//------------------------------//
// Tickets and Tricks 
// Story: The Knights of the Feast Table 
// by SwordTune 
//------------------------------//

“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!”