A/N: Alright lovelies, reunion continued!
Discord summoned a slab of meat and held it to his aching jaw. "I don't remember you having a mean right hook."
"Don't change the subject!" Fluttershy yelled. She shoved Discord back to the ground and pinned him with her front hooves. "Tell me what kept you away for ten years, or I will make the other side match!"
"I don't know, and I don't remember you looking this stunning when you are angry." THWACK! Discord extended and moved his jaw trying to ease the throbbing."I deserved that."
"You deserve a lot more, buster!"
"If I knew where I was for the past ten years, do you really think I would not tell you just to keep you angry?"
"YES!"
Discord thought about that. "Ok, I would actually do that, but I am telling you the truth, Fluttershy. I honestly have no idea where I was."
"Momma?" Both adults looked over at the filly, who was trembling from head to hoof.
"Go back to the picnic basket, Tina, I will be there in a bit." She didn't need to be told twice. Her mother was scary when she was angry.
Fluttershy turned back to Discord, pressed down on his chest and Stared at him. The Stare had no effect on Discord. He just gazed up at her angry teal eyes and sighed. "Still mesmerizing as ever."
That earned him a bruised chest and maybe a broken rib or two. "WHERE. WERE. YOU?"
"I . . . told . . . you *gasp* I . . . don't-" As the draconequus struggled to catch his breath, he noticed his ring dangling around Fluttershy's neck next to a small diamond butterfly pendent, which must have been Jack's.
Remind her that what you two had was special. He reached up and held his ring in his paw. Fluttershy eased up on her captive's chest as they both stared at the small ring.
"Do you remember that day?" Fluttershy said nothing. Discord ran a gentle claw over the gold and sapphire ring. "I planned everything days, even weeks in advance. I even worked to earn money to get you this ring. I wanted this to be a special one. Everything I had I pulled out of thin air and magic, except you. We both worked to make our relationship work, and I wanted the ring that I gave you to symbolize that.
"On that day, I was so nervous that you would say no for millions of reasons that all flew across my mind. I bet that you didn't notice that I was shaking as I held the ring to you, and when you did say yes, nothing could describe the feeling in my chest. I thought that fireworks were going to go off above our heads."
They did, Fluttershy thought.
Discord felt wet drops fall on his forehead. He looked up to see Fluttershy crying. The weeping pegasus turned away and sat down on the ground a few feet away, her back turned away from him.
"It's too late, Discord." Fluttershy looked up at the sky.
"Once upon another time,
Our story had only begun."
Fluttershy's hoof reached up and clasped the ring.
"You chose to turn the page,
And I made choices too
Once upon that other time,
We did what we thought must be done,
And now we have no choice
We do what we must do.
We love, we live,
We give what we can give,
And take what little we deserve."
Discord sat up and crawled to Fluttershy's side. He went to pull her into his arms, but thought against it. He turned and placed his back against Fluttershy's. In his off-key voice, he continued the song.
Once upon another time,
I knew how our story would end,
And maybe I was wrong,
But now the moment's gone.
Were it still that other time
I'd make time itself somehow bend."
Discord tried to summon a red rose, and got a chocolate one instead.
"But now I'm not that strong,
And time keeps moving on"
The two looked off into the trees in front of them, and not at each other. The memories, the emotions were too much, that if either looked at the other, broken tears would have been shed.
"We love, we live,
We give what we can give,
And take what little we deserve."
Unconsciously, the two reached around and held each other's hooves.
"Once upon another time."
For a few minutes, the two sat there just holding hooves, unsure of what do say next. Discord looked back and slumped his shoulders.
"I am so sorry for the pain I caused you, my dear. I would have come back the minute I knew I could, but I didn't even know ten years had passed until Twilight had told me, and when I found out about Tina, I was hurt and disappointed in myself. I missed everything important. Her birth, her first steps, her first magic trick, her first flight, her first day of school. Everything."
The corners of Fluttershy's mouth twitched. "It wasn't easy raising her, especially when she was a foal. She had no control over her powers. You have no idea what an infant chaos foal will do." They both shared a small laugh. Fluttershy turned. She reached up and turned Discord's to face hers."Would you undo it if you could?"
Dicord thought hard, but the answer was clear. "No, I wouldn't." Fluttershy's heart broke again. She dropped her hoof and moved away. She walked to the bushes that separated her from her daughter.
"If I hadn't fought Mortifero," Discord's voice made Fluttershy pause, "everypony and everything would be gone, and there wouldn't have been Tina, let alone a world for her to grow up in. I did what was best for everypony, and" Discord put his head in his claw, tears falling through his claws "I have lost everything because of that decision."
Fluttershy turned to the crying draconequus. Seeing him so broken, so vulnerable made her pull his head into her shoulder and hold him there. She couldn't be mad at him anymore. Any rage and hurt that her had caused her, faded. Her heart wasn't ready for him to take it back yet, but, subconsciously, the walls she had built around her heart started to crumble.
Tina fiddled with a blanket corner while she waited for her mother. Who was that? What was he? He looked so different. Tina thought about the creature's looks. She held up her claw and looked back at her donkey leg and bat wings.
Maybe he . . . No, Momma would have told her if he was.
"Tina?"
"Over here, Momma!"
Fluttershy emerged from the bushes. Tina walked to meet her, but stopped when that creature emerged behind her mother.
"Tina, this is an old friend of mine, Dissy." She gave Discord a glare that told him to not argue, and he fought his urge to stick his tongue out. "I have invited him to join us. Is that alright with you?"
Tina nodded shyly. Something wasn't quite right. She wanted to know what. The filly behaved, but she kept an eye on the strange creature next to her mother.
After a while, the silence became unbearable. Discord could feel the tension, thick enough to be cut. He was about to comment on the weather, when Tina spoke up.
"What are you?"
"Fitinashy! You-"
"It is alright, Fluttershy, it is an honest question. I am a draconequus."
"A drago equius?"
"A draconequus, Tina," Fluttershy corrected.
"A creature of chaos." Tina's eyes lit up at this description.
"You mean like my daddy? He is a creature of chaos. Actually, he is the Lord of Chaos!"
"Really?" Discord asked raising an eyebrow. "What is your daddy like?"
Tina looked down and focused on making the ants march in circles. "He is gone. He saved the world, and nobody has seen him since."
"Well, surely someone must have. Us creatures of chaos are rare."
Tina's eyes lit up. "Have you seen him?"
Discord about said 'I am right here!', but a looked from Fluttershy told him not to.
"Maybe I have, but I have lived so long that the years start to blur together. What does he look like?"
"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have a statue of him in the Garden of Heroes. Momma takes me every year on my birthday to go see it. He is tall, majestic, and looks a lot like . . ." The way this new creature looked clicked in Tina's mind. This Dissy looked almost, if not exactly, like the statue of her daddy.
Fluttershy saw the look in her daughter's eyes and quickly changed the subject. "How long are you going to stay in town, Dissy?"
"For a while," he answered. "There might be some natural disaster that might need my attention, but I plan to stick around and catch up with everypony."
Fluttershy was surprised to find that she was relieved to hear that. She turned away slightly from the two. With Jack in their lives, she and Tina didn't need Discord. All Fluttershy needed to do to get Discord out of their lives forever was say yes to Jack. The thought made her heart sink.
Tina's laughter made Fluttershy look up. Pink cotton candy animals were dancing above Tina's head, and Tina was trying to catch them, but every time she would get close, the animal would shoot chocolate milk at her, causing her to giggle. Every time that Tina laughed, Discord's smile would widen.
Fluttershy smiled at the picture before her. Something in her heart said, this is how it supposed to be. Fluttershy sighed.
But things aren't that simple.
A/N: Once Upon Another Time lyrics courtesy of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Love Never Dies. I was going to use My Immortal by Evanescense, but a duet sounded more appropriate.