Chaotic thoughts swirled in Discord’s head. Chickens dancing with hula hoops. Bunny cascades in the chocolate falls. Fluttershy scolding him for almost deporting her friend to another dimension...
“Are you still upset with me, Fluttershy?” he asked when they returned to her cottage in the evening following the Grand Galloping Goop Gala. Smooze had quickly won over the hearts of ponies—save for Rarity—after all of the unpleasantness had come and gone. The big ball of ooze had even been invited back next year by Celestia herself. She had invited Discord too, as long as he promised to cause an equal amount of mischief the next time around.
He’d promised to do so dutifully, but found that he cared little about the event now that he had his best and only real friend back. Smooze was an okay blob of goop, but a terrible conversationalist.
Despite having done everything she asked, however, Fluttershy still seemed a little cross with him. She hadn’t quite thrown the door in his face—she was much too nice for that—but had impatiently waited for him to step through the door, which was a first. “I didn’t mean to do it, you know? I was just so worried about losing my best friend, that I—”
“Tried to ruin everything?” she interrupted him, scowling while she wiggled out of her dress.
He cringed. Although she had insisted that he apologise to her friend—Treesmoker or something—it was becoming more and more clear to him that she was still more than a little hung up on the entire incident. “Fluttershy,” he began again, lifting a paw and summoning a slightly tilted table and a chair that scooped the pegasus up. “Look, this was really kind of your fault, I mean we both know how I can be..." Fluttershy glared at him which only made him more determined to prove himself right. "Well, how did you expect me to react? My very first real friend is off being friends with somepony else! All in all, you're lucky I didn't just turn her into a tree!"
“Discord...” Fluttershy said in a tone of voice he’d come to associate with her scolding him. Scolding him! As if he’d done something wrong!
He waved his forepaw and foreclaw around as if to ward off the coming storm. “Well, I was upset, and I didn’t want to lose you to that... that...” He found that he was getting worked up again just thinking about that hippy-dippy mare that Fluttershy was friends with before reminding himself that one could have multiple friends. He took a deep, steadying breath. “That friend of yours,” he finished his sentence eventually.
Fluttershy scowled at him for a moment longer, eventually letting out a deep sigh and giving him that caring, almost motherly look that he both liked and disliked about her. It spoke to a part of him that always felt lacking. He’d never had a mother, or a father for that matter. He was quite sure that the restrictions parents placed on their children would suffocate him within a day, but he longed for the care and tenderness.
“This is why we can’t have nice things, you know?” Fluttershy told him softly. Her voice pulling him back from his eternal musings to the mare sitting right in front of him, having her tea served to her by Robbert, the animated teapot. “You can’t keep reacting this way whenever you don’t get your way!”
Discord nodded sadly. He didn’t like to admit it, even to himself, but Fluttershy was often right about his behaviour. He was certainly getting used to Fluttershy scolding him for it, thus his recognition of the tone. “I told you that this friendship thing is difficult for me,” he said, drawing in on himself. Perhaps it would be a good idea to give Fluttershy a break. His house needed some more dirtying anyway.
A hoof landed on his lion paw, and he looked up to see Fluttershy smiling softly at him. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know you’re trying your best. Let’s just think of this as a learning experience.”
He chuckled and cleared his throat before doing a passable imitation of Twilight Sparkle’s voice, which in his case meant making her sound more nasal and as annoying as he could. “Dear Princess Fluttershy, today I learned that you aren’t supposed to bring a monstrous blob from beyond the veil of space and time to a black tie event. Your chaotic student and friend, Discord.” He watched Fluttershy stifle a giggle and smiled. If he could make her laugh, perhaps he wouldn’t have to leave at all.
“And?” she prompted him after her laughter had subsided. “What else did you learn?”
He put his hawk claw to his chin and stroked his beard (which became longer with each stroke) and drawled: “Welllll..... I learned that Princess Twilight Sparkle is sensitive about her flying skills, I learned that Celestia has a sense of humor, and most of all, I learned that you shouldn’t lock blob monsters in a closet with shiny things.”
Fluttershy’s smile narrowed a smidge. “And what did we learn about friendship?”
“I, uhm...” He looked away, trying not to meet her eyes. His mind was once again being engulfed by the chaotic thoughts that swarmed about at the best of times, but now seemed to obscure even the simplest facts about friendship. “That... friendship is a good thing?” he offered, smiling nervously. Even that seemed like a possibly false statement, but he hoped it was true.
Across from him, Fluttershy took a sip of her tea before shaking her head softly. “No, not that.”
“It’s great to have fun with your friends?” he tried again, his thoughts clearing up just a little after a vigorous shake.
Fluttershy sighed again, the corners of her mouth sagging into what he deemed to be a disappointed frown. “We learned that it’s okay to have more than one friend, and that having other friends doesn’t mean that you care about one more than the other.”
“Yes! That! I could not have said it better myself.” Discord nodded to himself and put the knowledge away in his mental lockbox. He then gave the lockbox teeth for good measure and smiled at his friend.
Their conversation fell silent after that, the only sounds in the room being Fluttershy’s breathing—which he had once tried to mimic for over a month but had deemed bothersome by the end of it—and the soft tinkling of the porcelain whenever she put down her cup. He found himself wishing he’d kept up the whole breathing thing, if only because it was a better alternative to opening his mouth and saying the wrong thing again. But he hadn’t, and after an extended period during which neither said anything, Fluttershy finished her tea and silently slipped off of the chair. She grabbed her dress and put it in the hamper on her way to the stairs leading up to her room. “Well, it’s been a long day. I’m going to get some rest. Goodnight, Discord.”
“Wait.” The word was out of his mouth before he had even thought about it consciously, but seeing her come to a halt and look back at him assured him that he had indeed said it. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, it struck him as a bad thing to just let her go to bed without saying something else. He snapped his fingers and appeared as the bottom three steps of the stairs. Wooden eyes always made everything more difficult, but for his friend, it wasn’t a high price to pay. “I need you to know that I really am sorry. You’re important to me. I want you to be my friend forever.”
Fluttershy bit her lip and but didn’t look away from him like she usually would. Despite how she looked, however, the words that came from her mouth were, "Discord, I can’t do that—"
“I see,” he replied sadly. The statement hurt his wooden heart, and the chaos that always seemed to subside a little whenever he was around Fluttershy flared up like a raging storm. It demanded that he get mad and perhaps destroy some things she loved, just to let her know how badly she had hurt him, but instead, he just sighed. “Well, how about until the sun explodes? That won’t be nearly as long—”
“No!” A hoof landed on one of his eyes, and was lifted again just as quickly. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you did I?”
“No, I’m fine.” He stepped out from her stairs, thoughtlessly assuming the form that the universe seemed bent on insisting was his. “Stairs don’t have nerve endings.”
Nerve endings or not, however, he was hurting, badly—until Fluttershy stepped forward and gave him a bigger hug than such a little pony should have any right to. “I wouldn’t be able to be your friend forever, or even till the sun explodes, because I won’t live that long, Discord,” she told him, squeezing him a little tighter. “But even though you’re very... uhm... rude sometimes, and very annoying at others, I’ll be your best friend for as long as I live, uhm... if that’s okay with you.”
The storm of chaos, jealously, and envy, that always raged inside Discord’s heart and head subsided. He awkwardly returned the hug Fluttershy was giving him, still not comfortable with the way such things worked. For him, it was easier to drape his entire body around her, and hugging with just his arms felt clunky. She had told him that she wasn’t comfortable with such things, though, and he wanted to respect her wishes.
“I...” he swallowed. Once, twice. None of it got rid of the lump that seemed to have formed in his throat; at least not until he coughed and spit out a hairball. “That would be very okay with me, Fluttershy,” he said finally, delighting in the warm sensation that permeated his heart. It had been there before, but never as strong as this. “Thank you.”
Fluttershy squeezed him again and let go. “You’re welcome. Uhm... I’m going to meet up with Treehugger and go bird watching tomorrow... Would you like to come as well?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes I would, if that’s alright with you?”
“Of course! Just because I’m doing something with Treehugger doesn’t mean I don’t want to do anything with you,” she said, smiling.
“Then I would love to.” He waved an arm, turning all of the chaotic inconsistencies in her cottage back to normal and then waved at her. “Goodnight, Fluttershy.”
“Goodnight, Discord.”
He watched her make her way up the stairs and then let himself out through the floor, whispering, “Goodnight, my friend,” to himself.
