Based on an idea by BluePaladin42
Twilight was off in the bushes beside the path, investigating an unexpected autumn flower, when Rarity gave a little gasp and Applejack said, "Well, look who it is."
"Oh." Twilight glanced at Rarity and Applejack. "Fluttershy. And Discord. How nice."
The three ponies had been hurrying home from an evening stroll around the lake. They had lost track of time, and the wind was already picking up, building towards the storm scheduled for later tonight. The other pair had just come into view around a bend in the forest path, coming in the opposite direction. As they drew near, the wind shifted, and a scent stronger than that of the wet leaves decaying along the path drifted over the ponies, as if Froggy Bottom Bog were just around the bend.
"Oh, Fluttershy," Rarity said. The corner of Fluttershy's mouth turned upwards at Rarity's words, tearing tiny cracks in the unbending lips. "Out in this damp wind, without so much as a scarf? Aren't you...." She trailed off. Fluttershy looked down and slowly shook her head.
"Cold?" Discord asked. "Not a problem, I assure you! My Fluttershy is an all-weather pony now. Aren't you, dear?" He blew a cloud of mist down the back of her neck, and a few small icicles sprouted off the end of her mane. She shook it out slowly, and the bits of ice tinkled onto the path at her hooves. She smiled again, her lips rising higher than before, and the cloudiness in her eyes cleared slightly as she leaned up against the draconequus' scaly brown shoulder.
"Just a little game we play," Discord said, patting her on the head. "We've had to find some new ways to play together since ... the accident." He paused uncharacteristically, his usually-animated features drooping like soft clay into a stare molded by an amateur potter. He lifted his claw from Fluttershy's head and clenched it absently. For just a moment his face betrayed the centuries behind it.
"But I must say," he resumed, his eyes lighting up again, "I think we're coming along quite well, quite well. That is what you were going to ask, isn't it?"
Twilight shut her mouth, which had fallen open as she stared at Fluttershy. "Yes, of course!" she said hastily. "You took the words right out of my mouth."
One of Discord's eyebrows went up and his long neck went down, peering into Twilight's face. "Why are you wrinkling your nose like that, Twily? Brimstone on my breath again? You know you can tell me. We're friends now!"
"Nothing!" Twilight said, jumping back. "I wasn't wrinkling, I was sniffing!" She snorted in a noseful of air. "I love the smell of autumn leaves! After we've shaken them from the trees and they lay in the lanes, moulder—um, changing color—I mean—" She stopped, smiled widely, took another deep breath, and gagged.
"Forgive me, dear. You are so right." Discord took a deep breath, seemingly oblivious to the smell, and sighed contentedly. "Fluttershy has taught me to love the fall! A time for digging burrows, stocking up food. Fattening up." He grasped his waist with both arms and began to draw in a huge breath. As he did his midline began to balloon out, pushing the ponies away, until he looked like a zeppelin with a dragon's head on top. Then he bent over unceremoniously and the air burst out the other end, sending him whipping around the ponies like a balloon until he drifted back to the ground next to Fluttershy.
He put an arm around her and continued as if nothing at all had happened. "Fluttershy calls it the cozy season. I like that." He turned to look down and wink at the pegasus. "Let's go get cozy, my dear."
Fluttershy turned her head slowly and looked up at Discord with unblinking eyes. He offered her his arm, and she draped one stiff wing over it.
"Toodle-loo!" Discord called. The pair walked off, Fluttershy's slow, jerky gait matched to his usual ungainly waddle.
The three ponies watched wordlessly until Twilight quietly said, "I can't take this much longer."
"Know what you mean." Applejack frowned and lowered her voice. "It ain't the least bit natural."
Out of nowhere, Pinkie's head popped up between the three mares, who seemed only mildly startled at this flaunting of the laws of time and space. "But they make such a cute couple!" She turned to watch their silhouettes shrink. "See how she leans up against his neck?"
The other ponies looked at each other silently.
"Pinkie, dear," Rarity said. "If she didn't, you see, she'd ... she'd...."
"She'd fall like a rotten apple," Applejack finished.
"Don't be silly!" Pinkie said. "How can she be rotten when she's so sweet?"
Applejack shook her head. "All we're saying, honey," she replied, "is she just ain't the same since she died."
* * * *
"We can't let this go on any longer," Twilight told them. "Fluttershy has suffered enough all these years for our sakes."
They were gathered in the library: Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity. Twilight hadn't invited Pinkie.
Rarity raised a hoof to her chin. "She didn't act like she was suffering when we had our weekly visits to the spa. Back before Aloe asked her not to come anymore." She shuddered. "The poor dear. I could barely stand just the sounds it made when she tried to give Fluttershy a massage."
"Of course Fluttershy didn't say she was suffering!" Rainbow shouted. "You know her!"
"She'd take anything on herself without complaining, for anyone," Twilight agreed. "Only her closest friends know how she must feel inside. So who'll stop it after we're gone? How long will it go on if we don't end it now?" She looked around at her friend's faces. Their eyes grew wider as the implications of that sunk in. "Forever?"
"I just think we maybe oughta ask the Princesses for some help here," Applejack said.
Twilight shook her head firmly. "Losing Fluttershy might drive Discord insane...er. And there'd be be no holding him back with the Elements of Harmony."
"Yeah," Applejack said, "that's sorta why you oughta ask them."
Rainbow darted in between the two and hovered in front of Applejack's face. "And what if they say no? You gonna just let the dragon play with its Fluttershy doll?"
"She did choose this for herself, dear," Rarity said.
"Til death do them part! And it shoulda done that by now!"
"Rainbow's right," Twilight said. "What could the Princesses do except say no?"
The other ponies stared at her, open-mouthed. "You'd go against Celestia?" Applejack asked.
Twilight drew her head back defensively as she met their eyes. She turned away and began pacing a tight circle in the center of the room without answering.
"Just tell us, darling," Rarity said.
Twilight walked to the edge of the room and stopped and sat down next to a bookshelf in the reference section. She reached out and pulled a thin black volume from the shelf. It had the royal seal on its binding, inlaid in gold—the first bound volume of her friendship reports.
"I've been studying the magic of friendship for years now. It's not just a sweet notion. It's real. Friendship is the magic that makes Equestria possible."
"Yeah, we know," Rainbow said. "We're all elements of Harmony here. We saw the flashy lights."
Twilight shook her head. "It isn't just the elements, Rainbow. They're just one manifestation of it. Haven't you noticed that we get in terrible trouble time and time again, but everything always seems to work out for the best?"
Rainbow shrugged. "I don't want to take too much credit, but, we are kind of awesome."
Twilight chuckled. "Oh, Rainbow. No, that's not it. It's ... a deep magic, the binding force that turns love and emotion into actions, things." She looked up at the ceiling, but her eyes focused on something far beyond it. "Things work out for the best because we're faithful to each other. As long as friends care about each other, as long as they have open hearts and work to see each other's point of view, Equestria will survive and flourish."
She pushed the book back into its place on the shelf, tapping it carefully into place until it looked like it hadn't been disturbed, then looked away from it. "That's the true answer. Even if Celestia felt obligated to say otherwise. Celestia wouldn't want me to ask her. She'd want me to make my own decision."
"So what you're saying," Applejack said slowly, "is you're not gonna tell the Princesses, and you got no plan what to do after."
Twilight shifted her focus back to Applejack, stood, and drew herself up to her full height. For a moment she seemed more like her mentor than the nervous mare who'd washed up on the boarding platform of the Ponyville depot just a few short years ago. "If we do what's right for Fluttershy, things will work out in the end." She smiled at Applejack. "That's how Equestria is made. I know this is hard, but I need you to trust me on this."
The library was silent except for a few brief, anxious snorts.
"Twilight," Rarity finally said, "I trust you."
"Me too," Rainbow added. "This is way above my head."
Applejack finally looked up, turned her head toward everypony in turn, and nodded glumly.
"All right," Twilight said. "Rarity, you invite her to visit you at Carousel Boutique again, just like you used to."
"Or possibly ... you could invite her to the library?" Rarity suggested.
"No," Twilight said. "Me inviting her now, after all this time, would be too suspicious. I want to make this as comfortable for her as I can, so have your parlor sofa downstairs when she comes."
Rarity's eyelids fluttered. "But ... it's my best sofa! Fluttershy is a little ... oozy these days."
Twilight stared back at her until Rarity dropped her head, shamefaced.
"Applejack, Rainbow, you might have to hold her down."
Applejack and Rainbow glanced at each other, then looked down at the floor and nodded almost imperceptibly.
"I'll bring the spell components. Everypony but Rarity will be hiding in the back. And don't tell Pinkie!"
"She'll know," Rainbow Dash said.
Twilight wrinkled her brow in concentration. "Okay. Rainbow, you distract Pinkie. We'll handle Fluttershy."
"Lotta secrets here," Applejack said. "First Fluttershy, then the Princesses, now Pinkie. I don't like it."
"There's nothing to like," Twilight said. "Nothing in this whole sordid affair since the day they married."
"So how soon after we do this thing is Discord gonna know about it?" Applejack asked.
"Approximately immediately," Twilight said.
No one said anything after that.
"Well," Twilight said. "We all know what needs to be done."
Everypony looked away and said nothing, until they had passed that interval after which silence implies consent. Then they all looked at each other at the same time. They turned and, one after another, all but Twilight trod slowly out the door.
* * * *
Even the lingering odors of years of perfumes and powders, and the smoke from a dozen candles, some ceremonial, some functional, could not suppress the fetid odor inside the Carousel Boutique. It seemed all the more oppressive with the curtains drawn.
Fluttershy lay on her back, sinking into the deep cushions of Rarity's best sofa, her rear legs and neck tied down with Applejack's lariat. The rope was not very tight; the skin and feathers had pulled away from her bones when Applejack had tried to cinch it up. It was tight enough to hold the sluggish Fluttershy. She stared up at her friends with wide, wondering eyes.
"We're going to set you free, Fluttershy," Twilight said.
Just next to the sofa, between Twilight and Fluttershy, a crude wooden figurine of Discord stood on a nightstand, an open book behind it.
"It's time for you to move on," Twilight continued. "Discord's magic is keeping you here. I'm going to fool the lines of power holding you to Discord into attaching themselves to this carving of him that you see between us. And then I'm going to cut them."
Fluttershy's eyes widened. They still didn't focus on Twilight, but they began to fill with tears. She reached out in Twilight's direction with one foreleg, sending a wave of foul and moldy odors across the nightstand.
"Shh," Twilight said, reaching across the nightstand and pushing Fluttershy's foreleg back down onto the cushion. "Just relax. Soon it will all be over." She looked down at the book, which was covered with the special symbols that indicated not sounds, but twists and surges of magic. Her horn began to glow, and a humming filled the room.
Faintly glowing lines appeared, growing out from Fluttershy like the tendrils of a newly-sprouted vine, reaching across the center room of the Carousel Boutique and in the direction of her cottage at the edge of town. They wavered, blown on some unfelt wind, then twisted, confused.
Fluttershy made a hoarse whimper, dry, like the rustling of leaves, and reached out again. Again, Twilight pushed the leg back down.
The lines turned questioningly toward the figurine on the nightstand, then reached out for it, wrapping themselves around it, tracing a many-sided pyramid in the air between it and Fluttershy's body.
"I can't look," Twilight said. She turned away from the nightstand and took a deep breath. Behind her, on the sofa, Fluttershy groaned, and Twilight again smelled the dead foreleg drawing near. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and grimaced.
There was a snapping sound. Then, a wet rustling of dirty feathers, a gasp, and a brief clattering like a pile of dry sticks falling to the ground. Then silence.
Twilight finally looked up.
A pony's skeleton lay on its back on the red velvet-lined sofa, white and dusty. A few long, narrow bones stretching out from its sides indicated it had once been a pegasus.
Twilight's eyes fixed immediately on the skull that now lay fallen to one side on the velvet cushion. She stepped forward and touched her nose softly to its cheekbones. "You're free, Fluttershy," she said through her tears. "Wherever you are, whatever happens now, you're free of him."
The other two ponies said nothing. Twilight looked up at them. They were both staring at the torso of the now finally motionless skeleton. She looked to her side, down along the length of the sofa. Something brown, that had not been there before, stood out against the chalky white of the skeleton's chest.
Twilight stepped forward for a closer look, and froze. Her grim expression went slack and her pupils expanded across her eyes like two rapidly-approaching dark tunnels. The absurdly-thin foreleg bones, which lay crossed at the fetlocks, were now clutching the little wooden figurine of Discord up tightly against its ribcage.
Outside, the sky began to burn.
