> Wherein you learn about birds...
>  by whatmustido
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Caw-k!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Isn’t this garden nice, Anon?” Celestia asks as she walks alongside you through the Canterlot castle garden.
“Sure, I guess,” you answer with a shrug. “Don’t know much about plants, though. Air feels weird.”
“Oh, that’s just a magic field used to keep the air warm and the plants healthy all year,” she explains.
“Bet the place is a hotspot for animals, then. You got any kind of pest control out here?”
“Heavens, no. I would never want to harm any of my pets. Speaking of which, would you like to meet any of them?”
“Might as well. I mean, you’re just using the whole ‘show the alien around’ excuse to get out of work for a while anyway, right? Might as well spend as much time as we can out here, milk it for what it's worth.”
“Oh, you know that’s not true, Anon! I quite enjoy spending time with you.”
You lift an eyebrow, just staring at her.
“...And if I happen to take some time off to do so, there’s nothing wrong with that,” she adds.
“Right. Well, how are we gonna track down these critters?”
“Oh, it shouldn’t be too hard.” She purses her weird horsey lips and whistles loudly, something you’re pretty sure a horse shouldn’t be able to do. “Come on out, my little friends,” she calls.
The little glade the two of you stopped in is silent for a few seconds. You shrug and say, “Well, whatevs. Not a fan of—”
A sudden rustling all around the two of you cuts you off. Before you can finish your sarcastic comment, a horde of creatures of all kinds rush out of the vegetation and surround Celestia, some hugging her legs or climbing her body. A few lighter and smaller ones even take cover in her mane and tail, cooing oddly as the strange hair stuff moves even with their added weight.
“That’s a lot of pets.”
“Indeed it is, Anon. What do you think?”
“Hm. Hey, if I asked nicely, would you let me hide in your tail like that?”
“Would you like to make a friend? You two have so much in common!” She uses a wing to push one of her little pets forward.
It gazes up at you with wide eyes, curiosity evident in its gaze. One of its paws holds a banana and the other seems to grasp at the wing still pushing it.
And of course, it was a monkey.
Your eyes move up to Celestia’s, one thought resounding in your mind: You racist bitch.
“Did I ever tell you those stories about how I used to go horseback riding all the time?” you ask.
She just smirks, then clucks her tongue, looking at some of her critters. “Run along now, little ones."
Many of the creatures stare at you as they reluctantly wander off, wondering what strange creature their mistress has brought into their midst this time. At least you’re able to recognize most of the pets she has, which puts your recently displaced mind at least slightly at ease.
Soon, the clearing holds just the two of you once again. Celestia looks around, all of the pets now out of her view. “I’m surprised Philomena didn’t join them. She’s usually more outgoing.”
“Who?” you ask.
Before she can answer, you see a bright flash of light and then something lands on her back, cawing loudly.
“Ah, there she is,” Celestia says with a smile, turning her head to the fire-bird that landed on her. “Anonymous, this is Philomena, a phoenix.”
“Phoenix… She comes back to life?” you ask, looking the bird over.
Philomena’s head is covered in orange feathers that lead down her neck and onto her chest. Her wing tips are yellow, as is her very long tail. The rest of her feathers are red, her entire body contrasting with Celestia’s stark white form. Most of her beak is a dark yellow, with a bright pink spot at the tip. She’s staring at you with bright yellow eyes, her head cocked slightly to the side.
“Indeed! So you have phoenixes in your world, then?” Celestia asks.
“Legends about them. Never figured I’d see one.”
Celestia notices you just staring at her pet, uncertain of what to do. “She isn’t going to bite, Anon. You can pet her.”
“Excuse me for being wary. But remember the last cute and cuddly thing I tried petting?”
“...You surprised me.”
“You broke my kneecap!”
“...It got better. And you shouldn’t have come at me from behind! Anyway, you shouldn’t have that problem with Philomena.”
You sigh and hesitantly reach out your hand, uncertain about petting a bird that can supposedly turn into fire. Still, Celestia will probably heal you if her bird turns out to be a dick, so you shrug and make contact with it.
Philomena leans into your hand as you gently rub at the top of her head. She caws loudly and you quickly draw back, not wanting to risk getting bitten. Celestia just chuckles, her horn lighting up. The banana the monkey was holding earlier floats up from the ground, presumably dropped when she shooed it away.
“Do you like bananas?” Celestia asks, offering it to you.
“Are you being racist again? It’s hard to tell.”
“Well, Philomena likes them. I thought you two could split it. But if you aren’t interested…”
You roll your eyes and pull it from the air. “You’re lucky I’m not a nigger.”
“A what?” she asks as you tear the coverings off the banana in the way that would make a bored housewife blush.
“Imagine offering a zebra grass.” Her eyes open wide. “Yeah, you’d never hear the end of it.”
She doesn’t comment as you bite about half the banana off and chew before holding the other half up for Philomena to eat. The bird glances at Celestia before seeming to shrug and biting it. When one of her talons reaches up to take hold of it, you let the fruit go and rub at her head again as she noms away, then back off in case she goes full wild animal to protect her food.
“Well, never figured I’d be feeding a phoenix anything,” you say. “She like anything weird, like ashes or something?”
“I imagine that would taste awful,” Celestia replies. “Fiery or not, birds all seem to have the same pleasures. It’s quite nice, being able to earn their favor so easily.”
“For someone like you, yeah. Bet you’re used to dealing with all kinds of bullshit.”
“Not quite the word I would use…”
Philomena finishes the fruit and eyes the surrounding area for more before jumping into the air. She only goes as far as your shoulder, where she gracefully perches and gently nibbles at your ear.
“I think she likes you,” Celestia says.
“Do all birds like that ear-nibbling stuff?” you ask, reaching a hand up to poke at the bird.
“I think it’s quite nice,” Celestia answers, smiling at your minor plight. “Now come along. Let’s keep walking. After all, I’m supposed to be showing you around. If somepony were to come looking…”
“You don’t want it obvious that you’re shirking off. Yeah, I know how it is.”
She rolls her eyes and says, “Go on, Philomena. You can play with Anon another day.” The bird caws again, then rubs her head against yours before taking off. “Looks like you made a friend, Anon. Maybe you can play with her again, should you become bored.”
You’d have to be really bored to want to play with a bird, but things are rather dull when Celestia’s not around. Having half the palace staff wary of you does that.
“I guess. So what’s next on the list of things we’re visiting?”
“How about the royal bakery?”

The next day finds you back in the gardens, this time alone. Celestia couldn’t use you as an excuse every day and going into town is awkward, since not many of the ponies are used to you. God help you if there’s another group of griffin adventurers in town.
Or worse, another minotaur that wanted to kidnap you.
Anyway, the garden. It seemed like a nice enough place, given that it isn’t really open to the public. So you were just wandering the paths through it that Celestia didn’t take you on, trying to think of something to do for the day.
It seemed that your search for something to do was shared by another, as you see a familiar phoenix trailing down to alight on a low-hanging branch next to you.
“Hello, Philomena,” you say, lifting a hand to gently rub at her head.
As before, she leans into it. Since she seems friendly enough to approach you without Celestia around, you continue petting her, less wary than before. She seems rather pleased with your ministrations, wearing a smile that you’re pretty sure a real bird couldn’t have.
After a minute or two, you pull your hand back, smiling. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you later, Philomena.”
She squawks as you start to walk away, then jumps onto your shoulder.
“...Or you can come with me, if you want.”
Bitch better not shit on you. You feel her tail hitting against your back, so you reach back around and gently tug on them to see how she reacts. In response, she jumps and whirls around, looking behind her.
You run your hand down her back as she glares around, making her suddenly tense and grip your shoulder hard with her very sharp talons before very quickly relaxing and accepting the petting.
Personally, that seemed rather strange, but you didn’t really care, so you just continued petting her full back with your hand, running down to the tip of her tail. The wing closer to your head slowly lifted and then flopped down on top of you, giving you a funny hat as you continued petting her.
You stopped when you felt her body start heating up, getting uncomfortably warm. Hoping to get rid of your hat without hurting her, you put a finger on her wing pit and try to see if she’s ticklish there.
The bird squawks loudly and tenses again, getting much hotter as soon as you touch her. Seeing that, you instantly pull away, not wanting to piss her off and make her light you on fire or anything.
Since she’s so hot, you decide to just stop touching her, hoping she’d cool off. After a few seconds without any input from you, the wing on your head lifts up and then gently slaps back down on you, possibly trying to get your attention or something.
“I’m getting mixed feelings here,” you say, poking one of her talons.
She caws loudly.
“See, that isn’t very helpful.” Her wing hits you again. You just sigh and go back to petting her back. “You better not catch fire.”
She doesn’t give you any kind of answer, but she does keep getting warm and bats you a few more times with her wing as you walk. When the heat actually starts to hurt, you stop.
Since this coincided with you finding a fruit tree, you are able to just pull one of the papayas off the tree, crack it open, and offer her some.
Of course, the entire time it takes you to pull one of them down, she was batting you on the head. Each time the wing comes down, it does so with a little more force.
Finally, you put your hand on top of your head and catch it as it slaps down, gently holding it. She shudders as you move your hand inward, trying not to disturb any of the feathers, then touch her body and slowly wrap around her. The entire time, she doesn’t move.
When your hand is fully around her, you gently pick her up. She releases your shirt, entrusting her body to your hand. Then you bring her in front of you, placing her on the ground.
“How about I cut you some of this while you cool down, hm?” you ask, pulling out your pocket knife.
Philomena just watches you with what you might call a burning intensity if you were paying any kind of attention to her. Instead, you cut open the papaya and pull out all the seeds, then cut out a slice of the meat for her. When you hold it up for her, she just stares at you.

You are Philomena, and you are a little upset right now. First, this strange creature showed up with your friend. The head rub was nice and you knew that with those hands, he’d be a great friend as well. Giving you that nice and tasty fruit just cemented your thought, especially since he was willing to share it.
Then you decided to spend some time with him to see if he would still be friendly without the big white horse around. He seemed decent enough, so you decided to spend the day with him. As the two of you walked along, you felt something pull at you, alerting you to a potential danger.
When you turned to help defend your companion, he… took advantage of your alerted state. Initially, you were enraged and somewhat frightened, for he was large and could take advantage of you if that was his desire.
But then you got to thinking… It had been a while since you last had a mate, and his hands were so soft, so gentle… So you let him continue, despite your misgivings. In fact, you even encouraged him, giving him access to one of your your most sensitive of areas, hoping he would use his kind hands on it.
And oh, when he did… Pleasure exploded across your body and you tensed, heating up and getting ever closer to peaking.
And then he stopped. Not being a fan of getting teased, you gently batted him, hoping he’d get the message. It seemed he did, for he continued rubbing your back. Not quite what you wanted, but maybe he was just really into foreplay. Still, you didn’t stop letting him know what you wanted, bopping him a few more times until he stopped completely.
Now that upset you, so you hit him again and again until he finally caught your wing. Your entire body froze as he slowly moved in for his prize, his questing fingers finding your perfect spot… and bypassing it, rubbing under your body instead.
Your eyes widened as realization hit you: He was going to go all the way! So you let him take complete control, releasing him and letting him gently place you on the ground in anticipation for what was soon to come, though you weren’t certain how he would pleasure you all the way, with how big he was…
And then he held up a wind-damned fruit.
So yes. You are Philomena, and you are a little upset. And you are going to make this human pay.

“Don’t like papaya?” you ask, pulling your hand back. Well, it’s not like you knew.
In response, she fucking throws herself at you, talons first. In a panic, you drop the fruit and your pocket knife, trying to dislodge the bird on your face, slamming her wings against the side of your head over and over.
After a few seconds, she actually lights on fire, making you yell in panic and start running, quickly tripping over something.
While you fall, she jumps off. You immediately roll over, checking for any damage. Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be much aside from missing hair. Not so thankfully, it seems the pissed bird isn’t done with you. She lands on your crotch, your eyes going wide even though she’s not on fire anymore.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know you hated papaya!”
She loudly squawks and lifts a talon. As you watch in horror, it catches fire. You lift a hand to stop her, but the rest of her catches fire until you jerk your hand back in surprise. It didn’t take you but a second to learn: Hands off.
She nods when she realizes you understand, then lowers her burning talon to your crotch. You flinch at the expected pain, but she only cuts right through your flimsily made pants, though the heat is still uncomfortable. Of course, you instantly regret choosing that day to freeball it.
The fire around her talon disappears and she lowers it down to your member, yanking your dick out of your pants with her rough claws.
“What the hell are you doing?” you ask. Her head jerks up from your dick, her eyes narrowing. You have no clue why she’s pissed, but you have a feeling that she’ll fucking hound you the whole way back to the palace, on fire, if you try to stop her.
So you just gulp and close your mouth, very worried about this strange bird of fire. Once again, she sees that you understand, and looks back down. One of her wings moves forward to rub against your manhood. Your eyes, already wide, feel like they’re about to pop out of your head at this strange and horrifying development.
She continues to gently caress you with that wing as you slowly get hard, featherlight points of pleasure bringing your rod to a stiff attention despite your fear. Philomena nods when she sees your fully erect form, about half the size of her large body. You know you probably couldn’t fit inside of her, so she couldn’t be trying to fucking rape you.
But when she lowers her other wing down to join the one already molesting you, it doesn’t take you long to realize that you fitting inside of her was not one of her worries. She uses her wings to pull you in close, rubbing her soft, birdy breast against you in a way that should be horrifying, but is instead strangely sensual.
After her warm, velvety body brushes against you a few times in an oddly pleasant breast-job, she opens her beak. Your eyes jerk to it, hoping to god she doesn’t try to bite you. Instead, she lowers her beak down to your head and sticks her tongue out as far as it can go, just barely clearing her beak, and begins licking the tip. Her tongue pokes at your urethra, making you gasp. She takes that as a sign and leaves it be, instead running her tongue in circles around it.
While she does that, both of her eyes go to yours and her wings start caressing you again, making you breathe heavily, despite her relatively dry tongue. After all, you’ve been trapped in pony land for a while without much in the way of release.
She sees that you’re getting close and doubles her efforts, pulling in close again to rub her plumage into you, one of her wings running up and down your shaft while the other circles your head, her tongue still licking at the tip. Despite how freaky and weird this situation is, you can’t help but enjoy it.
Strangely enough, it seems that she enjoys it as well. That impossible smile is back on her face again as she teases you. Though from her actions, it’s probably closer to a smirk…
As you start breathing harder, you try lowering a hand back down to her, hoping she wouldn’t burst into flames. She eyes it warily and you know she’s ready to retaliate if you try anything, so you just rub at the top of her head, trying to let her know that whatever she’s doing, she’s doing it well.
“G-getting close,” you whisper as the pleasure mounts inside of you, wondering where in life you went wrong.
As her tongue continues to work, you can see some moisture leaking down it from inside. It’s just a clear, slick fluid that quickly lubes up her tongue, making her job much easier. The dry licking quickly turns wet as more and more of her spit covers you. She notices your hitch in breathing and picks up speed.
It’s all too much for you to handle. Despite yourself, you say, “I’m… c-cumming!”
Right as you say that, she immediately pulls completely away from you, leaving you panting heavily, but not at your peak. You can do nothing but watch as she spreads her wings and takes off, leaving you there, right on the edge, confused.
“What the absolute fuck just happened?” you pant, looking down at your slightly glistening dick, precum edging from the top.
You were so, so close…

When you wander into the throne room, dazed, Celestia takes one look at your singed clothes, missing hair, and the hole in your pants where your raging semi could probably still be seen. “Ah, I see you spent more time with Philomena. Pet her just a little too much, hmm?”
“I fucking hate birds.”