“I feel like a ghost, sometimes,” said Twilight, as she studied her pieces. She had played Unicorn Chess for so long, and teleportation was such a natural skill for her, that she no longer had to expend energy or even conscious thought on moving her pieces; once her mind had calculated the proper move, a well-trained subsection of her brain, which could no longer detect a material difference between source and destination, simply made it happen. In this case, the Queen instantly ceased to exist on its home hex and blinked into being at hex A3 as if it had always been there.

Cadance bit back a few obvious quips as she considered the gameboard. She could bypass horn-based spellwork altogether and simply use her talent to increase the attraction between her selected piece and the desired square, until the former, impassioned, rushed to the latter with as much ardor as an inanimate object could display. “Would you care to tell me more?” she said with a smile, as she caused a Minotaur to unite joyously with hex B17.

Twilight held her gaze steady on a neutral space on the board; she didn’t want Cadance to see her staring at any particular pieces. “Well, this is new to me, but now that I have a palace and attendants, it’s as if I’m in a sort of bubble of silence everywhere I go. Conversations die as I approach, ponies always fall into whispers around me unless they have something to say to me directly…”

Cadance gave her eyes a roll of commiseration. “Right. They don’t want to seem like they’re placing themselves at your level, or including you in theirs. They can only interact with you via approved formulaic sayings and elaborate rituals drained of any warmth. No wonder you feel like a summoned spirit.”

Twilight looked up from the board and nodded. “That’s it. That’s just it. Even when they don’t think I’m in earshot and they happen to mention me in conversation, or they’re forced to talk about something fun or interesting when I’m around, they have to sever me from it with verbal formulas. [i]‘Saving Her Highness’[/i] or [i]‘Your Royal Presence excluded, of course.’[/i] And they smile these precise little smarmy smiles.” She snapped a Hoofsoldier to hex C5, restricting the forward movement of Cadance’s Minotaur.

“Oh, you know they’re not trying to be rude. You’re a symbol of power to them, and there’s just no socially acceptable way for them to bring you to a bar or invite you to their filly’s second birthday party…”

“Of course, but still it frustrates me. I just feel like some sort of automaton sometimes. And sometimes I daydream that if I just made an illusion of me that stood around glowing and making proclamations, they’d never notice the difference and I could take a long vacation on a tropical island and–” A thaumic distortion swirled into existence above Twilight’s head.  

“Wh-wha?” she shouted as she was firmly grasped between a huge pair of round fleshy pads and yanked out of her native reality!

[hr]

“What luck!” cried the collector as she inverted her Castle of Friendship playset, which lay darkened and inactive on her work table. “I drove all around town and the stores were all closed! But this will do!” She used a small screwdriver to open an access panel at the castle’s base, between a speaker grille and a little red on/off switch. It revealed an oblong receptacle, rounded at the corners, with a pair of thaumite terminals like pincers at one end.

The collector took up a small clear box, which was barely containing an enraged Twilight, and used plastic insulated tweezers to insert her firmly into the receptacle. Twilight shivered as her sensitive horn was shoved between the thaumite contacts.

The collector swiftly screwed the panel shut, muffling the enraged horse noises, then flipped the on switch and turned the castle right side up. It shone with enchanting sparkles of light and shimmering crystal colors.

“At last!” cried the collector, sighing happily and rubbing her hands. “It’s so pretty now! But I wish it had come with one. They should print that notice larger on the box.”