A Stroll with the One that Never Was and will Never Be
We should never Meet, but I want to
"Hello, Fluttershy."
The pegasus opened her eyes, laying in her bed, in an otherwise empty cottage.
Her ears twitched, turning around slowly, searching for a sound, a voice she had heard. But there was no one here, aside from her. Not a single animal, not even Angel, anywhere in her house, as far as she could see in the darkness. The air itself felt absent, in this complete silence.
"Hello?" she still called, frowning a little bit.
That voice had been nothing like she'd ever heard, slithery and whispering, close and smiling, like a bad dream still parasitizing her thoughts. Yet... it had a familiar ring to it...
Was it just that? A dream? She couldn't remember what she had been dreaming about. She didn't even remember going to sleep, really. And judging by the overall light in the room, night was still ongoing.
But something was off, wasn't it? It was too silent. Birds weren't in their cages, the dog baskets were empty, no bunnies, no bear, no ferret or squirrels, no mice or spiders, nothing. Just... her.
Where was everyone?
"Angel?" she called.
Only for that call to be repeated, coming from the entrance of her house. But by another voice, this time. And she had to think about it for a couple of seconds to realize it was... hers?
Intrigued, she got out of bed, putting on her pink bathrobe to protect her from the cold, and went to the door.
When she got in view of the entrance, she saw herself, in that same dress, on the doorstep, walking outside. Fluttershy froze for a second, confused. She had to rub her eyes, but that pony was still there, looking just like her, same coat, same mane, heading out.
"Wait!" she shouted, compelled to rush after that strange apparition, only for it to close the door once out.
Fluttershy burst out, looking around, searching for that mare, for herself. But she wasn't anywhere to be seen. Instead, all she saw was the purple light of the night raining down on the world below, coating the grass, the flowers, the trees. But not the animals lying around. Their silhouettes were all engulfed in a black shadow, making them look more like dark rocks than living beings.
She immediately approached them, only for the air she moved around to hit them, bristling their skin, like autumn leaves crumbling, until there was nothing left of them. Fluttershy's eyes widened in horror, recoiling, but it was already too late.
"W-What happened!?" she stuttered, shaking.
"Then went away," the voice from before replied.
Fluttershy jumped, looking around, scared and even more confused, her heart bleeding for her animals.
"Up here," the voice said.
Her eyes went up, falling on the moon. And the moon stared back. Every one of its spots was a different colored eye, staring right at her with an unhinged interest.
"Nice to meet you," the moon greeted with a fascinated yet compassionate tone.
"I-I don't understand," the pegasus said, taking another step back. "Is this a nightmare?"
"Oh, if you do think it is, be my guest. Call for Luna's help."
As she said that, the moon closed its eyes, only for them to reopen in a low-hanging cloud, unnerving to Fluttershy. But she had no real other choices, otherwise that would mean her animals were... So, she called:
"Princess Luna?"
Yet again, no answer came. So, she tried once more, tears coming to her eyes:
"Please...? I-I don't want this to be reality."
"Oh, but that's a flimsy concept, reality, isn't it?" the voice in the cloud answered.
No, it wasn't coming from the cloud. It was coming from everywhere else but there. A gentle breeze in her ear from the trees, a murmur from the soil, a shiver from her own feathers. It felt detached, torn between sympathy and indifference, amusement and empathy.
"W-What are you?" Fluttershy sobbed, thinking of her now gone animals. "What do you want? Where are my little babies?"
The fascination in the eyes vanished, leaving place to a form of doubt.
A large paw slowly rested on Fluttershy's shoulder. She turned around, tears in her eyes, only to see her bear smiling at her. She froze in shock, even more lost than she was before. And that didn't get better when the bear turned into Angel, hopping on her back and snuggling against her head.
"W-What's going on?" she stuttered, her heart unsure if it should worry even more or less. "If this isn't a dream, t-then what is it?"
She reached for Angel with one wing, but before she could touch him, he vanished into a puddle of mud falling on the ground, bringing back her concerns.
"This is my world, Fluttershy. I'm sure you've seen one alike before."
The pegasus tried to cup the puddle in her wings, but her own feathers turned limp, before changing into woven bracelets. Despite the fear in her heart, she couldn't help but to notice. Yes, she knew that kind of magic, that kind of place.
"Discord...?" she wondered.
"He is my brother," the voice replied, with a sudden kinder tone. "We both represent some kind of disturbance, but are not one in the same."
Fluttershy witnessed her wings turning back to normal, only for her own hooves to suddenly wobble, as if made of jelly and not flesh and bones. She heard a cry, distant, a voice. Her voice, screaming in agony. But, despite that unsettling atmosphere, she felt a bit more at ease. Her animals were safe, that magic couldn't truly hurt, or so she convinced herself of.
"I didn't know he had a brother..." she said.
"He doesn't know me, yet..." the voice replied, regretful. "I wanted to meet you first, Fluttershy."
"Are... Are my animals going to be okay?" she still asked, to be sure.
"I don't know... Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to tell here. It's hard to understand what okay means."
Fluttershy felt her teeth slowly falling out of her mouth, yet when she looked, there was nothing coming out. This looked like Discord's magic, but something was way off. It was random, but it wasn't whimsical. Unpredictable, in the most disturbing way, nothing pleasant like Discord's tricks. Everything that happened seemed designed to make her scared. No, not scared.
Confused. Unsure of reality. Of her own being.
"W-What do you want?"
"To talk to you," the voice answered, growing distant again.
The cloud lowered itself, floating by her side, as the cottage behind them began to breathe loudly.
"Would you walk with me, Fluttershy?"
The pegasus nervously glanced at her house, as the door started eating itself, before nodding. For some reason, she trusted that weird apparition. This place clearly wasn't hers anyway.
The cloud stared at her, noticing.
"You're not accepting out of terror for what I could do if you were to refuse..."
"I can assure you I'm not," Fluttershy said with the little confidence she could muster.
"I know, that wasn't a question..."
The eyes looked thoughtful for a second, before Fluttershy's own eyes began to cry tears of black ink. The cry from earlier on repeated, tearing the sky.
"Let's walk," the cloud suggested.
They both made their way forward, Fluttershy rubbing her eyes to chase away the tears. They went over the bridge, passing a river of red water, before the cry was heard again, longer, in a tremendous pain. Despite knowing this was all fake in some way, Fluttershy couldn't help but to have her hairs slowly stand up, feeling sick from that voice that sounded so much like her.
"They're not fake..."
She turned a shocked face to the cloud, only for it to follow:
"You pushed those cries... Or will... Or won't. But they happened, just not in the same way you understand them. They all exist here, yet don't."
As they approached Ponyville, a new terror settling into Fluttershy, she looked at her strange companion, asking:
"You still haven't told me your name..."
"You'll find it yourself."
The path they were walking on suddenly curled upward, as did the rest of reality around them. Fluttershy's wings suddenly fell off and that caused a bit of panic in her, but she didn't go back to look for them. No, staying near that strange apparition was what she had to do now, she sensed it.
"What did you want to talk about...?" she asked, as they climbed up to an upside-down Ponyville.
The eyes seemed to think for a second, as if the question was causing some kind of inner turmoil.
"A lot of things, but I can't really recall anything in particular... Just... getting to know you a bit better, I think."
"What do you want to know?" she kindly asked.
Despite her mind feeling oppressed, despite the surroundings staring at her, despite the very fabric of this existence slowly tearing up in a slightly different way at each step she took, she could only feel compassion towards that... thing. And that didn't feel like a trick.
"How would you describe your life?" it asked.
"Quiet and nice," Fluttershy replied, every word raising her heart and her sanity just a little bit. "I have friends that care for me, and I care for them. I have my animals, my refuge and pretty much everything I could ask for."
The cloud didn't answer. As they walked through the streets of Ponyville, devoid of inhabitants, under the purple sky.
"And you?" Fluttershy tried.
"I'm trapped in this world," it said, with something weird attached to its tone, melancholy maybe? "It's... as pleasing as you can imagine, I think. Though, I'm not real per say, I don't exist now and never will, so it's hard to tell."
Fluttershy was about to reply something, when one of those cries pierced the sky. But this time, it was something intelligible. A desperate agony, a pain Fluttershy never thought she'd hear herself feel.
"DON'T TAKE HIM AWAY! PLEASE! GIVE HIM BACK!"
This caused her to freeze, not only because she stopped moving, but because her whole body felt cold. Her bathrobe tightened around her, pressing on her belly and her shoulders.
From up ahead on the road, a little stream began to flow towards them. A thin line of a red liquid, making its way in-between her hooves. She saw her own reflection in it, a tired and helpless face, on the verge of collapsing. Fluttershy tilted her head with apprehension, but the reflection didn't move hers, the eyes glazed, not even seeing her. With a slow voice, she muttered resignedly and pleaded "I can't... Put me down..."
Fluttershy stepped back a couple of meters, the sentence haunting her mind, echoing like a farewell from an old friend, sinking to the deepest part of her being. But the river of blood followed her, the stream screaming along its path, with her voice. Hundreds of crying Fluttershys, begging for it to stop.
The wingless pegasus had to climb on a bench for it to halt, at its foot. Fluttershy looked around, the cloud was gone, and so were the eyes.
"W-Where are you?" she called.
No answer came. But the cries ceased. So, instead of calling, she tried:
"You've said you don't exist, but you do now. You brought me here."
Whoever it was, he seemed lost. Even more so than Discord was before meeting her. But she could attempt one more time. She had done it once, she could help that curious and hesitant being. Her heart, though unsure, couldn't let go of him. Out of kindness, but also from someplace else, someplace more.
When no replies were heard, she tried again, her voice filled with concern and hope:
"You've sought me for a reason. You don't want to hurt me, you brought back my pets when I was crying for them, you tried to reassure me when I was scared. But you don't control this place, don't you? You're not like Discord, this is beyond your own power, it harms even those you do not wish evil upon. So you want me to help you, like I helped him."
A little breeze coursed through the silent streets, whispering a shaky "I don't..." that sounded more juvenile.
She managed to hear where this was coming from. She stepped down from the bench, avoiding the puddle of blood, trotting towards where she thought her host was. She couldn't walk faster, due to her heart doing its best to not jump, and she felt that running would result in her legs fusing together.
As she went through the village, she met another apparition. Twilight, standing in the stream of red liquid, which was getting wider and wider. There was a sorrow in her eyes, but something was off in her coat and her mane, things didn't fit, the colors were changing, swapping, and bubbles formed under her skin.
"I'm sorry, Fluttershy..." she said. "I told you this was impossible..."
But the pegasus managed to ignore the shiver that sentence sent in her, focusing on the source of the whisper, replying with as much confidence as she could show, moved by some instinct:
"You're not pushing me away after bringing me here. I am not leaving a friend in need behind."
"I didn't bring you here to ask for your help..." the voice replied.
"You're still getting it!" Fluttershy hammered with determination.
"Stop..." the voice echoed, with the tone of all her friends, a sad and sorry ring to them.
The world began to shiver, the river got larger, the cries came back. But Fluttershy avoided it, galloping through the city. Her wings came back on their own, as a wall of Applejacks stood in her way, allowing her to fly over it. The Applejacks moaned in despair, before melting away, as Fluttershy went deeper into the never-ending town.
She passed the origin of the river of blood. An aura of terribleness emanated from it, it felt painful to simply look at it, to even think about what could be going on in there. It was also the source of all those cries, all those tired Fluttershys. Ponyville's hospital.
But the voice wasn't coming from there, rather from the town square. And Fluttershy's guts suddenly contracted when she saw the origin of the wind. A pile of corpses. A pile of her corpse.
She had to land, her wings giving up on her. Tens of Fluttershys, stacked randomly on top of one another, all dead, all bearing some kind of deformities, some bleeding, others with their stomach ripped open, their faces frozen in a silent agony.
"Go away..." the voice whispered from underneath. "You've already done enough..."
She gulped, trying to ignore the horrible vision of herself mutilated over and over, sometimes beyond anything recognizable, and replied to that scared and lonely voice:
"No I haven't. You clearly need someone to help you, like your brother did. And no matter how... disgusting the walls you put are, I'm not going to turn away."
"I didn't do it on purpose..." the voice pleaded. "I'm sorry you have to see these... Please, go away..."
But Fluttershy wasn't having it this way. She gathered her courage, rolled her sleeves up, and plunged her hooves through the pile of bodies, pulling them out one at a time in splashy disgusting meat sounds, fighting off her own nausea. Weird things had stopped happening to her body since she had taken things into her own hooves. Like a beacon of light in this darkness, as a representative of order in this chaos, she dug through the accumulation of herself, while the voice still tried to discourage her.
"I only wanted to see you once... To hear your voice other than in a scream of death... And it sounded so nice... But please, stop. Go back to your bed."
"I'm not!" Fluttershy affirmed, before she had to stop to vomit.
That was too much for her. All those yellow and pink corpses, laying around her, in a sickening smell of blood and other fluids. But she went back to work nonetheless, pushing through her own revulsion, clearing out that mess to uncover what was lying beneath.
The bodies she had disposed of began to vanish, as if a semblance of normality, of reality was making its way back to this forsaken place. And, finally, she got to the center. She got to that silhouette.
As soon as it was unveiled, the rest of the pile disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving only one shape, covering its head with his unmatched claws. Fluttershy's bathrobe felt tighter around her.
At first, she thought it was a draconequus, but then, she believed it to be a pony, before she understood, it was neither, and both at the same time. It had all the mismatched members of a draconequus, but its main body was one of a pony. A gray coat, with one reddish leg and a long pink tail ending up in a plume. Fluttershy froze, as something in her seemingly broke upon seeing that being.
It slowly let go of its own head, raising it slightly to look at her in the eyes. His great yellow and red terrified eyes, partially hidden behind a well rounded and quite well-maintained pink mane.
They stared into each other, for what felt like an eternity or two, the world around them falling silent.
"You're not..." Fluttershy slowly realized. "You're not his brother..."
The creature's eyes changed. Hope appeared in them, relief, feelings it could not understand, as its whole body slowly straightened back, while Fluttershy continued, in disbelief:
"You're his son..."
The creature's head arrived at her level, face to face, probably barely old enough to be considered an adolescent. He took in a little shaky breath, before finally saying with happy regrets:
"Hi mom..."
Ponyville shattered around them, all those wrong things collapsed into thousands of pieces, as the name appeared in Fluttershy's head, clear as day. As if she had... given it to him.
"Madness..."
"You never truly named me..." Madness said, little tears coming to his eyes. "You never could... It was always dad, or always when I was already dead..."
Despite her heart feeling overjoyed, relieved and in profound sadness, all in a perfectly understood manner, Fluttershy's mind was still confused.
"But I..." she stuttered, trying to wrap her head around that. "Discord and I never... We..."
"You tried..." her son kindly explained. "Not yet for you, but you did."
"But... we aren't even the same species. I asked Twilight, and she told me she doesn't think it's possible... We're incompatible."
"And that's why I'll never be," Madness replied with a saddened smile. "And I'm glad things are that way, mom. Every time you both... managed, either I died in your belly before birth, or I took your life by simply existing."
Fluttershy was still confused. She was used to things not making sense, with Discord. But even then, there was at least temporal coherence in his antics. But this. She had a son, Madness wasn't lying, her instinct couldn't be misguided on that, but he wasn't even born yet. And, according to him, would never be.
"But we still haven't... How do you know that? How can you be there?"
"Do you think that I know, mom...?" Madness slowly replied, almost touched by her naivety. "I don't understand half of the things that happen around me. Inner kindness mixed with outer chaos. Inner chaos."
"So all those... other me are..."
"Attempts, probably..." Madness answered, his eyes fleeing a bit. "The few times where I was born, or far enough into development for it to matter... I hear them all the time, mom... I hear you dying, crying for my death. I feel your hooves around my lifeless body, I sense your cooling womb putting me into this world. All the time."
She looked him in the eyes. At her son. He had the eyes of his father, but her face, that terrified apprehension of even his own mom, that fear of the unknown, was inherited from her.
Her body moved on its own. Wings wrapped around his head and neck, pulling him into a hug, her legs going for his back. Madness' body stuttered, threatening to vanish from this reality for a couple of seconds, as his eyes filled with a mix of surprise and awaited relief. The pony-draconequus chimera threw its arms around her, taking in a deep breath, before letting out a loud, desperate and immediately mute cry. The air around them cut itself into rectangular pieces, rumbling around like puzzle pieces trying to fit back together in a confused dance.
A gentle hoof ran through Madness' mane, and a kind, caring voice whispered:
"Shhhh... Mommy is here..."
The pieces found their place again. Ponyville reappeared, untainted by the cursed magic this time. And the cries of her son became audible to Fluttershy's ear, as he collapsed against her, sobbing, holding her with all his meager strengths. And she slowly rocked him, comforting her son.
"You'll be okay, now... I'm so happy to have found you."
"Mom..." Madness cried, his breathing uncertain, jumping. "It was so harsh... So lonely..."
"You're not lonely anymore..." she reassured, laying a soft kiss on his gray forehead. "I'll be there."
"You can't... I can't exist, I shouldn't even be there..."
"But you are, sweetie..." Fluttershy reasoned.
She moved her head back just enough to look him in the eyes. He was sniffing loudly, shaking, his wings and tail coiled against his own body. Though, his stare was as serious as he could.
"I mean it, mom... You can't stay here. This place, this limbo isn't for anyone. It can't affect me, but it could hurt you, and I don't want that. And I can't go back to the real world with you, because I would bring it with me."
"Then we'll ask your father," Fluttershy proposed. "He can control his own dimension, he'll teach you how to-"
Madness' claws clenched on her coat, causing her to stop in a surprised little yelp. He immediately let go of her and pour apologies out:
"I-I'm sorry mom, I didn't mean to. I really didn't do that on purpose, please d-"
"I'm fine," she kindly cut, brushing the little scratches off, more surprised than angry at him. "But why did you react like that?"
Madness winced, his eyes fleeing.
"Do not bring dad into this, please... He'll understand what's wrong and seek the easiest solution..."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Because that implies making sure I'm never born... He would kill me..."
Fluttershy's head moved back a little, surprised by what he had just said.
"Discord would never do that, he is your father."
Madness frowned. A sad, sorry frown, as he asked the terrible question:
"Do you really think he couldn't do it?"
Fluttershy froze, and it was her turn to frown. But this one was angry and confused. How could he say that about his own father? About her so beloved Discord? Madness, seeing what he perceived to be disappointment, explained himself:
"I told you, my birth meant your death. We can't exist together in reality. Dad would understand that, and who do you think he would choose?"
"You're his son!" Fluttershy argued.
"And you're his everything," Madness softly replied, his own jaws shaking. "You're his first friend, you're the one that saw through his surface and found out who he really was, you accepted him, forgave him. You're the one that gave him a chance at love. The most precious thing he has."
The sky began to rotate around them, as they looked at each other, Fluttershy growing an understanding, while Madness continued, regretful:
"And me... He doesn't know me. I'm not a thing for him, right now, and even if we were to meet here, in that impossible bridge between our bond, what would I look like to him? Someone that's just like him, how boring, how uninteresting, how threatening. Someone that could replace him in your heart, probably."
He was about to sigh, when a soft hoof landed on his cheek, getting him to focus back on her. His mother was staring at him intensely, distraught and shocked.
"What kind of things did he do to you, for you to think that...?" she whispered.
"Nothing, I told you... He doesn't know me... But I know things would play out that way. He wouldn't hesitate, between you, the sun of his life, and me, an obscure acquaintance that is yet to be born... Otherwise, I would exist..."
The hoof on his cheek gave a little caress. His mother wasn't agreeing with him, but that moment wasn't one for argument. She would not let that ruin this reunion with a son she never knew she could have. He looked away again.
"I'm sorry... I'm making you doubt him... Doubt your feelings... This is what I do, even when that's the last thing I want. This is my chaos."
"The only one that could make me doubt him is himself," Fluttershy softly reassured, still holding his cheek.
She gently nudged his head, just to make eye contact again, a kind compassion and fascination in her gaze.
"I still can't believe that you're here... That I'm a mother..."
Madness gently pushed against the contact of her hoof, as the roofs of the houses around began to cackle.
"I'm just so happy to have finally heard your voice for something other than pain..." he said, tears still slowly flowing on his cheeks, resting his claws on her hoof. "To have your eyes look at mine, while we're both alive..."
They stared again at each other for a while, losing track of time, contemplating a reality neither of them could achieve. An impossible reunion between two souls, bound by blood, yet never able to see, to talk, to even care for one another. She would not see him grow, he would not hear her bedtime stories. She would not pack his lunch for school, he would not share about his first friends with her. This time, this place, all of this was lost to an unattainable future and past, a whole world of unshared moments, untold words, unlived family memories. And they both understood it.
But, there was a thing Fluttershy could do. One thing that this singularity in logic, in reason, allowed her to do. And that was to hug him, with all her motherly strengths, refraining a couple of tears and saying with utmost sincerity and care in the world:
"I love you, my dear little Madness..."
The cackling stopped. Time itself stopped. It wasn't night anymore, but it wasn't day. The words echoed through the world and back into the lost chimera's mind. Words he had never heard. Care he had never been shown. A love... he had never experienced, through his wanderings in his own sanity.
Their embrace grew stronger, but something happened. The fresco of reality began to tear itself apart. A force repelled them, started to pull them away from each other, as the paradox was forcing itself to close.
"W-What's happening?" Fluttershy wondered, trying to reach her hoof towards Madness, while he didn't reciprocate.
He had already accepted his fate, a sad smile, overwhelmed with happiness and tears of joy rolling down his face, as he said:
"Our time is up, mom. And I'm fine with it. I had never hoped I could see you ever in my twisted non-existence, yet here you were. Not a figment of my own insanity, for once, but the real you."
The world rotated in a purple twister, everything becoming blurry but them, the sky, the houses and the ground fusing. Thunders erupted all around, joined by sounds, groans, eyes watching from the abyss and all around them. Fluttershy was slowly getting pulled up, while Madness only went down, looking at her, still filled with glee.
"Madness! Wait!"
"I'll be okay, mom!" he shouted, to cover the sound of the universe crumbling. "I'll always be! This is my place, this is who I am! I belong here, you don't, things are this way! I'm just so glad you could come just this once!"
"But-! But we still have so much to talk about!" Fluttershy shouted as well, tears coming to her eyes, desperate that this reunion had to end so suddenly. "I don't even know your favorite food, or your favorite animals, or what is your special talent! Why can't we live that!?"
"Because so is the world," Madness replied with sorrow, his voice low yet clear as if the rest of the place was silent, following with a demand. "Do not mourn me, mom, for I never was. Do not feel guilt, because I'd rather not exist and know you are safe. Do not cry for something that won't ever be there, please."
They looked at each other, mother and son, growing ever more distant, Fluttershy ascending to a white sky, while Madness sank to a bottomless dark pit, where eyes and claws were awaiting him. All the Fluttershys from before began to swirl as well, down, surrounding their stillborn son, the toll for their desire of happiness. Their lives, and his.
"How do you expect me to not search for you!?" the real one cried, her hoof still extended towards him.
"Because I would blame myself if you'd die in the process! I brought you here, by pure selfishness! This would be all my fault!"
The arms sank into his back, countless eyes opening around Fluttershy, as he continued to speak, his voice deformed like it was at the beginning of all this:
"Because I'm not just this innocent young child, but also the horrid monster that toyed with you here. I would be a scourge to this world you call home. The worst unpredictable nightmare to myself and everyone around me, uncaring, mad and incapable of salvation."
Fluttershy looked at him, as his eyes grew entirely red, his body transforming into a shapeless creature that was hurting her sanity simply by looking at it. A twisted monster as her son, a vision feeling like a blade in her already bleeding heart.
"Do not bring this upon yourself, mom," the creature advised, somewhere in-between a plea and a threat. "Even if you were to survive my birth, you wouldn't survive me. No one would. So, go. Let your world be safe, and leave what should never be in it."
Mother and son looked at one-another one last time, the tornado around her matching their emotions, as Madness whispered a few more words with his real voice, from the bottom of his heart:
"I love you too, mom... Can I see you smile...?"
The reality began to shatter, the light and darkness almost blinding them. Fluttershy swallowed her sorrow, finding her courage and all the motherly joy inside her, taking in a deep breath. Then, she let it out. The most beautiful, proud, kind and loving smile she could do. A first, and a last, for her son.
"Thank you..." both their hearts said in perfect unison.
The world became too bright for their mind. Everything blurred. Fluttershy felt her body being lifted again, higher, even higher then, picking up some speed, sending her troubled heart in a panic, her mane whipping in the air. She felt pain in her lower-belly, more intense than any pain she had ever felt.
Suddenly, she was released. Dropped, without a care in the world, right onto her bed.
She jumped, yelling, sitting up immediately. Angel ran away in terror, while the birds in the cages chirped loudly, confused and scared. Fluttershy's heart was racing, pounding through her chest. It was night, though morning was close, and everything was normal in her cottage.
A flash of light and Discord suddenly appeared in the room, finger-guns ready to fire.
"What happened?" he growled. "Is someone threatening you?"
He waited a bit, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, only to turn back to his beloved and notice she was still catching her breath, staring into the void. He abandoned his defensive stance and went by her sides, worried.
"A nightmare?" he said. "Oh, Luna must be slacking again."
"I-It wasn't a nightmare..." Fluttershy said, feeling panicked and lost, but sure of it.
"What do you have on your hooves?" Discord suddenly asked, frowning. "Is it... blood?"
Fluttershy looked down. She was instinctively holding her belly and, indeed, her hooves were covered in red, and so was all her lower belly.
"I'm bringing you to the hospital," Discord hurried, about to snap his finger.
"Wait!" Fluttershy said, brandishing a hoof to stop him, looking at herself.
It was blood all the way down to her hind legs. But she didn't feel sick, or hurt, nor exhausted.
"I'm fine..." she said, still thinking.
Was it... Was it done? Was he... born? Stillborn? Or was this merely a grim reminder of what awaited her, if she was to not listen, to take this lightly. A sign of things to come, if she were to treat tonight's conversation as nothing more than a dream.
She turned her attention to the draconequus by her side, catching his big, worried red and yellow eyes. A question came to her mind, after what had happened. A question she knew was wrong, foolish, and would probably set off a terrible chain reaction. But she had to know.
"Have you ever... thought about having kids?"
Author's Note
One of those times where my brain was like "Shut up other projects, this is inspiration time" so I did the thing in 3 days x)
