//------------------------------// // Welcome to London // Story: Twilight Sparkle Goes to Europe // by Lord Vinder //------------------------------// “So. How many more times do I have to keep teleporting for?” Twilight asked. “Two or three, I think. I’ll check,” I replied, checking the flight path map given to us by the airline. “Yeah, three; Belfast, Cardiff, and finally London.” “Do you any have better places for me to arrive at?” She asked with a tone of bitterness in my mind. I had been describing images every hour or so of the flight path so that way she didn’t have to teleport from Vancouver to London in one go. “What, didn’t like The Sun Voyager in Reykjavik? I thought it would have been a nice thing to see,” I noted with a smirk. “You try landing on it! It’s not comfortable to fall on!” “And how was I supposed to know that you would fall on it? I just assumed you’d be in the vicinity of it,” I defended with. “Besides, its not pointy.” “Thankfully,” she added with a dry tone. “Why couldn’t I have ridden in the cargo hold?” “I had no idea how to get you in there. But look at it this way, you got to see some cool sites around Canada,” I offered. “We’ll find you a way to get you on the plane when we return, alright?” “Return?” “Well, I assume you are returning to wherever you’re from, from Vancouver, right?” I asked. “I guess. Hadn’t really thought about it much,” she said. “Really though, I can leave from anywhere.” We spoke about nothing until I next gave her an image to focus on, the Belfast City Hall. It looked like a nice building, and was apparently iconic, as most places online described it. The building looked massive and was of Portland stone. I thought it seemed a little strange to ship stone in from Portland, but apparently the Isle of Portland was rather famous for its stone. The visible roof from the ground was the typical copper green thing, roofing. It looked great, but it seemed over used and a kind of architectural cliche. Twilight teleported to the building and commented how pretty she thought it was and said she’d fly over it--while invisible of course. She mentioned that it seemed larger than Canterlot castle, which I was told was the house of the co-princess who rule her home country of Equestria. It sounded rather fascinating as she described the place, and it seemed like she was high up the social and power totem pole, but I got the sense that she thought of the country like how one would a friend, and not as something to be ruled over. “They sound like great people,” I mused off to her, not fully paying attention as I asked the stewardess for a pop. “Pony,” she corrected. “We are ponies. But yes, they are.” “Any words of advice from them?” I jokingly asked. “A few, Princess Celestia always told me that the object of any good pony was truth, when I was growing up,” she mentioned. “This building is really nice to lie on.” “You grew up around a Princess?” I asked, more than a little surprised. “Yeah, she was my teacher, mentor,” she explained. “ Uncommon here on, earth was it?” “Earth, yeah. And no, that doesn’t happen here, at all. Ruler of a country, and a teacher? Never, or at least, not in a long, long time,” I explained. “Maybe in the ages of monarchy, but not here.” “Ages of Monarchy?” “Its a term, that I made up on the spot. Most countries don’t have a monarchy anymore, we elect our leaders,” I told her. “No immortal rulers here, well none conformed at least.” “None confirmed?” Twilight asked. “Kind of hard to not confirm something like that.” “Old texts and tablets tell of people who lived a long, long time. One country has a semi legendary Emperor who lived more than 2700 years ago and lived for about 126 years,” I explained. “Another tradition has someone living for nearly 1000 years, and that was over 3500 years ago.” “I take it such ages aren’t common?” Twilight asked. “I can expect to live into my 80’s or 90’s, so yes such ages are unheard of nowadays, let alone when there was no understanding of science or medicine,” I explained. “Well, do people actually believe those stories?” she asked, her curious tone gave me an instant headache. My heart sunk; this was not something I wanted to explain. “The first one, the guy who lived for 126 years, is mostly left alone. The amount of people who believe that, are few are far between,” I explained carefully. “I’m sure some do, but it would be hard to find someone who thought like that.” “And the second?” “Its part of religious doctrine, although how literal one should read it is up to some debated,” I said slowly. “It’s very controversial.” “Is there evidence?” she asked. “I would say that depends on how one defines the word,” I offered carefully. “What does that mean?” she asked. I could tell that she wasn’t getting what I was saying; must be nice. “It means it’s a lot of faith to take something like that. At best, its a really bad translation, at worst, its unfounded,” I explained. “This isn’t one of the most proud moments of my people.” “I can tell,” she said dryly. I said nothing as I assumed the purple pony judged me and my people for what some thought. I looked around the airplane and found people still sleeping. I hadn’t slept at all during the flight. Local time, in Vancouver, was about 11:45. Which meant it was almost time to have Twilight teleport again. I checked the flight plan, and we were on target for us to be flying close to Cardiff, or close enough at least. I checked my images, and found the next one. I studied it for a while, trying to figure out what to say. “Twilight? It’s time,” I said. “Alright, just give me a few seconds,” she said, as I presumed she stretched out her wings and body. “Where to?” I read her off what I could make out of Garth Hill. I described to her the view of Cardiff, and what to expect. A tall grassy knoll, but a little bigger then a hill. A few shrubs around the top and trees along the base. “It’s nice,” she noted. “Perfect for reading a book.” “That nice?” “Very much so. kind of reminds me of home, theres this hill near Ponyville that I’ve gone stargazing at, had a picnic, and everything,” she explained. “It’s good to find something like that here.” “You’ll find everything under the sun here,” I noted. “I haven’t seen a pegasus,” Twilight noted. “Or am I looking in the wrong area?” “Greek classics describe what we would call a pegasus, unicorns have popped up in various folklore, and your earth ponies are comparable to what we have here,” I explained. “Pegacorns though-” “What’s a ‘pegacorn?’” “You; flying unicorn,” I noted. “Or does your kind have an actual name?” “Alicorn.” “Isn’t that what your horn is called?” I asked. “No, its just call a horn,” she said carefully. “Am I missing something?” “Just terminology stuff that doesn’t translate or exist over in Equestria, I guess,” I explained. “Anyways, pegacorns, though, called winged unicorns, do exist, they can be found in some of the old Greek works as well.” “So I do exist?” “I would assume so, otherwise I’m suffering from serious delusion,” I noted with a smirk. “Suffering? Didn’t think I was that bad,” she said, her tone sounding, down? “Hey, I’m just bugging you. You’ve made this eight hour flight pretty fun, alright? So don’t be sad,” I said. “That’s kind of you to say, bu-” she tried to say. “But, or flank, nothing! I’ve enjoyed myself, and I’d dare say so did you. Am I right?” “I did,” she said, and I could feel her smile in my brain. It felt as if the tears of sad friend had stopped. “Then there is nothing else to say,” I ended. “Go enjoy Garth Hill, alright?” “Alright,” she said, saying nothing else. I presumed she flew around and around the Hill. It looked like a nice area at least. I relaxed into my chair, wanting to get some sleep before we landed in London. Local time in Vancouver was 12:30AM, meaning we had about half an hour till London. I closed my eyes and I think I fell asleep within moments. Or was I in some sort of inbetween area; where I was half asleep and half awake? It was hard to figure out. What wasn’t hard to figure out was the guy speaking French throughout the aircraft, about twenty minutes after I went into the land of sleep. I checked the flight plan before me, it was turned off. It seemed we were landing soon. “Twilight, you with me?” I asked, trying to regain some sense of consciousness. “Yeah, whats up?” “I’m in London, I’ll tell you the new place to teleport when I get a chance, alright?” “Sounds good,” she said. “Enjoy your nap?” “Nng,” I responded with. “It was ok.” “Not much of a sleep?” “Nothing substantial,” I noted. “I’ll sleep in the hotel. Which isn’t for awhile.” The plane came into the gate at about 12:56, four minutes ahead of schedule. We all clapped as the Captain announced we had made it, which always came to me as a sort of disbelief in his abilities. I found the people I had travelled with, but I didn’t know them well. “What gate?” The Professor mumbled out, running his hands along his short black hair and beard. He sounded like he needed coffee. “7,” I said simply, leading the way--by following all the people before me. “Sparkle, you with me?” “Yeah, time to teleport?” she asked. “Yeah, to me,” I said with a smirk. “But stay invisible, there is a lot of people here.” “No flying then?” “You can ride on my back,” I said simply. Within seconds, I could feel her jump on my back. She really wasn’t heavy, and she hung on perfectly so I could walk normally. “Comfy?” I asked, feeling her breath on my neck, it was a warm, but a pleasant kind of warm. “Yes,” she said, resting her chin on my shoulder, for support. “Lets get my bags then,” I said and continued moving throughout the airport. It was long hall, after long hall of people, a few closed shops, and more people. I lost track of those I travelled with a few times, but we eventually regrouped at the bag pick up line. “I’ll point them out, you get them?” Twilight offered, hopping off my back. “Where are you?” “On the moving thingy,” she said. “Sounds good,” I replied, walking over to the group. They, it seemed, already knew one another, rather well. Or least seemed to be getting along rather well. I didn’t envy them, nor was I a bit jealous. I knew one of them rather well. The Professor was off in his own area, looking for his bags, and looking frustrated. “Daniel, coming down now,” Twilight said, and I turned. Sure enough, my first bag was coming down. “Also, your friends bag is coming down, I think, the red one,” she added. “Zoey!” I called out, and the girl in question turned to me. “That your bag?” “Yes,” she replied. And I grabbed it. It was one of those modern looking shiny red travel bags. They looked like, but reminded me more of high level technology, then travelling. “Thank you,” Zoey said, smiling lightly. “You didn’t have to.” I just shrugged my shoulders, and returned to the carousel, eager to find the rest of my bags. The rest of mine came down, and so did everyone else’s. The Professors took the longest, but his came down to, the last of them all. “Everyone ready for customs?” The Professor asked. “Get your passports ready, and send up a prayer.” I wasn’t fully sure if he was joking, so I couldn’t answer Twilights question when she asked me. I looked at my phone: 3 AM Local Vancouver time, which meant it was about 11 AM London time. “Next please,” a calm and young British man called out to me. I walked up to the counter. He asked me several questions, and seemed to be sitting on a spike, but let me go after he was sure that a 20 year old student wasn’t a threat to the national security of the United Kingdom. “He seemed, nice,” Twilight commented as we left for the station following in behind the Professor and the group. “Just doing his job,” I noted, as we boarded the London Metro. Our group huddled together at the back as the Professor made it known we were riding this train for about a good hour or so. he also took the time to say something that made me, and probably Twilight smile--though for different reasons I think. “Alright, we have class tomorrow at 11AM sharp in the drawing room of the inn, no readings need to be done until the second day. But I am expecting you all to be bright eyed, and awake. Understood?” He explained, pulling out his iPad to check the timetable. We all nodded. “Good. Oh, and welcome to London.”