It was the early weeks of winter, November to be exact. And it was cold to say the least. In fact, the pegasi weather team had planned it to be one of the harshest winters Equestria had seen in recent years, easily surpassing last year’s by a landslide.
A buttercup yellow pegasus laid upon white sheets on a simple white mattress, which rested on a white metal bed in a white walled room. Virtually everything in the hospital room she occupied was some shade of white, save for the pale blue curtains and a few paintings displaying flowers or dull patterns.
As soon as Fluttershy had been scrambled into the room she was stripped of her winter attire and placed into a grey toned, blue checkered gown. Even though she had a large bump to compensate, the smallest size that they owned was still too large. The nurses also hadn’t even taken the time to fasten the ties at the back, leaving her easily exposed. At first this made her quite frankly uncomfortable and awkward due to her shy demeanor.
Her water had long broken, but her legs were still damp, adding to the discomfort and irritation. She couldn’t linger on the thought, though, as the doctor requested her to push.
Even though she had had eleven months of preparation for the big day, the due date, she couldn’t feel any more unprepared. It felt too rushed, too sudden, and it was happening much too quickly for her liking. The time just didn’t feel right and it made her feel overwhelmed to say the least.
Fluttershy gasped for air after yet another push. Taking his cue, Discord frantically put the oxygen mask over her muzzle. By the shaking of Discord’s paw -no- his entire patchwork body, and the sweat piling up on his brow, anypony would think he was having the foal himself. He tried to calm himself using the breathing techniques that Fluttershy was taught from one of the pregnancy checkups.
Saying Discord was nervous is an understatement. He was absolutely hysterical.
The pegasus had been pushing for roughly forty minutes, though to her it had felt longer than the whole eleven months that she had been pregnant, and she was beginning to really feel the struggle. She was finding it harder to gather her breath after every push, and her entire body was coated in beads of sweat.
Another contraction followed by another attempted push had passed and Fluttershy had finally reached her limit. Grimacing from the pain, Fluttershy leaned back into her pillow and grew still as she closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she opened her eyes and tears rolled down her cheeks as she gazed up at Discord.
Fluttershy took a shallow breath. “Discord, I-I can’t do it.”
All the wild mood swings, strange and obscure cravings, increased appetite, nausea, lack of energy, and swollen hooves had led up to this very day… and she couldn’t do it.
“W-what are you talking about? Of course you can do it my dear,” Discord tried his best to restrain his panicking manner to sound calm for her sake, whilst simultaneously holding in the pain of how tightly Fluttershy was gripping onto his paw. Sweet Celestia did she have a tight grip.
“I-I-” she hiccuped, “-really can’t. It’s t-too much,” tears had started freely flowing down her cheeks and she turned her gaze to look at the doctor.
Doctor Horse watched his patient with growing concern. Fluttershy had steadily grown weaker as the birth progressed, and the defeated look on her face was not a good sign. Doctor Horse pulled himself off of the floor at the end of the bed and looked back and forth between the soon-to-be-parents. “It has become quite clear that Miss Fluttershy hasn’t got the energy to continue giving birth to her foal naturally.”
“Hey now wait there a second. Fluttershy has more than enough energy, how dare you even proclaim such a thing!---
Doctor Horse kept a straight, neutral expression. He had clearly dealt with more than a handful of stubborn ponies in his career.
“I suggest you calm down before-”
“Before what ay!? What could you possibly do!?” Discord cut in. “Plus who in Equestria do you think you are talking to? If you haven’t already noticed, I am Discord! The Lord of Chaos! The very being who turned this pathetic town you call home into the capital of chaos! I could destroy you and everything you love in a single snap-”
“I SAY ARE YOU DONE MR. DISCORD BECAUSE WE HAVE PRESSING MATTERS TO DISCUSS!”
For a short moment the pair glared daggers at each other, neither saying another word. Their chests rose and lowered in large motions as they collected themselves and the red hot anger in their faces began to fade away.
After adjusting his tie, the doctor cleared his throat. “Right,” he said and then turned to look at Fluttershy, who had clamped her eyes firmly shut throughout the dispute (Discord however, continued to keep his gaze firmly on his opponent). “As I was saying, due to the circumstances it has become clear that Miss Fluttershy will not be able to give birth to her foal naturally. She has been in labour for just over forty minutes, which is beginning to become dangerous and potentially life threatening for the foal.” He heard a whimper from Fluttershy at his statement. “Now, this only leaves us with one viable option. For the safety of both foal and mother, Miss Fluttershy is to have an emergency cesarean.”
He paused to let the information sink in for them before continuing.
“I will need to go and collect our team of doctors, and have the nurses prepare the operating theatre. I will be back in a matter of moments so please stay here and I will be back to collect you.”
Doctor Horse turned hoof to leave the room before Discord spoke up. “And pray tell, what is that,” Discord said with resentment.
The doctor looked him straight in the eye before simply stating in a nonchalant way, “We’re going to cut your wife open so that we can try to save both your wife and your foal.”
“C-cut-” Was all Discord could sputter out before his vision went black and he collapsed to the floor.
Discord’s eyes flickered open, and the bright white lights on the hospital room’s ceiling temporarily blinded him before he managed to adjust his vision. He instantly felt an extremely sore pang in the back of his head and slowly lifted up his paw to rub it. It made him wince and grunt an incoherent word of displeasure as the pain rushed through. Retracting his paw, he lifted himself off of the hard tiled floor and looked down to where he had been laying. There was a rather large dent in the wooden side table, the dents shape fitting perfectly with the back of his head. He grimaced again as the pain continued to throb in the back of his skull.
He looked around the room and it was in that instant that memories flooded back to him and he remembered exactly where he was, what happened, and why.
“Fluttershy I-” as soon as his eyes locked with the bed in the middle of the room his heart sunk to the tips of his feet. She wasn’t there.
He clambered to the room’s door and threw it open. The accidental force launched it off of its hinges and slammed it violently into the wall opposite. He could only sheepishly grin at a nurse down the hall who had witnessed it; he didn’t have time for apologies.
‘Oh dear Celestia please don’t let her be in there on her own!’ Discord had now taken to his wings and continued his panicked search throughout the hospital’s corridors. He had no idea where he was going, he was just praying that fate and luck will lead him to where he needed to be. By her side. It’s a funny thing fate, it’s either in your favour or not. Discord would never let himself believe that there was such a thing that existed any other day, but today wasn’t just any other day. And in just that moment of time, for in fact the first time ever, he hoped that there was such thing, and that that thing was on his side. Each of the long stretched halls were the same exact replica of the one he just went through. They were all completely white and empty from top to bottom, save for a few stray blue chairs and wheelchairs scattered around. As well as on occasion there was some old shriveled up stallion offering cough drops to anyone who passed him.
Discord groaned as his search still had not shown any results. “Why are there so many of these blasted things!” he shouted, scaring and almost giving a heart attack to a patient walking by.
He had just passed yet another corridor, after what had to have been at least the twelfth so far as he abruptly stopped mid flight and dug his heels into the marble floor. From the speed at which he had been going and the pressure that he had forced his feet into the floor, he found himself with his body halfway underground and a trail of dust, dirt, and rubble behind him. ‘Was that?’
A pink tuft of a tail slipped around the corner at the end of the hall.
With only a snap of his talons, he was right beside her.
Discord had to catch her by the shoulders as she yelped and jumped into the air in surprise. He mentally kicked himself over what a stupid idea that was.
“Fluttershy, what in Equestria is happening? Where are you going?”
Fluttershy freed herself from his grip and landed back onto the ground. She tried to hide a streak of pain in her stomach as she did so. She gently rubbed the bulge in her belly in a circular motion in an attempt to sooth it.
She didn’t reply to Discord, nor did she make any kind of eye contact. She only reached to hold her nightgown at the back where the gap was, clearly to cover herself, and continued her limping walk down the hall.
Discord could only stare at her with mixed emotions as the gap between them slowly grew.
“D-did I miss something? Has the the doctor said anything?” his voice was filling up with concern and worry.
The reply he received was yet again silence, other than arrhythmic hoofsteps echoing off of the walls.
By now she was almost at the end of the corridor and about to turn another corner. He could clearly see her finding it harder and more difficult to keep her pace as she walked on. Her legs looked like they would buckle at any given moment.
“What about the.. c-c-cesarean?” he stuttered out, still afraid of his newly learnt word.
His answer was made clear when the yellow pegasus flinched. It wasn’t even a subtle flinch, no, it was a flinch you could clearly see a mile off. She stopped in her tracks. The feathers on her wings ruffled up and her entire body tensed up as all of her fur stood on it’s ends.
Discord’s ears flopped back as he started to hear soft whimpers. In the silence of the empty hospital he could even hear the sound of the heavy tear drops colliding with the floor.
“Fluttershy,” he began softly, lifting off of his feet and drifting slowly over to where she stood.
Discord had only just closed the gap between them halfway when Fluttershy suddenly spun hastily around and thrusted her hoof in Discords direction. “No! D-don’t come near me!” As well as a deep, almost forced, scowl, her face was bright red and all around her teal eyes were puffy as the tears carried on falling down her face and to the floor like a waterfall.
He stopped and slowly landed to the ground with a small thud.
The site of his dearly beloved in such a state stabbed Discord in the heart and tore it to shreds. She looked so tired and exhausted, both physically and mentally. All he wanted to do was to wrap her up tightly into his arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay. But no matter how much he wanted to he just couldn’t, she wanted him to keep his distance and he had to respect that.
Though there were many, this wasn’t like any other time that she had cried. She hadn’t lost her most loved sunhat, Angel hadn’t been missing for weeks after a fight about a misunderstanding, she hadn’t overslept and is late to feed all of the animals she cares for, and she hadn’t accidentally scared off an extremely rare breed of bird which she had been waiting her entire life to encounter. No, it wasn’t even remotely like one of those times. She was afraid. Afraid of bringing a new life into a world.
Fluttershy removed her hoof from the air and brought it back to her gown, making sure the gap in the fabric was once again closed.
They stood there staring at each other for a few moments, neither moving a muscle, both trapped in their own thoughts.
But the silence was suddenly broken when Fluttershy screamed in pain as she dropped to the floor and clutched at her stomach with both hooves.
Ignoring what she had told him previously Discord promptly landed at her side and wrapped an arm around her. “Fluttershy, this is ridiculous, we have to get you to the operating room!”
She screamed again, only this time it was louder and she curled further into a ball on the floor.
“Fluttershy!”
Fluttershy turned to yank Discords arm off of her and bat him away, “No! I can’t!” she tried to shout through clenched teeth.
“Listen to me! You can’t just sit here like this forever. We need to get you help,” he tried to at least place his paw on her shoulder, only for her to push it away again.
‘Where are these blasted nurses in this place!’
“You… you don’t understand!” Her grip around her belly tightened yet again as the stabbing sensation carried on. A puddle of tears were gradually growing in size on the floor in front of her hunched over body.
“What is there to understand Fluttershy!? You’re having a foal! And you can’t just run away from it.”
“No! No, Discord! You don’t understand! T-they’re going to cut me open!” Discord admittedly had to compose himself at that statement, fainting wasn’t exactly going to help the situation, “I’ve r-read through enough pregnancy books to know how those things work.” She had to pause as another pain shot through her and she yelped before taking a minute to control her breathing. By now sweat was layered thickly over her forehead and she was panting dryly.
“They strap you to a table w-with so many other ponies surrounding you and injecting you with so many needles and medication. Do you even know all of the risks?”
“Do you know and understand how many ponies and their foals have… have d-died from this?” She glanced up at Discord, through glazed eyes she could only just about see his expression. He looked so crushed by what she just said, like his entire world had crumbled to the ground. The solemn expression was then followed by his own tears joining Fluttershy’s on the floor.
At any other time Fluttershy would of brought her beloved into the warmest and tightest hug she could muster and apologised over and over again until Celestia’s sun broke past the horizon for making him cry. But she was just so scared and in so much agony that she couldn’t do anything at all no matter how much she wanted to.
“The foal is safe… safe inside here.” Fluttershy’s mouth changed from a grimace of pain to a saddened frown as she cradled her large belly with her hooves.“The world isn’t kind. What if...what if I’m not good enough?...” sobbing, Fluttershy pressed her face up against Discord’s chest. “What if this is the most caring that the foal will ever receive?”
Stunned, Discord blinked twice and looked down at the top of Fluttershy’s head. “What...do you mean, Fluttershy?”
“What if I’m no good as a mother and our foal suffers because of me!” Fluttershy’s sobbing grew louder, and it was then that her entire body broke down and she finally collapsed into Discord’s chest, gripping to his fur as if she had no other choice. “Right now it’s safe inside my stomach a-and that’s where it should stay.” Fluttershy’s sobbing had lessened, and she grew very quiet.
“What if the foal and I die during the operation...what would you do? I can’t.. I can’t leave you on your own.”
Discord repositioned himself carefully and slowly so that he could place his wife onto his lap and hold her as close as he possibly could. They clung to each other for support, the feeling of their chests rising and falling against each other soothing them.
After a short moment Discord smudged away his tears. “My dear sweet, sweet Fluttershy,” he began, “You’ve read one too many books and heard Twilight rant on and on about her concerns with her fancy facts and big numbers too many times. Please remind me to give her a shoe that cannot be removed and yells ‘neener neener’ each time she takes a step when we return home,” he tried his current best to lighten the mood, but regretted it instantly as it showed no effects whatsoever. He so desperately wanted to hear that beautiful little giggle of hers, the one that told him that he was a complete dork, but at the same time assured him that everything was going to be okay. But now’s not the time.
Discord closed his eyes, allowing a single tear that had built up to escape, before he leaned down and tenderly kissed Fluttershy on the top of her head. He lingered for a second and then returned to his former position.
“Now, I may not know much about how the whole procedure works, but from the depths of my soul and with all my heart I promise you that absolutely everything is going to be okay.”
“N-no it won’t,” Fluttershy mumbled between hiccups into his chest, tears matting his brown fur.
Discord wasn’t sure whether he was taken aback or expecting her answer at all. Even after all those years and all the things that they had been through together, he still struggled to understand so many things about her, both trivial and big.
“Fluttershy dear,” soothed Discord as he tenderly stroked Fluttershy’s mane, “medical magic has greatly improved over the last thousand years. Difficult births at that time often ended in tragedy. It wasn’t uncommon for one out of eight families to lose somepony during birth. How many ponies do you know of in Ponyville that has lost a loved one because of a difficult birth?” Discord bent down and kissed Fluttershy’s forehead, and then kissed the top of her muzzle. “I’m willing to wager that there are very few, if any at all. The chances that things will go badly are much less than they were a long time ago,” said Discord as he hugged Fluttershy tightly. A tear fell upon Fluttershy’s forehead. “I don’t want to lose either of you,” he said in a pained voice almost approaching a whisper. “But whether we like it or not, you’re having a foal.”
“There you are Miss Fluttershy!” The voice of the all too familiar Doctor Horse broke the moment. He was wearing blue scrubs (an outfit would cause Rarity to faint upon seeing it) and there was a white face mask wrapped around his neck. Right behind him followed two mares that Fluttershy could recall seeing before in previous trips to the hospital: Nurse Snowheart and Nurse Sweetheart, both wearing the same attire and the former pony pushing along a wheelchair, which happened to have a rather free willed front right wheel.
“I should question why in Equestria you were out here and not in your room after you were told specifically to sit tight,” he raised an eyebrow at her, “But we have no time for chatter, so if you please, could you kindly let Nurse Sweetheart help you onto this wheelchair and we’ll take you straight to surgery.”
On cue the nurse wheeled over to Fluttershy’s side and bent down to offer her hoof.
Fluttershy looked at the kind mare's hoof then back up at Discord as if to ask him if everything is truly going to be okay. “I’ll be right there beside you the whole time my dear,” he soothed, then gave her a warm smile. This was all she needed to hear, and she grabbed onto the nurse’s hoof and heaved herself off of the ground. Discord simultaneously stood up behind her and held her up under her armpits and helped her onto the chair.
Fluttershy’s hoof and Discord’s lion paw stayed intertwined from then onwards.
‘Sweet Celestia, she could move mountains with this much strength’
Finally, just as the first signs of dawn approached at the early hours of 6am, cries of a newborn foal echoed through the hospital corridors.
Author's Note
My first ever story (´・◡・｀;)
How do you do this? Like, I see authors throwing out chapters with over ten thousand words like it's nobodies business. Now, this could be because I slept through one too many English classes... or y'all are lizards.
I need brutal criticism for this story. I want everything down to the very last full stop to be judged harshly! I can take it! *Lifts up shield* Gimme your best shot.
