//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 - Canterlot // Story: Contact // by Gron //------------------------------// Celestia and Luna, flanked by two Royal Guards, stood on the other side of the door, abruptly stopping as they caught sight of the human and his companions. Silently the two groups stood a few meters apart, frozen. Twilight looked nervously between Steve and Celestia, unsure whether to say something or wait for one of them to start, not wanting to potentially interrupt her mentor. Meanwhile Steve’s gaze fell upon Luna, how looked terrible. Her eyes were bloodshot, her usual flowing mane hung motionless and flat against the side of her head. Peeking at him, she caught his stare, but quickly turned her head towards the ground to avoid his gaze. Celestia coughed lightly and was the first to speak. “Good morning, how are you feeling today?” she asked, even though she seemed to speak steadily, he noticed a small trembling in her usually calm voice. “Celestia,” he greeted her back, nodding his head slightly in her direction. “I do feel better than yesterday, thanks for asking,” he added, which visibly seemed to relieve her. “However,” he added, holding up a hand so he could talk without interruption. “Don’t think I’ll just forget the harm your actions have cause me.” His words resulting in her slight smile fading away again. Taking a deep breath, he continued, “However, I can control my emotions a bit better now.” His eyes fell on Luna again who was still looking at the ground, shaking a bit. “Luna,” he said calmly, hoping she would look up and meet his gaze, but to his disappointment she didn’t. With a little sigh he continued, “I know that I’m probably the last person you want to see or speak to right, so I’ll keep this short and please, just hear me out. What happened last night was… I don’t really know how to describe it. I was driven by my emotions. They took control of me and made me say things I didn’t mean to say, things I regret.” Feeling the shame that had been his constant companion threatening to take over, he continued, although there was a noticeable hitch in his voice, “I overreacted and for that I would like to… apologize. If you want to hear it, you can visit me anytime. I promise I won’t yell at you again.” Luna remained silent but managed to look him in the eyes again, her frame still rather shaky and defensive, but he did catch the small, almost imperceptible nod of assent directed at him. Celestia inserted herself in the conversation, stating clearly, “I am very pleased to hear this, as is my sister.” She looked over to her little sister with a genuine smile and carefully put a wing around her, eliciting a faint smile from the lunar princess. “Although I am saddened to see that your… opinion about me has not changed, I am relieved to see that you have at least forgiven my sister, and I hope you can forgive me for what has happened someday as well,” she added, her solemn eyes regarding him calmly. “We’ll see about that,” he muttered to himself, before continuing in a louder voice. “For now I will make the best of the situation I can. Twilight has offered to show me around town today.” “A wonderful plan, I wish you a pleasant day. If you excuse me, I have to return to my studies now,” she replied and left together with Luna, her wing still wrapped around her, the guards following some distance behind them. Steve noticed the harsh look Twilight was giving him. She was obviously not amused of the way he talked with her mentor, but refrained from saying anything. Before he got to say anything to try and divert her anger however, his view got flushed with pink. “HEYA!” Pinkie cheered as she pulled him into a bone crushing hug. He had to gasp for air as she finally pulled back released him, bouncing up and down in excitement. Steve had been so focused on the princesses that he didn’t notice the other ponies in the room, who were now coming over to him. “I’m sooooo happy to see you again. I’ll add a Recovery Party to the list of parties you’re going to get! It’s going to be so much fun!” she cheered in her usual joyful voice. Suddenly she stopped her bouncing, rushing up to him in a flash, jumping at him, causing him to catch her reflexively, before holding down his shoulders and pressed her face to his so that they ended up snout to use. “But I almost forgot. How are you doing? Are you feeling better again? What happened to you?” she continued without catching a single breath since she started talking, her wide cerulean eyes peering deeply into his. “Er… thanks for the concern, Pinkie. It’s a bit… complicated to explain what happened, but I’m feeling quite good right now,” he answered with a smile, bending down and released the fluffy bundle of pink, who resumed her constant bouncing. “What happened there between you and the princesses, darling?” Rarity inquired, a questioning look on her face as she stepped closer. “We were unable to hear you, but there seemed to be a lot of tension and Princess Celestia told us very little except you were awake again. Would you mind telling us what is going on? Also there is this… thing… with Luna… not that I am trying to be nosy,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him while looking at him expectantly “Fine,” he replied with a long sight. “You should all know what has happened. To keep it short, her careless action had cost me everything and I doubt that she will ever be able to fix it. Add that to the fact that she still hasn’t realized how much she destroyed my life means that I can’t simply forgive her,” he explained to them in a calm voice. After talking about it with Rainbow and Twilight previously, he could repeat his story without the feeling of anger and frustration emerging. “But is Princess Celestia not working on a spell of some sort?” Rarity asked confusedly, taken aback by this information. “I’m aware of this, we had that discussed already. I pointed out that the chances of success of the spell, if there even is one, would be low most likely cause more problems than it would solve. The universe is endlessly large, searching for my homeworld a hopeless endeavor. There is still a chance that it will work, but it’s too small for me to rely on, honestly. I have to stay realistic… chances that I will ever return home are almost non-existent” he replied, couldn’t help feeling a bit saddened at his words this time. Surprisingly, it was the usually timid Fluttershy, who was the first one to respond from the group of shocked ponies who stared at him with open jaws. “Oh my,” she said, her usually calm voice filled with sorrow. “That sounds awful. What are you going to do now?” He looked into her cyan eyes, the direct gesture causing her to hide behind her mane, before he shrugged and answered, “I don’t really know, yet. Making the best I can out of it, I guess.” “We’ll all be here to help ya out as much as we can,” Applejack said, the simple honesty in her statement represented by the smile on her face. “Equestria sure is a nice place to live in.” “I don’t doubt that,” he replied, returning the smile. “You can’t believe how much you’re helping me but….” He stopped for a few moment, staring into their expectant faces, before continuing, “I just can’t act like nothing happened. Everything I was working for is gone, all the people I ever knew… I’ll never see any of them again. My family and friends won’t even ever know what really happened to me.” “Speaking of which,” Twilight spoke up. “I never asked what will happen in your universe now. Do you know what will happen there?” He looked at her, she was standing by his side the whole time and now looked up at him with a curious glance, her anger at his disrespect towards her princesses distracted by her unquenched thirst for knowledge. “I’m not sure. The magic of the portal messes up electronics but the Helios survived a direct contact without any long-term damage so I doubt anything too bad happened,” he explained. “Once they are operational again they will scan the perimeter for the distress signal I send. Well… since I’m not there they won’t receive it and have to assume I crashed somewhere and died,” he continued, cringing a bit as he vocalized the unpleasant thought for the first time. “There is a protocol they have to follow from this point but I never read it in detail. It will result in continuing the mission, if possible, and send a message back to Earth, accounting for my ‘death’,” he continued in an unsteady voice. “But I’m not even sure if they are going to tell anyone about it.” “Why is that?” Twilight inquired. “The amount of resources used to make this mission possible were too huge to allow rumors to spread about a possible failure,” he answered, straining to sound as nonchalant as possible. Noticing the sympathetic looks the ponies were giving him, he tried to diminish their worries. “Maybe that’s not even that bad for me. I’m still alive so why should everybody think it’s not true. Who knows, maybe the spell will even work in time so I get home before anyone on Earth knows about what has happened. That would make one hell of I story I got to tell them,” he added and couldn’t resist to chuckle at his words, hoping that they at least would cheer up, even if he himself didn’t secretly believe it. “Enough of this for now,” he said in a more serious tone. “I need to focus not on what happens there but here.” Straightening up he declared, “First of all I would love to eat something. I bet I’m not the only one who’s starving.” He chuckled again and shot a short glance over the Twilight who blushed lightly, before looking over to the table, filled with all sorts of delicious looking food. They trotted back to the table and Steve, Twilight and Rainbow took a seat next to each other, the rest took the seats they already used and continued their meals. It seems they were almost finished, by the look of their almost empty plates but he still got to see the different styles of eating, which turned out to be very amusing. Pinkie had a small pile of chocolate pancakes left on her plate, which she devoured by rolling out her tongue, grabbing one layer after another and sucked it into her mouth. The fact that her tongue size change dramatically during this procedure didn’t seem to bother any of the ponies but caused Steve to watch it a few more times, while trying to think of a logical explanation. Logic is overrated here, I guess, he thought, before trying to dismiss what he had just seen. Once again, he was astonished by the pink pony who was able to put a smile on his face by doing the simplest tasks in such a random way. Rarity on the other hand, or hoof, was more focused on showing her table manners. Gracefully, she sat down on her chair, grabbing knives and forks with her magic, letting them shine in a pale blue aura as her magic manifested around them, allowing her to elegantly cut what looked like the remains of an omelet. From the numerous used dishes on Applejack’s plate he supposed that ponies, other than unicorns, were also able to wield knives and forks but lacked the precision magic provided, forcing to Applejack continued eating her apple pie with her bare hooves, oblivious to the glares Rarity was giving her, he noted with a hidden smile- Fluttershy had carefully avoided this problem by eating a sandwich, which from afar looked like it had daisies in it. Twilight, just like Rarity used her magic to fill up a bowl with milk and cereal and use a spoon. She didn’t even looked concentrated while she held all these different objects in her purple magical aura. Rainbow however didn’t even bother trying and straightaway picked a cinnamon roll with her hooves and devoured it with gusto, occasionally licker her hoofs clean of the sweat remains sticking to them. His grumbling stomach stopped him from spending more time watching them so he looked over the table, searching for something to eat for himself. There were plenty of choices and he would have wanted to try all of them but ended up with a fruit salad, fascinatingly inspecting and tasting a large number of fruits, a lot of them unknown to him, hoping at each bite that they aren’t toxic to his human body or else his only hope would be pinned on Twilight’s magic arsenal containing first aid skills as well. “So Twilight, where should we start today?” Steve asked while closely inspecting a small red berry he held between two fingers before putting it his mouth, causing him to cringe a bit its extremely sour taste. “Huh?” Pinkie interrupted before Twilight had the chance to answer. “Where are you going?” “Oh, I’m sorry, Twilight offered to show me around town today and I completely forgot to ask if you want to join,” he quickly replied. “Do you all want to come with us?” he asked the ponies around him. “What a wonderful idea,” Rarity said who had already finished her meal, daintily using her napkin. “I would never miss out a chance of seeing anything of Canterlot. Count me in.” The other ponies quickly agreed as well. “So back to the question,” he said. “Where should we start?” “Well,” Twilight replied, putting on a thoughtful look. “We could continue where we left off and I show you more of our history.” “Good idea, but I would like to go outside,” he said, feeling a small pang of regret at the knowledge he would be missing out. “I’ve barely seen anything beside the inside of the castle walls.” “Alright, let me think of something,” she said, stroking her chin with one of her forehooves while trying to come up with some ideas. “Hey, I know of something,” Rainbow threw in, a sudden excitement in her voice. “The Wonderbolts are in town and are having a training at the arena. I’m pretty sure they would allow us to watch.” “That sounds perfect. I must say that I find your flight mechanic very fascinating. I’d be happy to see these Wonderbolts,” he replied eagerly. That show Rainbow gave me was awesome already, I wonder how good they can be then, he thought as he remembered the events of two days ago. “Awesome!” she cheered, her face beamed with a wide grin, before her face suddenly dropped. “Oh damnit!” she yelled. “I completely forgot the time. It’s too late for the morning training and the next one shouldn’t be until this afternoon.” “Sorry,” she added with an apologetic smile. “That’s alright, we can go there later,” he replied, returning the smile. “I bet all of you have great ideas. Why doesn’t everybody, er… everypony, I really have to get used to this, just name a few things and then we decide what’s the best?” he proposed, earning him approving nods of the ponies. Thus began an animated discussion, naming various different points of interest, all written down on a long list by Twilight, who also added a few points of her own. Steve used this time to finish his meal, barely listing to all the things they named. “Okay, I think that should be enough for now,” Steve interrupted the flow of ideas with a loud clap of his hands a few moments after he had swallowed the last piece of fruit on his plate. “That should be more than enough for one day.” “Well, now that ya talk of it. How long we’ll stay here anyways?” Applejack asked. “I have no idea, I guess I have to ask Celestia about that. I don’t think she needs me to stay here for much longer,” he shrugged, shooting a glance to Twilight, hoping she could answer the question but she shrugged as well. “I’ll get back to this. Let’s see what we have for today,” he continued and glanced over to the list Twilight had made. “The nearest would be…,” Twilight said and stopped, looking over the list as well. “The Royal Canterlot Garden.” “That is if you would like to see it, we don’t have to because of me,” Fluttershy, who proposed this suggestion, threw in hurriedly, afraid he wouldn’t like her suggestion. “I’m sure it’s a great idea,” he replied with a light smile aimed at Fluttershy. “Everypony ready?” he asked around and was met by nodding ponies. “Great, let’s go then,” he cheered and got out of his chair. They left the dining hall, following Twilight, who once again took the lead, through the castle’s corridors. Twilight refrained from stopping every few steps this time to explain the meaning of the cultural artifacts they passed by, so they found themselves leaving the marble walls of the castles and were now standing in the colorful gardens. [/hr] The garden was not entirely on the same platform the castle itself was located on. Despite the immense size of the platform it was still too small and could only handle a small part of the garden, which seemed to consist of what Steve thought could possibly be every plan Equestria had to offer. The larger part of the garden was located on the mountain plateau, filling up an enormous space behind the city, a huge maze taking in a considerable amount of it. He hadn’t paid it that much attention, instead turning towards the huge variety of colorful flowers that were everywhere around him. He took in a deep breath, absorbing a mixture of all the scents in the air, which nearly overwhelmed him. Now after two years in space and the lack of fresh, natural air he noticed for the first time how much he was missing the scent of nature and was now enjoying every breath of it. Plants were not the only thing to see as he slowly walked through the garden. There were also plenty of even more vibrant animals of all sorts flying, running or jumping freely between the trees, a lot of them equally colorful as the flora. Birds in red, green and blue sitting together on a tree branch, singing a soft melody, even a toucan sitting on the wall of a small fountain. Curiously he approached the bird with the large green and red bill but as soon as he came to close to him he quickly took off into one of the trees. “They are very shy,” Fluttershy said in an even softer voice than usual in order to avoid scaring the animals any more, interrupting the silence that had built up as they were all on their own inspecting different parts of the garden on their own. “They don’t even want to come near me,” she said, Steve detecting a small amount of hurt in her voice as she whispered the words. “Still it’s very beautiful out here. I’ve never seen so many different flowers blooming in one place,” he whispered quietly as well. “Most of the ground is enchanted, allowing everything to grow, even outside their habitat,” she explained and pointed towards a small spot of land. “It’s extremely complicated to produce this kind of earth and the spells are different for every type of plants as well,” she softly continued as they both walked over to where she pointed at. “This is a collection of plants from the Crystal Empire,” she said, pointing over a bunch of mostly clear white flowers. “That’s my favorite,” she added, pointing at a flower in the shape of a perfect ice crystal. The bloom itself was translucent, only colored in a faint, pale blue, allowing Steve to see the small veins running through the points of the crystal. “It’s called Crystalline Dream.” “Wow, it’s amazing,” he agreed, moving his hand towards the flower. “Don’t!” Fluttershy quickly intervened. “They are extremely sensitive.” He stopped his hand in time and pulled it back, noticing a light chilliness in it. “My hand feels cold. Is that the flower?” he asked curiously. “Yes,” she answered, hiding behind her mane a bit after stopping him so suddenly. “Most of the flora of the Crystal Empire is emitting a frosty aura. They are fascinating, a wonderful combination between nature and magic.” Wanting to see more of wonders the garden had to offer, Steve turned away from the crystal flowers after a few minutes, searching for something that would caught his eye. Aimlessly he wandered around until he found himself at the border of the platform. He leaned on the railing, staring down abyss. It was fascinating and frightening at the same time, staring down far over a kilometer down on the ground below. “Fascinating isn’t it?” Twilight asked. Steve turned around from the railing, seeing Twilight standing next to him. “Amazing. And it leads me to question I had for a while now. How was this city build?” he asked her curiously. “This platform alone would be an architectural masterpiece. How can it support so much weight while reaching out so far in the air?” “Shortly after the founding of Equestria, by now 2632 years ago, the unicorns began the construction. Every piece of stone used was enchanted, increasing it stability drastically. The construction took several decades, though almost every unicorn at the time was there to help. But the result is amazing as you can see,” she explained, slipping into her lecturing mode, waving at the platform for emphasis. “The entire castle has not to be restored one single time and will probably last forever. After its completion the unicorns invited the other tribes to a party that was so popular it was repeated every year ever since. Now we call it the Grand Galloping Gala. I was there once and honestly can’t see why it is so popular, but it still is one of our most important events,” she explained, a hint of exasperation entering her voice. “The leading architect even got his own sculpture placed here in the gardens,” she added and pointed towards the larger part of the garden on the mountain plateau. Right in front of the giant maze he was now able to see various stone sculptures of ponies in different poses, but he was too far away to make out any details. “Can we go there?” he asked inquisitive. “Sure, I’ll just tell the others real quick that we are going. Wait right here,” she answered, running off back into the garden. Shortly after, she returned with the other ponies, leading them and Steve to the sculpture garden, taking a way along the border until the crossed a small stone stairway, connecting the platform with the mountain. “Here we represent the most important ponies of our history,” Twilight said as they approached the garden. “This one here is the architect I mentioned before,” Twilight said and pointed towards the sculpture of an unicorn with a very short horn and the picture of a blueprint on his flank. His partly closed eyes were fixated on the castle as though he could watch his finest piece of art he ever created, his muzzle forming a soft smile. Twilight let loose a sheer endless flow of words down on them as they walked through the various sculptures, insisting on telling the heroic feats the ponies accomplished to gain their spot here. Surprisingly there were also a few warriors represented, most of them from the time of Discords reign as they defended the helpless ponies from the gruesome creature he had gathered around to spread chaos throughout the land, but some were from more recent events. There seemed to be more than just one conflict with the Griffon Empire, he noted. It never escalated to a full scale war, mostly it stayed to small skirmishes without any casualties but they celebrated their commanders nevertheless, especially so for keeping the country away from any war. If he interpreted the date shown on the sockets of the sculptures correctly, their last war dated back to the time of Nightmare Moon, where the Griffons thought Equestria was weakened, but failed quickly due to a heroic strike of the Captain of the Guard at that time, a pegasus stallion, capturing many high ranked enemy’s commanders in a well-planned ambush only three days after war was declared, resulting in an immediate end to the war, Twilight explained. The statue showed him standing on his hind legs, holding the Equestrian flag, showing two alicorns circling around a sun and a moon, each corner crested with plenty of stars, each one represented by a small diamond, high in the air in his right forehoof. He was portrayed in full armor, which seemed to be of the same design as those use by the guards he saw, including his weapon, a spear he held in his left hoof, pointing up into the sky as well. More fascination however were two strange objects, each attached to his wide spread out wings. “What are these things?” he asked Twilight, pointing towards the objects, which look like a sort of hollow pipe strapped around the bone of his wings with many small stripes laying over the primary feathers and a short blade on top of it. The amount of detail was amazing, letting clearly distinguish between the strange armor and the wings. Twilight looked over to where he pointed at and began carefully explaining, “These are Wingshields, or in this case their modified version, the Wingblade.” “How do they work?” he asked quickly and made a small peak over to Twilight, only to see that he had interrupted her in in speech. “Sorry, go on.” Twilight coughed slightly before continuing, “You must know, pegasi wings are extremely sensitive, a single strike could easily break them, making pegasi extremely vulnerable in close combat. There were different approaches to this problem and one of the solutions was the Wingshield. It is a piece of armor, designed to protect the critical parts of a pegasus’ wing. Each shield had to be individually crafted for each wearer, making them very expensive. The slightest misfit would dramatically decrease the flying ability.” Steve hang on to her every word, fascinated by the technology, although the rest of the ponies grew slightly bored. “This was leading straight to the biggest problem they had to face. With the armor being light and flexible enough to not affect the flight and let the wearer still fold and unfold his wings, they still had to be strong enough to withstand direct hits without being deformed. Ponies are not very good miners and the griffons refused to trade their ores with us, so the armor smiths back in the days had to use regular materials which had to be enchanted by powerful unicorns to grant the shields the qualities they features they had to fulfill. This made them even more expansive, allowing only a few hoofful of pegasi to be equipped with them,” she explained, turning her back to the rest of the group while joining Steve in staring up at the sculpture, completely immersed in her lecture. “Soon after their invention, the Captain of the Guard at that time saw also an offensive potential in them by attaching blades to them, leading to the creation of the Wingblade. Their construction was even more complicated. They had to withstand much more powerful impacts and still had to held their light weight and flexibility. The enchantments used had to be renewed by a powerful unicorn after half an hour of usage or they would have worn off, making the blade and shield completely useless. Still, most of the work came from the wearer itself. Mastering the art of the fight with the Wingblade required years of excessive training. Not even the enchantments could protect the wing if the cut came from a slightly wrong angle. In the hooves, or wings, of an experienced pegasus however they were an extremely powerful weapon. Only a few have ever mastered this art, though,” she finished her lecture. Fascinating, but scary as hell. I doubt they flew supersonic in battle but being hit by an blade at a few hundred kilometers per hour… ouch! he shuddered at the thought. “Jeez, Twilight,” Rainbow chuckled after Twilight had finished. “I never knew you were into this stuff.” “My brother had to read a lot of books while he was in the guard academy and I looked into one or two as well,” Twilight shrugged. “One of them was focusing on the Wingblades, even though they are no longer used nowadays. Even the shields are rarely used as they were only worn in combat. Despite their light weight they were described as unpleasant to wear for a longer time.” “I bet they would look pretty cool on me!” Rainbow said, her gaze switching between her, now unfolded, wings and the sculpture, imagining herself wearing a pair of wingblades. Steve turned away from the group who were now laughing as Rainbow was posing in her imaginary armor and looked around the garden again until he noticed one sculpture that was not a pony, immediately turning towards Twilight, pointing towards the sculpture and asked, “Hey, who’s this?” “That is a draconequus, Discord to be exactly,” Twilight replied after seeing what he was pointing on. “The one imprisoned in stone?” he asked to make sure he remembered correctly. “That’s right, but this is no longer really him if that is what you were going for,” Twilight answered quickly. “He was petrified here for about 2000 years, but we could reform him recently. He is no longer a threat to us but I am not quite sure he will be an ally either if needed,” Twilight said, sparing a glance at Fluttershy. “So far he’s living in self-declared exile somewhere near Baltimare,” she explained. “As a reminder, the sculpture he originally represented in his real stone prison got duplicated and is now shown. He destroyed most of our historical records, things we can never replace again. We would never want our history to be forgotten, no matter how dark it was.” Twilight sounded saddened but determined at the last part. The fact that knowledge has been lost, perhaps forever, seemed to upset her and Steve had no doubt should would do whatever she could to never let something like that happen again. “How did you reform him?” he asked, trying to change the subject to something slightly more positive. “Turning a God of Chaos to the good side doesn’t sound like an easy task.” “Credit goes to Fluttershy there,” Twilight grinned at her friend, who blushed and hid behind her mane at the compliment. “She did it all by herself. We were even more deconstructive than helpful and doubted it was possible. I can honestly say that it never felt so good to be wrong.” “Really?” he inquired, surprised that the timid pegasus could pull something like that off. “How did you do this?” “Oh, the plan was very simple. I just had to show him the value of a true friend,” Fluttershy told him softly, peeking out from under her mane again. “Just like that?” he wondered. “You befriended a God of Chaos and that reformed him?” he asked, the skepticism in his voice obvious. “It did. He never had a real friend before, losing the only one he ever had was something not even he could bear. Don’t we all just need a good friend?” she countered, her calm voice making the recollection sound perfectly logical. “Uh… yeah, sure, but isn’t this a little bit too simple? I mean… well,” he stammered, thrown off by the simplicity of resolving their conflicts. “Maybe that’s just how things work here,” he tried to wave it off. “How do you humans deal with it then?” Twilight asked curiously. “Still wanting to learn about us, eh?” he replied to which Twilight quickly nodded. “Alright then. So we don’t have gods or magic so it’s a little bit different but we have different level of security to protect countries and their population from different levels of threats,” he explained, trying to keep it in a matter-of-fact tone as much as possible. Please don’t let her ask more, he hoped. Telling her all about wars and violence on Earth would put me in a very bad light after yelling at their princesses. I’m still surprised that she was so relaxed about it. “Specific as always, I see. Usually I would want to go into it, but today is for you to learn about us. Plus we finally are at the statue of the most amazing unicorn to ever wander upon Equestria,” she gushed, pointing to the sculpture behind her, missing the relieved look that passed across his face. The sculpture was showing an incredible old unicorn stallion. He had an extremely long beard, reaching down almost to the ground and a ridiculously large hat sitting on his gnarled face. Also he was wearing a kind of dress in the same style as his hat, a bunch of crescents and stars on them, its border decorated with numerous small bells. “May I present, Starswirl the Bearded,” Twilight proudly announced. “Former leader of the unicorn tribe before the founding of Equestria, creator of the amniomorphic spell, and far over 200 other. His work was groundbreaking, deepening our understanding of magic in almost every way and…” Twilight stopped midsentence, giving him a rather sheepish smile. “Let me start at the beginning, it will make things much clearer. His story begins 2849 years ago, when he was born…” And so she started an almost endless flow of words, recapping every littlest detail of Starswirl’s life, obviously not always called ‘the Bearded’, that title came with a failed experiment in his early years that earned him his beard, he was never able to get rid of. Steve’s curiosity let him follow the story for almost half an hour before he got overwhelmed by the amount of information Twilight was throwing at him. Most of the other ponies had stopped trying to focus for so long and were dozing in the grass for a while now, waiting for Twilight to finish so they could move on. “For Pete’s sake, Twilight. We still have some other things to do for today,” Rainbow finally spoke up blearily, rubbing her sleepy eyes with her hooves. “But I didn’t even get to the point where he graduated from school,” Twilight objected vehemently. “I think I’ve gotten the point so far and we could move on,” Steve said gently, secretly agreeing with Rainbow Dash. “Oh, okay…,” Twilight mumbled saddened, her ears tilting down. “You can tell me more about him some other time, if you want to,” he offered. “Yes!” she cheered, instantly smiling again. “We could use the whole train ride home, that should cover the basic information, and from there we could get really started.” Not realizing what he had just offered he shot a pleading look over to Rainbow, hoping she could help him out. Spending plenty of hours listing to the extremely detailed life story of an unicorn, who lived over two millennia ago was not something he was looking forward to, but he didn’t want to withdraw his offer now, seeing how much it was cheering Twilight up. Rainbow noticed his look but only smirked and supported Twilight by saying, “That’s an awesome idea! You should totally do that!” Thanks Rainbow! he thought sarcastically, his pleading look changing to a glare, which only caused Rainbow Dash to laugh. “Great,” Twilight cheered. “We would be done here then. Let me see where we are headed next.” “Let’s see…,” Twilight thoughtfully said while she looked over the list she had pulled out of her saddlebags. “Close to here would be the guard academy. My brother could definitely give us a great tour around, which the others should also find quite interesting,” she said, wrinkling her nose at her friends, sleeping in the grass. “Sounds good,” he agreed. “Alright. Let’s go then. HEY, WAKE UP!” Rainbow shouted, awaking the other ponies. They slowly began to stir from their dreams, looking slightly ashamed they fell asleep during Twilights’ lecture. “Sorry ‘bout that,” Applejack apologized. “Ah guess it’s a bit too early for ah history lesson.” “Yeah, sorry,” Pinkie Pie yawned but was already at the peak of her energy again as she bounced over to them. “Hey, Twi, isn’t that the weirdo clown you played at Nightmare Night?” Pinkie asked, twisting her neck around to look at Starswirl’s statue from different angles. “Ugh,” Twilight groaned and rolled her eyes. “Let’s just move on. We are going to the Guards academy is next.” “Great,” Pinkie chirped, ignoring Twilight’s muttering about the lack of respect to the legendary unicorn. The group slowly got moving, following Twilight back to the city again. Rainbow began trotting next to Steve, still with a grin on her face. “What was that for?” he wanted to know, frowning at her . “What do you mean?” she asked impishly, her grin widening even more. “You know what I mean,” he replied a bit annoyed at her innocently pretending she wouldn’t know what he was talking about. “It was a perfect assist and you were mean to Luna. I can’t let you get away with that easily, even if you had your reasons,” she said, poking him with a wing. “Hmm… fair enough, I guess. I didn’t really thought my offer through,” he said more to himself than to her. “Eeyup,” she agreed, imitating Big Macs voice as much as she could. “You can’t blame me for messing with you if you’re almost asking for it.” “Aren’t you afraid I’m gonna snap at you too if you continue doing that?” he asked, raising a brow, trying to sound as serious as possible. “Nah, I’m way too fast for you to get me. See ya,” she smirked, unfolding here wings to lift herself off the ground with one powerful blow and shot off into the sky. These ponies are crazy, he thought while walking up to meet Twilight at the front of the group. At least most of them are the funny type of crazy. “Excited to see more of the town?” Twilight asked as Steve walked alongside her. “We will have to go through a few streets to reach the academy.” “Yes, I didn’t get much of a chance to see anything when we got here,” he answered. “I’m sure you will love it,” she said. The garden was close by to the city, so they reached the streets in only a few minutes, letting Steve see the town and its population clearly for the first time. The small glances he got at the populace during his arrival turned out to be accurate. Almost every pony was wearing at least small pieces of clothing. The majority of them were unicorns wandering around in regal manner, their chins lifted high in the air. They seemed to care little about the presence of a strange creature, only stopping and looking for a few moments before began carrying on with their business, wrinkling their noses. They must be used to strangers here. I shouldn’t be that surprised, consider this is their capital and the amount of different races in this world. He was quite relieved to not cause a big fuss everywhere he was going. This gave him more time to admire the city’s beauty. And the splendor was blatantly evident. From what he could see, the city was in an absolutely flawless shape. There were no signs of dirt on the streets, the marble, which he guessed most buildings were made built form, shone in the sunshine, free of any grime that would have diminished its natural magnificence. Now that his view was no longer being blocked by a group of guard ponies, he could clearly see all of the houses. Each one of them seemed to outclass its neighbor’s, resulting in a fascinating sight for everyone who wandered through the streets. Their artisan craftwork was showing off in countless ways, reaching from the stained glass that he already saw plenty of in the castle, to more subtle things, like the elegant form of the seats and tables of the small restaurants beside the road, which all had plenty of customers right now as it was around noon. Steve was so focused on the sights, that he would have ran into at least four ponies if not for Twilight and Rainbow, who came back from the sky shortly before they entered the city, warning him every so often if he was about to bump into anything. “So here we are,” Twilight said and stopped walking. “Huh? So fast?” Steve asked disappointed, screeching to a stop, wanting to see more of the city. “Yes, I hope my brother is here to show us around. I have only been here for a few times and do not really know my way around,” she replied. Steve’s gaze now fell on the large building they were standing in front of. It was surrounded by a large and lengthy stone wall. A few glances through the main entrance, they were now standing in front of, gave him a small preview of the Academy complex, which consisted of a large training ground right after the entrance, while he could glimpse a bunch of smaller buildings in the back, probably barracks. Two guards were standing at the entrance, watching the group of ponies and the human passively. While Steve was still inspecting the building, Twilight approached the two stallions, guarding the entrance and after a few exchange of words one of them quickly left. Twilight turned around to the group again and told them, “They are getting my brother. They need his approval to let us in as visitors.” The wait was not long and soon the guard reappeared with Shining Armor accompanying him. He was wearing the same uniform as yesterday and had a bright smile on his face as he spotted Twilight. “Twily! It’s great to see you again,” he greeted her and pulled her into a hug. “Good to see you too, Shiny,” she greeted back. One of the guards snickered at the nickname, before abruptly cutting himself off as Shining Armor glared at him. “So, what can I do for you?” he asked. “We would like a little tour if possible. You remember Steve, right?” she asked and pointed towards Steve, to which Shining Armor nodded. “We are showing him around town and I thought since you are here and it is close to the palace, we would stop here.” “Great idea, of course I’ll show you around! Unfortunately I don’t have that much time but it should cover the most important parts,” he said. “Celestia has found a possible successor for my position and wants me to attend the meeting later.” “Let’s get started then, right?” Steve said eagerly. “That’s the spirit. Follow me,” he said, turning around, signaling the two guards to let them pass. “Man, this is going to be so much better than some boring history lesson,” Rainbow whispered to Steve, so that Twilight couldn’t hear it. “History isn’t boring. You can learn a lot of it,” he argued. Although it can be overwhelming at times, he added to himself. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but still this is going to be better, I’m totally sure.” Their first stop of the tour was right after the entrance where the training grounds were located. The training was in full swing, showing several of stallions of all three kinds of ponies performing different exercises, from cardio over strength to combat practice. “Why are there only stallions? Don’t you accept mares as recruits?” Steve wanted to know, as he noticed the lack of any females around. “We sure do, if they would apply. We have two mares in training right now, that I know of, but it doesn’t seem like they are here right now,” he answered and looked around. “For a long time mares were not allowed to become guards, but we changed that law a long time ago. Still the image stuck that all guards are stallions and we only get a handful of applications from mares every year and most of them drop out rather quickly unfortunately. We tried to make the guard duty more attractive to mares but it didn’t really help.” “Anyways,” he continued. “Here you can see most of the basic physical training and where the recruits spend most of their time.” He began wandering from station of station, each of them training the recruits a different lesson, while Shining Armor took a lot of time to explain the importance of each single one of them. The training was strange and interesting to watch at the same time. Most of the exercises were much alike to human exercises and were showing the pony’s surprisingly high agility and extremely high endurance, especially from the earth ponies. The pegasi and unicorns had special training for their magic or flying ability, though these training units were not performed on these training grounds, Shining Amor explained them. Finally they got to the last part of the training ground, namely the combat training. “Here every recruit gets to learn how to use his weapon, though we almost never have to use them luckily,” Shining Armor explained as they walked to a station where, in a long line, ponies were swinging their wooden spears against training dummies. “These are our newest recruits. We don’t let them fight against each other, even with training weapons the risk of an injury is too high.” “Over here are the more advanced recruits,” he continued and walked over to the next station where a couple of ponies were standing in pairs, fighting against each other with their spears, always one in offense and one in defense, while several instructors were walking past them, telling them to change role or point out mistakes. Though they were lacking a solid grip with their hooves their blows seemed to be very powerful, judging from the loud sound of wood knocking on wood, causing Fluttershy to occasionally flinch. “Are they only trained in spears?” Steve asked after they watched the training for a few more minutes. “As melee weapon, yes, most of them. We also have swords but they are for ceremonial uses only, unless for some unicorns, whose magic is powerful enough to wield them with their magic. Takes an awful lot of training, simply for keeping the magical flow up for a longer time under pressure, not to mention effectively fight with the weapon,” he explained and picked up a spear from a nearby weapon rack with his magic, letting it floating in front of him. “The result however is very effective, letting the unicorn attack from a safe distance and from many different directions in much higher speed than usually possible,” he continued explaining and performed a sequence of movements with his spear, where he let it swing against an imaginary opponent in high speed from lots of different directions. The spear was moving so fast at one point that it could only be recognized by the long blur it left behind. Steve doubted that anyone would be able to block or dodge these attacks for a long time but judging from the intense glare of concentration on Shining Armor’s face it wasn’t easy for him either. After a short while he let the spear flow back to the weapon rack, cutting his magical flow. “It takes the recruit about five years to reach the level from when they are allowed to fight against a real opponent with this technique,” he explained a bit out of breath. “I was never really good at it,” he admitted. “I was more focused on shield spells.” “Still does look very impressive,” Steve said. “Impressive? Dude, that was awesome!” Rainbow cheered, elbowing Steve “Yeah, did you see that spear? It went whoosh, then back up again then whooosh!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, animatedly using her hooves to show how quickly the spear had been travelling. “Ah know Pinkie, ah was right here,” Applejack said dryly. “Maybe awesome does fit better,” Steve agreed. “Hehe, thanks,” Shining Armor replied with a light smile. “But to come back to your question. We also use crossbows, mostly for the pegasi to give air support, if required,” he told him and started moving again, until they arrived at a small archery range. A few ponies were standing on the range holding a strange crossbow. It was fixated on one of their legs with frame, letting them freely move while carrying it, the bow aiming down the direction of their hoof. They had to lift their entire leg to aim, which caused some of the recruits to struggle with their balance, but given their limited physical ability compared to a human, this seemed to an efficient way. Also it looked pretty cool. “Why are you training so much if your country is so peaceful? From what I got so far there hasn’t been a war for almost a whole millennium,” he asked confusedly. “Equestria is peaceful right that’s right but often thanks to quick reaction in the case of emergency. You could say we are being overly cautious but to maintain peace we gladly are. The changeling incident a few months ago reminded us once again how quickly things can change and we increased the number of guards since then,” Shining Armor told him. “Changelings?” Steve wanted to know, not having heard of them before. “Nasty little beasts who are able to shapeshift and drain your feelings to gain more power,” he explained with an angry expression on his face. Steve hesitated, wondering if he had struck a nerve. His face lifted again when he continued, “Anyhow, also keep in mind that a guard’s duty is not limited to being a soldier in war. Most of our work is law enforcement and act as security on bigger events. Also a respectable time of the training is spent in classrooms to teach the new recruits theoretical knowledge. Each guard is a representative of the country and has to be well educated. Unfortunately lunch break starts in a few minutes and I have not very much time left, so I can’t show you a lecture. Maybe another time.” “I don’t think we’ll be coming back here soon, there is still a lot on the to-do list, but thanks for the offer and of course the tour. It was very interesting,” Steve replied. “You’re welcome. Mind if I ask a question as well?” Shining Armor asked. “By all means, it’s the least I can do after we took up your time,” he replied. “Just out of curiosity, do you have a royal guard where you come from?” Shining Armor asked, his question drawing Twilights interest as well. “Not in this way. Each country has a police force and an army. They are both divided into plenty of smaller units each responsible for a different set of task but generally the police is for internal, the army for external security. The police would come closest to the royal guards, I guess,” Steve explained, shrugging his shoulders at the last part. “And how do they operate? Maybe we could learn something from them. What kind of weapons and tactics they use?” Shining Armor continued asking curiously. “I was never a member myself so I can’t tell you much about their tactics. As for the weapons, it would be easier to show you but I don’t have one with me. But I don’t think that they would work very well here,” Steve answered. “Why’s that?” Shining Armor wanted to know. “First of all the different physiology of ponies and humans would hinder you using a lot of them, secondly most of them are very dangerous if in the wrong hands or hooves. I would not want our war arsenal to spread out to this world,” he told him honestly, which only caused to concern Shining Armor. “Are you at war on Earth?” Twilight asked before Shining Armor got to say something. Steve turned around to her, almost forgotten that the other ponies were still around as they had silently followed the tour so far. “Always,” he answered after a moment of silence, causing her to raise a brow. “What do you mean? You can’t possibly be always at war. Right?” she replied, confused and a bit frightened. “Unfortunately yes, you can. Earth is quite large so it’s not always to same countries involved and some of them are smaller conflicts but I don’t think there was a single year in human history when there was not at least one war somewhere.” The ponies were shocked at what he told them and took a while before being able to say something again. Twilight was the first to speak up, “That sounds horrible.” The other ponies nodded their heads in agreement. “I know,” Steve agreed with her as well. “It’s been part of our nature for so long can’t simply stop war. Wars can start easily. A leader turns into a dictator and refuses to go give up on his powers, a country wants another country’s resources or simply wants to increase its range of power. There are plenty of reasons which can lead to war and therefore death and destruction. It’s a horrible and large part of our history.” Before any of the ponies could say something Steve added, “I’m not proud of most of the history but I won’t deny it either. I didn’t tell you all this before because I didn’t want your opinion about me to be affected by history. I’m not sure if this was the right time but you asked very specifically this time.” Shining Armor was the first to break the silence that followed Steve’s statement. “Well, I appreciate your honesty for this but it still sounds worrying. Unfortunately I don’t have any time left to discuss this any further, Celestia awaits me and I’m a bit late already. Goodbye,” he said and turned around, walking quickly into the direction of the palace. As the remaining ponies still remained silent Steve added, “What I told you made humans sound violent and aggressive, and to some point that’s true, but there is a large number of us who live our lives relatively peaceful, and there are a lot of countries where there haven’t been any wars for a very long time. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you before and that it must be a shock for you to find out but I hope it doesn’t change what you think of me.” “Sure, we won’t do that. Right, girls?” Applejack said and looked around the group. “It was just a mighty big thing to know, ya know?” “Yes, of course we know better than that,” Rarity agreed, earning agreeing nods from Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. “Yeah, sorry ‘bout thinking this way for a moment. No hard feelings?” Rainbow asked, looking downcast for a moment, before pointing her hoof at him. Unsure whether she was expecting a hoofshake or hoofbump, he stuck with the latter, bumping his fist into her hoof and said, “No hard feelings. Thanks for being so understanding.” Twilight was the last to speak, still with a thoughtful look on her face, “Uh… yes, Applejack is right. It is just that I cannot imagine how something like this is possible. I mean we also had war and other problems here but not constant.” “Don’t try to compare Earth and Equestria. They are two, somehow quite similar, but mostly very different worlds. What is possible here seems impossible there and vice versa,” he tried to explain it. He saw that Twilight was not satisfied with the answer so he offered, “If we get back to my ship I can show you some history records. Maybe they can help you understand. But for now, let us not focus on war, okay?” “Alright,” she agreed. “You don’t have to do that though, if you don’t want to.” “It’s fine, really,” he assured her. “I know you want to know it and not telling you more about it would be the same as lying.” “I appreciate the offer. Now that that’s out of the way let’s move on shall we?” she asked around. “Let’s see what’s next on the list…” “Uh, how about lunch?” Pinkie proposed, rubbing her belly with one hoof. “All this quiet listening got me hungry again.” The ponies quickly agreed and choose the location. ‘Joe’s Donuts’ it was. They left the training grounds which was now almost empty as the lunch hour for guards, as Shining Armor mentioned before, had started. Back in the town they turned right and took a few side roads to avoid the large traffic on the main streets. It appeared that whole Canterlot was eating lunch right now, making the streets highly crowded and raising the noise level, making Steve wish he was back in Ponyville which was much quieter. The city life on Earth hadn’t bothered him much, but now after two years in the silence and emptiness of space he was sensitive to loud and crowded places. In the rush nopony was paying any attention to him at all, as they slowly moved to their destination, a rather small building, compared to its surroundings, closely to the castle. Despite the rush hour it was not very crowded as they stepped inside through two large glass doors. The inside was bathed in a light mint green, with a checkered pattern ground and several wooden tables standing around. Joe’s Donut was clearly standing by its name, judging from extreme variety of donuts of each color and with each topping imaginable, all laying behind the counter. After waiting in the line for a short duration, a unicorn stallion greeted them with a large smile on his face, “Twilight Sparkle, it’s been a while! A big welcome to you and your friends. Never got to really thank you for winning the Dessert Competition. What can I get for you? It’s on the house.” “Hey, Joe. Thanks for that, it was a pleasure. I’ll take the chocolate filled one over there,” she said and pointed towards one specific donut. Joe took the rest of the groups order, grabbing each of the donuts in his magical grip. “Here you go. Enjoy!” he enthused as he put a box of donuts on the counter and cut the magical flow from his horn. The group took one of last free tables and quickly began to eat the sweet treats. Steve took a plain donut, as the ponies had another interpretation of the word ‘sweet’. It was still too sweet for his taste but delicious nevertheless. They know a thing or two about baking here. First Pinkie and now this. After taking in the last bite he said with a satisfied moan, “That was delicious.” “Mhmm,” Pinkie Pie agreed, who had gulped down her donut in single bite. “What’s next?” she asked eagerly, licking the loose crumbs around her mouth. Twilight picked out the list again with her magic, trying to gulp down her bite so she could talk again, but Rainbow was quicker and threw in, “Why don’t we go to see the Wonderbolts at training now? They should start shortly!” “Sounds like a good idea,” Steve said. “Great, I’m sure you’ll like it,” Rainbow said, a wide smile on her face. “Well, it is settled then,” Twilight, who was finally able to speak again, said. A few moments later, the group was back out on the streets again, which were now much less crowded as most ponies had arrived at their location and were eating lunch now. This time Rainbow Dash was taking the lead, Pinkie Pie’s antics serving as an inexhaustible source of merriment as they trudged on.