Pinkie's voice blasted over the loudspeakers. "And the winner of Ponyville Mayor for a Day is... Pipsqueak!"

Fluttershy smiled. She'd only met the little colt a few times, but he seemed very nice, and deserving of the honor. As his childish voice came over the loudspeakers, delivering his acceptance speech, the moon came out � despite it being mid-afternoon � and proceeded to roll all over the sky, wiggling.

"Discord? What is the moon doing?" Twilight asked, slight horror in her voice.

"You can't tell?" Discord pouted. "It's dancing a hula. Do I need to add a grass skirt?"

Fluttershy giggled. "That might be a little much..."

"Why is the moon dancing a hula?" Twilight didn't sound particularly mollified by the knowledge.

"It's celebrating! Luna's biggest fan just won Mayor for a Day!"

"Wait, how do you know about Pipsqueak being friends with Luna?"

Discord rolled his eyes. "Did you forget that I can hear while I'm in stone? Plenty of foals go traipsing through the Castle of Purpleness' gardens."

"Good point."

He looked up at the sky, lying back on the air, floating horizontally. "You know, I really do think it needs a grass skirt." A snap of a talon, and the moon had one. It became obvious that the moon was spinning rapidly from the motion of the skirt. Stars appeared, despite the afternoon daylight, surrounded by spots of darkness so they'd be obvious, and spelled out the words "CONGRATULATIONS PIPSQUEAK!" "There, now Luna won't be mad at me because she'll know it's for her pal!"

Flurry laughed, pointing her hoof at the moon. "It's dancing, Auntie! The moon is dancing!"

"I see that," Twilight said. "Discord did that."

She stomped her hooves in the pony gesture of applause. "More!"

"It'll go on for a while," Discord said, contorting his body until he was more or less upright, although he could have just stood up the normal way. "Let's get going. There's plenty more chaos for me to watch over, Flutters."

"Okay." She got to her hooves and followed him as he floated off.

They passed a booth selling lollipop suckers on strings instead of sticks. Some dangled from strings attached to sticks. "You were really good with Flurry Heart," Fluttershy said.

Discord chuckled. "From the stories I've heard of that one, I always thought she'd like me. Breaking the Crystal Heart when she was a week old? That's some amazing chaos. I'd think she was destined to be the Princess of Chaos, except it's taken."

Fluttershy nodded. Screwball wasn't Discord's daughter, but Discord had once explained to Fluttershy that Screwball was actually the Alicorn of Chaos, that it had damaged her mind and memories, and that she'd given up her wings and horn because she didn't need them. Privately Fluttershy thought there was undoubtedly more to the story than that, and that the actual explanation was likely to be much darker. One of the problems she had consistently with Discord, though, was that he kept trying to hide things from her if he thought they would upset her or that they'd give her a bad opinion of him... despite the fact that she'd suffered at his paws when he'd been a villain, and again when he'd betrayed her and her friends, and so she knew quite well what he was and what he was capable of.

Abruptly Discord stopped. "Did I just...?"

"Just what?" Fluttershy asked.

"Rarity's banner." There were, of course, several of them throughout the fairgrounds. This one appeared to have just started... which, of course, suggested to Fluttershy what it was Discord had just caught a glimpse of. She watched Discord's face as he watched the banner, studying it intently. The animation ran through its full cycle, beginning with the large WELCOME TO TOPSY-TURVY DAY and ending with a smiling Discord giving a thumbs up... except that that wasn't actually where it ended. The water from the earlier part of the animation suddenly fell down from the top of the banner, drenching the animated Discord completely. He stood in the water, which came up to the halfway point of the banner, looking disgruntled and very, very wet. Drips from his ears, horns and muzzle plinked on the surface of the water. Then the water rose again, closing over his head. With a look of total surprise on his face, the animated Discord was first engulfed by the water, and then dragged off by it as it all flowed off-screen, as if somewhere beyond the banner someone had pulled a plug. As the water receded, the WELCOME TO TOPSY-TURVY DAY letters were left behind.

Discord started laughing uproariously. "Oh, my! That little minx! She warned me she was going to get revenge, but who would have thought Rarity capable of such nefarious deeds?"

Fluttershy giggled. "I thought you would like that." Either that, or he'd get into a huffy snit if he thought Rarity was mocking him with cruelty rather than in friendship. What he'd done to Pinkie when he'd attacked the Bearers all those years ago was apparently rooted in his own experiences; as a villain, he hadn't had to care that he was being mocked, because he would always come out on top over whoever was mocking him, but it had apparently been very, very rare in his life for anyone to tease him without him feeling it to be mean-spirited, and when he didn't have the option of turning the ones who mocked him into turnips, it hurt him. But Fluttershy had thought he had progressed far enough to recognize a friendly prank in the spirit given, and it seemed she had been right.

"When did she put this in place? It seems as if she wouldn't have had time, unless she's far quicker on the enchantment draw than I assumed."

"It was always there, Discord. She just left enough of a delay on the image of you with a thumb up that she could stop the animation there and make you think that was the end of it." Fluttershy would have known better even if she hadn't known Rarity's plan; Rarity was too much of a perfectionist to not have a smooth transition back to the beginning of a repeating animation sequence. Something had to happen to get the screen to clear and the words WELCOME TO TOPSY-TURVY DAY appear. She was actually surprised Discord hadn't seen it coming.

A small colt trotted up to the two of them. "There you are, Mr. Discord! I've been looking all over for you!"

Discord turned and looked down at the foal. "Do I know you?"

"I sent you a letter. I sent jellybeans with it. I got them from Hearts and Hooves Day; they were the only thing I got." The colt looked up at Discord expectantly. "My name's Small Fry, but everypony just calls me Fry."

"Jellybeans. Not ringing a bell, I'm afraid."

"Miss Pinkie said she would get my letter and bring it to you, but now that I'm here maybe I can just tell you about what I asked for?"

Discord's eyes narrowed. "I don't just hand out wishes to every pony who wants one, you know. And jellybeans hardly sound like a particularly chaotic offering."

"But... it's really important." Fry's eyes glistened, as if he were about to cry.

"Discord, be nice," Fluttershy said. "Whatever this is, it's obviously very important to him."

"Oh, very well." Discord bent down so his head was just above the colt's. Fluttershy frowned. She didn't think Discord was trying to intimidate the foal, but having a draconequus' head hovering just above yours could be very intimidating, if you didn't know better. "What's so important that you had to hunt me down on my holiday to ask for it?"

"I asked in my letter if you could bring my daddy back."

Discord blinked, lifting his head back in surprise. "Back from where?"

"Well, he had a problem with his kidneys, so the doctors were going to magically repair them, but you can't magically repair the organs inside you unless you get opened up so they can reach with their magic, so they were doing an operation..."

"Oh, no," Fluttershy whispered. She could see where this was going.

"And he died?" Discord said � not harshly or flippantly, but too matter-of-fact to be appropriate for talking about a pony's death to that pony's young child. "I'm sorry to hear it, but there's nothing I can do. I can't bring back ponies that died."

"But you have to be able to!" The colt stomped his hoof. "They said you were sorry!� They said you'd do anything you could to fix things that that centaur did!"

Discord's eyes went wide. "That... centaur?" A paw went to his mouth � often a gesture he adopted when he was mocking something, but it was genuine this time, Fluttershy could tell. "Tirek... was involved in this?"

"Yeah. He sucked all the magic out of the hospital. The doctors couldn't stitch my dad back up and all the magic they were using to keep his blood inside his body stopped working. So can you bring him back?" The colt leaned forward, an eager expression on his face. "They said that if something got broken because of Tirek taking ponies' magic that you would fix it because you're sorry that you helped him take all the magic, so will you?"

"I�I'm sorry," Discord whispered. "I � I didn't realize anypony had died. I was trying to make sure he didn't kill anypony... I don't even remember a hospital, but there were so many places..."

"It's okay," Small Fry said. "The princesses said you didn't mean for anypony to get hurt and that's why they weren't going to turn you to stone for forever and they were going to let you out sometimes. But they said you'd fix whatever got broken. My daddy died, but everypony says you can do anything! So can you bring him back?"

"I can't�" Discord's voice was on the verge of breaking. Fluttershy had seen him break down and start crying on more than one occasion � being the Lord of Chaos made his emotions extremely volatile � but never in response to something a strange pony said. "That's not � that's not a thing I can do. If a building is smashed or heirlooms are broken or somepony gets hurt, I can fix those things, but � but I can't fix dead ponies. I can't bring him back."