//------------------------------//
// A City on a Hill 
// Story: The Siege of Stalliongrad 
// by GrassAndClouds2 
//------------------------------//

Carrot Top reared back on her hind legs as the gigantic carrot carried her through the clouds. "I'm flying!" she yelled. "Wheee!"

A passing pegasus turned and looked at her. "Huh?"

"Oh, hi Ditzy!" Carrot Top grinned. "How do you like my Giant Flying Carrot?"

"Carrots fly?"

"They do when you crossbreed them with Essence of Growthspurt and Wings-On-A-Vine!" Carrot Top pulled on the leafy stalk and did a casual loop-de-loop. "It's like an airship you can eat! Plus, I grew some for the foals so they can fly too!"

As if on cue, Dinky flew past on her own carrot. "Hi Miss Top! Thanks for giving me your carrot!"

"Giving?" Carrot Top looked down and realized that she indeed wasn't flying on a carrot anymore--Dinky had somehow gotten hers. In fact, she was falling instead. Very quickly.

"Eeek!" she squeaked as the ground rushed up--

Carrot Top's eyes snapped open and she jerked her head up, still bracing for the rough landing even as she realized that she wasn't falling off a giant carrot but was instead resting in a nice, comfortable train car with the rising sun shining brightly through the windows. The farmer took a few breaths. Okay, new rule--when Lyra dares you to eat the ultra-daredevil traincar chili, just say no. Even if you've had a couple mugs of cider. She paused. Especially if you've had a couple mugs of cider.

"Yo! Morning!" Carrot Top turned to see Vinyl, who was reclining on her own bunk and writing some notes on score paper. "How'd your dreams go?"

"Dinky stole my giant flying carrot," said Carrot Top.

"Yeah, been there," said Vinyl. Carrot Top elected not to question that. 

The train car door opened and Lyra, Bonbon, and Raindrops came in with big trays of food. Lyra passed a plate of syrupy, sugary hay pancakes over to Carrot Top. "Morning!" she said. "Conductor says we should be seeing Stalliongrad really soon from the left windows, once the track turns."

"And we get into town within an hour." Raindrops looked out the window. "Which on one hoof, is good, because I have got to stretch these wings. On the other, I'm pretty sure they'll freeze off in this weather."

Carrot Top giggled. "You survived Noam," she said. "I'm sure you'll get through this."

"I'm totally bringing a snowball back just to throw in Rainbow Dash's face." Raindrops smiled. "That'll show her."

Bonbon sat on a bunk with another big pile of hay pancakes and began to cut them up. "Hey Lyra, how do these compare to mine?"

Lyra took a bite and chewed, eyes rolled back as if deep in thought. "Hmm... well, they're not that much better..."

Bonbon laughed and hit her with a pillow.

Several minutes later, the five were happily chatting and eating their pancakes when Carrot Top felt herself pushed back into her bunk slightly and realized that they were turning. Remembering what Lyra had said, she put down her food and trotted over to the window. "Let's see what this... woah." And her mouth dropped slightly. 

It was a city on a hill. The walls of the city stretched out in a massive circle, encompassing the entire top of the hill in an area that had to be at least as large as Fillydelphia--probably larger. Though the walls were old (Carrot Top had read that the Stalliongrad fortifications and castle were among the oldest buildings in Equestria), they looked as strong and indomitable as if they had been built yesterday. And behind the walls, Carrot Top could see the tallest buildings of the city. In the center were the skyscrapers, the office buildings that almost seemed to pierce the sky. Along the east were the factory smokestacks, which even at this early hour were pumping great plumes of smoke into the sky for the city's weather team to catch and funnel into the weather factory (Raindrops had gone into detail about their operations the night before, mostly in the context of grumbling about the tours she'd have to endure). And on the west side was Castle Stalliongrad, the last defense and final refuge of those in the city, which stood guard over its inhabitants day and night.

The effect of the hill was enhanced by the surrounding environment, the featureless and barren steppes that extended for miles upon miles in every direction. Carrot Top had felt, looking through the train window a little bit earlier, like they were stranded in some featureless void--no matter where she had looked, all she had seen were snowdrifts and the occasional stubborn bit of tall grass poking through. The endless emptiness just made the hill look all the taller, though, and Stalliongrad the more notable. It was the only outpost in a sea of nothingness.

"We sure are far away from everything," mused Raindrops. "I wonder why they built a huge metropolis in the middle of nowhere?"

"There's a castle, so it was probably a military outpost at some point," said Vinyl. She was the only one who wasn't looking out the window by this point, continuing to work on her music. "Probably just grew from there."

The other four turned to her.

"What? I didn't knock out all my brains with wubs, you know."

Lyra laughed. "There's a few different stories, but since it's Sweet Heart's day, I'll let her tell you the official one before I go into the bardic lore. It does mean you'll need to wait a few more hours to hear the zombie version, but trust me, it's worth the wait."

"Zombies?" Raindrops wrinkled her nose. "I had to talk with Snails the other day. Apparently he'd been pestering Twilight to teach him a spell to zombify dead bugs. And then Trixie showed him how to make illusions of zombie bugs. That was a weird evening."

Carrot Top laughed. She was with her friends, heading to see a fascinating new land. Life was good.

***

Everything about the city was huge.

Carrot Top hadn't been able to get a good view of the city gates since of course the train had to go into those head-on, which made it hard to see from out the side windows. But she had seen them, briefly, as they went through, and all she could do was gawk. The  gates were easily three times as tall as the train. They were the biggest doors she'd ever seen.

Her mouth remained open as they passed through the interior of the wall, then through the inner gate and into the city proper. Now on elevated rail, they passed buildings without number, smaller houses (still taller than Ponyville structures) growing into larger apartment buildings and condominiums as they neared the city center. A branch ahead of them diverted freight trains to head to the industrial sector of the city, but their train just kept going, only stopping once it reached its terminus in the center of the city. And even that--once Carrot Top stepped out onto the platform, her head trying to look in all directions at once--was so big she couldn't take it all in. Her mind felt like it would pop.

"BONNIE!" The knight turned to see an earth pony, bundled up in a thick yellow coat, run over and give Bonbon a big hug. Bonbon grinned and hugged her back, and the newcomer continued. "I'm so glad you could come all this way! I have so much to tell you!"

"Sweetie!" Bonbon, herself wrapped up in a cream-colored down coat, turned to the others. "Everypony, this is my cousin, Sweet Heart. I understand she's the new manager of Clinic #9, right?"

"I am!" Sweet Heart hopped up and down on her hooves, and Carrot Top couldn't help but grin. "I can't wait to tell you all about it! Who're your friends?" 

"Well, this is my very special somepony, Lyra Heartstrings." Lyra bounced over to Sweet Heart and tapped hooves with her. "This is Raindrops, and that's Carrot Top; you probably read about them in the papers. And--"

"And the one you haven't heard of is DJ PON-3," said Vinyl. Unlike everypony else in the train station, she wore only a light jacket and earmuffs, allowing her neon-blue mane to hang freely around her neck. "Nice to meet'cha."

"Charmed!" Sweet Heart smiled. "And it's a huge honor to meet the Elements." She bowed her head slightly, causing all three knights to blush. "Now... shall we? My place isn't huge, but I think I can fit you all in for a nice cup of tea."

She undersold it, Carrot Top thought a few minutes later. Sweet Heart had threaded them through the streets of downtown Stalliongrad, pointing out the occasional famous building, until they reached what would probably be considered the border between the downtown and the northern part of the city. She then led them into an apartment building and up several flights of stairs until they reached a spacious set of rooms near the top of the building. Carrot Top looked out one of the windows, watching the ponies down below go about their business. It was spectacular.

"So, what exactly do the clinics do?" asked Lyra as Sweet Heart, now revealed to be a yellow-coated, blue-maned pony, served the tea. "I don't think Ponyville has them."

"We have the hospital," said Raindrops. "And a vet."

"But the clinics in Stalliongrad aren't just for medical care, right?"

"Right. They're more general." Sweet Heart sat on a cushion and sipped her own mug of tea. "They were our Representative's idea, Svelte Lord. She was concerned that new ponies in the city, especially the poor ones, weren't getting the support they needed to acclimate. It's a big place, and a lot of the new ponies are from really little rural towns in the countryside. They were getting lost in the shuffle. Plus, even longtime residents sometimes need a helping hoof, y'know?"

Carrot Top smiled. "That sounds nice."

"It is. Ponies can go there to get help with almost anything. If they're need directions, we have maps. If they need some particular product--I had a father in yesterday whose foal was really sick and would only eat this one kind of orange--we can tell them where to go. If they need some service; clogged plumbing or a broken window or something, we have contacts and can direct them to professionals, and if they're poor, we can subsidize it." She grinned. "When I was just one of the workers there, I sometimes got to help thirty, forty, even fifty ponies a day. It was a really awesome feeling. And now I'm running a whole clinic. I'm going to run it so well we'll be able to help thousands of ponies a day! We'll be a shining light that lifts the spirits of all Stalliongrad!"

Lyra laughed. "That's the spirit!"

"Isn't it?" Sweet Heart drained the last of her tea. "What's really great is that the clinics are finally picking up steam. The political gridlock in Stalliongrad's usually terrible, but Svelte wouldn't back down until they let her set up one clinic, just to shut her up. And it was such a success, they had to expand it. Now there's a dozen of them, and Svelte wants to make two more next year. If this keeps on, nopony in Stalliongrad will be left to suffer, not while there's anything anypony else can do about it!"

"Gridlock?" asked Carrot Top. "This is Archduke Fisher's province, right? He's... kind of a jerk--"

"As in, he tried to destroy our town for political gain," muttered Raindrops.

"--but Trixie said he cares a lot about efficiency. I'm surprised he'd let the city's government do that," said Carrot Top.

Sweet Heart snorted. "He's half the problem. Here." She went to a desk and rummaged around for a bit, then came back with a map of the city. "Okay, really brief history lesson--according to legend, Stalliongrad was originally the southernmost fort in the Unicorn Kingdom. Also according to legend, Stalliongrad held off a bunch of different armies, including some really famous ones--Neighpoleon's in there, and also Alexander the Galloping, and Julioates Caesar, and a few others I can't remember right now. It's the City That Can't be Conquered, or at least that's what our brochures say. And there's a lot of ponies in the city--including our Lord Mayor of thirty-two years, Hirsute Lord--who think that heritage is the most important part of the city." She tapped the western sector on the map. "Most of the wester part of the city is devoted to the historical structures, including the old castle. Hirsute's governmental initiatives are almost all focused on restoring more of the old buildings, and also reimplementing some of the older cultural rules and mores."

"Whereas Fisher's an industrialist, and only cares about the latest and greatest," said Carrot Top.

"Exactly. He cares about the eastern sector, which is the factories, as well as the military garrison on the south side of town." She sighed. "So every time they meet, it's the same thing. Hirsute wants to shift resources away from the factories and towards the historical sector, which Fisher blocks. Fisher wants to knock down some old shacks that Clover the Clever once took a nap in so he can build more factories, which Hirsute blocks. Repeat forever, and if you want to, say, change the regulations on carriages, or pass a salt tax, it'll take months to even get heard. And if you tell them they're sacrificing aspects of the town so they can keep bickering, Hirsute just tunes it out, and Fisher gets all pompous and says that our sacrifice will be remembered, but there's a greater good, and yadda yadda." She rolled her eyes. "It was absurd.

Sweet Heart was silent for a moment. "Look, it's not like the city is terrible. Between tourism, the huge industrial base, and trade--we're the northernmost big city in Equestria, so we get a ton of merchants from the elkin and hippogriff kingdoms, even some griffins--we're a wealthy city. There isn't widespread poverty or anything, and Fisher and Hirsute are at least competent enough to make sure the trains run and the buildings are up to code. But ponies still slipped through the cracks, and there was so much bureaucratic inertia that I didn't think anything would ever get done for them. It was really depressing. But... when I learned about what Svelte was doing, I knew that it wasn't impossible. Things could be improved. And they were. And Stalliongrad is better now. Stalliongrad is--"

Carrot Top saw a paper and walked over to look at it. "Stalliongrad is where bad ponies go when they die?" She frowned at the headline to an article written by a 'Faqzak Taks.' "Huh?"

Sweet Heart rolled her eyes. "That's just some muckraker. This infamous pirate named Coarsair died recently, and apparently they sent his body here for burial rather than Stalliontown, his actual birthplace, in Hyasanguia. Bureaucratic screwup, nothing more. Seriously--Stalliongrad's fine now. It's a good place to live."

"You should tell us more about it," said Bonbon. "What kind of food do you eat?"

"What's the weather like?" asked Raindrops.

"How's the music?" asked Vinyl, balancing her sunglasses on her muzzle.

And so the conversation continued.

***

Two blissful hours passed before ponies had to leave. Raindrops had her conference; Vinyl had to start getting ready for her show; Lyra, Bonbon, and Sweet Heart had more catching up to do. Carrot Top told them she would go for a walk.

"Are you sure?" asked Sweet Heart. "I can show you around--"

"No, you three should catch up. I'll be fine." She smiled back at them. "Have fun!"

And so she walked downstairs, in her coat (with a bright carrot pattern), hat, boots, and scarf, to walk through the streets of Stalliongrad and see what she could of the city.

As she left the building, she failed to notice no fewer than three pairs of eyes watching her from various concealed positions. She just continued on, humming merrily.

***

Some distance away, the alicorn known as Corona smashed away one final sea monster. "The treasure! Zecora, now!"

Her zebra minion, a prophetess named Zecora, scampered down onto the tiny rocky isle and ran to the pedestal in the center. A large jewelry box sat there, which she immediately seized before racing back to Corona. The alicorn grinned. At last! I am invincible with this!

"Princess!" Corona turned to see General Gloriosis, the kirin warlord whom had recently entered her service, along with his entire force--ten thousand ponies, mostly longma. "We have defeated the last of the beasts."

"Good." Corona smiled. "I have what I came for. The time to use it approaches. Follow me, General, and you will get the glory you desire."

"Of course. PONIES! LET'S MOVE!"

Corona laughed as she flew over the seas, using her magic to help the longma follow her at speeds faster than ponies could normally travel. She had her army now, and she had one of the most powerful magical devices in all Equestria. She could not lose.

And she knew just where to go first.

Stalliongrad...