Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree...
Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree...
'Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree'
A knock on her door caused Fluttershy to freeze. Had she been discovered? Seen last night? She could explain! Somehow.
"Yoohoo! Fluttershy? Anyone home?"
Oh. It was just Discord. Fluttershy smiled a little, thinking how much it would bother him to be thought of as 'just Discord'--surely the very embodiment of chaos itself deserves more introduction than 'just Discord', he might say.
Fluttershy opened the door to her cottage, and Discord glided in.
"You know," he said, taking a seat on a cushion sat on its end, "your door has always been wide open for our little afternoon teas, but it was closed just now." Discord leaned his face on his mismatched palms and studied Fluttershy. "Not wanting to be rid of me today, are you Fluttershy?"
"No," Fluttershy said, gathering a cushion to sit opposite Discord and definitely not thinking about wanting to crawl into a hole and be left alone forever.
"Because I can come back later. It's no trouble at all."
"You're no trouble," Fluttershy said with a smile. She patted Discord's cushion with the tip of her wing. "Please, stay."
"Then I do believe," Discord said, standing and letting his impossible cushion fall to the floor, "it is time for tea." A tartan flat cap appeared atop his head, and a long pole with an oddly-shaped rounded weight at its head slid out from nowhere-space behind his arm. A little white ball now sat in front of Fluttershy, supported by a thin spike. Discord stared at her with raised eyebrows, waiting for her to get the joke.
"Oh," she said after a moment, "tee."
Discord hit the little ball with a resounding thwack!, sending it soaring into the distance of a painting. He sat down cross-legged and poured tea from a kettle held in the paw that had just been holding his club into two large teacups that hadn't been there a moment ago.
"There's something different about you today," Discord mused, "something more than a closed door." He closed his eyes as the tea continued to flow. "Changed your haircut?" he guessed.
"No, it's not that," Fluttershy said, shifting a little to hide even more of her face behind her mane.
"Different perfume?"
"I don't wear perfume..."
"Of course you don't."
Discord's eyes remained closed, but Fluttershy felt like he was still watching her. He gave a wide toothy smile.
"New fangs?" he asked. The one fang in his own mouth glinted.
Fluttershy's hooves involuntarily rose to cover her mouth even as she tried to deny it. She stumbled over her words, allowing Discord to interrupt her.
"I think it's quite a bold fashion statement," he said, darting his head around to try and get a glimpse of Fluttershy's mouth. "In a few months I'm sure everypony will want a pair of fangs."
"I don't want fangs!" Fluttershy exclaimed, scooting back and shrinking down even further.
"Whyever not? Some of my best friends have fangs."
"They..." Fluttershy whispered from behind her mane, "...make me do things."
"Really?" Discord raised and eyebrow, then plucked his own singular fang out of his mouth to examine it. "Mine never did; it's a bit of a stupid old thing, really." He sat it next to his teacup, then turned his attention back to Fluttershy. "What do yours make you do?"
"It started when the fruit bats came to Applejack's farm." Fluttershy stared into the swirling vortex of tea in her cup. "I couldn't just let them be driven away! They might have gotten lost, or hurt, or into some other pony's crops that would be less kind to them. So then Twilight cast a spell to make the bats lose their appetite--"
Discord gave a curious 'mm-hmm'.
"--But it went wrong somehow! Twilight didn't mean it! She tried to fix it and she said she did but I still want to keep eating apples!" Fluttershy looked up at Discord, tears brimming in her eyes. "I've been sneaking into Sweet Apple Acres every night and taking apples!" she wailed. "Only from the orchard that's for the bats, but one night somepony's going to see me or somepony's going to notice the bats are running out of food, or... or..."
She took a set of sharp fluttery breaths. Discord laid a reassuring paw on her shoulder.
"I think the best thing to do right now," he said in an uncharacteristically calm tone, "would be to drink your tea."
"Do you..." Fluttershy swallowed. "Do you think that will help?"
"Trust me."
Fluttershy took a sip of her tea. It was warm but not too warm, and smelled of herbs. Herbs, and something else. Something extra. Something sweet and intoxicating. She put the cup down and sniffed. The sweet smell wasn't coming from her cup, but from Discord's. Although steam still rose from his teacup, what sat within it wasn't tea.
It was apple juice.
"Drink your tea, Fluttershy," Discord cautioned, "or it will go cold."
Fluttershy ran her tongue over her lips. "I would rather try some of yours. If you don't mind."
"That's silly," Discord said, "you saw me pour both cups from the same kettle." He took a huge gulp of his steaming apple juice and set his cup back down. It was larger and filled with more rich pure juice than before.
"I would still like to try some. Just a little." Fluttershy could no longer see her cottage nor Discord sitting in front of her. Her voice seemed to be coming from some place far away.
"Drink your own tea, Fluttershy."
The thought of drinking boiling water with dead leaves floating in it when there was fresh, sweet apple juice right in front of her, not even needing to be drained out of the apples, enraged her. She lunged for the bathtub-sized cup, fangs bared.
"Stop!" Discord bellowed, sending ripples across the surface of the ocean of apple juice. "You don't want this!"
"Yes I do! I need it!"
"No you don't!"
Powerful hands grabbed her shoulders and held her in place. Waves of sweet juice lapped and called to her and she thrashed from side to side, trying to break free.
"You are stronger than this. Where's the Fluttershy I know?"
Now he was taunting her. She'd show him, she'd get to the sea of juice and drink it all in just one swallow.
"Do you remember in the maze?"
What maze? She recalled a vague memory. Hadn't Applejack said some mountains of talking apples spoke to her?
"Do you remember when I turned you?"
...Mountains of apples...
"...I cheated."
Fluttershy blinked. "...What?"
"I cheated," Discord repeated. "It probably wasn't fair to go against the rules of the game, but who can expect chaos to play by the rules even if he did make them up himself? Anyway, I managed to convince all your friends to turn against their Elements--even Twilight, in the end--but not you."
Fluttershy blinked again. Discord's face swam into view, reflected on the surface of the apple juice.
"I had to cheat with you. Because you're too strong to be fooled by anything an embodiment of chaos says to you."
Fluttershy felt Discord's claw and paw release her. Sunlight was streaming through her windows. Outside, birds twittered.
"And if you're strong enough to ignore me..."
Discord took a seat on the floor opposite Fluttershy once again. He picked up the teacup in front of him, still filled with apple juice.
"...Then surely you can ignore a little juice."
He tilted the cup towards her, offering it. Fluttershy picked up her own cup of tea and drank from it. The underlying aroma of apples no longer seemed as overpowering. When she took a second sip, it almost disappeared.
Fluttershy lunged over her teacup to envelop Discord in a fierce hug. His lion's paw around her felt soft, warm, and reassuring. Something he had said earlier flashed through her mind: some of my best friends have fangs...
"Thank you," she whispered.
Discord looked down at her.
"What are friends for?"
