The egg sat stubbornly on the velvet pillow, the new day's sunlight giving the egg a golden glow.
"Hatch," Aurora ordered, gently shaking the egg. "Hatch!" She levitated the egg and carried it to the breakfast table. "Mother, the egg's not hatching!"
"Don't force it, dear," Alcyone said. "It's like your Cutie Mark. It will happen when it's time.
"But I've had the egg for two whole days now! And Starswirl doesn't have any books on phoenixes."
"Sometimes the best solution is the one that sounds the craziest. Take the egg with you today."
"Yeah," Luna chimed in, munching on a daffodil, "you forgot the egg yesterday."
"Luna, don't talk with your mouth full of food."
"Sorry."
Aurora picked at her breakfast, too concerned with her egg to be thinking about anything else. As she finished eating, she trotted to her bedroom, staring at the egg. Why had she suddenly become so attached to it? Why did she feel the need to protect it? Perhaps it was because she could protect it, rather than stand by and just watch. Wasn't that part of her royal duties anyways? To protect all ponies?
She was snapped out of her trance by Luna nudging her. "Hey. Let's go."
Aurora followed her little sister, the egg hovering between them. A strange sight forced her to stop. If she positioned the egg just right, Luna's head looked as though it was the egg. She started to giggle.
"What's so funny?" Luna asked, stomping a hoof on the ground.
"Here." Aurora passed the egg to her sister. As the periwinkle aura appeared around the egg, she stepped back. "Do you see it yet?"
"No, what am I supposed to be-" Realization dawned on Luna, and she burst into a fit of giggles as well. "You're an egghead."
"You were one first."
"Nuh-uh!"
It was a playful banter, something Aurora realized she had missed lately. The shack slowly came into view, as Starswirl stood at the door, his hooves crossed amusedly.
"Well, how did the hatching process go?" he asked, glancing at the obviously unhatched egg.
Luna waved the egg in his face. "It's still in there."
Taking the egg from Luna, he placed it in a deep kettle, then set it over the fire.
"What are you doing?" Aurora peered around the doorway.
"Ah-ah-ah," Starswirl scolded. "You haven't been invited it yet."
"Oh come on!" Luna shouted exasperatedly. "We come here almost every day. You know who we are."
"You are right, Luna, but supposed I was working on something I didn't want you two to see-"
"Like what?"
"A birthday present, perhaps. Either way, you must wait until you are invited inside. The only reason you should barge in on someone is because you are in grave peril or it's raining something fierce. That, and some ponies may have a magical barrier that only allows those they invite inside. You never know with magic, my faithful student."
As Luna pouted at the doorway, Aurora took charge. "May we come in?"
"Yes, yes you may."
Aurora quickly trotted in while Luna stomped over to the corner where she usual sat and huffed indignantly. "What are you doing with the egg?"
Starswirl brightened. "Ah. You see, I was reading all the books I have on the wide variety of creature that live in our world. However, there's next to nothing on phoenixes, as you already know. While I was completely flummoxed, an answer occurred to me. Phoenixes are creatures of flame, are they not?"
Before either of them could answer, he continued. "Yes, yes they are. And that was when it occurred to me that an egg could very well last forever if not exposed to the heat that the mother and the father give off while they are nesting. That was when I decided to expose the egg to flame, so I'm grateful the pair of you brought it here today. However, I cannot guarantee how long it will take the egg to hatch. There's a lot more to phoenixes than just their initial rebirth phases."
Just as he was about to go off on another long-winded lecture, a rattle came from the kettle. The three ponies looked at each other in amazement before crowding around the fireplace. The egg was rocking back and forth violently. The kettle began to swing as the egg moved it. Suddenly, the egg bounced off the side of the kettle, flipping it over and dumping the egg into the open flames. As Aurora and Starswirl frantically prepared to seize the egg from the fire, Luna gasped and pointed at the egg.
A small line appeared on the egg, which broadened into a crack. Starswirl backed the sisters away.
"Can't we help it?" Aurora asked.
"No." Starswirl's face became solemn, a sign that this was not to be ignored. "The chick must force its way out itself. If we were to help it, we'd end up killing it."
Luna's hooves flew to her mouth in horror. "We'd kill it?"
"I'm assuming that what's true for normal birds is the same for phoenixes. Chickens, falcons, and all other birds have to force their way out of their shells. Though your intentions to help it are admirable, this is something it must do on its own."
No sooner had he spoken than a tiny golden beak, sharply contrasting with the yellow of the shell appeared. A soft peeping noise, far more musical than anypony had anticipated began to fill the hut.
The egg promptly exploded.
A blinding white light filled the hut.
Aurora raised a wing to shield her eyes from the light; with the other she shielded Luna. Squinting, she spotted a tiny chick, flaring its wings, looking as though it was hovering midair. The light vanished and the chick plopped into the flames. It looked around for a moment before waddling out onto the bricks. Smoldering bits of egg lay all around Starswirl's hut.
Starswirl regarded the chick with an amused eyebrow. "Rather melodramatic, if you ask me."
The tiny phoenix fluttered up into the air, and perched on Starswirl's back.
"Well, now…" Starswirl levitated the phoenix onto the table and summoned a quill and a piece of parchment to write on as he furiously began taking notes on the phoenix.
The pony sisters had learned to just leave Starswirl to his notes, especially since he began muttering things like, "Now isn't that interesting," or, "Would you look at that?" while he scribbled on his paper.
After several minutes of Starswirl studying the phoenix, he motioned for the sisters to come join him. "My initial analysis of the phoenix indicates that this is a female. See the head frill here?" He pointed with his quill, which the phoenix snapped at. "It's more curved, as is the beak."
Luna rolled her eyes. "So it's a girl. What's the big deal about that?"
The phoenix snapped at Luna, flaring its wings, a strange hissing noise, a complete opposite of her soft cries from earlier. Aurora stepped between the phoenix and her sister. While she wasn't much bigger than Luna, the phoenix seemed to take the hint.
Adopting the same tone her mother used when she was in trouble, she addressed the phoenix. "Now look here, young lady. You may be picky, but you do not get to hurt anypony. Is that understood? You will treat Starswirl, Luna, me and my parents with respect." She flared her wings as well, to make her seem larger, a trick her mother used on misbehaving pegasi.
The phoenix hissed once more, then nodded her head in response.
"Very good. Now, what shall we name you?"
Starswirl began at once. "Caldera? Ember? Spark? Blaze?"
The phoenix shook her head at each of these names.
"Maybe something not fire related," Luna suggested. "Elizabeth? Roseanne?"
The phoenix seemed to consider it before shaking her head vigorously.
Aurora put a hoof to her lip in consideration. "What about…Philomena?"
Nodding, the phoenix let out a squawk of joy and began flying around the room.
Or, at least, she tried.
Philomena dropped like a stone, and it was only Luna's timely intervention once again that prevented her from meeting an untimely end.
Cradling Philomena in her hooves, Luna asked, "Are you okay?"
For a moment, it appeared as though the phoenix was glaring at the alicorn. Then, she fluttered onto Luna's head and buried herself in her mane.
"That tickles!" Luna giggled uncontrollably.
She collapsed onto the floor in a fit of laughter which Aurora and Starswirl joined. After tears were streaming down Luna's muzzled, Aurora took command again. "Philomena."
The orange bird poked her head out of the periwinkle mane, a sharp contrast.
"That's enough." She extended her wing to Philomena, who awkwardly waddled her way up to Aurora's back. It took all of her self-control not to burst out laughing as the talons did tickle. Philomena settled on her back, and she turned to Starswirl.
"Well, I guess that's today's lesson." She smiled sheepishly.
For a moment, Starswirl pouted. "But I didn't even get a chance to tell you two about magic today." A broad smile crept across his face. "But we have a new member of the family, and I think she should spend some time with her adopted sisters."
"A phoenix isn't a pony," Luna protested. "We're not even the same species."
"No, but should that matter? I recall a time when a unicorn and a pegasus fell deeply in love with each other. At the time, ponies only married those of their same species. A unicorn would only marry a unicorn and so on. However, these two ponies were so in love they decided to do the unthinkable. They married each other. They were shunned by most other ponies. They were worried that their children wouldn't be born normally. After all, what happened when a pegasus and a unicorn had children? Would it be a pegasus? Or a unicorn? Or what if it was something else entirely? Eventually, they found an orphaned earth pony. He had been alone for weeks, and was barely alive. They took him home and he never returned to the streets. While a mixed family is more common today, in those times, it was considered almost evil to have anypony that wasn't your own species in your family. Of course, we need to be grateful to that unicorn and pegasus. Without them, there never would have been me."
The silence that filled the hut was almost too much to bear.
"That couple were your parents?" Aurora asked, balancing Philomena on her back.
"Yes. And the earth pony was my older brother, Golden Trails."
Raising her eyebrow, Luna asked, "How can you have a brother named Golden Trails when your name is Starswirl?"
"Luna!" Aurora scolded. "You don't go asking ponies why they're named what they're named. It's very rude!"
"No, no," Starswirl said, raising a placating hoof. "It's quite all right. She does bring up a point. Most families have a common theme. Your family, for example, is based on stars, and celestial objects. My brother was named Golden Trails because of the hope he represented for my parents. My mother told me when I was young, that one night, she saw the stars swirl together. It wasn't long after that she discovered she was expecting me. She regarded the swirling stars as a sign for my name, and that's how I got my name."
"Wow."
"But what does that have to do with Philomena being a phoenix and Aurora being a pony?" Luna spluttered.
Starswirl sighed and gave Luna a rather hard look. "You must learn patience, my faithful student. The two connect because for a while, my brother had no one, just as Philomena doesn't have her own kin. But Golden Trails was adopted by two loving ponies who never once cared that he wasn't the same type of pony that they were. Just as you must care for Philomena."
"But-I mean-Philomena can't even talk!"
"Neither could my brother. That's why he was abandoned."
The pony sisters gasped in shock.
Aurora hurriedly took the next question before Luna could word it rudely. "How did you learn to communicate with him?"
"When you allow trust and learn to watch how other ponies communicate, it's very easy. My brother could write, which is how, in the beginning, we talked with each other. But as we grew older, I learned that his body language, and the few noises he was able to make, spoke volumes more than his written words ever did. We grew close enough that there were times we were completely silent, but we told each other so much. Of course, his inability to talk gave me my lovely quirk of talking to myself.
"If you study Philomena, and treat her with respect, she too, will speak to you."
The pony sisters left without a word, both deep in thought. Aurora glanced at her sister, who looked on the verge of tears while at the same time having a fixed expression. She wondered if she would ever be able to read her sister like that. For a long while, it was silent. The only sounds were the chirping birds nestled in the trees, a soft breeze rustling the leaves, and their own hoof beats. It was only when Philomena tried to imitate the birds that Aurora thought it best to break the silence.
"What do you think Mother and Father will say when we come home with a phoenix?" she asked Luna with a smile.
Luna looked at her big sister and smiled back. "They better not care. She's staying with us until the cows come home!"
"Where did you hear that phrase?"
"Papa. He says the earth ponies say it all the time. But what does it mean?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
Philomena squirmed up Aurora's neck, and began roosting in her mane, just as she had done with Luna. Aurora let out a scream of laughter before she tried to stifle it.
Luna collapsed onto the dirt trail and began laughing as Aurora tried to move Philomena to a less ticklish spot. As they approached the castle, Atlas and Alcyone flew down from the observation tower and were bemused at the sight of their daughters roaring in laughter. As the little phoenix tumbled out of Aurora's pink mane, she spotted the two grown alicorns watching the spectacle. Philomena warmed up to them immediately, and found her way up Alcyone's wing and soon nesting in her mane. Atlas doubled over in hysterics as his wife tried to magic the phoenix out of her mane. He soon found out himself glowering as Philomena hopped out of Alcyone's long mane and burrowed into his. Alcyone gave her husband a self-satisfied smirk as he shook Philomena loose and she perched happily on his horn. The sight of their father going cross-eyed was enough to cause Aurora and Luna into renewed laughter.
It was a moment that none of the alicorns would ever forget.
And it was over far too soon.