Chapter 1 - Friendship Never Stops
Chapter 1 - Friendship Never Stops
In a world where magic reigns supreme, no type of magic can compete with the magic of friendship. Friendship is such a powerful force, it was even enough to reform Discord, the spirit of chaos, and turn him over to the good side.
Unfortunately, the magic of friendship can become addicting. Friendship can also be lost, and the only pony who can ensure Discord doesn't ever go back to his former life of chaos, is Fluttershy.
Fluttershy was sleeping calmly when all of a sudden she heard a loud thump. It was Angel Bunny, attempting to wake her. But it wasn't good enough! Fluttershy just went straight back to sleep. When the first attempt to wake Fluttershy failed, Angel Bunny bounced up and shook her very hard. Fluttershy woke up in a state of shock. "Uhh..." she said, just before coming to a sudden realization. "OH NO! I FELL ASLEEP!" she screamed.
Fluttershy took out a pen and a piece of paper and began writing a letter to Discord. As she was writing, she heard a knock on the door. Fluttershy was too focused on writing a perfect letter to answer. "Umm... can you get that, Angel?" she asked. Angel opened the door. It was none other than Twilight Sparkle!
Twilight entered the residence and saw that Fluttershy didn't look entirely well. Twilight approached the drowsy Fluttershy with concern. "Are you... okay!?" she asked. Fluttershy put on a giant smile and raised her voice to the point she almost sounded like Pinkie Pie. "Why wouldn't I be okay? I'm as super duper good as sugar!" she exclaimed.
That wasn't enough to convince Twilight there was nothing wrong, though. If anything, it only made her more confused. "Are you absolutely, positively sure you're okay?" she asked.
Fluttershy looked Twilight in the eyes as Fluttershy began to tear up. Fluttershy grabbed Twilight and cried "No!! I'm not!" as her front hooves lost grip and fell to the ground.
Fluttershy started to explain further. "You see... Discord used his magic to give me this power to send mail to his dimension..." she was saying until Twilight interrupted.
"Oh! You mean like Spike's flame mail?" Twilight asked.
"I... I guess so." said Fluttershy. "Now, as I was saying..."
"Discord used his magic to give me this power to send mail to his dimension. Now that there's nothing stopping me from sending letters any time I want, I don't have any time to rest. If I don't keep sending him letters, he'll get impatient. He'll think he's a bad friend and that I don't care about him!"
Twilight giggled for a second. "Are you serious? You're missing sleep just so you can write to Discord? You know your body needs sleep, right? I know talking to your friends is great, but don't neglect your health because of it!"
Fluttershy paused and looked down, unable to keep her head up.
"No... you don't understand..."
"The magic of friendship is the only thing keeping Discord good, and I'm the only one giving him that friendship. If I don't spend every living breathing moment giving him my total friendship, he'll go back to chaos!"
"Until now, we'd always just blame the mailpony... but I don't have any excuses now. I have to stay awake. I have to keep giving him my friendship. All of Equestria depends on it!" she explained.
Twilight showed no fear. "That's ridicolous! Just tell him you need to sleep! And doesn't he need to sleep too?"
Fluttershy continued struggling to avoid falling asleep.
"If I tell him I need to sleep, he'll think I think he's boring. He'll think he's being a bad friend!"
"Oh... and he learned to read and write in his sleep. He trained so hard to learn that." she explained."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Well... just... I don't know, make up an excuse?" she sighed.
Fluttershy moved into a more comfortable sleeping position as she began to talk.
"But he'll know I'm making up an excuse! He expects me to be there every minute of every day." she explained.
Twilight wanted to tell Fluttershy that she should just stop being friends with Discord, but all past attempts at doing that have completely failed. She knew that Fluttershy would always defend him no matter how ridicolous he got.
"Well, you could... umm... just write the letter really quick and then get as much sleep as you can in between?" she said.
Fluttershy closed her eyes, but wasn't quite sleeping yet.
"Oh no, that's not good enough! My letters have to be perfect! They have to be filled with emotion and excitement and adjectives everywhere! If I fail, he'll think I don't care enough about him to write a good enough letter!"
Twilight made an annoyed grunt as she was beginning to get fed up. "Well that doesn't sound like a good friend at all!" she said. "But... I suppose you know what to do Fluttershy, so I guess I'll just leave you to do your thing. See you later." she added. Twilight left the cottage, leaving Fluttershy to continue.
Fluttershy fell asleep on the floor. Angel Bunny shook her again. Fluttershy woke up in shock. "OH NO! I didn't finish sending the letter!" she screamed. "And I'm running out of time!" she added.
Fluttershy started writing quickly, realizing that her bad handwriting made it obvious the letter was rushed. She threw away the first piece of paper and started over, trying extra hard to write as neatly as she could. Since she had run out of anything interesting to write about ten letters ago, she had to keep making up exciting stories.
"I feel bad about lying... but I don't have any time to actually do interesting stuff..." she thought to herself. Fluttershy used her powers to send the letter and then finally collapsed on the floor.
Ten minutes later, Fluttershy received a letter from Discord, and knew she had to send one back.
Fluttershy made a moaning sound as she cried from being overworked.
Chapter 2 - Tea-less Party
Fluttershy exchanged letters with Discord all night.
The next morning...
"OH NO! It's almost time for my tea party with Discord!" she said. "This is going to be so much fun!" she added, in an attempt to convince herself she was happy.
All of a sudden, Discord magically poofed himself into Fluttershy's cottage, giving her a big shock. "I wish he would stop doing that..." she thought to herself.
"Good morning, dear Fluttershy!" said Discord. Discord was rainbow shaded instead of his usual scheme of gray and brown. It was quite unusual.
"It's so very nice to see you today." said Fluttershy. Fluttershy was so sleepy, she could only see magical pixies. She didn't even notice Discord's new look.
Discord, as expected, was annoyed. "Aren't you going to ask me why I look different!?" he asked, clearly annoyed.
Fluttershy looked at Discord, trying as hard as she could to look happy and full of life. "Oh, Discord, what's with the new look?" she asked, feigning a huge smile.
Discord snapped his finger and poofed back to his old look. "Well, I decided my old look was getting old and boring." He then snapped his finger and poofed to his new one again. "So I decided to renew it." He hugged Fluttershy. "I didn't have a taste for anything that wasn't dark and chaotic until I met you, Fluttershy. But that's all changed, thanks to your friendship. The magic of friendship has opened my eyes to new things, and it's all because of you." Fluttershy was all the more determined not to let him down. Discord let go of Fluttershy. "So... should we get started?" he said.
"Oh... yes, let's start the tea party." said Fluttershy. But she immediately noticed that she was so busy, she forgot to get ready. She hadn't got out her tea set. She hadn't baked anything. She hadn't even cleaned the dishes from the last tea party. She had done absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. She silently panicked as she tried to think up how to handle the situation.
"Umm... I thought umm, we should just talk today. We don't need tea! Our friendship is enough on its own. We don't need any of that fancy stuff. All we need is ourselves and our powerful friendship. Hehehe!"
Discord stared at the nervous Fluttershy for a few seconds. "Okay!" he said. Fluttershy sighed of relief. "So... when are you going to show me the Fluttershy Home for Abandoned Animals? You've been writing about it all week! Not that I care about... that stuff... I'm only interested in you, Fluttershy, not the home itself."
Fluttershy's nervousness intensified even further. "Oh, that's right! He thinks my stories actually happened!" she thought to herself.
"You know what? I'd rather wait until a special time to show you! Why don't you just tell me everything you've been up to in the ten minutes since we last wrote. Take as long as you want. I won't say a word because it might ruin your story if I interrupt! Hehehe!"
Discord stared at Fluttershy and paused. You could tell he was beginning to get suspicious, but nothing too extreme yet. "Very well!" he said. Fluttershy sighed of relief.
Discord spent the next half-hour telling his story to Fluttershy. He kept going on and on and on, as if he didn't need to breathe, describing every tiny little detail of what he did in the last ten minutes. Fluttershy used the time he was telling the story to get some sleep. Discord was so busy telling it, he didn't even notice Fluttershy not paying attention. Well, that is, until it was over...
"AHEM!" he said. Fluttershy woke, ready to panic.
"Yay! That was a truly wonderful story." said Fluttershy.
Discord's eyebrows shifted shape. There was no question, he was getting angry. "Oh, really!? Well, why were you sleeping in the middle of my story!? Do you think I'm boring or something? Do you think I'm such a bad friend that my story bores you to tears?" he said.
Fluttershy was scared. She started to have strong doubts she would be able to keep Discord happy for long enough. "Well, umm... it's just that... your story was so magical, I just had to close my eyes and imagine it all happening!" she said.
Discord wasn't convinced at all. "Well then, you wouldn't mind reciting every single word, would you?" he said. "If you were a true friend, you'd remember every word, right?" he added.
Fluttershy was shocked at this insane request. "WHAT!? How am I supposed to remember EVERY word? Even if I WAS listening... I mean even THOUGH I was listening, there's no way I could remember EVERY word! That's ridicolous!"
Discord got angrier and angrier as time went on until he finally snapped... literally. He snapped his finger and his shade poofed back to the old gray and brown. Fluttershy galloped towards the door, but it was no use. He snapped his finger to remove all doors and windows from the cottage, leaving her no way to escape.
Discord summoned a large portal in the middle of the room. Fluttershy screamed as loud as she could, but nobody could hear her.
Discord lifted Fluttershy and moved ever so slowly towards the portal. Fluttershy continued to scream, but it was no use. He threw her into the portal, thus banishing her to another dimension... Discord's dimension, also known as... the Chaos Dimension.
"I'm starting to have second thoughts about this whole friendship thing." said Discord.
