Labyrinth: Return of Discord

Fluttershy sat on the couch in her cottage, looking out the window at the quiet, lazy morning outside.  The birds were just beginning to rustle from their nests.  She took a long, slow sip of the herbal tea she had prepared for the morning, just as she did every morning before and would every morning to come.  The thought gave her pause and she stared down at the tea.  Her watery reflection returned the stare.

"Oh..."  She sighed heavily and set the tea on the table beside the couch.  A bit of the warmth from the mug lingered on her hooves.  "Nothing ever changes."  As her gaze drifted from the mug, it landed on her favorite bunny sitting on the floor, arms crossed and foot thumping.  This brought a small smile to her lips.  "Good morning, Angel Bunny."

The bunny turned and wiggled his rump, pointing at his unfluffy tail.

"Oh, yes, of course.  It's time to fluff your tail."  She giggled and slid off the couch.  She walked with the bunny hopping alongside her upstairs to her room, where she kept Angel's beauty supplies.

The bunny hopped up onto the vanity and sat facing the mirror.  While the pegasus set about getting the curlers ready, he dabbed his face with a cotton swab.

Her smile started to fade as her hooves moved of their own accord, having more than memorized the steps to care for the bunny's tail long ago.  This allowed her mind to wander freely.

So much had changed for all of her friends.  The biggest and most life-altering change for them had been Twilight's coronation.  She was an alicorn princess now!  Fluttershy sighed as she wondered what it was like to be a princess.  Every filly dreamed of such a thing, but Twilight was always busy and had so many responsibilities.  She never complained about her duties, but she never really seemed to speak too much about them, either.  It was as if the alicorn wanted to pretend she was still the same unicorn she once was, but with her attention divided between Ponyville and all of Equestria, that was nigh impossible.

Rarity had become Sapphire Shore's personal designer.  She was often away on tours with the pony star, and when she was home, she was holed up in her shop coming up with new designs.  Every once and a while, they found time for their usual spa days, but those were growing less and less frequent.  As Fluttershy coiled Angel's tail around the curler, she tried to remember how long it had been since she had soaked in the herbal waters or had a dab of lotion put on her cheeks.

It was no surprise to anyone, but Rainbow Dash had made it into the Wonderbolts.  The headstrong pegasus had worked her hardest to get in and was still working hard to progress through the ranks.  She had achieved her goal and replaced it with a new one:  to replace Spitfire as captain.  They had all told her it would take time, just as getting in had taken time, but she assured them she'd be captain in zero seconds flat.  Other than making trips up to see her in Cloudsdale, they rarely saw her anymore.  She had even moved her cloud-formed home to be closer to the academy.

Sweet Apple Acres was growing in popularity every day.  After Trendhoofs had written a glowing review of the farm, ponies from all over were travelling just to sample some of their fresh baked pies and squeezed apple cider.  Apples from other towns moved to Ponyville to lend a helping hoof, as the supply quickly buckled under the demand when Celestia announced Sweet Apple Acres as the official food supplier for the upcoming Grand Galloping Gala.  Applejack was truly enjoying all of the work, but it left her stuck on the farm for days at a time.

Lastly, Pinkie Pie was touring with Cheese Sandwich as a "super duper pony party duo".  She sent letters frequently with updates about the parties they were throwing and all the places she had seen.  At first, Fluttershy and the others were concerned about Pinkie travelling alone with a stallion, but none of them had a right to stop her.  From her letters, the two didn't seem to be romantically involved, just friendly competitors trying to one-up each other's party tricks.

Her mind returned to her own situation, one which was the same as it had always been.  She tried to smile and assure herself that she was happy.  After all, she had never had any aspirations or goals.  She had wanted to work with animals and that was what she received, nothing more, nothing less.  Shouldn't that make her the luckiest of all her friends, since she had achieved her dreams first?

Angel hopped down from the vanity and started down the stairs.  Fluttershy didn't follow after him, instead lounging on her bed and closing her eyes.  A breeze drifted by outside, dragging a tree branch along her window with a tick, tick, tick.  The ticking grew consistent, and she started to count the seconds by it.

"One, two, three..."  she muttered under her breath.

Tick, tick... tock, tick, tock, tick, tock...

"You're running out of time, my dear," whispered the ghost of a voice in her ear.

She jumped out of bed and looked around, her heart racing, but she saw no one.  A shiver ran down her spine and she crawled back into bed, this time under the covers.

She knew that voice.

"Discord," she said in a tiny, broken squeak.

Moons ago, just after she had woken from her fever and had regained her strength, she had told Twilight everything.  The unicorn-at-the-time had assured her it was just a dream and that she needed more rest.  During their regular spa day, she told Rarity, but she too said not to spend her time worrying about dreams.  In desperation, Fluttershy had even braved the Everfree Forest to seek Zecora's advice.

"If it seems real to you, then it might as well be true," the zebra had said.  "Let it plague your mind and only chaos you will find."

So she had tried to forget.  She busied herself with the critters of Ponyville.  She even took up some hobbies for a while, like knitting and baking.  However, somehow, her mind always circled back to the sad face, the lonely voice, the final words...  "As you wish."  How could she ever wish for someone to be alone?

None of her friends had ever even heard of a mismatched creature like the one she described.  She jolted upright at a sudden thought.  Of course!  The library!  There had to be a book, something to ease her weary mind on the subject.  She trotted down the stairs, grabbed her saddlebags, and made her way to and through the town.

Arriving at the library, she tentatively pushed the door open.  "Um, hello?  Twi-"  She ducked just in time to avoid being hit in the head by a flying book.

"Oh, ponyfeathers!"  Twilight rushed over and offered a hoof to her friend.  "I'm so sorry, Fluttershy!  I was so focused on trying to get everything prepared that you startled me and I lost control of this one."  The book floated up and joined a group of books that were being sorted simultaneously by her magic.

"I'm sorry, I'll...  try not to open the door next time."  Fluttershy glanced at the door, wondering how she'd get in from then on, but saved that concern for later.  "What is going on?"

Twilight groaned.  Her wings twitched with irritation as she guided books in every direction.  "I was trying to pack, and someone had another growth spurt right into my bookshelves!"  She glared at the dragon in question.

Fluttershy looked at him with a small smile.  He too had been changing.  He was clearly no longer a baby dragon, now about the height of a pony.  His torso and limbs were relatively thin, the cute pudge long gone, replaced by lean and slowly developing muscles.

He grinned sheepishly and grabbed his tail, which was longer since she had last seen him.  "Yeah, and now I'm banned from doing anything but handling the checklist."

"Speaking of," Twilight interrupted.  She put away the last of the books and trotted over to her bags.  "did you triple-check that I have everything?  What about the sign?  Is it ready?"

"Uh, yeah, um..."  Spike looked over at a wooden sign waiting to be hung.  "Yeah, I finished that while you were packing.  And, yes, Twilight, I triple-checked.  I even quadruple-checked."

The corner of the alicorn's eye twitched.  "But I didn't write down for things to be quadruple-checked!  What if you were so concerned with checking things over and over that you weren't paying attention to the actual checking!  Triple-checking is proven to be the perfect amount of checking!"

Fluttershy cleared her throat.  "Um, if I may, I wanted to borrow a book..."

"A book?"  This distracted her from her ranting.  Twilight looked over at her.  "What kind of book?"

The pegasus pressed her wings to her sides and shrunk back.  If she said outright what she was looking for, she was sure her friend would smile, pat her on the head, and tell her to stop worrying over nothing.  Her eyes darted around the room searching for an answer.  "I... well...  just...  a book on... rare creatures?"

"Sure, I have lots of those," the other said and turned to a bookshelf, not giving the request a second thought.

She gave a small sigh of relief.  "Oh, that's wonderful.  I'd just like to borrow one, please."

"Let's see, it should be...  no, not there..."  Books lifted off the shelves and dropped back down as she scanned their spines.

"Twilight, we're going to be late," Spike said, tapping the clipboard with one claw.

This startled the alicorn straight into the air.  "Oh, gosh, you're right!  I don't have time for this!  And we still need to close up the library for the day!"

"Close it up?  Oh, no."  Fluttershy pawed at the ground with a hoof.  "If you want, since you're so busy, I can watch the library for you..."

"Would you?"  The alicorn beamed at her.  "That'd be great!  I hate having to close it up and prevent other ponies from learning as much as they can!  Are you sure you don't mind?"

"No, not at all."  She smiled.  "You do so much for Ponyville, it's only fair that one of us does something for you."

"That'd be great!  Okay, Spike, let's go so we don't miss that train!"

They hurried to the door.  Spike tried to give her instructions on how to find things but was pulled away by an overeager alicorn.  Fluttershy waved after them, then trotted back inside.

She looked at the towering bookshelves with a slowly fading smile as she realized she had no idea where anything was.  Her ears drooped.  They loomed over her with books of all different shapes, sizes, and colors.  She tried to look at the names on the bindings to get an idea of what shelves contained what, but the titles made little sense to her.  The Way of the Stallion?  Was that a historical book?  What about Colts, Fillies, and Friendship?  What was that even about?  Her head began to spin.

"What have you gotten yourself into, Fluttershy?"  she whimpered to herself.