Go to Adventure Ville, she said. It’ll be fun, she said.
Wind billowed in Twilight’s face as she waved her staff, channelling and amplifying her magical energy to control her sky-carriage and land just outside the town’s apple farm.
Everyone romanticized the town’s rustic charm, called the place so clever and pretty for its simplicity. Whatever. Maybe if Dawnstead’s gentry smelled the manure out in the field, they wouldn’t think so.
“Well howdy!” cried the woman outside the farm’s main barn, waving as Twilight walked onto the farm proper.
Twilight lifted her robes and stepped carefully around warm muddy puddles. Where had the water even come from, she wondered. It was the middle of summer. Her shoes, try as she might to keep them clean, were meant for city walking, and dug too deep into the dirt path, quickly becoming dirty.
Six years of personal tutelage from the Sun Queen in magic, history, governance, and literature, all so she could traipse about in the mud running guild errands. Her Highness had a sense of humour, after all. Perhaps this was just one big joke as well.
The woman ahead of her was a thick-armed blonde, her skin a kind of reddish tan from long days in the sun. She hefted three sacks of feed, probably as heavy as Twilight was, over her shoulder and tossed them into the barn before firmly shaking hands. Twilight’s lithe fingers felt as if they had been crushed in the process.
“You must be that inspector we heard so much about. New of y’all caused quite a stir, ain’t every year we get the Summer Sun Festival right here in our very own Ponyville.”
“Right, let’s get to that in a moment.” Twilight tip-toed around the mud-splattered farm girl, settling down on a picnic table outside. “The festival is a very large ordeal, I’m just here to ratify a charter for a new guild that’s going to be serving dinner to the Sun Queen. You are the co-chairwoman of the guild, yes?”
“Shucks, you’re here for that?” the woman flustered. “Well, I suppose I am. Name’s Applejack, pleasure to make your acquaintance. Now, I reckon I filled out the paperwork for the guild, ‘least that’s what our secretary said. There ain’t a problem, is there?”
“Just one,” Twilight said, drawing a circle in the air with her staff and conjuring a scroll on the table. She unfurled it and began reading. “For tax and insurance purposes, I need to clarify what services your guild will be offering. You applied for injury compensation like a mercenary guild but also sent in a permit to prepare and sell food in all public markets. The purposes of your guild are, frankly, a little foggy.”
“Aw, well that ain’t no problem. Lemme just settle you in with a little breakfast and we’ll clear it right up.”
“N-no, that won’t be necessary,” Twilight said, quickly standing up as if prepared to make her escape. “I’m not hungry.”
“Nonsense, a skinny little thing like you? They must be starving y’all up there in Dawnstead.” Applejack swung her hips into Twilight’s, knocking her back into her seat. With frightening speed and dexterity, the blonde moved a lot quicker than one would expect for a woman of her size. She laid out plates, napkins, and a set of cutlery for Twilight, before plopping a steaming omelette on the table.
“Now, we ain’t talking no more about this ‘till you get a bite of Applejack’s famous omelette.”
Twilight opened her mouth, struggling to find the words to protest, but she decided instead to play along. It seemed easier, anyway, and the omelette did smell good to eat.
“I’m the Queen’s apprentice, and I have eaten as well as any in her court,” Twilight said after a few bites, “but I’ll admit, this is pretty good. I’ve never tasted eggs quite like this. But we’re getting off-track, what does this have to do with your guild?”
“Everything, sugarcube,” Applejack smiled, “y’see, that omelette right there’s a perfect example of what we’re after. It ain’t made from any regular eggs, those’re harpy eggs.”
“Pardon? I’ve never met a harpy that’ll let a human get within arm’s reach. Their species are incredibly flighty and territorial.”
“That so? Well, I don’t know about that, but my friend Rainbow Dash is a harpy. Part of the guild too.”
“Your friend? Don’t tell me, the omelette isn’t, well, hers is it? Why harpy eggs?”
“We call ourselves the Knights of the Feast Table, don’t we? We’re questing adventurers looking to hunt and gather ingredients from the most exotic plants and monsters in the world. Well, in the Everfree for starters. Ever had a manticore steak?”
Twilight shook her head slowly, half her mind was still addled from the thought of eating someone’s, even a harpy’s, eggs.
“Well, I haven’t either. Reckon no one has. And that’s what going to get our guild the attention we need. That there omelette’s already the best in town, and what with harpies only laying once a month, we’ve got bidders lined up. That’s how a couple of country bumkins like me can afford good adventuring gear.”
“Well,” Twilight said, drawing a sharp breath as she took in the news, reading over the guild charter scroll. She drew a circle in the air with her staff again, creating a miniature portal, and tossed the scroll back through. “That explains the contradictions on your registration. I suppose your guild is in order, save for one last thing. Hybrid guilds are pretty rare, so most people forget to fill this out, but it shouldn’t take too long.”
Twilight summoned a different sheet of paper this time, reading “Hybrid Guild Registration” at the top, along with an inked quill. “Please have this signed by you and your co-founder, and then let your secretary ratify it and fill out the rest of the details.”
Applejack took the quill and scratched out her name on the parchment. “Alrighty, but I’ve got work to do getting all the food ready for the festival, not to mention the feast for the Queen. I ain’t got time to go around town getting signatures. Why don’t you do it?”
Twilight blinked. “Excuse me? I’m a member of the Queen’s court, not a messenger. Doing your errands isn’t on my docket.”
“So, you don’t want the food ready for the festival? Cause I ain’t gonna be able to do both.”
“No, I just—”
“Plus you got that fancy flying carriage there, I figure it ain’t too hard to go ‘round town. But, if you ain’t up for it, I suppose I can drop everything just ‘cause you don’t want to do your job.”
“I told you it’s not my job!” Twilight growled, thumping her staff on the dirt. She seethed, letting out a long, groaning sigh. “Give me the damn paper.” She snatched the page out of Applejack’s hands.
“You know the way?”
“Course I do,” Twilight barked, returning to her carriage. “You put your home addresses on your guild registration.”
Twilight scanned the ground beneath her sky-carriage, following the roads as if following an ant trail to find the colony. For summer, Adventure Ville had an oddly dense cover of clouds, forcing her to fly lower than she would have preferred. The occasional songbird fluttered by her, all of them usually avoiding the carriage.
All of them, save for a single loud thud against the bottom of her carriage.
“Ow! Watch it!”
Twilight pulled her staff back, halting her carriage in the air. What now? She looked behind to see what it was she had hit. Resting on top of a large oak tree in the middle of town was a blue-haired harpy with long, rainbow coloured feathers protruding from her arms.
“You’re telling me to watch out? I have a flying carriage! How did you not see me?”
“Well, obviously I was flying backwards,” the harpy hissed, “a good adventurer has to be ready to fight and fly in any direction. What are you doing anyway, flying something like that in Adventure Ville?”
“I’m an emissary of Her Majesty the Sun Queen,” Twilight answered, “and if I had to guess, you must be Rainbow Dash, a member of the Knights of the Feast Table.”
“Oh no,” Rainbow groaned, “I didn’t join AJ’s guild for sick, twisted people to keep asking me to lay another egg.” She pointed an accusing finger at Twilight. “You stay away, alright?”
The harpy rose to her feet and began flapping, but winced and took a tumble off the side of the tree, seemingly bumping into every branch on the way down. Twilight snickered, lowered her carriage to the ground to check on her.
“Some knight you’ll turn out to be.” She waved her staff and summoned a few cloth bandages for Rainbow’s cuts. “You can relax. I’m not here to ask about eggs. There’s one more form the guild needs before it can be fully ratified, and I’m supposed to make sure it happens.”
“Wait, seriously?” The harpy’s eyes suddenly gleamed. “I thought Applejack was just pulling my leg, but you’re saying we can actually be an adventuring guild? We get to fight monsters and loot hoards of treasure?”
“If you can find any. Though, why’d you join the guild if you weren’t even sure it’d get ratified?”
“Well, I don’t know what it’s like over in Queeny-land or wherever you’re from, but there aren’t a lot of harpies in Adventure Ville. When I came here, the hunting guild thought I was a wild animal, wanted to turn me into a stuffed head over their fireplace. The bard’s guild wanted to make me wear a dress and dance around like a freakshow. And the zoology guild wasn’t much better, they wanted me in a cage so they could tour the world and teach everyone about harpy anatomy. Applejack’s the only one who gave me a real chance.”
“Why even come here? Your kind stays away from human cities. And, well, you clearly already know why.”
“You’re a wizard or something, right?” Rainbow asked.
“One of the best,” Twilight answered bluntly.
Rainbow snorted a short laugh. “And AJ called me overconfident. Well, you know harpies have hollow bones?”
“Just like birds,” Twilight nodded.
“Well, mine happen to be extra hollow. I’m lighter and faster for it, but I usually hurt myself when I go too fast. Once I fractured my arm just by flying at my top speed into a strong gust of wind. The others in the Veil called me Rainbow Crash, even though I could fly circles around them whenever I wasn’t recovering.”
“As above, so below,” Twilight mused. “Sounds like you don’t belong anywhere. But, such is the life of an adventurer.” She finished wrapping the bandages around Rainbow’s legs and arms and helped her to her feet.
Looking at the harpy up close, she realised just how small she was. Twilight had always been a little taller than the other girls at the Wizards’ Guild, but not by much. Still, Rainbow Dash was nearly two heads shorter than her, and a great deal skinner too. Her feathered legs and arms hid their true size, which she imagined was mostly skin and bone beneath all that fluff.
At least, that was how the rest of her body looked. With nothing more than a tight linen wrap around her chest, Rainbow’s ribs and waist were nearly paper-thin. Light and nimble to fly with, but Twilight didn’t doubt she came across more than her fair share of injuries with a body as small as hers.
“What?” Rainbow caught her staring.
“Nothing. I was just imagining how someone like you would fight a manticore. You might not like letting clothes drag you down when you’re flying, but if you plan on fighting any monsters, at least get a gambeson.”
“Right, I’ve been saving up for some armour, actually. But, obviously, everything has to be custom made for my size, so the Armourer’s Guild charges more for it.”
Twilight raised a brow. “Saving up? You mean the money Applejack pays for your, um, you know.”
Rainbow’s face turned cherry red almost immediately. “I knew it! She totally made you an omelette, didn’t she? Argh! That’s so gross, I can’t even look at you right now. Just go!”
Twilight laughed as the harpy covered her face and started to escape with her kind’s awkward running gait. “Hey, if it’s any consolation,” she called out, “they tasted pretty good.”
“And there, all signed.”
At the very least, the other co-founder’s home didn’t smell of manure. A former member of the druid guild, this “Fluttershy” had listed a small cottage in the woods outside of Adventure Ville as her residence. Of course, that meant there was nowhere to place her carriage.
Twilight’s legs were scraped from roots and fallen tree branches, her hair tangled with vines and leaves, and the bottom of her robes was torn up.
“I’m super sorry for all of this, I had no idea we had to fill out paperwork as a hybrid guild.”
“Most don’t, it’s no trouble,” Twilight said, brushing a cricket from her hair.
“Would you like to take a bath? There’s a creek behind my cottage, and I have some spare dresses if you’d like.”
Twilight looked over Fluttershy’s own clothing. Her thick woven moss concealed much, but they couldn’t hide the spiral horns protruding from her head, or the unmistakable hoof prints on the ground. Satyrs enjoyed the feeling of nature around them, but Twilight wasn’t ready to put up with a scratchy moss dress.
“No, thank you,” she forced a smile. “You needn’t worry a single pink hair on your head. I just need to find this secretary of yours and we’ll be done with this whole ordeal.”
“Oh, um, okay,” Fluttershy murmured. “Will I see you at the festival?”
“I’m a busy wizard, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “so probably not.”
“Oh, but surely you’ll be at our guild’s presentation of the feast. You’ve done so much to help us.”
“Applejack already gave me a sample, and after talking to a certain harpy about it, I’m not as interested, thank you.”
“Okay, but if you’re going to see Rarity, I think you should—”
“I’m well aware of the festival schedule,” Twilight said. “Miss Rarity will be preparing the tapestries at the town hall.” She grabbed her staff and gave it a spin, commanding the cottage door to open and walking back down the narrow, branch-ridden path to her sky-carriage.
At last, she came to the government building of Adventure Ville. Here, where guilds submitted their papers and signed on new apprentices, was the only place Twilight felt like she was in the presence of the Sun Queen’s authority once again. The town hall was covered with white stucco and gold trim, its doors and shutters were given the royal purple colour.
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find this Rarity, just look for the banners,” Twilight said to herself. Though, she quickly realised she should have kept her mouth shut.
The royal banners for every Summer Sun Festival were supposed to be full-moon white, with the Queen’s coat of arms displayed proudly in the middle around a fiery gold ring. What Twilight found before her were glistening purple and blue gemstones woven into stringy silk curtains.
“My, what have we here?” a voice came from the rafters above. “What tattered robes you’re wearing. Have you come to request my services, on this day of all days?”
Twilight lifted her staff, channelling magic through it to create a light above her head. Among the wooden beams supporting the town hall’s domed ceiling, eight skittering legs darted across the shadows cast by the light.
The arachnaed, a chimeric monster with the upper torso of a human supported by the lower body of a massive spider, dropped down across the town hall and rushed towards Twilight.
“Oh, and your hair!” she shrieked. “I should bind you up and give you a full treatment at once.”
“Try it and you’ll be walking with two legs like everyone else.” Twilight snarled, spinning her staff and producing a ball of clay from her portal. “Petra animus.” At her command, the clay formed into a spiked-back hound, eyes glowing with magic and its bristles hardening into stone spikes.
“Hmph, no need to be so testy,” the arachnaed backed away, smoothing over her hair. “My name’s Rarity. I assume you’re here to fix whatever problem’s going on with whatever this mess is.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “You are Rarity? And I thought Rainbow Dash was an odd one.”
“Oh, you’ve met Dashie. She hasn’t laid any eggs recently, has she?”
“I’m not going to give that question the benefit of an answer.” Twilight sent her construct back through her portal. “I’m here on guild business as a representative of Her Majesty the Sun Queen. You need to fill out some details before your guild can be fully ratified.”
She handed her the signed paper.
Rarity squinted, holding the page up to her numerous spider-like eyes. “Hybrid guild? I hadn’t the foggiest idea we needed to sign this.”
“Yes, well, luckily for you it’s a simple fix. And luckily for me, this is my last stop. Fill it out and submit it to the guild registrar. You’re already in the town hall. Oh, and once you’re done with that, you might want to get the proper banners for the festival.”
“Oh, well thank you—hold on, whatever is the matter with my banners? I fashioned them from my own silk.”
“They’re not the royal banners,” Twilight answered.
“Yes, well, those old things haven’t been changed since the festival’s inception. Which was a millennium ago, I might add. I felt it was time for a bit of a revolution.”
“No, the Summer Sun Festival is a tradition. We’re celebrating the Sun Queen’s infinite grace and power. She is immortal, she doesn’t change. And neither does her banner.”
Rarity bit her lip as if holding back tears, an odd expression considering arachnaeds didn’t possess tear ducts, and turned around. “I am terribly sorry to hear that, but unfortunately it’s too late. Spider silk is incredibly hard to remove and I have covered the town hall with a lot of it. So you’ll just have to take your criticism elsewhere.”
“Sure,” Twilight rolled her eyes, “have fun being incinerated by the Sun Queen.”
“I beg your pardon?”
But Twilight was already out the door and on her sky-carriage.
Twilight spent the remainder of her day summoning and returning items from her library in Dawnstead. She retreated to the privacy of the clouds, which had curiously grown thicker throughout the day, she dressed herself in fresh robes and combed out her hair.
By nightfall, the festival had begun, in its own small-town fashion, with carnival games like wrestling contests and races occupying the minds of the village folk. With little else to do, and still technically tasked to oversee the festival’s affairs, Twilight decided to walk the streets and observe.
Each guild, from the Baking Guild to the Smith’s Guild, had prepared their tents with displays of their best products and services. The Wizards’ Guild of Adventure Ville performed what passed as “magic” to the masses, conjuring cheap tricks like levitating objects and trinkets enchanted to glow.
“Well howdy, fancy seeing you here.”
Twilight closed her eyes, hoping to the Sun Queen that voice was not who she thought it was. Her hopes were dashed as she turned around, finding Applejack with Rainbow Dash clutched in her arm.
Their size difference couldn’t be starker. Applejack, being the giant of a woman she was, could almost wrap her hands around the harpy’s thin waist. Grabbing a hold of Rainbow’s arm and dragging her around was hardly a chore. Twilight had seen infants put up more of a fight against their parents.
“What’s this? You finally taking her to the butcher for your next recipe?”
Rainbow Dash squirmed in Applejack’s arms. “I wish. She’s putting me up for auction!”
“I ain’t,” Applejack replied. “I’m putting your next batch of eggs up for auction. But folk gotta see you first, know you’re in good condition.”
“Twilight, you gotta help me, this has to be against some kind of law.”
“Maybe, but your guild should be ratified by now, and you’re a member. Technically, you knew what you were getting into.”
“What if I change my mind? I don’t want people haggling over my eggs. It’s too weird! I’ll do anything, just work your magic and save me!”
“Aw, you’re just shy,” Applejack laughed. “Don’t worry about us, Twilight, you go on and enjoy your night.”
“No! For the love of the Sun Queen, let me go! I hate you Applejack!”
Twilight watched them trail off towards a small tent between the Baker’s Guild and the Tamer’s Guild, where she noticed a giant birdcage had been prepared. It was probably for the best if she didn’t think too hard about it, she decided. It was going to be a long night of celebration, with plenty of eating and drinking. Now was not the time to be burdened by whatever madness compelled the Feast Guild.
Come dawn, when the Sun Queen was due to make her appearance, the festival would be over and Twilight could finally return to her studies.
Hours passed in a dizzy blur. Eager to forget about her day, Twilight found herself in a drinking contest with lightweights of both the Wizards’ Guild and Magicians’ Guild. A lightweight herself, her only advantage was that not a single country bumpkin seemed to know a focusing spell to sharpen the mind even as their bellies filled with wine and ale.
So when the clouds above the town started to swirl, and lightning formed at the edges of the sudden storm, Twilight was certain her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
A shadow formed in the centre of the storm, growing and stretching, gradually reaching out the tip of the town hall. At the zenith of the building appeared a woman, though Twilight still had enough sense about her to feel the magic radiating from her, even from across the street.
It was no woman, but a demon.
“Behold!” boomed its voice, speaking through the thunder of the storm rather than its own mouth, “Your beautiful and terrible Night Queen has arrived! Even with this pathetic celebration to my sister, the fated solar eclipse is at hand. You are all nought but insignificant maggots before my infinite darkness, and my apotheosis is inevitable. Now, worship my omnipotence!”
“Excuse me?” A squeaky shrill voice cut through the thunder, stunning and halting the announcement. “Who are you?”
Twilight followed the demon’s eyes, finding a pink, curly-haired brownie, a kind of house sprite, at the end of it.
The demon snarled. “What? Have you any idea who I am?”
“No. That’s why I asked, silly. My name’s Pinkie Pie, and I think you have the wrong location. We’re not celebrating your sister, we’re celebrating the Sun Queen. You see, I put a lot of work into making this happen, so you better not ruin a good party!”
“Oh, I see. You’re all imbeciles. In that case, none of you minds if I go to my place of power, to recover from my journey from the moon?”
“As long as you don’t break anything on the way,” Pinkie Pie said.
“Very well then.” The demon spread her black leathery wings, stretching so wide they could have wrapped around the dome of the town hall, and gave a single hard flap, scattering tablecloths and tent flaps all across the town’s roads.
Twilight grabbed her staff, immediately conjuring her clay construct again. That was a night demon, and a powerful one too. Whatever she meant by a solar eclipse and infinite darkness, though Twilight couldn’t be sure how literal she was, could not be anything but trouble. Luckily, for as strange and backward the town was, Adventure Ville had more than its fair share of mercenaries and adventurers.
“Twilight! Did you see that?” Applejack came running from her guild’s tent.
“It was a night demon, sworn enemies of our Queen, and a powerful one at that. There’s no time to explain, we have to organize a raiding party and track down where its place of power might be.”
“Forget about that!” Applejack gasped, breathless with excitement as she pulled a parchment from her shoulder pouch. “This was my Ma’s recipe for roasted demon ribs! We gotta get it before the other adventurers!”
“W-we?”
“Fluttershy and Rarity are on the way already,” Applejack nodded, and then pulled Rainbow Dash off her back. The harpy had curled up into a quivering ball.
“So many stares,” she shuddered. “So much judgment. Over eggs.”
“Is she alright?”
Applejack shrugged. “She’ll walk it off. But we gotta hurry! I reckon that demon’s headed for the old castle in the Everfree Forest. Come on, if we leave now we’ll probably be the first to catch it.”
“Hold on,” Twilight snapped, sliding her narrow arm out of Applejack’s eager grasp. “Are you really going to eat the demon’s ribs?”
“Pfft, what? Of course not,” Applejack laughed. “I’m gonna sell the ribs. Now those thighs though, mmh. I’ve got some ideas for those honking haunches, I’ll tell ya that. Now let’s get moving!”
“I can’t believe it,” Twilight muttered to herself. “They’re going to get themselves killed.” She would have been fine with that possibility, if not for the fact that the night demon would most likely drain their dreams and fears to grow even stronger.
“Whatever,” she relented. “When in Adventure Ville, I suppose.” And then she chased after Applejack.
The Manticore, the Serpent, and the Demon
With the forest wild and impassable, Twilight was forced to abandon her mage’s robe in favour of pain pants and a buckskin jacket Moondancer had bought for her on her fifteenth birthday, just before she passed out of the advanced alchemy and wizardry classes to become the Sun Queen’s full-time apprentice.
It was still as soft as the day she opened it, mostly because Twilight had never worn the thing before, although she didn’t have the heart to tell that to Moondancer. The only difference now was that it had become a little too short, doing a poor job of preventing the Everfree’s twigs and branches from whipping up and snagging on her shirt.
She looked back to the others. “Will you all pick up the pace? What kind of adventuring guild can’t even hike through the woods?”
The four of them failed to respond, focusing instead on the shadows dancing in the trees, or the black clouds that circled above them. Rainbow Dash clung to Applejack’s shoulder, looking more like a parrot compared to the hulking mass of a woman. Fluttershy seemed more at ease with walking in the woods but jumped at the sight of every shadow.
Twilight looked above, to where the arachnaed had done an excessive job of weaving a thread through the branches, scuttling her eight legs across interlocking branches.
“Y’see sugarcube, we ain’t ever been on a real adventure before,” Applejack explained. “And the other guilds ain’t looking for our kind of skills.”
“Speak for yourself, darling,” Rarity said, “my silk has fashioned some of the most excellent couture in Dawnstead.”
“Rar, cocooning a banker to drink his blood ain’t the same as dressing him up.”
“Well, he didn’t seem to mind.”
“Because you drugged him!”
“Yes, but he didn’t die, I just took a little sip, that’s all. So I don’t really see the problem.”
“Both of you shut up!” Twilight snapped. “Rainbow Dash, why don’t you fly over the trees and see where we need to go. We’re too far for me to sense its magic, but the old castle should still be visible from the air.”
“How am I supposed to get up there? I’ll break my wings if I try to fly through all those branches. Can you at least summon some armour for me first?”
“What? First of all, you can just climb to the top and then fly. Secondly, that’s not what summoning means. The things I summon have to come from a pre-designated space. For me, it’s my personal library, I can bring any small item from there to me with a portal. I can’t make something I don’t own.”
“Why don’t you own armour?”
“Why would I own armour?”
Rainbow Dash pouted. “Because armour is cool. Ugh, fine! I’ll find those clues.”
She climbed up on Applejack’s head and started pushing her way up the branches, going higher than even Rarity, until only her scaly talons were visible from below.
“Um, girls?” Rainbow said. “The trees are way too dense. I think I’m stuck.”
“Oh for the Queen’s sake,” Twilight muttered, “Applejack?”
“Yeah, I got it.” The farm girl pulled herself over a thick, low-hanging branch, standing on it and easily wrapping her whole hand around Rainbow’s leg. She pulled and the trees bent down with her, but eventually, they started to pull back like an over-stretched spring.
“Gosh, tough little things, ain’t they?”
“Little?” Twilight raised a brow. “You mean the two or three trees that you’re fighting against? Look, try breaking some of the branches around her. You can use my staff, it can take it.”
Applejack took the white-painted staff from Twilight and puffed out her chest as she wound up a heavy swing.
“W-wait!” Rainbow panicked. “Isn’t she going to hit me too? Yeow!”
The harpy squealed and cawed as Applejack swung, snapping off dozens of tiny branches that had tangled around Rainbow’s wings and legs. Slowly, and quite painfully, Rainbow slid down from the trees.
“Alright, here’s the big one!” Applejack heaved, tearing Twilight’s staff through the remaining branches. Rainbow flew out, her light frame spiralling out of control in the air and crashing into Twilight.
They both took a tumble, and Twilight braced herself to hit her back against a tree or get a bush in her face. Instead, they rolled through the underbrush and off the side of a cliff.
“Wha—!” Twilight cried, instinctively grabbing at the first thing she saw. A tree root jutting from the cliff saved her, if only for a moment. “Rainbow? Rainbow Dash, I need you to lift me up a bit.” Twilight strained her head around to see where the harpy had gone, only to find her unconscious in a bush below them.
“Don’t worry darling,” Rarity called. “I’ll weave a rope for you. Can you hold on for an hour or two?”
“I don’t think I have two minutes!” Twilight struggled, feeling her arms burning already from the exertion.
“It’s alright,” Applejack said, popping her over the cliff and extending Twilight’s staff down to her. “Grab on and I’ll pull you up.”
But the moment Twilight took one hand off the root to grab at her staff, she felt herself slipping. “Nope! I can’t. If I let go, I’ll fall.”
“I won’t let that happen, I promise,” Applejack said, “and that’s the whole, honest truth. I’ll do everything I can to get you up.”
“Just because you’re honest doesn’t make you right, Applejack,” Twilight said, her voice straining as her fingers felt like they were breaking.
“Uh, girls?” Fluttershy whispered from somewhere behind Rarity. “I think I could grow some roots to catch her, maybe, if you just stepped out of the way and let me—”
“I know you’re scared, Twilight,” Applejack said, “but I’m asking you to just trust me.”
“No! I barely even know you!”
“Do it, and I promise you’ll be fine.”
Already at the end of the root, Twilight didn’t see any other choice. She tightened her grip and threw a hand out for her staff.
And then she fell.
Really, really far.
Using a first aid kit summoned from her library, Twilight changed the bandages on her leg. A bush had caught her fall, but not without leaving a parting gift, a snapped branch in her thigh. Applejack insisted she knew all along that Twilight would survive, explaining how Rainbow Dash crashed a lot from her flights and fell greater distances than just a cliff.
“Rainbow is a harpy,” Twilight tried to explain. “Her weight and wings mean her terminal velocity is lower than a human. I didn’t survive because you were being honest, I got lucky.”
But her complaints fell on occupied ears. While Twilight made sure her wound didn’t get infected, the Knights were focused on another threat. At the end of the gorge, where a steep slope led back up to the forest, stood a manticore.
“Oh boy, this is really happening! My first monster encounter!” Rainbow Dash shook Twilight’s shoulder. “Quick, summon a weapon for me, we gotta kill it.”
“I don’t have a weapon,” Twilight groaned. “And manticores aren’t territorial, they wander all over the place to hunt. They’re actually pretty timid around people, we could scare it away with loud sounds or—”
“Scare it away?” Applejack rolled up her sleeves. “When it’s got all that meat on its bones? We’re gon’ take that big bastard and cook him up, sous vide.”
“Of course you are. Look, manticores are incredibly poisonous, I don’t think you’re ready.” But again, Twilight’s warning fell on deaf ears as Applejack reached into her boot and produced a hunting knife. Fluttershy joined behind her, taking a tree branch off the ground as a conduit for her druidic magic.
The manticore roared, its tail swiping low at Applejack’s legs, but she was fast for her size, her calves exploding out in a frantic charge as she crashed into the manticore. Despite her size, she was only human, and the monster responded with a quick slash with its claws, swatting the farmer aside like a fly.
“You’re really going to let this happen?” Twilight asked Fluttershy. “What kind of druid are you?”
“Oh, well, I know this seems counterintuitive,” Fluttershy said, “but nature needs to be in balance. There can’t be life without death.” She pointed the branch to the manticore’s leg, which was already shaking and limping before Applejack could land a clean cut with her knife. “This one must’ve fallen down like you did. It won’t be able to climb out in this state, and it’ll probably starve. Isn’t it better to end its suffering now?”
“Or, you know, you could heal its leg,” Twilight suggested.
“Don’t y’all worry!” Applejack said. “We ain’t got time to waste tending to it, there’s a demon running amok, ain’t there? Better for everyone if I just kill it.”
“Mhm,” Twilight pressed her lips together, “that’s not happening anytime soon.” She spun her staff and summoned her clay construct, hound-like in shape and armed with sharpened quills.
Commanded by her mind, the construct charged the manticore, firing a volley of hardened spikes into the monster’s side. It roared, spun around, and injected its scorpion tail into the construct’s back. Venom leaked uselessly off the clay, however, and the surprised manticore was overtaken quickly as Applejack lept in to slash its neck open.
Any normal person would have found their blow deflected by the monster’s thick hide. But Twilight was left unsurprised. This girl was no normal person, mentally or physically. After a panicked retreat, the manticore fell flat on its side over a spreading tide of its own blood.
Applejack climbed over the monster and plunged her knife into its heart. “And that’s how you catch the ingredients for manticore sous vide. Anyone got sweet potatoes?”
The moon’s full, bright face began to fade as they moved further into the forest. Growing denser and denser, the branches above were nearly an impenetrable roof. Twilight and the guild moved at a sluggish pace, marred by tangled roots snagging at their feet. It hardly helped that Applejack insisted on carrying with her the manticore’s body.
“Druids are supposed to command trees,” Twilight grumbled when it had become evident that the path ahead would only be slower. “At this rate, that demon will recover its power and consume the village as a side dish.”
Fluttershy hid behind her curtain-like hair. “I think of it more like suggesting than commanding. And these old growths are very stubborn, you know.”
Perched on Rarity’s back, Rainbow Dash squawked at Twilight’s complaining. “Why don’t you use some magic to clear the trees?”
“If I made a fire that strong, it would spread and take us with it,” Twilight replied. “Maybe if we dropped the manticore and focused on the more pressing task, we’d be able to find the demon’s place of power.”
“That might be, but we don’t even know if we can stop that demon,” Applejack said, “and if this adventure don’t work out, we gotta have a backup plan for what we’re going to serve our customers.”
“Yes, something that doesn’t include my eggs,” Rainbow added.
“Stop talking as if I’m part of your guild,” Twilight growled. “I represent the Crown and the Sun Queen herself. I am Her Majesty’s appointed inspector sent to issue your guild its paperwork. There is no ‘we.’”
She stopped marching.”I don’t know why any of you think you could form a functioning guild. You’re barely functioning people.” Then, Twilight turned around.
“Darling, where are you going?” asked the arachnaed.
“Back to the village to find a real mercenary guild. Maybe they’ll pick up your corpses when I come back, I doubt any of you can get out of here on your own.”
She used her staff to batter aside invasive branches, but barely managed to take five steps before toppling over.
“Ha!” Rainbow Dash cackled. “Looks like we’re not the helpless ones here.”
Twilight pushed herself off the ground and looked down at her ankles. There was a reddish handprint around it. “I didn’t trip. There’s something in the trees watching us.” She immediately started drawing a circle to summon her construct.
“Nice try, we just saw you fall.”
Without warning, a flurry of pink rushed out from under the tree roots, tackling Twilight onto her back before she could finish her circle.
“No one talks to my friends that way!”
A flash of light brought Twilight’s attention to the creature’s hand. It had a kitchen knife raised and ready to plunge. Untrained in fighting, but certainly gripped with fear, Twilight swung her staff wildly, knocking back the ball of pink.
Only after did she recognize it as the house sprite from before, the brownie who was supposedly the organiser for the Summer Sun Festival.
“Pinkie Pie, easy girl, she’s with us!”
Miraculously, Applejack yanked up the pink-haired sprite, holding her in one arm while she carried the manticore in the other.
“What? But she just called you all useless.”
“She’s just frustrated is all. Seems like we’re a bit stuck in these here woods. You wouldn’t happen to know a way out, would you?”
The house sprite gave her a sly look. “Please, who do you think you’re talking to?” She grabbed her legs and curled into a ball, and like a snake swallowing its own tail, began to shrink endlessly into her own boots until she was gone.
A silent moment passed by and then she popped her head up from behind a tree branch a few steps away. “The path’s a bit twisty, but follow the sound of my voice!” She disappeared again and resurfaced even further. “Was that enough time? Or are you still stuck?”
“Just you hold on, we’re coming,” Applejack called. With her free hand, she helped Twilight to her feet.
“Reckon you still want to head back, don’t ya? Ain’t gotta worry about us, with Pinkie we’ll be able to find our way. Girl’s got her Pinkie Sense.”
“Pixie Sense,” Twilight corrected, brushing the leaves off her jerkin. “Faeries, pixies, and house sprites have naturally powerful connections to magic. It’s a good thing they prefer pranks and tricks over anything else. We should be fine to go ahead, as long as everyone can stay focused on our mission.”
Twilight commanded her construct to claw at the branches ahead, widening the path for Applejack and the others as she followed Pinkie through the narrow gaps in the woods. She kept her right hand on her staff while her left fluttered fingers through the air, feeling for the demon’s magic.
They were nearing it.
“End of the line, folks!” Pinkie said, popping up behind a bush. “Looks like the river’s going crazy tonight, no way across without drowning.”
“I’ve studied the geography of the region, there are no rapids,” Twilight said. “How can a river suddenly grow fierce?”
“Flooding? Witches? The fury of the Almighty Cthon?”
As Twilight moved ahead and commanded her construct to shear the bushes away, she saw that it was none of those. Stuck in the middle of the river was a sea serpent caught in a net of chains.
“Goodness me,” Rarity voiced as she skittered behind, “I’ve never seen hair so fine.” She pointed to the mane of the serpent, which shook a heavy mist into the air as it fought against the chains. The hair had the colour of gold, though a reddish tint made it glisten in the water like a clear sunset after a storm.
“Lots of meat on that one too,” Applejack said, wiping her mouth.
“Don’t even try,” Twilight told them both, “provoking it won’t do anything but get us eaten. We need to calm it down, or find another way around.”
“Didn’t the demon say she was trying to regain her power?” Fluttershy asked. “I don’t think we have time to go around”
“Demon?” The serpent’s roar cut off the women’s voices, and water-soaked them all as he whipped around to see them. “You know her? Where is she? I’ll have my revenge for what she’s done!”
“Great serpent, we too seek to fight this night demon!” Twilight shouted. “Your chains are far too much for us to release you, but I promise, as the Sun Queen’s apprentice I will bring the demon’s magic to heel.”
“Chains? I don’t care about chains!” The serpent gestured to himself. “These help me sleep. I have a terrible sleep swimming problem, always ending up in places I shouldn’t be.”
“Oh? Er, well, in that case,” Twilight hesitated, “what exactly did the demon do?”
“Only the worst crime one can do to a serpent!” The river swelled as he sunk his whole body under the water, stretching out and bringing his head to the river banks for the girls to see. “My moustache!”
He pointed a claw to the shaved stump on one half of his face. “That crooked demon said sea serpent hair is a natural conduit for magic, then she stripped me of my hair to weave a robe! Of all the humiliations, this cannot stand!”
“You’re worried,” Twilight groaned, “about your moustache?”
“Don’t make light of the issue, girl,” he snarled. “We sea serpents are elegant and glorious creatures. We’re beyond the petty squabbles of daily life and conflict, and it is our birthright to have hair that reflects the importance of our station.”
Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. “Alright Applejack, you can kill him.”
The serpent gasped. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ain’t gotta tell me twice,” Applejack smiled rolling up her sleeves. She threw the corpse of the manticore at him, catching his eye with the scorpion stinger, before drawing her knife and growling like a monster herself. “Yippee-kay-yay, you sonavah bitch! Come to mama!”
She couldn’t believe Applejack and Rarity had stayed behind to butcher the creature, but she wasn’t going to start complaining either.
The silence was bliss for Twilight, and it helped her focus on the demon’s magic. They were so close now. Whatever her place of power was, it was a massive wellspring. Rainbow Dash flew ahead of them without much effort, while Fluttershy only complained about a slight headache as they went.
But for Twilight and Pinkie Pie, a mage and a house sprite both highly attuned to magic, pushing through the demon magic was like climbing up a waterfall. Twilight endured, pulling her focus inward, the magical equivalent of holding one’s breath by hiding her powers deep within herself so the demon’s corrupting influence couldn’t strip it away from her. Casting spells would be nearly impossible without first expanding her power back to the surface of her mind, but with training, the time to shift her focus lessened.
For a house sprite, however, the demon’s influence was incapacitating. Pinkie clung to Fluttershy’s back, weakly groaning whenever she regained consciousness. But at least her noises now were muffled in Fluttershy’s hair.
“Bridge ahead,” Rainbow Dash called from the sky. “Think we should cross it?”
A bridge? Twilight massaged her temples, trying to take in the harpy’s words. The night demon’s presence made her thoughts like a fog, but put a puzzle in front of her, and Twilight found that she could focus enough to think it through.
“It’s an illusion,” she said weakly. “We’re in the middle of the Everfree, how could there be a bridge out here?”
“Applejack said there’s an old castle in the forest,” Rainbow said, “why couldn’t there be a rope bridge?”
“Because that castle predates the Sun Queen’s reign,” Twilight snapped. “A rope bridge, any bridge for that matter, couldn’t last a thousand years.”
“Well, there’s a massive gorge and we’re at the narrowest part of it. We’re going to have to cross.”
Twilight nudged Fluttershy. “Can you command the roots and vines to form a bridge for us?”
“Why me?” Fluttershy turned.
“Because architectural magic isn’t my strong suit,” she answered, “and even if it was, it would take too much power to cast that kind of spell. My magic comes from an internal reserve of power. Normally, I can replenish it immediately by drawing from the ambient magic around me, but the forest is thick with the demon’s influence. If I draw on my magic to cast a spell, her place of power is going to sap my reserves by the time I finish the bridge.”
“I suppose I can try.”
Fluttershy cast her druidic magic, using a dead tree branch as a medium to attune herself to the forces of nature. Like Twilight, she drew from the ambient magic around her, but rather than acting like a battery and storing that power, Fluttershy was a conduit for the living energy that permeated all organic beings. As long as the forest was still filled with natural life, the demon would have to corrupt the spell directly in order to interrupt it.
With Twilight watching Fluttershy’s spell closely, Rainbow Dash’s attention was turned to the other side of the cavern. She tested the bridge, and surely enough, her talons swept clean through the ropes, dispelling the illusion. Black air, almost like smoke but so dark it was as if it absorbed the light around it, flew from the illusion and manifested among the trees in the form of the night demon herself.
“Is that—?” Rainbow mumbled before Twilight cut her off with a hiss.
“It’s a shade, an after-effect of the illusion.”
Rainbow squinted at the form’s wispy arms. “I think she’s waving to me. Why is it doing that?”
“Shades can leave recorded messages, she’s just trying to get in our heads.”
“It looks like she wants to talk.”
All it took was a moment for Twilight to break her concentration and actually process what Rainbow was saying, but by that time the harpy had already flown across to greet the shade.
“No! Get back here!” Twilight shouted though she knew they were too far apart to be heard.
Rainbow Dash fluttered around the shade’s head, unnerved by how her head followed her every motion. She tentatively poked the smokey shape, but it simply turned into a mist and reformed one step away.
It flickered as the ground beneath crumbled, the roots of the trees breaking through on this side to join with Fluttershy’s bridge.
“Looks like you can’t stop us,” Rainbow taunted, kicking at the shade.
The illusion flickered again, but this time when it reformed it seemed to come alive, walking on the ground like a real person and even making the subtle motions of breathing and shifting its weight, despite being pure mist.
“Response recognized,” the shade said, and suddenly its face solidified into the night demon’s. She had narrow, seductive black eyes highlighted with rings of purple, a stand-in for irises, and weightlessly swayed her hips around Rainbow Dash as she pretended to walk.
“Poor little Dashie,” the shade spoke with an ear-tickling whisper. “You’re nothing more than a caged bird to your friends. If you can even call them that.”
“Nice try, but Twilight already told me your game plan. I’m not letting you get to me so easily.”
“Oh? And what does that bookworm know?” The shade pointed across the ravine. “Does she look like she even cares about you? She’s not even worried about you talking to the big, bad demon.”
Rainbow knitted her brows together. “I can handle myself, and she knows it.”
“Is that who you are? Someone who handles herself? Or a harpy whose bones are so fragile you hurt yourself just by flying too fast.”
“How do you—”
“I’m not just a night demon, my little birdie. I am the night demon, the mother of the evils and dreams, and I can see all your little fears. You call yourself loyal, but you’re afraid it’s being taken advantage of, that you have no one who’s truly worthy of your loyalty. Like that farmer, for instance.”
“Applejack’s my friend.”
The shade shook its shoulder up and down, miming a laugh. “I might have been imprisoned for a few centuries, but the concept of friendship hasn’t changed, has it? You are the sole reason your guild even exists. Harpy egg omelettes? A delicious idea, but she doesn’t even care how you feel about it, does she? And look at Twilight, the Sun Queen’s know-it-all magician. From the moment she entered the forest she’s treated you all like annoyances. Who does she think she is?”
“T—that’s just how people from Dawnstead are.”
“I’m from Dawnstead,” the shade said, stretching open her arms and showing off her impressively curved figure. “Do I seem like her?”
Rainbow dropped from the sky, standing tentatively as she eyed the shade. “No, you don’t. You’re a demon, you’re evil. And I’m going to become a real hero who stops demons like you!”
“Do you think you can?” The shade vanished and appeared behind her, scaring Rainbow so badly that she fell on her back. The impact was enough to send a shock of pain through her shoulders, and for a moment she panicked at the thought that she might’ve fractured her bones again.
“Or maybe you’re just a runt with no power of her own, who’s so used to being frightened and injured she’s willing to let anyone use her as long as she gets to live a dream.”
“Stop it! You’re wrong! We’re the Knights of the Feast Table, and I’m going to be a knight!” Rainbow cried and covered her ears, but it was pointless, the shade’s voice was soft but managed to penetrate her entire body.
“Perhaps, but not like this, not with them.” The shade stepped over Rainbow and stood between her and Twilight. “The druid’s too cowardly to learn the true powers of her craft, and the mage is defeated just by my presence. Leave them and fly at my side instead. I have already arrived at my place of power, and with every passing second I grow stronger. I will bless you with more magic than you can imagine, strengthening your body and turning you into a true knight.”
With a wave of her misty hand, the shade conjured an image of a harpy three times the average size. Where Rainbow was skinny and frail, the image was thick and rippling with muscles.
“You can give me that body?”
“I can give you the world,” the shade promised, “if only you swear to be my Shadowbolt, to be my knight above all others.”
“No strings attached? You won’t try to eat my eggs?”
The shade mimed another laugh. “Not unless you want me to.”
Rainbow Dash forced herself to her feet, not believing the thoughts that were running through her head. But everything that the demon said was true, and she knew it. Twilight was an emissary of the Sun Queen herself, and it was clear that the guild was a joke to her. How long until they actually made it big as heroes? Would that day ever come?
“What would I have to do to deserve your power?”
The shade folded her arms. “It’s quite simple, little birdie. Once I drain my place of power, the demon magic flowing from it will stop interfering with that mage and she will be free to bother me with her spells.”
“You want me to fight her for you?”
“No, you wouldn’t stand a chance. What you simply need to do is—”
“Howdy! Who’s that you’re talking to, Rainbow Dash?” Applejack’s booming voice was the only one that could cross the ravine. “That ain’t the demon, is it?”
“No, why now?” Rainbow panicked. She grabbed at the shade, trying to hold onto it. “Tell me, tell me now! How do I receive your power? What do I have to do?”
“What’s going on there?” Applejack shouted. “Is that magic thing-a-majig hurting you, Dashie? Nu-uh, nobody lays a hand on my friends!” The massive woman roared, bounding onto the roots that had already grown out to form the bridge. It was incomplete, but the gap between the two ends was narrow enough for Applejack to cross in a single leap.
Applejack reached for her knife, drawing it while she still flew through the air. Her resolve scattered the bats and owls, sounding more like a mad timberwolf than a human. And then she was a blur of blade and muscle, tearing through the mist, slashing and punching the air until the figure of the demon dispersed into the air.
Applejack spat on the floor. “That’ll teach ‘em. You okay, Dashie?”
“What?” Rainbow Dash mumbled, still dazed by everything that happened. It was less than a second, but she felt as if she had seen the rest of her life vanish before her eyes. “W—why? Why is this happening to me?” She clutched her head, and with nothing else to do, she simply started sobbing.
“Aw, it’s alright,” Applejack scooped Rainbow up in one arm as if she were an infant. “I know that was frightening, but just let mama bear take care of it. I’ll fix you up a nice omelette when we get back home.”
“No. No! Let me go!” Rainbow Dash wailed.
Applejack stared at her with a curious grin. “What’s this all about?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Twilight said, finally crossing over Fluttershy’s bridge. “She probably triggered another illusion trap. It’ll wear off once we kill the demon.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Night demon!” Rainbow Dash wailed, but her thrashing and stuffy-nosed sobbing could not break Applejack's iron grip. She might as well have been a puppy tugging at its collar. She certainly felt trapped like one.
“Mother of Evils, please take me! I want your power. I want you. Please, I’m begging!”
As the moon reached its zenith above them and shadowy bodies started to emerge from behind trees and the unlit undergrowth, Twilight looked on in amazement at Applejack. The young woman was a straightforward brute, but the lesser demons that emerged from the forest, each one strong enough to bring down a knight in full plate armour, shattered from the force of her punches.
The silhouette of the castle was in view now, and hope came alive for an instant. Twilight could feel the place of power fading, letting her draw a bit of magic to create a portal back to her library, summoning scrolls enchanted with spells of flame and force to create explosions against the demons that evaded Applejack’s assault.
The other members of the guild seemed to feel the same. Even Fluttershy shed her cowardice and created a barrier of branches and vines behind them, preventing any demons from sneaking up while they pressed forward.
Pinkie Pie did her part as well, using her house sprite magic to mark and illuminate the demons lurking in the dark. Those who hesitated to attack were caught in a thick net of spider webbing, courtesy of Rarity.
It seemed for a moment that they would make it to the castle quickly, catching the demon before she could reclaim all her power, but then a shriek caught them all off-guard. It came from the demon in Applejack’s grasp, the one she was about to crush into a pulp. Instead, it melted into an oily blob, reforming into the shape of a spike.
“Shit,” Twilight cursed before the first blow came.
A long, hooked tentacle whipped out and caught Applejack across the arm from elbow to shoulder. More tentacles erupted, slashing apart the web trappings the arachnaed had created around them and allowing more demons to rush in.
“What is that?” Fluttershy screamed, falling back into her usual fear. Roots grew up to ensnare the demon, but it broke its spiked form and reconfigured as a giant wolf to lunge at the druid.
But before its jaws could snap around her throat, Twilight drew a circle with her staff, emptying a random assortment of dresses over the demon’s eyes.
“Tantabus demon,” Twilight said.
“You keep your clothes in your library?” Rarity gasped with more shock than she had all night when she saw the discarded wardrobe. “And you haven’t changed your outfits in a few years I see.”
“Not the time, spider,” Twilight grunted, ripping a fire scroll and setting the bundle of clothes on fire.
But the tantabus demon was nothing like the lesser demons. Even set on fire, it still twisted impossibly as Applejack and Pinkie Pie tried to get behind it, and when that was not enough to stop the giant from punching apart its wolf tail it swirled into an oily, writhing ball, sprouting tentacles and eye stalks in every direction. Tendrils snaked around Twilight's arms and legs, immobilising her staff.
She opened her mouth to call out a spell, but the demon moved quicker than sound, slithering more of itself down her throat. Twilight tried gasping for air, but there was nothing but the demon’s formless body, suffocating her with each desperate attempt to breathe.
“Let her go!” Applejack yelled.
Again and again, the farm girl fought the demon blow for blow, splattering its attempts to tangle her up and returning punches of her own. But it was a battle of attrition. Her right arm had been sliced open, down to the bone, and she had as much blood on her as she did demon sludge.
In the corner of her blurred vision, Twilight saw Rainbow Dash on her knees, her feathered arms pressed together in a prayer position to the moon. “I’m sorry! I’ll be a good knight, I promise! Just spare me!”
It was too good to be true, she told herself as she faded in and out of consciousness. But they put up a good fight, at least. I guess I had them pegged wrong. If only they had the chance to prove themselves as knights.
She was fighting back before she knew it, her body shaking in violent spasms as every instinct told her she needed to breathe. She was dimly aware of Pinkie trying to blind the tantabus demon with flashes of light and of Fluttershy calling to birds to harry it with their talons. She tried ignoring them, ignoring everything except the peace of her own death. It was a short one, but it was one spent in complete service to the greatest being in the kingdom. No, the world.
It’s over. Can’t you realise it? She understood it was just her base instincts, the part of her mind that still acted like a wild animal. Chemicals flooded her system to dull the pain and strengthen her body, but she had spent years with her nose to the books. If a monster like Applejack couldn’t over power the tantabus, it was hopeless for her.
So Twilight was surprised when she realised her body was still fighting, and fighting harder than it should have. What is it? What are you fighting for? She wanted to at least go in peace, but the question burned in her head until she couldn’t stand it. With the last shred of will left in her body, Twilight forced her eyes open.
Black sludge covered her face, marring her vision as the demon still fought to choke her with its tendrils, but through the dripping splotches, she saw the Knights of the Feast Table beating back the demon. Rarity had managed to cocoon parts of the tantabus in a web so thick even its fluid body could not seep through, save for a single opening.
There, Applejack stood over the demon. Her right arm had gone limp, but with the other she managed to beat the tantabus into a splattered puddle, forcing it into the arachnaed’s webbing. But they weren’t enough. Even as it retreated, the demon was reforming.
Half-dead and lungs burning, Twilight’s senses as a mage could still see the magic the demon was drawing on. All around them, the magic flowing from the night demon’s font of power was feeding the tantabus, allowing it to reconstitute itself from any injury. They’re going to die if I don’t help, Twilight realised.
She shoved her hand through the demon’s body, feeling around for her staff. Her fingertip brushed it, but even that was enough to channel a burst from raw magic through it, exploding the tantabus for a second and bringing the staff back into her hand.
Twilight coughed, ejecting as much of the demon’s sludge from her throat. She still swallowed some of it as she gasped for breath, but the small relief that brought to her lung was enough to move her muscles. She drew a circle below the demon and the web sac, letting all of it fall through the circle as sealing it before it could escape.
Applejack pumped her good fist up, giving a ragged howl over their victory. But Twilight could not celebrate. She felt a stirring in her stomach, and she immediately clutched her mouth as she retched and threw up the last remnant of the tantabus demon.
It swirled around on the ground, barely larger than a slug, but already growing as it drew from the night demon’s place of power.
“Not a chance,” Twilight said, scooping it back up in her hand.
“How do you stop that?” Fluttershy said. “I can’t do a cleansing ritual fast enough.”
“I only know of one way,” Twilight answered hesitantly. “But it’s really going to suck.” She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. “Demonicum presido,” she whispered, and then she swallowed the demon again.
“What in the world?” Applejack gawked. “Does… does it taste good?”
Twilight covered her mouth with both hands, tears streaming down her face as she felt the demon wriggling in her throat, trying to fight its way out. At the same time, her body tensed and spasmed, sending her every possible signal to reject the thing she was eating. But doing so would mean they’d have to fight the demon again after a few minutes, so she swallowed anyway.
“Demon trapping spell,” she said with a ragged gasp when it finally stopped struggling. “Normally we enchant cages, but that takes time. Enchanting magically attuned organisms is almost instantaneous.”
She shot the house sprite a jealous look. “Just be glad I didn’t feed it to you.”
“So, not a good cooking ingredient, I reckon,” Applejack said.
“I’ll leave my feedback with the Reviewer’s Guild,” Twilight said. “Right now, we have bigger demons to catch.”
As the night demon was growing stronger, her place of power diminished. But standing at the gates of the ancient castle, Twilight could still feel its influence.
“Can’t continue,” Pinkie said weakly, leaning on Applejack’s leg. “My head, it hurts.”
“Then don’t get in my way,” Twilight said. “Goes double for you, farm girl. We barely survived our way here. That arm won’t do any good in a fight.”
Applejack looked to her arm, all bandaged in Rarity’s webbing to staunch the bleeding. Then she frowned and flexed her good arm. “In case you forgot, I beat that tanta-whatever to a pulp.”
Twilight nodded. “And now you’re tired, admit it. Even you have your limits.”
“Ain’t at them yet,” Applejack insisted.
“Hey, maybe we should wait?” Rainbow Dash suggested. “If this place of power is affecting your magic, won’t it be easier to fight when it’s drained?”
“It’s more dangerous to let that night demon take it all,” Twilight said. “If she reaches her full potential, she could kill thousands before the Sun Queen gets to her.”
“So good of you to think so highly of me.” The cackling voice of the night demon cut the girls short as they all looked up to the castle’s crumbling tower. There, outlined against the light of the full moon, stood the night demon. “But unfortunately for you, this time my sister will be outmatched.”
“You’re really here?” Rainbow gasped and fell to her knees. “I haven’t helped them, I swear! I’m yours, I’ll be your knight! I want to live a happy, omelette free life!”
“What in tarnation?” Applejack’s eyes widened at Rainbow’s words. Then, she shot a sharpened glare at the demon. “What kind of mind trickery did you do to her? She loves making omelettes. Give her back!”
“I don’t agree with that motivation but at least your heart’s in the right place,” Twilight said as she raised her staff. “We’re taking you down tonight. In the name of the Sun Queen!”
“Come and try,” the night demon sneered as she spread her wings, the full moon behind her seeming to wane with her action until its light was completely gone and they were all drenched in darkness.
A new moon, Twilight thought to herself, immediately looking around for other demons. Points for poetic presentation, I suppose.
And just like that, all her magic flooded to her fingertips, pumping into the stones of the tower. “Petra animus,” she uttered.
The old stones of the tower started reforming an instant later, immediately ripping themselves from the structure to come together as a magically animated arm or leg.
“I need time to build this!” Twilight yelled, but she didn’t need to bother. Applejack reacted quickly, launching Rarity with a throw from her good arm. The arachnaed spun a net as she flew, casting her silk over the night demon.
“Fluttershy, give us light!”
The druid nodded and touched her hands to the ground, whispering the language of the plants to bring up a grove of brilliantly luminescent mushrooms, just in time to see Rarity falling from the sky with two of her eight legs severed.
“Got you!” Pinkie shouted, casting her own faerie magic and catching Rarity in a cloud of sugar floss. But it wasn’t without consequence. The house sprite stumbled and fell to the ground, clutching her head.
That, however, was all the time Twilight needed. Her stone construct rose to its full height, almost fifteen feet tall by her estimate, and swung its massive arms at the night demon.
“Slow!” the demon cackled, flapping her wings and sending a shockwave so strong it ripped stones from the construct’s skin.
She landed on the glowing mushrooms, right next to Applejack, and lashed her tail around the woman’s neck. Twilight didn’t think it was possible, but the demon threw the brute around like she was a ragdoll, opening up her shoulder wound as she threw her into a tree.
Twilight drew a circle instinctively, forgetting for a moment that she had locked a demon in her library, but thankfully it did not escape through the portal as she retrieved a handful of scrolls. She ripped them one at a time, covering the night demon in layers of frost before blasting her with force enchantments.
“Fluttershy, hold her down with roots!” Twilight ordered, but the druid was caught in her own panic at the sight of the demon.
She groaned and then pointed her staff at Fluttershy. “Valex ignitium,” she cast, filling Fluttershy with a rush of magic to stir her blood. With renewed focus, the druid managed to plant her tree branch into the ground and sprout roots around the demon’s legs.
But the demon only smiled. “Cute. My sister taught you that one?” She waved her finger and cut the roots to ribbons, then shifted her eyes to the druid. With just a look, Fluttershy’s legs buckled and she collapsed onto a bed of mushrooms.
The night demon then focused on Twilight. “Well, here’s another lesson!” Her fingers elongated into daggers and she shot her arm out like spring, aiming for her throat. But the stone construct moved in time to catch the blades while the mage stumbled back, regaining her posture and focus.
“What are you talking about? Who’s your sister?” she asked, hoping that a conversation would distract the demon long enough to find a different course of attack.
“You mean she never mentioned me?” the demon asked incredulously. “The Sun Queen, who else?”
Twilight laughed. “Ha! The Sun Queen is an immortal goddess, she doesn’t have a sister. If she did, I’d know.”
“She’s a liar and a hypocrite,” the demon said back. She drew on the castle’s power and Fluttershy’s mushrooms seemed to dim, swallowed up by the night demon’s magic.
“Says the demon!” Twilight shouted, raising her staff to command her construct. The stone figure slammed its arm down over the night demon, but before it made impact, the stones crumbled into sand and scattered to the air.
Twilight drew on her magic again, raising a barrier of raw energy around herself, but the demon battered her defence aside effortlessly, ripping apart her magic and teaching her how naive she had been to think she was a match.
Pain shot through her legs and set every nerve on fire as though her calves had been flayed in an instant. But Twilight couldn’t see any visible damage. It was only an illusion, she realised.
Only.
But realising and overcoming were not at all alike. Twilight attempted to move her staff to channel a dispelling charm, but that too was in vain. The demon, like the tantabus before, shot a formless tendril from her chest that pulled her staff from her hand.
“The Evercorn Conduit,” the night demon said in an amused tone, bringing the staff closer for inspection. “We built this weapon together on our hundred and eightieth birthday. She hunted two dozen unicorns so that I could fuse their horns into the core of the wood.”
Twilight fought against the pain, forcing herself to take one excruciating step before the night demon channelled another illusion into her, giving her a splitting headache.
“More lies,” she said as she fell. “The Sun Queen made that staff for me, she fused the horns herself.”
“Another one of my sister’s lies. And you’re the fool she found who would believe every single one.”
“You might have tricked Rainbow Dash with your words, but I won’t be so easy,” Twilight said through clenched teeth.
There was less amusement now as the demon sharpened her claws and toppled Twilight’s construct by turning its legs into dust. She hissed as Applejack rose to her feet, hobbling weakly but still defiant, and when the brute rushed forward, the demon swung her claws and severed her left arm.
Twilight closed her eyes, and her heart, to the shock of what she saw and fought to stand back up, but failed to move at all. Still, it was enough to pull the night demon’s attention back.
“If only my sister hadn’t gotten you, I could have used your blind loyalty and forged you into the greatest weapon in the world. You have what it takes, unlike that birdie of yours.”
The night demon turned and gave a disgusted look to Rainbow Dash, who had curled up behind the nearest tree.
Twilight focused all her magic in that brief moment of distraction, not trying to break free, but to move her finger and draw a portal. Without her staff to amplify her power, the spell drained her, but all that mattered was that she completed it. The illusion that held her kept her in enough agony to keep her from standing up, but it was her desperation that pushed her to complete a simple circle.
It was a final act of desperation. Her portals could not open to anywhere other than her anchor point, the place she had enchanted and bound to herself. And there in her library there was a tantabus demon. If she had opened it immediately after sealing the creature, she was sure it would have simply escaped, but some time had passed since then, and Dawnstead was the capital of the kingdom. She doubted the Sun Queen would let a threat like a tantabus go unchecked.
Her portal was barely wider than her fist, but that alone was enough for someone on the other side to latch onto the spell, pumping in their own magic to expand it. The night demon saw this as well and stepped back in stunned horror as the portal grew to twice the height of a full-grown man. And even then, it was only barely enough clearance for the Sun Queen to step through.
She stood at the portal, pale-skinned and wrapped in layers of gold silk, and surveyed the battle around her. As her eyes scanned, the night itself seemed to brighten with her gaze, and the ground around her was illuminated with the auroral shimmering from her golden, waist-length hair.
“Sister,” the Sun Queen said with a nod.
Now it was the demon’s turn to feel fear. “No, not yet,” she whispered, “you can’t be here yet!” With a roar, the demon spread her wings and enveloped the castle in darkness, swallowing everything save for the Sun Queen and a halo of light around her.
“Come now, don’t be like that,” the Queen sighed, raising a hand and dispelling the demon’s magic. Light returned to the forest, as did the full moon, and in a burst of raw energy the night demon was launched through the crumbling body of Twilight’s stone construct.
“Sun Queen?” Twilight muttered, gasping with relief as the demon’s pain illusions lifted. “She was telling the truth? You two are sisters?”
The Queen looked down to her and simply nodded. “Don’t fret, my little mage. You’ll get your answers.”
The Sun Queen placed her hand on the farmer’s shoulder, the side missing an arm. The left had been taken off with a clean cut, while the right had a wound from elbow to shoulder that had opened up all the way through to the bone. And somehow, she was still vaguely conscious.
“Didn’t think I’m worth a royal rescue, yer Shiny Majestical Brilliancy.” She was, however, beyond the limits of human ability.
“Is she going to be alright?” Twilight asked.
“I believe so.” The Sun Queen exhaled slowly, opening her own reserve of magic and filling Applejack with a blinding light. Her wounds closed, not with flesh, but with a golden glassy substance that filled in the injury the same way a molten iron filled a cast. As for her arm, a perfect replica of the original already took its place on the shoulder stump, strands of solid light stitching themselves into the woman’s flesh until it was inseparable.
“Well I’ll be darned,” Applejack whistled, “that’s some fancy magic.”
“You’ve been blessed by a living goddess,” Twilight gasped, “you could stand to show a little more respect.”
“Sorry sugarcube, but I don’t think I can stand at all right now.”
“Fascinating,” the Sun Queen said, and then turned to Twilight. “The lineage is distant, but she’s part giant, on her mother’s side.”
“T-that would explain some things,” Twilight said. “How do you know?”
“Restoring her flesh allows me to read her vital essences, the components of matter and life which make her physical body what it is. Her blood is too diluted to tell the original strain of giant, but it was at least a hill giant. Anything less and she wouldn’t have survived the magic necessary for repair.”
The Sun Queen looked over to Rarity, who had long since fell unconscious from her brush with the night demon. Her missing limbs still dripped with spider ichor. “That one will have to find the Healer’s Guild, unless she wants her insides melted.”
“I don’t think arachnaeds would enjoy that, Your Majesty.”
“Now, to my sister.” The Sun Queen went and stood over the night demon who was still unconscious from the blast.
“The demon.” Twilight muttered. “Does this mean that you…?”
The Sun Queen laughed. “Heavens, no. I am a solar seraph. Whenever a demon or a seraph is born, we are born with an equal and opposite counterpart as a sibling. It is how the cosmic forces of magic remain balanced. We lived as sisters for a century or so, until Luna began to grow apart from me.”
The night demon coughed, seeming to awaken at the mention of her name. “You mean until I began to be free of you.” She started to rise, but the Sun Queen only had to lift her pinky finger for chains of solid light to coil around her.
“Lock me up again, banish me if you want,” Luna said as she struggled, kicking and squirming, “but I will only grow stronger. Go ahead and tell your student why I left you. Tell her what you tried to do to me!”
“Your Majesty?” Twilight looked at the Sun Queen curiously.
“It’s not as if I’ve ever tried to hide it, but no one ever asks.” She shrugged and returned Twilight’s gaze. “I knew she would drift away, so before I let it happen, I tried to make her obey me using control magic. But I was only two hundred years old, I didn’t have the knowledge necessary to execute it on a demon as strong as my sister.”
Luna laughed. “Oh, but you’ve done such a good job of using it on this little kingdom of yours. This one called you her goddess. Ha! What kind of goddess has to stoop to rule over mortals?”
“One who has had centuries of practice with control spells,” the Sun Queen said. “And one who has had time to prepare another spell especially for you.”
She stretched her arm over Luna, drawing up every source of magic around them. Twilight gasped in awe at first, but quickly it turned to terror. She felt the place of power vanish completely, letting her own magic flow freely, but only for a moment. The trees around them died as living magic bled into the Sun Queen.
Twilight’s own reserves, she realised, failed to replenish. Raw magic existed everywhere, it was as permeable as the air and just as abundant in normal conditions. If she wasn’t recharging, then that must’ve meant the Queen was draining it all for herself. To see it was like watching someone try to drink the ocean dry, and noticing them making progress. Even the stars above dimmed as their celestial magic flowed directly into the Sun Queen’s hands.
“What kind of spell…?” Twilight asked, unable to even finish the question.
“No!” Luna suddenly jerked, pulling so hard at her chains that her shoulder pulled itself from its socket. “You can’t do this to me. You’re taking away everything I have!” Desperately, she turned to Twilight. “You have to stop her, it’s too much power for her to wield!”
“I don’t even know what she’s doing!” Twilight denied her, shielding her eyes from the blinding light. But even with both hands over her face, the light penetrated through to her eyes. Looking away brought some relief, but it was like having the sun itself at her fingertips.
“A hundred years it took for me to create this spell,” the Sun Queen said. “Six hundred years to prepare it to take this much magic. After a thousand years of waiting, we will be together.”
Twilight couldn’t see what was happening, but she could hear it and feel it. The night demon shrieked as the spell worked its power on her, quickly spending the magic the Queen had gathered. In seconds the blinding light faded, and as long as she squinted, Twilight could see the spell at work.
Although once she did, she wished she hadn’t. The night demon had shrunk, her golden chains falling around her. Her wings and hair receded. The unmistakable age on Luna’s face had vanished, replaced now with a much more youthful, almost childish appearance.
Time magic.
Such a thing was a myth. Of thousands of magicians and wizards in Dawnstead, Twilight could count only three who had any knowledge of time magic theory, and their works were considered fringe at best.
Despite that, before her was a night demon who had lost centuries, and not just in physical age, but in time. Twilight was sure of it.
“You reset her,” she muttered to herself, though the Sun Queen had heard her.
When the last light of the spell faded, and the young demon fell flat on her face from exhaustion, the Sun Queen lowered her arm and let out a heavy sigh. “A necessary evil. There are limits to control magic against a demon of her calibre. If I am to reign her in as my sister, I must start when she is young and break her resistance gradually.”
Twilight considered the Sun Queen’s words, looking around to the guild members, all of them unconscious from the raw energy of the spell itself.
“The kingdom, your rule, is it true? This was just one big experiment to practice control magic?”
The Sun Queen gave her a sly smile. “Does that bother you, my faithful student?”
“Your Majesty?” Twilight eyes rose up to meet the Queen’s.
“My faithful student,” repeated the Queen. “I asked if that bothers you, knowing the truth about control magic.”
She blinked, trying to clear her mind, but Twilight was dazzled by the Sun Queen still. Her face and body were so perfectly formed and symmetrical that it was like looking at a statue.
“I—I think it might, Your Majesty,” Twilight answered. “Such things are bothersome when people believe they have freedom.”
“I see. Well, my faithful student, you have been loyal to me your whole life.”
“Yes.”
“And you will continue to do so, will you not?”
Twilight nodded. “I believe I will.”
“Good.” The Sun Queen bent down and carried her sister in her arms, swaddling her in chains like an infant. She opened a portal with the flick of a finger, but before stepping through, she took one more look at the Knights of the Feast Table.
“In all my years, I never would have guessed this band of misfits could come so close to my sister. What do you think of them, my faithful student? Be honest.”
“They’re insipid and distracting,” Twilight said bluntly. “They lack professionalism despite being a registered guild. Without proper guidance they will fall apart on their own.”
The Sun Queen nodded. “In that case, wouldn’t you like to join their guild? Show them the ropes, as they say.”
“What?” Twilight suddenly blinked, a sharp fear arresting all her thoughts and senses. “No! Your Majesty, I can’t be left alone with these buffoons!” She scrambled to find the right words. “They’re obsessed about eating monsters and can barely focus on a single task to save their lives. I’m fine to return to your service at the palace. I beg you, don’t leave me in Adventure Ville with them!”
“My faithful student,” the Sun Queen said again. “You’ve been living with your nose in your books for too long, don’t you think? It’s time you made more friends.”
“I have friends,” Twilight protested slowly. “Moondancer, and, uh, well I know there are others.”
“But there is potential with these misfits, don’t you think so, my faithful student? Wouldn’t you like to join the Knights of the Feast Table?”
“I’m not sure,” Twilight said.
“My faithful student. I think you’re excited for a new opportunity. You want to join the Knights of the Feast Table.”
“Yes, that sounds right,” Twilight nodded. “We’ve done so much. I should give them a chance.”
The Sun Queen smiled. “Good.” And just like that, she stepped through the portal, leaving the new guild of six knights in the ashes of the Everfree.
“There. Done.”
Twilight signed the last page to ratify the Knights of the Feast Table and slipped the paperwork, including her own form as their final founding member, into an express envelope.
Applejack stood next to her and the contrast between the two women could not have been greater. Beside the cramped, paper-filled front desk of the Messaging Guild’s office in the town hall, Applejack fit in as well as a minotaur in the Pottery Guild. The farm girl had planned to hire extra hands to help carry cutlets of sea serpent meat back to her farm. Even with her strength, after two weeks she had barely scraped away the surface.
But she was met with disappointment when she placed the request.
“I’m sorry, but that sounds like moving a package,” the grey elf had told her. “We’re the Messaging Guild, we only handle messages. You should talk to the Package Delivery Guild, or maybe the Caravan Traders’ Guild, they should be able to transport whatever you need.”
That left Applejack with a scowl on her face for the rest of the day, though Twilight couldn’t say she was doing any better. The role of the Sun Queen’s apprentice was an important one, but not one that drew that much fame or attention. Even so, when the grey elf recognised her, she immediately asked why she was joining a small start-up guild.
“I thought you were some super important wizard,” the elf had said. “Why'd the Sun Queen leave you here in our little old town?
And after that, every time the elf prodded, Twilight tightened her grip around her staff, which she carried casually as a walking stick even on regular days. Simply verifying her personal information on the envelope seemed like a chore with the elf’s staring. Finally, she stamped a golden wax seal over it, signifying the express shipment had been paid for, and pushed it into her hands.
“Enough chatting,” Twilight said through clenched teeth. “We’re done here.”
“Yup, that looks right!” the elf said, seemingly ignoring her angered tone. “Oh, that reminds me!” She turned to Applejack, “while I have you here, one of our griffon riders just dropped off an envelope with your name on it. It was supposed to go to your farm, but I guess I could just give it to you now.”
The latter came in a gold-foil envelope marked with the Sun Queen’s seal. Twilight had seen the fiery ring countless times before, and given the time of year, she knew the letter would contain an invitation to the Grand Celestial Gala.
Applejack only opened the letter only an hour later when they had returned to the farm. She held the three tickets tenderly in her right hand, too scared to use her left for fear that the Sun Queen’s replacement would be too powerful.
“This…” Applejack gasped, “I ain’t got the words for this. The Gala! Our guild’s going to the biggest celebration of the year!”
“You might be,” Twilight scoffed, “but count me out. I’ve seen it plenty of times from my library. It’s a bunch of nobles with gold staves up their asses trying to gain favour with the Sun Queen, as if they could ever influence a living god.”
“Seraph,” Applejack said. “Didn’t she say something about being a solar seraph?”
“She said a lot of things,” Twilight snapped, “and you were delirious and nearly unconscious from blood loss. Don’t assume you know everything. I’ve seen her power, and I know there’s none other like her in the world. The Sun Queen is indisputably a true goddess.”
Applejack remained silent for a moment, giving Twilight time to calm down. “Sorry, I’ve had a lot to think about since our fight with the demon.”
“That’s all right, all that matters now is figuring out how we’re gonna divide up these tickets. She sent us three, but we’ve got five members.”
“Every ticket gets a plus one,” Twilight said.
Applejack looked closely at the fine print of the golden tickets. “Huh, you’re right,” she mumbled. “So, if I take Rainbow with me, and Fluttershy takes Rarity, then you’re left with no one to go with.”
“Give it to someone who cares,” Twilight said. “I’m not going.”
“Oh yes you are.” Applejack opened the envelope and flashed the letter in her face. “It says right here that the Knights of the Feast Table are invited, and that includes you.” Applejack squinted at the bottom, scanning across the page.
“What is it?”
“P.S: don’t let Twilight talk her way out of this one,” Applejack read, “remind her she is my faithful student, she should be happy to come. See, even the Sun Queen says you should go.”
Twilight stared silently at Applejack for a moment, and then sighed. “You’re right, I should go to the Gala.”
“Atta girl!” she clapped her hands together. “Now all we gotta do is find you a date.”
Date. That word sent ripples of memories through Twilight’s mind. Images of self-important sons of merchants with roses flashed in her mind. Words praising her soft face and slender waist rung like flies in her ears. Twilight stepped back.
“You’re insane if you think I’ll make it worse by going with a date,” she said with disgust scribbled across her face. “Dawnstead’s full of bachelors with nothing but money and time on their hands. Even as the Sun Queen’s apprentice I had to deal with them trying to drag me off to their beds.”
Before Applejack could get a word in, there was a crash from the barn followed by the sounds of horses panicking. A second later, Pinkie’s head popped out from the barn.
“Take me instead!” she shouted. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to the Gala!”
“Pinkie?” Applejack jumped. “How long were you listening?”
“Oh, you know, just for the whole time. But no time for that!” Pinkie pounced, throwing herself into Twilight’s arms. The house sprite couldn’t have been more than two feet tall, but physically capable, Twilight was not, and Pinkie had a lot of spring in her step. Instead, the two went tumbling down into the dirt, with the sprite sitting firmly on top of Twilight’s chest.
“Get off,” Twilight groaned, reaching for her staff though it had fallen to the side.
“Take. Me. To. The Gala!”
“Why?” Twilight asked and rolled away. Brownies and other house sprites were powerful, but they were light even for their size. After the surprise wore off, Twilight had little issue moving her.
“Just go yourself,” she said, dusting her robes off.
“I would, but I don’t have an invitation,” Pinkie crossed her arms. “How am I supposed to get in?”
Twilight stared at her as if Pinkie had just said the sky was held up by a tortoise. She gave Applejack a confused look, but the brute’s expression told Twilight she was just as clueless.
“You mean you don’t know?” Twilight asked. “All Fae are invited to parties and gatherings automatically.”
Pinkie blinked. “Come again?”
“You’re a brownie, that means you’re a house sprite and a citizen of the Faerie King,” Twilight explained. “The Sun Queen might be the most powerful being in existence, but she’s also wise enough not to offend the Faerie King, denying a Fae entrance to a party would definitely be an insult.”
“So you’re telling me, that all this time, I could have gone to any party anywhere in the world?”
“Yea—”
Pinkie jumped at her again, this time pushing her out of the way. “Move you idiot! A party could be happening right now!”
Twilight scowled, barely finding her footing, and shook the dust off the end of her robe. “This is why I don’t go to the Gala. The celebrations make people go nuts.”
“Sure, sure,” Applejack nodded, rubbing her chin. “So what you’re saying is, you’re single.”
“That’s your take away?” Twilight asked.
She shrugged back. “I was just thinking, my older brother hasn’t had much luck with dating. I reckon he’d be happy to go as your plus one.”
“Older brother?” Twilight’s blood ran cold as she imagined someone larger than Applejack.
“Sure thing,” Applejack nodded. “Macintosh! Come out for a second!”
Slowly Twilight swivelled her head to the farmhouse where a man larger than the door itself stepped out. Her eyes bulged. If she had seen him the day she arrived, she wouldn’t have needed the Sun Queen to know that they had giant’s blood. He was a head taller than Applejack, easily over seven feet, and his chest was nothing more than a mass of rippling muscle. As Macintosh walked up to them, Twilight felt the urge to turn and run, scared witless by his size alone. His shoulders were like boulders, his arms as thick as tree trunks.
“Uh, howdy?” Macintosh said quietly to Twilight. “Applejack, what’s this about?”
Applejack waved the golden tickets to her brother. “I told you this guild business was going to take off. Sun Queen herself sent us tickets, on account of us helping fight that demon. But we got an extra, so I figured you’d like to go with Twilight.”
Twilight stood stiff and frozen as Macintosh glanced down at her. It was a bright day with a shining sun, and she was entirely underneath his shadow. Twilight had learned quickly what occurred at the Gala during the night, when the guest bedrooms were made available to eager nobles’ sons eager to prove themselves as men. Looking at the behemoth now, Twilight had no reason to think Macintosh would want anything less. The thought alone made her shudder with fear.
“Uh, nope,” he said, furrowing his brows as if an important thought just filled his head. “Sorry, Sis, but you ought to stop trying to set me up. You know stringbeans ain’t my type.”
Stringbeans? Twilight suddenly found herself clutching her waist. It was true she was slim, even for a wizard, but from the nobles she saw in Dawnstead, that was what men wanted in women. Wasn’t it?
“What do you mean by that?” she blurted out, not realising what she was doing until it was too late.
“Oh! No, I didn’t mean to offend ya, you’re very pretty and all that, I just don’t feel comfortable going to a dance with someone I don’t know.”
Twilight crossed her arms. “This isn’t just some dance, it’s the Grand Celestial Gala, and you should consider yourself lucky if I, the Sun Queen’s chosen apprentice, ever deigned to go to the Gala with a country bumpkin like you.”
“Ay now, no reason to be rude,” Macintosh folded his arms. “Y’all can’t be that great if I haven’t heard of ya.”
“Oh, as if you could’ve heard about me in a backwater like this.” Twilight threw her arms in the air. She didn’t know why she felt mad all of a sudden. She still wouldn’t dream of attending the Gala with Macintosh at her side, but her whole life the young men visiting the Sun Queen’s court treated her like a porcelain doll. Perhaps it was just the shock of being brushed off so easily. She wouldn’t have minded if he was a rich merchant’s son, but a lumbering brute like Applejack’s brother? Who did he think he was, getting picky like that?
“Wait up, just give him a chance!”
Applejack chased after her, but Twilight did what she could with magic to enchant her shoes and keep ahead of the bounding farm girl. They kept their chase until they returned to the edge of Adventure Ville, near the road to the town, when the sounds of fireworks started drawing attention. She conjectured at first that it was from some alchemist or magician guild showing off to attract apprentices, until she noticed the stage.
“Behold, and Trixie the Great of Powerful wields the power of fire at her fingertips!” The woman on stage snapped and the fireworks transformed into the shape of a pigeon, flapping its phosphorous wings around the small crowd that had gathered.
“A performer? Well that’s not something you see everyday,” said a bard dressed in teal to her partner as they relaxed on a park bench.
“We should check it out,” her partner said.
Twilight followed them with Applejack chasing behind her as a crowd of guild workers and adventurers looking for an excuse to get away from their jobs started to form. Everyone’s faces were a canvas of fascination, and even Applejack dropped the topic of her brother. But Twilight could do little else but scoff.
There were a dozen names for the woman and her gaudy star-spangled robe: stage mages, trickster wizards, charlatans, or trick jongleurs, to name a few. They were third-rate magicians and wizards who added a little magic to mundane tricks, they were little more than thieves and con artists.
“Here we have two enchanted cups,” the woman said, passing them between her hands, “they are identical, and anything that goes in one will magically appear in the other.” She performed a series of flourishes with sleight of hand, producing the illusion that no matter what she did, the ball would reappear inside a cup.
The trick was merely more than a few key hand movements, practised to a subtle perfection. The real show was in the performance and charisma of the woman on stage. For a few minutes she had the audience straining their eyes, some trying to follow the balls and figure out the trick, many others simply watching and amazed.
Twilight scoffed. “That’s not magic.”
“Eh?” Applejack raised a brow, as transfixed as the rest of the crowd.
“Oh come on, you’ve seen me do magic, you seriously think this trickster’s real? It’s all sleight of hand with some cheap light tricks for show.”
“Course it is. But I still don’t know how she does it, and that don’t make it any less fun.”
Twilight scrunched her nose, struggling to see what was so fun about being fooled, but before she could say a word, the woman on stage called for a member of the audience to help bind her arms in a coil of chains. And before she realised it, Twilight’s arm was in Applejack’s hand, being stretched up high.
“My friend wants to volunteer!” the farm girl shouted over the crowd.
“Wonderful!” the trickster waved Twilight over eagerly.
“Sorry, but no,” Twilight took a step back, trying to deflect incoming stares, “please don’t mind her, she’s just being ridiculous.”
“There’s no need to be shy,” Trixie said, before her expression changed and her eyes flashed with recognition. “Hold on. Twilight Sparkle, is that you?”
More eyes turned her way as Trixie called out her name. “Well, what’re you being a stranger for? I’m sure the crowd would like to see a trick with not just one, but two accomplished wizards. And the Sun Queen’s apprentice no less.”
Twilight whipped her head around and shouted through the crowd as if they weren’t there. “Do I know you?”
“We were classmates for years,” Trixie chuckled, “of course, you were always too busy to notice anyone. But come on, you’re not going to help an old friend from the Wizard’s Guild?”
Twilight narrowed her eyes, trying to peel back the years and remember whether or not she had ever seen the blue-haired woman. It technically wasn’t impossible, plenty of apprentices who failed continued their careers as hedge witches and wizards, selling their spells and enchantments illegally, but for a fraction of the price of a fully-trained magician. But she never heard of any apprentice stooping so low as to be a trickster wizard. Even a first-year apprentice had more magical talent than any stage performer.
Twilight suddenly cracked a smile. There was a reason why this “Trixie” was begging for coins from village peasants and not pulling tricks on Dawnstead’s nobility. Everyone knew stage mages to be liars and cheats, and she had no doubt this was a play to make herself appear like a credible wizard.
“So, you want a real magic show, is that it?” Twilight tilted her head.
Trixie said nothing, but simply gestured for her to take the locks. Twilight moved through the crowd with purpose now, grabbing the locks and chains and binding Trixie exactly how the performer asked her to. How the locks worked, Twilight had to admit she did not know, only that they must have been trick locks.
“Now, how about a little water?” Trixie asked. A stagehand removed the curtains behind her to reveal an empty tank, just large enough for someone skinny. “Aquas volmus!”
On command, the tank began to fill, and the crowd murmured their “oohs” and “aahs.” Twilight couldn’t see the tubing where the water came from, but she knew it couldn’t have been by magic. The spell Trixie had tried to cast was real enough, though it was pronounced “aquis vultus."
She let the performance play out, with Trixie warning the crowd of the dangers before reassuring them that she was a professional and in no danger, provided she could “enchant” the locks in time. Only as she was about to lift Trixie into the tank did Twilight flash the magician a sly grin.
“Ghomon catana,” she said loudly, slapping Trixie on the back. “A little good luck charm we apprentices used to say,” she said to the crowd. But the woman’s face paled, and she looked down to her locks.
“Twilight, please don’t,” Trixie whispered as Twilight levitated her up.
“A hedge witch could undo that charm,” Twilight simply shrugged. “Nothing the Great and Powerful Trixie can’t handle.”
Trixie cast a look to the crowd and then pressed her lips tight. With a flick of her staff Twilight shut off the levitation and the stage magician plummeted into the water. A second passed, and then another. Twilight and the crowd stared as Trixie fiddled with the lock, though not even a bard’s tricks would get her out of an enchanted lock.
Perhaps she wasn’t a total fraud, she had recognised the sealing charm Twilight placed on the metal, but that was far from being able to call yourself a real wizard. Thirty seconds now. Twilight, with her exclusive close-up view, saw Trixie’s fingers fighting for control of a hidden switch or button on the locks. A trick lock, naturally, another lie used to scrape coins from unlearned masses. But whether it was real or not, ghomon catana would hold the chains in place unless a counter hex was used against it.
But then the trickster wizard surprised her, yelling exactly the counter hex needed against the enchantment. “Libra corpa zei!”
It was a risk, yelling the spell underwater, and Twilight saw the exact moment Trixie started thrashing as water flooded her lungs. But only a moment after that, the glass shattered from the disenchanting and spilled water all over the stage and the front rows of the audience.
The force of the spell almost threw Twilight back, but she leaned on her staff instinctively, absorbing the blow. Trixie was still on her hands, heaving water onto the stage. There were murmurs from the crowd, but just then, two stagehands rushed to pull the curtains closed, cancelling the show early.
“Well,” Twilight folded her arms, “didn’t think you could do it. That was a second year counter hex, most stage mages don’t make it past their first year.”
For a moment, Trixie knelt there in the water which was now mixed with bile. She took a deep breath, returned her magician’s hat to her head, and stood up.
“Well, I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” she said. “Thanks to you my show is ruined. Probably won’t get an audience tomorrow.”
Twilight smirked and shook her head. “Okay, don’t get big-headed, your show is built on lies. You’re not a real wizard, and we were never classmates.”
“You made your construct in our first year,” Trixie said abruptly. “You did it in Madame Xelciore’s class because you got bored of her lectures. You thought she taught too slowly. In botanical alchemy you put Moondancer to sleep with pollen from the heriophantum tarotus flower since she couldn’t keep up with you. You let her take credit for your work as long as she didn’t slow you down.”
Twilight blinked. “How do you know all that?”
“Because I was there!”
Twilight stuttered back, steadying herself with her staff. “I would have remembered—”
“You would have remembered if you stopped looking down on others and just saw them like people,” Trixie wiped her face clean with her sleeve. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a stage to clean up. I would say it was nice to see you after school, but evidently,” she gestured to the mess, “that’s not the case.”
And then she left Twilight on the stage, her leather boots soaking in the water.
The sun was fully up by the time Twilight awoke.
She still hadn’t gotten used to sleeping in a proper bed. Her residence in Dawnstead had been converted to a library, leaving only the attic space for a mattress and an average-sized dresser. Now she belonged to an adventuring guild, and at the Sun Queen’s request, had been granted the room above the library of the Guild Management Office. Some things were the same, like the scent of books and leather, but the Management Office was the largest section of the town hall, with multiple wings within its department. It had a level of comfort and decorum that Twilight had never bothered with; her new bed was thrice the size she was used to, while the duvet and drapes and embroidered pillows were enough to suffocate her.
It seemed ridiculous that more luxury had kept her up at night but she couldn’t curl back up and savour a few more hours of sleep. The Queen’s precious day was wasting away. Twilight grabbed her staff, which she kept within arm’s reach even when she slept, and drew a portal in the air. Linked to any part of her library back in Dawnstead, she had no trouble gathering new clothes from her dresser. She put on a fresh robe and went to see what was cooking in the office kitchens.
Breakfast was as it had been since they returned from the forest, a thick slice of grilled sea serpent with pancakes and potatoes. In fact, despite being ratified only recently, the Knights of the Feast table was already on the lips of every guild in town. Sea serpent parts were valuable. The scales, though not nearly as hard as dragon scales, were easily workable for jewellery, while still being comparable to bronze or iron in strength.
Rarity had taken most of the serpent’s hair as well to weave into armour and clothing. Twilight didn’t know the first thing about tailoring, but even if only the accents of the clothing were made with the serpent’s hair, even a hedge witch could store and conduct enough magic to hurt a dragon. She was thankful she had the chance to take a snippet of the serpent’s mane for herself, before the arachnaed absconded with it all.
Already there were profits to tally, which Twilight was sure she would have to handle on her own. But for today, she had other problems. As soon as she stepped outside she found Rainbow Dash flapping her feathers in her face.
“You gotta talk Applejack out of it!” the harpy shrieked. “The gala! She’s going to take me to the gala like a prize chicken!”
“And you’re surprised by that?” Twilight growled, pushing her away to get some space to breathe. “That’s basically what you are to her.”
“But, we’re a guild now, and she’s been serving grilled serpent to everyone in town,” Rainbow said, perching on top of Twilight’s staff. “I’m supposed to become a fierce warrior, slay dragons, that sort of thing. Why does she still need me for eggs?”
“I don’t know, but sort it out yourself, I’m not talking to Applejack right now.”
“Why, what did she do?”
“She tried to get me to take her brother to the gala.”
“I didn’t know Macintosh was even single,” Rainbow gawked. “Rarity says there’s something innately attractive about strength, and he has loads of that. But I can see why you’d be pretty scared.”
“Scared?” Twilight snorted. “I hate the idea because I’m a grown woman who can go to a dance on her own if I feel like it. And I just survived a fight with Sun Queen’s demon sister, apparently. I’m not scared of a date.”
“Really? I would be.” Rainbow Dash hopped off her staff and hovered around her. “I know I’m not one to talk, but for a human, you are pretty small. Macintosh had a girlfriend once, but he was too big for them to do anything.” She landed in front of Twilight, cutting her off on the road. “You’re smaller than she was, I’m pretty sure he’d split you in half if you two tried.”
“Tried what?” Twilight asked, realising as she spoke what Rainbow Dash meant. “I’m talking about a date at a dance! Why would we get to that point? I don’t even know him!”
Rainbow tilted her head. “Does it matter? Rarity says that’s the best way to do dates. Find a guy you don’t know, get him to buy you drinks, seduce him, and then wrap him up in a web while he’s asleep.”
“I’m not an arachnaed,” Twilight said bluntly, “and I don’t think you should be taking dating advice from one anyways.
“Fine, we’re getting off-topic. What’s your plan for getting me away from Applejack?”
“You could leave the guild.”
“Come on, I might be the fastest harpy in the world, but no one wants someone whose bones break every time she hits a tree. And what else are you doing today anyways?”
“Everything!” Twilight said, growing annoyed. “Our guild doesn’t even have a proper savings account! We’re earning more than we expected with the sea serpent, and now I have to get our finances in order before we can think about hiring apprentices and paying for equipment. No human smith makes armour for harpies, so if you want to be a fighter, you’re going to need something customised so a wolf doesn’t break your bones just by barking.”
Rainbow’s mouth almost seemed to water at the thought of wearing armour. “You’re serious, I’m going to be a real knight?”
“No,” Twilight said, “I’m going to manage our funds so you can afford armour. Whether or not you can put up with Applejack to become a fighter is up to you.”
Creating a new bank account was a brief affair, and by noon, Twilight was at the Knife Guild, writing checks for an order of five langes messers. The “long knives” were single-edged swords that could be forged with thicker spines, and the dedicated edge was easier to use for amateur fighters like themselves.
Then she visited the Fletching and Bowyer Guilds for crossbows and bolts. Simple longbows would have been cheaper, but considering none of them were trained archers, and only Applejack had the strength to pull a longbow to full draw, crossbows seemed the better fit.
It was lunchtime when she returned to the Guild Hall, the smell of seared sea serpent once again assaulting her nose. The mercenaries and messengers who bought dried rations didn’t seem to mind, but after facing days of that smell, she wasn’t sure if she could stomach the thought of seafood again. She instead took water and bread, and made her way back to her room.
But before she could leave, the heavy footsteps of a gargantuan man crossed her. Without even looking she knew it was Macintosh, come to sign off on another delivery of sea serpent meat.
She was surprised, however, when his footsteps didn’t continue on to the kitchen, but rather stopped right in her way.
“Howdy,” he said, taking off his straw hat. “Applejack thought I ought to talk to you.”
“No,” Twilight replied, sidestepping him.
“Hold on, it ain’t about whatever she was going off about,” he side-stepped, cutting her off. “Just wanted to apologise. You seemed awfully upset when you left, figured it had something to do with what I said. I didn’t mean to hurt yer feelings, and uh, I’d be willing to give that fancy ball a go if you want.”
“Wait— what are you talking about?” Twilight stammered. “You think I’m upset because you turned me down?”
Macintosh cocked his head to the side. “Well, aint’chya?”
“Ha!” Twilight laughed sharply at him. “I was more offended that you weren’t appreciative of the chance to go to the Gala with someone like me. Trust me, I’d be the one doing you a favour.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re a real catch,” Macintosh folded his arms. “Don’t even know why I bothered. I saw right through you from the start.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means I ain’t as hopeful and optimistic as my sister,” he said through gritted teeth. “She’s got her dreams about getting rich off our grandmother’s monster recipes, and her head’s so high up in the clouds that she’s willing to forgive a lot of your attitude. But I ain’t her. You’re a stuck-up noble, that’s all, and you’re not worth my time as long as you think I’m not worth yours.”
“You think I’m a noble? Nobility is something you’re born with,” Twilight snapped back. “I’ve done nothing but work for my entire life to master magic. I’m not being egotistical when I say I’m one of the best, that’s just a fact. I can count the mages in Dawnstead who know more than me on one hand, and I’ve learned from all of them.”
“That don’t make you better than other folk.”
Twilight tisked her tongue sharply. “I never claimed to be better. I just don’t have to like people who keep distracting me from my work.”
“Then I reckon I ought to stay out of your way, then,” Macintosh said, storming toward the exit.
Twilight did the same, retreating to the familiarity of the guild library, but not before giving one last shout at the farmer. “Yeah, maybe you should!”
