Twilight zoomed through the sky, neatly avoiding clouds in her path and expertly changing the position of her wings according to her direction. If Rainbow Dash were there, Twilight was certain that the pegasus would be impressed by her speed. Usually, the alicorn didn't go so fast -- but today she had a purpose.

"Okay! Okay! I take it back!" Sunset yelled over the wind, giggling uncontrollably. Twilight smirked and came to a slow stop, gradually lowering herself and Sunset to the ground.

Sunset dismounted, took one look at Twilight and collapsed to the grass in a fit of hysteria. "Your mane! Your ma -- oh sweet Celestia --" she got up and stifled her laughter. "It looks brilliant, Twilight: absolutely brilliant."

The princess gave her an unamused look that sent Sunset back to the ground. She stopped laughing, however, when she saw that Twilight wasn't joining her. She gave a mocking grin. "Aww, come on, Sparky, don't be moody."

Twilight raised an eyebrow.

Sunset jokingly narrowed her eyes at her, then pounced and pinned Twilight to the ground. "Lie there," she ordered, "and I promise I'll make you laugh."

A small smile tugged at the alicorn's lips. "Don't you dare tickle me," she warned playfully. "Because if you do I will kill you."

"Sure you will."

Twilight opened her mouth to speak. Before she could say anything, however, Sunset had crossed the alicorn's forehooves on either side of her chest. Then, the unicorn placed her own forehooves on top and started pushing her, over and over again.

She didn't do it particularly hard, so it didn't really hurt -- but it felt weird in a bad-but-kinda-good way. The most surprising thing about it was that it actually worked -- for whatever reason, Twilight started laughing, and she couldn't stop for toffee because Sunset just kept on going.

"Stop!" she begged between giggles. Sunset stopped. Twilight began to sit up, but was pushed back down again as Sunset flopped across her stomach.

As the unicorn casually placed her hooves behind her head, Twilight found she had a clear view of the sensitive fur covering Sunset's stomach.

She couldn't help it. Slowly as she could, she unfurled one of her wings and ever so gently traced the tip down the centre of the yellow mare's tummy. Sunset leapt up in surprise, giggling from the ticklish sensation, then jumped at Twilight. Momentum sent them tumbling over each other in a messy fit of laughter.

Twilight ended up lying on top of Sunset, which made her blush. A wave of guilt and shame came over the unicorn, but she chose not to show it as she asked, "Hey, you okay?"

Twilight looked up into the mare's eyes. She glanced down at Sunset's lips for a second. Sunset understood, though the alicorn tried to hide it.

She sat up. "You know it didn't mean anything," she began softly, "I was just having fun."

Twilight looked away. "Didn't feel like fun to me," she mumbled.

Sunset's heart sank. "Look, I'm sorry. I was caught up in the Hearts and Hooves Day atmosphere. It meant nothing."

She felt evil saying that; completely and utterly evil. Who in Equestria was she to have the ability to mess with the lavender alicorn's emotions? It wasn't fair for her. Truth be told, Sunset hadn't known that Twilight felt for her so strongly when she kissed her.

She couldn't deny that she had been hoping Twilight felt the same, and before they went to bed it seemed as though they had started a beautiful relationship. But as Sunset had lain awake, she had realised that it wouldn't work, and that by continuing whatever they had begun would only hurt the alicorn.

An idea came to her. She knew it would work. "Well," Sunset began in a voice of ridicule, "do you want to kiss me again?" She got up, trying with all her might not to let her conscience get to her. "I mean, really."

"No!" She didn't even falter. "I mean, you're gorgeous and all, but you're just not my type, okay?" We're both putting it on. "No hard feelings?" Her voice is gentler this time.

"'Course not," Sunset beams. "That's why I asked." In a last attempt to make her feel better, the unicorn added, "Can't have my bestie harbouring secret feeling for me. I do love you, though."

Twilight smiled. "The feeling is mutual, Sunny," she replied, because, at this point, that was all she could really hope for.

Fluttershy rubbed her eyes and blinked her vision clear as a miniature, magenta, magical cloud lifted from her head. It made her feel slightly dizzy. That's just the spell, she reminded herself. It's fine, Twilight said that blood would rush to my head.

"You okay?" asked the alicorn as she carried the cloud over to her book. The pegasus nodded, shook her legs out, and stood up.

"What's it say?"

"Well, it seems to be giving mixed signals," Twilight answered. "One moment it's dark magic, the next it's necromancy, then it's rage, and now it's..." Twilight blushed. "A-anyway. It does, actually, seem a lot like chaos magic, so well done for recognising that even though you're a pegasus."

"Thanks," Fluttershy said, more as a dismissive statement than gratitude.

"The thing is," the princess continued, "there are traces of what strongly resemble your element's magic."

"The magic of kindness."

"Exactly." Twilight furrowed her brow and further studied the pages of her book. "Which leaves us with two possibilities: either your suspicions were, sadly, correct and Discord has cast some sort of spell on you, or it's something to do with you turning to stone."

Fluttershy frowned. "Why would there be kindness magic mixed with the chaos magic if Discord," she gulped, barely able to say it aloud, "cast a spell on me? Is the magic in me trying to fight it or something?"

"No, no," Twilight grinned, "quite the opposite. The two magic types are bonded, which actually makes sense." She giggled. "It's like a magical compound bonded through chemistry!" Twilight flashed a smile at the pegasus in the vague hope that she would be entertained by the joke, but the grin lingered for no more than a second.

Fluttershy walked over to Twilight and sat down next to her. "How so?"

"It's kinda linked to the second possibility, actually. So..." she paused to think of a good way to describe it. "The Elements of Harmony are built to seclude enemies of peace in a secure prison. So when we used them against Discord, a chaos entity, he was wrapped in something light-coloured and...reliable, I guess.

"But when The Elements were used against you and Discord, something happened. You can't use kindness magic to defeat kindness magic. As a result, the excess kindness magic mixed with Discord's chaos magic, and then the rest of The Elements imprisoned him — and you — like before.

"When the magics mixed," she grinned, "that does not sound grammatically correct. Yeah, some of your magic got permanently inside him and vice versa. Either that or he's using your love for him as a power gain and that's why his magic is a little mixed with yours."

Fluttershy stared at her in surprise, tears forming in her eyes. "Do you even comprehend what you just said to me?!"

Twilight blinked, then it dawned upon her. "Oh, oh, Fluttershy, I'm so sorry! I..." She cleared her throat. "There's no excuse for that. I'm sorry, Fluttershy, and I --"

"How can we fix it?" Fluttershy demanded, sniffing grotesquely. "Is there a way we can know for sure?"

"Ummm...yes, but you're not going to like it." Fluttershy's eyes remained eager as ever. "If he's using you, using your love, then you...you'll need to cut him off in...that area." She took a breath to compose herself. "You'll need to break up with him."

Fluttershy was motionless. She wanted to reply, she wanted to cry out, she wanted to channel some of the heart-wrenching emotions that were inwardly destroying her into words, noises, tears, anything.

But she couldn't. And a bang! of teleportation from downstairs didn't make it any easier. "Speak of the devil," Twilight muttered bitterly. She got up to greet the draconequus, but stopped as Fluttershy called out.

"Wait!"

The alicorn turned to the shaken, broken pegasus.

"I...I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll break up with him."

"Bye-bye, lovelies!" Pinkie waved to the group of Ponyvillians exiting Sugar Cube Corner. "Oh, and Lyra, Bon-Bon!"

The two turned, each with looks of annoyance on their face.

"When're you two getting married?!"

They sighed in exasperation and stormed away. Applejack tapped Pinkie on the shoulder to get her attention. "Sugarcube, they ain't datin'. Not even sure they like mares, let alone each other."

"Really though, Applejack?" Pinkie arched an eyebrow, unconvinced. "With the tender touching, the loving way they say they're besties and the held gazes, one would think even you could tell that they're madly in love with each other!"

"Pinkie, they're –" AJ sighed. "Fine, go get Twilight to cast her who-do-ya-love? spell on 'em, then."

"Shall we leave?" Rainbow suggested, with just a hint of spite in her voice.

"Definitely," agreed her fiancée. "Mine or yours?"

"Mine."

"'Kay," Applejack smirked. "Hey, Discord! Can ya cast that walkin'-on-clouds spell on me please?" she yelled to the draconequus, who had rejoined the party after some hesitation, on the other side of the room.

Discord snapped his claws instantly. Unwilling to believe that he had actually done anything, Rainbow picked her fiancée up. She was indeed lighter, light enough to walk on clouds.

"Hey, chaos-boy!" Dash hollered. "You forgot to turn her mane into syrup!" The draconequus didn't seem to hear her, so she instead turned back to Applejack and simply stated, "He's gonna screw us over later."

She nodded with a laugh as Rainbow took off and zoomed out.

Fluttershy had been lingering behind a coat rack while the crowd dissipated, and now she knew she had to leave. She didn't want to interact with anyone still in the room; she just wanted to go back to Twilight's and sleep.

She slipped outside and braced herself for the cold. For once, she was grateful for the tall shadows casted by surrounding houses; her incessant fear of the dark was no match for the wrenching anxiety of unwanted company in her heart.

She did not want to see Discord. She couldn't face him now. He may not know of what drove her to end things between them, but she knew, and it was a tear in their trust that she knew would take a long, long time to patch.

Fluttershy blinked away the expected tears welling in her eyes and carried on, her pace unconsciously quickening. She could see the tree now. It was close, so wondrously close...

"Fluttershy!"

The pegasus froze. She felt faint. There was no escape.

She let out a sob and collapsed to the ground. Soon enough she felt mismatched arms encasing her, rocking her soothingly. For whom the soothing was, she did not know. Maybe both of them.

"Discord..." Fluttershy mewled. He let go.

Without thinking twice she leapt to the air and flew faster than she ever knew she could. Something stopped her once she was ten metres up, however. Maybe she knew, even before she looked behind her, that the mess of an equine slumped below would trigger realisation of how utterly selfish it would be to keep flying away.

Fluttershy was on the ground before she knew it and was hugging him, hugging him with almost aggressive affection. "It's okay," she said. "It's okay, baby, it's okay." She felt him stiffen at the pet name. Drawing herself out of the hug, she stared deep into his eyes.

She had distanced herself so much through the fear that he might be using her, to an extent that she had not realised until now; and now was the time where she desperately scrabbled at the memories of who he was, who he is, that she had so painfully repressed when she had first realised the most likely source of the magic affecting her.

It wasn't enough. The memories were there; she knew who he was in theory, but they felt so alien that they may as well have been conjured up by her imagination.

She needed to go.

In what she wished she could call a reluctant act, she turned around and didn't look back.

That is, until he cried, "Do you have any idea of how much you mean to me?!"

Fluttershy's heart contorted in the same agony she felt when having to put down one of her many pets. Only it was more, and she knew it. Sighing, she sank to the ground and perked he ears up to show that she was listening.

"I love you." He sounded angry, almost, but she hear the sadness through his shaky voice. "I had never loved anyone before you."

Fluttershy bit her lip. He was closer now: she could hear him behind her, longing for her to turn around.

She didn't.

He took off and was gone in a heartbeat. The pegasus stood up and forced herselfto walk towards Golden Oaks, tears dripping down her face that she had not felt forming. She wanted to be able to fly after him and tell him sincerely that she loved him, but it just wouldn't be true.

Things would be cleared up tomorrow, though. So long as everything went smoothly, her head would be cleared of chaos magic by the afternoon and she would be able to get to work with rebuilding her relationship with The Lord of Chaos.

It would be a lot of work, and she knew it, but a distant voice in her head told her that it would be worth it in the end.

Author's Note

Sorry, guys. I really haven't felt any inspiration to write recently, especially with the sad like-to-dislike ratio on this; I just haven't been bothered.