Eris blinked wearily up at the solid wood ceiling. The fact that it was cleanly washed and not crawling with termites told her that she was no longer lying in her little tree hut in the woods. She rolled her head left and right looking around the room. She was lying in a proper bed, not a nest of blankets and leaves. Her head rested on a soft down pillow and a soft cotton blanket was wrapped around her tightly. She sat up and looked around. The room was small with only a few furnishings, A large picture window showed a view of the town and its inhabitants, it was the middle of the day and they were all bustling about. How long had she been asleep?
She remembered now, she was in Twilight Sparkle’s tree house home in Ponyville. She was supposed to be spying on her, learning her weaknesses. Instead she had attended a party with her, HUGGED HER for some unknown reason, and spent the night at her house.
Eris moaned, slid slowly out of bed and plodded over to the small vanity table that sat in one corner of the room. She looked at herself in the mirror, two purple eyes stared back at her tiredly. She sighed and levitated the brush to try and flatten the bird’s nest that her mane had become. She had made no progress in her mission, Discord must be very disappointed with her.
A soft clip-clop from the steps warned of her quarry's approach. She hastily hid the brush and turned to face the oncoming threat. As Twilight gracefully cleared the top of the steps Eris dove back into her bed and attempted cover herself with the blanket.
“Eris, are you awake?” Twilight whispered. She had apparently missed her spectacular barrel roll into the mattress. Eris lay under the covers for a while, not responding, then she realized she was being silly. Sparkle meant her no harm, at least not yet. She sat up and looked over at Twilight.
“Yeah, I’m up.” She mumbled sleepily.
“I’m going to pick up some of my friend’s sisters from school. Do you want to come?”
Eris though, if she went with Twilight she would have an opportunity to ask her questions without Spike there to watch. Plus she did not want to spend any more time alone with that owl!
“Sure,” she said slipping back out of bed. “It’s better than nothing.”
Twilight smiled and lead the way, briskly trotting down the steps.
***
The two of them stood outside a red wood school house, next to a small fenced in playground up on a hill. They waited a while until the large brass bell at the top of the school began ringing of its own accord and the students started filing out of the building. Dozens of little fillies and colts stormed out screeching and laughing wildly running to greet parents and siblings who had come to escort them home. Eris cringed at the unpleasant sound, covering her ears with her hooves. Finally three young fillies dashed up to them. An earth pony with a red mane and a pink bow, a little unicorn with a swirling white and pink mane and tail, and a pegasus riding down the hill on a scooter.
“My little ponies! How are you?”
“Ready to rock and roll!” The pegasus said, skidding to a stop.
“Girls this is Eris,” Twilight said turning to the cringing unicorn. “She’s going to be living with me until she completes her studies.”
Eris uncovered her ears and studied the fillies closely. She had never seen young ponies before, apart that is, from pictures in her books, but she could tell that even the three here with their smiling faces were enough to trigger her motherly instincts. She hated that.
The five of them plodded off back to Twilight’s house. The young earth pony walked up beside Eris and smiled up at her warmly.
“Are ya’ll gon’ to be joinin’ us fer Twilight Time?”
“Twilight Time?” She responded. Was this some unknown ritual that the princess was teaching the younger generation, could it possibly be something linked to her power?
“It’s just what we call the time I spend with them after school teaching them,” Twilight said, obviously wiping up a quick cover story to save face in front of the young ones.
“Teaching them what exactly?” Eris asked.
“Oh, this and that,” Twilight replied. “These three are trying to get their cutie marks, so we try a little bit of everything to see what clicks with them.”
“I thought you might be lookin’ fer yer cute make as well cus-”
“Applebloom!”
“What?” The little Earth pony stopped in the middle of the pat and looked up at her teacher, who glared back down at her like a mother who had just caught her child swearing.
“It’s not polite to talk about that.”
“But we were just talking about it!”
“That’s because you’re still young, when you're older it’s a little more embarrassing…”
Twilight turned to Eris, an apologetic expression on her face. “Sorry about this,” she said, gently.
“‘Sallright,” Eris replied nonchalantly. She wasn’t really sure what the big deal was about. True she was confused as to why Twilight had not mentioned the fact that she didn’t have a Cutie Mark as was customary. But she didn’t see what the deal was, she had never been particularly good at Chaos Magic, even natural unicorn magic she was no better than above average at. And as that had been what she had done mostly for the past year or so. Honestly she wasn’t surprised she hadn’t discovered her special talent. They walked the rest of the way to Twilight’s house in silence.
When they did finally reach the library Twilight had the little earth pony, Applebloom, apologize to Eris. Then with everything cleared up, they went inside to begin the ritual.
***
“Watch the stove, Applebloom. Hold the paintbrush with your magic Sweetie Belle, It’ll be much easier. SCOOTALOO! BE CAREFUL WITH THAT SNAKE!” Twilight dashed over to the little pegasus to help untangle her who was slowly turning blue from the python beginning to slowly constrict her. Eris laughed and shifted in her seat at the bottom of the steps. Each of the fillies had continued a project that they had been working on over the week; none of them were very good. It was quite entertaining to watch them struggle.
“Eris, can you give me a hoof?” Twilight asked as she untangled Scootaloo, saving her from becoming the serpent’s lunch. “Go help Sweetie Bell with her painting, if you would be so kind.” Eris let out a quiet groan and slid off the bottom step and clip-clopped her way over to the squeaky voiced unicorn.
“Alright, what do we have here?” Eris asked looking at the blob of colors on her canvas. Obviously is was a work of abstract genius, the swirling blues the dark greens the vibrant pinks, all mixing together into brown nothingness, signifying-
“It’s an apple tree!”
...Or it was an apple tree.
Eris examined the painting closely no matter how hard she squinted she could not make out the tree in the storm of pigments.
“My mom says I’m a very talented artist, I’m thinking I’ll write a play!” The little unicorn squeaked gleefully. Eris was convinced now, there was no way that this could be a tree, it must be some ancient Alicorn symbol that Sparkle had told her to paint for the ritual, that Twilight Sparkle was a clever one.
“Here, let me see if I can help you a bit,” Eris said, snatching the brush from Sweetie Belle with her magic. She dipped the brush into the small built in rack for paint and filled it up with dark black paint. Then with quick flashy motions she painted big black lines all across the painting rendering its ancient Alicorn magic ineffective! Then she proudly returned the brush to the gaping unicorn and trotted off to “help” Applebloom.
“What’s going on in this neck of the woods?” Eris asked as she approached the little earth pony who was busily cutting apples.
“Mm mamim aml farlocma!” The earth pony grunted through the knife in her mouth.
“You’re… what?”
She spat the knife out and wiped her face on the little flowered apron she was wearing.
“I said: ‘Am makin’ apple sharlotka! It’s like apple cake!”
Sharlotka… In the old tongue Shar meant scar, and Lotka was a mare’s name. Shar Lokta would be the name of a witch. Was this little pony trying to revive some dead spirit with a cake!?
Necromancy was the lowest form of magic looked down upon by all magic users, even Chaos Mages. Eris glared over her shoulder at Twilight; she was still helping Scootaloo untangle herself from the python, which was now stubbornly clinging to her tail. She was shocked that the supposed ‘Element of Magic’ would stoop so low as to teach an earth pony of all things Necromancey! At least teach the unicorn!
“I’m almost ready to put it in the oven, can ya’ll help me out?”
Eris looked down at the young filly, so innocent, didn’t she know she was going to be taken advantage of? She sighed and opened up the oven so the little earth pony could carry her concoction into its fiery depths. Applebloom slammed the door shut and walked away proudly. Checking over her shoulder to make sure that Sparkle was still occupied with the snake, Eris the used her magic on the oven raising its temperature tenfold! Little tendrils of smoke rose from the metal box and mingled with each other in the air. After admiring her work she proudly trotted off out the door, knowing that she had saved those three fillies from a horrible fate.