The Riddle

Over the following days, Twilight bore witness to the inevitable effect of the hard-felt issue gradually sliding into the background. The universe did not adjust to her conviction; opportunities did not come knocking at her door, and her life proceeded largely unchanged, with the phoenix issue simply being the nature of her current project.

Now, with both royal sisters having inculcated on her the need to be careful, the most sensible course of action was none other than to conduct her research in the most careful way that anypony could conduct research.

By reading books.

The issue with this plan was of course that there weren’t any books written on phoenixes specifically, but she wouldn’t be Twilight if she let that stop her. Phoenixes were still mentioned in other literature, and so she made it her task to read, or in some cases re-read, the bulk of the history section in the library. For others, this might have seemed like a rather time-expensive and potentially excessive measure, but Twilight knew better. Reading on interesting material was already one of her favorite things to do, so all her current motivation had to do was to add a small additional benefit in order to make it worthwhile.

In fact, the somewhat troubling truth was that even the mere illusion of a greater purpose was enough to do so. Even if an excuse to read turned out to be futile in hindsight, she was usually enjoying herself so much in the process that she couldn’t be bothered by it afterwards. Only if she didn’t have a goal at all, then even reading could become boring.

This degree of self-awareness might end up being helpful, because so far, her success had been slim at best. A History of Equestria part 2 mentioned a tribe of pegasi joining with a large group of phoenixes as they fled from a region threatened by the legendary war between dragons and griffons, but it didn’t go into any useful details. Part 4 had two instances of an important figure keeping a phoenix as an alleged pet, and part 5 a third. What is driving other species: Griffons, Mules, Dragons, and Sea Serpents, which was an enormous book about the history of those creatures whom the author considered the most intelligent – besides ponies – mentioned phoenixes a couple of times, primarily in how dragons seemed to consider them natural enemies. There was no instance of phoenixes ever fighting back, but the reason the book proposed was simply their lack of intelligence...

... animals just weren’t smart enough to coordinate a counter strike.

(The book also touched on the sad nature of dragon culture, with which Twilight wholeheartedly agreed. Despite being at the top of the game as far as intelligence went – close to if not on par with ponies – their recklessness, hostility, and greed made it so that they had never developed any kind of stable society, and behaved more like animals than ponies. Griffons, mules, and particularly sea serpents were all less intelligent and yet more civil.)

However, for all the one-sided aggression, there didn’t really seem to be a lot of damage done on the side of the phoenixes, which was probably the single most interesting fact that she had yet discovered. Maybe the incident with Spike had been less close than she had assumed.

Or, maybe it had only been dangerous because they had threatened younglings. If Peewee was any indication, then phoenixes grew up very fast. It had only been eight days, this one included, and he was already closer to being full-grown than newborn.

Griffons, from what Twilight had gathered, would put phoenixes on the same level as rats or any other animal, but did not actively seek to harm them. Lastly, sea serpents were known for being friendly and pacifist, and there was not a single encounter mentioned in the book.

What was of course covered at length was the great war, which had ended with the mysterious death of the great dragon king. However, while ponies had been trying to help negotiating peace since before war even broke out, while sea serpents had tried the same with little success, and while mules had been deliberately absent, there was no mention of phoenixes knowing, or even caring about it. Naturally, because they weren’t intelligent enough.

They were just animals.

The author hadn’t included them in the title, because they were not considered anything else but a rare kind of animal with an unusually high amount of magical ability.

And Twilight might have believed that, were it not for Philomena. It was just anecdotal evidence, but it was real and unfiltered, and she had experienced it first-hoof. Not only had the phoenix actively chosen to stay with Fluttershy, she had actually used her as the object of a joke.

A phoenix had performed a joke, through a cognitive action.

That was not something animals were capable of. Joking was something sea serpents were hardly capable off, and they were considered the fifth most intelligent species in the world. Anecdotal evidence or not, even a single data point was enough to disprove the theory of phoenixes as mere animals. Such could not be explained away as an anomaly.

Plus, erasing a specific part of Luna’s memory was likewise pretty strong evidence for some kind of logical reasoning.

Which did then beg the question of why the world still considered them animals. And if that was due to a choice on their part, then Celestia only knew how intelligent they truly were.

Or, rather, even Celestia didn’t seem to know.