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// Chapter 24 - Confession 
// Story: A Cozy Tale 
// by Leondude 
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While running away from what they presumed to be the Storm King's soldiers, both Cozy and Ribbon found themselves cornered by three of them. While Ribbon was scared out of her wits, Cozy was surprisingly calm about the whole situation. Due to how fluffy they looked, she wasn't intimidated in the slightest by the hulking brutes before her. If anything, she was wondering if there was any way in which she and their boss could be friends. Before she could even ask one of them, a trio of anvils fell on each of their heads, knocking the soldiers out cold. Cozy and Ribbon looked up and saw a familiar draconequus descending from the sky while holding an umbrella.

Cozy waved at Discord, "Hi, Discord."

"Wait, you know him?!" Ribbon asked incredulously.

"He's friends with my mom," Cozy replied.

"Indeed I am," Discord said as he held out his hand, "And if you want to live, I'd suggest you come with me."

With a snap of his fingers, Discord teleported the two ponies to his not-so-humble abode, where they floated about in
the upside-down inside of his house.

"Perhaps I should have warned you that I'm not one for gravity," Discord pointed out, "But as long as the Storm Empire doesn't have inter-dimensional travel, you should be fine."

Ribbon floated towards Discord, "You got some nerve, you know that?"

Discord gave Ribbon a confused look, "What do you mean?"

"I'm still mad at you for getting Smooze goo all over my dress!" Ribbon replied.

Discord rolled his eyes, "That was years ago. And if you're not happy staying here until my friends sort out this whole Storm King business, I could easily take you back to Canterlot. Only reason I'm not doing that is because I owe your sister a favour."

"Speaking of which, how do you know my sister?" Ribbon asked.

"I was court-ordered to clean up every house in Ponyville," Discord replied, "And every city in Equestria even though my Plunderseeds didn't even touch them yet. So when your sister accused me of making her husband try to kill her, I gave that husband a good talking to and have been micromanaging her affairs ever since."

"Hold on," Cozy said, "If you keeping an eye on me and my family even though my dad gave you a restraining order, then why did you let my mom die?"

Both Discord and Ribbon were taken aback by Cozy's question.

"I thought your mother was in the hospital!" Ribbon exclaimed.

"I lied!" Cozy shouted, "If I told you the truth, my daddy would have beaten me! How do you think my wing got broken?!"

Ribbon paused for a moment before glaring at Discord, "You said you've been keeping an eye on my sister. Tell me, with all of your power, how could you allow Facade to kill her and abuse my niece?"

Discord turned away in shame while sheepishly rubbing the back of his head, "Well...neither of us here like Facade so I thought I'd wait for him to do something so terrible, he'd be cellmates with Tirek in no time. And there's also that restraining order so, unless I want to join him, I can't get anywhere near him."

"So all the times I got thrown into hospital because of him wasn't enough?" Cozy asked venomously.

"And I've been busy," Discord continued, "I may be able to rip the fabric of reality but that doesn't mean I can be in more than one place."

Another Discord appeared from a portal above the...floor ceiling, "Oh, yes you can!"

"Do you mind?" Discord told his other self, "I'm in the middle of a conversation."

The other Discord disappeared back into the portal as it closed.

"Now, where was I?" Discord asked.

Both Cozy and Ribbon glared at Discord, unamused by his attempts at levity.

"You said you were too busy to help a poor, abused, little filly," Ribbon growled.

"I was!" Discord said defensively, "There was that one time everypony in Ponyville was replaced with changelings and I had to go save them with some acquaintances of mine. And with a social life as active as mine, I can't just allow Fluttershy to be stuck in a cacoon for the rest of her life."

Cozy and Ribbon continued to stare at Discord.

"Anyway," Discord said in an attempt to change the coversation topic, "It would please you two to know that I took some very incriminating photos of him."

With a snap of his fingers, Discord showed the two ponies a ludicrous amount of pictures of Facade's nightly hobbies. While Ribbon looked like she was about to hurl, Cozy seemed unfazed by the horrid activities her father had committed.

"Let's see his lawyers spring him out of that one," Discord said as he waved a photo.





Having run as far as he could from Hondo, the collection of photos he picked up from the floor neatly packed in his suitcase, Facade entered an abandoned cabin and, to his good fortune, saw a quill and parchment on the kitchen counter. Hiding behind the counter, Facade levitated the quill and parchment over to himself and began hastily scribbling a message to his lawyer. While this wasn't the first time he got into legal trouble and needed a combination of both friends in high places and a team of lawyers to keep his flank out of jail, the photos of his nightly hobbies were enough to tell him that, with the exception of at least one of his lawyers, he was on his own for his one. He could blame it on changelings or even Discord but he read in the news that the changelings have made peace with the rest of Equestria and Discord's personal 'no-killing' rule would make it very difficult to convince the court that he was impersonating Facade.

Dear Ward

It's me, Shining Facade. You've been my lawyer ever since I was a teen so you should know that I've killed a lot of ponies. Mares, mostly. Some of them arewere prostitutes while others simply looked like my wife. Speaking of my wife, I killed her too. I stabbed her through the muzzle and gutted her like a fish. She is in a ripped-up bag in the middle of the Everfree Forest. I had to. She threatened to kick me out of the house. ME! I also killed one mare with a chainsaw, maybe cut of some of their heads in an apartment somewhere. Can't remember the address but it shouldn't be that hard to find. Just look for the closet full of mare heads. Think it might have been fiveten in total. It wasn't even just mares. I also killed this rival of mine, think his name was Limestone. I killed him an AXE to the FACE! His body is dissolving in a bathtub in Tartarus KtichenKitchen, which I think is in the red light district somewhere.
Anyway, even though I did jury duty not that long ago, I don't think I'm gonna get away with this. It would probably go beyond standing trial and I might actually face the wrath of Celestia herself. Does she even give ponies a fair trial or does she just give out whatever punishment comes to mind? If she can send her own sister to the moon, I hate to imagine what she will do to a normal unicorn like me. But hey, maybe I might be lucky. She didn't do anything bad to that cult leader. Instead, she let her hang out with that other princess. You know, the newpurple one.
Meet me at my place tomorrow, 2PM. We'll talk more about this. And once you're done reading this letter, BURN IT!

- Shining FaceFacade