“Ow! Stupid little…!” Eris cursed, shaking her lion paw as she began to chase Angela around the cottage.
“Eris! Angela!” Butterscotch called from another room. “Stop horsing around in the living room!”
“We’re not horses though!” Eris replied, diving beneath the couch and magically stretching her arms to reach inside for the rabbit. Angela, however, thought quickly and ran right through Eris’s swooping motion of her arms, and leapt up to the draconequus’s face.
Eris swore she saw a smirk as Angela jumped.
“Aieee!” Eris screamed as the rabbit latched herself onto her face, not letting go as the draconequus tried to shake her off. Unfortunately, Eris stood on the ground instead of hovering in the air, and tripped over a section of badly placed carpet, tipping and knocking over a pot on a nearby shelf. It fell down and shattered with a blood-freezing CRASH. Eris and Angela completely stopped in their tracks and stayed still as statues while Butterscotch walked in to find what had shattered this time.
“Maybe if we don’t move, he won’t be able to see us,” Eris mumbled to the bunny on her head.
Butterscotch looked back at the two trying their best to imitate statues they’ve seen before, in the middle of the whole cottage. He raised an eyebrow, not entirely amused by what was happening. “Eris, I don’t have colored statues of a draconequus and a rabbit in the middle of my living room.”
“Well, now you do!” a familiar voice to his right squeed. “It’s my, uh, gift to you. A statue of me and your favorite little devil I MEAN um rabbit pet thing.”
Butterscotch avoided the voice to his right. He saw Eris’ lips move anyway, and he knew she could magically throw her voice, as she had tried to on him before to get out of trouble.
She never succeeded on him.
“Eris, stop throwing your voice and clean up this mess. I’ve got supper ready, and I’m really hungry from all that running in the Everfree today.”
“Oh, admit it, you had fun visiting the old castle with me. But why do I have to clean up everything? This little rascal caused it all anyway!” Eris broke both the voice projection and the statue plan, picking up Angela by her neck and glaring at the white bunny, with the bunny glaring back.
Again, Butterscotch raised an eyebrow. “You have magic, you can easily fix the pot.”
“Oh. Right…” Eris muttered, realizing she had forgotten her magic at the moment. She snapped her eagle talons and the living room quickly returned back to the way it was, even fixing the pot and setting it back to the shelf, as if it was never broken.
With the room fully clean, and the annoying rabbit now in her magic, Eris turned with a smile back to Butterscotch. “So, what’s for dinner tonight, Scotch?” she asked as she entered the kitchen. “And please don’t tell me it’s…”
“…Broth. Eris, I told you, I don’t have a lot of bits at the moment. The bank ponies said–”
“Ugh, bank ponies. You know, I told Solaris that a centralized currency was just going to be a nightmare to control. I mean, I invented the idea of money accidentally, because I thought those yaks needed to crush something other than my favorite trees and hills in Yakyakistan, but of course he says it was ‘for the good of all ponies to control the economy’ and ‘it will help good ponies reach success better and give back more to their communities’ and ‘get out of my dreams and get back in your stony prison!’”
Butterscotch, sitting down with his bowl of broth barely touched, only stared at Eris with a non-descriptive expression.
“And besides, Scotchy, my offer is still up. I have plenty of bits, you just have to ask me~”
“Eris…” Butterscotch again tried to reprimand the draconequus. “I told you already, the bank ponies will fix my account problems once they figure out what caused it to freeze. In the meantime, please don’t complain about the broth… you said you liked it before, didn’t you?”
Eris took a spoonful and dipped it into her bowl of broth, making the spoon turn into the broth while it held the metal of the spoon in its cup. With a long and slightly rude and loud noise, she slurped the broth-spoon’s end until all that remained was the metal of the original spoon, which shaped back into its intended utensil with another snap of her talons. “I mean, yeah, your cooking is awesome for somepony that lives out in the boonies like Ponyville (“Hey!”) but it’s the repetition that’s getting to me. You know I hate things that repeat themselves. Circle of life, circle of water, circle of supply and demand, it’s all just circles that never go anywhere fun. Like you.”
“Like me?” Butterscotch asked with a sad frown.
“Well yeah. You’re no fun. I always ask to help, you turn it down, it eventually fixes itself, then there’s another problem. C’mon, what do the bank ponies have that I don’t?”
“A job?”
Eris raised up a talon to refute the yellow pegasus’s words, but then put it back down after thinking it out. “Wow, Butterscotch. I never knew you could be such a savage.”
“I’m a savage? I’d rather think I’m meek,” Butterscotch replied, oblivious to what Eris meant. Again, the draconequus raised up a talon before lowering it, thinking she didn’t want to say what she really meant by ‘savage’ and have to explain the joke.
Explaining jokes are the number one killers of jokes. Next to horrible timing.
“Speaking of jobs, I’ve been thinking maybe I should get one,” Eris said. “I mean, I like the whole animal house and shelter thing, but like I said, seeing it again and again, ugh.”
“What’s wrong with my animals?” Butterscotch asked, feeling a little offended that his livelihood was somewhat insulted.
“Scotch, they’re cute, but they smell,” Eris answered with an unamused tone, pulling Angela to her talons and slightly tickling her, before sniffing the air around the bunny and tossed her out of the room, where Angela stood back up and walked around in a dazed fashion. “Also, being cooped up in the cottage while I’m waiting for the renovators at my house to fix up the walls? Not my idea of fun.”
“Oh. Hmm…” Butterscotch raised up a hoof to his chin in thought, “Well, I mean, sure, you can get a job, if you want. There’s probably tons of odd tasks ponies need doing that can be done quickly with your chaos magic. And considering it’s your house that needs fixing… it’ll probably take a while. But, if you’re worried about not having fun then… Why not you and I do something right now? Within reason, of course, nothing like what we did this afternoon. We have a couple more hours of daylight, and I’m mostly done with all my chores for the animals anyway…”
“Psh,” Eris scoffed. “All the things I like are either illegal, immoral, or fattening.”
Buttescotch gulped in terror.
“But~… I want something different to eat than just this broth, no offense. How about I cook this time, or you help me cook if you want to play along. First, let’s give this broth away to somepony that needs it…”
Eris snapped her talons and both bowls of broth transformed into magical vapor that flew around the cottage and out a window in the living room, scaring a few birds that were resting near the windowsill. “There, and now we raid your pantry to see what we can make out of gruel and ripened vegetables in recipes other than broth.”
“Eris, where is the broth going?” Butterscotch asked with terrified hesitance, looking out the direction that the magical broth vapor went. “Also, you do know those were the only bowls we had...”
“Eh, I’ll just conjure some new ones. And like I said, it’s off to somepony that is hungry and will probably need it in order to not make other ponies’ days worse. Anger’s not a fun emotion. Laughter is, though! Hey, think Bubble Berry would be fine with me poofing him here and also helping out to cook? Knowing him, he’ll somehow turn vegetables and fruits into cupcakes, probably by using the sugar in fruit or something. Stallion after my own heart, daring to do the impossible for no reason then ‘I can do it!’”
“I, I, uh…” Butterscotch stuttered. He raised a hoof to his head to calm himself down with all the sudden craziness. “Um, I think Berry is out of town on some important ‘super duper friend birthday’ call. Might be Cheese Panini.”
“COLT STEALER!”
“…what?” Butterscotch meekly asked, flinching from Eris’s sudden outburst.
“Er, uh, we don’t need her. Er, him. We don’t need him. Anyways!” Eris turned back to the pantry where she was pulling out random assortments of food and various spices. “I think I have what I need. Now…”
“Eris, couldn't you just poof up some food if you want something different?” Butterscotch asked, not exactly trusting of what Eris was planning.
Eris laid down her cooking supplies and smirked deviously at Butterscotch, who only stared in fear. “Yeah, but making it yourself by trial and error is much more fun!”
“Eris, I don’t like that smile…”
“Get used to it!” Eris shouted, as she grabbed the table and flipped it upward, snapping her talon.
“Ugh, Butler! Can you please bring me something to whet my appetite until the party later tonight? Butler? Butler! But– oh?”
Bluebelle, the niece of Solaris, having a pristine white coat and a meticulously combed mane that trailed down her barrel, stared at the unexpected bowls of broth that materialized before her. “Well, I’ve heard you were quick, but not this quick, Butler… wait. This is commoner food! And what in the heavens is this?!”
She picked up an envelope that was left with the bowls. Slipping out the note that was inside, Bluebelle read aloud, “’To anyone that these bowls of broth found its way to, this food was made with love. Probably. Normally I don’t give out food, but eh, maybe it’ll make your day better. Like my mother always said, don’t question the free food, just eat the free food’. Hmph. Probably some unicorn’s spell to toss out some poisoned food, either lethal or, er, other sorts of poisons. But, I must admit, it does seem appealing, and it does smell heavenly…”
Eventually, Bluebelle couldn’t help herself, and she raised a bowl with her magic up to her lips to taste some of the broth. When she laid down the bowl, she only stared forward, not even bothering to wipe some of the watery broth trailing down her muzzle.
“PAGE!”
Unlike the butler, the page responded more immediately, appearing next to Bluebelle in only a couple seconds. “Aye, miss? You called?”
“I want you to study this note. Find out who sent this broth. This stallion… I wish to keep him with me!”
Author's Note
Thanks to Eagle for editing this chapter!
Butterscotch ducked down as tomato eagles swooped around him, his hair already looking like a bloody mess, if blood smelled like fresh tomato sauce. “Eris!” he called out. “Could you change these eagles back, please?”
“I’m a little busy over here!” the draconequus called back. She was trying to gather up the dancing athletic squashes as they moonwalked and somersaulted over her efforts to grab them and snap her talons to change them back. After Eris released her magic on the fruits to see if they could arrange themselves into different combinations of salads, inevitably the chaos magic made them sentient, and only wished them to become salads.
Wished, not willed.
Stranger things have happened with her magic, but Eris was rather getting tired of things getting out of hand. Er, paw , errr, claw? The discordian magic she placed on the bearers of harmony when she first fought them didn’t stop them (although in hindsight, she wasn’t complaining about that anymore). When she tried to play the blue flu joke on Dusk Shine and Prince Bolero, she couldn’t stop the magic from actually making her go through a real flu, although she tried to hide the fact it almost became real to the two princes. And then recently, at the Grand Galloping Gala, her ‘plus one’, Lord Smooze had gotten of control, although somehow Prince Solaris himself thought that was the most fun he had ever had at a gala.
She wasn’t willing to admit it just yet, but she was close to realizing that her magic has been, as a friend from another dimension would tell her, “on the Fritz” lately. For once, it was chaos magic that actually followed the definition of chaos, as she wasn’t even the one in control of it all.
“Blasted, stupid, little… AUGH!” Eris groaned. “Butterscotch, get out of the cottage, I’m just going to blow things up from the outside!”
“What!? My goodness, don’t blow up the cottage, Eris!” Butterscotch replied in terror, although he still inched towards the exit of the cottage.
“It’s not going to blow up the actual cottage, Butterscotch! I’m just going to reverse my magic hold on the chaos, which will cause the food to explode. And not in fiery ways.”
“Then just do it here. We can clean it up after!” Butterscotch yelled out, feeling his tail being pulled out from under him by a random cabbage monster.
“Your funeral for your bath water then,” Eris quipped before clapping her limbs. The whole room suddenly grew silent, the animated fruit and vegetables suspended in any action they were doing. After about five seconds, the magically enhanced food started to bloat up, and both Eris and Butterscotch retreated to a nearby wall.
“Aw great, this is going to cause weeks of bad mane days,” Eris deadpanned.
The squashes exploded first, sending showers of thick chunks everywhere in the room, pelting the two poor inhabitants. Next came the tomato eagles, coating the whole room in a thin but noticeable lining of tomato juices, and slathered the duo with such force Butterscotch’s mane was slicked back. Finally, the veins within the cabbage monster exploded like bad aneurysms, and sent a plethora of leaf pieces onto the draconequus and the pegasus, which stuck to their coats because of the tomato juices covering them.
Luckily for Butterscotch, the kitchen was the only place the food has staged its uprising so that room was the only casualty. However, it was trashed beyond normal levels for the pegasus -- bad even by the standard of Eris’s earlier memories before she was turned to stone the first time. Everywhere they looked, it smelled like an absolute wreckage of various fruits and vegetables, even if they were fresh.
“Well… that didn’t work.”
Eris twirled her fingers as the magically summoned cleaning supplies washed and shined the cottage of any trace of the remains of the short life of the sentient fruit. She waited outside the kitchen, Butterscotch looking over the remaining food stores to see if he was going to have no choice but to ask Eris for help.
It didn’t really strike her until now, but Eris realized that she had used up a LOT of food. And now a lot of that food was wasted, and she practically forced Butterscotch into the situation he was in now. It was her fault that things went wrong, yet again.
Usually, she did not feel any remorse for actions. She had been hated and shunned as the goddess of chaos for so long, she long since never cared about ponies feelings for her. But Butterscotch was different, and as Eris waited in front of the kitchen to listen to whatever the pegasus said, she began to hate herself. Why should she care so much about what Butterscotch was thinking of her right now? Sure, he was a friend, and one of her first friends in a long time, but she’s been through this song and dance before -- Trying to make a pony’s life interesting? Check. The plan going wrong somehow? Check. The pony being forced to accept real world consequences, because being the goddess of chaos means having wild powers beyond imagination? Check.
And right now, a goddess was scared that she was going to feel a consequence for the first time that wasn’t being encased in stone.
Butterscotch walked out of the kitchen with an unreadable expression, which set Eris on edge. The whole situation felt surreal to her, as she felt like she was testing the waters about something for the first time since… since her first few years as the master of chaos.
“Well, there’s not a lot in the food stores left for us, but luckily, the food for the animals was safe. We can go ask Dusk to see if he can lend us some bits to buy –”
“Do you hate me?” Eris suddenly asked, hanging her head low as her ears bent back, not exactly wanting to hear the inevitable answer she knew had to come.
“Wh…what? Eris, no, I don’t hate you,” Butterscotch replied, bringing a hoof up to support Eris. He felt her lean slightly into it, and was not about to mention how oddly heavy she felt. “Ponies make mistakes all the time, and –”
“Being here was a mistake,” Eris muttered bitterly.
“Hey!” Butterscotch yelled as kindly as possible. Maybe it was a bit much to yell, but he’s seen this behavior before, and he was not about to have a depressive draconequus blame herself for everything. “Don’t say that! What’s done is done, and I don’t hate you at all for ruining the food. I have plenty of friends who can help me if I need anything,” Butterscotch said soothingly. “C’mon, Eris, you being sad is scaring me. Where’s the Eris I know and like, who always has a smile on her face no matter what and is almost the female version of Bubble Berry?”
It took a couple seconds, but eventually a small smile appeared on Eris’s muzzle. “Too bad Cheese Panini got to him before I did.”
“What?”
“Anyways,” Eris straightened out from her sulking position, choosing to float in the air and uncurl her body, “You’re a better friend than most, Scotchy. Better than Solaris, back when he didn’t have a stick rammed up his –”
“Well,” Butterscotch interrupted Eris, more so out of not hearing the end of her sentence, “I just like to be there for friends. You’re not the first friend who became depressed and tried to blame themselves for the mess.”
“What!? I wasn’t blaming myself!” Eris defended.
Butterscotch raised an unamused eyebrow, “You were thinking I would hate you for causing this mess.” He raised a foreleg and gestured around the room, the cleaning supplies almost done with their tasks.
“Well, most friends aren’t half as kind as you. Most would just yell at me, usually.”
Butterscotch couldn’t help but smirk a little. “I’m the element of Kindness, remember?”
Eris scoffed in a playful manner. “Yeah, sure, when I haven’t tried to switch your element or when you try to be assertive. Although… I kinda like it when you’re assertive...”
“Really? I just think it makes me cause ponies scared of me. I don’t want ponies to be scared of me…”
And again, her little quip and tone went over the innocent Butterscotch’s head. Although, she liked how innocent he could be. It made him feel a little more genuine in his kindness, never thinking about himself, only about others.
“I’m sure ponies are just scared because they’re used to your usual self, and, uh, don’t know how to react to ‘enforced kindness’. Still…” Eris snapped her paw’s digits, making the cleaning supplies that were done with their work disappear one by one. Finally, a lone feather duster was just cleaning out a windowsill near the front of the cottage, until it too disappeared. Eris took a moment to look outside to see the sun had just set and the moon was now rising with the stars, the work of the Prince of the Night.
“Wow. Things sure got late fast. And we still haven’t eaten dinner…”
“We could go out to a restaurant to eat, if you’re willing to, um, pay for us…” Butterscotch suggested. The thought came to his mind that he should have suggested that in the first place instead of letting Eris get the idea to cook, but he shoved it down, as he didn’t want Eris to think about the mess that followed if she still blamed herself for it. Plus, like he said, what was done was done.
Eris lifted a talon to her chin to contemplate the idea and summoned a small coin purse to her paw. “I mean, sure, but let’s not go anywhere too expensive, you know?”
“How much do you have?” Butterscotch asked. Eris cracked open the coin purse and let the Pegasus look inside. Butterscotch leaned forward, but the closer he got, the bigger the purse seemed to be, until his head was completely swallowed by the purse.
Inside the purse was a whole room… no, field of golden, shiny bits, the horizon of the coins stretching as far as Butterscotch could see in the distance.
He pulled his head out of the purse, unblinking and staring in the distance beyond Eris. “Yup. I think that’s enough bits.”
Author's Note
Thanks to Eagle and Kalesh93 for the edits on this chapter!
