//------------------------------// // 6 - Of Friends Old ... // Story: A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - Amalgam // by gerandakis //------------------------------// Chapter Six Of Friends Old ... Like any city atop a mountain, Canterlot tended to be rather chilly for most of the year. The summer months were the one marked exception to that. Sunset took full advantage of that as she led the group through the town she had once called her home. It wasn’t home anymore, but she still knew her way around. Much like in Cloudsdale, the first attraction the group took in properly, now that it was pointed out to them, was the architecture of the city itself. Marble was a common sight in this city and golden trim – usually brass, only in a few cases was it actual gold – was everywhere. Anywhere else such opulence might have seemed out of place, but in the capital of a nation ruled by an embodiment of the sun it somehow seemed entirely appropriate. All of that, of course, the group already knew. They had spent a night in the city before, after all. What most of them hadn’t realized was that the city wasn’t actually on the mountain itself, but on four platforms attached to its sides at different heights. Each of those platforms, Sunset explained, was its own district. Their tour started, unsurprisingly, in the Royal District. They were already familiar with the palace quarter which, as the name implied, held the Royal Palace, the palace grounds, and precious little else, but Sunset quickly took them to the small park at the center of the platform from where they could see the other three parts of this district. The academy quarter to the west was the first part of their tour. The clear main attractions were Canterlot University and Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but while both were certainly artistically built, all of them had seen a school before, so Sunset spent most of the time regaling them with stories from her own time at Princess Celestia’s school. The next part of the tour sparked significantly more interest. The military quarter. Unsurprisingly, the big thing to see was the Royal Guard Headquarters. The Grangers were familiar enough with the idea of a military base, but had never actually been to one. To the others, the entire idea was more or less foreign. Seamus had a muggle father, sure, but he had only heard of an organized military a few times. Sunset found herself a bit curious to how the young wizards and witches would react to it, given that all that the wizarding world seemed to have was the Auror’s who were akin to an elite police force rather than an army. The irony that Equestria had an army and hadn’t been involved in a war in millenia while wizarding Britain had none and had been part of two wars in the last century alone wasn’t lost on her. The only other building of any real interest was a small Wonderbolt outpost. Their main base was, of course, in Cloudsdale – or rather on a smaller cloud formation that migrated throughout Equestria alongside cloudsdale, but wasn’t technically part of the city. Their last stop in the Royal District was the Diplomatic Quarter. Among all the white and gold of typical Canterlot architecture, the Griffonian and Zebrican embassies stuck out like a sore thumb, though the former more so than the latter. The Griffonian embassy was effectively a large tree constructed out of stone by pony engineers with several smaller buildings on its branches, partly hidden in the stylized metallic leaves. It was apparently a classic buildstyle in the border city of Griffinstone and beyond, though the griffins used actual trees there. The Zebrican embassy, on the other hand, was carved into the side of the Canterhorn itself. Colorful paintings covered the walls of the larger central cavern and small tunnels led into various offices and chambers. The group was quite startled to learn that each of the paintings was actually an old Zebrican folktale rendered in a traditional way. Hermione, especially, seemed to be fascinated. The group easily saw her looking over all of the images carefully. It didn’t take a genius to realize that she was making full use of Sunset’s gift to commit all of them to memory. She would be asking for written versions of the stories later, of that there was no doubt in any of their minds. While the group was keeping themselves busy staring around the large central chamber, Sunset summoned a piece of parchment and a pen to her and quickly wrote down a short letter. Dear Princess Celestia, assuming my time keeping is accurate and he didn’t have to stay for work longer, Mister Weasley should be having dinner about now. Feel free to borrow Philomena for the afternoon. And maybe send a letter ahead, British wizards tend to not like unannounced visitors from what I’ve heard. If you need something to keep Twilight busy while you’re gone, she’s welcome to join us on our tour of Canterlot. Take care, Sunset After a quick mental call to her familiar, it took only a few seconds for a flame to flare up beside Sunset and resolve into a rather sleepy looking Philomena. Apparently she had been napping back at their suite. Once she had taken off with the letter, it only took a minute for an answer to materialize before Sunset. Dear Sunset, thank you for your note. I’ll be sure to send a warning ahead and visit soon. Twilight is actually visiting her family today. Her brother is off duty for the week so I’ve given her some time off to spend with them. If she will actually take time off studies is another question, but I can’t really forbid her to study, can I? I guess I could, but I’d never be able to tell her not to study. Her family lives at 17 Clover Lane in the Upper District if you want to invite her. Have fun showing your friends around Canterlot, Celestia Sunset smiled as she read the message. The Upper District was already the next planned stop on their tour. Once she managed to get her sister away from the paintings anyway. The Upper District of Canterlot was, somewhat counter-intuitively, not the highest of the four stone platforms the Equestrian capital was built upon, that was the Royal District. No, it was found on the second highest and second smallest of the four platforms. A long, slender staircase that curved around the edge of the Royal District platform, partly cutting through the mountain by means of a tunnel in the process before releasing into midair, it’s curve changing direction halfway down to switch from matching the curve of the Royal District’s outer edge to matching that of the Upper District. Built completely of magically reinforced marble, from the steps itself to the beautifully carved hoofrails, the staircase was held up not by any kind of physical support, but by completely invisible magical tethers that spanned between the platforms. A single, inlaid line of gold separated the staircase along the middle, cleanly dividing it into two halves, one for ascending to the Royal District, the other for descending to the Upper District. From the staircase it was clearly visible that the road layout of the Upper District mirrored that of the Royal district, only with a five-pointed star rather than a four-pointed one. The pattern, Sunset assured the group, continued in the Middle and Lower Districts as well. The Upper District was traditionally inhabited by nobles, mostly the unicorn houses of the infamous Canterlot nobility, though several old lines of pegasi and earth pony clans had holdings here as well. The House of the Stars, spread out as it was, owned several buildings in this district, from simple houses to luxurious mansions. The villa at 7 Clover Lane was somewhere in between said extremes. Clover Lane itself was one of the ring roads that ran all the way around the district. Specifically it was the outermost one. And number 17 was among the line of buildings separating the road from the edge of the platform, affording the villa a beautiful view over the lands beyond Canterlot. Sunset quickly realized that as the de-facto tour guide it fell to her to knock. Or it would have, had the house not been equipped with a door bell. The system was, in truth, little more than a pair of enchanted crystals, one in the house to make the sound, the other outside to serve as the trigger, but it worked perfectly well. Simply pressing her hoof on the crystal beside the door, Sunset set it off and took a step back, much to the envy of most of her companions. They had mastered quadrupedal locomotion reasonably well, but walking backwards down a staircase was advanced. The door opened to reveal a young white unicorn stallion with a dark blue mane. He looked over the group and then focused on Sunset. “Good morning. How can I help you?” Realizing that Twilight had never actually mentioned her family, Sunset could only guess that this stallion was her successor’s older brother. He just seemed to be a bit too young to be her father. “Hello, is Twilight in? I’m taking my friends on a tour of the city and figured I’d ask her if she wanted to come along.” The stallion raised an eyebrow. “And you are?” “Oh right, Sunset Shimmer. I was the previous Student of the Sun, Princess Celestia introduced us.” The stallion nodded. “Ah, I see. Shining Armor, Twilight’s brother, pleasure to meet you.” He turned around back inside. “Twily! A filly called Sunset is here and wants to talk with you.” The entire group turned to the side as a flash of magenta beside them heralded Twilight’s arrival. “Sunset! It’s been way too long.” Sunset nodded as she closed Twilight into a hug, Hermione quickly coming up beside them and joining in as well. “Yeah. Almost a year. We really should meet up more often.” She smiled as the group separated. “I’m just giving my friends a proper tour of Canterlot. Figured I’d ask if you want to come along.” Twilight turned to look at Shining Armor, but he just smiled. “Go ahead. I’ll still be here when you come back.” Sirius smiled. “Or you could just come along as well. I’m sure you know some interesting places in town as well.” Shining looked at Sirius for the first time and his eyes narrowed. “Why do I feel like I should recognize you. It’s like I’ve heard your description somewhere.” “Sirius Black. I guess you probably know of me because I occasionally train the unicorn guards in Ponyville some combat magic I know. Princess Celestia mentioned you were in the guard.” “Ah yes, your name was in an incident report, I remember now. Something about Timberwolves on a farm?” “Yes that was me.” “And you tutor the guard in combat magic? Sure, I’d love to come along. Who knows what I might learn from you.” Once more, he turned to face inside. “Mom, Dad, Twily and I will be out for a while. We’re taking some friends of hers on a tour of Canterlot.” “Are you taking Spike along?” Shining snorted lightly. “Sure we are, you know how fussy he gets when he’s away from Twily for too long.” “Sure thing Shiny. Just make sure to bring them back before dinner,” the answer came from inside as Twilight blushed. “And be sure to keep your shields ready, Spike still isn’t the best with his flame control!” As they toured the Upper District, once Twilight had fetched Spike along with a special carrying harness for him, one of the distinct disadvantages of Canterlot’s distinct architectural style became readily apparent. Once they’d seen one impressive noble manor, they might as well have seen them all. As such, they quickly moved on to the Middle District where things became much more interesting. The Middle District was the commercial center of Canterlot and contained, among other things, the city’s single train station, seeing how a city atop a mountain didn’t lend itself well to being a traffic hub, and the main airship harbor. The group actually had lunch in a charming little restaurant overlooking the harbor after Sunset and Shining alike had warned the group to avoid Restaurant Row at all costs if they intended to have an actual meal. The group quite enjoyed watching airship’s come and go as they ate, so there wasn’t much conversation with the exception of Shining Armor and Sirius who got into an animated discussion on combat magic. Twilight, Sunset and Hermione made sure to listen closely. None of them had much experience with that type of magic. Watching the two discussing battlemages absently nullify a gout of light green flame every once in awhile was enough to keep the rest of the group entertained. Continuing their tour across the third of Canterlot’s four platforms, Sunset and the Grangers were quite amused at some of the wizards’ reactions to things they considered perfectly mundane. They were familiar enough with grocery stores and the like, but most of them had never seen something like a dedicated flower shop. The only part that truly confused them was seeing Sirius break into laughter upon seeing the flower salesponies. Once they grew tired of seeing shops and factories, Sunset led the group to yet another of the long staircases and down to the Lower District, the city’s main residential sector. They didn’t expect to see much of interest there, but both Sunset and Shining Armor insisted there were things worth seeing here. After exchanging a few quiet words with Sunset, Shining Armor had taken over leading the group and Sunset had fallen back to walk along beside Hermione. When her sister shot her a questioning glance, Sunset simply smirked. “I asked him if he happened to know where we might find a friend of mine.” Hermione looked confused for a moment before her eyes lit up in recognition. “You mean-?” Sunset nodded. “Yeah, figured I should catch up with her. Twilight’s brother knows where we can find her.” “Here we are,” Shining Armor’s voice came from the front of the group. The two sisters looked to see and recognized the place before them as a nightclub. Seeing how it was barely a few hours past noon, the club wasn’t open yet. “She should be in there setting up by now. Not sure how you’re going to get to her though…” Sunset smiled. “No worries. I’ll take care of that.” The others, with the exception of Hermione, were startled when she vanished into thin air. Once she had teleported into the club, Sunset realized that her invisibility spell might have been just a bit overkill. The club was deserted save for two ponies at the DJ pult. The first was Vinyl Scratch, easily recognized by her usual pair of purple shades. Standing beside her, the second, looking to be a few years older, had light gray fur with a darker gray mane. If her cutie mark was anything to go by, she was also a musician. Sunset casually approached the pair until she was standing on Vinyl’s other side before letting the invisibility fall off her. It took a few moments before either mare noticed her. “Sweet Celestia! Who are you!? Where did you come from!?” Vinyl turned to the second mare in confusion, then followed her gaze back to Sunset. She jumped as well, but didn’t say anything before she had calmed down again, then she smirked. “Did I ever tell you that all this sneaking is a terrible habit of yours?” She chuckled and turned to the other mare. “Tavi, the filly who likes giving others heart attacks is Sunset Shimmer, formerly Student of the Sun, now lives in another world. Sunny, may I introduce Octavia Melody, my stepsister.” “You have a stepsister?” “Yeah, I mentioned that my old stallion was getting married again, right?” Sunset nodded, prompting Octavia to continue. “Apparently both our parents neglected to mention that the pony they were marrying already had a daughter so we only learned of our relation a few days ago when I was visiting Father. I decided to extend my stay by a few weeks and get to know my half sister better.” Vinyl smirked. “And to plan how to get revenge on our parents for not telling us.” Octavia rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Yes. And that.” “Anyway Sunny, what brings you here? On vacation again?” “Yeah, I’m giving my friends a tour of the city. Thought I’d introduce you and catch up.” Vinyl looked at the DJ pult before nodding. “Sure, I’m done setting up here and we were only chatting anyway. My set doesn’t start for a few more hours.”