Cozy Glow smiled up at her mother brightly. “Golly, I can’t wait to finally see more of Equestria! I want to see everything! The sights, the ponies, the culture…”
Her mother smiled back. “I know, Cozy. I’m excited too. We didn’t exactly get to see much of it during our visit, what with us being confined to Ponyville the whole time. We should all do some exploring after we get settled in.”
Cozy nodded and looked out the train window at the expanse of lush fields and valleys rushing by, ignoring all the weird looks and startled reactions she kept getting. Having been born and raised in Abyssinia, which had very few ponies, she was used to them. Odd to be getting them in the actual pony nation, though.
In any case, maybe the family moving to Equestria for her father’s work would help her make more friends. She wanted to understand every possible aspect of other people, including and especially friendship, but being a pony in a nation with very few made making friends…difficult, to say the least. Sometimes she wished everyone would just shut their prejudiced mouths and listen to her. She’d found that she usually knew how to drive and direct people toward goals, after all, and who wouldn’t want her to tell them? She even had a cutie mark for it, for pony’s sake.
Cozy shook her head as the train attendant announced the next stop. No time to focus on any of that now. The train would arrive in Ponyville soon, and she and her mother had to get their luggage together and meet her father at the station.
Ponyville was even weirder than she remembered.
Cozy Glow trailed after her parents through the busy streets, head down and glancing around warily. Practically everypony within a hundred-foot radius seemed shocked or angry to see her and started whispering among each other when they spotted her. Some immediately turned tail and ran. Others outright glared or even spat at her.
Even her parents noticed, and they were two of the least observant ponies on the planet.
“What’s with these ponies? They’ve never acted like this when I was here on business trips,” her father muttered, a concerned frown on his face as he and her mother slowed down to walk on either side of Cozy protectively, which she appreciated (though she would never admit it).
The trio walked in uncomfortable silence to their new house. A wide, empty circle of space surrounded them the whole way.
Cozy sighed in irritation as she and her parents shuffled through the mountain of boxes strewn around the empty house, trying to find the dishes for the kitchen. The delivery ponies hadn’t bothered to organize the boxes at all, but rather just left everything all mixed together. Ugh. At least they hadn’t dropped anything, as far as she could tell.
“Cozy, do you have any idea why everypony was behaving so strangely?”
Cozy shook her head. “No, Mother. I wish I did.”
Her mother sighed, flying up to the top of the nearest pile of boxes. “It was the strangest thing. It was almost like everypony thought you were a criminal.”
Cozy frowned and rubbed a hoof against her chin. “Why would they think that? I’ve only ever been here once before, and that was two years ago. They have no reason to—”
BOOM.
The whole house shook. The box Cozy’s father was holding fell to the floor with a loud thud, which paled in comparison to the next BOOM.
Cozy gaped at the front door. “What the—"
A third BOOM, and the door was kicked in.
Cozy and her parents screamed in surprise as the house was invaded with an army of Royal Guards, a few random ponies, a tiny dragon, and by the stars that was Princess Twilight Sparkle herself. Cozy and her family hadn’t really kept up with Equestrian news, but even she could recognize Equestria’s recent replacement for the Royal Sisters.
Who looked very angry at the moment.
And had her horn lit and pointed straight at Cozy.
“How did you escape, Cozy Glow!?” Princess Twilight snarled, wings flaring. “Release those ponies, now!”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Cozy sputtered, looking frantically between her parents and the Princess. What in Tartarus is going on here!?
…Wait.
Oh, no.
If anything, Princess Twilight looked even angrier. “Don’t play dumb! Where are Tirek and Chrysalis!?”
“W-Who?” Did she…?
Cozy’s parents swiftly stepped in front of their daughter.
“Now hold on a minute!” Cozy’s father began, but Princess Twilight cut him off.
“Don’t worry, sir, we’ll get you two away from that monster.”
Cozy’s mother’s nostrils flared. “How dare you call my daughter a monster!”
“Looks like she’s mind controlled ‘em somehow,” the orange earth pony grunted, shifting a lasso between her teeth. “Don’t think that’ll save ya, Cozy Glow.”
“Don’t bother trying to run,” Princess Twilight continued, her icy-cold purple eyes boring into Cozy’s. “We’ve already contacted the other Princesses and Discord and they’re on their way here right now.”
As if on cue, a tall, mismatched figure appeared in a flash of light, along with (ex-)Princesses Celestia and Luna.
Cozy stared up at them all, trying to organize her stuttering thoughts through her state of shock. “Golly…I…” Did she survive!?
“Something very strange is going on here,” Princess Celestia (Cozy was so used to thinking of the Sisters as Princesses) said, raising an eyebrow at Princess Twilight. “My sister, Discord, and I checked the Canterlot Gardens. The statue of Cozy Glow, Tirek, and Chrysalis is still intact and has not been switched with a false one.”
“What!?” Princess Twilight and the six ponies (and one dragon) surrounding her exclaimed.
“But then who is she?” the blue pegasus said incredulously, pointing a hoof at Cozy.
“I’m Cozy Glow,” Cozy said cautiously, peeking around her mother’s legs. “But, you, um…seemed to already know that.”
“Well obviously you aren’t, darling, or you’d be trapped in stone with those other two horrid villains,” the white unicorn stated matter-of-factly.
“I think the Cozy Glow in that statue is a different one,” Cozy mumbled.
Princess Twilight blinked. “A different one?”
Cozy scuffed a hoof on the floor and directed her eyes anywhere but at Princess Twilight. “Have you heard of the Mirror Pool?”
“The Mirror Pool of legend?” Cozy’s mother said amidst the murmurs of all the ponies around them and Discord’s loud “Well, isn’t this interesting!”
Princess Luna finally broke her stoic silence. “Are you saying a mirror clone of you committed all those villainous deeds?”
Cozy blew out a shaky sigh and nodded. “That’s what I think, anyway. My parents and I visited Ponyville a couple years ago for my father’s business trip—we lived in Abyssinia. When we were there…”
Within their small motel room in central Ponyville, Cozy Glow glanced up at her mother, who was asleep on the bed with a thick book over her face. Her father was in some meeting at Town Hall.
Perfect.
The small filly silently slipped on her saddlebags, grabbed the spare key to their room, and eased the door open, slipping out and making her way down to the lobby and out the front doors.
It was time to go exploring. She wanted to know everything about this place, and the ponies in it. And maybe even make a friend for once, though she knew she wouldn’t have time to assess everypony here thoroughly for proper friendship qualities before leaving, like every other time she visited somewhere. It was endlessly frustrating.
Cozy trotted through the bustling streets of Ponyville proper, eyes darting around between everything and everyone of interest. Most notably, a huge crystal tree-castle that looked a bit out of place among all the wooden buildings towered in the distance. She introduced herself to several ponies when the occasion arose, but didn’t meet anypony particularly interesting.
Before long, she found herself on the outskirts of town, where the only building around was a small cottage sitting at the edge of an ominous-looking forest.
Well, what kind of analyst would she be if she didn’t collect all the available data?
Flying along the forest path, everything seemed pretty standard—trees, bushes, rabbits, and the like. Even a few caves, one of which she decided was worth a look around due to the massive amount of gems inside—so many that a few were even visible from the cave entrance.
The gem cave was visually appealing, but by far the most intriguing thing about it was the narrow tunnel formed in an otherwise blank rock face. Or rather, what was on the other side of it.
Cozy exited the tunnel into a sort of sublevel cavern, the rock adorned only with a few mushrooms and glowing plants with the exception of an unnaturally still pool in the center.
Cozy regularly studied old artifacts and legends, but even if she hadn’t, she would have recognized the Mirror Pool when she saw it. The book of old mare’s tales her mother liked to read to her had a drawing and a rhyme about it. She stood at the Pool’s edge, looking down at her reflection.
Perhaps this would be the best way to optimize the gathering of information. In particular, to understand friendship better. She’d heard rumors about how powerful it could be—powerful enough to shape all of Equestria, and beyond. If she could be a part of it…make friends across the world all at once…
She cleared her throat and spoke.
"And into her own reflection she stared,
Yearning for one whose reflection she shared,
And solemnly sweared not to be scared
At the prospect of being doubly mared.”
It was strange, Cozy thought, to stare into her own physical face. It was like looking in a mirror.
“At first, everything was fine,” Cozy said to her captive audience. “The clone wanted to find out more about the power of friendship, just like I did. But then she started to get more…obsessive about it. She acted like friendship would be her ticket to ruling the world or something. I started to think that, gee, Cozy, maybe the Mirror Pool thing wasn’t such a good idea?”
Cozy Glow glared fiercely at her clone. “You don’t get it! I don’t want to take over the world with friendship or whatever you’re going on about! I just want to understand its power!”
The clone smiled sweetly at her, looking every bit like a hungry shark out for blood. “Well, golly, I guess I could scrap all my plans…but I’m having too much fun!”
“Oof—” Cozy got the wind knocked out of her for a moment as the clone tackled her. She swung her hooves wildly, managing a direct blow to the clone’s gut and forcing her off of Cozy. “You’re insane!” Cozy shouted at the clone as she scrambled to her hooves and rose up to hover at treetop level.
“Got that right!” the clone cackled gleefully, giving chase.
The pair darted through the sky over the forest in some kind of bizarre murderous dance. As Cozy ducked under yet another cloud, she racked her brains for a way to get rid of the clone without alerting anypony to the thing’s existence—she really didn’t want to have to explain this. Why hadn’t the Mirror Pool rhyme included a way to send the clones back to the Pool? What kind of horrible design was that!?
Cozy quickly scanned the extensive forest below for any ideas. There wasn’t much to go on. Just an endless blur of green, brown, and gray. She glanced back. Yup, the clone was definitely starting to close the distance between them. She’d better think of something, and fast.
A rumble from below caught Cozy’s attention. Squinting, she could just make out a rocky cliff face shifting and starting to collapse through the treetops.
She could have cried in relief. She was saved.
Cozy abruptly fell into a nosedive toward the rumbling, and as expected, the clone followed, giggling madly all the way. She weaved through the trees as fast as she could, and in mere seconds was in a clearing with the cliffs. Diving down between the two cliffs facing each other, she came to a static hover just in front of the side that didn’t have chunks of rock beginning to fall and whirled around to face the clone zipping toward her.
“Got you!” the clone sang, ramming Cozy at full speed into the cliff. Cozy wheezed as she was tackled for the second time, but the stable cliff at her back provided an excellent brace to wind up her hind legs and kick the clone into the oncoming rockslide.
The clone shrieked in rage as she tumbled directly into the path of a falling rock, which landed right on top of her and knocked her out of the sky. Cozy watched from a safe distance as several more huge rocks buried the clone.
She waited for a good twenty minutes after the rockslide ended, but the clone never resurfaced.
“I assumed the clone was killed in the rockslide, but I guess she wasn’t,” Cozy Glow finished. “After that, I went home to Abyssinia with my parents.”
“And this clone went on to enroll in the School of Friendship and try to rid Equestria of its magic, and then teamed up with Tirek and Chrysalis to attempt a second takeover of Equestria,” Princess Twilight mused, seemingly to no one but herself.
Cozy hadn’t known about that part, but it sure made everypony’s reactions to her make a lot more sense.
She was suddenly reminded that her parents were there when they both pulled her into a tight hug. “Oh Cozy, I’m so glad you’re safe from that vicious clone,” her mother said tearfully, nuzzling her light blue curls. “Never try to clone yourself again, okay?”
Her father likewise hugged her tighter and emphatically told her to never do something so dangerous ever again “or so help me, you’ll be grounded for the next ten years!”
Cozy hugged them back as discreetly as she could, tactically concealing her burning face from the other several dozen ponies (plus Discord and the dragon) in the house.
“Well…I suppose that is that,” Princess Luna said into the stiff silence. “The mirror clone has already been dealt with and I see no danger from the real Cozy Glow.”
“Nor I, sister,” Princess Celestia agreed. “Shall we take our leave, then?”
With that, Discord snapped his fingers (talons?) and the three of them flashed away.
As the Royal Guard began filing out of the house, Princess Twilight walked up to Cozy, followed by a few other ponies and the dragon. “You said you used the Mirror Pool to try to understand friendship better, right?” the Princess asked.
Cozy nodded slowly. “Right…”
One of the unicorns with Princess Twilight smiled and stepped forward. “I’m Starlight Glimmer, Headmare of the School of Friendship here in Ponyville. If you want to learn about friendship, you’ve come to the right place.” Starlight Glimmer cocked her head slightly and offered Cozy a hoof. “If that’s alright with you?”
Cozy considered. The school did sound like exactly the kind of place she was looking for. She looked at her parents, who were both nodding enthusiastically, and smiled. “Yeah,” she said, taking Starlight’s hoof and standing up. “I think I’d like that.”