Tom already knew something was up by the time the two girls sat down at his bar. Hagrid had shown them through Diagon Alley the day before, so presumably, they were Hogwarts students.
Of course, hardly fifteen minutes had passed after they left, with Hagrid, back to the muggle world… before they had appeared, as if by apparition, alongside some twenty or thirty more, also funny-haired, first-years… Which, he’d noticed, most of them seemed to be female. They’d then headed to Diagon Alley as a group, and he hadn’t seen them come back at all that night.
Now, they just appeared out of thin air, looked around contemplatively, and headed straight for the bar.
It was still early in the morning, so aside from the morning rush he dealt with fifteen minutes prior, the pub was pretty empty. He stepped peaceably over, somehow already knowing that these two would be his most important customers for the entire day, and greeted them. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” the blue-and-white-haired one greeted him in turn. “I’m curious, what would you recommend for a drink while on the job?”
That brought him pause. People normally stopped by to unwind after work, not during… and usually got at least a little drunk. Which was probably not a very good idea for someone that still had work to do, so he’d need to find something non-alcoholic, but still with plenty of kick in it. Something that would provide the relief so many came to his pub to find, yet without the side-effects.
He glanced sideways at the small shelf full of virgin menus that he hadn’t touched in years. Perhaps… Yes. Butterbeer might have only produced a mild release effect compared to some of his stronger drinks, but it was plenty strong in its own right- and did not, unlike so many of his drinks, rely on its mild alcohol content to achieve that effect. As such, he figured, he had a solution.
“I’ll have to admit, I don’t get very many people coming in to drink before their work is done,” he began.
The other girl, with a paired pink and purple stripe in her dark blue hair, let out a snort of laughter.
He grinned. “But I believe I might have something that fits the bill: Virgin butterbeer.”
The blue-haired girl raised an eyebrow, but the brighter-haired girl spoke. “Huh. Does it taste any different from the non-virgin version?”
He shook his head. “A regular butterbeer only contains a half a standard drink of alcohol per tankard, so it’s not missing much.”
“Hmm,” the girl looked at her darker-haired companion, then back at him. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of butterbeer before. Can I get one of those virgin ones, then?”
“And I’d like a regular Butterbeer, please,” the darker-haired companion smiled.
“... Okay then,” he answered. “Coming right up.”
It took him about a minute to prepare and supply the two foaming tankards.
When he returned five minutes later, having served two other customers, he found both tankards empty… and both girls watching him almost expectantly.
“Ahh,” he muttered uncertainly, looking at them.
“Soo, how much do we owe you?” the lighter-haired girl smiled.
“Ah.” He glanced down at the drinks, totalling the memorized prices in his head rather than going back to review their tab; that had been all they ordered. “That would be twenty knuts.”
“Twenty knuts?” the darker-haired girl asked, sounding almost shocked, before turning to her companion. “I’m really starting to think that the exchange rate might not be as fair as we thought.”
The lighter-haired girl shrugged in response. “Me too. By a margin of, at a guess, an order of magnitude. But the rate’s set in stone for five years, so it’s not like we can go back and fix it.” She pulled out a small, bulging pouch, and casually flipped a silver sickle onto the counter, looking back up at him. “Go ahead and keep the change. And, ahh… Tom, was it?”
He let the coin sit on the counter for the time being. “Yes, Miss…?” He trailed off, inviting her to provide a name.
“Oh, sorry. I’m Lyra Heartstrings, and this is Princess Twilight Sparkle. We’re both accomplished mages from another world, and first-year students at Hogwarts.” He gasped- that would explain their apparition earlier- but she ignored it. “Anyways, we’ve got an estimated nine to eighteen thousand more coming after us, with over twenty-five hundred confirmed, and having a local base of operations would be… Advantageous, to say the least, to helping things run smoothly. Would it be okay for us to use your pub as such?”
“Ahh… What would that…?”
“Basically, a few of our team members would set themselves up in here, from morning through evening each day. The rest of the team would guide the rest of our people through Diagon Alley in groups, managed by the members set up in here, to get everyone the stuff they’ll need for their first year at Hogwarts. In the meantime, we’d have a second team that would base themselves in here all along, to intervene if something happened.” She shrugged. “We could expect both teams to rack up a truly enormous tab- we would want it all on the same one- but with how much gold the Princess here extracted from the treasury, and how lopsided the exchange rate ended up being, we’ll have no problem paying it off- and as a matter of fact, I figure we can even pay a hundred and fifty percent for everything, too, in exchange for quote ‘basing rights’.” She grinned at Twilight, using air quotes for her last two words.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Why must you joke around with everything, Lyra?”
Lyra shrugged. “Why not? I mean, like I just told him, we’re both accomplished mages. Hogwarts won’t offer us anything we can integrate directly into our intrinsic magics, as it’s too different- and, I rather doubt it’ll offer us anything we can’t already do by other means. So, why are we here in the first place, but to explore, try it out, and have fun? Possibly, eventually, create open trade between our nations?”
“Lyra!”
“Or, how about, why did I open that gate in the first place?”
“Lyra, stop! We’re here for a lot more than just fun! You know the Ear- er…” She glanced briefly at Tom. “You know that they will undoubtedly benefit from a Hogwarts education! They’ll be able to use active magic for the first time in history!”
Lyra shrugged. “Yeah, I know.” She looked up at Tom. “In our nation, the population is divided right about evenly into three tribes- the Raeth, Aethr, and Etrah tribes, specifically. All three have magic, but the Etrah tribe’s magic is all passive, and the Aethr tribe’s magic is all subconscious. The Raeth tribe- to which we both belong, alongside every other mage from our world- is the only one capable of what we call ‘active magic’, being consciously controlled magic. Simply put, if you wouldn’t call it Accidental Magic, we would call it Active Magic. The Hogwarts letters have been going indiscriminately to all three tribes, so presumably, a wand can bypass that limitation.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Though, it’s a bit less of a bypass, since wand magic is intrinsically different from our magic- starting all the way back at where the power comes from!”
Lyra nodded. “Yeah. That’s why I expect all three tribes to be equally capable when it comes to wand magic.” She shrugged. “Pre-reform Starlight would be happy.” Then she scowled. “Discord, on the other hand, might be disinterested. Though, he did RSVP, soo…”
“Wait, what? Discord is coming!?”
“Yeah, he accepted his offer. Exactly how much, ahh, stuff he does really depends on what Hogwarts already has to offer.”
“Celestia help us.” Twilight put her head in her hands.
“Hey, I don’t think it’ll be that bad. I mean, they have talking pictures and mirrors. I’d be willing to bet he’ll love those- I’m sure they’re great for having a conversation with someone long gone, but could you imagine being unable to save an amazing moment, or never being sure that you were getting a faithful reflection out of your mirror?”
Twilight’s head snapped up again. “Ahh… That brings back memories, actually.”
“I know, that’s something he did for us once. Theirs are a little more consistent- and all over the place. Personally, it strikes me as a response to needing to feel like they live in a magical society, and so making everything around them magical. If the pictures got caught up in that…”
Both girls spoke together. “What else did?”
Twilight nodded slowly. “Discord’s probably going to have fun finding the answer to that.”
Lyra grinned. “Of course he will.” She glanced up at Tom. “Is there some kind of conflict between the wizards and the- you call ‘em ‘muggles’, right?- that might explain it?”
Tom blinked. “Not… Well, yeah. A lot of the pure-blooded wizarding families believe muggleborn or half-blood witches and wizards to be inferior… and muggles themselves, even worse.” He shuddered. “You’d think we didn’t just have a huge wizarding war against one such muggle-hater end just ten years ago!”
Lyra let out a snort of laughter. “Well, next time someone starts a war like that, sic the muggles on him. They may not have magic, but I’ve seen a bit of what they do have- and it’s no less deadly for it. Like, flatten an entire city in ten seconds flat, deadly. And they can do that so quietly you won’t know they’re coming until after they’re done.”
“... Ahh.”
“Wait, they have stuff that destructive?” Twilight asked.
“Yep! Nuke ‘em from orbit, only way to be sure!”
Twilight facepalmed. “Of course they would.”
The Final Blade pierces the void to open the gate...
The Final spear forms the Last part of the GATE
They have opened the gate, beware what comes out
Lyra's exposition of the tribes felt forced, would recommend having dinner it when someone asked in a reasonable environment. The tease right before was good though.
You wanted humanity, you got humanity
10169367
... "having dinner it"...?
Wait, did Tom just sell alcohol to a minor, no questions asked? I mean, they aren't actually minors but he didn't know that.
10169425
With how often they buy butterbeer no-questions-asked in canon, I figured that wizardkind didn't have such a 'drinking age' law... so, he'd just use common sense and not serve them much alcohol, because their younger bodies would be more sensitive to it...
... Yeah.
That conversation was REALLY hard to follow/parse.
I'll take another whack at it tonight.
As has been said, the infodump exposition-conversation might have been more... palatable if, say, it were Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape (with or without a few Ministers) hashing out things with Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and Twilight.
Also, Peeves and Discord will absolutely ruin the school by Christmas, mark my words!
10169394
"having done it". I blame my phone and the slide keyboard!
10169667
Not sure if that actually answers any of my questions or not...
10169705
Me neither
Alright, this is the part that I had trouble following:
The first part is a reference to an episode that I can't place.
The rest ... and I'm lost.
Can you maybe re-work this section of dialogue a little? And no, I have no idea what to suggest because I'm not really sure what you're trying to tell the reader here.
So just out of curiosity what are he origins of the words Raeth, Aethr, and Etrah?
I tried to look it up and did find that Raeth is a Pakistani sufi pop-rock band. Raeth (Urdu: ریت,, Hindi: रेत) I'll give you a hint what it means: Anakin Skywalker hates it.
10169367
Either forced, or she has incredibly prepared the speech beforehand since you have to substitue Equus words for each tribe into human's fancy names. As she almost stressed the word 'people' out during conversation.
10169823
Maybe the comic references? I haven't read all the medias available. But yes, re-phase might be welcoming.
10169834
Seems like a group of anagrams of Earth to me. Then, of course, you have aether, often spelled ether, wraith, and earth.
10169898
Well, they do work as anagrams. In fact, all three can be anagrams of the same word. Earth. Aether also spelled æther or ether and also called quintessence, is an archaic term referring to the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere. Theories concerning aether were eventually dismissed but seem to have reemerged in some small part in the form of 'Dark Matter'.
Be funny if there was a wizard who knew the Urdu/Hindi word, and it got out and a rumor started that one of the equestrian tribes referred to themselves as the peoples of the sand.
10169984
I think you meant to say that to the other guy cause that's exactly what I said plus a little extra.
10169823
The memories Twilight is referring to... is something that didn't happen in canon, but i could totally see Discord doing during his initial escape from his stony prison. For the rest... they aren't referring to anything, just wondering what else they'll find strange (and Discord would enjoy) about the wizarding world.
Not canon? No wonder I couldn't place it. :-)
10169334
Alright, what are these little snippets from?
10169993
Yes, they were intended to be anagrams. Neek's sister came up with them, and they're basically just a way for the ponies to give a base idea of what each tribe does without revealing confidential information. IIRC in this continuity they're also the sub-species name for each tribe like how humans are Homo sapiens sapiens; the second sapiens being the name of our subspecies to distinguish us from the archaic Homo sapiens of about 200-50k years ago.
10170222
Made up
Lyra, you are not Hexies. Stahp.
10173914
Hexies?
10174387
There's a sci-fi tale titled "A Lion on Tharthee", where humanity goes for their first contact to meet an alien race they call the "Hexies". When asked about their planet's name, they say "Tharthee", which for most of the trip goes completely un-noticed as simply an anagram of "The Earth" as it sounds enough like a real Hexie word to be one to the less aware.
Hexies consider humor to be a racially-defining trait, to the point where the entire alien race was in on the joke with the first contact humans. A few of them realized the joke, but since they were possessed of enough of a sense of humor and an honest desire to understand another race, they just rolled with it and didn't tell the too-serious members.
10174414
... Ahh. In this case, in my headcanon, those three words- Raeth, Aether, and Etrah- are the legitimate, scientific tribe titles, dating back thousands of years... "unicorn", "pegasus", and "earth" being the common terms.
10169425
Butter Beer in cannon has a ridiculously low alcohol content like a glass of wine or the lightst beer ever have more alcohol along with cough syrup. youd drown before you got drunk off Butter Beer.
10175275
Not really... it's about half a standard drink per tankard. Which means, in order for the average person to maintain their level of drunkenness, they'd have to down two full tankards per hour... It would be possible to get drunk on that, especially for a child whose body is more susceptible to the effects of alcohol, but you'd have to drink a lot of it.
I still feel a bit unsettled by this story. Not much, and it's for the most part fine, but like the first one I'm just a bit confused with the bit where their whole country basically benevolently invades to go to school for the heck of it. And no one really seems to care (well, yet, in this case). I mean, how do they all fit into Haugh's Wards*? Where do they get all the wands, clothes, potions ingredients... I mean, this is, aside from the magic, basically a feudal society where everything is handcrafted by four or so stores. It's a bit unclear how a lot of the Houses make their money or where they live, but Hogwarts itself at least seems to get all of its things from Diagon, which doesn't really seem like a place that would have stock for a group that's probably three to six times larger than the school's capacity!
*(I actually recommend this for the original name of the school. There's this one fanfic that did an insane amount of research into past history, and this was a fairly plausible name that makes sense and could get twisted into the silly one that the modern school has.)
"Raeth, Aethr, and Etrah tribes"
Huh, I may want to use those. Not sure where, but I might.
I'm curious why you used those particular words. The last is an anagram of "Earth," the second seems to be an odd spelling of aether (which might be sorta congruent to air and thus pegasi), but I don't know how the first would map to Pointy Ponies.
Aside from the difficulty in making nonsense words that aren't accidentally euphemistic, swearwords, or impossible to pronounce (I have really bad luck with this.)! Is there some method you used (and that I could crib) to make words that are legitimately made up, as far as I know?
“Hey, I don’t think it’ll be that bad. I mean, they have talking pictures and mirrors. I’d be willing to bet he’ll love those- I’m sure they’re great for having a conversation with someone long gone, but could you imagine being unable to save an amazing moment, or never being sure that you were getting a faithful reflection out of your mirror?”
I really can't tell if that's supposed to be reassuring. The last part sounds like he may well make them do that, and aside from Sirius' mother, I doubt most would appreciate it.
10170150
Will this ever be revealed, whatever it was that happened?
10170446
10174421
Okay, so they could be useful, but not overly revealing, names to show what each type is. But not in a way that actually says "technicolor horses" at any point. Or they are actually (also?) the official scientific names for them. Is one of those more true than the other, or are those views different ways at looking at the same thing?
10228997
Yes.
As for the method I used... it was "Ask sister".
10169477
Isn't butterbeer supposed to be available only to 3rd year+ students, or am I misremembering?
10267395
Hogsmead is, yes. Butterbeer is just the "standard drink" that they all get, no matter the age.
The what? They're all anagrams of "Earth"! The hell?
10268498
This is correct. They're also all anagrams of Heart.
Okay, this is where I’m going to have to stop reading. Lyra is just really annoying, and I feel as though she’s going to be a Mary Sue. The only thing left is to see if she’s a god at magic, and I’m betting she is.
Twilight has been relegated to lackey, and I don’t appreciate one of the smartest characters (if not the smartest) getting lectured at by Lyra like she’s a dumbass. Lyra feels like she’s taken Twilights place, and I also don’t know why she has such an important role in this story considering Lyra is canonically just a musician.
Another issue I have is Hogwarts being a doormat and accepting 18,000 students. Why is this not being treated as the magical mishap it should be? It feels incredibly inconsiderate to ask the Wizarding World to accommodate thousands of ponies, especially when it seems they’re literally all going to one school, Hogwarts. There are dozens of schools around the world for wizards - why are they all only going to one?
10385790
... Aaand, you say that on the last chapter that Lyra plays a significant part in- she's essentially a setup tool for this story, not a main character. Oh well, I guess.
Why Lyra? Because she's a background character, so I can mess with her quite a bit more without angering nearly as many people.
As for why so many students to Hogwarts? Because a magical mishap happened, and Hogwarts didn't think to label it as one until it was too late, and they'd already practically shaken hands and said "Yep, we'll take 'em" by showing Lyra/Twilight through Diagon Alley...
The idea was to put two smart ponies through first, one highly energetic and a bit random (think a cross between Twilight & Pinkie Pie, ended up being Lyra) that had been there before, and one less energetic and highly logical (Twilight) that had not been there before... explicitly to create a clash of personalities that would drive, say, Hagrid crazy...
The only reason for Lyra to be informing Twilight that I can think of is that Twilight does not yet know how the world of Harry Potter is different from the Equestria Girls Universe. I wonder who will be the first to tell Sunset Shimmer about all this.
Ah! Nothing goes perfect without a side of Aliens! Nice reference, AND Story!
10471424
One of the owls, probably. Flies in through Lyra's Gate and out the statue base via a mirror in the Tree Chest Crystal Playset. Suddenly, Sunset.
Now, if the Dazzlings get owl letters..