William sat quietly on the sofa, watching the pegasus march back and forth furiously from wall to wall. Rainbow Dash muttered violently under her breath the entire while, occasionally glaring up at Eris at random intervals. The draconequus, however, seemed completely unperturbed, and was preoccupied with idly clicking her talons together and making multicolored sparks leap from tip to tip.

“Can’t believe – of the time – for Celestia’s sake – the nerve!” William could barely hear her, and it was clear that she was having difficulty forcing down her outrage, along with a couple of choice curse words.

“May I… go?” William finally asked, a little put off by the mare’s frustration. It was rare that he had even seen her all that angry, let alone turning red from the sheer rage.

“Stay put,” Dash snapped a hoof in his direction, not pausing in her frantic pacing. He could have sworn that a whiplash sound went off the moment that she did so, and he had to refrain from jumping at her lightning speed. “Mangle – gonna mangle your father!” she quickly resumed pacing, adding quite a few violent threats to her angry mumbling.

“… Well, I’m bored,” Eris spouted dryly, using her tail to make a mustache over William’s lip. He swiped it away distractedly, clenching his hands tightly together as he watched the pegasus pace with an intense stare. “Knew I should have brought that Parcheesi board. Have you ever played Parcheesi with actual cheese? It’s awesome. I don’t even know how to play Parcheesi. I just really like the name. Pah-reh-chee-zee. Come on, Willy, say it with me.”

“Do you simply enjoy the sound of your own voice?” William furrowed his brows in annoyance, leveling a glare at the disinterested draconequus. He had to look up at her, even though she was slouching beside him.

“What?” she shrugged, cocking an eyebrow. “Just trying to make friendly conversation. You sound as if you hate fun.”

"You sound as if you like it too much."

"You sound as if you have a stick up your ass."

“You sound as if you have severe attention deficit hyper disorder.”

“You have got to be bucking kidding me.”

“I know,” Rainbow Dash quietly explained to the stunned mare. Pinkie Pie merely looked back and forth between the lazily reclining draconequus in the living room and the pegasus in the hall before her, as if unable to completely comprehend it. “Believe me, Pinks, I know.”

“No warning, or anything?” she asked under her breath, leaving her collected groceries and goods for the following day’s festivities in the hallway and stealing another glance at Eris. “I mean – oh, jeez, Dashie. What now?”

‘What now’ was a perfectly valid question, and Dash only fretted further because of it. She ran a hoof through her multihued mane in distress, and leaned tiredly against Pinkie’s shoulder.

“I mean, we can’t just throw her out,” Dash muttered.

“So-so you want the daughter of chaos itself to stay here.”

“Of course I don’t want her to stay,” Rainbow Dash shot back in a hushed tone. “I don’t even know the mare – I don’t think I can even call her a mare!”

Pinkie slowly tilted her head, thinking. Dash shook her head slowly, and whispered “I’m sorry, Pinkie Pie, I’m just really worked up. Discord is just-just…!” she mimed strangling the air before her, and Pinkie nodded understandingly before patting her on the shoulder.

“Come on, sugar bun. Perk up, eh?” she grinned good naturedly. “Everything is going to be fine, I Pinkie Promise. Let’s just go work this out, it’ll be fun. Chillax, baby. I brought pumpkin cake.”

“Who brought pumpkin cake?”

Dash and Pinkie both leapt at the sound of Eris’s gleeful voice from the ceiling above them, who sat relaxed in a spot where gravity seemed to have reversed itself just for her.

“Dammit, Eris!”

To William, Eris seemed both thoroughly surprised and a little put off by Pinkie Pie’s overeager attitude. Her ears occasionally flattened against her head at random intervals, and only when Pinkie spoke. Sometimes they perked straight up, other times whirling around like radial antennae. It was then that William realized that they were picking up speed, and slapping against her head every time Pinkie pronounced a vowel.

A short, muffled choking sound was heard through a mouthful of pumpkin cake, and Pinkie Pie patted the boy roughly on the back.

“Okay there, Will?” she asked him with a hint of concern, and William was a little glad to know that she hadn’t actually realized just how difficult it had been for him to force down the bizarre spasm of laughter. William was not known for intermittent or spontaneous bursts of laughter.

Ever.

“F-fine,” he coughed finally, wiping his face with a napkin and forcing himself to avert his eyes from the mysteriously hilarious ear-wiggles. William silently berated himself for his childishness, his steely and blank face returning. “I apologize. I failed to pay attention.”

“What, do I seriously need to start all over?” the draconequus grinned at him, her knowing smirk making his own ears burn. “Which part did you lose track at, tiny? The hellish rollercoaster through Zombie Forest, or the part where Dad and me hijacked a helicopter?”

“His name is William,” Rainbow Dash corrected her unexpectedly sternly, a deep frown set on her face. “And he’s not tiny. It’s not his fault he’s not a proper stallion.”

“Dashie!” Pinkie Pie cringed at the boy’s stare.

“What?” Dash scowled, crossing her hooves across her chest and slumping forward at the wooden table grumpily. “He’s just – you know… proportionate. Or something.”

Pinkie Pie slid a hoof slowly down her face, her barely concealed groan muffled behind a sigh.

“Let’s not get into this again,” Pinkie held up a hoof in pleading submission. She turned to Eris with a wry half-smile, and said “Dash just gets a little… overprotective, at-at times. Sometimes, not very, er… articulately.”

“Yeesh, you make me sound like some grunting cockatrice,” Dash rolled her eyes, but a sheepishly apologetic look started crawling onto her face.

“And you two,” Eris pointed at the two with her fork, her mouth full of pumpkin cake. “You two sound like an old married couple. Huh. Just like an old married c-”

If anything, William’s expression failed to remain ‘expressionless’ and began gradually twitching into ‘highly amused’.

“… Oh, Jesus.”

William blinked, the gears turning. He hadn’t expected something like that out of the draconequus’s mouth, and would have said something if he weren’t enjoying her stunned gawking so much.

Besides. She called him tiny.

“Ah,” Pinkie nodded sagely. “Eeyup. Me and Dashie here are Will’s moms.”

“Mom-zzzzzzzzz?” Eris swallowed slowly, looking back and forth between Pinkie and the pegasus. “You know, as-as in –” she held up her paw and talon, folding them into mimic faces and making crude slurping noises as she mashed them together. “ – Moms as in plural? Moms as in that kind of moms? How come Dad didn’t tell me?”

“Well,” Rainbow Dash frowned, shifting her hooves off the table as Pinkie Pie calmly helped herself to another slice of pumpkin cake. “I guess we’re in the same boat. Seems like Discord keeps all the important information to himself, the lazy bastard,” she added under her breath. “Besides, what did you think was going on?” Dash cocked an eyebrow.

“I dunno. I just kinda figured you guys were fuck buddies or something.”

Pinkie Pie choked on her cake.

“Just for the record,” Eris jabbed a talon at Rainbow Dash in hostility. “I am not calling you ‘Mommy’.”

“Never asked you to,” Dash shot back just as haughtily. “Maybe Discord should have thought about leaving you with your own mother instead of dumping you off on me.”

“My mother is dead.”

It was silent in the kitchen for a long, long moment. It must have been only a short period, but to William, it felt as if it stretched on for eternity.

“… Well!” Pinkie Pie clapped her hooves together with a forced smile. “Lunch break is over, why don’t you munchkins go play outside and get used to each other?” she turned a little desperately to William, who only nodded understandingly.

“Thank you for the dessert, Pinkie.” He folded his napkin neatly over his plate, pulling away from the table. “Miss… Eris. If you would so kindly follow me, I believe that it is my current duty to perform proper ‘neighborhood introductions’.”

“Oh, joy,” the draconequus slid out of her chair without a hint of sarcasm and after William as he quietly slipped out the door. “Zombies, adopted humans, grand theft auto, imploding rhinos, universal mysteries, lesbians and sucking up to four-legged neighbors. This day just keeps getting better!”

“You have got to be bucking kidding me,” Scootaloo stared at the slightly hunched draconequus, who reclined on a cushion of air in the center of their clubhouse. William could hardly believe that it had already been two whole years since he had first seen the interior of that ludicrously brightly painted little clubhouse, or how he had initially looked at it in such disdain. Sometimes, he felt more at home with his friends in their ‘headquarters’ than he did anywhere else. It was like a sanctuary, and that Eris had been allowed in made it seem… slightly less significant, somehow. As if she were invading, coming to take his friends away.

William struggled to shake off the odd feeling.

“Your sister?” Sweetie Belle asked, tramping in circles gleefully around Eris. “Why didn’t you ever tell us, Will?”

“I only just found out,” William sat cross legged against one of the wooden walls. “And she’s only my adopted sister.”

“Pfft,” Eris rolled her mismatched eyes, twirling around on her stomach and propping her chin in her hands. “Only. I hate that word, it makes everything sound like it’s worth less than it really is. Only Eris, only a rocket ship, only highly combustible things that I’m not supposed to play with. I’m allergic to ‘only’.”

“I like ‘er,” Applebloom grinned, trying (and failing) not to look too much like she was staring at Eris’s oddly shifting body. “She kinda reminds me of one of them springing toys in a box.”

“Seriously?” Eris snorted, grasping her own tail and winding it as she would a jack-in-the-box. Applebloom watched in surprise as even the memorable toy’s sound began erupting loudly from her tail as she wound herself down, cramping down smaller and smaller until she was nearly the same height as Applebloom herself.

“… Uh…” Sweetie gaped, uncertain of what to make of the situation.

“Quick!” Eris squeaked in a high pitched voice that reminded William of a gerbil on helium as she stuck out a talon. “Pull my finger!”

Sweetie Belle looked to the farm pony, who only shook her head.

“Nope, I ain’t doin’ it.”

Scootaloo snickered and rolled her eyes, and reached out with two hooves to tug on the draconequus’s talon. She pulled carefully, ready to jump when Eris would undoubtedly make a loud noise and expand, just as a jack-in-the-box would.

However, Eris did no such thing.

A stinging, raunchy smell filled the air bare moments after a loud raspberry made the windows rattle, and Eris collapsed to the floor, clutching her sides in hysterics.

“Aw, dude!” Scootaloo held her nose, slightly jealous that the unamused boy at least had the cloth of his shirt to cover his nose, even though it was obvious that he was trying to look completely unperturbed. “What the crap, do that outside!”

“What did you think would happen if I said ‘pull my finger?’ Doi?” Eris cackled madly, extending back into the air and balancing on the tip of her tail. “That has got to be one of the oldest and lamest things in the book, and you dorks are surprised?”

“Hey!” Scootaloo glowered, waving a hoof over her nose. “At least we don’t need diapers!”

“Christ almighty,” Eris clicked her talons, all the windows flying upward with loud bangs and clacks. “Willy, your friends need to learn how to chill out.”

“My name is William,” he deadpanned. He started to go on, but changed the subject, as it looked as if something where nagging at him. “Miss Eris-”

“Oh, please,” she snickered, poking the boy on the nose. “Call me Leonard.”

William actually stuttered, struggling to speak through his confusion.

“Sorry, what?” he blinked again. “Is your name not Eris?”

The draconequus slapped a paw against her forehead, and groaned loudly.

“For god’s sake, tiny. It’s not a joke if I have to explain the joke!”

“That,” William pointed at her, almost desperate not to get sidetracked once again. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Because I like dick jokes?” Eris blinked in return. “Why else would I call you tiny?”

William turned a vibrantly glowing shade of red, and glowered at her. Applebloom only laughed and even Sweetie Belle had difficulty hiding a titter, but Scootaloo looked away altogether.

“That’s not what I meant!” he demanded, the burning in his cheeks growing unbearable. “I meant, why do you keep using phrases and words clearly not native to Equestria?”

“… You know,” Eris finally settled on the ground across from him, leaning against the wall. However, so great was her length in comparison to the clubhouse that her tail simply stretched across and poked him in the nose again. “Dad said you were supposed to be really smart. Figure it out.”

He huffed mightily through his nostrils, and pinched his temples in annoyance.

“Miss Eris,” William seethed quietly. “I merely wished to know whether or not you were natively Equestrian, in an attempt to make friendly banter and enforce a potentially more substantial and welcoming atmosphere.”

“What?” Eris jerked her head back up at him, after Applebloom was whispering something to her. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. I’m just gonna pretend you said ‘puppies’ and call it a day.”

She stared at him, and then burst out laughing hysterically once more.

“Pffft – puppies! Ha!”

Eris stifled a yawn as Rainbow Dash passed the draconequus a small stack of blankets, each one embroidered with brightly colored pastries.

“When precisely will it be finished?” William asked awkwardly, and Rainbow Dash rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“AJ said her brother had most of the bed frame finished,” the pegasus nodded to the boy, who sat on a small pallet on his bedroom floor while Eris bounced energetically on his bed. “I’m not really surprised Big Macintosh hurt himself, with as fast as he was trying to get it done. It’s just for one night, Squirt.”

“It’s not necessarily the bed itself that I’m disconcerted about,” William eyed the overexcited draconequus warily as she spun like a top, twirling blankets in a whirlwind around her.

“Just get some shut eye,” Dash glared at Eris, who promptly ceased her activities and stood at attention on the bedpost, ending in a stiff salute. “We’ve got to be up early in the morning. Summer Sun Celebration, and all that.”

“The what now?” Eris asked in mild interest. “Is there a party, or somethin’?”

“The Summer Sun Celebration is an annual festive gathering of all pony races,” William recited swiftly. “Generally it's held at dusk, with –”

“Easy, Squirt,” Dash grinned tiredly at him as Pinkie Pie snuck up behind her and gradually slung a hoof over her shoulder. “If she hasn’t seen it yet, you wouldn’t want to go ruining the surprise, would you?”

“I suppose not,” William settled in quietly, staring up at the ceiling as the pegasus shut off the lights.

“Squirt?” Eris peered over the edge of the bed down at him with a raised brow. “Wouldn’t happen to be related to ‘tiny’, would it?”

William could not for the life of him bring himself to answer without stuttering.

Journal of William Zachariah Klaskovsky

I do not believe that I care much for my new ‘sister’.

She is clearly either deliberately antagonistic, or utterly mad.

I am fearful that it may be both.