Cozy Glow awoke from a terrifying dream. She’d teamed up with Lord Tirek and Queen Chrysalis… and it had ended poorly for the three of them.
She looked around at her surroundings, and quickly realized it hadn’t been a dream. Her coconspirators were still petrified, the centaur turning away in shame, and the changeling lunging in defiance. Flakes of stone clinging to her mane, coat, and tail were all the proof she needed to know that she’d been sharing their fate until now.
“Cozy Glow.”
The nefarious filly looked up at a pink unicorn with a blonde mane and tail, and a rising sun cutie mark. “Who are you?”
“None of your business. I was tasked with reforming you.” Luster Dawn rolled her eyes.
“Oh golly! Thank you, miss! But wouldn’t it be easier to reform me if I knew your name?”
Luster shook her head. “I’m not going to reform you. I’ve already determined that reforming you would take far more work than any potential reward could offset. Instead, I’ve spent the last two moons researching alternate dimensions. I found a world with a Cozy Glow who isn’t evil. A Cozy Glow from a world so bleak, she was excited at the prospect of a better life. Even as hated as you are, taking your place is a step up from the horrors of her own existence.” Luster tapped a hoof to her cheek. “But that leaves the little problem of what to do with you. Twilight can be pretty oblivious, but even she’d notice that you can’t be trotting around and confined to a statue simultaneously.”
Cozy Glow gulped. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“I considered it, but something stopped me from doing so. Probably the fact I’m not a sociopath.”
“We can’t all be perfect.”
“So I thought, how about I arrange things so we all get what we want. I get Twilight’s praise and respect for redeeming ‘you’. Your counterpart gets a fresh start. As for you? You get what you always wanted: a world without magic.”
“Oh no.” Cozy tried to make a break for it, but Luster was having none of it. She grasped the pegasus in her aura and dragged her back. “I found the perfect place for you. A place where everyone knows who you are. Professor Discord would be so proud of me.”
“Professor Discord?” Cozy asked incredulously.
Luster nodded. “Discord teaches at the School of Friendship. He was my favorite professor.”
“That explains a lot, actually.”
Luster Dawn opened a portal between worlds. “Any last words before I banish you from Equestria forever?”
Cozy turned around and waved her hindquarters in Luster’s face. “Kiss my rump.”
“No thanks.” With a flash of Luster’s horn, Cozy Glow was gone. “And the world is a better place. The quicker I get her replacement integrated into society, the sooner I can get back to my studies.” She looked at the other two villains, still frozen in stone. “I hope Twilight picks someone else to redeem the two of you.” With a flick of her tail, she turned and trotted toward the castle.
TrotCon was well underway at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Columbus, Ohio. Opening ceremonies had just concluded, and one stupefied pink pegasus filly was wandering around, gawking at things beyond her comprehension. She had no idea how long she’d been imprisoned, but her stomach was letting her know it had been a very long time since she’d last had something to eat. She followed her nose to trays of food. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at something that smelled like death – she’d lived with Chrysalis and Tirek long enough to recognize meat. She grabbed a plate and filled it with French fries and pizza. As she started walking away, a man blocked her path.
“That’ll be $10.00.”
Cozy couldn’t understand a word the hairless biped said, and tried walking past him. Once more finding her way blocked, she tried speaking in her own tongue, hoping that he was bilingual. If he was, he certainly didn’t understand the squeaky neighs coming from her mouth.
Not getting anywhere, he held out his hand, palm up, and motioned to the price list. Cozy started backing up.
“Hey! Whose kid is this in the pony costume?”
A few parents turned to look and were relieved that it wasn’t their own child. Getting no response, he snatched the food away from Cozy Glow. “You find your parents, and when they pay me, you can have this.”
Cozy slowly backed away from the man, never taking her eyes off him. She’d learned from Tirek to never break eye contact. What she’d failed to learn from Chrysalis was to always keep situational awareness. She struggled as she was tackled to the ground.
“You’re so pretty!” The little girl was younger than Cozy, though taller and heavier. She recognized the pony from her favorite cartoon. “Are you really evil, or were you jus’ acting? Mama says you were just acting.” She stood up, clutching the filly to her chest. She rubbed her face in the hairs of Cozy’s coat. “So soft.”
Cozy stopped struggling when the girl offered her a cup of applesauce. She kept petting Cozy’s curly blue hair as the filly ate. Under normal circumstances, Cozy never let anypony touch her. But she was too hungry to care that the girl’s sticky fingers were smearing grape jelly in her mane.
“Mommy! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” She tugged her mother’s shirt. “Look at what I found. Can I keep her? Please?”
“Sweetheart, no. Do you have any idea how much these life-size plush ponies go for? We can’t afford it.”
“But Mommy! That’s the real Cozy Glow from the cartoon and everything! She’s not stone no more. You right that she was jus’ acting”
“Be that as it may, you can’t take her home. Her parents would get worried. How do you think I would feel if some little filly pounced on you and dragged you away to live with her?”
“I could live wit’ ponies!”
“But I would be sad. Wouldn’t you miss Mommy?”
“Nope! ‘Cause Mommy won’t let me keep my Cozy Glow.”
Cozy was once more left alone while a mother had a serious chat with her seven-year-old daughter. She sat on her haunches, watching the funny-looking bipeds move about the convention.
“Oh my gosh! I love your cosplay! But you seem to have lost your sparkle.” Elley-Ray Hennessey tossed glitter on her. “Now your costume is perfect!”
The filly sneezed out glitter once the voice actress had walked off. There were too many other creatures in the hallway for her liking. Not knowing where she was, and the applesauce having only whetted her appetite for a more satisfying meal, she decided to find a quiet place to scheme. Once she realized that the strange bipedal creatures all lacked wings, she found a perch overlooking everyone and tried to blend in as best she could. Mostly, that meant trying to look like one of the many pony decorations adorning the walls.
Stealing pizza and fries wasn’t quite on the same level as plotting to overthrow the School of Friendship, but in theory that would only make it easier. In actuality, it turned out to be harder. Even as she sat where she thought she was out of sight, the food vendor turned to her, pointed first at his eyes, and then directly at her. She might not speak the language, but she got the gist of ‘I have my eyes on you’.
Food, while necessary to sustain her on her quest for power, was something she could forego a little longer. Instead, she turned her attention to gathering information. She had a brilliant mind, regardless of what Tirek said. She needed to find ponies. Ponies were herd creatures, easy to manipulate. Time would tell if the gangly bipeds were as easy to manipulate as ponies, but first she would have to learn their language and assimilate into their culture. Personal biases against other creatures aside, she could work with non-ponies, as she’d proven with Tirek and Chrysalis. Calling them as something other than ‘hairless bipeds’ would be a good start. She vaguely remembered Twilight Sparkle having mentioned creatures like these – something about a mirror universe populated by multicolored ‘humans’. These humans didn’t come in a rainbow of colors, but that was her best guess as to what they were, so she adapted to mentally referring to them using that terminology.
She’d noticed a number of creatures – humans – going into a big room. She followed them, slipping behind a few while they were stopped by the room’s guardian. She took note that they’d needed to show some kind of ID to gain access to the room. Cozy could use her size to her advantage, though flight was a skill that was mostly useless indoors. The doorways weren’t tall enough to fly over everyone’s heads. Still, in a room as large as this one, there was enough room to get airborne and observe everything going on.
At first glance, it appeared to be a marketplace. Items were placed on tables, and humans were exchanging green paper with one another as items were bought and sold.
Finally spotting other ponies, Cozy fluttered to the top of one of the vendor tables. Unfortunately, they were the last ponies she wanted to see – Twilight Sparkle and her friends. She closed her eyes and braced for the inevitable. When oblivion didn’t follow, she cautiously cracked an eye open. The six ponies were still standing there with blank expressions on their faces. It didn’t take long for her to realize that their ears never moved, and their eyes never blinked. Once she took note that their barrels never expanded or contracted to breathe she surmised they were all dead. Fearing the same fate, Cozy squeezed in between Rainbow Dash and Rarity and stood as still as possible. She blinked only when she was sure no one was looking at her. Once she was pressed against the other ponies, she soon realized that they weren’t dead, instead they were artificial constructs, soft plush toys like the kind given to foals.
It was the perfect place to blend in and catch her breath. And then the vendor hall opened and it was instant chaos. Fluttershy was purchased immediately, followed in short order by Rainbow Dash, the velvety material sending shivers up Cozy’s spine as it rubbed against her on its way to a new home.
“Cozy Glow!” A human put his hand on her front leg.
“I saw her first!” Another human put his hand on her other leg.
Cozy was surprised to see both of them were wearing clothing with her image on it. She allowed herself a smile at the thought of her adoring public. She was being fought over, while Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity all sat there forlornly. It irked her that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had sold before her, at least until she realized what she was thinking. She had to get out of there.
“She’s mine!”
“I’ll pay double!”
Neither brony had relinquished their grip on her. “How much?” they asked simultaneously.
The vendor turned to look. She was well aware of her inventory, having made each of the plushes personally. She’d never even attempted to make a Cozy Glow, though she made a mental note to do so for the next convention. “That isn’t one of mine. I don’t know how it got there.” She grabbed Cozy and put her behind the table. “So I can’t sell it. I’m sorry.”
Cozy waited for the vendor to be distracted before she made a break for it – the room was too crowded, she needed to get away from all the humans. Preferably before one of them bought her. There was a high ceiling, and Cozy took refuge on the chandelier. She tested a hoof against the light’s surface, finding it warm to the touch but not unpleasantly so. It was as good a place as any to nap.
Hours later the vendor hall had closed for the night and Cozy Glow awakened to a mostly silent room. She yawned and stretched, then glided down from her perch. Looking around the room, she was surprised to see so much merchandise with her own image on it. There was a pillowcase adorned with her sleeping visage. She felt the artist had done a passable job of capturing her likeness, even if no mere drawing could ever hope to be as adorable as the genuine article. It was all flattering, but not particularly useful to her. She blocked out the fact that other ponies had more merchandise than her. The thing she most wanted in the vendor hall was at The New Gray Mare’s table. There, perched atop a pole was a horse’s skull. She had no knowledge of the Welsh tradition of Mari Lwyd, to her, it was just a cool skull on a stick – and she’d been without a pony’s skull since she was kicked out of the School of Friendship.
But it was too big and bulky. She was trying to avoid capture – bringing things with her wouldn’t aid her primary objective. If she was going to take something from the room, it would be something useful, not cool. She started digging through all of the tables, looking for the green paper she’d seen other people using to buy things. Without saddlebags, she tucked as much of it into her curls as she could.
Objective accomplished, Cozy slipped out of the room. Unfortunately, instead of being empty like the vendor hall, there was a long line of humans snaked down the main hallway. Cozy had no idea what they were all waiting for, but she hid behind a trash can when she saw the glittery human with rainbow hair approaching. Elley-Ray shouted ‘mayonnaise’ at the crowd and they responded with an ear-flattening ‘bing-bong!’
Cozy quickly connected the dots – the rainbow-haired human was obviously their leader. Whatever she’d said, the crowd responded to it like well-trained dogs. She would have to follow her, and usurp her power. Eventually. She reminded herself that she needed to slow down. There was a logical order to doing things, and she would have to learn the language before she could set any plans in motion. She wasn’t a particularly patient filly, but even she knew that no one would follow a starving, bedraggled child who couldn’t even speak the language. Especially since she wasn’t even the same species. She would need to gather much more information before she could come up with a proper scheme for seizing power.
She decided to go in the opposite direction of the line, as far away from the humans as she could. There was another room that way, and it was dark. The darkness was all the room had going for it – as she got closer, Cozy could hear thumping music coming from within, and it turned out to be a concert. The music was good, but too soft for her tastes. She really wanted to start a mosh pit, but the humans were all much bigger than she was and she was afraid she’d get trampled. Not as dangerous as attending a yak concert, but still not something she was willing to chance. Instead she hid under a table skirt and enjoyed the music.
The musicians changed out every half hour, and while some of the music was to her taste, most of it wasn’t.
It was the wee hours of the morning when the concerts finally ended, but Cozy wasn’t tired since she’d spent most of the day sleeping. Instead she stayed in her hiding place, mentally mapping the building she was in. She hadn’t explored the whole place, but she’d seen plenty of windows – she could escape if she needed to. But until she had a place to escape to, staying put was the best scenario. She had no idea what might be waiting for her outside, and until she did, she was staying inside where it was reasonably safe.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t explore her surroundings. Once she was sure the room was empty she crept into the hallway. The long line had disappeared, so whatever they’d been waiting on had come and gone while she’d been enjoying the music. She flew up and down the mostly empty hallways, taking cover whenever she saw someone coming. There were lots of rooms, but all of them were locked. The more of the building she explored, the more she became convinced it was a hotel of some sort, but bigger than any hotel in Equestria she’d ever seen or heard of.
Humans started stirring as the sun came up, and once more Cozy took to hiding. A man walked out of a room wearing a large top hat covered with pins. Cozy had seen a number of others walking around with tiny plush ponies on their shoulders or hats the day before, so she glided from her hiding spot and lightly landed on top of his headgear. The hard part was staying balanced as he moved, a problem she solved by curling up and dangling her hooves off the edge and grasping it with all her might. Thankfully, because pegasi were lighter than air, he didn’t notice.
Much like every other plan the filly had had since arriving on Earth, this one almost instantly backfired. By the time he reached the elevator, another human had joined him.
“Oh wow! Where’d you find that Cozy Glow plush? And do they have more?”
“What Cozy Glow plush?”
“This one!” The newcomer reached a finger out to the wide-eyed filly and booped her nose. She squeaked in surprise. “Way cool! It even talks!” Cozy leapt off the hat, flapping her wings and leaving the two humans behind. “So I guess someone made a drone into a lifesize model of Cozy Glow and landed it on your hat.”
“Legit.”
“I wish they’d land it on my shoulder. I’d totally walk around with a shoulder Cozy.”
“You would rock that.”
As she raced away, Cozy’s tummy gurgled, reminding her of her need to eat something more filling than a cup of applesauce. She’d been scared out of her wits multiple times, and had been expending more energy than normal in her panic.
The food vendor from the previous day was still there, and Cozy Glow kamikazed his table, grabbing a slice of bacon from the end of the table he wasn’t at. All he could do was shake his fist at her departing backside.
“When I figure out which one of you guys is pranking me, you’re gonna get it!”
She munched the bacon in a quiet alcove she’d discovered. It was the first real food she’d had in… Well, it was the first food she’d had in a long time. She could tell what she was eating was meat, but she didn’t care. She’d eaten meat before, and she could stomach it again. Even if it usually made her nauseous.
Hearing the clopping of hooves, Cozy put on her best ‘innocent angel’ face and started scheming how to get information out of the pony… and excuses in the event she was recognized. Much to her surprise, when she turned around she saw a man standing on his tiptoes, with hooves at the bottom. She blinked in surprise. That all but confirmed she was the only pony in attendance. It didn’t make sense to her – these humans obviously all knew about ponies, so where were they hiding all the real ponies? She’d seen stickers, clothing, and assorted other items decorated with dozens of ponies she knew, and hundreds of ponies she didn’t know, but she still hadn’t seen another living, breathing pony.
The bacon had made her thirsty, so she headed for the bar she’d seen near the main entrance. She’d seen a similar saloon in Appleloosa, and any place that served root beer and sarsaparilla would also have water. The hotel bar was crowded, but there was food. People had ignored the hotel’s restaurant and brought back fast food options. Cozy hopped up on an empty table and tried to look pathetic and hungry, in the hope that someone would feed her like the young human had the previous day.
M. A. Larson sat at the table next to her, and seeing the unattended pony, signed the back of her head with a sharpie while he waited for his drink. Then he signed her curly tail and one of her wings for good measure.
Frustrated at the lack of compassion among the humans, she hopped up on the bar and slapped down some of the funny green paper. The bartender looked at her and she mimed drinking. The bartender pointed to the sign requesting ID. Cozy had no idea what that meant, but she could tell humans were getting beverages from the bar and she wanted some water to quench her thirst. The bartender eventually pointed away and Cozy left the useless green paper lying there on the counter. If it couldn’t even buy her water, she started doubting it was currency at all.
As she glided down the hallway, she saw an open room that had a man drinking water from a plastic bottle. She waited until his back was turned and jumped behind the counter. Sure enough, there were dozens of similar bottles. The cap proved too tricky to open with her hooves, but her primary feathers were dexterous enough to do the trick, even if she spilled some opening the thin plastic bottle. She brought the bottle to her lips and cool, refreshing water trickled down her parched throat.
Tired of getting underfoot, Cozy hid among boxes filled with random items. It was peaceful and she fell into a deeper sleep than she’d had the previous day in the vendor hall’s chandelier.
She awoke hours later in a much different location. Much to her surprise, and horror, she was on a stage in front of an audience of hundreds of humans. A couple of humans kept holding up objects and speaking quickly. Cozy recognized an auction when she saw one – she was trapped. There were way too many humans in the room.
“Any more bids for the Honda Element catalytic converter? Going once… Going twice… Sold to the Traveling Pony Museum… so she can keep the museum traveling. Not to mention get home.”
The auctioneer hoisted Cozy Glow off the table. “Up next we have a plush…” She trailed off as Cozy Glow shifted in her arms. “Make that animatronic Cozy Glow. It blinks and the chest even rises and falls like she’s breathing. If this thing was any more realistic, it would really be Cozy Glow. I don’t know why someone would make a hyper-realistic pony and then choose to model Cozy Glow, but I’m sure there’s at least one of you in the audience willing to take her home with you. Consider it the ultimate in cursed items. As a reminder, TrotCon isn’t responsible if she murders you in your sleep. It’s even been signed by M. A. Larson…” She trailed off as she examined Cozy closer and found more signatures. “Multiple times. Let’s start the bidding at $20.00.”
Almost every hand in the audience went up. Most stayed up when someone shouted out ‘a hundred dollars’ and quite a few were still in contention when another voice shouted out ‘one thousand!’
The little girl who’d fed Cozy applesauce had her hand up, even as her mother carried her out of the room. “Do you have any idea how many weeks of your allowance $1,000.00 is?”
Bidding was fast and furious, quickly reaching five digits. “Sold for $22,420.69!”
Cozy didn’t know what any of that meant, but she had a sinking suspicion that she’d just been sold to the highest bidder – a human male who was jumping up and down in glee. Judging from his appearance, that might’ve been the closest thing to exercise he’d had in years.
Confirming her hunch, she was handed over to the overweight man. “We’re going to have so much fun together, Cozy Glow!”
She couldn’t understand him, yet his words sent shivers up her spine for some reason or another. All Cozy wanted was to go back home. She was so desperate to return to Equestria she was even willing to give up scheming… at least on Thursdays. Thursdays were her least productive scheming days with a mere 19.3% success ratio, so giving them up was no great loss.
The winning bidder, still clinging to Cozy, stepped into the Crowne Plaza’s parking lot and was immediately intercepted by a seven-year-old girl. “Please give me my Cozy back, mister.”
“Your Cozy?”
She nodded. “Yup! I fed her applesauce an’ everything. But Mom made me give her away.”
The girl started crying and the brony’s heart melted at the sight. Sure, he’d just paid an exorbitant amount for the über-realistic Cozy Glow, which he noted did have some dried applesauce around the edges of her mouth. He quickly realized that Cozy Glow would have no qualms taking a child’s toy away, and decided that perhaps it was best to do the opposite of what the notorious villain would do. He handed Cozy to the young girl, who slowly stopped crying, though the sniffles remained.
“Golly mister, I can really have her back?”
He scratched his head sheepishly. “The charity got the money, that’s the important part. Just… take care of her. And if you ever decide you don’t want her anymore… maybe give her back to me?”
“Sure thing, mister. If I outgrow her, you can have her back.” She knew darned well she’d never outgrow having a real pastel pony. Cozy Glow wasn’t a toy to be used and discarded. If she was the only person at the con who could see past all the paper-thin excuses that this was the actual living, breathing Cozy Glow, then she was the only one who deserved to go home with her.
Once the brony was out of sight, she cut the sniffling act and grinned at Cozy Glow. “I learned how t’ get everything I want from watching you. Together we’ll be unstoppable!” She embraced Cozy and kissed the little pegasus on the snout. “Golly, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”