“What are you up to, Princess Bookhorse?”
Twilight snorted in surprise and set down her eyedropper, glancing around until she spotted Discord. He was a miniature version of himself, leaning up against one of the bottles on her little lab table and grinning at her.
“Discord,” she said. “Hasn't anyone ever taught you about lab safety? Like not disturbing the very focused scientists?”
“Nope!” he chirped, tapping the glass and watching the red liquid inside fizz in response. “What are you doing, conducting an experiment in the middle of your library?”
“I've taken the proper precautions to make sure none of the books will be damaged,” she said. “Besides, I'd like to be close to my references for this one, since it's a new field for me. Is there a reason you came here, or do you just want to distract me?”
“What, I can't swing by to pick up a few books and give one of my friends a hard time?” he said. He scurried over the table and gave a jar with bright blue liquid inside a shake, jiggling it in its silver stand.
“Discord, there's a difference between ‘picking up' books and just taking them with asking,” Twilight said. “And I wouldn't do that, if I were you.”
“Why not?”
"Because one of them has a—" Before she could finish, the stand of the beaker he was jiggling wobbled and tipped over onto its side, immediately dousing him with the bright blue liquid that was in the container. "—broken stand."
"Ugh!" Discord said. He immediately teleported to the side of the table opposite Twilight, back to his full size, and shook himself out....only to find most of the liquid had evaporated already. Or perhaps soaked into his skin. "What was that?"
"A potion of some kind," she answered vaguely, using her magic to lift the beaker back up and place the small puddle of liquid back inside of it. "I was testing how different potions would react to each other. Nothing dangerous, but give me a second and I'll find out which one you just dumped on yourself."
"Don't take your time," he said dryly. "I might be powerful enough to be immune to most potions, but I don't know how to counter all of them, especially if I don't know what it is."
He blinked, furrowing his brow in confusion. "That...wasn't what I was planning to say."
"Ah, I think I know which potion that was!" Twilight said. "I'll need to do a quick test to be sure, though."
She levitated a thick book over to her, then held it up, showing the three ponies on the cover—a mare and two stallions. The title, written in a cursive font, was A Hard Love's Choice. "Who does Lady Valewind marry in the end?"
"Sir Heartstrings," Discord blurted out, slapping his hands over his muzzle with horror a second too late.
"Ah-ha!" she said, pointing at him. "I figured out two things! One, you did steal and read this book! Two, I know exactly which of the potions you were just soaked in."
"What, the Potion of Humiliation?" he grumbled.
"The Potion of Truth, actually," she corrected.
"Oh, yes, that's not better at all," he said in a sarcastic tone. He froze, then slowly turned to look at her. "Did...did it just keep me from using sarcasm?"
"I know that must be painful for you to lose, but yes, I think it did," she said with a nod. She levitated some of her notes over to herself. "Okay. So this version of the Potion of Truth—"
"There's more than one?" he asked dryly.
"Yes, depending on what ingredients are used. Anyway, this version prevents you from telling any lies—apparently, some types of sarcasm are close enough that it won't allow it—and you'll be compelled to quickly and truthfully answer any questions anyone asks you."
Discord swallowed. "It's...it's not permanent, is it?"
Twilight looked up and shook her head. "No, it should wear off on its own by the end of the day."
"Oh, thank dysfunction," he said, heaving a huge sigh of relief and sinking into an armchair that he summoned for himself. "That makes things so much easier."
When he noticed Twilight raising an eyebrow, he elaborated, "All I have to do is go back to my realm and wait for it to wear off before coming back."
"I suppose that works," she said with a nod. He grinned, and was about to snap his fingers and teleport back to his dimension when a familiar, nervous knock rapped against the doorframe, making him pause and immediately turn to the pony there.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Fluttershy said, stepping into the room. There were full saddlebags on her back, which meant she must have been just doing some shopping. "Oh, Discord! I didn't think I'd see you here."
"I wasn't expecting you, either," he said. "What brings you here?"
"I was hoping to borrow a book from Twilight before I started brewing our tea for later," she said. Twilight was already levitating a thick guide on animals over to her, which she tucked into her saddlebag. "What about you?"
"Messing with Twilight," he said. "Our tea?" He paused, the wheels turning in his head before a tiny Discord in his brain held up a calendar for him. "Oh, right, it's Tuesday!"
"Yes...did you forget?" she said.
He grinned and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah..."
"Do you still want to have our tea today?" Fluttershy asked. "I'd hate to ask you to come if you already have plans for later."
"Of course I want to!" he insisted. "I love our little tea parties. I wouldn't miss them for the world."
"Great!" she said, beaming up at him. "I just bought some jasmine tea I hope you'll like. Oh...sorry to run, Twilight, but I should get home and get everyone fed before our tea party!"
She quickly thanked Twilight and headed towards the door, stopping to wave goodbye to both of them before leaving. Discord smiled, waving back until she fully lost sight of him.
"...so," Twilight said. "I think you just destroyed your own plan to wait off the potion's effects."
"Yes, I did," he said, shoulders sagging under the weight of his heavy arms. "Twilight, you're sure you don't know an antidote? I mean, you're one of the smartest ponies out there, and I can't go to Fluttershy's like...like this!" He gestured towards his big, fat, truth-blabbing mouth.
"Why not?" she said. "I mean, I understand that it's inconvenient, but if Fluttershy doesn't ask you a direct question and you don't try to lie about something, you should be fine."
"Fine!? No, things will not be fine. Because, Princess, there are a few things I would like to keep secret!" he said. "And thanks to this potion, one innocent comment from Fluttershy could cause me to spill my guts on all of them!" He rolled up the skin of his torso, allowing a large bundle of gooey organs to spill out onto her floor.
Twilight cringed, and with a snap of his tail feathers, his body was all in one piece, and there wasn't even a stain on the floor. "What secrets—wait, no, no, don't answer that," she said, holding up a hoof. Thankfully, the potion didn't trigger him to spill any of the ones he was so worried about.
"You deserve to keep your privacy in the matters you want," she said. "I don't know how to undo this, but Zecora might. You should talk to her."
"Zecora? The zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest? The one who somehow rhymes all the time?" Discord said, his eyebrow raising a little bit further with each question. "The fact she somehow manages to have a rhyme for every situation seemingly on the spot is unnerving."
A few moments later, he added, "Don't you dare tell anyone I said that!"
"I won't...probably," she said, a teasing grin on her face. "But she knows more about potions than anyone. She's actually the one who gave me most of the potions for this experiment of mine. If anyone knew an antidote for the Potion of Truth, it'd be her."
He sighed, shoulders sagging. "Fine...I guess I'll go talk to her." He lifted his fingers, ready to snap, but paused. "Sorry for messing up your experiment. ...huh. Maybe it's just the potion, but that was easier to say than I thought."
Twilight smiled. "Thanks, Discord."
He smiled back, before shivering and sticking his tongue out at the saccharine moment, snapping his fingers to teleport away.
"So, Zecora," Discord said, hanging upside down by his tail from the ceiling of the zebra's hut. "Word around town is that you have a way with potions."
The zebra flinched, slamming the jar she was working with down in shock. After taking a second to calm herself, she looked up at him. "I know many things about potions, that is true," she said. "Lord of Chaos, how may I help you?"
"Ugh, yes, you rhyme well, it's unnervingly impressive," he said. "Anyway, I need an antidote for a Potion of Truth, and as soon as possible!"
“A way to undo a Potion of Truth?" Zecora said, rubbing her chin. "Hmm. In order to find that, I'll have to sleuth."
"Yeah, sure," Discord said, dropping down from the ceiling and lounging on her empty table. "I still have..." He held up his empty wrist and stared at it. "...maybe an hour or so. I'd greatly appreciate it if you hurried!"
Zecora calmly headed over to her small shelf of books. "We should not proceed with too much haste," she said. "Or we'll risk both time and ingredients waste."
"Ugh, that makes sense but is frustrating," he said in a sarcastic tone. "Ugh! See, forget haste and waste, I miss being able to be sarcastic!"
"Patience is a powerful virtue," Zecora said calmly, cracking open one of her books. "A few minutes of honesty will not hurt you."
Discord grumbled, but Zecora kept reading her book without paying him much mind. Even as he messed around with some of the masks around her home, she just grunted and flipped to the next page of her book.
Fifteen minutes later, he paced back and forth, leaving a trail of green footprints behind him. Zecora had already gone through two books already, was now on her fourth, and still hadn't said a single thing about how to undo his affliction!
"Are you going to find anything that would be helpful today?" he said with a loud sigh. "I'm feeling very nervous because my tea party with Fluttershy is fast approaching and I still keep saying the truth!"
Zecora sighed, closing her book and setting it back on the shelf. "Unfortunately, I don't think you'll soon be able to tell lies," she said. "Because a cure for the truth potion, I cannot devise."
Discord's face went pale. "You're kidding. You're kidding me, right?" Zecora turned to him, expression serious. Color dripped off of Discord's face like liquid onto the floor. "You're not kidding."
She shook her head. "As far as I can see, the potion has no cure...it is simply brewed as something to endure."
"Well, isn't there...isn't there any kind of general 'Undo' potion you could give me?" he said, pacing even more rapidly back and forth. "Undo dust, an undo button...anything?"
She sighed and shook her head again. "I don't believe something like that can exist," she said. "If it does, it has been lost to time and mist."
"Not greeeaat," he said, slumping to the floor in a limp pile. "So you're saying that it's hopeless, then?"
Zecora stepped closer and patted his back consolingly. "I'm afraid you're stuck with honesty as a trait," she said. "But I doubt it will ruin your date."
"Fluttershy wouldn't call it a date even if I wanted it to be one!" Discord snapped all in one breath. The second it left his lips, his jaw snapped shut, and his cheeks turned bright red.
The zebra blinked in surprise. “…I think I see why this effect has you tearing at your hair,” she mused. “But things could be better once truth is in the air.”
“Yeah, wrong!” he snapped back. “Truth could completely ruin our friendship if I say the wrong thing! Thanks for not helping. I'll just use what little time I have left to fix this myself.”
He snapped his fingers and teleported away in a flash of light. Zecora just sighed and shook her head.
Discord tried his best to fix it himself in the precious little time he had left before the tea party began. He looked everywhere obscure he could think of for some kind of universal undo button. He stared his reflection dead in the eyes and tried to force a lie from his lips. He focused inside of himself and tried to find where the magic of the truth potion was rooted in him.
But it was all for nothing. He couldn't find a single cure. He could only tell truths even to himself (a show even his reflection truthfully said was embarrassing and worrying). And it was too hard to find where the potion magic was attached through all of his own magic, not helped by the fact he barely knew anything about potions to begin with.
“Ding dong, we are out of time,” a copy of him wearing spectacles said, rapping his knuckles against the side of a grandfather clock. “Looks like you're just going to have to try and not spill the beans.”
Discord glanced at the clock. It was true—his tea party with Fluttershy was only minutes away. And if he was late, that might make Fluttershy anxious. And there was no way he could or would simply skip it!
“It'll be not fine,” he told himself. He grimaced. “Ugh. I'll just keep my mouth shut. Or ramble about things that aren't my big secret.”
With a reluctant snap, he teleported to Fluttershy's.
He reappeared in front of her cottage with a bowtie around his neck and a red rose attached to his lapel. “What? Ugh!” He tore off the bowtie, which promptly burst into flames, and plucked off the flower, which he transformed into a yellow iris.
“Okay. Play it safe,” he whispered to himself. With a small gulp, he raised his fist and knocked on the door.
Just a few moments later, Fluttershy opened it, smiling brightly at him. “Discord, it's wonderful to see you!” She flew up to wrap her forelegs around him in a hug.
“A joy to see you, as well,” he said, returning the hug and sneaking in a small nuzzle against her cheek. She eventually let go, at which point he held the iris out to her. “For the loveliest mare I know.”
She blushed, bowing her head and letting him tuck it behind her ear. “Oh, you didn't have to.”
“I'd do anything to make you happy,” he said. Her blush grew a little brighter, and he clamped his mouth shut. He wasn't even spilling his biggest of secrets, and he was already saying too much!
“Well, come in, make yourself at home,” she said, leading him inside. He took his usual seat on the couch, and she poured him a cup of tea, adding one sugarcube—she knew he liked it sweet, so always started him with at least a couple of cubes. “I do hope you'll like this jasmine tea I made.”
“Well, it smells wonderful,” he complimented, accepting his cup and taking a small sip. “Mmm. Delicious, as always.”
Fluttershy smiled, her wings fluttering as she poured her own cup. “Why, thank you.” As soon as she held it in her hooves, she leaned forward, smiling widely. “So, Discord, what have you been up to this week?”
“Just a couple of adventures in a few of my favorite dimensions,” he said. “And bugging the princesses.” He took a long swig of tea, mind racing. This was bad. Usually, he would start telling tales of his adventures to Fluttershy, who would laugh, compliment him, ask questions at the right times—she was the perfect audience.
But the more he talked, the more likely it was that he would blurt out the thought that always buzzed in his mind during these tea parties. He began to sweat when she lowered her cup from her lips, mouth opening to ask another question.
“Say! I always seem to talk your ear off during our get-togethers,” he said, adding cream to his tea with loud clinking. “Why don't you tell me about what you've been up to?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh…me? Well, my stories aren't nearly as exciting as the ones you tell. And I really don't mind listening to your stories, not at all!”
And he loved to talk, but the more he talked, the more likely it was he would say…it. “I'd still like to hear what you have to say,” he deflected. “How are all the furballs doing? Didn't one of them have a sprained nose or something?”
“Oh, yes. Gabrielle the elephant strained her trunk a little too much, but it's healing quite nicely.” Her eyes gleamed in the way they did whenever she got the chance to talk about her animals. He loved that expression of hers.
“All the other animals at the sanctuary are doing very well,” she continued. “In fact, they all just had their monthly checkups the other day.”
“Do you do those yourself?” he asked.
“Well, no," she said, “I do my best, of course, but Dr. Fauna takes care of most of the checkups.” He suspected that she was downplaying her contributions, especially since she knew as much about animals as any vet. He quickly sipped his tea before he blurted that out, though.
“But…I haven't done much of anything exciting this week,” she admitted with an abashed giggle. “The biggest thing I did was starting a garden for tea leaves.”
“A garden?” he said.
“Yes. I say it's the biggest thing I did, but it's actually rather small.” She giggled, and he smiled, heart tumbling in his chest. “I figured I could use the space in my yard to try and grow something for our parties.”
“For me?” he gasped, eyes shiny as he batted his eyelashes. She smiled and nodded. “You're too kind. What did you plant?”
She blushed bright red and turned away. “Oh…this is silly,” she mumbled. “But you've taught me how the unexpected and chaotic can be fun! So, I…bought lots of seed packets, and choose at random which to plant, without looking at the labels. So even I'm not completely sure what's in it.”
His heart thumped in his chest. She had planted a garden to grow something they could enjoy together…and she used chaos in doing so? The secret he had been trying to keep a lid on bubbled up in his throat, but unlike every other tea party it did so, the truth potion made it slip through his lips before he even thought about it.
“Fluttershy, I love you.”
He was as still as a statue as soon as it was said. Fluttershy froze, nearly dropping the teapot as she was refilling his cup. “W-What?” she stuttered, quickly setting it down. “You…what makes you say…?”
He inhaled deeply, his chest puffing out from all the air he was taking in. "So I was visiting Twilight and messing around and I accidentally spilled some of her work on myself and it turned out to be a truth potion but she and Zecora couldn't remove it and I've been hiding the truth from you for so long and you're so wonderful that I couldn't not say it!"
Fluttershy blinked once, then twice, trying to absorb the information. "I...could you repeat the part you said before that, please?"
"I love you!" he blurted out again. He winced, groaning. "That's the fault of that truth potion."
"That you...love me?" she asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"No, that I actually said it aloud and told you," he said. "...you're really cute when you tilt your head like that. Gack!"
He shut his eyes tightly, wincing and preparing for the worst. Awful thoughts entered his mind—Fluttershy sending him away, Fluttershy banishing him from her cottage, Fluttershy trying to kindly turn him down with her sweetness hurting him all the more—and he quickly and sharply bit his tongue before any of his thoughts decided to spill out as words.
"Discord..." she said softly. But her voice wasn't stern, or upset, so he dared to crack one eye open just an inch. Her hoof was held to her muzzle, her eyes were wide, and he could practically see the gears turning in her head.
That felt a little more encouraging, and he hopefully, foolishly opened his eyes, his muscles slowly becoming a little less tense. This seemed to make Fluttershy more relaxed, as well...and to his shock, she smiled at him. It was possibly the happiest he had ever seen her.
"Oh, Discord, I love you, too!" she exclaimed, lunging forward and tightly wrapping her forelegs around his torso. She buried her face in his fur. "I was just too scared to tell you, or ask you how you felt...oh, I'm so, so happy you feel the same way!"
His heart swelled with joy, and he wrapped his arms and tail around her. "It's a wonderful relief that you love me, dearest Fluttershy," he said. "I was worried that if I confessed, I'd end up scaring you away."
She snuggled a little deeper into his fur. "Well, I'm not scared," she said. "I don't think anything you do could scare me, Discord."
He reached up and tangled his fingers in her mane, scratching behind her ear and making her coo. "That's just as wonderful to hear," he said. "...I'd really like to kiss you."
She slowly raised her head to look up at him. He coughed, feeling a blush rise on his face, and tugged at his neck fur like a collar. "Uh...truth potions, am I right?" he said, forcing a laugh. “I really did not mean for that to slip out. You can just forget I ever said that, even though I know it's not something you're likely to easily put out of your mind…”
“I…” she started to say slowly. His mouth clamped shut. “I…might like to try that, too. A k-kiss, I mean.”
It took a few moments for her words to sink in, but once they did, his face lit up, ears perking all the way up. “Really? You really want to do it? You're not just saying that because you're wanting to make me the happiest creature in this dimension?”
“No, I…it's something I do really want to try,” she said. Her face had turned bright red, her blush climbing to the tips of her ears. Still, she leaned towards him and tilted her chin upwards, puckering her lips.
Discord's heart thumped in his chest, and he nervously licked his lips. There were so many words dancing on the tip of his tongue—how much he loved her. How he was nervous and excited at the same time, about the kiss and this relationship. How he wanted to give the world to her and make her the happiest mare in history.
But before any of that truth could spill out, his neck bent down, and he quickly pressed his lips to hers.
They were soft, and tasted like tea and flowers. He moaned in delight, eyes slowly sliding closed as he reached up to tangle his fingers in her mane. She sighed, her breath warm on his lips, and angled her head to easily deepen the kiss.
Soon, though, they had to pull apart, gasping for breath. “You’re…good at this,” Fluttershy said. “Have you had practice?”
“Yes,” he blurted. “I mean! Practice like experience, which also doesn't sound great…please don't ask me questions about who the experiences were with. I'm not ready to say, but I can’t lie.”
She caressed his cheek. “I won't ask,” she said. “…do you want to wait until the potion wears off before spending more time together, or…?”
“My heart is laid bare before you, and wild stallions couldn't drag me away from you,” he said, leaning into her touch and kissing her hoof. “I suppose a little honesty can't hurt now that my biggest secret’s out.”
She smiled and leaned against him. “Then…would you maybe want to stay for dinner after this?”
“It's a date,” he said. “I mean, if you want it to be!” Her smile widened (he couldn't remember seeing it any wider), and she nodded enthusiastically, wrapping him in a hug.
He reached up to scratch behind her ear. Who knew confessing would lead to the best result, the best day, ever? …ugh, this meant he had to thank Twilight for her roundabout help, didn't it? And maybe even Zecora.
Well, that could wait, perhaps until after the potion had worn off. After all…he had a date with Fluttershy to look forward to.
