“See?” Eris pointed toward the shining city of Canterlot. “This isn’t so bad, is it, tiny?”

William had difficulty responding, as he was busy violently retching over the side of the chariot.

One of the stallions pulling the wheeled machine actually looked to be nearly as sick as William, although for very different reasons. If anything, he seemed to be outright disgusted by the apparently steady stream of bile being blasted onto the side of the chariot.

“I am not cleaning that, by the way,” Eris deadpanned, slowly dragging the moaning boy away and toward the palace. The striking towers and battlements standing out against the sky gave the entire structure a significantly intimidating appearance, like a looming stone dragon.

“All done there, tiny?” Eris slapped the unfortunate boy on the back a couple of times, to which he hiccupped miserably into a handkerchief.

“Kill me,” he whimpered. “It would be a kindness, I assure you.”

“Ah, buck up!” she said in an optimistic tone that only caused William to shoot her a vicious look as she nearly dragged him up the enormous steps. “Just a little airsick, you’ll be fine.”

William threw up again.

“Eventually.”

“Oi!”

Eris turned her head sharply, spotting the yellow and grey flecked mane of the head maid.

“Oh, hey!” she waved cheerfully. “Lookie, we totally didn’t bail!”

William finally managed to clean himself up as best as possible with what he had, being the thin handkerchief. Careful to make himself slightly more presentable, he stood shakily before the tan mare that inspected the two of them with keen yellow eyes. A Cutie Mark adorned her flank of a bright ribbon that looped around, curling in on itself in a figure eight.

“I suppose the two of you are the replacements?” the prim mare asked with a hint of disgust as she looked at William. He cautiously dabbed at his face again in embarrassment, suddenly self-conscious once again.

“I guess,” Eris shrugged, slapping William on the back again. “I think Willy’s got somethin’, though. Oh well, guess we can’t do anything today-!”

The draconequus stopped short when she saw the look of near contempt from the mare, who let out a long, slow breath through her nostrils.

“There will be no shirking of duties or responsibilities of any sort. Am I clear?” she asked in an icy tone, and William was surprised to see Eris actually a little intimidated.

“Yea- Yes’m.” Eris nodded sharply.

“Wonderful,” the mare stated joylessly before turning to William. “You must be the… William.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied weakly.

“You are to refer to me as either Missus Trimming or Head Maid, always conjoined with ma’am or sir. Am I understood?”

“I don’t get it,” Eris blinked. “Ma’am or sir? So, you’re, like... a lady-dude?”

Had Eris been listening, she would have heard William’s high but sharp intake of breath that is usually associated with one being incapable of preventing another from saying something that probably should have not been said.

And Eris could have sworn that she heard Trimming’s neck creak when she turned.

“Your uniforms are awaiting you in the maid’s quarters,” she said through her teeth, clearly restraining herself with difficulty. She eyed the mess that William had left, and drew up an inwardly turned hoof. “And clean up that… that. Clean that up before getting your filthy hooves all over the place. You’ll receive further orders afterwards.”

“But we don’t have ho-”

“Right away, Missus Trimming,” William cleared his throat uncomfortably over Eris before the older mare could be infuriated even more, and the mare gave a slight sniff of disapproval before turning sharply and marching up the steps.

“What?” Eris shrugged and muttered under her breath. William dragged himself after the head maid bitterly, ensured that his stay at the rather opulent palace would not be a pleasant one.

“Eris,” William retorted quietly. “Please stop saying things.”

“You know,” Eris held up the laced skirt of the unluckily frilly black and white uniform and turned it over. “These really don’t look so bad.”

“I beg to differ,” William frowned in distaste, holding up another between two fingers at arm’s length, as if it were an angry scorpion. “These abominations are horrendously stereotypical.”

Trimming cleared her throat with a loud Eh-hem and made him jump, the dim lighting of the dressing room throwing eerie shadows behind her.

“Er… h-horrendously stereotypical… ma’am?” he corrected himself weakly before laying it back onto the small wooden table. “If I may ask, um, Miss Trimming-”

“Missus Trimming,” the head maid rectified him flatly, her identical uniform almost seeming to bristle with her attitude.

“Missus Trimming. Um, where exactly do I find a-a uniform for myself?”

“You just dropped it,” her eyes flicked to the uniform on the table.

Eris cackled manically, clearly enjoying the outright horrified look on William’s face.

“Oh, come on, Willy!” she sniggered, her shoulders shaking. “They look ni~ce! LOOK AT THE FRIGGIN’ LACE.”

“Exactly! Lace!” he held up the clothing in blatant loathing. “This-this isn’t boy’s clothes!”

“Well I hope you get used to it,” Trimming deadpanned. “Because that’s what you’re wearing for the next month.”

“But why-?”

William was startled by the speed with which the mare moved, so fast that she nearly shifted in front of him. Up close, she loomed even more menacingly over him with an odd gleam in her eyes.

“Because I said so.”

Trimming didn’t even have to raise her voice, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up all the same.

“Yuh-yes-amn-m ma’am,” he spluttered quickly, holding the uniform in front of himself defensively. Eris, while previously seeming to enjoy William’s discomfort, seemed relatively unnerved by the head maid’s action. Something just a little off that she couldn’t quite put her talon on.

Something wrong with the eyes.

“First things first,” Eris interrupted, holding up a paw. “I don’t do windows.”

Hours.

Minutes ticked by into hours, and they did so with a dreadful slowness that was agonizing to experience. For William, anyway. Eris seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself.

“Whee!” she slid down the enormous stained glass window, skating on large yellow sponges. William watched in constant trepidation that she would break it, but she slid up and down it as if she were skating on ice.

“I thought you said you didn’t do windows?” William called up to her as she spun around, beginning her descent to the bottom where he scrubbed in small, neat circles.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t wear a dress?” Eris stopped jarringly a foot above him, resting her ‘hands’ on her hips with a grin.

William heatedly jammed the sponge back into the wooden bucket, cold water sloshing up his arm and onto the floor.

“It is not a dress!” he argued in a frenzy. Eris slithered down the wall and leaned over him with a smirk, paw and claw clasped loosely behind her back. “It is a unisex outfit!”

“With frills,” Eris ruffled her own a little and giggled the brighter the shade of red that he grew. “Face it, Willy. You’re just mad ‘cause you got stuck in fetish fuel.”

“UNI – SEX – OUT – FIT!”

“I think you look kind of cute, to tell the truth,” she teased him, tickling the underside of his chin with her tail.

“The uniforms are rather aesthetically appealing,” Celestia stated calmly behind them both. William jerked and shrieked, knocking over the bucket and clamping his hands tightly over his mouth in one swift motion. Unfortunately, this also meant tasting a large amount of suds, which he was quick to spit out.

If anything, Eris only found this even more hilarious.

“I-I-I, we, she-!” William blubbered, desperately trying to squeeze the life out of the sponge he still clasped. “What are you doing here?”

Celestia stared at him for a full beat, her multihued mane blowing lightly in a nonexistent wind.

“This is my throne room,” she replied bluntly. “I own it.”

“So…” Eris chatted relaxedly, leaning too far back on her heels and somehow managing to refrain from falling over. “Come here often?”

“On occasion, when the fancy strikes me,” the princess deadpanned. “You missed a spot.”

Eris scowled, snatching another sponge from the tipped bucket and flinging it into the air, where it flew around in a couple of circles before smacking wetly against the stained glass, sliding down it all the way to the floor with a long, loud sqwreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak. He could have sworn that the light shifted behind the glass just a little, but it might have just been the shadows.

“Did I get it?” the draconequus crossed her arms, and Celestia raised a single eyebrow.

“I see that Discord did not hold up his end of the bargain,” she mused aloud. “Again. Surprise, surprise.”

“Say what now?” Eris propped up her feet in midair.

Princess Celestia, apparently tiring of her clowning around, flicked her horn and a solitary golden spark rippled off of it.

Eris quickly came crashing to the ground, both shocked and offended.

“If you don’t mind,” Celestia continued calmly as if nothing had happened. “Kindly keep your chaotic tendencies in check for the remainder of your stay. It helps things run more smoothly.”

William watched the display with a combination of confusion and burning curiosity. To his knowledge, Eris might as well have possessed the same godlike qualities that Discord did; what kind of power must Celestia have to disrupt her so easily?

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Eris stood uneasily and dusted herself in a much fouler mood. “How’s it such a pain in your ass, anyway?”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she eventually said “If you had been paying attention,” she nodded toward the sunlight filtering in through the stained glass, which had shifted once more since the last time William had looked at it. “You might have noticed that your particular brand of discordant discharge tends to upset the balance required by harmonious magic.”

“As in?” Eris rolled a paw through the air, obviously agitated that she was being scolded .

“As in you are disrupting daylight hours for everypony in Equestria,” Princess Celestia’s eyes narrowed again dangerously, and William noted that she seemed just a little taller. “Your father was expected to inhibit your natural magical discharges in order to prevent such occurrences.”

It was then that William realized that Celestia was most definitely not simply passing through on a whim, and he berated himself for not understanding sooner.

She wasn’t just inconvenienced by Eris.

She was disturbed by her.

“A’ight, okay, fine,” the draconequus held up her hands defensively, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ll cut it out. Can’t say I can just go cold turkey, though.”

“Thank you kindly for making an effort,” Celestia said expressionlessly, which William watched closely. He silently wondered if she were attempting to hide a sigh of relief, and searched fruitlessly over her face for any sign of weakness or expression that might display what she were thinking. He might have been better off inspecting a doorknob.

“Surely I am not quite that mesmerizing,” Celestia spoke, and William flushed deeply when he realized that he had been staring.

“I apologize, ma’am- er, Princess… ma’am. I lost myself in thought.”

To his surprise, Celestia beamed widely and patted him on the head with one comparatively enormous white wingtip.

“Do try to keep your thoughts in check. The sneaky things tend to run positively rampant when unwatched,” she winked friendlily, and William fought the unexpectedly abrupt urge to smile back at her.

Perhaps it had been the sudden bright smile or the subtle change slipping through in her features, but for a single instant, William was strongly reminded of Pinkie Pie. He honestly couldn’t help but want to grin back at her, and wound up fighting it even more vehemently.

“Willy, dude. Are you having a seizure?”

Celestia hid a small knowing smile of her own, turning on the spot and making her way slowly out of the throne room.

“Keep up the good work, you two.”

Eris waited a full seven seconds until after she had left, watching intensely the entire time.

“… Bitch finally gone?” she muttered, leaning after her and peeking toward the double doors suspiciously.

“I am almost certain that the princess would not appreciate being referred to as such,” William frowned, uncertain of why he had even taken a defensive stance.

“Bwah, who cares?” Eris snickered, throwing up a couple more sponges into the air.

They then hit the ground with a pair of wet splats, and stayed right where they remained. Eris frowned and snapped her talons together a couple of times, eyes nearly bugging out of her head as she snapped again and again.

“… Oh my god. Oh. My. God.”

“Hm. It would appear that the ‘bitch’ in question may have stifled your magical prowess,” William said thoughtfully as Eris fumed, not nearly as perturbed as she was. “Curious. How does that even work, I wonder?”

“She took my snappy-thing!” Eris gaped at the double doors as if Celestia were still there, hurt expression growing on her face. “She-she took my power from me!”

“I’m no expert on magical energy transfer,” William pondered evenly as he set about drying the water from the floor. “But I sincerely doubt that she ‘took’ anything in particular.”

“You mean she killed my…!”

“Also doubtful,” William furrowed his brows, draining the sponge into the bucket, something about the stained glass picking at the back of his mind again. “If anything, I would suppose that some form of magical damper were placed on either your person or the surrounding area, designed solely to suppress chaotic energy.”

Eris scowled, head in her chin sulkily as she kicked one of the sponges across the floor.

“Rather impressive, actually,” he added. “Especially if that was done on the fly. From what I’ve gathered on the study of individual effects generated by unicorn magic, such a feat should be nigh impossible without enormous reserves of equally impressive energy.”

“Blah de blah blah,” Eris slapped a wet sponge against the glass crankily, craning her neck and wondering how they were possibly supposed to reach the high spots now. “Frickin’ princess showing off, that’s all I heard from you.”

William was about to retort with a snappish reply before it finally clicked, what had been bothering him about the windows the entire time.

“… Is that Mother?”

“Dash.”

Rainbow’s head jerked slightly to the left at Pinkie Pie’s voice, but she resumed staring out the window shortly afterwards. Pouring rain dripped down the sill and over the glass, and her breath fogged it a little. Her head remained firmly in her hooves as she continued to stare out, her breathing slow and heavy as Pinkie Pie sidled into the chair beside her.

“He’s gone, Pinks.”

“Dash…”

“I can’t believe I just let him walk away,” her shoulders sagged as she moaned into her hooves. “Ohh, Celestia. He’s gone, I just let them –”

The pegasus was quieted by Pinkie’s soft touch, hoof over her shoulder as she pulled her closer.

“Look at me. Look-look at me, baby. It’s just for a little bit. Okay?”

“No,” Dash pushed her away bitterly. “No, it’s not. It’s not okay, Pinkie. I… I just let him go…!”

“And I promise – I Pinkie Promise – that things are going to be alright in the end. Right?” Pinkie grinned overly widely, bumping her with her nose. “You’ve gotta stop getting like this over every little thing. It’ll all be okay.”

“… I’m not gonna quit until you quit mo~ping,” Pinkie hummed, bumping her nose again.

“… Cut that out, Pinkie Pie,” Dash failed to stifle her own little grin, and Pinkie ruffled her mane.

“Hey…” she whispered suddenly in Dash’s ear. “Look at it this way. We’ve finally got the house all to our ourselves. For one. Whole. Month.”

“That doesn’t – what are you doing with that whipped cream?” Rainbow Dash squealed.

“BLARGH, I’M CAPTAIN CAKEBEARD, THAT’S WHAT!” Pinkie bellowed, standing on her rear hooves and smearing more cream frosting on her chin. “MIGHTIEST PINK PASTRY PIRATE TO SAIL THE SEVEN-”

She didn’t get any further, as she was promptly tackled by a laughing Rainbow Dash.

Dash rolled with her across the floor, eventually coming to a stop and straddling her. Pinkie blushed slightly beneath the sugary smear, grinning back up at her.

“… Hey. Pinkie.”

“Yeah, Dashie?”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Dash raised an eyebrow seductively, chewing her lower lip.

“That depends. Is this leading up to loud, slow, passionate bedroom sex or fast, hard, crying in the middle angry living room sex?”

“Let’s do both.”

“…’Kay?” Pinkie blinked, cocking her head slightly to the side in confusion. “But in wh- whoo, in THAT order!”

Author's Notes:

Electric Guest - American Daydream

Whelp, I hope you're happy. It looks like it's back to ruining lives for me.
Wheeeee.

Also, I'd like to thank you guys for helping point out grammatical errors that I might have missed. It's dandy.
Carry on, my minions!