Mr. Brightside

by A Hoof-ful of Dust

Rating: everyone
Tags: Fluttershy, Discord, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 1049

Discord learns a friendship lesson in the space it takes to release a breath.

Discord learns a friendship lesson in the space it takes to release a breath.

Written for the Writer's Training Grounds '15 #3.

Published 2015-05-20 14:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-05-20 14:40:02 UTC

Mr. Brightside

Our scene opens, readers, by a mailbox. It is night, but it is not dark; with the light of the moon and ten thousand stars, rare is the corner of Equestria that grows completely dark even in the dead of night. It is still, but not silent: the sounds of sleeping birds and beasts are available to the patient listener, for the mailbox belongs to Fluttershy, and we are in sight of her cottage. Beside the mailbox are two figures: one embodiment of chaos, who maintains a serpentine grace even with his mismatched limbs, and one Smooze.

At this very moment they are passing Fluttershy's mailbox -- leaving it behind as they have already left her cottage behind -- in a manner that can only be described together as "traveling"; while Discord could be said to walk, his cloven hoof coming down on the path with an angry stomp and frustrated swirl of dust, the Smooze merely smoozes along, keeping pace and leaving behind a trail of smooze in his wake.

We are also leaving behind an evening spent in the company of Fluttershy and Tree Hugger, which need not be witnessed in its entirety as it can be surmised in few words. Tense. Awkward. Disharmonious. The disharmony was noticed by all, even the Smooze, who is typically oblivious to such things, but reacted to by none. The night ended with a mass exhalation of breath:
Fluttershy -- long and shaky, a nervousness bottled up in her lungs set free into the cottage;
Tree Hugger -- deep and sustained, pushing out the old to make room for the new;
Discord -- short and sharp, a musical selection of huffs and sputters;
The Smooze -- bubbles popping on a viscous surface, a form of respiration with deeper meaning mostly loss on those non-Smooze.
You, dear readers, are of course aware of the nature of air, how upon being let go will be soon lost, unknowable from any other breath of air you can take. But there is just a brief moment where it will persist. The length from when you open your mouth to when the fog is no longer visible on a cold winter's morning, that is how long it will linger, and that is how long the moment we observe here will be.

One thing you must understand before continuing is a fact about Discord, and that is that, at all times, he is everywhere. This does not make him omnipotent; it does not make him omniscient, either, as he elects to keep most of his attention confined to his physical manifestation out of convenience. Nevertheless, to properly embody chaos, one must be able to appear from nowhere, become things with their own histories and just as quickly unbecome them: being everywhere to always be where one is not is the kind of paradoxical impossibility Discord revels in, and doubly so when anyone tries to make sense of it, so it is best that you, readers, needn't bother. The vital takeaway is thus: Discord's attention is not on the road or the Smooze or the mailbox he has just passed, but back inside with Fluttershy and Tree Hugger, and he is especially close to appearing back there from behind the curtains or stepping out of a birdhouse or woven into the patterns of a rug.

What Discord can see back in Fluttershy's cottage, and what we too can observe from over his omnipresent shoulder, is so: Tree Hugger sits upright on Fluttershy's couch, and Fluttershy rests her head in her lap. Both have their eyes closed. All the animals that live there sleep. Tree Hugger hums, and it fills the space. It is not a mantra to open chakras or a chant to align auras or even a song with notes to form melodies: it is humming, and it fills the space. Her head rocks back and forth with the grace of a bottle caught in the low tide, and as one of her dreadlocks brushes the tip of Fluttershy's nose, Fluttershy wrinkles her muzzle and smiles. Both have their eyes still closed. Neither can see the other, but Tree Hugger smiles, too.

What Discord imagines, stemming from this tableau, is as vivid as it is brief, a flash so sharp and strong it threatens to push its way into reality by being abrupt and unwelcome as possible. Tree Hugger combing Fluttershy's mane until it lays long and flat below her shoulders, the parts that are not caught up in braids festooned with beads and feathers and baubles. Fluttershy wears a dress that began as white but now is the shallow imitation of true chaos and freedom that is tie-dye. A tiny set of round-rimmed glasses with green-tinted lenses sit at the end of her muzzle although she can see perfectly fine. She laughs, and it is not the laughter Discord knows from their afternoons together over tea, high and sudden like the songs of birds, but earthy and smug, the tagline to a private joke to which he is not privy to. She is in a forest somewhere, or a glen, or a meadow, but it is nowhere here for she has abandoned her old life in order to live this one; abandoned her friends, animal and pony alike, and abandoned him.

And then what Discord sees is Fluttershy, smiling with her muzzle wrinkled. She is the Fluttershy who makes teacakes every Tuesday morning. She is the Fluttershy who listens with utmost patience to the thoughts he has collected over the years of observing this world, ever since it sprung from formless chaos and he followed after it to not miss out on any of the fun. She is the Fluttershy who is his friend.

She is the Fluttershy who is his friend, and in this moment she is happy.

And like the breath of air released back into the world, the moment ends. Discord turns his attention from the inside of Fluttershy's cottage and back to the road and to the Smooze, and they travel into the night, and that, readers, is the place we leave them.

Author's Note

"Mr. Brightside" is a song by The Killers about infidelity that is most likely imagined, but I'm sure you all knew that.