//------------------------------// // 5 - Meaningful Conversation // Story: A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - Amalgam // by gerandakis //------------------------------// Chapter Five Meaningful Conversation Celestia looked up from her usual stack of paperwork when she heard a knock on the door to her study. She smiled. She hadn’t actually heard Sunset’s knock in well over a year, but her memory, honed over generations, recognized it all the same. The wards told her that Sunset wasn’t alone. If she had to guess, the other filly with her was likely Hermione. She hadn’t missed just how inseparable the two of them had become. With her gentle smile, just a tad wider than usual, firmly in place, she lit her horn to open the door and got up from her desk, watching the two fillies enter. “Ah, Sunset, there you are.” Celestia’s smile turned mischievous as her horn and eyes lit up with a pale golden glow. “I see you’ve brought a most unusual guest.” When Sunset glanced to Hermione, Celestia giggled lightly. “Not your sister, your other guest.” Sunset followed Celestia’s gaze and looked down herself. “Ah, when did you notice?” Celestia’s smile widened. “I noticed you come by a few days ago without saying hello, so I wondered what you were doing. You left the book open. After that, checking was simple.” She laid a gentle wing over Sunset’s back. “It’s a great honor, you know? Even if it feels wrong. You get used to it and before long you come to rely on having another mind to fall back on. Once you work out how to talk with her, that is.” Hermione looked at Celestia curiously. “That sounds like you’re speaking from experience.” Celestia’s smile fell. “I am. I was a host myself once, centuries ago. Velaria was a true friend. Alas, she turned out to be less resistant to the ravages of time than I was.” Sunset looked up to her former mentor and teacher. Most would have only seen a calm, perhaps slightly melancholy smile, but Sunset had known her for years, she didn’t miss the tears glistening in the corners of those ancient eyes. Whether it was because she was simply observant, or from the connection they shared, Hermione didn’t either. As such, they both walked up and gently hugged the much larger alicorn. Celestia couldn’t help but smile sadly. Like ponies, alp-luachra were long-lived creatures, but they couldn’t match Celestia’s immortality. Velaria had been her companion for nearly three and a half centuries starting not long after she’d had to banish Luna. She had been an invaluable help in keeping Celestia from despair in those early years. Losing her had hit Celestia hard. It was an old and well-healed wound on her spirit, but it was still painful to remember. Still, without uttering a word, Sunset and Hermione had reminded her that it was a pain she didn’t have to bear alone. So, for the first time in decades, Celestia let go of her mask and let herself cry over those she had lost throughout her long life to death, banishment or other, more mysterious circumstances. It wasn’t just her old friend Velaria she cried for. It was also Luna, the many students that had come and gone before Sunset and Twilight, and those she still missed from her early years, like Starswirl, whose disappearance was still a mystery to this day. Once she had started crying she had a hard time regaining control of herself. She gently curled around the two fillies as she cried. It took almost fifteen minutes before she calmed down and sat up straight again, drying the fur beneath her eyes and bringing the two fillies’ manes back in order with a touch of magic. A shake of her head was all it took to get her own ethereal mane to behave. She took a deep breath to reassert her usual calm. “I thank you both. I didn’t have a chance to do that in a while.” Hermione looked at her for a moment. “Define ‘a while’.” Celestia tilted her head slightly. “Oh half a century, give or take a decade or two.” The three of them shared a laugh. Then Celestia took it upon herself to drag the conversation back to the topic at hoof. “Anyway, that wasn’t the only thing I wished to discuss with you, Sunset. Though if you have any questions about your new companion I can certainly answer them readily enough. “You know that I intend to establish official first contact with Wizarding Britain not long after your holiday here ends. I’ll need to ask Philomena for transport, of course, but I would also like to ask you to accompany me.” Sunset looked at her with a raised eyebrow for a moment. “Why? I mean, I may have some training in politics, but I’m no diplomat.” Celestia’s smile was once more as serene as ever. “Because I need to know what to expect. I have spent a few hours around humans, you have lived in their world for over a year. I need an insider’s perspective and I need somepony I can trust for it. At least until we can get a proper ambassador in place.” Sunset thought on that for a moment. “Well if what I know of their history is any indication, you probably know a lot more about foreign diplomacy than any of them do. They contacted every magical community on the world to form the International Confederation of Wizards when they agreed on the Statute of Secrecy. That was centuries ago. Nowadays, from what I’ve read, the Confederation regulates any world moving things and the rest is left to the individual magical governments to figure out. Any agreements about all of that are centuries old.” Celestia nodded thoughtfully. She had suspected most of that from what Professor Dumbledore had told her, but it was good to have confirmation. “I also did a bit of digging,” Hermione spoke up. “You’ll probably mostly be dealing with the Department of International Magical Cooperation. They might even open a new office specifically to deal with dimensional affairs, now that they know it’s a possibility. From what I read, the head of that department is Bartemius Crouch.” Celestia had just turned all her attention to Hermione, listening intently, when Sunset spoke up again. “Oh yeah, I read about him in the history books, too. So that’s what he does these days. He used to be head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, like Madam Bones is now. He sounded pretty ruthless to me. A stickler for rules. He had quite a few supporters back then, but there was something with his son being part of the Death Eaters and being sent to Azkaban not long after the war was over.” Hermione nodded. “Yeah, he and a few others attacked two aurors trying to find out what happened to Voldemort. He apparently died not long after he was sent to Azkaban. And his wife died not long after, too. That messed up his public support quite badly, especially because he was the one that sent him there, so he went on to lead the Department of International Magical Cooperation. It’s considered the least important department by many, from what Ron and Ginny told us. Their father works for the Ministry.” Celestia listened intently. It was good to know that Sunset had done some research, but she had been expecting that. That Hermione had done the same, and independently so, it seemed, came as more of a surprise, but it was a welcome one. She idly recalled some of what she had seen of Hermione, and heard from Sunset, and realized that she shouldn’t be that surprised. She had seen Hermione interact with her own student several times, after all. She really should have seen the parallels. She was quite amused that the Department of International Magical Cooperation was considered the least important of the departments. That would be changing soon enough. Mister Crouch sounded like he might potentially be a problem. A strict adherence to laws and rules was all fine and well so long as those laws were just and sensible. With people like Professor Dumbledore making them, Celestia was certain most of the laws that would apply to her little ponies, should they want to visit the human world, which wasn’t a major issue for the moment as Phoenix travel appeared to be the only reliable way of transit for the moment, were at least mostly just. Some, however, like their Statute of Secrecy would simply be nonsense in Equestria. There was no point in hiding from a non-magical community that plainly didn’t exist. She would have to see how much Mr. Crouch would be sticking to the rules of his homeland. She only hoped he wouldn’t be trying to get their laws to apply in Equestria. She could stop any such attempt easily, of course, but she would prefer it if she didn’t have to. After a moment of contemplative silence, Celestia decided to speak up. “Thank you. Both of you. I see you’ve been a good influence on each other.” She tilted her head slightly. “Maybe I should talk to Mister Weasley myself.” “Hold on,” Sunset began and it was clear from her expression that she was referencing the schedule. Celestia was well aware that, whenever Sunset made a planned trip to Equestria from the world that had so quickly become her home, she made a schedule to keep track of the temporal drift for the duration, just to keep such spontaneous visits to the other side from happening at inconvenient times. It wouldn’t do, for example, to bother Mr. Weasley during work hours or in the middle of the night. “There, assuming everything goes as normal he should be coming home from work about three hours or so from now.” Celestia chuckled lightly. “Should I perhaps not question how you know his work hours so exactly?” Sunset grinned. “We spent enough time around their house to get a sense for it. Then I just visualized it.” Hermione gasped. “And your photographic memory kicked in!” Her eyes widened in realization. “That’s the trick you told Neville. I forgot all about that.” Celestia giggled. “Perhaps you should have used it to remember it?” “Of course, that’s a great idea. Thanks, your highness.” Celestia suppressed a sigh. “Please, Hermione, call me Celestia. I have enough of my little ponies insisting on my titles as is. It makes me feel old.” Seeing the beginnings of Sunset’s grin, Celestia knew it was time for a preventative measure. “Yes, yes, I know. I am old. That doesn’t make me feel any better about it.” Sunset’s beginning smirk instead turned into a softer smile and she once more came up to the alicorn. This time she shifted to her human form making her appear much larger and putting them at a far more even height with Celestia lying down at the table as she was. She wrapped her arms around Celestia’s neck and enclosed her in a gentle hug. “You know you’ll never be old.” Celestia managed a smile. Not the normal smile of her royal mask, but a genuine one, the kind that didn’t come any easier even with a thousand years of practice. “Not so long as I have such young minds around me.” Taking the hint, Hermione followed Sunset’s example and came over in her human form, gently running a hand through Celestia’s ethereal mane. It didn’t need care, of course, which unfortunately meant that it also didn’t get it particularly often. As such, it was all the more pleasant for the ancient alicorn. “Though if there is anything else either of you can think to add…” Hermione tapped her chin, then grimaced slightly. “There is one thing I can think of. I haven’t done as much reading on it, but I probably should, now that I think about it. The Wizarding world, or at least Britain, has laws that handle interactions and in some cases regulates the affairs of some other magical creatures that aren’t just beasts.” That caught Celestia’s attention, even as Sunset gave Hermione a bit of an incredulous look. “I know a bit about those laws… you can’t seriously think they’d try to apply those laws to us?” “I think it’d be pretty apparent that trying is pointless, considering that without a phoenix, there’s no way for other wizards or witches to get here. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some in the Ministry who might not want to try, especially among the purebloods,” Hermione said, a bit of a sour tone entering her voice. She did smile a bit though as she remarked, “though, those kind of folks might be a bit more busy getting in a tizzy about being able to change non-magicals into magicals.” Sunset nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “In that case you might have to deal with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. It’s led by Mister Diggory.” Hermione nodded. “Didn’t Luna mention that the Diggorys don’t live too far away from them and the Weasleys?” “Yeah, Mister Weasley should be able to tell you more about him, just in case.” Celestia nodded thoughtfully. “Three hours, you said?” Sunset nodded. “Give or take a bit, yes. Don’t worry, I’ll keep track of it and send Philomena to pick you up at the right time.” “Thank you, Sunset.” After chatting for a little while longer – mostly a matter of Hermione and Sunset telling of what they had gotten up to during their holiday. And guessing what the twins had been up to – the two girls resumed their equine forms and made their way back down to rejoin the rest of the group. They soon encountered a problem not only the two of them but also Celestia had forgotten to consider. Celestia had arranged for the same distribution of rooms as when they had stayed at the palace for the first night after arriving in Equestria, like they had the summer before. Like then, Sunset had gathered up the other girls, Hermione, Ginny, and Lavender, and offered to let them sleep in her suite. The issue was that said suite was heavily warded and magically locked. And the wards were keyed to only two magical signatures, Celestia’s and Sunset’s own. So it happened that Sunset and Hermione found Lavender and Ginny sitting in the corridor outside the suite with Philomena perching on the former’s back, and waiting for them. With a slight chuckle and a sheepish smile, Sunset lit her horn to unlock the door and swing it open. Lavender shook her head as she walked in, resuming human shape, much to Philomena’s dismay. “I still can’t believe that you have a suite in a royal palace just sitting here, waiting for you.” Sunset grinned. “What can I say? Being Student of the Sun does have its perks.” After having already been in the room several times, Ginny and Hermione had less of a reaction, though they did still look a little incredulous. Like Lavender, the both of them and Sunset took human shape and pulled out their luggage. They didn’t have particularly much of it, but they were aware that they hadn’t actually taken a shower or put on a new change of clothes in human form in over a week. The day was still young and Sunset was planning to give them all a proper tour of Canterlot, so they took the opportunity to freshen up.