//------------------------------// // 06 I hate naming Chapters, but I still try // Story: Child of Two Worlds // by Silent Wing //------------------------------// I was napping peacefully when something woke me, something really annoying. Drowsily I open my eyes and what I spot is something I learned to dislike from the first time I met her.  Mamas Phoenix Philomena, is sitting directly in front of me. I don’t know how she manages to pull it off, but he somehow manages to look smug, and immediately it’s crystal clear to me that this bird is up to no good. When she raises her wings I know that I am doomed, as only moments later she starts to tickle me furiously. I can’t help but laugh at the feeling of being tickled, ruining the chances of going back to sleep.  When she is done, I need a few moments to get my laughter back under control. If looks could kill that annoying bird would have burst into flames the moment I laid my eyes on it. Philomena is quick to realize that she bucked up and within a second, she takes to the air and flies out of the room. Unwilling to let her get away with such insolence I take to the air myself, giving chase. I hear a surprised yelp as I fly past Stormy, startalling her as we fly out of the door and down a long hallway. I hear my nanny shouting for me to come back but I ignore her, taking the corner, Philomena had just vanished behind.  I have trouble keeping up, cutting corners as close as possible, but I still only gain slightly on her. The chase continues for a while, startling more than one Guard by our sudden appearance, and more than one of the decorative vases break into pieces as we accidentally push them from the column they are resting on.  After a while, Philomena makes a big mistake and ends up at a dead end. I see my chance to finally return the favor, charge at her to catch her, but she manages to dodge me at the last moment. Toa late I realize my mistake and I mentally prepare for the pain that is going to come when I will crash headlong into the wall. I hit something, but to my great surprise isn’t doesn’t feel like the marble surface I am expecting. No, it feels much colder but it is still as unforgiving as a stone wall. A loud CLANK is heard as I collide with it and find myself unwillingly doing  a few loopings before I crash muzzle first into the floor. Where I would usually scream in pain before I start to cry, I just skip the first part and go right to the second. Only a few moments pass before somepony picks me up and hugs me tightly. “Mommy is here my darling, mommy is here.” I hear the loving, but saddened voice of the mare that took me in. She orders somepony to look after Corporal Ironheart and I look up from mommy’s chest where I had buried my face, only to see an unconscious Guard laying directly in front of a wall. It looks like I somehow managed to throw logic away and pass right through the wall, to crash into him. Feeling bad about having hurt another pony, even if it was unintentionally, I once more bury my face in her soft chest ashamed about what I did. I hear mommy canceling court for the rest of the day, but I can’t convince myself to care about that, and cry even more into her soft fur. I don’t know how long I cried, but it is quite some time before my tears finally stop flowing. “Better now,” She asks me, sounding very concerned. “Then let’s go and see doctor Suture, your muzzle doesn’t look very good,” mommy proclaims her plans for the immediate future after I answered her question with a shy nod. When she places me on her back and starts towards the hospital wing, an important question comes to mind. “Just when did I start to think of her as mommy instead of mom or mother? Did she really grow that fast on me?” I consider this thought for a while and decide that it doesn't matter what I call her. She often showed me just how much she cares for me in the past few weeks. More care than I can remember getting from my old mother. I know that she loves me for just being there and that is more than I could ask from anyone. Shortly after this we run into Stormy who tries to apologize that she let this happen in the first place, but mommy dismisses her without a second thought. “Stormy I don’t think that you could have done anything to prevent this, but do you have any idea what could have caused this?” “Well, she was chasing Philomena, but I can’t tell you why.” The fiery mare replies after a short consideration and not looking very happy about this. “I told her to stop annoying Spitfire and Passion, but she never listens when somepony wants to stop her from having fun.” Mommy replies with a sigh, obviously guessing correctly what happened. The two mares continue to talk for a bit, but each part separate ways once we reach the infirmary. Doctor Suture is quick to pick me up from mommy’s back with his magic and places me on an examination table, before he takes a very close look at my muzzle. “Have you already cast anything on him, Princess?” “Only a simple spell to stop his pain.” The doctor nods in understanding, before I see his horn lighting up “Luckily, this is easy enough to fix.” His magic feels somehow funny to me, similar to when Philomena was tickling me, only with the difference that this isn’t at my stomach or just along my muzzle, but it’s also inside of my nostrils and I begin to sneeze without any warning. Shocked gasps are heard after the first one, and if my ears aren’t tricking me, it sounds almost like bodies are hitting the floor. I know that something went wrong, but I can only stop sneezing when I stop feeling the touch of doctor Sutures magic. I look around confused for a moment until I see the wall directly in front of me. If I didn't know any better, I could have got the idea that somepony used swish cheese to build it, simply by the number of holes in it. “I think it stopped,” somepony says from below me and I realize that I indeed had heard bodies hit the floor earlier. Both mommy and doctor Suture get up and take a look at the wall before they turn their attention to me. “Just like your aunt Luna, she used to blow holes into everything too, when we were young.” She tells me in excitement and I couldn’t believe she was actually happy that I destroyed the wall. In the old Manor it would have earned me a quite harsh punishment. “Could you finish your spell, or do we have to blow up another wall, Doctor Suture?” She asks surprisingly chipper, only increasing my confusion and I almost can’t believe her reaction when Doctor Suture confirms that he is done. “Pitty.” She asks how Corporal Ironheart is doing before she picks me back up again. “I know exactly what we are doing now.” Is all the warning I get before she teleports us into a small library. She walks down the isles looking for something and it doesn’t take her long to find it. She walks back and sits down on a very comfortable looking bean bag, placing me in her lap, and then floats the thick tome directly in front of her. I can’t read what is written on it, but I know immediately that this book must be very important to her when she opens it. The first picture is of a light blue unicorn foal with a slightly brighter mane. “This is your aunt Luna shortly after she was born.” Mommy says, before turning the page. As soon as I see the next photo I burst out into amused giggles. There is the body of the same foal, only where her neck and head should be, there is an overturned porcelain jar. Somewhere on the moon a dark blue alicorn leaps up from her sleep and says grumpily, “I can feel it, Tia is having fun at my expense again,” before rolling over and drifting back off to sleep again. Together we look through the photo album for a while until something important changes. The next picture isn’t of aunt Luna, instead, it shows a white alicorn with pink mane and tail that looks like she had just landed face-first from a flight, if the position of the wings is anything to go by. It looks a bit painful, but the pony in the picture looks more annoyed than hurt, so I don’t feel any regret when I start laughing. “Yes, that day I learned to NOT perform any aerial tricks, when you are too close to the ground.” I look at her confused, having trouble comprehending what I just heard, since there are a few things wrong with this statement. For one, the size difference is extremely large, but this could be explained by simply growing up. Besides that, the mane is all wrong. While the pony in the picture has a nice pink, yet ordinarily mane, while mommy’s has four different colors and is all wavy.  “Yes, this is really me,” mommy says, once she sees the questioning look on my face. I think about it for some time and come to the conclusion that maybe she just got bored of that particular manestyle and tried something new in the time between then and now. After she showed her little colt the image of the embarrassing crash, right in front of a large segment of the Castles staff, she is only able to show a few more pictures from her and Luna’s youth before he falls asleep. I carefully pick him up with my magic, as not to wake him up, before I get up myself. I walk back in silence to my room, where I place him carefully in his crib. This afternoon may have been fun for both of us, but seeing all those images of my sister just reminds me of how much I miss her. Since she can’t be with us currently, there is only one thing left to do. I take the photo I made earlier and put it in the small, but steadily growing album I started on our first day together. “Passionate Hearts first major magic surge,” I write down under it, looking at the ruined wall for a few more moments before I close the book again and go to bed myself.