//------------------------------//
// Bleeds All Day Long 
// Story: And I Hope You Die 
// by Aquaman 
//------------------------------//

Flurry didn’t know where Cozy had gotten a bottle of scotch from. Maybe she’d lifted it from a liquor store on her way to the castle. Maybe Dad had a not-so-secret stash in here for diplomatic emergencies. Wherever it had come from, though, it had apparently come with a well-stocked bar cart, complete with ornately designed tumblers and enchanted never-melt ice cubes to fill them with. Cozy set one of the glasses on the arm of the throne, poured herself a half-hoof, considered it for a moment, then chucked it over her shoulder and drank straight from the bottle.

“So,” Cozy said, flopping back across the throne with the neck of the bottle—an exorbitantly expensive one, judging by the year on its label—hooked in her foreleg, “how are your folks doing? What’s the tea from Royal Retirement?”

For the first time in a while, Flurry spoke. “They know you did this. I told them I would handle it.”

Cozy lifted the bottle in a mock toast. “Good for you. How about here? What’s it look like outside?”

“Ponies are hurt,” Flurry said plainly. “You hurt them.”

“Didn’t kill ‘em, though,” Cozy shot back, interrupting herself with another giant swig. “That’s called professionalism,” she added, grimacing past the whiskey’s burn. “Maximum impact, minimal collateral.”

“There’s a filly in the courtyard,” Flurry continued. “She’s been bleeding for an hour. She might die.”

Cozy stared at the bottle’s label, seeming to read and reread the flowing text. Several seconds passed before she replied. “I did say minimal,” she said, a little quieter than before. “She’ll be fine. Won’t she, Princess?”

“I don’t know.”

Cozy sighed and rolled her eyes. “You used to be way more fun, you know that?” She wriggled in her seat, grimacing from the effort. “And you know something else, this chair is extraordinarily uncomfortable. No room in the royal coffers to buy yourself a cushion?”

“It’s not supposed to be comfortable,” Flurry said. In response, Cozy blew a raspberry.

“You don’t believe that,” the pegasus scoffed. “At least, you shouldn’t. Guess it would explain a lot, though.”

Flurry shut her eyes and took a slow breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Cozy wasn’t stalling. She was trying to get Flurry to do it for her. She wanted her to be upset—to yell and rant and scream. She wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“I know why you’re doing this,” the Princess said. “I’m not gonna do what you want.”

Cozy pursed her lips in mock thought, then took one last drink before tossing the bottle in the same direction she’d thrown the tumbler. “Well, that’s a shame,” she said as she stood from the throne and stepped off the dais, her tone low and bitingly bitter. “‘Cause one way or another, I’m gonna make you.”

Flurry couldn’t help herself—she smiled. “You never made me do anything,” she told Cozy, nose to nose with her again just like she’d been half a bottle of scotch ago. “Not that I didn’t enjoy watching you try.”

Cozy grinned too, and in the same moment raised her right forehoof and held it frog up in front of her. Her eyes flashed, and the shard of the Crystal Heart she’d discarded snapped back to her side, shivering with lethal and barely restrained intent. 

“Guess you’re gonna enjoy this, then,” she murmured. Then the Heart’s magic glowed in her veins, and she attacked.