Houses Of The Holy: Part Two
Phil had always had a bad habit of angering people he shouldn't. Whether it was egging the mailman's van or putting animal feed in his teacher's pocket during a trip to the petting zoo, Phil had a long streak of ticking the wrong people off. He believed he got that streak from one of his ancestors, the late Dill Phillips, who in a drunken state, decided to throw a chicken bone at long haired, bearded man. Unfortunately for Dill, that man was Vlad The Impaler, and that's where Dill's story ends. Why Vlad The Impaler was is a bar in Ireland is a story for another time. The point is, not only had that streak continued, but it had peaked, climaxed, spiked, take your pick. Phil was screwed either way.
Phil sat against a large blue door with an angry, dark blue mare pointing an electrically charged horn at him, with a brigade of temporarily gay guard ponies lusting for his behind, behind said door. Needless to say, Phil was life's bitch. He couldn't even see the mare threatening him because he was forced to look away to avoid seducing yet another pony. All he could see were silver silk curtains and a small oak dresser. Was he in a bedroom? An attic? A nazi POW camp? One thing was certain. He was going to ride the lightning soon if he didn't speak up.
"Well, what dost thou say in thy defence? We are giving thee one final chance to explain thy actions before we toast thy buttocks like one of those new fangled devices. What were those called again?"
Phil quivered in his sitting position. "Umm...toasters?"
"Yes! Thank thee for thy assis-WAIT, DO NOT SIDE TRACK US, SHAVEN MONKEY! WHY HAST THOU INVADED THE PRIVACY OF OUR BEDROOM?!" Her voice was too loud for a throat. It sounded like a concert of yelling.
"Shaven monkey?! Whatever, I'm sorry, I didn't know this was someone's room. I'm just in a really bad position and it's barely my fault and those guards out there want my ass, literally, and I didn't know where to run and-"
"SILENCE!" shouted the electric mare. "We will handle this!"
The mare levitated Phil out of the doorway and allowed the guards to come into her room. They all piled in with idiotic smiles on their faces. The mare gave them all a venomous glare. "Guards! Do thy not have positions to be at?! Shoo!"
They didn't waste time debating. The guards tumbled down the stairs away from the harsh reprimands of the mare of terror. She slammed her door shut and directed her glare at the now levitating Phil, who now had his hands over his eyes.
"There, thy problem is solved, now explain to us the reason for those guard's pursuit of thou."
Phil stopped shivering in his levitation ball. She had actually just saved him from his own actions, and he was at her absolute mercy, so giving her an explanation was for the best. "W-Well, I might have climb a wall or two and...jumped on a guard's back..."
She hummed for a moment in thought. "And this is what caused the guards to chase thee so ferociously?"
"Umm...yes?"
She smirked and lowered Phil to the floor. "Well then, we conclude that the castle guards were overly respondent to thy back riding. Such a pursuit was not needed for a mere prank. We offer thou an apology on behalf of the castle. Please state thy name so we may apologize properly."
Phil took his hands away from his face, but instead looked in the opposite direction of the mare speaking to him. "Phil Phillips, and you don't need to apologize. You didn't chase me with those...disgusting eyes." He gave a shudder.
"But we must apologize! The guards were out of line chasing thou so tenaciously. And why dost thou insist on staring at our wall?"
Uh oh. Phil figured telling this mare about his ability to seduce ponies by just looking at his eyes wouldn't be the best option, considering he was technically breaking and entering in her bedroom. That would be severely creepy. What has the truth done for anyone anyway? He had to come up with an airtight excuse.
"Uhh...why aren't you staring at this wall?"
"...Thou is very strange for a monkey..."
Phil pouted at her remark. "Hey! I may be strange, but I'm no monkey. I'm a human."
He heard her gasp from behind. "A human? We vaguely recall our sister mentioning that she had invited a human to the castle today. That human is thou, correct?"
He nodded, but it was hard to tell. "Yeah, I was invited by the princess of this place, Celestia. I guess that makes me kind of important, huh?"
"From the sound of it, thou is unaware of the other princess of this castle."
"Other princess? This castle has another princess?"
"Thou is't speaking to her," she said, downtrodden.
Phil jumped in surprise. "Woah, you're a princess?! If you are, why are you up here in your bedroom?"
"Our sister Tia manages the day, while we manage the night. We were getting our royal beauty sleep before thou burst into our room."
He put his head down in embarrassment. "Err, sorry about that again." Phil contemplated something momentarily. "Umm, Princess, if I may say this, for someone who owns a castle, you don't seem all that happy."
She sighed. "...Can thou really tell that easily?"
He rubbed the back of his head. "Well...yeah. You seem pretty sad..."
"Well...it's just...just...*sniffle* everypony hates me!" She whimpered a little. "We thought after last Nightmare Night, ponies would begin to appreciate and love us, just like they did Tia. But even though the ponies of Ponyville accepted me, every other pony we've met since has simply feared or despised us! Oh, we can't take it anymore!" She broke down into a soft cry.
Phil was speechless. He hadn't expected the mare to express her emotions to him so strongly or quickly. Narrowing his vision down to a squint, Phil cautiously turned his head to see the crying princess. She was different than the average pony, having a pair of horn and wings, as well as a dark blue ethereal mane and tail. Her attire was very similar to Celestia's, with the difference being her slippers were a silver colour, and she wore a black tiara, coupled with a black neck brace bearing the symbol of a crescent moon, just like her Cutie Mark. She was lying down with her head buried in her hooves, sobbing gently.
Phil carefully kneeled in front of her and started petting her mane to comfort her. "There, there. I'm sure that's not true. You probably just aren't talking to the right ponies."
"Thou shouldn't feel the need to comfort us, small gorilla. We know what thou is saying is't just empty words and nothing more."
"What I say comes from experience. Back where I'm from, I've gotten my fair share of people hating me. I pull immature pranks like I do it for a living and that can really get on people's nerves. But, where there are people hating me, there are also people loving me. Loving what I do. Getting enjoyment after seeing me pull off a good prank. There are two sides to every coin, Princess. Just as there are ponies who dislike you, I guarantee you there are ponies that appreciate you and love what you do, even if you've never met them."
She seemed genuinely surprised. "T-Thou really mean'st that, P-Phil?" She raised her head to look at Phil, but he pressed her head into his chest so she couldn't see his eyes.
"It's one of my only real philosophies in life. Try not to let ponies get to you."
Phil tried to keep her head in his chest, but she wrestled it out to look at Phil. A small smile planted its roots and began to grow as she looked at him with those teal eyes...she looked at him...uh oh. Blinking tears out of her eyes, she wrapped her forehooves around Phil's necks and pulled forward, closing the distance between their lips. It was a simple light kiss, but was it ever passionate. She squeezed Phil tightly, but it only intensified the kiss. The princess pulled away and gave him a grateful look.
"Thank thee, Phil Phillips. Thy words have truly restored our hopes in finding friendship within ponies."
Her expression of thanks quickly changed to embarrassment when she witnessed Phil's face light up like a tomato.
"Oh-umm-we-were-just-following-the-heat-of-moment-sorry!" Suddenly, she disappeared in a flash of magic.
Phil sat in the same position for a minute, taking in what just happened. "Damn, she saw my eyes. This pony actually got a kiss out of me, too. I didn't even get her name. She tasted like blueberri-OKAY, that's enough thinking of that!"
He noticed a mirror out of the corner of his eye and got up to see himself. "God, why is my face this red? Whatever, more importantly, it's probably best I get out of the princess' bedroom. I could not for the life of me come up with an excuse if someone caught me in here."
Phil left the room, unaware that the glow in his eyes had been long extinguished.
"No, no, no, no, no, no..."
Twilight "The Panic" Sparkle was pacing around a hallway in the castle. Phil was nowhere to be found after their encounter while running from the guards, and strangely, neither were any of the guards. She had wanted to ask a guard if they saw him around, but they all appeared to be missing. Her mane, as if reflecting her state of mind, was crooked and disheveled. She was gritting her teeth and to an observer, she would have looked completely insane upset.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a small group of guards in the hallway over, hanging their heads in shame . Twilight wasted no time, galloping full speed down the hallway and tackling the nearest guard to the floor.
She wore what some would call a bat-shit crazy expression. "WHERE. IS. HE?!"
The guard whimpered and pointed towards a staircase just down the hallway. Twilight hopped off him and began to run, but stopped when she saw a large figure walk out of the stairway's entrance. There was no doubt about it; it was him alright. Oh was he going to get an earful from her for ditching her. The Princess had assigned Twilight the task of giving Phil a tour around the castle, and if she couldn't fit in a tour in the next five minutes or so, she was going to fail that task. She couldn't let that happen.
"PHIL! DON'T YOU DARE GO ANYWHERE!"
Twilight broke into a full sprint and closed in on the now frightened human. However, for the second time that day, the janitor emerged from a side door beside the staircase, blocking the path of the unable to slow down mare. Inevitably, she crashed right into the janitor and his mop bucket, sending water everywhere and a mop bucket on Twilight's head. She shook her head and pulled the bucket off her wet and disheveled mane. She looked around woozily, and found Phil checking the condition of his clothes. Phil looked over at Twilight, and before either of them realized what was happening, they looked into each other's eyes, one pair of said eyes glowing.
Becoming aware of the situation, Phil tried to run, but a purple aura kept his feet in place. Twilight lumbered towards him, hips swaying lightly. Moving to his side, she playfully flicked her tail under Phil's chin.
"Phil, why did you leave me?" she said in a mock-hurt tone. "I was supposed to be your tour guide, but you just up and left."
Phil already didn't like where this was going. He struggled some more to get out of the purple aura, but ended up just falling backwards onto his butt with his legs still entrapped. Twilight brushed up against Phil and rubbed a hoof up his thigh.
She looked at him with her half-lidded eyes and enticing smile. "Meh, the castle's a little boring anyway. How about a give you a tour of something more interesting?" She put her lips to his ear. "Me."
Just as Phil was about to let out a blood-curdling scream, a pony cleared their throat loudly. Phil and Twilight looked over to see a very bored looking Celestia and a very irritated looking Luna.
"So my faithful student, you find my castle boring?"