After a wonderful night’s sleep, Flurry woke up to an alarm at 7 in the morning, had a wonderful breakfast, and met her friends by the elevator a half hour later. The sun was shining once again, illuminating the city in all of its splendor. The crowds were mostly pegasi, but Flurry spotted a few unicorns and earth ponies in the mix. Bright neon signs and gold-framed screens advertised all sorts of things from horn polish to smoothies.
Pipp was already by the elevator, scrolling through her new phone. She looked up when Flurry landed beside her.
“Hi,” Flurry greeted, tilting her head at the device in Pipp’s hooves. “How long did it take you to get that?”
“I actually just got it this morning, so - Oh, you’re teasing me,” she realized as Flurry started snickering. “I was just looking to see what places we could stop at on our tour - I mean, we can’t hit everything, so I wanted to make sure we got the highlights.” She slipped her phone under her wing and joined Flurry at the edge of the walkway that led to the castle, staring down at the city.
“There’s something about it that’s just so beautiful,” Flurry commented. “I remember when this was Canterlot and everything was kind of slow - just ponies going about their daily business for the most part. It definitely picked up speed when my aunt became queen, but for the most part, things pretty much stayed the same. It didn’t appear that anything was changing other than who the ponies themselves were friends with - my aunt definitely opened up the borders of Equestria. But I suppose that was one upside to the tribes dividing - you had time to focus on things to improve your lives instead of other ponies.”
Pipp shrugged. “I never really thought of it like that, but… I guess you’re right.”
“Hey guys!” came a cheerful voice from the palace, and the two princesses turned to see Izzy and Sunny trotting towards them, Izzy with a huge grin on her face, Sunny looking slightly glum. Last night she had begun to sink back into her “other side,” as they had all started calling it, and Flurry couldn’t figure out why.
“This is so exciting!” Izzy continued once they reached Flurry and Pipp. “I mean, I’ve seen the city from a distance, of course, and now I practically know the palace like the back of my hoof, but I’ve never really gotten to tour the city itself! Isn’t this exciting?”
“Izzy’s excited about something?” Zipp said teasingly, flying in circles above them. “What sort of shocking revelation is this?”
“Izzy would volunteer for a Canterlogic presentation thinking it was fun,” Sprout added as he and Hitch showed up.
Sunny shuddered. “Izzy, I’m talking from personal experience here - don’t volunteer for a Canterlogic presentation. It is not fun.”
“I know that,” the unicorn scoffed indignantly. “Just because I think that some things are exciting doesn’t mean I think everything is exciting. In fact, I think that you guys don’t think enough things are exciting.”
“Ahem,” Pipp coughed, getting their attention. “Everypony, if you would please board the elevator.” As if it were listening for those exact words, the elevator doors dinged and slid open. Once everypony was aboard, they slid closed and began to descend to the city below. Izzy had her face pressed against the glass the entire ride, staring at the city as it loomed closer and closer and closer.
“Fillies and gentlecolts,” Pipp announced as the lift slowed down, “the first stop on our tour… the underground subway system.”
The doors opened to reveal a large room lit by LED lights that reflected off of the shiny blue floors and walls. A few benches sat here and there, but not many pegasi were inside. The few that were hurried a long and barely registered the fact that their princesses were there.
“This station is as old as the city itself, or so we assume,” Pipp said in an animated voice as she led the way through the slightly chilly room. “We refashioned it into a station for the subway system that runs around Zephyr Heights - I mean, there’s only so far you can get by walking, and without flying, it takes a really long time to get from one side of the city to the other. Some ponies prefer to take the walkways and enjoy the sunshine and sights, but others like the more speedy route.” She trotted over to a terminal and smiled at the pony on duty.
“Welcome to the Zephyr Heights Underground Subway System, how can I help you today-” he began in a bored, rehearsed voice before realizing who stood before him. “Oh, Princess Pipp! A-and Princess Zipp, of course. I’m sorry, Your Majesties, I didn’t recognize you.”
“Quite all right, Mr. Aeolus,” Pipp replied politely. “We’re looking for a train route with the best views of the city, please.”
“That will be the…” He squinted at the register in front of him. “The Purple Line, I believe. Right over there.” He pointed with his hoof. “The next train’s leaving in a few minutes. H-have a wonderful day, Your Majesties. A-and your friends, of course.” He inclined his head politely as they walked away.
As they waited, Pipp showed them a map of the subway tracks, showing them where they would be going and what kinds of things they would be passing by.
“You sound like you’ve practiced this,” Zipp noticed.
Pipp blushed. “I wanted to do some sort of ‘Tour of the City’ vlog, since I actually knew a lot about it, but we never got any new visitors until now, so I never really had a reason to. I still practiced what I would say, though.”
The subway was a long, sleek white tube with the gold shape of the pegasus crystal on the sides. The upper half of the train was one large window that curved over the plush purple seats, allowing for the passengers to easily gain a view of anything outside of the train. Doors hissed open, and Pipp led the way onto the train.
“This is so exciting!” Izzy said for the hundredth time.
“This is so high-tech,” Flurry murmured, testing the plushiness of the seats with her hoof. “The closest thing we had to this was the Crystal Express.” She climbed into her seat and looked across from her, where Sprout sat next to Hitch and Sunny. Izzy was sitting protectively beside Sunny - Flurry tried to remember the last time she’d seen them two apart. Zipp and Pipp took seats on Flurry’s side of the train. Other than them, their train car was empty.
Flurry gripped the edge of the seat as the train jerked into motion, but as it picked up speed, she became used to it and relaxed her grip a bit, looking up at the ceiling of the dark tunnel rushing past above them.
All at once, they went from dark tunnel to open sky. Everypony gasped. “Woah!”
Sunlight poured in, making the gold trimmings gleam. The screens and neon signs looked brighter than ever, and clouds surrounding them made Flurry feel as if she were riding on a cloud. She felt a huge grin breaking out on her face, and a quick glance around told her she was not alone.
“Look over there!” Izzy called, and everypony rushed to her side of the train. The unicorn was pointing at a tall waterfall that cascaded over different levels of rocky mountainside. Wherever the ground was flat, it collected in little pools before falling over the next outcrop. With the sunlight glinting off of the blue water, it looked like something made of magic.
Sunny truned to look behind them and gasped. “Guys, look!” she cried, leading the rush to the other side of the car. From here, you could see the castle in all of its glorious splendor, gleaming in the sunshine. Sprout looked down and sucked in his breath in awe, causing everypony else to shift their gaze to down below. They could see walkways stretching from cliff to cliff, full of pegasi.
A few of the winged ponies soared up beside the train, playing tag. They laughed and shrieked and flapped their wings harder to gain more altitude.
It felt weird to be back on solid ground after the subway, but Flurry was too excited to care. Their first stop was a long street that was lined on one side with shops and businesses, the other side open to the cliff. A few guards walked alongside the edge, making sure that nopony fell off.
“I thought we could take a look around,” Pipp said, shrugging innocently while her sister glared at her. “You know, just to see things.”
“Sure,” Zipp muttered, “that’s all.” Still, she followed the other six ponies into the first store.
A few hours later, they were back on the subway, though this time, they were laden with bags. Pipp had insisted that everything was on her - it was one of the perks of being a princess, she said. Zipp hadn’t gotten much - just a book about the laws of magic, likely a new addition to a city mainly inhabited by pegasi. Flurry herself had found a statue of the entire city in a snow globe, which reminded her of home. Izzy had practically died when they came upon an arts and crafts store and basically took their entire supply of glitter.
Sprout and Hitch found some tacky tourist merchandise and were apparently having a competition to see who could look the weirdest. Hitch was wearing a pair of exaggerated sunglasses with the giant shape of the pegasus crystal as the frame. Sprout was in a sort of vest with pictures from around the city plastered all over it, and both had found a number of badges that they had pinned to their sashes. Now they were trying to find a way to incorporate the tiny statues of the castle, royal family, and famous attractions into their display.
Pipp had found a new phone case with her cutie mark on it and had another bag sitting next to her on the train besides. When Zipp asked her what it was (in the kind of voice that made Flurry think that Pipp went shopping a lot and brought back meaningless things a lot), the younger pegasus merely smiled and went back to her cell.
In Flurry’s opinion, it was Sunny who had the best find. The earth pony mare had discovered a small pin of the three unity crystals - the green pegasus crystal like spread wings, the purpleish unicorn crystal glittering like a unicorn horn, the diamond earth pony crystal - which she had pinned to her bag next to her own homemade badges of Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy’s cutie marks. She kept looking at the badge as if she remembered something about it but couldn’t put her hoof on it.
By that time, it was close to noon. The bright sun was poised right above them in the sky, and Pipp suggested that they go to McWings. Zipp agreed immediately. Flurry had been seeing ads for the restaurant all over the city, and it had been so long since she had eaten a meal that wasn’t prepared by some of the finest chefs in Equestria in her own palace, so she looked around openly when they entered the initial building.
“Let’s see…” Pipp murmured to herself, staring up at the menu. “I think we’ll have… seven double hayburgers and two large fries. Oh, and something to drink. What do you guys want?”
Sunny, Izzy, Hitch, Sprout, and Flurry were all lost in the massive size of the menu, so Zipp said, “We’ll just take smoothies. Strawberry mango. For all of us.”
“Huh?” Sunny muttered, looking away from the menu as if coming out of a trance.
“Trust me, it’s what you want,” Zipp assured her.
Pipp nodded and relayed the orders to the pegasus at the cashier, who in turn was staring at them all as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He shook himself, flashed an apologetic grin at Pipp, and furiously entered digits into the cash register.
A few moments later, Izzy was balancing a massive tray with her magic as Pipp and Zipp led the way outside and to one of many tables that lined the walkway heading towards McWings.
“Oh. My. Stars,” Sunny whispered with the first bite of her hayburger. The other ponies nodded and made varying noises of agreement - they couldn’t talk because their mouths were so full. Within no time, the tray was empty, the seven ponies were slurping up the last bits of their smoothies, and Hitch had dragged Sprout along to do litter detail.
“If we turn Hitch loose, he’ll have the entire city clean in a day,” Sunny said as they watched the stallion run back and forth between empty tables and the trash cans while Sprout was less than enthusiastically following behind.
“What should we do next?” Zipp asked as the two stallions rejoined them, the area now devoid of litter.
“How about the movies?” Sunny suggested.
“Yes! Judgement Neigh!” Izzy exclaimed happily, bouncing up and down.
“What’s a… movie?” Flurry asked, taking a step forward curiously.
“Okay, sweetheart, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” Pipp announced, grabbing Flurry’s arm and pulling her back to the subway.