Philosophy: A Romance Expanded

Chapters

1 - Up
2 - Down
3 - Charm
4 - Strange
5 - Beauty
6 - Truth

1 - Up

Planting her front hoofs in the sod, Applejack ducked her head, leaned forward, cocked her hind legs, and let her spine unroll a bash just a mite harder than she really needed to buck every last apple off the tree into the baskets she'd set out in the noontime shade underneath. She wanted to feel that kick was the thing, wanted the solid thunk of it to jar her bones, rattle her teeth, and set her innards to sloshing.

'Cause it'd been 56 days now since she'd last so much as kissed her fiancée.

Oh, she'd seen Fluttershy sure enough, had rode the express with her and the resta the gals all the way up to the Crystal Empire to help the bid for the Equestria Games—and she just about kicked the tree again thinking how boneheaded that had nearly turned out—had gaped right along with the others through that whole, weird day when she'd woke up trying to live Rarity's life and had gone to bed as a best friend of Equestria's newest princess—AJ still got goose pimples watching Twilight fly around town—had ground her teeth and bit her tongue while Discord had sashayed back into all their lives, pledging friendship one month and then flat-out lying to them the next when those vines of his had tried to—

"Applejack!" an unmistakable, slippery-as-a-rattlesnake voice brayed behind her. "There you are!"

Whirling and flinching at the same time, AJ came around to see Discord himself hovering in the springtime sunlight on his mismatched wings, their backwash making the air smell kinda like rancid peanut butter. "I'm sure you're engaged in something charmingly rustic," he went on, pressing the tips of his eagle and lion claws together, "but I just heard the news, and I simply had to rush over to offer you my congratulations and to make you a proposition!"

Not sure what he was talking about, Applejack chose the shortest response she could think of: "News?"

"About you and Fluttershy!" He batted his eyes, lashes all suddenly thick and bristly as caterpillars wavering from his eyelids. "The two of you will make the most darling couple: I'm absolutely certain of that!" He swooped in, his lion paw curling over her shoulders and his voice dropping to a scratchy whisper. "Of course, now that I also know about Fluttershy's condition, I thought I'd offer you my services. Since we're all such good friends..." His grin curdled across that weird face of his like the swirls in milk going bad.

It took most of AJ's strength not to jump away from him. The way Discord had been lurking around Ponyville, practically living at Fluttershy's place and popping out of odd corners and doorways the past month-and-a-half, Applejack guessed she shouldn't be too surprised that he'd found out about her and her honeycomb. But was he saying he knew about Fluttershy's sweet little wiggler, too?

Swallowing her anger, AJ reached up, pushed his paw off her back, and kept her eyes locked on his. "Don't reckon I know what'cha mean."

He cocked his head, the smell around him crackling into something hotter and crisper, like paper burning. "Oh, do forgive me. Perhaps visual aides will help." He stepped back and straightened to his full height, his antlers just brushing the lowest leaves of the tree. Clapping his front paws together with a flash, he then opened them to reveal—

Applejack blinked. Cradled in his paws sat something round and apple-sized, but it was red on one side, orange on the other. The red part, she quickly saw, actually was an apple, the skin smooth and perfect as the finest her orchard had ever grown. But the orange side was just that: an orange, rough and healthy and smelling sweet as breakfast.

"Our Fluttershy!" Discord announced, his grin more like a rusty saw blade slicing across his face than anything else. "See? Half and half!"

Again, AJ nearly leaped away. Partial Stallionogen Insensitivity Syndrome Twilight had called it when Applejack had insisted that Fluttershy let somepony look into what-all was going on with her body. Fancy words for part-mare and part-stallion, it had turned out, something AJ had already known by then, her heart even now beating faster at the thought. When Fluttershy had shown Applejack her secret, a whole new part of AJ's brain had blossomed to life, and all that palaver about love and sex and lust and romance that Rarity and Rainbow Dash and Pinkie were always going on about, for the first time in Applejack's life, it had suddenly made perfect sense.

Discord gave a little sigh. "I find myself thinking that's why I enjoy her company so, that lovely little chaos feature tucked up inside her lacinia." He blinked. "Do you ponies still use the term 'lacinia'? For that odd little flap between your hind legs, I mean, the one that keeps your naughtier bits discreetly covered when you're not using them? I've no sexual organs myself, of course, and I admit, I've not thought about yours in thousands of years. But still, one hates to be out-of-date..."

Grinding her teeth—she was still a mite uncomfortable with this whole topic, and to be talking about it with Discord of all critters—Applejack forced the words out: "There a point in all this somewhere?"

"Oh, most certainly." He nodded to the half-apple, half-orange he was holding. "Since you're now our Fluttershy's special somepony, I thought you might be interested in this." He closed his paws with another squintingly bright flash, and when he opened them this time—

A full and entire red apple rested in his lion paw. "Or if you like—" He lay his eagle claw over the apple, lifted it upward, and a ripe orange dangled from his talons. "One hundred percent complete and normal in every detail! I will happily transform all the mismatched anatomical bits into those parts our Fluttershy—or Flutterguy should you want to take things in that direction—should have had from the beginning." His head slid into AJ's field of vision, her gaze still riveted on the orange. "Because friends want to help friends. Don't they?"

"You could really—?" Applejack had to clear her throat. "What did Fluttershy say when you told her you could do that?"

"Told her?" Discord's snaky neck jerked back. "She still can't use the word 'bathroom' in my presence! Imagine how she'd react if I brought up the subject of her genitalia! No, no, my dear Applejack." He reached up and took the fruit in his lion paw again, the orange changing back into an apple. "This is a question I'm asking you."

"You mean you—?" Letting her stare sharpen into a glare, AJ stomped a front hoof in the short grass under the tree and jabbed the other at the big jerk. "You got a whole boatloada nerve, Discord! 'Cause maybe you don't know how love works, but it's ev'rything about Fluttershy that I loves, not just one little bit or another! So if'n she wants to take you up on this change-over or whatever, then sure, I'll be right there supporting her however she wants! But to ask me without asking her?? That's crazy and stupid and disrespectful, and I won't have you treating Fluttershy like that!"

"Whoa, cowgirl, whoa!" Discord balanced on his tail, held up his now empty front paws. "That's the right answer! The exact right answer!" He sprang forward like a jumping jack, and Applejack found herself caught up in a mustard-scented hug. "I'm so pleased! After all, I had to make sure you weren't some lothario just using Fluttershy for your own selfish pleasures, didn't I?"

Almost too shocked to breathe, Applejack was just starting to squirm out of his embrace when he let her go and fell back to lean against the tree, his paws behind his head. "Had you taken me up on my ridiculous offer, I'd have known you didn't care about our Fluttershy at all, and I'd've been forced to give you quite a stern look, let me tell you!"

"Ridiculous?" Applejack always felt like she was swimming against a hard current when she dealt with Discord, but she thought maybe she was finally catching up this time. "That's why you didn't ask Fluttershy about making her all one way or the other! 'Cause you couldn't really do it!"

"Couldn't?" He pressed his talons to his chest. "It's not a question of ability but of desire! I mean, why would I want to do such a thing?" He shivered. "Our Fluttershy's just so perfect the way she is, so unique and wonderfully chaotic! Anypony who would change a single sub-atomic particle of her, I tell you, is a pony not to be trusted!"

And for the first time in, well, ever, Applejack felt an actual smile quirk her lips at something Discord had said. "I'm gonna agree with perfect, unique, and wonderful, and ignore the rest, if'n that's all right with you."

"Completely understandable." His lion paw popped off his arm, flapped over like a fruit bat, and patted Applejack's hat. "Leave that sort of thing to us professionals." He leaped up again, shoving his arm out to meet that paw with a squish. "Now that I know your heart is pure and true, however—" He snapped his claws, white light surrounding Applejack; blinking, she found herself looking up the path at Fluttershy's cottage all the way on the other side of town.

Except it weren't the cottage her hungry eyes fixed on: Fluttershy herself stood out front, a watering can in her teeth, her gorgeous hindquarters pushed out just a bit as she bent over the bed of peonies. Her scent wafted down the hill to wrap around Applejack like a blanket on a winter night, and she closed her eyes, leaned forward, drank in draughts of it deeper'n anypony crossing the desert would if she suddenly stumbled into an oasis.

"Oh, Shutterfly!" Discord called, and Applejack startled sideways, her eyes popping open. She'd forgotten all about him. "You have a gentlemare caller!"

Fluttershy giggled, Applejack's heart nearly bursting from the sheer, concentrated cuteness. "Oh, Discord," the pegasus said, setting the watering can down. "Half the time, I don't know what you're talking about, and the other half—" She turned and stopped, her mouth and eyes going wide.

"Now!" Discord said from somewhere behind Applejack, but she wasn't about to turn away from the beauty before her to look at him. "My plan is to mosey on over to the Golden Oaks Library and engage our esteemed local princess in what I expect will become a spirited discussion of imaginary numbers and chaos theory. This discussion will easily last three or four hours, and if upon my return, I do not find two ponies both sated and exhausted from those various and creamy physical relations you mortals seem so fond of, well! I threatened earlier to employ my stern look, and I'm afraid I'm hereby making that threat again!"

His voice was fading, and needing to make sure, Applejack tore her gaze from Fluttershy and glanced back to see Discord traipsing over the bridge toward town. "Good luck, everypony!" he called with a wave of his eagle talons, then he was moving behind the trees and was gone.

***

Blinking after the vanished Discord, Fluttershy quickly shifted to look at Applejack standing at the bottom of the garden, the earth pony so completely and perfectly beautiful, Fluttershy found her embarrassment at the things Discord had said changing quickly into something else entirely.

Applejack turned, then, those green eyes taking Fluttershy's breath away, and said with a grin, "Well, now. I reckon I wouldn't mind an hour or two for a lunch break. You doing anything, honeycomb?"

The nickname made Fluttershy shiver, desire swirling though her like milk in hot tea. "I— I'm not— I mean, I'm just taking care of some watering!" Applejack's grin widened, and when she started trotting up the hill, Fluttershy lost what little control she'd been able to maintain over the words coming out of her mouth. "Not that watering's nothing, of course!" she heard herself saying, more and more of her brain focusing on the gorgeous sway of Applejack's hips as she got closer and closer, the sunlight dancing in her mane, the smooth flow of the muscles under the sweet cider of her hide. "I mean, not to the plants!" Fluttershy couldn't stop. "Because water's very, very important! Without it, plants wouldn't— They couldn't—"

That was when Applejack reached her, stroked a front hoof along her neck, and slid her into a kiss that made Fluttershy forget she'd ever done anything before in her entire life.

Because she really hadn't, had she? And pressing forward, she brought her own hoofs up to Applejack's mane, let her wings unfurl to brush Applejack's face, poured out every ounce of her love and her longing to make sure Applejack knew just how much she'd missed her during the past—

"Fifty-six days," she heard Applejack mutter, her lips moving against Fluttershy's when she spoke.

"And four hours," Fluttershy added, letting her internal clock reset itself. "And twenty-six minutes."

That wonderful rough chuckle rumbled from Applejack's throat, then the warmth of her was pulling away, Fluttershy almost falling over in the sudden absence of her marefriend. Opening her eyes, she blinked in confusion until she saw Applejack stretching herself out against the trunk of the big oak alongside the cottage. Applejack gave her a grin, patted the shady grass beside her, and Fluttershy leaped at her with a take-off, she felt, that Rainbow Dash would've been proud off.

Sliding into Applejack's embrace, the only place she wanted to be ever again for the rest of her life, she cuddled under Applejack's chin, her whole body humming with joy, and said, "Let's get married right now: head down to city hall and ask the mayor if she could please find the time and just...just be like this together forever! I mean, before things start happening around here and we end up not being able to touch each other for another two months..."

Applejack chuckled again, Fluttershy closing her eyes and pressing herself more closely along Applejack's body so she could feel the vibrations. "A right fine thought, honeycomb." Applejack's hoof started making slow circles over Fluttershy's back, all Fluttershy's nerves singing even louder than before. "'Cept we got family and friends might feel kinda put out if'n we went and got hitched without telling 'em. I mean, you seen them designs Rarity keeps drawing up and throwing away 'cause she says they ain't good enough! And Rainbow Dash! Imagine how that big softie'd complain 'bout not being able to cry at our wedding!"

The image of strong, tough Dashie bawling her eyes out like she was Pinkie Pie made Fluttershy giggle, but snuggling up to Applejack, she couldn't laugh away the yearning that filled her—especially filling her lacinia, but she was trying so very much not to think about that. "Then could we please pick a date at least? So I can circle it on my calendar and see it getting closer and closer and know that I'll be your wife on that day?"

The in-and-out of Applejack's breathing both relaxed and excited Fluttershy, but she did her best to notice only the relaxing part. "Well, to get technical, I reckon I'm the wife in this here arrangement of ours." Her leg brushed ever so slightly against Fluttershy's lacinia, and Fluttershy had to gasp at the glorious sensations that crackled through her.

"Don't," she groaned, wanting to both pull away and press harder at the same time. "Please, Applejack. Don't...don't tease."

"Tease?" Applejack went completely still, and Fluttershy's stomach tightened. She hadn't meant to say that! Because, yes, it had been almost two months since she and Applejack had been able to cuddle like this, but it had been longer since they'd—

"Oh, honeycomb." Applejack's sigh made Fluttershy feel even worse. "I didn't mean to— I didn't even think."

"It's OK." Fluttershy scooted higher up Applejack's chest so she could look her marefriend straight in the eyes. Her beautiful, beautiful eyes... She shook herself, told herself to be strong. "I know exactly what you meant when you said how overwhelming it is when we...when we..." But she'd spent so much time the last two months forcing herself not to think about the whole concept, she found she couldn't even form the two simple syllables that had ended up robbing her of sleep so often during that time.

"Have sex," Applejack finished.

Hearing those words from her beloved's lips pulled a whimper from Fluttershy that felt more like a splinter being dug from her leg. "Yes," she said, having to look away, her poor little wiggler bulging against the inside of her lacinia with its desire to get out. "But I understand." Fluttershy forced herself to continue so Applejack would know for sure. "The most important thing is that we're friends: that has to come first so we don't start hating each other like my parents did and...and like your parents did. So it's OK that we don't...don't—"

A hoof covered her lips, another touching the side of her head and turning her to face Applejack's sweet, smiling eyes once more. "Oh, honeycomb," that gentle voice said. "I done you a powerful wrong."

"No, no, no!" Fluttershy tried to insist, but Applejack was moving underneath her, sliding into another kiss so full and perfect, Fluttershy forgot everything again except how deeply she loved this wonderful pony.

"Yeah, I did," she heard Applejack mutter. "But no more. 'Cause you're right: we're setting the date. End of this month, three weeks from right now, you and me are getting hitched in fronta the sun, the moon, this whole town, and anypony else who wantsta show up and gawk. Which means we're as good as married already. Which means—" Those lips touched Fluttershy's again, and she let the warmth of them flood up and through and around her. Until— "I want'cha inside me, honeycomb." Applejack's whisper tickled Fluttershy's ear. "Right here and right now."

Ice burst over Fluttershy. "What?!" She pushed herself away from Applejack's chest, suddenly hyper-aware of everything in her peripheral vision: the fields and forest where anypony could be walking; the cloudless blue sky where anypony could be flying; the cottage where any of her animal friends could be looking out the windows. "Here?! Now?!"

Applejack's cheeks turned a darker shade of orange. "Well, I reckon I don't mean—"

"Because we can't!" Try as she might, Fluttershy couldn't quite catch her breath. "What if somepony saw?! What if they saw my wiggler?!" Everything around her was blurring. "Then they'd know! And they'd all hate me!"

"Settle down, honeycomb!" Applejack's voice came from behind her somehow, and spinning, Fluttershy realized she was hovering just below the lowest of the oak's branches, her wings beating faster than a hummingbird's. "It's all right!" Applejack was calling up to her. "I mean, Discord knows, and he ain't got a problem with it!"

"Discord's different!" And that was such a silly and obvious thing to say, Fluttershy couldn't help hiccoughing a whole series of little laughs. "And it's not like I told him!" she managed to get out. "I've just been missing you so much and I tried to be quiet every time I got my special blankets out and stroked my wiggler but this morning I thought he was gone but I guess he was here and he must've heard me 'cause he came into my room and then I had to explain everything and that turned out OK 'cause then he brought you here and—"

"And what?!" Applejack sounded so angry, the flood of Fluttershy's words stoppered up like somepony had jammed a cork in her mouth; swallowing, she looked down at her marefriend, Applejack's head tipped up, her hat pushed back, her hoofs planted firmly in the earth and making her look for an instant more like a tree than the tree she was standing next to. "You think Discord's gonna turn out to be a better friend than Rarity? Than Pinkie Pie? Than Rainbow Dash? Is that what you're saying, Fluttershy?!"

The question jabbed her hard as a pin, her frantic muscles going cold and slowing, her wings settling her to the ground, her head so heavy, she could barely keep her chin from drooping all the way down to the grass. "No." She swallowed again. "That's not what I'm saying..."

A rush of warmth, and Applejack was right beside her, her cheek rubbing Fluttershy's. "I know it's gonna be nowhere near easy, honeycomb, but I'll be there right with you, and so will Twilight." The rubbing got slower, more sensual, that wonderful tingling starting through Fluttershy again. "But the thing is, once we get married and start having foals, well, I reckon our friends're like to have a few questions if'n we don't alert 'em ahead of time how that's possible and all."

The giggle this provoked in Fluttershy was a much nicer one, and the soft pecking kisses Applejack was planting along her neck really helped, too, Fluttershy's lacinia starting to feel full once more. "You're so good to me," she murmured.

"How 'bout we make things even better?" Applejack whispered. "And I mean upstairs in your bed this time."

And just the thought that she would finally truly really be able to make love again to her marefriend proved to be more powerful than any of the spells Fluttershy always had running through her mind: her lacinia wrenched open like a window shade pulled too hard, her wiggler jutting out and making her gasp. Rushing for the back door of her cottage, she couldn't stop a blush at the musky odor filling the air around her, and her blush deepened when, spinning into the relative safety of her kitchen, she heard Applejack behind her taking deep, whistling breaths. "Oh, honeycomb," she said, a growl in her voice that got Fluttershy's wiggler twitching and growing some more. "That right there's an aroma I been missing a whole, whole lot..."

Then Applejack was sliding through the door, pressing her side against Fluttershy's. "Reckon I got a bit of my own I can add to it, too," she whispered, and Fluttershy's ears, nose, and wiggler perked at the crinkle of Applejack's own lacinia coming open, the scent of her aroused marefriend sending skyrockets bursting through Fluttershy's mind and body.

How they got upstairs, Fluttershy had no idea, the front room, the stairs and the hallway blurring till she found herself standing on her own bed, her front hoofs resting on either side of Applejack lying on her back, her head resting among Fluttershy's pillows, her eyes half-way closed, both sets of legs spread, her beautiful body open and waiting and ready. "You wanna wear the hat?" she asked.

Almost unable to form words, Fluttershy shook her head. "Please," she managed to say, "no hats. Just you and just me and just love."

Applejack's incredible lips curled in the gentlest smile Fluttershy could imagine, and with one graceful motion, the earth pony tossed her head, her hat flipping out of sight onto the floor and her mane billowing out like sunshine and corn silk over the pillows. "I'm all yours, honeycomb," she said. "One hunnerd per cent."

Hoofs shaking, Fluttershy caressed that hair; bending forward, she touched her lips to those lips; breathing in the warm, damp wonderfulness of Applejack's panting breaths, she shifted her hips, shuddered with pure joy when the bulging tip of her wiggler settled into the embrace of Applejack's vulva.

Fluttershy felt Applejack shudder beneath her. "Mother of Mercy," her fiancée groaned. "Been wanting that!" The whole world rose up under Fluttershy then, purest fire licking along her spine and arching her back as Applejack slid herself around Fluttershy's wiggler, plunging the two of them together and making Fluttershy squeal.

This, this was everything she could ever want: surrounded by beauty, engulfed by beauty. She forced her eyes open a crack, and the sight of the bliss shining across Applejack's face intensified everything Fluttershy was feeling. Because she was giving this pleasure to her friend, her lover, her soon-to-be husband or wife or—

The world flexed again, Applejack's muscles contracting and loosening, starting a rhythmic motion that pushed most rational thought from Fluttershy's mind and filled her with perfect molten sensation. Flaring her wings, Fluttershy wrapped them around herself and Applejack, drew their upper bodies as close together as physically possible while doing her best to synchronize the thrusting of her own hips with those of partner.

The cries of "Oh, yes, honeycomb, yes!" told the tiny remaining part of her mind that she'd done the right thing, and as white-hot streaks of ecstasy began slicing her to ribbons, that tiny part of Fluttershy's mind tried to make the feeling last, tried to slow the body down a bit, tried to moderate and control the mad upward spiral sweeping her along toward the vast flooding tides of orgasm, wanting to hover here on the shores of that glorious sea for as long as possible before—

"Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" Applejack cried again, and everything exploded around Fluttershy, Applejack apparently plunging headlong into that ocean. Which was all it took: pressing her face into Applejack's chest, Fluttershy couldn't keep from following her in, didn't want to hold back, squealing as she tumbled over the edge, the intensity of the bolts blasting through her body shattering that last tiny part of her mind and drowning her fully deep inside Applejack.

She surfaced slowly, languidly, a gentle hoof stroking the hair beneath her right ear. Stirring, she managed to bend the boiled asparagus of her neck and saw Applejack smiling back at her, her wiggler still nestled within Applejack's vulva. The cooling stickiness between them, though, made Fluttershy blink, made her push herself up in alarm. "Oh! I forgot to use my special blankets!"

Applejack's chuckle rumbled around her. "Not to worry, honeycomb. I reckon we can give 'em a proper workout the next couple hours."

***

The slightly salty scent hovering around the cottage like cotton candy around an eclipse told Discord all had gone well, but drifting silently up the stairs after his ever-so-satisfying mathematical discussion with Twilight, he still pulled his eyeballs out and pushed them through the closed door of Fluttershy's room just to be sure.

And indeed, the two of them lay in bed sweetly entangled, the sheer contentment in the air almost making him sneeze.

A flick of his claws popped his eyes back into their sockets, and he headed downstairs. Uncertainty was still a new enough sensation for him that he hadn't quite decided if he liked it or not—he was, in fact, uncertain about uncertainty, and that alone made him grin all the way through the front room and into the kitchen.

Still, what he'd learned about ponies during his many years of viewing them as playthings and his several months of not doing that told him that things were heading in the right direction for his plan to come to fruition.

He just didn't know that for certain.

Probably best to make some sandwiches, then. His friends would no doubt be hungry when they came downstairs.

Author's Note

I'm throwing in the towel:

As they say, on my experimental attempts to write "clop." Yes, there'll still be cute little sex scenes like this one in these "Romance" stories, but I've pretty much decided that that's as far as I'm interested in going... :eeyup:

Mike

2 - Down

Following Fluttershy down the stairs, Applejack couldn't keep herself from shuffling forward a little faster'n her honeycomb just so's she could nudge her nose into that gorgeous pink tail and grin at Fluttershy's giggled little, "Applejack!"

'Cause never again, AJ vowed silently right then and there: never again would she let herself go nigh onto two months without a heaping helping of Fluttershy in her life. She didn't care how crazy things got around here—let Trixie come back a third time; let everypony wake up tomorrow as griffons; let Pinkie Pie bake herself a horn and a pair of wings and declare herself the Princess of Pie—

"Saturday the 30th," she said, coming down off the last step and planting her front hoofs extra-firm in the carpet of Fluttershy's front room the way she woulda stomped the ground to drive home her point if she'd been outside. "Unless you got another date in mind?"

Fluttershy looked back over her shoulder with a smile that set ev'ry inch of Applejack to singing like a tree fulla barn swallows. "I wanted to do it today, remember?"

"Oh, really?" the bass trombone of Discord's voice asked from the kitchen. "I'd've thought you two had done everything two ponies could do to each other in the time I was away trading theories with her newest highness." He stepped through the doorway then, as frilly a pink apron around his middle as Applejack had seen in all her born days, a platter balanced and spinning slowly on one eagle talon. "Come along, now; I made sandwiches, and you must be starving!"

Glaring at him as Fluttershy managed to both freeze in place and shrink back into her mane, AJ couldn't keep her words anywhere near to friendly. "Thought you was gonna be at Twilight's a couple more hours."

"As did I." Pulling a spatula outta nowhere, he began shoveling what looked more like cubical pancakes than anything sandwichy from his platter onto two plates that Applejack woulda swore hadn't been on the table a second ago. "Alas, our esteemed Twilight's a great deal cleverer than she seems at first glance: not only did she add several unexpectedly salient points to our discussion of chaos theory, she then demonstrated an impressive understanding of the topic by reforming a shattered piece of chalk merely by manipulating the probabilistic nature of basic thermodynamics!" Discord heaved a little sigh. "So I came home early."

Not really paying any attention to the big feller's whining, Applejack had moved to Fluttershy's side, had started nuzzling her gently to coax her out of the embarrassed cloud she'd wrapped around herself. But that pretty yellow head popped out all on her own, a frown on Fluttershy's face. "My goodness, Discord! I don't know that I've ever heard you sound so disappointed!" She hurried across the room, Applejack finding herself frowning, too, but for what she reckoned was a totally diff'rent reason. "Usually when you come home after talking with Twilight, you're practically dancing; you're not feeling sick, are you?"

Discord gave a smile as feeble as lukewarm tea. "It's nothing, really." He flicked the platter into the air, and the thing burst like a stuck balloon, taking the sandwich things with it. "But you still haven't said what's happening Saturday the 30th!"

Fluttershy gave a squeal and launched into a quick, hoof-tapping dance. "Applejack and I are getting married!" Fluttershy zipped across the table to hug Discord, then zipped back to hug Applejack, the kiss she gave her more'n enough for AJ to decide that she could forgive Discord just about ev'rything he'd ever done—till Fluttershy zipped back to the table and declared, "Say you'll be one of my bridesmares, Discord! Please say you will!"

Shock moved across Discord's face like wind across a cornfield, and AJ figured she likely looked that same way herself. "But...I'm not a mare." His expression went all thoughtful. "Though I supposed I could remedy that easily enough..."

"No, no!" Fluttershy was still hovering over the table. "You, Discord! As yourself! Because you're our friend! And we wouldn't want to have the ceremony without you!"

"I...I'm honored," he said, and it sounded so honest and heartfelt, all Applejack's suspicions crunched their tiny little teeth even louder in her brain.

With another squeal, Fluttershy did a flying somersault. "It will be the most magical day ever!" She swooped over to wrap another hug around Applejack. "We've got to tell everypony and start getting everything ready! If we go right now to let them know, they'll have time to—"

"Honeycomb?" It near to broke AJ's heart to bring even a bit of earth-bound reality to the fluffy pink clouds Fluttershy practic'lly had floating around her. "How 'bout we make that tonight? I've still got chores that need doing, so if Discord here'll pop me back to the Acres, I'll meet'cha in town at six for supper, then we'll make the rounds: Pinkie Pie to Rarity to Rainbow to Twilight." And it wasn't really a lie when she finished with, "It's just a couple hours, but it'll help me out a whole lot."

"Of course!" Fluttershy settled to the ground, but AJ was more'n happy to see that she didn't lose a flicker of the light dancing in her eyes. "I have some rounds I need to make through the Whitetail Woods, too." She leaned forward, touched a kiss as perfect as cool summer rain to Applejack's cheek. "You know that you've made me the happiest mare in Equestria, don't you?"

"Well, now." Applejack bent her neck so she could meet Fluttershy's lips with her own. "Reckon I might just give you a run for that title, little missy."

Fluttershy giggled. "We'll call it a tie!" She floated toward the door. "And thank you so much, Discord! Oh, everything is just so wonderful!"

The door creaked opened and clicked shut; Applejack turned to Discord, still in his apron at the table, and keeping her voice down, she asked, "So, you wanna talk about it here? Or out in the orchard where we'll have more privacy?"

Discord went still, something Applejack wasn't sure she'd ever seen before. "I don't know what you mean," he said, but his lion paw came up—still attached to his arm this time—and with a snap, AJ found herself standing with him beside the same tree she'd been working on before the long, luscious lunch break she'd just spent getting reacquainted with her marefriend.

Meaning something was going on, something he wanted to talk about but didn't know how to bring it up.

What more than usually horrible thing that might be, AJ couldn't begin to guess, so she kept up the tough front, eyes and ears open for any clues he might give off. "You ain't fooling anypony, y'know. That apron? Them sandwiches? Them big, dewy eyes when Fluttershy asked you to be wunna her bridesmares?" She stepped closer, wondering if a nervous Discord would smell like the sour persimmon stink she was suddenly picking up. "One thing I's learned since Rarity's had that cat of hers: when the dang thing starts purring and primping and cleaning her paws all nice and delicate, that's the time I better step lively, else I'll end up with a fetlock fulla claws and teeth." She fixed her gaze on his. "So whaddaya want, Discord?"

"Want?" He flung his mismatched arms wide, both of 'em stretching like rubber bands. "I have never, I'll have you know, ever wanted anything! The instant I conceive a fancy—" He snapped his claws, and a bright red ten gallon hat appeared between his antlers. "It's mine without my ever having to go through the tiresome 'want' stage!" His smile glowed with smugness. "It's part of my spiritual nature."

"Huh." Applejack clicked her tongue. "'Cause I'm thinking right now 'bout the time you covered these here fields of mine with ice. Seems to me you wanted something bad enough after that to take all that ice away. Or am I remembering wrong?"

His smugness smoldered into something harder. "Fluttershy's a special case," he more growled than said. "You of all ponies should know that."

"Reckon I do." Looking at his body language—the way his eyes kept shifting away and the odd sorta clutching twitch that seemed to be wriggling among his eagle talons—AJ started thinking she was getting close to the problem. "But this ain't about Fluttershy and you, is it? You don't feel for her the same thing I do or else you'd see me as some kinda rival insteada picking me up and carrying me over to her place. No, you've got something else you wanna have but don't know how to get. It's something you figure I can help you with, so you're trying to get on my good side, right?"

And the expression that spread itself over Discord's face right that very minute made AJ's breath freeze in her throat. 'Cause she'd seen that very exact same look before on her own face during that whole awful week after she'd fallen for Fluttershy but Fluttershy was still pining for Big Macintosh. And if it wasn't Fluttershy he'd fallen for—

"Sweet Mother of Mercy." Applejack had to force herself not to scoot backwards. "Twilight's done flipped your switch, hasn't she?"

***

The various parts inside him usually shrieked and writhed, gibbering in mad abandon around the maypole of his mind—and wasn't that a lovely little image; Discord filed it away for inclusion in the autobiography he was constantly composing in his thoughts. But now his entire interior continued floating droopily, quiet as a single bird in a meadow at dawn.

Discord hated everything about it, hated the way he was feeling, hated that he was feeling, for that matter. Of all the annoying things that had gotten shoved down his throat when he'd been slammed in the head by the magical steel wrecking ball known as friendship, feeling things all the livelong day was without a doubt the single most annoying.

And to feel so many awful, wonderful things about Twilight Sparkle of all creatures—!

Applejack was still talking. On the off chance that some of it might be useful, he went back to listening.

"That's why you came to me. 'Cause Fluttershy knocked me over sideways same way Twilight's knocked you."

Deny it, deny it, deny it! a large number of the voices in his head started yodeling, but listening to them hadn't been helping him at all so far. He grit his teeth so hard they burst like popcorn, big and white and fluffy and shooting from his mouth all over the startled little pony.

Which at least stopped her talking. "It's just so overwhelmingly tedious!" he exclaimed into the sort of silence he liked best: the stunned kind. "Twilight Sparkle is everything I've always despised in Celestia, but twelve times over! She's so contained! So confined!" The image shimmered behind his eyes: Twilight at her chalkboard during the luncheon lesson they'd just shared, her limbs longer and leaner with her new alicorn growth, her wings tucked at her sides, her magic daintily plucking at the foundational strings of reality as he whispered to her about quantum decoherence. Shivering with one or another of those blasted feelings, he couldn't keep the phrase from squeezing out: "So orderly..."

"Mother of Mercy," he heard Applejack's rustic twang say again, but when he focused on her, she was smiling. "Guess we know what pushes your buttons, now, don't we?"

"Buttons?!" Without even thinking, he fashioned himself a long, swallow-tailed coat from the hat he'd conjured up earlier and made sure it had five dozen big purple buttons running down the front. "And switches?!" He caused an oversized knife switch to form on the tree behind him, snapped some goggles over his eyes, grabbed the switch, and slammed it from up to down, sparks sizzling and flying, a huge, white-hot jag of lightning shooting from the top of the tree into the cloudless blue afternoon sky. "Because I don't think either of these things is what you have in mind when you use those words!" he shouted over the clap of thunder that rattled the entire orchard around them.

"Will you simmer down?!" Applejack screamed, and even though he had dispersed all his props by then, Discord didn't get nearly the tickle of humorous satisfaction that he should have at the sight of the frazzled pony, her hat askew between her ears, her hoofs spread wide and planted, her yell the only sound suddenly anywhere in their vicinity.

She recovered quickly, though—Discord had to admit that—straightening her hat and fixing those relentless green eyes on him. "One thing I learned pretty well: it don't do any good to get all weird and stupid just 'cause you're in love with—"

"I'm not in love!" Everything inside Discord was whirling now, and he let it out, swirled the confining bands of reality away from himself and Applejack, surrounded them both with as sybaritic a scene as he could manage: ponies wearing diaphanous robes and draping themselves over each other across silk and satin cushions and pillows in what his many years of stirring about in pony minds had told him were highly graphic sexual poses. "This is what I'm supposed to wallow in, I'll have you know! Filth and perversion! Squalor and deviance! Excess and—!"

"'Supposed to?'" Rather than staring open-mouthed at the frenetic coupling—and tripling and quadrupling—going on around her, Applejack, he was shocked to discover, was still looking at him. "You doing what's expected now, Discord?"

The word hit him harder than any physical blow could have, the conjured conjoinings cracking and crumbling away as surely as apples dropping from a bucked tree. And as much as he wanted to summon them back, Discord found he could only blink at Applejack, nothing between the two of them now but the actual sunlight and air of her horribly wholesome orchard.

"Thing is," the folksy little beast was saying, "it ain't gonna do you no good to deny it. Tried that myself, y'see, and I just ended up a big ol' pile of misery." She stepped toward him, and maybe for the first time in his life, Discord had to fight the urge to step away. "So be your real, true, chaotic self, you big foal, and do the one thing nopony'd ever expect of you." She stretched her head closer to his, and every spinning part of Discord's brain froze to stare at her. "Let'cherself just plain fall in love with Twilight Sparkle."

The scream that burst from all his assorted parts, he saw as the force of it blasted him into the air like a Wonderbolt in pursuit of pie, also tumbled Applejack head over fetlocks away between the rows of apple trees. So that was one good thing at least.

***

Waiting at the café, Fluttershy felt sure every other pony in the place was staring at her. But she usually felt that way no matter where she went, so she'd gotten pretty good at ignoring it. Besides, the way she and Applejack were going to make everything official tonight and start the ball rolling toward three weeks from today and the wedding—their wedding!—she was so nervous and excited—Pinkie had a special word for this feeling, Fluttershy knew, but she found that she couldn't remember what it was—she really didn't think she had space inside her for any of her regular nervousness right now.

Still, the clench in her stomach loosened with a snap she could almost hear when Applejack hove into view up the street, the springtime sun drifting down through the late afternoon toward evening and casting her marefriend's big soft shadow over the ground ahead of her. It took all Fluttershy's strength of will not to leap over the railing of the café's patio and fly out to her, but she didn't want to draw any more attention than she already had—

Until Applejack got close enough for Fluttershy to see the frown creasing her forehead; Fluttershy absolutely shot from her seat, flipped herself onto the street, and skidded to a halt on the sidewalk in front of her marefriend. "Applejack? What's wrong?! How can I help make it better?!"

With a blink, Applejack's frown melted like butter in a pan. "Aw, that's sweet of you, honeycomb, but..." She blew out an apple-scented breath and leaned forward, the little nuzzle she touched to Fluttershy's neck so soft and gentle, Fluttershy almost forget that they were kissing while standing out in front of a restaurant full of other ponies who were all probably looking at them.

And even though she did remember it, right at that moment, turning her head so she could nuzzle Applejack, too, she found that she didn't care.

"It's just Discord," Applejack said with another sigh.

Her stomach reclenched. "I'll speak to him," Fluttershy said with a sigh of her own.

"No!" Applejack pulled away, but then she tucked her head into the crook of Fluttershy's neck again. "It ain't anything 'cept him being himself, so there's really nothing to talk about. I told him what he had to do to fix it, and, well, he kinda exploded." She stepped back, but this time, she had on one of her big grins. "Ding-dangedest thing I ever seen: blew me clean over backwards."

Fluttershy nodded, her stomach untwisting most of the way. "He doesn't take advice very well."

"He'll come around." Applejack nudged her. "Me, though, I'm ready for some supper!"

Dinner was wonderful, the best Fluttershy had eaten in months even though she'd been to this very café more than once in that time. She just hadn't been here with Applejack, and that made all the difference. Fluttershy found herself over and over again just getting lost in Applejack's voice, in her eyes, in the way her hair bobbed around behind her. She would suddenly realize she wasn't hearing anything and would start back to see Applejack grinning. "Reckon I'll ask you that again, honeycomb."

What made it all even better, though—and Fluttershy didn't really notice this till they were finished, Applejack telling the waiter to charge everything to the Apple family account, the waiter nodding and smiling and bidding them both a lovely evening—were all the other nods and smiles she saw from the ponies around them, the pressure of their eyes not terrible for the first time since that wonderful hour she'd spent posing for Applejack's cousin's art class back in Manehattan.

Because when she was with Applejack, she realized, it didn't matter who was looking at her. All that mattered was that she was with Applejack.

The visits with their friends were wonderful, too, but then Fluttershy had expected that. At dinner, they'd talked over what they were going to say, but when they walked into Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie bouncing around the tables to bring ponies their dessert orders, Applejack's sudden shyness took Fluttershy by surprise, her marefriend's freckles standing out against the darkening orange of her cheeks. "Might be we could have a word in private, Pinkie?" Applejack asked.

"Ha!" Pinkie's smile curled like the locks of her mane. "If you're gonna say you've set the date for the wedding, my tail beat'cha to it! It's been twitching the news to me for, like, hours, so I've just been dancing in my head, waiting for you two to come by and tell me all official!"

The thought made Fluttershy swallow—Pinkie's tail always knew so many things!—but Applejack just gave a slow grin. "And did it tell you I was gonna ask you to be wunna my bridesmares?"

Pinkie froze in mid-leap, something that never failed to take Fluttershy's breath away, then clattered to the floor like a dropped barrel lid. Silence filled the sweet shop for two ticks of the wall clock, then Pinkie slowly stood, her eyes wide and seeming to vibrate in their sockets. "Everything," she said, her voice almost echoing in Fluttershy's ears, "that has ever happened to me during my whole entire life has been leading up to this moment." She more drifted over to them than walked, rested her left front hoof on Applejack's shoulder, her right front hoof on Fluttershy's. "For the party that will take place upon that day..." She shivered, and Fluttershy couldn't help shivering, too. "Those ponies then abed will call themselves accursed they were not there."

The more usual sort of hugging and squealing happened then, all the ponies in Sugarcube Corner saying congratulations. And while Applejack gave out the details—the ceremony at noon three weeks from today in the main barn at Sweet Apple Acres with the reception to follow in the Ponyville Town Square—Fluttershy steeled herself, jumped over the tightening knot of smiling ponies squeezing in around them, sailed out the front door, and galloped as fast as ever she could toward Carousel Boutique just like she and Applejack had planned.

Rarity had largely stopped crying by the time Applejack came pushing through the front door. In fact, she'd switched fully into 'mad fashionista' mode, Fluttershy marveling at each and every wonderful design Rarity was pulling from the stacks on her work table and tossing aside. "These are just concept drawings, of course," she kept saying. "Now that I have a deadline, I shall buckle down and truly get to work!"

But when Applejack asked Rarity to be her other bridesmare—"I reckon we'll call y'all 'attendants' seeing as how Discord's gonna be wunna Fluttershy's."—just as Fluttershy had thought, Rarity had broken down again, Fluttershy getting more than a little misty-eyed herself as their unicorn friend had latched herself to their necks.

"Oh, Applejack!" Rarity burbled at one point. "When we were the last two blank-flanks in Miss Organdy's class, did you ever imagine how wonderful our lives would turn out?" Which got Applejack to tear up, something Fluttershy saw so rarely, it blurred her own vision even more.

By the time they all managed to pull themselves together, Rarity making them both promise to stop by Wednesday evening—"So I can dazzle you with the gowns we'll all be wearing!"—Fluttershy was very glad Applejack had insisted on waiting till after dinner to make these rounds. Without that bowl of potato soup inside her, she was fairly sure she wouldn't've had the strength to continue.

At least Rainbow Dash was simple—yes, she leaped from the ground with such a vigorous cheer that the shockwave staggered Fluttershy nearly over sideways, and the hug when Fluttershy asked her to join Discord as her bridal attendant was just a trifle on the tight side. But her grin made Fluttershy feel as warm and safe as it always had, and Fluttershy couldn't help joining Applejack's snort when Rainbow said, "You guys married are gonna be so great! And I oughtta know about great, right?"

They left her rubbing her front hoofs together in the glow of her house floating overhead—"And I know just what Pinkie and me'll do for your bachelor parties, too!"—and circled halfway along the outskirts of town before heading toward the square again and the library, Twilight out on her balcony with her telescope and a big grin. "Word's all over town!" she called, spreading her wings and swooping down to catch the both of them in a hug that almost knocked Fluttershy over for the third or fourth time that evening. "I'm so happy for you two! With everything that's happened around here since you first told us you were dating, I wasn't sure we'd ever see the day!"

"You gotta have faith, Twi." Applejack gave Fluttershy a wink over Twilight's head, and Fluttershy felt a little twinge. "We're getting it all figured out," Applejack went on when Twilight had ushered them inside and they were settled around the kitchen table, Spike giving them his congratulations after bringing them some tea and heading upstairs with a comic book tucked under his arm. "Pinkie and Rarity are my oldest friends in town, so they'll be my bridesmares or attendants or whatever we're calling 'em, and Fluttershy's going with Dash and Discord."

Twilight's face fell, and Fluttershy could almost feel the strain that went into her bringing her smile back. "That...that will be wonderful, I'm sure."

The little catch in her voice almost got Fluttershy to blurt out their question, but Applejack put one hoof on hers, reached across the table, and put the other on Twilight's. "And we're hoping that our favorite princess might just have room in her schedule to perform the ceremony."

And once again, Fluttershy saw, Applejack had been right to ask Twilight this way: the joy that blossomed through the air around her made Fluttershy think of a sudden jasmine bloom. "That's right! I can do that now, can't I?!" Her eyes curling into crescents and her smile absolutely radiant, Twilight's wings shot out to lift her into a hover. "I've never been so happy to be a princess! And just think of the research I'll have to do into the cultural history and traditions of weddings! I can hardly wait!"

Applejack nodded, then with a lick of her lips, cocked her head to look at Fluttershy. Fluttershy knew what she was asking—they'd talked about this at dinner, too, as quietly as they could—and she nodded, her throat suddenly very dry. "Also, umm, Twilight..." She reached for the cup of tea and tried not to notice how much her hoofs were shaking. "We thought we should probably...tell everyone—all our friends, I mean—about me and my...my wiggler...."

"'Cause, well..." Applejack cleared her throat. "You said Fluttershy had the right stuff to sire foals in me, so we...we reckoned we better get the girls clued in before I get pregnant instead of after..."

The closed library, already quiet, seemed to get quieter, the mint tea suddenly sour against Fluttershy's tongue. It was so hard to talk about this even to somepony who knew her secret! How would she ever be able to tell the others?!

"You're right," Twilight said, and the clench in Fluttershy's middle loosened a notch or two. "I'll help in any way I can."

"Next Saturday night." Applejack was using her 'take charge' voice, something that always made Fluttershy breathe easier. "We'll invite Rainbow, Rarity, and Pinkie on over here after supper, and us three'll let 'em know."

Looking up from her cup, Fluttershy blinked the shimmers from her eyes to see Twilight and Applejack both smiling at her. And that, she realized, was how she'd be able to do it Not by herself, but with her friends beside her.

***

The rest of the week, Discord did his best to lay low, usually stretching himself along the bottom of the stream that ran beside Fluttershy's cottage. He'd thought briefly about spending the time in the well at Sweet Apple Acres, the lowest point he knew in town, but the possibility of drawing Applejack's attention there quickly put the kibosh on that poetic little idea.

Quite a shame, too. He had so many other ideas he'd much rather have kiboshes piled upon. This whole 'being in love with Twilight Sparkle' thing, for instance. If ever an idea deserved a slow and suffocating death beneath a steaming pile of kiboshes—

Of course, thinking her name sent sounds and images rippling through him, all of them entirely inappropriate: the way her face would light up when he offered her a particularly tasty morsel of abstruse physics; the sweet jasmine scent of her joy; the delight in her voice when she would—

"Gah!" He burst from the bottom of the stream and sliced himself like an eel of some sort through the cascading net of air molecules. He should be imagining himself swooping down upon her, ravaging her, defiling her, forcing her to scream in a combination of agony and ecstasy till she was begging him both to stop and to keep going! He should be tearing out fistfuls of that soft, fragrant mane, should be smearing kohl an inch-and-a-half thick around those sweet, expressive eyes, should be dressing her in spiked leather with matching leash and collar so he could parade her through the streets of Canterlot! He was Discord, wasn't he?!

Except— "You doing what's expected now, Discord?" Applejack had asked, and Discord flung himself away from Fluttershy's cottage, flashed through the evening sky to the center of town, wrapped himself fluttering like a banner around the flagpole atop city hall. There were so many things in the world that he didn't want—to be predictable; to be turned to stone again; to care for creatures other than himself; to find himself in a situation where the word 'eleemosynary' might be spoken in his presence—that disdain and disregard were second nature to him. But actually wanting things? How did that even work?!

Flapping from the flagpole, he found his attention drawn to the lights of the library tree, and one or two of his inner voices piped up with the information that during the few times he'd come up from the bottom of the stream to get some sandwiches this past week, Fluttershy had been fretting about some sort of meeting she and Applejack were organizing at the library tonight.

He almost popped in to see how things were getting on, but the thought of gazing upon Twilight Sparkle twisted his guts—and not in the ways he enjoyed, either. Best to just stay put and hope she walked by a window or something so he could leer at her. Even though several of his voices informed him that they wouldn't feel right about doing that, which was so absolutely wrong in every respect that he—

The library's front door slammed open. Discord craned himself forward, but the pony who came galloping out was white, the purple mane and tail streaming out behind her not the correct shade of purple. She raced past city hall below him, and tears seemed to be welling around the edges of her clenched eyelids.

How curious...

3 - Charm

For all that Fluttershy hated words—

Not that she did hate them, of course. Not really. She realized that they were good and useful tools. Very much like hammers, in fact, she found herself thinking.

Especially since, well, whenever she tried to use either words or hammers, it seemed, she just ended up hurting herself or somepony else.

But for all her mixed feelings about words—yes, that was a nicer way of putting it—the silence in the library right then? It was hundreds of times worse than any words could ever have been. Even compared to the other silences that had fallen over the group this evening, this current silence was in a horrible, horrible class by itself.

Those earlier silences had followed Applejack and Twilight explaining everything about Fluttershy's biology to their other three friends—quite clearly and calmly and completely, Fluttershy thought. And yes, Applejack had called it 'her condition,' which Fluttershy thought made it sound like she was sick, while Twilight had called it that whole long name she'd discovered during her research, the name that Fluttershy didn't much like because it had the word 'insensitivity' in it and Fluttershy had always thought of herself as being overly sensitive if she was anything—

But they were just words, she kept telling herself. Just big, heavy, hammer-like words.

Still, the silence that had immediately followed all those words hadn't lasted long enough to become unbearable. "Wow!" Pinkie had piped up, her eyes spinning like pinwheels in the glance Fluttershy had dared to raise from the surface of Twilight's table. "You mean all this time, Fluttershy's been hiding a—?!"

"Wiggler," Applejack had said quickly and firmly, Fluttershy huddling against her and trying not to fall over. "We calls it her li'l wiggler."

Pinkie had squealed. "I'll just bet you do! And how cute is that?!"

That had led into another bit of silence, Fluttershy's breaths getting raggedier and raggedier. Then she'd heard Rainbow say, "OK," and just that tiny word had sent Fluttershy's insides spinning till she'd thought she was either going to faint or throw up. "This is gonna sound weird, Fluttershy," Dashie had gone on, "and I wanna say I'm, like, totally happy that you and Applejack are together. But, I mean, c'mon! If you'd told me about this dick of yours back when we were in school, think of the fun we coulda had!"

From the end of the table, Twilight had cleared her throat. "Not entirely appropriate, Rainbow."

"I'm just saying!"

The silence after that had stretched long and deep, broken at last by Rarity coughing, a sound as delicate and brittle as spun glass shattering. "Yes. Well. I find that I have nothing to say at the present time."

Fluttershy had darted a glance over, but when she'd seen the white rim around Rarity's eyes and smelled the sour stink of panic worming through her friend's usual honeysuckle scent, Fluttershy had been completely unable to stifle a cry; turning, she'd buried her face in Applejack's chest, her marefriend's strong forelegs closing around her.

"But I'll be all right!" Rarity's exclamations had sounded muffled, like Fluttershy's ears had suddenly become stuffed with cotton. "I merely...merely need to think, to digest, to comb through—" Her words had choked off before returning rougher and with a higher pitch to them. "Tell me you're joking! Please, somepony tell me this is a—!" Another choke had brought Rarity's voice somewhat closer to normal. "I'll be all right! I will! I just— Fluttershy, you and Applejack must come by the shop tomorrow afternoon, say, fivish. I...I'll be all right by then, I promise, but right now, I...I just need to...to—" Hoofbeats against the wooden floor, the creak and crash of the library door bursting open, then faster hoofbeats off down the street and away.

And that? That was when the current silence had fallen, the thickest, awfulest silence Fluttershy had ever heard.

Twilight's sigh drifted over to her. "She'll be all right. I mean, she said so, didn't she?"

A ruffle of Rainbow's wings. "Well, you gotta admit: it's kind of a lot to take in."

Pinkie gave an unmistakable giggle. "Though I'll bet it's not too much for Applejack to take in!"

Fluttershy heard Twilight gasp, but a tickle in her own middle made Fluttershy cough out something almost like a laugh.

"Hey!" Rainbow was shouting. "I totally didn't mean for it to come out like that!"

"Really?" Pinkie's giggles got bubblier. "'Cause that's exactly what Fluttershy said, too!"

"Pinkie!" Twilight started, but Fluttershy couldn't contain that tickle, had to let it out, had to let herself laugh at what actually was kind of a funny joke.

"Honeycomb?" Applejack asked above her. "You OK?"

Not wanting to pull away from Applejack's solid warmth, Fluttershy put her front hoofs around Applejack, pushed with her back hoofs, and slid herself up Applejack's chest till she was looking straight into those beautiful but startled green eyes. She leaned forward to give Applejack a kiss, then turned so she could see her other friends, Twilight's expression concerned, Rainbow's confused, and Pinkie's just as silly and joyful as always. "It's why Applejack calls me her honeycomb," Fluttershy told them, love and pride giving her strength. "'Cause I've got this sweet little stinger tucked away just for her."

What little silence had a chance to form then was quickly smashed to pieces: Dashie snorted; Twilight gave a hicuppy sort of snicker; Pinkie let fly a full-throated guffaw; and Applejack's gorgeous deep chuckle ran through Fluttershy's body as refreshing as a glass of cold milk on an empty stomach.

"There we go!" Pinkie waved her hoofs, confetti scattering from them. "That's what I wanna hear!"

The air seemed less solid in Fluttershy's lungs, her three friends smiling. Then Applejack was shifting behind her. "You girls gonna be OK with this? 'Cause soon as we have this wedding in two weeks, me and Fluttershy are gonna start working on getting me in a family way, if y'know what I mean, and, well, we didn't want it taking y'all by surprise...."

"Family?" Rainbow's eyes were as wide as her grin. "Since it means we getta be aunts, then yeah, you better believe I'm all right with this!"

Fluttershy couldn't keep from glancing at the door, though, and Applejack's hoofs moved to hold her tighter. "Rarity's tough," Applejack said quietly. "She needs to have her tizzy fit, but she'll be back to her good ol' self when we call on her tomorrow."

The other girls were nodding, but Fluttershy shivered when she noticed how the silence had crept back into the room. Still, she swallowed and made herself nod, too.

***

From his perch atop the city hall flagpole, Discord watched Rarity gallop through the door of the Carousel Boutique, felt the air slosh around him like so much water when she slammed that door behind her, and cocked his head at the cacophony of voices that always echoed around inside him.

Most were singing variations on the same theme: It's not our problem. But that even a few of his voices were forming a counter-melody about being interested in the prissy little marshmallow—a few were even radiating concern, a concept Discord had only recently discovered and still wasn't sure he approved of—just intrigued him too much to ignore.

A snap of his lion claws, and he was straightening to his full height on Rarity's doorstep. He considered for a moment donning full evening wear—tuxedo, opera hat, gloves, spats, bouquet of posies, et cetera—but opted for the direct approach instead: pulling his eyeballs from his head, he thrust them and his paws between the vibrating molecules of the door's atomic structure till he had popped them out on the other side and was able to get a view of the shop's interior.

Rarity was lying disheveled as a dishrag over one of her several sofas, her hoofs across her face though she didn't seem to be crying. Not stopping to think—when had he ever, after all?—Discord shoved his head through the door, squished his eyes back into place, and called out, "No, no, Purity, darling! Don't get up! I'll show myself in!"

He oozed around the whizzing electron orbits and stepped more-or-less complete onto the carpeting, the seamstress snapping him a startled look. "Discord?! What...what are you doing here?!"

All the smart-mouthed answers that began cascading through his brain, he suddenly felt, wouldn't be nearly as much fun as telling her the truth. "I was hanging from the roof of city hall," he said, flicking his talons in that general direction, "when I saw you run out of the library with fluids leaking from you. I assume this has to do with the fluids that occasionally leak from Fluttershy?" He touched a claw to his chin. "Though 'spurt' would likely be a better word, wouldn't it?"

"Stop!" She reacted as if some of those fluids were pooling on the floor, he thought, her eyes squinching shut, her hoofs convulsively drawing up to curl her into a shivering little pile of pony. "Of all the grotesque abominations I've been subjected to today, you, sirrah, are the most of both!"

"Grotesque abominations?!" Several of Discord's inner voice set up a ferocious howling. "Are you referring even obliquely to my dear friend Shutterfly?"

Rarity made a sound very nearly as ferocious as the ones in his head. "Get outta my house!"

"What?!" He swooped to her side, delicately set his eagle claw on the nearest of her hoofs that he could find. "I shall certainly not abandon you in your hour of need! Especially since what you seem to need is a good kick upside the head!"

"You vile monstrosity!" She whirled on her sofa and thrust her snout into his face as sharply as a dagger. "You dare bring your foul self into my presence when I've just discovered that one of my best friends in the world is...is—?!"

"The exact same pony you've known for all these years?" He decided not to plant a kiss between those narrowed eyes in such a way that a small cherry tree would take root and grow there; instead, he leaned back into the hammock that had sprouted from his tail. "And while I certainly don't find any real enjoyment in all the sameness around here, you ponies seem quite partial to it." He fixed his gaze on hers. "Or am I mistaken, Miss Purity?"

The rage radiating from her seemed to make her hover above the sofa, and if her head had been a pot of cabbage soup—a transformative idea Discord discarded almost immediately—said pot would've been close to boiling. Everything cooled as he watched, however, each breath she took settling her till she was merely simmering. "The name," she said, her voice still tightly clenched, "is Rarity." She flopped backwards onto the cushions, her front legs folded across her chest, her glare focused so white-hot on him, Discord was sure he could feel it. "And you can leave at any time, you know!"

"Oh, but Charity!" He batted his eyelids at her, even let them become actual tiny bats for a moment so they could swoop around his head and plunge into his ears. "I'm supposed to learn more about proper behavior, aren't I? And how can I possibly do that without observing the way all my new pony friends behave?" He settled deeper into the hammock, summoned up a quill pen and a piece of parchment. "Now, would you say that this new knowledge you've gained about Fluttershy's anatomy: a) disgusts you, b) activates your latent penis envy, c) makes you realize you're madly in love with her, or d)—"

"None of the above!" The keen-edged yet wrinkled look she was giving him, he wanted to tell her, was really a great deal more becoming than the usual plastic phoniness she reveled in. "And if you knew the first thing about friendship, you'd understand what I'm going through!"

"Well?" He spread his front paws. "Teach me tonight!"

For an instant, he was sure she was going to refuse even this appeal to the generosity that had made her so attractive to her now-departed Element. But then—

Something almost appeared to deflate inside her, her eyes going dark and focusing on nothing, her words coming out as more a whisper than anything else. "From the moment I first glimpsed Fluttershy drifting through the skies above Ponyville, I saw her as...an ideal, I suppose. She was grace and poise and gentleness and beauty: femininity incarnate, if you will. She became my template, the target toward which I could aim."

She rolled her head to look at him, and the honesty Discord saw in her face almost made him shrink back for fear that it might be contagious. "The layers of spackle in which I cover myself each day are my attempts to replicate the appearance that comes so naturally to Fluttershy, and while I know I shall never attain that look, having her before me as an example just reinforced the idea that such perfection was indeed possible." She turned to face the emptiness in front of her again. "And now..."

Her words trailed away, so Discord decided he'd better jump in. "And now, you don't have to worry about it anymore! The wonderful mixture of odds and ends that constitute our friend Stuttercry is entirely her own and unique! All that pressure you were feeling is finally off!"

Yet another expression came over her, another layer of her veneer stripping away and showing Discord a creature he was suddenly very glad no longer had the ability to turn him to stone. "But I want the pressure, don't you see? I want to face the impossible and bring it to heel with nothing but the sweat of my brow and the skill of my hoofs! I want Fluttershy above me as an unreachable goal! Although..." Rarity chuckled, and most of her previous layers seemed to close back in around her. "Learning that it's her mysterious biology that makes her look the way she does perhaps just serves to raise the goal even higher." She actually smiled. "And that's something I always want..."

Discord couldn't keep from snorting. "Want." He rolled the word around on his tongue like a frozen chunk of salt-water taffy. "Since my reformation began, I've all too often been confronted with the idea of wanting things that I just can't have, and I must say that I don't care for it."

"You?" Rarity gave a snort of her own, and Discord felt quietly pleased: he couldn't imagine her daring to make such a noise around any of her pony friends. "What about this vaunted chaos magic of yours? Are you no longer able to snap your claws and make anything appear?"

Cocking an eyebrow, he snapped and settled them at a small wicker table, sand on one side, water on the other, an umbrella of palm fronds between them and the blue, blue sky. A sturdily-built earth pony in flowered shorts stepped up beside them, the tray balanced across his back holding two coconuts with straws sticking out. "Any other questions?" Discord asked while the waiter placed the coconuts on the bamboo coasters in front of them.

He watched Rarity's blinking eyes glance around at the tropical splendor till they came to rest on the hindquarters of the departing waiter. "Well, now!" She reached for the nearest coconut. "Quite the charming spot."

"So there's this sort of thing, of course," Discord went on, ignoring the way that every voice in every corner of his entire body began shouting No! in a lovely dissonant squall. "And then there's something like, oh, I don't know, let's say—completely hypothetically, of course—something like me falling in love with Twilight Sparkle."

Rarity, sipping at whatever amber-colored fluid filled the coconut, suddenly went all bulgy-eyed and bulgy-cheeked, choking and spraying liquid across the table. "You what?!"

Sighing, Discord snapped them back to the tailor shop. "Honestly! I can't take you anywhere, can I?"

She was staring at him like he was, well, like he was a semi-mythical being who'd just flipped her back and forth from one pony realm to another. "You?!" Her voice cracked and squeaked. "In love with Twilight?!"

"So I've been told." The screaming all up and down his interior made him slump a bit; the constant shriek of it just got so wearying at times... "I'm not sure myself, but Applejack's convinced, and I must admit that, when our latest pony princess and I are spinning along through the more abstruse aspects of reality, there's something going on between us. It's almost as if being with her—" He shuddered, his bones clattering like he'd swallowed a barrel of castanets, something he'd sworn long ago never to do again. "—almost as if she makes me happy."

"All right, now." Rarity was sitting very still on her sofa. "Let's not fly into a panic. After all—" Her eyes narrowed. "This might just be a trick you're playing to focus my attention on something other than Fluttershy, mightn't it?"

And for the first time in his long and convoluted life, when Discord said, "I never thought of that," he actually meant it. It was such a cheering idea, he grabbed at it like the ponies he used to watch drowning in whipped cream would grab for the giant floating cherries he would lob at them as they were going down for the third time. "Could I really be making this whole embarrassing situation up just to help my dear friend Clarity with her problem that isn't really any sort of a problem at all?"

"My name—" she began, but then she stopped, her mouth going sideways. "You're stickier and more intricately-spun than a spider's web, aren't you?"

He fluttered his eyelashes at her, but his heart wasn't in it, a phrase he'd never before had occasion to float across the hot and fetid morass of his mind. He almost reached into his chest to see if his heart was actually still there, but Rarity continuing to speak distracted him.

"I'll say thank you, though, for reminding me that things can not only change while staying the same but can also stay the same while changing." She blinked. "Which made a great deal more sense in my head than it did when spoken aloud."

Blowing out a breath, Discord waved his arms. "Yes, yes, yes! But how does this help me with my problem that is actually a problem?!"

She pressed her front hoofs together. "You just leave that to me, darling." And the half-lidded look she gave him over the top of her steepled hoofs made his wings turn to stone and crash to the floor behind him.

***

There were tears at Rarity's the next afternoon, but like Applejack had figured, they were the good kind insteada the bad kind. In fact, the first couple minutes had so much hugging and crying and apologizing flowing back and forth 'tween Fluttershy and Rarity, AJ finally had to put a little bit of a hoof down. "Reckon I oughtta call in the weather team here? Maybe get these durn cloudbursts cleared up?"

Like Pinkie'd showed the night before, humor seemed to get ev'rypony back in more productive spirits, and pretty soon, Fluttershy was all ooos and ahhhs over Rarity's final dress designs, both gowns way frillier'n anything Applejack woulda wanted, but, well, if it made her honeycomb light up the way she was right now, then it was altogether fine with AJ.

"Although..." Rarity said, her ears folding a mite before springing back into place. "Last night after Discord helped shove me from the puddle I was wallowing in—"

"Discord?" Applejack asked the same time as Fluttershy; Fluttershy then went on: "He helped you?"

Rarity nodded. "Quite substantially, to tell the truth." She reached across the dress drawings and patted Fluttershy's hoof. "You're doing a marvelous job with him, you know."

A little frown inched over Fluttershy's face. "He's been so moody lately, I was afraid he'd been getting into mischief."

"Not at all." Rarity shot a cocked-eyebrow look at Applejack. "We had quite an interesting talk on friendship and the ways in which it can change without changing."

Blinking at her, AJ suddenly realized what she was talking about: Discord musta told Rarity something about how he was feeling toward Twilight.

Of course, in all the wedding hubbub this week, Applejack hadn't actually gotten 'round to telling Fluttershy about any of that, which got an ice-wedge of guilt jabbing into AJ's stomach. But the next minute, Rarity was waving it all away with a flick of her hoof. "The important part here is that after he left, I couldn't stop thinking about...well, about the two of you. About Applejack, the sturdy, rough, and plain-spoken farmer pony, and Fluttershy with your...your..." She shook her head, her horn glowing, another roll of paper sliding across the table. "Well, I'll not apologize for the designs because I think you'd look simply smashing in them!"

They were sketchy, of course, two figures in these fitted, white swallow-tailed coats with kinda poofy shirts underneath. "A light cotton weave for the jackets," Rarity was saying, "buttoned over ruffled silk tunics dyed to match your partner's coloration. Simple, elegant, and chic." Another smaller piece of paper floated over to rest above the picture of the pony wearing the yellow shirt. "With a matching hat in one case, of course."

"Sold," Applejack said without even thinking. 'Cause it was pretty near perfect, plain and fancy at the same time and so much more her than the gowns Rarity had been showing 'em this whole time, Applejack could already see herself wearing it.

She looked over at Fluttershy, though, and every good feeling inside her crumbled at the quivery look on that gorgeous face. "But...," her honeycomb squeaked, her hoofs coming up to clutch at the first drawing. "My beautiful, beautiful dress..."

Applejack sprang forward to nuzzle her neck. "Will still be your dress, darling. When I think of you done up in that outfit, I can't hardly keep my heart from busting out and zipping 'round the room like a starling. But—" She stepped back, took a stance on Rarity's carpet, her spine straight, her chest out, her head held high. "Can't you see me in that jacket, honeycomb? In that swell white hat with your perfect yellow-colored hatband and shirt?" She fixed as smoldering a gaze on Fluttershy as she could manage. "Can't you?" she muttered.

Fluttershy's eyes went wide, then began shifting back and forth from the drawing to Applejack and back again. "Oh, my," she said with a blush, and Applejack could barely keep from asking Rarity to excuse the two of them for an hour or so.

Still, she managed to keep herself under control, and they agreed: the dress for Fluttershy, the jacket and hat for Applejack. "Perfect!" Rarity clapped her hoofs together. "Pinkie and I, then, will be your bridesmares, Applejack, but we shall wear variations on Fluttershy's gown while Rainbow Dash and Discord, standing at Fluttershy's side, will have jackets similar to yours but with rose-colored waistcoats instead of tunics!" The glint that came into her eye then, well, AJ had learned long ago to steer clear of her when she was looking like that. "This will be the finest work I have ever created!"

"Well, all righty!" Applejack put a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder. "We'll leave you to it."

Of course, it took another bushelfulla minutes to even get to the door what with them thanking Rarity and her thanking them and Fluttershy and Rarity coming all over teary-eyed and huggy again. Still, AJ eventually managed to herd her honeycomb outside into the early evening, Fluttershy all floating smiles and clouds of joy, her hoofs hardly touching the ground once the whole way back to Sweet Apple Acres. "Oh, Applejack!" she all but sang more'n once along the road. "We have the most wonderful friends! And this is the most wonderful town! And you are the most wonderful marefriend any girl has ever had!"

"I won't have you selling yourself short in the marefriend department, honeycomb," AJ kept saying, and it musta been the right answer 'cause it got her a giggle and a kiss ev'ry time.

They had early Sunday supper with the family, Apple Bloom and Mac hurrying a bit as the one had a date with the Crusaders and the other a slightly different sorta date with Cheerilee. Then Granny shuffled off to her knitting, and after AJ and Fluttershy did the dishes, Fluttershy swooping from cabinet to cabinet to put ev'rything away, they retired to the sitting room and their task for the evening: wedding invitations.

AJ had tried to talk Fluttershy outta this whole rigmarole last week: "We ain't got time, honeycomb! We gotta let folks know quick as we can, else they might not be able to make it out here!"

"We'll have my bird friends carry short notes and reply cards to everypony on our list right now," Fluttershy had answered, her adamant tone more'n a little sexy, AJ'd thought. "Then we'll do the proper invitations."

All Applejack could do, of course, was grin and agree. So the birds had gone out, had been flooding back steadily all week, and now, looking at them fancy parchment and tissue paper doo-dads stacked on the sideboard, Applejack had to sigh away the guilt that rustled across her belly. 'Cause ev'ry name on their list, ev'ry name they'd sent birds to visit, ev'ry name they were gonna spend the next few hours inscribing onto those funny little envelopes, they were all Apple or Orange in one way or another. "It ain't fair," AJ couldn't help mumbling.

"Hmmm?" Fluttershy looked over from where she'd settled at the table, a quill pen in her teeth.

Applejack wanted to just shake her head and forget all about the cesspool of Fluttershy's immediate family, but— "You're positive there ain't cousins or great-aunts or anypony of yours we should be letting know about this?"

"Ummm..." Fluttershy blushed and tucked the quill back into the inkwell. "I...I actually have a confession to make, Applejack."

Panic replaced the guilt. "You—" She knew it weren't possible, not after ev'rything she'd seen during their trip to Manehattan. "You ain't telling me you sent invites to your folks, are you?"

"Oh, no!" A sour stink of fear wafted up, Fluttershy's wings pulling tight against her sides. "Not to Mom or Dad! I wouldn't! But..." She trailed off, her gaze dropping to the floor. "I...I've been sending letters to Burr every few days for the past couple of months, and I...I might've mentioned that we...that I wouldn't mind if...if he wanted to come."

"Burr." Part of Applejack wanted to start yelling, but she knew that wouldn't do one single bit of good. "Silver Burr. Your brother. The feller who near to called security on us when we went to see him."

Fluttershy's ears fell. "He hasn't answered a single one of my letters, but—" She looked up, her eyes wavering their perfect liquid aquamarine in the parlor light. "He's my brother, Applejack."

Which was all she needed to say; AJ rushed forward, pressed her cheek against Fluttershy's. "You're right, honeycomb. You're absolutely right." She scooped one invitation from the pile and set it aside. "Even if he ain't gonna come, we're by gum gonna invite him."

A happy little sigh, and hoofs wrapped around Applejack's barrel. "I love you," Fluttershy whispered, and the kiss they shared then, well, Applejack wouldn't've minded taking things a mite further along if'n she hadn'ta had her own piece of news.

"Actually," she managed to say when she and Fluttershy came up for air, "I reckon there's something I shoulda told you last week, too."

"Hmmmm?" Fluttershy was doing the most lusciously distracting things with her lips along Applejack's neck.

"It's just...about Discord. He—" AJ's voice dissolved as Fluttershy's teeth nibbled that sweet, sweet spot above her shoulder, but she persevered. "Reckon he's falling for Twilight."

The gorgeous fog of sensation bathing Applejack vanished like mist on a sunny morning, and she blinked, turned, found Fluttershy staring back at her, the fine hairs at the base of her mane standing on end. "Discord? In love with Twilight? Is...is that even possible?"

It took AJ another few seconds to make something sensible come outta her mouth. "Don't know as how Discord's got much to do with the word 'possible,' but if'n he was talking to Rarity, I reckon we'll all find out sooner rather'n later." She took a breath, the thunder of her blood filling her ears, the vision of her marefriend filling her eyes. "Gotta ask right now, though, honeycomb: we gonna be doing these invites, or we gonna be fooling around? 'Cause I'm leaning pretty far away from that first one right this minute."

A sly, sweet smile flowed over Fluttershy's lips; her wings folded open slowly, and Applejack found that she didn't quite remember how to breathe anymore. "Maybe," she heard Fluttershy say, her voice tickling Applejack's nerves like a summer breeze through wind chimes, "we could do the second one first and the first one second?"

Unable to stop a growl rumbling at the very bottom of her throat, Applejack leaped forward, scooped Fluttershy up in her front legs, and flew like no earth pony ever had across the room to deposit her on her back on the sofa. Fluttershy gave a giggling gasp, and her wings spread out beneath her in ways that stopped Applejack from thinking about anything else. "Sweet Mother of Mercy," she breathed out, then she slipped herself atop Fluttershy, tucked her snout into the crook of her neck, and began kissing as much of that gorgeous yellow hide as she could reach her lips to.

"Applejack!" Fluttershy's voice was getting a little breathy, too, AJ was excited to hear. "But...what if somepony comes in?!"

Hoisting herself up so she could grin at her shivery-eyed marefriend, Applejack shook her head. "They wouldn't dare."

Blushing and panting, Fluttershy had never looked more ravishing, and AJ gave another, more groaning sort of growl as her lacinia pulled open, so hot in there, she wouldn'ta been surprised if a cloud of steam had puffed out from between her hind legs. The familiar musk of her own arousal filled the air, and AJ almost squealed to hear Fluttershy gasp, to see her pupils go all big and black. A damp crinkling noise, and the gentle little prod of Fluttershy's wiggler against her nethers made Applejack's whole body twitch in wonderful anticipation.

She caught Fluttershy's lips with her own, poured ev'ry ounce of her love and her lust out over her marefriend, and had to groan again as Fluttershy returned her passion two or three times over, those hoofs closing tight around her back and those wings—oh, great blue sky above, those wings!—wrapping their warm, downy softness all up and down along her flanks. The prodding around her vulva got bigger and bigger, less and less gentle, and Applejack couldn't think, didn't have to think, didn't want to think: she shifted her hips, planted her back hoofs amongst the sofa cushions, raised herself up, and practically slammed herself down around Fluttershy's perfect hardness.

Fluttershy filled her—just filled her—everything inside Applejack opening to embrace her marefriend. Deeper and deeper she seemed to slide, Applejack locking her lips to Fluttershy's, plunging her front hoofs into that cascading mane and cradling her dearest, most wonderful darling. Then Fluttershy moved beneath her, pulled herself back along the walls of Applejack's interior, and AJ lit up like a starry sky after sunset, so many pure sensations flooding her.

'Cause there was nothing else but Fluttershy, wouldn't never be nothing else but Fluttershy. In her and around her and beside her, AJ's heart and mind and body all got to singing the same song, a song she hadn't ever heard so much as a note of before the stammering yellow pegasus had showed her her deepest, darkest secret and had brought such rays of sunlight into AJ's life, she was still stupidly, giddily happy all these months later, happy in ways she'd never suspected a pony could be.

Love, it was. And love it would be, a love that crackled now along her spine and sent her pumping herself faster and faster over Fluttershy, her honeycomb panting those gloriously enticing little gasps into Applejack's mouth. AJ sucked those breaths in eagerly, wanting to catch ev'ry mint and alfalfa scented puff, wanting to fill herself to the brim with ev'ry emanation from her lover's body, all of them adding and adding, growing and growing, rocketing her skyward in a tightening spiral with each up-and-down movement.

Higher and higher and vaster and vaster till Fluttershy cried out, hot and damp against Applejack's chin, her front hoofs and wings clenching. The thunderclap inside AJ took her completely over the edge, a rolling sea of ecstasy swallowing her and all her aches and all her pains, a cloudburst of joy washing her away with a laugh and a cheer and piercing, rending pleasure that said it to her in ways more profound than any words ever would:

This. Right here. Right now. With Fluttershy. All she would ever need.

Floating, then, no room left in her head for a single thought, she just felt all the Fluttershy ev'rywhere. Till some of that Fluttershy finally shrank from her insides and vanished with a tiny crinkling sound, and the breath against her cheek turned into soft little words: "Ummm, Applejack? We should probably get started on the invitations now...."

Which made her chuckle and nod, her forehead rubbing against the soft depths of Fluttershy's mane. "Always the practical one, ain'tcha, honeycomb?"

4 - Strange

The next Saturday, right smack dab in the middle of rearing back to buck the tree she'd set up in front of, the reality of the whole dang thing hit Applejack as hard as a hayloft collapsing.

Getting her bearings, shifting her weight forward, gathering herself for the actual kick, she caught a glimmer in the corner of her eye from the barn's little cupola, rising above the rows of trees between there and here. The late afternoon sunlight had glanced off the apple weather vane they'd salvaged from the barn before this one and the barn before that one and the barn before that all the way back to when Granny Smith's pappy musta clambered out onto the roof of the very first barn on the Acres and stuck the thing there.

Wunna the drawings of the wedding decorations flashed into AJ's head then—the little white top hat Pinkie was so excited about putting on toppa that ol' iron apple—

And quick as that, her knees went flabby, her front legs bending when they shoulda stayed straight and her hind legs lashing out all catawampus. They smacked into the trunk at just exactly the wrong angle, the force of the kick shooting back along her spine and snapping her teeth shut so hard, it rattled her eyeballs, burst the air from her lungs, and tipped her right over face first into the dirt.

"Whoa!" came a shout from above, and four familiar blue hoofs landed just past the end of her nose. "You OK, AJ?!"

Swallowing, Applejack stood, blinked at Dash blinking back at her. "Sweet Mother of Mercy," she somehow managed to say. "I'm getting married next week!"

The grin that spread over Dash's fool face was so rakish, AJ figured she coulda used it to clear the yard after the Running of the Leaves. "If you survive the bachelor party tonight, y'mean," the pegasus more purred than said.

Which washed all the wobbliness outta AJ right quick. "Consarn it, RD! I been telling you for two weeks! Nothing squalid or tawdry!"

"Ha!" Dash stomped the ground and flared her wings. "I don't even know the meaning of those words!"

"Exactly!" Leaning forward, Applejack jabbed a hoof against Dash's chest. "So help me, if'n I glimpse hide or hair of any stripper, either stallion or mare; if'n I catch even one whiff from some lewd cake Pinkie Pie's put together; if'n I hear anything—"

"Relax, AJ." Dash's grin lost its more cringe-inducing edges. "It's Fluttershy's bachelorette party, too, so Pinkie and me decided to keep everything pretty low-key."

And as much as Applejack wanted to believe it... "Low-key for you and Pinkie? Or low-key for ponies who still might have a sense of decency left?"

Dash's eyes narrowed. "OK, that? A little uncalled for."

Grinding her teeth, AJ took a deep, slow breath and blew it out. "You're right. It weren't fair, and I'm sorry. I just—" She took another breath thinking it might steady her but wasn't too surprised when it didn't. "Me and Fluttershy! Getting married! A week from now!" She had to stop herself from grabbing Dash's shoulders and shaking her. "How in the black, inky bowels of Tartarus does a thing like that happen, huh? How do I end up being the luckiest mare in Equestria?"

A wistful look wavered across Dash's snout for the teensiest piece of a second: AJ was pretty sure she wouldn't even have seen it if'n she hadn't been standing with her face near to pressed into Rainbow's. But then Dash was tossing her head, puffing out a barn-buster of a sigh, turning away, and heading through the trees. "I'm gonna need a lot more cider in me, cowgirl, before I feel qualified to get into all this philosophy junk." She looked back over her shoulder, all brash and smiling again. "You coming? If you're tardy for your own bachelor party, Twilight might not let you get married."

Chuckling, Applejack moved to her side, and the two of them started for the main gate and the road into town. "So how come I gets the bachelor party and Fluttershy gets the bachelorette party, huh?" She made her accent as thick as tule fog in an upland holler. "Ain't I ladylike enough for y'all?"

"Yeah, right." Dash nudged her with an elbow. "Maybe Shy's got the equipment, but anypony with half a brain knows who's the stallion with you two."

"I dunno." Applejack let her mind wander back to those rare but wonderful times when her honeycomb would agree to wear the hat, either literally or metaphorically. "Reckon you'd be surprised how 'take charge' she can be when she's of a mind to."

"OK. First rule?" A sour, uncomfortable smell had crept into Dash's usual flowing water scent. "From now on, you never get to say anything that makes me imagine you and Fluttershy—" Her voice jittered to a stop, her ears flicking down, and she swallowed so loud, Applejack could hear it gurgle. "I'm gonna need that cider sooner insteada later!"

"Excuse me?" And as much as AJ didn't wanna be nasty about it, she plum couldn't stop herself. "After all the double entendres and innuendo I've had to put up with from you for however long you been hanging around—"

"Oh, and second rule? You don't get to gloat about first rule."

Well, that led to Applejack saying as how she'd be happy to follow these new rules if Rainbow agreed to foalsit any one night of the week for free, and that led to Dash rattling off a whole 'nother set of rules about where and when she'd be willing and able to perform her duties as 'Aunt Rainbow.' More banter followed that, and before AJ even knew it, they were crossing over into town, the flippety-flopping in her middle gone to nothing. Walking with Rainbow like this, it mighta been any Saturday evening the past five or six years insteada the night of the party celebrating her upcoming wedding.

Smiling, she leaned a nudge into Dash's shoulder. "Thanks," was all she figured she could say without getting too blubbery.

Rainbow tossed her head. "Yeah, it doesn't matter who's getting married: we all know who the best mare is around here."

That deserved a little more'n a nudge, and AJ was happy to deliver it, the two properly squabbling as they came 'round the last corner to Carousel Boutique, the place lit up like Granny Smith's last birthday cake, some nice 'n' mellow fiddle music floating out the doors and windows.

"Well, now." Applejack had to stop, push her hat back, and take it all in. "This shin-dig's seeming downright civilized."

"Like I said." Dash slid a front hoof smoothly through the air. "Low-key. C'mon!"

Inside, the place looked just exactly right: enough streamers and balloons so a pony'd know it was a Pinkie Pie party, sure, but the sandwiches and cakes and linen and doilies all matched the genteel music coming from Rarity's sound system. Not to mention how the simple, summery sort of dress Fluttershy was wearing at the table beside Rarity and Twilight made ev'ry last bit of moisture dry right outta Applejack's body in sheer wonderment.

"Sweet Mother of Mercy," she couldn't keep from muttering. How in the bright blue above was a pony like that having anything at all to do with a pony like her?

Dash's elbow jabbed her ribs. "Looks like you could use a little cider yourself."

"A double." Feeling like she was walking into somepony else's dream, AJ hadn't even taken a step forward when Fluttershy turned away from listening to whatever Rarity was saying, her gaze meeting Applejack's, and—

The way her honeycomb absolutely lit up made AJ rethink whose dream this might be. "Applejack!" Fluttershy sang it like she was about to kick off a musical number, but Applejack didn't feel one bit disappointed when she didn't: she leaped into the air instead, swooped all lacey silk and feathers across the table, and nigh to wrapped herself around AJ's barrel, Applejack's ev'ry nerve firing into overdrive at the touch of those lips against hers. "Isn't it wonderful? Oh, this is going to be the nicest party anypony's ever had!"

"You betcha-rooty!" Pinkie called from somewhere, AJ's vision clearing enough to show the earth pony bouncing up and down behind Fluttershy. "And if you like your parties a little more rambunctious—" She gestured to the Boutique's open back door. "We've got that covered, too!"

That got a shiver running through Applejack, but Pinkie's grin didn't have a shadow of lasciviousness about it; figuring she owed her friends a smidgeon of trust, she followed Pinkie, hopping to the doorway like some giant pink rabbit, and peered outside.

Spike and Discord were standing there in black-and-white striped shirts, Discord with a whistle around his neck. Waggling his eyebrows at her, he grabbed the whistle, puffed out a blast like a steam locomotive, snapped his lion paw, and AJ felt her jaw drop as a scaled-down rodeo stadium burst into place in the field behind Carousel Boutique.

"Y'know," Dash said behind her, and Applejack looked back, the pegasus polishing the edge of a front hoof against her chest, two big mugs of cider on the ground beside her. "In case you might wanna—oh, I dunno—play a game or something."

AJ coulda hugged her, but decided instead to grab wunna the mugs. "Horseshoes first." She took a swig of that cool, sweet tartness and waited for Rainbow to do the same before she added, "Reckon you might have a chance at that."

If'n it'd been anything other than cider, AJ reckoned from the cross-eyed, puff-cheeked look on Dash's face that ev'rything in fronta them woulda been dripping with a fine spray mist. But it was cider, and Dash nigh to flipped herself over backwards to keep her lips shut, her whole throat bulging to swallow the stuff. "Uh-huh," Dash said after a highly entertaining few seconds, her scratchy voice even scratchier. "Y'know, as my friend Rarity has remarked on more than one occasion—" She jabbed a hoof three times into Applejack's chest. "It. Is. On."

And, oh, how it was; AJ couldn't remember the last time her and Dash had just squared off and played that way. Folks walking along the street past Rarity's in the long spring evening stopped to watch and cheer, and the resta the girls came out, too, Twilight floating a table so they could sit with their tea and whatnot—though Pinkie got 'em up hooting and hollering quick enough, waving pom-poms and flags and all. Spike did a fine job officiating, but Discord got a mite more involved. Stopping the action with a blast of his whistle ev'ry now and again, he would announce, "The next three shots from each competitor must be made blindfolded!" or "This particular race is to be run backwards!"

"Discord!" Spike kept saying with a different sort of sigh each time. "That's not what referees do!"

To which Discord would reply with a wave of his claws, "My stadium, my rules!"

In all honestly, though, Applejack didn't mind it a bit—made the whole thing more of a challenge—till Discord straight up refused to let them play Ups 'n' Downs. "I'm sorry," he said, folding his arms and looking away, his chin upraised, "but in some things, I'm a classicist. And the very concept of one-on-one Ups 'n' Downs makes my heart spin and spasm in its grave." He grabbed the lapels of his ref's shirt like he was gonna rip it open, a huge smile unzipping along his face. "Here! I'll show you!"

Spike's spines bristled. "Nopony wants to see that!" he shouted; then in a calmer voice, "But he does have a point. Ups 'n' Downs really oughtta have teams."

"Oooo!" Pinkie squealed from the sidelines. Sprinting over, she slid on her knees in front of Applejack, one front hoof waving frantically. "Pick me! Pick me!"

"Aw, yeah!" Dash stomped the ground. "Ups 'n' Downs doesn't get more classic than earth ponies versus pegasi!" She waved to the other three. "C'mon, Fluttershy! Let's you and me show 'em how we did it back in flight school!"

"Ummm..." Fluttershy shrank into her mane just a bit. "I was never very good at it back in flight school, actually...."

"What?!" Leaping into the air, Dash scowled down at Applejack. "Fine! I'll take the two of you on by myself!"

"Rainbow?" came Twilight's voice, and AJ looked over to see her glowing all purple; closing her eyes, Twilight stepped sideways, leaving the dress floating there, and spread her wings. "I'm not familiar with the game, but if you explain it to me, I'll be happy to give it a try."

Since it was just Ups 'n' Downs, it didn't take long to run through the basics, and the match they had after that, well, AJ wouldn't've ever before even considered calling a silly little ball game like Ups 'n' Downs epic. But with Twilight's head for strategy and Pinkie's ability to see where things were going before the things themselves even knew they were going that way, Applejack found herself scrambling and leaping, tumbling and blocking, throwing and catching and laughing her fool head off for she didn't even know how long.

Still, the sun had gone down when Discord whistled the end of the game. And with her friends whooping around her—and a fair percentage, she reckoned, of the town standing 'round the edges of the field doing the same—Applejack whooped right back, her smile widening as she realized she hadn't so much as glanced at the scoreboard since the game had begun.

***

It was love at first sight, Fluttershy's breath catching in her throat as she lifted the dress, green and light and airy as a summer afternoon, from the box that had floated into the cottage just ahead of Rarity. "Oh, it's perfect!"

"How could it be otherwise?" The outfit Rarity was wearing had been designed along similar lines, Fluttershy could see, but it was paler, more a reflection of Fluttershy's dress than something meant to stand on its own. "Two of my best friends in all the world are having their bachelor and bachelorette parties at my home and place of business." Rarity gave a crisp nod. "Today, everything will run smoothly and perfectly, or I shall know the reason why."

Taking a few moments to savor the act of slipping the dress on, Fluttershy followed Rarity out into the late afternoon and couldn't keep a skip out of her step: in fact, she didn't want to keep the skip out. For nearly the first time in her life, she hoped ponies would see her, hoped they'd notice her as she and Rarity trotted into town. "We need a brass band," she found herself saying, "with Pinkie right in front twirling a baton or playing the bagpipes! And Rainbow Dash and Twilight overhead doing loop-de-loops! Then you and I—" Turning her skip into a strut, she kicked her knees up, threw her head back, and puffed out her chest. "We'd march and dance and promenade from one end of Main Street to the other!"

Rarity's giggle stabbed Fluttershy's ears, but before self-consciousness could make her collapse upon herself, she felt Rarity pressing in beside her. "Brass band? Ha!" White and silver flashes caught the corner of Fluttershy's eye, and she glanced over to see Rarity matching her strut stride for stride. "As if we needed any such accoutrements! The two of us are more than enough of a parade on our own!"

Fluttershy's heart soared again, and with many a wave and a nod to the ponies who gaped and grinned at them, she and Rarity paraded laughing all the way to Carousel Boutique.

Inside, Pinkie was having Twilight fasten one last streamer in exactly the right place on the ceiling, and Fluttershy couldn't keep from leaping up to hug Twilight, then dropping back down to hug Pinkie, the two of them wearing dresses that exactly complemented hers. "Thank you so much for all this!" she said into Pinkie's tangle of a mane.

"It's our pleasure," Twilight answered from behind her.

Pinkie gave her a solid squeeze. "This is gonna be the specialest week we've any of us ever had, and it's all because of you and Applejack!" Then suddenly, Fluttershy was hugging empty air, Pinkie's voice coming from across the room. "Ooo! And wait'll you see what Discord's got planned!"

Turning, she saw Pinkie way over by the back door, Twilight also looking at her, a spider-web thin frown stretching across her face. "Is Discord out there?" Looking over her shoulder at Fluttershy, Twilight started toward Pinkie. "What's up with him lately? I mean, he usually stops by the library to talk during the week, but I haven't seen him since—"

"Ah." Rarity stepped up to Twilight's side, nodded to Fluttershy, then gestured to one of the tables set up in Carousel Boutique's showroom. "Perhaps before Applejack and Rainbow arrive, we could have a little chat about Discord."

A chill trembled through Fluttershy. Almost as soon as Applejack had mentioned last week that Discord might be falling in love with Twilight, Fluttershy had decided that she really didn't want to think about that. So she'd dusted off the avoidance skills she'd developed to survive growing up around the passive aggression of her mother and brother and the more active aggression of her father and had simply refused to think about it. Still, if Rarity was going to talk about it now, Fluttershy would do what she could to help.

Fluttershy followed her two friends over to the table. "The thing is," Rarity began, the glow of her horn raising a teapot and pouring them all a cup—

But that was when Applejack and Rainbow came in, and seeing her marefriend with the light from behind gleaming off her hair and shoulders, so beautiful and relaxed and joking with Dashie, Fluttershy felt like she did when her butterfly friends would swoop up and around her, all tickly and floating and happy. This, though, was even happier than that, and the next thing she knew, she was kissing Applejack and hugging her and telling her how wonderful everything was.

Then Pinkie called them out back and Discord made this whole arena appear and Spike had the cutest little referee's shirt and everything got even more wonderful. Fluttershy couldn't look away from Applejack enjoying herself with a heavy emphasis on the 'joy,' couldn't help murmuring, "Oh, my," her mind full of wonder that a pony like that would want anything to do with a pony like her...

And yes, Fluttershy had to admit, she did actually look away from Applejack a few times over the next several hours: when Twilight floated their table out so they could settle in to watch more comfortably; when Pinkie got them all up to help with the cheerleading; and at some point while it was just her and Pinkie at the sidelines waving their pom-poms, she glanced over to see Rarity talking to Twilight, the alicorn's wide eyes darting back and forth between Rarity and Discord out on the field. So she guessed Twilight was finally hearing all about whatever was going on there.

Not long after that, Pinkie and Twilight went out to join in the game of Up 'n' Downs, and Fluttershy retired to the table where Rarity was clapping her hoofs and shouting encouragement. During one of the time-outs, though, Rarity leaned over and whispered, "Two o'clock tomorrow afternoon at the library: will you be available?"

Fluttershy blinked and nodded, then the game was back on, Rarity calling out, "Don't settle for a half-goal, Rainbow! Go for the full-point conversion!"

Things got fairly exciting right around sundown: the last minute of regulation play ticked away and one last tricky piece of broken field running let a giggling Pinkie skip around flying tackles from both Rainbow and Twilight to slide over the goal line—or into the scoring box; Fluttershy had never been too clear on the rules of Ups 'n' Downs—just as Discord blew his whistle. "That's game!" Spike yelled, puffing green fire from his nostrils like fireworks. "Earth ponies win by two points!"

The cheering that burst out then from everywhere around them just about made Fluttershy leap straight into the air, her panicked glances showing her most of the town gathered around Discord's conjured stadium. But the whoops out on the field quickly pulled her attention back, Applejack and Pinkie high-hoofing Dashie and Twilight—"It's your party, AJ," she heard Dash say with a laugh, "so of course I'm gonna let you win!" Unable once more to stop herself, Fluttershy leaped out into the scrum of her friends, her hoofs closing around Applejack almost by instinct.

"Watch it, honeycomb!" Applejack tried to pull away. "I'm a mite on the sweaty side here!"

But Fluttershy pressed herself even closer. "You're perfect in every way!" she announced as loudly as she could, and because she wanted to with every pounding beat of her heart, she planted her rear hoofs in the grass of the field, wrapped her front hoofs around her marefriend's neck, and kissed her right there in front of everypony: deeply, passionately, without a single shred of fear or nervousness anywhere near her. Drinking in Applejack's earthy aroma, she breathed the word out again: "Perfect."

"And so," Fluttershy heard Rarity saying from somewhere, "fillies and gentlecolts, we hope to see all of you for the main event next Saturday evening in the town square where we shall be celebrating the union of Applejack and Fluttershy!"

"Yeah!" Pinkie added. "And plenty of cake: that's Pinkie Pie's promise to you!"

More cheering, and the townsfolk moved on, Fluttershy squeezing into Carousel Boutique beside Applejack, the other girls following with Spike and Discord. Almost at once, though, Discord began darting nervous glances at Twilight and making the oddest excuses for leaving the party early: first, he had to polish his antlers; then he'd signed up for an early morning cheese-making class; then he was heading for Cloudsdale at midnight to observe the formation of some anomalous vortex.

Her heart went out to him; it was so obvious that he wasn't used to being nervous that she wanted to take him aside and give him some pointers. But with everypony eating and drinking and laughing, dancing and singing and carrying on—Fluttershy was always amazed at how much commotion just the six of them and Spike could make at a party when they put their minds to it, and with Discord there, even out-of-sorts, he seemed to make enough noise on his own as six regular ponies would—she never had the chance.

Spike started getting droopy-eyed against some of Rarity's sofa cushions pretty quickly, too—he was still just a baby dragon, after all—and Twilight turned a smile toward Discord. "Say, if you do have to leave early, do you think you could take Spike home and get him settled?" She batted her eyelashes. "I'll even repay you with a special treat tomorrow afternoon at the library at two-thirty..."

A number of colors flashed across Discord's face—Fluttershy was sure green plaid was one of them—but then he was bowing with a flourish. "You have only to ask, my princess." He snapped the claws of his lion paw, and Spike drifted snoring into the air. "Oh, and how many pieces would you like him to be in when you return later this evening?"

"Just the one, please." Twilight giggled and sipped at the straw in her mug of cider. "And I'd like him to hold the same individual eigenvalue along the quantum spectrum as the Spike I'm entrusting to you now. If that won't be too much trouble."

"Hmmmph!" He drew himself up, his snout pointing toward the ceiling. "You drive a hard bargain, Twilight Sparkle! But fine." He waggled his claws at Spike, and the snoozing dragon began floating toward Rarity's front door. "I shall take my leave of you ladies and bid you all a fond 'good evening.'"

Fluttershy added her voice to the various Good nights the others were offering, Twilight twisting around to call, "And don't forget: two-thirty tomorrow at the library!" Discord bowed again, pulled the door open, blew Spike outside with a puff of breath, then closed the door behind himself.

Twilight immediately straightened and turned a serious face to everypony at the table. "And you'll all be there at two o'clock, right? So we can get everything ready before he gets there?"

"Ready?" Fluttershy blinked from her spot cuddling against Applejack. Apparently she'd missed something again.

Looking up, she saw Applejack shake her head. "I dunno, Twi. You sure you wanna go popping the top offa this particular can of worms?"

"Worms?" Fluttershy started to ask, but the blush that spread over Twilight Sparkle made Fluttershy forget all about saying anything.

"I do," Twilight said. Her mouth went sideways. "Not anything about a real can of worms, I mean, of course, but—" The blush darkened her purple face even further. "I've never had anypony have a crush on me before."

Dash blew air through her lips, Pinkie giggling and Rarity sighing. "Trust me, darling," Rarity went on. "We could fill a small auditorium with the stallions and mares in this town who have crushes on you."

"Really?" Twilight's eyes went very wide. "But...nopony's ever said anything to me about—"

"Well, duh!" Dashie took a big swig of cider. "I mean, c'mon! Even before you went all alicorn, you were, like, the sixth or seventh most intimidating mare in town!"

Disbelief practically glowed on Twilight's face. "You're sure you're talking about me?"

That got a laugh from Dashie, and she waved her mug—a little tipsily, Fluttershy thought—at the rest of their friends. "C'mon, guys! Back me up here!"

Thinking about it, Fluttershy had to nod. "I might even say fourth or fifth most intimidating, Twilight."

"But I—!" Twilight shook her head quickly. "I don't try to be! Not before and not now, either!"

Pinkie pushed a cupcake across the table toward Twilight. "None of us tries. We just are." She nodded to Fluttershy. "It's why I was so worried about Fluttershy and Applejack ever finding their special someponies: 'cause neither one of them has any idea how super-de-dooper-de-sexy she really is!"

Blinking, Fluttershy felt Applejack grow still against her. "You wanna run that by me again, sugar cube?" Applejack asked.

"See?!" Pinkie leaped up with a grin. "AJ's all smoldery, dreamy, and strong!" Her grin vanished, her eyes half-closing, her face becoming very stern and serious. "Sexy?" she said in a rougher, deeper voice than Fluttershy had ever heard from her. "I'm sorry, but with a business to run, I haven't the time for such things." Her face bounced back to normal like a pink rubber ball. "And Fluttershy? She's just so fragile, sweet, and innocent!" Her mane cascaded down over her face, her eyes peering out from behind it as huge and blue as cornflowers. "Sexy?" she whispered, the quiver she now had in her voice making Fluttershy's ears fold sympathetically. "I don't think I even know what that word means..."

"Pinkie,..." Applejack more growled than said.

"But it's true!" Everything about her brightening, Pinkie bubbled up into being herself again. "I mean, Rarity knows exactly how sexy she is, and she can raise and lower it like a flag depending on how intimidating she wants to be. And me and Dashie?" She jumped sideways and threw her front legs around Dashie, Rainbow smiling in a gentle way that Fluttershy rarely saw from her. "We'll never get married to any of our playmates 'cause we're not that kinda ponies, but anytime we get tired of being so intimidating, we know we can go to each other to get whatever loving we need right then, and that makes ev'rything all rootily-tootily-right!"

Fluttershy's cheeks started getting hot and prickly at the thought of Dash and Pinkie with legs and lips entwined, but then Pinkie popped up right in front of her, wrapped her and Applejack into one of her great big hugs. "And now you two have found ponies you can't intimidate 'cause you're both just as intimidating but in totally different ways!" She spun away so quickly, Fluttershy would've been sucked into her slipstream and fallen over if Applejack hadn't been right there holding her all safe and steady. "So now if Twilight and Discord get together, they'll be able to be that way, too! And it'll be great!"

Twilight had the sort of overwhelmed look on her face that Fluttershy often saw when ponies were trying to understand Pinkie, but instead of backing away slowly as most of those other ponies did, Twilight began nodding. "I...I think I'd like that," she said, almost no breath behind her words. "Because Discord, he's just so infuriating and interesting and—" She shivered, her eyes closing. "Unpredictable..."

"Mother of mercy," Applejack muttered. "You being orderly flips his switch, and him being disorderly flips yours!"

Fluttershy put a hoof over Applejack's mouth and gave her the slightest bit of a Stare before turning to Twilight. "I think having you as a special somepony will be very good for Discord, and Applejack and I will do everything we can to help."

The others pledged the same, and the laughing and the dancing and the cider drinking went on, Fluttershy just basking in all of it. For as much as she loved her friends and had always enjoyed their parties, leaning here right now against Applejack, she couldn't help feeling that this one was special, like there had never been a party like this before and there would never be a party like it again. The usual sorts of jokes and goofiness rippled around her, but nuzzling her own sweet Applejack and getting nuzzled in return made everything inside her hum like bees happily working in their hive.

Then Applejack was inviting them all out to the Acres for supper Wednesday night and a little wedding rehearsal, and the party was breaking up.

"Remember," Twilight said as they all thanked Rarity and moved out into the moonlit spring night, Dash leaning against a quietly giggling Pinkie. "Tomorrow at two at the library."

"Oh, we'll be there," Rarity answered.

Then Fluttershy was gliding like a dream up the street, her wing caressing the luscious muscular expanse of Applejack's back, Applejack pressing herself to her side in ways so wonderful that Fluttershy couldn't find words to describe it. "My place," she murmured into Applejack's ear. "Please. We can be alone there, and...and I want very, very much to be alone with you." She'd been so good all night, had run the magical chant through her head at triple and quadruple speeds to keep her lacinia closed against the steady pressure of her wiggler's eagerness. But now, all she could think of was letting it leap forth, letting it tickle Applejack's own lacinia open, letting it plunge into her marefriend's glorious depths.

"Well, now." Applejack's voice rumbled Fluttershy's whole body. "That's right neighborly of you, honeycomb." A warm breath stroked Fluttershy's ear, and she couldn't stop a gasp at the teeth that tugged the tip of that ear. "'Cause I reckon I've got a little hankering of my own going on over here."

The walk back to her cottage had never seemed so long or so spectacular: more than once, Fluttershy almost gave in, almost threw away her every last inhibition to push Applejack over into the grass alongside the road right then and there. The thought of making love to Applejack under the star-speckled sky of Princess Luna's night shot even more electricity through Fluttershy's already charged-up system, but whether it was her or Applejack who started panting first, she didn't know. All she knew was that she needed to get herself up inside of Applejack as quickly as possible.

Fluttershy felt like they were galloping by the time they crossed the bridge to see her cottage practically glowing in the shimmery moonlight. Starting up the path, though, Applejack froze beside her, Fluttershy continuing on more than a few steps before the sudden lack of warm mare beside her brought her to a halt. "Honeycomb?" Applejack's voice had a coldness to it that acted like a big bucket of ice water across Fluttershy's inner flames. "Reckon you've got a visitor."

Still panting, Fluttershy finally got herself to focus, saw a shadow advancing down the walk from her front porch: a stallion, slender and neat, everything about him tentative and familiar from all those years ago.

"Fluttershy?" Silver Burr asked, stepping close enough now for her to see his face clearly in the dimness.

But she couldn't do anything except stare at her brother, very nearly the last pony she had ever expected to see again.

***

During the months after his resuscitation but before he'd stumbled across her exercising her ardor quite loudly and stickily across her bed sheets, Discord had wondered why Fluttershy spent so much of her time sighing over the awful romance novels that crowded her bookshelves.

Of course, her panicked explanation as she'd cowered amongst her pillows that afternoon two weeks ago while attempting to hide her shriveling stallionhood had brought him nicely up to speed concerning her grand love affair with Applejack, the love affair that Discord had inadvertently interrupted. He'd done his part to make amends that very day, however, had swooped the bucolic object of her affections back to her cottage for some much-needed recreational nooky, and, he was pleased to notice, she'd not returned to her little bookshelf since.

But now that he was engaged in cock-blocking himself—not that he had genitalia, several of the voices in his head continually reminded him in exquisitely dissonant harmony—he'd found himself rummaging through these books with alarming regularity as he sprawled listlessly across Fluttershy's various sofas. Of course, each trite and tedious tale revealed itself to be more dreadfully contrived than the one before it—except for a large musty volume that he discovered on the bottom shelf, a romance from several hundred years ago that stuck out from the others like cotton candy among brussel sprouts.

Entitled The Mare of Llamancha, it had grabbed Discord's attention from the very first paragraph and had dragged him figuratively by the snout into the lives of the ponies, cows, donkeys, camels, and alpacas living in one fanciful mountain community, and most especially into the very hearts and souls of the noble and ridiculous Rocinante, an earth pony worn out before his time, and the captivating Hoaty, a jenny donkey so full of verve, vim, and vigor that all the sneering of her neighbors couldn't dim her sense of humor.

"Oh, yes," Fluttershy had told him when he'd waved the book at her and demanded to know why she was hiding such a shining gem amongst the dross of her library. "That was here when I moved in. It's a classic, though: the musical Hinny of the Hills is based on part of it."

Reading the book cover to cover, then turning back to the beginning and reading it again, Discord found himself identifying with both the unpredictable Hoaty, doing her utmost to show Rocinante the marvels of the workaday world around him, and Rocinante, slowly falling in love with this bewitching creature whom all the forces of society were telling him he shouldn't even be friends with. More than that, though, Discord kept wanting to leap into the pages, smack the characters around, force certain scenes to come out the way he thought they ought to—and it was every bit as horrible as all the wanting he'd been feeling toward Twilight Sparkle.

It took him the rest of the week going through the novel from page to page a dozen times and marveling at how it all fit together into a strange, spiky but unified shape before he had slowly arrived at yet another foul realization, the sort of thing that had been happening to him much too often of late. Because, yes, he could slide into the frozen statue of the story, could wrench it from the shape it had held for all these centuries, could juggle its characters and events in any way that struck his fancy—

But that would be wrong.

Thinking the word made his every inner voice start to yammer and spit, his head like a bell with forty-four thousand clappers inside it. None of which stopped the word from being true: reading the thing over a thirteenth time the morning before Fluttershy and Applejack's party, Discord found himself laughing in the places where he'd laughed before, found his blood boiling when he read the parts that had enraged him before, found himself growing misty-eyed at exactly the same scenes that had touched him before. Changing any of the bits and pieces would unbalance it, make it less interesting, turn it into something even worse than those other horrible books.

Just like the ponies around him. They looked at the world and their places in it as if they were characters in a book; all they saw were beginnings that led into middles and wound up at endings. It was why they didn't like change, why they couldn't deal with the sorts of truths he traded in, truths about indeterminacy and tap-dancing, about cotton candy and genetic drift, about simple ideas that could shift the entire foundation of a society and complex structures more massive than Celestia's raggedy old sun that still popped as quietly as soap bubbles when looked at too sharply.

So no matter how wonderful he found those things to be, when he brought them into the lives of ponies, all he did was make the ponies terribly anxious, nervous and sad. All he did was make them think that the universe might not be as tidy as they wanted it to be.

Except for Twilight Sparkle. Ever since her alicoronation—or whatever they called it—she'd begun asking him questions, had begun taking an interest, had begun becoming interesting. And Discord had no idea how to deal with that. Well, no idea that he could actually act upon without destroying what made her so interesting. Doing his usual sorts of things to Twilight would be like rewriting The Mare of Llamancha: he could only make her stupider and less intriguing no matter how linear and stodgy she often seemed to be.

Stop it! the entirety of his inner chorus wailed: Just stop thinking and do something!.

Fine, then. From now on, he would follow Rocinante's example and do everything he could to keep Twilight Sparkle from knowing that he was having these unnatural thoughts and feelings about her. She didn't need him messing with her life, and messing with her life was all he knew how to do.

There. Problem solved.

Popping over to Rarity's for the party, then, with multiple screeching songs in his head and heart just the way they were supposed to be, he'd had a wonderful time. Till the games were over and they were all inside the Boutique with their sandwiches and sliced pie and Twilight smiling at him and looking at him and breathing a portion of the same air as him.

He'd grabbed at the excuse to trundle Spike off to bed just to find some oxygen somewhere that wasn't flavored so delicately with lavender and was halfway back to Fluttershy's after nestling the little reptile into his own personal gravitational field halfway up the western wall of the library stairwell when the rest of what Twilight had said finally registered in however much of his brain as it took these days for him to notice things.

Two-thirty, she'd said. Tomorrow afternoon, she'd said. Special treat at the library, she'd said.

Which could mean anything. And at the same time couldn't mean anything. Shouldn't mean anything.

Shriveling himself down to a single strand of spaghetti, he wormed his way into the ground beneath the big oak tree behind Fluttershy's cottage and wondered what it would take to get the Elements of Harmony back from that overgrown shrubbery out in the forest. Or maybe it could turn him back to stone...

He didn't bother with consciousness for a number of hours after that, finally sighing himself back to some form of existence or another in the damp, dirty embrace of the earth a few moments before his appointment. That he would attend was, of course, a foregone conclusion despite any and all internal grumbling. For how could he stay away when she had invited him?

Still, he let himself move slowly, let his lion paws regrow over the course of several minutes before snapping himself with a thump into a chair at Twilight's table. Stretching and yawning and trying to find his eyes so he could focus them, he blew out a breath that he hoped stank of rotting strawberries. "Now see here, Twilight Sparkle! This special treat of yours had better not involve ice cream in any way, or I—"

By then, details of his surroundings had started trickling in: Twilight at the other end of the table as contained and compact as a rose not yet opened for the dawn, a stack of scrolls beside her; Rarity seated to her right; Pinkie Pie vibrating like a cicada wing to her left.

"Gracious!" Discord touched his eagle claws to his chest, the word 'tribunal' springing suddenly to mind. "Surely I don't have a library book overdue?"

Pinkie giggled, but, well, that observation contained almost as much useful information as saying that the electrons in the carbon atoms all around him continued dancing their cloudy quadrilles. It was a universal constant: whatever happened anywhere, Pinkie was going to giggle.

"It's nothing bad," Twilight said, the faint smile on her lips making Discord forcibly not think about the first touch of sunlight over the rose bud from his earlier metaphor. "In fact, it's something I think we might both of us enjoy."

"Both of us?" He couldn't help making a show of pointing to himself, then to Rarity, then to Twilight, then to Pinkie, all the while mouthing the numbers from one to four.

Rarity gave a laugh. "Oh, now, don't mind Pinkie and me. We're just here as chaperones."

The word jabbed him like a wasp, its venom pumping into his system. "You see," Twilight was going on, chipper as an axe among kindling, "Rarity told me about your possible—" The blush that lit her face then was the full light of day, her rosy petals flowering to full bloom. "—romantic feelings toward me, and I...I thought I'd like to explore that subject." The glow of her horn raised the first scroll from her stack, set it on the table in front of her, and smoothed it open. "So I've made up a schedule that I hope we can use as a springboard toward setting in motion a discussion of—"

"I won't have it!" The humming in his head exploded like flaming magnesium doused with water. "Schedules?! And chaperones?! And 'possible romantic feelings'?!" He slammed his lion paw against the table. "Are you trying to kill me?! Is that what this is?!" He aimed shaking claws at her, her eyes big and blinking and innocent across the table. "I will not have you being so perfect and cute and orderly, Twilight Sparkle, especially not when that's exactly what I want!"

"You—" Her brow furrowed. "You don't want what you want?"

"I don't want to want! I don't want to want to want! I don't want to want to want to want! I don't want to want to want—!"

Which was about when all his internal explosions finally ripped though his skin, and he burst into a pillar of mustard-scented fire, blasting out every available door and window toward the open sky above.

5 - Beauty

"You're sure?" Applejack asked Twilight for what she knew had to be the fifteenth or sixteenth time that day, but, well, it was the day, wasn't it? In four hours, her and Fluttershy'd be standing in fronta fam'ly and friends with Twilight adding all the words and magic and whatnot to make it official.

Sweet Mother of Mercy...

"Applejack?" A purple hoof was waving back and forth in front of her, and she blinked, stared, found herself looking into Twilight's concerned face. "If you want to stay here, it's OK," Twilight said. "I'll be fine doing this by myself, and—"

"No!" The word came out way more strident than she wanted, and she quickly fished a smile from someplace to slap across her snout. "I wanna go with you." Settling back with a thump onto the wooden floor of her bedroom, AJ thought of something that made the smile take root and become more real. "Besides, trying to do nothing while knowing my honeycomb's across the way slipping into that mouth-watering dress?" She shuddered. "I wouldn't hardly be responsible for my actions."

Rarity, fiddling with the collar of AJ's white jacket—though it looked completely and absolutely perfect to Applejack's eyes—gave a giggle. "Oh, now, surely you don't subscribe to the notion that it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding."

Only about half-joking, AJ folded her front legs across her chest and glared at her friend. "How many old mares' tales we seen come true the past couple years? No, ma'am! Day like today, I ain't taking one single chance." She nodded to Twilight. "So, sooner we get going, sooner we'll be back."

"OK!" The glow of her horn pulled a piece of parchment from her saddlebag. "I've made a map of our entire route, so if we take it easy—maybe a hundred miles each teleport—we'll get to the west coast in approximately half an hour."

"You're sure?" Applejack asked before she could stop herself. "Dag nabbit! Of course you're sure. You're Twilight Sparkle, ain'tcha? You been plotting this whole thing for nigh onto a week now!"

Twilight cleared her throat. "Two-and-a-half weeks, actually." Her wings unfurled partway, and Applejack had to grin at the spicy scent of her excitement. "This'll be the first time I've really pushed my powers since the coronation; I can hardly wait to see how they've grown!"

This time, AJ managed to bite down on that ding-dang question and asked instead, "You ain't gonna get too fancy, are you? 'Cause my pappy, no way he's used to magic and princesses and all like that." It still shook her a mite to just up and talk about Red Gravenstein, but it made her all warm inside as well. "His ship's gonna be perty far out to sea, too; you're sure—?" She stomped a hoof. "I swear to Granny's gran'ma! If'n I say them two words together one more time, I'm gonna have you wrap me in baling wire and sink me in the pond!"

That got another giggle from Rarity, then Twilight was folding her map. "I could demonstrate how I've calculated the position of your father's ship based on the information he sent and the average speed of that class of cargo steamer." She cocked her head. "Or we could just get going."

"That second one!" Applejack surged to her hoofs and just about leaped to Twilight's side. "'Fore I go completely outta my mind!"

A chuckle from Twilight. "We'll be back in about an hour, Rarity," she said; then AJ felt a breeze wash past, feathers rustling behind her. And quick as that, her bedroom was gone, the air suddenly thick and dark as a foggy winter morning. She sucked in a gasp, but then they were out under the sun and sky, a meadow on top of a little rise, woods around them on all sides. "Wow!" Twilight said. "That was easier than I thought! I'll bet I could—"

Everything blurred again, the air seeming to freeze in Applejack's lungs before the world popped back into place again: pastureland this time, a string of low hills in the distance. "Two hundred miles!" she heard Twilight crow past the sudden ringing in her ears. "Which means for four hundred miles, I'd just need to—"

The darkness crashed over Applejack as hard as a tumble down the cellar stairs, and the daylight when it reappeared smacked her across the face and staggered her sideways. "Whoa!" she shouted, the ground spinning under her hoofs.

"Eeep! Oh, Applejack, I'm so sorry!" Something warm and sturdy pressed up against her, and AJ gladly leaned into it, the swirling in her head slowing a mite. "Here! Just bend your knees and settle into the grass, OK? Can you do that?"

Applejack more collapsed than settled, but the solid earth under her belly got her feeling good enough to let out a laugh. "Can't hardly do anything else, truth be told." She blinked, got herself to focus on Twilight's anxious face, the shimmering shadow just above and behind her alicorn friend's two-tone mane resolving into the spiky branches of a big ol' spruce tree waving in the breeze from some mountains she could now see towering up into the crystal blue above. "Mighta been my imagination, but I coulda swore I heard somepony say something 'bout taking it easy not too long ago..."

Twilight's blush seemed to give off near as much heat as the sun overhead. "I'm so, so sorry," she said again. "I've been formulating some theories about harnessing the power of electron tunneling for long-distance teleportation. You see, Discord mentioned that—" Her voice stopped like she'd slammed it into a brick wall, and she looked away, purple light wavering around her horn and floating a little bottle from her saddlebag. "Here. I brought some apple juice. You might be a little dehydrated."

"Much obliged." Applejack only meant to take a sip, but her throat was so dry, the juice hitting it practically sizzled; before she knew it, she'd guzzled the whole bottle down. Setting it on the ground with her teeth, she noticed how quiet and still Twilight had gotten, not at all panicky and stammering like she usually was when she'd done something boneheaded. The sorta dusty scent about her was different, too, and since AJ had been kinda too busy all week to ask before... "Sorry me and Fluttershy couldn't make it to the library last weekend for you talking to Discord," she said, figuring she'd sidle up to the subject.

Twilight flashed an automatic sorta smile. "You've had other things on your mind, especially with Fluttershy's brother showing up all of a sudden!" She shook her head. "I can only imagine how awkward that must've been!"

"It weren't bad, actually." Thank the Mother of Mercy for small favors. "Burr even come right out and apologized for the way he acted when we met him in Manehattan, said the letters Fluttershy started sending him made him start thinking 'bout how much he'd missed her." Warmth spread through Applejack's middle. "And having him here, I mean, I's never seen Fluttershy as happy as she's been this week. Never."

"There's nothing like family." Twilight gave a little laugh. "But I don't suppose I need to tell you that." Her horn glowed, another bottle of apple juice gliding up from her bag. "Fluttershy must write amazing letters, too; Discord says— I mean, he did say... He used to say..." Her voice trailed off, and the juice bottle drifted down onto the grass, her gaze unfocused, the light fading from her horn.

"All right." Applejack leaned toward her. "What's happening with you and him anyway?"

"Nothing," Twilight said, her voice hollow as the empty bottle beside AJ's hoof. "And maybe that's for the best."

Applejack couldn't help giving a snort. "No way I'm gonna believe that, not after I seen how crazy he is for you."

"Crazy?" Twilight's head came up, her eyes hard and narrow in a way AJ was sure she'd never seen before. "That's just it. He's unstable, Applejack, the very definition of unstable! I tell him I'm interested in pursuing a possible romantic relationship, and he blows up! Literally! Into yellow powder! The whole library smelled like mustard for hours!"

"Twi—"

"And when he finally showed up at the wedding rehearsal Wednesday night, did you see what he did?! Did you?!"

"Twi—"

"Hiding up in the rafters the whole time with that giant marionette of himself dangling from his claws! I mean, yes, he moved it around to wherever he was supposed to stand, but he wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't even look at me!"

And trying one last time... "Twi—"

"He's just such a—!" Twilight leaped to her hoofs. "Such a child! And an idiot! And a vulgar lout! And—!"

"And you're crazy about him." Still not quite steady enough to stand, Applejack reached up to touch Twilight's shoulder, her friend's sides heaving, her whole body absolutely blushing.

Twilight gave a groan and dropped into the grass, her front legs folding across her eyes. "When he and I are talking, it's so...so—" She uncovered her face just enough so AJ could see those violet eyes peering out at her. "All my life, Applejack, I've been learning about the world, and all my life, everything I've learned has made the world make more sense. Yes, it made the world more complex, but it was a steady, almost linear progression: one thing leads to another to another to another. And then?" A shiver passed over her, and her wings unfurled partway. "Suddenly I'm Princess Twilight, and it's like a break in the curve, like an exponential term getting snapped onto the end of the equation!"

Not that AJ had any real idea what that meant, but she could guess how it must've played out. She patted Twilight's shoulder. "And Discord's the guy you're gonna turn to when you need an expert in stuff getting broken."

When Twilight's sides heaved this time, a sound a lot closer to a sigh than a groan came out. "The things he's showed me, AJ! Electrons that exist more as clouds of potentiality than as actual particles! Matter and anti-matter constantly and spontaneously appearing and disappearing! The churning swirl of chaos that underlies everything in the universe! It—" She shuddered again. "It's beautiful, and it makes the order that rises from it all the more beautiful."

"And it makes Discord beautiful?" AJ didn't plan on it coming out as sarcastic as it did, but, well, 'Discord' and 'beautiful' weren't words that belonged anywhere near each other.

Twilight's ears folded. "Not beautiful, no. But it makes him..."

A look came over her, her eyes fiercely bright, her nostrils flaring a mite, the tip of her tongue darting out to touch her upper lip. Applejack held up a hoof. "I withdraw the question." 'Cause she'd seen pretty much that same look on her own face in the bathroom mirror those times as she'd get all contemplative 'bout the glorious mystery of why Fluttershy's mix of mare and stallion lit her fires in ways no regular mare or stallion ever had or ever would. "He flips your switch."

"He does." The words came out softer'n the breeze rustling the grass around them. "I just want to— I want to lay him out on the ground and run my nose all up and down him, sniffing in those different aromas he gives off. I want to stroke my magic down one of his horns while I'm stroking my tongue down the other. I want to—" She swallowed so convulsively, AJ was sure she saw Twilight's neck bulge. "I want to form a ball of solid space-time around the two of us, then have him form one just inside mine so I can feel the way reality ebbs and flows between them." She closed her eyes and shivered.

"Ease up, girl!" Applejack couldn't keep the chuckle outta her voice. "Reckon I don't need to know the gruesome details."

"I'm sorry." Twilight was blushing again; she took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and turned to face AJ, a quiet kinda sadness there. "Besides, I know it can't be anything other than xenophilia on both our parts, some odd infatuation with 'the other.'" She made little air quotes with her hoofs. "I'm sure he finds me every bit as aggravating as I find him."

Wishing she didn't feel obliged to stick her big, fat snout in, Applejack shook her head. "He's scared. All his life, he's just shoved the universe around any which way to suit hisself. Now, though, for whatever reason, he's choosing not to do that, and it's left him feeling frustrated and powerless. Even worse, he's all caught up in this phony self-image thing, thinking that, because he's Discord, he's s'pposed to be a certain way and act a certain way."

She pushed herself up, quietly pleased to find she was steady enough to walk over to the bottle of apple juice Twilight had let go and pop the lid off with her teeth. "Since I know you're just dying for my advice, I'd say you might hafta make one or two more opening moves if you really wanna corral him. But he ain't likely to give up being a jerk for you."

AJ expected that last to get a chuckle or a glare, but instead Twilight was rubbing her chin, her gaze on the heights of the mountains. "Shoving the universe around," she muttered, and when she turned back, she seemed almost peppy. "Thanks, Applejack! You've given me a great idea!"

"Sweet Mother of Mercy." AJ caught the bottle 'round the neck and tipped her head back, draining the apple juice down to the last drop before spitting the bottle back out. "I was afraid you might say something like that."

Her laughter was genuine, though, Applejack could tell, and her horn flared, a flex of magic gathering the two empties and tucking them into her bag. "So! Shall we be on our way? I know what I did wrong the last time, and I promise, it'll be nice and easy from here on out!"

"Uh-huh."

"Honest!" She sprang to her hoofs, her horn sparking, and a cupcake rose from her saddlebag. "I even brought a box of cupcakes just in case it turned out that you needed me to make a Pinkie Promise at any point during the trip."

That got Applejack laughing, and she took the couple steps to Twilight's side. "Save 'em," she said. "Might be we'll be wanting a snack or two when we come out the other end."

"Oh, don't worry." More glowing from her horn brought two pink boxes from her bags. "I've got a box for snacking and a box for smashing."

All AJ could do for a bucketful of seconds was stare, the warmth that flooded her chest simmering away the last touches of cold. "Twilight? Don't ever change."

Twilight stared back. "Well, I can't promise that. I mean, nopony can, not seriously. We're all of us changing every day, Applejack, and—"

"Can we go?" She shoved the top of her hat into Twilight's side. "If I'm gonna be fainting ev'ry time we jump a mere seven hunderd miles, I reckon I still got one more to recover from 'fore we gets there."

"Oh, not at all!" Twilight's eyes curled into crescents, and ev'rything around AJ went suddenly purple and misty. "See, that's the mistake I made when we left Sweet Apple Acres." The spruce tree, barely visible through the mist, suddenly vanished. "By setting up a bubble like this, I can move our entire little subsection of time and space—" Through the mist, another landscape appeared, flatter'n before, not a tree anywhere, a shinier part of if off to AJ's right. "—without any ill effects whatsoever!" The purple all whisked away, and Applejack found herself looking across a white and yellow sandy beach, the ocean all blue and shimmery under a perfect spring sky.

"That—" AJ knew maps well enough to hafta swallow before she could go on. "That woulda been a thousand miles or so we just jumped there, sugar cube."

Looking more pleased'n a kitten in a creamery, Twilight nodded. "Like I said, if I'd been thinking, I could've done that from the beginning."

Not sure if'n she wanted to know the answer, Applejack still couldn't keep from asking: "You could've took us all the way from Ponyville to the west coast of Equestria?"

"I—" Twilight stopped, her eyes opening wide as barn doors. "Oh. Yes. That...that's kind of a little bit scary, isn't it?"

Parts of AJ were more'n willing to start nodding, but instead, she shrugged, leaned over, and nudged her shoulder into Twilight's. "I reckon it would be with anypony else. With you, though, it's just another Saturday morning."

Twilight's smile started slow, but it spread over her whole face. "Thanks, AJ." She ruffled her wings and began walking toward the water. "Of course, it means we're running early now, so your father's ship should be a bit further north than I'd calculated."

Applejack followed, the swelling and sloshing of the sea against the shore ahead already making her a mite skittish. "I ain't gonna ask if'n you're sure. I's just gonna ask what you reckon the chances are we end up swimming at some point today."

"Almost no chance at all." Twilight gave a crisp nod, her gaze fixed on the far horizon, her hoofs planted and her wings spread so she looked like wunna the statues in the Canterlot Sculpture Garden insteada the slightly grumpy little bookworm AJ had first met stumping up the path to Sweet Apple Acres not that many years ago.

So much had already changed, she couldn't help thinking. And so much was gonna change even more after today...

Then Twilight was turning, looking back over her shoulder with her regular sheepish grin. "You might want to stick close to me, though. Just in case."

Which got AJ grinning, too. "There, now. That's more like it." She sauntered over to Twilight's side and gave her another elbow to the ribs. "Least it's nice weather for a dip if'n it turns out we gotta take one."

With a little scowl, Twilight faced the horizon again, her horn glowing, the purple mist springing up around them so wispily this time, Applejack could see the water and the sand through it pretty clearly. It all winked, then the light and the sky and the sea flashed back into place—except, AJ noticed, the sky surrounded them on ev'ry side now, the sea a fair distance below them.

All the fine hairs along her neck jittered up, her ev'ry nerve about to start screaming when Twilight, still beside her, said, "Ah! There's the ship now!" Her hoof moved to point at something shaped vaguely like a chestnut just ahead and down, down, down on the surface—

And then with a jerk, solid planks popped in under her hoofs, a ship's cabin and wheelhouse rising up in front of them. The purpleness whisked away, and a crewpony, staring at them, dropped his mop with a shout of "Captain!" before turning tail and running through the side door into the cabin.

Applejack swallowed. "They're expecting us, ain't they?"

"I should think so." Twilight gave her a dazzling smile. "Don't worry, though. I read several books on nautical etiquette this past week."

Pretty sure that this news weren't as reassuring as Twilight maybe thought it was, Applejack kept her focus on the wheelhouse, figures moving around behind the glass. And not too many minutes later, a couple figures came out the side door: a scowling mare, thin as a knife blade, her black wool jacket making her seem bigger'n she was, and a rust-red stallion who couldn't've been bigger if'n he'd been Big Macintosh and who looked so much like Big Mac, AJ couldn't stop a shiver.

"Good morning, Captain Binnacle!" Twilight stepped forward, touched a front hoof to her forehead, and asked, "Permission to come aboard?"

The captain's scowl softened. "Permission granted, of course, your Highness," she said with a rough bow, a northern brogue behind her words. "Sure, and if my mother could see this! A princess of Equestria calling me by name! And to think it's all on account of this galoot!" She punched a hoof into the stallion's side, Red Gravenstein not even pretending to flinch. "Be polite and bow to her Highness!"

Poppa dipped his head, but Applejack couldn't look away from his eyes, bright and fixed on hers. "The big day, I reckon, AJ?" he asked.

Ev'rything seemed to skip a mite then 'cause next thing AJ knew, she had her front legs wrapped around his big ol' neck, her suddenly damp face buried in his mane. "Oh, Poppa!" she more sniffed than said. "I love that you're gonna be there!"

"And he's not the only one," AJ heard Twilight say softly behind her.

Turning, Applejack blinked her vision clear to see Twilight smiling. "It's a surprise," Twilight said, her horn glowing to pull a little scroll from her saddlebags; a quill drifted out as well and scratched a little check mark on it. "But this is exactly the time that I'm supposed to tell you."

"Tell me?" Stomach clenching, AJ felt her knees quiver. "Tell me what?"

***

Telling herself over and over that she wasn't fretting, Fluttershy paced back and forth along the far wall of the barn's old tack room, swept out and cleaned up for her to use as a changing room before the ceremony—

Four hours! Four hours till she and Applejack would 'tie the knot' as Silver Burr had put it at the rehearsal dinner two nights ago. And as much as she loved, loved, loved that Burr was here—finding him on her doorstep last Saturday night had pretty much ended her and Applejack's romantic evening, but Fluttershy honestly hadn't minded, her and her brother staying up almost till dawn talking and laughing in ways they hadn't even done when they were foals, too afraid that they might upset Mom while she was working on her tailoring or Dad while he was sleeping before going to work at whatever restaurant—

She shook her head, tried to get her thoughts in order. She'd asked Big Macintosh to show Burr around town all week because they were both so used to being quiet, and that seemed to have worked out: Applejack had even put the two of them in charge of shuttling guests from Ponyville Station to the Acres. Another glance at the table in the corner of the room assured her that Rainbow Dash and Discord were still there, each of them trying to cheat the other at some card game. They both knew about her plan and didn't like it, but she had let them know as firmly but as apologetically as she could that the matter simply wasn't up for discussion. All they needed now—

Hoofs clattered outside, and the door flew open with a burst of unicorn magic. "They've gone!" Rarity panted, a hair or two actually out of place in her mane. "Twilight said they should return with Applejack's father in approximately an hour!"

Fluttershy nodded, turned to the corner table, saw Dashie standing. "And my part in all this is to not let anypony in, right? Not your brother, not Granny Smith, not even the mayor." She stretched, her neck cracking slightly. "Is that it?"

"Yes," Fluttershy tried to say, but thinking about what she was planning made the word catch in her throat; with a swallow, she gave it another go. "Yes. And we should be back in a lot less than an hour." She looked at Discord and really, really hoped that he would agree.

He sighed instead, a couple of the playing cards idly flicking around his eagle talons. "This isn't the best idea you've ever had, Cluttersty."

"Still." Refusing to give in to the all-too-familiar run and hide feeling that trembled her mid-section or to the slightly worried look around Rarity's eyes and the sigh Rainbow blew out, Fluttershy planted her hoofs like Applejack did so often, straightened her back, puffed out her chest—and had to start coughing as her throat went twingy again.

"Here, darling," she heard Rarity say, a glass of water floating over to her.

"Thank you." She nodded, took the glass in her front hoofs, sipped at it, and started again. "We're going. Dr. Pineal and Applejack's Aunt Orange are expecting us."

"'Us'?" Discord slapped the cards down into a heap on the table. "Really? You told them you were bringing the still-widely-reviled spirit of disorder and disharmony with you?"

Taking another sip of water, Fluttershy very carefully just looked at him—not glaring or Staring. "I told her I was bringing a friend. A friend who could maybe help."

His mouth went sideways, actually twisting around on his snout till it opened from left to right when he spoke: "So you didn't lie. You just built up a completely unreasonable expectation."

That got a laugh from Rainbow Dash. "Well! Good thing you'll be there, then, huh, Discord? 'Cause unreasonable's totally your thing!"

"Fine." Discord rose from the table and straightened a long white doctor's coat that he was suddenly wearing. "Shall we go see the patient?" He snapped the claws of his lion paw, and Fluttershy found herself standing with him on the grassy lawn beside the walkway that led from the gate to the front entrance of Bellview Hospital in Manehattan, a place she'd only visited once before but knew she would never forget.

Standing just outside the doorway were two ponies she'd met for the first time a few months ago though she'd been exchanging letters with them both since then: Clementine Orange and Dr. Pineal, the unicorn in charge of treating Applejack's mother. They were both staring with their ears down, and Fluttershy again thought of Applejack, thought of how calm she always was even when things were being very, very peculiar. Forcing a smile to her face and a spring to her step, she started toward them. "Aunt Orange, Dr. Pineal, thank you for meeting us. This is my friend Discord."

She glanced back hoping, hoping, hoping that he wasn't standing there with his head on upside-down and blew out a relieved breath to see him just leaning against the brick wall that surrounded the hospital. Of course, he was also wearing gigantically oversized sunglasses, and he made a little double clicking noise with the side of his mouth as he pointed one of his eagle talons at the other two ponies. "'Sup?" he asked.

Still, it was so much better than what he could have done, Fluttershy wanted to start dancing. But instead, she looked forward again. "I'm so glad you agreed to—"

"No." Dr. Pineal's lips had gotten very tight and thin. "This isn't what I agreed to, Fluttershy, not at all, and I'll not have that...that—" She aimed a shaking hoof at the space behind Fluttershy. "—that thing set hoof inside my hospital!"

Not sure what she was going to say, Fluttershy opened her mouth anyway to defend Discord, but his sudden sigh blew her mane into her face and interrupted her. "You and me both, sister," he said, the bored tone in his voice that Fluttershy knew he used when he was trying not to show how he really felt. "I've always rather seen my mandate as putting ponies into establishments like this, not getting them out."

The doctor's lips got even thinner somehow, and Fluttershy nearly leaped forward to plead with her—

But again she was interrupted. "Please, Pineal." Aunt Orange put a hoof on the doctor's shoulder, and despite the smile on the older pony's face, Fluttershy could see tears shining at the corners of her eyes. "I won't lie and say I was expecting...this, but, well, Marmie's daughter and Miss Fluttershy are both Elements of Harmony, so of course their methods are going to be a trifle unorthodox. But if this, uhh, friend of hers can help—"

"If!" the doctor snapped. "I'm not in the habit of trusting in 'if's, Clementine!"

Taking a breath, Fluttershy rose into the air, swooped the distance separating her from the others, and settled beside them. "Then trust in me, doctor," she said, not letting her voice quiver in the slightest. "Didn't you tell me that our visit with Marmalade two months ago brought her more improvement than anything you'd been able to do for her the past ten years? And haven't you been telling me in your letters that you've been building on that breakthrough to bring Marmalade back to herself more fully than she's been since the onset of her condition?"

Her throat tried to close at the thought that she was really speaking so harshly to such an important medical professional, but she forced herself to go on: "We'll bring her right back if things get to be too much for her, but don't you think...don't you think it's worth the chance? That seeing her daughter happily married might be exactly what she needs?"

The shivers wracking through her threatened to knock her off her hoofs, but Fluttershy didn't look away from Dr. Pineal's stone-cold face. Still, it took her completely by surprise when the doctor said, "Fine. We'll go up and ask Marmalade how she feels. But if I see anything I don't like, I won't—"

The whole world flashed a familiar bright white, and Fluttershy found herself standing with Aunt Orange and Dr. Pineal in a hallway, a window at the end, Discord darting back and forth to sniff at the various doors. "Ooo!" he said, coiling into a pile in front of the last door. "This one smells like the proper curdling of apples and oranges!" He waggled his eyebrows, knocked three loud and rapid times, then pushed the door open. "Marmalade, darling! Your ride's here!"

Fluttershy squeaked and galloped down the hall with the two other ponies right behind her. Sliding through the doorway, she skidded to a halt to see Discord reclining at the small kitchen table across from Applejack's mother, Marmalade calmly finishing what might have been her breakfast or lunch: a bowl of oats, nearly empty, a partial glass of milk to the side. "I see where Applejack gets her lovely eyes," he was saying, a gentleness in his voice that Fluttershy had very rarely heard there.

"Oh, Discord," Marmalade said, and Fluttershy couldn't keep her jaw from dropping. "You are such a flirt." She smiled, and when she glanced over, the mischief in those eyes was familiar to Fluttershy, too. "And such a scamp!"

"Marmalade?" Dr. Pineal stepped forward, her face an ocean of shock.

"I'm sorry, doctor." Marmalade stood from the table, and while she seemed more delicate than Fluttershy remembered, she also seemed a lot more focused. "Discord first appeared to me two weeks ago with news of Ap—" A shudder passed through the earth pony, but she closed her eyes, took a breath, and went on: "Of Applejack's wedding, and he said he'd help me prepare to attend."

Opening her eyes, she turned a slight scowl back to where Discord was sitting with his paws pressed together, a tiny halo spinning around his horns. "He insisted on keeping it a secret, something I didn't care much for, but I knew he meant well, so I went along with it." She looked back, and Fluttershy felt herself shiver when Marmalade's gaze fixed on hers. "I'm so happy for the two of you, Fluttershy."

Then Aunt Orange was rushing past, wrapping such a big hug around Marmalade that Fluttershy was surprised they didn't end up in heap on the floor. "Marmie! It's you! It's really you!"

"Careful, Tiny!" Marmalade laughed, the sound a little rusty. "We're both a tad more breakable than we once were!"

Fluttershy felt herself tearing up, and turning away to wipe her eyes, she saw Discord now standing next to her, his expression strangely blank. "But—" She kept her voice to a whisper. "I thought you said this was a bad idea?"

"It is," Discord said just as quietly, his attention seemingly focused on Applejack's mother and sister hugging and chattering. "Marmalade's psyche is in a very precarious balance right now even with the mental balusters I've helped her erect to support it." He turned, tapped the still-gaping Dr. Pineal on the shoulder, rolled his eyes, and tapped again till she blinked and looked over at him. "Would you have a few hours free to attend a wedding, doctor? I think we'd all feel more confident if you were there should Marmie throw an emotional shoe or two."

Dr. Pineal blinked some more before her mouth pulled shut with a snap. "I believe I owe you an apology," she said then.

"Oh, you owe me more than that." Discord's grin curled a little sharper across his snout than Fluttershy liked to see.

She cleared her throat discreetly. "But if you've been working with Marmalade for two weeks, that means that you...you were coming here before I ever even mentioned my plan to bring her to Ponyville today!"

He shrugged. "What can I say, Butterfry? Other than that you've apparently been rubbing off on me. But right now—" He straightened, spread his arms, and grinned. "Ladies? I believe we have a wedding to get to!"

***

The whole thing was really rather affecting, Discord had to admit: Applejack absolutely clinging to poor old Marmalade when Twilight finally came traipsing in with the farm pony and her former farm pony poppa in tow; the veritable storm of emotions that flooded the place just from Granny Smith alone at seeing the son she currently considered dead and the daughter-in-law she'd never approved of nodding warily to each other and to her; Apple Bloom trembling as she stumbled forward to meet the parents she barely remembered.

Marmalade did quite well, too, all things considered. Ponies had mental processes as fragile as overcooked spaghetti, and he'd had a more difficult time than he would certainly ever admit getting Marmalade's mind to wrinkle where it ought to wrinkle and to go smooth where it ought to go smooth. He glanced at her from time to time, sitting so tightly sandwiched between her sister Clementine and Dr. Pineal that Discord almost expected to see the three of them all somehow sitting in one another's laps. She seemed appropriately misty-eyed, though, and not at all inclined to start shrieking, which the slimmest majority of his internal voices considered a victory.

At least all his voices agreed that he looked dapper in his white jacket, but then he tended to look good no matter what he wore. He and Dash followed Fluttershy, her dress making her as bright and ethereal as a nebula in a midnight sky, and even Applejack seemed more than presentable waiting with Rarity and Pinkie upon the dais constructed at the front of the barn expressly for this day. And Twilight Sparkle, standing there as well and watching him and Dash and Fluttershy processing—

No, best not to think about Twilight Sparkle and the way she embodied both those words, dusky and radiant, enticing and off-putting in equal measure. Bad enough he had to stand so close to her throughout the ceremony she'd cobbled together from a variety of sources—he was almost surprised she didn't supply footnotes—but that she performed her duties so adorably well was simply not fair in any way, shape, or form.

He in fact considered taking several different shapes and forms just to see if he could find one that was immune to her complicated simplicity, but he knew it was no use. She delivered her vapid recitations on love and friendship in ways that got warm sniffles from those assembled, and all Discord could do was stand to Fluttershy's left and try to keep his attention on everything else: Sweetie Belle warbling some heart-warming tune or other to the ragged accompaniment of a few local plumbers impersonating musicians; Fluttershy and Applejack exchanging earrings and vows; the lovely turmoil of feelings that swirled all around him. Anything that would let him avoid the turmoil that foul alicorn was inspiring in him...

Then Fluttershy and Applejack were kissing, the band was striking up at least three competing melodies, and he was marching down the aisle behind the happy couple to the cheers of all and sundry. Carts waited at Sweet Apple Acres' main gate, more townsfolk there shouting their fool heads off, the whole road into Ponyville lined with those who'd apparently had the sense not to become inveigled into actually participating in this folderol.

The town square somehow held even more ponies—had they brought them in from outlying precincts?—and a party finally erupted. Not that it was anything other than a pony party, of course, but with Pinkie Pie in charge, it at least held a bit of spontaneity, a bit of excitement, a bit of flair.

But speeches also had to be made while he stretched himself out at the far end of the head table, and he wavered back and forth between annoyance and relief that they hadn't asked him to make one. The food and drink, however, were excellent—the one thing ponies never stinted on—and Pinkie had arranged a number of games, rides, dances and other activities that he could watch ponies flail about at with varying degrees of amusement.

Celestia and Luna made an appearance as the afternoon wore on, and he managed to keep himself from flicking little chunks of cake at either of them...though he came extremely close to doing so several times during their speeches. Marmalade sat at a table in the shade of the library tree with Clementine and the doctor, visiting with various Oranges she likely hadn't seen since losing her mind. The presence of Applejack's father actually got some reaction from the laconic pile known as Big Macintosh, but where Discord had rather been hoping for some sort of knock-down, drag-out fight between the two largest stallions within shouting distance, they just ended up at a table drinking with Fluttershy's brother and nodding their greetings to whatever of the townsfolk came wandering by.

Still, as evening drew closer, both Red Gravenstein and Marmalade seemed to get antsier and antsier, and they finally made their separate ways—attended by their respective entourages, of course—to the head table to say their farewells. The churning of emotion here was exquisite, though Discord found he couldn't really enjoy it the way he had so often in the past since this time, well, this time, he was all caught up in it, wasn't he? Apple Bloom's quivering lip as her parents bade her farewell made him want to leap over and wrap her in a hug, for crying out loud! And when Red Gravenstein, seemingly unable to raise his head, said, "I don't expect y'all to forgive me the things I done 'cause I ain't even come close to forgiving myself yet," the howling of Discord's inner voices had a definite weepiness to it that he didn't care for at all.

Then Twilight was looking directly at him and saying, "I'll be back shortly," the princess and the big stallion porting away in as sweet a quantum bubble as Discord had ever seen. Every stem and branch and individual piece of fruit in the entire Apple family—Fluttershy very much included at this point—were all promising to visit Marmalade at the hospital, and she was thanking them, the shivery look around her eyes making him marvel yet again at how resilient these ponies were when they put their minds to it. Dr. Pineal nodded, and Discord snapped the three of them back to Manehattan, full dark already fallen outside the windows of Marmalade's room.

Marmalade collapsed, of course, but she was smiling as she did so instead of screaming as he'd seen her do several times in the week he'd watched her invisibly before getting enough of a feel for how her brain wasn't working to introduce himself. And as he carried her to bed while Dr. Pineal summoned up some medication or other, Marmalade snuggled against him and murmured, "Thank you, Discord. That was quite the loveliest day I've had in ages...."

Then she was dropping into restful slumber, the doctor standing with an unused hypodermic needle floating in the glow of her magic and looking at Discord as he imagined she would look at some particularly interesting lab specimen.

He cut her off before she could even begin. "Don't you dare start measuring me for scrubs and a facemask, doctor! Yes, I helped Applejack's mother take a few more steps along the road to recovery, but I'm not at all interested in doing this sort of thing on a regular basis!"

She didn't plead; she didn't scold; she didn't shout. And that bothered Discord more than he thought it ought to. "As you wish," she said, the syringe vanishing with the tinkle of a tiny bell and the slightest wisp of a smile trickling over her lips. "Though if I were to perhaps write to Fluttershy now and again about some of our more interesting and complex cases and if she perhaps thought they might merit your attention—"

Bursting into a cloud of talcum-scented dust, he left her there, raced halfway across the continent in a quarter blink of an eye, and slid into a shadowed spot between the quill and sofa store and one of the several cake pavilions Pinkie had set up around the town square. That this whole friendship thing had its talons sunk deeply into him he no longer tried to deny, but he was determined to fight the web of connections it was trying to draw him into for as long as—

"There you are," said a voice as dark and sweet as clover honey, and he snapped his head around to see Twilight Sparkle stepping into the little alcove, the music and the evening breeze swirling gently around her and making him want to melt into a puddle of coal tar. "I was wondering—" She flared her wings, flexed them and reared back to balance on her hind legs with a motion that should have looked incredibly awkward but was in fact the most supplely fascinating thing he has ever seen in his whole long life. "—if you might be interested in a dance," she finished.

No! nearly every one of his inner voices shrieked, but Discord couldn't look away, couldn't stop himself from creeping along the cobblestones of the town square toward her, from reaching out to touch her shoulders, from sliding into the glorious unnaturalness of her embrace. He should be spinning her wildly, he knew, should be dipping and whirling her till her eyeballs rattled in her skull. But instead, he stood swaying with her and against her in the darkness, the music fast and frenetic and completely incorrect. Which made it, of course, perfect in every single way.

How long they held each other shuffling in slow circles there, he had no idea, but it was altogether too soon when she murmured, "We need to talk."

"Please no," he managed to say, his voice cracking like stone under the millennia-long onslaught of wind and rain.

"Noon tomorrow at the library," she said, pushing away from him, her front hoofs resting on his chest and those purple eyes glowing slightly. "I have a solution to propose to our...our situation, and if you don't like it, I'll never bring the subject up again." The glow in her eyes strengthened as they pulled partway closed. "Be there, Discord, or I'll hunt you down: that's a promise."

He couldn't help blowing a breath out through his lips. "As if you could find me if I didn't want to be found."

"Want?" Her smile was a slow and sultry thing, the fine hairs between his horns prickling up with the electricity she seemed to be generating. "There's that word again." She slipped from between his paws, dropped to all fours, and started for the tent flap that had created this little space. "Noon. Tomorrow."

"I'll check my appointment calendar!" he called after her, but he knew it was no good. He'd be there. By all that was sweetly twisted and horribly right, he would be there.

6 - Truth

Burrowed under the big oak tree beside Fluttershy's cottage, Discord was doing his best to perform two opposing actions. That he was having difficulty with such a usually simple task spoke volumes, he felt, about the current sorry state of his personal affairs.

Why should it be so hard? After all, he was only trying not to listen to Applejack and Fluttershy celebrate their wedding night inside—though technically, he supposed, as soon as Celestia had punted the sun over the horizon six hours ago, they had crossed over from 'celebrating their wedding night' to 'celebrating the morning after their wedding night'—while at the same time keeping his ears peeled—and what a delightfully grotesque image that was!—for the tolling of noon from the Ponyville bell tower.

Things would be so much easier if noon and doom rhymed! Then he could compose some sort of elegiac dirge on the subject of his eventual Twilight-Sparkle-related fate. Because as much as he was looking forward to confronting these feelings for her that were jabbing into him like several pints of swallowed needles, he knew that whatever happened today would kill him—had in fact already killed him, had changed him from the carefree charmer he'd been his whole life into...into—

Into the sort of idiot who would lay huddled like this all night under a tree...

A passing earthworm tickled his nose, and stretching, he sucked it down like spaghetti. Inside the cottage, Applejack cried out her joy yet again joined swiftly by Fluttershy's more modest squeaks, and on the other side of the brook, on the other side of the hills, on the other side of the town, the clock tower began its cheery midday carillon. The voices in his head ratcheted their screaming up several notches, each voice seeming to offer a different remedy, but, well, the vast majority of their answers devolved into the single word Run followed by a surprisingly large variety of punctuation marks.

As he'd been doing with tedious regularity of late, however, he chose to go with the minority report. Unearthing himself, he changed the mud and dirt clinging to him into a suitably funereal black suit, snapped the claws of his lion paw, and hied himself to the front door of the Ponyville Municipal Library—or whatever it was called—just in time for the last of the twelve chimes to sound, echoing through his skull like the waves made by an earth pony dropped from a moderate height into a vat of strawberry pudding.

Ah, the good ol' days...

Refusing to sigh, he reached down, tugged the bottom of the library's front door, and let it roll upward with a flappity-flap-flap like a window shade released too quickly. The place was deserted—it was a library, after all—except for that little purple-and-green wyrm who was always hanging around, a feather duster in his claws.

Unfortunately, not even watching the hatchling jump behind a desk raised Discord's spirits. "Twilight!" the dragon called from where he cowered. "He's here!"

"Excellent!" came that voice, that cheery, horrible, goose-pimpling voice, and Twilight Sparkle trotted in from a side hallway, confidence practically a cloud around her. Oddly, though, the sound of the blood pumping through her veins was so loud, Discord had to fold his ears shut.

He made a hat appear on his head so he could take it off and hold it to his chest. "Good afternoon," he said. "I'm here to view the deceased."

"Oh, you!" Her eyes curled closed, but her heartbeat, already pounding against his senses, kicked up even faster, something that sparked a tiny fire of interest down in the sump pump of his midsection. She seemed almost as nervous, in fact, as he was, her laugh so phony, she should've been arrested for counterfeiting when she asked, "Have you been taking drama lessons from Rarity?"

"One of us has." Seeing her this uncertain made him feel like the two of them were somehow back in their proper adversarial relationship, and for the first time in hours, a little smile bubbled up from his gullet, pulled at his lips, and settled back into his throat. "What exactly have you got planned for us today, Princess Sparkle?"

The various hues she blushed delighted him no end. "Oh, nothing too strenuous— I mean serious! I mean—" She stopped, took a breath, turned to face the wyrm. "Spike, there's something I want to show Discord down in the basement. We shouldn't be more than a few minutes."

The dragon's eyes slitted. "You sure, Twilight?"

"Positive." She trembled ever so slightly and ever so deliciously, and Discord began to believe that he might yet survive this encounter with some portion of himself intact. But then she glanced over her shoulder at him, and her strange, feverish eyes made him reevaluate his position yet again. "It's just down here, Discord." She started for an arched wooden door with a Private sign on it.

Not following her was entirely out of the question at this point despite all the gibbering and moaning from his inner voices. Her tail swayed across her lean but rounded alicorn rump, her magic shimmering like a summer breeze as she pushed the door open and stepped inside, and Discord was more than halfway down the stairs on the other side of the door before it occurred to him that he could've just flashed to the bottom. The motion of her body ahead of him was simply that hypnotic.

He'd been in Twilight's laboratory several times during their impromptu lectures and demonstrations, and the door she was walking toward now he had always thought was a supply closet of some sort. "Will we be needing accessories?" he asked.

The glance she gave him this time he could only call 'sultry,' her horn glowing once more to pull the little door open. "Not the sort you're thinking of," she said, her voice throaty and lightly scolding.

"Thinking? Ha!" He touched his eagle claws to his chest and ducked his head to follow her inside. "I'll have you know I do my utmost to think as little as possible."

"Not me." Twilight stood facing away from him, her horn the only light source in the room, dark purple shadows dancing over the bare walls, floor, and ceiling of a space a good deal larger than the average closet. "I'm always thinking." Her horn flared, the door slamming shut behind Discord as all the room's surfaces took on a soft glow the color of plum jelly. "This spell, for instance: I used to think about it a lot when I was in school." She turned slowly, and her nervousness seemed to puff away like lavender steam, her expression hungry and excitingly disturbing. "It slows down time for us."

"Indeed?" Reaching out with his senses, he poked at the chronometric stresses sizzling around the edges of her spell. "What's the ratio of internal time to external time?"

She licked her lips, her eyes never leaving his. "For every ten minutes that pass in here, only a second ticks by outside." Even her giggle seemed less innocent than it had mere moments ago. "I used to dream of having a study room like this, but I never had the strength to manage it till after my coronation." She stepped toward him. "But the part that makes it so special is that we're completely isolated. Nothing can get in, nothing can get out, and only we two will ever know what happens in here. For as long as I'm powering this spell, this room is the entirety of the universe for us." She took another step. "So I'll ask you, Discord: what do you want? Right here and right now, what do you want?"

He couldn't stop a smirk. "What if I want to punch a hole through this bubble of yours and escape?"

Her fierce smile took him almost completely by surprise. "You're welcome to try. But I know the real you, Discord. You're made entirely of wants and desires, wants and desires you've been curbing these past few months because you think that's what friendship means. And it does mean that—not putting our own wants and desires above those of our friends. But you're a spirit of chaos, a spirit of the id, a spirit of the wild collective unconscious of all ponies everywhere. And bottling yourself up this completely is as bad for you as it is for us. So here in this room, I'm asking you as a friend." She was so close to him now, he could feel the puff of her panting. "What do you want?"

Staring down at her, Discord told himself he wasn't shaking. "You really want to know?" he heard something that almost sounded like his voice ask.

The change that came over her smile was subtle but profound, her whole expression radiantly beautiful and maddeningly self-righteous at the same time. "I do, yes."

"Very well." Breathing in, he wrapped air around all the uncertainty that had been festering in his chest since he'd fallen into Fluttershy's tender trap those several months ago, pointed his snout upward, and blew every bit if it out, a burst of white-hot magic swirling the air, slamming into the ceiling, and spattering over every inch of the walls and floor, coating the inside of Twilight's spell and making the whole room glow with the silver of a full moon at midnight. "First, I don't want us to be interrupted. So this should make our time extension more on the order of two hours inside for every second that passes outside."

Twilight's jaw had dropped, her ears perked and quivering. "Your magic...against mine—" Her eyes rolled shut, her wings unfurling with a ka-fwoomp. "Oh, the differential dispersal, it...it's everything I'd imagined it would be!"

"And second—" Looking at her, so open and shining and perfect, he let himself collapse over her like a mudslide, wrapped her in his coils, made the floor as soft and deep as an overstuffed cushion, rolled around so his face and hers were inches apart—

And had to gasp as every voice in his head cut off, silence inside him for the first time in his entire existence. Except he could hear a voice from in front of him, Twilight Sparkle's voice from her ecstatic face. "Yes," she was saying. "Whatever you want, just...yes, yes, yes..." Staring into her wide eyes almost made his magic sputter to a stop, almost sent him screeching and leaping and clawing at the walls to find a way out.

Because trust shone there brighter than any diamond. "Go on," she murmured, nestling into his chest. "Tell me what you want. Or better yet: show me."

And in the aching hollow of his skull, Discord suddenly and shockingly knew exactly what he wanted. "I want hooked barbs on the tips of my talons." He reached up with his eagle claws and rested them against the side of her neck. "And I want to plunge those hooked barbs through your hide and deep, deep, deep into your muscles." He gently stroked his claws along her neck, her breathing getting a bit quick and raspy. "I want to snag those hooks around the vertebrae of your spine just here—" He brought his lion paw up to the rich softness of her mane, combed its claws through it till they touched the skin above the base of her skull. "—at the medulla oblongata," he said.

She gave a little moan, her body shuddering, and Discord didn't even try to stop his own breath from speeding up. "I then want to send volleys of electrical energy surging down your spine and up into your brain." He had both sets of claws caressing her neck now, running them through her hair and dancing over her hide. "I want to flood your system with pleasure and pain, Twilight Sparkle, make you scream with joy and anguish simultaneously, and utterly destroy your ability to tell the one from the other."

"Oh," she said, the sound short and clipped and exquisite.

He bent forward, whispering directly into her ear. "And then, I want to dig my teeth into your scalp." Leaning further, he pressed his lips to her forehead just below her horn. "I want to tear the flesh away, crack open your skull, and gorge myself on the succulent meat inside." He kissed a soft trail up to the base of her horn, then stretched out his tongue to give its sweet curls a long, slow lick from bottom to tip.

A squeak, and she shifted, lowered her head so he could reach more of her horn, started moving her lips thrillingly along the line where the gray feathers of his neck met the course brown fur of his chest.

Closing his eyes, no longer caring about anything else— "I want to savor the scent and the taste of you," he said, and he finally proceeded to do exactly what he'd said, sliding her horn into his mouth and wrapping his tongue around it. Lilac, peppermint, rosebuds, the breeze off the ocean on a lazy blue afternoon: all these paled in comparison to her flavor and aroma, and Discord indulged himself, let himself have exactly what he wanted for the first time in what felt like centuries.

Her groan filled his emptiness, and she seemed to become softer in his coils, seemed to spread out in his grip like butter. Her hindquarters began rubbing where his tail curled between her legs, and a soft, wet crinkle tickled his ears, the air in the room suddenly damp and musky. "Please," she panted. "Inside me. Just—" Her words dissolved into a growl, and she began rubbing harder.

Without even a thought, he tightened the curl of his tail to meet her body more closely, filled the space where her lacinia had pulled open, pushed even further to brush the lips of her vagina, then further still till one of his ridges slid—

Her whole body spasmed, her front hoofs slamming into his shoulders and her head wrenching upward, pulling her horn from his mouth. "Yes!" she shouted.

So he worked his tail some more, watched her spine arch, her gaze losing focus, her front legs trembling as they held her upright. Stretching his neck again, he reached to touch his lips to hers, and she was suddenly wrapping her front legs around his neck, her mouth pressing his hot and hard.

That seemed to short-circuit his brain for some amount of time. He was sure, however, that her hips kept bucking and his tail kept tickling, because when she started spasming again, her back arching even further to break her lips away and bringing him out of the wonderful haze and closer to something like full consciousness, he was a little shocked to find that he now had two complete tail ridges rammed up inside her.

Judging by her yipping and jiggling, though, Twilight didn't seem to mind, and when her eyes shot open, she gave a stream of cries much like those he'd been trying not to listen to all night in his spot under the tree beside Fluttershy's house: "Yes! Oh, Discord, yes, yes, yes!" Blue waves of light flooded from her—was she actually emitting charged particles at a speed faster than light was currently traveling through the enchanted air??—the muscles clenching and unclenching all along her flanks and belly with a fluttering motion that he found equally as fascinating as the radiation bursting from her.

Then her legs gave way, collapsing her to sprawl again across his chest, and the look of her, the smell of her, the way her power slowed to a flow as creamily smooth as a river of custard through the aethersphere around her, it was like nothing Discord had ever seen: exhausted but happy, spent but satisfied, disheveled but relaxed. He was almost afraid to move, like she was a soap bubble that had settled atop him, and anything too jarring would cause her to pop.

Although if the dampness against his tail was any indication, she'd already popped in certain ways. Not, he noted again, that she seemed to be complaining about it...

Several seconds of deep breathing, and she made a sighing, gurgling sort of noise; pulling herself forward, she smiled, and Discord heard a definite pop as she separated herself from his tail ridges. With a giggle, she raised her head, folded her front legs over his chest, and rested her chin on them. "Gorging on the succulent meat inside?" she asked.

"Well?" He flexed himself, let the tip of a tail ridge brush her hindquarters again. "Didn't I?"

Her eyes rolled shut with a sigh. "Point taken," she said, then she blinked and focused on him again. "The weird thing, though? What you were saying you wanted to do to me? Very similar to what I want to do to you."

This perked his ears. "Really?"

Nodding, she reached up and rested a hoof against the side of his neck. "Ever since Applejack and Fluttershy came to me about Fluttershy's condition, I've been studying the mechanics of how genitalia are wired into the central nervous system. And with your basal ganglia being as fluid as the rest of your physical self—"

Light began to waver around her horn, warmth springing up from the spot where her hoof was touching, and Discord felt his brain shift inside his skull as she went on: "—I feel almost certain—" Her whole body took on the glow of her horn, and flexing her wings, she rose through his coils, either one or both of them suddenly as insubstantial as mist. "—that I can create—" The warmth was slithering down along his insides, Discord uncurling himself, watching the invisible sensation transform various parts of his interior. "—the proper neurological—" The warmth slid all the way down to a spot between his legs, and something began to stir there. "—and somatic components," Twilight Sparkle finished.

Jaw dropping, Discord stared, a pony-like lacinia suddenly pulling open in the formerly solid skin of his abdomen to unveil a growing, throbbing, pink and red—

"Like that," Twilight's breathy voice said, and she settled on her stomach along the length of his tail, her eyes fixed on that impossible jutting piece of flesh. "And if my calculations are correct—" She leaned forward licking her lips. "—the way I've configured your nervous system should allow you to experience a very pleasant sensation when I do this." And her mouth closed over the tip of his new penis.

For all that Discord exploded on a fairly regular basis, bursting into fire or blue smoke or clouds of mustard-scented powder as he saw fit, the explosion that took place inside him then was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. Pure liquid pleasure roared up through him from the wet warmth of Twilight's lips, slammed his head back against the floor, and sent a shower of purple and gold superheated steam blasting from his snout.

"Wow," Twilight said, but that was as far as he let her get; swirling around her, he summoned up a gramophone, tango music slinking from it, snapped up a rose to clench between his teeth, and began dancing her slowly backwards, miniature luscious explosions ringing through his skull from where his penis nestled contentedly against her stomach. "Discord? What are you—?"

"Tell me, Twilight Sparkle," he said around the rose; a thought caused a large plush sofa to spring up behind her, and he eased her back onto its cushions. "What do you want, hmmm? In our little sealed bubble of time and space." The rose shattered into silver glints of light as he gritted his teeth, the sensation of his penis sliding along to the edge of her lacinia making him shake with every slam of his heart. "Giving me this bit of genitalia, what exactly do you want?"

"Well,..." She blinked up at him, her front legs tucked against her chest, her wings spread out huge and majestic on the sofa behind her. "I was kind of hoping we could have sex." Her horn flickered, and he felt warmth grip his penis and guide it further down, everything about her somehow both excited and vulnerable.

"Cara mia!" he growled, and he let his magic slide into the warm dampness of her, heard her giggle and gasp at the same time. Her magic moved again, positioned him at what he knew were the lips of her vagina, and without another thought, he pushed himself forward.

How he didn't shatter the way the rose had, he had no idea. Twilight squeezed him in every possible way: her front and rear legs, he could've sworn, had changed to a dozen or more tentacles wrapping around him; her body welcomed him in like a lock who had at long last found its key; and her magic enveloped him as completely as the oxygen and nitrogen of the atmosphere. Slowly at first, he pushed and pulled, testing her physically and magically, the incredible electricity of their contact wanting him to slam his full strength against the bonds she'd closed around him.

But no. Digging his claws into her flowing mane, he forced himself to go just a little harder with each push, just a little faster with each pull; he wouldn't give in, wouldn't take the chance of harming this glorious creature who was even now grabbing his head and crushing their lips together, taking every inch of his body, every joule of his power, taking it all and seeming to drink it in, seeming to want even more.

So he gave her more, every one of his inner voices bursting into joyful song at being able to give and give and give without fear, at the fantastic sensations she was giving back to him, at the mounting spiral of resonance that bounced, that slammed, that crashed back and forth between them. Lost in auroras of ecstasy, Discord no longer knew where he ended and she began, their magic whirling and combining, spinning from breeze to gust to cyclone.

Sweeping them up, the hurricane of their coupling raged without a drop of violence, without a speck of hesitation, and they screamed and laughed and stormed together, cresting around each other until every atom, every photon, every particle and wave of their collective being spasmed and burst, showering matter and energy in previously unknown forms and states all over the interior of their own private universe.

And it just kept going, his orgasm triggering hers and hers feeding back to create his, a looping of cause and effect that made him shriek like the happiest teakettle in the world. Things inside him that he'd never known existed went sprouting and spouting for the timeless time between one clock tick and the next, and for that eternal instant Discord knew equilibrium, knew peace and quiet and calm of a sort he'd never even imagined he could experience.

Then he noticed that he was breathing again, noticed gravity, noticed the warm wonderful creature lying in his embrace. "Cara mia," he whispered, and a giggle answered him. He dragged his eyes open to see her beside him, her own eyes half-closed, the sofa cushions looking like they'd been through both a fire and a flood. "So beautiful," he said.

She gave a throaty moan and shifted, icepick-sharp jolts of pleasure slicing through Discord from where he remained buried within her. "That was...phenomenal," she murmured.

"Two more things, however, princess." Several of his inner voices raised a sleepy protest, but Discord continued: "I want you never to tell me how you rigged me up with this penis, and I want you to take it away from me before we leave here today."

The smooth bliss on her face wrinkled. "You...you didn't like it?"

"I loved it." Discord touched his lion paw to her cheek. "But sexuality is like the aroma of bad cheese: once it forces its way into a situation, it drives out every other scent, plops itself down at center stage, and demands that all attention be paid to it. Sexuality is as subtle as an axe to the forehead, and I'll have nothing to do with it." He waved his eagle claws at the ceiling. "Out there, that is. In here, well, as you said, in here, it's only you and me, and I don't think we could truly manage to harm one another even if we put some effort into it."

"Really?" The smile that curled over that little pony snout of hers was a bit more prideful than thoughtful. "You don't think you could harm me? Have I become that powerful?" She stroked a hoof slowly along his side. "Or is there maybe some other reason?"

Rolling his eyes, he swore that he would never acknowledge the truth: that she'd killed him, just as he'd thought she would; that he'd gone willingly every step of the way; that he would follow her now panting like a dog to the end of either his unnatural life or hers. "Don't be gauche," he told her with as much of a whine as he could muster while the vast majority of his body still hummed in the contentment of afterglow.

"Sorry." She sighed. "But all right. I'll never tell you how to make yourself a penis, and I'll remove the spell when we're done." She slid herself along him then, a movement that made a small display of fireworks pop from his horns. "Still, we don't have to be done just yet, do we?"

The smile he gave her, he was fairly certain, was the most genuine he'd ever produced. "You're just the nicest doom ever, aren't you?"

***

In the week after the wedding, Fluttershy was sure she'd spent more time airborne than in the entire year before it. She just couldn't keep her hoofs on the ground, had to leap up and twirl around in the sky every time she thought about, well, about everything.

Burr coming back into her life, for one: he and Big Mac had really hit it off, and when the Apples' cousin Tangelo had shown up for the wedding, the three had become inseparable. Burr had even stayed over a couple extra days afterwards to visit with the Apples and Oranges and help clean up, and he'd just smiled when Fluttershy had wondered if the Manehattan Weather Bureau might be mad at him for missing work: "My boss gave me a full two weeks off with pay even though I just asked for five days after he found out I was coming to your wedding. He kept talking about the importance of family."

She'd nuzzled him then, and when she'd stepped back, the tears shining in his eyes had made them start in hers as well. "I'm sorry," Burr had said the same way he'd been saying the whole week-and-a-half. "Mom and Dad can do whatever they're going to do, but I...I'm tired of being as grouchy and awful as them all the time."

He'd changed his tickets so he could travel back to Manehattan with Tangelo and a bunch of the other Orange cousins, and now walking along the road from town out to Sweet Apple Acres, Fluttershy did another little jump and spin remembering how happy her brother had looked as they'd all waved good-bye at the train station on Wednesday.

And even remembering the scary thing she'd done the next day didn't make her want to cower the way the mere thought of it had for most of her life: she'd walked right into Ponyville General and made an appointment with Nurse Redheart for her first ever actual physical examination.

She'd done it all on her own, too, something that had astonished her while she was doing it and had seemed to astonish Applejack just as much when Fluttershy had told her. Applejack had hugged her and kissed her and had promised to go and be there with her the whole time, and when they'd told Twilight, she'd volunteered to go with them, too, so she could give a presentation to the doctors about her findings concerning Fluttershy's condition.

That she had such wonderful friends made Fluttershy dance through the air some more, and knowing that she was part of a family now, that she had ponies who both wanted and needed her to be strong and healthy, it was the best feeling she'd ever had in her life, every part of her singing and laughing.

But her happiness was so much deeper now, a seriousness to it that somehow made the singing and laughing even better. She was Applejack's wife—or Applejack was her wife: for all that she really, really liked it that Applejack had taken to introducing her as 'the missus,' Fluttershy still hadn't quite figured out what word she wanted to use for Applejack—and that connection made all the difference.

Just thinking Applejack's name, though, was too small for her right then, so she said it out loud just to feel it move through her mouth and over her tongue: "Applejack." She landed in the grass beside the road, felt the earth solid and warm and wonderful beneath her hoofs, and said it again: "Applejack." Lifting her nose, she took a big, big whiff of the air, sweet with the breeze washing from the trees of the Acres just ahead and said, "Applejack," a third time.

An oh-so-familiar chuckle caressed her ears, and blinking, she forced herself to focus on the here and now, the most gorgeous scent in the world pulling her attention to the fence alongside the road. A certain cider-colored earth pony leaned there, full saddlebags easily balanced across her strong back, one front hoof pushing her hat brim up to reveal her green, grinning eyes. "Careful what you wish for, honeycomb. Might just be you get it."

Every part of Fluttershy squealed with delight, and she swooped over to throw her front legs around Applejack's neck. "And it's not even my birthday!" she found herself saying though she wasn't sure it made sense.

Applejack's laugh rustled Fluttershy's mane. "Ev'ry day's somepony's birthday," she said, but by then Fluttershy had backed up enough to press her lips to her beloved's, and that kind of stopped either of them from talking for a long, luscious stretch of time, the just-past-noon sunlight seeming to wrap Fluttershy in its embrace like she was a leaf drifting lazily through a blue summer sky.

But then Applejack was stepping away, puffing out a breath, a little flush about her cheeks. "Reckon we shouldn't oughtta get carried away just yet." She nodded to her saddlebags. "I'd hate for this ol' picnic lunch to go to waste."

Fluttershy leaned closer, pretending to sniff the saddlebags. "Mmmmm," she said, letting her nose touch a little further along Applejack's flanks each time she took a whiff. "Something smells ever so delicious."

"Whoa, there, Nelly." Flexing herself in a way that made Fluttershy gasp, Applejack easily leaped up and over the fence into the field on the other side. "Surely you ain't saying you want dessert afore you've even sampled the main course, are you?"

Seeing Applejack demonstrate her smooth strength made Fluttershy tremble in the best possible way, and she didn't even try to keep her voice from trembling as well. "Oh, but now I want it more than ever..."

That got another gorgeous chuckle out of Applejack, and she leaned through the crosspieces of the fence to plant a tiny kiss on Fluttershy's cheek. "Come on over, then. I got a special surprise picnic spot all picked out."

A few flaps of her wings brought Fluttershy to Applejack's side, but again, she could barely keep her hoofs on the ground as they made their way up the hill into the south orchard. "I'm sorry," she said after the fourth or fifth time she'd taken flight, her face burning. "I want to walk with you, Applejack, but, I mean, I'm walking with you!" Her chest got all fluttery again. "Thinking about you makes my heart turn into a hummingbird, and I...I have to...to..." She let the words trail off, unable to think of any that might not sound stupid.

"Honeycomb?" Applejack's voice trickled across Fluttershy as soft as the treetop shadows. "Seeing you fly is more beautiful than sunup and sundown put together, and knowing it's me makes you spread those glorious wings, I can't even start telling you how happy and proud I get hearing it."

Well, there was no way she could stay out of the sky after that, and even though she knew that the show she gave Applejack as they wound their way deeper into the orchards wasn't anywhere as fine as the shows Rainbow Dash could put on just by flying from one side of town to the other, she also knew that Applejack would never look at Rainbow with that same fire in her eyes. And every time she swooped down so they could kiss, the fire seemed to pour right out of Applejack and into her, inspiring Fluttershy to try aerial maneuvers she never would've considered on her own.

How long they went on, Fluttershy had no idea. But when Applejack finally called up to her, "Reckon we're here, honeycomb," Fluttershy found herself just the tiniest bit out of breath. All she had to do, though, was prance over to Applejack and get some more of her kisses. Yes, they also left her short of breath, but she always felt so much stronger afterwards.

Then Applejack was tossing a red and white checked blanket into the shade of a particularly gnarled-looking apple tree. It sat in a little dell, too, Fluttershy noticed, gentle wooded hills sloping up on both sides and behind them, a lovely view of the full south orchard ahead, row after row after row of perfect apple trees as far as the eye could see. Fluttershy helped Applejack unpack the cups and plates, the jugs and jars, the wax paper packages and the little wooden bowls, and the aromas rising from everything made her realize just how hungry she was. All that exercise she'd been getting, she guessed...

Then Applejack was settling into the grass, Fluttershy sliding in to cuddle with her there, and they got started. Unwrapping a sandwich, Fluttershy asked how Applejack's morning had gone, and Applejack told her about preparing the seeds for next year's planting; slicing the pie, Applejack asked how Fluttershy's morning had gone, and Fluttershy told her about her weekly rounds settling disputes among the various squirrel tribes who'd started moving into the Everfree Forest now that the Tree of Harmony was back to full strength and was beginning to soften some of the forest's more dangerous edges.

The food was perfect, but the company was even better, and when they'd made their leisurely way through the salads and the sandwiches and the chips and the dessert, Fluttershy just wanted to curl up against Applejack's warm, solid side and drift into a nap. Applejack's thoughts seemed to be heading in that direction, too: she gave Fluttershy's nose a kiss, stood, stretched in a way that roused certain parts of Fluttershy partially from their sleepiness, then settled again, but this time on her back against the trunk of the big old tree. "Got room right here, honeycomb," she said, patting the grass.

In a flash, Fluttershy crossed the space between them and was nestling into Applejack's side. Moving her head, she found Applejack's lips, and the kiss they shared both stirred Fluttershy and relaxed her, her whole body tingling lazily as she tucked herself closer, Applejack's front leg curling around her shoulders. "Lemme ask you something," Applejack said, and a strange sort of excitement seemed to wriggle around behind her words.

"Anything." Fluttershy bent her neck so she could look up at her beloved—and that was the word, she decided; instead of 'husband' or 'wife,' she was going to call Applejack 'my beloved' from now on.

That excitement glowed stronger in her beloved's eyes, and Applejack gestured with the hoof Fluttershy wasn't resting against. "Take a look around and tell me what'cha see."

"Ummm..." Fluttershy blinked at the apple trees rising up the little hills on their left and right, at the other apple trees growing outside their little dell. "Your orchards?"

"Nope." Applejack touched her hoof to Fluttershy's nose. "Our orchards."

Fluttershy could only blink some more, Applejack giving a crisp nod. "Went down to city hall yesterday and made sure ev'rything's all nice and legal. This place belongs to you and you belong to it now, my beautiful, wunnerful Fluttershy, same as it is with me: always and forever."

The breath caught in Fluttershy's throat, and she could barely manage to squeak out an, "Oh," the grass underneath her suddenly feeling different.

Applejack kissed the spot where she'd touched Fluttershy's nose a moment before. "Got about three other things you might wanna know, too, honeycomb, though one of 'em I reckon you know already. And that's that we gots the best buncha friends any ponies has ever had. Y'know why?"

Still stunned, Fluttershy shook her head.

"'Cause Rainbow, Twilight, ol' Discord, and even that Angel of yours—" Applejack's low chuckle gently rippled through Fluttershy. "'Bout the only thing that bunny 'n' me agrees on is that nopony in the world's good enough for you."

"Oh, now, Applejack," Fluttershy couldn't keep from saying. "Angel is very fond of you."

"Reckon he must be." Applejack waved her hoof again. "Him and Discord spent all day yesterday going 'round to all the critters what lives in this parta of the farm, see, either in the trees, on the ground, or under the ground, and Twilight and Rainbow are flying the perimeter to make sure nothing with wings comes blundering in."

"I see." But since she actually didn't see, Fluttershy quickly added, "Ummm, could you maybe tell me why they did all that?"

"That's the second-to-last thing you oughtta know." Applejack's smile made the air around Fluttershy heat up, she was sure, about another three degrees. "For a good half mile in any which direction you wanna look—north, south, east, west, up, down, and any sideways combination of all them—there's only two sapient critters in this whole little slice of Equestria." She touched Fluttershy's chest. "You." And she moved the hoof to touch her own chest. "And me."

The fine hairs at the base of Fluttershy's mane bristled. "We're...completely alone?"

Applejack nodded, something almost electrical sizzling in her eyes.

Fluttershy swallowed. "And...and what's the last thing I ought to know?"

Shifting sensuously against her, Applejack kissed Fluttershy's forehead. "I'm just exactly at the right place in my cycle for us to get me in a family way."

***

A whole week of planning, a whole week of plotting, a whole week of driving herself crazy to get ev'rything set up, and now, leaning back against ol' Ironsides, 'bout the last harvestable tree from great-grandad's original orchard, AJ saw it all come to fruition in the slight widening of her honeycomb's eyes. "Oh, my," Fluttershy said, the sweet waver in her voice making Applejack shiver.

And as much as AJ just wanted to roll over on top of the pegasus and coax her sweet little wiggler out of hiding, she'd had such a powerful vision of what this moment oughtta be like that she held herself in place and nodded. "Out here with our trees around us and with that sky up overhead. 'Cause you are the sky, honeycomb."

Taking a breath, Applejack felt like her heart was trying to bust right outta her ribcage. "You're the sheer, endless blue and the soft, gentle breeze," she whispered, touching a hoof to Fluttershy's surprised face. "You gots all the sun and the moon and the stars inside you, and you show 'em to me ev'ry time you turn a smile my way."

Hardly even having to think about it, she lifted Fluttershy as easy as she reckoned it'd be lifting a cloud, set her on top so they was lying together chest to chest and belly to belly, that dream-soft pink mane cascading down into Applejack's face. "You're the rain that falls and makes my whole life blossom and bloom. You're the silent touch of snow when I needs cooling down and the springtime's evening breeze when I needs heating up." She sank her hoofs into that mane, stretched her neck up, and gave Fluttershy a long, deep kiss.

Fluttershy made a little cooing noise way in the back of her throat, and she returned the kiss so fervently, Applejack kinda forgot where she was in the script she'd memorized, the words she'd thought out so carefully this past week. But then Fluttershy was pulling away, tucking her head into the hollow under AJ's chin. "Oh, Applejack! You always say and do the most wonderful things!"

Another few breaths, and Applejack recovered the ability to speak. "You're the answer to a question I didn't even know I was asking," she said, getting back on track, "and the joy I didn't even know I was missing." Seeing Fluttershy's ear right in front of her, AJ had to break off and do a little nibbling, something that always made Fluttershy gasp. She squirmed, too, and AJ could feel that glorious bulge between those glorious legs, Fluttershy's wiggler starting to strain, she hoped, against the confines of her lacinia.

"I love you, Fluttershy," she said, her voice husky, "and I want you to love me right here and right now under these trees and this sky." She had to grit her teeth and clench her eyes at the muscle spasms starting along her stomach, her own lacinia on the verge of crinkling open. "Put that sky inside me and let me—" The idea of it pushed ev'ry button Applejack had, and her lacinia sprang out of the way in eager anticipation. "Lemme make foals out of it!" she more growled than said.

The stillness across her chest made Applejack crack her eyelids and peer up, Fluttershy staring back with wide, wide eyes. For a brief, horrible instant, AJ froze, too, thinking she'd got a mite carried away, a mite too flowery. But then, Fluttershy gave a humming sort of a sigh, and her wings—

Sweet Mother of Mercy, her wings unfolded and spread, spread, spread, overshadowing Applejack in a way that got her breath going all quick and raspy. "Oh, my beloved," Fluttershy said—at least, it was her voice, but AJ coulda swore the words were drifting down over her like the big, slow, warm raindrops of a summer sun shower. "Maybe I'm the sky to you, but you, you're the earth to me."

Through the haze of lust and wonder that trembled around her, Applejack saw Fluttershy lean down like Equestria's friendliest thunderhead, and her kiss might as well have been a lightning strike, the way it sent jolts of high-voltage pleasure rocketing through AJ. "Even back when I hardly knew what the earth was," Fluttershy was going on breathlessly, "I wanted her steadiness, her sureness, her strength. And when Dashie knocked me right down onto the earth before she did her first Rainboom, the earth saved my life, gave me my life, really, my home, my job, my cutie mark. And you, Applejack. The earth gave me you."

Another electrical kiss, but this time Applejack got herself to move, wrapped as many legs as she had around Fluttershy, held her tight and gave the kiss back with as much steadiness, surety, and strength as she could muster. Fluttershy groaned, and AJ felt her honeycomb's body flex, felt her lacinia burst open, felt the pressure of Fluttershy's wiggler swelling to hardness against her stomach.

"You, you, you," Fluttershy whispered, kisses pulling at Applejack's lips between each word. "And after that, Applejack, you gave me—" Fluttershy shifted above her, a spot of fiery heat touching either side of her vulva. "You gave me everything!"

She plunged in, then, and Applejack snapped her head back, squashed her hat against ol' Ironsides' rough bark, her whole body opening in welcome, muscles tightening and relaxing like her ev'ry fiber was embracing Fluttershy and drawing her in deeper. AJ couldn't hardly manage a breath, didn't want the air in her lungs to take up any of the room that Fluttershy was filling, didn't want the sensation of Fluttershy sinking down into her ever, ever, ever to end—

Until Fluttershy drew back, Applejack gasping at the bliss that shuddered through her. "Oh, AJ, yes!" Fluttershy squeaked, and when she thrust herself back in, AJ arching her back to meet her, Fluttershy's wings flapped down, wrapped Applejack in downy softness, sent whispering, giggling tickles crackling over AJ's whole body, and overloaded her senses, an explosion that made her sure she was soaring on wings herself, Fluttershy right there with her, the both of them spinning through the sky.

Again and again and again, she and Fluttershy rose and fell, clenched and released, hoofs and lips and manes and tails and wings and ev'rything all entangled and alive, sailing on zephyrs of joy. She felt big as the whole world, small as the wispiest cloud, riding and being ridden, whirling and being whirled, Fluttershy covering her like the sky covers the ground, kisses and yipping cries raining down to set Applejack quivering like an earthquake. Her own cries got louder each time her and her honeycomb came crashing together, and when her first orgasm hit, she coulda swore that the sound she made was exactly that of an avalanche sweeping down a snowy mountainside.

Again and again and again, her body blossoming with ecstasy like ev'ry tree in ev'ry orchard across the whole face of Equestria bursting into flowers all at once, and still Fluttershy pumped her higher and higher, higher and higher beyond anything AJ'd ever even imagined. And when her honeycomb squealed and thrust that one last time, thunder flooded Applejack, roared around her peaks and valleys, ev'ry inch of her inner landscape howling in elation. Echoing and reechoing, the storm bore her away, Fluttershy beside and between and all through her, their love at that moment hotter'n any lava and sweeter'n any apple.

She came back to herself slowly same as she always did afterwards, felt Fluttershy tucked along her left side, their hind legs still sorta tangled together. She didn't wanna untangle 'em, though, didn't want anything for the next good long while 'cept to lie just like she was, her honeycomb breathing soft breaths against her neck, her lacinia smoothing shut, her whole self full of Fluttershy's sweet nectar.

The tiniest little twitch deep inside her made her blink, an impossible feeling of something latching on, nestling in, and taking root. Holding her breath, absolutely certain that she couldn't be feeling what she thought she was feeling—

Except that, lying there under the oldest tree in the Acres with the love of her life curled against her and the sky and the earth smiling their slow, gentle smiles, Applejack knew. Sweet Mother of Mercy, she knew.

Her heart soaring, she lolled her head over to look at Fluttershy resting on her shoulder. "Honeycomb?" she asked.

Fluttershy stirred, opened those beautiful eyes. "Hmmmm?"

Applejack reached out, took Fluttershy's hoof, and guided it to rest on her belly, dainty yellow touching rough orange.

A few seconds, and Fluttershy's eyes opened wider, her gaze shuttling back and forth between her hoof and AJ's face. AJ smiled and nodded, and Fluttershy threw her front legs around Applejack's barrel, pressed her face into her neck. Wrapping her own legs into a gentle hug, AJ rubbed Fluttershy's back, and the two held each other on into the afternoon.

Author's Note

Oh, and the music Discord and Twilight make love to?

"Hora Cero" by Astor Piazzolla and his New Tango Sextet

Mike