//------------------------------//
// 7 - A Star Fading At Dawn 
// Story: Glow In The Dark, Shine In The Sun 
// by TCC56 
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Friday made Pinkie Pie's prophesy true - no student was willing to even talk to Cozy. The Crusaders had gotten their tale out, and Cozy overnight had become persona non grata among her new classmates. She avoided vengeance and bullying at least, since it was widely known she was under Sunset Shimmer's protection. But her day was one of quiet isolation in the crowd.

It showed the power of this world's communication - and the spirit of the Wondercolts. Any more plans Cozy had would require a lot more time, finesse and skill than even what she had done in Equestria. And with Sunset looking over her shoulder... 

They met outside Cozy's last class, and Sunset immediately used her magic to look through Cozy's memory in what was fast becoming a daily ritual. 

After being deemed innocent enough, Cozy let out a sigh. "So what's my sentence today?"

"Darling, your sentence would be as a statue in Equestria. This is hardly so arduous." Rarity slipped out from behind Sunset, all teeth and coy laughter.

Cozy froze for just a moment - the dressmaker's predatory smile touched a primal herd animal fear. But she rallied, falling back to her bastion of cheery sarcasm. "Oh yay! I get to stand still for hours and model pretty dresses!"

Rarity's eyes glimmered with cruel cheer. "Not quite, dearie."





"What IS this place?" Cozy glared at the stonework building, willing it to be something sensible. 

Rarity gave her hair a toss. "Well, I do suppose that churches look different in Equestria. The iconography is certainly going to be--" 

Sunset interrupted, sensing a lecture in art history coming. Not that she minded one, but Cozy would start complaining pretty quickly. "I think she means why are we here, Rarity."

"Oh." Rarity took a moment to recompose herself, masquerading it under guiding their trio around to the church's side entrance. "Since you know my counterpart, Cozy Glow, I'm certain you're quite familiar with our shared love of fashion. But I also expect you don't have the same. As such, you likely have never thought about the flotsam of the craft - clothing goes out of style. It gets worn down. It stops fitting more than can be adjusted for. Sometimes it simply isn't to a person's tastes any longer. And when one has passion for something, there are times when you just feel like knitting a scarf or two to keep your hands busy." 

She pulled the door open, ushering both Cozy and Sunset inside. "In those moments, I am privileged to bring my works here."

Ahead was a room not too far off from the CHS cafeteria in layout and contents, though the occupants were very different. There were a few school-age kids scattered around the long tables, but the majority were adults. Ragged, tired - Canterlot's homeless. 

Cozy froze, mind blank on how to react. She knew Rarity. (Well, a Rarity.) She'd studied Rarity. That Rarity would willingly place herself in a room with people like this was a ball so curved it would have made Twilight Sparkle do new calculations on how orbits worked. 

Neither of the other two so much as paused. Sunset was immediately down among the crowd, hugging several people and striking up conversations. Rarity marched to one of the room's corners with purpose, taking up place by a stack of cardboard boxes. Lacking a better idea, Cozy followed the fashionista.

By the time she reached there, Rarity had already pulled the first box open. Inside was a jumbled mess of clothing - all of it threadbare, painfully out of fashion or ill-sized in some measure or another. But each piece was pulled out by pale hands, inspected and sorted into a number of plastic bins on a table beside them. 

A red plaid coat that stank of smoke into a bin marked COATS - HEAVY - LARGE. A pair of jeans with a long tear in it into REPAIR. An old t-shirt with a logo that proclaimed the Carolina Panthers the winners of Superbowl 50 went into SHIRTS - MEDIUM.

Rarity was a machine as she sorted - half the time her inspection was done so fast Cozy barely could tell she'd done it. The process seemed straight-forward enough, though, and Cozy wordlessly sorted a few pieces as well.

A good five minutes cycled past before Rarity spoke. "Just to make things perfectly clear, darling, I am quite unhappy about what you did to my Sweetie Belle." 

"You mean that I--" 

Cozy didn't get another syllable before Rarity cut her off. "I don't know how well you know the other me, but I assure you that Sweetie is quite important in my life. She is my sister after all, and despite our occasional disagreements I love her dearly." She halted for a moment, looking over what had been a beautiful blouse before someone had spilled a hefty amount of tomato sauce on it. It was tossed into REPAIR. "But I do understand that you may not quite grasp what a relationship like that means, so I shan't be as wearying as Rainbow Dash is certain to be and get straight to the point." Rarity next inspected a windbreaker for holes and spoke with smooth, sharp words. "If you ever cause harm to my Sweetie Belle again, they will never find enough pieces of you to identify who you were." The windbreaker was placed into COATS - LIGHT - EXTRA LARGE before Rarity turned to lock cool eyes with Cozy Glow. "I trust we are on the same page?"

In her handful of years, Cozy Glow had heard a lot of things from those she had wronged. 'You won't get away with this' and 'how could you' were the most common. But not once had Cozy been simply threatened. Not with such quiet, calm assurance. And Rarity was right - if it had come from Rainbow Dash, it would have been different. A bombastic and boastful threat that held no force (much like the threats Chrysalis made often made), versus... that. And Rarity's bland expression made the malice in those words terrifying. 

Cozy nodded slowly. 

"Wonderful." Rarity opened up another box of donated clothing. 

There was silence again for a few minutes, broken up only by Rarity helping one of the needy in finding a proper coat - one not only that was heavy enough and fit properly, but also looked passably good. She was as free with the compliments as the critique, letting the man leave with both a warm coat and a warm smile.

After he had gone, Cozy plucked up the courage to start again. "Did you bring me here just to threaten me?" 

"Oh heavens no!" Rarity had the gall to laugh at that. "But if we are to associate with one another, we must clear the air. Otherwise every word would be undercut! The tension would be unbearable." She waved a hand in the air, shooing off the very concept. "Better to handle the lingering issues before starting anew. And now that we have, we can focus on far brighter things than that dreary business."

Cozy stared at Rarity for a long moment, unable to quite believe that this girl was for real. "Then why--" 

Rarity slashed through the conversation again. "A dual lesson, darling. Can you guess in what?"

The first part was obvious - Cozy might not have taken the lessons of the School of Friendship to heart, but she at least remembered the subjects. "Generosity?"

"Quite." Rarity picked up one of the coats, stretching out an arm to her critical eye. "I shan't pretend to know how these things work where you're from, but here there are always those in need. And we're doing our little part here today to help them." 

Cozy picked up another of the coats, testing the alien feel of the nylon windbreaker. "But you said these were things nopony wanted anymore. They're just trash." 

"Nobody," Rarity corrected perfunctorily. "And just because I don't want them doesn't mean someone else won't value them instead. Generosity isn't about taking from yourself, Cozy. If you had a dress that you didn't like anymore, would you donate it to a place like this?"

Instantly, Cozy shook her head. "Pft, no. It's mine! And even if I don't want it, why should I just give it away?" 

"You're certain back in your home you're not a dragon? You sound as gluttonous as one on their hoard." Rarity paused. "Then again, I'm told that Spikey-Wikey is a dragon so that isn't terribly appropriate of me." She laughed, tittering to herself. "Look at me, worrying if I'm being racist to fantastical creatures in another world. Life is certainly odd."

With a little snort, Cozy turned away and grabbed an excessively ugly skirt to pretend to care about. "Yeah, well, ask Sunset. I'm sure she could tell you if you were. It doesn't matter to me."

Rarity was quiet for a few seconds before renewing her attack. "You know, that does make me consider. For all Sunset speaks about how similar the two of you are, there's at least one obvious difference. She had to work for her conquests."

"What?!" Cozy spun to glare daggers at Rarity. 

Whom didn't care in the slightest, not even bothering to look at the younger girl as they continued. "From what I've been told, your contest of wills was rather easy. Through it all you lived -- well, I suppose that a boarding school dormitory was hardly the lap of luxury but it was no hardship. And you were given the benefit of the doubt at nearly every turn, knowing the Princess. To say nothing of that you did not a whit of it by yourself." Finally, she glanced back to Cozy. "Every step of the way, guided by the older, wiser and more experienced? Hm?" Rarity batted her eyelashes. "Am I incorrect, darling?"

Cozy fired back without thinking, taking a wild shot. "Yeah, and Sunset was Princess Celestia's pet! She had way more than I ever did!"

"Which she gave up the moment the touched that mirror," Rarity pointed out, voice cool as stone. "Though this now reminds me of another difference between you - you, Cozy Glow, lack observational skills." 

Setting another coat into the REPAIR bin, Rarity made a cursory motion across the room without looking to where Sunset was sitting and laughing with three of the homeless over a bowl of stew. "Didn't you question why Sunset knows these transients so well? That when we entered she came right over and began to speak with them like old friends?"

Cozy's eyes flickered - to Sunset, to the vagrants, to Rarity, to Sunset.

"She gave up everything when she came here. Initially because she started from nothing, but even as time went on? Sunset didn't place herself into riches." Rarity clicked her tongue, as if scolding the new box of donations she opened. "She said that it was because she prioritized strength and security over creature comforts - after all, no one can search out your home and track down your past if there's nothing to find. Being mobile and secretive was a way to defend herself from prying eyes." 

Conspiracy crept into her voice as she continued. "Personally I suspect she was subconsciously trying to punish herself, but Sunset reacts so defensively when I bring it up that I dare not press."

"So she...." Cozy squinted at Sunset again, trying to picture her in the ragged clothes they were sorting. "Wait, why was she doing it then? That doesn't make sense." 

Rarity picked up the REPAIR bin and transferred it to one of the back tables. Beside it was a sewing machine - nothing nearly as prestigious as hers at home, but functional enough. "No, it doesn't. But no matter the reasons, Sunset lived like that for quite a long time. She fought for all her gains - even if I can't approve of her actions I can appreciate how hard she worked to destroy our lives. She didn't have a support network. She didn't have a mentor walking her through every step. Sunset carved out every bloody inch with her own unfamiliar fingers." 

A pause. Rarity looked away from the clothes that had held her attention for so much of the conversation - over to the flame-haired girl that was laughing. "Then we blasted her into the ground and she was forced to allow us in. In defeat, salvation." Her gaze drifted to Cozy's once more. "That is why she says you don't understand power. Because she fought for every scrap she had, sacrificed everything to get just a little more and it did nothing but prolong her pain. If she had stayed with Celestia, if she had banded with friends as soon as she came here, if she had taken advantage of the many opportunities to improve her life instead of raging against imagined enemies..." 

Rarity sighed heavily. "And as soon as she lost that power, she gained it again in greater amounts and with ease. You're fighting to take something that would be freely given, Cozy Glow. And Sunset knows that you're struggling ten times as hard for a quarter of what you could be getting. Because you're a blind fool - just like she was."

The sewing machine started up with a rattle, and Rarity brought a torn jacket around to begin her work. "And there is the second half of your dual lesson, Cozy Glow. Perhaps that is the generosity I can show you - the hope you shall learn something despite all the other life lessons you've ignored."





Almost nobody would even consider spending their Friday night anywhere near the school. But the garden there was Wallflower's favorite place, and she had spent many, many nights (Friday and otherwise) in it. 

Not tonight, though. 

Tonight she was waiting there only for the moment - because she was meeting her date. 

Even thinking the word made Wallflower's spine tingle and her stomach flip as she sat on one of the large rocks that served as a makeshift bench. She was going on a date. With a real human being. It was all so wildly unbelievable... well, it was bad enough that she hadn't even slept the night before! (Granted, some of that was because she kept thinking about how this date could go wrong but it didn't stop her from being excited.)

That she - Canterlot High's most infamous recluse - could finally be noticed was such a change of pace that Wallflower could barely wrap her head around it. A few months ago and no one remembered her name. So much had changed in so little time. 

Quietly, Wallflower wondered if it was inappropriate to dedicate this milestone to the ones who got her here. That gave her a chance at redemption from her sins. 

Not that she wouldn't be telling Sunset all about this on Monday - the unicorn-turned-girl would be overjoyed. 

She just had to make sure not to screw up tonight. 

Like she always did.

Wallflower frowned. Wait, why did she think that? Yes, she had problems but she was improving! Life was improving! Everything in her life was getting better, which was more than she deserved.

"W--what?" Her voice slipped out, quiet as the grave. She could feel her panic rising rapidly. Something wasn't right. Why was she feeling this way? Wallflower knew she'd been given another chance for what happened with the Memory Stone. That she had turned herself around with the help of a good, growing circle of friends. They'd been nothing but supportive, so why would she think that she could never be forgiven for what she did.

Clutching her head, Wallflower pinched her eyes closed. But that didn't block out the memory of what she had done. Of those she had hurt.

The thoughts slammed into Wallflower like a sledgehammer to the back of the head, toppling her off the rock. Her fingers dug into the dirt, gripping handfuls to anchor herself down. 

But it didn't help. Nothing could. She didn't deserve help, anyway. After what she did with the Stone, Wallflower knew any pain she was feeling was what she deserved. And she had earned it, no matter what those around her said. They were probably just keeping an eye on her in case she went crazy again.

After all, Wallflower had lucked out. Most of what she had destroyed had only hurt her. Made her forgotten like she deserved to be. It was a good thing she had been beaten when she had. After all, with all she had stolen from Sunset Shimmer.. well. That was the kind of situation nobody wanted to live in.

Letting out a pained scream, Wallflower curled herself up into a ball in her garden and cried. As she let the grief and darkness overtake her, the last thing Wallflower could hear was her date shouting her name - a name spoken in panic.