tomatoes and paper, tossing the first behind his back and eating the second with a caprine bleet of a burp. “Pardon. Nice to know there’s some creatures around that understand.”
“Mind if I ask what the rack is for, then?” Autumn pointed at the antlers. “Because what I’m smelling is more than a beauty treatment.”
“Is it okay to talk about?” Fluttershy asked.
“It should be. Mother doesn’t know much about the smaller things in life. I don’t think you’ve been around quite long enough to be on her radar yet.”
“Well, umm, I kind of, sort of, turned into an archfey for three days.”
Autumn Blaze whistled, impressed. “Nice. Guess I have to bow, then, since I’m on your property. Or should I go get my village elder for some diplomatic talks?”
“That won’t be necessary. It’s for a favour and, umm, I might not even be able to do it.”
“Don’t talk like that, Fluttershy,” Discord insisted. “You’re just getting used to your new magic, nothing more. You’ll get it.”
“But will I get it in time?”
“Umm, excuse me,” Autumn Blaze said, eyes narrowed. “But am I understanding it correctly that you’re now wielding one of the most powerful types of magic in Equestria and you, err, can’t do anything with it?”
She cringed. “As much as I don’t want to admit it, yes. I was practising my magic, but it’s not working, and I keep getting this lump in my throat. That’s why I’m late. But I’m here to see Priscilla now, so if we could get to that.”
“Ah ah.” Autumn blocked her with a hoof. “A phoenix is a creature of magic, Fluttershy. If you can’t control yours, then it’s not a good idea to go near them. Now what have you tried to get your magic working? Stygian’s Fantastic Palace? Somnanbula’s Deck of Diverse Diversions?”
“Oh, please,” Discord blew a raspberry. “Spare me your modern trifles.”
“Modern? Those things were named over a thousand years ago.”
“Yes, but they were at least two thousand years old at the time. And much more effective back then, too.”
Fluttershy looked back and forth at her friends. “What are those two supposed to be? The palace and the deck, I mean?”
“Mental visualisation techniques,” Autumn Blaze said with a flourish, enunciating like a prim and proper Canterlot mare for effect. “Everyone knows wizards have an off-switch. You can’t stay in the right frame of mind to do magic all the time, no one can.”
“Ahe-hem.” Discord cleared his throat and coughed up some pigeon feathers in the process.
“Well, most folks can’t, so it takes a bit of loosening up to get into it. One way is to picture yourself in a palace, another way is to draw a deck of ghost cards. But that’s wizardly things, I suppose. Wizards speak out their magic, they spell it out and focus on enunciating, declaring with authority.”
“As I tried to explain earlier,” Discord said.
“That would explain why I have trouble with it. I’m not very good at speaking out loud,” she whispered. “Most of my animal friends don’t like noise, either. It’s just so hard to talk sometimes, especially when my throat gets so tight.”
“There’s no shame in that, really. It’s not a problem, either: us fey creatures tend to lean towards a different technique anyway. We have ways around a tight throat, same as we have ways around a stammer. Am I right, Discord?”
“Now that you mention it, I suppose you do, technically.” The apple lightbulb appeared over his head again. “The anti-stammer trick, of course, I can’t believe I forgot about that. Yes, I think you’ve got it. By Clover, I think she’s got it.”
“Got what?”
Autumn Blaze smiled at the draconequus. “Discord, if you please?”
“Pay attention, Fluttershy, this will be very educational.”
“Oh.” She sighed as the air around her grew red, the floor dropped out from under her and a tune started playing with an echo to it.
Discord was doing a song and dance.
She wasn’t sure whether to be worried or proud.
“Behold the secret of the ancients!” a voice called out.
Autumn Blaze rose up from underneath the floor, standing on a rising platform that reminded Fluttershy of an old opera play. The mask the Kirin wore was certainly on theme for it.
“When you cannot talk, just sing! When you cannot talk, just sing! Magic is an art, so don’t fret the start When you cannot talk, just sing!~”
The stage and singer floated off. Fluttershy blinked in confusion, realising her hooves were coated in lemonade all of a sudden. Discord was rowing a boat through the beverage.
“When you cannot talk, just sing! When you cannot talk, just sing! Natural, arcane, really is the same When you cannot talk, just sing!~”
"I don’t understand what you mean!" Fluttershy cried out as more chaos poured into the environment. Cotton candy clouds floated over gingham hills while twenty-sided dice erupted from chocolate volcanoes in the distance.
Discord, for his part, ignored any distress the archfey was voicing, and pranced around on a rainbow, as if he were skating on the surface with his head thrown back to sing at the sky. He clenched a fist as he sang to draw more of the dice towards him, all pointing their ‘20’ at her.
“Listen to this old secret Spells have been dull for so long If you want your spells to crit Just start casting yours in song!~”
Fluttershy’s head spun. She tried to speak up again, to protest, but the words got caught halfway up her chest, that grip on her throat felt like a vice now. Autumn Blaze teleported right in front of her and grabbed her by the cheeks, before wrapping an arm around her neck.
“When you cannot talk, just sing. Music can beat anything, Doubting may garrotte, grab you by the throat, Break on out and sing a note~”
She’d only turned her back on for a second, but now Fluttershy saw Discord pointing a conductor’s baton at a host of piñatas, making them rise and fall in size with every wave of the wand.
“Polymorph or shrink and grow To a rhythm allegro Best of bardic minds Know the spells of many kinds When you cannot speak just sing~”
The noise of the music was getting to her, the lyrics, the rhyming. “I can’t hear myself think!”
Silence fell. She was in the desert now. Sweet relief washed over thoughts.
I can’t hear myself think when it’s like this.
How does anyone concentrate through a song?
“Oh. I think I get it now.” She closed her eyes and let the song play in her head. The music filled her, empowered her, focused her thoughts, and soothed the pain.
Not pain, she realised now, but pressure. Words had a weight now, they exerted a force. Words from without pushed in. Words from within had to push out.
“Discord, now I understand. When life gets so out of hand I can’t hear my thoughts Ties me up in knots Then I can’t say anything
I know what you say is true Whenever I’m feeling blue Hum a little tune, then so very soon When I cannot speak, I sing!~”
Green light erupted from her body, suffusing the desert with new life. An oasis burst out of the ground, water and flowers followed by palm trees.
The song took hold, and her magic took over.
“Very good,” Discord remarked. “Now we can cover some more of the basics.” He cleared his throat for the next verse, backed up by dancing dice and what she presumed were cardboard cut-outs from his Ogres and Oubliettes games.
“Any good spell without rhyme Is like a bird with no wings It’s like a snail with no slime Or a guitar with no strings!~”
Autumn Blaze twirled along, dancing with either a cardboard lich or a plastic zombie, it was hard to tell from Fluttershy’s perspective.
“When you cannot talk just sing When you cannot talk just sing If it all goes wrong Focus on a song When you cannot speak just sing~”
Discord came by to finish the duet and, somehow, they both knew the words, as if both creatures were one and the same mind.
Or perhaps, Fluttershy realised, the song was an entity of its own, and demanded it be sung. The power of fey music made sense now, oddly enough. Notes and rhythms, new ideas for spells and curses ran rampant in her mind. She smiled at both her friends as they wrapped up with a grand finale, slowly dissolving the illusion Discord had conjured for dramatic effect.
“When you cannot talk just sing When you cannot talk just sing Power of a song, keeps you going strong When you cannot speak just sing~
Don’t ever forget, my friend, Magic is just play pretend Sing it at the world Let your will unfurl When you cannot speak just siiiing!~”
The song died down, and Fluttershy felt like chains had been broken off of her heart and lungs. Her mind was clear now, filled only with a vague tune she could change at her whim.
“Well, that looks like it worked,” Autumn Blaze remarked. “Try something.”
At a quick hum of a command, a bag of feed floated up to Priscilla and filled the bird’s platter, before moving back to its designated spot in the supply closet.
“Yes, that works just fine,” Discord remarked. “Let’s keep trying on your turf first, then we’ll see if you can do it on mine. What do you say?”
“Sounds like a lovely plan,” Fluttershy said. “I-if, umm, Autumn Blaze doesn’t mind helping out a little bit more?”
“Oh, are you kidding? I don’t get to see this sort of thing too often these days. If you need to learn fey magic, I’m more than happy to help. Let me share with you the song of my people!”
The afternoon had come and gone. Autumn Blaze was already on her way home, and the outdoor lesson had moved back to Discord’s place.
“Alright, so: duplicate!”
Fluttershy knew how to do this one properly now. The sound in her mind was that of a cello, making two curt strokes. Once she heard it played out in her mind, she had her duplicates out.
“Hello again,” said the one on the left. “Looking delightful, Fluttershy.”
“Much better now that you have your confidence back,” said the one on her right.
The music swelled in her mind, forming an orchestra. One part was doing the Sorcerer’s Apprentice on xylophone, the other a percussion beat that sounded like an elevated heart rate, and another a harp tune that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a healing fountain.
All three resolved their spells at the same time: little butterflies made of light fluttered across the room, that stubborn flowerpot finally turned into a tea kettle, and a broom started sweeping the living room on its own.
“Perfect,” Discord said. “Just perfect. No one would ever know the difference.”
“Thank you.” With a mere thought, Fluttershy halted all her spells and duplicates. “It’s thanks to your help, you know.”
“Well, mine and Autumn’s. I told you I don’t do fey magic. But on the upside, neither does mother. And you won’t be seeing her on your home turf, so she won’t be intimidated by you or think it’s some trap. She’ll believe it when I say you’re friendly.”
“Good. So, what next?”
“Nothing next,” Discord replied. “You’ve mastered your magic, there’s only tomorrow morning for tea and then that’ll be that. Hopefully it can pass by quickly.”
“Discord,” Fluttershy said, coming closer him. “You know you have to do this, right? You have to face your mother.”
“Yes, yes, I know. But I’m glad I won’t have to do it alone this time.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t be so bad.”
“I hope so. Now, I’ve kept you from your things long enough. You should get back to Ponyville and rest up.”
“I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep after today,” she joked.
“I hope you do. You’re probably going to need it.”
Medea, Mother of First Screams, Tyrant of Infants, Hogger of Donuts
As it turned out, Fluttershy managed to sleep like a baby that night; it was the morning after that she felt jittery and nervous. She teleported up to Discord’s place, with her zap apple jam and tea treats along for the ride, and made sure to clean up the furniture she’d dropped off the day before.
Her stomach growled in anticipation. Morning tea was not her favourite Canterlot tradition, never had been. The waiting for a guest who could arrive early or late was annoying enough to be stressful, though she did appreciate having friends who could teleport and arrive precisely when they meant to.
Her being at Discord’s place rather than her own home only added to the anxiety. She still wasn’t sure how her powers worked, not at full capacity. She was outside of her home, out of her domain, and that made her weaker, she knew that much. She stayed seated at the table, waiting.
Fluttershy’s heart skipped a beat when the doorbell rang.
At Discord’s command, the door opened to a composite creature, much like himself, but made up of vastly different parts compared to her friend.
For one thing, Medea’s body was symmetrical, eerily so. Her head was that of a black-faced ewe, blue eyes seeming to project a constant air of judgement. The draconic lineage was still visible, though, in the curved horns that adorned her and definitely did not belong on a female sheep. The wool of the sheep parts transitioned into shark skin, tiger shark judging from the stripes, with the same dragon back ridges Discord had, smaller than the dorsal fin. Her tail, finally, was that of a wolfess, at least up top, the lower half was still a vague resemblance of a shark’s fin. Her front paws were of a species Fluttershy couldn’t place, but they were small and stubby, and for some reason the word ‘quokka’ kept ringing in her ears every time she tried to remember what they were. The hind legs, though, were easy to place: those were lion limbs.
All in all, Medea looked small compared to her son, about the size of Chrysalis.
Much like Chrysalis, though, size didn’t matter with all the malice behind those eyes.
“Hello, son,” Medea greeted. “It’s been a while. I trust you’ve kept your affairs at least partially in order?”
“Whatever do you mean?” he inquired.
“You know full well what I mean. I’ve sensed your power being drained, and shut down, and blocked stars only know how many times over the span of less than a decade. I didn’t think you could be any more of a failure, yet here we are,” she hissed.
Discord grumbled. “There’s a reason for all of that, mother. Won’t you come in and we can explain it?”
“We?” The draconequus stepped in past her son, walking on on hind legs, and finally noticed the faerie in the room, along with all the other decorations. “Oh. I see. I take it from the greenery then that this would be…”
“Well, you did always tell me you wanted me to get hitched. Surprise!” Discord popped out and back into existence and sat down at the table, already pouring himself some tea and picking up some donuts. “Fluttershy, this is Medea, my mother. Mother, this is Fluttershy.”
“P-p-” Fluttershy swallowed her first attempt at a greeting. “Hello, Missus Medea.”
Medea was not impressed, from the looks of it. “So, you are his girlfriend.” She strode over to the table and sat opposite Discord, before rubbing her paws over the wood. “And you are an archfey, if my senses do not betray me. Strange that you would deign to sit at such mundane furniture, then. It has the stench of ponies all over it. No doubt my son swindled someone out of it.”
“You are correct,” Fluttershy said, taking her place next to Discord. She hummed a little tune for animation magic and the teapot came to life to pour her guest something to drink. “I am an archfey.”
“The musical magic is a dead giveaway if the wings aren’t. And you two are living together now?”
“We are together at the moment, yes.” Fluttershy sipped her tea and took a nibble off of a teacake. “Most of my time I spend in Equestria, my home is in the mortal realm. But I do treasure all the time I can spend with him. Won’t you join us for breakfast?”
“Unless you’re afraid of eating a fey’s food, mother?” Discord joked.
“Hardly. This is pony food, no more magic to it than the furniture.” Medea smirked and grabbed her share of the breakfast donuts, along with some macaroons to loudly dunk in her tea, before tossing them into her maw. An impolite yet familiar belch later she asked, “And how long has this been going on?”
“Goodness, how long exactly, I cannot say. In the time I’ve known him, I’ve seen at least five royal reigns rise or fall.”
Discord froze. He kept his teacup up to his face, and made a point of slurping for as long as he could, hiding his face behind it.
“Oh, five royals up or down, that’s... that’s not a brief fling, then, at least. So how did you meet? Was it love at first sight?” A hint of disgust bled through the question.
“Not at all. We fought each other the first time we met,” Discord started. He’d plundered the orangettes and was currently looking to secure some chocolate truffles, before getting back to the main matter of eating his donuts, tugging at the jar of jam with his magic.
“It was quite the battle,” Fluttershy said. “We both used some very powerful magics against each other.”
“Rocky beginnings can be fun, but they are difficult to process sometimes. And of course, you being turned to stone didn’t help that relationship at all,” Medea remarked.
Discord slurped at his tea again in response, shuddering.
“Very true. I only softened up to him after he was freed from his stone prison.” Fluttershy smiled. In her mind, the music was still playing, her power still flowed freely. Opera, pop songs, anything with a solid rhythm kept her magic up. She idly refilled the platters with treats as the draconequuses kept on taking them like they were capturing enemy territory on one another. The Zap Apple jam was getting tossed from one end of the table to the other, as well.
Medea glared at Discord. “Ah, yes, the stoning, right after my last visit. You let yourself be beaten by those sisters.”
“Yes,” Discord muttered from behind his teacup.
“And then again by mere mortal ponies.”
“You know about that?” Fluttershy asked.
“I can sense whenever my son’s power is threatened, in certain ways. Part of being a Lord of Chaos is being prepared to defend yourself. And for you to get beaten by, what, half a dozen nameless mortal ponies?”
“To be fair, they used the same artifacts as the sisters to do it,” Discord argued.
“Oh, that makes it all okay, then. After that, it was that demon Tirek, or that black stone I told you a thousand times you can’t go near. Honestly, how often have you lost your powers or been rendered helpless now? An imp would do a better job than you!”
Fluttershy made her spoon dance in her tea, still holding on to the music in her mind. It was a steady tap dance now. “All the more reason he should consort with a powerful fey creature, no?”
A little bleat of a chuckle escaped from Medea’s lips, before she grew a toothy shark grin, only for a moment. “Well, at least this one’s got a good head on her shoulders. I can respect that logic, I suppose. Stars know common sense is something my son sorely lacks. And to think he’s so weak as to beaten by mortals.”
“Mortals with artifacts, again, Missus Medea.”
“Artifacts, shmartifacts. A draconequus should be beyond that sort of weakness.”
“Oh? I didn’t know that.” Fluttershy tilted her head. “So something like... Grogar’s Bewitching Bell, that wouldn’t affect you, then?”
The sheep ears raised up, and Fluttershy was sure the shark skin bristled with ire. “Grogar is gone. His bell is sealed away, never to be used again.”
“I know. It’s in the Canterlot vault now. Partly due to your son’s actions, I might add.”
“You broke the seal?” Medea asked him, teeth clenched in anger.
“Well, not exactly. Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow, a little Pegasus filly, they did the actual breaking,” Discord replied.
“Under a ruse of his, proving that it could be broken in the first place,” Fluttershy added.
“And is it safe now?”
Fluttershy nodded. “The mortals of Equestria are getting more powerful magic now, yes. It’ll be easier to spot if it is, umm, you know, misplaced this time.”
“See that it doesn’t, please.” Medea casually tossed a pair of scones into her maw. “I’d rather not risk that artifact getting flung stars know where.”
“We take good care of things, don’t worry,” Fluttershy said, gently eating her breakfast, making a point not to follow the mad rhythm of the two chaos beings.
“Good care, eh? Do you take good care of my son, too, then?”
Discord bit down on his teacup.
“He hasn’t complained about my care yet,” Fluttershy replied. She hummed and gestured at the cup, fixing the crack Discord had bitten into it.
“So you think you would fit into our family, then?” Medea waved a paw around, and some Zap Apple jam was smeared on her next chunk of conquered breakfast treats.
The archfey shrugged and idly flapped her shimmering wings. She, likewise, smeared some jam on her own scone, just the one she had at the ready. “Umm, well… honestly, I’m not sure I know that much about it.”
Medea tilted her head, curious. “You don’t know what I am, do you?”
“A spirit of chaos. A draconequus, like Discord.” She gulped down the scone in one bite, if only to show some signs of fitting in on her own terms.
“Something along those lines. But there are many kinds of chaos, many ways in which destruction and creation become one and the same. I am a spirit of one such way, Discord is another.”
Fluttershy tried to find the connection between the animal parts she recognised on Medea, but none came.
“To say it in full: I am the spirit of a future sacrificed to preserve the present. Put more bluntly: I am the spirit of child sacrifice. In other worlds, other realms, whenever a god or spirit demands the offering of a firstborn to seal a covenant, I embody the power of that covenant. I am the mechanics of sacrifice made flesh. Every cruel god who asks infants to be mutilated at birth, strengthens me. Every mother who condones that mutilation, makes excuses for it, even encourages or demands it, well, they give me new life.”
“Surely you cannot be that powerful, then? What sort of mother would let her child be mutilated at birth?”
“Thousands, millions over the years. Sometimes the little things die from the shock, even, it’s quite delicious. Permanently damaged, at an age when all they can process is the presence of their mother, it latches onto them, links them. I feed off of a hate and pain that lasts lifetimes, not to mention what the little ones do to others as a result... oh, it’s a fine sort indeed that feeds me. Whole generations warped in unknowing worship to me.” Medea licked her lips after swallowing another macaroon. “Mortal pain is a mighty fuel for magic, as I’m sure you’re aware. Faith is another. To combine both, and see so many offer up the very future of their bloodline as worship, that is true chaos, true power. So, Fluttershy, dearie, what sort of power do you wield, hmm? What is your dominion?”
“Kindness,” she blurted out, smearing a muffin with rainbow-coloured jam, still purely with magic. “I have a sanctuary for hurt animals. No creature enters my domain hurt and leaves hurt. Everything in my care is healed to the best of my ability.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“And if you have, say, a family of mice in your care at the same time as a snake, what then?”
“Things become… chaotic then. And I try to make the right choice.”
Medea scoffed with a hint of a purr. “An archfey with a sense of introspection, now that is a rare find indeed. I was expecting someone more self-righteous and hypocritical. You picked a surprisingly dull girl for a mate, Discord.”
Discord finally stopped hiding his face behind his teacup, mostly because said teacup was empty. “Careful what you say, mother, she is sharper than you think.”
“We’ll see. At least we have that in common, little fey girl: we are both spirits of kindness, in a way.”
“I think you’re a spirit of cruelty first, Madam.”
The sheep face sneered, glancing at Discord. “And what’s the difference? One needs to be tough on one’s sons: they’re the ones dying for the motherland, after all. You’ve been around Equestrian ponies long enough to know, I hope: they sacrifice their own all the time, children and adults. Why, it wasn’t two or three millennia ago that they were sacrificing Unicorns every day just to get the Sun moving. Wasn’t that kind of those horned ponies? Last I heard, the other tribes still considered them a bunch of privileged snobs, so much for gratitude. Never mind that they’re only ones who don’t get their abilities from birth: they have to offer up priceless years of their lives to even get a chance at the power their blood gives them. I mean, my knowledge of Equestria is limited, yes, my eyes don’t catch that much there, but I still notice the broad strokes. Am I wrong in my observations?”
The songs in Fluttershy’s mind shifted in tone. They were turning more to the realm of soundtracks now, and particularly those of horror and thriller films. Given that she tended to keep her eyes closed during those, the music was about the only thing she remembered from those occasions. “Maybe not your observations, no, but your conclusions, perhaps?”
“Go visit, what was it called? Canterlot? Go visit Canterlot then, sneak into an academy and see for yourself,” Medea argued. “There are so many mares squandering their fertile years, and so many stallions browbeaten into mediocrity and servitude. That’s easy enough to see under all the pretense, even by pony standards, so much future wasted to safeguard the fleeting present. I’m not the one forcing them into that; they are the ones kind enough to decide to. And that’s just Unicorns, I could go on and on about all the mortal vermin on that world. You’re a more patient soul than I am to put up with it.”
“Thank you,” Fluttershy said, before taking a quiet, polite sip of her tea. The walking teapot came by to refill it.
“I meant my son, but you too, I suppose. Actually, if you didn’t know what I am, do you know what he is? Really, I mean, when he’s not being ridiculous and actually gets things done? It’s only fair as a future in-law, isn’t it?”
The fey’s bat ears twitched. “Discord? Is there something you need to tell me?”
Finally, Discord set his cup down entirely and spoke up. “Mother, I have told you time and time again: I am a Lord of Chaos, just like you.”
“Hardly,” came the reply. A wave of her paws, and the curtains closed, as if she were concerned about the neighbours. “You let yourself get sidetracked by mortal distractions. You’re always so childish, and you know how I feel about children. Has he not told you, dear, what he is supposedly the Lord of? It’s an interesting notion, really.”
“Nothing too interesting about it. I am a spirit of change.” Discord held his head up with pride.
“Yes. Discord represents growth through suffering,” Medea explained, grinning. “He cannot help but be harmful and toxic to everything and everyone around him, it’s in his nature. He has to present challenges to heroes, to accelerate ascension by offering some form of antagonism, to spread disorder and strife. It’s his very lifeblood. He got that from his mother’s side of the family. But over time he grew soft and complacent, allowing mortals to trap him in their little webs of morals and feelings. Beaten by a silly rainbow, honestly, any mere wizard can fire a Prismatic Spray spell. You’re a laughing stock.” Another wave of her paw, and the gingham curtains turned a pure black.
He growled. “That is not how it works, mother. For one thing, that silly rainbow is what overpowered the magic of Grogar’s bell in the first place. Those mortals beat the bell’s power.” He snapped his fingers, and the Plunder Seed plants in the corner got a piece of cake to munch on.
“You lie,” she hissed. A snap of Medea’s fingers, and the plants were muzzled, and quiet. “Grogar was a descended Primeval. His bell contained conceptual magic, rules of the universe even we cannot break. Magic to match that does not exist within mortal realms.”
“I keep trying to tell you, mother: power does not just exist, power grows,” Discord argued. “That is what I do, that’s what I’m responsible for: making things grow. And who are you to tell me what it’s in my nature and what isn’t? It’s in my nature to go against my nature, that’s the closest thing chaos even has to a rule!”
“He does have a point,” Fluttershy noted. “I mean, umm, ponies have started wielding greater powers than ever before. Not every pony, obviously, it’s still limited to only a few ponies, but those few ponies are at least as strong as the ancients. Did you know Star Swirl the Bearded has returned?”
“I did not,” Medea said. She changed the colour of the wallpaper to a uniform autumn brown on a whim. “Nor do I particularly care. He was a fine mortal wizard back in the day, from what I hear, but that’s still all he was. Magical secrets can only be preserved by constant revelation, and that is not in our domain.” She glared at Discord. “Our domain is poking things hard enough to force said revelation, not gallivanting around with the mortals.”
“I’ll do as I please, mother.” Discord folded his arms over his chest and huffed, bringing the wallpaper to a butterfly and flower design. “You can’t force me anymore. Besides, you’re the one missing out. I got to see a few ascensions first-hand because of all that gallivanting. It was very educational to see.”
This evidently caught Medea’s attention. “Educational, you say? As in… preparatory?”
“I suppose, if you want to look at it that way.”
That sheep face changed again, into another expression of joy. It was unnerving how Medea could smile or grin yet project such evil intent. This smile looked more genuine, though, and that felt even more worrying. “Then you are ready, and serious, about producing some progeny?”
“We have talked about children recently,” Fluttershy replied. Her stomach was aflutter with all the half-truths she’d managed to slip in already. She had been discussing the Cutie Mark Crusaders only a day before, after all, and they were still children.
“Good, good. I hope they take after the strong side of the family, then. They say common sense skips a generation. I’m sure my grand-children will be brilliant. And you never really answered my question, you sly little thing: what about power? How powerful would you say you are, Fluttershy? Strong enough to discipline the spawn of chaos itself?”
Fluttershy looked away.
“Ah, I see I’ve got you flustered now.” Medea poked a needle into a bit of thin air, before downing more Sugarcube Corner produce slathered with the best of Sweet Apple Acres. “Let’s put a pin in that, then, shall we? Their power will come from their father’s side anyway, chaos always shines through. You are only required in the production process, really. Although I do look forward to seeing what happens when those magics mix.”
“Whatever the mix is, I’ll make sure they put it to good use,” Discord said with a sneer.
“Excellent, so you agree they’ll be mine to raise, then.”
“What?” Fluttershy asked.
“Well, it’s only logical, isn’t it? My dominion lies in the realm of children. And Discord, by his very nature, cannot take care of any living thing. It would be best if any offspring be put within my care as soon as possible.”
Fluttershy blushed. “Oh, I don’t know. I think Discord would make a fine father figure.”
Medea’s eyes narrowed. “Strange.”
“What?”
“That you specify ‘father figure’ and not ‘father.’ That inability to lie is starting to shine through, dearie.” Medea stirred her tea, menacingly.
Fluttershy focused on the songs in her head and changed them to something more upbeat. Another round of treats came floating by, and the teapot gave everyone a refill. “It can mean a lot of things. It wouldn’t, umm, behoove a Lord of Chaos to only be one thing to his children, would it?”
“True. But still.” Medea leaned in. “I find it hard to believe a spirit of kindness would risk her own offspring to be around the likes of him for long. Tell me, would you trust Discord with, say, a pony child?”
“No,” Fluttershy replied. “But I’d trust him with three to five, maybe ten, under supervision. In my limited experience, chaos really balances itself out when there’s just enough of it coming from different sources.”
Discord’s interactions with the Cutie Mark Crusaders were less than stellar, admittedly, but they certainly weren’t the sorts of disasters most ponies expected. In fact, the Cutie Mark Crusaders hardly did any damage when he was around.
“Wise one, too. But you say that not knowing the whole story. My boy has a history of animal negligence.” She faked a gasp. “Oh, dear, don’t tell me he neglected to mention that during your courtship?”
There was a record scratch in Fluttershy’s mental music. She narrowed her eyes and took a moment to regain focus, to make her magic work properly again. “I suspect it slipped his mind during the battles. What negligence do you mean?”
“Where do I begin? There was his little Cerberus, Spot. Poor thing nearly starved to death, I had to send it away to a shadow realm.”
“You muzzled two of his mouths so he could barely eat,” Discord retorted. “And then you sent him to a frozen hellscape.”
“He was too loud, Discord, and you both needed a lesson in discipline. Besides, he had you to keep him warm, didn’t he? Well, once you figured out basic fire conjurations, that is, and it’s not my fault that took you so long he froze his tail off. Anyway, then my son went and got his jackalopes. Silly things nearly died of exhaustion after a little run around the realms.”
“You kept blinking them into worlds with oversized predators.”
“And you kept on ignoring my perfectly reasonable suggestion to learn some portal magic so you could get home quickly,” Medea quipped. “But fine, blame that failure on me, too.”
“You did it while I was sleeping! I never had more than five seconds to react!”
“And if you’d just learned basic time dilation when you should have, that wouldn’t have been a problem, either. See what I mean, dearie? No sense of responsibility, no concept of thinking ahead, never owns up to his actions. And finally, of course, there’s his little bird of paradise.”
Discord gasped. The hand holding his teacup was riddled with tremors as he put it down. “Apus? No, mother, don’t tell me he’s gone, too! What did you do to him?!”
“Who is Apus?” Fluttershy asked.
“My star bird,” he replied.
“Whom I have had to tend to for several millennia now, thanks very much.”
“I would have taken him with me to Equestria if I could have. But you wouldn’t allow it.”
Medea sneered at him. “No, because you never owned up to your failures and clearly you weren’t ready for the responsibility. To tell you the truth, I can barely keep up with caring for it myself with all of my duties, and I’m stronger than you by several orders of magnitude.”
With a snap of her stubby fingers, Medea dropped a golden cage onto the table. In it there was a creature seemingly made of night sky, with shimmering stars interrupted only by its eyes.
It looked like a bird, vaguely, the same way an Ursa Minor looked like a bear. Depending on the angle one looked at it, different constellations were visible. The species was one Fluttershy didn’t recognise immediately, either, not from anything she’d ever taken of. The closest she could remember was a tropical bird, not even one Princess Celestia owned, but one Tree Hugger had shown her once. Even then, this thing was only superficially of the same genus. This creature had feathers, a beak, but its eyes were dull and lifeless, and it lacked hind legs. It was lying there on its back, pleading with its gaze through the bars of its cage.
Fluttershy lost the music in her mind then. Her thoughts became completely silent. She didn’t even react when she heard Discord gasp again. She noticed the tone of it, though: outraged, sad, helpless.
Something felt different. Her mind, her focus, it had changed, but she couldn’t pinpoint how or why. It wasn’t anger or sympathy, she knew, because she’d felt those in the past and she recognised those emotions when they snuck up on her. This emotion wasn’t like that at all.
This was calm, almost, if not for the need to suppress a tremble.
Am I feeling giddy? Why?
Why do I feel like I just won something?
Discord’s emotions were all too familiar, though. “What have you been doing to him?! His stars are so faded.”
“The light keeps me up otherwise. Star beasts take a notoriously long time to die of natural causes, they’re almost as bad as phoenixes. I only want the biggest lights to go out, after that I’ll see about teaching him how to sing. It’ll be more than he’d ever get from you. If I left him to you, he’d be even worse off. Be thankful that he’s alive and well. And don’t even think about trying to snap your fingers at me, Mister. You know I’m more powerful, you know I’m right. You can’t take care of any living thing. You never could. So just admit it.” Medea leaned back and worked down more of the breakfast, smearing some Zap Apple jam on her doughnuts before gulping them down like a starving hippo.
“Umm, even if that is true, he wouldn’t need to,” Fluttershy said, quietly, gently. “I can take care of living things. In fact, I can take care of his bird right now if it bothers you so much.”
“That’s very kind of you, but no. The bird stays with me.”
The music of her magic started up again, out of her control. It sounded electronic, oddly enough, one of the schoolboys in Ponyville would probably recognise it. “Oh, but I must insist. That bird needs help. I intend to help it. You said so yourself: you can barely keep up. So give that bird to me, now, please.”
“Little fey girl, I don’t think you understand what you’re dealing with here.”
Fluttershy looked down at the cage.
Oh. So that’s how that part works? Well, in for a penny, I guess...
“Missus Medea, I think I know exactly what I’m dealing with. I’m dealing with a bully, and someone who abuses the feelings of others just to make a point. You, however, don’t have any idea of what you’re dealing with.”
Discord raised a claw at her. “Fluttershy, you might want to stop now. You don’t want mother to get upset. Really, bad things happen when she’s upset.”
“Maybe. But from what I’ve heard, bad things happen around her no matter how she feels,” Fluttershy argued. “So there isn’t any point in caring, is there?”
“I don’t often say this, but I agree with Discord on this. That fey arrogance is cute in moderation, but I’ve had my fill of it for now. Let the grownups talk and hush up, would you?” Medea snapped her fingers.
Fluttershy’s nose curled in disgust.
Nothing else happened. No star bursts, no teleportation, no curses.
Medea looked at her hand, confused. She snapped her fingers again. “What the… Discord, how are you doing this?”
Discord furrowed his brow and, likewise, found his magic shut down. He snapped his fingers and arched an eyebrow at Fluttershy. “Umm… that’s not me doing it, mother.”
Fluttershy beckoned her teapot over for a refill, took another calming sip of her tea, and then smeared some Zap Apple jam on the last remaining doughnut. Once she was finished, and only when she was finished, she made a curt, rough gesture at the floating pin to yank it out in a green glimmer of magic. “Let’s pull that pin out now, shall we, Medea? Madam? You have been trying to test me this entire time, and I must say, I have had enough.”
“Testing you?” Discord asked. “Mother, what have you been doing?”
“I haven’t done anything to her.”
“You’ve been dismissive of me and the company I keep for as long as you’ve heard me speak of it. You clearly heard me say not five minutes ago that I take care of every animal that comes my way and then you bring this poor little bird in front of me? How am I supposed to take that if it’s not some test?” Fluttershy asked.
Medea snarled. “This doesn’t concern you. This is between my son and myself. Don’t think you can scare me: this isn’t fey ground. It’s some sort of trick, some artifact you’ve got stashed away in here. I have ways to get around that.”
“Honestly, Missus Medea, I don’t think you’ve been really listening to me. You’ve been dismissing me from the start. Now, I think I have been very tolerant of your tone and your behaviour so far.” She waved her hoof, and the curtains opened again, back to their original colours. “I’ll admit, I do not know much about Discord’s past. Some of the things he’s done still confuse me, so I won’t pretend to know whether you were right or wrong in treating him the way you did. You do things differently, and there’s no point arguing about the past if you can’t change it. However, I put my hoof down at animal abuse.” Another wave of the hoof, and she changed the wallpaper back to how it was, overwriting even Discord’s changes. “That bird is suffering, and as such it belongs to me. Not you, not Discord, me. Give it to me now, or suffer the consequences.”
Medea let out a mix of a lion’s growl, a dragon’s snarl, and a serpent’s hiss. “You insolent little.” She rose up, or tried to, at least, but found herself glued to the floor. Even swatting at the furniture didn’t help. “Do you have any idea what sort of power I wield? I am a supreme being! Do you really have no sense of respect, no sense of self-preservation? You think you can take that bird away from me, just like that? Whatever artifact you have won’t protect you forever.”
Fluttershy sighed, before letting out a mildly mad chuckle. “Oh, Medea, can I call you Medea? I would take that bird away from you no matter what. It doesn’t matter how powerful you are, I would do it. You might say I can’t really help myself, it’s in my nature. And just so we’re clear: it wouldn’t be the first time I do that sort of thing, either,” Fluttershy replied, not breaking eye contact. “I’ve been doing naughty things like that since before I ever met your son, to beings I actually fear and respect, in fact.”
Medea kept on struggling fruitlessly. She grabbed at the chair and found her front limbs stuck as well. She snorted the air. “T-this is impossible, your can’t hold me. These chairs are from the mortal realm. There’s no enchantment on this thing. I can’t smell any cloaking, either.”
“No, you can’t, because there isn’t,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “There’s no magic on the table, or the chairs. But you know what we fey creatures like to say: it’s the things that aren’t magical that’ll get you. If you had been paying attention when I introduced myself you might have realised: I made my home in the mortal realm. This furniture was bought fairly, with gold. It is mortal-made, not enchanted…” She fixed Medea with a glare. “But still, mine. And they’ve been mine for long enough to matter, even to a being like you.”
“But… m-my powers…”
“Were allowed to be used as much as I saw fit. This is Discord’s home, yes. But you have to understand: you are a guest at my table. That is still my seat you are sitting on, and that is my table the bird is on. It’s mine by mundane, mortal rules, but still, the fey rules of ownership lie upon it. No matter how small it may be, you are on my domain right now, and you will leave when I allow it. You heard me: no animal that enters my domain hurt leaves it hurt. Now, I will ask one final time: relinquish that poor little bird, or I will be forced to humiliate you in front of your son.” Fluttershy gestured at Medea’s front paws to release them.
Reluctantly, Medea slid Apus forward. The bird blinked, some relief in its eyes. “Very well, then. It’s all yours.”
“Thank you. I will see to it this creature gets the care it needs.”
Medea chuckled. “Of course you will: it’s in your nature. Well played, I must say. You’ve got a clever streak to you, Fluttershy, and the cunning to hide it. It’s been a long time since anyone got the drop on me.” She looked at Discord. “It’s rather nostalgic, in a way. Yes, I can see why my son likes you now.”
Discord was eating his teacup by now.
Medea looked down at the now completely empty platters of treats and the drained teapot. “Thank you for the tea, and for the talk. I think I can set my mind at ease about any progeny now: even if my son cannot tend to his own, at least the maternal side of the family will be a force to be reckoned with. Do let me know when you’re in the mood for some lessons on cruelty, would you?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Strange sentiment from one such as yourself. You’re not the only archfey to have a sanctuary, or the first one to give me pause. Whether you realise it or not, cruelty is in your nature. After all, it’s the only real way to keep your property safe. Please do be careful if you ever venture outside of Equestria. You’ll find a lot of cruelty out there that can’t take root in your home. You would be ill-prepared to face it as a result.”
“Cruelty such as yours?”
“Indeed.” The sheepish nose curled with disgust. “That world is filled with repulsive magic. Repulsive to me, I mean. I almost managed to go on a trip there once, not too long ago. I couldn’t quite follow through, though, some odious weed managed to keep me out. Rest assured, I can appreciate a good show of force from time to time, you’ll have nothing to fear in terms of reprisal. In fact, I think you’ll fit into the family just fine after a lesson or two.”
“A lesson or two. That’s not a bad idea, actually. Discord could use a few lessons on taking care of things. I’ll teach him how to tend to Apus first. When I know he can take care of an animal, I’ll have some reassurance on his fatherhood abilities,” Fluttershy said in a calm and deliberate tone.
Medea’s smirk became a scowl now that she analysed the fey’s words more carefully. “We’ll see what happens. Ah, and I think I feel the stars shifting. Orion is pulling up his pants again. May I leave now?”
“Swear that you will never harm anyone in my world.”
Medea shrugged and put her paws on the table. “I swear, by the laws of your domain, before all the laws you maintain, that I shall never cause harm to any creature upon Equestria or any world bearing the traces of your dominion, either by action or inaction, by deed or by word, by myself or any indirect influence. How’s that?”
“Surprisingly detailed.”
“I told you: you’re not the first fey I’ve had to deal with,” Medea replied. “Rule-based magic is a such a drag to creatures like us, but we learn to adapt.”
Fluttershy turned to her friend. “Discord?”
“That’s a pretty standard oath with no loopholes, yes, every creature that deals with fey learns that one, word for word, it’s fine.”
“Very well.” Fluttershy nodded. “You may leave my domain in peace.”
“Leave in peace,” she nodded, mad smirk on her face. “Even your goodbye doesn’t leave any wiggle room. Thank you. Yes, I’m sure you’ll make my son’s life very... interesting.”
With that, Medea was off, vanishing into a starburst.
Discord choked on porcelain, before he vomited the whole teacup back up in one piece and placed it on the table. “You did it. You actually got mother to back off. Oh, and Apus, poor little birdie, let me get a good look at you, my old friend.” He reached for the cage, then froze when Fluttershy spoke.
“Discord?”
“Yes?”
“Apus isn’t yours. He’s mine now, remember?”
He turned to look at her, aghast. “Fluttershy?”
She fixed him with a glare. “I said: he’s not yours anymore. He’s mine.”
Sweet Feather Sanctuary was still the same as Fluttershy had left it yesterday, minus the Kirin visitor, who had taken the second day of her visit to go check the antique stores of Ponyville. Aside from a few minor paw injuries and some head trauma cases from the recent jackalope mating season, all was quiet.
She only had one special case to worry about, and now that special case had some company.
“There you go, Apus. You and Priscilla can get to know each other, and you have the whole sanctuary almost to yourself,” Fluttershy said, smiling as she set the starbeast bird of paradise down on one of the perches. Its lower body undulated, and previously non-existing claws emerged from its mass to let it sit upright, if barely.
The phoenix approached the haggard starbird cautiously, before greeting it with a friendly rub of the head. Apus was still shaken, no doubt from the long neglect, but he returned the affection after a little while.
“You know, you really scared me there for a second, Fluttershy,” Discord said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. But it’s for the best. I take care of Tank and Opal all the time, and even Owlowiscious has been here once or twice. I take care of all the animals my friends bring in.”
Discord nodded sullenly, looking at his former pet. “I didn’t bring him in, though.”
“No, you didn’t. Your mother wouldn’t have let you.” She bit her lip for a moment. “But that’s not something you should feel bad about. She’s only abusing your sense of empathy.”
He jokingly put his claws together and made a halo appear above his head. “Abusing my weakness, you mean.”
“Feeling for others is not a weakness, not all the time. It’s exploitable, though.” She held a hoof in front of her mouth. “Darnit.”
“Still can’t tell a lie, Fluttershy,” Discord reminded her, before dispelling his costume. “It’s alright. I know I don’t have the best track record with these things. Apus should stay with you, get better.”
She looked at him, trying to see any sort of deception in his eyes. “I think I understand why now, actually. The track record, I mean. It’s probably the same reason you do a lot of the things you do.”
Discord braced himself for a stern talk.
“It’s because you’re so used to being able to change things back. Anything you do with a snap of your fingers, you can usually undo with a snap of your fingers.” She stared at her vine-wrapped forelimbs. “It makes it hard to ask for help, I guess, or to apologise. You can get rid of so many consequences so easily, you forget the ones you can’t. I’ve only had that kind of power for a day and a half and I can feel it. I can’t imagine what it’s like after millennia.”
The Lord of Chaos chuckled. “You know, I never thought about it like that. Perhaps that’s why Celestia forgave me so easily. I was starting to wonder, after she sent that filly to Tartarus.”
“You’ll have to discuss that with her, I think.”
“Later.” He stretched out and groaned. “Oh, even with the stars moving differently in my realm, that talk took more out of me than I cared for. It’s barely ten in the morning and I’m already spent.”
Fluttershy hummed a tune and conjured a fainting couch for him to drop back on.
“Thank you, that feels so much better. Do you mind if I stay here for a little while? Just to rest up in the sunlight.”
“If you promise not to cause any mischief in the meantime.”
“Of course, I’m too tired anyway.”
“Discord, promise me.”
“I promise to only rest and not cause any mischief, shenanigans or any other kind of chaotic unpleasantness while I’m here. I’ll even promise to be careful so I don’t do anything unintentionally. I’m on your domain, remember? And I’ve learned my lesson about pushing things on an archfey’s domain.” He winked, before blinking a set of sunglasses into existence.
“Good. I think I’ll go around to Sweet Apple Acres, see if I can keep my promise tomorrow.”
“You do that. Enjoy that phenomenal natural power while it lasts. And make sure that when you try to make anything-”
“It won’t go away when my powers fade. Use things that already exist, don’t conjure anything load-bearing. I had thought of that already, but thank you for reminding me.” She turned away to leave, before stopping. “Oh, and Discord?”
“Yes?”
Her wings quivered, spilling nervous glitter over the ground. “Umm, yesterday, when you said no one was really friends with Idun, the same way no one was really friends with you? Did you mean you have the same problem, or that you both didn’t have many friends?”
He sighed. “You finally thought of that, didn’t you?”
“It, umm, it caught my ears. And it’s been tickling them after that talk with your mother.”
“It doesn’t concern you, Fluttershy, not really. I appreciate the thought, but… as a friend, that’s something I’d rather keep to myself.”
“I understand. I only thought that, maybe, if Idun spreads youth and immortality, she might have a lot of ponies, or mortals, or not-mortals, who pretend to be her friend just so they can get her apples. And if you had the same issue… I remember what Princess Celestia said when she asked us to release you. I remember her words, and I remember not really liking it.”
He snorted mirthlessly. “That would make you the only one of your friends. Yes, that was a problem, long ago. Very long ago. I don’t remember how much it hurt, but I remember what I learned from it. It’s in my nature, I suppose.”
“Well, it’s in my nature to heal, so rest up. I’ll go talk to Sunburst after I’m done with Apple Bloom, he’ll know what to do to help Apus. And after that, you’re staying for lunch, and dinner.”
“Now, Fluttershy, I really can’t-”
“You’re on my domain, what I say, goes. You are recovering. So recover.”
He shrugged. “Heh. Well, if you insist.”
“To Sweet Apple Acres!”
The Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse was in disarray, more than usual. Boxes were set outside, random bits of paper were strewn about with plans and logs of activities, as well as possible blackmail material.
Applejack and Fluttershy stood outside in front of the entrance ramp, looking up as the girls made their best attempt at cleaning.
“So, you done with whatever Discord wanted?” Applejack asked, unfazed by her friend’s sudden appearance.
“Yes. I see the girls are hard at work.”
“Yup. Been at it since dawn, gettin’ mixed results, figured I could spare a few minutes before Filthy Rich comes by to collect his order. How are you getting on? No trouble with the coat? No shedding glitter?”
Fluttershy chuckled. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. It’s fine, Applejack, and I feel fine.”
“His friend did. And she seemed nice. Very nice, even, you’d like her, and her husband.”
“Did you do what you needed to? You’re sure? No loose ends?”
“No loose ends. I made sure everything is in order, and everything will stay in order once this fades.”
Discord had assured her as much right after she’d given Apus the once-over: an oath sworn in the presence of an archfey will last, even if the archfey in question loses their powers or worse. If the oath could be broken while her powers were gone, it could be broken while she was at full power, that’s how that branch of magic worked. The draconequus had been very insistent on that point, even nervous, as if he’d run into a similar situation before.
Her mind wandered back to Apus then. Poor thing, he was suffering from long-term malnutrition, among other things. She hadn’t found any parasites, at least, and there were no signs of any contamination or illness, only neglect. Apus didn’t eat like a starved animal, either. Usually, such cases ended up with long-term issues of gorging and eating too quickly, but Apus hesitated when presented with food.
He hadn’t been starved of food; he’d been taught not to eat.
“Is Discord happy?” Applejack asked, snapping Fluttershy out of her train of thought. “Just outta curiosity, of course, I don’t want him trying to top his old speed record of the Ten Plagues again.”
“He’s resting. And he’s happy.”
“Good.” Applejack nodded and sighed in relief. “He oughtta be happy. Stars know we can’t handle him when he’s feelin’ bored.”
“Is this a ballistic missile wand or a short-range?” came a cry from inside the clubhouse. It sounded like Scootaloo.
“Can it hit anything in Canterlot from here?” Apple Bloom replied.
Four arcane missiles flew out of the east window of the clubhouse. In the distance, the two mares could hear impacts on Ponyville Elementary’s school bell.
“No, it only goes up to the school,” Scootaloo said, with a hint of disappointment in her voice.
“Probably ain’t ballistic, then.”
Aplpejack snorted. “Remind me to talk to Mudbriar about what exactly constitutes a ‘child-proof’ magical device.”
“Is this an empty Wand of Fireballs or an empty Wand of Magic Missiles?” Scootaloo asked, evidently done with the previous piece of magical artillery.
“Does it smell like burnt toast or burnt eggs?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I don’t know what either of those smell like! Here, Sweetie Belle, you try.”
“I told you I don’t work with gas ovens!” came a squeaky reply. “Oh, and that’s cucumber, definitely a Wand of Sun Burning.”
Fluttershy’s nose curled at the thought. Then she noticed Applejack fiddling with what looked like an engraved monocle. “What’s that lens you have there?”
“Well, accordin’ to the label, that’d be a Spyglass of Magical Detection. Any eye lookin’ through it instantly sees the make and type on any of the mass-made magical items, and a rough idea of anything that’s a little special, or older.” Applejack blew on the lens and wiped it on her hide. “Little somethin’ I got from Scootaloo’s mom, she had a box full of’em, said it might help in case we ever stumble across anything in the Everfree Forest. You know, for safety’s sake, not to touch anything that might still go off.”
“Wouldn’t having that make it easier on the girls?” Fluttershy suggested.
“Sure. And it will, once they remember we have these things lying around and they bother to ask.”
Apple Bloom poked her head out of a window, a set of bottles bound together in her hoof. “Can I leave these potions outside? I need more room for my staff stacks.”
“Yeah, sure, just don’t let them break,” Applejack said.
Curious, Fluttershy approached the bottles once they were deposited. “Umm, Applejack? Why do those potions have heart-shaped bubbles in them?”
“Good question. Apple Bloom! What kinda potions have you been making?”
“Just stuff I’m practisin’ with Meadowbrook, now that Zecora’s in jail!” the filly called out from inside.
“Uhuh. And these ain’t love potions, by any chance?”
“What? Nah, no, of course not. That’d be ridiculous.”
Applejack inspected the labels after Fluttershy shot her a knowing glance. “Then why are they labelled ‘Rumble,’ ‘Tender Taps,’ and ‘Eligible Unicorn Colt,’ with the names ‘Snips’ and ‘Snails’ crossed out?”
“D’err… it’s a pro phylactery!”
“A whatnow?” Applejack asked.
“Somepony’s trying to make a living as a necromancer?” Fluttershy asked.
Apple Bloom came outside to drop more potions off. “Not like that. They’re all pretty talented boys, so some no-good filly’s bound to try and slip’em a love potion sooner or later. We figured we’d get them immune early on, with a low dose.”
“Uhuh,” Applejack said. “And Snips and Snails are crossed out because…”
“Any filly who wants to bother making them a love potion deserves to keep them,” Sweetie Belle replied, before going back to cleaning duties.
Applejack grunted. “Do the boys know you’re plannin’ to boost their immune system?”
“Hey, we all got mandatory vaccinations against the Feather Flu, even though only one of us can get it. And love potions cause way more damage in the long run. Just wait, Princess Twilight will make this kinda love potion treatment mandatory in a couple months, we’re ahead of the curve, is all.” Apple Bloom held her head up high as she strode back into the clubhouse.
Fluttershy sniffed the bottles. “For what it’s worth, these are pretty weak. I don’t think any of these bottles would work for longer than four days, and they wouldn’t do much. Except the one for Rumble.” She sniffed it again. “I’m pretty sure Rumble’s getting a triple dose for some reason.”
Applejack picked that one up after checking it through her lens. “Thanks for the warning, I’ll let Thunderlane know.”
“And the other potions? Those are what they say they are. I think the strong one might be their first brew, they probably just forgot.”
“I’m all for prevention, but that’s still way too many ethical quandaries beyond my purview, Fluttershy. I feel like I should put these away, but at the same time…” She shuddered. “Apple Bloom knows how to make more.”
“Maybe we should ask Meadowbrook for a universal antidote?” Fluttershy suggested. “I’m sure there is one, for love potions. I mean, there really should be, with how often they were used back in her day.”
“Good thinkin’. Speaking of ethical quandaries, are ya sure you don’t mind redecorating the clubhouse? I don’t want ya to think we’re taking advantage or nothin’, it feels uncouth.”
“I know, and thank you. But these powers will only last until tomorrow night, and I do want to take advantage of the opportunity. Besides, I know Apple Bloom had her heart set on catching the Great Seedling. She should get a little something for catching a different fey creature.”
“Just so long as she doesn’t start makin’ a habit out of it, I suppose.”
The two mares went silent for a moment.
“I’ll have a talk with her after I grant her wish, tell her to stop tossing nets around,” Fluttershy started.
“Please do. I don’t wanna give the family lawyer another excuse to up his monthly rates.”
“Doesn’t he get paid by the hour?”
“We got a discount about… Apple Bloom! When was your first lawsuit again?”
“When I was six, disturbin’ the peace! Why?”
From in the clubhouse, there came a cry of “Ha! I got to judge Snickety when I was five and a half, mass speeding tickets.”
Fluttershy glanced at Applejack again. Then she heard a distinct grumble, followed by “Four and three quarters, environmental hazard. Which is so unfair: charcoal biscuits are supposed to help against food poisoning, it all balances out!”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “So yeah, we got a monthly rate for a few years now, way more cost-effective.”
“I’ll take your word for it. They won’t be finished cleaning up before tomorrow, will they?”
“Nope. Not a chance.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow, then.”
“Are ya gonna talk to Twilight about this?”
The fey bit her lip. “I was wondering if I should, but I can’t help but think she’ll want to do some experiments. Maybe tomorrow, in the evening, right before it wears off?”
“Good thinkin’. Mind if I ask what you’re gonna do with the rest of the day, then?”
“Visit Sunburst to talk about my newest patient, wake up Discord from his nap, check on my animals, and then… I don’t know. I'll still have a day and a half with this magic. What do you think I should do?”
Applejack was taken aback by the question. “You’re askin’ me? You’re the one with weird faerie tale powers now, you decide. Or ask somepony who might have a good idea.”
“What would you do if you had these powers?”
“Well, after Filthy Rich comes by, my chores are done for the day, so not that. Maybe do something to make life easier after those powers fade, but you’re already doing that for my sister.” Applejack thought for a moment. “Honestly?”
“Please.”
“I’m not sure what I’d do with magical powers, but I know what I’d do if I had wings: I’d go flying sometime, with you and Rainbow Dash. See what all the fuss is about, you know? Seeing as now you’ve got magical powers like Discord’s… maybe you two should hang out while you can.”
Hang out with Discord.
Have some fun, together, now that we’re both on the same level of power.
I didn’t think that was an option.
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, actually.”
“Just don’t cause too much of a fuss, please? I don’t think Twilight would appreciate the hassle of cleaning up after you two.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem. With our powers, nothing we do does any permanent damage.”
Day two and three of Fluttershy’s archfey form and powers had come and gone. She’d patched up the clubhouse, as promised. She’d also had some fun with Discord.
Harmless fun, she reminded herself.
No one was hurt.
But still, she was in trouble, and standing before a tribunal consisting of an alicorn and a small dragon, with her draconequus co-conspirator by her side.
On the bright side, it was nice to see her royal friend again.
Princess Twilight pressed a hoof to her forehead, reading the list of incidents. She’d had her head buried in paperwork since Discord and Fluttershy had entered. The throne room was a good twenty paces long, giving guests plenty of time to contemplate their greetings to the Princess. It also gave lawbreakers a nice little walk of shame for everyone’s enjoyment.
“Honestly, Fluttershy, what were you thinking? You’re supposed to be a good influence on Discord, he’s not supposed to be a bad influence on you!” Twilight never looked up from the floating papers.
Fluttershy and Discord had gotten around.
“Oh, I thought it was some harmless fun with my friend,” Fluttershy said. “We had the opportunity to do some activities together, and we took it.”
“Right, of course: fun. Fun all over Equestria and beyond. Let’s see: you challenged the Wonderbolts to a race and then cheated.”
“To be fair, neither of us ever specified ‘no teleporting,’” Fluttershy started.
“And it’s not our fault they never noticed that waterfall, that’s all on them going faster than their eyes could see,” Discord added.
Twilight huffed. “Okay, that part I can understand, I’ve been talking to Spitfire about that already. But then you organised a beauty contest? Why?”
“That was entirely my idea, I take full responsibility.” Discord said, raising a claw with his head down. “It’s an old habit, something I used to do to entertain myself, I thought Fluttershy might enjoy joining me once. But it is a bad habit, I know, I am trying to kick it, and I am sorry.” He slapped a patch on his right shoulder. “In my defense: that particular beauty contest didn’t start a war this time. That’s progress, right?”
“Wonderful progress,” Fluttershy agreed. “I am so proud of you.”
A royal groan filled the throne room. “I’d feel a lot better about it if you didn’t decide to hold it in the changeling hive, of all places! How do you even manage to set that up in less than a day, never mind doing the whole thing one day later?”
“You’d be surprised how much teleportation speeds things up,” Discord started.
“And it is the off season in Canterlot," Fluttershy added. "A lot of fashion and show ponies were available for a quick event. And for everything else, we had magic. Thorax thought it was a good idea.”
“Why?” Twilight asked.
“I think he was hoping to join in at some point,” Discord replied. “Although things did get awkward when we started selecting judges. You’d think Thorax would love to be on the panel, but no.”
“He was only trying to keep every changeling happy. He was probably scared of upsetting anyone,” Fluttershy said.
“That’s not what I meant!” Twilight yelled, staring at Discord. “They’re shapeshifters! What is the point of even giving them a beauty contest?”
Fluttershy snickered. “Well, for starters, Ocellus was looking to impress a boy from two caves over. She’s had a crush for a few years, apparently. And she does have self-image issues.”
Discord nodded. “She did look very fetching in the swimsuit section. For her age, obviously, modest yet stylish, excellent look, the judges all agreed.”
Fluttershy nodded in kind, before tilting her head in thought. “We probably should have been a little more specific in how we worded it, though.”
The draconequus’s eyes went wide. “I’m still trying to figure out how a single changeling can transform into a two-piece suit. Shouldn’t that be a superpower for them? That feels like it shouldn’t be something they can do.”
Fluttershy nodded, having pondered that same question. “I know. Doesn’t that hurt? And they can still see and hear things when they turn into a rock or a tree. Does that still work as a two-piece?”
“That's exactly my point," Discord agreed. "Where do the eyes go? What happens to the mouth? Never mind that, what happens to their bu-”
“That’s beside the point!” Twilight interrupted, in Royal Canterlot voice. “Do you have any idea how much damage you did to their Hive?”
“I didn’t think we did any damage.” Discord replied. “What are you talking about?”
“All of their females changed shape after that contest. They all turned into the winner. Now all their females look the same!”
Discord shot Twilight a glare. “Now really, Twilight, that’s just the sort of racist talk that got Zecora arrested.”
"You know, we really should have seen that coming when she said all that stuff about dragon greed and me," Spike said. "At least Smolder got some evidence."
“I agree,” Fluttershy said. “Not all of the changeling girls turned. Ocellus stayed the same, and she finally told that boy the truth. She took a risk, and she came out of her shell, once, for something she thinks was important. One of our students learned a valuable lesson about self-worth and the image you project to the world.”
“And everyone who needs to still learn that lesson is now very easy to spot, so it’ll save your ambassadors a lot of time in the long run," Discord added. "Besides, turns out changelings haven’t figured out the whole pair-bonding thing yet. I thought you’d appreciate some efforts to preserve the species.”
“Right, of course, that makes it all fine,” Twilight remarked sarcastically. “Parade some under-age changelings before a crowd, no problems there!”
“Technically, they weren’t all under-age,” Fluttershy remarked. “And we made sure to keep it appropriate, you can ask Coco Pommel and Hoity Toity. They help host those events for all ages too, they're very strict on these things.”
“I will.” Twilight angrily flipped the page in her magic. “Then there’s this. Do I even have to ask about the mess you made in Ponyville Hospital? All those noodles!”
“We were having fun! And it was cleaned up... eventually.” Discord argued. “What’s an afternoon of fun without a noodle incident?”
“Besides, Twilight, you know what’s been going on in that hospital, it was long overdue.”
“Ugh, fine. I can let that one go, too, I suppose. But what about this?” She pointed at another floating scroll. “You sank a ship belonging to the Hippogryph royal family?”
“Oh, you mean Silverstream’s ship? No, that was Ocellus,” Fluttershy clarified.
“Fluttershy, you cannot possibly try to blame Ocellus for sinking a vessel.”
“No, I mean Silverstream thought Ocellus looked cute with Smolder and, well, that’s not going to happen now.”
“Unless that boy decides to turn into Smolder for the occasion,” Discord mused. “It’s not like they can’t do it.”
“Don't change the subject! Just look at this list!” Twilight held up a scroll in her magic. “Never mind the diplomatic nightmare you two caused, all these little things add up! Rose gardens covering skyscrapers, statues turned into bird feeders, the unauthorised expansion of the Royal Hennery? Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved pertaining to that persnickety poultry?”
Right as she was about to answer, Fluttershy felt her wings go back to their old selves. Leaves rustled around her hooves, a weight on her head vanished, and glitter exploded out from her, before dissipating harmlessly.
She gasped. “What? Oh my gosh, Twilight, I am so sorry! Discord, you really should have warned me how much that magic was going to affect me!” She glared at him, nose curled in anger. "I haven't been thinking straight for three days and you couldn't tell me? I am very disappointed in you."
“I… forgot in all the excitement.” Discord looked away and fidgeted.
“Twilight, I am so sorry, I’m sure every problem I caused is back to normal now,” the Pegasus pony lied, before marching off. “You come home with me right now, Mister, you need a stern talking to.”
Discord shrugged and followed Fluttershy out. “Well, that’s my cue to leave. Sorry you couldn’t dissect your friend while she was all-powerful!”
Once she’d cleared the twenty paces and Discord walked past her, Fluttershy turned back one last time in the doorway, making sure everything was in order.
Twilight, oblivious to Fluttershy’s spying, blinked before facing Spike. “Wait, what? What just happened? What was that glitter? Did I miss something?”
“Yeah, I’m surprised, too,” Spike said. “You didn’t even mention the antlers.”
“Fluttershy had antlers?”
“Guess you were a little too focused on your papers again,” the dragon remarked.
Fluttershy quickly made like a hare and split.
“Nice job on the bait and switch,” Discord started once she joined him in the corridor.
Fluttershy giggled. “That was a fun prank. Do you think she fell for it?”
“I heard that!”
They both stopped in their tracks. They exchanged a quizzical glance.
“Listening devices in the corridors? How pedestrian.” Discord looked around for any magical bugs.
“Alicorn Princess! I have bat pony hearing too!” came the reply.
Discord nodded in appreciation. “Oh, of course she does, silly me. These past few days have been very educational. Alright, then, what do you think I’ll get this time, Fluttershy: marble or granite?”
Fluttershy smiled up at him. “I guess it depends. Do you think it’ll be for me: walnut or oak tree?”
Discord let out a hearty laugh. “Ah, well, she’ll have to catch us first.”
He snapped his fingers, and made them both vanish in a getaway starburst.