It had been a quiet night for Discord. No unexpected animals sleeping on his couch, no Fluttershy to tell him to undo the rather amusing additions he had given to that grouchy little ball of fluff, Angel. The alligator tail was such an improvement. Come to think of it Discord wasn't quite sure where Fluttershy had gotten off to.
Not that it was unusual for her to leave him alone for a day or two to go play heroes with her other little pony friends, especially now that they were, ugh, cleaning up that beautifully chaotic castle in the Everfree. He shuttered, all that beautiful chaos, being washed away and tidied up. It made him sick just thinking about it.
No whenever Fluttershy had gone off to do whatever it was she had planned for the day she would always tell him. But two days ago she had left in the middle of the night without any rhyme or reason, which was strange for the little pony, even if it was a change he approved of. And when she came back she didn't even tell him off for turning all of the windows into rock candy, admittedly a small change, but she usually picked up on any chaos he had implemented while she was away.
He was giving serious consideration to actually trying something a bit more drastic, just to see if he could. Perhaps turning the little pond into a fruit bowl, with fish shaped fruit. Or giving the old cottage a teensy addition, like wings.
Just as he was going to let his magic do its thing he heard the cottage door creak open. Quickly he redirected his magic toward himself, giving him a large overstuffed chair, monocle, smoking jacket, and newspaper. “Good morning Fluttershy, and how was your evening?” he asked, nonchalantly turning the page of his paper.
“It was... interesting. And its the middle of the afternoon Discord,” she answered.
He lowered his monocle and looked out one of the rock candy windows, “Is it? I've never been good with that whole day night thing. Never saw the use really.” Out of the corner of his eye Discord noticed that Angel was making for Fluttershy, alligator tail swinging behind him.
“However,” Discord snapped his fingers and in place of his overstuffed chair, a large picnic table was now in the center of the room. A white table cloth covered it and several platters of food covered the table. “Anytime is a good time for a nice meal with friends,” Discord grinned, only giving the living caricature of Angel a glance as it shook its paw at Discord from the platter.
If there was one thing he hated more than harmony, it was undoing a perfectly good piece of discord. He liked to let his creations linger for a while, even if they would eventual be reverted back to their boring normal states.
“Oh that sounds lovely Discord, but the girls just threw a party and I'm still full from all of the treats we had cooked together,” Fluttershy said, a hint of an apology in her voice.
“I'm hurt Fluttershy! After all the work I went through, gathering up these flowers, chopping all these vegetables, and even picking some of the apples from ol' Applesauce's-”
“Applejack,” Fluttershy corrected him.
“Right, of course, Applejack's orchard,” Angel rolled his eyes from behind a daisy, knowing full well that Discord didn't lift a paw or claw, that arranging this entire set up was as easy for him as snapping his fingers.
“I'm very sorry Discord I just... um...” Fluttershy stopped mid refusal, her eye caught on the platter of apples.
This caught Discord's attention. “Are you sure you couldn't even have just one of these sweet, juicy, Red Delicious apples,” he said as he levitated the bowl towards Fluttershy. As the apples got closer her eyes dilated and he began to drool just a bit.
“I, um,” Fluttershy shook her head. “I think I need to pick up some carrots for the birds and some seed for Angel,” and with that half baked excuse she took flight and fled out the door.
Discord watched as she left, clawed hand absentmindedly stroked his goatee, “Well well, it seems that little Ms. Fluttershy has a problem with apples. I smell some chaos brewing.”
Once she was a safe distance from her cottage Fluttershy landed and made her way toward town at a easy trotting pace. While it hadn't been easy, she was able to hold herself together during the party, she had even been able to eat a few of the apples before her cravings started to kick in. Now however they were starting to get overwhelming.
'It's alright, I just have to pick up a few things and then I can go back home and have that meal with Discord. I just have to keep my mind off of apples,' Fluttershy thought to herself.
“Hello Fluttershy,” Cheerilee called to Fluttershy.
“Oh hello, eep!” When Fluttershy looked over at Ms. Cheerilee her head was a great big apple. Quickly she galloped way from the fruit headed school teacher, leaving a rather confused pony in her wake.
'Focus Fluttershy! You mustn't think about the "a" word, not even a little bit,' she scolded herself. 'Maybe I should go back and apologize. It was rather rude of me to to run of like that.' But before she was able to turn around, she heard the chitterlings of one of her squirrel friends. “Oh hello Mr. Squirrel what are you doing in Pony- EEP!” when she looked down she didn't see a squirrel, instead there was a large apple standing right before her.
Fluttershy rocketed into the air, and hid on a cloud, peeking out at the world below her through it. 'I can't believed I mistook that poor squirrel for an apple. A rather juicy, sweet smelling... NO! Get a hold of yourself Fluttershy! Imagine if you had eaten that poor widdle squirrel, you would feel awful.'
Fluttershy felt something land on her back, then two more somethings. For a moment she thought that apples were falling on her, then she scolded herself, there weren't any apple trees up above the clouds. It had to be a flock of birds, come to say good-bye before they left for the winter.
When she took her head out of the cloud, her eyes went wide. She was surrounded by little red, yellow, and green spheres. She let out a small shriek and flew away from the cloud as fast as she could. Her eyes widened further as all the clouds had been replaced with apples, varying in size and color. With the skies filled with apples she flew toward the ground, and landed rather poorly. When she got up and got her bearings however she saw that she was surrounded by apples. Green apples, yellow apples, red ones too. Some were small, others were as big as a house.
It was all to much for Fluttershy, and caught between hunger and fear, her body did the only sensible thing it could think to do.
She fainted.
Some ponies gathered around Fluttershy to make sure she was alright, others were so used to ponies fainting in the middle of the day for little to no reason that they continued on their way. Up above the village and the clouds however a draconequus laughed and laughed.
He would make it up to Fluttershy at some point. Perhaps when her pony friends figured out who was behind the prank, but until then Discord enjoyed the little moment of chaos he was able to stir up.
