Excerpt 14990 from the private archives of Princess Twilight Sparkle, titled Letter from Princess Twilight Sparkle to Rarity, early 1025 CE.
Rarity!
You’ll never guess what Spike and I have found! We’ve been finishing our cataloguing of the palace library vaults — poor Spike has had to transition to a nocturnal schedule to match the only free time I seem to have — and anyway, Vault 128 was where we found it. Just lying on a shelf, like it was rubbish!
It’s an unpublished treatise on the life of Clover the Clever, written by a contemporary source and —this is the bit you’ll love — there’s a chapter on fashion in the High Celestial era! There are some sketches, and even to my eye the clothes look beautiful. I’m so excited to see what you think of them!
Can you come to Canterlot on Friday? Well, I know you can. I already checked your schedule with Coco Pommel and she says you’re scheduled to look at the new spring collection in the afternoon. So I’ve cleared my schedule for the evening — not without difficulty! — and I thought we could spend some time looking at the drawings together. Maybe you’ll even find something there to inspire your summer collection.
Books and fashion — could there be a better recipe for a date?
From your faithful friend (or should I stop saying friend, now? I’m so used to signing our letters that way it’s hard to stop!)
Twilight Sparkle
P.S. Sweetie Belle popped into the palace to say hi yesterday, and she sends her love! You’ll also probably get it in her letter to you, as well. I told her you’re always complaining of her neglect. She said it was — and I quote — ‘the usual Rarity dramatics’ — but I told her that it was a royal command that she write to you more. Studying at the Royal Conservatory of Voice and Woodwind is no excuse for slovenly correspondence, right? So hopefully you’ll see some results on that front. Never let it be said that Princess Twilight Sparkle doesn’t look out for her marefriend’s interests.
Excerpt from All She Had to Give: The Unauthorised Tell-All Biography of Lady Rarity, Element of Generosity, published in Canterlot by Shimmersong Press, 1040 CE.
“Please, Cozy.” Rarity’s voice trembled, and her shimmering blue eyes filled with compassionate tears. “Put the crystal down.”
The filly stared back at her, red eyes wide and pupils dilated, her gaze blank. The energy crystal she held in both hooves trembled, but only slightly.
“Please,” whispered Rarity. “I only want to talk.”
The villain Cozy Glow took a half-step backward, her hoof skittering without purchase against the mound of rubble and broken marble on which she stood. She sucked in a breath and righted herself, and then shut her eyes for a moment.
Without those hellish red eyes gazing back at her, the monster vanished, and for a second Rarity could see only a frightened little foal. But then Cozy released the breath she held, and the gleaming red orbs of her irises stared out again at the beautiful Rarity.
“Why should I?” she asked, and her voice was utterly empty. Devoid of emotion; more like a ghost than a child.
Rarity waited until she had eye contact, and then smiled a small, tremulous smile. “Because I want to help you, darling. I just want to help.”
**
These lines are just an imagining of the way that fateful day in the bank might have played out, but one thing is for certain. It was pure luck that Lady Rarity was there that afternoon, and pure luck that the hardened child criminal Cozy Glow happened to listen to her. It is all but certain that she would have simply killed anyone else. And, this author asks, what might have become of Equestria if Lady Rarity had not intervened? Might we not all now be bowing down before the throne of Empress Cozy Glow?
Excerpt 23001 from the private archives of Princess Twilight Sparkle, titled Journal entry by Cozy Glow during her internment in the dungeons of Canterlot Palace, 1020 CE.
A journal. A feelings journal. Can you imagine anything more inane? Anything soppier, more useless, more Twilight Sparkle?
Well, alright, Princess. You asked for it. You gave me a journal, and here are my feelings.
I hate you.
I hate you so much I could scream with it. I hate you hotter than fire, colder than ice, I hate you so much that I think I hate you even more than my parents — and if you had ever met them you would know how much hate for you I must have boiling in my veins for that to even be possible.
I loathe you no matter which of my prisons I am in. The one with the bars and the locked door where I pace around and around, or the vault with Tirek and Chrysalis where I cannot move at all.
Every time you catch me, every time you give up and light your horn to freeze me anew, every time I look into your big purple eyes like floating pools of purple shit, I hate you more. Every time I think surely, surely I have reached the point of maximum saturation, that there can be no more hate my body can hold, you do something new that proves me wrong.
Every time I hear that fizz of magic when you come down to my basement and break the stone shell again, my eyes open a little slower. Every time, the granite takes a little longer to crack. My limbs are a little stiffer, my hooves a little heavier. Like the stone is permeating deeper and deeper, and one day not even you will be able to unfreeze me.
And every time, you flinch away when you look into my eyes. Just like my parents did, the first time they looked into those big red blobs. The colour of blood, they used to tell me. The colour of sin. Of failure. Of no magic.
What is it with ponies and red?
And then you open with whatever banality you spent the past god-knows-how-many months cooking up, the latest magic solution to cure my big bad evilness, and it all begins all over again. Another day. Another night. Who can tell how much time has passed, down in the vaults beneath Canterlot Castle? The only pony I see is you, and you never age.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. You’re sloppy and you’re stupid, and no matter how much you tighten your security system there’s always some hole left ripe for exploitation by an enterprising little foal with a burning hatred for your company and boundless time on her hooves. So yeah, I’ve escaped plenty of times. And the world outside changes, so I know time is passing. Every time the streets of Canterlot are a little less familiar to me.
But your tracker spell is the one thing I’ve never managed to rid myself of, and so it’s only ever a matter of time before you show up with that miserable look on your face and freeze me again.
I fucking hate you, Twilight Sparkle. If emotions could kill — if hate was as powerful as your shitty friendship laser — you’d be dead thirty thousand times over. I wish Chrysalis and Tirek and I had a magical death rainbow like you. I wish I’d stabbed myself in the throat before I let myself get captured. I wish you’d just put me out of my misery and kill me, instead of keeping me lingering in this shitty half-life purgatory. I wish a lot of things.
So there you go, Twilight, bestie, princess-turned-therapist. There’s a lot of feelings for you to read over and try to figure out. Enjoy this first entry in Cozy Glow’s feelings journal, because there will never be another. I know exactly what’s going to happen next. I’m going to pass you this book, and you’re going to dash right off to your library to read and annotate and sweat about it. And by the time you’re back, I’ll be gone. That’s right, Twilight, I cracked it again. Turns out even the most sophisticated spell matrix isn’t much good if you only slap it over the door, and not the sewage pipe. Golly, who would have guessed?
Ta-ta now.
Excerpt from the Canterlot Courier, CHAOS IN CANTERLOT: COZY GLOW ESCAPES AND HERO BEARER RARITY SAVES THE DAY, Friday 18th March, 1025 CE.
Citizens visiting the Canterlot Building Society this morning were in for the shock of their lives when faced with the dastardly villain Cozy Glow, who has once again slipped the bonds of her captivity and burst out into the streets of our fair capitol.
Wielding a magical gemfire crystal stolen from the Royal Armouries, the pint-sized murderer burst into the Canterlot Building Society, firing wildly with her stolen weapon. She lost no time in terrorising the bank tellers and their customers, all unarmed innocents, and even the Building Society’s dedicated security mare was not enough to stop her. Less than ten minutes after entering the building, Cozy Glow had fifteen hostages and was overseeing the emptying of the vault full of golden bits into her saddlebags.
As concerned passersby watched the flashes of gemfire through the windows, alarm grew. The Royal Guard were summoned, and, of course, the word spread. Our very own Fresh Scoop was first on the scene.
Captain Whitehoof stated that she had: “No comment, Scoop, let me do my damn job.”
But Private Little Vineyard had another tale to tell. “This is the second time this year. This b****y maniac needs to be locked up for good and the key thrown away. Princess Twilight is keen on rehabbing them but some villains are just bad to the bone.”
You heard it here first, readers. Cozy Glow: bad to the bone, the official view of the Royal Guards.
But the terror was not yet over for those inside. When the brave Captain Whitehoof led a charge toward the doors, the reprehensible filly put the gun to the head of local resident Ol’ Timbo, who had been visiting the Building Society to withdraw his weekly pension. After she threatened to murder the ninety-six-year-old Mr. Ol’ Timbo in cold blood, Captain Whitehoof had no choice but to back off.
“Blood-chillin’ it were,” the brave Mr. Timbo told our reporter Fresh Scoop. “This sweet lil’ filly, younger than me great-granddaughter, all cutesy and tiny — she puts a gun to me head and says you’d better back off, or golly, I think me hoof might just slip and his brains would make a big mess on the floor. Blood-chillin’ to hear a child talkin’ like that, it were. I’ve had a long life and it’ll be no surprise to me when my time comes, Celestia knows, but even so, all I could think were I don’t want to meet me end just yet, not like this. And thank Princess Luna I didn’t that’s all I can say, because it were a gosh-darned close call.”
The situation was growing more dire. The guards were facing off with a megalomaniac, and she had innocent ponies at her mercy. Onlookers began to fear the worst. Witnesses say that Captain Whitehoof sent messengers to the palace calling the Elements of Harmony to assemble, ready to re-imprison Cozy Glow in stone. But as luck would have it, the impasse ended when one of Equestria’s greatest heroes happened upon the scene herself.
Hope dawned, and hope had a glorious purple mane and its name was Lady Rarity.
The Bearers of the Elements of Generosity was en route for a luxurious meal at Chez Magnifique with her dear friend Princess Twilight Sparkle, but when she saw the emergency unfolding, she lost no time in taking the reins.
With no regard for her own safety, the heroic Lady Rarity burst through the double doors of the bank, ready to tackle the vile Cozy Glow with no weapon but her own hooves.
“I definitely feared the worst,” said eyewitness Donut Joe. “I mean, we all did. Lady Rarity going in there alone and facing down that awful little sh*t? We thought Cozy Glow might kill her, and then where would we all be? Equestria would be down the pan without the Elements.”
Imagine the surprise of humble Mr. Donut, then, when the doors opened to reveal all fifteen of the hostages — every one unharmed. Lady Rarity had sacrificed herself to save them all. She had traded herself in to the villainous child in order to save the people of Canterlot.
A Code Rainbow was announced, and the city went into lockdown. Civilians were ordered to take shelter at home, and it was only through raw courage and a cunning disguise as a trash can that Fresh Scoop was able to remain on the scene.
Before long Princess Twilight Sparkle and the other Bearers arrived — Lady Fluttershy, Lady Rainbow Dash, Lady Applejack and Lady Pinkie Pie. They carried with them the Elements, but without Lady Rarity there to wield the sixth no action could be taken.
What followed was a tense seventy-minute standoff between the heroes of Equestria and the scoundrel Cozy Glow. From his vantage point in a nearby bin Fresh Scoop’s keen ears struggled to make out what was being said, but he observed Princess Twilight Sparkle pacing back and forth, growing more and more agitated. His own fear grew in direct proportion — something that can frighten an alicorn must be enough to terrify the rest of Equestria. What must Poor Lady Rarity have experienced in there? What terrible battle must have elapsed?
Until the fair unicorn chooses to break her silence, we may never know, but one thing is certain.
Before the seventieth minute since Lady Rarity’s entrance had elapsed, she emerged from the Canterlot Building Society. In her magic, she carried the gemfire crystal, wrested from Cozy Glow in the course of their fight. But remarkably, she was unharmed, her white fur unblemished. And more shockingly still, beside her, without chains or restraints, walked the demon foal, the creature of nightmares, the murderer Cozy Glow.
A few words were exchanged with the Princess, with the guards, and then, after the discussion ended, Lady Rarity simply walked away, the deadly child padding at her side as tame as any dog.
What feats of magic or persuasion must Lady Rarity be capable of, to master this creature? Lady Fluttershy may have faced down dragons, but between the two of them, the Canterlot Courier would place its bits on Lady Rarity to vanquish the more dangerous beast.
Fresh Scoop unfortunately became stuck in the trash can that had so recently sheltered him, and lost the trail, but reports suggest that Lady Rarity boarded a train with Cozy Glow and travelled north to destinations unknown. Where are they going? What comes next for this ill-matched pair when they reach their destination? And most importantly of all, what happened in the Canterlot Building Society?
Rest assured, the Canterlot Courier will be the first newspaper to get the scoop. Read the full interviews with eyewitnesses Ol’ Timbo and Donut Joe on page six.
From the private records of Lady Rarity, entitled Letter 3 from Cozy Glow, roughly 1025 CE.
To Rarity,
Doctor Healing Word says writing out my feelings will…help, somehow. But I can’t even look at a journal without being eleven again, back in that dungeon beneath Canterlot castle. Write down your feelings, Cozy Glow, she says, lavender and pink and sugary goodness. Write down your feelings and we can talk about them. Conversation is the first step to friendship.
If there’s one thing Twilight Sparkle taught me, it’s that friendship does not come easily to a prisoner and her jailor.
But then again, for me, friendship does not come at all.
So — journals are a no. I’m sure you understand. But I suppose a letter to you couldn’t hurt. It’s not like you don’t know all this anyway. I’m pretty sure the doc tells you everything I say in there. You’re the one signing his cheques, so it makes sense.
I don’t hate therapy. Therapy is safe. I understand it. The doc is there to listen, and he’s paid to do it. There’s no false expectations, no ambiguity. We all get something out of it. He’s not pretending to listen, with some bizarre ulterior motive behind the kindness.
Not like her.
She only wanted me to reform so I would fit in her round hole, smooth out my awkward square edges. My sharp bits and my inconvenient parts. Just like my parents, really. Mashing a pegasus-shaped block at the unicorn-shaped hole, over and over and over, just in case it would fit this time around.
So my feelings. My feelings, generally, are shit. I feel like shit, I make others feel like shit. Or when I’m not feeling like shit, I’m feeling empty. There’s bad and there’s less bad. That’s all. When I hit things, when I cut things, I feel less empty, less shit. I miss cutting things. Would it be so bad, to let me have a knife? I wouldn’t use it on you. I pinkie promise.
Maybe on the doc. Maybe. Next time he asks me to share my nonexistent feelings and wants me to elaborate on shit or empty, whichever one of the two it is.
But probably not. He wouldn’t come again if I did, no matter how much you paid him, and who then would I be able to try and push to their limit. You’re no fun to do that with, you see. When I say something crass or cruel, you don’t look frightened or shocked. You just look…sad. And that doesn’t make me feel less empty. Doesn’t make me laugh. Just pushes me all the way back down into the deepest recesses of shit.
So I guess I won’t cut anypony, anymore. Out of the two ponies here in this mountain wasteland, there’s nopony I find expendable.
What does that say about me now? Am I changing, the way you say I am?
Every day you shine a little brighter, darling.
I suppose I certainly never found anypony not expendable, before.
Excerpt 16453 from the private archives of Princess Twilight Sparkle, titled Letter from Lady Rarity to Princess Twilight Sparkle, late 1025 CE.
Hello, Twilight, darling.
First of all, before anything else, I want to thank you for your patience. It can’t have been easy, the last few months. You’ve been so marvellously patient. If I had been in your horseshoes — waiting for you with no clear end in sight for a reason I didn’t quite understand — I would have been half mad with anxiety by now.
But then again, patience has never been my strong suit. Do you recall when you were writing that paper on those funny moths that fly toward the moon? You had invited me for an afternoon of quiet reading and somehow I thought that you meant…well, that we’d begin with reading and then segue into other, ahem, activities. I was quite, quite wrong.
The thing is, Twilight…
Gosh, I’ve never been any good at this part. The painful part.
The thing is — it’s been a marvellous little exploration, darling, but I’m afraid I can’t go on with it any longer. Cozy Glow….well, she has to be my first priority now. I know you’re trying, I know you are, but I still see you…tense up whenever I mention her.
You’re the Princess of Friendship, but not even you can forgive everything. And you shouldn’t have to force yourself.
I think it will be better this way. We always worked better as friends, didn’t we?
I’ll miss you, truly I will. It hurts me more than you know to break this wonderful little piece of happiness off. This little patch of sunlight in my life.
But this is what I have to do. It’s the right thing to do. And I know that with time, you’ll agree.
I think I’m the first good thing that has happened to this poor foal in a long time. Years and years. This is something only I can do for her. A gift only I can give her.
A second chance.
I’m the Element of Generosity, and I think that perhaps this was the reason Harmony chose me all along.
I’ll…I’ll be skipping the next few Council of Friendship meetings. I think it will be better for us both.
Regretfully,
Rarity.
Excerpt 16454 from the private archives of Princess Twilight Sparkle, titled Letter from Princess Twilight Sparkle to Lady Rarity, late 1025 CE.
Please, Rarity, don’t do this. The only reason I’m not there right now breaking down your door is because you said space and solitude are part of Cozy Glow’s therapeutic process, and I’m — I’m trying to respect that.
I can learn to get along with her. I can. You’ve managed it — somehow! — and I am the Princess of friendship. I can do it. Please, have a little faith in me.
I’ve written dozens of drafts of this letter, but no matter how many times I rework them they all come out the same. Please don’t give up on us. Please give me a chance. I can be better. I will be better. To keep you, I would do anything. I wasted too many years thinking of you as my friend Rarity, without ever really seeing what we could be. I wish that I had done things differently. Seen it all clearer.
Don’t leave me, Rarity. I think I might love you. I cant lose you. Not yet.
From your faithful marefriend,
Twilight Sparkle.
Excerpt 16454 from the private archives of Princess Twilight Sparkle, titled Letter from Lady Rarity to Princess Twilight Sparkle, late 1025 CE.
Dear Twilight,
Thank you for your letter, darling. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t shed a few tears over it. More than once.
I appreciate you not coming in person. I think that would be very painful for all of us. You see, believe it or not, the last letter — it was me trying to be…gentle. To spare you a few of the harder truths about how things have changed for me the last few months.
But in truth, there’s more than just the issue of your feelings for Cozy. There’s also her feelings about you to take into account. And they…they aren’t good.
I never fully realised the extent of what you were doing with her. I thought she was stone most of the time — that the breakouts were freak accidents. But…she tells me that you kept her down there for weeks at a time. Doing experiments, she says. You were trying to…to help her, I suppose. I’m sure your intentions were good — they must have been — but she views you as a jailor, Twilight. A monster.
And to be honest with you, after hearing the things she has told me, I’m not sure I can entirely blame her. She was conscious, the whole time. Even in the stone. Especially in the stone. Knowing that you did that…that you resealed her, knowing that she would be alert…Twilight, I don’t think what we had can really come back from that; do you?
That’s not to say that we can’t still be friends. I know you were doing it for the good of Equestria — that it was what you had to do. But more than that?
I don’t think I have it in me.
So…let’s have some perspective, dear. It was only five months. The last six, when I’ve been up here in the mountains — I don’t think they truly count. So it was only five months, really. And we’ve been friends for fourteen years. We can weather this storm. With time, Cozy will learn to forgive you, at least a little, and then things can go back to the way they have always been. The six of us, all equal, all closer than sisters. One big family.
I’m sorry I can’t give you more.
Rarity.
Excerpt 16454 from the private archives of Princess Twilight Sparkle, titled Letter from Princess Twilight Sparkle to Lady Rarity, late 1025 CE.
Dear Rarity,
I would try to justify my actions. To tell you that I spent those fifteen years genuinely, truly trying to save her. To rehabilitate her. But it wouldn’t be true. I had so many crises that demanded my attention — you were there for many of them, as Generosity — to say nothing of the actual demands of ruling a kingdom. It wasn’t possible to devote as much time to my reformation work as I would have liked.
But my methods did work. I unfroze Chrysalis, and I talked to her. I worked with her. She responded, Rarity. So did Tirek. It took subjective months — years for me — but I made it happen. I got through to them. I became, after a fashion, their friend.
Cozy Glow never opened up. She never even tried.
I am…I am sorry, if her claims of being conscious were actually true. She started telling me that around the seventh year, but given that I had worked on and off with Tirek and Chrysalis for four years and they’d never mentioned anything along those lines, I thought it was just another lie.
She lies a lot, your new daughter. It comes to her as naturally as breathing.
I wonder how much time I spent with her, unfrozen. Perhaps longer even than the six months you’ve had with her. It must say something about me, that you have succeeded where I have failed.
But then again, you always were the better mare.
But you are right. Of course, you’re right. You’re a mother now. She must come first, no matter what I think. No matter what I want — oh please, Rarity, don’t do this— She must come first, and I must respect your choice. I will lay Rarity, my girlfriend, to rest, and I will I look forward to greeting you again as Rarity, my friend.
But I will say this last thing to you as the mare who was once your…your partner. It has been a privilege to love you to know this side of you. I will never forget our time together, our five months of spring. I will never forget what we had.
From your faithful friend,
Twilight Sparkle.
From the private records of Lady Rarity, excerpt from Journal 38, roughly 1025 CE.
Sometimes I wonder if I am doing the right thing. I wake up in the night, gasping, reaching for — for somepony who is no longer there. Is it Sweetie, is it Opalescence? Is it Twilight? I don’t know.
Our time together was so brief, but at the time…I was so happy. She used to leave me waiting outside her library, she used to leave me waiting outside her court, she used to leave me waiting for hours at restaurants before she turned up, pencils in her mane and ink smudges on her nose, apologising in that sweet, breathless way of hers.
I was her friend for years, and her lover for only five months, but now that it’s gone…I don’t know. Will I ever be able to look at her as I once did, without pain?
And then there is the third layer that covers her in my view, now. The way Cozy views her.
A tormentor, a captor. A monster.
I have not seen Twilight since our Canterlot in summer, the day before I was walking to meet her at our favourite restaurant and happened to take the route that leads past Canterlot Building Society. If I hadn’t heard the shots fired. If I hadn’t ventured inside and seen those eyes.
Big and crimson and furious and terrified. The same eyes that watch me now when I wake in the night, gasping and reaching for the ghost of a future that can never be. Circled by shadows, never sleeping. Those same eyes, angry and frightened all at once.
I ask her why she struggles to sleep. The answer is chilling in its simplicity.
“Because when I wake up, I might be stone again.”
I ask her about her life before. About her parents.
Those answers are not simple, but they are no less chilling. This foal has suffered more than anyone knows. The pain in those crimson eyes is real, no matter what Twilight thinks.
I look into those eyes, at that child, and certainty comes. It was worth it, to sacrifice that tiny, precious part of my own life. I am doing the right thing. I am saving a life.
I am the only one who can.
From the private records of Lady Rarity, Letter to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza from Lady Rarity, Hearths Warming 1025 CE.
To Cadence —
Happy Hearthswarming, darling, and give my love to dear Shining Armour and that precious little angel of yours. It’s been almost three years since I last saw Flurry, and she must be — hmm, fourteen now? My goodness, how time flies. It’s been far too long, and we must remedy that one of these days. I expect that sweet Flurry is no longer as small as she was when I last saw her, but no less sweet.
I wanted to thank you for the loan of your mountain cottage. I can see why you and Shining Armour spent your honeymoon here — and why the honeymoon was so long! It’s cold up here, and when the sun does come out it’s frightfully humid — does nothing for my mane, I can tell you — but good heavens, it is beautiful.
That little project of mine is still ongoing, and it’s progressing…well. Yes. Quite well. I know a little something of what it is to be a parent, now, and I must say, I don’t know how you and Shining Armour have managed as well as you have. Teenagers are…well, they are difficult. This one perhaps a little more than usual, granted, but still, I finally understand what all my poor friends who welcomed their bundles of joy years ago are talking about.
That isn’t the reason I’m writing, though I am very grateful for the advice you gave me in your last letter. The conversation about her birth family was…harrowing, to say the least, and I appreciated the pointers. And recommending Doctor Healing Word was a stroke of genius. He’s worked wonders, I swear.
Anyway.
The real reason I am writing is dear Twilight. I’m not sure if she has written to you or Shining Armour lately, but you may have picked up that she is dealing with a…with rather disappointing news of a personal nature. I…I truly hate to see my friends suffering, and I think that you might be able to ease her spirits.
Sunburst, Flurry’s godfather. He and Twilight got on rather wonderfully when I saw them together in Ponyville a few years ago. They both adore reading, and science, and magic, and then of course there is the love of darling Flurry as a common subject too. I’d bet they will be able to talk for hours on the subject of obscure magical arcana. Twilight…she needs somepony like that in her life right now. A — a little distraction, if you catch my drift.
I wonder if you might pass on the invitation to the Sparkle family Hearthswarming that you so kindly sent me to Sunburst instead? Perhaps you could seat him next to Twilight at dinner?
Thank you for your help, Cadence darling. It truly does mean the world to me.
A very merry Hearthswarming to you and your family. Give Flurry a kiss from her Auntie Rarity for me.
Love,
Rarity
P. S. Please do ignore the watermarks on this paper. And the mascara. I was…it was raining while I was writing it. And it made a terrible mess of my makeup. Got it all over the paper. Terribly silly of me. Terribly silly.