//------------------------------// // 9 - Encounter // Story: A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - Amalgam // by gerandakis //------------------------------// Chapter Nine Encounter When Sunset simply stared at her uncomprehendingly, Ginny rolled her eyes. “What? You read it too, didn’t you? It said that finding a magical host increases their intelligence. You seem pretty magical to me so I’d say she’d probably be able to understand you.” Sunset stared at Ginny for a moment longer while the other two turned to face them as well. “Now?!” Lavender nodded slowly. “Why not? If I were to have another sentient being living inside me, I’d sure like to actually get to know them, y’know?” Sunset tried to find fault with the argument, but realized that she couldn’t. After getting encouraging looks from the other three, and even from Philomena, she sighed. “Okay, yeah, you’re right.” She gingerly lifted a hoof and placed it over her stomach. Lighting her horn, she used her magic to gently poke the little creature inside. She could feel it immediately jerk before gently pushing back against her hoof. Knowing she had her guest’s attention, Sunset gently spoke up. “Would you mind coming out, little one? I’d like to get to know you properly.” When she felt the little lizard shift uncertainly, she let out a longer sigh. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you back in afterwards.” She shuddered as she got an immediate reaction, bending over as she felt the little creature move back upwards. The experience was less disturbing than what she remembered from the first time, but that may have also been the shock. The others all watched as the small creature fell out of Sunset’s mouth. She looked around at each of them, then her eyes widened suddenly and she curled around Sunset’s foreleg, quickly using her surprisingly stable grip to climb up onto Sunset’s head and hide in her mane. Hermione looked at the little head carefully poking out of Sunset’s mane and followed the fearful little eyes to Philomena. Sunset followed her sister’s gaze and turned her head, spotting her familiar as well. She could feel the weight of the little creature in her mane shift as she moved to track the Phoenix who was sitting on her perch, looking on curiously. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. “You’re scared of Philomena?” When the alp-luachra nodded, Hermione sighed. “Don’t worry about that. Philomena won’t hurt you. She knows better than that.” She turned to pointedly look at the phoenix. “Don’t you, Philomena?” Philomena drew herself up proudly upon her perch before nodding solemnly and spreading her wings proudly. Then, for some reason, she brought a single primary feather of her right wing to her chest and drew two lines there, flapped her wings, taking off momentarily, before settling back on her perch and placing that same primary over one of her eyes. Sunset didn’t understand what Philomena had done anymore than any of the others, but the little creature in her mane immediately relaxed. “Okay.” Sunset’s ears twitched upon hearing the voice. It was rather quiet and high pitched, but nowhere near as high pitched as it should have been with a voice box that small. Sunset gently brought a foreleg up to her head and let the little creature jump on it, gently lowering her down to get a good look at her. Sunset had been scanning her for the last few days, so she already knew that she had grown half again as long as she had been that first night, now coming in at just under thirty centimeters. Her slightly glossy and, thanks to her magic, completely dry skin was a very pale tan, her mane, looking to be made of a strange, membranous material rather than actual hair, was a rich burgundy and flowed smoothly into a fin running along her back all the way to the tip of her tail. There was a streak of dark orange running underneath all of it, almost hidden by the voluminous mane, but clearly visible beneath the fin. Now that she had stopped fearfully staring at Philomena, she was looking all around the room with her light jade eyes reminding Sunset of Lyra’s coat. Sunset felt her muzzle curl into a gentle smile. She couldn’t help it. Just for a moment, she didn’t care that the little creature sitting on her foreleg was a tiny, sentient parasite that had chosen her stomach as its preferred habitat. The little critter was simply adorable. Judging by the noises they were making, the others agreed with her assessment. After a few seconds, she got her mind back on track. There was something she needed to do. “Alright. If you’re gonna live inside me I at least want to get to know you a little. I’m Sunset Shimmer.” “Hello,” the little equine replied, staring back at her with a smile. “I’m Hermione.” “Ginny.” “Lavender.” “It’s so nice to meet all of you. So how do I know what to say here?” Sunset chuckled. “Those were our names. But I guess you don’t have one of those yet, do you?” “A name?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so, no. Where do I get one?” Sunset smiled. The way this conversation was going served well to remind her of the fact that the alp-luachra before her was probably less than two weeks old. “Well, you could pick one for yourself, or ask someone else to give you one.” The expression of deep thought made Sunset giggle again. She carefully got up from the bed and set the little lizard down on her back, something she didn’t even seem to notice. With a slight shake of her head, she indicated to the others that they should follow her. When she arrived in the main room of her suite, she carefully scooped her passenger back up onto her hoof and sat her down on a couch cushion. She curled up, coiling her long tail around her, but otherwise didn’t seem to take note. When her little guest finally looked back up to her, Sunset quite enjoyed the look of confusion on her face as she took in her new surroundings. “Huh? When did we get here?” “I carried you here while you were thinking. You ought to pay a little more attention to your surroundings. You’re worse than Twilight. Did you come up with a name?” “Well, I don’t really know anything about names. Would you give me one?” Sunset blanched. “Me?!” She was quite startled to have the little creature suddenly jump up at her and gently curl around her neck like a strangely designed necklace. “Well who else? You’re my host.” Sunset still paled slightly at the thought, though she was slowly getting used to the idea. “Well yes, I guess I am. Alright, lemme think.” As she thought the matter over, the others came in behind her and joined the two of them on the couch, though Sunset paid them no mind. Her eyes were fixed on the little creature before her, wandering from the dark orange stripe running along her body to the deep red mane and fin atop it. “Garnet,” she said finally. “I think that fits you.” The others had missed a part of the conversation, of course, but they could guess the context easily enough. “That doesn’t sound a lot like the name Princess Celestia mentioned,” Hermione pointed out. Sunset snorted. “I hope not. That name was in Old Ponish. It was fitting for the time but …” She sighed. “Well let’s just say there is a reason ponies stopped talking like that. I can speak Old Ponish but it’s just so … I guess stilted is the best word. Everything you try to say takes half again as long or longer to say than in modern Equestrian. And for the record, the name of Celestia’s symbiote translates to ‘Citrine’.” Hermione giggled. “Alright, point taken. It fits perfectly.” “Yes,” Garnet confirmed, “I think I like that name.” “Good. That’s settled then,” Ginny spoke up, turning to Garnet. “Now say, how do you like Sunset?” The filly in question found her mischievous smirk to be more than a little disquieting. Garnet, however, smiled eagerly. “I like her. She’s really comfortable. And her magic feels nice. It makes me smarter.” Though she could clearly see that Ginny was trying to tease Sunset, Hermione couldn’t help herself. “So that really works? Having a host with strong magic makes you smarter?” Garnet nodded. “Yeah. Before I found her, I was mostly acting on instinct. Instinct told me what I could safely eat, so I did. Instinct told me to look for a host, so I did. I was almost ready to settle for a fox or something like that. Then you all showed up. And my instincts told me that ponies made better hosts. I didn’t know why back then, but now I know it’s because of the magic.” She smiled at Sunset again. “That’s also why I picked you. My instincts told me that someone with stronger magic would make a better host. So I had to choose between you,” she turned to Hermione, “you, and the colt without a horn or wings.” She turned back to Sunset with a sly smile. “Call me superficial, but I liked your colors best.” Sunset managed a giggle, but Hermione looked at Garnet with renewed interest. “You know, you’re surprisingly eloquent for being barely two weeks old.” Garnet shrugged. “Well, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t talk before. I must have learned that from somewhere. I guess I got that from Sunset. It’ll be even better once we’re properly bonded.” Sunset looked at Garnet again. The book had mentioned that as well. Alp-Luachra were uniquely suited to form thaumo-harmonic bonds, like the one she shared with Hermione, if slightly different. They could bond with anyone, but only once. She knew she should feel honored that Garnet wanted her as a host, but she actually did feel honored that she wanted to form that kind of bond after such a short time. After another moment of silent contemplation, she made a decision. “Alright,” she said, focusing Garnet’s attention back on her. “But before we do that, there is something you should know about me.” Without further ado, she got up from the couch and shifted back to human form. Garnet looked at her with wide eyes. “You can shapeshift?” Sunset nodded. “In fact, I did that several times while you were living inside me. You never noticed?” Garnet shook her head as Sunset sat back down, picking up the cushion the little lizard was sitting on and placing it in her lap. She had expected Garnet to answer, maybe ask more questions, but she simply leapt forward, moving to explore Sunset’s clothing. Not too surprising, given that was probably a foreign concept to her. Still, Sunset found, it was rather startling to suddenly have an alp-luachra crawling up her sleeve. And wandering all around and under the rest of her clothes. Only the fact that she knew what it was crawling around under the fabric kept her from squirming too much. That and the fact that Garnet seemed to know, if by instinct or from her, she couldn’t tell, that certain areas were off limits. Still, she was squirming quite a bit and struggling to contain her laughter. The tail wasn’t so bad, but the mane and those tiny hooves were tickling her quite badly. After a few more moments, Garnet poked her head out under the collar of Sunset’s dress, her tail wrapped around her shoulder. “Alright, I like you.” She turned around to the other three who were watching and giggling on occasion. “You too. You’re nice. But I think I should go back inside now. Sunset and I still need to bond properly.” Sunset cleared her throat. “Uhh, yeah. How exactly do we do that?” Garnet smiled brightly, sitting down on Sunset’s shoulder so the girl could actually see her. “Oh that’s simple, just focus your magic inwards, I’ll focus mine out. My instincts will do the rest.” “Well okay then.” With a sigh, Sunset opened her mouth. She still wasn’t quite comfortable with the idea, but she was getting used to it. “Go ahead.” Garnet waved a hoof to the three fillies she could look down on from her perch, then hesitantly waved to Philomena who had sat down on another of the numerous perches set out among the suite. When Philomena waved a wing back and the others had given her waves and smiles as well, Garnet climbed around Sunset’s neck, using her long tail for grip and dove back in. Reflex took over and Sunset swallowed, feeling her new friend sliding back down her throat and curl back up in her stomach. She smacked her lips a few times, trying to get the bizarre non-taste out of her mouth, then closed her eyes. “Alright, here goes nothing.” As she focused her magic inward, she could feel another force pushing back from inside her. Suddenly, there was a jolt and she felt a second set of emotions that clearly weren’t her own. They were weaker than her own, but the link wasn’t particularly deep yet. Given that physical and magical contact tended to deepen thaumo-harmonic bonds and that both of those were more or less inevitable in this case, that would sort itself out soon enough. For now, she simply let Garnet’s feelings of contentment wash away her own discomfort at the bizarre sensations. She likely would have found the emotions of another in her head to be strange, but after sharing such a connection with Hermione for so long, she didn’t. Sunset yawned, only now realizing what a long day she’d had, and made her way back to the bedroom, followed by two little ponies and and equally small griffin. They were yawning quite a bit too. Looking between herself and the bed for a moment, she began switching into a nightgown. “I’ma sleep as a human tonight,” she declared sleepily. “You do that, sis,” Hermione answered, already curling up on the bed and levitating the large tome aside. Ginny and Lavender weren’t far behind. Sunset joined them the moment she was fully in her night clothes. A snap of her fingers and a slight pulse of magic extinguished the lights.