Celestia giggled.
Luna watched from the other side of the dining table. It was a short giggle, and a soft one, but one that stopped her from eating her croissant halfway through. Luna swallowed and kept an eye on Celestia before speaking up. “Sister,” she said.
“Yes?” Celestia said, taking a bite of her apple.
“Is everything all right this morning?”
Celestia nodded, smiling as she set her apple down. She stroked Philomena. Philomena coughed at Celestia’s touch, wriggling on top of a silver tray as a few feathers fell off of her. Celestia continued to pet her bird. “I’m doing very well. Why do you ask?”
“I cannot say that I have known you to be a giggler, per se,” Luna said, setting the half-eaten croissant down on her plate. “I have heard you chuckle, I have heard you laugh fully from your abdomen, but this… I have not heard in a long time.”
Celestia shrugged. She tended to Philomena, stroking her back as she coughed and hacked, her last feather twitching at the end of her tail.
“Is this another practical joke?” Luna picked up an orange slice from her plate. “Should I expect my orange slices to turn my mouth orange again? Are you going to ‘draw me a bath’ by drawing a picture of a bathtub and placing it in the tub? Are you going to put a head of lettuce on my bed, and when I come to ask you why it’s there, you tell me—”
“—I tell you to ‘romaine calm’?” Celestia chuckled, but shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Not today.” She stroked Philomena again, which did nothing to stifle her giggling.
Luna squinted. She tapped her hoof to her chin. “Now, I know this was a long time ago, but considering I’ve been gone for a long time, I cannot rule out the possibility, so… Is your giggling, perchance, the side effect of any sort of recreational drug? Are you partaking in the smoking of the mareijuana, or any other sorts of, ah, herbs?”
Celestia giggled. “Herbs.”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Celestia smirked, but covered her smirk with a sip of her tea. “It’s a funny word. Herbs.”
“You do realize this only strengthens my suspicions?”
“I do,” Celestia said, petting her phoenix. The last feather on Philomena drifted down to the silver tray. Celestia kept stroking the squalling bird. “However, there is no need to worry, dear sister. I do not use the mareijauna, nor any other recreational drug.”
“Good.” Luna exhaled and took a sip of her apple juice.
“Not yet, at least.”
Luna choked on her juice. “Pardon?”
With one last wheeze, Philomena collapsed onto the silver tray. As she burst into flames, Celestia pulled out a thin, long strip of paper. Once the flames petered out and nothing but ash remained on the tray, Celestia gathered up the ash with her magic and placed it on the paper.
“Sister, what…”
Carefully, Celestia curled the paper and rolled it up over the ash. She kept the paper rolling, all the way along the strip until the ashes were fully contained in the tube. She twisted the ends to keep the ashes inside.
Luna stood up. “Sister—Celestia, that is your beloved pet phoenix! What in Equestria are you thinking?”
Celestia picked up the paper tube and stuck one end of it in her mouth.
“You’re not going to—”
With a flicker of Celestia’s horn, the homemade cigar lit up, a thin wisp of smoke streaming from the tip. Celestia took a puff of it and exhaled the smoke through her nose.
“Good heavens you are.”
Celestia nodded, turning the cigar over in her magic. “Good heavens I am.”
Luna furrowed her eyebrows as she stared at Celestia’s cigar. She shook her head constantly. “Celestia, this feels very, very wrong.”
Celestia turned the cigar over in her hooves. “Not to me, Luna. It’s a smoky flavour, but less campfire and more barbeque than anything. Smooth and rich—very rich—yet still quite smoky.”
“But that’s your pet phoenix. That’s Philomena! Why would you smoke her?”
Celestia shrugged. “She probably won’t mind.”
Luna continued to shake her head, covering her face with her hooves. “Sister,” she moaned. “Sister. Why. Why sister.”
Celestia only giggled in response.
Luna stopped shaking her head. She rose slowly, setting her hooves down on the floor. She closed her eyes and frowned. “Sister,” she said, “pardon me if I’m wrong…”
“Uh huh,” Celestia said.
“…but how can you smoke ash?” Luna tapped a hoof against her chin. “Perhaps this has changed in the time before my return, but I thought what you burn is the substance inside the cigar, and burning the substance is what causes the smoke and ashes. However, you can’t burn ashes since they’re already burnt, right?”
Celestia burst into a fit of violent coughing. Her teacup dropped to the floor and shattered.
Luna rocketed from her seat. “Celestia!”
Celestia held up a hoof to hold her sister back. She bent over and hacked, though her coughs slowed down and her gasps for air receded.
As Luna helped her back up, Celestia took a few slow gasps of air, her throat rattling. Swiftly, she took a sip from her glass of water. Celestia wiped her eyes and sniffed, swallowing before waving her hoof dismissively. “It’s okay—” She exploded into coughs once again.
“Celestia, oh dear sister,” Luna took the cigar from Celestia’s hoof and set it on the silver tray. “That was such a horrible idea. We need to get Doctor Crackpot in here immediately.”
“No, it’s okay,” Celestia gurgled, patting her sister on the back. She held the cigar up to her lips and took another puff.
Luna gasped. “Celestia, no!” She slapped the cigar out of Celestia’s hoof.
Celestia erupted into more coughing and collapsed. She writhed on the floor and moaned. As she coughed, her whole body not only shook, but started to droop and sink to the floor.
Luna sat down, watching the transformation unfold.
As Celestia coughed, her hooves and legs shrank and her body flattened out, pooling on the ground like a puddle.
Luna screamed, naturally.
Very, very audibly.
High Wizard Bumblebore opened his jaw wide over and over again to clear out his ears. “What?”
“She keeps smoking this!” Luna shouted, pointing to the half-burned cigar in her magic, holding it far away from her sister. “She tries to keeps smoking this!”
Bumblebore clapped next to one ear to test it. “I can’t hear you!” he shouted.
Luna held the cigar two inches from his face and pointed. “SHE KEEPS SMOKING THIS. SHE HAS TO STOP.”
Bumblebore tried opening his jaw again. He shook his head. “I’m good, thank you! I don’t smoke!”
Luna growled. She teleported a quill and scroll into the room and wrote down what she just said, showing it to Bumblebore.
“Oh!” Bumblebore shouted. “Then tell her not to smoke that!”
“YOU THINK I HAVEN’T?” Luna teleported in a book from the royal library, tore through the pages, and ignited her horn in a spell to restore Bumblebore’s hearing.
“Hello? Oh,” Bumblebore said, sighing in relief. “Thanks for that, princess. And while I think of it, might I recommend you refrain from screaming in the future? I’m sure you must understand that a pony with such incredible speaking volume such as yourself might hurt everypony in the nearby vicinity by—”
“Bumblebore!” Luna snapped, shoving Bumblebore towards Celestia. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my sister is a pancake right now!”
“I noticed,” wheezed Celestia. Her body was much wider and thinner now, flattened out into a round shape like a puddle on the floor. Her arms and legs were shrunken little hoofy stubs. Her head, neck, and tail still resembled that of a pony princess, but now seemed unnatural protruding from the sides of her pancake-shaped body.
Bumblebore looked between the transformed Celestia and the cigar in Luna’s magic. “That did that?”
“Yes,” Luna said, “and I need your help to change her back.”
Celestia’s horn lit up, floating the cigar in Luna’s magic slowly towards her. She stuck out her lips, her tiny arms flapping as she strained her neck to reach the cigar. She managed a quick puff before Luna yanked it away.
Bumblebore examined the cigar up close. “What’s in this?”
“Pheonix ashes,” Luna muttered, keeping a watchful eye on the cigar and her sputtering sister.
“Really?” Bumblebore scratched his chin, walking up to Celestia and examined her body. He cast a series of short spells, one after the other, uttering a soft “Hmmf” after each spell. At one point, he gingerly placed his hoof on top of Celestia’s flat body, tested it with pressure, and then walked on top and paced. “Hmmf. Three hundred and twenty-two,” he muttered to himself. “Three twenty-three.”
Celestia only coughed and licked her lips, staring at the cigar in Luna’s grasp. She strained her neck to speak, but all that came out was a frail rasp.
Luna stared harder at Celestia and kept the cigar in her sight at all times. “Well?” she asked High Wizard Bumblebore. “What’s happening?”
“It’s fascinating,” Bumblebore mumbled as he stepped off of Celestia’s body. “Absolutely fascinating. Hmmf.” He flicked one of Celestia’s tiny hooves.
“Can you fix it?” Luna said.
“I mean, there’s a history to this,” Bumblebore said. “Wizards such as myself have been studying phoenixes for ages. We’ve been studying everything, really, and phoenixes in particular aren’t all that special. I mean yes, they emit a high amount of magic, but so do several other creatures, not that there are a whole lot of other creatures that emit this much magical energy, though the phoenix is particularly interesting for—”
“Bumblebore,” Luna said, “can you fix it?”
“I was just getting to that,” Bumblebore said as Celestia tugged at the cigar. “We’ve been studying phoenixes. Based on their energy, some have wondered what effect smoking a phoenix’s ashes would have. It’s called ‘blazing’. In theory, it’s supposed to grant you untold thermoturgic power, that of a thousand suns, but nopony who’s tried it has lived to tell the tale. Quite frankly, it’s a stupid idea. You don’t smoke ashes, after all. You burn the plant matter inside the cigar, and that’s what makes the smoke and ashes, but you can’t—”
“Bumblebore!” Luna yelped as she saw Celestia take another puff of the cigar and cough again. She yanked back the cigar. “Did you say nopony who’s tried it has lived?”
Bumblebore swallowed. “Yes I, ah, I suppose I did say that, yes.”
Luna stared upon Bumblebore with a mighty glare.
A mighty sweat broke out across Bumblebore’s forehead. “And I, uh, don’t know how to fix it. But the good news is that she’s not dying right now. Her vitals are fine. No problems there. Honest.”
Luna stared upon Bumblebore with a pleading glare. “Then what do we do, Bumblebore? There must be something we can do.”
Bumblebore cast another short spell on Celestia. “Three eighty-nine,” he whispered. He turned to the princess. “There’s not much I can really do, short of tossing out that cigar. But before you do!” Bumblebore said as Luna wound back, ready to whip the cigar out the window. “I know this is a stressful time right now, your sister melting and all that, but she’s gone farther than anypony else ever has. And, I, um.” Bumblebore tapped his hooves together. “I want to see what happens if she keeps going.”
Luna blinked. “Excuse me?”
Bumblebore held up his hooves in a calming motion. “Right now she’s sitting at three ninety-one BTUs—that’s Baked Thermal Units, which is roughly six hundred kilojoints. That’s higher than anypony has ever been, and medically speaking, she’s fine, at least on paper. To be completely honest, I’m immensely curious about what will happen if her thermoturgic level climbs twenty-nine more BTUs—blazeologists believe this to be the thousand-sun level of power.”
Luna furrowed her brow and shook her head. “Bumblebore, though I’m sure you have a great academic interest in this, I cannot rightly risk my sister’s life for this.”
“But it’s more her choice than yours, is it not?” Bumblebore said. “Tell me, did Celestia roll the cigar herself? Did she make the decision to smoke it?”
Luna glanced at Celestia. “Yes.”
“Well she must have wanted to do this, then, didn’t she? It’s not every day that you can smoke a phoenix. Celestia must have been waiting to blaze for years.”
Luna looked to her sister wheezing on the floor, now staring right into her eyes. Celestia tried to croak out something, but her throat was too dry. She gave Luna a firm nod, her eyes red and watery but locked on Luna.
With a heavy sigh, Luna floated the cigar over to Celestia’s lips and averted her gaze as her sister took a puff.
“Three ninety-nine and getting higher,” Bumblebore said as Celestia exhaled a cloud of smoke.
Luna tapped her hoof on the ground, scanning every inch of Celestia’s puddled body. Luna took a slow breath in, then a slow breath out.
“Four oh-five,” Bumblebore said.
Luna thumped her hoof on the floor, biting her lip. “Check her vitals again.”
“Still perfectly normal,” Bumblebore said, sweat emerging on his forehead. He performed another short spell. “Four eleven.”
“Celestia,” Luna huffed. She watched her sister suck in on the cigar, which was nearly used up. “This better be worth it.”
Bumblebore used a napkin to dab his forehead. “Four seventeen.”
Celestia exhaled a slow stream of smoke. The edges of her pancake body twitched and curled.
Luna stepped back.
Bumblebore stepped back as well. “Four eighteen. Vitals still normal.”
Her magic starting to fade, Celestia held up the cigar to her lips once more and sucked in. The edges of her body turned up around her, her little hooves twitching.
“Four nineteen,” Bumblebore whispered.
Celestia wheezed out one more cloud of smoke.
“Four twenty.”
The edges of Celestia’s body rose up and solidified, her body morphing from a pancake into a flat bowl. She lowered her head, but it didn’t go limp.
Luna ran up to her sister. “Check her vitals. Check them constantly.”
“Still fine,” Bumblebore said, maintaining the spell.
“Celestia,” Luna said, examining Celestia’s new body. “You’re… you’re shaped like a bowl. I don’t understand.”
Celestia wheezed, tilting her head towards the breakfast table. Her horn lit up in her magic, but sputtered out almost immediately.
Luna’s eyes widened. “Water,” she said before telekinetically swiping a cup of water from the table and holding it up to Celestia’s lips.
Celestia drank, taking slow sips of the water. She swallowed several times to wet her throat. Luna watched her face intently, looking for any twitch and listening for any sound.
Celestia’s eyes rolled over to Luna, and she grinned. “Hey Luna,” she croaked.
“Yes, sister?” Luna said.
Celestia closed her eyes and opened them again, licking her lips. “Guess what.”
“Tell me. What? Tell me.”
Celestia let out a wispy chuckle before speaking up. “I’m Prince-ash Tray-lestia.”
Luna didn’t move. Her intent stare never changed, nor did it leave her sister’s eyes. Finally, she blinked. “Celestia, what—”
“Prince-ash Tray-lestia,” she repeated, swallowing again and giggling. “Get it? Princess Celestia. Ashtray. Prince-ash Tray—”
“Enough,” Luna said. She held a hoof to her forehead, turning to Bumblebore.
Bumblebore looked just as bewildered. “Honestly, it’s not even that good of a pun.”
Luna sunk to the ground, her legs failing her, as Celestia giggled a raspy giggle.
Luna sighed, naturally.
Very, very painfully.
