I have a secret. Well, actually I have several secrets.
Sit your old patootie down and let Discord tell you all about it.
It's impossible to injure me permanently, at least physically. That's not the secret.
The secret is that non physical injury is another matter entirely.
But my biggest secret, the one no one can ever know, is I need to be needed.
Isn't that silly? Me, the Spirit of Chaos-needed! I can conjure up anything I like. I can bend the laws of physics to my will. I can visit other planets. I can boldly go where no one has gone before!
What could I possibly need?
Maybe her?
Her.
In an awkward situation Fluttershy will bury everything deep down until it explodes, and in an awkward situation I will just barge right in and say what I feel off right the bat. Neither are socially acceptable ways of dealing with things, but that's how we cope. We are two sides of the same coin, her and I, and when all is said and done we'd rather be left alone to our own devices and not have society judge us. But I am a little concerned that everything looks softer around her and this is one thing that I know I can't just barge in and say straight off the bat.
In any case, it happened one day after I had recieved a letter from Fluttershy asking me to come for tea.
"I'm so glad you could visit, Discord," she says, beaming at me as I sip my cup of apple chai.
"Well, where would I be if I didn't get a chance to torment your bunny once in a while?" I say, holding a carrot biscuit just out of Angel's reach at all times. The bunny glares at me.
"Oh, just let him have it," laughs Fluttershy.
I acquiesce and give the biscuit to Angel, who practically inhales it in one bite.
I sigh deeply without thinking. It has nothing to do with the biscuit, but with another one of my secrets. It's hard not to feel a numb tingling sensation in my periphery sometimes. I don't like it. It reminds me...
Fluttershy notices my sigh and me staring into space.
"Discord, is something wrong?"
"Hm? Oh, nothing Shutterfly."
"You can tell me if anything is bothering you."
I laugh. "Why would anything be bothering me?"
"Well, okay. But please let me know when something bothers you. You can always talk to me."
She gently rubs her hoof on the outer part of my lion paw, comfortingly.
I drop the cup in surprise, and spill the hot tea on my paw. "Ow!" I cry instinctively. But it's nothing I can't sort out instantly with some magic. However, before I can snap my fingers Fluttershy has quickly yet gingerly balanced my paw between her forehooves and is examining it.
"Oh my goodness!" she says. " I'm sorry! Are you okay? I have some aloe vera in my bathroom cupboard, I'll be right back!"
She's flown out of the room before I can tell her it's fine, I'm just a clumsy oaf. I'll fix it myself, no biggie. I've been through much worse. Lava burnt my tail off once. That's what I get for trying to pee on a volcano god.
Fluttershy returns with the pot of aloe vera and without even thinking I hold my paw out to her.
She smears the gel onto the pads of my paw and I can feel the burning cool.
"Is that better?" she asks softly, concern on her gorgeous face.
"Yes," I say. "Thank you..."
The first time Fluttershy touched me I felt uncomfortable, and it took me a while to figure out why. It was only by repeated pats on the hand or hugs that I slowly came round to realizing touch was something I could enjoy again. However, even now it can startle me if it's unexpected.
She holds my big lion paw in her delicate hooves, stroking the soft pads. Her rosy mane falls around her shoulders. The sunlight glints off it.
She smiles up at me sweetly and that soft distortion starts in my peripheral vision. I feel a shiver go down my long spine. I am in love with her; that's another one of my secrets.
I didn't think I was capable of feeling anything of the sort after the stone straitjacket, but apparently a modicum of yearning for good things still remains, and it engulfs me in a rush.
I pull my paw away gently and make an excuse that I have to be somewhere.
Chaos knows where. It's a pitiful excuse, but she smiles at me and says she'll see me soon.
I vanish into a little pocket dimension to be alone and think.
Fluttershy's laughter is becoming a drug to me. I like making people laugh. I would have much preferred it if people had laughed at my chaos when I was in power rather than run away screaming from it. The fact that they reacted so badly to it is when things started to get ugly. Fine, you don't appreciate me, so why should I appreciate you?
Yet oddly, even if Fluttershy didn't appreciate me I don't think I could stop admiring her. Kindness has Chaos firmly in its grasp. Kindness just happens to be a babe as well.
I want to ask her to the Grand Galloping Gala. I have never wanted to go to the Grand Galloping Gala, yet somehow the thought of seeing Fluttershy in evening dress with her mane piled up on her head, soft waves tumbling down around her face while she dances with me and I make her laugh makes my heart thud rapidly.
Of course, it would be good to cause a bit of mischief at the event too. Maybe turn some mares into stallions and vice versa mid dance. I giggle at the thought, but then my heart sinks.
I'm not allowed to do things like that anymore, am I? I sigh deeply. I'm getting ahead of myself. It's not like she would have said yes anyway.
Lovely mares like her are not interested in riff raff on probation like me. They are interested in stallions of good breeding. I don't even KNOW what kind of breeding I am. If anything, perhaps there was a bit too much breeding going on when I happened. You really don't want to try and unravel my family tree. It could take quite a while.
It's not a question of looks. I know Fluttershy is above that whole "you must be a pony" thing some people have stubbornly burrowed into their brains. (I appreciate beauty in ALL its forms. Besides, I am gorgeous I'll have you know. It's not my fault everyone else seems to be into tall, drippy and bland.)
It's not what I am. It's who I am.
Fluttershy is by no means naive, but she is relatively innocent in the ways of the world. She's been hurt, but never broken like me.
I'm broken.
Perhaps that one is not so much of a secret, if you bother to look hard enough.
Four months later I am in a dark alley with Tirek.
"...unless Pony Errand Boy is the role you've always wanted to play in this world," he says.
I look over my shoulder at the bedside table I've just conjured up. There's a picture of Fluttershy and me on it. I have my arm around her and she's looking up at me sweetly.
"You do realize that she can't possibly appreciate who you are when you're being told what to do and how to think and behave, don't you?"
"Fluttershy appreciates me," I say quietly.
"Is there evidence of this? How does she react to your chaos?"
I think for a minute. She does seem full of laughter around me. On the other hand, I worry sometimes I go too far and she's embarrassed by my behaviour. I'm not always sure I can tell, especially when the others are around.
I know the others can barely tolerate me. Fluttershy is friends with them and friends with me. I know her friends mean the world to her, but for some reason I'm not really counting myself in that equation.
"Does she REALLY appreciate you for who you are?" continues Tirek. "Or is it all just surface and lip service? After all, if she truly liked you would you be here doing the dirty work for the Princesses and her when they could likely have come here themselves?"
I want to shout at him that I'm not doing it for the Princesses at all. I'm doing it all for Fluttershy. But he hasn't finished his speech.
"Discord, I understand what you are going through. I thought my brother appreciated me for who I was, but he, like many others was easily led. He was more interested in the part of society that was acceptable and conformist. After all, it's easier to be liked when you edit yourself, isn't it? But is that any way to live? To live half a life instead of a whole one?"
He puts a hand on my chest, and runs his fingers through my fur.
"Is it?"
I shiver at the contact; contact of the kind I rarely get. "No," I whisper.
He moves closer to me. "No, of course it isn't. You need someone by your side who understands your...needs." He puts emphasis on the last word as I feel his breath against my neck. I stiffen a little.
What am I doing? What would Fluttershy think?
As if he is reading my thoughts, Tirek says "Do you even think she cares what you think? What would a pony know of imprisonment? What would she know of the hardship and suffering? Has she even asked you about how it felt to be placed in stone?"
"No," I whisper.
"Well then, it's clear no one understands what we went through but each other."
One of his shackled hands starts to move down my chest. Then he whispers, "Does she even know how it feels to be deprived of touch for over a thousand years?"
He's got me.
He pushes me up against the alley wall and crushes his lips against mine.
To say "it's been a while" after being encased in stone for 1000+ years is understating it a tad. Like any one of you, I have desires. I like being touched. It's rare that anyone wants to touch me, especially nowadays. He isn't much to look at, that's true, but like me he's been imprisoned for over a millenium, so I know that a lot of it is poor health.
Besides, his hand is doing things past my waist that I really can't complain about.
"Yesss," he whispers in my ear. "You truly are the Master of Chaos. So intelligent, so cunning. I have admired your work from afar for many years."
Nothing like an ego stroke to get the motor running.
"So...unique," Tirek hisses in my ear. His hand continues to work and my breathing is unsteady. I need this, I need this.
My cries of release echo down the alley.
"Shining Armour, whatever ARE you doing here?" I say to the unicorn, snaking an arm around him.
"Back off, traitor!" he says, throwing me off him. Oh, he thinks he's so tough and noble. Gag. Cadance couldn't have picked a more boring husband. You'd think as the Princess of Love she'd go for someone more interesting, but nope! As I said, tall, drippy and bland it is! These ponies may as well clone each other.
As I watch Tirek suck Shining Armour's magic out of his body, the unicorn turns his head and groans "how could you?" at me.
I feel a pang of something as I remember how Twilight and Cadance flew to the ends of Equestria for me to find a cure for my Blue Flu when they thought I was ill.
Tirek puts an arm around me and I gaze up at him adoringly as I'm jolted out of my ruminations.
"Why don't you go have a little fun?" he says. "I won't stand in your way."
I rub my hands together in glee and laugh. I feel needed and appreciated. I glance over my shoulder at him moving away. He's also much easier on the eyes now.
That evening I am rewarded for my efforts.
I run my lion paw along his strong, muscular arm as he pins me beneath him.
The sex is rough, but good. It's what I need. I need to be jolted into feeling things again. Being in stone makes you feel so numb that you forget how to experience pleasures unless they're like a shock to the system. So I let him do what he wants with my body, because I want to feel something. Anything.
There's no cuddling afterwards, but there doesn't need to be. I feel needed and wanted because he's not asking me to change anything about myself. That's what love is, isn't it? Not being asked to change who you are?
And he needs me, surely? He couldn't have stolen all that magic without my help, especially when he was in his weakened state. There's still something I'm unsure about, and that's whether he needs me for reasons beyond magic stealing.
"You meant our will, didn't you?" I say, playing with the stained glass imagery I've just conjured up.
"Of course," says Tirek. "Here, I want you to have something. He draped a gold medallion, roughly triangular in shape around my neck. "It was given to someone very close to me. I give it to you now as a sign of my gratitude and loyalty."
I'm touched. I finger the gold object. "Oh, my! I do love a good accessory. I suppose that's Rarity's influence."
I hear Tirek chuckle. He's admiring the stained glass window I've created that shows me weilding a six foot long submarine sandwich while I ride on his back. As I said, I like making people laugh.
"Amusing!" he says, and my heart skips a beat. "But we have no time for such things. With the Princesses out of the way we can now..."
He stops, mid stride and gestures at the one window I haven't touched.
"Is this meant to be humourous?"
"Oh, no! I haven't touched that one yet."
"There's a fourth? And you did not tell me this?!"
"I just needed some assurance that you truly considered this a team effort," I say. I reach down and touch the medallion. "And now...I have it."
I don't think anyone has given me a gift before.
"I'm sure Discord will catch Tirek and this will all be over soon."
"I'll bet he takes his sweeeet time," says Rainbow Dash.
"Or perhaps these things just take time," I say in response.
"You're back!" says Fluttershy as her small yellow form barrels into me, embracing me. I can barely feel it when she touches me anymore, but I go through the motions and put my arms around her.
"Did you bring the cucumber sandwiches?"
"I did," I say, conjuring up a plate, which I quickly drop. "I imagine they're the last meal you'll be having for a while."
I can feel nothing. Nothing at all as the cage appears around the ponies and Spike.
Fluttershy immediately starts crying while Applejack shoots daggers at me. "How could you do this?" she sobs. "I thought we were friends!"
"Oh, we were. But Tirek offered me so much more than just tea parties. Surely you saw this coming?"
"I didn't! I really didn't!"
I still feel completely numb. It's only until Tirek begins to inhale their magic that I have to turn away. I start to feel that pang again. I can't watch. I won't go back to being imprisoned. I won't. I refuse.
"You really think she'd do anything for them?"
"If Twilight has magic to give, it will be yours. Soon there won't be a pegasus, unicorn or earth pony that will be able to stand up against us."
"Us? Who said anything about us?"
"You did!" I say, starting to panic. He is lifting me into the air until I am eye level with him.
"You helped me grow strong. You provided the means by which I can obtain Princess Twilight's magic. And now, you are no longer of any use to me."
Suddenly I feel as if everything that makes me who I am is being sucked out of me and I struggle to move but can't. It feels like an eternity, but it's over in seconds and then I feel myself hit the ground with a hard thud. That's going to leave some bruises, and now I have no magic to heal them. But the worst pain is in my chest.
"But..." I sputter, holding up the medallion. "You said this was a sign of your gradtitude and loyalty. A gift, from someone that was close to you."
He looks over his shoulder at me and there is no warmth in his eyes. "My brother who betrayed me. It is as worthless as he is."
Worthless. That's what I am. That was when I realized I meant nothing to him. I was just a vessel to be used. All the caresses, all the whispers in the dark about how great my chaos was and how unappreciated I was and that he understood me and he cared about me-- they were all just a means to an end.
"Surely you saw this coming?" says Applejack from the cage as the rest of the ponies and Spike stare at me in horror.
"I didn't. I truly didn't."
I look into Fluttershy's tear stained face. She had wept at the idea that I was not her friend anymore. She had actually wept. And what had I done? Insisted to myself that she was just trying to control me. Insisted to myself that I was merely Pony Errand Boy. I had thrown away something good, possibly forever.
A week after Tirek had his butt kicked by the Aggressive Rainbow of Friendship I'm sitting by a pond in the field behind Fluttershy's house. The last rays of the sun make the field and pond water look golden. Mayflies bounce up and down in their fleeting dance. I try not to look directly at the water. That's when I can see my reflection. I can't stand the sight of my existence right now. My head and ears droop as the tears roll down my face.
I hurt her. The one person who truly cared about me.
I hear the rustle of grass behind me.
"Oh, um...Fluttershy," I say, trying to discreetly wipe the tears off my face with my paw, and failing horribly at the discreet part. "How...are you?"
As if you have any right to ask.
"I'm doing okay," she says softly. "But you don't seem to be."
I look down at her, a weak smile on my face. It's taking all my effort not to start sobbing again.
I mumble softly.
"Um...sorry, I didn't quite hear you."
"I lost the ability to feel," I say shakily. "When I was in that statue. That's no excuse, but...but. I wanted to...I needed..."
I can't get the words out.
"How horrible," says Fluttershy. "I had no idea it was that bad. Why didn't you tell us?"
"I didn't think it would matter."
"Of course it matters. You should always tell me when things make you uncomfortable and it can help to talk about things that hurt."
"I didn't think any of you would understand."
"I...think I do? You are Chaos and chaos needs to move freely to feel comfortable. I think that's why you betrayed us, because in some way we were making you uncomfortable."
"It's still not an excuse," I say firmly.
"No, Discord. You hurt me, and what you did was wrong but that was then, this is now and I know you truly are sorry. Twilight's key wouldn't have worked if you hadn't been."
"Why are you talking to me after everything I've done to you?" I say. I feel confused and a little hopeful, but also feel like I should squash the hope before it starts speeding and loses its brakes.
"Because I know what it feels like to try and be something you're not. You can't help who you are. It doesn't make you evil. Like...when an owl hunts and eats a mouse. The owl isn't evil, it's just doing what's in its nature. Your nature is an intrinsic part of who you are. As long as you don't hurt anypony, your chaos is a wonderful thing. You're very funny and I know if the other ponies could see what I see, you would feel more welcome here."
She leans against my shoulder. Her soft strands of mane tickle my arm.
"You're not a bad person. You're just misguided."
Then she moves in towards me and puts her forehooves around my neck, hugging me, her mane tickling my snout.
I am amazed. Absolutely dumbstruck. Fluttershy's forgiveness is at once beautiful and terrifying to me. I return the embrace and hug her tightly, as if she'll disappear if I don't. A sob escapes my throat.
I feel understood. I feel needed. I feel loved.
But I don't deserve it.
