//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: Phoenix Rising 
// by Citrus Shine 
//------------------------------//

	It was hard for my mother, after Luna was gone. She had lived with her for over a hundred years- she was the only person that she felt she could ever trusted.
It was almost impossible getting the story out of her the first time, and even then she didn’t say much. All she could do was try and hide her feelings and choke out the story; couldn’t even choke out most of it, it was still too fresh in her mind.She was young. That was her excuse, she was young. She was young, and she still didn’t know what she was doing, or how to handle her own strength. They were both “young” and “foolish” and all those words she kept repeating over and over again. 
“If I had the wisdom that I have now I would have never done it” she repeated over and over again. I know that I shouldn’t be that hard on her, but it’s really tough to forgive someone that says they’re “wise” and “learned what they should have done” when they still keep their most embarrassing secret locked away in a tower, never to be free ever. 
My mother still hasn’t explained how her and her sister came to Equestria, says it is a secret the world was never meant to know. They sure didn’t come perfect- they came with rash feelings and “youthful foolishness” just like any other young pony. They knew that they would outlive all of the other ponies around them, and so they were careful not to grow too close to anypony. Unfortunately, even though they both were careful not to get emotionally involved with their subjects, the subjects couldn’t help but love Celestia. She was beautiful, kind, and brought about the only thing that seemed to matter to them, the day.
Luna worked all night every night to place the constellations one by one, conduct the meteor showers, and sculpt each phase of the moon; but she was always too tired to meet with her subjects in the daytime. Over the years, the ponies grew cold to Luna and ignored the night. 
Everypony knows what happened next, Luna couldn’t take it. Once she learned that nopony respected all her long nights of slaving over the sky, she just snapped. She was “young”. Celestia had no choice but to act, and she didn’t know any other way at the time. She couldn’t stand to turn her to stone like she did to Discord, so she put Luna where she knew she would be happy- in her precious moon.
        “I didn’t want to hurt her” Celestia said, “but there’s no other magic that could have changed her back into my sister”. What a load of pony-pile, of course she changed her tune once she saw that Twilight Sparkle, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
For the first time ever, Celestia was alone. She had lost the one person that she thought she could depend on being there with her forever and the grief consumed her. The loneliness ate her up from the inside, causing her to break the one rule that she swore never to break--Celestia fell in love with a mortal pony.
He was the head of her imperial guard, before they were all purebred clones, and his name was Fire Hoof. Fire Hoof was one of the first unicorns, and while he was alive he was by Celestia’s side every waking moment; Fire Hoof was the only one that didn’t see her just as a goddess, but as a pony too. At first Celestia only trusted him as a counselor, then as a friend, but in her loneliness gave herself completely to him, and they were secret lovers.
Celestia used her powers to hide her and Fire Hoof on the sun, where nopony could ever know their secret. Usually they would just sit in the warm, flaming fields, protected by Celestia’s magic, stare at her kingdom and talk, but one night the two shared more than just each others' trust. The unthinkable happened, Celestia had become pregnant with a mortal pony’s child, and they had to hide it at any cost. 
No one noticed that Celestia was pregnant, and when the construction was finished on the new Canterlot castle, Fire Hoof ensured that a secret room was built into one of the towers where they could keep the child safe.
Eventually, Celestia gave birth in secret, to me. Somehow she only could remember two mistakes that she had ever made in her life, me and Luna, and I would always remind her of her other gaff. I was born with both a horn and alicorn wings, there was no way they could hide who I was without raising questions, so instead they kept me in the tower like an animal--until they could think of what to do with me.

I don’t remember my father Fire Hoof at all. He had died protecting the castle only a few months after I was born. My mother Celestia was all alone again, which only tightened her grip around me. Days and nights were filled with either her suffocating embrace or desolate loneliness. I watched Equestria slowly grow and change from my single window as I sat on the cold, marble floors.
“Oh Phoenix,” Celestia would coo to me through her tears, “oh phoenix you have to stay here, there’s no other way. Phoenix you’re all I have left in this cold world, they would never understand you.” To think I believed her--that I felt sorry for her for so many decades of my life.
Eventually I did try to escape--well, not escape, just get a glimpse of the outside world--but any magic that I learned to break a door or a forcefield, she and her scholars were hundreds of years ahead of me. 'Magic I learned', that’s a stretch. The only books Celestia would bring me were fairy tales, no matter how old I got I needed to stay her little girl.
Over time, Celestia was able to grow past smothering me for comfort, and visited me less and less; I don’t know whether the smothering or now is worse. No matter how much older or wiser this, this horse got, I would always be the one part of her blunder-filled early life she couldn’t let go of. Well, even though I have no clue how, it’s time for a change.


I, Phoenix Dawn, daughter of Celestia, am going to bust out of this castle and be more than my mother’s hidden little mistake.