Fluttershy put down the marker pen and frowned at her calendar. “I just thought: When is your birthday, Discord?”
On the sofa, Discord stopped eating his saucer and stifled a chuckle. “Birthdays? Come now, Fluttershy. What makes you think the Master of Chaos wastes his time on birthdays?”
“Everyone started somewhere,” said Fluttershy, preparing her patience for the long talk ahead. He was in one of those moods again. “You mean you’ve never had one?”
“Ha. They’re a little tricky to arrange when you’re trapped in stone for centuries. You just cannot get the service.” He took another bite out of his saucer, then dipped it into his tea and crunched again.
“Well, now’s as good a time as any, Discord.” Fluttershy selected a cookie. This batch was of Discord’s own homemade variety, which was why the chocolate chips kept flashing rainbow colours and occasionally turning into little eggs.
“Is that so?”
“I just need to know when you were born.” She watched an egg hatch into a little chick, which immediately flew up and snuggled up against her neck.
“Me? Born? Ha! One does not simply give birth to a specimen of my calibre and beauty. Draconequus aren’t born, Fluttershy. At least, this one wasn’t.”
“OK,” said Fluttershy, pausing to chew her cookie and her patience – Tricky, when the cookie kept changing flavours in her mouth and hit her with a burst of spice. “Ow! How about we find out which day you were born? I’m sure we could work it out between us.”
Beside her, the little chick nodded in agreement.
“Huh,” said Discord, lazily reaching across and shooing the little chick out the window. “If you can find the universe where I was born, and tell me that time works the same way there as it does here, you’ll be further ahead than all of the research teams Celestia sent to study me.”
“She did?”
“Every day for a thousand years, while I was trapped in the royal’s own abysmal accommodation.” Discord smirked at her puzzled frown. “My statue. Do keep up. Anyway, they never discovered a thing. ‘Brightest and the best’, indeed.”
“Oh dear. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like.”
To her regret, she saw Discord’s smirk falter. “Why would you even try?”
“I’d like to know what it was like from your point-of-view.”
“It was miserable. Problem solved.” Moodily, he summoned a levitating cookie and, while it hovered in mid-air, dismantled it like an explosion diagram on a schematic. “Here, let’s see if I can rearrange this into a bouncy castle.”
She knew she’d done that to him. Discord was, at heart, a petulant child. But the sad realization had crept up on her mind: what would it be like if no one in Ponyville knew where she came from, what she liked, what she’d done with her life, what she’d been before they’d met, what special occasions made her so special… anything about her.
For a moment, she felt… not lonely, per se. There’d be other ponies around, some might take an interest, and some might even think that she was just misunderstood, if only they could find out the first thing about her besides her name and her appearance. Like Rarity had. Maybe.
“Well, so much for that attempt, right?” Discord lowered his scrambled schematics and paused for her giggles, but she didn’t look at him. “Right?”
No distractions. Fluttershy put down her cup and flapped over to the calendar. Perhaps she could coax it out of him, if he was merely resisting out of instinct. Her animals could be like that; they’d back into a corner and curl up and make angry noises at her, but if she was gentle and careful and persistent, they’d settle down and let her give them the medicine, or clean them, or whatever they needed.
“You don’t really remember, do you?” she said, putting as much weary sadness into her voice as she needed.
“Well, I’ve… always… been,” said Discord, and she heard the falter in his voice too. He recovered soon enough. “There’s nothing to remember. Look, primordial chaos just is. Births no more apply to me than deaths, old age, and bad taste. What’s next, you wanna know when I grew my first tooth?”
“That’s OK,” she said, ignoring the sarcasm. “I didn’t mean to push. I’m sorry. Still, I am a little curious. How far back do you remember?”
Discord waved a paw irritably. “Oh Fluttershy, just drop the subject. What’s done is done. Besides, I’ve seen your birthdays. It’s another excuse for Pinkie to throw a party. Like she needs one.”
“Oh no, birthdays are very special. They mark the most important day of your life: the day when everything began. Your good times, your dull times, your bad times, everything you’ve ever been or done…” She frowned, but then immediately dismissed the thought. “And we celebrate because… well, you survived another year. That’s a good th–”
“Survived another century, month, day, minute… Pfft. Come on. That could be any excuse for a party. Pinkie’s gotten to you, hasn’t she?”
There was no arguing with him when he was like this. In fact, Discord seemed to like arguing a bit more than he liked polite chatter. The chaos spirit in him, she guessed.
Sadly, she sat back down. “I just thought it would be nice.”
“Hmm.” Discord chewed the china for a while.
Miserably, Fluttershy sipped her tea. She wondered if she’d somehow offended him. True, there were times when Discord really hated her attempts to “normalize” him, like he thought being a pony was a huge step down. And in a way, she liked that about him. Every few seconds, he couldn’t resist turning the table into cheese or creating sewing machines out of nothing. It was like waking up again and again from what she’d realized was a slow, drifting sleep.
Not that she had anything against a slow, drifting sleep. Relaxation was a precious thing. But it wasn’t the only precious thing.
“You think my birth was special?” he said suddenly.
“You wouldn’t be here without it, yes.” Fluttershy didn’t need to think. The answer was ready-made.
“You do know my… For the sake of argument, let’s call it a ‘start’. And I’m not saying I had one. You do know that ‘start’ was hardly a good thing, right? Before we met, I was no Princess of Friendship.”
Blunt honesty prodded her to prod him. “You were a monster once, yes.”
“Yes. That.” Discord sighed. “Ah, fun times.”
“But you’ve grown up since.”
“That’s one view. And since you know what I was like, you really want to celebrate the beginning of… that?” said Discord, eyebrow raised. “I mean, I know I would. Have. Uh, once upon a time. But you?”
Fluttershy tried nodding and shaking her head simultaneously. It was not an elegant head movement.
“Yes and no…” She shrugged helplessly. “Not you being evil, but you existing.”
“Hardly worth the bother.” Discord took a bite out of the kettle and swallowed without chewing. Ink seeped out of the sofa he was sitting on.
Awkward sipping ensued. Fluttershy didn’t dare say anything. To think she’d walked into that one…
Another thoughtful hum. Discord examined the tray and its teapot. He’d brought his own wares this time, and the teapot had little Discords running along its china surface. Even the tray was red hot and aglow.
She had to celebrate something. No matter how badly he’d started, she had to share with him what all her other friends shared with her. Birthdays at home had been miserable affairs; just two parents who’d been too poor to get her anything and too weak to admit it. A brother who’d spent more time chasing fillies than caring what she wanted. And the first time she had a best friend, or any friend at all, Rainbow Dash had always, always, always been hopeless enough to forget her birthday and apologize the next day. By the time Fluttershy received her first decent present, it had been a token to the Ponyville Spa from Rarity, and by then Fluttershy was well into adulthood.
On the other hoof, her other friends were ponies, or animals, or other sapient beings. Discord defied simple classification, often loudly and enthusiastically.
She said nothing. Discord clearly didn’t want her to know his past, so she wouldn’t impose hers on him. It would look like she was trying to manipulate him. He still had strange ideas about give-and-take, after all. This was best handled quietly.
So they sat in silence, occasionally sipping or chewing. Sometimes, Discord magicked a jukebox in the corner, but the jazz just fizzled out of existence when she ignored it.
“All right.” Discord downed the last of his tea set. “How about a rebirthday, then? I can remember that day clearly.”
“A rebirthday?” Fluttershy’s ears rose.
“The day we became best friends, obviously. When Discord was reborn into your – world’s greatest and most handsome – B.F.F.!” To her delight, he chuckled. “Do keep up, Fluttershy!”
“A rebirthday.” Fluttershy giggled into her hoof. “Yes, I suppose we could do that. I remember that day clearly too.”
“We could flood the Apple farm to mark the occasion.” He snapped his talons, turned the sofa into a pile of hankies, and selected one to dab at his mouth. Catching her eye, he added, “Obviously, I’d change it back afterwards. Yeesh.”
“How about balloons?”
Discord rolled his eyes and conjured ten more eyes to roll on top. “Yes.”
“And cakes?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, and those little games you like to play? Pin-the-extraneous-appendage-on-the-Discord? Smooze-bobbing? Self-piñata?”
“Yes!” The ten eyes popped like bubbles.
“Oh, sorry. I got carried away. I guess we’ll think of some ideas nearer the time. Ooh, this is so good! I’ll put it on the calendar right away.”
In fact, as her wings flapped to lift her off her seat, she chewed over the idea more and more. Perhaps Pinkie was getting to her. She kept thinking of other things they could celebrate. But then, Discord had at least a thousand years’ worth of parties to catch up on, and not all of them had to be big bashes. Perhaps most of them could be just her and him and a few of their nearest and dearest friends. Nothing too stressful… uh, for him at least.
Another way of looking at it, of course, was as a rebirthday for more than one. After all, even Rainbow Dash and her exciting rush of speed and strength had never fully introduced her to the delights of a little weird chaos now and again. Privately, she wondered if she should encourage him into thinking of the rebirthday as a shared occasion…
…but no. That’d be imposing. Let him have his special day, she reasoned. At least a thousand years’ worth of catching up to do, after all. This was about him, first and foremost.
“Splendid,” said Discord. “Will Pinkie Pie be coming over with the birthday – I mean, ‘rebirthday’ things?”
“As much as I can get.” Fluttershy giggled before she flew over and marked the calendar with her pen.
After that, she paused to count down. Three… two… one…
“Promise?” said Discord.
Fluttershy hid her own small smirk from him. “I promise.”
