//------------------------------// // 7 - ... And New // Story: A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - Amalgam // by gerandakis //------------------------------// Chapter Seven … And New Sunset, Twilight, Vinyl, Octavia, and Shining Armor collectively decided to take the group to Doughnut Joe’s once more, where they spent well over an hour catching up. Shining Armor, Spike, Vinyl and Octavia were quite startled when Sunset lit her horn, prompting Hermione to do the same, and the two of them teleported the entire group back to the Middle District, just outside the café. None of them had ever been teleported before. Twilight, it seemed, had interrupted her studies into teleportation in favor of other subjects and had yet to gain the ability to take others along with her. Judging by her slightly jealous expression and side-glances to Spike, that likely wouldn’t be the case for much longer. Octavia was quite startled to learn that several of the ponies she was having tea with personally knew the Princess. Apparently she hadn’t made the connection when Vinyl had introduced Sunset as the former Student of the Sun. Vinyl's sister, they learned, was a musician, much like Vinyl was herself, but their preferred styles of music couldn’t possibly be more different. The two of them listened to the tales of Hogwarts and the human world, wizarding and muggle alike, with great interest. After all, it isn’t everyday you get to hear stories from another universe. The two of them and Shining Armor were rather startled by Philomena arriving, though an equally startled Spike sneezing and breathing green flames on her only for the firebird to turn green and purple in response set them to giggling along with the rest of the group. Rather put out, Philomena settled down on Sunset’s back and cuddled into her mane, dropping a scroll into her magic in the process. Sunset smirked, but still leaned her head back to let Philomena find comfort more easily before unfurling the scroll. While she read, the others watched with great interest as sparks danced across Philomena, slowly returning her to her normal coloration. Only when she’d finished did Sunset notice the change and point it out to her familiar, prompting the bird to once more sit up proudly. Seeing how evening was quickly approaching, Sunset rolled up the scroll and stored it in her mane, before pointing out the time to the others. Vinyl and Octavia were rather startled to realize that the prior’s set was to start in another twenty minutes and quickly made to stand and hurry back to the club. Sunset shared a glance with Hermione, then she walked up to the two of them and teleported them back to the club while her sister returned Shining Armor and Spike to their family villa. Twilight gave her a quick hug and a round of greetings to the others before teleporting after them. Finally, Sunset asked Hermione and Sirius to guide the group back to the palace. She took out the scroll, read through it again and nodded. Putting it away again, she vanished in a flash of teal. She had business to attend to. In one of the dorm rooms of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, a filly sat down after an exhausting day of classes. She’d been studying at the prestigious school for almost three years now, but there was still much to learn. It was still a few more weeks before the summer break would start and a few final tests still remained in the schedule. She had been relaxing for barely a few minutes, daydreaming about her favorite topic, when a knock on the door brought her back to reality. Too tired to use her magic, she instead pushed herself up and walked up to the door, pulling it open to reveal another unicorn filly with a bright amber coat, a red and yellow mane and, for some reason, a phoenix perched on her back. She looked vaguely familiar. The other filly looked at her for a moment before nodding and smiling. “Lyra Heartstrings?” Cautiously, Lyra nodded, prompting the filly’s smile to widen. “Sunset Shimmer, may I come in? I have an offer for you from the Princess.” Lyra’s eyes widened. Now that she had a name to put to the face, she remembered the previous Student of the Sun. She quickly stepped aside and let Sunset enter, closing the door behind her. “What exactly are you offering?” Sunset smiled. “Well, let me put it this way: Princess Celestia has taken note that you have some rather, shall we say, unusual interests.” Lyra frowned. “Well I don’t care what she thinks. Humans are real, and one day, I will find them.” Sunset smiled yet again, more softly this time. “Indeed. Sooner than you might think.” Without any further warning, the filly transformed into a human girl wearing a black leather jacket over a light blue dress, with a messenger bag bearing her cutie mark symbol slung over her shoulder. Lyra simply stared at her for several seconds, then launched herself at the girl before her, knocking them both onto the bed with a squeal. “I knew it! You do exist! I have so many questions.” Sunset drew her wand and lifted the excited filly off her with a light chuckle, clamping her muzzle shut in the process. “And you’ll get answers to all of them in time.” She smirked when she saw Lyra stare wide-eyed at her hand and her glowing wand and simply sat up on the edge of the bed, depositing Lyra in her lap rather than beside her as she’d planned. Letting go of the filly, she put her wand away and started gently stroking a hand over Lyra’s back, prompting her to instantly relax. Given she needed the filly coherent, she carefully avoided her ears. After a moment, she spoke up again. “Now, I guess I should explain a few things.” “Like why you can turn into a human?” Sunset smirked, once more running a hand through Lyra’s mane. “Among other things. You see, I spent the past year and a half in a different world. There aren’t any ponies in that world. Or ... well … there are, but they aren’t the dominant species. They’re not even sentient. Instead, the main species running society there is humans.” “And they don’t have magic? Everything I’ve found suggests that humans don’t have magic.” “Well, no, most humans don’t have magic, some do. And I really do mean some. Maybe one in five-or-six-thousand. Those humans that have magic call themselves witches and wizards and have a sort of secret society.” “Oh wow! I so want to visit.” “Well, that’s kinda the idea. You see, this secret society also had their own, secret schools for magic. One of those schools is Hogwarts where I’ve been going for the past year. Students start at that school in the year after they’ve turned eleven.” Lyra raised her head to look Sunset in the eyes. “Wait, I turned eleven two months ago.” Sunset smirked. “So …?” Lyra’s own eyes grew wider, and a big smile spread across her face. “Are you saying that you want me to go to this school too?” Sunset gave her a sly wink. “Oh I don’t much care one way or the other, but it could certainly be arranged.” This earned Sunset another excited squeal as the excited Unicorn jumped up and threw her forelegs around her neck. “Oh! Thank you!” This time, Sunset deliberately did run her hand over Lyra’s ears to calm her down. The effect was immediate. The little unicorn dropped back into her lap calmed back down. Sunset could practically feel her thought processes slow down, so she only stroked over her ears a few times before returning to stroking her mane. “Don’t thank me. Princess Celestia was the one who put two and two together. She knew of your little … well I guess it would be fair to call it an obsession, and when she realized that you were about to turn eleven she brought the matter up with the headmaster of Hogwarts. And, well, here we are.” “I’ll have to thank her personally. Oh, and I’ll have to write a letter to my parents. And thank the headmaster of Hogwarts too…” Lyra started to mumble as she went through all of the things she would need to do before going. She stopped however as something occurred to her. “Uh… how will I be getting there if it’s in another world?” Sunset hummed for a moment at that. She had originally planned to simply tell Lyra that they’d go by phoenix but given such a perfect opportunity she might as well have a little fun. Lyra’s exuberant enthusiasm was quite endearing, after all. “Well, I could tell you … or I could show you,” she said with a sly smile and a twinkle in her eyes. “Which would you prefer?” Headmaster Albus Dumbledore was not surprised by the flash of phoenix fire that appeared in the center of his office. Ever since he’d been taken to Equestria, Fawkes had been able to sense Philomena approaching from the other world and vice-versa, so he’d had a moment’s warning. He was not surprised by the presence of two young witches now standing before him either, one of whom he was fast beginning to think of as a friend. He was a bit … bemused, however, by the look of absolute joy and awe on the face of the unknown witch as she stared at her fingers, almost frozen in place with a smile so wide he idly wondered if it was causing her any undue pain. “Good morning Miss Shimmer,” he gently spoke up, getting a smile from one of the two and a startled noise followed by a stare and a mildly worrying grin from the other. “It is always a pleasure. I would ask to what I owe your visit so early in the morning, but I suspect that may be redundant.” He turned to look pointedly at the slightly younger witch. “Might this be the prospective new student Princess Celestia mentioned?” Miss Shimmer suddenly seemed embarrassed for some reason, quickly glancing out of the window into the pre-dawn gloom. “Oh right, I’m so sorry, I forgot all about the differential between our two worlds. Just how early in the morning is it?” “About quarter to five in the morning, I believe. I was about to go have an early breakfast with some of my professors. Most of them prefer to wake up later, but Minerva and Filius are incorrigible early risers. I suppose they infected me.” His humorous smile was met with a baffled stare from the younger which to whom he still hadn’t been introduced and a groan from Miss Shimmer. “Tell me about it, I know the feeling. The joys of being the personal student to the Princess of the Daystar.” Her expression spoke of annoyance, but he could easily sense that there was no true malice behind it. “Well, if the two of you are already awake anyway, might I invite you to join us for breakfast? I know Filius would enjoy getting to see you again, Miss Shimmer. And both of them are always happy to meet prospective new members of their houses, so you would certainly be welcome as well Miss?” Miss Shimmer actually facepalmed this time, much to his amusement. “My goodness what is wrong with me?! Why am I so scatterbrained today? Right, of course, sorry. Professor Dumbledore, allow me to introduce Lyra Heartstrings, she’s been studying at Princess Celestia’s school for three years now with a focus on more … exotic electives.” Albus raised an eyebrow upon hearing that, but didn’t interrupt. “Lyra, this is Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore; Order of Merlin, First Class; Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot; Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” Albus blushed slightly and softly cleared his throat. “Hmm, yes, I believe I see now what Princess Celestia meant. Having all of my titles listed for a casual introduction is indeed flattering in a somewhat embarrassing manner.” “It is?” He chuckled again. “Wait until you have a few titles of your own, I’m certain someone will do the same for you.” He shook his head ruefully. “Regardless, Miss Heartstrings, it would be a pleasure to have you join us for breakfast.” He looked at Miss Heartstrings expectantly. From the corner of his eye he could see that Miss Shimmer was doing the same. Finally, the younger witch let out a high pitched squeal that left the other four occupants of the room wincing and prompted the two avians to hastily depart in two flares of golden fire that conveniently served to make Miss Heartstrings aware of what she was doing. She smiled sheepishly for a moment before breaking into a wide grin again and starting to ramble a mile a minute. “Sorry, sorry, yeah, I’d love to. Sorry, Sunset literally dropped all of this on me five minutes ago and I kinda thought traveling between worlds would be a bit more involved, so you caught me a bit off guard, but this morning all I had were theories from small bits and pieces of evidence and now I’m here and you’re here and you’re real! And-” “Lyra!” Miss Shimmer interrupted forcefully though with amusement clear on her face. “Breathe.” Miss Heartstrings took a comically deep breath before starting up again. “Right, sorry, sorry, I’m just excited. I mean I knew humans were real, they just had to be, but then Sunset just turns into one and tells me I can go to a school full of them and now I’m here and you’re here and now I’m suddenly a human too and-” She paused. “And I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” Albus and Miss Shimmer nodded. “Right, shutting up now.” Miss Heartstrings fell silent, but she was still grinning widely. Albus still took a few more moments to parse through everything she’d said, giving Miss Shimmer a rather curious look, then he smiled once more. “That’s quite alright, Miss Heartstrings. I shan’t judge you for your passion. It’s better to get it out of the way now instead of doing so before the other students who likely would judge. Now,” he looked between the two of them, “will you be joining us?” The two young witches shared a glance, then nodded. “Sure,” Miss Shimmer agreed, “I could go for a quick snack before dinner.” For a moment, he almost thought there was more she wanted to say, but as quickly as the feeling came it was gone again and he shook it off. Seeing Miss Heartstrings simply nod, he smiled. “Very well then, do make sure to follow us Miss Heartstrings, this castle can be quite confusing for those who are not familiar with it.”