Author's note: Thus it concludes.
Trigger warning for reference to a death march.
In accordance with party decorum, everyone was to be served at once. Fluttershy twiddled with the dice for the game Discord had conjured to pass the time, feeling sick.
"That's a three," Discord said, moving her hoof to check the roll. "You advance three squares, to which you find a dragon guarding the crude iron bars of a cell keeping baby dragons captive. You have your powerful gem staff, which you can use as bait, or give a crack at your quiver of arrows. So which is it?"
"Is there a third choice where I can run away and pretend I never went into the cave in the first place?" Fluttershy asked.
"Not in this game, my dear."
On the far end of the room, a griffin opened the kitchen and whispered something to the host. Richerford planted his hooves together and magically summoned a trumpet, putting it to his lips to play the tune of a grand arrival. A long succession of griffins filed out the door that opened with a theatric whuff, then fanned out solemnly, clad with plates and carts. It was like they were performing a dance. They began giving the dinners to each guest, working with movements of symmetry and efficiency. Fluttershy winced at the outbursts of multiple guests. They were finding reasons to be mad or actually upset that the presentations of their plates weren't just so. Seeing them rage, especially the ones at the banquet table in the middle of the room, was traumatizing.
"You call this a risotto?" said the brown stallion. "It's cold! I've been to dive bars that served better entrees than this!" He swung his hoof. The plate shattered on the floor, ruining a perfectly good meal.
"Terribly sorry, sir. You!" Richerford barked at a griffin changing bed sheets upstairs. "Get a mop down here! Clean that up!"
"But I already mopped the floor this afternoon!" protested the griffin.
Richerford marched up the winding stairs, cheeks red yet powered by a nasty smile as he went to the griffin. "Clean. That mess. As soon as you're done changing Ms. Weathershire's sheets."
"I can do it faster if you just give me the magic mop," the griffin begged. "I still have another floor of rooms to clean!"
Richerford's smile grew wider. "You want this?" His voice had gone low, and his horn shone to summon a keyring from his suit. The griffin looked desperately at the hovering keys waggling in Richerford's magic. He slowly reached them toward the griffin's claws, then snatched them back. "Mop it," he said while walking off, as the banquet table downstairs burst into mean laughter.
Fluttershy looked down to her salad in shock. She was thinking of how long the hallways were, and how many griffins must be working in each shadow and crevice, all the way to the roof of the tall, tall hotel. Her food was good, but she barely tasted it. Across from her, Discord had angled his seat toward the party floor, munching casually on garlic fries as though he were at a ball game.
A chill went through Fluttershy. "Are you…enjoying this?" she said.
"Flying plates, interrupted symmetrical sequences, and guests in formal wear being outrageous? That livens up the party for me." Discord smiled.
"Can you make a plate fly at him?" Fluttershy asked, pointing to the brown pony.
"Alas, they'll know it was me, and they'll kick poor Discord out of the party, apologizing to you all the while." Discord put on a mockingly pitiful tone, laying his lion arm over his head and flumping backward in the seat. He sat back up and kept eating.
Fluttershy looked at the Diamond Dog table again. They had all ordered sandwiches or simple cuts of barbecue, and had one empty seat. They leaned back in their chairs and watched snow fall outside the window as the Siamese came back in through the front door.
He went unnoticed, as everyone was tucking in to their dinners or grumbling about how the staff had messed it up. Fluttershy was remembering how the griffins had been so straight and controlled, walking like wooden dolls. Even their wings! How could they be walking so stiff?
"That's why I only employ ponies at my business," boomed a guest over various conversation. "They know how to work fast!"
For the partiers' enjoyment an enchanted ensemble of instruments played onstage. Fluttershy ate her dinner miserably.
When most everyone had finished, the host tapped a glass beside him. "Now we shall enjoy an hour at the theatre," he said primly, using his magic to line up chairs from a backroom. Everyone went to join him at the stage, where the hushed the ensemble to a proper finish.
Fluttershy and Discord sat in the back, Fluttershy slumping self-consciously with her front hooves on the seat. The first piece was a ballet, performed by the fittest, most elegant and muscular griffin staff. Members of the audience marveled over their practiced forms, while Fluttershy couldn't get past the glassy winces on the griffins' faces.
The second piece was from a rollicking group of guests themselves, donning chivalrous costumes to act out a tale of adventures and castles. For the third, some griffins came onstage with instruments. Fluttershy's ears lifted hopefully. She always liked music.
"Now we shall have some music from our exquisitely learned musicians," said Cecil Richerford, standing in front of them as they set up. They had a cello, a banjo, a trumpet, and a bass, with a piano farther back on the stage. "Tonight, they'll play the blues."
They looked up. They were weary, but indignation crossed their faces. "You said we were playing jazz and ragtime!" said the griffin in front.
"Tonight you'll be playing the blues," said Richerford.
"You said we were playing jazz and ragtime!"
A cold glint came to Richerford's eye. His horn shone, making the griffins cry out in pain as his mahogany glow overtook them. Two of them fell to the stage floor and they all started drawling blues while the guests howled over them in derisive laughter. Some of the unicorns summoned tomatoes from the kitchen and shared with the other guests in throwing them. Some opened their mouths wide to make gargling vowel sounds, mocking the style of blues.
Fluttershy panicked. "Discord! What are they doing?" she said desperately, her panic making the room going narrow. In her dimming vision she saw Discord smiling subtly at the atrocity, then turning that smile at her.
Fluttershy reared back. Her chest rose and fell. No…The room was growing dimmer, dimmer…
Discord hadn't taken his eyes off of her. "What are you going to do?"
Cecil Richerford was now standing over the edge of the theatre stairs, aloofly watching the griffins fall. He had ceased using his magic since he didn't need to, and chuckled a horrible, evil chuckle.
Fluttershy felt her legs running her over to him. "What are you doing?" she said. "Stop it! Stop it!"
He frowned slightly, and then one of his eyebrows turned up as he looked upon her with flat pity. "You don't know what kind of party this is, do you?"
His horn glowed again, and Fluttershy's vision blurred mahogany. She panted deeply one more time, before it went shallow and the sounds of the party started to lower. Her breath turned to a sigh, she fell over, and the chaos around her faded away…
She woke up on a stone floor. Her shadow cast across a set of iron bars as she looked across the room. She was in a cell.
"Chilly down here." Discord was shackled to the wall, clasps firm around his ankle and tail. "Classic dungeon. Surprising how we're still in the hotel, eh? Or, maybe not so surprising."
Fluttershy blinked into focus, scenes of the night coming back to her. The stage, the keys, the appetizers…she looked timidly at Discord, not knowing if he was still her friend.
"So what do you think? Best party of your life, or the worst?"
"The worst!" she blurted. "That was…that wasn't a party, that was cruelty! Why did I come here? Why did he invite me? We have to stop him!"
Discord balled his claws into fists and shook them excitedly. He looked the way he did when he saw her at the Grand Galloping Gala. "I knew you'd do something," he said. "We have to stop him. But we're in a dungeon, and above us is the party that put us here."
"Then use your chaos magic to get us out! Why aren't you doing that?"
"The host tricked me out of most of it before he invited you," Discord said resentfully. Fluttershy heard it now, the crackle of the magic writhing behind glass. It was encased in a cylindrical prison not far from theirs.
"It was a stale game of cards," Discord said.
"What do they want with us? I mean…I get why they'd want your magic, but what would they want me for?"
"Your Element of Kindness, obviously," said Discord.
The hum of the chaos magic carried on in the room as she pondered that. "They can't use it themselves, so…they just want my necklace?" Discord didn't respond. "They want to try to use the power themselves? They want me?"
"All three of them, my dear," said Discord. "They're sure that controlling your Element is the next step in their plan to take over anything. Fluttershy's power, strong enough to vanquish foes and lead to a stronger Equestria! If they can't harness the power themselves, they'll enslave you like the griffins. And they'll take the necklace too, because they can."
Fluttershy had been bamboozled by Discord's riddles and twisting conversations before, but nothing such as this. "Because they can? That's it?"
"There are bones in this dungeon, Fluttershy."
Another shiver ran up her spine. She flew to the bars, sizing up the cylinder across them, before frowning back at Discord. "You smiled when they were doing those horrible things," she said. "Are you sure you aren't going back to your former self?"
"I slipped back there for a moment, as those guests are so dreadfully cruel and droll. But you taught me there are different ways to seek chaos. Now let's turn this party on their heads," said Discord.
The glass was too far away to reach. Fluttershy crumpled for a moment and shut her eyes. She couldn't give up…there had to be something…and then she opened her eyes in surprise as the gem on her necklace glowed. It began to shake, then shot rays of its butterfly shape out of the cell towards the glass. It broke. Discord grinned and opened his arms to accept his magic coming back to him.
"Well," he said, snapping his eagle claws to take care of the shackles, "I'm ready to get out of this cell." He snapped again, making a wrecking ball. It slammed open the iron cell with ease.
"Cecil Richerford really is bad company," Discord said when they were outside. "Did you know he turned away two children at the door because they were coyotes?"
Fluttershy gasped. "I had no idea."
Discord floated himself into the air and went on ahead toward the party. Fluttershy walked behind, looking uncertainly at the dungeon walls.
Soon she was at the staircase. Fluttershy raised a hoof to the first stair, and with a wobble the gold bracelet Richerford gave her fell off. It hit the floor with a tinny sound, like aluminum. Fluttershy frowned, then started up the long exit back up to the party.
As she went closer to the bright lights, the sounds upstairs became no less jumbled. It was a cacophony, one that sounded angry and mean, and when she reached the party once more she looked on in HORROR.
The party had exploded into a vicious swarm of evil, the guests screaming at the griffins running amok in the room. Some of the guests were beating them. Some threw loaded plates and silverware, with orders impossible to hear in the din. Griffins were being run ragged in pointless circles by a group of persistent guests, who kicked the ones who went down. The lucky ones ran to and fro from the kitchen, staggering not to fall on their knees. Fluttershy looked on in horror at the griffins crawling over to the horrible guests, because she saw for the first time that all their wings were broken.
Feather and bone were splayed in jagged angles, twitching violently as the griffins were shoved around in the calamity. Fluttershy watched with her jaw dropped as one crawling griffin had his wings yanked by two ponies, and roared in pain.
Something in Fluttershy snapped. She felt a rush of headiness as the party soared below her, and before she realized what was happening she had thrown a wineglass at Cecil Richerford in the crowd.
He looked up at her sharply, and halted the room with magic. When everyone else was also looking up at her he took the magic off. A frustrated tangle in Fluttershy burst free as she ranted upon the crowd.
"What are you doing?!" she said. "You're—you're beyond understanding! How did I miss—" It clicked. "You enchanted the bracelet you gave me!" she said to Cecil Richerford. "So I wouldn't see their wings!"
Near the dungeon entrance, Discord frowned in confusion and riffled under his sleeve. He took off a bracelet too, and looked in shock at the room before him.
Cecil Richerford held a steely gaze at Fluttershy, not reacting one bit to the mess and destruction around him. "And what of it?" he said. "You're here because you're going to work for me too."
Discord rushed up to Fluttershy, but she flew in front of him. "Work for you? I—" It was beyond comprehension. "No you're not! I won't let anyone else work for you! You're gonna—you're gonna PAY!"
All of a sudden her necklace started to vibrate, and the butterfly gem burst into a flash of color, projecting its outline across the room. They rattled the decorations, growing large enough to reach the ceiling, with Fluttershy vibrating from how hard the gem was glowing. The flap of her bag lifted, revealing her vials of numbing medicine. They hovered in front of the gem and were lit in a bright light that rayed out in every direction, landing upon the griffins and beyond the spiral stairs.
Everything went dead silent. The griffins paused, and tentatively flexed their wings. Despite being broken and jagged, they flapped in complete strokes.
The front door slammed open, revealing a pack of coyotes holding weapons. Everyone jolted around to stare at them.
"Thanks for the tip-off, friends," the one in front said grimly to the Diamond Dogs and Siamese, who were at the far wall with looks of terror on their faces.
The griffins looked at each other. A few flexed their wings again. Then they smiled at the guests.
Fluttershy thought she heard one whoop, but she wasn't sure because the griffins descended upon the room in a mass of roars and black feathers. The guests were unprepared for this, and scattered in a panic. It did no good, as they were met with resistance at every area of the room. The sounds of pain and jeering turned around as the griffins started fighting back.
It was, in fact, chaos. Some griffins were angry as they slashed and pounced, while others looked full of manic glee. And there were many more expressions besides.
"That escalated fast," Fluttershy said. She ducked as a pony sailed past her. He landed in a growing pile of dazed guests. Griffins body-slammed atop them, getting back up to chase after when they scrambled out and ran amok in the party again. Discord leaned back as if on a chair and summoned the garlic fries that had fallen on the floor.
One griffin grabbed the tapir's hat as she ran by. He put it on for review as she whirled around in shock.
"I do love your hat," said the griffin beside him, cupping his talons together with a delicate batting of his eyelashes.
"Really? I don't," said the first. He ripped it off his head and shredded it, making the tapir faint. They hit the floor after she did, jumping up and down on the table until it collapsed. Then they bagged some dishware into parts of the tablecloth they ripped off and swung them over their heads into the crowd.
Other parts of the fight were more direct. Griffins beat the guests with fists and beaks, jeering about how the tables turned now that they weren't working on broken wings. Discord snapped his lion paw to make boxing gloves appear on their talons. The griffins whooped louder as they bore down, two of them pounding on the ring bell that had appeared above them.
Some guests ran for the front door. They were met by the coyotes, who let out a chorus of eerie howls before joining the fray. Their accuracy could not be avoided. They pinned guests to walls, floors with javelins that they'd tucked into the cupped tops of wooden sticks. The launching power from these sticks made the guests even more terrified, which was fine by the coyotes. When the ermine tore part of her dress escaping the pointy javelin, the coyote who threw it raised it in both paws and howled a war cry.
"Make me a risotto!" demanded a griffin to the brown stallion. The stallion ran into the kitchen and started gathering ingredients.
"Come on, do them dishes!" yelled the griffiness to Cecil Richerford. Richerford shrank and turned meekly to the pile of dishes next to the bubbling sink.
The hyacinth macaw ran around in zigzags, practically spooked out of his moccasin boots. "What if they were real moccasins?" Discord said to Fluttershy. He snapped his claws, and the macaw squawked as he was covered in hissing snakes.
"What are you doiiiiing?" said a griffin to Claude Rockefeller in mock dramatics. "Don't you know that scarf is made of chiffon? Stop scuffing them with your clumsy hooves!" He threw the emporium clothes off their racks. Claude slipped wildly on the scarves like a one-pony game of Twister. In the meantime, coyotes had lined up guests and cackled as they ripped jewelry off their clothes.
On the far end of the room, the Diamond Dogs and Siamese's eyes darted to each other. They ran through the chaos onto the stage, where they picked up the instruments and started playing the opening bars of "Yakety Sax". At the sound of the hammy strings and the spirited trumpet, the rebellion became even more raucous. They rounded up the horrid guests and sent them running wild-eyed up the spiral stairs. They reached the first floor of hotel rooms, where griffins opened the doors. "No, go over there!" They kept running. More griffins opened doors. "No, go over there!" They kept running up and up the stairs, until the echo rang all the way through the hotel: "NO, GO OVER THERE!"
There was a jumble of sound, indicating that the guests were running into each other, and Discord snapped his tail to flatten the spiral stairs and slide them back down to the party floor. Cecil Richerford led the descent, and when he reached bottom he got up and ran from the griffins chasing him.
The brown stallion walked timidly to his griffin, holding out a bowl of risotto. "Is this good?"
"No! Make me another!" he said, slapping it across the room.
"Come on. You can help with the chairs," said the griffiness to Richerford. She grabbed him around the stomach, holding him to her side as she aimed his horn like a wand. ZAP! ZAP! Chairs slid around the room, until they all crashed into one another. Griffins wrestling some of the guests rolled over them.
The band had finished the "chase sequence" of "Yakety Sax", and everyone paused when the Siamese began to trumpet the next part of the song. It sounded like the circus.
"It's been so long since I've been to the big top!" said Discord, and he turned the room into a classic act—clowns, tightrope walkers over a ball pit (with pythons), and a series of acrobatics featuring tumbling guests, graceful griffins, and juggling coyotes. More griffins tacked on to the act by throwing pies from the kitchen.
"Hot to order!" one said. Part of a blueberry pie that smashed into a guest flew in the air. Discord and Fluttershy shrugged at each other and started eating it.
Discord snapped his claws, conjuring a glass ball. He tossed it to a nearby griffin. "Make a wish."
"I wish for a trip to the Bahamas!" The room filled with water. Some griffins pushed guests off the miniature beach to sit in the chairs.
"I wish for a pair of water skis!" said another griffin. He zoomed around the room.
"I wish this would stop!" said Cecil Richerford.
He went unheard, for he wasn't holding the ball, and besides he was having his suit torn piece by piece by a crowd of griffins. After a huge ocean wave, Discord turned the water into a giant Jell-O bed. The band finished the song and improvised as they bounced up and down.
"Order up!" someone called from the kitchen. Discord swirled the Jell-O down a drain right as a griffin came out, sitting on an oven that hissed as it walked on four metal legs. The knobs on top glowed red and its mouth dropped open, breathing hot air on everything in its path. Guests cowered as they backed against the wall, running when the oven snapped shut and then raised its front legs to consume paintings from the gallery.
Griffins used frying pans like tennis rackets. They chopped up salad ingredients and threw them at the guests. They ate dessert from the fridge, super quick, and licked their beaks before fighting again. The oven crunched on tables and dining ware, spilling shards from its mouth before falling over and breaking from its own weight.
"You did good, oven," sniffed the griffin before turning back to the fight.
The guests were wearing down now, and kept dropping to the floor like flies. It had not happened to all of them, as the coyotes had dragged Cecil Richerford to the center of the room and started clubbing him with wooden swords ridged with obsidian blades.
"Let's hit his prison next!" said a griffin.
"No! said Richerford, flying up inside a protective mahogany bubble. His horn glowed bigger, making some griffins look down as the floor started cracking by their feet. Something lurched, and the griffins fell or dived out of the way as an ivory head rose from the dungeon. It was part of a statue, tall as the party wall, standing on a platform and chiseled into the imposing figure of Richerford himself.
"You should thank me that I didn't just get rid of you!" Richerford shot a ray of magic at the statue's hooves, and shackles sprang out all around the cracking floor, reaching for the griffins.
The ones closest to the statue were clamped in the iron grips. "Arrrghhhhh!" They twisted and pulled as more shackles bound their wrists. The rest of the griffins ran to their aid as the coyotes and Diamond Dogs beat away the rattling iron chains around the room. The griffins reached their brethren and roared in anger as more shackles erupted from the floor. They were yanked out of the air, dragged on digging heels into being captives.
In the flailing mass, the magic glass ball jostled out onto the floor. Fluttershy swooped to grab it, turning a second too soon for Richerford to yank her tail. Discord turned a dangerous stare on the pony host, his claws glowing red. Richerford glowered but stayed put.
Fluttershy was about to make a wish, but a surging yell came up from the griffins, making her look back. They had all straightened out with some facing the party, some facing the statue, and their faces clenched tight as they pulled against the chains with all their might.
The griffins working upstairs were leaning over the railing on the second floor. "Pull!" they said. "Pull! Pull! Puuuuuullllllllllll!"
The griffins strained and screamed, and if only anyone could hear it, the nailed square lids holding the shackles to the floor started to buckle. The nails popped out, one-two-three—and the fourth flew out like oil from a skillet as griffins screeched in victory, the shackles and chains dangling helplessly from their wrists. They grabbed onto the chains of those still trapped, with the hardest ones flexing back against lids that dug deep into the foundation of Richerford's statue. Soon the ivory began to chip. The griffins broke out, and the platform they were chained to cracked wildly. The statue did not collapse as much as topple, however, for the griffins leapt upon it. Richerford's statue shattered with a gigantic crash, shrouding the griffins in dust.
At this moment the room hushed. Everyone watched as the dust cleared, revealing the griffins standing up, helping each other up or planting their feet upon the statue heap.
Fluttershy barely registered the blur of hot air below her. The griffiness had swiped the glass ball from her and raged at the fallen guests. "Now I wish for heavy chains to hold you down see how it feels to be crushed!"
For a few agonizing minutes the guests moaned and cried on the floor. The griffiness sighed. "Make it stop." The chains loosened and shriveled into nothing, ending the weak pleading.
The griffiness flattened her palm. "This is dangerous." The glass ball shattered beside her. She balled her fists, turned to her enslaver. "Party's over, Cecil Richerford."
He certainly didn't look like a mighty host now, splayed on the floor with his suit torn and mane flown in all directions. "You're going…to regret this," he wheezed. He looked with hatred at Fluttershy. "You!" He started toward her, but a group of griffins ran forward and shielded her.
"You've ruined everything!" hissed the white Persian cat, who was also still on the floor. Her pupils narrowed in anger and spite under her sodden hat. "You're going to pay for this and go right back to what you are! Beneath us!"
The griffiness walked over to her. She knelt down and dodged the bared teeth as she unhooked the sapphire earrings from the cat's lobes. "I'm taking these."
"You can't do that," the Persian spluttered when she got her wits back about her. "Do something!" she said to the Siamese, who looked back at her in bewilderment and indignation.
The griffiness had walked back to the group with Fluttershy. "The jade is fake."
"You're lying," seethed the cat.
"The jade is fake."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"My grandmama was an appraiser! She never wanted these sapphires to leave the family!"
The Persian quieted in resentment, her claws grinding the floor. Richerford spoke up next. "You'll clean this mess immediately!" he commanded the griffins. "Kick your ridiculous friends out, and bow to me! And you still need to mop the floor!" he said to the griffin from upstairs.
"Okay," said the griffin.
He turned around and winked. Fluttershy smiled as he summoned the magic mop, which conveniently slid in a zigzagged line to the host and bowled him over like a pin. The coyotes howled with laughter.
"You heard her, party's over," Discord said before Richerford could speak again. He snapped twice, once to put him and the guests in iron cages, and again to slant the room. The guests and their host protested in one long moan as they slid out the door into the cold city streets.
The griffins' freedom rang throughout the hotel. They all ran outside, dozens upon dozens, while the rest of the party followed behind. Everyone turned around to look at the hotel again. The griffins from the party floor clustered in the front of the group, took off their hats, and threw them in the air.
The celebration was rubbing off. Fluttershy was grinning more broadly than she had in ages. The Siamese and Diamond Dogs, now in possession of the instruments, looked satisfied. The coyotes yipped and howled, and one bent down to hug a pair of young ones on the sidewalk. "Don't worry, little pups. I'll be your mama now."
Discord was sipping on an Icee above the party. "It's time we find another venue for a real party." A TNT box appeared in front of the coyote pups. They looked excitedly at each other, and pushed the handle. The explosion could be heard across the city. Only the inside of the hotel had been affected, but that didn't stop it from being a show. Glass and furniture burst out the windows, the overly bright lights now lost inside an orange-red one. The roof of the hotel flew in the air, then fell back on at an angle, pieces crumbling off.
The griffins ran back inside to see the damage. Fluttershy followed behind giddily. She fanned back and forth, glimpsing the collapsed floors between the bustling crowd, when suddenly everything went dark.
Everything was silent. Then there was a soft gasp. "Is that…" said a griffin among rising whispers.
"It can't be," said another.
There was another silence, in awe this time, and then the room filled with weeping.
The story was pieced together after the party continued at another hotel. The Siamese and Diamond Dogs suspected that Richerford's party would be corrupt, and took their chance as diversity invitees to see how they could fight back. When they'd scoped enough of the enemy terrain, they found the coyotes. The coyotes knew those rich snobs who owned everything would have a party glutted with sin, but even they were shocked to hear how heinous it was. The pups being kicked out solidified their ire, and they gathered their weapons to free the griffins. Some of the griffins could barely speak as they recounted how Richerford had captured them, by many means, and broken their wings as part of turning them into slaves.
"He owns the prison downtown," one said. Some of the griffins set off to free them, while everyone else enjoyed the party.
"I am never going to a rich pony's party again," Fluttershy said to Discord. They were sitting at a table with salad and a burger. Richerford had guessed that Discord would be Fluttershy's plus-one, and so pilfered his magic in case he tried to get up to his usual tricks. Fluttershy, of course, was there to give up her Element.
"It really does make sense that these creatures' wealth networks across the city," Discord replied. He took a bite of his burger, which had mustard on top of the bun.
Fluttershy started on her meal too. "This salad is really good."
Some of the griffins were catering the party. They walked straight, or hunched if they wanted, with vigor in their eyes and a sense of future possibility. Their wings were smooth and healed, and several flapped them intermittently, or flew around the hotel.
"More soda?" said a waiter, refilling Fluttershy's glass.
"You did good," said the griffiness. "Just do something faster next time, okay?"
Fluttershy blushed. The griffiness turned away with a smile, breathing in deep, and walked to a game of blackjack with her sapphire earrings dangling from her lobes.
"Um." Fluttershy glanced as the waiter as he started walking away. "When the lights went out. What happened, exactly? If you want to say."
The griffin's eyes misted far into the distance. "Our ancestors were buried around the city long ago," he said. "They appeared to us. They gave us back our wings."
Her quietly wandered into the party. Fluttershy paused, rolling a strange feeling around in her chest, and put her hooves on the table.
The band was playing onstage, the coyote pups on the floor eating a feast. Fluttershy took in a long, slow breath accepting things she didn't comprehend yet, and turned back to Discord.
"I'm glad you enjoyed the party too," she said. "You turned out to be very important."
"All in a day's work, Fluttershy."
"Couldn't imagine it without you. What's a party without a little chaos?"
The raised their teacups, clinked them, and drank.