"I'm terribly sorry, girls," Princess Celestia apologized to her three students "but there's an important matter I must attend to. It shouldn't take long, so in the meantime please review the materials I left you." She said, as she levitated three files at her three precious students, leaving the room in a hurry. She turned back one more time to add. "Oh, and do partake in the tea and biscuits I left on the table. Make yourselves at home."
"Yes, M'am!" The trio replied, bowing as their ruler and teacher left her room.
It wasn't the first time Twilight Sparkle visited Celestia's private chambers, but for Moondancer and Sunset Shimmer this was a completely new territory. The two were not as important (much to Sunset's chagrin), so of course they had to experience their fair share of "ooh's" and "aah's" as they explored the small, yet fascinating room.
"Alright, let's get to studying, girls!" She opened her file, but was the only one. She looked up and almost got a heart attack as she saw the two snoop around the room, exploring every nook and cranny. "Girls!"
Moondancer walked by the dressers, curiously examining the odd little statuettes, commenting on the pictures spread everywhere (even recognizing a few faces), while Sunset Shimmer looked at first gleefully, but then dissapointedly as the row of bookshelves.
"You'd think a mare this old and wise wouldn't hold so much modern teen dramas in her collection." She pulled another book of the shelf and read the title. "Fifty Shades of Neigh? Seriously?"
Moondancer waved a hoof at her. "It's actually a pretty funny black comedy once you stop treating it seriously."
"You read this crap?"
"Only first few chapters. I hate overly long plot in porn."
Ignoring Moondancer (as they often do), Twilight rushed to Sunset and yanked the book with her magic, putting it back where it belonged.
"Don't touch anything!"
"What? She told us to get comfortable." She shrugged, biting on a biscuit to accentuate her point, leaving cookie crumbs on the floor on purpose, just because she enjoyed seeing Twilight panic.
"Sunset!" Twilight anwered, in between magically summoning a broom to clean the mess her friend made. "What if she gets mad at us and..."
"Send us to Magical Kindergarten?" Sunset finished her sentence with a smug smile adorning her face.
While the two rivals bickered, Moondancer used the commotion to get a better look at the big, golden birdcage with curtains on, that intrigued her since she first laid eyes on the room. She hummed and looked around, just to see if there was a reason not to take a peek. Finding nothing, she slowly lifted the curtain. And then, her eyes went wide.
"Oooh!" Her head tilted at the sight of the... she wasn't sure what she was looking at, but it was probably sentient. "Hello there!"
The birdlike creature coughed painfully, letting go of a set of feathers as it shuddered with cold, with its eyes blinking independently of each other and mostly staring blankly into the nothingness.
"Moondancer!" Twilight rushed towards her and pushed her away from the birdcage. "Don't touch Philomena!"
"Philomena?" Sunset asked and walked to them.
"What is wrong with her?" Moondancer asked, inspecting it for any clues to identify it.
"She looks like crap!" Sunset Shimmer commented and, despite all the warnings, she prodded the bird with her hoof. At the slightest touch, Philomena gawked loudly enough to make them jump, then fell on her back. "Yikes!"
"I told you not to touch her!"
Eventually, after a few moments of panic, they declared the need to finally do something and gently transported her out of the cage, placing her on the softest cushion they could find.
"Ohno, ohno, ohno, ohno..." Twilight repeated, walking circles around the cushion.
"Okay girls, don't panic," Sunset took the initiative "that's a completely natural thing for a, uh, bird to do... right?" She asked, getting only Twilight's panicked reaction and Moondancer's shrug.
"Ohno, and she was even getting better!" Twilight said, still trotting around. "Princess Celestia said she would heal in no time! How is this happening?"
"Twilight, calm down already!" Sunset stopped her with a hoof, then pushed her at the bird. "You got a perfect hundred on healing magic! Can't you cast something that could make her better?"
Twilight swallowed and looked at the now unmoving Philomena.
"O-okay, I'll try!"
Twilight Sparkle took a deep breath and donned her serious game face, concentrating all her magic in her horn, then transferring all that energy into a single spell.
Spellbook entry #46: Rejuvanation: Caster enhances vitality of the target of the spell, increasing speed and intensity of blood cells, metabolism and other effects that culminate in faster recovery. Does not eliminate the source of the sickness, please contact your local physician before performing on ponies. Not suitable to use on foals under age six, or animals.
Difficulty level: 3/5
At first, when contacted with the magical energy, Philomena rose from the cushion and started levitating above the trio, which now looked at the bird with eyes full of amazement and hope. Until...
POP!
She burst into a small flame and turned to ash, which slowly fell on the cushion in a small pile.
The girls stared at the ashes for a while. Sunset opened her mouth, but had nothing, and neither did Moondancer, scratching her head; both of them silently wondering if this was a weirder bird than they though, or if Twilight messed up a spell for the first time ever. She, however...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
Her friends covered their ears, as Twilight stood in the place, wide eyed and screaming at the top of her lungs for Celestia knows how long. They remained as they were for a longer while, until Twilight finally ran out of breath and had to stop to take a much needed breather. Moondancer used that moment to try and say something, but...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
The two other unicorns facehooved at that.
"Oh for Pete's sake..." Moondancer shook her head and turned to the other. "Sunny?"
"I'm on it."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA---!!!"
SLAP!
The screaming stopped.
"T-thanks... I needed that." Twilight said to Sunset Shimmer, who nodded reassuringly.
The trio of somewhat less panicked students once again joined forces to think of a solution to their dire needs.
"Maybe we could buy her a new bird?" Sunset Shimmer suggested. "The same kind?"
"No way, the Princess will definitely find out!"
"Then... get her a prettier pet?"
"Sunset!"
"What? I can't be the only one who thought that was an ugly bird... thing... whatever it was!" She paused. "It's still a shame it died, though."
"Ugh, why is this always happening to me?" Twilight fell on her knees and started crying. "It's all my fault! I killed a living being... and I failed Princess Celestia!"
Her friends looked at each other, then walked to Twilight and each put a hoof on her back.
"No, it's my fault." Moondancer started. "I took the curtains away."
"No, it's MY fault!" Sunset interjected. "I shouldn't have touched her!"
"Girls..." Twilight looked at her friends, smiling beneath all her tears. "No, it's all MY fault! I made her... well, explode!"
Silence. Awkward one.
"Okay, it's mostly your fault," Sunset shrugged, earning a deadpan glare from Moondancer "but we all took part in it, so whatever, let's all get punished, like we usually do!"
Twilight nodded to Sunset and the two shook hooves. And while they pondered over their bond of friendship being stronger than any rivalry, Moondancer hummed to herself for a moment, until she faced them with the harsh truth.
"Girls, maybe we should just tell Princess about it?"
"NO!" The two yelled in perfect unison.
"But..."
"I am NOT going back to Magical Kindergarten!" Twilight yelled, tears in her eyes. "The foals there... they eat paste!"
"What the what now?" Moondancer raised an eyebrow.
"And I'm not going back home!" Sunset also cried. "It's cold, lonely and nopony likes me there!"
"Girls..."
"I got an idea!" Sunset announced, wiping the tears from her eyes, replacing the previous misery with newfound resolution. "I can bring it back! Be back in ten!" And then she rushed away from the chambers, not to be seen again until ten minutes later.
"THIS!" Sunset announced, as she entered the chamber again and slammed a thick, dark book on the floor. "...is our only chance!"
Twilight gasped. "B-but Sunset... this book... where did you get this?"
"No time for silly questions, we have a life to save!" She opened the book and rushed through a few pages, until she found the spell she was looking for. "You girls better stand back, this might get a little hot... wait, where's Moondancer?"
The two looked around the chamber, but failed to notice their nymphomaniac anywhere. They shrugged and decided there were more important things to do right now. Sunset concentrated on the incantation before her. Her eyes turned green and her horn lighted itself with black energy...
"A... a phoenix!" Moondancer gasped, mentally facehoofing herself, as all the parts of the puzzle combined in a logical sense.
"Indeed," Princess Celestia nodded, as the two marched back "I wanted to use Philomena's rebirth as an opportunity to turn this into a lesson on magical creatures. I wanted you to study her right before her eventual rebirth, then make a presentation for the entire class right before they witness it with their own eyes. I left you three some notes on that. You did read them, right?"
"Y-yes, notes..." Moondancer smiled sheepish, wanting to bang her head over the wall. "And her bursting into ashes...?"
"It's completely natural. It happens every five hundred years and next time is around this week. I'll speed the process with a Rejuvanation spell, so she'll be back to her old self again and regain her energy." Princess Celestia sighed. "It hurts looking at her like she's now... or rather, was, a few minutes ago."
"Ehehe... sorry?"
"No matter, what's done is done. Telling me was the right thing to do. Maybe this time we could avoid the..."
Their conversation was stopped, as they noticed two other unicorns on the other end of the corridor, galloping out in their direction, stopping with a long slide after they noticed the Princess. Before Princess Celestia could ask the two sweating, tired and terrified students what happened, they bowed lowly before her.
"We didn't mean it, we're sorry!" Twilight started.
"Sorry about wha--"
"I didn't know how it wold turn out!" Sunset took over. "I just found this book and it had a spell and I thought... I thought... but it didn't and now I can't stop it!"
"Stop what? What are you talki--"
"Princess please don't send Sunset away home, or banish her, or... or... it's all my fault! I made her pop!" She paused, then added. "Not Sunset, Philomena!"
"Twilight Sparkle, will you please ca--"
"I touched Philomena and she fell and Twilight just wanted to help! You don't need to send her to Magical Kindergarten, she'll graduate in two minutes anyway and she doesn't want to eat paste!"
"What paste? Will you two slow down and just expla--"
Once again she was interrupted, this time not by one of her students, but by a loud screeching sound, resembling nothing that lived or breathed. To anypony else, it would sound like a gust of wind flowing through several open windows. To Princess Celestia, it was a sound of wind flowing through a body made out of bones and the darkest of magics.
"Girls, stand back." She ordered her students and they obediently ran behind her back.
Princess Celestia stood tall as she noticed the flying skeletal abomination take flight, trying to screech at her, but managing to only make a few whistling sounds, since it had no vocal cords to speak of. It did have fangs and claws and, despite lacking any feathers on it, managed to fly on its wings with great speed, soaring in the direction of the Princess, aiming its sharp appendages at her throat. Even though it didn't need to anymore, the instinct to feed without end was still strong and made for a formidable weapon. It would have taken an entire squadron of trained Royal Guards to take one down and they probably would end up with severe injuries at least. One could wreck havoc in the city. A dozen could destroy it. Hundreds would take over Equestria.
Princess Celestia glared at it, channeled a small part of her magical energy into her horn, then shot a light beam at the creature, vaporizing it into ashes instantly.
Thousands couldn't land a single hit on the Sun Goddess.
Once danger was averted, Princess Celestia went a few steps forward and looked at the pile of ashes. The Three Maresketeers couldn't even begin to guess what her face was like, now that she was turned back from them.
"Philomena..."
Twilight and Sunset collapsed on the floor, lamenting over their grim futures, ones of banishment, little foals, loneliness and paste.
"...wake up! It's not funny anymore!"
"Huh?" Two distraught students raised their heads to look at the Princess over the ashes.
"And it was never funny to begin with! Now stop scaring my students already or there will be no cake!"
For a while longer, the pile of ashes was just that, a pile of inanimate remains of a undead abomination of a non-specified sickly bird that Twilight popped and Sunset raised. Then, it burst into fires once again and reformed, but this time not as a featherless chicken-like thing, but as an actual, large, magnificent bird made out of everburning flames.
"It's a phoenix." Moondancer quickly told her two flabberghasted friends.
"Oooooooooooooohh!" Sunset exclaimed, slapping herself for not figuring it out earlier.
"It... it was... a phoenix... a phoenix..." Twilight murmured, as her head started spinning. "Just... a... a... phoenix...I didn't... kill it... haha... hahaha..." then she fainted.
Once Princess Celestia stopped berating her pet, she turned to the three girls.
"I guess that's that for the presentation. Pity." She shook her head and turned to her conscious students. "Moondancer, please take Twilight Sparkle to the infirmary. As for you Miss Shimmer, there's a matter of a certain... illegal spell from a certain book that we need to discuss about. My office, right now."
Sunset groaned, but followed her teacher, muttering to herself.
"Sheesh, that's some gratitude I get for reviving a stupid bird..."