//------------------------------// // Pawns Advance // Story: Cozy Glow: FIENDship is Magic // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// Six Months Ago Cozy Glow tilted her head left and right as she looked at herself in the mirror, inspecting her face closely. Her maid Tea Leaf clucked. “Please, miss, hold still,” she said, horn sparking as her magic wove through Cozy’s mane, while her hooves also worked at curling it. She tsked again. “Have you ever considered doing something…less complicated with your mane?” “Nuh-uh,” Cozy responded. “I want my mane all curled like rolls covered in blueberry frosting!” She held the smile that came naturally as she said that, studying it in the mirror. She’d lost her last foal tooth yesterday, and put it under her pillow for the tooth flutter pony. The following morning, she’d woken up with a golden bit under her pillow. The bit was in her hoof now. Cozy glanced down at it without moving her head, then back to the mirror so that she could look at Tea Leaf. “Where did Uncle Fork get this bit from?” She asked. Tea Leaf stopped her work for just a moment, looking at Cozy. She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Stayed up all night, did you?” She asked. Cozy looked back to her bit. “No. I’ve always known. Even back before Daddy went on his business trip I knew it was just Daddy, but I didn’t tell him.” She turned the coin over in her hooves. “If Uncle Fork knew that I knew, do you think he would have been putting more bits under my pillow?” Tea Leaf let out a long, sad sigh at that. “I think your Uncle Fork wants you to be the happiest filly in Fillydelphia.” Cozy Glow turned the bit over in her hooves again. It was brand new. The face had Celestia and Luna in profile, their horns touching, while the other side displayed both the Sun and Moon prominently. The coins had been rushed into circulation, but by now – one year since Princess Luna’s return – they were becoming a common sight. “Uncle Fork just put one bit under my pillow. That’s all Daddy ever did too. But is Uncle Fork just putting one bit under my pillow ‘cause that’s all that most foals get, or is it because he thinks that I’m only expecting one bit and doesn’t want to give me more?” She turned the coin over again. “If Uncle Fork could take the credit instead of the tooth flutter pony, would he put ten bits under my pillow or still just one?” She turned it a fourth time. “Did Uncle Fork use his own money? Or did he use Daddy’s money?” Tea Leaf finished with Cozy’s curls. “It’s not my place to say, miss.” Cozy’s head tilted as she looked at herself in the mirror. She smiled, studying it, the dropped the smile, then smiled again, a little differently. She giggled, and paid attention to that too. Cozy had heard that ponies who practiced laughing and smiling in a mirror were happier. Not that Cozy was unhappy. But she could always stand to be happier! Happier ponies made more friends. That enterprise had come along nicely. She’d made friends with everypony in school over the past year. She knew everypony’s name and birthday and favorite color and favorite food. She threw a whole bunch of parties and went to a whole bunch as well. Everypony at school loved her. And as near as she could tell, it had worked. Sure, things had been really bad when Discord was released. But then the next time something bad happened it was all the way in Canterlot, an invasion by some new race of creatures called changelings who could look like anypony and who fed on love. But lots of love could send them flying away, which was how Twilight Sparkle and her friends had helped Princess Cadance defeat them. The Magic of Friendship again. Then there had been a whole new land appearing in the far north, the Crystal Empire. There had been an evil unicorn named Sombra there once, but he had been defeated, once again through the Magic of Friendship. Canterlot. Then the Crystal Empire. Both places were far away from Fillydelphia, from Cozy Glow. And while maybe that was a coincidence, with Equestria embracing the Magic of Friendship, and with Twilight Sparkle having even become the Princess of Friendship and become an alicorn and everything, maybe now things could finally settle down. Even Discord had embraced the Magic of Friendship, after all! Cozy Glow hopped up from where she sat and carried her bit over to her piggy bank, putting it in. She turned around and looked to Tea Leaf. “Thank you, Tea Leaf!” She said, giving a big, toothy smile. Which showed off the gap from her last foal tooth having gone, but that only made her cuter. “You’re very welcome, miss,” Tea Leaf answered, “now hurry along! You don’t want to miss the dawn!” Cozy Glow nodded, and pranced from her room and out into the hallway. She knew that most adults were always really tired during the Summer Sun Celebration, but not her. She’d set her alarm and woken up extra early so her mane and tail could be done up just how she liked it, and now she and Uncle Fork would be going downtown to watch the dawn and to join the early-morning celebrations. Uncle Fork was waiting for her at the bottom of the grand staircase, finishing up a mug of coffee. “Good morning, Cozy,” he called up to her. “Good morning, Uncle Fork!” Cozy returned. She spread her wings and glided down the stairs, landing in front of him. “The tooth flutter pony came last night! She gave me a whole bit!” Uncle Fork smiled, reaching down and patting her withers. “You have to wonder sometimes what she’s doing with all those teeth, don’t you?” He asked. “Mm-hmm,” Cozy said. She put on a frown and scuffed her hoof on the floor. “But that’s the very last time the tooth flutter pony is ever going to visit me. I don’t have any baby teeth left. And I never got to see her…” “Well, she doesn’t like being seen. She’s very shy.” Uncle Fork turned and started trotting towards the front door. Cozy frowned. She had left a huge opening for Uncle Fork to explain things and take the credit if he wanted, but instead he’d kept pretending the tooth flutter pony existed. Why? She knew that plenty of foals at school knew the tooth flutter pony wasn’t real, so it wasn’t like she was too young. She might not have her cutie mark yet, but she was smart for her age. She could handle the truth. Well, it didn’t matter. Cozy followed after Uncle Fork, pausing just outside the door to her daddy’s study like she often did. Glancing in, she saw the game where it was supposed to be, sitting on the floor with all the pieces in place. Someday soon, her daddy would finally come back from Abyssinia, and then they’d finally get back to that game, and Daddy could finally show her how he was going to beat her. “Oh my Celestia…” Cozy blinked, looking to Uncle Fork. He’d opened the front door, but had paused at it, staring out at the sky. Cozy Glow trotted up next to him, looking out herself. And her blood froze in her veins. The sky was split down the middle. It was day and night at the same time, half the sky a bright and sunny blue and the other half a deep and starry night. “…well!” Uncle Fork said at length, looking down to Cozy. “This…this must be something special that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are doing this year.” Cozy stared at the sky. “Now think about it,” Uncle Fork said, reaching out and laying a wing across Cozy’s back. “Think about it, Cozy. This is the first Summer Sun Celebration since Princess Luna’s return. They would want to make it special.” He waved a hoof at the sky. “How else could it be day and night at the same time?” Cozy shifted in place, but nodded slowly. “O…okay,” she said. Uncle Fork was making sense. The two of them trotted down to the waiting carriage and hopped inside. The ride to the center of town was slow, due to how crowded the streets were. The morning parties of the Summer Sun Celebration would have drawn a big enough crowd to the parks and restaurants on their own, but with the sky split down the middle like it was there were even more ponies out and about than normal, wanting to see such a rare sight. Gradually, Cozy settled down. When their carriage reached the center of town and the crown gathered to see the Mayor of Fillydelphia speak, she’d even managed to relax. The sight of hotcakes and home fries and fruit cups at the breakfast pavilion cheered up Cozy even more. And best of all, almost all her friends from school were here, in various states of wakefulness. Cozy sang with Ivy Song, and talked about hoofball with Nettlekiss, and laughed at Rosy Quartz’s jokes, and played a few games of hop-skotch with Silver Dare and Marble Heart, and got into a cinnamon roll eating contest with Coconut and Winter Gust… It was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was going to be fine. Until it wasn’t. Cozy was sitting on the grass of the park talking about how Ivy Song had managed to get backstage passes to the next Sapphire Shores concert, when she felt something tickle the fog of her hind hoof. She kicked at it absently, but it tickled again, then started sliding up her leg. She shrieked and took to the air, getting away from it. Her friends scattered away as well, though not too far. The foals were treated to the sight of some kind of black weed, growing out of the ground – visibly growing. Longer and thicker every few seconds, spikes poking out from it. More cries of fright and shock went up throughout the celebration grounds. Cozy saw more of the vines beginning to sprout, bursting through the concrete pathways like they weren’t even there, slowly curling around the trees and signs and buildings in the park…the bigger ones even had thorns… Ponies were trying to deal with them, of course. But they couldn’t be uprooted. Trying to pull or bite them in half had no effect. Some unicorns started trying to use magic, but many of the vines had flowers on them with spores that burst open, releasing pollen that sent unicorn spellcasting haywire and chaotic… Their advance was slow, at least. Cozy and her friends had no problems outpacing the spread of the plants. But nothing that anypony did slowed them down for even a second. Worse, even the air wasn’t safe. Dark clouds with thorns like the vines’ own were advancing on Fillydelphia, hurling lightning at any pegasus that got too close. Uncle Fork came to collect Cozy within just a few minutes, of course. They didn’t bother with the carriage, they simply took off for home, outpacing the vines and the clouds as best they could. After only a few hours, the vines had overrun half of western Fillydelphia. Cozy watched from the skies over her roof. Watched as the vines crept up the sides of buildings. Watched as they dug through walls and streets. Watched as the biggest ones sprouted strange appendages that opened up and growled and hissed and spat out choking clouds of pollen. And overhead the skies continued to darken as more and more thorny clouds filled the skies. Nothing stopped the vines. Uncle Fork told her that if they got too much closer they were going to have to leave the house. Nothing stopped the vines. They grew and crept and coiled and suffocated everything in their approach. Nothing stopped the vines. Nothing. Until suddenly, something did. A rainbow light once more washed over Fillydelphia, and all the vines broke apart into black dust that itself disappeared into nothing. Cozy didn’t even need a moment to know where the rainbow light had come from, who had created it, and using what. The Magic of Friendship. Which had done absolutely nothing to stop the vines from appearing in the first place. Cozy Glow stood in Daddy’s study. She’d put a whole year into making friends with everypony in school… And it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t done a single thing for her. Cozy screamed.