//------------------------------//
// 6) Untold Feelings 
// Story: The Ghost of Cozy Glow the Third Story 
// by SapphireRose87 
//------------------------------//

{Norman}

As soon as I heard what happened to my guard, Lewis, I headed over to the hospital. The other guard that survived the attack was in the hospital trying to recover from it. When I got there, I found out which room the guard was in, and the doctors and nurses there bowed to me. I gave them the usual line and dismissed them.

The poor guy looked too horrified to look me in the eye. I can understand that; he probably fears that he messed up on his job. 

The guard sighed. "Your Highness, it's my fault Lewis is missing. The clown put on a good show, as Lewis said. I should've stopped him, I-"

I shushed the guard before he could go into any more self-guilt. "It's not your fault. From what you're telling me, Lewis should've known not to take something from a suspicious looking character. Let me ask you, Hank, what did the clown look like?"

"He looked like a normal clown, except that he was dressed in black and white from his head to his toe. He also had what looked like Comedy and  Tragedy Masks, you know? The kind that a performer would use on stage."

I tried not to show my terror at the fact that Mr. Giggles was capitalizing on the fact that ponies and humans are so trusting of anyone. "Wonderful. Mr. Giggles isn't a normal clown and, according to Betty, he's the most butt ugly clown she'd ever seen!"

Hank paused. "Wait, the clown's name is Mr. Giggles?"

I nodded. "Yup."

"You're telling me that Betty- as in The Legendary Death Walker Betty Jewel- has seen that clown before, along with you?" 

I nodded again. "Yup."

"So, where did you guys see the clown?" Hank said.

"At the Equestria Day Festival, in the House of Mirrors." 

"Wow, now that I don't believe for a minute," Hank said. "But, seeing that this information is coming from the ruler of Equestria, I guess I'll have to take it at face value. If I told anyone about this, people would probably think I'm insane."

"Yeah, I would keep this information to yourself. Because I totally agree with that last comment." 

Hank smiled. "Yup, I'm keeping this to myself, alright!"

I excused myself. At this point, I wasn't sure if I was going to tell Betty about this or not. She's already worried about that clown enough, as it is. I feel the same way. I'm killing that clown if it's the last thing I do. He's not eating half of Equestria if I have something to say about it.


*	*	*


{Dae}

I summoned Norman to the Land of the Dead. I had been trying to talk to Betty about her feelings for her brother, but she just shuts down the matter entirely. I felt it was time to talk to Norman about how he was feeling about my wife.

"I know you're wondering why I summoned you today," I said. 

Norman nodded.

I smiled. "I've been wanting to talk to you about your feelings for Betty."

Norman paused. "Uh… I have no idea what you're talking about."

I rolled my eyes. "Uh-huh, sure you don't. Your family told me that's what you say when you're in denial. Just to let you know, I can hear your thoughts and you've been thinking about Betty, just as much as she is thinking about you. And not to mention, you've been giving her creepy looks lately."

"I, uh…" Judging by the look on his face, Norman was looking for a way to escape the conversation. 

"I've studied Equestrian law myself," I said. "You can sleep with your siblings, even if you can't marry them. Since you're the ruler of Equestria, I think you can figure out a way to keep that type of relationship with Betty a secret."

"I'm not sleeping with my sister!" Norman snapped.

"I didn't say you had to," I said. "I was just making a friendly suggestion, that's all. I also suggest that you at least talk to Betty about it."

I looked Norman in the eye and tried not to laugh because I knew he was getting ready to run as far away from me as possible. 

"Okay then, I think this conversation is over with, and would you look at the time. I should be going now." Norman said quickly. "I'll see you later!"

As I suspected, he ran away from me as fast as he could. 


*	*	*


{Betty}

That stupid rampaging clown was starting to get on my nerves. It's hard to get my mind off things, especially since this is a serious situation. I hadn't figured out where Mr. Giggles lived now. 

At this point, I'm really trying hard not to be frustrated, but my anger was building more and more lately because I hadn't stopped Mr. Giggles yet. I've been trying everything I can to keep myself from going insane. I've tried fighting my soldiers, reading a book, and putting it in the back of my mind while taking care of my royal duties. Nothing seemed to help. On top of that, I heard about one of Norman's guards was attacked and kidnapped. Although knowing Mr. Giggles, he'd probably already killed the poor guy by now. 

Whenever I’m worried, my tail and ears seem to gain a mind of their own. Since nothing else worked to help get me to calm down, I went to the Castle of the Two Sisters to look at the stars. As I took in the beauty of the night, I failed to use my tracking powers. Thus, Norman was able to come right over and sit beside me, nearly scaring me out of my skin.

"Wow, Betty," said Norman, "I've never seen you this worried about something. I've seen you angry, but not so much worried."

I sighed. "I know, I’m so worried I can’t keep still. I couldn't even sit on my tail if I wanted to."

"Wow," he said. 

Norman then did something he'd never done before. He reached over and scratched me behind the ear. I had to admit, it did feel good. Dae does that to me too, sometimes. Strangely, he hasn't been doing it lately. I know Dae. When he starts acting weird, even by my standards, he's up to something. 

Not only did Norman scratching behind my ear feel good, I started to calm down. Norman smiled. "Does that help?"

I scooted closer to him and he pulled me into his arms, hugging me. "You know, we should do this more often."

"I'm not sure if that's possible," I said. 

"I know, we both have hectic lives as rulers now. Anyway," he sighed, before scooting away from me, "I should probably go turn in for the night. It's nice knowing that I can help you out like that."

When I left, I saw Dae laughing, "So Norman scratching you behind the ear calms you down huh? You really should tell him about your feelings for him."

"There's no way I'm sleeping with my little brother!" I snapped. "And I don't have feelings for him! He's my brother for crying out loud!"

Dae pointed a finger at my chest. "You know, you won't be able to keep your feelings from Norman for much longer. Trust me, Betty, I'm going to see to it. Whether you want to admit it or not you do have feelings for him. You're just in denial just like you were with your feelings for me."

"Why are you so dead set on me sleeping with Norman?" I questioned.

Dae rolled his eyes. "You don't have to sleep with each other, what I'm saying is you two need to at least talk to each other about it. I know from your thoughts that you're worried that if you fall in love with someone besides me, you'll stop loving me. You know something? I felt the same way when I started sleeping with my sister. The fact that we're worried about the same thing tells me we're not going to leave each other anytime soon. Not to mention we've been married for over thirty years now. If we were going to leave each other, I think we would've done so by now. You can have more than one love."

I raised an eyebrow. "How is that possible?"

"Think about it, Betty, Norman has three different people he loves. He can add more to the mix if he wants to," Dae said. "It's the same thing with you. Just think about it, okay?"


*	*	*


Another family dinner. Dae, Ruby, Otis, and I were invited like usual. But before dinner could even start, Sunset pulled me off to the side and we sat down at a bench in the garden out behind the castle. "You wanted to talk to me about something, Sunset?"

Sunset nodded. "I wanted to talk to you about the ongoing issue between you and Norman. We know you have feelings for him, just like we know Norman has feelings for you. You two really need to sit down and talk to each other about this."

I groaned. "That's not-"

Sunset suddenly had a look of horror on her face. That's when I heard Mr. Giggles’ voice. "Betty…. Betty…"

Sunset pointed behind me. "Betty, am I crazy, or did a creepy clown just pop up out of nowhere, along with two gravestones?" 

"Wait, huh?" I said. I turned around and, sure enough, Mr. Giggles was standing there on top of two gravestones. One was mine. The other was my mother's. 

Mr. Giggles gave me a snide look and sinister giggle. "So, we meet again, Death Walker. It's been like, what, ages since we've seen each other? We have a lot of catching up to do."

I sneered at him. "You say that like we're long-lost friends or something. In case you didn't notice, we're not friends!" 

Mr. Giggles taunted me. "Oh, come on Betty, I just want to show you something. Do you recognize the graves I'm standing on? Does it bring a chill down your spine?"

I felt my anger start to boil as Mr. Giggle started hopping up and down on my grave. "You know, Betty, all you have to do is jump over here, if you want to redo this tragedy in your life."

He started to jump back and forth from my grave to my mom's grave. At this point, I had enough of his taunting. "Oh, well, seeing as I can't make a deal with you, I do feel like playing with my food."

Before Mr. Giggles could say anything else, I flew after him and gave him a swift punch in the stomach. He fell to the ground face first. Before I could go over and stomp on his head, he popped back up, as if he were a vampire popping up from its grave. 

Mr. Giggles grinned. "So the Death Walker makes the first move, huh?"

"I don't care!" I snarled. "As long as you die today, it doesn't matter who makes the first move!"

"Yeah, I don't think I'm going to die today," Mr. Giggles said. "I just can't wait to have you in my stomach. That'll give me enough magic to keep me from going back to that stupid cave in the afterlife."

"That's not happening either," I said.

Like last time we fought, Mr. Giggles mirrored my every move. Every kick, punch, block, Mr. Giggles copied. As we were fighting, my family and some others had gathered and were standing around, watching the whole thing. 

"Wow, I've never seen Mom fight before. She's amazing!" Ruby exclaimed. 

"So, is that what you were talking about before? The clown copied Betty's every move?"  Robert asked. 

Norman nodded. "Yup! That's exactly it!"

"Why isn't she using her Death Walker abilities yet?" Sunset asked.

"Probably because she doesn't need them right now," Dae said.

As I kept fighting Mr. Giggles, the fight was starting to get on my nerves. I thought for sure sooner or later, he's going to run out of steam, and then I could kill him. It seemed that Mr. Giggles was getting annoyed too. 

The next time we paused, I gave him a taunting laugh. "Getting annoyed with me again, creature?"

"Hmm, not yet," said Mr. Giggles. "Why can't you just give in and take a black balloon from me? I mean, really now, who doesn't trust a clown, after all?"

"I don't trust you," I snarled. "I never will trust you!" 

We went back to fighting again, and I couldn't speak for the clown, but I was getting frustrated with us being evenly matched. Mr. Giggles faked the need to pause and gave me another snide look. "You know something?” he said. “I am getting annoyed. I'm done playing with my food now."

With that, Mr. Giggles stood on the top of my grave and my mother's grave. I tried to go after him but he disappeared into the graves before I could get to him.


*	*	*


 I was pissed.

"So, what would you call that style of transportation?" Jasper questioned.

Norman laughed. "I think I'm going to call that grave style."

I let out a deep breath, as slowly as I possibly could. 

"Wow, Mom!" Ruby cheered. "That was awesome! It's no wonder why you're a Legend now!"

I smiled. "Queen of Hell, yes.  Legend, no."

"Oh, come on, Mom," said Ruby. "You're a Legend, and you know it!"

"Uh-huh!" Everyone else agreed with her. 

We went to dinner. The fight with Mr. Giggles and I quickly became the talk of the castle. 


*	*	*


Back in Hell, the next day, me and Dae were having another sparring match at the arena. We were talking about the fight I had with Mr. Giggles. 

"Exactly how am I going to kill someone that can copy my every move?" I asked.

Dae was barely managing to keep up with me at this point. "I don't know. But what I do know is that Mr. Giggles saying that the Mirror Technique is only used by his family is a lie. Although it is a closely guarded secret. I did some research and you need to have someone that knows the technique in order to learn it. I can't teach it to you because I don't even know it." 

Upon hearing this, it made me even more frustrated. "Great…"

I finally landed the winning punch and Dae fell flat on his back. I helped him get to his feet and he smiled. "There's the Betty I know! But I have no idea who can teach you that technique."

"I believe I can help you with that!" I heard a familiar voice say. I turned around and gasped to see Headcouncilman standing there smiling at me.