Fluttershy lay on her prison bed, sobbing into her pillow.

Discord sat on the bed opposite, throwing various abnormal objects at her and tranforming some of her body parts into those of different animals, but none of these got any sufficient reaction so he just made it rain chocolate milk directly onto the pegasus.

This too had no effect, but at least it blocked out her annoying sobs and it'd be a pain in the rump for her to attempt to clean out later.

Just moments after the brown liquid started to fall, ponies' voices echoed inside the stone walls.

Startled by the abrupt noise, Fluttershy's crying stopped. She lifted her head up, listening intently for it again.

Silence.

Then came the slightly muffled voices - and sobs - of Twilight, Rainbow, Pinkie and Applejack, expressing their feelings as they saw a stone statue of their friend.

Rarity, Fluttershy guessed within seconds, would probably be lying on a fainting couch, unconscious instead of vocalising her reaction.

Then Applejack croaked something - quietly, but easy to make out - that sent Fluttershy into a river of tears again.

She said that they were sorry.

They felt it was their fault she was here.

"No, girls, please: it's my fault." She croaked between sobs. "I should've listened to you. I should have trusted you all instead of Discord. I shouldn't have abandoned the fact that he's a heartless, evil monster."

This word made the draconequus say, "You know, I'm sitting right-"

"I know p-perfectly well where you're sitting Discord, and m-my point st-still stands." She interrupted, sticking her muzzle in the air because her attempt to assert herself failed.

"They can't actually hear you, by the way. You look and sound like an idiot."

Fluttershy sniffed "H-how does that work?"

"I don't know. It doesn't make sense, does it? But, then again, where's the-"

"Just answer the question."

He finished nonetheless. "Fun in making sense?" He hesitated, considering the option to leave her question unanswered. But telling her will definitely make her even sadder! part of his brain reminded him, and the decision was made. "Time is frozen in here, so you won't age another day unless there's some annoying yet convenient way to break out."

"So...they'll d-d-die, but...I won't? I'll be pretty much immortal whilst I'm in here?"

"Precisely."

"And...I'll never have contact with my friends..." She gulped. "Ever again?"

"You're catching on."

"That's so...so..."

She burst into tears, yet again, still not taking notice of the chocolate rain above her.

Discord only made it rain harder, one to reflect her heavier emotions, and two to muffle her increased volume

Pinkie Pie had returned to Sugar Cube Corner. She had thought the best way to relieve her sadness was through sweets - that usually worked.

However, this time it didn't. She was so confused at why that her mind drifted out of reach from other ponies.

"Pinkie? Pinkie! Pinkie, can you hear me?"

Mrs. Cake's voice was a faint echo bouncing around her brain. The pink pony couldn't look at her, for then she would also see the stone cookie jars.

The cotton candy machine.

The chocolate milkshakes everypony was drinking.

At the moment, Pinkie felt sick at the sight of sweets; highly unusual for a mare like her.

But anything sugary or sweet would remind her of Discord.

And that would soon lead her to the memory of the statue.

She didn't want to provoke any more tears. Her main goal in life was to make everypony happy, which she couldn't do by erupting a waterfall on all of them.

Pinkie was the very opposite of her happy self - her hair had even lost some of its poofiness - which made ponies avoid her throughout the course of the day.

They all knew what could happen if any one of them tried to talk to her when she was in this sort of state. It wouldn't end well, to say the least.

For she had lost something she held so remarkably dear:

A friend.

Fluttershy had no idea how long she'd been crying.

But she'd been doing it long enough to know things weren't going to get much better than this.

She could still feel the chocolate milk raining down on her; it was heavier than it had been before.

But tried not to pay any attention to it.

Eat some of it. Go on, you know you want to, said a little voice in her head.

Now's really not the time, she said back to it; she didn't want an internal war going on inside her head on top of all her thoughts.

But really. What harm would it do? You're gonna be stuck here forever.

I don't want to, she huffed back at it.

Yes you do.

Okay, fine! I do, but I'm not going to.

Why not?

Because he's evil and...what if it's poisonous?

Do you honestly believe that? I mean, didn't you see the way he looked when you offered your friendship to him?

He was faking!

You sure about that? What if-

Stop!

Oooooo getting snappy, are we?

"Just SHUT UP!" she screamed, covering her ears.

She noticed that Discord suddenly looked confused, and realised that she had said that out loud.

Fluttershy also noticed that he grinned evily and then snapped his fingers, making a cuboid with buttons on it appear in his claw.

As she grew more and more confused, he cleared the cotton candy cloud above her head and pressed one of the buttons on the cuboid, pointing it at her and saying, "No, YOU shut up."

She didn't know how else to respond, so she just said, "What?"

Except she didn't say it; she mouthed it.

The pegasus tried again, but to no avail.

She began to look around to room frantically, then set her eyes on the draconequus opposite, who wasn't making any effort to stifle his laughter.

At first, she considered using her 'Stare' on him, but shook the idea away as it was pointless.

Then she had the idea to negotiate, but that went the way of the first for it was impossible.

In the end, she just gazed directly at him, eyes wide and pleading, begging him to unmute her.

She didn't expect it to work, but he stopped laughing and stared back at her. For a moment, his expression softened and...

Was that a look of...pity, on his face? She only saw it for a second, a mere moment, but it felt so much longer. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe he did want to be her friend, but felt stuck in his current predicament of playing the 'bad guy'. Maybe...

But then that moment ended.

He sniggered, then bent over as his laughter increased.

Oh well, she thought with a sniff, I guess I was right the first time.

The mare was about to turn around - tears were brimming in her eyes again and she didn't exactly want to look at the cause of it - when something caught her eye.

She saw the weird cuboid with buttons on it, and had an idea.

While the draconequus was occupied with laughing his head off - literally - she picked up the cuboid, pointed it at Discord, and slammed her hoof onto the many buttons.

Nothing happened.

In fact, with the amount of times it took before she hit the right button, she was very lucky Discord didn't notice anything.

That is, until he abruptly stopped laughing.

In utter confusion, he looked up at her just in time to see her smashing the remote on the floor.

He quite understandably got angry and started shouting at her, but the fact it was inaudible was quite entertaining, so Fluttershy couldn't help but silently laugh a little.

This only made the draconequus get even more annoyed, so he eventually summoned another one of the cuboids and unmuted them both.

Fluttershy rubbed her throat, then sighed. "That wasn't very nice of you," she remarked, though she could think of numerous other ways to word it.

"You told me to 'shut up'," he huffed. "Element of Kindness indeed."

She opened her mouth to explain why she obviously wasn't making any effort to be kind to him, but stopped herself: was there any point in doing so?

Not that she could fathom.

She sighed once more and laid her head on her hooves.

She was tired. Oh, so very tired.

But could she sleep?

No.

Author's Notes:

I am so grateful for all the good feedback I am getting on this story!
Thank you all sooooooooo much!
And yes; the 'cuboid with buttons' was a TV remote.