Everypony, Throughout The Palace, With Anything Available
Even if somepony tried to regard the structure as simply being part of Canterlot, the palace had multiple functions. It held the seat(s) of power, was the visual focus for anypony approaching the city, and even had a small part in keeping local taxes down: there was a nominal fee for tours. But it was also very much a government facility, and so largely served as the nation's most ornate office building.
Internal sections could sometimes be broken down by category: Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Ballrooms, and Bureaucracy. Hundreds of ponies worked in the palace, with the rough majority serving on the Solar staff. And just like any office which had been around for a while, it had formed its own culture. A largely-unwritten set of rules for the ways you did things, and it usually took a little time in government service before staffers began to learn about the 'why'.
For example, there was the unofficial paperwork policy. Once somepony had finished with a document, it was not to be left on their desk any longer than absolutely necessary. At the first possible opportunity, the staff was supposed to move it along to its next destination. It didn't matter if this was another section of the building, a different part of Canterlot, or one of the throne rooms: the papers had to move. Ideally, the destination would be a filing cabinet: something which was always reinforced, made almost entirely out of metal, and enchanted to be heat-resistant. In the event that some part of the temperature-deflecting measures failed, the base material had a high melting point.
You moved it along. You did everything you could to keep it from piling up on your desk. And in a more normal building, the policy would have been meant to prevent documents from becoming lost. Making sure anypony could locate the correct file at just about any given moment, without having to burrow down through snowdrift layers in triplicate. But it had been a busy week, and Administrivia's work station had become overwhelmed. Being the mare responsible for tracking the smaller effects imposed by fine print was a hard enough job on its own: something which became all the worse when the larger fonts started ganging up on her.
So there were papers on her desk. There was an In trough and an Out barricade.
The weary pegasus, freshly back from the restroom after once again verifying that most of what splashing cold water on her face accomplished was a lot of fur saturation followed by a drip trail, took a long look at the Out pile -- or rather, what could still be seen of it. Noted the spreading hints of heat discoloration, and then took a deep breath.
"Get off," Admini said.
The large bird tilted back its orange-and-gold head. The tiny beads at the tops of the crest feathers bobbed like candle flames. Nothing else about the avian moved.
In any other government building, you moved paperwork along so the documents would reach their final destination without getting lost. The palace had one additional airborne issue, and it was currently making a nest.
"I said," the ink-splotched mare stated through clenched teeth, watching more of the exposed edges yellow and crisp, "get off. You know you're not supposed to be in here! That you can't do this --"
Another head tilt: one of those too-fast avian movements which made it seem as if several frames of the cinema's reel had gone missing. And then the phoenix sang.
Most of the palace staff heard the singing eventually. It was generally agreed that the notes were clear and quick, there was quite a bit of trilling involved, and no more than ninety percent of the bars registered in the listener's mind as a musical snicker.
Admini was mentally reviewing a pair of policies, and the lesser one concerned her palace-compensated yearly number of dental potions. But the primary...
"I can take a swat at you." Her wings flared to their full span, and the dark spots seemed to flow into each other as the unfolded limbs beat against the air. "That's what the Princess said. Anypony can. You can't be in here, that's my paperwork, and you are going to hop down right now --"
The phoenix looked at her, with those huge blank eyes. The snickering song sounded again. And then the bird's wings, which held all the hues of flame, extended to their full span.
"-- no! You're going to hop down! You know what happens --"
Three more high-pitched notes, all of which melded into the false laugh. And then the bird flew away.
It could be a beautiful sight, watching a phoenix fly. Most of the qualities which made it so were magnified within the palace, reflected off the gold-flecked marble which made up so much of the Solar sections. The graceful interplay of feathers, the lovely streaming of the tail and of course, you couldn't forget about the wings. Not when they shed little beacons of light and heat and energy as the phoenix flew.
The individual beacons didn't last long. A second, maybe two, and then they were gone.
But while they lasted, they were also known as 'fire'.
Eventually, Admini managed to put out her Out trough. And then she wearily trotted off to fill out a very specific form, just before letting her supervisor know that she was about to be earning far too much overtime.
"-- and she's just getting worse," Celestia sighed as the sunlight-glowing rutabaga which had been starting to lift off the meal tray bobbed with concern. "She's always been a one-pony bird. Most phoenixes are." The white head dipped, and she stared at all of the loaded dishes which were currently occupying the shared meal table. The elder alicorn wasn't sure whether she was really up to eating any of it.
The mare on the other side of the table said nothing, merely adjusting her position upon the floor cushions. Several mane-bound stars expressed their silent opinion through shedding their outer shells.
Celestia, facing more or less straight down while wrapped up in her own problems, didn't really notice. "And once they start to grow up, they won't share territory. That's why I told Spike that they can't really be domesticated: with Owlowiscious already there, it was a recipe for disaster." Additionally, the alicorn was one of the very few ponies who didn't have allergic reactions to adult phoenix feathers: something which only kicked in after extended contact, with the resulting hives sticking around for a few days. Spike was probably safe enough, but Twilight...
Her dining companion remained silent. The meteors going through the tail didn't make any noise.
"But Philomena has to stay in the palace," the elder continued. "And the cage is just for when she's getting close to renewal, and needs the extra protection. I can't keep her locked up all the time, and --" the sighs were getting deeper "-- I'd already had five reports this week. Now there's three more, all from the same day. Nothing I've been doing is making a difference. Not withholding treats, not timeouts... nothing. In every single way she interacts with the staff --" and it occurred to her that as substitutions went, 'interacts with' wasn't the best swap for 'torments' "-- she's getting worse. And the Bearers are coming in to pick up that briefing material tomorrow..." No, that was a separate issue, and the mission was truly minor: a delivery which needed a little extra protection. "What am I supposed to do?"
Her dining companion took a slow, exceptionally cold breath.
That was what made Celestia look up: the sound of the chill inhalation. And it had been a long time apart, far too long -- but that was also long enough for the elder to forgotten some of her own feed lines. Things which served as the fuel for the renewal of some very old arguments.
The darkness and stars which had been levitating the baked potato winked out. Multiple chives scattered towards their deaths, and all for the second time.
"You wish my counsel, sister? Then I feel the solution is simple enough," Luna coldly declared. "Kill her."
Celestia winced.
Philomena wasn't her first phoenix. They were exceptionally long-lived: a reasonable expectation for a species whose normal reaction to major injury was to turn into ash and then reconstitute themselves without the wound. And it took a while for biological processes to falter when you were dealing with something whose biology was effectively part-time.
It helped somewhat to think of phoenixes as being a little like Discord. (Physically. Celestia usually tried not to think about the behavior commonalities, and still dreaded the day when the two began to somehow compare notes.) When the birds were at their peak, they were essentially living magic, encased in a shell of feathers -- or, for the youngest, in a shell. They had to be exceptionally tired or weakened before their body began to collapse into the fully physical and even then, they retained the ability to renew.
Celestia had a special difficulty in taking on pets. She tended to prioritize for longevity, because it was hard enough to watch an endless procession of ponies fade away while she simply went on. Having to mourn a beloved companion every decade would have destroyed her. But you couldn't really keep a bowhead whale around. Arctic clams were notoriously difficult to cuddle. And there was no point in telling your problems to a coral reef. She knew. She'd tried.
So it had been tortoises and the memorization of some still-viable rotor designs. And, once she'd found the key to approaching them... phoenixes.
But they did age. The magic faded. Given enough time, there would be a death -- most likely from natural causes, because there were very few things which could truly kill a phoenix. (Dragons, who competed over the same superhot breeding grounds, had figured out the rough majority.) At best, you had about two hundred and twenty years: Philomena, at thirty-seven, was essentially a young adult.
Philomena wasn't her first phoenix. And when it came to Luna, a few long-standing grudges had effectively been carried over.
"Luna --" Celestia tried. (It had been a while. She was almost sure that was her next line.)
"There are times when I regret that neither of us ever birthed a foal," the younger tightly stated, and the tail lashed once. "Merely a nation, and we told ourselves that was enough. But on an evening such as this, sister... I can come rather close to becoming thankful. Because, based on the behavior of those animals whom, for reasons known only to Sun -- I have asked Moon, and it is frankly clueless on the matter -- you have chosen to stay at your side --"
The elder held back the sigh. Luna didn't hate animals, and the younger sibling could occasionally be found within an intrigue of kittens, smiling as she watched the pouncing near-newborns trying to find some means of reconciling the half-tangible mane. But she'd never had a pet, because Luna wanted intelligent companionship. Any pet of Luna's needed to be fully rational, to the point where it would be capable of both explaining and debating its decision to sleep on the younger's pillows. And, given that choice, it also needed to be prepared to lose a lot.
"-- you would have raised a full harras of spoiled brats." A silver-shod hoof kicked at the edge of the table, and the temperature in the room forfeited six crucial degrees. "You are far too indulgent with the bird, Tia. Far too permissive with all of them. Every phoenix you ever took in displayed the same behaviors: a decade at most before the worst of it set in --"
"-- they're stubborn birds!" Celestia desperately cut in. "They don't do well with being pushed too hard, and they push back! It's another reason why I didn't want Spike --"
"-- I may have only been present for two of your original flaming errors," Luna harshly cut her off, and the double forehoof slam into the table made the dishes jump while adding some extra punctuation. "However, the incident reports regarding the others remain within the older filing cabinets. You are, with some exceptions for the tortoises whose approach can be noticed several hours ahead of the potential attack, surrounded by those who openly delight in the suffering of others. Because they know, every time, that they will get away with it."
Fluttershy --
-- the caretaker had made a mistake: one which had been born within the core of her mark. Celestia had understood that, and been quick to forgive. There had been no need for punishment, not when the intentions --
-- actually, it had still been kidnapping. But having to deal with Philomena for most of an afternoon had probably been punishment enough.
"You claim that they love?" Luna asked. "Very well: they love. I accept that, for I have seen it from animal companions. Seldom from yours. Still, let us say that yours have loved you -- and only you. But with others... what minimal thoughts they might experience always seem to be turned towards torment --"
'-- I'm still not sure how sapient she is --" only partially existed to note Celestia's place in the script. It had been centuries of looking after the birds, and she still didn't know. They understood considerably more than the average avian, but seemed to fall well short of true intellect. There were times when the elder felt that Philomena didn't so much possess true sapience as she did a rapid-fire series of instincts combined with supernatural insight into every possible means of creating maximum annoyance. And on a really bad day, the elder could say the same thing about Rainbow Dash.
Celestia had seen how well the two got along, and immediately pledged to never let them see each other again. Some teamup prospects were simply too terrifying.
"-- because you do not discipline!" Ice was starting to glisten on the vegetables. "How does she see you, sister? As something which offers comfort? A source of never-ending warmth, because we both know that the birds cluster near lava and when the dragons come a little too close, you make a rather fine substitute. Or is it simply as an endless radiance of forgiveness, followed by a treat because no matter how much you claim to be training her, teaching her to do better, you can never hold one back for more than a day?"
...I...
But she never does anything to me.
That's how I know she loves me.
...maybe that's not the best way to judge...
It took a few breaths before she could go on, and Luna's mug used the opportunity to frost itself.
"...all right," Celestia finally said. "Sun's heat helps. It's the main reason I can get the young ones to approach me, and why I'm one of the very few who could ever keep a phoenix at all: because they need heat. I'll give you that, Luna."
And it's also why they usually fly away from you on sight. Even when you're placid, something in them senses the cold which can come from being linked to Moon. Philomena avoids you. Most of the time, if you enter a room, she goes out of it. She knows. Because instinct recognizes a threat...
The younger didn't so much nod as jerk her head back and forth in approximately the right directions.
"But she's loving --"
"-- she loves to create trouble, yes. Kill her."
"-- she cares --"
"-- surely not about consequences, as those do not exist. At most, you have made her trill apologies. And she lied. Kill her."
"-- you don't know what she's like --"
"-- and that would be wrong. I am fully aware that she is a bird who needs to be killed. Kill her."
Celestia paused.
"You're very lucky," the elder said, just a little too quietly, "that I understand your sense of humor. Because with anypony else --"
"-- I do not recall having made a jest," Luna calmly countered. "I feel that you should kill her. Or at least allow others the luxury of the act. Perhaps that will finally teach her that there is a price for her actions. Since you will not."
This pause was longer.
"You," Celestia slowly began (and now heat was rippling the air on that side of the table), "are telling me to kill my pet."
"No," Luna placidly clarified. "I am suggesting that you allow everypony to kill your pet."
The elder, with her horn's corona already blazing, started to stand --
-- and the younger didn't move.
"Move your vision away from your own eyes, Tia," emerged with an even pace and tone. "Is that not what empathy requires? Nail your perspective to the shoes of eight others, each in turn. Review the most recent reports in your mind, only -- through their sight. And then tell me what you see."
The oldest mare in the world stopped.
The paperwork.
The overheating of the Guard showers.
That stunt in the smithy...
...cats sit on books. Everypony knows that. And for the most part, it's because there's a convenient place available for sitting and the cat wanted to be near you.
The minority is the evil sods who recognize that you were paying attention to something which wasn't them, and they have a way to make that stop.
"...Fluttershy's rabbit," Celestia slowly said, "with wings, a nastier sense of humor, and a pyromaniac streak."
Luna merely nodded.
"Which still," emerged harsher words, "doesn't justify death --"
"-- phoenix," the younger said, and smiled.
Celestia stared at her.
"You have given the whole of both staffs permission to 'take a swat' at the bird if it tries anything. Which simply means she has become rather adept at dodging," Luna dually noted. "I am merely suggesting an... upgrade."
"Explain," Celestia managed to not quite order. And waited.
"There are very few ways to truly place a phoenix beyond all hope of return," the younger said -- then paused. "Of course, I happen to know a method which simply places them within utter misery, but I very much doubt that you wish for me to be disciplining your pet. So in the absence of that -- inform the staff of what they must not do. But everything else? Ask any nation we have been to war with, Tia. Ask them about every means a pony possesses which might kill. They simply choose not to use them." The smile became wider. "So take both staffs off the reins. If the bird attempts any of her tricks, they may kill her. She will reconstitute. Should it happen more than once in a day, then such will merely require increasing effort. It is a timeout with teeth. 'Taking a swat' does not work, and you cannot stand to truly attempt discipline. So... kill her."
The elder was silent.
A little too silent.
"You are thinking about it..." the younger observed.
"...oh, shut up."
The new policy went into effect overnight.
There was no real need to sneak anything past Philomena: the phoenix had a near-endless capacity for both spotting and capitalizing on pony helplessness -- but she only understood a limited number of words and, while she could recognize her own image and had some talent for balancing an open newspaper, couldn't actually read. The rules were written down, the palace's printing press ran off the new one-sheet, copies were distributed to every internal office, and all Celestia had to do for security was not place Philomena's picture anywhere in the composition. There was no need. Everypony knew what the phoenix looked like. Everypony also knew what Discord looked like, and it was generally for the same reason.
The arriving staff members read the one-sheet. Some of them laughed, although the sound was usually a rather awkward specimen. Several went down to the printing press and made sure everypony in that area was still sane. More than a few tried to get into a throne room in search of a true explanation, and then settled in because the line was going to take some time to clear.
But eventually, everypony understood that the Princess was serious. They had been told that if the phoenix was trying to cause trouble, they had the option for a new response.
(They had also been given the full list of methods they could not use and, when it came to creating the more detailed variety of revenge fantasy, found them informative. However, no one among the current staff happened to be a dragon, and that closed out the majority of the options. And for the last offering on the list... well, that was another Princess entirely.)
Quite a few had trouble dealing with the mere idea. There were gentle ponies on both staffs, ones who never wished to cause harm to any other. Others had their line in the sand start with 'unless there's a direct threat', and it tended to move outwards from there.
But there was another category. Because Philomena was thirty-seven years old, and had spent nearly all of that time as the companion of the Princess.
The phoenix had been actively kept away from just about every ambassador, national leader, and a few select ponies. In particular, Twilight Sparkle had never met her until that one party, because even Celestia had subconsciously realized just how badly that interaction might go during the student years and, with the visit to Ponyville, had mostly taken the renewal birdcage along out of habit. But with so many of those previously encountered still within the palace... Philomena had effectively introduced herself, and always without consequence. At least, consequence for the bird.
The third category consisted of those with experience.
And some of them began to wait.
It began fairly early in the morning, because a phoenix was most comfortable within Sun's hours and besides, ponies who were tired at the end of a long Lunar shift were easy targets.
Getting into the Guard locker room unseen wasn't all that hard. The difficult part came in finding a place to wait which wasn't particularly visible to anypony, and the showers off to the side provided. There was usually some steam billowing up from the spray nozzles, because Guards at the end of a long shift tended towards hot showers. Wearing armor for too long could have harsh effects on the muscles.
Blank eyes watched closely. Guards came in. Most of them got their armor off before cleaning up: the truly tired usually made it almost all the way to the water before remembering. There were temporary measures waiting for the exhausted, and they mostly served as a reminder to be a little more awake the next time.
It would have been hard for anypony to say exactly what Philomena was thinking. Some doubted that she truly thought at all, because serving as a direct channel for all the torment in Tartarus probably didn't count. But given how it all worked out, it was safe to say that she was waiting for somepony to use the hooks.
Alone.
Guards washed up. Guards used the hot-air vents built into the far wall to dry their fur, and then went home. The bird watched, and did so until both locker room and showers were empty.
And then one last Guard wearily trotted into the shower area, with her armor shifting a little too close to the base of her wings.
The weary black pegasus looked around, and silver eyes eventually registered the complete lack of other ponies. She sighed to herself, shifted her legs towards the nearest spray nozzle --
-- stopped, as the ongoing presence of the armor registered itself. Sighed all the more deeply, and shifted her path towards the hooks. Because she was tired at the end of a long shift, she didn't want to go back out into the locker room again when relief was so close, and it was easier to push off labor for a little while in favor of hot water now.
The mare put her body through an exacting shake, and multiple well-hidden metal latches opened. A second vibration sent most of the results onto the floor, and then most of the shed armor pieces were mouth-hung onto the hooks. The exception was the helmet: for that, the pegasus just got into position near the last hook, then expertly tossed her head back. The helmet effectively flipped itself onto the hook and locked into place upside-down, creating the rough impression of a rather poor bucket with a fringe at the bottom.
One last sigh, and then the pegasus went under the nozzles. Some quick adjustments produced steam, followed by still more steam. And then the phoenix moved.
She waited within her new perch as the pony washed. Made herself comfortable, snuggling down somewhat in order to get the full effect. A few strategic wing flaps added their own touches. And only when she heard the pony move again did Philomena go back to her original hiding place.
A very wet mare, fur and feathers dripping, emerged from the steam. Gave the hung-up armor pieces her sad regard, because the labor had been postponed until exactly now and all of the metal had to be carried out to the locker room. Put away properly.
There was no sense in trying to don it all again. But some pieces had a natural means of being carried, and so the pegasus moved close to the upside-down helmet. Pushed the back of her neck against it in a very specific way, and the metal flipped onto her head.
Philomena waited.
"HOT!" The mare's wings flared, began to frantically flap without ever quite getting the pegasus off the ground: a natural reaction from the species which could concentrate and disperse heat -- when it was within the atmosphere. The phoenix had warmed up metal. "Hot, hot, hot...!"
The Lunar jerked her head, and the helmet clanged off a wall.
It took a few seconds for the echoes to fade. And then Philomena released a rather contented trill.
Even Celestia had trouble knowing what her companion was thinking, or whether the bird was truly thinking at all. But there were always pranksters who felt that no personal jest was complete unless the target both knew who was responsible and got to bask in the helplessness which came from being unable to do anything about it. And certain levels of malice didn't require all that much active sapience. Advanced thinking only got in the way, because that was the sort of thought which could consider consequences.
It was possible that Philomena possessed some rough understanding of what those were. But if she did so, it would have been in the same way that the phoenix recognized Moon to exist. It might be out there, but it was a long way off. She instinctively avoided any chances at personal encounters, and when it came to direct interaction, it could never, ever have anything to do with her.
The pegasus (who was now considerably more awake) heard the trill, and a member of the species which could move heat told her eyes to seek it. And a bird who could regulate her temperature didn't have enough time to act.
Silver eyes stared through the steam, met the blank panels which served as the bird's windows on the world. The phoenix trilled again.
"Right," the dripping mare softly said. "You."
Another burst of song, and it only sounded everything like a snicker.
"In the showers," the pegasus added, and did so as she reared up on her hind legs, did her best to balance for a few seconds while wet wings tried to assist . "When I've just finished washing, and there's so much steam in here. So much moisture in the air. Humidity and heat..."
The phoenix arguably understood very little of this, nor did Philomena understand why the mare's raised forelegs were weaving in strange patterns under her body. Having the air dry out as all of the moisture in the room began to condense itself into a very small, very dark cloud was also something of a dismissed mystery.
"I didn't get burned," the Guard said. "But based on how much my head hurts, I came close enough, I think. Close enough to justify this."
She smiled. Philomena, who wasn't used to her meetings with staff ending in smiles, wasn't quite sure what to do with the expression. Smiles meant treats, and the staff didn't give her treats. Only her pony got to do that.
Philomena didn't know how to deal with a smiling Guard, and having no natural instinct for the situation cost her the opportunity to move.
"Welcome to the new era," Nightwatch declared.
Her bare head came down, got under the new thunderhead and pushed it towards the ceiling. Wet wings made an effort, and brought the pegasus up for just long enough.
Black forehooves slammed into the cloud.
It took a while before the fresh pile of rather damp ash shivered: enough time for the locker room to be fully clear again, with all armor having been put away and the echo of the satisfied trot faded to nothing. And then a swirl of dust and char came off the top of the mound, nearly rammed into the ceiling, and finally resolved itself as a rather surprised phoenix.
Whether or not the bird truly thought, how often, and to what degree... mysteries all. However, a slightly-unsteady aerial weaving suggested that an entirely new experience hadn't quite been reconciled.
Lightning. A phoenix could survive lightning, and did so through technically not surviving it and coming back after the lightning was gone. Also after the pegasus had departed, because the cloud was now breaking up and probably didn't have enough left to go off a second time on its own.
Philomena heated metal rather frequently. The sounds ponies made when they touched it were entertaining. And then she went somewhere else, and did things which produced more amusement. Yelping, half-singed ponies were just part of the fun. Lightning was... something which had happened once. A phoenix could go to ash and reconstitute once in a day without having to worry about too much of anything.
She flapped her wings, then landed and carefully preened her feathers. A familiar half-tingle indicated that they were just as healthy as they needed to be, with physicality which was both dubious and, thanks to a evolutionary defense mechanism which sadly didn't work on dragons, prone to triggering severe allergic reactions. Philomena occasionally gave the gift of a feather to anypony she'd been with for most of an afternoon, just to give them something to truly remember her by.
The phoenix was fine. She was just going to be a little tired later.
Of course, she was just fine now, and the nasty lightning pegasus was gone. So really, there had been no consequences at all. And the day was young...
Most ponies tried not to think about the palace kitchens having a meat station. Those who did tended to put something of an internal scare chord onto the words, rendering the term into meat station in four-four time: this coincided with the number of hooves which would be trying to get away from it. All at the same time, in up to four different directions.
But it was present, because there were griffons on the palace staff. A Diamond Dog was part of the art restoration team. Ambassadors from other nations came by, as did world leaders and the occasional pure guest: carnivores and omnivores and those who just needed to get some lunch. It all required a meat station, and a pony with a generationally-unique mark was its master.
There weren't many pony members of either staff who approached the blood-red unicorn with the oddly liquid coat. The griffons adored him and the Diamond Dog was a close friend -- but with his own species, he was looked upon as being... 'odd' was fair. 'Dim' often applied. 'Possessed of surprising magical strength' seldom came into play, except when he was moving whole sides of freshly-butchered monster into the special enclosed area near his station. Because there were enchantments which had been cast on the stove, and pegasus magic was woven into the air to make sure any scents which came off the raw material or cooking were channeled up and out before instinct triggered panic. But a meat station still needed a meat locker, and the Princesses had made sure the stallion received everything required to work his strange craft.
...well, almost everything. One aspect simply wasn't needed.
The kitchen was almost completely empty, and that was normal for deliveries from the butcher shop. Scentproof wrappings got the goods into the palace, but the stallion always took them off before moving purchases into the locker: goods needed inspection. Nopony else wanted to be in the kitchen when that was happening, because drops of blood pattering onto the floor often offended. Or set off a small stampede, which was generally agreed to be worse.
The cook finished looking over the goods, then nodded to himself in contentment. (There were rarely any problems, and most of them occurred during transit. He was also friends with the butcher.) A flare of red corona opened the meat locker's door: a slightly more intensive effect got the first side of tishantail out of the stained miniature cart and on the move.
Philomena had been waiting for the first part of that. A phoenix had no trouble with eating meat, at least when they allowed themselves to be physical enough for true consumption to take place: in fact, they were one of the very few species to cook their food in the wild. But she received enough from her pony, and so only took extras out of the meat locker in the name of seeing the reaction.
That wasn't the plan for today, though. Instead, she streaked in over the unicorn's head, keeping her wings motionless through the glide so the little drips of flame wouldn't give her away. Found a place to perch out of sight, and did so in comfort because the meat locker was only a little bit cool. A more standard one would have given her... issues.
And then she watched as the stallion's corona hung the fresh masses of muscle and bone on giant hooks. This was followed by a surge of glow, which surrounded the meat for a few seconds and seemed to soak in rather than fade away.
The meat locker wasn't chilled because it wasn't necessary. The cook was an expert in his strange field, knew that freezing could produce some small amounts of damage (or, done improperly, very large amounts), and his personal spell meant nothing he enchanted would ever decay. It didn't matter how much time passed between delivery and preparation: the meat would always be just as fresh as the day it had arrived.
The phoenix waited for the stallion to leave: there were more things to bring in. Changed her perch, and went to work.
There was pegasus magic woven throughout the kitchen air, to make sure scents only left the area for the last time in a single direction. It didn't prevent them from crossing the distance, and Philomena heard the stallion take a rather surprised sniff.
The blood-red unicorn raced into the meat locker, with a giant hunk of ribs and muscle levitating along close behind. And he instantly focused on the place where Philomena had perched, because meat which kept fresh indefinitely required very little attention -- but that which was currently being seared by phoenix presence had to be served almost immediately. Given the speed at which the bird was working, 'almost' currently worked out to 'within the next ten seconds.'
Philomena trilled. The cook's slightly-dimmed liquid red eyes flashed with an unexpected fury, and frustrated forehooves stomped at the floor.
And then the unicorn... smiled.
"Oh, right!" Sizzler abruptly remembered. "There's a new policy!"
The corona around his horn intensified, and the mass drifting along behind him moved.
Philomena was good at dodging, because the staff had previously been told they could take swats at her. But she wasn't faster than lightning. And as it turned out, the sheer size of the object being avoided also presented a little difficulty.
Several bale-weights of bone, muscle, and raw dripping mass slammed into the bird.
There was a certain question as to how much Philomena could manage in the way of pattern recognition, and it was probably safe to assume that her maximum was somewhere below that of a pony. A pony who'd been rendered into a mound of ash for the second time might have realized that it just wasn't their day for anything involving lockers and hooks.
It took somewhat longer to put herself back together this time, because it was a stunt which she wasn't supposed to do too often without getting a chance to rest. The preening was meant as a self-check following a resurrection, and the careful examination found a number of oddly-solid pink feathers. The phoenix wasn't due to renew herself for...
...it would go away in a few hours. More quickly if she found a safe place near intense heat and did nothing except soak it in. And she could have sought her pony, because for a phoenix to nest near a cooperative alicorn was like having a trotting triage tent. But...
Something had happened... twice. She was trying to entertain herself, and a certain result had accompanied the first two attempts. So she wasn't entertained yet. It would take more efforts to make ponies produce interesting sounds while making funny faces. And there was still plenty of day to use. Plus the cook had left the door open, because an angry phoenix in a sealed meat locker was a bad idea --
-- maybe she shouldn't play with the cook again. Something had happened twice. It wouldn't happen with anypony else. But it could happen from the same pony, and he was right outside. So all she had to do was leave and find another pony to entertain herself with. Just not this one.
The phoenix streaked off in search of entertainment. Or rather, faltered a few times in the air, nearly rebounded off a drop frame, and shed a little less flame than usual with each flap.
There was a certain question as to how much Philomena could manage in the way of pattern recognition...
Philomena, insofar as she ever truly planned, usually tried to make a circuit of the staff. Which was to say that after she gave somepony a little personal attention, she would stay away from them for some time after: this was usually just long enough for the victim to start believing that she might not return.
So in just about all cases on that day, she was meeting up with those whom she hadn't visited in some time. There would be two exceptions, and they would both come towards the absolute end.
The Diamond Dog, sitting on a high platform which had brought her close to the ceiling, was restoring a fresco. This was a process which involved multiple fine powders, whose colors were delicate and very prone to being distorted by heat. Philomena waited until the canid wasn't looking, then settled in to render everything in the fine jars into a much more even brown. The Dog turned at the first wisp of smoke, and then a white-furred pseudohand made a grab for Philomena's tail. Which, incidentally, was how the phoenix discovered that two resurrections in one day had slowed her down somewhat and rendered her tail physical enough to grab.
The ultimate results did have the side effect of producing extra work. But by the time the ash slowly, shakily spiraled back into something close to its base form, Yapper was just about finished with that part. After all, slamming a phoenix into a ceiling several times hadn't done all that much damage.
Several small pinfeathers popped off the retreating bird's thighs. She barely noticed.
The white-furred bureaucrat with the brown mane always had a lot of paperwork to fill out. That meant she also had a lot of paperwork to rip, peck, and burn. Philomena was fully familiar with all three. What she hadn't realized (because she hadn't thought about it, and perhaps couldn't) was that if you had a lot of paperwork to fill out, then you needed a proportionate number of quills. Also that if an angry unicorn got a whole bunch of pointy quills moving at high speed and a thrice-resurrected body couldn't move in time, then ash happened.
The ash stuck around for twelve minutes. One of those was just making sure it was safe to move. The rest were being too exhausted to go anywhere. And when Philomena finally did get herself back together...
It took the phoenix a few seconds to realize that she had an entirely physical neck. She'd never been very good at managing necks.
Her head flopped to one side. Then the other.
More feathers popped off.
The sergeant yelled at her. That shouldn't have done much of anything, but his yells were... creative. Most ponies went unconscious just to avoid having their vocabulary expanded. The ash form, however, was still capable of hearing. It was the only way to know when it was safe to come back, and that was why she knew it wasn't because he kept yelling at the ashes. And all she'd done was go for the hat. It would have been cinders after, but she'd burned clothing before and the ponies just came back with more of it. Where was the harm?
Philomena didn't understand very many words. The oath taken by physicians wouldn't have really meant much, and there was a chance that she never would have understood 'first, do no harm'. Because doing harm was fun, especially when you had all of those medicines which could go bad from heat and got to harm them! Ponies did funny things when their possessions were ruined. So harming was clearly the way to go.
The Royal Physicians consisted of one diagnostician and one surgeon. The former jumped high enough to get her talons (because now she had those) completely tangled in his mane. It kept her from escaping, and after that... well, the surgeon had very good aim.
One of the tour guides rather passively tipped a sculpture onto her and, rather discourteously, did so before Philomena managed to push it off the shelf while the mare was going by. She was a bird. Knocking things off shelves was mandatory.
By the time she recovered from that one, there was just about no flame left. But the ponies seemed to be... having fun. They weren't yelling or looking silly or anything. The scent of their frustration, normally so intoxicating -- that was gone. And she found herself near an office, one which she didn't realize had been visited only a short time ago, and she had a little flame left. There was all of that freshly-redone paperwork waiting for her, and her head flopped around as she mustered just enough flight to go straight for it --
Admini smiled.
"Oh!" the staffer said. "Great timing! I was just about to move this!"
Her wings flapped. The stacks moved.
It was the death of a thousand paper cuts.
It was also still paperwork, and Admini took a moment to primly brush the ashes off the edges before filing the forms away.
A fully-physical bird, who looked rather like an underweight, featherless turkey with multiple spinal problems, staggered out of the office on foot. Flight was currently impossible. Pattern recognition, however, was arguably seconds away.
Twenty-four hoofsteps, accompanied by a steady dual impact of walking claws, came to an abrupt stop.
"...oh," said a very soft voice indeed. "Oh. Why don't the rest of you... go ahead? I think I'd better go look at her."
"Hey!" called out brasher tones. "It's that one cool bird! Everypony remember the bird? Hey, bird! What have you been up to lately? And how badly did it backfire, because you are looking rough." Curiously, "Did the other bird get the worst of it?"
"You remember what happened the last time," said a third mare: one whom Philomena had initially been denied the pleasure of meeting.
"...yes," the quieter voice observed. "And that's why I should really check on her now. Everypony, just go on without me. I'll catch up..."
Philomena tried to look in that direction.
Then the phoenix tried to run.
She tripped over her own talons. Forced her neck to twist and bend until too many directions accidentally coincided with the proper one, and wound up staring into the single visible blue-green eye. An eye which was rather intensely Staring back.
"...I wore that feather for a week," the yellow pegasus softly told her. "I was so proud..."
None of the words meant anything. The Stare, however, required no translation at all.
"...and then the hives came in," the mare added. A slow head shake shifted some small part of the coral manefall. "...they didn't go away for a while. We're here for a briefing, did you know that? ...well, probably not. But it's a briefing. And part of it came when we cleared the gates. About a recent change in... palace policy."
The pegasus sighed.
"...I normally wouldn't do this," she said as a surprisingly powerful right foreleg pulled back. "But it's just a timeout, isn't it? With teeth. And the Princess said it's for your own good."
Celestia, who had been given the exact location for the final encounter, went directly to it. Found the little trembling pile of ash: a state which showed that Philomena could reconstitute, but wasn't sure whether it was a good idea. The grey dust was scooped up in her corona.
It only took a little time to go down into the basement. The smithy was in the basement and, once she cleared out the actual smith, she was left with a room which had been meant to take high temperatures.
The alicorn stoked the fire. Placed the ash close to the flames, and then added a touch of Sun's heat.
It took about an hour of basking for the phoenix to fully recuperate. And then, with red and orange and gold and all the colors of flame restored, with her pet perched within the fires, she spoke to Philomena. Knowing that some words would be understood -- but only a few. The rest had to be carried by tone.
She told Philomena how much she loved her, because that had to be first. But she also spoke of the bird's behavior. Of just how much trouble the phoenix made for everypony else, while openly enjoying it. She pointed out that the current difference between Philomena and Discord was that the latter had some idea of what consequences were, and a bird who was intelligent enough to plan hurtful pranks also had the intellect required to stop.
"There are times when I'm better with disciplining nations than people," the old mare quietly observed. "Or pets. I've let you get away with too much for too long, because I do love you. But it has to stop, Philomena. All of it. You don't have to love anypony else. But you need to leave them alone."
She sighed.
"I can revoke the policy," she told her companion. "I only did it because I knew you wouldn't truly be hurt. There's only a few things which can do that, aren't there? I want to revoke it. And I can -- if I see a change. If you're good. Can you be?"
Celestia didn't know how intelligent her pet truly was. How much Philomena understood. She had suspicions, but... there was always going to be a question mark somewhere. All she could really do was speak. Try to get through. And... watch for the reaction.
The phoenix hopped out of the forge. Walked up to the mare's forelegs, gently rubbed fiery feathers against the only fur in the world which would never burn, and left.
It left Celestia basking for a time. Not in the heat of the fires, because she only felt that at her choosing. In the warmth of a lesson learned, and the radiant knowledge that better times were ahead.
She stayed in the smithy for as long as that feeling lasted, which turned out to be nearly the exact amount of time required for a hard-panting Guard to find her. After all, nopony had been informed that she was going into the basement, they'd had to rely on hints from the few witnesses who'd seen her along the way, and somepony had to tell her about the fire.
Think of a cat.
Celestia could radiate heat. Everypony who worked on the palace staff knew that. To stand near her during the harshest of winters was to exist in the heart of spring. But she was capable of going well beyond that. It made her rather appealing to phoenixes, and it also meant that crucial areas of the palace had been fireproofed. Her bedroom, the entirety of the Solar throne room, two of the washing areas...
...but not her personal library.
You get the ones who see an open book as a comfortable place to sit while they're close to their pony, who might just stroke their fur. And then there's the evil sods. They see somepony reading, and it's not paying attention to them. So that has to be stopped. They do it on purpose, to block the words. And if you criticize them... if you discipline...
The suppression system had kicked in before the blaze had fully taken over. Most of the covers were still smoldering. However, none of the volumes were completely gone, and all of the damage was still within what Mrs. Bradel's spells could manage. All it took was a transfer to Ponyville's book restoration shop, along with about two weeks for all the enchanted paper to heal itself. And, of course, a good portion of the palace budget.
...then they'll look like they're listening. They might even look as if they were sorry, and that's hard for a cat.
And then a feline who's been litter-trained for most of their lives will go take a deliberate dump in your bed.
"Find Philomena," she told Bulkhead. "That order goes to everypony in the palace. And when you find her -- don't approach. Just watch her, track any movements, and send somepony to get me. I'll discipline the bird."
The rather large unicorn swallowed.
"Discipline... how?"
The alicorn grimly smiled.
"There's a lot of day left..."
A very large hoof knocked on the bedroom door.
Dark eyes sleepily opened. The resting mare glanced at her blackout curtains, found a hint of radiance, and immediately began to panic.
"What is happening?" the younger called out. "Describe the emergency! I can be ready to act in --"
The door opened, and Celestia trotted in. A bobbing bubble of sunlight entered with her, and the phoenix clawed at the energy with every hoofstep --
-- the bird saw Luna. Froze.
"She's sleeping with you today," Celestia tightly announced.
"...ah," Luna eventually said. "And the reason...?"
"Discipline."
"Ah."
"So I'm going to seal the door," the older sister added. "And the windows. And everything else. And then I'd appreciate it if you'd... go back to sleep. And make yourself comfortable."
"Comfortable," Luna smiled. "Yes."
Philomena hadn't moved. The sunlight bubble gently placed her on the mattress before dissipating, and the bird still didn't move.
Celestia's horn ignited. Several phoenix-proof spells were cast, and the white mare headed for the door. Glanced back.
"I'm sorry for interrupting."
"It was..." Luna paused, released the last of the yawn. "...necessary. Necessity is always understood."
Celestia nodded. Took another hoofstep, and paused again.
"Don't kill her."
In tones of sleepy insult, "Of course not. Discipline only."
"Get some rest."
"Naturally."
"I love you."
"And I you -- was that meant for the bird?"
"Both of you," Celestia clarified. "But that doesn't mean she gets out of being disciplined."
The door closed. Sealed. Luna yawned again, and the outmatched phoenix didn't move. Six limbs were stretched in all directions.
"Comfortable," she sleepily mused. "It is somewhat hot in here..."
The temperature began to drop.
A phoenix could regulate how much heat its body generated: even when they were getting close to renewal, they could still wreak havoc with a thermometer. In some ways, the ability could be seen as an evolutionary upstep: there were normal birds who could manage their temperature enough to avoid any need for migration during the winter, and then you had phoenixes.
Philomenia could, to some degree, regulate her body heat. But a phoenix was much better with high temperatures. They were a species which had been made for superhot environments. They didn't fare well at the opposite end of the scale.
"Still a little too warm for my liking..." Luna mused as her eyes began to close, with frost slowly creeping across the blankets. "Perhaps somewhat more..."
A phoenix hated cold. On instinct, and perhaps with a touch of thought. And Philomena could set things on fire -- but the younger alicorn could create conditions in which fires were almost instantly snuffed. A phoenix hated cold, and Luna could be very cold indeed.
"Just a touch more," Luna wearily considered. "After all, who can truly sleep with all of these molecules moving?"
As cold as Moon.
Philomena began to shiver.
Luna placed a shield dome over her own body, preemptively blocking all beak and talon options. And then she fell asleep.
It would have been unfair to say that Philomena was completely under control after that. The phoenix had a prankster streak, or perhaps just a mean one which saw careful direction. But something in the bird had recognized that actions could have consequences. So she loved her pony (who very much loved her too), and mostly stopped setting things on fire.
The policy allowing any staffer to kill Philomena was revoked.
...and occasionally reinstated.
The phoenix had mostly stopped setting things on fire. She now only ignited flames if she was absolutely sure she could get away with it. Or if it had been long enough since the last lecture as to make consequences into a distant memory, which was a period ranging from two weeks to six moons. Or if she just felt like it.
So there were occasional reinstatements.
Sapience notwithstanding, Philomena had a lot in common with Rainbow Dash. And when it came to discipline, a slow learner was a slow learner.
