The Phoenix Foal

by Sir Barton

Spark

“Dad?”

“Daaad?”

Rainbow Dash stared into her father's golden eyes as she called to him, as he held her there in the family room of the cloud tower outside Ponyville they called home. His eyes had seemed to lose focus, like he was lost in a dream. The last words he had spoken to her before he seemed to zone out were still sinking in, slowly fading from her conscious thoughts, but she could still hear them.

…you weren’t born when your mother died. You died with her.

The words had been shocking, if only because in the emotional whirlwind of the moment they had been completely unexpected. The fact that her mother’s death and her own birth coincided exactly in date had always been a heavy burden for the young mare to bear.

It had been during cloudergarten in Cloudsdale that she could first recall having her birthday mentioned. Her teacher then, Ms. Airheart, had made a point of announcing the birthdays of the fillies and colts in the class when they happened. Prior to that she couldn’t recall even knowing the exact date.

Of course that had been only the day and month. She hadn’t really known the year of her birth until the next year when she began flight school proper. That’s when they started doing more complex subjects like math and history and the concept of the ‘the year you were born’ came into the picture. It was at that time that she had finally connected enough dots to understand the final date on her mother’s ‘trophy’ on the mantel.

She had known for a long time she was an only child, and that she only had a daddy with her, but not a mommy. Her father had told her that her that her mommy had gone to a ‘special place far away’ in order to make sure she was safe. Rainbow Dash had, consequently, thought her mother was the greatest hero in all Equestria for that. She frequently had pictured her mother off in mysterious far-flung places, doing battle with the dark forces of the world, and saving other fillies and colts in such dread locals as ‘Midnight Castle’ and such. After all, since Princess Celestia had to raise the sun and moon and rule Equestria from Canterlot, somepony had to be out there saving the world, right?

Reality has its unfortunate ways of derailing a young pony’s thoughts. It was in the weeks after Hearth Warming that reality burst in on Rainbow Dash’s shining view of her mother. It was here the notion of death entered the equation with the passing of her grand-dam, Serenity Sky. It was here that the notion of ‘died’ finally sank in and the pieces of the equation fit together, and now Rainbow knew her mother had died the day she had been born.

Except now she had been told something that supposedly changed that, but that something didn’t make sense.

“Dad?”

Rainbow Dash bumped her nose against her father’s, finally jolting the off-blue stallion from his torpor.

“Huh?” the rainbow maned stallion grunted as he blinked in surprise at the nose bump, recoiling slightly.

Rainbow Dash used the momentary surprise to slip out of her father’s wings and return her mother’s portrait to its place on the mantel. She paused a moment after setting the picture in place, her gaze falling on the silver urn next to it. Her heart flinched as it always did. The urn contained her mother’s ashes, the last physical presence of the mother she never knew.

“So,” the svelte sky-blue mare turned back to her father. The taste of a sour crabapple, bile, and salt coated her tongue, giving an unsettled edge to her words, “If I died with Mom, how am I here right now?”

Rainbow watched as her father blinked at the unexpected question, her building agitation causing her wings to flare as she awaited his answer.

“Well?” Rainbow chimed like a cracked bell. She wasn’t exactly known as the most patient of ponies and her emotions were flying so high right now that she really wasn’t in the mood to wait. “What is it? Hmm?”

Rainbow could smell ozone and ash in the air as she stared down her father, daring him to vindicate his answer that she had not been born the day her mother had died, but had somehow died with her mother and now somehow happened to be standing here waiting for him to justify what couldn’t be justified!

“’Rora, I …” Bifrost began only to be cut off by his daughter’s building storm of anger as it broke hot and wild right there before him.

“I’ll tell you what!” Rainbow fired off, the taste in her mouth now taking on a dull, bitter, coppery taste as she verbally laced into her father. “It’s a load of horse apples is what it is, a bigger pile of manure than you could get out of Applejack’s hog barn in a year! You know how I know? Because You Told Me! You told me when Grandma Serenity died. You told me what Died is. Ponies don’t come back from that. So don’t Lie to me, Dad. Don’t lie to me. I killed mom when I was born. The date on my foal registry even proves it. It’s the same as on mom’s ashes!”

Dash watched, glaring thunderbolts at her father as he sat there under the brunt of her fury as she lashed at him with her verbal storm of unfettered emotion. She watched the pained expression as she ripped into him she might as well have been pulling his beating heart out of a bloody hole in his chest with her teeth. His golden eyes flashed with pain at her words as they choked the air of the room. Air that was getting so thick it was getting hard to breathe, the smell of ash and ozone and something else was making her head spin, she wanted to puke.

“It’s fake.”

“Fake!” Rainbow screeched in indignant rage. She could taste the sulfurous tang of brimstone in her mouth. If her foal registry was a fraud her career with the Wonderbolts was finished. Her even returning to the Ponyville weather team wouldn’t even be a possibility. Her life would be over. Her innards were clenched so tight she was sure she was going to retch up all the cake and cider from the party if she said another word.

“And it’s real.”

“Huh?” Rainbow faltered at her father’s answer. At least she didn’t feel like puking anymore, but the resignation in her father’s answer didn’t stop the room from spinning. She felt hot, almost on fire, she needed air, badly. She took a wavering step forward only to collapse into her father’s wings and hooves.

For several long moments Rainbow Dash lay quietly in her fathers embrace as the rainbow maned stallion gently held her, rocking ever so gently as he stroked her own matching mane. Why did her life have to be so weird right now? She was born the day her mother died, but somehow died with her. Her foal registry was a fake, but real? She knew that when ponies died they went away and didn’t come back, yet somehow she was here.

No, Rainbow Dash conceded to herself, weird doesn’t cut it. My life has left weird and moved right on down to freaky town.

“’Rora?” her father nuzzled her after a bit as Rainbow’s breathing slowed to normal. “You feeling better my prismatic princess?”

“Mmm hmm” Rainbow murmured her response, snuggling deeper against her father’s chest as she did. She felt safe here like when she was a filly in Cloudsdale, safe from the nightmares. As long as her father was there she was safe.

Her father used a hoof to tilt her head up so she was looking at him.

“’Rora, believe me when I say that I’m telling you the truth. Believe me when I tell you that you weren’t born when your mother died, that you died with her. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, to pick up that torch and place it on the funeral pyre for you and your mother.”

Rainbow watched her father’s eyes become wet again as he spoke, his voice quiet but sure. She just lay there, head on his chest listening to his heart, his breathing. She trusted him more than any pony in the world but … she really didn’t want to ignite another outburst but the question needed asking.

“But if I’m in there.” Rainbow asked quietly as she used a wing to point to the silver memorial urn on the mantel. “How can I be here?”

“Your not there ‘Rora. You’re here.” He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the forehead to affirm his statement.

“So …” the blue mare started slowly as her father eased her back to sitting on her haunches, “how am I here, if you want me to believe I died with mom, was cremated, and somehow am still here asking the most ridiculous sounding question I’d ever thought I’d hear myself ask? I mean Pinkie Pie probably couldn’t make sense of this, and she’s …well, Pinkie Pie.”

Rainbow watched as her father got up and walked past her to stand before the mantel. She turned herself to face him as he did. He stood there for a moment seemingly lost in thought. He reached out with the tip of a wing gently touching the urn and portrait with the tip before turning back to her.

“’Rora, before I tell you any more I want you to promise me that what you’ve heard here tonight you won’t breathe a word of to another living soul, as long as I live.”

Rainbow furrowed her brow at her father’s shift from comforting and caring to ‘do your home work or no Wonderbolts show’ serious.

“You mean like ‘Pinkie Promise’?”

It was her father’s turn to halt for a moment as he rattled about for the meaning of his daughter’s statement.

“Pinkie Promise, that’s the one where your one friend seems to know all about the promise being made right?”

Rainbow nodded to the affirmative, though yeah it did seem strange that Pinkie seemed to have an unnatural awareness of any Pinkie Promise that was made. Still, she was about to begin the motions when her father placed a hoof gently on her shoulder.

“No, ‘Rora, I want You to make me a promise, not one somepony else will hold you to. I want You to look deep inside yourself, deep in your heart and make me a promise that You know You will keep, no matter what.”

Rainbow cocked her head inquisitively at her father, the weight of the look from his golden eyes felt like the weight of all the gold in Canterlot was weighing down on her soul for this decision. Some how though she let her eyes slowly close as she tried to listen to herself, to listen deep within to find the right words to hear the voice …

As her eyes slowly opened Rainbow saw the look of utter astonishment on her father’s face. She knew she had heard the words inside her, but had she actually spoken them aloud? She must have. There were tears hanging in her father’s eyes. What by Celestia’s mane had she said?

“’Rora,” her father’s voice was soft and choked with emotion, “where did you hear that from?”

“I, …” she began. This was getting eerie, for as hot as it had seemed earlier, the room now felt of a creeping cold, “I did as you told me, and I heard a voice inside me say the words. Did I say something wrong?”

“No ‘Rora, you didn’t.” Bifrost took in a big breath as he let his emotions settle. “You couldn’t, not with that promise. Only one pony has ever made that promise to me, your mother. It was on our wedding night, right before we …” he paused as the material suddenly got awkward, “you know … wedding night. It was her private vow to me that only we two shared.”

The words sank in to Rainbow’s psyche, deep. She had just, by listening the voice inside her, uttered her mother’s private unbreakable oath. She swallowed hard as she looked at her sire.

“Uh, okay Dad I’m really glad ‘n’ all,” not a word of a lie she truly was pleased with herself. The sacred nature of the promise she had just made was one she knew she would never violate out of loyalty to both parents. It was a religious moment of sorts but something still begged to be said, “but, seriously, ‘before we … wedding night’, TMI Dad, Eww.”

“It was very special to me, just like your mother.” Dash watched her dad crack a sheepish grin of mild embarrassment for mentioning the circumstances before shaking off his daughter’s admonishment with a flick of his head to resume the more serious topic at hand. “’Rora, what I’m about to tell you is known by very few ponies, all of them bound by their own private oaths not to reveal what they know.”

“Ooh, you mean like a secret society? Like the Celestiati, or the Freemanesons, or the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos?” Dash felt her eyes getting wide with interest.

Since the time she had broken her wing and Twilight had introduced her to the Daring Do novels during her convalescence, Rainbow had become an obsessive reader of them. Right now though her life seemed to be looking like one of the ardent archeological adventuremare’s exploits. Secret societies, fake foal registries, wait her dad had said that was real too, how...

“Sort of, ‘Rora. Have you ever heard of the Phoenix Foal?”

Alright, that one she knew, heck she’d just finished reading about it in the last Daring Do novel, Daring Do and the Crown of Thunder. “Yeah Dad, I’ve heard of that, It was in the last Daring Do novel, best one yet. Daring was searching for the Crown of Thunder, an old artifact from the pre-Equestrian period before Commander Hurricane was leader of the Pegasi Tribe. It’s supposed to grant the wearer the ability to control weather the same way Celestia and Luna control the Sun and Moon.”

Bifrost looked at his daughter with a sheepish look of uneasy concern that made Dash feel unsettled. “So you know about the Crown of Thunder, but what about the Phoenix Foal?”

“Not much,” the young cerulean mare had to admit, “the book didn’t go into great detail on it. Only that it’s the legend of the Phoenix Foal that mentions the crown. Why?”

“Because of your mother and you.” Her father began to piece the puzzle together for her as she sat there with him. “That’s why your foal registry isn’t quite correct, but there’s no way it could be given the circumstances. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s real, and completely beyond suspicion, but it’s inaccurate. The flight surgeon (1) at Ponyville hospital was a close friend of your mother and I. He prepared the foal registry on you as a home birth. He then had it sent to Cloudsdale, because too many ponies here in Ponyville knew about your mother not having foaled before she died.”

Rainbow wanted to say something, but could only offer a bewildered look to her father as the older stallion totted over to where the bookshelves that lined the one curve of the oval shaped room ended near the hearth. Once there he slipped a book from a shelf with the tip of his wing. Returning back to where his daughter sat on her haunches in front of his sitting cushion he laid the book down on it for her to see.

“Your mother’s literary love was old pony folklore. Pre-Equestrian Pegasi folklore to be exact.” Dash didn’t look at her sire as he kept speaking, only looking at the odd writing on the hardbound cover of the tome on the cushion at her hooves. “Bet you’d never have guessed your mother could read Ancient Pegasi, did ya?”

Rainbow looked up at her father with a mix of puzzlement and pride vying for control of her expression.

“Mom could read that?”

Bifrost nodded, a grin of pride on behalf of his late mate riding across his lips.

“Kind of odd thinking of your ‘folks as a couple of ‘egg-heads’, eh, princess?”

“Yeah,” Dash had to admit, it was weird, she’d always admired all the athletics trophies her parent’s had won, “but, your office, mom’s room here, they’re full of athletic awards and stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say your mother and I were …”

“Well read.” Dash cut off her father, finishing for him, giggling at her private joke.

Her father looked at her a moment before adding his own chuckle to the mix.

“Where’d that come from?” he asked.

“Something Twilight told me once.” Dash noted for him as she let her giggling subside.

Slipping the old volume open with the brush of a wingtip, Bifrost stopped where a brilliant pink silk bookmark embroidered with the electric blue twin thunderbolts of Dash’s mother held a place in the pages. Dash looked at the bookmark for a second, then pulling her attention from the cloth heirloom looked at the page below it. A piece of parchment lay atop the page written in her mother’s script.

Rainbow Dash slammed the book shut.

“No!” she glared at her father, she could feel the bile rising in her throat again. “No way, no! Unh-uh. Not possible.”

“’Rora, why do you think I pulled you out of flight school after you got your cutie mark at flight camp? Why do you think I brought in that private weather tutor for you and sent you to that elite Griffon flight instructor?”

“I … I …” Dash struggled to choke out a reply, but that was a far as she could get. She could feel the contents of her stomach tickling the back of her throat. She could smell the smoke and ozone in the air again; taste the ash on her tongue.

“After you got your cutie mark you started manifesting other abilities, cloud-bending and weather manipulation skills that most pegasi took years to lifetimes to perfect. The Buccaneer Blaze, how many of the Wonderbolt’s can do that trick? How many could do it at nine and a half! Your mother and I were both flight prodigies of the highest order. You’ve seen the trophies and heard the stories. You. You make us both look like amateurs by comparison.”

The indigo-blue stallion paused for a moment as his daughter tremblingly brought herself to her hooves head hanging uneasily. “Do you remember what I told you after you told me what happened at summer flight camp? What I told you when everypony said you were lying about the Sonic Rainboom? I told you to I believed in you, and that I knew why, and that you needed to believe in yourself most of all. I need you to believe in this for me now, to believe in you.”

The blue mare clenched her eyes shut and flattened her ears to her head as she swallowed hard willing her stomach to hold its contents as she forced her reply. “No! It’s not possible! I’m the Element of Loyalty, and I might be the best flyer ever. But that? Never. That’s IMPOSSIBLE!”

Her rebuttal final, Rainbow Dash tottered unsteadily to the stairs that lead up to her room. The pounding of her pulse in her ears was deafening, her hide and feathers felt like they were on fire, and her hooves, even on the cool soft cloud that formed the floors and stairs of the tower felt like she was suffering from terminal laminitis or walking on burning cinders. Her gut lurched with each step up as she fought to hold her insides in place, exhaustion deepening its root in her body with every movement. From somewhere behind her, her father said something she couldn’t make out.

As she reached the top landing she was certain that she was more than half dead and it was probably that zap apple cider that AJ’s brother had sent to the party that was responsible.

Ugh! Do I look as bad as I feel? The tired young mare let the stray thought roll around in her head as she all but dragged herself into her bedroom. The room was, as most ponies who knew her would have pictured it, Wonderbolts paraphernalia adorning the walls, Wonderbolts bedspread atop a princess-sized cloudform bed, and of course some strategically placed prisms to bathe the room from time to time in her favorite colors. What most would have found out of place was the full-length mirror placed in one corner of the room.

Unlike some of her friends, most prominently Rarity, Rainbow wasn’t into beautifying herself for others and for the most part had nary a wardrobe to speak of. The function of the mirror was almost strictly for self-appreciation. Early morning pre-workout psych-out sessions, fresh out from under the rain-shower pose downs and preening, or just on those low impact days she wanted to grit her teeth and glare at another pony while doing wing-ups before bed.

Right now though Rainbow Dash would have slunk into her bed with not a thought even idly cast in the mirror’s direction save for a small but brilliant glimmer of the most brilliant red with the barest touch of blue that could be noticed. Deviating towards the flash of color Dash’s eyes struggled with beckoning sleep to focus on the form in front of her. Closing the distance the form in the mirror slowly resolved itself and the tired mare found herself looking into a pair of eyes. Pigeon’s blood red like her own, but the refection was not the familiar rainbow on blue she was accustomed to seeing. No the refection that looked back from the mirror was … pink.

Raising her left foreleg as she made a firm vow to Celestia, Sovereign of Sun, that if she could fly straight in the morning, she was going to personally hold a thundercloud over Big McIntosh all day for after effects of that lightning-blasted zap-apple cider. It was then that Rainbow Dash noticed her hoof, and leg, and rest of her were still blue, her mane still rainbow. (That was a color wasn’t it?)

The mare in the mirror though, was still pink, with a blue mane. Rainbow peered harder at the apparition in the mirror realization slowly coalescing in the fog of her mind. As she reached out a hoof toward the mirror she twisted slightly the apparition mirroring until Dash saw the other’s cutie mark …

Rainbow Dash’s eyes went wide in realization at the same moment her hoof made contact with the cold surface of the mirror.

“Mom?” the word fell nearly silently from the sky-blue mare’s slacked jaw, as a tear trailed from mirrored eyes.

Yes my child, I’m here. The voice swept aside the fog in Rainbow’s mind. She recognized that voice; it was the one from within her that had given her the words of the promise she had made to her father earlier though it was much stronger. She now knew it was her mother’s.

“Wh- … why … are you … here?” Rainbow Dash stammered out in near silence, her hoof not leaving the point of the mirror where it met the specter’s on the other side.

I’m here because you need me to be, because I’ve always have been, and because you need me to tell you something that you believe only I can.

“And that is?” the rainbow leaned forward and whispered into the mirror her forelock now brushing the glass.

I believe you know the answer to that now. Don’t you?

“I…I want to hear it from you.” Dash croaked inaudibly, tears now running the length of her muzzle, dropping away into the cloudy floor below.

The Sonic Rainboom is not an act of aerial prowess. It is an act of will, of magic. It is the ultimate expression of the magic of the pegasi. A feat that can only be accomplished if one possesses the will to believe it, the clarity to see it, and the tenacity to accomplish what others say you can’t. You proved this the day you were born, when you chose to live in spite of what happened, and not let the last spark of your fire vanish, and instead to make the impossible happen.

The truth is that the Sonic Rainboom is the Crown of Thunder and you, Rainbow Aurora Dash, are the Heir of the Air, the Princess of Pegasi...

You are the Phoenix Foal.

The prismatic pegasus swallowed hard as she accepted the truth to herself.

And you are my daughter.

The pink and blue hooves parted from the glass as the blue pegasus crumpled to the cloud formed floor in an unceremonious heap.

“Rora?” the voice came from far away deep in an echoing cave it seemed. She couldn’t find the strength to lift her head. The room lay sideways, but her father came in through the door as if nothing was wrong save his concern for her.

“Daddy,” She whimpered meekly as the elder pegasi once more gathered her into his embrace, “Tell me, tell me how I was born.”