Author's Note: No text has been changed. This has been broken into two chapters from the original so that the first chapter would be compliant with fourth season canon. At this second chapter the storyline forks. If you want the story to have a reasonably happy ending, stop with the first chapter.

Two months later, and that was still the last time she'd seen Discord, the last time anypony had seen him.

When he hadn't reappeared in a few days like he'd said he would, Fluttershy had been a little worried, but Discord missing dates was perfectly normal.

When he hadn't shown up in a week, her friends had gotten very antsy. Rainbow Dash and Applejack had been certain he had run off to cause chaos somewhere in the world, and Twilight had considered that the most logical explanation for his disappearance. Fluttershy didn't want to believe it, but she'd just had that conversation where he'd explained how hard it was for him to restrain himself; she could believe that he might have lost the fight with his own impulses. Twilight had tried summoning him, but without the Elements, the summoning spell was more like knocking on his door, wherever he was; it couldn't force him to come back.

When he hadn't shown up in two weeks and yet there was no sign of any undue amount of chaos anywhere, Twilight had scryed for him. The amount of chaos magic Discord threw off in the course of everyday living was like a beacon, she explained. If he was anywhere in the world, she'd find him.

She hadn't found him.

Celestia and Luna had helped. They hadn't found him either.

And now it had been two months and Fluttershy was worried sick. What had happened to him? He was immortal, virtually invulnerable, but if he could be affected by the Elements of Harmony perhaps there were other things that could affect him as well? What if the mental problems he'd been hinting at had flared up somehow and he was holed up somewhere in a deep depression believing that this was all a dream and he was still trapped in a statue? What if somepony with power, like King Sombra except not dead, had trapped him somehow? What if he'd done something impulsive and strange, like tried to go to the moon on his own power, and got stuck there?

There was nothing she could do about it, of course. She had to just live her life, waiting, with no idea when or even if she would ever learn what had happened to her friend. Wishing she'd told him before he vanished how she thought maybe she felt, even though at the time she'd thought it was a bad idea because it might make their friendship awkward, but now if she was never going to see him again she felt terrible grief at the thought that she could have told him and maybe now she'd never be able to.

Twilight had scryed for him again relatively recently. Still nothing, and it had been two months. Two months was nothing to Discord's lifetime, Fluttershy tried to tell herself. Maybe he really had just lost track of the time.

She was feeding the chickens, midday, and collecting the eggs they'd been good enough to leave for her this morning, and actually not really thinking about Discord at all because life goes on and when you don't know if you will ever see somepony again sooner or later you have to stop worrying about it constantly or it will destroy you, and at that moment she was focused on chickens.

"Whooo," came a noise behind her.

Fluttershy turned. "Owlowliscious! How nice of you to visit! I, um, I don't have anything for you to snack on—" owls were obligate predators, and Fluttershy couldn't bring herself to sacrifice mice or small birds for her friend's pet – "but I do have some nice cool water if you'd like!"

Owlowliscious conveyed that he was working at the moment, that he'd come out here to drop off a message to her.

Fluttershy took the message from his talons and carefully unrolled it with her hooves. What could it be?

Fluttershy,

Please come meet me and the others at the library. We think we have a lead on Discord, and it sounds like he's in trouble.

-Twilight Sparkle

Her hoof trembled enough that the letter fluttered out of it. They'd found Discord. They'd found him, and he was in trouble. Just as she'd feared.

"Here," she told the chickens, putting the basket of eggs back in the coop. "I have something very important to do, okay? So if you could keep watching over this batch of eggs for me, if you don't mind...?"

The chickens informed her that that would be no problem. She ran in the house, mane flying. "Angel! Angel, you're going to have to take care of things around here for a little while, ok? If I'm going to be gone past dinnertime I'll send someone to take care of you and all the others, and you'd better not give them a hard time, mister, or I'll be cross with you?"

Angel wanted to know what was possibly so important as to make her skip making his dinner and putting the task in the hooves of strangers.

Fluttershy sighed. She wasn't going to tell Angel it was about Discord; he hated the draconequus, and the feeling seemed to be at least somewhat mutual. "It's an Elements of Harmony thing. I mean, I know we don't have the actual Elements anymore, but we're still connected to them? If that makes sense?"

No, Angel informed her. No, that did not make any sense at all.

"Well, I can't stand here and explain it right now, okay? I'll see you later, Angel, bye!"

And then she turned and ran, at full gallop, wings beating not to let her fly but to add to her land speed, toward the Ponyville library.

Author's Notes:

I mentioned above the story forking?

The first chapter of this story takes place after "Detente", and if you stop there, it remains canon compliant with fourth season MLP:FIM. The second chapter takes place after "Discord In Hell (Not Literally)" and "Dragonfire and Sympathy" (both of these last two are rated Mature), and segues into Elements of Opposition.

To those who are here for Fluttercord: I do not guarantee that the ship will have a happy, consummated resolution. If you read the next story in the sequence (which is dark, nasty and not for those who do not like such things), you may possibly guess why the Fluttercord ship... might not work out in the end, at least not as a romantic ship. I promise nothing one way or another; I'm a Discord fan but I have no OTP for him, there is no ship that I am so invested in I will bend the story to fit it. I do like Discord and Fluttershy as a ship... but given what's happened to Discord, I am not sure it will work.