Glyph

So, I thought to myself as I stepped off the train, this is Canterlot.  The supposed home of the pony "elite".

And didn't they know it.

If disapproving glances and sneers held a physical force, I probably would have been launched right back to Cloud Peak.  It was, to say the least, a little unnerving.  I had only been on the platform for about a minute before I got the impression that foreigners, or maybe just griffins, weren't exactly welcome in the pony capital.

I turned to Feather Flare, who didn't appear phased at all.  Then again, she hadn't received even half the glares I had.  Perhaps she was just used to this kind of behaviour.

"They don't exactly seem friendly," I grumbled.  She just shot me a look.

"Well what did you expect?  This lot have never done a proper, honest days work in their lives."  She stated flatly.

In truth, I knew exactly this kind of behaviour.  The nobles in the griffin court held themselves in the same regard.  The difference was, there wasn't an entire city full of them.

With a sigh, I started walking, only to realise I hadn't planned this far ahead.  Looking around, all the streets looked pretty much the same, with the exception of the main road leading directly up to the very grand-looking palace that seemed formidable even with the towering mountain alongside it.

Wow, though.  Canterlot Castle was easily twice the size of the royal griffin palace.  It struck me that there were supposedly only two princesses living there, at least, those were the only two I knew of.  I suppose they must have employed servants who probably had rooms there, and there were probably guest rooms.  Or maybe the royal pony family was just larger than I thought.  That seemed the most likely, at any rate.

I turned back to Feather Flare to find she was looking at me trying to keep a smirk off her face.  "Lost?" She tittered.

I sighed again, and nodded.  Her smirk became a warm smile.  "Need a guide?"

Well, that was certainly kind of her to offer.  "Thanks, but I don't really intend to stick around."  As much as I want to, I neglected to add.  "I was planning to stay on the move.  You know..."  I let the sentence hang.

Her smile faded.  "Yeah," she began.  "But come on.  When are you ever going to get an opportunity like this again?  If you move on now, you'll never come back."

Well, thanks for the vote of confidence!  She was right though.  Even if I survived the whole assassin  thing, I doubt I would ever come back.  And while snobbish cities weren't exactly to my taste, I would rather endure one with a friend.  Besides, as long as all these crowds were present the bastard chasing me would be spotted easily and be taken out by the guards as soon as his gun went off.  If he still had one, of course.

"Alright, you win."  I winced at her sudden outburst of joy that followed.  It wasn't that exciting, right?

"Calm down!" I snapped, probably a little too harshly.   I massaged my right temple with a thumb.  "Look, you've been round Cloud Peak.  It's only fair that I see Canterlot."  Even though I hadn't met her until we were out of Cloud Peak and already on the way to Canterlot, but still.  Call it honour.

She regained her composure, completely ignoring the piercing glares she was receiving from passers-by.  "First, we get lunch!"  She declared with a stomp of a hoof, drawing yet more stares.

"Fine, fine,"  I hissed.  "Just stop drawing so much attention to us.  I could really do with keeping a low profile right now."

She nodded, accepting this.  Without another word, she trotted off down one of the streets.  With a shrug, I followed.  This pony was weird.  She had seemed mostly normal on the train, but now she was acting erratically.  Probably just hungry, I decided.  I was hungry, too.  My stomach seemed very insistent that I acknowledged this.

She was trotting fairly quickly, so I had to jog to keep up.  I felt awkward moving faster than walking pace amongst the crowd of ponies who apparently had all the time in the world to get to wherever they were going.  Where do they even need to be?  I wondered to myself.  There can't be that much to do here, unless they are all of to spend some more money.

I was lost in my musings when I noticed Feather Flare had abruptly stopped outside a suspiciously normal-looking café.  I stumbled a little to avoid crashing into her, before righting myself and looking up at the sign.

"Pony Joe's," I read aloud.  I turned to look at Feather Flare, only to find she was marching rapidly towards the entrance.  Can't she slow down a little? I thought while following.

The interior was equally normal-looking.  Isn't this city supposed to be upper-class only or something?  Maybe I had just got my impressions completely twisted again.  Of course normal ponies had to live here.  How else could the rich be expected to keep their giant mansions clean?

I was letting my imagination drift off again.  "Must be hunger," I muttered.  Feather Flare looked over from the counter, where she was ordering.  "Hm?  Did you say something, Glyph?"

"Oh, err...I'll have what you're having, that's all."  I babbled.  She nodded, and relayed this information to the pony on the till, who I assumed was Pony Joe himself.

I looked around the little doughnut shop.  There were only three ponies there, not including Feather Flare and Pony Joe.  No griffins, luckily.  One benefit of griffins being so rare was that the presence of one was usually very obvious.  It was also a disadvantage, though.  I don't mean to flatter myself, but word had surely spread by now of a griffin in Canterlot.  Probably snide comments from the higher tier of society.

I shook myself out of my reverie.  Looking over to Feather Flare, I saw she had sat at the counter, so I walked over to join her.

She looked up at my approach.  "I got us the house special."  She said with a grin.

I was instantly wary.  "And that would be...what, exactly?"  House specials tended to be either slight spins on perfectly normal and acceptable recipes, maybe larger portions, or they were ridiculously over-the-top concoctions the head chef just made up on the spot one night and deemed safe to eat.

She opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by Pony Joe, making his way out of the kitchen with a large tray in his mouth.

"One doughnut platter!  Extra sprinkles!"  He announced, somehow talking around the tray clenched between his teeth.  He set it down before us, and I nearly fainted from just looking at the masses of sugar contained in the selection.

I waited before Pony Joe had moved on before whispering to Feather Flare, "How are we supposed to eat all this?"  She had already begun eating, so the only answer I got was a flat look and a vigorous gesture toward the mountain of sweets.

If I thought she had been acting erratically earlier, I did not want to see her after a kilogram of sugar.  I started eating, not only for my benefit, I was starving at this point, but also to prevent her from gobbling the lot and slipping into a sugar-induced coma or something.

We tackled about two-thirds of the pile fairly rapidly, but began to slow down after that.  It did allow for some conversation, however.

"So,"  I started, "How often are you in Canterlot?"

She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then replied "Not that often, really.  Mostly I come here for the train to Cloud Peak, but I don't even do that as often as I'd like.  Other times it's just for fun.  Like the last Grand Galloping Gala."

Grand Galloping Gala?  "What happened at the last Grand Galloping Gala?"  I asked.  If it was anything like the Stately Swooping Soiree then I had a hunch it had been a disaster.

I have a weird perception of fun.

"Well, it started off like any other, of course.  I was just hanging out in the main hall, by myself, as no-one else I knew had decided to attend.  But as the night went on, things just kept going wrong.  For starters, there was the orchestra performing a rendition of the 'pony pokey' led by an extremely lively pink mare, that was completely shunned by the elite.  I kind of wanted to join in, to be honest, but it would have been the two of us..." She paused, thinking.  "And that would have been awkward."  She then added, deciding to clarify in case I hadn't figured it out.

I nodded.  "You said things kept going wrong.  What happened next?"  It certainly sounded a lot more entertaining than the last time I attended the Soiree.

She continued.  "Well, like I said, I was in the hall pretty much all night, so I might have missed some other stuff.  But, anyway, a little later, that pink mare from earlier did a stage-dive onto a food cart, launching a cake up into the air."

I laughed a bit at that.  "Brilliant.  Was anyone hit?"

She nodded, a small smile playing about her lips.  "Oh, yes.  The cake was sailing through the air directly towards Prince Blueblood, but at the last moment, he grabbed some poor unsuspecting unicorn and used her as a shield."

I gasped.  "She got splatted?"

Feather Flare nodded, her smile never leaving her lips.  "Big time.  Well, obviously, she was mad, and she just started shaking all these bits of cake towards Blueblood as he backed up to try and escape."  She snickered.  "But he backed into the statue in the middle of the room, and somehow managed to knock it over."

I gasped again, this time in alarm.  "Was everyone okay?"

She held up a hoof.  "It's not over yet.  The statue began to fall and another mare, pegasus, flew to try and save the day.  She actually managed to catch the statue, which would have been impressive, had she not lost her balance and knocked over all the pillars around the room.  It's honestly a miracle no-one was hurt.  But then, as the dust was settling and everypony was just staring in shock at her, the statue cracks and breaks, falling in two pieces off her back."

"Wow."  Was pretty in awe myself.  The Soiree had just been a bit chaotic, but nothing had broken.  There had been some cake-flinging, however.

"Yep.  As if things couldn't get much worse, the princess walks in right at that moment, to see the last of the dust settle and most of her hall in ruins."  She laughed again.  "But then things just got weird."

"Weird?  How?"  I was completely enthralled by this strange story by now.  Why couldn't griffin parties be this fun?

"The side door burst open and a stampede of animals from the castle grounds swept across the hall, which of course caused all the pampered rich ponies to throw fits over the critters.  The animals were quickly followed by another pegasus who stood in the doorway and roared, and I quote; 'You're going to LOVE me!'"  She broke down into a fit of giggles.

I just sat, in awe, while she laughed.  Eventually, she composed herself.  "Finally, the princess leaned over to the unicorn mare next to her, who, incidentally, was looking about as shocked as you are right now, and said, loud enough for everyone in close proximity to hear, 'run.'  Just 'run.'  So the mare, did, along with five other ponies, the pink mare, the other unicorn who shook cake over the prince, the pegasus who tried to save the statue, the other pegasus in the doorway, and another earth pony.  Everyone else was panicking enough that no-one really noticed both exits were available.  Personally, I was in hysterics the whole time."  She paused, the smile on her face fading slightly.  "I don't think I'll be invited to the next Gala."

I had been absent-mindedly eating the doughnuts off the platter the whole time, so there were only two left by this point.  Feather Flare took one, giggling to herself again.  I reached for the other.  "I wish I could match a story like that.  I really wish I'd been there."  I finished the doughnut in three quick chomps.

"So," Feather Flare had finished her doughnut too.  "Where would you like to go next?"

I shrugged.  "I don't know this city, remember?  Although I could do with some gloves or something.  Are there any clothes shops about?"

She shook her head.  "None that would sell gloves, anyway.  Hooves, remember?  Besides, all the clothing outlets are way too expensive in Canterlot.  You'd be better off in Cloudsdale, or Ponyville isn't far.  In fact, there's a seamstress there who I believe has made gloves before."

This was news to me.  I had come up with the gloves thing on the spot hoping to kill a few hours wandering around some clothing stores, but had never actually expected any to be available in the land of ponies.  "She's made gloved before?  For who?"  Or what, I decided against adding.

"A dragon, I think.  It might well just be a rumour."  She replied.

A dragon?  Yeah, right.  "Dragons are huge, and fireproof.  What use could they possibly have for gloves?"

"Cold-blooded, I think.  It was for a winter wrap-up or something.  We don't really have to bother with that in Cloudsdale."

Ponyville sounded interesting, to say the least.  And now that I had the option of acquiring some gloves for real, I intended to take that chance.

"Well, maybe we could go to Ponyville next?  How far is it, anyway?"  I asked.

"We could fly there in a few hours, at least, assuming the wind's in our favour.  Or we could get the train and arrive in less time regardless."  Feather Flare weighed up the options.  "On one hoof, free travel.  On the other, easy travel."  She looked at me.  "But you haven't seen enough of Canterlot before I let you just dash off."  She stood up, dropping a pile of bits next to the now-empty platter.

"Come on, we're going to see the castle before we leave.  It's only fair,"  She said, winking at me while she walked away.

I grumbled incoherently.  I didn't care for castles.  I wanted to get out of here as fast as possible.  But...

It was fun, to be honest.  Just hanging out with a friend.  So despite the fact that castles and palaces were lame, I went along with Feather Flare's plan.  I got up and followed her out the door.