//------------------------------//
// -84- A Twist of Luck 
// Story: The Anthropologist 
// by Weavers of Dreams 
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"What'th with the thilly hat?" Twist asked as she munched upon a slice of buttered homemade bread. Twilight Velvet made some good bread, creating flavors Twist never even knew existed.

Velvet looked up from drawing a triangle on the marble floor with chalk to the conical hat that rested upon her head. Yes, the stereotypical hat of sorcerers and conjurers was resting upon the mage's healthy skull. "My thaum-o-tronic? Oh, it helps unicorn's control their magic easier by slowing down the thaumaturgic energy emitted by our horns to help us concentrate on more complex spells."

"Ooooh... what?" Twist deadpanned, taking a sarcastic bite from her toast.

Velvet sighed and slapped a hoof to her brow. "Sorry. Years of raising a little genius has conditioned me. Ahem. It slows down my magic as it leaves my horn so that I can make sure I perform the spell correctly. It helps us unicorns as we get older."

"Oh, now I get it," the filly smiled. "It'th like your magic is water and your trying to hold it with fabric, but the water thtill gets out."

"Sort of," Velvet giggled as she went back to completing the triangle. "But, I think of it as being air. You know, like when little colts and fillies try and sneak through the house at night to steal cookies? They sometimes try to mask their breathing with cloth when they know their parents are up. Right?"

"Uuuuummm... nnnoooo," Twist looked away and pretended to examine the wall as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Velvet chuckled and gave her a wink. "Not to worry, Twist. I won't tell anypony. Especially because they probably already know."

The filly's ears drooped to the side and she nibbled thoughtfully upon her toast.

"Now, please stand back, Twist," the mare continued as she reached out with her magic and grabbed a silk bag that had been set to the side, turned it upside down, and unceremoniously dumped its contents inside of the triangle. "This will only be a minor inconvenience before we can get back to making enchanted sweets. Sound good?"

To help divert the fillies mind from her absent family, Velvet had quickly taken to figuring out Twist's cutie mark and then took to helping her practice her talent with some Canterlot delicacies. The singing strawberry ones were her personal favorite, while Twist preferred the kind that changed flavors. It was doing a good job in helping her cope with being alone in a stranger's house.

"Tho, um, what ith that?" the filly asked as she took a tentative step towards the triangle, only to be gently pushed back by Velvet's magic. "Ith it dangerouth?"

Velvet chuckled. "Heavens, no. Under what circumstances would I allow you to be in the same room as a dangerous artifact? Much less the same house?" Tossing the silk bag aside, she adjusted her hat and cleared her throat. "It's just an ancient alarm system from the Youwouldn'treallycare Era for the Youreallywouldn'tcare Empire. It's was designed to alert guards of intruders."

"How?"

"By giving them a horrible case of the hiccups," Velvet responded simply. She noticed the disbelief on the filly's face. "I'm serious, Twist. Rather than fill the walls with crossbows, giant rolling stones, or some other kind of ridiculous trap, they looked for ways to make the intruders reveal themselves. There were several kinds causing their victims all kinds of maladies, all the way from crying like a baby to yodeling like a deranged lunatic."

Twist giggled at the thought of an army of guards chasing a yodeling pony throughout the interior of an ancient palace. She also imagined the yodeling pony in a jailstriped lederhosen, but that wasn't really important. "That'th thilly."

"But effective nonetheless," Velvet pointed with a nod. "Much better than accidentally setting off your own traps while on a trip to the bathroom. That's how the Second Diamond Dog Dynasty came to an end."

Twist decided not to inquire further down this road. "Tho, why do you have it?"

"Because I'm on a registry of unicorns who volunteer to disenchant artifacts before they're shipped off to museums, colleges, or auctions."

"Oh," Tiwst blinked and looked at the triangle a moment. "Thhouldn't that be a thircle?"

"It would be," Velvet nodded. "If not for the fact that the emperor of the empire of that era had decided to make circles illegal. Odd, right?"

"Not really," Twist shook her head, finishing off her toast and licking away the crumbs from her hooftips. "When Trithie took over Ponyville, thhe outlawed wheelth."

Velvet stared at the filly a moment and blinked. "Okay. I'm going to make a note of that and send it to my daughter for further study."

"Altho, why ith it thhaped like a...?"

"Because the emperor was also a perverted old deviant," Velvet quickly cut the filly off in a voice slightly louder than she had intended. She blushed and cleared her throat. "Ahem. Alright, Twist, just be mature about it for a few more seconds, then I can shove it back in the bag again and ship it off."

Sadly, Velvet got the shape wrong and the disenchantment backfired, giving both her and Twist a bad case of the hiccups apiece for several hours. An easy mistake, as there were many shapes besides circles. And yet, this does not conclude their part in the story.