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// Chapter 1: No Longer Dead 
// Story: Chronicles of the Reformed 
// by The_Darker_Fonts 
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The first thing that Cozy Glow noticed was different was that everything was alive.  Of course, she knew that nothing around her had actually been dead, and that she had just been seeing it as dead thanks to her stone encasement, but these past few… times had left her without a stable basis to form any real views on.  Everything she saw was blurred and gray, everything she heard muffled and expressionless.  It was haunting, and scared her, but at the same time, she knew that there was no way she could be harmed by any of the things she couldn’t see.  She was solid stone, after all.
Of course she had seen the two mares approaching, had even vaguely recognized them, but they hadn’t registered in her mind.  She had lost any sense of time, so she didn’t even register the time it took for them to get to her, or even that they had stopped at all.  It wasn’t until just now, when the color was returning and she was gasping for air through her painfully dry throat that it registered to her that there was something different about this visit.
For a long time, she lay on the grass, too exhausted to do anything but cough and shake.  She focused on breathing through the coughing, inhaling and exhaling deeply, trying to find some sort of balance amongst the two to control her shaking.  She didn’t know how long she lay there, her eyes blinded by the light that had so previously been a lighter shading of gray.  Or maybe she had her eyes closed.  She found that the only thing about her she could control was her breathing, and bitterly she felt almost nothing, save it be the grass below her and the tears streaming down her face.
She didn’t know why she was crying through her increasingly more controlled gasping, but strangely enough, it felt good.  She couldn’t prevent it, so she simply endorsed it, letting it run its course through her.  She trembled pitifully against the ground, feeling grass all around her.  Was she rolling around in it?  She couldn’t tell.  Her ears wouldn’t pick up any sound, so she was unable to tell what was going on around her, only that she was gaining control over her breathing and crying.  For several long periods of time, she was able to slowly begin to see, hear, and smell.
It’d been so long since she’d smelled anything, even worse than her seeing and hearing.  She could smell the freshness of the grass below her, the greenery itself having a new and fibery smell that lingered on her coat.  She could smell the dirt beneath it too, the grainy, rough smell being the next best thing she’d ever smelled in her life.  She unconsciously pushed her muzzle into the ground, pursuing the scent.  Among other things though, she could smell the scent of fur that wasn’t her own.  
As her consciousness began to better itself, she was able to recognize that the grass that was pressed against her head and breast was not grass, but softer.  Fur, her addled mind thought.  Wait, thought?  She hadn’t done that in a while, and neither had she felt in a while.  Or felt this, at least.  Even before the stone and the cold and gray, she hadn’t felt this in a long, long time, since she was a foal, maybe.  And as she thought of the rarity of such a feeling, the feeling of fur on her, she pursued it, pushing herself weakly against it.
She was able to hear something, hear something more than the dull fuzz of everything coming to her in stone.  She heard the lightest ruffling of the grass that she half lay, half sat on, the wind blowing through her hair, and the noise of her heart beating.  She could feel the throbbing of her heart against her ribcage for the first time in so long, the steady, strong beat of the organ throughout her entire body.  It seemed to be the only thing about her that was strong right now.  However, there was another noise beside him, the quicker, stronger beating right beside her head.  Dizzily, she tried to look up, to no avail.
As she did so, Cozy was able to recognize that she did, in fact, have her eyes closed.  She tried to open them, but found that they were stuck close by something she couldn’t control.  She put all of her might into opening her eyes, trying to see where she was, what was around her, and even if she was still there.  She hadn't thrown away the possibility that this was all some sort of delusion, that she was still trapped in stone, but there was always the possibility that she wasn’t, for some reason or another.  Slowly, she willed her eyes open, forcing the eyelids to come apart.  It really didn’t help her situation at all, seeing as how everything was still so blurred she couldn’t even make out herself from the grass, but it was well enough for seeing the colors.
Oh the colors.  How she had come to miss seeing those.  There had only been gray for so long, and now she could see it all so clearly, and it was beautiful.  She felt herself begin to smile at the sight of green beneath her, the brightest, cleanest green she had ever seen.  She couldn’t even remember what the color had looked like until now, when she was staring at it.  In the corner of her eye, she also saw the tinge of her own pink coat for the first time.  She giggled as she saw the color.  She didn’t know why, but she went along with it.  Giggling and smiling for no reason other than there was no reason not to, she looked around as fast as she could, dizzying herself.
The colors blurred around her, splotches of purple and pink and green and blue and yellow and gray, all mixing around each other and swirling together.  She stopped, however, eyes locking on the gray smudge in her vision, staring intently at the dull blur.  Her eyes focused slowly, gaining some of the details of the blurry structure.  The curves and sharp juts, the weird geometry of the entire structure meshed into a hodgepodge of different undefined figures.  However, there was plenty of time for those undefined details to become refined and take the recognizable form of Chrysalis and Tirek, both encased completely in stone.  Steadily, she looked down at her hooves.
They were there, completely unmarred and perfectly pink.  She turned them over, taking in the dimensions of her hooves, the short, fluffy fur and smooth, almost shiny keratin.  They were more beautiful than she remembered them being.  However, as she looked back up at the figures of her frozen allies from before, she gulped.  There was only one reason she could be back from the stone, completely unfrozen and back alive.  Her breathing became shaky as her ears finally picked up the sounds of somepony feminine shushing her gently.  She could feel their hooves wrapped carefully around her in a full embrace, her breathing close enough to hear.
Cozy Glow was unable to turn her head all the way to whoever held her before it was pressed almost fully into soft, warm fur.  She accepted the embrace, momentarily not caring that whatever held her may not be her friend, if anything was.  If the ponies and beings that had let her out had wanted to hurt her, they would’ve done so already, she reasoned.  Besides, she’d been trapped in stone for months now.  She deserved a good hug, for Celestia’s sake.
She tried to ask who was embracing her, but her throat was so dry and she hadn’t used her voice in so long, that it came out as a scratchy whisper.  Instantly reminded of its dryness, she began coughing furiously, feeling herself be grasped tightly by the pony behind her.  
“It’s okay, Cozy Glow,” a faint but familiar voice reassured her.  “It’s okay, it’s okay.”  
Cozy felt her face scrunch up as everything began to flood back to her.  She had known about the “before”, or at least, had remembered the fear and anger from it, but she now remembered it all.  Tears welled up in her barely seeing eyes and rushed out as the suppressed feelings finally were given the limelight.  The hoof of the pony behind her rubbed her back gently as she continued to cry, the shushing doubled as she felt another pony hug her.  She saw purple in the corner of her eye, and ashamed of her weak actions, shut her eyes and tucked hre head against the original pony accidentally.. 
Cozy didn’t really know why she was crying.  She wasn’t nearly sad enough for it, moreso enraged by the injustice placed on her, the actions of everypony around her.  She hadn’t failed because of herself, but because of them, all of them.  Of course, she didn’t know exactly how specific she was getting with them, but she knew that it was a culmination of the Elements, those creatures at the School, Chrysalis and Tirek, and basically the rest of Equestria.  So by default, she should hate the ponies hugging her, but in her weakened, barely conscious state, she didn’t, for some reason.
It was frustrating and confusing, but that had been her life so far, so why would it change after her being unfrozen?  Being frozen in stone wasn’t some fantastic miracle.  It was a punishment, and the stress of it all was hitting her all over again.  She saw black in the corner of her eyes as they began to flutter.  She heard the panicked sounds of the two mares caring for her, but couldn’t resist the harsh pull of the dark rushing up to her.  
She slumped forward, her face meeting the soft grass even softer as she lost all consciousness.

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Starlight quickly lifted the little pink pegasus filly from off the grass.  Sighing from the emotional exertion she’d just gone through over the past fifteen or so minutes, she turned Cozy over in her hooves.  Gently brushing the ever perfect pink curls from her dimpled, resting face, she hugged her closely, keenly aware that she was hugging one of the most despised villains in history.  And why not?  Didn’t Twilight and the others do so every day?  
Laying the filly softly in a cushion of magic and summoned pillows, Starlight wiped the tears from her face, smiling at Cozy.  She would need the sleep for her body to adjust to being back in use again.  Starlight had been worried that Cozy’s body wouldn’t remember how to function normally and she’d start suffocating from her body’s inability to remember how to breathe.  Thankfully, Cozy seemed to be handling the transition relatively well, at least in physical terms.  Along with that, she seemed to be relaxing, even with the stress of why she was currently resting.
Twilight laid a hoof on her shoulder, giving Starlight a questioning eyebrow raise.  Taking a shaky breath, she managed, “Yeah, I’m fine.  It’s just… tough to swallow.”
“I know,” her friend answered, giving her a short, tight hug.  After a few seconds, she awkwardly asked, “Um, do you need anything, or… uh, help taking Cozy to… Hey, where are you taking Cozy?”
“My grandmother’s house.  It’s a larger cabin in the woods right outside of Sire’s Hollow.  Just far enough away that nopony will come poking around, and just near enough for short store trips or anything like that.”  Starlight took a pause to consider, then quickly summoned up a map she’d left on her desk from two nights ago.  Unraveling it, she pulled a quill to her from the ink jar she’d left it in from last night, when she’d finished sketching out a preparatory plan for what she was going to have to do to keep the filly slightly in line.  From personal experience, Starlight could say that, even with the most transformative experiences, there were still certain… urges to do something bad.  She’d just have to try and limit it to stealing an extra cookie or sneaking out of bed.
Sweet Celestia, this was going to be hard.  And strange.  And she’d sidetracked again. 
Looking down at the map, she was thankful she had subconsciously marked down the spot near her hometown where Cozy and her would reside.  At least a small part of her brain knew how to not act like a complete idiot.  Only a partial fool.
Snapping the quill away before any excess ink could drip onto the map, she gave the map to Twilight.  Pointing out the obvious black mark, she stated, “That’s where the cabin is.  I don’t know how well you can find it.  Grandma didn’t really have the strength to clean it up, and, well, I haven’t, or didn’t, because of everything, and… yeah…” she ended awkwardly, rubbing a hoof along the top of her head shamefully.  Why’d she have to be so awkward about her past.  She’d been a villain, but now she wasn’t.  Why couldn’t she just laugh it off?
Shaking away the thoughts, she returned her focus to the unconscious form of Cozy Glow on the magically summoned pillows.  Giving Twilight a quick, tight smile, she said, “I think I’m going to take Cozy now.”  How did you say that you were going to take the unconscious body of the evilest filly in Equestria to a cabin in the woods and try to reform them, on your own, so good day?  “Um, gotta go, and, uh, thanks for this opportunity.  It means a lot, really.  I hope nothing goes terribly wrong while I’m occupied with all of this.”
“See you later, Starlight,” Twilight dismissed, before sharply adding, “I swear though, if she causes some sort of cataclysmic disaster that melts half of Equestria, I think I might just have to take care of her myself.”
“On top of planning and executing a plan to save Equestria from a murderous horde of monsters, keeping it secret, and whatever's going on in Whinnyapolis and Baltimare right now,” Starlight asked blandly, receiving a tired sigh from her overworked monarch and friend.  Poor mare needed some sort of break from the madness that was her rule, but Celestia knew she couldn’t.   The burden of being the ruler of Equestria fell squarely on Twilight’s shoulders, and somehow, she held it.  Giving her a soft smile as she muttered, “Thanks for this.  Really, Twilight.  But this is something I need to know I can do.  If I can’t, I’ll be a complete failure to what I stand for.”
With a gentle nod of agreement, the two parted ways as Twilight began to trot back to the palace.  Starlight kept her smile strong as she looked back down at the little pink filly that she now held custody over.  She seemed to have gone from unconscious to sleeping, her little mouth slightly open as she silently breathed in and out.  From this view, it was hard to  remember who Cozy really was, so Starlight gladly let herself forget.  For now, she was just another filly who was slightly lower on the height spectrum, curled up comfortably on a small stack of pillows.  
A motherly twinge in her heart caused  Starlight to bend down and rub Cozy’s back, right between her miniscule wings.  She earned a short little hum as she moved into a more fitting position for the tender actions.  Looking up to the setting sun, she couldn’t help but melt some.  This wasn’t going to be so bad.  She could handle this.  This filly was not only redeemable, but could be taught as well.  And Starlight was ready to help her learn the truth of friendship.