It was a slow day at the Carousel Boutique.

Summer was over, and school was back in session, thank Celestia. Rarity loved her little sister dearly, but there was only so much she could take of the little unicorn and her destructive friends before snapping. Far better that Cheerilee should deal with them – at least she got paid for it.

Rarity smiled while she worked. It was a small smile, barely visible and easy to miss if you didn’t know her well. An unconscious smile, perched on her lips entirely without her knowledge; a smile like the moon peeking over the horizon and filling her eyes with its light. If she knew how beautiful it made her look, she might have smiled more.

Despite her current obsession with a buttonhole stitch that wasn’t quite right, she heard the Boutique’s main door open and close quite softly, almost as though the pony coming through didn’t want to be heard. The smile on her lips vanished and she glanced at the workroom clock – a quarter past four, about a half-hour later than normal for her sister, and nowhere near as loud.

“Sweetie?” she called.

Silence. She put down her needle and turned toward the door leading to the lobby. “Sweetie? Is that you?”

“It’s me!” Her sister’s voice returned. “I’ve got a surprise!”

A cold tremor flowed through Rarity’s body, leaving the hairs of her coat standing on end. Her hoof froze inches above the floor as though it were a paper-thin sheet of ice, ready to break at the slightest touch.

Like many fillies her age, Sweetie Belle could be precocious. Common sense, a rare enough virtue in adult ponies, was... well, “lacking,” Rarity would probably say. Sweetie’s idea of what constituted a pleasant surprise was rarely shared by her sister.

It’s probably nothing. Why, it’s probably just some project she did at school. Rarity’s refrigerator was already covered with crayon and macaroni art; one more piece couldn’t hurt. She would smile and say what a masterpiece it was and rush into the kitchen to hang it up with the others.

Probably. She took a deep breath and sallied into the lobby.

“That’s wonderful, Sweetie. What kind of — Oh my Celestia, what is that?” Her shriek had no effect on Sweetie Belle, who looked up with a huge grin on her little angel face.

Sitting on her sister’s back, its claws tangled in her mane (and making quite a mess of it), was a bright red and orange bird with a tall plume rising from its head. A thick nut-cracking beak the size of Rarity’s hoof nuzzled through Sweetie’s hair in a misguided attempt at preening her, which managed to do nothing more than spill locks of pink and lavender every which way.

A full-grown phoenix, in other words. In her Boutique. Rarity gawked at it.

“It followed me home!” Sweetie Belle said. She practically vibrated in place with excitement. “Can I keep it?”

“Ab-so-lute-ly not!” Rarity shouted each syllable as its own distinct word. “That is a wild animal! You will take it back to wherever you found it and leave it!”

“But—”

“No! No buts! Do I look like Fluttershy? This is a boutique, not a zoo. Besides, it could be dangerous.” She gave the phoenix a cagey stare.

It did not, if she were being completely honest with herself, look dangerous. It tilted its head to return her stare, blinked its huge orange eyes, and let out a quiet chirrup. Almost as though it were asking her what was wrong, or perhaps if she would like to be its friend.

Her eyes narrowed further.

“I’ll take care of it!” Sweetie said. “It won’t be like the hamster. Promise!”

Rarity stomped her hoof. “I’m sorry, Sweetie, but no. This is my boutique, and I’m afraid I cannot allow an animal to live here.” She paused. “I mean, aside from Opal.”

“But maybe Opal needs a friend? Flappy can be her friend!”

“Flappy? Did you already name it?” Rarity closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. The start of a headache was beginning to settle in behind her horn. “This is... no. Just, no. Take it back now before it starts to think the Boutique is its home.”

“But—”

“Now, Sweetie!”

Sweetie’s ears wilted. She gave a loud sniff, and stared up at her sister with huge, watering eyes. Her lips began to tremble. Only a heartless monster could have felt nothing at the sight.

Rarity was, of course, immune. “Don’t give me that look. Now, out!” She made a shooing motion with her hoof.

Sweetie’s expression shifted to a pout. “Okay. Come on, Flappy. Maybe Applejack will be nicer.”

Rarity scowled but held her tongue as Sweetie turned to leave. The phoenix fanned its wings to keep its balance when Sweetie tugged open the door, and then they were gone. She let out a quiet breath.

Crisis averted.

Rarity woke the next morning from the most wonderful dream.

She had finally cornered her prince in the Canterlot gardens, and he could no longer contain the love hiding in his heart. He apologized for his boorish behavior at the gala, which was all just a feint, a ruse designed to distract her from the coltish nervousness he felt in her presence. He fell to his knees to beg for her forgiveness.

“Oh, I forgive you...” she mumbled into her pillow. It was a Saturday, and she hovered in that delicious state between waking and sleeping, still dreaming but aware of her warm covers and soft bed. In her mind, the prince carefully nuzzled her just behind her ear.

Mm, yes. No need to wake up just yet. “That feels so good...”

Her prince chirruped in reply.

Rarity’s eyes flew open. The last foggy bits of sleep melted away. Behind her, something hard and sharp ran through her mane, tugging locks of her hair this way and that. The pillow shifted beneath her head as whatever-it-was adjusted its weight.

She rolled over and came face to face with a phoenix. For a long moment, neither moved.

“WAAHH!” Rarity tumbled out of bed, dragging half the covers with her. The sheets tangled in her legs, and she kicked at them frantically, her heart racing, desperate to escape before the beast could set upon her and devour her.

“Stay back!” she shouted when she finally got onto her hooves. “Don’t... don’t come any closer!”

The phoenix tilted its head.

“I mean it!” She pointed her horn at it like a weapon. “I know how to use this!”

The phoenix chirped again.

“I’ll... I”ll...” She trailed off when the phoenix ducked its head and started tugging the remaining sheets into a nest.

So, maybe it wasn’t going to eat her. Her pulse slowly calmed from its frantic pace, and she took a moment to collect herself.

Another chirrup sounded beside her, and she turned to see a phoenix perched atop one of her huge wardrobes. It stared down at her with its huge, curious eyes.

Something rustled beneath the bed. She groaned.

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle’s voice intruded, muffled by the walls between them. “Flappy is back!”

Oh Celestia, please don’t let it be... Rarity shot the two birds she could see a dark look and trotted toward the door. More chirps echoed from her in-suite bathroom. She ignored the sounds, braced herself, and pushed open the door to the Boutique proper.

Approximately one million phoenixes covered every surface in her workroom. They perched on mannequins; they made crude nests in the rack of cloth bolts; no fewer than five phoenix heads poked out from her wastebasket, all chirping merrily. The floor was a sea of red and orange wings and bouncing plumes. Even the air was a blizzard of tumbling bodies and loose feathers.

“Sweetie! Sweetie, where are you?”

The sea of phoenixes parted around a pink and lavender mane that slowly moved toward Rarity. It stopped a few feet away, and Rarity could just barely see Sweetie’s beaming face amongst all the feathers.

“Rarity! Flappy had babies!”

“And then she just started screaming,” Sweetie Belle said, concluding her account of the morning’s excitement at the Boutique.

She kept her voice low so Miss Cheerilee wouldn’t yell at them again. Up at the front of the class, their teacher scribbled a long series of sentence diagrams on the blackboard, occasionally stopping to turn around and quiz the class on various parts of speech. So far they had covered articles, subjects, verbs and direct objects. If they were good, Cheerilee promised, they might even get to indirect objects before the day was over.

“Weird,” Scootaloo said. She had nudged her desk closer to Sweetie’s when Cheerilee wasn’t looking, and was able to whisper comfortably with her friends. “Did you tell her you’d take care of them?”

“I did!”

“Wait, you were going to bring her to my barn?” Apple Bloom asked from Sweetie’s other side. “Why didn’t you? I want to see Flappy!”

The three fell silent as Cheerilee spun around, searching for the conversation that had nearly interrupted her monologue on the properties of participles. Her eyes settled on the crusaders and narrowed in silent warning before she returned to the board.

“As you can see, class, the participial phrase in this sentence begins after this comma...” she continued. The girls paid her a token moment of attention before returning to their huddle.

“I was going to bring her over, but it started to rain. Phoenixes can’t get wet or they’ll die.”

Scootaloo frowned. Apple Bloom looked dubious.

“Are you sure, Sweetie? That don’t sound right,” Apple Bloom said.

“How would they take baths?” Scootaloo asked.

“They just can’t, okay?” Sweetie Belle said. “So, uh, I had to sneak Flappy back into my room. And then she had babies while we were asleep.”

“But... don’t birds lay eggs?” Scootaloo frowned down at her desk.

Sweetie paused, a confused expression on her face as what little knowledge she possessed about the birds and the bees fluttered through her head. It was a rather spotty collection of information, filled mostly with snippets snuck from the collection of romance novels Rarity kept hidden under her bed. None of it mentioned eggs.

“Do they?” She might have said more, but at the front of the room Cheerilee turned back to the class. The crusaders snapped to attention instantly.

“Now then, who can tell us what part of speech this is?” She tapped a hoof on the sentence diagram drawn on the blackboard. “How about... Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo gave a little start. “Uh... it’s a, uh, a word?”

Cheerilee closed her eyes for a moment, and the girls heard what might have been a quiet sigh escape from her lips. “Yes, yes it is. Apple Bloom, can you—”

“It’s the subject of the sentence, Miss Cheerilee,” Apple Bloom said.

“Very good. Scootaloo, try to pay more attention?” Judging by the look on Cheerilee’s face, she didn’t expect Scootaloo to take her advice, but part of being a teacher is being optimistic even in the face of repeated experience to the contrary. She waited a moment for that to sink in, then turned back to the board and resumed scribbling.

The crusaders took a serious stab at paying attention. Their ears swivelled forward, and they clasped their hooves politely on the desks. Scootaloo even considered, very briefly, copying down some of the complex diagrams from the blackboard. She didn’t, of course, but she considered it.

“That’s, uh... wow.” Twilight Sparkle said.

The four of them stood outside the Carousel Boutique, watching it in the manner of a crowd watching a house burn down. Close enough to see the lurid details, but far enough away not to get burned.

Or get a phoenix in their hair, as was the case.

A cacophony of chirps, shrieks, warbles and caws emerged from the dark windows of the boutique. Occasionally a phoenix or three would tumble out, flap around for a few moments, then vanish inside or fly up onto the roof to join the hundreds of birds perched on the Boutique’s minarets. The unrelenting rush of noise, their brilliant orange and red plumage and constant movement lent the whole affair a vague sense of roaring blaze that never managed to consume its victim. That the Boutique survived at all was of little solace to Rarity.

“‘Wow?’ That’s all you can say?” Rarity said. She was, it should be said, feeling a bit testy by this point.

“C’mon now, Rarity. We’ve dealt with worse,” Applejack said. “Remember the parasprites?”

“The parasprites were pretty bad,” Twilight said. She looked away for a moment as she spoke.

Her friends were being far too calm about this. Rarity ground her teeth together and resisted the urge to snap at them. “Be that as it may, these birds are destroying my house. How do we get rid of them?”

Silence. Eventually, they turned to their fourth member, who so far had kept her tongue.

“Fluttershy, what do you think?” Rarity leaned toward the pegasus. “You must know something about these birds, after that business with Philomena?”

“Oh, um, yes I do,” Fluttershy said. “And I have good news. If we just leave the phoenixes alone, eventually they’ll go away on their own.”

A wave of relief passed through her friends. Smiles replaced worried frowns, Applejack slapped Fluttershy on the back, and Rarity gave Twilight a hug. All was well again.

“So, how long will this take?” Rarity finally asked. “Do Sweetie and I need to find someplace to sleep tonight?”

“Probably. They usually roost until Spring, when the weather turns warm again.”

Silence again. Well, silence except for the constant squawking and shrieking from the boutique, which hadn’t let up one iota.

“Fluttershy, it’s September,” Rarity said.

Fluttershy nodded.

And there was the panic again. Rarity felt herself start to hyperventilate, and closed her eyes to take a few deep, calming breaths. Breathe in, stress out, just like in her weekly pony-yoga classes.

Deep breaths.

“Are you telling me...” She took another breath and started over. “You mean, they’re wintering over, in my boutique?”

“Um, I think so, yes.”

Breathe in, stress out.

“Fluttershy, I need my home back,” Rarity said after a long pause. “How else can we remove them?”

“Oh, well, you can’t. Once the first phoenix finds a good winter roost site, every phoenix in the area will move there. Besides, they’re so beautiful, Rarity! Look at them!”

Rarity spent a long moment staring at the boutique. A few dozen of the birds, noticing her attention, stared back. For all that their beaks were solid and fixed and incapable of expressing emotion, they seemed to be smiling at her.

“Fluttershy, seriously, how do I get rid of them?”

“I’m afraid Fluttershy is right, Rarity,” Twilight said. She looked up from the Department of Fish and Wildlife pamphlet she was reading. “It says here phoenixes are endangered, and it’s illegal to disturb their roosting sites.”

“Endangered? You must be joking. There are thousands of them in there.”

“Yes, but that’s their only roost for hundreds of miles,” Fluttershy said. “If you kick them out, they’ll be homeless. Cold and alone and homeless.” She gave Rarity a look of such pleading that even Rarity’s heart, hardened from years of living with Sweetie Belle, could not resist.

“Fine.” She sighed and tossed her head, flipping her mane behind her in a dramatic flair. “I shall endeavour to live with these birds in peace.”

“Thank you for calling Trapper Joe’s, Ponyville’s first and best pest extermination service. My name is Tripwire, how can I help you?”

Rarity hunched over the phone in her parents’ home. They were out for the day on some shopping trip or other, and Sweetie was out with her friends, but even alone she felt a nagging urge to keep this conversation as quiet as possible.

“Yes, hello. I have a pest problem I need taken care of. Immediately.”

“Alright, what kind of pest, and where are they?”

“Birds. They’re all over my house. Everywhere: inside, outside, in my bed, in my closets. They’ve started nesting in my kitchen and I must get rid of them.”

“I see, sounds serious. Do you know what kind of bird they are?”

“Uhh... No, no I do not. Just birds.”

“Can you describe them for me?”

“Well, they’re birds. Feathers, beaks. I imagine they’re laying eggs as we speak.”

“What color are they?”

Rarity bit her lip. “Uh, orange and red.”

“Oh.” Silence on the line. “Do they have large beaks, and a big feathery plume on top of their head?”

“Er, maybe?”

“I’m sorry ma’am, those sound like phoenixes. They’re endangered, and we’re not allowed to touch them. I could lose my license.”

“Your license? These birds are in my house! If they were ponies I could have them arrested for trespassing!”

“There’s not much I can do, ma’am. If they cause any damage to your property, you can petition the crown for a reimbursement.”

“I don’t want a reimbursement, I want my house back!” Rarity let out a sharp breath. “Okay, how long do they usually roost?”

“Until spring, usually. Winter Wrap-Up tends to get them moving.”

Rarity pursed her lips. Winter Wrap-Up was just over six months away. She could see it now: by then her house would be in shambles. Phoenix droppings would be fetlock deep. The walls would be riddled with holes and stuffed with eggshell fragments. Enough loose feathers to stuff a thousand pillows would cover the floor.

No. That could not happen.

“I see. Thank you for your help.” She hung up before the exterminator could reply.

Sometimes, to achieve great things, a pony had to make certain sacrifices. Omelets, broken eggs, and all that.

Rarity could do that. She could make sacrifices.

And the phoenixes? They would just have to find somewhere else to live.

Scootaloo came to a screeching halt on her scooter outside the Carousel Boutique. Behind her, in a wagon attached by a tow hitch, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom squealed with glee. Further behind her, in a line extending through Ponyville and terminating outside Cheerilee’s schoolhouse, a series of mares and stallions picked themselves up and counted themselves lucky not to have been run over. Again.

“Wow...” Apple Bloom stared up at the Boutique with eyes widened by wonder. A hundred phoenixes perched on the Boutique’s roof stared back. Beside her, Sweetie Belle grinned.

“That... is... awesome!” Scootaloo jumped off her scooter and half-ran, half-buzzed toward the Boutique. “Where did they all come from?”

Sweetie Belle pulled off her helmet and set it in the wagon, then trotted after her friend. The front door was still unlocked, and when she pulled it open a small blizzard of fiery feathers rushed out to greet her.

“I told you, Flappy had babies!”

“These don’t look like babies,” Apple Bloom said. She trotted past Sweetie into the dim Boutique and was instantly surrounded by dozens of curious phoenixes that began nibbling her mane.

“Well, where else did they come from?” Sweetie asked. She pushed past the gaggle of birds into the kitchen, where the remains of her breakfast were being picked over by a table full of phoenixes. The cabinets had all been pried open and their contents strewn across the floor. Dry cereal crunched beneath her hooves as she trotted over to the refrigerator, pulled down one of her favorite pieces of art, rolled it into a tube, and walked back out to the lobby.

“Okay, got it,” she said. “Anyway, where else did they come from? I only brought Flappy home, not all these others.”

“Maybe they’re Flappy’s friends?” Scootaloo suggested. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the cacophony. “They didn’t want her to be lonely?”

“Oh, oh!” Apple Bloom bounced on her hooves. “Can we bring some back to Sweet Apple Acres? Granny will love them!”

“I dunno, they seem happy here,” Sweetie Belle said. One of the phoenixes flapped over to her and dropped a pinecone at her hooves. Just as quickly it was gone.

“Well, what if they like apples? They might like it more in our barn!”

Sweetie frowned. “Apple Bloom, are you trying to steal my phoenixes?”

“No.” Apple Bloom ground her hoof into the floor and then looked around the crowded lobby. “I just want a couple, you know? Not all of them.”

“Can I have a few, too?” Scootaloo asked. She gave the nearest few birds a careful sizing-up.

Sweetie Belle was silent for a moment. Rarity had explicitly forbidden her from bringing home any more surprises – in fact, she had threatened to send Sweetie to the salt mines, whatever those were – but she hadn’t said anything about giving the birds to her friends. And there were lots of birds. More than she could ever count. A few wouldn’t be missed.

“Well, okay. But only a few!”

The other two fillies drew in a gasping breath, and huge smiles broke out on their faces. They dove forward as one and tackled Sweetie in a tremendous hug that left all three giggling on the floor.

All around, a thousand phoenixes watched curiously for a moment, then returned to whatever important business they were up to.

Rarity peeked out the blinds of her old room in her parents’ house. It hadn’t changed much over the years since she moved out, though her mother had started using it to store art supplies at some point, and now a collection of canvases and easels and paints filled an entire corner opposite the bed.

The street outside was filled with ponies going about their day. Rarity twisted the blinds shut, plunging the room into darkness.

She didn’t want any witnesses for this. A faint burst of magic from her horn locked the door securely shut, and she picked up the phone. A crude classified ad, torn from the back page of a seedy “alternative” newspaper, lay wrinkled on the desk before her.

The phone rang and rang. She was about to set the handset down in the cradle when the line clicked over, and the faint hiss of a weak connection filled her ear.

“Yeah?” a rough voice asked.

“Ah, ahem, yes, hello.” Rarity tried to recall how these conversations were supposed to go. Was her voice supposed to shake like this? That wasn’t in any of her novels. “Is this Max?”

“Maybe. What do you need?”

“I saw your ad. I have a problem. A phoenix problem.”

Silence on the line, followed by a chuckle. “Yeah, that’s a problem alright. Damn things get in your house and that’s it. Lady, by the time Spring arrives, there won’t be anything left in there.”

Rarity shuddered. Images of her Boutique, reduced to its frame and flinders of wood, filled her mind again. “Yes, I know. This... thing you sell, can it help?”

“Oh yeah, it’ll help. It’ll get rid of ‘em.”

She let out a quiet breath. A weight she hadn’t realized existed lifted from her withers. “That’s wonderful. It is, ah, legal, right?”

A pause. “Well, there’s legal, and there’s legal, you know what I mean?”

“Of course.” Another pause. “So... which is it?”

“Well, technically it’s neither. Look, do you want those phoenixes out of your house or not?”

There was only one answer for that. Rarity scheduled the delivery for the same day.

Applejack hummed a quiet tune as she went about her chores. The apple harvest was in full swing, and that meant her days were full from dawn until dusk with apples and bucking and hauling and walking, so much walking, until she felt like a thousand miles had passed beneath her hooves and she had trod upon every inch of the vast orchards surrounding the family farm.

It was a good feeling.

“Raise this barn, raise this barn...” Applejack half-sang, half-mumbled as she unhitched an apple-filled wagon from her back. “Something something, raise this barn...”

There were still at least two hours before the sun would dip below the horizon and the farm’s work would come to a close for the day. That meant two more hours to sort apples, package them in barrels, load them onto the waiting delivery wagons and set them rolling toward town. Only then, when twilight had arrived and the orchards went silent for the night, could she begin the second part of her day – paperwork and accounting for all the costs and expenditures.

If things went well, she might find herself collapsing into bed sometime after midnight to catch a few hours of sleep before the first light of morning crept into the eastern sky. Then she would be up, and the whole cycle would start again, until December when winter would steal the last of the leaves on her trees.

Applejack was fairly sure she had the best job in the world.

She was still stacking barrels an hour later when she heard the quiet chatter of fillies behind her, accompanied by the clop of little hooves on dirt. She set the last barrel of the batch on the floor and turned around.

Nothing. Huh.

“Apple Bloom? You there, girl?”

“Yeah!” Her sister’s voice sounded from the loft above her. A moment later, Apple Bloom slid down the ladder in a yellow flash. “Sorry sis, had to, uh, put away some tools!”

“Tools?” Applejack peered up into the loft. It was dark with the shadows of later afternoon, broken by spears of sunlight that poked through cracks in the barn wall and scattered off a million motes of dust. “What tools?”

“Uh, you know.” There was a long pause. “Hammers. And stuff.”

Few ponies could lie to Applejack and get away with it. Rarity could – for her, words were just another part of her image, and twisting them to suit her purpose was no different than wearing make-up or a gorgeous dress. It wasn’t even a lie, really, just a careful masquerade overlying the truth.

Apple Bloom, however, could not. Beads of sweat began to roll down the side of her face as she grinned up at Applejack.

She ought to climb up there and find out what Apple Bloom was hiding. She ought to make Apple Bloom sweep the barn or some other menial chore for lying. She ought to do a lot of things, but right now she had apples that needed crating, and books that needed balancing, and a dozen other tasks to keep the barn afloat.

“Fine, tools.” She rolled her eyes. “If you’re done playin’ for the day, git started on your chores. Granny’ll have supper soon.”

“Okaysisbye!” Apple Bloom vanished in a puff of dust that slowly drifted out the barn door, following in her wake.

Applejack shook her head, but a smile crept onto her lips. Childhood was such a short thing, and who was she to ruin it? Soon enough Apple Bloom would have her cutie mark, and she would put away her foalish things, and the world would cease to fill her with wonder, and the long summer afternoons filled with playtime and friends would become a slowly fading memory, like the last wisps of a dream that vanished upon waking into the adult world.

And that could wait for another day, Applejack decided. She gave the dark loft a final look, then trotted out of the barn to the myriad other tasks awaiting her.

Behind her, unheard, something chirruped.

The package was waiting for Rarity outside the Boutique less than an hour after her call. She’d asked for the fastest delivery possible – no, bits were definitely not an obstacle, thank you sir.

It was a box, and much larger than she expected. Its top was level with the tip of her horn, and she could barely reach around its sides with her outstretched hooves. A full-grown pony could easily stand within.

It had no markings, except for a single stencil along one side: “Phoenix-B-Gone.” Rarity stared at it for a long time.

“Alright then.” She let out a dainty breath. “Let’s see what we’ve purchased, hm?”

Her horn flared, and a pair of fabric shears rose into the air beside her. With a flash, they danced around the box, neatly slicing through the industrial-strength packing tape that sealed its every edge and corner. With a final, dextrous slash, the box fell away and revealed its illicit, hidden cargo to the world.

She stared again.

It wasn’t what she expected.

At all.

The monstrosity stood before her, a refugee from a junkyard. A large metal hopper, open on one side, yawned at her, revealing a maw full of sharp steel teeth mounted upon an array of rotating shafts. In the spaces between the teeth she could see the guts of the machine – countless gears and pistons and belts that fed inexorably through its digestive tract, all leading to a chute on the far side aimed upward and out.

A woodchipper, in other words. Along one side of the hopper, an enterprising pony had sanded off the rust and applied a sticker that was beginning to peel around the edges.

“Phoenix-B-Gone,” it read in bright red letters.

She stared some more.

A quiet fluttering intruded eventually upon the silence. Rarity looked down to see a slip of white paper in a clear envelope taped to the inside of one of the box’s walls. She plucked it up with her magic and unfolded it to read.

There was no step three.

No. No. This is disgusting. Rarity set the paper down and took a deep, shaking breath. I’m going to box this horrible thing up and get my money back.

Behind her, something disturbed the flock of phoenixes nesting in the Boutique. A chorus of shrieks and caws poured forth, drowning out the quiet rustle of leaves in the fall breeze. She turned around and watched them fluttering around her home. The once-beautiful walls were soiled with droppings. Her windows had sprouted twigs and leaves, plucked for their nests. Her eyes briefly settled on a pair of birds that appeared to be wrestling, until one managed to pin the other and then climb atop it.

They weren’t wrestling.

Rarity frowned and turned back to the device. She picked up the paper again and studied it for some time.

This was their fault, really. The phoenixes. If they hadn’t invaded her boutique, this machine wouldn’t be necessary. They had only themselves to blame.

Rarity folded the instructions and set them carefully back into the envelope.

It took nearly twenty minutes for Scootaloo to fly the hundred yards from the ground to Rainbow Dash’s house. In the end, the phoenixes tangled in her mane had to help, flapping their own wings and dragging her the last few feet to the cloud sill that rested against Dash’s door. Scootaloo lay there for a while, panting furiously, but nevertheless pleased with her flight.

“Dash!” She pushed the door open without bothering to knock. “Hey, Dash! Are you—” A quiet snore from the bedroom cut her off. She trotted over and stuck her head through the door.

Sure enough, Dash lay sprawled out on her bed, doubtlessly dreaming of the Wonderbolts again. Scootaloo knew she would hear about it when Dash woke.

But that was in the future, and for now, it would be rude of her to interrupt Dash’s nap. Instead she tip-toed back into Dash’s kitchen and carefully unloaded the pair of phoenixes. They squawked at her, but calmed down after she patted down their ruffled feathers.

“Rainbow Dash will be really excited to see you,” she whispered to them. “But you have to be quiet until she wakes up.”

They tilted their heads at her.

“So just wait here for a bit. I’ll be back tonight, and then we can, uh, have a party!”

One of the phoenixes settled down and began preening its wings. The other reached out and nibbled on Scootaloo’s nose. She giggled and pushed it away.

“Okay, I’ll be back. Remember, don’t wake Dash up!” She gave them one last pet, then hopped out the door for a much shorter flight back to the earth.

Behind her, the phoenixes considered the empty room. After some time they stood, flexed their wings, and flew into the bedroom.

Which, when you think about it, was a much more comfortable place to build a nest.

“I just want you to know how dreadfully sorry I am about this.”

The phoenix in Rarity’s magical grasp flapped its wings a few times, as though attempting to take flight. When that came to no end, it settled down and peered about curiously with its huge orange eyes.

“But I need my home back,” Rarity continued. “It’s not fair to expect a young businessmare like myself to decamp from her place of work for half a year. It’s not.”

The phoenix trilled quietly and bobbed its head.

“Yes, I know it wasn’t your intention. I believe you are just doing what comes natural to you, as all wild animals are wont to do. But I, I have a right – no, a duty to defend my home. And that is how we have come to this.”

Rarity stopped in front of the Phoenix-B-Gone. Its dreadful maw stared at her, yawned open at her, beckoned her to feed it. She swallowed and found that her mouth was suddenly dry as a stone.

The phoenix looked down at the machine, then back at her.

“Y-yes, I know, this is terrible of me. A better pony would find another way. But I am not that pony, am I? I am not that pony, and you made me this way.” The light surrounding her horn faltered, and the phoenix trembled in the air as she struggled to keep her composure.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The glow of her horn stabilized and brightened, and the phoenix slowly floated over the Phoenix-B-Gone’s jaws.

“But enough talk,” she said. “Now, where the hell is the ‘on’ swit–”

“Rarity?”

Rarity froze. Indeed, time itself seemed to freeze. Her, the phoenix, the very wind all came to a stop, and the world held its breath.

This was fine. She could fix this.

“Twilight,” she said. She slowly turned in place as she spoke. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting any company this afternoon—oh, and Fluttershy, too. Hello, dear.”

“Um, hello.” Fluttershy’s eyes were wide and fixed on the machine behind Rarity.

“We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d stop by to check on you,” Twilight said. “Also, what are you doing?”

“What am I doing? What am I doing? Why, nothing, of course.” Rarity waved a hoof. “Just... nothing. Some housework. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, not being a homeowner yourself.”

“Uh huh.” Twilight’s eyes shifted to the Phoenix-B-Gone, then back to Rarity. “I ask because it looks like you were about to shove a phoenix into a woodchipper.”

“Why, shove a phoenix into a woodchipper? Ha! Oh, Twilight, that is simply so droll of you.” She forced out a bark of a laugh. “Why, the very thought. This isn’t a woodchipper.”

“It’s... not a woodchipper?”

“No.”

Twilight took a few steps closer and bent her head to study the machine. All three were silent for a while.

Eventually, Twilight spoke. “Rarity, this is a woodchipper.”

“What? No, there must be some mistake. You see this label here—”

“It’s okay, Rarity.” Fluttershy came up and put a soft hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “Put the phoenix down.”

“But—”

“Rarity.” Fluttershy’s voice was firmer now. “Put it down.”

Rarity huffed. “Fine. Fine. I’ll put it down.” She let the phoenix go so abruptly that it squawked and fell halfway to the ground before recovering. “I’ll put it down, and it will fly back into my house, and I suppose I’ll just find somewhere else to live for six months!”

“Rarity, calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down, she says!” Rarity stamped in a little circle. “That’s easy for you to say, Twilight! It’s not your library that’s been infested with vermin!”

“Oh, um, they’re not vermin,” Fluttershy said.

“Am I supposed to just move back in with my parents? Have you even met them, Twilight? I will not. I will not!”

“Rarity, take a deep breath.”

Rarity did, but only to use as ammunition. “I will tell you what I am going to do, Twilight. I am going to go back into that house, and I am going to start grabbing bucketfuls of phoenixes, and I am going to come out here and start shoving them into that woodchipper—”

“Eep!”

“—until there is nothing left but feathers and bad memories. And when I am done, Twilight, when I am done I am moving back into my boutique and I swear to Celestia if Sweetie Belle ever brings some wild animal home she’s going to the pound! Not to drop the pet off, Twilight, she’s going to the pound to live there!”

Silence, but for Rarity’s ragged breathing. Twilight stared at her, mouth agape. Fluttershy tried to hide behind her bangs and her forelegs.

Sanity returned slowly to Rarity, with nothing to egg her on. Her breathing slowed, and she bit her lip.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. Not about the phoenixes, or the woodchipper. Or Sweetie.” She paused to sniff and leaned against Fluttershy, who draped a wing across her shoulders. “Especially not Sweetie. You won’t tell her I said that, will you?”

“Hey, of course not.” Twilight took a seat on Rarity’s other side. “We all do silly things, sometimes.”

“Like the centipedes?” Fluttershy said.

“That was a scientific experiment,” Twilight said a bit faster than was strictly necessary. “What matters is that everypony makes mistakes sometimes.”

“Like the centi—”

“Like trying to solve your problems with a woodchipper,” Twilight said. “But the important thing is that you realized your error, and learned something. About friendship, I guess.”

Rarity smiled weakly and nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet.

“Sometimes we have to rely on our friends to keep us straight.” Twilight wrapped her hoof around Rarity’s shoulder, and pulled her close for a hug.

“Oh girls, I don’t deserve you.” Rarity sniffed again. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks and ruin her mascara. “You two... oh, and Pinkie, and Dash, and Applejack too... you’re the best friends a girl could ask for.”

“You’d do the same for us,” Fluttershy said. “I mean, I hope you would. I think it would be nice if every pony would—oh my, look at that!”

Rarity and Twilight turned to follow Fluttershy’s raised hoof. Behind them, unnoticed, a stream of phoenixes – thousands of them! – took to the air from Rarity’s boutique. They circled it in a brilliant red and orange cloud that rose higher and higher into the sky, and when they reached the clouds they formed a river that flowed to the east.

Within minutes, the boutique was empty. A little worse for wear, perhaps, but empty.

And that was good enough.

Applejack and Big Macintosh stood on a hill outside their barn.

On a normal day, they would be inside the barn at this time, unloading wagons and packing apples for shipment all around Equestria. On a normal day they’d be laughing as they worked, finally seeing the fruits of a year’s labor, ready to feed a nation.

Today was not a normal day.

From a distance, their barn appeared to be on fire, albeit with a conspicuous absence of smoke. Only from a closer vantage – say, from the hill they stood upon – could a pony see that the fire was actually a thousand brilliantly plumed phoenixes, red and yellow and orange and gold, crawling and flapping and nesting without abandon on the roof and in the windows. They seemed quite at home.

A few minutes before sunset, Apple Bloom ran up the hill. A huge grin filled her face, and she practically bounced in place when she stopped.

“Sis! Mac! It worked.”

Applejack pondered that remark.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders, Endangered Animal Relocation Specialists, yay!” Apple Bloom pumped a hoof in the air, then turned and ran down the hill toward the barn, vanishing inside.

There was a long pause.

“Huh,” Big Macintosh said.

A few minutes after sunset, Sweetie Bell ran up the hill. She was panting, and her face was drawn tight in a scowl as she stared down at the barn.

“Apple Bloom! You stole my phoenixes!” she shouted in her high, cracking voice. Just as fast, she ran down the hill toward the barn, and also vanished inside.

There was another pause.

“Huh,” Big Macintosh said again.

“So... new barn?”

“Eyup.”

Rainbow Dash woke a few hours later from the most wonderful dream.

A Wonderbolt – which one didn’t matter, they were all the same in their uniforms – held her down in a tight embrace, while another nuzzled her mane. Some unseen pony did the same with her tail.

“Mm, yes...” she mumbled into her cloud bed. This was not an uncommon dream for her, but rarely had it felt so real. “I’ll join your team...”

The Wonderbolt chirped.

That was new. Dash’s eyes shot open, revealing the dim interior of her bedroom.

And also several hundred phoenixes.

Phoenixes nested in pairs on her bed. They nudged each other for space on her dresser. They formed a living carpet on her floor. Several were gently preening her mane and tail, which was nice, but not something she had particularly wanted when she went to bed.

She got up, careful not to disturb the phoenixes around her. The ones with their beaks in her hair let go reluctantly, and she made her way into the kitchen, where even more phoenixes waited. She stepped around them as carefully as she could over to the cupboard.

There was a half-full bottle of Wild Pegasus on the shelf. She pulled it out, removed the stopper, and held it upside-down over the sink until the last of the whiskey inside was a dripping memory. Then she threw the empty bottle out the window.

“Never again.”