Bid Time Return

Chapters

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four

Chapter One

Fluttershy stood against the wall of the palace ballroom, watching Equestria’s elite spin across the dance floor dressed in their finest, and resolved to herself that this was most definitely the last Grand Galloping Gala she would ever attend.

The truth of the matter is that she hadn’t even really wanted to attend this one. She still winced with shame whenever she contemplated her… inappropriate behavior at last year’s gala. And besides, there were just so many ponies in attendance, and Fluttershy didn’t enjoy crowds on a good day… So when her invitation had arrived in the mail, Fluttershy had set it aside with a frown, making a mental note to send Princess Celestia her regrets.

But, of course, later that day she had lunch with Rarity, who of course was filled to the brim with excitement for the upcoming gala, and who had already sketched up ideas for the designs of all her friends’ dresses. Fluttershy could do nothing but smile politely as Rarity raved about how big an event the gala was going to be this year, and how amazing her creations were going to be. She even gave Fluttershy the ideas she’d sketched for her dress, all of them lovely, and Fluttershy had a hard time voicing any negativity in regards to the event at hoof.

She had taken the sketches with her on her trip to observe the breezies, looking them over one evening while trying to find the words to tell Rarity that, while she loved all of the designs, she unfortunately wouldn’t be wearing any of them. And she still had to figure out how to give the bad news to Celestia, too. And, heck, even Twilight—since she was an alicorn now, she was also directly involved in the planning. Twilight always put her all into planning things, no matter the occasion… she would likely take it personally if Fluttershy opted out of attending…

Fluttershy groaned softly. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“Hey,” called out Tree Hugger, an earth pony who Fluttershy had met at the retreat. She sauntered up behind Fluttershy and looked at the sketches in front of her. “Groovy dresses. Did you draw these?”

Fluttershy smiled. Although she was, well, shy, she had taken a liking to the laid-back pony, finding her agreeable and very easy to talk to. “Oh goodness, no, my friend Rarity did. Although they are all designs for me.”

“Far out,” said Tree Hugger. “What’s the occasion?”

“The Grand Galloping Gala.”

“Whoa, for real? Righteous.” Tree Hugger’s eyelids actually perked up a bit at that, her true excitement enough to cut through her phlegmatic countenance. “I’ve always wanted to attend the gala. What an honor for you.”

Fluttershy blinked. She didn’t really consider it an honor at this point, but seeing as she was the only one who didn’t seem excited for this…

…and seeing that her invitation came with a “you and a guest” that had been impossible to fulfill, since any guests Fluttershy would have brought were already invited…

…and seeing that Tree Hugger was nice and a pony Fluttershy wanted to get to know better and who really wanted to go…

“Would you like to go with me?” Fluttershy blurted out. “I can bring a guest, but all of my friends are also Twilight and Celestia’s friends, so they’re all invited already on their own…”

“Oh wow, thanks,” said Tree Hugger, with a lidded smile. “That would be totally radical to go.”

“Just one thing,” Fluttershy said softly, giving a guilty glance back at the sketches. “Could you help me decide which design to go for?”

Tree Hugger gave them a quick once-over before looking back at Fluttershy and saying, languidly yet decisively, “The peacock dress.”

And, well, there it was. There was no need to tell Celestia or Twilight or Rarity that she wouldn’t be attending the gala, because she was attending it now with Tree Hugger. She still didn’t really want to go herself, of course, but coming up with a reason why she couldn’t back out of it was an easier pill to swallow than the prospect of explaining multiple times that she would be staying home that night.

So her choice was made.

She did her best to fake enthusiasm when asked about the upcoming gala. It wasn’t so hard with Rarity, really. Her design for the peacock dress really was lovely, and Fluttershy was looking forward to seeing it in person and wearing it. In fact, during a last-minute fitting for the dress the Tuesday morning before the gala, Fluttershy was so taken with how beautiful it was that she was actually, to some extent, looking forward to the event. Wearing such a pretty dress, spending time with her new friend, introducing her to all her other friends… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad this year.

She was feeling optimistic enough about the whole ordeal, in fact, that the topic eked through in her conversation with Discord during their usual teatime. Discord had seemed excited too, saying why of course, he’d love to attend the ball with her, thanks so much for asking!

And Fluttershy’s optimism stuttered and petered out with a pathetic wheeze.

Wait. Had Celestia and Twilight actually not invited Discord? Were they still holding a grudge over what he’d done last month? Of course what he’d done had been absolutely terrible, but he felt awful about it too and had apologized profusely, and it had really seemed to Fluttershy that the two of them were very willing to forgive him. Was she mistaken? And did it matter anyway, because she didn’t really want to go before asking Tree Hugger and she only would have asked Discord if he wanted to go, and he hadn’t mentioned wanting to go until now, and why was she only realizing all of this now? A mere four days before the gala, when the plans had already been cemented into stone?

How had this become such a mess?

And, of course, things became a literal mess at the gala.

And even after Discord had calmed down, and apologized to Tree Hugger for being a jealous jerk and trying to banish her to an alternate dimension, and the two of them had even started chatting and—despite all odds—seemed to be getting along well after all that… Fluttershy couldn’t take much joy in the current situation.

Because most of the other guests were avoiding her, throwing judgmental stares her way when they thought she wouldn’t notice. And, well, how could she blame them? She was the pony who had turned into an insane love-hungry monster at last year’s gala, and she was the pony who had the reality-warping bitter jealous friend who seemingly didn’t want her interacting with anyone else at this year’s.

So, of course, stares and avoidances were to be expected.

Fluttershy tried to ignore all of that, though, and while most of the other guests were dancing and socializing, she had taken the time to chat with the Smooze. Most everyone was surprised he could even talk at all, even Discord, but Fluttershy had a way of understanding nearly every creature around. The Smooze didn’t have a whole lot to say, but he was friendly enough. He also didn’t appear to be as close to Discord as Discord had implied, although he was all in all happy to be at the gala. Fluttershy decided to err on the side of thinking it was nice of Discord to invite him to the gala, ignoring the other part of her that worried that he’d just used him as a pawn.

With how well everything seemed to be going right now, Fluttershy was eager for any excuse to let Discord off the hook for any lingering misdeeds. Right now he was on the dance floor with Tree Hugger, spinning her upwards from the floor in mini whirlwinds, and Tree Hugger for her part seemed to be enjoying the unique experience. It was definitely preferable to being nearly thrown into an alternate dimension filled with sock puppets, anyway.

Fluttershy frowned.

“Isn’t some handsome stallion gonna ask me to dance?” Sweetie Belle whined, looking longingly at the dance floor. Her sister had, of course, been dancing all night, catching the attention of many stallions. Right now Rarity was seemingly gliding on the floor with her latest partner, gleaming and nearly sparkling with pride from the attention she garnered.

“Or me?” Apple Bloom, standing right next to her friend, said with a sigh.

Scootaloo, standing on the other side of Apple Bloom, just huffed. “Why do you want to dance out there? Seems boring.”

“Y’all are too young, anyway,” Applejack said with a light chuckle. “Unless y’all want to dance with each other.”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders all brightened considerably at this suggestion. “Yeah! We can have fun without waiting for a stallion!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed.

“Let’s go before the song ends!” Scootaloo said, leading her two friends onto the dance floor, nearly barreling into Pinkie Pie.

“Whoops, sorry, girls! WHEEE!” Pinkie grabbed her dance partner, another stallion who Fluttershy didn’t recognize, and zipped off in a mad dance. Nopony danced as eagerly and with as much liveliness as Pinkie Pie. She was asked to dance nearly as often as Rarity was. While she didn’t have Rarity’s stunning beauty, Pinkie’s outgoing and fun personality ensured the attention of plenty of stallions in her own right, although she didn’t accept every offer, making sure to spend some songs as downtime to hang out with her sister Maud.

“Give the poor guy a breather, Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash hollered from behind Applejack. She had found the drink table, and a tumbler filled with a light brown liquid was grasped in her wing feathers. Fluttershy didn’t think she sounded too drunk… yet, anyway. Hopefully she’d remain on the respectful side of tipsy for the night. She was Scootaloo’s chaperone, after all.

“Um, excuse me.” A young unicorn stallion approached the three ponies (and the Smooze), looking a bit nervous yet still offering a friendly smile. “Are… are you Rainbow Dash?”

“In the flesh!” Rainbow affirmed with a proud grin.

The stallion seemed to beam a bit, too. “I, um, hope you don’t find me presumptuous, but I’m a huge fan of yours, and I was wondering i-if you’d like to dance with me? I have it on good authority that the next song will be a bit slower.”

Rainbow gulped down the rest of her drink with one swift chug. “The speed of the song doesn’t matter, I’ll dance fast either way. Think you can keep up?” But she didn’t even give the stallion a chance to answer, instead yanking him by the foreleg and pulling him along, nearly knocking over Applejack and Fluttershy on their way to the dance floor.

“Make sure to give the poor guy a breather, Rainbow!” Applejack called out with a chuckle. Fluttershy giggled just a bit, too.

The gala musicians were drawing the current song to a close, and Tree Hugger literally slid back to the group, as if riding an invisible slide. “Far out,” she said approvingly. “With the aura of that song and your moves, Discord, I’m in tune with the universe.”

“There are far worse things to be than a universal tuner, I suppose,” Discord said amiably, seeming to grab the invisible slide and roll it back up with a single shake, and tucking it into a jacket pocket. “How are you doing, Smooze? Still smoozing?”

The Smooze made a content, gurgling sound.

“He’s having a lovely time,” Fluttershy translated with a small smile. “And he’s been on his best behavior. He’s only eaten two small serving spoons.”

“Smooze,” said Tree Hugger in a disarming drawl, “tell me all about your travels. The harmony you’ve found with utensils. Your malleable countenance. Your unique and special being.”

The Smooze seemed pleased by this as well, and oozed to follow Tree Hugger.

Applejack, watching them leave, scratched a hoof behind her ear with an awkward chuckle. “Well, every pot’s got a lid, I suppose…”

“Oh, he’s quite charming,” Fluttershy said to her. “He’s been in seven layers of the planet’s crust.” She turned her head and raised an eyebrow in Discord’s direction. “Did you know that, Discord?”

“I’ll have oodles of crusty conversations with him at a later date,” Discord muttered, pouting a bit. “But right now, dear wallflower, it’s your turn to go out for a whirl on the dance floor and hear me out.”

Fluttershy blanched, her throat drying up. “Um, actually, um… I’m not a good dancer,” she stammered out.

“Ah, see, that’s the beauty of it! You don’t have to do anything at all.” Discord snapped his fingers and while nothing seemed to change regarding the outward appearance of Fluttershy’s shoes, she could still sense that they were lighter somehow, able to glide effortlessly despite their owner’s lack of dancing skill. “Except listen to me.”

Fluttershy’s eyes were still wide with slight terror at the prospect of dancing. She couldn’t dance! Her eyes flickered towards Applejack with a silent plea for help, but Applejack didn’t seem to take the hint. “Go on, sugarcube,” she told her, smiling. “Nopony’s gonna judge your dancing abilities out there.”

“But… but who will watch the fillies?” Fluttershy said, glancing towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were still on the dance floor but now simply chattering excitedly amongst each other, drowning out the start of the next song.

“I can handle ‘em on my own. Go on.” Applejack motioned with her head towards Discord.

Fluttershy continued to stammer out syllables that weren’t quite forming into fully-worded excuses, and Discord sighed dramatically and unhappily at it. “Trust me, Fluttershy, I understand that my behavior has made the prospect of being seen with me a bit distasteful, but—“

“No, no, it—it isn’t that,” Fluttershy stammered. Even though it kind of was. And she quickly raised herself on her hind legs and extended a forehoof to Discord before she offended him more, or stammered more, or just made this whole awkward situation even more awkward.

Discord’s gloom vanished, and he beamed happily as he took her hoof in his talons and carefully placed his paw on her withers. He was perched on his hind legs as well, but due to being much longer in the torso than his pegasus friend, he had curved his body into a bit of an s-shape to be able to look her eye-to-eye. Not that the position seemed to be at all uncomfortable for him, though—there were advantages to being part snake, Fluttershy supposed. He led her out to the floor, and indeed, Fluttershy’s shoes caused her to follow gracefully after him. She didn’t even have to think about lifting her hooves.

“Now then,” Discord said to her, having the decency to keep his voice rather low, “before we get started, let me confirm that yes, I already apologized to Arbor Embracer, and yes, she accepted my apology—she said that I had very strong chakras, and while I have no inkling what that even means, I’m happy to trust the expert on the matter.”

“Okay,” Fluttershy said slowly, blinking in confusion. “Thank you for letting me know, but why are you telling me this?”

“Because I now owe you an apology. And having cleared up the matter of the apology that you clearly deemed more important, I’m hoping that this time you’ll accept yours.”

Fluttershy sighed wearily. “And to think, I thought this was just because you enjoyed my company.”

“Well, of course it’s that too!” Discord exclaimed rather loudly, stammering a bit on the words. “Believe you me, there’s no pony I’d rather humble myself before than you!”

The dimming of the lights caught Fluttershy too off-guard to respond right away. The words of the stallion who’d asked Rainbow to dance flashed across her mind—he’d promised the next song would be a slow one, and it was indeed. What’s more, it was a slow song that Fluttershy was intimately familiar with. It was the theme song to one of her favorite movies, Bid Time Return. And it brought with it a wave of memories and emotions and expectations that every other circumstance of this night had thoroughly trampled until this precise moment.

She had first seen the movie in one of the more awkward phases of her life—that phase where she was teetering between fillyhood and marehood. She liked to think that she wasn’t quite as impressionable as some of her peers were—she already knew exactly what she wanted out of life, after all, she’d already dedicated herself to her animals one hundred and ten percent—but she still felt lost sometimes. And she absolutely felt lonely, it was just a natural state of being for her… and romantic novels and movies could suck her in like a vacuum. So when she’d first seen the movie about an earth pony stallion who saw an old photograph of a beautiful pegasus mare and became obsessed with finding a way to be with her, despite the time barrier, Fluttershy had been swept away. She cried her heart out at her first viewing of the movie. And the second. And even the beautiful theme song was enough to get the tears flowing, if she was in the appropriate mental frame for it.

And nights of school dances were certainly some of those times. Fluttershy desperately wanted to attend them. She wanted some attractive stallion to notice her, to sweep her off onto the dance floor, to make her feel like she was the only creature in the universe who mattered at that moment. But… she never even set hoof at any of them. She was so shy that she could barely look any of her classmates in the eye, let alone any handsome colt who might take a fancy to her. And if one did? If one actually did ask her for a dance? Fluttershy had enough self-awareness to know that she would never be able to accept. She’d freeze up and be rendered unable to say anything other than a terrified squeak and a dance would never happen and there was no point to going at all. So she stayed at home, putting her phonograph record of the Bid Time Return theme on near constant repeat as she laid in her bed and wept softly in mourning of all the opportunities she would never take.

And so, right there, on that dance floor, Fluttershy drew in her breath at where she’d found herself. She was at a dance. For the second time. And this wasn’t just any dance, no sir, this was the Grand Galloping Gala, only one of the most important and prestigious social events of the year. And here she was, out on the dance floor with (as crazy as it might sound) her closest friend in the entire world, dressed in her finest and her hooves gliding gracefully to one of her favorite songs… but the whole circumstances of the situation, of this whole event in general, had been so unpleasant that she hadn’t even realized it until now.

See, young Fluttershy, all of your dreams will eventually come true. Except even then you’ll still wish you were at home.

She’d stopped so suddenly with the steamroller of realization and emotions that the first strands of the song brought her, and Discord stopped too, the paw on her back slacking disbelievingly. “Really? After everything I’ve ever done, this is the one thing you find unforgivable? This? I know it was horrible, but really, in comparison—“

“No,” Fluttershy blurted out quickly, shaking her head, “it’s—this song—it’s from one of my favorite movies…” She gazed over at the musicians, letting the music wash over her, everything else slipping away.

After a moment, Discord very gently guided her along with him, his steps (and her enchanted ones) unexpectedly delicate. “It is clearly quite the song to be able to distract you so wholly from my attempts at the apology I still owe you.”

Fluttershy sighed.

Be that as it may, it still wasn’t quite enough to distract her from the fact that she hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place. And that this year’s gala had become almost as much of a disaster as last year’s. And that she was tired. So tired. And frustrated.

“You really want to make it up to me?” she asked Discord suddenly.

Discord blinked at her in a momentary confusion. “Was there some part of what I said that conveyed ambiguity? I assure you, my dear, there was none intended.”

“Discord,” she interrupted firmly. She held her gaze firm with him. The words out of her mouth and the conviction with them surprised even her. This was bolder than she’d ever been before, but she had no desire to change course now. “My birthday is next week.”

Discord blinked again.

The corner of Fluttershy’s mouth tugged upwards in the slightest of smiles. “You could… maybe… come up with something then.”

Discord considered this for a few seconds longer before pulling Fluttershy back into their dance. Their legs were gliding again, but now their bodies were very close, close enough so that Discord could speak directly into Fluttershy’s ear. “I’ve never celebrated a pony’s birthday before,” he said in a low voice.

Fluttershy stammered a bit. “W-well, this will be the first of many, I’m sure.”

“Such faith in my social standing.”

“Absolutely,” Fluttershy responded instantly. Her conviction was enough to pull Discord away from her by a degree or so to give her a slightly surprised glance. “You’re a natural for parties and celebrations. You’re fun and clever and creative…”

Fluttershy didn’t consider herself one to butter someone up like this, but Discord was brightening so much at her words that she couldn’t help but lay it on just a little thick. She knew his ego couldn’t resist a challenge like this, after all. “And I know that you’ll come up with something amazing for my birthday.”

The song ended, the lights came back on, and some of the ponies on the dance floor began to disperse, still leaving the odd couple in the middle a wide berth. It took just a second more for Discord to grin, suddenly twirling Fluttershy into a deep dip, even though the music had ended. Fluttershy let out a small squeak of surprise at this new position, the skin underneath her fur feeling tingly.

Discord leaned in close again, keeping his response for her ears alone.

“I won’t let you down.”

Author's Note

The movie Bid Time Return is based on the movie Somewhere in Time, which in real life is based on Richard Matheson's novel Bid Time Return. :) I wasn't sure if movies exist in this iteration of Equestria, but I figured if they'd managed to invent color photography, then surely they'd figured out how to display those photographs at a rapid rate of 24 framers per second and tell stories with them, at least in a 1930s-1940s "let's go to the movie theaters and enjoy a show" sort of way.

You can, of course, imagine the song to sound however you want to. :) But here's the link to the actual Somewhere in Time theme, which was what I had in mind when writing this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzmprUUqryM

Anyway... this story took me way too long to write, especially considering how short it is... and since this is me once again treading old ground that other authors have covered years ago, I very well may be the only one who cares that this is finished. But if at least one other person enjoys this, then I guess posting it is worth it. Thanks for checking out my fic and giving it a chance. :)

Chapter Two

Sugar Cube Corner had yet to open for the day, but the shop was still bustling inside, thanks to the usual preparations by its early riser. Since the wee hours of the morning, long before Celestia had raised the sun, Pinkie Pie had been hard at work, baking all sorts of delicious pastries and treats.

As far back as she could remember, Pinkie had always been an early riser. She figured it was probably partially due to growing up on a farm, and also due to her great dislike of remaining still, no matter the reason. Most nights she didn’t even go to bed until midnight, sometimes later, just because her energy didn’t top out until then. And the amount of sugar she regularly consumed in a day helped, too.

Hmm, now that she thought about it, the sugar was probably a more major factor in her sleep/wake cycle than anything else…

Well. Anyway, no matter the cause, Pinkie’s ability to get by—thrive, even—on such little sleep benefited both her and her employers very well. Mr. and Mrs. Cake were able to sleep in in the mornings (at least as much as their baby twins would let them) while Pinkie tended to the first bakings of the day, and in the afternoons, after dropping off the twins at the daycare/corral, they’d take over from Pinkie, leaving Pinkie free to plan parties, throw parties, think about parties, attend parties that she hadn’t had a hoof in (a rare occasion nowadays, since she was involved in almost every party thrown in Ponyville), and, of course, spend time with her friends.

Of course, she was running on slightly less sleep than usual this particular morning, thanks to the Grand Galloping Gala the night before. Unsurprisingly, she had partied the entire night, closing the place down. If one could “close down” a palace, of course. Well, Pinkie could! Pinkie and Maud! Not that Maud had really been doing much partying at the end, but she had been helping to clean up the ballroom as the last remaining ponies other than Pinkie had filed out, for which an exhausted Twilight had been most grateful. It had been pretty late, even for Pinkie, and she knew Maud liked her sleep, but her sister wouldn’t hear any apology. “It’s just one time a year, I can handle it,” she’d told her. Of course, Maud had fallen asleep almost immediately after boarding the train back home and Pinkie had had to shake her awake at her stop.

Despite the later than usual night, however, Pinkie was up at her usual time, cheerfully humming to herself as she slathered chocolate icing on a fresh batch of donuts. The store would be opening in about half an hour and there were still plenty of sweets to be made. Especially considering the fact that Pinkie had been munching on more than usual this morning. Late night and all, you know.

She heard a knock on the door and looked up from her work. “We’re not open yet!” she called out brightly. This always seemed to happen, the smell of her confections apparently too good to resist. Ponies could be so impatient sometimes.

The mystery impatient pony knocked again.

“If you wait for half an hour, I’ll give ya a freebie!” Pinkie offered.

The bell above the door rang out, even though the door remained firmly shut.

Any other pony might have been disturbed by this, but Pinkie was only mildly confused. “Not just a free donut, but also a free croissant! And that’s my final offer!”

“Hmm, tempting.” From the top of the bell grew the familiar (if unusual) form of Discord, and he whacked the bell with his tail once more before floating over to Pinkie’s work counter. “I would say throw in a cinnamon bun and you’ve got yourself a deal, but… I’m already inside, so the point seems moot.” He peered at her icing. “Is that double fudge?”

“Yes indeedy!” Pinkie proudly proclaimed. “But your freebie is just a regular glazed donut, since you cheated by ignoring the door and all.”

“I wasn’t aware that was a rule.” Discord didn’t seem too upset by this, however, amiably grabbing a glazed donut from the display case. He conjured up a pepper shaker and a bottle of hot sauce and began to season the donut. “But at any rate, Miss Pie, I’m actually here with an inquiry related to your other line of work.”

Pinkie’s ears perked up. “Ooohh! Are you thinking of throwing a party? Do you need help? Because you’ve come to the right pony!”

“Precisely, Ponyville’s premiere party planner, Pinkie Pie!” Having seasoned the donut to his liking, Discord now conjured up a straw and began to sip it up. “But ‘party’ is probably a pinch too prolific for my problem. A proposal of a perfect present would be more prudent.”

“Well, the perfect present depends a lot on the occasion and who it’s for,” said Pinkie. She propped her forehooves up on the counter eagerly. “So what’s the occasion and who’s it for?”

Discord sucked up the last of the donut and dabbed at his mouth with a plaid sock, letting hot sauce drip from his beard onto the counter. “Well, last night, after my… deplorable behavior, a dear mutual friend of ours informed me that her birthday is next week—“

Pinkie gasped loudly, surprised at herself for not cluing into the nature of Discord’s request sooner. “Oh, of course! Fluttershy! You want help with getting a gift for Fluttershy!” She stopped, blinked, and frowned slightly. “You want help with getting a gift for Fluttershy? Really? I’d think that would be easy for you!”

“I am experienced with many things, Pinkie Pony Pie, but unfortunately the social ins and outs of parties and celebrations are not part of that list. As, erm, I’m sure my conduct last night made perfectly clear.” Discord coughed awkwardly, looking slightly embarrassed. It wasn’t a look that Pinkie was used to seeing on him.

“Well, sure,” Pinkie said with a shrug, “but presents and gifts and stuff don’t have to come with parities. Some parties don’t have gifts, and you can give a gift without having a party! But who would want to?” she added under her breath.

“Well, my experience in gift-giving is just as lacking as my experience in party-going,” Discord admitted.

“Yeah, but out of everypony I know, you should have the easiest time coming up with a present!” Pinkie said. “You can make anything just pop out of the sky! And you and Fluttershy are so close, I’m sure you don’t need any gift suggestions for her!”

“Ah, but see, that’s the trouble!” Discord dramatically flung an arm over his eyes. “I know perfectly well that Fluttershy would be happy with any old thing I could conjure up, but she deserves something far more special and thought-out! I owe her. After last night, and last… month… and, well, last everything. And nothing I can think of seems good enough.”

Pinkie did sympathize with Discord’s dilemma, yet she could still feel a grin spread across her face. He was just so weirdly adorable, trying to make this grand gesture for Fluttershy! It had been pretty obvious even before last night that he was carrying a torch for her, and well, now that torch was practically a stadium light. And in Pinkie’s opinion, it was the cutest thing ever. Planning their wedding reception was going to be such a blast…

“Don’t worry about it!” she said, unable to hide her huge grin. “Whatever you decide, I’m sure Fluttershy will love it! Just don’t startle her or anything, you know how she is—but if she can tell that it came from your heart, she’ll be ecstatic, trust me!”

“Oh, believe me, I know better than that,” said Discord. Having finished his donut, he waved an arm and sent the straw hurtling through the ceiling, crashing through it and disappearing with a loud hiss. “I don’t want to startle her. But I want to… impress her. Knock her off her hooves. I want her to realize…”

Pinkie continued to excitedly grin in Discord’s direction, and he harrumphed, waving his arm again to push the conversation aside.

“I just want to give her the present she deserves,” he finished simply.

Pinkie bit the insides of her cheeks to keep herself from squeeing.

“Anything that you give her will be the present she deserves,” she said aloud, as encouraging as she’d ever sounded. “Because it’s obvious that you’ve put so much thought into it already! And besides, you have a few days to figure it out, anyway!”

“Ah yes, that reminds me, what day is Fluttershy’s birthday, exactly?” asked Discord, raising an eyebrow. “She wasn’t exactly specific with the information last night.”

“Oh, it’s a few days away!” Pinkie chirped eagerly. “October second!”

“Ah.” Discord snapped his fingers and a calendar appeared next to him. There was a large red circle around the current date. “And today appears to be Saturday, September twenty-ninth…” He flipped the calendar to the next month. “Her birthday is on Tuesday! That’s hardly any time at all!”

“Nah, that’s plenty of time!” said Pinkie, shrugging her shoulders good-naturedly. “And besides, I do all my best planning under pressure!”

“That’s not the advice I was expecting from you,” Discord admitted. “Your party-planning reputation led me to believe that you were practically drowning in planners and notebooks.”

“Well, I do have a—“ And then Pinkie suddenly gasped, loudly, nearly sucking in Discord’s calendar. This talk of calendars and planners led Pinkie to a sudden and unpleasant realization, one that she couldn’t fathom she hadn’t attended to until now.

“Give me that back, I need it!” cried Discord, snatching his calendar from mid-air, saving it from Pinkie’s mouth.

Pinkie hardly noticed. There were more pressing matters at hoof. “Discord! When is your birthday? I just realized that I’ve never asked you!” What if it had been in the past few months? Pinkie would have missed his birthday! And in her mind, there were few sins graver than missing a friend’s birthday!

Discord looked a little taken aback by this, too. “Um, well…” He flipped through his calendar a few times, then tucked it inside a pocket that seemed to be above his hoof, and shrugged sheepishly at Pinkie. “Doesn’t seem to be on the calendar.”

Pinkie could hardly grasp the implication. “What? Are you telling me that… you don’t even know when your birthday is?!”

Discord’s eyes knitted together defensively. “No, but—I don’t see why it even matters.” He brightened a bit and threw handfuls of confetti, party noisemakers sounding in the air behind him. “Every day’s a celebration when it comes to me!”

“But—didn’t your family celebrate your birthday with you?” Pinkie stammered out. What kind of parents didn’t celebrate the birthdays of their own children? Her own parents were very uptight and straight-laced, true, but even they had made sure that Pinkie and her sisters had had special recognition on their birthdays growing up.

“That would necessitate having a family to celebrate with,” Discord snapped. “And as far as I can remember, I never had…” He stopped, bristling up again, and folded his arms and turned away from Pinkie. “It’s really none of your business, you know.”

“Of course it’s my business! Friends celebrate friends’ birthdays!” Her eyes grew wide again, but this time the beginnings of a smile accompanied it. “So if you don’t know when yours is, that means you can pick a date!” She jumped up fully onto the counter, beaming at Discord. “What’s your favorite day?”

Discord took a step back, blinking in surprise. “Erm, well… I like Tuesdays…”

“No, silly, a favorite calendar day! Or maybe we should start with a month first and work our way from there? Do you like January, February—“

“I really don’t care for anything on a calendar, thank you very much!”

“Is there a day that means something special to you?”

“October second,” Discord replied instantly.

Pinkie squealed. “Oh that’s so cuuuuute!”

“It’s not cute!” Discord protested. “It’s—“

“It’s piggybacking,” Pinkie interrupted, getting back on track. “If you’re picking a birthday you shouldn’t share one with any of us. Wait! I’ve got it! How about June third?”

Discord blinked again. “What in Equestria is so special about June third?”

“You don’t remember?”

Discord shook his head, but before he could say anything more, Pinkie pulled out her yearly planner and flipped to June, nearly every date having been filled in with some plan or event. “June third is the very first party I ever threw for you, since it’s the day that you became our friend! See?” She showed him the entry for that date, where she had written a large “THROW A ‘DISCORD IS OUR FRIEND NOW’ PARTY (short notice but TOTALLY WORTH IT!)”.

Discord looked at the entry, blinking slowly. “You… remembered that? Without having to look?”

Pinkie chuckled lightly. “Yeah, I’ve got a real head for dates. Especially dates that involve parties.” She flipped through the planner again, even though she didn’t really need to. “And if you had a June birthday, that would work out for me, since I don’t have any close friends yet who have a June birthday!”

“Hmm… interesting dilemma, I suppose?” Discord offered, still sounding slightly befuddled.

“I know, weird, right?” said Pinkie with a slightly disbelieving giggle, her curls bouncing off her nape. “Applejack’s birthday is in January and Rarity’s is in February, and my mom’s is in March and my sister Limestone’s is in April and my sister Marble’s is in May, same as mine of course, oh and Spike’s hatchday is in May too, and then Rainbow’s July and Twilight’s August and my sister Maud’s September, and Fluttershy’s October obviously, and then my dad’s is November—and there aren’t any in December either, but that’s fine since we’re all busy for Hearth’s Warming that month anyway—but there was nothing really in June! Until now!” She grinned even brighter, realizing something else. “And if you go with the third, that means we have the same date, just one month apart, since my birthday’s May third! It works out perfectly!”

“Alright, alright, near-birthday-buddy,” Discord said. He finally smiled, even though it was a slight one. “If you pin that much importance on it, then June third is a good a day as any other.” He hesitated, then frowned slightly. “Did you say Rainbow Dash’s birthday was in July, and Princess Sparkplug has an August birthday?”

“That’s right!” chirped Pinkie. “Rainbow’s birthday is July twenty-seventh, and Twilight’s—“

“I assume parties were thrown for each birthday mare, correct? And I wasn’t invited?!”

Pinkie blinked. “No, I did invite you to Rainbow’s! I asked Fluttershy to tell you since I have no idea how to reach you. She said she invited you but you declined.”

“Oh, right, I remember now.” Discord looked a bit embarrassed again. Pinkie would have to get used to that, she figured. “But what about Twilight’s celebration? Surely you threw one for her, too?”

“Well…” Pinkie faltered. “I did plan one for her, but it ended up being way different, since her birthday’s August thirtieth, and you know, with… um, everything that happened that day…”

“What happened on…” Discord caught himself. “Oh. Wait. I assume August thirtieth was when…”

“Yeah, when you were a real poopy-head,” Pinkie said.

“That’s putting it lightly,” Discord said with a sigh. “I didn’t realize that that all happened on her birthday… she never said anything… urgh.” He abruptly whacked himself in the head. “How do you deal with it, anyway?”

“With what?” Pinkie asked, perplexed.

“With the guilt. Especially now knowing that I ruined her birthday… and even then, she still called me a friend…” Discord groaned again, and a gray raincloud appeared above him, storming sludge on his head. “I’m not used to… feeling this way, and I don’t like it… I already apologized! And I meant it! But I still feel awful!”

“That’s natural,” said Pinkie with a shrug. “You were acting really crummy that day.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you?” Discord scoffed angrily. “I came here to talk to you about Fluttershy, not Twilight!”

“Well, Twilight’s your friend too, right?” Pinkie asked.

“I… well… apparently.” Discord’s shoulders sagged. “Now I have to make it up to her too, don’t I?”

“You gave her the key to unlocking the Elements of Harmony!” Pinkie reminded him. “I’d say you’ve already made it up to her!”

“But I didn’t… do anything for her birthday… argh!” Discord smacked himself again. “This whole ‘conscience’ thing is a real pain in the spine, you know that, right?”

Pinkie just smiled at that. “That just means that you’re a good creature and you care about your friends. It’s a good thing!”

“No, it’s a bad thing, because now I’m sidetracked from my mission to get Fluttershy the birthday present she deserves, since now all I can think of is trying to make it up to Twilight!” He scowled at Pinkie. “Thanks for nothing, Premiere Party Planner Pinkie Pie!” And he snapped his fingers and vanished in a flash of light.

Pinkie just chuckled to herself before turning her attention back to the donuts she had been frosting.

“You’re welcome!”

…

Spike laid in his bed and stretched out awkwardly, his tail twitching with slight impatience. He was awake, technically, but he was refusing to actually rise until absolutely necessary. Twilight had had a long night last night, helping Celestia with the Grand Galloping Gala, which meant that she probably wouldn’t be rising very early this morning, either. And that meant that Spike got to sleep in a bit, too. Early mornings were becoming more and more common for Twilight, what with all her princess duties and all. And as her number one assistant, Spike’s schedule had to adapt, too. He was pretty sure Twilight was adjusting better than he was… but if it was to help out his honorary big sister, he’d wake up before sunrise if he had to.

Not that he particularly liked it.

Stretching again, Spike blinked, trying to keep his eyes closed, but it was no use—he seemed to be awake for the day already. Normally Twilight woke him up, but apparently she’d instilled the early-rise habit in him so well that he was waking at the usual hour all on his own. Granted, he hadn’t gone to sleep much later than usual last night, either. Clean-up and closing down the gala had presumably kept Twilight up past her usual bedtime, but Spike hadn’t stayed the whole time. The intrigue of the whole affair had lost its luster a bit after the let-down that was the previous year’s gala, and this year’s had been… interesting, to say the least. Spike found that he didn’t want to stay, and was feeling a little tired anyway, and upon noticing his state, Twilight had insisted that he turn in for the night, assuring him that with everything now under control, she could handle things without him.

Spike sat up a little bit straighter in the bed, slowly coming to the realization that being awake right now was a good thing. Given how late the gala had been expected to run, Twilight was probably still asleep, and thus wouldn’t request his services for anything until later—much later, most likely. He could finally get caught up on his comic books without any interruptions!

But when he turned around to grab a comic from the stack on the side of his bed, he recoiled in horror upon encountering Discord, his head poking up from his blankets. “Where’s Twilight?” he growled.

“Uh-uhm… asleep, I think?” Spike stammered.

“Then it’s time for a wake-up call.” Discord raised his lion’s paw in the air and was about to snap his fingers, but then he stopped himself. “Hmm, actually… on second thought, I think you’ll be a greater help to me with this particular conundrum.”

Still trying to get his breathing under control, Spike managed to choke out “I’m, uh, happy to be of service, but… can you stop with the creepy entrances that freak me out?”

“Had to get your attention somehow.” Discord smirked at Spike and snaked fully out from under the covers. “You’re awake now, aren’t you?”

“I was awake before you got here,” Spike muttered.

“Good. I wouldn’t want you nodding off. You see, Spike, I’ve hit upon a snag…” Discord waved an arm absent-mindedly to his side, Spike’s blanket snagged upon one of his claws. “And the snag is quite sparkly and Twilight-y. I was going to ask Twilight herself on how to detangle this, but upon further reflection, your input into the matter will be far better, so that Twilight won’t even see it coming.”

Spike groaned in irritation. “Look, I’m awake, but not that awake. Can you just tell me what you want without being so vague about it?” He reached up and yanked his blanket back.

Discord frowned at him, but did nothing to snatch the blanket away from him, at least, which Spike was quite glad of. “It has come to my attention that Twilight had a birthday recently. And not only was I unaware of this, but on the date in question I was behaving, um… rather poorly.”

“You don’t say,” Spike muttered.

“It may be bad form to celebrate one’s birthday a month after the fact,” Discord continued, “and admittedly I’m not well-versed enough in the matter to know one way or the other. But my…” He shuddered. “My… conscience… is insisting that I still rectify the matter and present her with a gift of some kind, especially considering how readily she extended the olive branch towards me. She… didn’t have to do that. And I feel that I’ve never really… thanked her properly. Especially now that I know that all that happened on her birthday, of all days.”

Spike considered this. Yes, on many accounts, Twilight’s twentieth birthday had been one of her worst. Instead of celebrating, she’d had to deal with ponies everywhere being sapped of their powers, the betrayal from someone she’d just started to consider a friend, all of her friends being presented to her as bartering chips, the destruction of her home… but in the end, she’d rediscovered her gift of the Element of Magic even stronger than ever, she’d gained a new home in her very own castle, and she’d felt, for the first time, that Discord really and truly could be considered her friend. Spike knew all this because she’d told him, explaining to him a few days afterwards that she still felt grateful, despite everything that’d happened.

But he also could understand why Discord would still feel horrible about the whole thing, of course.

“So, do you want a suggestion on what to get her for a belated birthday present?” he asked.

“That would be very much appreciated, yes. And don’t waste my time by suggesting just some run-of-the-mill bauble that any old sap could get her. I want this present to be so fantabulous that it’ll make her over the moon, and that way I can stop feeling guilty over what I did to her.”

Spike snorted a bit, although he could still feel himself smiling a little, too. “Yeah, it doesn’t quite work that way, unfortunately… but you’re in luck,” he continued quickly, sensing that Discord was about to cut him off. “Twilight’s super easy to buy for. Just get her a book and she’ll be ecstatic.”

Discord frowned, crossing his arms. “And is a book not just some meaningless bauble that anypony with half a brain cell could gift her?”

“You wanted something that she’ll love and appreciate, and, well… a book is your best bet.” Spike shrugged awkwardly, not sure why he was feeling apologetic over this. “No matter what book it is, she’ll love it, and she’ll read it. Even if it’s one she already has. Honestly, the hard part now is finding a book that she hasn’t already read.”

“Was that a challenge?” Discord brightened a bit. “Because finding a book that no pony has ever laid eyes on before will be a piece of cake.” A book-shaped cake appeared in front of him, and he began flipping through its “pages”, sending frosting and bits of cake flying through the air. “But which to pick… which would she appreciate the most…”

“Uh… that book…” Confused, Spike raised a claw to indicate at the… thing Discord had conjured. “Will it go bad?”

“Absolutely not. I won’t give it the chance.” And with that assertion, Discord slammed the cake book shut and devoured it in one go.

“Honestly, Twilight probably would have liked that book, assuming it had information in it…and assuming it wouldn’t go dry and stale after a week…”

“Well, what other kinds of books would she like? Preferably ones that don’t have to be refrigerated, but I can work with just about anything.” Discord dabbed at his mouth with a denim hankie.

Spike tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Well, there is one thing that I know would mean the world to her… if you can get it.”

“Ha! Try me.” Discord grinned proudly and confidently.

“So, as you probably know, when Tirek destroyed the library, Twilight didn’t just lose her home. She lost all of her books, too. Luckily, she’s been able to find copies of most of the books she lost, so the library is close to what it was before. But some of the books that were destroyed were exclusive to Ponyville… like, the history of the town and things like that. She hasn’t been able to find other copies of those anywhere else, and she’s been feeling a little depressed at the thought of all that history being lost. But unfortunately, no other towns seem to have records on the local history here…”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Discord held out a large STOP sign and blew a loud whistle that suddenly appeared in his mouth. “Your suggestion is a local history tome? Pages and pages of city ordinances, charters, and resolutions regarding which streets need to be paved?!”

“I’m sure it’s… a little more interesting than just that,” Spike stammered unconvincingly.

“It’s Dullsville Central.” Discord vehemently shook his head. “And under no circumstances will I, Discord, lord of chaos and crusader against banality, ever give a gift like that to anypony who I consider a friend.”

“It would mean the world to Twilight, though,” Spike said.

“Well, Twilight needs better taste,” Discord quipped.

Spike sighed with impatience, but shrugged lightly, sensing that this particular line of conversation wasn’t going to persuade the draconequus. “It was just a suggestion. But it’s fine either way. The book was completely destroyed anyway, and I’m sure that not even you could get it back for her.”

“Excuse me?” Discord’s voice dropped to a dangerous register that Spike hadn’t heard in awhile, and it made him genuinely recoil a bit from fear. “Are you implying that you don’t believe I’m capable of doing it?”

“No, I-I…” And then Spike stood up straighter and looked Discord straight in the eyes. “Actually, yes, I am.”

“Ha!” Spike swore that a loud thunderclap accompanied Discord’s outburst. “Well, prepare to eat crow, little dragon. If long, boring volumes of a podunk town’s history are really what Twilight wants, then that’s what she’ll get!” And he snapped his fingers and disappeared in a brilliant flash of light.

After taking a moment to get reacquainted with the silence, Spike felt himself grin. He settled back down into a seated position on his bed, turning his attention back to his comic books.

If this worked, Twilight was going to be very excited indeed.

Chapter Three

Discord was back in his home in Chaosville, adjusting a curtain that had somehow curled itself up against a window in an almost orderly fashion. Creating more chaos in his house, however, couldn’t cheer him now as it usually did. In fact, he was loudly grumbling as he formulated his course of action.

Time travel was something that he was capable of, but also something he’d never had any interest in, especially travel to the past. It was a tricky thing, time. It sat above the other dimensions that ponies were trapped in. And while Discord could, technically, move about it, he had no control over it. A trip to the past was a trip in which he could merely observe, not interfere or change things. The future was slightly more interesting, as there were so many more possible futures to see, many of them wonderfully chaotic. But lately, Discord had been averse to looking into possible futures, knowing that there would be just as many in which Fluttershy was miserable as there were in which she would be happy, and… he wouldn’t let himself even take the risk to see her like that and go mad with worry wondering which of her futures would ultimately come to pass.

But… enough about the future. This assignment of his was going to take him to the past, with the burden of a very unenviable task.

He was going to have to… write an entire history book.

Ugh.

Discord’s limitations in dealing with the past meant that he couldn’t send himself to Twilight’s old library ten seconds before its annihilation, grab the book, and bring it back to her in the present, as delightfully effortless that would be. No, a task like this wasn’t going to be simple. Granted… even if it could have been simple, Discord realized that he wouldn’t have done it that way anyway. If he was going to do this, he was going to do this right. And if Twilight really wanted a reference guide to the history of Ponyville, then she was going to get the most comprehensive, correct, and complete text that could ever possibly exist!

Of course, this meant that Discord had a lot of observing to do.

A whole heck of a lot of observing.

A whole heck of a lot of observing mayoral speeches, banal awards ceremonies, dreary financial board meetings, insipid city council elections…

Discord groaned loudly and dramatically, flopping onto the floor. “Why is it that the one pony with whom I most need to square away my debt is also the pony with the most banal and boring interests in the universe?!” He conjured up a tiny violin in his tail tufts and began to play a sad tune on it, somewhat enjoying the sensation of wallowing in his misery. “She’d better appreciate this, otherwise I’m never doing anything nice for her ever again.”

He snapped his fingers and was instantly surrounded by dozens of copies of himself—dozens of very grumpy, very critical copies of himself.

“I know what you have planned, and I refuse.”

“Not happening, bud!”

“We’re the Lord of Chaos, not the Lord of Record Keeping and Filing Cabinets!”

The original Discord sighed, snapped his fingers again, and zipped all their mouths shut. “And believe me, I know all that. But this is for Twilight. After what she’s done for us, it’s the least we can do.”

One Discord copy defiantly unzipped his lips. “I feel like there’s plenty less we could do.”

“And there was plenty less Twilight could have done for us. And should have done for us. And yet she took us back as a friend anyway.” The original Discord glowered at all the copies of himself, the disappointment he still felt at himself seeping into all his clones, and they frowned and looked away guiltily.

Another copy unzipped his own mouth. “Can’t we just get her a bouquet like we got Lester? That seemed to work fine!”

“Princesses like flowers, it’s a proven fact,” said another one, also unzipping his lips.

“That’s the lazy way out,” scoffed the original Discord. “It just screams ‘I wanted to get you something but didn’t know what, so here’s the gift of least value and effort possible.’”

“And that’s what we did for Celestia!”

“Celestia didn’t care. And I don’t care about Celestia.” Discord folded his arms crossly. “You all know that.”

“But… we care about Twilight?” The clone who asked this question did so with slight hesitation and confusion. The other clones all fidgeted slightly as well, knowing what the original knew yet not quite wanting to admit it.

And Discord could hardly fault them for that, because… well, they were him. Every doubt and snarky spark of disobedience they had came straight from the source. And he was starting to find that convincing himself was much more difficult than it seemed.

“Twilight is our friend. Yes, we care about her. And if this is important to her, then we’ll make it happen for her.” He waggled a finger at his clones in a manner indicating that the debate was over.

But his clones ignored that implication. “We care about Fluttershy more!” one snapped.

“Indeed!” another clone agreed. “So why are we spending so much effort on Twilight when we haven’t done the same for our dearest and best friend in the universe?”

“And I would point out that Fluttershy has done far more undeserved good for us than Twilight ever has!” piped up another clone.

The room was soon filled with the roar of similar protests from the rest of the Discord clones, and it took the original Discord flinging the entire room underwater (into a lake that he’d had to create just for the occasion) to quiet them down again.

“Oh yes, of course, you all know Fluttershy so well!” he snapped at them. “It’s so obvious! Because if Fluttershy knew that one of her friends, who’s recently been through the wringer, was wanting just a simple, boring thing like a book, she’d say, ‘No, no, focus on me, I deserve a gift more than she does!’”

Now all the clones were quietly. Deathly so.

Discord scowled at his copies, furious at them. Furious at himself. “Think what Fluttershy would do,” he continued in a quieter, more serious voice. “What would she do if she had our powers and knew what we now know regarding what Twilight wants?”

The copies guiltily looked down at the floor, saying nothing. One was even trying to melt into the floor.

“I know you all know what I know.” Discord took only a second to yank his melting copy out of the floor by the tail before continuing. “She’d go to the ends of Equestria to make her friend happy. And that is exactly what we are going to do.” He snapped his talons and a number of flashcards and notebooks appeared in his paw. With a quick flick of his arm, he distributed a flashcard and notebook to each of his clones, one of each remaining with him. “Your time period assignments are on the cards.”

“Can I trade mine with a buddy?” asked one clone, looking hopefully to the clone on his left.

“I couldn’t care less,” muttered Discord Prime.

The clone on the left shook his head. “No, you can’t,” he informed the questioning clone, who scowled and muttered angrily at the rejection.

“Stake out your assigned time periods,” the original Discord continued, “make note of every boring little detail you can, especially details you think Twilight would find interesting, and then report back here.”

“Easy for you to say,” a clone mumbled darkly. “Making all of us do your dirty work.”

Discord Prime flashed his own notebook at them. “I gave myself an assignment just like all the rest of you. Never think of me of nothing less than a fair boss.”

“Spare me,” another clone muttered under his breath.

“Gladly. It’s time to report to your stations! Toodle-pip!” Discord Prime snapped his fingers and in an instant, he and all of his clones were gone.

And an instant later, they were all back… groaning and wailing and smacking their heads against the wall.

Discord Prime was not above the dramatics of his unruly clones, either. He too was clutching his head and moaning, his eyeballs so saggy that they were drooping out of his eye sockets. He snapped his tail feathers over and over in an attempt to bring more chaos in his surroundings in order to offset the drudgery he’d just experienced. The sky turned multiple shades of plaid, his melted eyeballs stretched into silly putty, gravity flipped and set the numerous Discords upside-down in the air, and the wind howled with the sound of klaxon horns.

It helped… a little.

But as the wailing and complaining of his clones died down slightly as well, Discord snapped again and united them all with him once again, and the years and years and years—centuries!—of monotony he’d lived through in pieces were now all united in his mind as well.

It was very nearly too much, and if not for gravity once again going haywire and continuously swapping, bouncing Discord back and forth between the sky and the ground, he very well might have gone mad from the sensation.

After a few minutes of this, Discord finally managed to pull himself together—literally, as the bouncing seemed to have shattered him a few times—and he then reached into his ear and, with great difficulty, pulled out a huge, hardcover book.

Looking at the book, he gave another shudder of repulsion. “Twilight had better like this,” he muttered darkly. He hoped that she would, but it had been so long since he’d talked to her—over a thousand years!—that he found himself struggling to remember what kinds of things Twilight liked and disliked. Which was preposterous, really—this whole horrible excursion had been for her benefit, after all. But throughout the unbearably long years of observing Ponyville history, Discord’s thoughts had stayed with a different pony entirely.

His gaze fell upon the picture of himself and Fluttershy that he kept on his end table and felt his heart go through a juicer.

“Fluttershy,” he whimpered pathetically. Oh, how he missed her! Going over a thousand years without seeing the most wondrous pony in existence left him hollow. Raw. Nothing in this world mattered more than seeing her, being with her… just her. And he was about to snap his fingers to see her again and joyfully embrace her after so long apart, but an often-dormant rational part of his brain was aware enough to remind him that when he’d last seen her, she’d been curt with him, telling him that he needed to do something for her birthday in order to make it up to him…

…and this talk of birthday had distracted him and made him go on this quest for Twilight before he could even begin to ponder his gift for Fluttershy. He couldn’t approach her empty-handed. Not that he was empty-handed at the moment; the gigantic history tome was weighing his arms down considerably.

Yes, it was definitely best to punt this horrid volume to its rightful owner and never, ever think about it again.

Discord groaned. Getting past a thousand years, even a thousand years of total banality, wasn’t so easy, and he already knew this from experience.

He snapped his fingers and was gone in a flash, not allowing himself any more time to dwell on it.

…

Twilight Sparkle was seated at a small desk in her castle/library, shuffling through the pages of the morning newspaper with her hooves and using her horn to keep a cup of warm tea hovered in the air next to her, from which she sipped occasionally. Thankfully, she wasn’t having any trouble staying awake despite her late night, but she definitely still felt a bit groggy, and she still had plenty to do that day.

Flipping the page, she perked up a bit. “Aha, there you are!” She couldn’t quite smile, though, not until she read what the article actually said. Despite the reassurances of Princess Celestia and all of her friends, Twilight knew that the Grand Galloping Gala, the very first gala she’d ever helped plan, had been… maybe not a disaster, per se, but certainly not perfect, either. Not a good start for the new princess.

But, well, the historical record had to be accurate, and ever since the previous records of Ponyville had been destroyed, Twilight was all the more determined to preserve what she could now.

“Look on the bright side, Twilight,” she murmured to herself, telekinetically placing her cup on the table and raising a pair of scissors to trim the article from the paper. “You can only improve from here. I’m sure Princess Celestia had plenty of snafus when she was first starting out, too…”

“Oh, she did! I should tell you sometime about the time she and Lulu made a dedication for the first bridge to Canterlot—what a disaster! I was laughing for weeks!”

Twilight yelped and jumped out of her chair, the scissors she had been levitating clattering to the desk and taking part of the newspaper with it. “Discord! You scared me!”

“It wasn’t my intention. You don’t like being scared, right? I can’t remember.”

Twilight frowned.

“Sorry,” Discord added, quite sincerely.

“It’s alright,” Twilight said, also relaxing a bit. “No harm done.” She glanced at the torn section of the newspaper. “I didn’t need that section.”

“And why, pray tell, would you need to cut out any section of this rag? Are you forming a ransom note?”

“I’m just going to ignore that that’s the first place your mind went to…” Twilight’s lips pursed a bit before she continued. “Actually, I’m working on creating a scrapbook that will serve as an official record of the beginnings of my princess journey. After recent events, I’ve become even more dedicated to preserving whatever official record that I can.”

“Funny you should mention that.” Discord snapped his fingers, transporting Twilight’s scrapbook to his hands so that he could better examine it.

“Be careful with that, the glue hasn’t quite dried yet!” Twilight barked out.

“Oh no, you’re mistaken. Your gluing job was top-notch. The glue’s dried already.” Discord carefully closed the book and handed it back to a somewhat befuddled Twilight. “But the scope of this book is sadly lacking. Wouldn’t you prefer a record that that goes back further than last month?”

“Of course I would,” said Twilight, still confused, “but the records were all lost in the fight with Tirek that destroyed my library.”

“Records are easily replaced,” said Discord with a knowing smirk. “At least when you have me around.” He snapped again, and a box gift-wrapped in paper that seemed to have an aluminum sheen appeared on Twilight’s desk, right next to her scrapbook and newspaper.

“What… what is this?” Twilight raised a suspicious eyebrow. “If you’re trying to apologize for the gala, your apology from last night was sufficient—“

“Oh, I know. Well, I’d hoped, at least.” Discord’s shoulders shifted a bit awkwardly. “But no, this is actually an attempt at rectifying a previous atrocity of mine. I recently became aware that you had a birthday not too long ago, and it was on a day that my actions, unfortunately, made it not quite such a festive day for you…”

At this explanation, Twilight relaxed, giving Discord a reassuring smile. “Is that what’s this about? Because even if a lot of the day was pretty horrible, it all turned out marvelous in the end, so I don’t hold any ill will against you, believe me. You didn’t need to go to the hassle a month after the fact.”

“Well, whether or not I needed to, I did anyway,” said Discord. “And if my efforts ended up being all for nothing I may possibly rip my own head off, so please open your present before I engage in premature decapitation.”

That didn’t sound pleasant, so Twilight quickly activated her horn to tear the paper off the gift, finding it surprisingly tough and unyielding. After a few fruitless attempts, she finally levitated the scissors and used them to carefully cut the paper open. It fell off quite easily after the first cut.

Inside was a very large book, a plain brown color that was surprising considering its source. The words on the cover were small, so small that Twilight thought she’d misread them at first: “PONYVILLE: A COMPLETE HISTORY”.

“Discord…” Twilight tried to move her jaw from its slacked position, still not believing what she was seeing. “Is this… are these really the records that I lost?”

“No, absolutely not,” Discord said bluntly. “They’re far superior. Every inane little detail of the history of this town is contained within these pages. Trust me, I had to sit through all of it, so you’d better believe I made it worth my while and worthy of your lofty, exacting standards by including everything. I’d be willing to bet your old volume didn’t have half of what’s in here.”

Twilight could only babble lightly, only just managing to lift a hoof and flip through a few pages. Her jaw was still so slacked that Discord was a bit worried she’d drool on the pages. Absolute and complete shock was a positive reaction, right? He was still so new to this gift-giving thing he had no clue.

Finally, Twilight looked back up from the book and at Discord, her wide eyes blinking twice before she abruptly flung herself at him, enveloping him in a hug. “Oh my goodness oh my goodness thank you! Thank you so much! I don’t know how you did it, but—but—you don’t know how much this means to me!”

Discord stood, stiff and awkward, at the display. This was the first time anypony other than Fluttershy had ever hugged him, and… and, well, he still wasn’t quite used to even Fluttershy’s hugs. He was supposed to hug back, right? Was that the protocol?

He carefully wrapped his lion arm around Twilight’s withers and gave her a light squeeze in return. “You’re quite welcome, Twilight, but I have an idea of what this means to you, Spike implied as such.”

Twilight laughed at that, lightly and freely. “Spike does know what’s important to me.” She pulled away, but her face was still nearly split open by her enormous smile. “Seriously, thank you so much. You’ve done so much for Ponyville’s legacy with this.”

“Oh, please, you flatter me!” Discord dramatically flung an open palm out towards Twilight. “A parade and a statue in the center of town will be sufficient imbursement, thank you.”

“A parade? What did I miss?” Spike sauntered into the room, munching on a sapphire.

“Spike!” cried Twilight, sounding almost like a foal in a candy store. “Look what Discord got me! It’s a replacement for all the Ponyville records that were lost in the explosion!”

“Huh, so you did manage it after all!” Spike smirked approvingly in Discord’s direction.

“Yes, duh, did you forget who you were talking to?” Discord groused, although he was sporting a playful smile of his own. “I’m Discord, Lord of Chaos and Doer of Just-About-Darn-Near-Everything, time and space are my playgrounds!”

“So you gave him the idea, Spike?” Twilight didn’t even wait for an answer, engulfing Spike in a gigantic hug. “Thank you so much!”

“Hey, I just planted the seed,” Spike said good-naturedly. “Discord’s the one who made it happen. How did you do it, anyway?”

“Trade secret,” said Discord. “And besides, it’s so tedious that I don’t want to relive it at all anyway. I’m never doing this again, Twilight, so don’t get used to this level of birthday present!”

“That’s fine,” laughed Twilight. “This is worth ten birthdays, at least!”

“Well, good,” said Discord. “Now that I’ve squared away the business of your birthday present, I can focus wholly on Fluttershy’s. Which is what I was trying to do in the first place before Pinkie Pie informed me that I’d missed your birthday…”

Twilight was still smiling, not bothered by the seemingly dismissive tone of Discord’s statement. “I’m sure you’ll knock it out of the park.”

“Yeah, you’re great at thoughtful birthday presents!” added Spike. “What did you get for Rainbow Dash’s birthday?”

Discord spluttered, eyes bulging, his arm frozen in the air.

“Hmm, looks like not everything’s squared away just yet,” said Twilight, smirking.

“Oh for pity’s sake!” cried Discord, exasperated. “Why must I keep getting sidetracked?! What was it Pinkie said—Twilight’s birthday was in August, Rainbow’s was in July… but I haven’t missed anypony else’s since becoming reformed, have I?”

Twilight’s grin faded a bit with the realization of how much this actually seemed to matter to her draconequus friend. “No, it’s just me and Rainbow. Fluttershy’s birthday is on Tuesday, and then Applejack’s birthday is next, and that’s not for a few more months.”

“So now I have to belatedly give Rainbow Dash a birthday present before I can figure out what to get Fluttershy?!” A large mallet appeared in Discord’s hands, and he dramatically whacked himself over the head with it. “I’ll never figure out the perfect gift for Fluttershy at this rate!”

“Dramatic much?” Spike muttered, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh, yeah, calm down, Discord,” said Twilight, using her magic to levitate the mallet out of Discord’s hands. “I don’t think Rainbow even expected a gift from you at all.”

“Besides, she’s easy to please, even easier than Twilight,” said Spike. “Get her candy.”

“Candy? Really?” asked Twilight, looking at Spike inquisitively.

“You know that almond fudge you had at the snack table at the gala last night?” Spike gave a light shrug. “It was gone barely an hour in, because Rainbow Dash scarfed it all down.”

Twilight drew in her breath. “So that’s where it all went…”

“Okay, I’ll get her fudge, then.” Discord immediately waved his lion paw, causing the mallet to disappear just as quickly as it had appeared. “Done. So now, finally, I can focus all my energy on what to get Fluttershy. And I’ll need all my energy, because I’m at a complete loss as to what to get her!”

“Seriously?” both Twilight and Spike blurted out, befuddled.

Discord glared at them both. “Yes, seriously. Fluttershy deserves only the best of the best, and I have no idea what to give her that will make her feel as appreciated as she deserves!”

Twilight and Spike exchanged a slightly puzzled glance.

“Discord, if I may… and speaking as someone who has a lot of experience in this,” Twilight finally said, as tactfully as she could, “but I think maybe you’re overthinking this? I mean, I’ve known Fluttershy longer than you have—“

“But not better,” Discord interrupted fiercely.

“—and I can tell you that she’ll appreciate even the smallest token of appreciation.” Twilight cocked her head at Discord imploringly. “She’ll honestly be happy with any sort of acknowledgement on her birthday. I get the feeling she thinks even that is excessive. You could just make her a card and she’d—“

“After everything I’ve put her through, after everything she’s done for me, she deserves far more than just an impersonal, bland card!” Discord spat out.

“I’m not telling you to just get her a card,” Twilight continued levelly. “I’m just saying that she would honestly and truly appreciate that. You don’t need to move mountains for her or anything.”

“How little you know,” Discord muttered.

“Besides, you know Fluttershy better than any of the rest of us,” Spike added. “So you should already know everything she likes.”

“Of course I know her interests—but that’s not enough!’ Discord dramatically flung himself against the wall, hitting a number of Twilight’s bookshelves in the process. “Whatever gift I give her has to evoke the same reaction that your gift gave you, Twilight. If not greater! And I can’t think of anything!”

Twilight bit her lip thoughtfully. “Well, I react to books and records the same way that Fluttershy reacts to… animals, I suppose?”

“And music,” said Spike.

Both Discord and Twilight looked at Spike inquisitively. “Music?” Discord repeated. “I know she likes to sing, but I never got the feeling that music was something overtly special to her.”

Spike just shrugged. “Come on, you were even dancing with her last night when the Bid Time Return theme played! Didn’t you see how she lit up when that song started? And I don’t blame her, I love that movie…” He sighed blissfully, the look in his eyes similar to that when he talked about Rarity.

“The orchestra was playing a song from a movie?” Twilight asked.

Discord immediately moved away from the bookshelves and right into Spike’s face. “What did you say the name of the movie was?”

“Bid Time Return. It’s one of my favorite movies.” Spike let out another wistful sigh. “It’s about this earth pony who sees the portrait of a pegasus from the past and—“

“Hmm. I can work with this.” Discord moved away from Spike and adopted a thoughtful pose, leaning over as his talons stroked his goatee. “If I could just somehow use the song in a personal way—AHA!” He instantly brightened, a large lightbulb appearing over his head. “I’ve got it! Thank you, Spike! Oh, and Twilight, too!”

“I’m not sure what I did to help, but you’re welcome!” said Twilight amiably.

Discord wrapped the lightbulb up in a purple fern leaf and handed it to Twilight. “Pardon me for gifting and running, but I’ve got work to do! Ta-ta!” He snapped his claws and disappeared in an instant.

Spike was still smiling, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. “I should listen to that song again…” He ambled out of the room, not seeming to notice Discord’s disappearance.

Twilight, left alone again, examined the lightbulb Discord had left with her.

“Uh… what am I supposed to do with this?”

Chapter Four

The sun peeked through Fluttershy’s bedroom window that Tuesday morning and woke her slowly from her sleep. She hummed softly to herself as she stretched. She had had very pleasant dreams that night… so pleasant that she almost wanted to just lie back down and sleep a little longer. But no, there was work to do. There was always work to do. Even on her birthday.

Oh, right! Today was her birthday!

Fluttershy smiled at the thought. In the past her birthday had never been a particularly exciting occasion for her, but last year, with the addition of new friends, it had actually been enjoyable for once, and she expected that this year would be even better. She and her friends had only grown closer in the past year, after all. And Fluttershy had grown and matured as well.

“So this is twenty-two,” she murmured to herself, brushing a stray pink strand of her mane away from her eyes as she stretched one final time and sat up fully. As she did so, her bunny Angel hopped into her room, grinning from ear to ear. He leaped onto her bed, wishing her a happy birthday with squeaks and jabbers as he tickled her nose with his long ears.

“Thank you, Angel,” Fluttershy giggled, hugging him gratefully.

Angel gave her a quick squeeze in return before pulling back, still brimming with excitement. He continued to vocalize, quickly, almost too quickly for Fluttershy to understand him. But her eyes grew wide as his words began to sink in.

“Oh… oh, Angel, that’s really very kind of you, but you didn’t have to—“

Angel cut her off with a cheeky “tut-tut!” noise, squeaking his counterargument to her loud and clear—“It’s your birthday! You deserve it!”

Fluttershy blinked slowly, still trying to process what Angel had just said. His gift to her was a day off? She appreciated the thought, for sure, but she wasn’t sure if Angel understood just how much work she did in a day, how much attention the animals in her care needed daily. He couldn’t…

…well, no, wait, actually, he could. He was with her every day as she did her rounds, and she knew that he understood how to be gentle (even if he didn’t always show it). And besides, she reminded herself, currently she didn’t have that many animals in her care anyway. Many had already begun to migrate south for the winter. And the ones that remained didn’t have any urgent needs.

“Well... goodness… thank you, Angel,” Fluttershy finally managed to get out, giving her faithful rabbit another hug. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate it! But,” she added quickly, “day off or not, if you need my help for anything, for any reason, you come and get me, okay?”

Angel nodded eagerly, and, with one last birthday well-wish, scampered out of the room to attend to his Fluttershy duties for the day.

Fluttershy smiled warmly as she slid out of bed and stretched out her wings. Now, what to do with her free time? Her entire day wasn’t a blank slate, of course—Pinkie Pie had scheduled her birthday celebration with the girls for noon, and as it was Tuesday she of course would be having afternoon tea with Discord, and her parents were going to take her out to dinner later that evening. But that still left her an entire morning without any plans whatsoever.

She slowly flew downstairs as the options flitted through her mind. She could go out for a walk, or read a book, or listen to music… she had enough time, in fact, that she could probably do all of that! But which to do first?

When she reached her main living room, her eyes were immediately drawn to her writing desk—or, rather, the drawer on the side that sported a mailbox flag, which was currently in the upright position, indicating the arrival of correspondence from her chaotic friend. There was a small orange party hat on the top of the flag.

Chuckling softly to herself, Fluttershy flew to her desk and opened the mail drawer. A small explosion of confetti erupted in her face, accompanied by a short birthday musical fanfare. A folded scrap of paper fluttered out of the drawer and opened itself in front of her.

“’Happy birthday, dearest Fluttershy, your real present is coming later. See you at Sugar Cube,’” Fluttershy read aloud, chuckling again when she finished. “Thank you, Discord,” she murmured into the open drawer before carefully pushing it shut. She was fairly certain he could hear her messages sent through the drawer, even if she merely spoke them. She’d never really asked him how, but then again, she wasn’t too concerned with the specifics of it. As long as it worked, then that was good enough for her.

Fluttershy fixed herself a bowl of strawberry oatmeal for breakfast and curled up on her sofa, slowly taking bites from it as she read one of her old novels she’d had since she was a teenager. Everything felt quiet and peaceful, and while she did appreciate the calm at first, after a few hours she could feel herself growing antsy, even before she’d finished her book. While she did appreciate the break, going this long without really doing anything felt… strange.

She glanced up at the cuckoo clock on her wall. It was a little past ten o’clock. Her birthday celebration at Sugar Cube Corner was nearly two hours from now, but maybe Pinkie could use some help getting things ready?

Fluttershy closed her book and, after a quick check around her house that everything was still in order, headed out towards the center of town.

…

Upon arriving at Sugar Cube Corner, Fluttershy felt far more secure in her decision to arrive early. There were a lot of ponies there, and while Pinkie Pie seemed to be staying on top of all the orders she was receiving, she was still clearly being run a bit ragged. She didn’t even notice that Fluttershy had arrived until she arrived at the counter, after waiting in line behind three other customers.

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie yelped out upon seeing her, her eyes as wide as her slacked jaw was open. “What are you doing here? Your party isn’t scheduled for another hour and forty-eight minutes!”

“I know,” said Fluttershy, flushing apologetically. “But I didn’t have anything else to do until then, and I was wondering if you needed any help setting up.”

“Oh, no no no no no!” Pinkie immediately leapt from behind the counter and began, gently but firmly, pushing Fluttershy towards an empty table near the window. “It’s your birthday, missy! The only thing I need from you is to relax and let me handle things! No way would I let you work on your birthday!”

“I really wouldn’t mind it,” Fluttershy murmured as Pinkie led her straight into a chair.

“No arguing! My shop, my party, my rules.” Pinkie grinned at Fluttershy to show that she wasn’t angry or upset, and Fluttershy couldn’t help but smile, too. Pinkie really did have a way of putting everypony at ease.

“Well then, could I at least order a croissant and a cup of coffee, please?”

“Of course! But it’s on the house!” In what seemed like an impossibly short amount of time, Pinkie zipped back to the counter, grabbed a croissant, poured a cup of coffee, and returned to Fluttershy, smiling all the while. “Consider it your first birthday present of the day!”

“It’s not actually my first,” Fluttershy admitted. She took a sip of coffee and smiled at her energetic friend. “Thank you. I really do appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it! Let me know if you need anything else!”

“Let me know if you need any—“ Before Fluttershy could finish her sentence, Pinkie had already zipped back behind the counter to resume taking orders. “Help,” Fluttershy finished, her small smile growing a bit wider.

Pinkie clearly didn’t need any help. As the morning went by, she attended to the customers in a timely, cheerful manner, only seeming to become overwhelmed on two very brief occasions before pressing on in her usual, friendly way. Fluttershy could only sit quietly and watch the master at work, not knowing how Pinkie could be as personable and outgoing as she was.

Eventually, the orders for donuts and croissants changed over to sandwiches and cookies. Fluttershy glanced up from the newspaper that had been left on her table towards the clock on the wall—it was past 11:30 now. She was a bit surprised at how quickly the time had passed. The breakfast rush had been so lively that it seemed to have masked the morning’s passing.

The door opened again, but this time it wasn’t merely a customer wanting a bite. Twilight Sparkle trotted into the shop, using her horn to levitate a neatly wrapped present in the air beside her. Spike followed, keeping a careful eye on the package.

“Hey, Twilight and Spike!” Pinkie called out. “I’m gonna finish up in a bit, but until then, you can sit with Fluttershy!”

Upon hearing this, Twilight turned to face Fluttershy with a surprised look on your face. “Oh, Fluttershy, you’re here already!”

“Huh, I really thought we were gonna be the first ones here,” Spike remarked, before having to suddenly jump forward and catch Twilight’s present as she quickly made her way to Fluttershy.

“Happy birthday!” Twilight exclaimed, giving Fluttershy a big hug. “How long have you been here?”

Fluttershy grinned and hugged her back. “Thank you. And awhile. Angel gave me the morning off, and I didn’t have much to do at home, so I just decided to come early.”

“So you’ve just been sitting here, watching everypony enter and exit?”

Fluttershy blushed. “Well, I offered to help Pinkie with setting up the party or helping the customers, but she wouldn’t hear it.”

“Of course I wouldn’t hear it!” Pinkie exclaimed, popping up unexpectedly between Fluttershy and Twilight. “You’re the guest of honor! And that means you don’t have to raise a hoof to help prepare! But Twilight, you do.” She lightly nudged Twilight by the whither to orient her towards the back of the store. “Now’s the time to break out the decorations! Could you do that while I finish up with these last few orders, please?”

Pinkie’s unique sense of management might have put off any other ponies, but not her friends, Twilight included. She just grinned good-naturedly. “Sure thing, Pinkie. Where should I put the—wait, where’s the present?!”

Spike held it up.

Twilight chuckled sheepishly. “Oh. Thanks, Spike.”

“You can put it on the table here!” Pinkie explained, flinging a long table out of seemingly nowhere and setting it near her counter. “Now follow me to the back room and get the streamers!”

“If you need some extra hooves, let me know,” said Fluttershy as Twilight and Spike followed Pinkie to the back, knowing that they wouldn’t ask for her help but wanting to put it out there, anyway.

It took no time at all to transform the small café into a party locale. Applejack arrived shortly after Twilight had, and after exchanging a quick birthday greeting and hug with Fluttershy, she helped out with the last few decorations and table settings, but there wasn’t really too much to be done after that. Fluttershy felt a bit relieved. Last year, her birthday party had been a big affair. Pinkie had pulled out all the stops, as usual—lots of noisemakers, party games, enough food to feed dozens of ponies… and while Fluttershy did appreciate all the thought and planning that had been put into all of it, it was still just too overwhelming for her. Thankfully, it was clear that Pinkie had realized this, and thus scaled back the festivities significantly this year. There was the table near the front where Twilight and Applejack had deposited their gifts, there were a few banners and streamers hung on the walls, but other than that, things looked to be kept small and intimate this year. And this was just how Fluttershy wanted it.

Rainbow Dash arrived and sat with Fluttershy, Twilight, Spike, and Applejack as Pinkie finished up her shift, the friends conversing excitedly with one another. Rarity was the last to arrive, claiming to be fashionably late, but she actually arrived at noon exactly, making her right on time.

“Alright, we’re all here!” Rainbow declared. “Let’s bring out the cake!”

As Mrs. Cake took over the cash register duties, Pinkie trotted over to her friends, but sans cake and with a concerned frown on her face. “We’re not all here yet. Where’s Discord?”

Fluttershy gave Pinkie a small, knowing smile. “You can’t expect Discord to do something like show up on time. He’ll show up whenever he wants.”

“So is that you giving permission for us to start eating the cake before he gets here?” Rainbow asked eagerly.

“You’re that anxious to start chowing down?” Applejack asked her with a raised eyebrow.

Rainbow shrugged. “What, I haven’t eaten all day! And Pinkie’s special birthday cake recipe is amazing!”

“Pfft, don’t worry, Dashie, I made sure to make it extra-big!” Pinkie said as she handed out small paper plates and forks. “Lemme go get the cake and we can all sing ‘Happy Birthday!’”

As Fluttershy took a plate and fork from Pinkie, her eye caught a little flicker of something. Examining her fork, she saw that two of the prongs looked suspiciously like Discord’s horns… and that a tuft of a red serpent’s tail was poking out of the bottom. She smiled warmly to herself. Discord was such a sweet friend, knowing that she’d appreciate advance warning of his upcoming undoubtedly dramatic entrance.

Having passed out the dishes, Pinkie was now approaching the table, holding a modestly-sized double layer butter-yellow cake, adorned with tiny decorative butterflies. “Alright, everypony, on the count of three!” Pinkie proclaimed. “One, two—“

“THREE!” The cake burst open from the top, almost as if from a zipper, and Discord sprang up jubilantly, a tiny party hat perched between his horns and a mandolin in his hands.

All of the party guests jumped back in surprise, but Fluttershy just giggled. “It’s lovely to see you, Discord.”

“And of course, likewise, dear Fluttershy! But the time for chit-chat is later. Now is the time for singing! And if anypony sings out of tune, they get demerits,” Discord added, his paw hovering over the mandolin’s strings almost menacingly.

Pinkie was the first to get over her surprise, and eagerly leapt to Discord’s side. “In the key of D, Discord! Sing it out loud, everypony!”

Despite the confusing and sudden start, Fluttershy’s friends joined in the song fairly quickly and effortlessly. Fluttershy’s smile grew wider and her cheeks flushed a brilliant shade of pink as she was boisterously serenaded by her friends.

“Thank you,” she said softly as the song ended. “I’m so lucky to have such wonderful friends. And now I’m ready for—“ She glanced at the cake, or more accurately what remained of it, as it looked like it had been roughly torn in half. “—the cake.”

“Aw, man!” Rainbow groused.

“No worries, ladies and Spike,” Discord said amiably, snapping his claws. The cake instantly re-formed, looking identical to how it had before he had erupted out of it.

“That makes it way easier to cut!” Pinkie took out a knife and cut a piece from the cake, passing it to Fluttershy.

As Pinkie cut a second slice of cake and handed it to a very eager Rainbow, Twilight couldn’t contain her glee. “Discord, I’ve read through the first four chapters of your history tome and I just can’t get over how thorough it is! There’s information that none of the old ones ever covered! How did you manage it?”

“Oh, please don’t call it ‘my’ history tome,” Discord muttered. Pinkie had just given him his slice of cake, and he was scooping into it with his mandolin, sending a small bit of frosting splattering onto an affronted Rarity. “I kept my name off the cover for a reason, you know.”

“I must admit, you don’t strike me as one who has a particular interest in historical records,” Rarity remarked as she flicked the stray frosting from her mane.

“It was a belated birthday present to me,” said Twilight, positively beaming. “He single-handedly replaced all of the Ponyville history that was lost when the original library was destroyed a month ago. Best. Birthday present. Ever! Not to diminish anything you all have given me, of course,” she added sheepishly.

“A whole history book, huh?” Applejack raised an eyebrow, but she was smiling as she did so. “I gotta say, that’s mighty impressive.”

“I think so too,” said Fluttershy, beaming proudly at Discord. “That was a very thoughtful thing you did for Twilight.”

Discord was beaming as well from this, despite his earlier reluctance to claim ownership of the book. “Please, really, it was nothing. It was the least I could do for the birthday mare a month after the fact when I completely upended her actual birthday. Which reminds me! Speaking of birthdays! Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow Dash dropped her fork in surprise. “Who, me?”

“Who, you!” Discord snapped his claws and a small gift-wrapped box appeared next to her already half-eaten cake slice. “I realize this is very belated, but seeing as I missed your birthday as well, I need to rectify that.”

“It’s not a history book, is it?” Rainbow was already tearing off the wrapping while she asked, though. Once the wrapping was off, she looked opened the box and peered inside. “Oh, sweet! Fudge!”

“Yes, fudge, and lots of it! It’s delicious, I sampled a piece of it myself before I brought it here,” said Discord with a grin. “Happy very belated birthday, and remember every piece of fudge is my own special apology for missing the actual day.”

“Apology accepted!” Rainbow declared through a mouthful of fudge. “And you can apologize like this every single day if you want!”

“I believe I’m all caught up now.” Discord rubbed his hands together, a relieved smile plastered on his face.

“Yep!” said Pinkie. She had finished passing out the cake and was now cutting into her own slice. “The next birthday is—”

“Wait, wait, don’t tell me.” Discord paused for just a second. “Applejack, in January. There will be a party, right? And I’m invited?”

Applejack gave Discord a knowing smile. “I’ll be expectin’ ya.”

“Hey, you’re not all caught up yet,” Spike pointed out. “Fluttershy still needs her present!”

“And she will get that at tea this afternoon.” Discord turned to Fluttershy and gave her a small smirk. “If you think you can wait that long, that is.”

Fluttershy smiled. “Oh yes. I’m excited to see what it is.”

“And I’m excited for your excitement!” Pouring the last bit of cake from his mandolin, Discord flung the instrument aside. “Well, looks like I’m all done here. Lovely time catching up with all you lovely mares and Spike. I’ll see you in a bit for tea, Fluttershy!” He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a puff of festive confetti.

“Jeez, he didn’t stay for long,” said Rainbow Dash, nibbling on another piece of fudge.

Fluttershy cut into her cake, still smiling. “That’s okay. I’ll see him later. I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about then.”

From the other side of the table, Pinkie made a small squeak, grinning from ear to ear.

“What was that, Pinkie?” asked Rarity, with a playful grin of her own on her face.

“Nothing!” Pinkie chirped. “Hey, Fluttershy, you’ve got a few presents from us! Let’s start opening them!”

…

Her belly full of cake and her saddlebag loaded with presents, Fluttershy trotted down the path back to her cottage about an hour and a half later. They had been there quite a while, true, but even then Fluttershy hadn’t quite wanted to leave.

How could she have gotten so lucky? Her, Fluttershy, the pegasus who a year and a half ago could barely look other ponies in the eye, let alone have a meaningful conversation with them. How was it that she had managed to find so many wonderful friends? It hardly seemed possible—but then again, there was no denying how full her heart was, full in a way that could only come about by such strong, unwavering friendship.

This was already the best birthday she’d ever had. And, she reminded herself as the turned the final corner out of Ponyville towards her home, it wasn’t even over yet.

She stopped in surprise for just a brief second. Extending out about ten yards from her front door was an elaborate red carpet, with gold trim that shimmered in the sunlight.

It didn’t take long for Fluttershy to chuckle and shake her head. It was still early for Tuesday tea time, but it looked like Discord had arrived ahead of schedule. And Fluttershy was glad for it.

When her first hoof stepped on the carpet, it set off a ripple effect, almost bubbling in its race towards her front door. Upon reaching it, the ripple evaporated underneath the door, and then the door flung open and Discord was standing there, beaming at Fluttershy. “Hello,” he said simply.

Fluttershy’s smile grew wider. “Hi.”

And then, Discord was suddenly with her and enveloping her in a fierce, giant hug. Fluttershy let out a small “eep!” of surprise before wrapping her forelegs around his neck in return.

“I’ve missed you,” Discord murmured.

Fluttershy chuckled just once in confusion. “You just saw me—less than two hours ago.”

“Of course, dear, but I’m referring to before even then.”

Still confused, Fluttershy tried to laugh lightly again, playfully nuzzling into his neck. “But even before then, it’s only been a few days.”

“Oh, believe me, it’s felt like much longer than that.” He continued to cling to her, his eagle talons running through her mane, and Fluttershy remained still against him. The action had felt so soothing to her before, and it did now, but being wrapped up so close in his arms made her feel something else this time, too. Something still warm and bright, but also racing under her skin.

But before she could ponder it any longer, Discord suddenly pulled away from her. “Whoops, I’m being awkward, aren’t I?”

Fluttershy fumbled for words for a second or two, finding that her lips had grown dry at some point during their hug. “N-no, not at all. Hugs are good.” She winced at that as soon as the words were out of her mouth—now who was the awkward one?

“Hugs are good,” Discord readily agreed. “And so is tea. So shall we?”

“Of course.” Fluttershy fluttered back down to the ground, all four hooves on the red carpet this time. “Lead the way.”

“Birthday mares first.” Discord motioned her in front of him, as gallantly as Fluttershy had ever seen him.

Fluttershy amiably trotted ahead and to her door. “How much longer are you going to keep me waiting for my present?” she asked playfully.

“Oh, no time at all,” said Discord, zipping in front of her in a flash and opening her door. “I’ve kept you waiting long enough, and it is the most important factor in your day, after all.”

“Even more important than our tea?”

“It’s important to our tea.” Discord winked at her. “But why don’t you open your gift and see for yourself?"

Setting her saddlebag down on the end table near her front door, Fluttershy stepped inside. There, on her coffee table, was an oddly hexagonal shaped box, wrapped in paper adorned by overlapping images of Discord making various astonished, excited faces.

Fluttershy grinned at Discord. “I like the wrapping paper.”

“I think you’ll like what’s inside it better.” With a snap of his fingers, Discord shut the door, arranged himself and Fluttershy in their usual teatime seating positions, and transported the gift into Fluttershy’s hooves in one fell swoop.

Fluttershy giggled lightly again before working on unwrapping her present. The paper tore off quite easily, and as it came off, the unique shape disappeared, leaving another shape for the actual objects inside.

“It’s… it’s a teapot! And matching cups and saucers!” Fluttershy examined the patterns printed on the side. Well, “matching” was a bit of a stretch—the cups and saucers all appeared to be the same size and shape, but via pattern they didn’t match at all. One had a painting of a very serious-looking, maroon Pomeranian in a clown suit; another showed a brilliant blue sky with fluffy clouds on the bottom with a raging tsunami on the top; still another was covered with images of carrots with wheels for stalks. Every one of them was wonderfully surprising and unique.

“Oh, Discord, they’re lovely! They’re very—you.” Setting each cup on a saucer, she turned to the teapot itself. In contrast to the cups, the pot seemed unexpectedly… normal. It was white porcelain, with a simple design of vined flowers and butterflies artfully displayed across the bottom half. “And the teapot… the teapot is…”

“The teapot, my dear, is very you,” Discord finished, smiling warmly at her. “Take a look underneath.”

Fluttershy carefully lifted the teapot and turned it over. In the very center of the base there was a small double-barreled crank, similar to one on a music box. Extending a wing to help balance the pot, she took a hoof and turned the crank a few times, wondering what chaotic amusement would spring from the spout or what strange music would flow from it.

What she wasn’t expecting was for the music to be soft and gentle. And achingly familiar. Fluttershy drew in her breath, barely able to speak through her surprise. “It’s… it’s the Bid Time Return theme. One of my favorite…” She looked back at Discord.

Discord was still smiling at her, one of those soft smiles that seemed so different from his usual self-satisfied smirks at his own handiwork. “Finding a gift that was up to your expectations and worth was quite a challenge, but when I remembered how much you responded to this song at the gala, and also remembering that I promised you way back when that I would get you a new tea set…” He chuckled self-effacingly at this. “I’ll admit at the time I had no intention on following through on it, but I also hadn’t yet realized how dear of a friend you are to me.”

“It’s… oh, it’s lovely,” Fluttershy breathed. “I didn’t expect anything like this, and—and I’ll always cherish it. Just as much as I cherish our friendship.” She smiled as her cheeks twinged a soft pink. “Thank you.”

The smile hadn’t left Discord’s face, and he leaned over with a hopeful register to his voice. “Does that mean all is forgiven now?”

“All is forgiven? What are you—do you mean the gala?”

“Of course. You seemed very clear that if I wanted to make it up to you, I needed to do something splendiferous for your birthday.” Realizing how this sounded, Discord quickly added, “Not that I wouldn’t have gone to the ends of the universe for your birthday anyway, but—“

“But I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t forgive you unless you… well, I guess I did kind of word it that way… oh my.” Fluttershy guiltily pressed her forehooves against her mouth. “This is why I need to think before I speak… I’m so sorry, Discord, I didn’t mean for you to get that impression. Please forgive me.”

Discord was a bit alarmed to see her taking this so badly, but he also didn’t want to upset her any further. “Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy.” He gently guided one of her hooves away from her mouth and held it up against his paw in a gesture of solidarity. “How about this—if you want to feel like you’ve made it up to me, in a matter more personally satisfying than me truthfully telling you that you have nothing to apologize for, then I’d suggest a taste of your own medicine. You can make it up to me on my birthday. Which Pinkie has determined is June third. That gives you plenty of time to devise how best to wow me.” Still holding her hoof with his paw, he dramatically flung his taloned hand over his eyes. “Until then, I shall be absolutely seething in resentment.”

His tactic worked—Fluttershy cracked a small smile and a giggle at this. “That seems fair enough.” She playfully cocked her head at him. “Try not to seethe too much, though.”

“Mm, that might be difficult,” Discord said. “But, you know, I think some tea would help reduce my umbrage level significantly.”

“Oh, of course.” Fluttershy turned her gaze towards her coffee table, where her birthday gift still sat. “Let me go brew it, and we can use my new set.” She moved her hoof away from Discord’s paw, but didn’t move towards her stove just yet. “Your gift really does mean a lot to me. I love it a lot. Thank you, again.” She continued to beam at him for just a moment longer before rising from her seat and flying into her kitchen.

As big as Fluttershy’s smiles had been, Discord was pretty sure that his right now was about fifty times larger. It had been over a thousand years coming, but oh, was every second of those thousand years worth it to hear those soft words of hers. And after a thousand years of loving her, he still could never tire of her laughter and smiles. He resolved that he would never again spend a millennium apart from her, no matter what inane archival needs Twilight had. He in fact was fairly certain that he didn’t want to spend even a week away from her, but still having a shaky gasp on time and its various increments, he wasn’t going to fully commit to that assertion just yet.

But a thousand years, that he was sure of. He knew what a thousand years without her felt like and knew that he never wanted to experience that ever again.

And oh, after so many centuries of nothing, of merely observing, it almost surprised him that he was utterly content to just sit and wait some more. But this time, he was sitting in Fluttershy’s cottage, filled to the brim with sweetness and birdhouses and comfort, and he, Discord, the being who couldn’t stand regularity, wanted to just remain there forever, with Fluttershy just one room apart from him. Of course, being in the same room would be even better, but he knew he didn’t have to wait long for that.

And indeed, after a scant few minutes, Fluttershy emerged from her kitchen, a steaming tea kettle in her hooves and a smile still on her face. “The tea smells good today,” she said in her usual soft voice that still filled up the room.

In Discord’s opinion, it smelled good every day, but he decided he’d let her have this small victory if that’s what she wanted. “Indeed! Please don’t keep me waiting any longer.” He flung his lion arm forward, and as he did, one of the new teacups also zipped forward, lurching to a stop directly in front of the tea kettle.

Amused, Fluttershy waved it aside, taking time to pour the tea into her new musical teapot before lifting it up and filling Discord’s cup. “I’m afraid that I don’t have any snacks, but I’m full enough from the birthday cake from earlier. You… you’re not still hungry, are you?”

“No worries, my dear, I’ll mange.” Discord conjured up a green brick and dunked it in his teacup, chewing on it carefully.

Fluttershy smiled again at this. There was something just so magical, so fulfilling, at how her smile could continue to grow wider and wider at whatever Discord did. He declared to himself, not for the first time, that he would continue to grow that smile whenever he could.

Fluttershy took a seat on the other side of her couch and poured herself a cup of tea, taking a moment to turn the crank again and hear the song she adored so much. She sighed happily and settled into her cushion, entranced, closing her eyes and letting the music wash over her. Discord felt like his heart could never get enough of little moments like these from her.

“This has been a stupendous birthday, has it?” he prodded her. “The best ever?”

Fluttershy inhaled deeply, the smile never leaving her face. “Oh yes. The best ever. And… and it’s not even over yet.” She opened her eyes to wink at Discord, taking a sip from her teacup. “I’m still meeting up with my parents later today. Although I know that they won’t even begin to be able to measure up to this!”

“Mm, so I’ve irreparably raised your expectations? I can live with this.” Discord smiled in self-satisfaction, taking a drink from his own teacup. Fluttershy’s tea was exquisite, as always.

“I suppose it’s not a fair comparison,” Fluttershy admitted with a light chuckle. She took another sip of tea, and her face slowly lit up with an idea. “You should come with me and meet them. I know they’d love you.”

Her enthusiasm at the idea was not enough to sway Discord to the idea. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “I, er, believe that I’ve already met your father…”

Fluttershy perked up. “Really? When?”

Her optimism at the news seemed to kick Discord in the gut. He set his teacup down on the coffee table and turned away from her, ashamed. “It… wasn’t under the best of circumstances. I was working under… Tirek, and…”

Fluttershy’s face fell. “Oh…”

Abruptly, Discord created a large, yellow smiley face with a huge, strained grin that hovered over the two of them, and he quickly picked up his teacup again and downed the remainder of the tea within in a single, large gulp. “So as you can imagine, he probably wouldn’t have any desire to meet with me again.”

What an understatement. Discord could remember the date well. When Tirek, mad with power and wanting even more, had decided to make Cloudsdale his next target. And Discord, fool that he was, had gone along with it, gleefully helping him drain magic from the pegasi that lived there, in his callousness never thinking how it hurt the victims.

That is, until he broke into the cloud factory.

There was, of course, plenty of magic to be obtained there, magic that Tirek would surely appreciate, which was the official reason why he teleported himself inside the factory walls. But the fact that pegasi were evacuating in droves, apparently correctly surmising that their factory was the next target of the invaders, was a very welcome bonus. The ponies had already fled here.

And Discord… didn’t like actually seeing them flee from him.

He’d liked it before. Or, at least, he hadn’t minded it back during his reign of chaos. But something about the fear in their eyes as they encountered him didn’t sit right with him this time. Tirek seemed to enjoy their terror, and Discord tried to act like he liked it too, but the truth of the matter was that he was feeling very unsettled by it, and relocating to himself to an area already cleared of ponies was a most welcome concept.

So, inside the factory, he was already feeling slightly better, sapping the magic from any machine he encountered and generally feeling both useful and not a monster.

That is, until he turned a corner and encountered a pegasus who had stayed behind, trying desperately to divert the remaining magic into a lone generator.

“A commendable effort!” Discord declared. “But step aside and watch a real master at work.”

The pegasus jumped back, his eyes wide with fear. He looked to be middle-aged, with mint green fur and a mane, tail, and mustache that almost looked white, but the lights from the generator revealed the tiniest tint of pink. He was utterly unassuming. Nonthreatening. He was right to be terrified…

…and Discord was not pleased by the terror in his eyes. Without thinking, his diverted his eyes, not wanting to face the terror that he’d wrought.

But where they landed was even worse.

The pegasus had a desk near the generator, a boring, inane workspace of a factory foreman. It was lightly decorated with pictures and cards. It was the picture on the left-most edge that nearly brought Discord to his knees.

It was a simple family photo, showing the pegasus foreman with what appeared to be his wife and two children. He was unassuming. His wife was unassuming. His son was unassuming.

But his daughter…

It was obviously an older photo, but Discord would recognize that sweet, gentle pegasus anywhere.

Oh, Fluttershy, he thought, absolutely frozen in this moment, you’ll follow me everywhere, won’t you?

The pegasus foreman followed Discord’s line of sight, too surprised to speak for a moment. But when he did speak, it was with a soft, timid voice that still seemed to surround Discord utterly and fully… just as his daughter’s did. “I… I know I’m not as close to my daughter as I should be…”

Discord didn’t want to look at him, but he did anyway.

Fluttershy’s father gulped, but held his head high as he continued. “But I know she wouldn’t approve of what you’re doing.”

The truth was a white-hot knife, and it was merciless.

Discord snarled at the pain.

“It doesn’t matter what Fluttershy thinks anymore,” he hissed.

And with a swing of his lion arm, he flung Fluttershy’s father aside, and unhinged the magic generator from the wall and shrunk it to pocket size. He tucked it in the pocket against his goat leg. “Lord Tirek thanks you for his service! I’ll see to it that you’re rewarded. Maybe a nice tropical island somewhere. Fluttershy can join you.” And he snapped his fingers and disappeared before the pegasus could do anything in retaliation.

It was an unpleasant memory to relive, yet Discord found it searing into his brain regardless.

Fluttershy waved the pained smiley face aside, and it disintegrated into dust at her touch. “Did you hurt him?” she demanded.

Discord gripped his teacup tighter. “No. At—at least, not very much.” And that was true. Assuming she meant physically, and not emotionally or mentally.

Fluttershy smacked her lips, just once, and took a quick sip of her tea—all the proof Discord needed to know that she could see right through him. She held her teacup, one with huge red eyeballs riding on the backs of dragonflies, and carefully examined it.

Discord kind of wanted to die, and he began to melt into her couch (although taking the time to set his own teacup down on the coffee table so as not to disrupt her set).

Fluttershy took a swig of tea, then inhaled deeply. Then another swig of tea. Then, almost pained, she exhaled, setting her cup on the coffee table next to Discord’s.

“You should apologize to him.” Her voice was barely stronger than a whisper.

Discord’s liquid form almost turned into gas at the thought. He had no desire to encounter the pegasus foreman again. Not after what he’d done. What he’d said.

“It would… mean a lot to me.” Fluttershy’s voice was nearly inaudible. “If you meant it, that is.”

Discord exhaled, too. A long, defeated exhale, turning his liquid form back to solid and practically punching him with remorse. He would have hated her if he didn’t love her so much. He was Discord, lord of Chaos, champion of doing whatever the hell he felt like.

And yet he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was going to seek out Fluttershy’s father and personally beg for forgiveness. If it meant that much to Fluttershy, he’d do it a thousand times for her.

“I’ll consider it,” he said aloud.

Fluttershy relaxed a bit at that. “Only… only if you want to.” She picked up her teacup and took another sip.

Discord did his best to muffle a sigh in the most normal way he could muster. Well, at least now he knew what to do for Fluttershy’s… what was that holiday ponies celebrated in winter? That holiday. That present. It seemed a worthy follow-up to the personalized tea set.

And despite himself, he smiled a bit. That gave him a whole year to think of what her next present would be. Not that he needed an excuse like a birthday or holiday to shower her with gifts, of course.

Fluttershy peered at him, gulping a bit at the silence. “I… I know it’s hard to apologize, especially to a pony you don’t even know.”

Discord took his teacup again and sipped lightly. “Well, it does seem I’m becoming quite the expert in apologizing, which is something I never even considered the possibility of personally doing until you turned my stone cold heart into mush.”

Fluttershy finally smiled again, albeit a small one. “Your apologies are sincere. That’s what’s important. I don’t think you need a… mushy heart to do that.”

Discord returned her smile. For a brief second he considered asking her to please reform his mushy heart, but he didn’t want to ask any more of her. And besides… he was actually fine with it. It was mushy because of her, after all.

So instead, he said, “Well, it’s far better than its previous form.” He raised his teacup towards her. “So here’s to the mare who did the impossible. Happy birthday, Fluttershy.”

Now Fluttershy’s smile was full and completely genuine. She raised her cup as well. “Thank you, Discord.”

Their cups clinked in solidarity.