Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

“Where the heck did you get a name like Tangent, anyhow? What’s it mean?”

“Well I told you my mom wanted another girl right?”

“Y– yeah.”

“So when I was born male she planned to get rid of me and picked that name for the symbolism from geometry.”

“Geo… metry?” Leon asked, “what’s that? I can do some Geomancy.”

“Nevermind geomancy, look.” I scratched a straight line and a curve on the ground, using a twig as a stylus. “The two lines meet at a single point. They don’t cross, just that single point and they diverge forever. You can mathematically prove that there is only one point of coincidence. Like throwing something away and you’ll never see it again.”

He peered past my shoulder to examine the diagram.

“So that’s what Tangent means?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you really trying to teach me math right now?”

—

“What was it again? Zeitwaffen? What does that even mean?”

“Something like ‘time weapon’, your Highness. Or perhaps ‘time fighter’.”

“Hmmm-ugnnnnnn, where do you even get a crazy middle name like that?”

“My mother picked it randomly. She saw the word on message that was delivered for one of her patrons.”

“Spying on her tricks, eh. Classy.”

“It’s actually routine for a professional companion to run interference on things trying to interrupt their time. He was bathing before sex and would have expected her to preview any incoming messages and only let suitably important ones through.”

“I just called your mother a whore,” Twilight pointed out, in case I missed it.

“A rather successful one. She lives better than some royalty do.”

—

Ten years old, I listened attentively.

“…and Akos is an anagram for Kaos. And when someone, someday in the future, uses your full name unexpectedly, that will be when your life truly begins.”

The woman who had stopped to talk about my name was wearing the uniform of the domestic staff, but I didn’t recognize her.

“What’s your name miss?” I asked.

Not only was her face unknown to me, she didn’t ignore me like my mother’s actual employees.

“Shhh- you do know what an anagram is, don’t you?”

“It’s all the right letters, in the wrong order.”

“Perfect!” She bent down to kiss my forehead – a movement so unexpected I could only blink in surprise. “And why would you want to put the letters in the wrong order?”

“To hide something?”

“Yes, and I hide my Chaos in you, little Akos. Say ‘hail Eris’.” One side of her mouth quirked into a partial smile. “Eris is my name.”

“Hail Eris?” I said tentatively.

“Good boy. Kiss me.”

I obeyed, straining upward to awkwardly press my lips against the marble smooth skin of her offered cheek.

It was then that I began to see; the illusion of a servant’s garb faded.

“Remember,” she said, “the one who says your whole name. This one will think that you have passed their test, but really it will be the sign that they pass mine.”

The unclad figure before me was far more than a mortal woman and wonder bloomed in my young heart.

Automatically, I sank to my knees and raised my hands to her.

“Hail Eris!” I repeated with more feeling.

There was a gleam of wolfish joy in her eyes as the divine presence departed.

"Hail Eris," I whispered once more, unaware that my religious fervor was now observed.