twilightpony | We Went, We Saw, We Did A Little Shopping

I met Fluttershy at the train station this morning and by late morning the Friendship Express dropped us off in Canterlot. Our first stop was the research archives of the Physical Equinology and Archaeology department of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns to find Moondancer, down in Sub-basement D. She was hard at work puzzling together fragments of a crumpled scroll and looking like she'd been rolling in dust. We pulled her away from her work and off we went to hunt for books. She guided us to an academic bookstore with a strong animal husbandry and environmental studies stack, near the Cultural Equinology Museum. I could see for myself that there were still very long lineups to see the Epona Exhibit. I picked up a book on the daytime habits and habitat of the constellations and Fluttershy bought some husbandry manuals on waterfowl, bats and horned toad care, plus a key to the spiders of Equestria. Next we trotted over to Moondancer's favorite bookseller to see what was new and to pick up the book she had ordered on the potshard glyphs of the paleopony period. I found a few Proceedings from various Canterlot Conferences on the Advancement of Magic. Then we stopped for lunch at the restaurant favored by students from Celestia's School. There were mostly students eating there, which was not surprising, but I noticed this one old mare who came in right after we did and who chose a table near ours. She only ordered tea and she barely drank it the whole time we were there. I was famished and the hot and spicy grass turnip korma braised in coconut milk was delicious and not too expensive.

After lunch Moondancer left us to return to her scrolls and we went to a large general interest bookshop. Fluttershy bought several illustrated books from Neighpon. They're like the comic books Spike reads, only longer with more dialog and epic style stories. I told her that I have a lot of Hanoverian Romance novels she could borrow, or even keep. I bought a few novels by Pasture Ffjord and some of Hairy Thatchet's flying plate world books too.

By then it was time to return to the train station, so we paid for our books and went to catch the Express back to Ponyville.