//------------------------------// // 1- Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire [Updated] // Story: Cozy Glow and Her Deep Appreciation for Artistic Interpretation // by TwiNet //------------------------------// Bright. Loud. Unwelcome. Cozy Glow's head was pounding inside her skull, only abetted by the chipper sound of birds somewhere off in the distance. Her body was tense and it hurt her to move her muscles, the strain like a terrible night sleep. "Ugh, where am I?" The harsh sun struck her eyes even before she opened them, the torrid rays forcing her to curl into a ball as her vision slowly adjusted. Her muscles were weak and sore, but she could stand up well enough. Her hind legs stretched back as she pushed her forelegs out, resting on the frayed edges of her wooden bassinet, the texture of which didn't slip by her unnoticed. It was a... tree stump? The outer bark had frayed out, but the inside was completely smooth, like it was deliberately carved. Strange. In Cozy's absent thought, the floodgates opened up and her begotten memories started returning in heaps... she was preparing for her confrontation with the Elements of Harmony. She started to shiver, a cold chill rolling through her whole body, despite nary a breeze all through the forest. Okay, something definitely happened. As more and more of her memories came back, Cozy noticed that she didn't actually remember the battle at all. The pink filly remembered letting Tirek know she had to go for a bit, and leaving for the Everfree forest, but the afterword evaded her mental grasp. She racked her brain for any clue as to what all happened when her roaming hooves rubbed up against her forehead. "M-my horn! Where's my horn?" Cozy entered a frenzy, scouring back and forth to find a horn that sadly wasn't coming back, her alicorn magic seemingly gone for good, a thought only goaded on by the frankly obvious decrease in size of the wings on her back. Cozy Glow dropped her head and sighed, before quickly snapping her leg back to crack the bark of the tree she rested in. "Those traitors!" Her tone of voice would be startling, had anyone been around to hear it. "They used the bell on me!" A fit of guttural groans and heaves left her throat as she dropped out of the stump and kicked it some more, scaring away the birds and leaving the grass patch in a stunned silence. "What makes them think they're so good?! That they can just kill Twilight and her friends all by themselves?! It was MY idea to team up and they do this! Uuuuugh! Sometime after Cozy Glow attacked the tree but before the tree decided to press charges, she started off in one direction or another, aimlessly trotting, as the lack of landmarks held cadence to the idea that maybe she should get lost out here. The solitude gave her time to ruminate on her situation, and what little she understood of it. She woke up in a tree stump in what she can only assume to be the Everfree forest, minus one horn, and now is just trying to find a way out. Yeah, makes sense. Of course, she had her ideas about what actually happened already, but who are we to tell her what it was. She stopped for a minute to breath, and now that she thought about it, her cutie mark seemed... different than before. It definitely used to be a rook, but now it seemed to be a knight. But- maybe it wasn't? Everything was foggy now, who knows, maybe she just had amnesia. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen to her. Whatever it was, the thought ran past her mind that her top priority was still to get out of this brambly hell-thicket and find a way back ho- Home. Dang, it's been a long time since I thought about them. Whatever, it doesn't matter. I left that life behind a long time ago now. I wonder what they'd think of how their little girl turned out. Heh. Our intrepid little adventurer had been walking in one direction for what she assumed to be half an hour, and thankfully for her, not much has happened. At least it's not night time. She thought. Her hooves were beyond exhausted at this point, and she was about four hundred steps away from falling forward on her face. "Uuuugh... where's the end of this fucking place..." Her waning breath only steadied by her desire to find a safe spot to take a nap, if nothing else. "I know Chrysalis doesn't -heuh- give a damn about me, but you'd think at least Tirek would care that I -heuh- ended up lost in the forest..." "..." It's over. Your efforts are pointless. You're never gonna find a way out of here. Just when she thought all hope was truly and undeniably lost, Cozy collapsed, planting her muzzle square against the patchy grass and dying leaves of the forest floor... until she heard a voice. Popping up in a burst of renewed vigor, although not ignoring her very real exhaustion, she crawled forward to listen, hiding in a bush at the very edge of the forest. "Ah just think the work ya have us doing is kinda... easy? I mean we're big kids now, I wanna challenge myself!" Apple Bloom. She snuggled into the soft leaves of the bush, acknowledging now that it sat above a small drop before receding into the larger yard surrounding the schoolhouse. She sat and watched as the young filly and her teacher conversed outside the building. "I mean, I can try to raise the difficulty of our work for you girls, but remember I teach a lot of kids- I have to try and balance it out for everypony." The mulberry mare said in reciprocation. . . . She couldn't go into town. No matter what happened with Chrssy and Tirek, she was still a criminal. As a precautionary measure, Cozy ruffled out her hair, pulling away her signature curls. She knew if push came to shove its not going to help any, but at least nopony would recognize her immediately... from a distance. Watching the two wrap up their conversation in the foreground, Cozy Glow began to formulate her plan. The sun was gonna start setting in a few hours, and after all, now was the perfect time for espionage.