Hello again everypony! This is the story's longest chapter, and my favourite one.

I own nothing.

She did not count, however, on the Apples' early mornings. Though there was no morning for the rooster to herald, the family's habits ensured they got up (what would've been) bright and early, and they had no scruples making sure that their guests got up too.

Twilight staggered out of bed when Applejack flung open the door with a merry, "Good morning, y'all! Breakfast is waitin' downstairs! Granny Smith made flapjacks!"

Pinkie Pie, who Twilight would have sworn had been sound asleep two seconds ago, bounded past her, already brimful of energy, yelling, "Flapjacks! YUM!"

Shaking herself properly awake, Twilight hurried downstairs into the kitchen, where Pinkie seemed to be trying to devour the whole table in order to get the flapjacks into her stomach. Snatching two off a stack, she reminded Applejack that she was going to quickly visit the Golden Oak Library and hurried out.

Since she was out of the house while the others were eating breakfast, she missed seeing the effects of Pinkie on a sugar high, but when she returned she found enough evidence to be assured that it was utterly chaotic, and was grateful for her trip to the library.

When Rarity asked how it went, she shook her head sadly. "The place is amazing! For such a small town, it's amazingly well-stocked – I'll have to come back someday and have a proper look through it – but I couldn't find anything about our mysterious town."

"That's too bad, Twi," Applejack said. "But in the meantime, we've still got another Element ta look for."

"Indeed," Rarity said. "And who knows? Perhaps the next Element bearer might have a clue as to where this town is. I mean, Princess Celestia knew where to find Pinkie, I knew where to find Applejack, and Granny Smith knew which forest to search! It seems Fate or something wants our quest to succeed, so I'm sure we'll find somepony to lead us there!"

Twilight nodded, cheered by this idea, and helped the others gather all their things together for the rest of their journey.

The Apples insisted on their all taking plenty to eat, and finally waved them off with the four Elements all carrying bulging saddlebags.

"You take care now, yung'un," choked Granny Smith, blinking back a tear.

"'Course Granny."

"We'll miss you," cried Apple Bloom, hugging her sister's leg.

"I'll miss you too, Apple Bloom. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Apple Bloom stepped back and sniffed. "We'll make sure we do all yerr chores while ya gone."

"Eeyup," agreed Big Mac.

Applejack hugged them all and turned to follow the others. They all waved at the Apples as they headed out the gate and towards the Everfree Forest.

"So exactly why are ponies afraid to go into the Everfree Forest?" Twilight asked Applejack nervously as they approached the trees.

"Well, it's…it's unnatural," Applejack gulped. "All sort of frightful creatures live there, an' I've heard the trees move around o' their own accord!"

"You mean they grow on their own?!" Rarity gasped.

"No, although they do that too. I mean they get up and walk around!"

Rarity fainted.

"How is that possible?!" Twilight exclaimed.

"That's just it! It shouldn't be! But that's not all….. The weather there's real strange. From Sweet Apple Acres, ya can see pink and black clouds over the trees, rainin' cats an' dogs!"

"Well, that's not so unusual, aside from the colour of the clouds," Twilight pointed out.

"No," Applejack said gravely. "I mean literally rainin' cats an' dogs, as in animals fallin' from the sky!"

Rarity, who had just been helped to her hooves by Spike, promptly fainted again.

"Mind you," Applejack added, "haven't seen that for a while."

They had now reached the tree line, and Twilight could definitely feel a slightly sinister vibe coming from the trees. If she hadn't known better, she could have sworn they didn't want any pony coming in. Telling herself it was her imagination, she bravely walked forwards. The others followed, and even Pinkie was quiet as they went further and further into the forest.

The creepiness of walking through the Everfree Forest in the black of night was almost enough to make Twilight believe in ghosts. The companions jumped every time they heard a noise, and there always seemed to be a large group of creatures close by, but always out of sight.

By the time an hour had passed, the whole group felt like they had been walking for days, and their nerves were frayed with the constant state of softly prickling terror.

But they all screamed and jumped about a mile when Pinkie Pie suddenly stopped and yelled, "ENOUGH!"

"Pinkie!" hollered Applejack, once they had all restarted their hearts. "What was tha' for?!"

"I've had enough of this!" Pinkie declared, marching to the front and spinning to face them all. "This forest needs a song to cheer it up!"

"What?!" the other four gaped.

"Luckily, I always have one ready," Pinkie went on, ignoring them. "One, two, three, four! My name is Pinkie Pie

And I am here to say….."

The others watched her in bewilderment as she danced around them. "Uh… is she singing to the trees?" Twilight asked no one in particular.

"She is," Rarity replied.

Applejack shot them a glare. "What's wrong with singing to trees?" she huffed.

The others didn't get a chance to answer, as Pinkie Pie swung past them at that moment, grabbed their legs, and pulled them all into her dance.

"'Cause I love to see you grin, grin, grin…..yes, I do

Bust it out from ear to ear, let it begin

Just give me a joyful grin, grin, grin

And you fill me with good cheer!"

Soon enough, they were all singing along and laughing with the time they collapsed at the end of the song, they were all grinning.

"Are we ready to keep going, everyone?" Twilight called.

The others all cheered, and they started off again.

They hadn't gone a single step though, before a huge monster leapt out in front of them.

"TIMBERWOLF!" screeched Applejack.

They all screamed and dove away in different directions.

"Pinkie!" Twilight called. "Lead it towards us! Rarity, Applejack, Spike, get ready to hit it with anything you can find!"

They all nodded, and Pinkie jumped in front of the Timberwolf with a giggle. "Hey! Over here!" It lumbered after her as she zoomed around trees, ducking under vines and through bushes. It wasn't nearly as fast as her, but its longer legs made up for it, and it stayed right behind her. Meanwhile, Twilight, Rarity, Spike and Applejack were collecting as many stones as they could and hurling them at the monster. Finally, Spike managed to lob a tiny pebble right down its throat as it and Pinkie rushed towards them.

The timberwolf stopped, choked, and broke into a thousand pieces.

"Whew, that was close," Applejack said, flicking her mane over her shoulder as she wiped the sweat from her eyes.

"Too close," Twilight agreed. "Come on, we need to keep going."

They hadn't gone much further though, when they were stopped in their tracks by a ferocious roar. They all gasped with horror when they saw what was in front of them.

"A manticore!" Twilight yelped.

The manticore roared again and took a swipe at them with one massive paw. They all had to duck for cover and quickly scurried behind a bush.

"Now what do we do?" Rarity asked.

"We give it the what-for!" Applejack declared. She leapt out of cover and rushed the manticore. She flew back into the other three when the manticore backhanded her. "Ugh." She shook her head as she got to her hooves. "We'll all need to go together. It can't get all o' us."

Nervously, the other four gulped and nodded. Together they all ran at their foe, but it turned out the manticore could get all of them. They were knocked back again.

"Ugh, I don't think we're going to get through this with brute force," Twilight moaned. "We need a new plan."

"Wilson, there you are!"

The companions turned at the sound of the soft voice, and saw a yellow pegasus mare that had appeared behind the manticore. She had a long, pink mane that fell gently over one of her large teal eyes, and her tail swept to the ground. Her flank showed three pink butterflies. Twilight couldn't imagine where she came from, or what she was doing in the forest, but those thoughts were swept away by the sight of this gentle mare standing so close to the vicious manticore.

She was about to cry out a warning when the mare walked right up to the manticore and nuzzled its paw. Amazingly, it purred. The strange mare smiled at him, then caught sight of Twilight and her friends. "Oh Wilson, what are you doing? You can't go around attacking ponies! That's wrong!"

The manticore whined and showed her its paw. A large thorn was stuck in it.

"How did you…?" the mare wondered, before leaning over and pulling it out. The manticore roared with pain, but then gave her a mighty lick that left her long mane standing in the air.

"You're welcome," the pegasus giggled, before turning stern again. "But you should still know better than to take out your anger on innocent ponies! Do I need to give you a time out?"

The manticore shrank under her glare, which had suddenly become almost hypnotic and shook his huge mane.

"Good. Now off you go."

The beast ran off, and the pegasus approached them. "I'm sorry. Wilson usually wouldn't hurt a fly, but he gets a little cranky when he gets himself hurt."

The others only stared at her in wonder.

"As a matter of fact, it's strange that he got a thorn in his paw," the pegasus went on, looking up at the sky in thought. "Zecora gave me a charm so he wouldn't…." Suddenly her eyes narrowed. She turned and called up towards the treetops, "Discord!"

Nothing happened. Twilight and the others glanced up to where she was yelling at and then back at her expectantly.

"Discord, I know you're here somewhere. Get out here this minute, mister!"

With a pop, a creature even more terrifying than the manticore materialised behind Fluttershy. It had a thick, furry serpentine body with the scaly tail of a snake, a dragon leg, one hoof, eagle claw, lion paw, the head of a pony and twisted horn of a goat and deer antler. It had a small white beard, bushy white eyebrows, one protruding fang and frightening yellow eyes with red pupils. "Oh, you're no fun, Fluttershy," it hissed, displaying its forked tongue.

Rarity shrieked and fainted again. Twilight, Spike, Pinkie and Applejack all cried out and shrank away from the monster. The pegasus – Fluttershy – did not appear the least bit alarmed however. She swung around to face him angrily.

"How could you go and put a thorn in poor Wilson's paw?"

"I was going to take it out!" protested the creature, which must have been Discord.

"That's no excuse! You hurt Wilson, and scared these poor ponies half to death!"

"I was only trying to scare them enough so they would leave the forest, it's not my fault they were dumb enough to stay."

"Hey!" Pinkie said indignantly.

"That's not the point!" Fluttershy raged. "You can't go hurting other animals just to try to get ponies to leave. It's not polite!"

Discord crossed his eagle claw and lion paw and stuck his tongue out.

"You're sleeping outside tonight, mister!"

"What?!" Discord yelped.

"You heard me! For now, you can help me welcome these ponies into the cottage."

Discord glared at her, but she remained firm, and he finally scowled and looked away. With that, Fluttershy finally turned her attention back to the others, who had watched the argument like a tennis match.

"This way, everyone," Fluttershy said, her tone once again soft and friendly. They all started after her, back the way she had come from, with Discord following grumpily behind. Twilight and her friends kept glancing back at him with questioning glances, but didn't dare to ask any questions yet, and Discord ignored their looks.

"So you were the one scaring us the whole time?"

Well, everyone except Pinkie didn't dare ask questions.

Discord looked at her and nodded. "I don't like ponies coming into the forest. Usually, I do a good job of keeping them out." His eyes flicked towards Fluttershy as he spoke.

"Aren't you a draconequus?" Twilight ventured.

He grinned at her. "I am. Allow me to introduce myself properly. Discord, Lord of Chaos!"

"Discord?! But didn't Princess Celestia and Princess Luna turn you to stone?"

"They tried," Discord sneered. "But I escaped. Mind you, I knew I couldn't take over Equestria again now that they had their hooves on the Elements of Harmony, so I came to the Everfree Forest, which ponies already avoided, and created a land of wonderful chaos for myself to make sure it stayed that way! The princesses didn't seem to mind; at least they never tried to find me, so I've been living here ever since."

"Well, that'd explain the forest's reputation," Applejack said, just as the group reached a small clearing.

Twilight was just wondering why they had stopped when Fluttershy said, "Um, Discord, would you mind putting the cottage on the ground?"

The unicorns, earth ponies and Spike all looked up to see a small cottage, with a roof that looked covered in moss, hanging high above them, rotating slowly in mid-air.

Discord scowled and snapped his fingers. Next second, they were facing a perfectly normal, quaint little cottage.

"Thank you," Fluttershy said with a smile, and led them all inside. Twilight couldn't help but notice that Discord looked slightly mollified.

The inside was comfortable, and filled with miniature shelters for birds and mice and other small critters, all nailed down, probably to stop them sliding around while the cottage floated in the air. A white rabbit bounded forwards when the pegasus entered and leapt onto her back, looked curiously at the visitors and positively scowled at Discord. Discord scowled right back.

Fluttershy, ignoring this, asked Discord to make up something for their guests and introduced them both properly. Then she scolded Discord for making the teapot shoot scalding hot tea at them, apologised, and asked their names. After they had told her who they were, and she had finished fawning over Spike (which took a while), Twilight said, "We're looking for…"

"…the other Element bearers," Discord cut in. He hadn't done anything since the teapot other than look mad as Fluttershy talked to them.

"How did you know that?" Twilight gasped.

He scoffed. "I'm the Lord of Chaos. Don't you think I would have a connection to the Elements of Harmony? I can sense them, and their true bearers. Five of which happen to be gathered in this room, and frankly making me a little nauseous."

Twilight glanced around at the four other ponies and realised what he was saying. "Fluttershy is an Element bearer?!"

"I am?!" Fluttershy gasped, both of them staring at the draconequus.

"Of course," he said casually. "Of kindness, if I'm not mistaken. Which I'm not."

There was a long pause as the rest of the room digested this information.

The silence was broken by Applejack. "Well, tha' was easier than I expected."

Hahaha! Yes, I am a shameless Fluttercord shipper! However, Discord does play a key role. I needed Fluttershy living somewhere other than Ponyville, otherwise that's too easy. Not sure where else she might have been except Cloudsdale, where she didn't really enjoy living. It also would have been hard for the others to get to. Having the Lord of Chaos as a protector I think would take away much of Fluttershy's fear of living in the Everfree. Also, did anyone else feel that the Everfree didn't really deserve its terrifying reputation? Having Discord as the one keeping ponies out would make it much scarier, as it's supposed to be.

That's all for this week, now they've just got to track down Rainbow Dash! Anyone figured out where she is yet?

Love OnlyHere4Puckabrina