The young pegasus closed the bulky wooden door behind her before she turned around and inhaled deeply; the warm, familiar, and welcoming scent of her home filled her lungs. She sighed in contentment as she switched on the light switch beside the door, and watched as it illuminated the room. Fluttershy would usually see a hoard of animals emerging from their respected places to greet her, but upon her late arrival tonight she was only greeted by a soft silence, save for a few interruptions of snoring coming from a certain bear. Her eyes scanned across the room before they fell upon her beloved bunny, Angel, who was balled up on his favourite spot on the couch. Fluttershy realised that he must have been waiting up for her, so she made a mental note to give him an extra helping of carrots in the morning.
After carefully placing down her saddlebags, so as to not disturb the slumbering animals, she flew beside the small bundle and kissed his cotton white head. She smiled, and then padded to the kitchen with the thought of a warm cup of tea on her mind.
However, just as her hoof flicked on the light switch to her kitchen, an all too familiar voice echoed behind her.
“You’re home rather late, don’t you think?”
Fluttershy squeaked and hopped in the air as she turned around to meet her intruder. Her fearful expression, however, depleted away as her teal eyes locked with yellow and crimson red.
A small smile crept onto her face. “Oh goodness, Discord, you scared me,” she said, and then glanced at the clock that hung on one of the walls. “What are you doing here so late?”
“I believe I asked you that first.”
“Oh, yes you did. Well, I was at Rarity’s. She wanted to ask for my opinion on some of the songs that she has been writing for the Pony Tones. We ended up getting so lost in conversation that I guess we both lost track of time,” she smiled.
Fluttershy suddenly paused for a moment before the colour drained from her face and her eyes widened. “Oh my, we didn’t have any plans for this evening did we!? I don’t recall making any, but oh I’ve been forgetting a lot of things lately! Just yesterday I had completely forgotten to help Harry look for his missing teddy bear! It was so terribly hard to get him to sleep last night; he was so devastated.”
Fluttershy gasped, “What if there’s something wrong with me!? Amnesia!? Maybe even Dementia or something much much worse! I need to go speak to Twilight right awa-!”
Fluttershy’s ramblings were abruptly cut off as a paw planted itself over her mouth.
“Now now there, are you done doing… whatever it is you were doing?.”
He got a soft, if not hesitant, nod in reply. “We didn’t have any plans for this evening. I was bored and decided to visit. Just so happens that when I got here, you weren’t.”
“Mmph.”
“Pardon? Use your words, Fluttershy. Just like we practised.”
“Mm mm pph?”
“Oh. Right.” Discord removed his paw from her muzzle, “One more time, dear.”
“I’m really sorry for not being here, Discord. Have you been waiting long?”
“Not particularly. I was actually hoping to disrupt you from your sleep, but as you can tell that didn’t exactly go to plan,” he dramatically emphasized his woe by throwing his paw to his forehead and gazing into the distance.
“I’m glad you weren’t waiting on me for too long. Would you like some tea?” Fluttershy asked, ignoring his second comment and antics that had followed.
“As a matter of fact I would.”
Fluttershy beamed at him then proceeded to turn hoof and head towards the kettle.
Discord had made himself comfortable on his favourite spot in the house, her sofa. Fluttershy wasn’t quite sure yet whether it was Discord’s favourite spot only because it was Angel’s favourite spot, or if it really was just a coincidence. Anypony else would immediately agree on the former, but Fluttershy had come to know that Discord has more layers than he lets on.
Luckily, to Fluttershy’s relief, she had been able to quickly scoop up the sleeping Angel and place him gently in his wicker basket before Discord had had the chance to make a beeline for the sofa.
They lit a fire in the fireplace in the front room to fill the small cottage with warmth as Fluttershy busied herself in the kitchen.
Discord was about to change the wallpaper for the upteenth time before he heard a muffled giggle coming from his yellow friend. He stopped his claw midway in the air and raised a bushy eyebrow.
“What are you giggling about over there?” Discord questioned as he awkwardly stretched his neck to an impossible length, peeking his head around and looking into the kitchen from where he was sitting.
Fluttershy took a short moment to calm her giggles behind her hoof, “Oh, it’s nothing. I just realised that I still smell like oranges,” she giggled once more before she continued. “I suppose I should really go take a bath soon. I do love oranges, but maybe not quite this much.”
Discord snorted, “I agree. Quite frankly after today I’m rather sick to the stomach of oranges and pray to never encounter one ever again.” He reinforced his disgust by sticking his finger in his mouth and making a gagging noise.
“Oh my, I hope not forever, oranges are a really good source of vitamin C,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Good to know.”
The tea set that Fluttershy typically used whenever she had guests over, was spread across the oak coffee table. Discord had already tucked into the arrangement not even a second before Fluttershy had set it down. If Rarity had been present at that time she’d have scoffed at his bad etiquette, but fortunately for her sake she wasn’t.
Fluttershy took her tea tentatively between her hooves and sat herself onto her armchair. She took a few sips of the warm liquid as she made small glances towards Discord every now and then to find him either diving face first into the biscuit tin or adding more sugar to his tea than even Pinkie Pie could handle.
Once Discord seemed somewhat relaxed, with all things considered, Fluttershy spoke up.
“I was thinking about today and I just want to say that I’m proud of you, even if you did cause a little trouble and gave Twilight some grief. But in the end you learnt from your mistake. And although it wasn’t technically in your intentions, you even helped Twilight understand and come to terms with something about herself, and for that I am very proud of you.”
She paused, “However, I am a little curious as to why you set this all up in the first place. Purposely leaving Twilight out of our weekend together, that is. I mean, I guess you were trying to upset or get a reaction from Twilight, but... why?”
She looked up at Discord expectantly, hoping he’d clear things up for her even though past experiences told her not to get her hopes up. To her dismay all she got from him was a bored glare at a nearby wall. If she didn’t know any better she would think that he hadn’t been listening to her at all.
Fluttershy inhaled quickly as it dawned upon her, “Discord, you... you weren’t mad at Twilight were you?”
Discord sighed before finally contributing to the conversation, “And pray tell what makes you think that?”
“Well, um you two haven’t exactly always been on good terms in the past, except for now that is, right?. And this isn’t the first time you tried to make Twilight feel bad. I know you two sometimes find it hard to get along so you argue a lot and go out of each other's way to make the other feel, well... miserable. So it would probably help explain most of your actions from today if you were mad at her. Maybe you two had a little tiff or um... maybe something else?”
“If it helps you rest easy, no, the Princess and I did not have a ‘tiff’,” he said as he gestured the last word with quotation marks.
“Oh, good. Then I’m glad to hear that you two are on good terms. But… Discord, I still don’t understand; why did you do what you did today in the first place?”
“Were you forcibly trying to teach Twilight a lesson so she can become a better pony? I suppose that was nice of you… I think. But if you were, I don’t get why you wanted her to learn something in the first place?” Fluttershy kept her gaze locked onto his wild eyes, looking for any signs or answers to her questions.
There was a short pause as Discord flicked a stray crumb off of his lap. He lazily made eye contact with her, “Not everything needs to have a reason behind it, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy softly sighed and finally looked away as she smoothed out a small raised lump on the table cloth with her hoof and made a thoughtful noise, “I suppose not.”
“Right, now that that’s out of the way, can we move on from talking about Princess Twilight? She’s not exactly the most fascinating of conversation topics if I’m brutally honest,” he huffed.
Using her back and years of practice, Fluttershy lifted the tray layered with empty tea cups, pots, and a tin which only moments ago was overflowing with biscuits of different varieties. Since meeting Discord, Fluttershy always kept more than one full tin of biscuits as a spare just in case she had any surprise visits. She was grateful Discord hadn’t figured out where she hid them yet.
With ease she carried the tray to the kitchen to clear up, leaving Discord to slump across the sofa as he smacked his lips in satisfaction. He would never admit it to himself, let alone anypony else, but his tea parties with Fluttershy were the thing he always looked forward to most. Especially including the unscheduled ones.
The second Fluttershy had ducked behind the kitchen's entrance Discord let out a large sigh. She was right to question his actions. It was actually beginning to become an increasingly regular thing; Fluttershy being right.
He scratched the back of his head and then paused with his paw at the top of his neck, and then looked over towards the kitchen. “Hey, Fluttershy...do you think everypony would like to get together to make ice cream sundaes next weekend? We could chop up some nuts and pineapple for toppings.”
Fluttershy leaned over to the doorway of the kitchen so that she could see Discord. At first her face was slightly scrunched up in confusion at his uncharacteristic question, but it eased away once she saw the sincerity in his expression. “That sounds lovely, and the pineapple toppings sound delicious,” she said with a smile.
Grinning mischievously, Discord replied, “Yes it does, and pineapple is also high in vitamin C.”
Author's Note
Was it just me who was questioning things at the end of episode 22? Things just seemed a little odd in that episode do you think not? Maybe it's just me aha. (Minus the fluttercord moments of course *cough*)
This story turned out a little shorter than I anticipated and I feel it really needed more text in places, but I got stumped and extremely impatient so I hope it didn't affect it too much.
If there are any errors or anything at all feel free to let me know!
I'd absolutely adore some feedback and criticism on this story! Be as brutal as you possibly can!
