The Plain of Hades was usually a nice place. It was out of the way no matter where you were in Equestria, but once there, it offered prime picnicking real estate, so long as somepony didn't mind staring at the enormous obsidian protrusion that marked the gates of Tartarus.
Today, Twilight thought as she dodged bile-colored lightning bolts from the churning hellstorm above, is decidedly unusual.
The other alicorns were too far away to help. Her friends couldn't safely enter the area amid the arcane radiation. Discord was disorganizing his sock drawer. It was just her and the crazed unicorn standing in the middle of a pentagram of acid-green flames, howling out an incantation that swirled the clouds over Tartarus. Judging by the volume of her personal Nightmare's whispers in her mind, Twilight estimated that she had a few minutes before the storm delivered a bolt that would shatter the black glass mountain and let all of its inmates free.
"Please!" she cried, the Royal Canterlot Voice drowning out even the literally shrieking winds that whipped against her body, "why are you doing this?"
The warlock glared up, dark magic seeping out of her eyes and horn as she paused her incantation. The wind stilled enough for her to shout, "Are you familiar with onomamancy, Princess?"
"You mean the name-as-fate hypothesis?" Despite herself, Twilight couldn't help but slip into a lecturing rhythm. "I've never put much stock in it. I mean, ponies with names similar to mine do tend to be powerful unicorns, but that seems largely coincidental."
The other mare sneered. "You may not believe, Princess, but I do. My name sealed my fate long ago. Look around you. What else could I make of my life with a name like Sclera?"
Twilight just blinked and flapped for a few seconds. Finally, she said, "Uh, become an optometrist?"
"What?"
"'Sclera' is the technical term for the whites of your eyes."
Sclera's own eyes darted about. "I-isn't it the name of the stygian queen of the fourth circle of Tartarus?"
"I'm not sure if Tartarus has circles. I am sure about the eye thing, though. Going out from the center, it goes pupil, iris, sclera."
"But... but..." Sclera slumped to the ground, her gaze vacant.
Twilight landed and voiced a hunch. "Do you by chance have siblings who are a teacher and a florist?"
"What have I done with my life?"
Defined it through a misunderstanding that you could've resolved with a dictionary, thought a small part of Twilight's mind. She ignored it and sent out a soothing wave of magic that extinguished the blazing sigil as she approached. Kneeling, she put a hoof under Sclera's chin and brought up the unicorn's eyes to meet her own. "Nothing we can't fix together."
"But the sacrifices—"
"Almost nothing we can't fix together."
"And that, my faithful student," said Twilight, "was my fastest villain reformation thus far."